“Oh no,” Fanshawe groaned. “Oh God, no! Don’t tell me she’s in the morgue. Disaster. Utter, utter disaster.”
“Well, no,” Morgan said, surprised at his vehement chagrin. “She’s not in the morgue; she’s in the boot of my car.”
Fanshawe stared very hard at him—as if his face had suddenly turned bright green or smoke was belching from his ears.
“What?” Fanshawe demanded hoarsely.
“In my car.”
“That one?”
“It’s the only car I’ve got.”
“Oh my God.”
“What’s the problem?” Morgan asked, quickly losing such small reserves of patience as he had left.
“You’ve got to put her back.”
Morgan gazed out of his office window at the lone defiant figure of Femi Robinson. Surely there was some sort of lesson for him in the man’s stupid perseverance, his stubborn isolation? He looked down at his Peugeot standing in the empty car-park full in the glare of the afternoon sun. He winced. The boot would be like a pressure cooker; Christ alone knew what was happening to Innocence in there. He turned away, stoking up the fires of hatred for Fanshawe. If only the stupid bastard had followed his advice, he thought angrily, but oh no, you couldn’t have a decomposing corpse anywhere near the Duchess. So flunky Leafy had removed the body as instructed and what had happened? Every Commission servant had gone on instant strike, had refused to stir from their quarters except to announce their action to a startled Fanshawe over his Christmas breakfast.
Fanshawe had sniffed round the boot of Morgan’s car like a suspicious customs officer searching for drugs, stopping every now and then to stare at Morgan in disbelief. The smell and the hovering flies soon convinced him that the body was indeed there.
“You’ve got to put it back,” he said weakly. “I almost had a revolt on my hands this morning. A riot. It was frightful.” He leant against the boot of the car and then leapt back as if the metal was boiling hot. “How can you drive around,” he said with distasteful curiosity, “with … that in your car?” He looked uncomprehendingly at Morgan. “Doesn’t it upset you?”
Morgan ignored him. “Put it back?” he said incredulously. “What are you talking about? How, for God’s sake, how?”
“I don’t care,” Fanshawe insisted stridently. “This strike you’ve landed us in is an absolute catastrophe. The Duchess is arriving here after lunch and there’s not a single Commission servant on duty anywhere.” He looked wildly round the garden as if he expected to see them crouching defiantly behind the trees and bushes. “And tomorrow,” he went on, “tomorrow there are two hundred people coming here for a buffet-lunch reception. It’ll be a farce. A total disgrace!” He rubbed his forehead vigorously as if to disperse the images of milling, unfed and unwatered dignitaries. “At least,” he said, “you haven’t delivered her to the morgue. That is something in your favour. We have a chance of salvaging some shreds of our reputation. You’ve got to have Innocence back where she was by tomorrow, that’s all; it’s the only way the servants will come back to work. That’s all there is to it. We can just cope today, but tomorrow we simply must have everyone back at their posts. It’s quite impossible otherwise—we’d never live it down.”
“Hold on a sec,” Morgan said, controlling the urge to seize Fanshawe by his scrawny throat. “I can’t just drive up to the servants’ quarters and tip her out of the boot. They’ll lynch me, for Christ’s sake! What exactly do you expect me to do?”
“I’m having absolutely nothing more to do with it,” Fanshawe exclaimed, his voice getting higher as he grew more excited, waving his hands about in front of his face. “Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s all your doing; you sort the wretched mess out. Get her back, that’s all I care. That strike’s got to be over by tomorrow.” He flinched visibly at the memory. “It was positively horrific this morning,” he said. “There we were sitting happily at breakfast, exchanging presents, when this mob turns up outside. Isaac, Joseph, all these men normally quite agreeable pleasant types. They were most aggressive and insulting. Chloe was terribly upset, really distraught. She had to go and lie down and …”
“They don’t think I did it, do they?” Morgan asked, suddenly worried.
“No. At least I don’t think so. But they’re convinced we had something to do with it. That’s why they’re going on strike, until we return the body. Those were the conditions.” Fanshawe scuffed at the gravel with his feet. For a moment Morgan saw him as a perplexed and worried man, not sure if he could cope. Then before his eyes he saw him change: the shoulders stiffened, the jaw was set, the pompous light gleamed in his eye.
“Things have got themselves into a pretty fair mess all round,” he stated accusingly to Morgan. “The Kingpin project’s a shambles; we’re having to kow-tow to the present government in apology which is the last thing we wanted. Then there’s this appalling death: bodies littering the compound. And now you’ve landed us with a total strike just when the Duchess is arriving. The whole Nkongsamba part of her visit is going to be one long saga of inefficiency and shoddiness. How do you think our record’s going to look after this, eh? I’ll tell you: absolutely fifth-rate, totally and unacceptably non-British. Now,” he continued, “I’m leaving it up to you to rectify things as best as you can. There’s nothing we can do to salvage Kingpin at this late stage but we can at the very least make sure the Duchess leaves Nkongsamba with happy memories and no horror-stories to tell the High Commissioner when she gets down to the capital.” His voice dropped a register. “I’m deeply disappointed in you, Morgan. Deeply. I thought you were a man of experience and ability. Someone I could rely on. But I’m sorry to say you’ve let me down shockingly on every count, so let’s see what you can do to make amends.”
Morgan had watched him walk away. The black splenetic fury that would normally have erupted had been replaced this time by bleak cynical resignation. The injustice was so towering, so out of proportion that no rage could hope to match it. Fanshawe was scum, he had decided, not worthy even of his most scathing contempt.
He turned away from the window and went back to his desk. There, folded on his chair, were his Santa Claus overalls and a large cotton-wool beard. Beneath the seat were shiny black gumboots. On his desk was a note from Mrs. Fanshawe outlining his duties and itinerary.
His stomach rumbled with hunger. He had not returned home but had stayed on at the Commission and moped. Around lunchtime he had telephoned his house and spoken to Bilbow.
“Shame you’re tied up,” Bilbow had said. “Your boys have given me a great loonch. Whopping roast turkey, all the trimmings.”
Morgan’s saliva glands surged into action, but “leave some for me” was all he said. Bilbow was due to take part in some festival of poetry and dance at the university arts theatre on Boxing Day, co-sponsored by the Kinjanjan Ministry of Culture and the British Council as part of the nationwide Independence anniversary celebrations. Morgan vaguely remembered the letter he had signed several days previously telling him the Commission could provide accommodation. Under the circumstances, he thought, it was scarcely surprising it had slipped his mind. He told Bilbow he could stay on with him if he wanted, and to his relief the poet accepted. Morgan thought it as well to keep him away from the Fanshawes.
He looked at his watch: 3:45. According to the timetable he had to be at the club at 4:00, where a landrover would be waiting, laden with the presents he was to distribute. Weighed down with self-pity he began to change into his Santa outfit. He took off his shirt and trousers and put on the red overalls. Mrs. Fanshawe had added gold tinsel trimmings and a hood. He put on the gumboots and hooked the beard over his ears. For a second or two he thought he might pass out. There was no let-up, he bitterly reflected, no relief from the succession of Job-like torments he was inflicted with. He wondered what on earth he looked like and went through to the landing bathroom to find a mirror.
Mrs. Bryce had clearly been at work. A scrap of carpet had been laid on the scuff
ed parquet of the landing and flower-filled vases were placed on every window ledge. Morgan peered into the guest suite. All was clean and fresh in readiness for her Grace. In the bathroom the porcelain gleamed from energetic Vimming; small tablets of soap and neatly folded towels were laid out as if for kit inspection. The only tawdry element was the plastic shower curtain with its faded aquatic motifs; obviously Fanshawe’s budget didn’t stretch to replacing that.
Morgan regarded his reflection in the mirror of the medicine cabinet. He did look suitably Christmassy, he thought, though the too-short sleeves seemed an absurdly rakish note, his broad shoulders and thick arms making him appear an aggressively youthful and somehow faintly yobbish Santa. He sighed, causing his spade-like beard to flutter—the things he did for his country.
Passing through the hall on the way out to his car he heard the buzz of an incoming call on the untended switchboard. He hesitated for a moment and then decided to answer it.
“Deputy High Commission.”
“Morgan?” It was Celia. His heart sank. She was crying. “Thank God it’s you.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked, trying to keep the resignation out of his voice.
“I tried to ring you at home; someone told me you were here.” She sniffed. “I have to see you. It’s urgent. I’m so unhappy, so miserable.”
Join the club, he thought ungraciously. “Celia,” he said in a despairing tone, “look, I don’t know. I’ve got a hell of a lot on. Christ, I’m even dressed up as Santa bloody Claus at the moment.”
“Please,” she wailed. “It’s terribly important. You’ve got to help me.”
No! he screamed inwardly. No. He couldn’t help anybody else, not now, not anymore; he was fully employed helping himself. No, no, a thousand times no. But all he said was, “I can’t talk now, Celia. Give me a ring tomorrow sometime, OK?”
“Gareth Jones … There you are, Merry Christmas … Bronwyn Jones. Hello, Bronwyn, Merry Christmas … Funsho Akinremi? Merry Christmas, Funsho … Trampus McKrindle. Ah, Trampus? Where’s Trampus? … There you are, Merry Christmas … What have we here? I can’t read this … Yes, Yvonne and Tracy Patten. Merry Christmas, girls.…”
It took him almost an hour to distribute the presents from the two immense sacks that were sitting in the open back of the landrover. It was parked on the lawn in front of the club. On the grass below the terrace were long tables where the scores of children had eaten their Christmas tea and which were now covered with the incredible detritus all children’s parties seemed to leave behind them. The tables reminded Morgan of unscrubbed surgical trestles from some Crimean War dressing-station, covered in blobs and shreds of multicoloured jelly, flattened cakes, vivid spilt drinks, oozing trifle mush, deliquescent ice-cream. Morgan had called each child out to receive two presents—one donated by their parents expressly for this purpose, the other a tin of sweets ostensibly provided by the Duchess—reading their names out from the cards in a booming ho-ho-ho Santa voice. His cheeks and jawbones ached from the effort of smiling. Despite the disguise of his beard he had found it impossible to convey an impression of geniality with a straight face. On the terrace overlooking the children, the parents and other interested onlookers stood clutching drinks. Morgan could see the Joneses and Dalmire and Priscilla. On a low podium to the right of the landrover sat the Duchess of Ripon herself, flanked by the Fanshawes.
After all the presents had been handed out, Dalmire strode onto the lawn, clapped his hands for silence and without the least trace of anxiety gave a short speech thanking the Duchess for hosting the party, honouring the Nkongsamba club with her presence and called on everyone to give three cheers.
As the last hurrah died away Morgan clambered down from the back of the landrover, snatched off his beard and made for the bar at a brisk trot. He saw Fanshawe, however, imperiously beckon him over to their group. Reluctantly he changed course.
“This is Mr. Leafy, our First Secretary,” Fanshawe introduced him to the Duchess.
“You made a splendid Santa, Mr. Leafy, I’m most grateful.” Morgan looked into the hooded, deeply bored eyes of a stumpy middle-aged woman. She had frosted blond-grey hair curling from beneath her straw turban and lumpy unpleasant features that shone with decades of insincerity, arrogance and bad manners. As he shook her damp, soft hand he noticed the way the loose flesh on her upper arm jiggled to and fro.
“Not at all, ma’am,” he said. “My pleasure entirely.”
Mrs. Fanshawe led her off to the official car while Fanshawe lingered behind. He clutched at Morgan’s wrist.
“Luckily, we’re dining with the Governor tonight,” he hissed, unyielding still in his displeasure. “But what’s happening with Innocence?”
“Ah, I’m working on that, Arthur.”
“Where is she?”
“Ooh, about fifty yards away.”
“Not in your …?”
“Yes. I’m afraid the car’s the safest place until I can work out a plan.”
Fanshawe had gone pale again. “I’ll never understand you,” he said hollowly, shaking his head. “Never. Just get her back. That’s all. Get her back in place tonight.” Morgan said nothing; all he could think about was the drink that was waiting for him at the bar.
“Nothing else must go wrong, Leafy,” Fanshawe threatened. “Everything must be settled by tomorrow. I’m warning you,” he added grimly. “Your future depends on it.”
Morgan watched the last lights go out in the servants’ quarters. He sat in his car hugging the gallon-can of petrol to his chest, trying to stop the car’s interior tilting and swaying like a boat on a rough sea, attempting to get his eyes to focus on objects for more than two seconds at a time. He had stood at the club bar and had drunk steadily all evening, still clad in his Santa costume, looking like some cheap dictator from a banana republic with his rubber jack-boots and tinsel epaulettes. He had been the butt of much good-humoured ribbing and had smiled emptily through it all, happily allowing people to buy him drinks. Around eleven o’clock his pickled brain had finally come up with an idea, a way of replacing Innocence’s body, and he was now waiting to put the first phase into effect.
At ten past twelve he finally grew tired of sitting around, so he left his car and stumbled across the road, correcting his course several times, and made his way in a series of diagonals towards the servants’ quarters. He was approaching them from the main road side. Between the road and the first block of the quarters lay a ditch, a patch of scrub waste-land and the sizeable mound of the quarter’s rubbish heap. Morgan fell into the ditch, hauled himself out and crossed through the scrub patch as quietly as he could, holding the petrol can in both hands. He was glad he was wearing gumboots as they would protect him from any snake or scorpion he might encounter. He awkwardly scaled the crumbling gamey slope of the dump. He heard things scuttling away from his feet but he tried not to think about them. When he reached the first of the old car-hulks that rested on the top he stopped and crouched down beside it to get his breath back. He was about thirty or forty feet away from the first block of the servants’ quarters. All the windows facing him were shuttered. To his left he could just make out the tin roof of the wash-place. The moon obligingly cast the same light as it had done just twenty-four hours or so before. Morgan thought wryly that he had not expected to be back quite so soon. He sat down carefully and listened for any noises. He suspected that Isaac, Joseph and Ezekiel would be far more vigilant tonight, hence the need for the diversion he’d planned. He heard nothing unusual. The moon shone down on the corrugated-iron roofs of the quarters, the smell of rotting vegetables and stale shite rose up sluggishly all about him. Unthinkingly, he unscrewed the cap from the petrol can and poured its contents over the floor of the rusty chassis and across the torn and gaping upholstery of the seats. Stepping back he struck a match and tossed it into the car. Nothing happened. He inched closer, struck another, threw. Nothing happened. Tiring of this game he went up to the car and dropped a match directly onto the remai
ns of the back seat. With a soft whoomph the car seemed to explode in a ball of fire before his face. He felt the flames scald his eyeballs and he fell back in fearful horror. The car blazed away furiously, touching everything with orange. Morgan forgot about his face.
“FAYAH!” he yelled with hoarse abandon at the servants’ quarters. “YOU GET FAYAH FOR HEAH!”
As he scramble-sprinted back to his car he could hear doors slamming and the first shrill screams of alarm. He jumped into his car and drove speedily up the road a hundred yards before flinging it round in a sharp right-hand turn onto the laterite track up which he and Friday had laboriously pushed it the previous night. He roared up to the end of the track, throwing caution to the winds, assuming that everyone’s attention would by now be fully concentrated on the fire. Switching off the lights and crashing the gears, he reversed as far as he could into the allotment grove. Through the trees he could see a tall column of flame shooting up from the blazing car and see dark shapes of rushing figures silhouetted against the glow. Fumbling with his keys he opened the boot and flung it open.
The smell leapt out and hit him with almost palpable force, as if it were some powerful genie suddenly released from the dark recesses of his car. Morgan thought he was going to faint: he gagged and spat several times on the ground. Then with the strength and singlemindedness of a drunk and demonically inspired man he levered and hauled Innocence’s body from the boot. The cloying smells seemed to seize his throat like boney fingers as she thumped heavily to the ground. He grabbed her rigid arms and dragged her along the path. He felt his face tense and contort into a twisted sobbing grimace as he heaved and strained at his ghastly burden. He stopped for a moment behind a tree to wipe his sweating hands on his overalls, sour vomit in his throat, his heart thumping timpanically in his ears. He darted into the gable-shadow of the nearest block. People wailed and ran across the laterite square, some carrying buckets of water, but most seemed to be around at the back of the far building fighting or observing the blaze. Morgan dashed back to Innocence’s body, seized it for the last time and dragged it down the path and into the shadow, leaving it only a few yards from where she had originally been struck down. He glanced at her inflated shapeless corpse.