Windfall

Stafford saw a man looking towards him. The man nodded curtly and then addressed himself to his plate. Stafford opened the folded paper and read, 'I would appreciate a moment of your time when you finish dinner.' There was an indecipherable scribble of a signature below.

He looked across the room again and nodded, then passed the note to Hardin. 'Do you know him?'

Hardin paused in the middle of ordering from the menu. 'A stranger to me.' He finished ordering, then said, 'Mike Pasternak phoned half an hour ago. He'd like to meet you. Is four o'clock tomorrow okay?'

'I should think so.'

'He'll meet you here by the swimming pool. Maybe he'll be able to tell you who Chip really is.'

'Perhaps.' Stafford was lost in thought trying to fit together a jigsaw, taking a piece at a time and seeing if it made up a pattern. It was true he had nothing against Dirk beyond an instinctive dislike of the man but suppose… Suppose that Dirk's meeting with Gunnarsson at the Embassy had not been by chance, that they already knew each other. Gunnarsson had been established as a crook so what did that make Dirk? And then there was Brice at Ol Njorowa who had unaccountably lost tens of millions of pounds. If Dirk talked to Brice and found that Stafford had been at Ol Njorowa and Keekorok then he would undoubtedly smell a rat.

Stafford shook his head irritably. All this was moonshine -sheer supposition. He said, 'What else did Dirk do today?'

'He went out to Ol Njorowa, stayed for lunch, then came back to Nairobi where he went to the police and then on to the American Embassy.'

'Where he met Gunnarsson. Did he see anyone at the Embassy?'

'No,' said Hardin. 'He went with Gunnarsson to the Thorn Tree.'

'Could have been pre-arranged,' said Curtis.

'You're a man of few words, Sergeant,' said Stafford, 'but they make sense.'

'But why meet at the Embassy?' persisted Hardin. 'They're both staying at the New Stanley – why not there?'

'I don't know,' said Stafford, tired of beating his brains out. He finished his coffee and nodded towards the corner table. 'I'd better see what that chap wants.'

He walked across the dining room and the man looked up as he approached. 'Abercrombie-Smith,' he said. 'You're Stafford.'

He was a small compact man in his early fifties with a tanned square face and a neatly trimmed moustache. There was a faint and indefinable military air about him which could have been because of the erect way he held himself. He slid a business card from under his napkin and gave it to Stafford. His full name was Anthony Abercrombie-Smith and his card stated that he was from the British High Commission, Bruce House, Standard Street, Nairobi. It did not state what he did there.

'I've been wanting to meet you," he said. 'We've been expecting you at the office.'

Stafford said, 'It never occurred to me.'

'Humph! All the same you should have come. Never mind; we'll make it the occasion for a lunch. There's no point in having the formality of an office meeting. What about tomorrow?'

Stafford inclined his head. 'That -will be all right.'

'Good. We'll lunch at the Muthaiga Club. I'll pick you up here at midday.' He turned back to his plate and Stafford assumed that the audience was over so he left.

Stafford was ready when Abercrombie-Smith arrived on the dot of midday to pick him up. Hardin and Curtis had taken a Nissan and gone off to the Nairobi Game Park situated so conveniently nearby.

Abercrombie-Smith drove north through a part of Nairobi Stafford had not seen and made bland conversation about the sights to be seen, the Indian temples and the thriving open markets. Presently they came to a suburb which was redolent of wealth. The houses were large – what little could be seen of them because they were set back far from the road and discreetly screened by hedges and trees. Stafford noted that many had guards on the gates which interested him professionally.

'This is Muthaiga,' said Abercrombie-Smith. 'A rather select part of Nairobi. Most of the foreign embassies are here. My master, the High Commissioner, has his home quite close.' They turned a corner, then off the road through a gateway. A Kenyan at the gate gave a semi-salute. 'And this is the Muthaiga Club.'

Inside, the rooms were cool and airy. The walls were decked with animal trophies; kongoni, gazelle, impala, leopard. They went into the lounge and sat in comfortable club chairs. 'And now, dear boy,' said Abercrombie-Smith, 'what will it be?'

Stafford asked for a gin and tonic so he ordered two. 'This is one of the oldest clubs in Kenya,' he said. 'And one of the most exclusive.' He looked at the two Sikhs across the room who were engrossed in a discussion over papers spread on a table. 'Although not as exclusive as it once was,' he observed. 'In my day one never discussed business in one's club.'