Death in Zanzibar (26 page)

Dany twisted her hands together and said on a sob: ‘Lash — I'm frightened.'

‘You're not the only one!' retorted Lash with strong feeling. ‘I've never been so scared in all my life. I do not relish the idea that one of that bunch back there on the terrace makes a hobby of murder, and I wish I had a gun.'

‘But it can't be one of us! It can't be!'

‘Don't be silly, Dany. It can't be anyone else. It's one of six people. You, me, Amalfi, Gussie Bingham, the Latin lover or Larry Dowling. Take your choice!'

Dany shivered and Lash reached out suddenly and pulled her into his arms, holding her against him and ruffling the outrageous red curls with his free hand. He said: ‘I know, honey. But it'll all be the same in a hundred years.'

Dany made a sobbing and unintelligible remark into his shoulder, and he put his hand under her chin and lifted it. ‘What was that one? I didn't get it.'

‘I said “be c-careful of my s-spectacles”.'

‘I never liked them anyway,' said Lash, removing them and kissing her lightly. At least, that is what he had meant it to be, but it did not turn out like that. It began lightly enough, but ended very differently, and when at last he lifted his head he was astounded to find himself feeling breathless and shaken.

‘That your first kiss?' he inquired, holding her away from him.

‘Yes,' said Dany dazedly; her face bemused and beautiful in the white moonlight. ‘How did you know?'

‘I get around,' said Lash dryly. ‘Well, it's going to be the last for tonight, because if I do that again there's no knowing where we'll end up.'

He stooped and retrieved the spectacles that had fallen unheeded to the ground, and having dusted the sand off them, replaced them carefully.

‘And that'll be all for today, Miss Kitchell. I guess we'd better get back to the house and see you safely locked in for the night. And with reference to that last item on the agenda, you might consider letting me have a copy of it tomorrow — in triplicate.'

He walked her back towards the house across the white beach and through the door into the garden, where they encountered Larry Dowling loitering in the shadows by the edge of a shallow pool set about with stone birds and spider lilies. They might have passed without knowing that he was there, except that a reflection moved slightly in the water, and there was a faint smell of cigarette smoke.

Lash had stopped and said: ‘di Chiago?' and Larry had moved out into the moonlight and said: ‘No. But that was quick of you. It's one of his cigarettes. Can't say I like 'em much: give me gaspers every time. Nice on the beach?'

‘Yes, thanks,' said Lash curtly. ‘You on your way there?'

‘No. Just strolling around,' said Larry. ‘Just strolling around.'

Lash said: ‘Don't let us stop you,' and went on up the path that led to the terrace.

There were only two people on the terrace: Amalfi and Eduardo, who appeared to be quarrelling. They broke off on hearing footsteps, and Amalfi said with an edge to her voice: ‘Oh, it's you. I hope you had a nice brisk businesslike session and got everything straightened out?'

‘We did,' said Lash amiably. ‘Thanks for asking.'

Amalfi laughed. ‘Gussie was right: you're nothing but an old slave-driver. I really do believe that “Business First” is your motto.'

‘The Americans!' said Eduardo. ‘So efficient, so ruthless — so eye-on-the-ball. It is wonderful.'

Amalfi said hastily: ‘Lorrie said to say good night to you, Lash; she and Gussie both thought they could do with an early night. She wanted to know if you'd like to go along to the fish market tomorrow morning. Gussie wants to see it. She says if she mopes around here she'll go mad, and Lorrie said that if you'd like to tag along you'll have to have breakfast at eight, and there'll be a car going in immediately afterwards. However, I told her I didn't think it sounded at all in your line.'

‘Then you thought wrong,' said Lash, still amiably. ‘I like fish. Where's Tyson? Is he making an early night of it too?'

‘No. He and Nigel are as bad as you. They're doing a bit of work for a change.'

‘It won't hurt 'em,' said Lash, and turned to Dany. ‘That reminds me: I've got one or two things to do myself. I guess I'd better borrow your typewriter, Ada. I'll go right on up with you now and get it, if that's all right with you?'

‘Yes, of course,' said Dany.

She moved towards the door, and Lash was following her when Amalfi spoke softly, addressing no one in particular: ‘I do hope this means that Ada's mumps are better?'

16

‘I have always considered,' remarked Nigel, holding a delicately scented handkerchief to his nose, ‘that a fishmonger's emporium ranks slightly above a morgue, and only a point below a butcher's shop and an abattoir. All those slippery white stomachs and cold coddy eyes glaring at one.
Utterly
emetic. But just look at these colours!
Pure
Roerich.
Do
let's have some of those turquoise-blue fish with coral spots — or what about these heavenly shocking pink ones? You know, this might almost reconcile one to doing the weekly shopping.'

‘But can one really
eat
the things?' inquired Gussie, apprehensively eyeing the fish in question. ‘Lorraine, you're
surely
not going to buy those pink creatures?'

‘Changu, Gussie. They're delicious. Wait until you taste them!'

‘Well, if you say so,' said Gussie in a fading voice.

The fish market was a riot of noise and colour, and the variegated and vividly patterned clothing worn by the housewives of a dozen different nationalities was rivalled in both colour and design by the wares they were bargaining for.

It was as though the exotic contents of a tropical aquarium had been emptied onto the crude trestle tables, the floor and the wooden-sided pens and tubs: fish of every conceivable shape and colour, the beautiful jostling the sinister — such things as sting rays, hammer-headed sharks, cuttle fish and octopuses.

Competing with it in the matter of colour, while greatly improving on it in the way of smell, were the stalls of the open market where fruit and grain and vegetables were sold. A glowing, aromatic medley of oranges, limes, bananas, coconuts, cloves and chillies; yams, pawpaws, sweet potatoes, piles of green vegetables and flat wicker baskets full of assorted grains.

‘What's that you've been buying?' inquired Lash, coming across Dany standing before a fruit stall with her hands full of greenish-yellow objects.

‘Mangoes. I said I only wanted one — just to try. But it seems they don't sell them in ones. Only by the basket, and I couldn't possibly cope with that many. But luckily Seyyid Omar came along, and he
____
You do know each other, don't you? This is Seyyid Omar-bin-Sultan; he was on the plane with us.'

‘Yeah, I remember,' said Lash, shaking hands. ‘I'm very pleased to know you. I'm Lash Holden. I don't think we actually met.'

‘You're an American?' said Seyyid Omar.

‘That's right. The Country of the Future.'

‘Of the present, surely?' corrected Seyyid Omar with a faint smile and a slight emphasis on the noun.

‘Maybe,' said Lash lightly, and turned to regard Dany with some suspicion. ‘Say, you aren't going to start in eating those things right here, are you?'

‘Where else?'

‘Well, in your bath, I guess. It looks a messy business. And anyway, you can't possibly eat six mangoes.'

‘Just watch me.'

‘Not on your sweet life!' said Lash; and arbitrarily confiscated her booty.

Seyyid Omar laughed and said: ‘It is plain that Miss Kitchell has not yet tried to eat a mango. A plate and a knife are a help. Will you allow me to lend you one? My house is only a short way from here, and I know that my wife would be very pleased to meet you. If you would accompany me, you may eat your mangoes in more comfort.'

Dany threw a quick look at Lash, and Seyyid Omar, intercepting it, made him a slight smiling bow that included him in the invitation.

‘Sure,' said Lash slowly. ‘We'd be very pleased to. Here — would you mind holding these for a minute?'

He unloaded the mangoes on Seyyid Omar and strode off across between the stalls to where Nigel was assisting Lorraine in the selection of pineapples, and returned a minute or two later to say that that was O.K. and that the others would be going on to the English Club later in the morning, and would meet them there.

‘I will drive you over,' promised Seyyid Omar, and led the way out of the market and towards the harbour.

Seyyid Omar's house was in a narrow street that was a cavern of cool shadows slashed by an occasional hot, hard shaft of sunlight: a huge old Arab house, four storeys high and colour-washed in saffron and blue.

A magnificent brass-studded door with elaborately carved lintels and architraves opened into a stone-paved hall and a central courtyard surrounded by rising tiers of pillared verandahs: a house that was almost a duplicate of Tyson's, though larger.

Seyyid Omar led the way up two flights of stairs to a room on the second floor, where there were latticed windows looking out over the old stone-built town of Zanzibar to where the open sea lay blue and dazzling in the morning sunlight.

A white-robed servant brought sherbet, fruit and cigarettes, and their host's pretty wife instructed Dany in the best way — or the least messy one — of eating a mango.

Seyyide Zuhra-binti-Salem was on first sight a character straight out of the Arabian Nights: Scheherazade herself, or one of Bluebeard's lovely wives. A slender, charming, dark-eyed young woman with blue-black hair and a complexion of pale ivory. It was something of a shock to discover that this enchanting creature not only spoke six languages besides her own, but was entitled, if she so wished, to write the letters B.A. after her name.

It altered all Dany's preconceived notions on the subject of ‘ladies of the harem' to find that the young wife of an Arab in Zanzibar was infinitely better educated than herself, or, for that matter, than the majority of European women with whom she had so far come into contact.

It proved to be an entertaining, stimulating and surprising visit; in more ways than one. Time slipped past unnoticed while Zuhra laughed and talked of Oxford and Paris and the Sorbonne, and her husband told them enthralling tales of the island, and volunteered to take them that very afternoon, in the cool of the day, to see the underground wells and the ruins of the haunted palace of Dunga.

Conversation was easy and animated until the subject of the two tragedies that had marred the arrival of Lorraine's guests was raised. It was Lash who had introduced it, and his inquiry as to whether there had been any further developments in relation to the death of Salim Abeid was greeted by an odd little pause. Not long enough to be uncomfortable, but nevertheless definite enough to break the pleasant ease that had prevailed during the last hour and a half.

‘Ah,' said Seyyid Omar thoughtfully. ‘Jembe — “the thin man”.'

He did not reply to the question, but asked one of his own. ‘Did you know him?'

‘No,' said Lash. ‘But he was on the same plane out from London. I understand he was kind of well known in your island. A public character.'

‘He wished to be one,' said Seyyid Omar dryly. ‘That is not quite the same thing.'

‘I take it you knew him?'

‘Yes. Slightly.'

Seyyid Omar's expressive brown hands sketched a small deprecatory gesture as though he would have preferred to end the conversation, but Lash did not choose to take the hint. He said: ‘Tell us about him. Would you have said that he was a man who made enemies?'

‘He was a hireling of Moscow — and of Egypt,' said Zuhra gently.

She disregarded another faint gesture of her husband's as Lash had done, and said: ‘Oh, he did not call himself that. He called himself a Democrat — which is Soviet double-talk for the same thing. He wished to found a Single Party in Zanzibar. In other words, a dictatorship. With himself, of course, as the dictator. It was very simple. He had a certain following, for there are, everywhere, dissatisfied, embittered or envious people who get pleasure out of tearing down what they cannot build. And also poor people and unfortunate people and ignorant people, who should be pitied and helped, not exploited — but who are so easy to exploit. Here in Zanzibar we have, perhaps, less of such people than in other places; but enough to cause trouble. He will be no loss.'

Lash said casually, watching the smoke of his cigarette: ‘I guess it must have been a political murder. Sounds that way.'

Seyyid Omar shrugged. ‘Perhaps. It is always a possibility.'

‘But you don't believe it,' said Lash. ‘Now I wonder why?'

‘I did not say so.'

Lash gave him a slanting look. ‘Not in words. Why don't you believe it?'

Seyyid Omar laughed and threw up his hands. ‘You are very persistent Mr Holden. Why does the death of Jembe interest you?'

‘I guess because it interests your local police to such an extent that I have been requested to stay in Zanzibar for a few days. Just while they make some inquiries. I don't know what that suggests to you, but it suggests quite a few things to me.'

Seyyid Omar rose to replenish Dany's glass, and said lightly: ‘Yes, I had heard. I too had an — interview with Mr Cardew yesterday. They seem to think that someone must have stopped to speak to Jembe at the airport, and dropped a pellet in his coffee. Myself, I think it would have taken a brave man or an exceedingly rash one, or else a very stupid one, to do such a thing. Think of the risks of being seen! I cannot believe it was as clumsy as that.' He paused to stub out his cigarette, and added: ‘Mr Cardew also told me about the unfortunate tragedy that occurred on the night of your arrival. It must have been very distressing for all of you.'