Girl with the Golden Voice

by Carl Hancock

  ‘You’ve bugged me once too often. Time I did some of my own dirty work.’

  ‘Rubai, just get …’

  Julius reached inside his jacket and with a very professional sweep of his arm drew out his Colt pistol and pointed it straight at Tom. He grasped the weapon in two fists and at arm’s length. His feet were spread for balance.

  Tom tittered. ‘Officer Rubai, NYPD, reporting for duty, suh!’ He saluted casually.

  A bullet whistled close to his shoulder and thudded into the earth.

  ‘Put your glasses on, old boy!’

  ‘The next one’s yours!’

  ‘Don’t give a shit!’

  ‘You will, you will!’

  A second whistling bullet, but this time the thud was into Tom’s flesh. He went down without a sound.

  ‘Get up, you coward! Just a flesh wound. I know what I’m doing. I had good teachers.’

  Men with torches were closing in on them. Without warning the floodlights came on all around the course. For a second the pursuers stopped to take in the scene on the fourth green. A voice, screaming, called out, ‘Julius! Julius!’

  ‘Papa, keep out of my business. You knew it would have to come to this!’ Julius screamed back.

  The crowd of men moved stealthily closer, forming a wide circle around the two young men.

  ‘Julius, you idiot, what are you doing? Please, boy, the girl is yours. This nobody can’t hurt you any more!’

  ‘Oh, but you’re wrong. And I am not an idiot!’

  More and more guests were streaming across the fairways. The hubbub they created and the dull drone of the evening traffic on the nearby road created the background of sound. Tom raised himself onto his right elbow. His trembling left hand reached for the wound in his thigh. The leg was damp with the slow ooze of blood. Julius, trembling himself turned towards Tom and tried to steady his hands, preparing for a final shot. The swagger of the two-handed pose was gone.

  Abel barked out another order, this time to the small, thickset man by his side. ‘Sammy, take it from him!’

  Sammy Muranga, middle-aged now, squat and very strong was Abel Rubai’s longest serving henchman. He was the only one of his hundreds of men whom he trusted completely. He was almost part of the family and even Julius had come to look on him as an uncle.

  Another voice, female, distraught, rang out from the far side of the circle. The young woman in the green silk dress was being held back by the strong arms of her father.

  ‘Julius, you are killing an innocent man! Turn your gun on me! I am the liar. I am the one who has deceived you! Please, you must not do this thing!’ She broke down into heavy sobbing.

  Sammy moved forward cautiously with his arms spread like wrestler’s, eyeing his man and talking gently all the while, like a man trying to soothe a would-be suicide.

  ‘Julius, my friend, what’s all this foolish stuff, out here messing yourself up? She’s a lovely girl. Don’t waste it! Gently, give it to me. You don’t need it. I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of you like I always do.’

  ‘Stay away, Sammy! I’ve got to do this. Don’t get in the way!’

  ‘Come on, think of your mama and papa!’

  ‘This bastard has got to die. I can never have peace.’

  ‘Yes, you are right. I can help you. I know how to do these things.’

  Sammy crossed into the line of fire between Julius and Tom and was closing in quickly. Five years before and he would have had that extra yard of speed when he lunged forward. He took the thud high in his right shoulder. His impetus carried him forward. He smothered the crouching figure of Julius in a bear hug, sending them both sprawling onto the damp turf.

  The noise of the struggle did not muffle the sound of two more shots. There was no movement from the two shapes lying on the edge of the fourth green. The crowd sprang forward, anxious to get a close view of what happened next. They formed a tight circle around the two inert bodies.

  Philip Coulson and the Kamau family were hurrying around the outside rim of the crowd towards Tom. Tom, still supporting himself on his elbow, had his eyes closed and was breathing heavily. Philip knelt beside him and, without touching, checked around to see if it might possible to do some first aid. He spoke urgently and quietly to the small group around him.

  ‘Listen, everyone. We’ve got to move him to a hospital fast. We’ll get no help from over there. We need to stop the flow of blood. Anyone got a fairly long piece of fabric? I want to make a tourniquet.’

  Instantly there was the sound of tearing and Rebecca was handing him some green silk. As he was winding the silk into position at the top of Tom’s thigh, Philip kept talking.

  ‘My car’s over there just by the gap in the hedge. Stephen, do you think you could help me carry him?’

  ‘Bwana, I have carried Mr Tom many times. He was much younger then, but I am happy that I can give him help when he needs it now.’

  Not far away Abel knelt by his son. The dark and spreading patch on Julius’s white shirt told him everything. His voice remained calm as he fired instructions.

  ‘Fetch a doctor! Kariuki, radio for the police helicopter. Someone call the hospital. Tell them to get a theatre ready in ten minutes!’ Abel’s tone changed abruptly to anger. ‘Make sure that the McCall kid doesn’t get away. He’s got a lot of explaining to do!’

  ‘Mr Rubai, there they are. Someone’s carrying him.’

  ‘I recognise that one!’ he shouted. ‘Stephen Kamau, don’t take another step! Wait! Jonjo, Shadrack, look after my boy. He has business that I must finish.’

  So the large group and the tiny one, separate minutes before, stood facing each other, and in front of each, like the champions of rival armies in an ancient war, a powerful black man with a very strong will.

  Abel Rubai was trembling with rage. He was carrying his son’s gun. Stephen Kamau was calm, effortlessly holding in his arms a young man already wounded by that gun.

  ‘Put him down, Kamau! He must take his punishment.’

  ‘Mr Rubai, what is his crime?’

  ‘You know it! He has murdered my son. He has been a devil in my boy’s life and now he has ended it. That is his crime. So, place that scum on the ground and go on your way.’

  ‘No, sir, I will not.’

  ‘Then you must take the consequences.’

  ‘Go ahead, but remember this. Tom McCall had no gun. He fired no shots.’

  ‘But he was in this place. He deliberately came to ruin an important moment in the lives of many people. Provocation! He drove my boy to do this thing. We all know that!’

  Rebecca stepped slowly forward. She stopped at her father’s side and slid her arm around his waist.

  ‘If there must be killing here tonight, begin with me. I am the guilty one. I lied to Thomas, then I lied to Julius. I was afraid.’

  A chill nausea began to take hold of Abel’s body. He took a single, unsteady step forward. He raised the pistol. It was many years since he had held a gun in his hand. A second unsteady step and a third. He must make no mistake. There would be no second chance. He struggled to shut out the rising murmur of voices, the tears of anguished weeping. His enemies would not win. Do it now or rot in hell.

  An immense, unbearable tension held those four people bound tight in a steel grip. It was a universe of waiting, desperate for release. A fifth person took her place in the drama. Sally Rubai whispered her arrival as she touched her husband on the shoulder.

  ‘Darling, it’s all right.’

  ‘No, Sally, please! I must finish this thing.’

  ‘No, there has been too much blood. Look! I have some on my hands. We have lost our firstborn.’

  ‘Yes, but we have his murderers.’

  ‘Abel, we have not been good parents. We saw things, but we loved him too much. You know this, better than anyone. That is why you are here now. Cold metal will solve nothing. These are innocent people who have suffered enough.’

  ‘No, you are wrong. They are alive. Our s
on is dead.’

  ‘Leave them go in peace! I love that girl. What a daughter she would have been for us! God has blessed her. She understands what love truly means. The angels themselves must be smiling at her.’

  There was total silence over that circle of women and men.

  Sally began again. ‘Stephen, you must take this boy to the hospital. Don’t worry. There will be no more killing here tonight. She eased the gun from her husband’s hand. He stood immovable, staring into the ground.

  Sally left him for a moment to go to Rebecca. ‘Darling, I admire you so much. Go now and look after the man you love. One day, perhaps, when we are ready I will come up to Naivasha. Perhaps we could take tea together on the veranda of Londiani.’

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