The Constant Gardener

That necklace you're wearing, Woodrow heard himself saying in mock challenge as they danced.

My grandmother gave it to my mother on her wedding day, she answered. I wear it with everything, even if it's out of sight.

Even in bed?

Depends.

"Who found them?" Woodrow asked.

"Wolfgang. He radioed the police and informed his office here in Nairobi. Also by radio. The Oasis has no telephone."

"If the driver was headless, how can they know it was the driver?"

"He had a crushed arm. That's why he took up driving. Wolfgang watched Tessa drive off with Noah on Saturday at five-thirty, in the company of Arnold Bluhm. That was the last time he saw them alive."

He was still quoting from notes or if he wasn't he was pretending to. His cheeks were still in his hands and he seemed determined they should stay here, for there was a stubborn rigidity across his shoulders.

"Give me that again," Woodrow ordered, after a beat.

"Tessa was accompanied by Arnold Bluhm. They checked into the Oasis Lodge together, spent Friday night there and set off in Noah's jeep next morning at five-thirty," Mildren repeated patiently. "Bluhm's body wasn't in the four-track and there's no trace of him. Or none reported so far. Lodwar police and the flying squad are on site but Nairobi headquarters want to know if we'll pay for a helicopter."

"Where are the bodies now?" Woodrow was his soldier father's son, crisp and practical.

"Not known. The police wanted the Oasis to take charge of them but Wolfgang refused. He said his staff would walk out and so would his guests." A hesitation. "She booked in as Tessa Abbott."

"Abbott?"

"Her maiden name. "Tessa Abbott, care of a PO box in Nairobi." Ours. We haven't got an Abbott so I ran the name across our records and got Quayle, maiden name Abbott, Tessa. I gather it's the name she uses for her relief work." He was studying the last page of his notes. "I've tried to raise the High Commissioner but he's doing the ministries and it's rush hour," he said. By which he meant: this is President Moi's modern Nairobi, where a local call can take half an hour of listening to I'm sorry, all lines are busy, please try again later, repeated tirelessly by a complacent woman in middle age.

Woodrow was already at the door. "And you've told nobody?"

"Not a soul."

"Have the police?"

"They say no. But they can't answer for Lodwar and I shouldn't think they can answer for themselves."

"And Justin's been told nothing as far as you know."

"Correct."

"Where is he?"

"In his office, I assume."

"Keep him there."

"He came in early. It's what he does when Tessa's on a field trip. Do you want me to cancel the meeting?"

"Wait."

Aware by now, if he ever doubted it, that he was coping with a Force Twelve scandal as well as a tragedy, Woodrow darted up a back staircase marked Authorized Staff Only and entered a glum passage that led to a closed steel door with an eyehole and a bell button. A camera scanned him while he pressed the button. The door was opened by a willowy redheaded woman in jeans and a flowered smock. Sheila, their number two, kiSwahili speaker, he thought automatically.

"Where's Tim?" he asked.

Sheila pressed a buzzer then spoke into a box. "It's Sandy in a hurry."

"Hold for figures one minute," cried an expansive male voice.

They held.

"Coast now totally clear," the same voice reported as another door burped open.

Sheila stood back and Woodrow strode past her into the room. Tim Donohue, the sixfoot-six Head of Station, was looming in front of his desk. He must have been clearing it, for there was not a paper in sight. Donohue looked even sicker than usual. Woodrow's wife Gloria insisted he was dying. Sunken, colorless cheeks. Nests of crumbling skin below the drooping yellowed eyes. The straggling mustache clawed downward in comic despair.

"Sandy. Greetings. What can we do you for?" he cried, peering down on Woodrow through his bifocals and grinning his skull's grin.

He comes too close, Woodrow remembered. He overflies your territory and intercepts your signals before you make them. "Tessa Quayle seems to have been killed somewhere near Lake Turkana," he said, feeling a vindictive urge to shock. "There's a place called Oasis Lodge. I need to talk to the owner by radio."

This is how they're trained, he thought. Rule one: never show your feelings, if you have any. Sheila's freckled features, frozen in pensive rejection. Tim Donohue still grinning his foolish grin — but then the grin hadn't meant anything in the first place.

"Been what, old boy? Say again?"

"Killed. Method unknown or the police aren't saying. The driver of her jeep had his head hacked off. That's the story."

"Killed and robbed?"

"Just killed."

"Near Lake Turkana."

"Yes."

"What the hell was she doing up there?"

"I've no idea. Visiting the Leakey site, allegedly."

"Does Justin know?"