Read Online Ahmed's Revenge by Richard Wiley - Free Book Online

picking papers up off the floor. “Are there no people living near here?” he asked. “Surely someone should have seen to the maintenance of this place.”
    I didn’t know whether or not people lived nearby, but the detective’s energy instantly infected my father, who started cleaning up too, snatching food wrappers from the far side of the room.
    â€œI’ll bet there are still coffee bags in the back of the Land Rover, Nora,” he said. “Run out and get a couple. This man is correct. Leaving this place filthy would be a crime!”
    My first impulse was to argue again, to flat-out refuse to go, but I knew the act of arguing would take longer than just getting the bags and helping them clean up the floor. Once outside, however, I could see the Rift Valley in the afternoon sun, with the road leading into it, cutting its vast flatness in half. The day’s quota of lorries seemed to have passed by, so it was quiet out there. A black-and-white colobus monkey, rare in these parts, played in the eucalyptus tree, but otherwise I was alone.
    In the back of the Land Rover I found burlap bags all right, old ones with Jules’s original slogan on their sides. These bags were made in England and had been a gift from my father several years before, at Christmas, I think, 1969.
    Because the church was tiny, it was pretty clean by the time I went back inside. The debris was in a neat pile by the door, so my father took a burlap bag and began stuffing it full, sweets wrappers and bits of rotten food and empty booze bottles disappearing from the floor.
    While my father worked I decided to ask the detective once again why he had come, but when I looked at him a different question came to mind.
    â€œAre you a believer, Detective Mubia?” I asked. “Are you a religious man?”
    It was an unnecessary question, even a stupid one, given what he’d just made us do, but if he was surprised by it he didn’t let it show. He just took a long second to straighten his suit and stand a little formally before he replied.
    â€œIt is better to believe and know you are mistaken than to disbelieve and know you are correct,” he said.
    The detective looked pleased, though I didn’t know whether it was with the job they’d done on the floor of the church or the comment he’d made. My father was standing at the top of the wooden ladder with his head in the belfry, but he came back down when I said we had to go.
    It was then that I asked my original question one more time. “Why are you here, Detective? Why did you follow us all the way out from town?”
    â€œIt is embarrassing to say that I have invited myself along,” he said, “but it has become clear that I must see how things stand on your farm, and if I wait any longer, things will stand differently than they do now.”
    My father had picked up the burlap bags, twisting their tops in his hands. “This is a family matter,” he said. “We don’t want the police involved.”
    I believed Detective Mubia would have turned around and driven back to town had I asked him to, but I held my tongue.
    I liked the man and I trusted him, and I knew as well as he did that there really was something to be solved. Once Jules’s funeral was over and I had endless amounts of time on my hands, I might even tell him about that night in Nairobi on Loita Street, after the French Cultural Centre film. Would it help his investigation for him to know about those torn-out tusks, ripped away like Jules’s arm? Would it help me survive the weeks ahead if I told him?
    Once outside the church again the detective got into his Toyota and sped on down the road. He turned toward Narok and was quickly out of sight.
    And when my father asked me to let him drive the Land Rover I surprised us both by handing him the keys. We had hours to go yet before we’d reach the farm and had already taken far too long, but this