The Constant Gardener

And so it was. An outrage. A hilarious one. Napoleon's three bees, symbols of his glory, treasured emblems of Tessa's beloved island of Elba where the great man had whittled away his first exile, had been shamelessly deported to Kenya and sold into commercial slavery. Pondering the same poster now, Justin could only marvel at the obscenity of life's coincidence.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Perched stiffly in his upgraded seat at the front of the plane, the Gladstone bag above him in the overhead locker, Justin Quayle stared past his reflection into the blackness of space. He was free. Not pardoned, not reconciled, not comforted, not resolved. Not free of the nightmares that told him she was dead, and waking to discover they were true. Not free of the survivor's guilt. Not free of fretting about Arnold. But free at last to mourn in his own way. Free of his dreadful cell. Of the jailers he had learned to detest. Of circling his room like a convict, driven half crazy by the dazzlement of his mind and the squalor of his confinement. Free of the silence of his own voice, of sitting on the edge of his bed asking why? on and on. Free of the shameful moments when he was so low and tired and drained that he almost succeeded in convincing himself that he didn't give a damn, the marriage had been a madness anyway and was over, so be thankful. And if grief, as he had read somewhere, was a species of idleness, then free of the idleness that thought of nothing but its grief.

Free also of his interrogation by the police, when a Justin he didn't recognize strode to the center of the stage and, in a series of immaculately sculpted sentences, laid his burden at the feet of his bemused interrogators — or as much of it as a puzzled instinct told him it was prudent to reveal. They began by accusing him of murder.

"There's a scenario hanging over us here, Justin," Lesley explains apologetically, "and we have to put it to you straightaway, so that you're aware of it, although we know it's hurtful. It's called a love triangle, and you're the jealous husband and you've organized a contract killing while your wife and her lover are as far away from you as possible, which is always good for the alibi. You had them both killed, which was what you wanted for your vengeance. You had Arnold Bluhm's body taken out of the jeep and lost so that we'd think Arnold Bluhm was the killer and not you. Lake Turkana's full of crocodiles, so losing Arnold wouldn't be a problem. Plus there's a nice inheritance coming your way by all accounts, which doubles up the motive."

They are watching him, he is well aware, for signs of guilt or innocence or outrage or despair — for signs of something anyway — and watching him in vain, because, unlike Woodrow, Justin at first does absolutely nothing. He sits groomed and pensive and remote on Woodrow's reproduction carving chair, his fingertips set to the table as if he has just played a chord of music and is listening to it fade away. Lesley is accusing him of murder, yet all she gets is a small frown linking him to his inner world.

"I had rather understood, from the little Woodrow has been good enough to tell me of the progress of your inquiries," Justin objects, more in the plaintive manner of an academic than a grieving husband, "that your prevailing theory was of a random killing, not a planned affair."

"Woodrow's full of shit," says Rob, keeping his voice down in deference to their hostess.

There is no tape recorder on the table yet. The notebooks of many colors lie untouched in Lesley's useful bag. There is nothing to hurry or formalize the occasion. Gloria has brought a tray of tea and, after a lengthy dissertation on the recent demise of her bull terrier, reluctantly departed.

"We found the marks of a second vehicle parked five miles from the scene of the murder," Lesley explains. "It was lying up in a gully southwest of the spot where Tessa was murdered. We found an oil patch, plus the remains of a fire." Justin blinks, as if the daylight is a bit too bright, then politely inclines his head to show he is still listening. "Plus freshly buried beer bottles and cigarette ends," she goes on, laying all this at Justin's door. "When Tessa's jeep drove by, the mystery wagon pulled out behind and tailed it. Then it pulled alongside. One of the front wheels of Tessa's jeep was shot off with a hunting rifle. That doesn't look like a random killing to us."

"More like corporate murder, as we like to call it," Rob explains. "Planned and executed by paid professionals at the behest of a person or persons unknown. Whoever tipped them off knew Tessa's plans inside out."

"And the rape?" Justin inquires with feigned detachment, keeping his eyes fixed on his folded hands.

"Cosmetic or incidental," Rob retorts crisply. "Villains lost their heads or did it with forethought."

"Which brings us back to motive, Justin," Lesley says.

"Yours," says Rob. "Unless you've got a better idea."