Zambezi (26 page)

Luke tried to free the blade, but found it was stuck. He rolled off the man, rocking back on his knees, and raised a bloodied hand to his mouth in horror as the body convulsed, then was motionless.

Luke looked around him. There was no one in the alleyway. He saw the broken memory card on the ground near the shattered remains of his camera and telephoto lens. This was no robbery. The man was after his camera gear, but not for resale. It was clear he wanted to destroy the images stored in the camera’s memory and on the card. Fortunately, he had not had a chance to search Luke. The first memory card he had used when photographing Hassan bin Zayid and the woman was still in his pocket.

Luke stared at the body. He started to shake and couldn’t stop. He dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around himself to try to still the shivering. He did not want to touch the dead man, but he knew he had to. With a trembling hand he touched the corpse’s arm. It was still warm. The smell of the spilt blood, and the contents of the man’s bowels, which had been voided when he died, made Luke gag. He tried to gulp air and swallow, but couldn’t hold back. He turned his head to one side and vomited on the ground next to the dead man. Tears streamed from his eyes as he emptied his stomach. The vile mix of smells around him made him dry-retch over and over again.

Finally Luke caught his breath and wiped his eyes. He summoned the courage to look at the corpse again. The pistol was tucked in the man’s belt. Someone would surely come soon. He had to search the dead man. Clipped to the belt of the man’s jeans was a cell phone. Luke knew he shouldn’t touch it, but he wanted to confirm his suspicions. He eased the phone from the belt and scrolled through the menu. He checked the ‘dialled calls’ and was not surprised to find his own cell phone number at the top of the list. The man had called him just before the attack, and then hung up after confirming the identity of his victim.

His shaking calmed a little, now he was acting like an investigative journalist again. Luke had a very good idea how the man got his number, but selected the ‘received calls’ function to confirm his theory The top entry read
Private number;
the next, however, he recognised as the office number for Zayid Enterprises. He wrote down the other numbers in the ‘received calls’ list in his notebook, and scrolled back and did the same for the dialled calls. He wiped the phone’s leather case with his handkerchief to remove his fingerprints, then replaced it on the dead man’s belt.

He searched the man’s pockets but found no wallet or other identification. However, he did find a plastic bag filled with white powder. Whether it was cocaine or heroin he wasn’t sure, but it seemed the would-be assassin was multiskilled in his life of crime.

The telephone on the dead man’s belt started ringing.

‘Shit,’ Luke breathed. The tremor returned to his fingers. The chirping sounded fearfully loud in the confines of the alley. He picked the phone up and ended the call. ‘Shit,’ he said again.

The screen showed the caller had blocked his or her number from showing. It was probably the same person who had called before. Luke kept the phone and ran down the alley and back out into the broader laneway, towards the waterfront again.

A young African man wearing board shorts and a T-shirt, his hair a mass of dreadlocks, stepped out of a doorway and said, ‘Hey, my friend, looking for a hotel? Some ganga maybe? What happened to you – been in a fight, man?’

Luke stopped and looked at the man, who stared back, uncomprehending. The phone rang again.

Luke looked at it, then at the young African again. His voice was deep, just like the man who had attacked him.

‘Want to make twenty US dollars?’ Luke croaked, his throat raw from being sick. He coughed and spat.

The man looked wary. ‘Hey, man, I’m no faggot.’

The phone kept chirping.

‘No, no! I want you to impersonate someone on this phone, I’ll tell you what to say. It’s a joke on a friend. Twenty bucks – OK?’

‘Sure, why not.’

‘Hold the phone away from you – I want the caller to think it’s a bad line, so he won’t recognise you. Keep your answers short.’

Luke pressed the green key and held the phone out to the young man. Luke mouthed the word hello.

‘Hello,’ the man said hesitantly.

Luke brought the phone back to his own ear, motioning the man to stay where he was.

‘It is me,’ a male voice said on the other end of the line. ‘Is it done yet?’

Luke covered the mouthpiece and told the young man what to say ‘It is done. This line is bad.’

Luke took the phone back. The voice said, ‘Good. You planted the drugs in his bag, in the hotel room? A kilo, as we agreed?’

‘Fuck,’ Luke whispered, covering the mouthpiece. There was nothing like a kilogram of powder in the bag the man had been carrying. That meant he had already planted the drugs in Luke’s pack.

‘What?’ asked the young man.

‘Nothing, nothing. Just say, “Yes, it is done.”’ The young man did as ordered and Luke held the phone back to his ear.

‘Good. I will have someone else call the police. They will be at his hotel in ten minutes from now. The drugs will make it look as though he died as the result of a deal gone wrong. Did you plant some of the stuff on him?’

‘As ordered,’ the young African man said at Luke’s behest, bewildered at the game he was playing.

‘Good. You will be paid the usual way.’

The phone went dead.

‘What was all that about, man? Are you in trouble?’ the young man asked.

Luke fished in the traveller’s wallet hanging around his neck for a twenty-dollar bill. When he went to hand over the money he saw the young man was staring at his right hand and arm, which were covered in the dried blood of the dead man. The man started to back away from him.

‘Here, take the money’ Luke said.

‘I don’t want no part of no trouble, man.’

‘Don’t worry, no trouble. I got into a fight with some other guys before. No problem. Want to make another twenty?’

The young man took the bill with the tips of his thumb and forefingers, careful not to touch Luke’s skin.

‘I’ve got to meet a girl. I need a shirt and don’t want to go into a shop looking like this. How about selling me yours?’

The man thought about the odd request for a couple of seconds, then said, ‘Thirty.’

‘Shit. OK.’ Luke peeled off three tens. The young man took off his Bob Marley T-shirt and handed it over. ‘Thanks.’

‘Can I go now?’

‘Sure. You’ve been a big help.’

Luke hurried back into the alleyway. He took off his own blood-stained T-shirt and wrapped it around the hilt of the diving knife in the dead man’s chest. If he was going to be framed for drug possession he didn’t want to compound his troubles by having the police thinking he was a murderer as well. He yanked on the knife but was surprised at how firmly it was stuck in the dead body. He placed a foot on the corpse’s chest, grabbed the knife and leaned back. Slowly, the knife came free with a sickening sucking sound and another gasp of putrid air. He had planned to leave the gun on the man’s body, but now that he realised the extent of the plot against him he decided that he might need to even the odds. He pulled the pistol from the man’s jeans and stuffed it in his own pants. He put on the African man’s T-shirt and bundled the knife and bloodied shirt into the day-pack, which he had to carry in his arms because of the tear. The camera gear, too, might incriminate him, so he scooped up the shattered body and lenses and dropped the mess into his camera bag. He jogged back into the main laneway and headed towards the busy waterfront.

In a small square he found a hand-operated water pump and a stone trough beneath the spout, half full of water. He rinsed the blood from his arms as best as he could and then winced in pain as he scooped warm water up to his throbbing nose. He stared at the mix of his own blood and that of the dead man’s swirling in the water in the trough. From what the man on the phone had said, the police would beat him to his hotel room. If he fronted them he would be arrested, charged and locked in a Zanzibari jail until he could organise a lawyer. He had some numbers from a dead man’s cell phone but, beyond that, nothing firm to connect the drugs planted in his room or the attempt on his life with Hassan bin Zayid. He was shocked at the reaction his simple request for an interview had provoked, although from the destruction of his camera gear it was also clear that bin Zayid knew he had been photographed. So what? Hassan was a native of Zanzibar, obviously well known within the tourism industry, who led a flashy lifestyle that included an ostentatious boat and a parade of western girlfriends. Why would he send someone to kill him for taking his picture?

‘The woman,’ Luke said aloud. He still had images of her stored on the first memory card, but he now had no camera on which to view them, and his laptop computer was in his hotel room.

He took a circuitous route back towards his hotel, on the off-chance that he might be able to beat the police. He was out of luck. As he peered around the corner of a decaying stone building he saw an African policeman holding an AK-47 assault rifle leaning against the wall of the hotel, smoking a cigarette and scanning up and down the laneway. Luke turned and walked quickly back into the bowels of Stone Town. He made his way back towards the dhow harbour. He needed a boat off the island – tonight, if possible. There were no embassies on Zanzibar, so he had to get himself to the mainland, to Dar es Salaam. There he would seek asylum in the Australian embassy and explain the extraordinary events that had led to him being framed on drugs charges. He would call International Press and ask them to arrange legal representation for him, and then file a story about the whole sorry mess. He knew he was taking a risk by evading the police on the island – if they caught him his attempted escape would brand him as guilty, no matter what story he came up with.

On his way to the docks he found a small convenience store and bought some bananas, a couple of big bottles of water and some cold chapatis from the Indian proprietor. He also picked up a copy of the
International Herald Tribune
. He would go mad on a boat trip without something to read.

It was late when he arrived at the harbour and most of the dhows were in darkness. He walked along the dock and stopped. On the night air he heard voices, and followed the sound. Further along he saw the pale glow of a hurricane lantern hanging from the mast of one of the wooden boats. Below it, three men were sitting on the deck around a pot balanced on a charcoal brazier. Luke’s stomach rumbled with hunger at the smell of the spicy curry.

‘
Jambo,’
the eldest of the three men said when he saw Luke on the wharf.

‘
Habari,’
Luke replied, using the extent of his Swahili in returning the greeting. ‘Do you speak English?’

‘Of course,’ the old man said. ‘How can we help you?’

‘I need a boat to the mainland, to Dar.’

‘We carry cargo, not tourists.’

‘That doesn’t worry me.’

‘It worries me. Tourists want the world but don’t like to pay for it. I don’t like the port formalities at the other end. I spend too much time leading westerners through immigration and customs.’

Luke stepped on board the boat, uninvited. ‘What if you had a tourist who would pay you three times the going rate and who didn’t want to bother you with customs and immigration?’

The old man put down his plate and narrowed his eyes as he regarded Luke. ‘I would lose my boat if I was caught helping you avoid the authorities.’

‘Which is why I am offering three times the normal fee.’

‘Five times,’ the old man said.

‘Four.’

The man smiled. ‘Very well. Cash up-front.’

‘Half up-front, half when we get to Dar. I don’t want to end up at the bottom of the channel halfway across.’

A younger member of the trio, an African about Luke’s age, piped up. ‘What’s to stop that happening anyway?’

Luke yawned and lifted his arms high, slowly, as if stretching. The movement caused his T-shirt to rise up and all three men caught a glimpse of the pistol.

‘I want no trouble on this boat,’ said the old captain, addressing his two crewmen as much as Luke.

‘The deal is done. I hope you do not mind, but there is no room on the boat for you to sleep tonight. We will leave in the hour before dawn. Meet us here then.’

Luke had wanted to leave immediately, but he guessed the sailors were reluctant to make the crossing in the dead of night without any navigational aids. He headed back towards town. He would try to find somewhere quiet to lie down, or maybe a bar where he could buy a couple of beers to ease the pain in his face. He left the dock and stopped when he came to a bench seat under a streetlight.

The adrenaline had well and truly worn off and he was more tired than he could ever remember being.

He pulled the newspaper from the plastic shopping bag and idly leafed through it. On the fifth page was a story that caught his eye. The headline read:
MAN-EATING LION KILLED IN ZIMBABWE –

HUMAN REMAINS FOUND
. Luke shook his head and rubbed his tired eyes. It was a follow-up story about Miranda Banks’s disappearance. According to the report the remains of a Caucasian female had been found in Mana Pools National Park. Police in Kariba were speculating that the remains were probably those of the missing American woman, although further tests still had to be carried out.

There was a quote from an American embassy spokesman, who had officially released Miranda’s name to the press.

Beside it was a photograph.

He wore a black wetsuit and boot polish on his face and hands as camouflage.

He finned slowly, so as not to leave a visible wake. It was a long swim, more than half a kilometre, but he was fit and as at home in the water as a dolphin. The lights of Nungwi’s beach bungalows twinkled ahead of him.

This would be the final nail in the coffin for the local tourism industry, but he cared nothing for the tens of thousands of US dollars it would cost him. Money was no longer important. Family and God were all that mattered, and his family was now all gone. He had been selfish, greedy, weak for so many years. It had taken Iqbal’s death to teach him that. God had spared him for a reason.