‘You get those?’ asked Bastian.
They were a delicacy and rarer than black socks on a commissar.
‘Nabulus drops a rack off now and again,’ she replied.
‘A shame what happened to your mother,’ said Joshua.
‘A blessing in disguise,’ said May.
‘But you must be frightened for your safety, my dear,’ said Agrinda, ‘with the village still on edge after this unsavoury medicine business.’
‘It’s a good job you’re dating the village policeman,’ said Joshua.
His own marriage had been arranged by Nabulus who knew there were few men who could cope with Agrinda’s temper.
‘But I never knew my mother’s customers,’ said May, or rather she didn’t know them all.
She poured herself a glass of rum punch and took a hefty swig.
‘Then let’s hope they know that,’ said Joshua. ‘Of course, we would never arrest them all, isn’t that right, Bastian.’
‘Just one or two examples,’ he replied.
‘Indeed. We can’t afford to create more prisoners than citizens.’
‘Let’s go into the lounge and listen to Joshua play the banjo,’ said Agrinda.
‘And dance,’ said Joshua, before blowing a large cloud of smoke from his cannabis spliff into the air.
Chapter Thirty-Two
‘Dismount,’ said Bastian to Jambit. ‘This is as far as we ride.’
They tied their camels’ halters to a tree with a bowline knot on the very edge of the jungle and patted their nervous heads before leaving them to the night. A reddish moon guided their path towards the tall electrified fence powered by solar panels from the roof of the University. Sparks flew off and danced before them like fireflies before fizzling away into the warm air.
They lay on the ground as a golf buggy approached and waited until its electric engine faded into silence before moving on.
The earth was softer than expected but kept slipping back to fill the hole being dug.
‘It’s useless,’ said Jambit throwing his shovel to the ground.
Another wild goose chase, last year it was the fur trappers that got away, then the stolen turtle eggs served at a restaurant that closed before any arrests were made.
‘I guess that’s it,’ he said, having narrowly avoided the handle of the shovel as it bounced back up towards him.
‘On the contrary,’ said Bastian smiling. ‘I have a much better idea.’
* * *
‘I’ve come to see Klara Johnson,’ said Jambit into the intercom at the University gates.
‘The University is closed,’ came the monotone reply.
‘It’s a personal visit.’
‘And it’s nearly midnight.’
‘She said I could call at any time.’
‘Name?’
‘Jambit.’
There was a long pause before the gate finally opened. Jambit walked through dusting down his shirt with one hand and holding a bunch of wild orchids in the other. Bastian crawled in behind him with his sandal kicked off by the closing gate. He reached back through the bars to retrieve it.
Lanterns of many different colours hung from palm trees and lit their way on the path. They could see two burning barrels of tar ahead either side of the University entrance.
Klara was waiting at the doors fixing her wig in place.
‘Better late than never,’ she said. ‘I don’t get many refusals.’
She took the wild orchids from Jambit’s hand.
‘I don’t have any protein snacks in my rooms,’ she said.
‘I’m not looking for that kind of treat,’ he replied.
And he’d had worse assignments.
‘Do you smoke opium?’ she asked.
‘I’m trying to kick the habit.’
‘Then I hope you don’t mind if I do. I’ll leave a window open.’
And so would Jambit when the opportunity arose, but for now Klara had her hands all over him and she wasn’t letting go.
It was two hours before Jambit could escape Klara’s clutches and Bastian’s nerves were frayed. The wave from the downstairs window beckoned him forth.
‘What kept you?’ he asked.
‘She’s a very demanding woman,’ Jambit replied.
‘And now?’ asked Bastian, climbing through the open window.
‘Intoxicated.’
‘Did you search her rooms?’
‘Of course, and her diary.’
‘Anything?’
‘Only a new lock for the ice cellar.’
‘Why lock it?’
‘I knew you’d say that, here’s the key.’
They crept along the marble floored corridors with the mounted heads of jungle animals on the walls looking down at them from high. Every so often there was a sign pointing to a lecture room, the library, cafeteria, kitchens or dorms, but not the ice-cellar.
‘Let’s try the kitchens,’ said Bastian.
Behind the steel rack full of paper-wrapped dried meats with monkey tails still attached was a locked oak door. They wheeled the rack closer to the sinks and Bastian turned the key. A draft of cold air greeted them before the two frozen bodies inside grabbed their attention.
‘I believe you already know the old guy,’ said a voice from behind.
‘And the girl must be Nora,’ said Bastian, turning around to face Nabulus and his pistol.
His bodyguard relieved Bastian of his weapon. He was like an ox with biceps thick as elephant tusks. Regular citizens were forbidden from weightlifting and bodybuilding diets.
‘Breaking and entering, hardly something you’d expect of the police,’ said Nabulus.
‘I was investigating FA892,’ said Bastian.
‘The case I ordered you to close?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Then subversion it is.’
‘And these two dead bodies in the University ice-cellar, don’t you find it just a little strange?’
‘Not at all,’ said Klara joining them in her black negligee. ‘They’re patiently awaiting my next anatomy class.’
‘The old man was alive last month,’ said Bastian.
‘Heart attack,’ she replied.
Bastian sighed, there was no point arguing.
‘Jambit was just following orders,’ he said, as they were led to the cart waiting outside with Holroyd behind the reins.
‘He’s still going on the chain-gang. You should be glad of the company, I hear they hate policemen.’
Nabulus and the guard sat either side of Bastian and Jambit as the horses trotted elegantly if not speedily back to the village, with Holroyd hesitant to use the whip. He hated cruelty to animals.
‘This isn’t the way to the village,’ said Nabulus as they headed off-road and into the jungle.
‘A detour,’ explained Holroyd, ‘to save time,’ but no one read the road-sign in the gloom, for if they had they might have considered another route. It almost read ‘STOP Danger,’ but this time the graffiti artist had not added
