"Murder on the Iron Snake", an Ailsa Black Mystery
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2011
1
12
18
Trip End
Jan 06, 2012
Mombasa, Coast, Kenya
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Yesterday I travelled back to Mombasa from Mida Creek, where I had stayed at an Eco Camp for 4 nights, run by 4 smiling, singing, laughing Kenyan guys who, along with the Italian and German couples also staying there, made my stay a great experience. After an afternoon walking around Mombasa; getting my haircut in a little local saloon (I look a bit like a boy, but I'll settle for Audrey Hepburn); wandering round the spice and clothing markets; and buying a couple of dresses so I no longer have to look quite so traveller-like when going out in the evening; I headed to the train station to board the Iron Snake back to Nairobi. The guidebooks say that people are very split on the experience so I thought I'd find out which side I would land on. Do it, I say! It's a great experience and a damn sight more comfortable than the bus - OK, I did travel First Class (for the first time ever) but it's really not that expensive (less than 25 pounds). The 1st Class compartments just hold two and there was no one else booked into mine so I had plenty of room. The food is pretty basic and the toilets even more so but dining in the restaurant car on white linen tablecloths and watching the Kenyan world go by hanging out of the window at 6am make it all worthwhile. I experience a childish delight in the fact that my rucksack even falls out of the cupboard like a dead body when I open the door!
At dinner I was placed opposite the two most grumpy tourists I've encountered so far, as opposed to the friendly British couple that I'd met in the corridor. Ah well, this is where the adventure began; for I was never alone on this 14 and a half hour journey as Basil Rathbone, Michael Redgrave Margaret Lochwood, Miss Froy and David Suchet were all with me. Basil was clinging onto the outside of the train as I looked out of the window as it rattled along. Michael was sitting on a basket in the luggage van playing a whistle. Margaret was desperately trying to convince people she wasn't crazy. Miss Froy was asking for Harriman's Herbal Tea and David Suchet was of course looking ever suave and solving the mystery. Well, except on this journey when Ailsa Black stepped up to the plate. (Apologies to a lot of people who won't get the references but Catriona and Dad will.)
It is fitting I think that the story (which is really just a collection of character descriptions and a little bit of action) should start with the miserable Flemish couple opposite me ...
A middle-aged Flemish couple who never smile, in fact are always grim-faced, keep themselves to themselves and speak in hushed voices. He has a slight twitch in his right cheek from the corner of the mouth to the eye. They act like they don't speak or understand English, to avoid any awkward questions, but they can really. This makes the look very suspect. They're on the run from a large Arab man called Ozi, from whom they borrowed a lot of money in Mombasa to complete a diamond deal. However, they got duped by an American and ended up with no diamonds and no money to repay Ozi, and when Ozi gets angry you don't want to be around.
Across the aisle we have a happy Chinese family, which of course means they're not. The mother seems pre-occupied somehow. They have two daughters in their 20s, the youngest of whom was conceived by a different father. The mother had an affair with the husband's brother but has always managed to pass off the daughter as the husband's. They are an important family in the Chinese community, high up somehow, and someone has managed to find out her secret and is black mailing her. They are on the train and she meets them at various points on the journey, in the corridor or down by the Guards' wagon, to try and negotiate. This means she doesn't want to say where she was to Miss Black or the police. She tells her husband she's not feeling well, something she ate at dinner on the train, and that she is going to the bathroom. But someone else sees her and knows this isn't true. She persuades her husband to tell the police that she was in the compartment in order not to be suspected, as no one would be able to confirm that she was at the lavatory. This means of course that he is suspected too as he is lying.
In the booth behind me there is a young Chinese couple who are broke and it is they who are blackmailing the Chinese mother. It's been going on for a couple of months and she's been paying, but they started wanting more and more often so she refused and immediately suggested to her family that they take a holiday, not quite knowing what to do next. They originally needed the money simply because they were broke, but now they have a taste for it. There is an awkward moment in the restaurant car when they stop by the family's table, ostensibly just to say 'hello' as fellow Chinese 'tourists', but really of course they are putting pressure on the mother.
Opposite them are a young Kenyan Muslim couple with a new baby. They eloped together a few years ago to escape arranged marriages and so like to keep a low profile, often giving false names.
... Agh! And now I really have to leave as I'll feel bad tipping up to the house too late. Ha, ha! So you'll just have to wait to find out who dies and who did it! Not that any of you are probably that interested, well except Catriona, I hope?!
SO, as I am sat in Addis Ababa airport killing 5 hours connection time (groan) the story can continue (please note that artistic licence has been used historically - I think I may have been affected by reading "Weep Not, Child" by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o!) ...
Sitting alone further down the restaurant car is a tall, well-built Kenyan business man in his 30s. He is a self-made man who was the first of his family to go to school. Traditionally his family are farmers but they have not had a plot of land to call their own for years. Recently he has been making discreet enquiries to try and discover the whereabouts of the white family who stole his ancestral land from his grandfather, forcing him and his family into servitude. They were not treated well either, receiving beatings and humiliations at the hands of their masters. Now he has discovered the truth and plans to try and seek some reparation, somehow. He has heard that the new generation of the family are kind and hopes that he will be able to appeal to their better nature. The land is still owned by the Wazungu but their descendants do not live on and work the land, so he has had to try and trace them. He was provoked into action by his Dad becoming very sick. If he was just able to tell his father before he dies that at least some of the land is their's once again, he believes his father could die in peace. He doesn't really have a clue how he is going to broach the subject or what they will say and so he sits thinking for a long time in the restaurant car, having a couple of whiskies for dutch courage.
And last but not least we have a British Kenyan brother and sister in their 30s, the Mzungu descendants mentioned above.
Our murderer doesnīt intend to be a murderer, at least not at first. As evening begins to descend into night, he finally approaches the compartment. The door is shut and on knocking he receives no answer. Knowing that he cannot go through the last few hours of plucking up the courage again, he slides open the door. As we have learnt, he is a tall, well-built man and his presence, filling the doorway, stirs a nervous fear in the sister, who is alone in the compartment. Stepping forward slightly, extending his hand in greeting and beginning to utter a polite word of apology for the intrusion, he causes alarm in the sister who misreads the signals and begins to back away, telling him to leave. No matter how much he tries to explain or placate she is not listening and, her fear quickly escalating, becomes hysterical. Afraid that her screams will be heard and that on discovery she will call rape, he hastily grabs a pillow from the seat and holds it over her mouth, intending only to quieten her. When she is still and quiet, he removes the pillow only to discover that she is dead. In a complete panic he makes to leave the compartment but hears footsteps in the corridor. Not wishing to be seen and fearing that it may be the brother returning, he looks around wildly for anything that he could use as a weapon if necessary, the only thing being a metal nail file lying next to the sister on the seat. He presses himself against the wall of the adjoining compartment next to the wardrobe, praying that the footsteps will pass. They do not. Instead, they stop, in the doorway. The brother has returned and is confronted with the image of the lifeless body of his sister sprawled on the seat. Frozen, just inside the doorway, he blocks our manīs means of escape; they are so close he cannot believe the brother can't hear him breathing and is certain he will be discovered at any moment. Feeling he has no choice, he grabs the brother from behind, plunging the sharp metal into his neck; frantically, frenetically, over and over until his body collapses on the floor of the compartment.
... That's all I got folks I'm afraid. It ain't Shakespeare and that last paragraph was written without my draft, which is in my Africa notebook in London, but there you go!
Comments
I love this, you've made me grin my socks off! But I wonder how they would have described you ... "With a twinkle in her eye and a quirk to her lips, the Audrey haired Mzungo was surely plotting some devilish mischief!" xx