Nairobi Heat Read Free Page B

seems unbecoming for a police officer.
    ‘Tell me about the African …’ the Chief said.
    There was nothing much to tell beyond the bare facts. Joshua had told me that he had found her on his doorstep, dead. He had an alibi and his place was clean; no signs of a struggle inside or outside. There had been no visible scratches or marks on him. And he hadn’t given himself away with any of the usual telltales. The body seemed to have literally fallen on his doorstep.
    ‘Did you tear the place apart?’ the Chief asked.
    I hadn’t. My first instinct was that whatever had happened hadn’t happened in Joshua’s house – I had been convinced of it and BQ’s estimated time of death had pretty much confirmed my suspicions. I tried to explain but the Chief said he would send forensics in anyway. ‘A fucking murder,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Just what I need …’ He paused. ‘Listen, this African of yours is some sort of hero back in his country.’
    He handed me a folder from his desk. It contained newspaper and magazine articles about the African taken from the Internet. He was indeed a hero. There were photos of him with Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela and even the Dalai Lama. He had even received a humanitarian award from Bill Gates. There were many articles about him surrounded by kids, him holding larger-than-life cheques in the thousands of dollars made out to something called the Never Again Foundation. I had heard of it before, Hollywood types were always appearing on TV appealing for donations, ending theirspiel with the now famous catchphrase, ‘Not on my watch!’ It wasn’t clear from the cuttings what Joshua’s relationship to the Foundation was – in some he was named as a founder, in others as a past chairman – but whatever it was it seemed like the man was at the centre of every good deed. And every other do-gooder wanted a photo with him.
    Initially, I was a little bitter – cops die every day without as much as a nod from the powers that be – but reading on I saw that he had earned every accolade he had received. A former headmaster, he had turned his deserted school into a safe haven during the Rwandan genocide. Revered by the genocidaires, who were his former students, he had persuaded them to let him and the school where they had once been students alone.
An Island of Sanity In a Sea of Blood
one headline screamed. He gave sanctuary to thousands, many of whom he managed to smuggle over the border one way or another. But at the height of the genocide his former students surrounded the school and told him, ‘No more in; no more out.’ After this those who tried to make it in were massacred.
    This is where his story became even more remarkable. During the siege he was only allowed to drive in and out with a driver and a bodyguard, but this didn’t stop him. He ferried out two refugees at a time – disguised as his driver and bodyguard – and smuggled them over the border to camps in Tanzania and Kenya. On his way back to the school he would then pick up two more of those trying to escape the violence and dress them up as his driver and bodyguard.
    What a story!
    Now I could see why he was so calm in the face of the white girl’s death. It must have taken nerves of steel to pullthe same trick over and over again, risking not only his own life but also the lives of all those inside the school. He hadn’t been exaggerating. He had lived with death, and a dead white girl on his doorstep was just one more dead amongst a million. Only the living would interest a man like him.
    ‘You can find all that stuff online, but take the file,’ the Chief said as we both stood up. ‘Ishmael, we’ve been at this for a long time now, what does your gut tell you?’ he asked after a pause.
    In our world, this is not a light question. On the surface it meant we had nothing much to go by but underneath it meant that he was prepared to stick his neck out on my say. It’s a rare question.
    ‘He may