No Ordinary Killing

by No Ordinary Killing (retail) (epub)

  “Kimberley,” he said.

  The word made Mbutu’s heart leap.

  My wife. My son.

  “They say the siege will soon be broken. Go home, Mbutu. Go home.”

  There were two lights swinging now, moving faster in their direction.

  “The head covering. That sack. The one I showed you,” said Mbutu.

  Newbold nodded.

  “The tree. One hundred paces west. There’s a flat round stone.”

  “Go!” Newbold exerted. “God bless.”

  He gave Mbutu’s horse a shove and it, too, disappeared into the darkness.

  * * *

  They rode through the remainder on the night. By dawn the ground had opened out onto the plains, the vast grasslands that would extend ultimately to the desert of the Karoo and way beyond into the vast interior.

  By mid-morning, civilisation had long retreated. They were on their own. This time Mbutu carried the knowledge of the Nama with him. As the wilderness was the white man’s enemy, so, too, it could be their friend.

  They found quiver trees and rocks to give them shade and Mbutu lit a fire and cooked a small ration of mealies. They would rest, he announced, through the heat of the day and proceed in the afternoon. He would set a snare for a rabbit.

  “And if soldiers come?” asked Emily.

  “That is a chance we will always have to take.”

  Mbutu stood watch, scanning the horizon to the south while the Suttons slept. For once they looked at peace.

  Newbold was a man of God, a man who abhorred violence, but he had also had the foresight to include a carbine.

  As the heat began to recede, Emily sat up and rubbed her eyes.

  “Did they come, Mbutu?”

  “No, child, they did not come.”

  “Are we safe?”

  He looked deep into her young blue eyes.

  “I can never guarantee it,” he whispered. “But I will do everything in my power to protect you … to protect your mother.”

  The woman was stirring. Slowly she eased herself up, reclining against a rock scoured smooth by a millennia of wind and stone. Mbutu handed her a deerskin, instructing her to take only two small sips.

  “Where are we going?” asked Emily.

  He smiled.

  “Home,” he said.

  The woman looked at him, her eyes framed by her usual worried countenance. But, for the first time, weak, awkward words passed her lips.

  “Thank you.”

  Part Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  There was a blur of white somewhere up above Finch. It was too bright for stars, the wrong shape for the moon. There were two lights spinning. Then the twin glows merged to become just one.

  As Finch willed his eyes to focus, it became apparent that he was no longer outdoors, it was no longer night-time. He was in a darkened room, the daylight issuing through a small barred window situated up high.

  Aside from the fuzziness, there was a foul chemical taste in his mouth, accentuated by the parch dryness. He didn’t need to be a medic to know that he’d been drugged.

  He was lying on his side. The stone floor appeared to have a thin scattering of straw upon it. The walls were bare, a grubby whitewashed brick.

  Finch was becoming aware of another sensation – cold. He was shivering. Slowly, awkwardly, he managed to sit. He hugged himself and turned his tunic collar up, pulling it tight round his neck. Now, not just his knee hurt but his left bicep too. It was sore, tender, bruised. Someone had injected something into him, crudely, right into his arm, right through his tunic.

  The room was about 10ft square. There was a heavy wooden door with iron hinges, a store of some sorts.

  Slowly Finch got to his feet. He felt wobbly, like someone fresh off a fairground ride. He reached to steady himself on the wall. When he pulled his hand away it was wet. He saw now, there was a red streak with a white print where his palm had been.

  Blood. Not his own.

  He took a handful of straw and wiped at his hand, disgusted. He staggered to the door and tried it. That it was locked was an inevitability.

  He made an effort of pounding on it with his fist, but his hands were difficult to coordinate. He tried to scream, but it was a weak protest. He was aware that his speech was slurring, his tongue swollen and dormant.

  In the corner was a bucket, presumably for ablutions. But there was also an enamel mug. He shuffled over to it. It contained water that was stale, a touch fetid. It made no difference. He drank it right down.

  As his senses began to return, Finch tried to recall what had happened. It started to come back – Annie, the hotel, the MFPs …

  Nurse Jones! Had she been interned too? He hoped, for her sake, that she had remained hidden.

  His feeble attempt at shouting had had an effect nonetheless. Within moments there was the rattle of hobnails and the clanking of a chain and keys. There was an MFP opening the door and a sergeant clomping in.

  “Captain Finch.”

  The man’s cap peak was pulled down hard over his eyes in the affected manner of a drill sergeant.

  Finch measured his reply.

  “I demand to know what’s going on.”

  “You were read the charge on your arrest.”

  The arrest?

  “I was also drugged on my arrest.”

  The sergeant was as officious as Harmison had been.

  “Orders.”

  Finch’s mind was becoming clearer.

  “You have no right to detain me.”

  The private exited and returned with a crude wooden stool.

  “Sit down, Captain.”

  Finch did so. He extended his left leg and rubbed his knee.

  “Where am I?”

  “In the charge of the Military Foot Police.”

  “No, where …?”

  “In the charge of the Military Foot Police.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Afternoon.”

  “No, the time?”

  The sergeant raised his voice.

  “And I told you, afternoon.”

  “If it’s afternoon, you’ve detained me from rejoining my unit, assuming this is the 29th of December?”

  The sergeant said nothing.

  “Surely you can’t arrest someone in anticipation of their going absent?”

  But it was coming back to him now, the charge … something to do with Lady Verity. An assault?

  “Can you account for your movements over the past few hours?”

  Christ, what had happened?

  “I was in Paarl, the RAMC, then I visited a refugee camp. This is all a matter of record.”

  “Why did you go to Stellenbosch?”

  ’Go’ to Stellenbosch? If he were still in Stellenbosch, they’d have said ‘come’.

  “Warner’s Guide to the Cape.”

  “What?”

  “It recommends it highly.”

  If there were any doubt about his returning consciousness, the stinging slap across the face brought him right into the present.

  “HOW DARE YOU!” screamed Finch.

  He tried to rise but the other MFP had come behind him and held him down by the shoulders.

  “MIGHT I REMIND YOU THAT YOU HAVE JUST STRUCK A SUPERIOR OFFICER!”

  There was no reaction.

  “There are two witnesses who can place you at the Hancock residence at around ten o’clock last night, the Lady’s maid saw you announce yourself.”

  “I do not deny it. I have nothing to hide.”

  “Why were you there?”

  “Lady Verity and I have a mutual colleague. Or, should I say, had a mutual colleague, my former CO. He was killed – murdered – in Cape Town, a few days ago. Again, a matter of record.”

  No response.

  “I was charged with responsibility for tidying up Cox’s affairs. As Stellenbosch was not far from Paarl—”

  “There was a nurse with you,” the sergeant cut across. “Where is she?�
��

  God bless you, Nurse Jones, you got away.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You then proceeded to the Egremont Hotel.”

  “Seeing as you arrested me in its grounds, may I congratulate you on your excellent detective work, Sergeant.”

  Another slap. This time it was worth it.

  “You checked in alone. The girl, where did she go?”

  Christ, they were stupid.

  Finch shrugged.

  “The witnesses – the maid, a valet – claim that Lady Verity was in an agitated state. That she had tried to evict you—”

  “At first, yes. She had just lost a close friend. She was upset.”

  “ … and that soon after your departure, she was found in her chambers. She’d been roughed up quite badly.”

  “Something you’d know about.”

  The irony was lost as another slap was delivered. It left Finch’s left ear ringing.

  That was it, Finch lost it.

  “I’M TELLING YOU AND YOU’D BLOODY WELL BETTER LISTEN!!! … I HAVE BEEN ON THE RUN THESE PAST HOURS BECAUSE A MAN HAS BEEN FOLLOWING ME – WITH CONSIDERABLE MENACE. I HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE HE ALSO TRIED TO HARM LADY VERITY AND WAS IN THE VICINITY AROUND THE SAME TIME AS I WAS. YOU CAN CHECK WITH THE POLICE DETAIL GUARDING THE HOUSE. THEY’LL—”

  There was another slap. Harder.

  With it, hobnails rattled as the MFPs left and the door was bolted and locked from the outside.

  * * *

  Finch had no idea of the passage of time. There was no doubt in his mind, as he lay curled in a ball on the floor, that the red-haired man was the one who had assaulted Lady Verity – if indeed she had been assaulted at all and this wasn’t just some ruse to bring him into custody.

  Or maybe she had panicked and pinned it on him?

  In his cold semi-sleep he heard the door lock, clank and the bolt rattle open. The light that brought him to came not from the window this time but a hurricane lamp close to his face. It hurt his eyes. The hiss from it was ominous, like a cobra ready to strike. It was otherwise dark, the light from the window long gone.

  There were three men upon him now, different MFPs to the ones who’d entered before. Without word, he was hauled to his feet by two of them and marched forcefully out of the cell, pushed from behind by the third.

  They said nothing, Finch said nothing. At the end of the corridor was a door. Through it and Finch was into an office where a Military Foot Police officer, a captain like himself, sat behind a lamp-lit desk, scrawling at paperwork. He looked up momentarily to gesture that Finch should be deposited in the chair opposite him, then he returned to his labours.

  The MFPs exited. Only when he was finished did the man look up. He was middle-aged, a little on the chubby side and bald, a few strands of hair oiled across his pate. His narrow, squinting eyes were housed behind round wire spectacles.

  He scanned the document before him.

  “Captain … Finch?” he read off, as if Finch were the next patient at a busy doctor’s surgery.

  “Yes.”

  “I trust my men have been looking after you?”

  Was this sarcasm, wondered Finch, or was the man oblivious to what went on a few doors down?

  “Quite attentive. You know, I’m going to write to Mr Warner and ask him to include this place in his next edition.”

  The man raised his gaze again. The joke was either lost on him or he chose to ignore it.

  “Does your definition of care involve drugging?” added Finch.

  The man screwed the cap on his fountain pen and blotted his writing.

  “Ah yes, sodium thiopental,” he said. “Prescribed by our medical officer. We thought it would give you some rest, allow you to gather your thoughts.”

  “You really have been most kind.”

  He ran through the next bit as if brushing off an irritant.

  “Captain Finch, my name is Captain Anthony Franklin of the Military Foot Police. I am an attorney of law. I have been appointed your legal counsel.”

  “Legal counsel. For what purpose?”

  “A court-martial.”

  “On a trumped up charge of battery? … Enforced desertion?”

  The man did not answer. He got up from his chair. His Sam Brown belt was fastened a little too tightly and rode up above his generous belly. It reminded Finch of Cox.

  Damned bloody Cox.

  “You know, what happened to Lady Verity – what you did to Lady Verity – is a terrible thing,” he said.

  “You mean what I am alleged to have done.”

  “It would cause great embarrassment to Sir Frederick.”

  The man moved behind Finch, slowly pacing up and down, making it difficult for Finch to look him in the eye.

  “Have you heard nothing? I did no such thing. I told your men earlier what happened and what I think is the most likely scenario.”

  “It would prove both scandalous and most likely detrimental to the war effort at a most critical juncture,” the man continued. “Treachery, no less.”

  “I’m no expert, but shouldn’t defence counsel be asking me what happened and how we can best mitigate any charges levelled?”

  The man paid no attention. He went back to the desk, hovered over it, and scrawled a note.

  “However, I believe it is within my purview to have any such charges deferred if you can assist us in the search for a certain individual.”

  Finch said nothing. Was the man asking him to sell out Nurse Jones?

  “Moriarty,” he said. “What do you know of Moriarty?”

  Finch sighed. He slumped back in his seat.

  “Will everyone stop talking to me in damned riddles. I really don’t know anything. But I have heard the name, yes, and, I must admit, I’m getting a little curious myself as to who the hell he is.”

  The man appeared to issue the slightest of frowns, as if Finch had unconsciously told him something of import. He leaned forward on his palms.

  “I will ask you again, Captain, what do you know of Moriarty?”

  “I know that he’s the hottest ticket in town.”

  “What do you know of Moriarty?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you know of Moriarty?”

  “I believe you just asked me that.”

  The man made a humming noise, one of pondering.

  “Captain Finch, according to a cable from the office of the Provost Marshal, on around noon on …”

  He scanned another document before him.

  “… the 12th of December, you entered into a private parley with a detachment of Boer commandos at Van Doorp Farm, Magersfontein.”

  Finch spluttered his incredulity.

  “What? Are you seriously—?”

  “It, too, is a matter of record.”

  “For Christ’s sake, man, I was ensuring the transfer of wounded. Under the terms of the Geneva Convention—”

  “The previous day,” the man cut across, “you collaborated with the enemy in the field …”

  Finch folded his arms.

  “This is beneath contempt.”

  “… and then did not return to your post for a full five hours after that.”

  He shot a look of daggers at his inquisitor.

  “You have nothing to say, Captain?”

  “Absolutely fucking nothing …”

  Finch spat the last word out.

  “… Captain.”

  Franklin scrawled another note.

  He then went to the door and opened it. He gave a nod and the three MFPs marched back in.

  “Captain Finch,” said Franklin. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. The choice is yours. But, mark my words, we will find out this information … who this Moriarty is.”

  Any pretence of civility swiftly evaporated. Two MFPs grabbed Finch under either armpit and yanked him forcefully to his feet. The other shoved him in the direction of the door.

  Cell door open, they launched him into the darkness. Fin
ch careered across the floor and crashed into the slop bucket, then the wall. He writhed on the floor, holding his knee. But it was not over.

  “Strip,” barked one of them.

  “What?”

  “I said strip. Your clothes. Hand them over. Everything.”

  “I’ll do not such thing.”

  A hobnail boot came down hard on his damaged knee.

  Reluctantly and desperately, Finch complied.

  * * *

  Finch did not sleep this time. He lay in the dark and, for the first time in a long while, offered up a prayer.

  As the thin light of dawn began to leak through the small window he heard the crunch of boots again, the shuttle of the bolt as an MFP opened the door. Finch had steeled himself for the worst. All he could do, he knew, was to roll into a ball and protect his vital organs when the blows came.

  The man, Franklin, was standing over him now. But he had Finch’s clothes in a bundle under his arm, his boots in his hand. He threw them at him.

  “Captain Finch, you are free to go,” he said.

  He pointed to the door.

  “A procedural matter.”

  “That’s it?!” screamed Finch as two MFPs moved between him and their officer. “You drug me, beat me, humiliate me and then just tell me I’m able to go. Casually. Just like that?”

  Finch pulled his clothes on as fast as he could.

  “Like I say, a procedural matter,” said Franklin. There was a faint smile. “I’m sure the army would regret any inconvenience—”

  “INCONVENIENCE!”

  Finch, half-dressed, flew at Franklin. The MFPs held him back then swept him out into the street, threw his boots after him, and slammed the metal door behind him. In the dawn light, on the pavement, Finch could see that the door was unmarked. It bore no evidence as to its use within and sat squeezed between the entrances to warehouses and stores, most of which had their metal shutters pulled down.

  After the stale interior, the cool fresh sea air hit him instantly. There were gulls cawing. They were at the Cape Town docks.

  “Captain Finch?”

  He turned. There, a few feet away, stood the genuinely comforting sight of Inspector Brookman.

  “Come on,” the detective urged. “I could get fired for pulling a stunt like this. Had to tell some lies to get you out.”