out of the yard.
With a green mainline loco pulling them, it set off for Mozambique and the port of Beira five hundred miles away on the seaboard of the Indian Ocean.
There was nothing he could do to stop it happening. Wild fantasies flashed through his mind, of trying to hijack the loco, of rushing down to police headquarters and demanding that they take immediate action before it was too late and the train crossed the border. Instead, he drove back to his original vantage point beside the open-air market and resumed his vigil through the binoculars.
He felt tired and dispirited, and remembered that he had not slept at all the previous night. His arm was stiff and sore. He unwrapped the bandage and was relieved to see that there were no further obvious signs of infection. On the contrary the rips in his forearm were beginning to scab over as well as he could have hoped for. He replaced the bandage.
While he watched the warehouse, he tried to work out some means of stopping the ivory shipment, but he knew that his hands were tied. In the end it all came down to the death of Chawe. Chetti Singh had only to point at him, and he stood accused of murder. He dared not draw official attention to himself.
While he waited and watched, he thought about Johnny Nzou and Mavis and their children, mourning them and nursing his hatred for their murderers.
Almost two hours after the goods train had left, he noticed sudden activity around the warehouse. Chetti Singh's green Cadillac drew up at the main gates, followed by two greypainted police Landrovers, each filled with uniformed constables. There was a short discussion with the guards at the gates, then the three vehicles drove into the property and parked beside the open warehouse doors. Eleven police constables led by an officer climbed out of the Landrovers. The officer spoke briefly to Chetti Singh beside the Cadillac. Through the binoculars Daniel saw that the Sikh appeared dapper and unconcerned;
his turban was crisp and white above his darkly handsome face.
The police officer led his men into the warehouse, only to emerge again an hour later, strolling along at Chetti Singh's side. The officer was gesticulating and talking persuasively, very obviously apologising to Chetti Singh, who smiled and waved away his protestations and finally shook his hand magnanimously.
The contingent of police constables reboarded their Landrovers and drove away. Standing beside the green Cadillac, Chetti Singh watched them go, and it seemed to Daniel through the binocular lens that he was no longer smiling. Bastard! Daniel whispered. You haven't got away with it yet.
He finally got control of his anger and started to think rationally once again.
Could he stop the shipment before it left the country? he wondered.
And almost immediately he abandoned the idea. He knew that the goods train was on a non-stop run and would reach the border within hours.
What about intercepting it at the port of Beira, before it was loaded on a tramp steamer bound for the Far East? This was a better bet, but-still long odds. From what little he had learned about Chetti Singh so far, it was clear that he had a network of influence and bribery that extended over many countries in central Africa, certainly over Zimbabwe and Zambia, and why not over Mozambique, one of the most corrupt and chaotic states on the continent?
He was certain that a great deal of contraband passed through that warehouse over there, and Chetti Singh would have secured his pipeline to the outside world. As Malawi was a land-locked state, that pipeline must include the port captain and the Mozarnbiquan army, police force and customs service.
They would be paid off by Chetti Singh and would protect him.
Still, he decided, it was worth a try.
Daniel drove down to the main post office in the town centre. It was highly unlikely that the Malawi Police had the sophisticated equipment to trace a telephone call swiftly, but once again, he took the precaution of making his message short and of muffling his voice with a handkerchief and speaking in Swahili. Tell Inspector Mopola that the stolen ivory was shipped out of the warehouse at eleven thirty-five a.
m.
by goods train to Beira. It is hidden in a shipment of tea-chests consigned to Lucky Dragon Investment Company in Taipei. Before the operator on the police exchange could ask for his name he cradled the receiver, and crossed to a small general dealer's store on the opposite side of the street. If the police weren't going to do anything, it was all up to him.
He purchased a packet of safety-matches, a roll of Sellotape, a box of mosquito coils and two kilos of frozen minced meat, then drove back to the Capital Hotel.
As soon as he entered his hotel room he was aware that somebody had searched it. When he opened his canvas valise he saw that the contents had been disarranged. Nothing for Chetti Singh there, he muttered with grim satisfaction. He had deposited his passport and traveller's cheques in the hotel safe at the cashier's desk downstairs, but the search of his possessions confirmed his estimate of Chetti Singh. He's not only a tough bastard, but a cunning one. He's organised and he hasn't missed a trick so far. Let's see if we can spoil his record, but first I need some shut-eye. He changed the dressing on his arm, and gave himself another shot of antibiotic and then fell on the bed.
He slept until dinner-time, then showered and changed. He felt refreshed and more cheerful. His arm was less painful and the stiffness had eased. It seemed that his mind had been busy even while he slept, for the details of his plan were clear as he sat down at the writing-desk and laid his small purchases out in front of him. He lit one end of a mosquito coil and left it smouldering as he worked, timing the rate at which it burned.
Using his clasp-knife he snipped the heads off the safetymatches. He used up the entire package of matches and discarded the decapitated sticks in the waste-paper bin. He stuffed the match heads back into the paper wrapping, and taped it all up.
It made a neat package the size of his fist, a very functional little incendiary bomb. He checked the burning rate of the mosquito coil. It was approximately two inches per half hour.
The acrid insecticidal smoke made him sneeze, so he took the coil to the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet.
He returned to the desk and cut two fresh coils five inches long, to give a delay of a little over one hour. They were the time-fuses of his makeshift bomb, one as a back-up should the other fail. He pierced the paper packet of match heads, inserted the ends of the coils in the punctures and taped them carefully in place.
Then he went downstairs and stood himself a good dinner and half a bottle of Chardonnay.
