Softly Calls the Serengeti Read Free Page B

walked away.
    Two days later, three men arrived at dusk as Simon was packing his tools into the old Gladstone bag he used to carry them. One of them took the bag from him. When he protested, the other two grabbed him and flung him to the ground, standing on his forearms to keep him there.
    The first man, who had a large silver ring in his ear, rummaged around in Simon’s tool bag and pulled out the hammer. He hefted it in his hand and smiled down at Simon.
    At the time, Simon had thought the pain unbearable, but long after the agony of his broken fingers had subsided, the pain of losing his only chance to own his own place in Kibera remained.
    He thought it sadly ironic that long after Koske had changed the course of his own life, he had returned to threaten that of his son.

CHAPTER 3
    This Bus Runs on the Blood of Jesus! said the sign on the rear of the lumbering, lopsided Mombasa–Nairobi bus. Mark Riley peered through the plumes of black diesel smoke billowing in its wake and dared to ease his Land Rover Defender out to check the road ahead. A truck approached crablike on displaced axles, horn blaring. Riley was hungover and in no mood to have his jangling nerves tested. He waited.
    On the next attempt, the road was clear, but as he passed the bus it swerved to dodge an enormous pothole, causing the mountain of suitcases and string-tied bundles on its roof to lurch alarmingly in his direction. He planted his foot to the floor and the hulking Land Rover reluctantly responded.
    When the bus was in his rear-view mirror, Riley rolled down the window to empty the fumes from the cabin and rubbed his red-rimmed eyes. It had been a busy twenty-four hours, culminating in one too many lime daiquiris at the bar of his hotel. He almost always drank whisky. Why daiquiris were suddenly in favour he put down to boredom.
    He reached for his cigarettes, and hesitated a moment before succumbing. I really must give them up , he thought as he lit up, then sucked the smoke hungrily into his lungs.
    The road ran straight through a scene that he’d been warned would be endlessly repeated during the long journey to Nairobi. Here and there were scattered huts of corrugated iron. Dusty children ran behind old tyres, using sticks to steer them. A donkey cart moved precariously close to the tarmac on wobbly wheels, its load of crated chickens, bagged charcoal and baskets of maize towering above the driver. Beyond the litter-strewn roadside, an occasional ancient baobab watchedover the flat, ungrateful land like an aloof and disapproving guardian.
    Riley had originally planned to fly to Nairobi, but he was in no hurry and decided instead to visit two or three of the game parks between Mombasa and the capital. He was not the gawping-tourist-in-a-minibus type, and after discovering the hire costs for a four-wheel drive to be exorbitant, he’d found himself a second-hand Land Rover at a very attractive price. He had a soft spot for the old Defender as it had been the model he’d driven around rural Indonesia, which had been the setting for two of his three novels.
    But he didn’t want to think about his writing. Writing, or his recent inability to do so successfully, was one of the reasons he was now in Kenya. After two failures, his publisher had suggested he take a break. ‘Go somewhere exotic where you can rekindle your passion,’ she’d said. ‘After all, it’s not uncommon for a first-time author to have trouble with his next book.’ She hadn’t mentioned the statistics for a failure on the third.
    He took the hint and decided to take a long sabbatical. He was a poor tourist and had chosen Kenya principally because it had been his wife’s wish to visit the country at some stage. In the year before they married, Melissa had started supporting an orphaned Kenyan child in the care of a charity called the Circularians. Now, Melissa was dead, killed in a terrible accident. Riley wasn’t sure