Bayo groaned, clutching his stomach. Suad screamed. This was the final moment. The life was ebbing fast from him. The warmth glowed upwards but down below all feeling drained and faces of evil menace, void and empty, ricocheted with the night in a kaleidoscope of grimaces. Death had ceased to be a stranger. Suad clung to him, and lifeless and tangled together both of them crashed to earth.
The gun dropped with a clatter. Zamil’s eyes had become clear as drinking water. His madness had vanished with the slaughter of the two lovers who were too happy to know or care.
•
Sango had seen and heard the shooting. Desperately he hoped that no great harm had been done. He clutched his stomach, resolutely trying not to be sick, but up it came. He could not help it. There was a tap near by, and when he had soaked his head and rinsed his mouth Sango felt a little better. When he got up he went to the public telephone and made a call to the police.
The speed with which their van arrived surprised him. Yet Zamil was nowhere to be seen. His car had vanished from the garage. The Inspector waited patiently, convinced by the bloodstains in the cotton bush and the deep marks on the floor where the bodies had apparently been dragged that there had been a killing here.
‘Is it not the same Zamil of the counterfeit case? The one who was apprehended near Magamu Bush some time ago.’ The inspector was surveying the garden, flashing his torch-beam on every blade of grass. ‘We’ve had our eyes on him for some time. He hasn’t escaped us this time. We’ll get him!’
On Clifford Street West the loco workers who had a morning shift at 6.30 had begun to assemble. By dawn 163B Clifford Street West was the focus of the city’s speculations. A love crime! Still Zamil did not show up. Even the steward had vanished.
By 10 a.m. a call came through. It was from the Emergency Ward of the General Hospital, and the inspector recognized the voice as belonging to one of his colleagues. A man had just been admitted with severe head injuries. It was suspected that he had tried to take his own life by shooting himself. He had been found about five miles away at Elizabeth Beach, lying unconscious in his own car. The fisherman who saw him had taken him by canoe across the lagoon to the General Hospital.
‘Describe him!’ said the inspector, drawing Sango near the receiver so that he too might hear.
The description tallied with what Zamil would look like with severe head inquiries. But the inspector would not take the hospital’s word for it.
‘I’ll be right over,’ the inspector said.
And Sango went with him. This will be my greatest story, he thought, as they got into the police van.
•
‘I’m sorry to have to take so drastic a step, Sango,’ said McMaster. He was being very much the editorial adviser, Sango’s boss sitting in the editorial chair in the offices of the West African Sensation. He was not the friend that Sango had worked with for two years. ‘You understand how it is – a matter of policy. The Sensation does not stand for playing one section of the community against the other. Personally I have nothing against you or your writing in this tragic affair. . . . But I do not own the Sensation —’
Sango fingered the letter of dismissal. He was not really listening to McMaster. He was thinking in confused circles: Beatrice the Second, First Trumpet, Lajide, Twenty Molomo; and back to that terrible midnight, small-hours shooting. His rage and disgust; his oath of vengeance. It had now worked in reverse. He had been fired.
‘Amusa, less than a week ago, I thought we were all set for something really big: something you deserved. I’d always wanted you to take over the editorship when the need arose; with your drive, your fluent style of writing, your initiative —’
‘Must we go over it all again? You’ve paid me off, you’ve given me a decent testimonial —’
‘Personally I have nothing against you, Sango. Look, I don’t often go into details in matters of this kind. But I feel I owe you an explanation for purely personal reasons. You’re a good journalist – perhaps the most original in the city. All your writing invariably presents a fresh viewpoint. But in your handling of the Zamil murder case, you seemed to overreach yourself. You made an issue of it, and not a very satisfying one at that. Bayo fell in love with Suad Zamil. Right! The brother, Muhamad Zamil, objected, wanted to fly the girl out of the country. Bayo decides to elope with the girl. Zamil, drunk, shoots Bayo, wounds the girl who later dies in hospital. Zamil runs away, and is later found lying on the beach with bullet wounds in his head. That’s your story-line . . .’
Sango smiled. ‘As far as you were concerned, that was my story-line. But don’t forget, Bayo was my personal friend. And I was present when Zamil shot and killed him, and the girl he loved. The least I could do —’
‘Was to fight him in the Press?’ McMaster flicked away an ash.
‘Naturally.’
‘I see . . . Now it’s a little clearer why you let yourself go to the extent you did. I’m not sure it was the best way you could have won public sympathy. But I know how it feels to have your best friend killed right before your eyes. It happened to me in France during World War One. Well, you’ve won your fight. Zamil will die of his wounds; or if not, he’ll be hanged. But your reports were most embarrassing. The Board of Governors employed all tact and influence to avoid legal action. As you know we have never been popular either with the Daily Challenge or the Daily Prospect who regard us disdainfully as the voice of the British Government. A fine mess we’re getting into!’
There was little more to be said. As Sango walked down the steps, he heard Layeni saying loudly to the others: ‘Yes! . . . These rude college boys! They have no respect for their seniors! Imagine writing things like that for all to read! I’ve been with the West African Sensation fifteen years yet I wouldn’t dare . . .’
Sango stepped quickly into the street, tearing himself from the people and the place to which he had become attached. On the lagoon a fisherman was taking advantage of a break in the rains to dry his nets. Beatrice the Second! He had begun to plan how they would both benefit from his new promotion; and now . . .
13
Sango was sitting under his favourite coconut palm by the lagoon looking at the ships and cargo vessels. It was a busy afternoon. Down the road came lorries from the hinterland, loaded with produce to be stacked in the adjoining ware-houses. It was the usual afternoon scene on this part of the lagoon and Sango caught himself dozing in the still, oppressive air. Looking up for a brief moment he saw a lorry careering down the road. Something about this particular lorry caught his attention.
It could be the sign, painted in yellow letters on a black background: TRAVEL TO GOLD COAST OVERLAND. Or the numerous flags which fluttered from all parts of the lorry. But the real fact was that it was completely out of tune with its surroundings.
‘Amusa! Amusa Sango!’ came the sharp cry of a female voice, and at that moment the lorry pulled to one side.
Sango could see no one. From the lorry, a short and stocky man came down, followed by a girl whom Sango immediately recognized as Beatrice the First.
‘She recognized you first,’ said the stocky man.