Echo of an Angry God

by Beverley Harper

  Miss Fotheringham ignored the question. Instead, she looked at Lana and Moffat for a long time. ‘Come here, children.’ She waved her hand.

  ‘Bring chairs with you. I keep telling them not to stack them over there as if I am a performer and my patients an audience, but to no avail. They do not wish to appear rude by sitting too close. The result, I’m afraid, is that I believe I am suffering from terminal laryngitis.’

  They took chairs and sat opposite Sarah Fotheringham. She waited for them to settle. ‘To answer you, Mr Kadamanja, I received a message from someone at the British High Commission.’

  Lana found her voice. ‘Tim Gilbey. He said he’d spoken to you.’

  ‘He was making enquiries on your behalf. I thought you’d be along sooner or later. This morning I learned you were in the company of Mr Kadamanja. I have been expecting you.’

  Moffat was nodding. ‘Drum talk.’

  ‘Quite so. All the way from Lilongwe.’ Piercing grey eyes roved Lana’s face. ‘You look exactly like your father, Miss Devereaux.’

  ‘Please call me Lana.’

  The eyes twinkled. ‘So I shall, yes indeed, so I shall. What a delightful name.’ Sarah Fotheringham brushed hair back from her forehead. ‘He spoke of you once. He loved you very much.’

  Tears sprang unbidden to Lana’s eyes. Sarah Fotheringham’s words had been unexpected. ‘Did you talk to him often?’ she asked, her voice not as steady as she would have liked.

  Miss Fotheringham regarded her with compassion. ‘Come.’ She rose. ‘There is somewhere much nicer we can talk.’ She led them through a door and they were in a tiny kitchen. A small, enclosed courtyard was visible through the open back door. ‘Out here, my dears. We all spend far too much time indoors. You sit, I’ll make some tea. No, no, I don’t need help. I’m not that old yet. You talk to Rosalind. She’s just had a litter of kittens and is feeling sorry for herself.’

  Lana sat in a cane chair and a large, cream coloured cat jumped immediately into her lap and began to purr. ‘There, I’m never wrong. If Rosalind likes you then you must be nice. Thought so when I saw you. Never you mind pretending, Moffat Kadamanja. I know you don’t like cats. I won’t hold it against you.’ She turned to Lana. ‘Cats are for rats, not laps eh, Mr Kadamanja? That is what the Africans say of us and our love of them.’

  ‘Moffat, please.’

  ‘Tut!’

  Moffat rolled his eyes. ‘I have spent days telling Lana to do things the African way. In this case, I am outnumbered.’

  ‘Very sensible of you, I’m sure.’ Miss Fotheringham smiled. ‘Your fathers enjoyed a good relationship. I can see you do the same. Excuse me.’ She went into her kitchen but kept up a running commentary through the open door. ‘Now where did I put the biscuits? I only bought them yesterday. Do you like shortbread, my dears? Damn! There’s a chip in this cup. The family resemblance is remarkable, quite remarkable. Fine-looking man your father. Nice too. You must take after your mother. Lovely up here at this time of year. Not so much sickness. Don’t let Rosalind bully you. Oh dear, I don’t have any fresh milk. Will powdered do? How long will you be staying in Malawi?’ Short, sharp sentences, mostly unrelated, never waiting for an answer and never giving any clue as to which of them she was referring.

  As she went on, Lana’s earlier excitement at meeting this woman subsided. What would she remember?

  Finally, Sarah Fotheringham appeared, carrying a tray. She bustled around, pouring tea and passing them a plate of biscuits. When she fell silent at last, gazing at them with disconcerting candour, it was as though she had run out of steam. Lana looked back at her, saying nothing.

  ‘You have his calm.’ Miss Fotheringham pushed impatiently at her glasses, still staring at Lana. ‘I suspect you also have his fire.’ She smiled wickedly when she saw the look which passed over Lana’s face. ‘Now, now,’ she admonished gently. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  Lana laughed.

  ‘That’s better.’ Sarah Fotheringham sipped at her tea. ‘Forgive me for talking so much. I don’t see many English people.’

  ‘Miss Fotheringham.’ Lana leaned towards her. ‘Please can you tell us about our fathers?’

  ‘I can and I will. But first, what are you doing with Karl Henning?’

  The question took Lana completely by surprise. ‘I met him quite by chance on the plane to Malawi. I’m not with him exactly. He’s very keen for me to join him on his yacht. I don’t think I will, there’s something about him . . .’ She stopped, then went on. ‘It was Karl who mentioned you. I don’t think he meant to. When I showed interest he said you had died last year.’

  ‘Did he indeed,’ mused Miss Fotheringham. ‘Interesting. Very interesting.’ She nibbled the edge of a biscuit. ‘As you can see, I’m very much alive, although I can understand why he would say that. Mr Henning has good reason to fear me.’

  Moffat said, ‘I knew it! You have proof?’

  Miss Fotheringham glanced at him kindly. ‘Knowing it, Moffat, is one thing. Proving it, quite another. Karl Henning is clever and dangerous.’ She placed her cup carefully back on its saucer. ‘We’ll leave Mr Henning for the minute. Let’s talk about your fathers, I can see you are both dying to. Let’s see . . . hmmm . . . I heard they were here of course, everyone knows everything in this place. They were working about half-an-hour’s drive north of here. Jonah Kadamanja came down with a terrible bout of malaria. I heard about it of course, even expected your father to bring him to me, Lana. When he didn’t, I went looking for them. Your father was doing his best but Jonah was in a bad way. We brought their sleeping tents back to Karonga so I could keep an eye on Jonah.’ Again the wicked smile. ‘I laced his soup with sherry. That fixed him.’

  Moffat smiled. ‘He must have been ill. He never drank anything stronger than tea.’

  Sarah Fotheringham nodded. ‘He was on the mend. Another day and he’d have been up and around.’

  ‘Did you see much of Dad?’ Lana asked.

  ‘We spoke every morning and evening. He told me they were doing a seismic study of the lake.’ She leaned forward and bright intelligence shone in her eyes. ‘That was rubbish of course.’

  Lana nodded. ‘He was looking for signs of oil deposits. The survey was supposed to be very hush-hush. The Minister who commissioned it did so without President Banda’s knowledge.’

  ‘Ha!’ Miss Fotheringham said triumphantly. ‘I knew it. Seismic survey indeed. Who did they think they were kidding?’ She leaned back again and thought for a moment. ‘There were other men up here before them.’

  ‘Yes. They died in somewhat suspicious circumstances.’

  ‘Never met them.’

  Rosalind jumped off Lana’s lap suddenly and stalked off into the kitchen. Sarah Fotheringham watched her go fondly. Then, ‘When you get to my age, my dears, people sometimes tend to overlook you. That’s their mistake of course. You don’t suddenly turn gaga and go blind and deaf.’

  What is she getting at?

  ‘I liked both your fathers. The first time I met them the word “honourable” came to mind. I can see it in you two as well. Be careful, children.’

  Lana glanced at Moffat before saying, ‘Miss Fotheringham, all we’re trying to do is find out what –’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ She nodded impatiently. ‘And in doing so you are both very likely to be in great danger. Think, children, think. Someone killed four men . . . yes, I do believe John Devereaux was killed too, even though he was never found . . . and that person is still out there. I’m talking about Karl Henning.’ Sarah Fotheringham looked off in the distance for a long moment, as if trying to reach a decision. ‘Listen,’ she said finally, ‘I will tell you what I know. You can make up your own minds.’

  Lana nodded.

  ‘My great uncle, Monteith Fotheringham, lived in Karonga one hundred years ago. He was here at the same time as the slaver, Mlozi.’ Sarah Fotheringham smiled. ‘He was Mlozi’s devoted enemy.’

  ‘I’ve heard of Mlozi. Karl has a cabine
t which he says belonged to him.’

  Miss Fotheringham nodded. ‘I know. He found it up here. What Karl Henning doesn’t know is that I am aware of the contents of the cabinet.’

  ‘A ledger?’

  ‘He told you that did he?’

  ‘He said he donated it to a museum.’

  Sarah Fotheringham gave a bark of scornful laughter. ‘Bull dust!’ she said with gusto. ‘The ledger is still in his possession.’

  ‘But why lie about it? Why is the ledger important?’

  ‘Because Mlozi used it to record all his shipments across the lake. Every slave was accounted for, every ivory tusk. He wrote dates, weights and who the captain was in charge of each dhow. Then he recorded payment once it had been received. He was meticulous.’ Sarah Fotheringham tapped a gnarled finger on the table. ‘Against one shipment, around the middle of November 1887, four dhows carrying slaves and one loaded with ivory left Karonga for Losefa. They never reached their destination. Mlozi had written that all were sunk by a sudden storm – he even estimated where they went down. Interesting, don’t you think, that within two months of Karl Henning gaining possession of that cabinet, and coinciding with the first survey team being here, Karl’s yacht appeared up here. He was making sure no-one found the ivory, I’ll bet my right arm on that.’

  ‘If he had found it I suppose it’s reasonable he’d want to keep its location a secret,’ Lana protested.

  ‘He was not entitled to kill to keep it hidden,’ Miss Fotheringham said sharply.

  Moffat shooed Rosalind, who was winding herself through his legs, away. ‘You’d have to be fairly certain to make an accusation like that. This country was in political turmoil back in 1983. Government ministers and army personnel were fair game. Perhaps . . .’

  ‘Listen, both of you, listen well. I have been in Karonga forty years. The locals trust me. They see things and they tell me. Karl Henning’s yacht was up here at the same time as the first survey team. It was back again just after your fathers arrived. I thought nothing of it at first but when John Devereaux didn’t return to Karonga that night I did some snooping on my own.’ She stopped, pushed her glasses up, smoothed hair back from her face and continued.

  ‘It’s a measure of Karl Henning’s arrogance that he didn’t bother to cover his tracks. I went up to where your father had been working alone. He’d been impatient, you see, to get back to work and didn’t wait for Jonah Kadamanja to recover from his malaria. The equipment was all there. The vehicle he drove was half-loaded with their things. There were bottles of sand on a table. It was as if he had been interrupted in the middle of his work. I could see footprints coming up from behind. I’m sorry, child, but you have to know this. The sand showed that someone had been dragged back down the beach.’

  Lana felt the old familiar grief burning a hollow in her stomach. Dear God, why?

  ‘I came back to where Jonah and your father had pitched their tents on the beach here. The tents were still there but Jonah was also missing. The local fishermen told me that Karl Henning’s yacht had been moored just around the spit for perhaps an hour. It was early morning and too dark to see much but a couple of the men thought they saw Karl Henning carrying something heavy over his shoulder down the beach to a dinghy. They say it could have been Jonah. The dinghy then went north and disappeared around the spit. Shortly after that the ketch sailed east.’

  Karl! Could it be?

  Miss Fotheringham was saying, ‘The timing works. John Devereaux went missing one day and Jonah Kadamanja early the next morning – I know he was there the previous evening because I took him some broth. I remember being surprised that John Devereaux hadn’t returned. Karl Henning had plenty of time to sail down the lake and get Jonah before it was light.’

  Lana was suddenly aware that tears were running down her cheeks. She brushed at them impatiently. ‘Why didn’t you report this?’

  ‘I did, child. No-one was interested. Karl Henning could not have planned it better if he tried. The coup attempt was a perfect diversion. Oh certainly,’ she added derisively, ‘the police looked into it. They dismissed my evidence, said it was all supposition. Karl Henning is an influential man. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a little money changed hands.’

  ‘But why? Why would he kill four men?’

  Sarah Fotheringham shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he believed the seismic survey story. He obviously didn’t want Mlozi’s ivory found but I don’t think that in itself would be a reason. I believe he’s hiding something else. Something much bigger than a dhow full of ivory.’ She smiled sympathetically at them. ‘That lie about a seismic survey cost four men their lives. It would seem that they were killed for no reason.’

  ‘How can we prove it?’ Moffat asked. ‘If nothing was done about it back then, how do we open an investigation?’

  ‘You would need evidence of some kind.’ Sarah Fotheringham folded her hands on the table. ‘I have lived in Malawi long enough to know that you, Moffat, have other means of retribution.’

  ‘We have been to the Nganga.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I . . . we’re not sure. His advice was –’

  ‘Pretty damned general,’ Lana snapped, getting angry. Where was the justice in all of this?

  ‘Tell me the witchdoctor’s words,’ Sarah Fotheringham said gently, as though she understood Lana’s frustration.

  Moffat related it in Chichewa and Miss Fotheringham sat for some time, her brow furrowed, thinking. ‘You two will stop asking questions, that much is clear.’

  ‘It might be because we stop breathing.’ Lana couldn’t help it. Moffat’s beliefs were one thing, that this woman believed in witchdoctors quite another.

  Sarah Fotheringham allowed a small grin of amusement. ‘No,’ she said finally. ‘The clue is that things happen after that. The Nganga is not going to waste his breath telling you things you won’t see and hear. The drums of retribution will stop beating and music of the spirits will be heard. That’s positive, believe me. He’s telling you there is danger ahead it’s true, but that line is the key to it.’ She leaned towards them. ‘I don’t believe you should join Karl Henning on his yacht, Lana, unless Moffat can somehow accompany you.’

  ‘I don’t want to but how can I learn anything if I don’t?’

  ‘Why don’t you leave it to the Nganga?’

  So Lana played the two of them at their own game. ‘Because his message indicated that we wouldn’t.’

  Moffat gave a bark of laughter.

  Miss Fotheringham smiled delightedly. Then her expression sobered. ‘Be careful then.’

  Moffat asked the question that Lana had been tempted to ask. ‘You have shown us that nothing happens in Karonga that you don’t get to hear about. How is it then, Miss Fotheringham, that until last year I lived here and yet you never saw fit to approach me with this information?’

  ‘Good question.’ Sarah Fotheringham did not flinch. ‘You were not ready.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Lana heard anger in his voice and wondered if he regarded Sarah Fotheringham’s words as another example of white arrogance.

  Miss Fotheringham’s eyes twinkled. She too had heard anger. ‘Your father’s body was found. He had drowned. You might have had some suspicions though I doubt it. Am I right?’

  Moffat nodded. ‘It seemed strange at the time that the other man was missing. We didn’t know about the first two. I only found out about them a few years ago.’

  ‘And what did you do then?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Moffat admitted. ‘I thought it was odd but I wondered if perhaps I was being paranoid.’

  ‘Until Lana arrived?’ Miss Fotheringham pressed.

  ‘Yes. She’d had one or two strange things happen to her since arriving in Malawi. Put together with my own experiences, things started to add up.’ Moffat grinned wryly. ‘You’re right. I wasn’t ready.’

  They talked for another two hours, Sarah Fotheringham filling in all the tiny crevices of John Devereaux’s
and Jonah Kadamanja’s last few days in Karonga. They absorbed every word, Lana filing everything away to pass on to her mother and Bernard.

  It should have been like a balm over an open wound except that the suspicion of Karl Henning’s involvement kept tearing the scar tissue. There was no doubting Sarah’s flawless memory and power of deduction and, on the surface, it did appear that Karl had to be guilty of murder. Lana’s anger grew as they spoke. And that anger fired determination. But even as her resolution grew, Lana knew one thing for certain. The truth about her father could prove lethal. Can I do this? Her father’s face floated through her memories – tanned, good-looking, laughing, intelligent, warm and kind. I must.

  They drove through Old Town Karonga, Moffat showing Lana the sights. Beyond Karonga, towards the south, he pointed to where three hills towered up. ‘That’s where Mlozi was hanged. He had a stockade there where he held the slaves. When he had captured enough, they were marched to Karonga and loaded into dhows.’

  ‘Man’s inhumanity to man,’ Lana quoted softly. She shook her head. ‘Come on, we have to get down to Chilumba. God knows how I’m going to talk you onto the yacht. Let’s pick up our things from Daniel and Dorcas and get moving. We can make a plan on the way.’

  They drove back to the Namokos’ house. Moffat banged on the door and pushed it open. Lana followed him inside. There was no sign of Daniel or Dorcas. Lana walked to the main bedroom to collect her bag. She glanced around the room, making sure she’d left nothing behind, then went back into the lounge and stopped dead. Moffat stood with his back to her, his hands in the air. Karl Henning was just inside the front door, a revolver held steady and pointing at Moffat’s chest.

  ‘Do come in, Lana.’

  She stepped up and a little distance away from Moffat.

  ‘Drop the bag and move closer to Kadamanja.’ Karl waved the revolver. ‘None of your tricks. I’m not as easy as Tony Davenport.’

  ‘Where are my friends?’ Moffat asked.

  Karl’s eyes flicked to him. ‘The police will find them. You will be blamed, both of you.’ He looked at Lana. ‘That car of yours sticks out like a sore thumb.’