African Sky

by Tony Park

  Pip smiled. ‘We just want to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘Go ahead, Taffy,’ Henderson ordered. ‘Grab a pew from next door and join us.’

  Evans returned and dragged a metal chair into the room. He placed it closer to Henderson’s side of the desk than where the police sat, as if seeking protection from the senior airman.

  ‘They won’t bite, Evans,’ Henderson said.

  ‘We’d like to ask you some questions about a night and morning during which you were the duty NCO, Corporal Evans. Do you remember the night Felicity Langham was found dead?’

  ‘Yes, miss. I hope they hang the bastard who did that. Sorry, miss.’

  ‘No need. I hear a lot worse at the police camp,’ she said, smiling again to put him at ease. ‘I’ve got the log here, which includes entries you made. Would you like to see it?’

  He shook his head. ‘Got a good memory, I have. Especially of that night.’

  ‘You took a phone message for Squadron Leader Bryant, at 10:25 that night. Do you remember it?’

  He frowned as he concentrated. ‘Ah yes, from a woman, it was.’ The corners of his mouth turned up. ‘Not the only bloke who’s had a call from some local girl in the middle of the night, like. But, all the same, I remember being surprised that the adj was getting called by a woman.’

  ‘Surprised?’

  ‘No disrespect, but he doesn’t strike me as the kind who gets out much, who has much of a social life.’ He glanced at Henderson, who nodded and smiled in agreement.

  ‘Who was the woman who called?’

  ‘Now that, I’m afraid, I don’t know. I was busy at the gate at the time, checking a truck full of aircraft parts that had come up from South Africa, as I recall.’

  Pip checked the ledger and saw the note. The lorry had arrived two minutes before the call was taken. ‘So how did you answer the phone as well?’

  ‘I got one of the askaris to answer it. He called out the window to me, while I was at the truck, see, and said it was a woman looking for the squadron leader. I was busy so I told him to take her name and phone number and we’d pass it on.’

  Pip tried to hide her annoyance. ‘Can we talk to that askari?’

  ‘It was Wilfred, Sarge,’ Evans said to Henderson.

  ‘Bad luck there,’ Henderson said. ‘His mother died last week. I’ve sent him on leave halfway across the country to Gwelo. He’ll be gone two weeks at least.’

  ‘Could ask the squadron leader himself, I suppose,’ Evans suggested.

  ‘He’s not here at the moment. Off flying around,’ Henderson said.

  ‘How are messages usually passed on?’ Pip asked.

  ‘I do remember that Wilfred said the woman sounded very agitated, like, and so I told him to take it to the officers’ mess and leave it there for him. They might have woken him to tell him. I’m not sure. Wouldn’t have a clue who the steward was on duty that night, though.’

  Another brick wall. Pip looked at Henderson.

  ‘We could check,’ said the flight sergeant, ‘but it’ll take some time.’

  ‘Corporal Richards in the orderly room might remember,’ Evans suggested. ‘I told Wilfred to make a copy of the message and drop it off at the orderly room the next morning, as well.’

  ‘That’s very thorough of you, Corporal,’ Pip said.

  ‘Got my arse kicked, beg your pardon, got told off good and proper once when a message didn’t get through to the wing commander, so I always try to cover myself these days, when it comes to senior officers, like.’

  Pip nodded. So, Paul may or may not have got a message that night from an unknown woman.

  ‘I’ll call Richards,’ Henderson said, reading Pip’s mind as he picked up the telephone.

  While the air force policeman dialled and waited for Richards to answer, Pip said to Evans, ‘Do you recall Squadron Leader Bryant leaving the base during that evening?’

  Evans shrugged. ‘We don’t make a record of people leaving the base, miss.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. But, please, think about it. Do you recall seeing him?’

  Evans stared at the ceiling and frowned again. ‘I really can’t say one way or another. Quite a few people went out on the town that night – you’ll see that from the logs of people coming back in the small hours. Also, we had three more lorries to check in. Then when word came about Felicity Langham, there was a lot of coming and going in the morning. Yourselves included, if I remember correctly.’

  Pip nodded once more. She glanced in the log again and saw that their arrival at the base had been recorded.

  ‘Hang on,’ Evans said. ‘Can I see the logbook, please? I think I remember the adjutant coming on to the base that morning.’

  ‘You’re absolutely correct,’ Pip said, and passed over the book, pointing to the entry.

  ‘That’s right. I remember thinking . . . let’s say I remember thinking that the old man might have had, well, a bit of a pleasant evening for a change.’

  Pip smiled to encourage the young armourer.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ he said, remembering. ‘He drove into the base that morning – not long before we all heard about Felicity. So, I suppose that answers your earlier question. He must have got the message Wilfred took to the mess and gone out to . . . er . . . see the lady in question.’

  ‘Quite possibly,’ Pip said. The earlier feeling of nausea started to return.

  ‘Richards? It’s Flight Sergeant Henderson here.’ The air force policeman’s telephone conversation now silenced the rest of them in the guardroom office. ‘You remember the morning after Langham was killed? Yes, we all do. I’ve got some police officers here and they want to know if you received a copy of a message for Squadron Leader Bryant that morning.’

  Pip, Hayes and even Evans all watched Henderson intently.

  ‘You didn’t think to mention that to anyone?’ Henderson asked after a few moments. ‘No, I suppose you’re right.’ Another pause. ‘No, you don’t need to know what this is all about. Any sign of the adjutant yet?’

  They waited while the man on the other end of the line answered.

  ‘Very well. Do me a favour and call me when he lands.’ Henderson hung up. He leaned back in his chair and said, ‘Evans, with the permission of our police friends here, I think you can leave us.’

  Evans looked vaguely disappointed when Pip said: ‘Thank you, Corporal, there’s nothing else we need from you. You’ve been a great help.’

  After the corporal left, Hayes said to Henderson, ‘Well?’

  Henderson couldn’t hold back a smile. ‘The message,’ he paused, savouring the hunger in their eyes, ‘was from Felicity Langham’.

  ‘Bingo!’ Hayes said. ‘We’ll need to talk to him.’

  ‘You heard me ask Richards to call when the adjutant lands. Do you want to wait here, or should I call you?’ Henderson asked.

  Pip knew there was one more thing they had to do before they confronted Paul Bryant in person. ‘We’ve got to go back to the police camp for a while,’ she said.

  ‘We do?’ Hayes asked.

  ‘Yes.’ To Henderson she said, ‘There is one other thing you can do to help us, though.’

  ‘Anything,’ he said quickly, meaning it.

  ‘I need a photograph of Squadron Leader Bryant.’

  *

  Pip and Hayes walked back into the police camp. She clutched three pages torn from past editions of the Bulawayo Chronicle. They walked down the corridor to where the holding cells were and Hayes told the constable on guard duty to open Innocent Nkomo’s cell.

  The first cutting Pip held was one of many stories the Chronicle had run on the activities at Kumalo air base. This one, which Henderson had pulled from a noticeboard in the guardroom, was about a visit by a class of local schoolchildren. Squadron Leader Paul Bryant, evidently as one of his duties as adjutant, had escorted the students on a tour. There was a photo with the article that showed Bryant standing on the wing of a Harvard, leaning over a young boy who
was seated in the cockpit. Bryant wore a smile, but his eyes revealed his obvious lack of interest in the task he had been set. She had also taken two other clippings from the board, which each featured a different pilot or airman from the base. All had dark hair and all looked to be aged between twenty and thirty.

  The constable turned the key in the cell door and it creaked open. ‘On your feet, sunshine,’ he said to Nkomo, then left Hayes and Lovejoy to do whatever they wanted with him.

  They walked into the cell. ‘Sit down, Innocent,’ Pip said to him. The black man obeyed and sat on his bed.

  ‘Have you come to hang me?’ he asked.

  ‘Watch your bloody mouth. You’re not a free man yet,’ Hayes said.

  Innocent looked up at the burly sergeant, then at Pip. She saw the renewed flash of hope in his wide eyes as he registered Hayes’ last word. ‘I am sorry. What else can I do to prove to you I did not kill that woman?’

  Pip stepped forward and laid the three newspaper clippings down on the bed next to the prisoner. She had folded each of them around the border of the main picture relating to the article, so that Innocent could not recognise a name from the caption or accompanying article. ‘Look at the three photographs on these pages. I want you tell me if you recognise any of these men and, if so, where you last saw them.’

  ‘The man was not wearing a uniform,’ Innocent said, studying each of the three images.

  ‘Air force officers don’t have to wear uniforms when they are off base,’ Pip said. It was something else that narrowed the field of suspects, assuming the last man Innocent had sold fuel to was a foreign serviceman. All enlisted airmen and noncommissioned officers wore their uniforms when in town.

  ‘It is this one. He is the one,’ Innocent said, stabbing one of the articles.

  Pip did not want to look. She turned to Hayes, who, standing behind Innocent out of sight, gave the slightest nod of his head. Pip tasted bile and swallowed hard. ‘Where do you recognise the man from?’ she asked. She looked down and swore to herself.

  ‘He was the last man who bought fuel from me, on the morning after the woman died. He was the man who helped carry the petrol cans for me. I left him alone at the back of my automobile. He must be the one who put that woman’s things in my car!’

  ‘Leave the deductions up to us, boy,’ Hayes said.

  ‘Are you sure this is the man?’ Pip asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Innocent said.

  Hayes looked over the prisoner’s shoulder. ‘It’s him, all right. We’ve got the bastard.’

  Pip turned and started to walk out of the cell.

  As soon as she was out of sight of the constable on duty in the corridor between the holding cells, she ran for the ladies’ toilet. She slammed the door of the stall closed behind her and threw up into the bowl. Involuntary tears streamed as she knelt on the cold concrete floor.

  Shirley, the police receptionist, opened the door of the restroom and called out: ‘Pip? Are you in here?’

  Pip wiped her mouth with toilet paper and flushed. ‘Yes,’ she croaked. She opened the door.

  ‘Blimey, you look a mess.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Pip said.

  ‘I saw you run down the hallway. Thought you might need some help. Are you ill? Or is it about your Charlie?’

  ‘No,’ Pip said.

  ‘Not pregnant?’ Shirley raised her eyebrows.

  ‘No.’ She thought of the way Bryant had used a condom when they had sex – and of the lack of semen in Felicity Langham’s battered body. She shuddered and felt like retching again.

  ‘What’s wrong, love? Is it a man?’ Shirley asked.

  ‘Yes. Unfortunately, it is.’

  Harold Hayes said nothing as they drove through Bulawayo and out of town on the Salisbury Road, but Pip noticed his grin as he glanced away from her, out of the driver’s window.

  She assumed he thought she was a stupid bloody woman. She just felt empty. When they pulled up at the Kumalo gate, the air force duty NCO leaned into the cab and greeted them.

  ‘We’re here to see Squadron Leader Bryant,’ Hayes said.

  ‘Not around, I’m afraid. Still off flying, isn’t he,’ the man said in a cockney accent.

  ‘All right. Tell the base commander we want to see him,’ the policeman countered.

  ‘Hang on a mo’. I’ll call the wing commander’s office. I’ll need some names, though.’

  ‘Sergeant Hayes and Constable Lovejoy. It’s a matter of the utmost urgency.’

  ‘I’m sure it is, guv,’ the air force corporal said.

  ‘Let me handle this once we see the base commander,’ Hayes said as they waited for the corporal to return.

  Pip nodded. She was having a hard time thinking straight. Her mood altered from sadness to the point of near tears, to a white-hot anger at the betrayal and lies she’d endured. She had trouble comprehending the enormity of what she had discovered about Paul, and about what that deduction said about her. She couldn’t congratulate herself on solving the murder – and Hayes never would – and if she were right about Bryant, it meant she had fallen for a man even worse than Charlie. God, she wished Paul were there, so she could confront him; at the same time, part of her wanted him gone forever, so that she would never have her suspicions confirmed.

  The corporal returned a few minutes later and said: ‘Wingco’ll see you now. You know where to go?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hayes.

  An askari raised the boom gate and Hayes drove past the guardroom to base headquarters on a newly swept road flanked by white-painted rocks. Here and there black workers and uniformed airmen were raking leaves, polishing standpipes and cleaning vehicles. A red-faced corporal screamed orders at a ten-man section of askaris marching up the road. The men’s hobnailed boots slammed into the Tarmac as one when they halted, then they about-faced and marched back towards the gate. Pip guessed the burst of activity was in preparation for tomorrow’s graduation parade and the arrival of Smuts and Huggins. Hayes stopped the car outside the main administrative building.

  Pip’s legs felt leaden as she trudged up the stairs and followed Hayes into the wing commander’s office. A uniformed Rhodesian WAAF offered them tea, but Hayes declined for both of them.

  The door in front of them opened and a gaunt, bald-headed officer said: ‘Wing Commander Stephen Rogers. How do you do?’

  Hayes shook hands with the man and introduced Pip.

  ‘Have a seat,’ Rogers said. He folded his hands on the table and said, ‘What’s all this about then?’

  ‘You’re aware of the investigation into Felicity Langham’s murder?’ Hayes asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  Stupid bloody question, Pip thought. She had forced herself, on the drive out to the base, to suppress her feelings of betrayal and misery and to view this latest development coldly and professionally. It wasn’t easy. She steeled herself with a deep breath and said, ‘We’ve come into possession of new evidence, which implicates one of your officers in the crime.’

  Both men looked at her as if surprised she had a voice. Hayes said, ‘We believe one of your men may have killed Miss Langham.’

  ‘What?’ Rogers said. ‘I don’t understand. I thought you’d arrested the culprit. An African?’

  ‘Were you aware Squadron Leader Bryant was involved in a sexual relationship with Miss Langham?’ Pip asked the wing commander.

  ‘No, I most certainly was not!’ Rogers replied. ‘Are you saying . . . ?’

  Pip let the question hang for a moment. She studied his face and reckoned Rogers was telling the truth. ‘I’m saying that we have evidence that Squadron Leader Bryant was contacted by Miss Langham on the evening of her death and that the pair met.’

  ‘Bryant?’ Rogers said, the incredulity clear in his reply.

  ‘Yes. On another occasion Paul Bryant voluntarily admitted to me that he had been involved in an intimate relationship with Miss Langham.’ Even though the evidence against Paul was damning, Pip felt a pang of guilt at
betraying his confidence.

  ‘News to me. And against King’s regulations to boot,’ Rogers said. ‘But why would he kill her?’

  ‘That’s what we want to ask him. We believe that Squadron Leader Bryant raped and killed Miss Langham and then planted certain items in a vehicle belonging to the original suspect in the killing. We won’t know his motive until after we’ve questioned him. But first we have to arrest him,’ Hayes said.

  ‘That will be hard,’ Rogers said, scratching his bare pate.

  ‘Why’s that?’ Hayes asked.

  ‘He’s missing.’

  ‘What? Has he done a bunk?’ Hayes asked.

  Rogers consulted a piece of flimsy message paper on his desk. ‘This just came in. Bryant flew to Bechuanaland this morning to investigate the loss of one of our aircraft. About two hours ago he radioed a distress call, saying his aircraft’s engine was overheating. An Oxford from Induna air base was in the area, some way north of the flight plan Bryant was supposed to be following, and picked up the call. The aircraft headed for the rough position Bryant had transmitted and, when it got there, found burning wreckage in thick bush near Gwaai River. The Oxford circled the crash site for as long as it could, but the pilots saw no sign of a survivor or a parachute. I’ve organised a search party by road and air, but it’ll be hours before anyone can get there. Couldn’t have come at a worse time. The whole base is tied up in preparations for the arrival of Prime Ministers Huggins and Smuts tomorrow for the big wings parade. I don’t know what evidence you’ve got on Bryant, but it was damn foolish of him to go off flying on a day like today in the first place.’

  ‘So when you say he’s missing . . .’ Pip began.

  ‘What we really mean is missing, presumed dead,’ Rogers said.

  15

  Bryant opened his eyes and groaned. He blinked, but even that small movement hurt. He tasted blood in his mouth and spat. His eyes wouldn’t focus. He saw a blur of copper-coloured dots. Leaves, he thought, then passed out.

  The sun was low on the horizon when he came to again. The bush around him was bathed in a golden yellow light, so pleasing to the eye, so relaxing, so ethereal, he wondered for an instant if he were dead. He felt nauseated and his armpits and thighs ached. He coughed and looked around him. He was hanging in a tree, but still alive.