The Fugitive’s Love

 

 

P. G. GATUNA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Golden Publishers

 

 

 

 

Reviews

 

 

 

 

 

All books in The Fugitive Series:

 

Becoming the Fugitive

 

The Fugitive Cleans House

 

The Fugitive’s Love

 

The Fugitive’s Guardian Angel

 

Published by

Golden Publishers

goldenpublishers@gmail.com

+254 725 502 284

Lanet, Nakuru

 

 

 

© Peter Gatuna 2018

 

Copyright

This novel is the intellectual property of the writer and is protected by the Kenya Copyright Act of 2014. No reproduction or distribution of the novel or any part of the novel shall be done in any manner without the explicit written permission of the writer.

 

First Published 2018

 

ISBN: 9781370392971

 

 

Printed by

Peggit Designs,

5 Kiongo Hse,

Kenyatta Avenue, Nakuru.

 

 

 

 

Dedication

This novella is dedicated to all those people out there who have the audacity to pursue their dreams.

 

I also dedicate The Fugitive’s Love to my family, for their silent but unfaltering support.

 

I also wish to acknowledge Martin, my unofficial editor and my best friend. A special dedication goes to Mwana and Sly; two wonderful ladies that I have done wrong. I miss ‘Just the Four of Us’. 

 

 

 

 

 

Prologue: Disjointed flashbacks

The bush party is alive. The music is on point. All the steaks are roasting by the fire pit, the grill manned by my good guy John. Single boys are stalking around, hunting for single girls. Couples hang around smooching and dancing.

I am one half of a couple. The distracted half of a couple, I might add. My eyes keep stealing glances at this beauty that lounges off to the side. Sorry, but am afraid am afflicted with the wandering eye.

Josephine, my girlfriend, follows my gaze and spots the object of my errant desire. “She’s hot.” she observes. I make a noncommittal gesture and steer her away. Only problem is, I look back fleetingly. The girl smiles invitingly at me. I lose my footing and almost take Josephine down with me.

“Go on and say hi and stop acting like a stalker.” Josephine shoves me towards the new girl. I hesitate, unsure. I had promised to stick around all weekend, but the good thing with being in an open relationship is that I get to do what I want.

The new girl introduces herself as Joanna, “with an a”. Joanna turns out to be very interesting company. She knows all about hatches, cross-hatches, Easy-Frame frames, and pretty much everything about painting. I like girls who know all about art. As well I should. I am an artist.

Joanna is also very interested in me. She knows all about me from the tabloids but thankfully she doesn’t ask any awkward question. We end up spending the weekend together, doing things to each other that we enjoy immensely. I am seriously considering proposing that we make arrangements to continue doing them after this weekend.

Somehow I don’t think Josephine would like that very much. Speaking of whom, I have seen very little of her all weekend. She is probably mad at me.Then again, when has Josephine ever not been mad at me?

The weekend ends dramatically when my car crashes into a stationery bus on the way back to the city. Joanna had been acting weird on the way home. In fact, the pranks she had been pulling before the accident had made me very angry. I don’t think I want to continue seeing her after all.     

I am arrested by two police detectives while recovering in hospital. I am accused of several counts of rape, unsolicited administration of an illegal substance, possession of an illegal substance, driving under the influence, public endangerment. You name it, and James Lavin has been booked for it.

My lawyer looks grim as we leave the courtroom two days later. “I don’t like this.” He mutters under his breathe. “I don’t like this at all.”

In my cell, he looks at me square in the eye. “They are going to hang you, young man.” His voice contains such conviction I am surprised a grab team doesn’t burst into the room and drag me off to the hangman’s.

I will be twenty two in three weeks. I am too young to die, but I will be damned if I let ‘them’ kill me. Just how sharp are these claws of mine? Can they tear through my own skin and reach something vital?

I find out and ‘they’ find out. ‘They’ don’t like being denied what is rightfully theirs. I am to stay alive until they give me permission to stay otherwise. Then they will give me a shove down the deep hole I imagine is death. Another hospital stay suffices.

This masked one though. Why don’t they remove that ugly thing and smile or glower at me? Everyone does either of the two.

Personally, I enjoy thescowls more. This one looks like they might have a really venomous one. The way she is driving this fat needle into my body… wait why do I feel funny? Is she singing to me? Wait, where is she taking me?

 

 

 

 

(five years later)

Chapter 1: Enter the Fugitive

Murindati is a small village town nestled against two hills in the Nyandarua Ranges. One of the two hills is smaller than the other, so that when you climb Murindati hill, the larger one, you can see rolling hills stretching into the horizon. The view reminds me of a sleeping herd of sheep. Murindati hill, the highest and steepest range around, also demarcates the natural boundary of the village and presents an imposing presence when observed up close.

At the edge of the village, River Morendat gurgles soothingly as her waters flow towards Lake Kirie a few kilometers away. On both side of the river stand tall indigenous trees that creak as they sway and dance to the rhythm of the wind.

My heart constricts with sweet longing as the taxi leaves the main road and starts towards Murindati town. After fifteen years, I am going back home where I was born and where my heart has always been. The fact that I am in disguise does not matter. I will walk the paths, climb the hills, and breathe the air of my childhood. And maybe, just maybe, I might see her too.

The car bounces gently as the driver maintains the speed limit of 35kmph on the murram road. With barely contained excitement, I watch the tree-lined roadside speed by, loving every pedestrian we pass, every fat cow grazing in the fields, every gate to another homestead full of clucking hens, mooing cows, and fussing mothers. And the cocoon of trees around the compound… there is always the cocoon of trees around the houses.

I am glad to notice that the taxi driver has the same awe-inspired look on his face, and I make a mental note to tip him heftily later. “This is one hell of a beeautiful country mate,” the word beautiful is extended to sound like two awed words.

I smile indulgently at him. “It’s home sweet home man.”

He leans across his seat to look at a herd of grade heifers through my side of the front windows. “How is it that the lands are so big? A place like this should be teeming with people! Look at that maize-stalk man!”

After fifteen years, I am glad tosee that nothing has changed. While the rest of the country has been going through a period of unprecedented development, the most significant change here is the occasional construction site as a farmer modernizes their homestead; a storage shed here, a silage silo there. The land looks the same as I had left it.

Some people call it stagnation. I called it maturity. The landowners here say call it whatever you want, we still won’t sell you our land. My father had hated the conservatism. He was of the opinion that development should not be hindered by silly little beliefs of old guard. I loved the idea of having my own piece of nirvana to come back to.

“We used to live down that driveway when I was ten.” I point, craning my neck to get a better look. The trees are taller, leafier, and greater. Their branches are sure to span over the whole driveway now.

I am overcome by another bout of sentimentality, remembering all the good times I had had in the grounds beyond that driveway. The fields were always green. The trees were great and gnarled with long stout braches. My friends and I had climbed the high ones, moving from tree to tree like ninjas, and swung on the low-lying ones. Ah, good times, I tell you.

My mother had enjoyed her reading near the stream that gurgled softly at the bottom of the property. I had painted my first landscape down there too.

“That should give you a great view, take a few moments.” The driver’s words cut into my reverie.

He has stopped the car at the top of a hill overlooking the property. I give him a grateful look and clamber out of the car. Climbing the high berm of the curved road, I cast my eyes on my first bird-eye view of my childhood home. It is just as I remember it.

Fifteen years ago I was an innocent boy whose only concern was having fun. Not too different from the young man I had been five years ago. I am now the kind of man that looks constantly looks behind his shoulder, watches his tongue, and suspects everyone. It is no good, this gazelle-in-the-wilderness lifestyle. The self-pity attacks in waves, threatening to overpower me. The desperate longing for what had been but would never again be fills my eyes with tears. I had better leave before I break down.

As I turn away, I catch the first puff of smoke from the red-tipped chimney. It is time for the midday meal. I wonder if a young boy has spotted it too and gone racing up the hill like I used to. For his sake, I hope he doesn’t bother his mother with questions like; ‘is it cooked yet?’ three minutes after she had covered the food. My mother used to whack me upside the head and banish me from the kitchen when I did.

I am smiling with that memory when the car starts with a lurch and proceeds towards town. Another bout of excitement stirs in my chest.

“True son of the soil you are, aren’t you?” the driver smiles at me.

He has obviously been watching my powerful reaction to every inch of country we have passed. My mother had never understood my fondness for this place either. We had bickered often about my wish to move back here, her not understanding and me stubbornly adamant. As such, I perfectly understand the slightly disparaging undertones in his voice. I smile and lean back. There will be time enough to take in the sights in privacy.

The car rounds the last bend and picks up speed. The last few hundred meters to the town have apparently been paved. It is not the only change to the town my friends and I had received numerous beatings for staying too late in. As more of the town comes in view, I am treated to more changes than I have witnessed on the way here put together.

While Murindati town of fifteen years ago had consisted of two shops, two eateries, three salons, a gaming parlor, and a bar, what stands before me now is post-card picture perfection in small-town planning.

Directly ahead is a red-bricked two story building with the name ‘M  Mall’ written tastefully on the roof. It is the largest and by far the most handsome building in sight. It has a well-landscaped front lawn with cone shaped pine trees standing sentry in its façade, reaching the height of the top floor windows and working well to improve the image of the town without blocking the view. The front wing of the ground floor is taken up in most part by a mini-supermarket while the top floor has several entertainment and movies joints, a few clothes and beauty shops and numerous other establishments.

To the right and across one of the three roads that connect at the center of the town stands Murindati Agricultural Center. It is another hulking building with an agricultural products outlet, a milk collection and selling point, and a butcher shop.

Next to it crouches Makutano Bar and Grill, dwarfed but prominently conspicuous with its multi-colored façade, makuti roof, and booming music. A handsomely landscaped flower garden hugs the building, adding to its pomp and color. The wooden sign that swings gently in the middle of the flower garden promises revelers mugithi nights, nyama choma, themed cultural nights, and njohi ya ugikuyu (traditional drinks).

Sandwiched between the bar and a tiny petrol station with three pumpsonly –kerosene, petrol, and diesel- is what looks like an empty, roofed agricultural market.

Completing the circle, I look at the building behind me. It is the new and improved gaming parlor, featuring slot machines, pool tables, darts, and numerous other games. Its façade resembles the smaller length of a trapezium with its walls extending outwards along two converging roads.   

The driver has been emptying my luggage as I admired the view. He joins my side now, looking unblinkingly at the inviting bar and grill recipe. I think I see him swallow at the prospect ofknocking back a few bottles of traditional drink for the road.

“It really does catch your fancy, doesn’t it?” I smile indulgently, remembering his ‘son of the soil’ remark a few minutes ago.

He fixes me with a rather frosty look. “It is not a common drink; it is very hard to find good cooks nowadays.”

“You can check it out for yourself, thanks for a wonderful trip. I’ll see about getting someplace to lay my head now… Keep change.” I shake his hand and handhim three one thousand shillings notes.

The taxi driver –whose name I have now forgotten for the third time- shakes my hand extra-vigorously and remarks that he may just as well have a taste of that njohi before heading back. I nod vehemently, eager to start my stay. He is halfway across the road when I remember something.

“Hey!” I call out. He skips the rest of the way across before looking back. “Not too much. You have a long drive back.”

“True that. I’ll try not to get too carried away.” He laughs jovially in agreement.

I cross to the square, confident that my luggage will be safe even in my absence. Murindati has always been a very low crime town and all changes so far have been positive. I expect the security hasalso improved.

The square consists of a large bulletin board and a triangular directional sign indicating all the business premises in the town. A concrete plaque jutting off the ground identifies Murindati as the benchmark project of the recently established Small Towns Development Authority, an initiative of the Government of Kenya and the African Development Bank.

“Way to go ADB, GoK.” I mutter, throwing a tiny salute towards the plaque.

I am just passing the bulletin board heading to the mall where the only realtor office in the town is located when I see it.The faded mug shot of a handsome twenty-two-year-old man with smooth facial features and long curly hair. It has survived five years behind the glass-casing with little damage other than the bleaching of ink.

There is some odd resemblance between the young man and the obscure image of myself through the looking glass, especially in the curve of the lips, the deep set of the eyes, and the high cheekbones. However, the young man is smooth faced while my face is full of tufts of beard, and my head is cleanly shaven and oiled. The young man also has perfect golden brown skin while mine is a sunburnt dark brown color. Other than that, I am looking at the faded image of my past innocence.

My heart starts beating furiously. The investigators had known I’d come here; they had expected me to. ‘Did my parents tell them?’ I wonder, feeling claustrophobic. All three villages where I have lived so far have been far removed from my past misdeeds, yet here I am, looking at my own face between the words; WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE. CALL 999 FOR CASH REWARD in large, bold letters.

“Hey you! Looking for a house?” a voice calls from across the road. I look up and see a thin, brown-teethed man beckoning to me.

I recognize him immediately. His name is Joseph Methu, the youngest son of one of the most prominent man in the area; a large scale potatoes and milk farmer who had made a fortune in the 80s supplying agricultural products to major hotels in the country. He has always been a study in old money indifference to excessive displays of wealth. In a faded black khaki pair of trousers and grey jumper, one would be forgiven for mistaking him for a humble farmer.

I had not noticed the house for rent posters, but a quick glance is all I need.

“Yeah. Is the one bedroom in Wakaba drive still empty?” I call out, crossing the road with the confidence of a bishop among his flock.

I have been through a few encounters with people who have compared my looks to that of my younger replica. Fear makes people more suspicious. ‘It has been five years, Lavin, no one is still obsessing over you.’ I remind myself as I shake hands with the man.

“Seen that brute? He used to live here as a young boy. Naughty, but he was really clever. And boy, he could paint. Come, look at this.” One reason why I love small town folk is because they are so very friendly to strangers. He leads the way back to the restaurant on the left side of the mini-supermarketand points to a large painting on the wall opposite the kitchens.

It is a panoramic view of the town as it was fifteen years ago taken from the roof of his parents’ three storied house right behind the mall. The painting was my first major commission, and it had taken me over a month to complete. The moving truck that carried my family’s belongings had to pass by the town for me to deliver it.

“Oh, I thought I had imagined that I’d heard he used to live here. Man that is one handsome painting!” I exclaim, as if I hadn’t spent every waking moment perfecting it fifteen years ago.

“You know him?” the man asks, glancing briefly at me.

“Who doesn’t? That young boy had a great future ahead of him. Leonardo Da Vinci material, if you ask me. It’s sad that things turned out as they did…” I say so solemnly that for a moment it is not me or my painting I am discussing but the work of a prodigy I have only read about in books.

“It’s those slutty girls. Raped my foot! Someone had it in for the young man. I bet you anything he was framed. He didn’t even need that money…” I am surprised to hear the man defend me. I wonder if he’d call the police if he realized that I am that ‘young man’. I am not exactly eager to find out either ways, so I mumble something noncommittal and step back.

“So I see you have decided to join our small community, where are you from?” he asks, leading me to a booth that serves as his office. It is simply furnished and equipped, allowing him to operate both the mall and his restaurant from the limited space.

I take the seat he proffers and steel myself for the rigorous questioning that is sure to follow. I have long since managed to forge the documents required to acquire a new identity card, including a new birth certificate that identifies me as Joseph Mwau. I feed him my cock and bull story of having had a difficult childhood in the streets of Molo before being rescued into a children’s home in Nakuru where I was able to acquire sponsorships for education at Kenyatta University before joining the arts. Few people can question the story of a survivor like ‘me’. Most are too taken by sympathy or impressed by the survivalist nature of said character to even begin to poke holes. He is one of the many.

It takes a long time for Methu, also the proprietor of Methu Commercial Agencies, to come back to the business of getting me a house. By the time he gets about it, I have been served a steaming plate of kitoweo consisting of nduma (yams), potatoes and matoke (cooked bananas) with a healthy helping of heavily peppered meat stew and chapatis –all on the house. I make a decision there and then to patronize the restaurant as often as possible.

The house itself is small, if a little far from the town and any other houses nearby. It is also fully furnished, and I love it immediately. Methu promises to take care of all minor repairs and weeding in time for my moving in tomorrow. I will have to spend the night at a lodge a short distance from town.

Back in town, he helps me move my luggage to the restaurant.I note that the taxi is still parked where I left it three hours ago.

The sun is setting when Ihoist the last of my suitcases on my shoulders and cross the road to Methu’s Place, for that is the name of the restaurant. As I excuse myself and head for the door intending to find the best spot to watch it, I bump into my greatest shock of the day.

In my haste to catch a glimpse of the sundown, I run straight a blur of purple and flowery perfume. The lady only just manages to stop herself from falling on her ass. She looks angrily up at me as she gets back on her feet.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2: Blast from the Past

“Kat?” I whisper, recognizing her instantly.

She is slender, graceful, and my ultimate definition of beauty.She has long, natural hair, and a smooth, comely face that, when not glaring daggers at flat footed idiots like me, breaks into the most heart stopping of smiles. I instantly approve of her tight purple dress and high heeled stilettos. The soft curves of her pubescence are now more pronounced, mature. The grace and the fiery confidence of fifteen years ago have grown into a visible self-assuredness. Here is a woman who knows herself and who likes what she is.

There is no recognition in the startled look she gives me, and explaining that I amJames Lavin, her love interest of fifteen Christmas breaks ago, will entail admitting to being a fugitive felon on whose head there is a fat cash reward.

“How do you know my name? Didn’t you just arrive or something?” she says, still staring at me.

I had had a huge crush on Kathleen Njoki before my family had moved out of Murindati. Our mothers had been inseparable friends, spending many an hour in each other’s company. I had accompanied my mother and been sent for this or that to her house so many times I could just as well have lived there. The fact that she was older than me by four years and a girl at an age where all we boys had wanted to do with girls was beat them up had not deterred me. Kathleen had climbed trees like the best of us boys. She had also been fearless of the bullying too.She punched a couple of the bullies in the face but I guess that just comes naturally to girls born to a family of boys.

By the time I was twelve, she had been attending the local secondary school while I was in class six. She wore her skirts tight and preferred blazers to sweaters, cutting the comely figure of an empowered career woman. I silently admired her from afar and hated every one of her classmates who were old enough to hit on her.

The only thing I had loved about moving was that, terrified of being apart, we had spent all our time together. She had been a welcome distraction from the large painting I had recently been commissioned to do; I just about finished it before it was time to leave.

I fight the memories and arrange my features to look as nonchalant as possible, thinking of a good lie. ‘Iheard someone say it?’ Maybe she had just arrived with that beautiful X-trail over there; she looks like the type to drive one. ‘Am just good at telling people’s names from their faces and you just look a Kathleen?’ Not a bad pick up line…I notice her still staring at me with building interest and what I imagine is a flicker of a memory.

“Njo, come on up with that food, will you? We are all starving here.” A plump middle-aged woman calls from the beauty salon upstairs.Oh yeah everyone used to call her by her given name.

 â€œWho is that guy…?” she adds with renewed interest, leaning against the railing.

‘Has she made the connection? What will she do? Oh damn, there goes my pick up line…’ I am still engrossed in my reeling mind when she rolls her eyes dramatically and brushes past me into the restaurant. I stare at the graceful swing of her back profile for a while then shake my head and turn to walk away.

“I wouldn’t go there if I were you, young man.” Methu walks out of the restaurant and strolls to a bench set a little apart to the side of the mall. “She is the wife of Kahiga from Mbariya Thaithi (the clan of Thaithi). He is a Special Forces soldier now, not someone whose wife you go about messing with, attractive as she may be. That young man has a temper on him let me tell you. One day…”

There are two reasons why I do not listen to Methu as he prattles off a list of Kahiga’s temper tantrums. One,Kathleen has just re-emerged from the restaurant, and her front view is even more attractive. ‘Is that a blush I see there, or am I just imagining things? Oh, up the stairs now, huh?’ The back view is even more captivating from below.

The second reason is because I am pissed off. As a boy, I had hated the imbecile Kahiga because he was old enough to date my crush, had tried tirelessly to get her to go out with him. I remember him as a stupid, blustering buffoon, but he was actually quite attractive, a smooth talker, and always the top student in his class.

“…disembowel you if he caught wind of you having any intentions towards his wife.” That is telling enough. I am to keep away from Kathleen if I want to stay away from trouble.

Trouble is not an attractive prospect at all, especially for a fugitive like me. But am I wise enough to keep a clear head when Kathleen Njoki is within touching distance? I excuse myself and cross the road to Makutano Bar and Grill. This is as good a time as any to sample that traditional drink.

*

A month after moving in, I am comfortably settled in the small community of a few thousand that is Murindati village. Life is idyllic here. When I am not perfecting a painting in the corridor outside my house, I am sketching some new landscape I want to paint. When I don’t feel like cooking, I ride my bike to Methu’s Place where the eager proprietor is sure to invite me to his booth. I also spend many hours riding up and down the village lanes that line the hills, reminiscing over my childhood.

I have glimpsed Kat a few times, but she has been too far away. I remember Kahiga and his legendary temper too vividly to attempt approaching her where someone might see and summon him from wherever his travails with the Special Forces has taken him. My reluctance to approach her is also because the few times she has seen me from the top floor of M Mall, she has promptly and wordlessly disappeared. I don’t think she fancies talking to me much. Am absolutely certain she doesn’t remember me.

When we next meet, it is as unexpected as bumping into her had been. I have taken to setting up my studio on a rocky outcrop halfway up Murindati hill and painting with the ambiance of the hill and the river below surrounding me. On this particular afternoon, I am putting the final touches to an abstract painting of Murindati village when I happen to look up.

In the distance, a figure approaches. I can tell at once that it is a woman, and a few moments later, that it is one particular woman I have been thinking constantly about. What could she possibly be doing here? I wonder, placing my brush down and leaning against a tree to watch. She is dancing. A hop, step, and twirl kind of dance that reminds me of something that I don’t care to figure out what it is now.

A smile curves my mouth as I remember her horror at learning that her brothers and I had been up the hill. It has always been a strictly forbidden place because a child had stumbled and tumbled down the slope long before we were born. I am almost certain she will soon be climbing to my nest; she has already disappeared from sight at the foot of the hill.

The idea strikes my mind like a thunderbolt. I quickly dismount my current canvas and place a fresh one on the stand. I grab my sketching crayon and start sketching quickly. All I need is the outline; the details are permanently burned into my brain.

“What the hell are YOU doing here?” she is slightly out of breath but there is no mistaking the hostility behind that voice.

“Oh, it’s just you, Kat. You look great.” I smirk. I am the kind of person to egg other people towards anger for the mere merriment of it.

She does look beautiful though. The years have been kind to her, and at 31, she looks better than most women ten years her junior. Gone are the stiletto heels and tight dress, replaced with appropriate knee-length hiking boots and jeans, and a cotton top that brings out the titillating swell of her breasts beautifully.

 I am not aware of it, but I am doing what countless girls have previously accused me of doing –undressing them with my eyes. I have long grown tired of explaining that as a painter, I just tend to want to commit attractive views to memory. Kathleen folds her hands across her chest and scowls. I try hard not to smile.

Her eyes rake over me, and she seems to be deep in thought. I hazard a guess that she is thinking about the one person who used to called her Kat, was a good painter, and -she takes a few steps towards me- had a huge gash on his shin from a tree climbing mishap. I have worn knee-length shorts today; my shin is exposed in its glorious gashed beauty.

A slow, rather sardonic smile curves her lips. “Hello Lav, it’s been quite a while, wouldn’t you say?” oh oh.

She knows. She had used that same short form of my name on me when we were kids, at one time using it’s pronunciation familiarity with the word ‘love’ to declare her love for me. Ah, good times, I tell yah!

The smile remains firmly in place as she takes out her phone, dials a digit three times, and places it to her ears. I do not need to know what the numbers are to know that I am in serious trouble. Am I worried? Not in the very least. In fact, am looking forward to the oncoming conversation.

“It was foolish of you to come here Lav.” She says, listening. She follows the prompts for speaking to an officer, smiling indulgently at me all the while. My smile remains firmly in place. I may not be a psychology expert, but I know one or two things about people.

“I always wondered who would get to claim that cash reward, you know.” Her first finger searches for the power button on her phone.

‘There, totally called it! She just disconnected her 999 call and now wants an explanation.’ God knows she deserves one. I decide to let her call the shots. I choose to let her police call bluff remain uncalled, although I sense that she is perturbed that am not perturbed.

“There is this pair of stilettos I’ve been wanting… mmmmh, twenty five k of absolutely delightful, pink soled, diamond (fake of course) encrusted, gleaming beauty,” her eyes turn dreamy. “Guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore…”

“Am sure you’ll look great in them, what color are they?” I supply helpfully, smirking when I notice the flicker of annoyance in her eyes.

“I didn’t think you had it in you to become a rapist, Lavin,” her use of my full name lets me know that all playing is over. We are two old friends looking at each other and needing to trust each other.

I reckon she needs to be reassured that her first kiss was not wasted on a monster. I need to make an ally of her if am not to scamper up this slope to escape a renewed manhunt for me, penniless and with no definite destination.

My flippant attitude remains firmly in place all the same. “Please, a handsome millionaire like I was? My greatest concern back then was keeping the girls away, believe me.”

I don’t think she disagrees. And why would she? I am five foot eleven inches, muscled, handsome, and really witty. Okay, so maybe am a little cocky, but I’ve heard it too many times for it not to get to my head.

“I am not saying we didn’t have sex. All I am saying is, it was consensual. The point of sex is not just penetration you know.” It’s impossible not to adopt a professorial air, am having way too much fun.

“It is more about the submission. The girl giving in one inch of skin at a time, me slowly casting away one piece of her clothes, then another. It is all about having someone arch their back to get even closer, moan your name, and maybe scream it at one point.”

‘Okay, that was some deep bullshit right there,’ I muse.Kathleen seems to have lost her power of speech and stares at me in stunned silence.

“Nope, the rapists got it wrong. It’s more empowering to have consensual sex. Also, am a giver…” I finish. Kathleen seems to bring her mind back to the issue at hand with much effort.

“She had tissue in her fingertips that matched your DNA…” she maintains, keeping the phone to her ear in much the same way as a person might keep a gun pointed at a suspect’s chest. She had obviously followed the case. That had been the most damning piece of evidence against me.

I am slightly embarrassed about that. My lawyer had had a difficult time getting the truth about that out of me. “Uhm, she got it from my back, right about here…” I indicate the small of my back. “Am sure every girl I’ve been with took with her a small piece too. Am rather…you know? So when… girls tend to…” I had said the same thing to my lawyer, knowing that his perception of me would change immediately after. He had stuttered a little after putting it together but carried on with the questioning with admirableindifference.

The reaction from Kathleen is a little more pronounced. I can tell that she is a tad more affected than the lawyer. “Quite the stud you are, huh?” she asks at length, apparently having decided to make light of it.

“More or less.” I confirm modestly.

There is markedly less hostility coming from her now that that is cleared. She will ultimately come to one simple conclusion, because there is only one conclusion to make. But before that, there are a few more questions to be answered.

“She was drugged by the same substance that was in your car… the rape drug.” She maintains.

“Well, she had been in my car all weekend; she’d have had numerous opportunities to plant that. No one knows whether the semen and DNA sample taken off her had come before or after she had been drugged…”

“You are saying she drugged herself to implicate you? You must have had some powerful and dangerous enemies, James Lavin.” Kat states as she slowly lowers her phone.

My mind flashes back to the art director and her globetrotting boyfriend. Am not very sure about power, but the two were definitely crazy enough, and moneyed enough, to come at me hard.

“That is putting it mildly.” I say.

“So why did you attempt to commit suicide and escape from the hospital?”

“I had just come from pre-trial where the judge had practically pronounced me guilty even before trial began. The media was wild with glee at the comeuppance of the cocky little painter (me, in case you are wondering) for prior misdeeds, which the tabloids were only too glad to dig out. With all that negative media publicity over those drug-induced party rapes, the public was clamoring for some blood. I was the poster boy of the big bad ruining their girls, so suddenly every women’s group is pledging financial support to the prosecution and promising to hold sex strikes if am released. My lawyer was bracing me for a gruelingprosecution that would almost certainly send me to the hangman’s. ‘Trussed, slaughtered, and delivered,’ are the exact words he used to describe me. My parents, especially my dad, did not believe that I was innocent. If by any chance I could survive the onslaught, my painting career would be dead, and I’d have nothing to go back to. ‘Rapist’ would be tagged to my name for all of eternity. I couldn’t live under the banner of the one thing that I really loathed so…” I force a laugh.

“The funny thing is, my boys and I had started going out of town every weekend and inviting only a few trusted friends to keep away from that drug. The girls had felt safer with us, so we had quite a good time…”

“I think I remember someone say that.” Kat cuts in. “Everyone thought your boys were just having your back, the girls were branded traitors… it was a bloodbath alright.” Her expression has turned to one of pity. Her phone is nowhere to be seen.

“You gonna come here now and soothe me now, or what?” Igrowl, hating the look of pity she is giving me. I am rewarded with a flash of annoyance on her face, followed by studiedindifference. That’s more like it!

“How did you escape then? One moment you were in hospital recovering, the next everyone is regretting having not let you die in the first place. The government spokesman actually had to address the issue. He said he regretted the oversight as well, if I remember correctly.” Her indifference melts to regret, and I know that I did not mask the hurt that that particular incident had caused me in time.

“Am not sure, if am honest with you. One moment I am recovering in a hospital, wishing that I had not lived to go through the trial; my lawyer thinks that we have a good chance at sympathy after my attempt. An accomplice of his very insensitively says that posthumously, my acquittal is guaranteed. It is still a coin toss; my chances are still very low. The next moment am being hassled into an ambulance and whisked away. I did the last of my recovery on the road, nursed by a masked doctor. All I remember of then is a smooth voice singing to me.”

“Wow.” Kat says, staring open-mouthed at me.

Wow indeed. I don’t particularly like the way my life has turned out, but I love being able to paint, ride, and do all the things I love again. Granted, I can’t become the legendary painter I had wanted to be, but who knows, maybe I may yet be acquitted posthumously and my work appreciated.

“You are one silly cow if you don’t expect someone here to recognize you though.” The old feisty Kat, always berating me for pulling dangerous stunts and breaking rules, is back. It brings a smile to my face and a scowl on hers.

“Stop grinning like a green gecko, will you?” she admonishes, and then bursts out laughing. ‘Grinning like a green gecko’ is too much of a reminder of our carefree childhood. We are soon both laughing so hard our ribs ache, and the years are suddenly wiped away. We are young again.Our lives are uncomplicated, untouched by tragedy. 

There is a glorious moment, an oh so glorious moment, when our eyes meet and hold. No words are spoken; there is no need for any. We meet in the middle of the space between us in a fierce hug, and when that is not good enough, our lips convey to each other what our mouths can’t. It is as if none of us can get close enough. Only when I start lowering her to the ground does she open her mouth in protest.A kiss promptly silences her and she stops fighting the inevitable progress. 

I don’t know how long it is before are both satisfied, but we are out of breath then next time there is more than an inch of space between our lips, between our bodies. I hold her close, loving the way her body fit perfectly in mine.

“Hmmm, still got the magic touch, huh?” she says after a while, looking straight ahead.

“Oh, I am loads better now, all grown up and experienced. You sure you don’t want me to…” my hands inched towards the buckle of her trousers.

She slaps it away, turning to look at me with a fierce expression. “Am a married woman, James Mworia Lavin. You are not even supposed to hold me like this.” She sinks even deeper into the crook of my arms as she says that.

“Hmmm.” I answer.

“I am only making an exception for you because youare my first love. You are special. Also, after all you’ve been through, a hug seems appropriate.”

I do not hear anything beyond that revealing first sentence. I have always thought that her saying she loved me fifteen years ago had had more to do with my constantdeclaration of my love for her. I tilt her away to look at her face, but she ducks.

“It was fifteen years ago, Lavin…” there is regret in her voice. I wonder if she had expected me to come looking like I had almost done on several occasions.

The truce lasts a whole glorious hour, but when itis over, Katis up and walking away even before I can protest the loss of her warmth.

“I still believe it was foolish of you to come here. You are an artist, any of your friends will recognize your smile and your eyes even if the hair is gone and you are bearded now. It is a matter of time before word gets out that you are here, believe me. Plainclothes detectives still come around once every couple of months. They obviously know how special this village is to you; they almost outnumbered us one to two immediately after you escaped. All they need is a clue that a painter recently moved here and…” she laughsincredulously.

“How do you think your realidentity willremain a secret here, seriously?”

“I don’t care too much about that,” I say, hoping that she can read the rest of what I wanted to say on my face.

“Forget about me, Lav. I’d be happier knowing that you’re safe and alive somewhere, rather than in prison, or worse, mobbed to death.”

Good to know you can still read my face, sunshine.

“You have twenty four hours to get out of here. I won’t tell anyone, but you have to go.”

“And if I don’t?”

She gives me an exasperated look. “You have more sense than that. I know you do. The detectives… I told you…” she seems to start considering that I still don’t have much sense. “You do know you have to leave, right?”

I simply smile. She looks like she would love nothing better than to come and slap my face. Probably swing a fist at me. “Twenty four hours, or I start talking.” She announces ominously then turns and starts down the slope.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3: Ceasefire

Twenty four hours later finds me hundreds of kilometers away, regretting my decisionto move to Murindati in the first place. My yearning for Kathleen has simply been revived, and my fondness for the beautiful village in the hills stamped in bright ink back on my heart. Am not too sure it had ever faded. I appreciate her promise to keep it between us and am determined to see her again, one way or another. I only regret that I forgot toremember to ask for her phone number. All I know is that my cover has been blown. I have more sense than to think no one would, in time, make the connection between my false identity and James Lavin the fugitive.

Am just kidding. Twenty four hours later, I am busy filling in the details of my previous day’s sketch at my nest on the hill. I am tentatively calling it The Ray of Dancing Sunshine.

Speaking of which, the ray is here in person, looking as infuriated with my presence as she was yesterday.

“What the hell are you still doing here, you imbecile?” she says as way of greetings.

“Good afternoon to you too, sunshine.” I say, placing my brush down and approaching her, hands outstretched as if expecting a hug.

With surprising speed and strength, she grabs by throat and shoves me against the bark of a tree. “That taxi driver who brought you here? He was telling Njogu that he had brought to town a guy who used to live at number twelve, your old place! If he didn’t silence the man and ask to be driven out to Nakuru just to get him off the town, everyone else would know that our most notorious export is back home!”

Oh darn, that’s what has been nagging at me about the taxi driver!Not that I have paid much attention to it, my mind has been occupied with other, more important concerns. Thank God good old Njogu saved the day. I must remember to buy him a drink sometime.

I know I am being silly, plain stupid even. It is very irresponsible of me to stay here when my cover is already blown. I had moved from my last three hideouts on lesser breaches. I guess my heart is finally at home now and such arguments as those that begin with; ‘even if I die/go to prison…’ hold more weight than my survival instincts.

“So that means that only you and Njogu know? Njogu was one of my closest friends, he won’t tell anyone. You won’t either, so why worry? I like it here. Am staying.”I declare.

It is not often that Kathleen Njoki becomes speechless. Let me rephrase that. Kathleen Njoki never becomes speechless. She has always had the uncanny ability to find responses to just about anything. She gives up trying to articulate whatever she is itching to say at the third trial, turns around, turns back again then finally walks away, defeated.

“Hey, look at this. I am calling itThe Ray of Dancing Sunshine. I think it’s turning out really great.” I have no intention of letting her walk away just yet.

She pauses, obviously considering whether to turn around or walk on. “Ray of what?” she turns, masking a slightly amused smile with an incredulous glare. I had tried to adopt the name Sunshine as a pet name for her after watching some movie or other ages ago.

“The Ray of Dancing Sunshine.” I repeat, deadpan.

“I don’t know, but where is the ray, exactly?”

I point to her and then finger the rough sketch of a dancing form on the canvas. Her lips curve up slightly. “Mm mm.” it is obvious she is unimpressed with it.

“You wait till it’s done. You won’t be saying mm mm.” she opens her mouth, obviously eager for another stab at convincing me to leave. “Oh yeah, I will still be around for you to see it… if you want to, that is.” I cut her off. I have no intention of running anymore.

She walks wordlessly away, leaving me to my brushes and paints and doubts about leaving or staying. Or more accurately, thoughts about her. “You know, I hoped you’d show up today. Am glad you did. You look really beautiful.”

She laughs derisively at that, turning only momentarily to look at me. “I come here all the time for some alone time. I didn’t get to enjoy that pleasure yesterday, so I thought I might try today.”

“Mmmh.” I say.

“What?” she spits, rounding on me with sparks of annoyance in her eyes.

“Nothing.” I sing, knowing that she hates that reply to a question. I am rewarded with the furious chewing of lips that indicates she is getting frustrated with me.

“Don’t nothing me, Lavin. You tell me this instant what that mmmh was all about.”

I smile at her commanding tone. Young Kathleenhad always believed that she could compel anyone to tell her just about any of their secrets.

In the list of difficult and easy people to get the truth out of, I had always been right at the top of the easy one. “You hoped you’d find me here.”

She does not dignify my theory with an answer. She simply turns and starts climbing up the hill again. “I am going to find someplace else to be. Don’t disturb me.” She throws behind her shoulder.

The minutes tick by. I am convinced that I read her wrong on the possibility of reviving old flames. My cowardly mind is once again considering running away. It really was foolish of me to come here. It was an act of weak sentimentality and I would hope that I am above that. I berate myself for being weak.

I am less harsh on myself whenI lookup at the beautiful town and the rolling hills and feel theintense sense of sentimentality that sweeps every rational thought from my mind.

I walk from behind the canvas and stare at the land. If only it is not so dear to me. If only I have not dreamt of coming back since leaving fifteen years ago. If only I had come back earlier. Maybe my life would not have turned so tragic. If only I can overcome this sentimentality, I can leave now and give myself the chance of coming back another time.

Hey wait! Maybe I can just live here in the hills and watch this land of my soul like an eagle like this every day. If I don’t get fed up and leave for good, I will be safe from detection up here. My grandfather did tell me about living here during the war, didn’t he? And speaking of my grandfather, did my father sell that ancestral land? I really hope not. I can see the parcel of green pastures from here. Oh, there’s that smoke again…

“Oh, maybe I should forget it all. My life is more precious. I should just find a way to turn off this damn heart of mine and get as far away from here as possible…”

“Oh, that would be nice. Please do that.”

I close my eyes for a moment. I have obviously said the last part aloud, and Kathleen happened to have just come back. Or to have been watching me for a while…

“I would if I could. But I can’t, so I shan’t.” I turn around and face her then walk back to my canvas. “Not with you looking so beautiful and attractive as you do…” I add under my breath, hoping that she would hear it and think I hadn’t meant for her to.

“What was that again?” she smiles. Bingo!

“I would if I could…”

“No, not that, something else you said after that. I didn’t quite catch it…” 

Oh, you did catch it, Sunshine.You just want to hear it loud and clear. I know a thing or two about women though, so you won’t hear it from me. If you didn’t hear it, you can’t ask about it. If you can’t ask about it, you can’t stop thinking about it. I need you to think about me, so no, you won’t hear it from me.

“So, you know all about what I do-painter and all. Tell me, what do you do?” I divert.

It is obvious she wants to continue talking about what I had or had not said, but she does not protest the change of subject.

“I am a CPA. I have a tiny office at the mall where I work, mostly online. I used to work from home, but I got fed up with the loneliness and moved to town…” She explains all about peak and off-peak seasons; times when she has so much work she can hardly sleep and others when there is little to no work. It is off-peak now so she is in no pressure to get back. 

She actually seems content to sit and watch me paint, and we while the afternoon away in more or less the same manner, talking about old times, our lives, and pretty much having a civil conversation in the hills. We go for each other’s throats once or twice, but like I said, it is pretty much a civil time we spend together on the rock on the hill.

My highlight of the evening is Kat agreeing to come into my arms to watch the sunset from there. It is a breath taking view from the vantage point, and when the nearness proves distracting and we find better things to do in each other’s arms, we are both only too glad to give in.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4: The Forbidden Fruit

A week has passed since Kat and I were on the hill. I have been back there every day since, hoping that she would show up as well. Seven times I have been thoroughly disappointed.

She is a constant in my mind now, tormenting me as much awake as she does in my dreams. I keep telling myself that I have her, just once, it might be the cue I need to leave this unsafe hideout. A part of me tells me that that is bullshit as soon as I think it.

My continued stay in Murindati has nothing to do with Kathleen and everything to do with the fact that my heart has been clamoring to come back here since my body left fifteen years ago. The rational part of me calls bullshit on that as well.

Murindati has no smile that lingers in my mind, no laugh whose sound haunts my ears, no lips whose softness I am even nowdaydreaming about, and no peaked mounds that my fingers itch to touch again.

I consider visiting her at her offices in town, but I have enough rationality than expose myself to familiar faces that much. Even though I have refused to leave, I have limited mycontact with humanity to only those trips to town that I have had no option but to make. I guess I am not that senseless after all…

On Sunday afternoon, I decide to go for a little pedaling across town. I stop at the top of the hill where the taxi had stopped to give me a good look at my old house. After staring at it for the better part of an hour, I pedal on. I whimsically decide to see how long it would take me to reach the main road, even with the sky overhead pregnant with rain. By the time I get there, the setting sun is buried beneath a thick cover of grey clouds. It has taken me an hour and a few minutes going downslopes.

‘This will be one hell of a tedious journey, going the other way.’ I reason. ‘Better brace for a grueling ride, old boy,’ I mutter,adjustingthe gears for easier mountain climbing. Darkness is fast setting in when I crest the last hill towards town. I have made good time, better than I had expected to do.

“Lavin?” a voice calls out.THE voice.Her voice. I stop and look about. There are gates on both sides of the road where it could have come from. Which one is it?

“Hey, Kat?” I call, smiling. “Playing games now, are we?” I like the idea.

“How did you know it was me?” she asks, emerging from a green gate on the right. There is a playful smile on her face.

“Your voice.” I state simply. “How did you see me? I didn’t…”

“I saw you going down, so I knew you’d be going back.” she seems to realize the implications of her words too late. I fancy I see her blushing in the darkness.

“So I am not the only one who has been looking forward to seeing you again, huh? You also wanted to see me real bad. I mean, you must have lingered a long time…” There are times when I am bold and others when am just plain tactless. In this case, I blame my tired lungs.

She rolls her eyes and groans. Internally, I groan as well.

“Sorry, that came out all wrong. I didn’t think.” I apologize quickly. She is still by the gate, wearing what looks like a dira. It covers everything up pretty nicely, but there is a certain seductive grace to the way it clings to her curves.

The first thought that strikes my mind is that there would be no intrusive belt buckles to stop me from exploring. It is enough to send my mind reeling. I decide to leave before I make a cow of myself again. The first furious drops of rain pelting the earth are my saving grace. I say a quick goodbye and jump on my bike as the rain turns torrential. My flimsy vest instantly soaks through and sticks to my body like a second skin.

“Wait! You’re going to ride all the way home in this rain?” Kathleen shouts as I start pedaling furiously. I apply the brakes, skid to a stop, and turn. I can just make out her outline in the middle of the road.

“Uhm,” I start.

“Come on in! You’ll catch a cold.” She starts back towards the gate and holds it open for me, then locks it and runs up the short driveway. The dira is clinging to her body too. 

I leave the bicycle a little off the doorway and join her in the veranda. Water drips down both our faces as she turns to laugh at me for no reason at all before pushing the main door open.

“You’ll catch a cold!? You sound like my mother.” I smile, hesitating from joining her inside the living room.

“Shut up and do what I say.” She scolds, pulling me through and locking the door.

I am treated to the provocative close up view of her wet body through the flimsy material of the dira for just a few seconds before she turns and goes through the door to the left. I am immediately conscious of a puddle of water collecting at my feet and soiling the otherwise spotless fabric carpet.

The room is tastefully decorated; the purplish-blue of the expensive-looking sofa set accentuated by the soft pinks of the throw cushions. The walls are still decorated in the Christmas décor of a few months ago as well as a few commercial paintings I scoff at with feeling. A table and chair set a little to the side must be where she had worked from before moving to town. Even from my position at the door, I know that I wouldn’t be able to cook using her kitchen equipment across the room.

“What are you thinking about?” the master bedroom door creaks slowly open to reveal a newly dried and dressed Kat.

“How your kitchen looks sophisticated and how you can live with this horrible art and not develop a migraine.” I answer automatically, raising my eyebrows at the towel she is extending my way. She promptly withdraws it.

“I have half the mind to turn you away, you ungrateful…” she leaves the sentence unfinished. I have half the mind to tell her that I have survived much, much worse, and that her offer for shelteris absolutely unnecessary, but I don’t think she would appreciate the candor. I smile indulgently at her.

“The art is cheap, generic, and probably mass produced -sue me. Otherwise, the room is cozy, beautiful, and obviously done by you.”

Kathleen scoffs at me with probably as much feeling as I have just scoffed at her décor. “Leave everything outside. I’ll iron it dry for you.” She shoves the towel into my chest and hotfoots it to the kitchen.

‘That’s mighty helpful of you,’ I think, peeling off my wet long shorts along with my boxers. The vest joins the sad wet heap shortly after and I step into the shower. The water is just the right temperature for me to take all the time in the world. I do.

When am finally done, I wrap the towel around my waist and step out; it’s time for some seduction. My victim is busy working the pots in the kitchen. I head straight for her.

“Do you think you have a beautiful body, or do you just enjoy walking around nude?” she asks, looking up momentarily.

“A little of both,” I reply, smiling.

She snorts and points to the open bedroom door to the left. My clothes are smartly folded on the bed. So much for trying to seduce her; she appears to be a few steps ahead of me every time.

“Lotion for my body? I got to have that.” I try, staring intently at her.

“Uh, I didn’t think about that. You can use mine…?” the sentence is somewhere between a statement and a question, and now she really does look.

Not that there is much to take in; in my opinion there is little of men to take in. Her eyes simply flick over my chest and taut abs, then much lower where my lack of underwear is becoming apparent through this towel. Apart from that, she doesn’t show much interest.

Women, on the other hand, have all the curves at all the right places, which makes looking very rewarding. Take her for example. She is wearing a satin night dress that whispers seductively over her breasts, tapers over her waist, shows off her wide hips to perfection, and still leaves enough leg to upset a pious priest. 

My doubts about who exactly is getting seduced come to a head when she walks past me into the bedroom. ‘Maybe I should just drop this seduction idea altogether,’ I reason, watching her reach the top shelf of what looks like an isolated stand for a high-end cosmetic shop. I groan and start towards my boxers several feet away.

We meet halfway between the door and the bed.She with the bottle of lotion and me clutching at the towel that has now come loose with my right hand. She thrusts the lotion at my chest.In the heat of the moment, I release the towel to take it.

I decide that this seduction stuff is not my forte there and then. I don’t feel so hot standing there with a bottle of lotion on my hand and a towel at my feet. Kathleen giggles, apparently pleased with herself, and walks out. Now that backfired on me spectacularly, didn’t it?

Supper is delicious. Kathleen obviously knows her way around the kitchen and its sophisticated equipment. When we are done, she clears the table and lingers at the sink, washing up.

“Why don’t you select a movie as I make coffee?” she calls out.

Hmm, a movie? I’d prefer music, and lots of dancing with lots of contact, but isorait, I’ll suffer through the movie because I have a plan. Dancing is great for seduction. But darkness is great for fooling around too. There is just something about the absence of light that makes people randy. ‘We can watch a movie, Kat, but the lights have to be turned off.’ I turn off the lights.

“Why did you turn off the lights?” she asks.

“Because watching a movie with the lights on is preposterous. Do you watch movies with the lights on?”

“Well, yes. But it does look nice with the lights off. Here is your coffee.”

She has just finished brewing some. It’s too weak for my liking, and there’s too much sugar. “This is some lovely coffee, Kat.”

“Thanks, I forgot to ask how you take yours, but it’s nice that you take it exactly like I do…” she smiles.

I wouldn’t say exactly, but coffee is not the point here so forget it. “Your smile lights up the room brighter than the bulb did a minute ago.” I say.

“That is not true.” She gives me a look that tells me plainly that she doesn’t believe a word of what I just said.

“Well, maybe it is just my heart…” I say, looking straight at her. She is looking at me while the movie watches itself.

“Well, you are quite the flatterer, Lavin.” She looks away.

“Believe me, don’t believe me. As long as you keep smiling like that, am good with just basking in the light.” I insist, facing forwards as well. Her head turns towards me and considers me thoughtfully.

Even with my eyes fixed at the screen, my mind is anywhere but. This is not turning out to be the open invitation I had thought it to be. I would like to just turn around and smash my lips against hers to see how she reacts, but it’s too risky. Her shields seem to have gone up since we were last together on the hill.

One leg on the couch has gone up too; on top of the other. My eyes shamelessly feast on the tempting view of intimate flesh. I look up at her, sure that she is simply teasing me; has been teasing me all evening. She is glued to the television.

“Beautiful.” I whisper.

She looks sideways at me. “What?”

“The scenery. It’s beautiful.” Dwayne Johnson has just set foot in the mystery island on The Journey to the Mystery Island.

“Oh, yeah. It is something, isn’t it?

“Yes, it’s gorgeous.” I am looking directly at her. “You are.”

“I know what you are doing, young man. It is not going to work.” She smiles.

Young man? Okay, that was a low blow. She’s got my number all right. There’s nothing like reminding me that she is older than me to get me off the trail. Nice try, Kathleen, nice try.

“You are though,” I plough on. “More beautiful than any other woman I know. That’s not flattery.” I add as she opens her mouth to argue. She leans back on the couch and closes her eyes.

“What do you want, Lavin?”

Oh, I thought you’d never ask! “You Kat, just you. I have wanted nothing more than to see you all week, hold you, kiss you, have you…” I reach for her arms and pull her to my chest. She does not resist.

“Why?” she asks.

‘Why what,Kathleen?’ I wonder. ‘Why are you the most beautiful woman I know, or why have I thought about nothing else but your body, your kisses?’ These kinds of questions confuse me.“I have never really forgotten that last month together. You are my first love, Kat. And you know what they say; first love never…”

The last part of my statement dies on my lips as Kathleen gently crushes her lips against mine. So was that the right thing to say or was it just one of the many rights? I don’t have time to consider any of these, because things are finally turning my way.

Illuminated by the light from the movie neither of us is watching anymore (of course), we initiate an intimate wrestling match that renders us both breathless in seconds. While I savor undressing Kathleen one garment at a time, she peels my clothes off as if I might catch fire if they are not disposed of as fast and as far as possible. Wait, did you just fling my shorts on the TV? We laugh into each other’s eyes as the room grows darker.

“Bedroom?” I ask.

“Please…” she grabs my hands and leads me to the master bedroom. We are both pretty stirred up by the time we arrive at the four-poster.

“Let me,” I whisper, taking her hands off her bra. These are all my favorite parts; slowly unwrapping the candy and savoring the first explosion of juices on the buds.

A different kind of sweetness floods my system as my lips and hands promptly take over, kneading, kissing, and tugging at the turgid points. She arcs her back and shakily whispers something incoherent, her hands firmly grasping the back of my head.

My hands cup her firm backside; got to get me some of that…She sinks onto the mattress when I trail a kiss down her stomach. Okay, that works even better, I think, joining her.

“Aaah,” she moans, arching her back even higher when my fingers find their way to her wet core. I slide the satin panties slowly down her thighs and stop to admire the glorious beauty of her naked body.

‘I am going to paint you naked, Kat.’I decide. I smile as I move up over her heaving chest to stare at her face. 

It is even more wondrous than I could ever have imagined, moving into her, with her, to the heights of pleasure. Under me, Kathleenmoans, clutches, purrs, and arches, meeting me thrust for thrust. We both lose ourselves to the lovemaking, the soaring pleasure that builds and builds till it finally explodes with the blinding lights of sweet release, mine and hers, that takes our breaths away.

Neither one of us says anything for a long time. We simply stare at each other’s eyes and allow the moment to bath us in its glow. Kathleen rests her head on my chest, her short silky hair brushing smoothly over my chest.

After a few minutes, shelifts her head and smiles affectionately.“That was… amazing.”  The look in her eyes tells me that the word does not begin to describe what we just had. I agree.

She grabs my face andkisses me. Rather too chastely for my taste. I grab her face and deepen the kiss. She responds my pressing her lithe body even closer. Very specific parts of mine respond instantly.

“Wow, that was quick!” she says breathlessly, feeling my throbbing arousal with her gentlygyrating hips. She releases a soft appreciative moan. That is all I need. I flip her over and initiate the intimate dance all over again.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5: The Worm in the Fruit

Between slow and deeply satisfying lovemaking, Kathleen catches me up on her family. Her parents both perished in a road accident eight years ago, leaving the family in disarray. “It’s like all we needed to know was that thirty acres and a few millions in the bank were up for grabs for us to forget about familial bonds.” she says sadly.

“My oldest brother turned into some sort of monster, demanding that half of everything goes to him, and adamant that I should get nothing at all, despite the will stating clearly that we were all entitled to an equal share. He was always a bit of a stranger to me, being almost twenty years older and away at work when I was a baby, but…” she shivers. “It’s like he really hates me now.”

I squeeze her close, letting her know that am there for her without disrupting her flow. I get the feeling that she needs to talk about this.

“Even Kinoti (the second to last born and, if I remember correctly, her most dear of all eight of her brothers) is cold towards me now. We haven’t spoken in almost two years now. I can’t stand the family gatherings anymore. All they ever talk is the will, and how my refusal to withdraw my claim is killing this family.”

“Is it?” I venture carefully.

She mulls the question in silence. “Yes, I think it is.” She answers finally.

“Why not just withdraw, then? You seem to be doing alright without it…”

“I don’t care about the money, believe me. I could just as easily give up all claims, but even they are so hopelessly split over who gets how much. You should hear them using the most outrageous reasoning to justify a fatter claim. It’s every man for himself and devil may care about everyone else. At least when they are fighting over me being in the will, they are not fighting each other, which believe me, is much worse.”

“Seeam not sure that it works that way…” I start, stopping when Kathleen lifts her head and gives me asympathetic look.

“Do you know what the leading cause of violence in this region is?” she asks.

“No I don’t, please tell me…” I reply, with the innocence of a five-year-old.

My actions are not those of a five-year-old though. See, Kathleen’s liftingof her head to look at me has caused her breasts to come into view and brush softly against my chest. My hands act like those of any twenty seven year old virile man and reach out to cup them.

 â€œOh!” she cries out, curling even tighter against me and reaching for my neck.She kisses my lips then extends the kissing to other places. I enjoy every minute of it.

“How long do you think we can keep this up?” Kathleen asks, with wonder in her voice, just as I start suspecting that she has fallen asleep.

“Am game if you want to find out,” I smile. “But you may want to eat something. It might be a while.”

She giggles, smiles, and moves to kiss me. “You are a Mr. Smarty-pants, you know that?”

“I may have heard it a few times…”

We end up having a midnightsnack all the same. It is more like early morning, but who is keeping score? She has a stockpile of what she assures me are natural sugared cookies. We putspirited efforts towards decimating her whole week’s supply.

“So what is the leading cause of violence in this region?” I ask, taking my shorts off the TV. She looks at me putting turning the inside out shorts and hurries over. I barely have time to wonder what she intends to do before she wrenches them out of my grasp and chucks them away then walks to the couch and stretches herself onto it.

“It is family conflicts, 100% of them caused by inheritancedisputes.” She says casually, smiling at the distracted look on my face. “Did you hear a word of what I just said, or were you too busy ogling at me?” she smiles, obviously enjoying herself. She tries a few poses for my benefit, her gaze never once leaving my enraptured face.

“I am going to paint you nude.” I hear myself say. Kathleen seems excited at the prospect. She gives me adazzling smile.

“Do you need for me to pose?”

“No, that’s not necessary. I have a vivid image right here.” I finger my temple.

Kathleen doesn’t seem to be great proponent of artists making nude paintings of her in her absence. “But if you want, I would love nothing better than that.” I say, taking her hand and kissing it. “It is just that, I don’t think I’d do much painting with you lying just feet away from me, every inch my idea of womanly perfection…”

“Well, mister, you will just have to figure it out then, won’t you? I would like to watch you at work. Being naked as I do so would just be a bonus,”

“Hmmm, so do you think you have a beautiful body, or do you just enjoy beingnaked?” I repeat her question from earlier on.

“A little bit of both.” She echoes my reply.

I don’t care to narrate how the conversation turns to her marital status, but she is talking about her estranged marriage when her phone rings from the kitchen counter. Her guilty expression tells me that it is him on the other end. She stutters a few words but she never manages to make a complete sentence. Before long, she is nodding andseemingly fighting tears. I suddenly feel very stark.

“What was that?” I force myself to ask when she is done, knowing that my heart will be broken by whatever her response will be.

“Kim’s just survived an IED explosion. His unit captain and two other mateswere not so lucky –they died. He is about the only person that escaped with barely a scratch. He has decided to finally leave the army and come home.”

A few moments ago, when she had told me that she had not been living with her husband for the past two years, I had felt some hope. I could yet live out my life with the love of my life. Now, the villain in me is wondering why this Kahiga of hers did not just die in that attack like his captain. Okay, maybe I am thinking it with every fiber in my body, but can you blame me? My dreams have just been crushed to a pulp.

“That is great, isn’t it? You can work through his cheating and his neglecting you and be a happy couple again…” am surprised by the vitriol in my voice. Kathleen is shocked.

“We have been talking more for the past one month or so. Despite everything, I know he loves me, and I still love him. (My heart!My heart!). I have always just hated his career. He has survived four IED attacks, sniper fire, suicide bombers, and God knows how many ambushes now. I just couldn’t take the fright of not knowing if this might be the time I lose him.” I don’t know how she expects me to react to this. Should I comfort her or something? I have never been too good with this sort of thing.

“You mean one month ago when we first bumped into each other?” I ask after some time. We are both dressed now.

“I didn’t recognize you until I found you on the hill, but I thought you reminded me of someone important. So I called him.” She looks a little apologetic.

“So you saw me and run into the cheating arms of your absentee husband? Fantastic!” I erupt. I am spoiling for a fight.

Kathleen stares at me as if seeing me for the first time. “Cheating? You can talk to me about cheating? You just seduced me into cheating on MY husband, Lavin. You have no right to judge.” oh, we are going to fight alright.

“I need you to leave my house now.” She tightens her sash and glares at me with blistering regret. Damn, it looks like we won’t be fighting after all!

She looks so guilty that I feel guilty at having brought it on her. She remains unaffected when I peck her lips on my way out. It is another frigid morning in Murindati. I will be surprised if I don’t catch a cold by the time I make it home.

I am more surprised when Kathleen chases me down to the gate to hand me a jacket to keep me warm. I accept it wordlessly and put it on, feeling a little comforted by the strong scent of her perfume that immediately envelops me.

“Goodnight Lavin.” She whispers.

“Goodnight Kat. And thanks –for everything.” I say, surprised when she comes to me and presses her body against me in a silent hug.

The night is dark, chilly, and eerily quiet. It will be dawn in an hour or so, and the night is at its darkest. So is my heart, and in extension, my life. Am riding furiously but dreading getting home to my cold, empty bed. Am thinking that I will definitely need to move now that Kathleen is about to get back together with her husband.

Am not really looking where am going. My mind is miles away. Am only jolted to the present when I slam hard into something and am sent flying right off the handles of my bicycle.

“What the hell, man!” a voice growls in the darkness. It is the last sound I hear before I land with a crunching thud ten feet away. The fall rattles every bone in my body and leaves me with stars in my eyes and a steady buzz in my ears.

The voice races towards me and helps me to my feet, remarking all the time how I was speeding and how his torch had been on, and how could I just have ridden straight into him like that? I don’t feel like answering any of his questions. I don’t.

It is the milk delivery guy in his pre-dawn milk collection rounds before he starts delivering to his customers. He and his milk delivery bicycle have come to absolutely no harm. My bicycle and I are in an altogether different shape. The bike has suffered extensive damage, but I don’t care to inspect it now. After apologizing weakly and mumbling goodbye, I set off.

News travel fast in small towns, and apparently a head on collision between two bicycles on the wee hours of a chilly, pitch black night qualifies as news about this place. The pharmacist at the smallchemist at the mall is waiting for me when I arrive at her premises later that morning. The milk delivery man with whom I had collided had made it his duty to relay the incident to all his customers that morning.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 6: The Aftermath

Kathleen is also one of these customers. She is also waiting for me when I call at her house in the pretense of returning her jacket to her.

“A bicycle head on collision, now that is something you don’t hear quite often,” she smiles after greetings. I am familiar with that reaction by now. I have been hearing similar remarks all day.

“What are the odds, right? Even at four in the morning on a chilly Monday morning…” I have a plan that must get underway a.s.a.p. Guilt flashes through her eyes.

“Am sorry. I had no right to send you away like that. It wasn’t your fault, what happened between us yesterday.” She looks a little uncomfortable saying this. Her hand on the door frame on which she is leaning tightens.

Apparently the threshold to the house is the obstacle to cross this evening. “I understand why you did what you did. You were distraught –I could see it. I apologize for bringing that on you.” I say, quite sincerely.

“You brought nothing on me. I was lonely, we have history. What happened was bound to happen.” She worries her lower lip between her teeth. “It was really fun, I slept immediately I got in bed. No turning or tossing, or guilt-ridden dreams, as I expected.” There is silence after her unexpected admission. She seems to think that she has disclosed too much. Am wondering if I can manage to coax whatever sparks of desire are left to life.

I give her what I imagine is a dazzling smile. “That makes two of us. Apart from the leg, I had one of the best nights I’ve had in ages. Only thing that’d have made it even more spectacular would be waking up to your angelic face besides me…”

Whoa, where did that come from! I feel like a fool as soon as it’s out of my mouth. Kathleen gives me a piercing look. I’d be damned if she believes a word of what I just said, or if she buys into all that cheese. To hell with the plan.I mumble a quick,uncomfortable goodbye and turn to leave.

“Hey! You are leaving? Just like that?” she calls. “You don’t want the chance to make it ‘more spectacular’?” I am not certain if she is being genuine or mocking me. I search my mind for something to say.

“I do. Believe me I’d love nothing better. But you didn’t even invite me in today, so I kinda took the hint…”

“Uhuh, very perceptive of you.” She replies unhelpfully, still leaning against the doorway. I limp back as gracefully as I can to stand before her.

If I were to guess, I’d say that her eyes reflect her conflicted spirit. She is standing at the ledge, waiting for some argument to push her one way or another. I must be the one to do the arguing, the better to ensure that she jumps into my waiting arms. We face off with Kathleen, each one of us lost in thought but looking straight into each other’s eyes.

“What do you want from me, Lavin?” she breaks the delicate silence. I remember answering that question not more than twenty four hours ago. “I mean, what do you want out of this thing we have, if it is to continue?” she amends slightly.

My heart beats in my heart. For the record, what I would love more than anything would be to make Kathleen my Mrs. Fugitive and zigzag off with her to the end of the world, escaping police dragnets all through. Somehow, I don’t see her buying into the idea. She looks more like the bored housewife needing to kill off a few hours before hubby comes from work. I will just have to take what I can here…

“You.” I say simply. Way to make her unravel this whole thing for me. I can tell that she have figured it all out in her head.

“Me?” she boomerangs the responsibility right back. I fight a smile.

“Yes, you.Just you.” I don’t see a reason to stick my neck out and risk decapitation.

“Okay, let me ask the question differently.” Kathleen’s eyes glimmer withbarely contained laughter. “Is it my heart or my body you want?”

‘Your heart! Your heart!’ my heart screams. However, I remember yesterday too vividly when she made it clear where her heart belongs. ‘I still love him… We still love each other.’  Her heart is definitely out of the question. I look at her. Really look at her, as she waits for my answer.

It is an answer that my mind knows all too well, but which my heart refuses to give. I would be walking towards even more heartbreak by accepting the offer that she is clearly offering me with bated breath.

“Look, Kat,” I start, my mind and my heart made up. “You are a really beautiful woman…” Kathleen seems to realize what am about to say before it’s out of my mouth. She decides to bring a third part of me into the debate;a less rational, more carnal part of the male anatomy and one with a propensity for making bad decisions where women are concerned.

She does so by suddenly reaching for my neck and kissing me. Deep, delicious,and desperate. I can feel her desire through that one kiss, feel it in the seductive ways she curls her body and presses it to me, exciting me and sending all reason out of my mind. My hands reach around her to hold her close, to deepen the kiss even further, give her more entry, and wrestle with her for control.

She wins in the end. I agree to just sex before we are through the door, no attachment and no falling in love as we fall in bed together, and to be secretive and come by night and leave early in the morning as I peel her clothes off. Her last condition; she decides when our relationship ends, takes more convincing to receive my assent. I am teetering at the edge of release, with her holding it just out of my reach, when I finally growl my agreement. Her victorious smile is as unrestrained as it is endearing.

‘This relationship has its merits,’ I concede after our fourth straight week of nightly copulation. It has got to be my best record so far for a daily dose of womanly company, and I haven’t had to deal with any demands whatsoever. Apart from a grey Audi almost running me over outside her gate a few days ago, there has been no drama. No arguments, no awkward questions, no having to cajole a hump. In fact, Kathleen has been almost as tireless as I have been.

However, Kathleen decides that things have been too boring around here. It’s time to put some life into this relationship. With…you guessed it, an argument. She chooses a curious time to initiate her covert machinations.

“This is our last day together.” She starts, as conversationally as though she is commenting on the taste of this coffee we normally have before I take my leave. It is still weak as piss, by the way, but you don’t see me commenting on that. It is to my immense credit that I don’t choke on a mouthful. Then again, maybe it’s just because I am not sipping or chewing anything at the moment.

“What!” I ask, rather too calmly.

“I want to take the two weeks off before my husband comes to prepare the house for his arrival.” She looks about the house as if there are some gaping holes on the ceiling or accumulated dust on the seats to be cleared. There is none, of course. The room is as spotlessly clean as it has always been. Piss poor excuse there, missus.

“You don’t think that’s something you should have told me a few days in advance? Give my mind time to come to terms with it?” there, I did not say heart. I might as well have, though, for all the compassion that gets me. 

“Give your mind some time to come to terms with it? Be real, Lav, we are just having sex. It’s not like we are breaking up.”

‘No, but my heart is…’ I think I can feel it happen.

“You are quite the dictator, Kat, ain’t you?” I force a smile and a light tone as I quietlyremark. It is far from what I would really like to say, but Kathleen still explodes. Apparently she doesn’t like being called a dictator, doesn’t appreciate me challenging her on something I had agreed to give her complete say over, and although she doesn’t mention it, I suspect she detests my calm reception of her terminating our arrangement.

I am on autopilot. I like that am notbegging to have more time with her, even though I have no idea exactly how am doing it. Maybe am too numb with the realization that my fifteen seconds with the love of my life have just come to a firm, irrevocably final end.

“Nice spending time with you, Kat. It was great being with you while it lasted. Thanks for the coffee.” I say, pushing my chair back and turning to leave. Kathleen makes no gesture to stop me from leaving, but her face looks a lot like she is the one whose heart is breaking. She is probably angry that I didn’t put up a more spirited fight. Me, I don’t care anymore what Kathleen thinks, feels, or does.

*

Well, almost. The next one and a half weekis unimaginably painful. The town and the village, in the few moments I have gathered enough strength to venture out, have lost their magical allure. I could just as well have been in Kiungururia or Londiani.  I have long since decided to move out of this hellhole, but I have done nothing towards the accomplishment of this resolution. In fact, I finish the last part of my escape hatch (something I have been keeping off for a while now) during this time.

Some mindless sort of hope keeps me rooted in place, expecting my phone to flash with a new message from Kathleen. None come. Seeing Kathleen with her husband will probably be the kick in the backside I need to prompt me to action, I reason.

It is during one of these depressing skull sessions that my phone rings from somewhere within the house. I almost trip on my own feet, previously propped on top of a shapeless tree-bark table at my open-air lounge,in my haste to get to it.

It takes me so long to find it that am surprised the caller hasn’t hung up already. My mind screams over and over again that it is not Kathleen, a defensive mechanism that has worked only marginally in assuaging my hurt when I have previously received a call or a message.

It’s her this time. I press receive with barely restrained excitement. “Lav?” she calls, sounding almost surprised that I picked up. I imagine her on the other end, chewing at her lower lip uncertainly and trying not to panic.

“Yes, Kat?”

“Did you leave already?” is that fear I detect or am I just imagining it?

“No. I am still helpless under the clutches of Murindati, my mean mistress.” We both laugh breathily.

“So, listen. I am…I would love to see you tonight… can you…dinner at my place?”

Oh, this is my day alright. I wonder briefly what happened to that husband of hers’ comeback. It’s either she is anxious about that and wants to relieve some tension or she has been as wound up as I have been. She called though, so it is my duty to make this a little harder on her.

“I’d love to see you too, Kat.” I say at length.“At my place.” I add, cutting off what sounded like some relived sigh from her end.

“Uhm…” she starts. “Sure, why not?” she seems to make her mind up after some thought. “I close in one hour, how do I get there?”

I give her the directions and fly into a panic. The dishes need cleaning, the house needs dusting, those couches should be straightened properly and, hey wait! Did I make my bed in the morning?

In the next fifty nine minutes and thirty seconds, am busier than a worker bee getting everything to look presentable enough for my unexpected guest. I don’t give a single thought to whatever it is she intends to tell me. Everything looks quite presentable at the strike of the hour. Am quite certain the numerous paintings hanging on my walls and home studio will take much of her attention anyway.

I only have time for a quick shower and a change of clothes before Kathleen walks up the front steps to my front door. I take the groceries bag from her hands, give her a perfunctory kiss and beckon her to follow me inside.

She has something to tell me, she says, but somewhere between her opening her mouth and actually telling me what it is she wants me to hear, our bodies start a conversation of their own. It is more urgent and a lot more entertaining than words. We are both out of breath when this conversation is over.

I savor the contentment I feel in having Kathleen’s body pressed up along the length of mine. “Not quite the conversation I had in mind for a starter, but am not complaining,” she grins up at me, her fingers playing with my tufts of chest hair.

“Whatever you had to say must be really good if this is the starter…”

“My husband won’t be leaving the army yet. He called to say that he has taken another six month mission in Liberia. I wanted to see if you were up for an extension too, but apparently the question is moot…” her legs rub seductively over my groin.

I would rather she had decided to become Mrs. Fugitive than this, but after being a fugitive for five years, I have learnt to take what I get. I decide to show her just how moot the question of whether I want to spend time with her is. We both greatly enjoy the demonstration. After we have worked up a sufficient appetite, we troop to the kitchen for diner. The image of Kathleen walking around in my house with nothing but one of my shirts is one I don’t think I will ever forget.

I do not wish to bog you down with details of these six months, but it is as close to honeymoon life as I have ever been. Kathleenhas long since moved a good many of her clothes here. She spends the nights for weeks at a time, allowing for gloriously languid mornings-after that are sure to precede greatly artistic days for me. All my attempts at painting that nude of her have not gone past the half hour mark yet. Kathleen tends to find it way too stimulating.

While we try to keep our relationship secret, I am afraid we have not been as discreet as we should be. Even though we never appear together in public, our living arrangement has not escaped the detection of several townspeople, which means that pretty much everyone in Murindati knows.Methu has long since stopped trying to drop hints that my dalliance with Kathleen would bring me nothing but disaster.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 7: The Horsemen of the Apocalypse

I don’t know much, but I do know that a fugitive who goes for six months without being fully aware of his surrounding invites disaster. What’s worse, he does not even notice the disaster unfolding. With the benefit of hindsight, allow me to narrate what happens in the six months when Kathleen and I are lost in our own blissful world of proscriptive relations.

Six months ago;

Josephine has visited her uncle again. He lives a short distance from the highway and a few kilometers from Murindati town. She has long since stopped denying the truth of her frequent visits to this area, especially in the past five years.

He had told her all about his time in Murindati with so much longing her heart had ached. She suspected that he had been so interested in her because she had holidayed there as a kid herself and understood, albeit infinitesimally, His attachment to the hills, the rivers, the people. That is, until they had both discovered each other, then they had created new memories together.

Memories she now fights valiantly, trying to concentrate on the task at hand, boring as it is. She sits behind the wheel of a grey Audi, old but lovingly maintained by her uncle. It gleams in the afternoon sunlight, parked atthe mall’s expansive lot. She returns to the city tomorrow and has but a few hours to kill before she has to go home and start preparing.

“This is crazy Jos. Completely mental.” She murmurs.

She has muttered these exact words a few dozen times in the past five years when she has come visiting and driven about the village trails, berating herself all the while for expecting to bump into him. She had thought to ask around severally, but she was certain it would only arouse suspicion. It was safer to stay in her car and keep a lookout. She accepted the stiff necks and frustration as part of her penance as a victim of unrequited love.

“Okay, black widow, time to call it a day…” she breathes, her heart, her stupid unlearning heart, crumbling a little. ‘One of these days,’ she imagines it saying, ‘you are going to see the one who has held you captive and all this will be worth it.’ She starts the car and proceeds slowly out of town towards her uncle’s house. 

Josephine almost loses control of her vehicle when a familiar face riding furiously behind her flashes in her rear view mirror. She recognizes Him even before she can confirm His identity by the way her heart races and her stomach clenches. ‘Slow down there; give him a chance to get closer…’

There is more face hair there, but it only makes that oh so loved face more handsome.The head is clean shaven and missing the unruly hair of five years ago, but she expects she would love running her fingers all over it just as much.

“That’s him! Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Ohmigod!  It’s Lavin!” Her heart beats uncontrollably as she brakes in front of a green gate. She closes her eyes for a moment to give her wildly pumping heart a moment to calm down before opening her car door.

She only gets her second major shock of the day. Apart from a few pedestrians, the road is completely clear. There are no devilishly handsome men anywhere.

“I could have sworn…” she whispers, leaning against the sleek body of her car. ‘Maybe I have gone mental and started seeing things…’ she worries, feeling, for the one hundred millionth time, helplessly out of control.

The gate behind her creaks softly, and she whips towards it. ‘Of course!’ she thinks turning and walking towards it. She giggles in delight. Not only had she found him, she has also found his house.

As she pushes open the gate, she tries not to imagine how he would receive her, or how he would react to her confession to having been searching for him, or to her having broken rule number two.

The first thought that flits across her mind is that his house is too beautiful to be a rental. It sits on a plot of well-manicured gardens and features large French windows, green shingle roof tiles, and lime green paint on the mortar. Outside, a few clothes flap in the gentle evening air. A woman’s clothes.

She consoles herself by reasoning that she could not expect him to have made the oath of celibacy like she had. The thought that he has made a full life for himself, including taking a beautiful county girl for a bride, sends her stumbling back to her car in a blind rage.

She is angry at him for forgetting about her like she was nothing more than a footnote on the story of his life.She is angry at herself for putting herself in this situation.But most of all, she is angry at her heart for sentencing her to this life of mindless longing.

Over dinner that night, she asks her uncle two important questions; “who lives at number nine, Murindati road,” and “would you mind if I extended my stay here for a few days?” Her heart hung on each word from his lips as he answers the first question. The answer to the second is predictable enough.

“Old habits die hard, huh Lavin?” she muses before falling asleep that night, reassured that there is still hope for her.

As luck would have it, the lady of the house is just leaving when she passes by the gate on her way back to her station at the mall the next day, this time with a white and inconspicuous Toyota Starlet. She wishes that the car’s windows were more tinted to give her time to check out her rival, but all she needs is a glimpse to feel even more hopeless.

From behind, Mrs. Village Hotshot, as she has come to label her, is every man’s dream of shapely hung endowment. She walks with the confidence of a career woman and has a demeanor that puts her city breeding to shame. The little she sees of her face and side profile just serves to intimidate her further.

Josephine accelerates, feeling a sort of savage satisfaction at the cloud of dust that engulfsMrs. Village Hotshot. The satisfaction is replaced by a sinking feeling when she remembers something He had once told her. Her sandaled feet floor the brakes, stopping the car in the middle of the road. With trembling fingers, she lowers her window and waits for her to catch up.

She looks annoyed at having to leave the middle of the road again after being engulfed in a cloud of dust a few moments before, but she says nothing. Josephine looks closely at her, trying to recall anything he had said about her she could recognize her with. Even her name had faded from memory. Not that she had ever really paid attention.Although she hadn’t expected to see eye to eye with the girl who had held his affections for more than ten years, her jealousy had been as sharp then as it is now. If only it had been her…

“Kate?” she calls, the name coming to her like a bolt of light. The woman stops a few feet away and turns. Without meaning to, Josephine steps off the car and stands face to face with her rival.

The latter takes a few steps closer to stand a few feet away, bringing with her a strong scent of expensive perfume. Josephine swallows nervously. She had had no plan for this part where His woman gives her a searching look and she just stands there looking like a fool.

“Yes? I don’t recognize you, although your face does look kinda familiar. Did we go to school together?” ‘Kate’ says, smiling tentatively. “Although all my schoolmates used to call me Kathy.Few people called me Kate, a precious few called me Kat.”

Josephine shakes her hand, remembering that he had used that last name. One of the precious few indeed! “You were ahead of me in primary school, but I didn’t go to high school here, my family moved. I remember you because my brother had the biggest crush on you, still does, I think…” she lies.

Kate laughs in the manner of one who is only too aware of her attractiveness. All Josephine can think about is that the love of her life loved this woman and not her, had spent the night in this woman’s arms and not hers, and was almost certainly thinking of this woman, while she was just but a distant memory.

She goes through the day in a terrible mood. Later that evening, she is compelled, as if by an evil spirit, to drive her car straight at him. He just barely manages to escape unscathed. She laughs all the way back to her uncle’s, cries through the night, and sleeps all through the journey back to the city the next day.

Five months ago;

On a beautiful Saturday morning, Josephine sits in her car, watching her bearded heartthrob talk animatedly with a thin brown-teethed man. Unable to keep away, she contends with the occasional glance and occasional visit affords her.

She constantly resists the urge to approach Him and fess up. She also constantly resists the temptation to run the girl over with her car. Presently, she resists the temptation to walk to the restaurant and throttle her when she walks past and exchanges a secret smile with Him.    

Four months ago;

Methu watches as Kathleenwalks to the restaurant counter. He is of the same age-set with her husband, the Special Forces soldier and one of the village’s finest exports. Grapevine has it that she is sleeping around, which means he is obliged to warn her gently to mend her ways. He walks to her as she waits for his wife to serve her lunch.

“You are looking good there, Wife of Kahiga,” he is all smiles and playful tones. She smiles, accustomed to his good-nurtured ribbing.

“One can only feel as good as they look.” She replies philosophically.

“Well, you should be careful that men don’t take the wrong hint and think you are asking to be wooed,” he winks roguishly. She bursts out laughing.

“Well in that case I have been asking to be wooed since I was fifteen. Oh wait, it got me a husband!” something tells her that a lot that is not being said outright is being saidin innuendo.

“Oh yes, because I have known the son of Thaithi since we were small boys. He would kill anyone who dares play about with what is his. How is that son of a gun, by the way? He was to leave the army sometime back. What happened?” the innuendos have been peeled away, leaving behind the naked threat.

“He decided to extend and go to Liberia. He gets back in a couple of months’ time.” She says, receiving her food from the smiling chief chef and waiter.

“That must feel like years to you, right?” he teases. “But am sure Kahiga will take care of all your needs when he gets here, don’t despair.” Sometimes Methu can be really blunt. His wife, the chief chef and waiter, shushes him and he walks back to his office, saying to no one in particular; “it’s better to talk that to gossip, you know.”

As a by the way, as a result of that confrontation, Kathleenrefused to come to my place anymore. She insisted that I go to her place in the cover of darkness and leave the same way. I admired her fervor in persisting where others would easily have called our relationship off.

A few weeks later when we go back to hanging out at my place, Methu wonders at her insistence on getting to work from the wrong side of town.

Four months ago;

“This is crazy. I look like a stalker. I should just go back, I should…” Josephine walks, as if in a trance, away from her car. She follows the bicycle tracks a short way to a small, handsome house set in the middle of a large hedged compound. She hears sounds inside, but she can’t see through the thick tangle of twigs and tall trees.

‘I should go’ tussles with ‘this is a beautiful place for a painter to put up’ in her mind, but mostly she just worries that she is losing her mind. She thinks even more obsessively about him, now that she knows where he is.

“I need to get laid.” She says resolutely, glaring at herself on the rear-view mirror as she starts the car. She doesn’t really expect it to help much.

Three months ago;

Sergeant Detective James Shumari walks to Methu’s Place, feeling out of his depth. He had expected a less postcard perfect village town with better administrative support. The nearest police station twenty kilometers away is understaffed and lethargic. The Assistant Chief’s office had been locked when he had called there. An illegal grazer within the grounds had informed him that the man was settling a boundary dispute someplace or other. He had had no otherwise but report to the Nyumba Kumi elder for the area.

He takes a seat by the door, admiring the large painting hung on the wall for a few seconds. This diner is the only part of this mission he had looked forward to. His comrades back at the DCIO had come back with nothing but praise for the food served here. A few raved about the njohi served at the Bar and Grill across the road, but they were sure to keep that from their seniors. He asks for a large dish of mukimo with a side of meat stew and lots of vegetable (cabbage and carrots) salad. He digs in with visible relish.

It is his first time on this particular case’s follow-up, and apart from this tasty dish, he wishes he were anywhere but. The elder makes his way over from a corner office a few moments after a glass of cold fruit juice is placed before him.

“Joe Methu, Nyumba Kumi elder zone 123.” Methu greets, taking a seat opposite him.

Inspector Shumari is a little taken aback. “How did you know?”

“It’s been five years, officer. I am used your visits every couple of months.”

The two men chat for a while, and then Sgt. Detective Shumari stands to leave. He does not see the bearded man with a clean-shaven headwho freezes at the door on seeing him. He does not see him jump on a bicycle and peel off.

He does not, for the life of him, imagine that the commotion that erupts when a cyclist ploughs into a group of men approaching the restaurant is caused by number eighty nine in the country’s most wanted drug pushers.  If he had seen anything of him, even the profile of his body, Insp. Shumari would have recognized him. He had spent way too many hours studying the thick file on James Lavin to miss him…

Methu observes the young man’s behavior with studied calm. Joseph Mwau, he had said his name was. He normally calls him by whatever name that crops to mind, including boiboi, mukora, and abai. ‘Some people are just afraid of the police,’ he thinks, fighting a chuckle, ‘but few can identify a plainclothes officer.’ He no longer feels like chuckling. He had had his suspicions before, but this is a whole new kettle of fish.

As he watches the plainclothes officer’s car disappear towards the city, he wonders again how the son of Thuo had got himself mixed up with drugs. He also marvels at the young man’s audacity at coming back here, then remembering Kahiga’s wife, concludes that his behavior is not so shocking after all.

Methu has lived in the village and married his childhood sweetheart. If anyone understands better than most, it’s him. ‘Should I warn the young man or call Thuo?’ he wonders. Something tells him that that is not his business. His final thought, before turning and walking back into his office, is that Murindati town is about to experience its first major scandal.

Two months ago;

Even her uncle, hospitable as he is otherwise, is starting to doubt her intentions in coming here. But, bless his soul, he thinks his favorite niece has found a nice young man with whom she is going out with. He mentions casually that as the uncle, the young man should try and get into his good books if he wants her uncle to play fair during the dowry negotiations. She laughs and promises to relay the message.

She has found her man alright, but she highly doubts if he would be interested in any sort of dowry negotiations for her.

However, this time, she comes with a friend who is looking for a house to rent. Number twelve has recently fallen vacant, her uncle informs the pair. It is worth checking out. She drives the two of them to Methu’s. They start moving in the next day. 

A month ago;

Inspector Detective Kabiria arrives at Methu’s with the Assistant Chief and a locally deployed officer of the peace. He is slightly irritated at having to leave his more urgent cases to drive all the way here just to inform this delegation that the litigant in James Lavin’s rape case has withdrawn and dropped all charges. The whole case has collapsed, meaning that the young man would only have to face fugitive indictments were he to be apprehended.

Methu is glad he had not snitched on the young man. He wonders if he might drop this news as a bombshell on him. Then he gets a bombshell himself.

“New evidence, however, have led us to believe that James Lavin was involved in the cold-blooded murder of a couple and three other people in what we suspect is a case of vigilante justice. He is now our most wanted man in the vigilante and mob justice watch list.” The beefy man announces heavily.

Just when Methu is rationalizing that that list could not possibly be as serious as being suspected of drug dealing, Insp. Kabiria breaks that perception as well. “The president has been under immense donor pressure to tackle runaway mob justice in the country, which means that the vigilante watch list is getting more attention now than it did as recently as forty eight hours ago. You will be seeing more of us around here, I expect.”

A month ago;

Josephine lounges on a sunbed under a tree at number twelve Murindati Road reading. Through the back door, she is joined by her roommate Joanna. She is a short, beautiful girl with the body of a comic book cartoon. Josephine had hated the girl from the moment she had caught her date to a party sneaking looks at her. Their open relationship had given him all the freedom to ditch her and try his luck with her, and from there He had not looked at her once. Although it was mostly because he had gotten in trouble and was unconscious when he had been in her company. Then had had to go into hiding.

Her mind wanders again, assessing the current situation. She has been growing increasingly disconcerted by the glaring gaps in his cover.She wonders if He even knows about the reopening of his vigilante case file by the Director of Public Prosecution. She wouldn’t be surprised if He is under the impression that that particular misadventure could not be traced back to Him.

Joanna looks from her short kinky hair,herinnocent baby face, graceful long neck, smoothly flowing womanly curves and long legs. Josephine is a drop-dead gorgeous girl who has always attracted her fair share of suitors. She has never showed much interest in them though.Her heart has long been out of reach.

Joanna marvels, not for the first time, how Josephine remains so dedicated to a man who probably hadn’t thought about her once in the past couple of years.She feels another ripple of guilt at her role in their separation five years ago.She vows to stick around and help in any way she can to unite the two, or just lend a hand in whatever her new friend has up her sleeve.

“The same car, parked at the same spot for the fourth day in a row, and the idiot just cycles past, whistling a stupid little tune.” Josephine bursts out. Having seen his lax security measures, Josephine has since taken it upon herself to become his guardian angel. Joanna has had no option but to help. It has been grueling.

“Men in love are pretty gullible, Jos.” Joanna says sagely. “You are his guardian angel. You are the only reason he is breathing now. Round two of your work is just starting.”

Josephine smiles despite herself. Being the guardian angel to a framed felon had been exhilarating, but it had involved sending him away from her. Bringing him back into her fold as a fugitive is bound to be even more terrifying. But then again, what is life without a few adventures?

 

 

 

 

Chapter 8: Fugitive Uneasy

Like I said, a lot happens while me and Kathleensmooch and wrestle in bed. The six months are over so fast I almost dare Kathleen to consult a calendar when she announces that her husband would be arriving home the next week. It is Friday night, which means that Kathleen and I have two full days of basking in each other’s adoration before the gates are slammed shut on our affair. We make good use of those two days.

We are both sore when she leaves for her place on Sunday evening. I feel particularly proud when I observe her walk rather delicately as I say goodbye to her outside the green gate. ‘Take that Kahiga! Top that if you can.’ I boast, walking slowly away.

‘I know he loves me, and I still love him.’ The recollection, echoing hollow in my head, stops my boasts alright. Am surprised that am not more distraught. By all intents and purposes, Kathleen has been my wife for the past six months. I walk to Methu’s and order a plate of ugali served with tilapia and some greens. It is served promptly and it is delicious as usual. Methu invites me for a drink at the Bar and Grill.

I had planned to sleep early today, but I accept promptly. I am no longer the home-bound family man of a few hours ago. My woman is not really mine, and her owner is set to come home and claim what is his.

Despite having emptied a large plate of ugali less than two hours before, I don’t protest when a large tray of roast mutton is laid on the table in front of us. The smell makes me feel like I have never eaten a morsel of food all my life. The njohi is smooth, well refined, and just the right combination of bitter, tangy, and stinging. It sets my body alight with the most enjoyable heat emanating from my stomach. ‘That heat could make a charcoal stove go green with envy.’ I think, enjoying it.

We talk about this and that for a while, but I am soon reeling from an onslaught of uncomfortable questions. “You finally let Kahiga’s woman go home, then?” Methu is not a man to beat around the bush or give a man the chance to prepare for a beat-down. But I have been having njohi, the man’s drink, and am feeling quite bold myself.

“She is not really his woman. I own her heart, mind, and body.” I actually manage to sound like those wise old men of long ago, or at least I think I do…

“He has paid goats andnjohifor her. Have you? Or are you just the kind of man that reaps where they did not sow, son of Thuo?”

Now this does get to me. ‘Son of Thuo!?’ I haven’t been called that in a long time. I squint at this persistent man in the multicolored haze of Makutano Bar and Grill VIP lounge. ‘You are wise, Methu, I will give you that. First you ask me about Kathleen. You get me off balance. Then you call me by my real name to show me that I am not as clever as I may have led myself to believe. What else do you have up your sleeve?’ my mind reels.

“If Thuo had not moved from here to pursue the thrills of city life, I would have paid twice as many goats and gotten the men ten times as drunk.” They had better be less drunk than I am now, because I am spewing nonsense faster than Donald Trump spews it.

Methu is in a good mood too. He leans close and tells me that I am good a son of the village as any, even with my many problems with thirikari (the government). That is encouraging. I lift my horn-shaped goblet and empty it. I look around for a waiter to fill me another one, but I see none about. ‘Can I go to the bar and get it filled myself?’ I wonder, and then become aware of Methu prattling opposite me. Wait, what did you just say right there?    

“…number one in the vigilante and mob justice watch list, which is suddenly as serious as being in America’s Terror watch list. What crimes exactly did you commit?” I suddenly know that the old fellow has been priming me for this conversation. The police must have dug really far to make the connection. Then again, they’ve had five years, more than enough to catch a hardcore terrorist, let alone a small fish like good old me.

“I was fixed by someone who had ties with the drug industry. I made sure to clean the vermin –discreetly of course- when I was strong enough after being freed from police custody. If you never noticed, the use of the party drug ended shortly after the crimes for which I am now being hunted were committed. Now am now being hunted like a dog.” I slur.

A waiter has filled my tumbler with intoxicating honey. She looks angelic beautiful to me now, but she is probably cross eyed, or worse, in reality.But that is neither here nor there.

The two of us remain quiet for a long time as men guffaw with laughter, dance, down copious amounts of njohi, develop adulterous thoughts and act on them all around. I hear the rooms behind Murindati Bar and Grill are always fully booked in advance every weekend.

“What are you going to do about all this intelligence you have, Mzee Methu?” am not sure how I should refer to him, so I go with what flits through my head first. He stares at me across the table, looking quite sober. Some may say as sober as a drunk judge.

“Thirikarican be very difficult at times.” He says slowly. “There are laws which you are to follow to the latter, for order and law to prevail. It is all very black and white. Law-abiding citizen or a criminal; you are either one or the other. What they don’t seem to recognize that there is a whole spectrum of grey space between the black and the white.” Methu is now a straight-out philosopher. I nod at him, understanding nothing.

“You take care of your problems young man, or you just might burn.” He clears the bill and stands to leave. “My advice: get as far away from here as you can, as soon as you can. Don’t look back.”

I think this is some good advice Methu just gave me. The only problem is that I am Lot’s wife. I love what has been in the past way too much. I can’t let her go. I am even more in love now. I think I shall fight for her.

My Monday morning dawns bright and sunny.Too bright and sunny, seeing as I am nursing a hangover. My brain is immediately abuzz with a million thoughts, thoughts that only seem to worsen my hangover. I decide to forget them and get some grease in my stomach.

I walk to the kitchen and whip something quick. There, that is much better. Now turning to this problem of mine; flee for my life or fight for my love? I bounce the thought in my brain for a while.

Fight or flight; the genetically coded survival response that has ensured the survival of mankind for thousands of years. See danger, flee, and survive. See danger, fight, and most likely perish. I have been running, even from my own shadow, for the past five years. The first year after the first, uncertain month had been almost enjoyable. I felt like a real-life antihero, living life with no bounds to family or friend, doing as I pleased, when I pleased, as long as the nearest police post remained long, impassable miles away.

 It was during this first year that I had been taking care of the art director and her drug peddling minions. The incidences had caused an international outcry and sent the law and order men in blue running around in circles. No one had noticed that party drug induced rapes had completely stopped immediately afterwards.

Needing a quiet life, I had moved then, only to settle down smack in the middle of a giant cattle rustling ring in the North Rift. Like the outstanding citizen I am, I was soon neck-deep in that as well. My sidekick had been only too glad to bask in the glory of my work, and heads had rolled, to say the least.

It is exciting, this fugitive lifestyle. I’ll give it that. The two cases remained the highlights of my life; as a fugitive and before. In another universe, I’d probably become the robber knight and traverse the country bringing down bad guys.

In this, I’d rather not. No, don’t get me wrong, I hate crime as much as the next guy and I rather fancy donning the red armor and thrashing the bad guys flat. It’s just that, after a while, the excitement becomes too much. And you want nothing more than to have a boring, law-abiding existence. Too much of something- they say.

Friends. I have had no real ones in the past five years. Because after all is said and done, someone who doesn’t even know your real name or the truth about your past can hardly count as one. Fake life equals fake friends. You can’t have one and escape the other.

Only in Murindati has my armor been pierced through, giving me friends like Kathleen, Methu, and Njogu. (The last, am afraid, has not contributed much to events recorded in this story. He is rather too busy chasing money and skirts to partake in anything more than idle chit a few evenings each month.)

I have had real friends here, and the certainty that I won’t have any in the next hideout scares the crap out of me. The certainty that my cover will soon be blown and the police will soon be descending on me scares me even more. But really, am I not being too paranoid? Have I not lived here for six months without any but a handful of people knowing? Have I not learnt that people are more oblivious than our guilt and insecurities make us think? Well, until they are not, and we start wishing that our guilt and insecurities had sent us scrambling to the hills for safety.

My indecision rages for days, sending me into frenzies of paranoia where I frantically pack up my possessions (of which I have accumulated quite a lot) when I am feeling flighty, and actually picking a paintbrush and doodling something on a canvas when I am feeling more combative. My incursions to town are still limited to trips to the shop and back once every few days. I have been lucky enough to avoid Methu, who I feel would not take kindly to me not having already taken his sagacious advice after he had covered so well for me with the police.

On one such trip, I see a car parked a few gates away from my house. I have seen that car before, but not at that gate. Try as I might, though, I can’t for the life of me remember where. It looks sufficiently empty to belong to a visiting relative, but it sticks at the back of my mind. I am more vigilant now, and I also double my efforts at reacquainting myself with the safety checks I keep to ensure that danger does not spring at me undetected.

Murindati is different from Kiungururia in Naivasha and Londiani in Kericho, my two previous residences, in that it is more prosperous. There are more vehicles here, more well-dressed people. Sons and daughters visit from the cities more often too, meaning that there are lots of new faces too. A better chance of getting lost among them all, but when any of them might be a plainclothes detective, well that is a different affair altogether.

I have become like a mouse, jumping at the slightest noise, suspecting every new face, expecting every car to eject gun-toting police officers who might just gun defenseless old me down. This is no way to live. I decide Friday morning, and start packing in real earnest. Forget friends. Forget revived childhood romances. Forget even the love of my life. I got to save my own hide first. I start packing in real earnest.

Wait, what’s that? My gate buzzer. Someone is trying to come in. The peephole is the only way to know who it is before opening that gate. My heart beats erratically as I walk towards it. I suddenly long for the hour when I will finally leave this roller coaster. Am glad that am almost done packing. I am even more excited to beleavingthe dangers of Murindati in a few hours.

I look through the peephole. There is no one. Was it just an errant kid messing about? I wonder. “Who is there?” I call out.

“It-is-me.Aunt-Njoki-sent-me-to-give-you-this.” A head bobs in sight with every word, and a small paper flashes through. I almost laugh. What is Kathleen doing, sending letters through a small boy? I open the gate.

“Where is Aunt Njoki?” I ask, taking the letter and examining it. It looks like someone opened it and resealed it but did a piss poor job of it.

“In her office. She hasn’t come since uncle Kahiga came the day before last. He brought me soldier toys.” The little boy brandishes an action figure in my face. I try not to think why Kathleen had remained at home for two days after her husband’s return.

“How is she? Does she look happy?” I ask, hating myself for sounding so desperate. The boy makes a noncommittal gesture. “Uh, do you want to come in? Am sure I have a coin somewhere in my house you can buy yourself a treat…” I amend.

The boy brightens up and follows me promptly. He ends up leaving with a tiny sculpture of the town I had made which he bargains with that coin I had promised him. Even though I had meant it to be mine for keeps, he looks so eager to won it. I let him take it. He thanks me profusely and starts calling me uncle.

“Hey that aunty friend of yours can give me a lift to town!” he yells, spotting the familiar white car driving slowly past the entry road to my house as we leave my compound. My heart starts pounding in my chest again. Am now quite certain that whoever is in that car is spying on me.

“Aunty friend?” I ask.

“Yes. She asked to see the letter, told me she is your good friend. Can you please run and tell her to give me a lift?” the boy persists, pulling urgently at my arm.

‘I can run and ask her who the hell she is.’ I think, quickening my pace. ‘Or she might get the good look at your face she needs to call in the cavalry on you,’ a small voice whispers. Too late, am already at the road. The car is just a few meters ahead, still inching along. ‘If she is here spying on you, you can bet she knows who you are perfectly well, boyo.’ I brace myself. ‘Might as well pretend to get little Mickey here a ride to town and get an eyeful of you…’

I take the boy in my arms (“let go of me, I can run just fine on my own,” he protests.) and start running towards the car. The car accelerates and is soon disappearing round the bend to town.

“Aah, she run away. Mean lady.” The boy says, scrambling from my arms. He then bids me goodbye and runs off as if fearing that I might carry him all the way to town.

‘Hmmm,’ I think. ‘If it spies on me, opens my letter, and runs away from me, then it definitely is out to get me.’

I am convinced that I have just encountered my first bounty hunter. It is not a pretty thought. But first, let’s see what Kathleen wants to say that is so important she can’t just call and tell me herself. I unfold the tiny prescription envelop and extract a beautifully designed business card for Kathleen Njoki, CPA. An odd attachment for snail mail communication methinks. ‘Does she want me to visit her at her offices?’ I wonder, turning the card over. ‘Ah, that’s it!’ There’s a handwritten message at the back.

Follow-up for our first meeting at 11 AM.

Don’t be late.  

I smile. Kathleen must be feeling paranoid, if she not only sends notes, but also makes them appear like business messages. A lucky hindsight, seeing as the letter has already fallen in the wrong hands. I doubt she want me to bump into her again at Methu’s, which leaves the rock on the hill.

Going off to meet her while I could be finishing the last of my packing before leaving later this evening is unwise, but I can’t leave her hanging like this. It’s just 9 now, so why don’t I just continue packing till, like1030 then go off and see what this is all about? I do just that.

Meanwhile, at Number 12, Murindati Road,the white car slows to a halt at the parking space. The driver alights slowly, feeling slightly ashamed.

“Jo, you are early. What happened?” Josephine approaches through the front door. Her partner was not to come back from her reconnaissance till later in the afternoon.

“The girl sent a message to him, asking for a meet. Here.” Joanna removes her phone and hands it to Josephine. The latter studies the picture of two lines of thin handwriting. “Any idea where that could be?”Joanna asks.

“Could be anywhere,” Josephine says, handing the phone back. “Just means that the ass is still seeing her instead of leaving.” She kicks a pebble with sandaled feet, sending fallen leaves scattering everywhere. It is evident that she doesn’t like the ass’ behavior. Then something occurs to her and she straightens. “That doesn’t explain why you are back; you could have sent this on WhatsApp…” 

Joannaapologizes profusely, explaining her miscalculation at sticking around and the boy obviously blowing her cover. She is surprised to see Josephine smiling. She raises an inquisitive eyebrow.

“That might just be the thing that sends him scampering for the hills. If he suspects that someone is spying on him… I doubt he will even go to this meeting.”

 

 

 

 

Chapter 9: Teenage Dreams

 I am late for the meeting with Kathleen. I have never timed my trips, but I had approximated it would take no more than the thirty minutes, then I’d make the meet as brief as possible and still make it for my 4pm deadline for leaving. 

It is twenty minutes past eleven when I finally step foot on the rocky platform. Kathleen is there already, looking out of place in a silky pink knee-length office skirt, cream shirt, and –you must be kidding me!

“Stilettos?!” I exclaim.

She looks briefly at her feet and positively beams at me. Without a word, she covers the space between us and crashes into my chest. Mindless abandon extends its treacherous fingers around my brain in a familiar hug. Tomorrow is suddenly a perfectly agreeable time to leave. I am no longer in a hurry.

After seven months together, I can tell what Kathleen needs without asking. Right now, she wants to be hugged tight. I hug her tight. Now she wants to be kissed. I kiss her. Now I think she would like to take the weight off these stilettos of hers. I sink with her to the ground. Still holding her close, still kissing her.

She leaves my arms long enough to extract a picnic sheet from her handbag and lay it on the ground. I don’t need to be a mind reader to know what she wants now. For the first time, I hesitate. Somewhere at the back of my mind, something holds me back. Is it the fear of being spotted? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just this constant voice that is nagging at me, urging me to leave before I get boxed in. There are only three exits from Murindati.

Seeing my hesitation, Kathleen starts undressing. I am no longer hesitating when she lays naked on that sheet moving her limbs this way and that way and smiling invitingly. There is no hesitation in the desperate love we make. In her arms I am invincible, in her arms I would gladly lay my life down for hers. In her life I might just end up losing my life. Will I fault her if that happens?

In the idyllic afterglow; “I thought you had already left. I half expected Jim to come and tell me that your house was empty.”

I stare at her. “You could have just called,” I point out.

“No I couldn’t.” she states. “My phone took a bath with me on my Sunday night soak. Look, new phone.” Ah, that explains a lot, but not everything.

“So you changed your phone number too?” I had fallen to the temptation and called several times, receiving the same disappointing response.

“Couldn’t remember my old PIN,” she apologizes. “It happens!” she exclaims, catching my disbelieving look.

“They say that your case is being revived, a whole division of detectives is at task. Did you know?” it had been on last night’s and this morning’s news, but their trail is several years cold.

“There were two detectives here yesterday.” This part of the news I didn’t know. I feel a stab of panic. “They talk mostly to NyumbaKumielders, and of course Methu threw them off the track…”

“Someone else might talk,” I voice my alarm, kicking myself mentally for dawdling all week.

Kathleen simply smiles. “Do you know what the town’s motto is?” she asks. I shake my head. I didn’t know that it had one.

“Well, it’s more of a slogan, but it is; live and let live.”

‘That is not a very funny joke,’ I think. But I laugh because she looks so eager. She does not join in my laughter. “Why are you laughing?” she asks, puzzled.

This town has the fastest rate of gossip sharing of any that I had ever been to. Everyone knows pretty much every detail of their neighbor’s life and they share widely. I voice this observation to her.

“Okay, maybe it applies to outsiders only. But trust me, it is there. You…” she pokes my chest. “…wouldn’t know because you are still a few years shy of being accepted into the community.”

“But doesn’t that mean am not protected by the vow of silence?” I ask, intrigued.

“No one tells an outsider anything about an insider, leave alone government agents. A lot of people here find it too interfering.” Apparently I am just now being schooled in the ways of Murindati.

“Even after your town got such a handsome uplift?”

“A plot to lure them into selling their land, and no one really asked…”

Intriguing, I think. I don’t think that the villagers would tolerate a suspected rapist in the midst though.

 â€œAt first glance youblend right in, but anyone that knows you are a painter might let that slip. That’d totally blow your cover.” My thoughts, exactly. “Unless someone deliberately wants to get you though, the chances of that happening are slim.” She can’t be suggesting that I stay here now, can she?

“I can think of a few people who might do that…” I give her a meaningful look. She seems to get who I am talking about.

“I don’t think he is perfectly okay.” She starts. “Something about him rubs me the wrong way. I think he may have battleground PTSD…”I don’t know what to say to that, so I remain silent. “…He agreed to an amicable divorce.” Kathleen finishes.

“He must be a tough nut if agreeing to an amicable divorce makes you question his sanity.” I say, trying hard not to smile.

“It’s a little more complicated than that. We’ve been together for ten years, although he was absent for a cumulative total of about nine of those…” some animosity seeps through her schooled nonchalance.

Me, I am thinking that it is just as well I had never come looking for her all those years ago. Finding her as a freshly married bride would have been worse than the scenario I came home to. I mean look, am already prompting a divorce! I may yet get me a bride from this village…

Kathleen, however, seems to have something of great weight she needs to get off her chest. “He held me, I let him hold me. Do things to me… I hated every moment of it. I think we both did. (I wouldn’t bet on that) I swear it won’t happen again. Can you forgive me?”

It is one thing to have the woman you love married to someone else. It is another to live with the knowledge that she shares herself with them the same way she does with you. It is a whole matter altogether when you hear her talk about it. When it is to you she talks about them, well…

I feel a coldness come over me. I try to fight it, but it must show in my face, because Kathleen grabs my head and forces me to look at her. She looks pained. There are things there that she wants to say that she doesn’t know how to. That I don’t know if I want to hear.

“Kathleen.” The sound of her full name sounds strange in my lips. It must sound a lot worse in hers, because she looks stricken and her eyes suddenly swim with unshed tears. Her grip on my head tightens.

“I don’t want to do that anymore.I want only you, Lav. I love you.” The word rings in my ears and echoes in my brain. My heart starts beating furiously. My facial muscles are suddenly very pliant.

“Are you aware that you just broke rule number two?”

She nods quietly.

“Do you know when I broke it?”

She stares wordlessly at me.

“Always.”

“Always?” she breaths.

“Always.” I repeat reaching for her face and planting kisses everywhere.

We bask in our newly expressed love. New possibilities are buzzing in my head. Me and Kathleen, husband and wife, living together…

“Am also pregnant.” Her voice breaks into my reverie. There, the family is complete with a bouncing baby boy. Somehow it doesn’t occur to me that it could just as easily be a girl.

The idea, however, terrifies me. Being responsible for the welfare of a small kid can’t be a small task. Doing it as a fugitive, well, that could get tricky. “But am a fugitive. I can’t ask you to leave your life and tie yourself to me. With a baby in the picture, well…”

“You don’t need to ask me. I believe that you are innocent, Lav, I believe in you. I don’t mind going to the end of the world with you if that means I get to spend the rest of my life with you…” she means it too! How can I help but kiss this wonderful woman?

Kathleen grows more excited as she considers the idea. She figures that I will be even less conspicuous with a wife and kid in tow and the police will soon give up the pursuit, and “how can you even stand the thought of being away from me indefinitely? The thought of losing you has been driving me crazy for the past four days!”

“Well, me and you both, my fair lady, you and me both.” I kiss her, possessively. She is mine!

As we walk away from the cocoon of our love nest, I feel suddenly claustrophobic. The town is a trap I cannot leave in time. My departure feels like it is being impeded by something. So far, the events that have kept me rooted, namely Kathleen’s snail mail invitation, have been good, fantastic even. I will now have to wait another half day before leaving with Kathleen.Happy as I am about this twist of events, I can’t help but feel that am being set up for a colossal fall.

Our paths fork out after crossing the river. For a few minutes we stand at the intersection holding hands and staring wordlessly at each other. Warmth fills my heart. I look at her and she looks at me. It is going to happen. Kathleen and I are going to be together.

The thought reverberates around my mind till it is all I can hear. I pull her close. I don’t think I could express what I feel if I tried, so I don’t bother. I let my body communicate with hers, and there must be a mind melt here, because I can feel her stop the fight to find words. When at last we speak, it is not about what either of us feels. It is about more mundane affairs.

“Tomorrow morning we leave, aye?” I say. Kathleen nods. I think she’s still in the mind melt zone, but we need to get a move on. I don’t mind leading in that department either. “That is if you can pack all your clothes by then,” I add, grinning.

Kathleen leaves the mind melt zone and glares at me, then softens and smiles. Even she must know that packing two wardrobes, alone, might be a tasking affair.

“Okay, Mr. Smarty-pants. Keep in touch.” She gives me a final chaste peck and walks off. I only remain rooted on the spot for a few seconds. Packing up a roomful of framed paintings is no small task either.

Luckily for me, I use Easy-Frame frames for my paintings. The technique allows the canvas to be clamped down between two wooden frames, one slightly bigger than the other. The inner measurements of the bigger one should be very near equal to the outer dimensions of the smaller one. By fitting the smaller inside the large with the canvas between, I get an easy to fit, easy to remove frame. The easy removal comes in handy at times like this.

The detached canvases I cover with treated sugar paper to preserve the paint. Moisture and moths destroy more paintings than art thieves. Interestingly, most of the paints destroyed by moisture and moths are those that are stolen by art thieves and improperly stored.

By 9PM, I have almost finished. There are only three paintings left. I relax. I’ve been working nonstop for hours now and could use a break. I am also ravenously hungry. There are a few packets of noodles left in my kitchen cupboards.  ‘Not so bad for my last supper in this place,’ I think.

“Hey” my phone beeps with a text.

“Hey,” I return. “Someone is texting while they should be packing.”

She sends me an emoticon of some naughty head with its tongue out. I reply with the unimpressed dude with a tilted mouth.

“Kahiga helped for a bit before going off with his boys. I am almost done.” I had never thought of that estranged husband of hers as anything but a monster. I voice just as much via a pithy text. Kathleen is tickled.

“He’s actually pretty cool. You should meet him sometime.” I hope she is laughing this much, coz that’s a whole lot of laughing emoticons she just sent.

“No thanks.” It’s a no-brainer.

She sends me a GIF image of a mewing cat. Am halfway through texting her asking what that is all about when it hits me. “REALLY?!!!” my fingers fly across the keyboard in inspired speed.

The good nurtured banter ends when my noodles catch fire. I was too distracted I forgot to attend to them. Thank God I had several packets to begin with. I dispose of the current batch in the wastepaper and start making another plateful. But sure that the previous meal had been my last; I’d used up the last of myseasonings.Consequently, my last super as a free man in Murindati is not particularly delicious. ‘No matter,’ I think. I soon get back to folding up my paintings.

An hour and a half later, I pick my phone and call Kathleen. She doesn’t answer. I am too excited not to share this new piece of news. “You got to see this.” I text her.

“See what?” there are no emoticons. I wonder why, Kathleen loves emoticons. Maybe she’s already asleep or feeling really sleepy.

“The most outstanding painting I have ever made.” I had discovered it moments earlier, behind the canvas of another, less outstanding painting. I had painted it months ago but didn’t want Kathleen to see it, so an ingenious method of concealing it had been devised. My mistake was leaving it out of sight months after I had completed it, waiting for a special moment to reveal it.

“Don’t you make one every day?” she asks. I frown. Something feels a little off. “When do I see it? We leave bright and early tomorrow…”

‘Bright and early…’ “Just come over at seven-ish, I really want you to see it before I pack it up.” I insist.

“I’ll be there, but I got to sleep. Goodnight hun.”

I stare at the phone for a long time afterwards.  I feel uneasy, but I dismiss it as the nerves from all that has been going on and what am about to do tomorrow.

“Goodnight Kat.” I text, my gaze fixed on what I consider my masterpiece.

It has just emerged behindThe Ray of Dancing Sunshine canvas, which is itself an outstanding painting. Nothing, however, beats this one. If I were an art critic, I’d tell immediately that the painter was well acquainted with object of the painting. Every brushstroke portrays a deep love of the object, love of painting, and love of painting the object. Or maybe I’d be the grumpy kind and disparage the proportion or perspective or something else.

However, I am the painter and I am very excited to see her reaction to this one painting. Unbeknown to me, events outside the four walls of my living room are about to bring the town of Murindati some excitement of its own.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 10: The Noose Tightens

It is just a minute to eleven pm. Methu’s Place is deserted, the last customers having finished their diner and retired to their homes. Methu sits at his office going through the day’s ledgers. His phone alarm bleeps and disturbs the pin drop quiet. It is time to start closing up. Methu pushes back on his chair, yawns loudly, and gets down to closing up. Suddenly, light comes pouring into the diner from outside. 

A police cruiser comes rounding the bend and stops directly outside Methu’s Place. Afuming Detective Inspector Kabiria alights and walks purposely in. “Bwana Methu, are you having a good evening?” the question is asked as if the detective is daring Methu to answer in the negative.

Methu pauses in the process of lifting a stool to place it on top of the table to allow room for the cleaners to do their job early the next morning. “Am alright officer, you caught me just as I was about to start locking up.” He straightens up and shakes the Detective’s hand.

There is some restlessness in his demeanor that betrays the pressure that he, as the lead detective on the case in this region, is going through. As a Nyumba Kumi elder, Methu knows a thing or two that me and you don’t. For example, the police have long since gagged the president from making the occasional updates he had been giving to the media on the investigation. All the global pressure on the president to rope in the runaway vigilante justice has been directed towards the police force.

Watching the news, the Vigilante in Chief (me) would find nothing more than snippets of news that would give him a false sense of safety. (As a by the way, I wasn’t watching the news). The Police Chief had instructed his men to work quietly in the background and present real results at the opportune moment. It was thanks to this strategy that all six men in an otherwise short seven-man vigilante justice watch list were in custody. 

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Methu proceeds behind the counter and pours hot water in two cups.

The Detective glances guiltily at his colleagues outside and decides to accept by remaining silent. Methu looks like he is pouring him a cup regardless of his answer. “Bad times, man. Bad times. They have had us running all over the place all day. I just barely made it in time…”

He breaks off to take the cup, thinking at the same time that Kenyans are not avid enough drinkers of anything but beer and spirits. He wouldn’t have had to go all day without a cup otherwise. His spirits rise with every sip.

“I would like to ask you a few questions.” he starts, setting a folder on the table. From it he extracts a handful of bizarre pictures of one James Lavin. “HQ dispatched this a few hours ago. Computer impressions of what our young lad would be looking like right now, which we have beamed to all our stations, and people like me have been driving from every small village and giving out.”

Methu picks up the stack and realizes that he was holding fifteen of the most ingenious disguises that could mask the core features of a handsome twenty two year old man. Among them is a familiar smoothly shaven head and bearded face.

DetectiveInspector Kabiriais too busy draining the last of his coffee to notice the slight tremor that shakes through Methu. This tale would probably have ended very differently if he had. Methu leafs through the pile and extracts four photos and then pretends to be considering two more.

“I think I have seen faces that more or less resemble these,” he is careful to insert as much eagerness in his voice to throw the officer off. The accepted rule of thumb is that a person who selects more than two pictures from what the brainstorming software produces is probably developing apathy and creating false memories.

The detective suppresses a groan. “The five of them?”

Methu tries to think hard. As his agent, he knows for a fact that the fugitive has not cleared out of his house. But hadn’t he heard someone mention a car coming from Son of Thuo’s place and cruising through the town towards the main road earlier. He wonders if He had been inside that car. He had better be gone, because Methu is not about to risk jail time for obstructing a criminal investigation.

“These four, in order of likelihood.” He arranges four pictures on the table top. The one of what he knows the suspect to look like is second most likely.

“Interesting, these last two appear in the fewestlocations, but from highlyreliable witnesses.You, several taxi-drivers, and several art dealers in town… very interesting.” The detective rises to his feet and starts towards the door, studying the two portraits.

“Our psychology analysts insist that his paintings portray the image of a sentimental artist with a deep attachment to his childhood. There are good odds of him being here. And if you say that you may have seen a familiar-looking face here, well…”

Outside, the night is moonless and starless. An oppressive, pitch black darkness covers the town. The mast light at the square reaches no further than thirty meters all round.

Two more cruisers have since joined the one with which the detective had come. Methu can feel his bubbling excitement as the Detective Inspector reaches for his waistband and radios the command center at Nakuru Central police station.  A few carloads of plainclothes detectives and special crime police will be arriving in town before dawn tomorrow.

He gives the men present firm instructions to fan out and man all exits to the main roads from the village. There are few possible exits from the town for the fugitive. He is giving him no chance at any of them.

And so it is that Murindati goes to sleep under heavy police presence, with hardly any of the villagers –who had retired to their houses earlier in the evening- any the wiser.

At number twelve, MurindatiRoad, Joanna paces.She has just dismissed a police detective who haddropped in at the house on what he maintained was a random check. She knows that the check was not random at all. She also doubts any other homestead had received the midnight visit. Joanna looks down at the two pictures the detective had left her. She suspects that the end is even nearer for Him. It is very likely going to be a thick one.   

“If I didn’t know any better. I would think you are more invested in this than I am.” Josephine walks into the room, carrying two glasses half filled with a brown liquid.

Joanna takes hers and knocks back the Scotch Whiskey, loving the way her stomach turns instantly rock solid and radiates potent heat. She looks at her friend straight in the eye.

“Not to be rude, but my reasons for coming with you was to help you keep him safe. Whether or not you two end up together is not my main concern. Mine is a conscience that needs cleansing…” at a peeved look from her partner, she leaves the statement hanging.

“As opposed to my silly dreams of winning his heart, you mean? Of finally having my unrequited love returned? Is that what you were about to say?” ever since following Kathleen Njoki to the hills and seeing a familiar bearded face join her shortly after, Josephine had all but drunk herself silly.

Joanna can tell that she is hurting. She suspects that the whole enterprise must feel to her like mere stupidity by an obsessive lovey-eyed teenager.It is lovey-eyed alright, only by a twenty four years old woman, not a teenager.

“Trust me, you will feel even worse when you see him whisked off to jail, or killed in the crossfire.” Joanna begs. Going all ninja is just the thing she needs to distract her friend from her constant mopping. It makes her uncomfortable.

“Well, it is your fault he is in all of this in the first place, so… I am off to sleep.” Joanna gasps, horrified.

That was a low blow, and it hurt. Josephine seems to enjoy hurting her. A smug smile plays at her lips as she slightly staggers to bed.

Joanna admits that shedid many bad things in her past. She had felt completely guiltless until this woman had come and given her a conscience. She had already withdrawn her pay-for-hire rape claims.She had joined this crazy mission to make sure that an innocent man does not go to jail for her mistakes.

Defeated, she sits and pours herself a glass of whiskey. The mission can only be accomplished by two people. It had always been, has been, will always be, a two man (or woman, in this case) job. Trying on her own… well, trying on her own would have to do, now that her mate had thrown in the towel. God bless her, she would. As for Josephine, the brains behind the whole operation, the crazy brains, she might add, it is too bad. Just too bad.

She had poured the whole glass with the intentions of drinking herself to sleep. But now she needs to keep her wits about her. She had never been particularly brainy, but she has always done alright. Always been able to get thinks she wants done, done.

One of these things had included framing a handsome, talented artist for rape five long years ago. By far the best-paying job of her previous career, and the one she had most enjoyed. And also ominously her last, which had left her with vivid memories; her fingers clutching at the back of a strong, ribbed young man, coming apart with bits of skin under her fingers. Being taken there once, twice, thrice… three times more than any other man she had been with before.

Every part of her body has a memory of its own from that time. If she allows herself or listens hard enough, she can feel each and every part of her longing to go back to that magical weekend. Joanna shakes her head to clear the memories. She needs to focus if she is to save a life tonight. A dear friend is dead drunk at home because she is two parts heartbroken and one part angry at someone for colossal stupidity in staying where they ought not to.

Her glance strays to house number nine, Murindati Road, or as you might know it, the house with the green gate. ‘You are one hell of a vixen if you managed to tie the bull down, I’ll give you that.’ She thinks, saluting an invisible entity.

An entity who is at this very moment just leaving the bathtub after a long, warm soak. She had made sure to leave her phone out of the tub this time, not wanting to kill communication with a certain someone with whom she is to elope tomorrow.

She sits on the bed in the spare bedroom and stares at her screen saver. Bushy beards, high cheekbones, clear, deep set eyes that she can feel taking in the very pore of her freshly exfoliated skin (what makes him such a great painter, she thinks). The look completes in a biggish, clean-shaven head. A smile lights her features, then blossoms into a self-conscious laughter. If she holds the phone like this, yes, just like this, she can imagine him laughing at her for one thing or another. She liked his uncanny ability to laugh at you while making it look like he were laughing with you. Or he might just simply just cause you to guffaw with laughter at your own silliness.

“Getting sentimental, are we?” a voice calls from the door.

She looks up to see her ex-husband leaning against the doorframe. He is taller, broader, and more rugged than her Lavin. He has exuded a manly,even a little chauvinistic, poise since she knew him more than twenty years ago, then just a teenager. She had once loved the vibes of entitled arrogance that bubbled under the surface, but now… she had been far too scared for far too long.

“Errr,” she clears her throat.

“It’s okay. I just wanted to say; I won’t be here when you leave tomorrow, so lock up and leave the key, okay?”

She looks up, feeling guilty at causing the distress that is visible on his sunburnt face topped by military-cut hair. She nods soundlessly, not trusting her voice. His shadow in the periphery does not move until she turns her face towards it. Then it moves, not away back to the living room, but towards her, sitting on the queen-size bed, with nothing covering her but a towel.

His hands under her armpits propel her upwards, towards a familiar face. Estranged, sure, but still familiar. Also a lot of firsts there. Strong lips crush against hers, bringing back memories that she tries hard to fight back. Her towel somehow remains fastened around her, and she is grateful for that separation.

“There, that is a better memory of you to take with me…” Kahiga says, standing back. He doesn’t care to hide the excitement he has felt holding her close. “Goodbye Katie,” he says, smiling. Kathleen’s towel chooses that same moment to come cascading down to the floor. Kahiga doesn’t leave for a while yet.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 11: Scorched Earth

As an artist, the time at which I wake has almost always meant the different between a full day of artistic inspiration, when the brush flies across the canvas and leaves you feeling elated, and a dull day of unsure, unsteady brushstrokes that you feel like taking back immediately after. The Saturday morning dawned as the former, but quickly turned into the latter. By midday, I would willingly have taken ten inspired days to this Saturday. But hey, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

 Something should be said about dressing from a traveller’s case and not from the wardrobe. There is something special about reaching within a packed suitcase and extracting this color dress shirt from some depth and this other color jeans from another (or the same), pressing down to lock it, and zipping it shut. Then you go for the shapeless bag where all your shoes are and remove them. Now that is something!

 (Am told that refined travellers just leave whatever they plan on wearing on the journey in the closet. Apparently that saves them time and effort on the day of travel… Well, we all know am a fugitive. And I assure you that that is a different form of globetrotting altogether.)

I finish dressing at exactly thirty minutes to seven. I eat, brush my teeth, and make a few rounds about the house checking to see that I did not leave anything behind. It is fifteen minutes past seven when I next check the time. I will be outbound in just forty five minutes. How exciting!

Speaking of exciting, though, where is Kat? She was supposed to come right about now to marvel at my masterpiece before we can leave. I don’t text when I have argent matters to take care of.

“Hey!” I say, clutching my phone to my right ear with my shoulder as I rub a few specks of dust from the painting.

“Hey Lav, had a good night?” she sounds a little squeaky.

“I’ve had better, but am not complaining.” I try what I believe is a husky voice. She makes a small sound but says nothing.

“So, you ready to roll?” I don’t see why I should dawdle.

“Of course I am. Is the taxi there already? I thought I still had almost an hour…”

“Before we leave, yes sure. But to come to my place before we leave you should have left already.” I point out, feeling a little cross that she has forgotten.  I am just rather indignantly explaining to her that I’d invited her yesternight when I become suddenly aware that am not alone.

Standing a few feet from the front door is a tall, broad shouldered, military man with a sunburnt face. At least I think he is military, going by the severe set of his strong, square jaw and military-style haircut. There is something to his poise that speaks of someone who is used more to force and skill than talk.

Okay, so now I have my movie moment where the bad guy comes for the main actor as he talks with the lady. I might as well go the whole hog and say;

“I’m gonna have to call you back, honey. I love you.” I add the last part to silence a Kathleen who has suddenly started protesting. Hmmm, the last I love you before am strangled to death by a giant…

“Who are you? What do you want? And how did you get in?” I have been through a few tight spots. If I go down, and it does seem like I will go down, I intend to go down with dignity.

A sneer curves the upper lip of the intruder. He looks about the room, takes in the fact that I am packed up and ready to leave, and seems to approve. “I breach doors for a living, Jaymo. As for the other two questions, I think we both know the answer.”

Jaymo was the name I had gone by as a student at the local primary school and that all my friends had used. Lavin, a cleverspin-off of Leonardo da Vinci by my father, had had no place among the Njuguna’s, Gitau’s, and Kamau’s of this place.

Kahiga had been a not-friend with whom I had played as very small boy. Later on, he had been a rival against whom I had been disadvantaged in the quest for a particular Kathleen Njoki’s affections. His age and size had given him the edge. I don’t think he had ever dreamt that the age-old rivalry was still on when he had waved energetically at me as my family left Murindati seventeen years ago. I don’t think I had ever thought on it either.

Right now though we face off across the kitchen counter behind which I had been talking. He, a retired Special Forces whose dedication to a job that suited him like a glove had lost him the prize. The prize that had gone to me, the brilliant artist who had encountered unknowable resistance in the only career he could thrive. Now a fugitive on whose neck the noose is quickly tightening.

As to what he wants, my guess, going by the aggressive entry he has just made, is a fight to the death. Am I ready to die? No. Do I believe I stand a chance against a Special Forces cadet? Hell no. Am I going to let him take me down easy?

I round the kitchen table and walk to stand in the sitting room proper, a space where I had cleared the furniture to make a studio. There is a good enough ring for a good old showdown. Hell, those ruined stands and frames are just perfect for clobbering each other over the head with!

“It’s nice to see you after all this time, Kahiga.” I say, my voice dripping with mockery.

I did mention something about him looking more like a talker than a door, right? Well, I should add that he does very few, very loaded things. Like now, when he throws the two slips of paper he has been holding this entire time. My eyes, ever glued to his, have not seen them till they are floating gently in the air and falling soundlessly between us.

One rests with the printed side upwards while the other rests face down. I fight hard to look unaffected, but my breath catches in my chest. Staring at me from beneath deep set eyes and a shiny head is a face with a wild, untrimmed beard that makes me want to run my hands through mine. ‘The police have my current photo.’ The realization echoes over and over in my head. I suddenly wish I were still behind the kitchen counter where Kahiga might not notice me supporting myself to avoid collapsing to the floor.     

“Guess where I got that.” His smile is uninhibited. His tone betrays the savage pleasure he must derive from seeing me looking stricken.

Now it’s my duty to tell this story, so I will just go right ahead and spoil the guessing fun for you.

Murindati Town (sometimes ago)

Kahiga has always felt that he had married too young. But having been in love all his teenage life, things like waiting for the right time had never occurred to him. An eighteenth birthday gift to his girlfriend had turned out to have more implications that he had expected when she had fallen pregnant. At twenty, he was still finding his direction in life, but he was certain he wanted no other girl. Their parents had raised no objection to the union, but his young bride had scorned his career choice; the military.

When the chance came, he had enlisted despite her constant protestations. He had been absent six months later when she had delivered, and absent when, three months later, she had lost the baby. The marriage had survived more fiascos over the years (most of them his) but held fast with the hope that he’d leave the career his wife feared and settle down to start a proper family properly.

Now, just when he has submitted his quitting papers, his wife is pregnant by another man and she is leaving him. And what a rascal of a man too! Couldn’t he have just stayed gone?

He almost drives his motorcycle into a group of uniformed police at the town square. “Watch where you are going!”

“Sorry.” He looks about. Few people linger to watch the chaos at the town square. He is impressed.

“Son of Thaithi!” Methu booms on seeing his old friend.

“Son of Mwathi!” Kahiga booms back, grinning. The two shake hands and walk to the bench.

“What is the update on the rascal?” Kahiga asks, watching the disorganized teem of uniforms. In their place, he would be banging down doors and barking questions by now.

  “Am not sure, but I think he left yesterday. I don’t want to talk to them much because I was his agent, if he’s still around…”

“He is still around.” Kahiga cuts him off. “My wife is running away with him.”

The silence stretches for a long time, but sides must be picked at the end.

“You are my friend, son of Thaithi, but I will tell you. Even for a soldier, you neglected that wife of yours a lot. Going through that pregnancy, that thing with her parents, the drama with those beastly brothers of hers…” Methu says, gently informing his friend that he ought not to take the moral high ground.

Kahiga knows this, but why does it have to be that rascal? Why not some stranger from Ruguru (Western Kenya) or Ukabi (Maasai land)? However, he knows that the issue at hand is bigger than his life’s failures and misgivings.

“He is a true son of the soil too, you know. I don’t think he would have come back otherwise. Your friend Njogu knows a thing or two more about that. He is one of us.” Methu notices the stubborn look on Kahiga’s face and decides to leave his conciliation at that. He pats the latter’s back and walks into the restaurant, only saying behind his back; “do what you conscience tell you, brother.”

A few moments later, Methu is surprised to see the police jump in their cruisers and peel out of town. Kahiga guns his motorbike and roars off in the opposite direction, and Methu is certain that he has just used his military credentials to misdirect the police out of the town on what is likely to be a wild goose chase. His last words; “we discipline our own, Methu.We are going to do just that,” remain with him long after Kahiga has disappeared. The fact that he had used his given name tells the older man all he needs to know. Over the next one hour, he watches anxiously as the town fills with people, especially of a particular younger age-set.

My Place (Current time)

”Also, guess how many people in Murindati have been given those. The last thing I want you to guess is how long it will be before these people storm your castle and set it alight.” And who said that this guy is not a talker? “See, in the military we have this guys who read San Tzu; The Art of War, then there are those, like me, who prefer the old African way of doing things. Like this one I like called the Scotched Earth Policy. If I can’t have it, you can’t, for the loser and just good old wrecking when you win. Now, guess which am here to accomplish.”

The only thing I can think right now is that Kahiga likes guessing, or guessing games. “All this guessing Kastone, it’s bad for my artistic juices.” I force my voice to sound dead bored.

He smiles dismissively at my lame crack. Kastone is a nickname he had beat up numerous playmates for calling him, all those years ago. Now it seems he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about it. At this point, he seems to notice the only mounted canvas stand to my right. He walks slowly to it and turns it around.

I call it The Throes of Passion, and I applied all my artistry towards its making four months ago. It shows a woman, a very particular woman Kahiga and I are both familiar with, I might add, in what appears to be the peak of climax. Toes spread straight out, one foot bent at the knee so that her decency is still maintained, but looking all the more seductive for it. Her breasts jut out over her arched back, and the head is thrown back in what can be a scream of immense pleasure. The upwards positioning of the head makes it impossible to see her face, although am guessing that the two of us do not need to see it to know. The lips, the little of the nose that is visible, and the straight, mid-length hair would identify her clearly if the body didn’t already.

A muscle works quickly on Kahiga’s temple as he stands back and studies it, glances shortly at me, and then back at the canvas.“I drew it out of memory.” Apparently this is one of those times when my thinking before talking thingamabob takes a dive down a cliff. Kahiga throws me a look halfway between smugness and fury.

“Am sure you did.” He says evenly, walking behind the kitchen counter and searching for something in my shelves. I have to say, I do not like this man’s attitude and I find his calmness downright terrifying.

“No beer?” he asks. Oh oh, someone thinks we are in a movie. Who the hell keeps beer in the house? Definitely not me.

“I drink coffee. Lots of sugar and just a little of the actual coffee thrown in.” I say forcefully, hoping that he takes the bait. I am definitely on a warpath. I mean, hadn’t we better get it over with already? ‘Kahiga must not know his wife very well,’ I think as the comment goes flying over his head. He barely glances at me as he bangs the cupboard door shut with an annoyed murmur.

“So you love her?” he asks suddenly, turning towards me from behind the kitchen table. I wonder briefly if his reasons for going back there are anything like my own impulse on seeing the wanted posters.

I give him a dirty look. “She is my first and only love.” he doesn’t seem to notice the dirty look, but I think I hear him murmur something like “nottheronliwan.”

There had once been a song; You’re A Tourist, by Death Cab for Cutie I had loved very much. It goes something like; cause when you find yourself the villain, in the story you have written… I can only remember that part of the lyrics, and that’s all I need. Because what business does a guy like Kahiga have in asking me to explain the wanted posters? I have loathed him all my life and feared him greatly in the past seven months when his wife and I frolicked all over the place.

He also has no business in saying things like; “you are my hommie man, I owe you the chance to explain your situation.” I give him a suspicious look, but he appears to genuinely want to know. As if he wants to be sure that his wife will be in safe hands. He listens patiently as I talk, interrupting only once or twice for clarification. When am done, he looks almost sympathetic.

“Jamo JamJam, the troubled painter cum fugitive.” His eyes reduce to slits as he laughs openly at me, in the way, am horrified to find, I’d imagine an older brother teasing me. He had coined JamJam to tease me after I had stolen some jam from my mother’s kitchen cabinet only for it to melt and soak through my shorts. If the gesture throws me off balance, it is nothing compared to what he says when he next opens his mouth.

“We are more alike than you imagine, JamJam.” He starts, indicating for me to seat opposite him on the table. I remember wondering dimly what kind of archaic custom this is that allows rivals to open up to each other when they ought to be tearing each other new holes for excretion and stuff.

“We both love the same woman, for one; have loved her since we were teenagers. We have also been lucky enough to be loved by her. Only that me, victorious, forgot how to treasure that love. Your disaster was brought by someone else, someone who, by the way, sounds crazy and deserves everything you took to them.” He gives me that slit eyed smile again and I feel, once again, uncomfortably intimate.

“Mine was brought about by my own insistence on doing what I wanted. My time in the army has been great. I loved every minute of it, and not in any of that convoluted way that blogger, what was his face again?” he screws his eyes in concentration.

“The one that wrote Around Nairobi in One Night and that other one where a soldier joins his twin brother who is an Al Shabaab, and they drown a baby…” he is totally immersed in recall now. Me, I don’t know what he is talking about. Ask me about art galleries I will tell you. Ask me about bloggers and I will give you a blank face. This one doesn’t sound particularly entertaining, if they write about soldiers drowning babies.

“Charles Chanchori! Yes! That’s the name. Hell of a writer.” Kahiga looks satisfied with his little reminiscence exercise. “Where was I again?” the soft underbelly of trying hard to remember tangential stories.

“You loved the army.” I supply helpfully.

“Oh yes! I loved it. I was in the cadets, which allowed me to go behind enemy lines, use sniper rifles, SMSK knives (silent movement, silent kill, he explained them as) … the whole shebang. Now am sounding like a character is Chanchori’s pieces…” he muses. Me, I would rather he forgets about this Chanchori guy and told his story.

“I just forgot to come home. Especially when Kathleen lost her parents and decided the few days of my company a month was not worth the dreary weeks spent alone in the barracks. I couldn’t sacrifice the long drive to be with my woman.” For one moment, for one blindingly scary moment, I think Kahiga is going to cry.

‘There’s a man,’ I breathe a sigh of relief when he takes a deep breath and appears to take firm control of his emotions. There’s nothing that rattles me more than a man letting his sorrow leak from his eyes.

“Kathleen is a special woman who deserves total dedication and undivided attention. Are you sure you can give her the happiness she deserves?” the hard edge to his voice makes me wish for a millisecond that he had just gone right ahead and cried. I remember Kathleen’s fear that he is not perfectly okay.

I force myself to look him in the eyes, but the answer I want to give, a resounding, self-confident YES, does not come. My life, as presently constituted, with police detectives dogging my every move, knowing exactly what I look like now… ‘If I hadn’t spent all that exhibition money like I had, maybe I could have afforded a plastic surgery and foregone all these problems.’ I get lost in my own tormented mind for a minute.

“When I left my house this morning,” his voice cuts through my befuddled mind. I look to him and see him reaching under the table.

“I was coming here to finish you off.” his hands emerge from below the table. A metallic black pistol, a sleek, long device I imagine, even with my limited knowledge on guns, to be top of the range. He places it gently on the table, but not before he has dramatically rammed the hammer front and backwards, cocking the pistol.

“Lucky for you, someone much wiser than we are advised me otherwise. Now, I want you to sell me that.” He points to Throes of Passion with the gun, then stands up abruptly and walks to it. “Or…” he lets the threat hang, pointing the muzzle of his gun to panting-Kathleen’s upturned chin.

Now, am not sure there are quite a lot of people who can tell you that they have been robbed at gunpoint in this manner. One hole to that canvas would render the whole painting useless. A second grade piece of art that would have the same value as a piece of commercial art printed on canvas.

“You don’t dare.” I croak, despite myself.

“Oh really?” Kahiga asks, his fingers curling ominously on the trigger. “No revolver chances here, JamJam. And not one hole either. This baby has sixteen bullets. I can do it here, here, here, here, and here. A few times each.” He indicates a few random and many non-random places on the canvas. I don’t doubt he would do it either.

Am I scared? Of course. Do I let it show? Boggled if I know. Will I let him intimidate me? Not without a few courageous attempts at bravado. I look away and force calm into my voice. “You wouldn’t dare.”

The answer to that bit of brainless folly is a blast that resonates around the little room and fills my eardrums with a loud buzz. The bullet has gone through whatever object it had been aimed and lodged in the plaster. I rush closer and check for any marks on the painting, but there are none. A warning shot. If my innards are anything to go by, I won’t survive a bullet that lays waste to two months of my best work in a split millisecond.

I lift my arms in surrender, cursing Kahiga for looking so smug. He indicates for me to dismount it and remove it from the frame, which I do with trebling fingers. I have experienced heart break before, but I have never quite felt something like this. It feels like I am sugar-paper coating my very soul and handing it to the devil, who never stops smiling.

“There’s a good lad.” He says infuriatingly, placing the cylindrical folded canvas under his left armpit. His head perks and he listens for a moment.

“Oooh, I almost forgot.” He scratches his head with the muzzle. “I had told my boys to come in when they heard a gunshot. Now they are coming to kill you JamJam. They will probably burn down this house with you in it.”

He catches the disbelief on my face and gives me an earnest look. “Oh yes they are. See, I sent the police on a wild goose chase with a wrong tip for that very reason. Villagers here, you will find, dislike having outsiders take care of their problems.”

I can hear the noises too by now because they are right outside my gate. The fear that floods my system is unlike anything I have ever felt before. I have never fancied being burnt alive or mobbed as the route through which I should meet my maker.

Now this is not something you can often hear from anyone. Legend, if any crops up around the following incidences, should maintain that I was as bold as a lion. The truth, however, is that I break and beg. “What about all that brotherly connecting we did man?” I yell, for indeed I did think we had made some headway in this archaic sharing thing.

Kahiga glances back at me as if I were a little boy. “Scorched Earth Policy my man.” He says sagely. “I only care for this.” He indicates the painting clutched under his armpit and I have a feeling that he is not talking about the canvas, but about the woman painted therein.

“And now, JamJam, I really must run along. Make of what is coming your way as you please, but if I were you I’d ask to be shot. To make it quick, you know…” he pauses as if hoping I’d follow his advice and ask for just that.

‘Just leave me to die in peace.’ I think. I force a hateful look that I hope he interprets to mean “I’d rather burn in hell than accept your help.” He smirks again, nods, and walks away, whistling.

Me, I can’t wait for him to be out the gate so that I can make my move. Don’t worry; I have a plan to get out of here. I think it’s rather dope. I just need him to be out of sight past that gate where he can’t see me, and I’ll make my move. 

Except for one small problem. By the time he is disappearing past the gate, ten or twenty irate villagers are already streaming in. The crude weapons they carry make me what a scientist may explain as being attached to another object by an inclined plane wrapped helically around an axis.That is; S-C-R-E-W-E-D.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 12: Some Kind of Ending

In the meantime, a little distance away, Joanna sits restlessly in her car a short distance from my house. She has had a rough night, sleeping only for a few hours. Without an accomplice, she can only hope that I would come along and plop inside her boot for her to kidnap.

‘No, that’s taking the wishy-washy too far,’ she corrects. Ride along with the bike for her to knock down and tie up in her boot. ‘There, that’s a shade more likely.’

 The only interesting thing to happen all morning is a motorbike thundering down the road and disappearing down towards the house. An hour and a half later, the motorbike is still yet to come out.

Presently, a gunshot breaks the calm morning air. She straightens up, horrified, and jumps out of the car. Apparently that had been a signal, because a mob of people emerge and charge towards the house. She joins in, feeling nauseated but wanting to find out for herself.

Death chants rent the air as men, a few women, and a few boys storm resolutely towards what she knows is the result of her own sins. Outside the gate, the chants intensify in magnitude as the mob tries to outdo each other in shouting ingenious ways to kill.

A thin man attempts to calm them by claiming to be in charge of the house under siege. He seems to have some sort of authority, because Joanna imagines that the blood thirst decreases. That is, until a man emerges from inside with a pained expression on his face.

“I tried to talk to him.” He says quietly, vaguely. He leaves just enough innuendo in that simple sentence for the mob to fill it in in the only way the mob knows how. He climbs onto his motorbike. “Do with him what you see befitting him.” He weaves through the thronging mob and disappears towards town.

Apparently everyone present takes it upon himself to revenge the wrong done on this their most jealously guarded son. Despite the protests of the thin man, the gate is soon leaning on its hinges and the compound is swarming with blood thirst.

Joanna interprets the man’s words to mean that her protégé is still alive, although she doesn’t doubt that the man could have killed him by one shot. Taking that chance, she breaks away from the crowd and decides on a little mob psychology.

In the house, my plan for escape has hit a wall. Outside, the gate lay on its side, a thick mob of people mill around the compound. Inside, the house is slowly filling with rocks that are being hurled, and heat that threatens to suffocate me. So this is how it feels like to die? I wonder, squatting close to the windows where the rocks soar above my head and smash against furniture, the floor, even the ceiling.

 â€œBreak the doors! Does someone have a crowbar?” someone calls.

“We can do it with our bear hands. Here, my hands are stronger than crowbars. Ouch!”

“Get away from here, you wuss. We need a crowbar. Does anyone have a crowbar?” the question is repeated.

“Here, Chege son of Itimu came with his. Take it.”

“Why don’t you use it yourself?”

“Give me my crowbar. Let me show you how it is done. Oh I say! These doors are really strong!!”

“Let’s just burn him inside. Bring that petrol here. Hey, you! Give me that jerry can!”

‘So these are the people who will kill me?’ I wonder, looking at the six or seven most eager ringleaders. I recognize a few faces, but I don’t have any relationship, acquaintance or otherwise, with a single one of them. Someone who sounds a lot like Methu tries to stop the seven, but three of them surround him and seem to be intimidating him. In his defense, he doesn’t coil back and ask for a really large rock. To my peril, he seems to recognize that mine is a lost cause. He walks to Njogu, standing a little way off, and starts what appears like a deep, spirited conversation with him.

That is as far as my watching goes, because a jerry can of petrol is dabbed on the walls of my house, then a second one.  Some of it happens to be splashed near where I lay hiding, and it splashes on my shirt. Knowing how flammable that makes me, I quickly scamper to my case, unzip it, remove a spare shirt, and shrug it on in the bathroom.

I hope the fumes in here are not too strong, because am out of ideas on how to avoid getting burned alive. Naturally, even in the face of almost sure death, my mind is busy coming up with ways of prolonging my life. Apparently, hope, the strongest of all human emotions, still burns within my soul.

Speaking of burning, my house is on fire. A half-empty jerry can has been hurled in, dousing the sofa and my clothes suitcases. A lighter is thrown in shortly after, sending the jerry can exploding into pungent smoke and flames. Smoke fills the house, and it is all I can do not to choke to death.

I quickly walk to the sink, close the drain, and turn the taps on. It may not be much, but the water will at least douse some of the flames. I also lock the safety valve on the gas cooker, hoping that the tank really is fireproof as indicated. I am grateful for the thick smoke that makes it impossible for me to be seen from outside.The stone hurling has stopped as everyone in the outside watches the roof shingle start to expand and warp, allowing the fire to spread underneath and start burning the ceiling down.

Back in the bathroom, I turn all the taps on and then stand below the shower, letting the water soak my clothes. I also soak a thick kerchief in water and tie it over my nose. There, I need not worry about suffocating for a little while yet.  I hear the fire over the ceiling crackling, which means that the ceiling may be caving down soon.    

‘This is it.’ I think. I don’t stand much chance of holding on to life if a ton of combustible wood caves in over me.    

Two things happen that change my fortunes for the better. First, a loud, distressed scream from some place not so faraway fills the air.The crowd is momentarily disrupted from the elated screams that had gone up as my house caught fire. If only someone could steal their attention long enough to give me time to…

“It’s the rapist!” someone calls from outside the gate.

“Rape?” other replies from within the compound.

“Rapist! Rapist!” shouts rent the air outside the walls, so that the original prolonged cry is now only a distant sound.

The compound empties out faster than it had filled up. I can tell from the shouts that some of the villagers have gotten into the farms nearby. That does not cheer me up at all. If my magic works and I come out of this house, I will be jumping from the fire to the flying fists, literally. 

As if on cue, police sirens rent the air, bringing more confusion. Someone yells that the house can still be reduced to rubble if the mob holds off the police, but the screams are sounding even more frantic.

One of the seven ringleaders steals away, saying something like; “you guys are torching an empty house. That sounds like a small girl being dragged away right before our noses.”

In an admirable show of organization, the remaining six split up. Three continue watching the front door to make sure that nothing comes out of it alive while three run off, shouting a loud battle charge. The two men, Methu and Njogu, that stood conversing at the gate, have come closer, much closer. Without much ceremony, Methu smashes a large pole into the back of one of them, and then hits the other in the chest. Njogu simply rears back, aims a punch, and drives it slamming in the face of the third. A struggle ensues between the four men. The one who took a hit to the back of the head lay unconscious.

Now really this is it; my chance for escape. I quickly unlock the doors and run a short distance to an improvised open-air lounge featuring a shapeless tree-bark table. This I lift and disappear down an ancient well I had found half-filled upon moving here. The last thing I see before I bring the lid down with welcome finality is Methu and Njogu battling the flames engulfing the house and a horde of officers swarming into the compound. Outside, the crowd runs to and fro, engulfed in thick clouds of tear gas here and engulfed in thick clouds of whacking police buttons there.

Before you dismiss my escape story as impossible, let me digress and explain something about my escape hatch, which, as you have seen, I had created with some different kind of danger other than a pillaging mob of blood thirsty villagers in mind.

The flatlands of Murindati have a propensity for flooding during the rainy seasons and being cake dry during the dry seasons. A most curious characteristic and one that makes it rather hard for farmers to make good use of their lands all year round. To remedy this situation in the cost-effective way most farmers are known for, a well and trench method of cultivation was developed.

Large wells are dug up at strategic places in the farm, with deep wide trenches leading off them in four directions. During the raining season, all these features fill up with water. Water that often remains for months afterwards, and if not, River Murindati is easily diverted along the trenches.

As houses are built in the flatlands, these features are filled up with soil which often compacts and leaves smaller holes and trenches. I had used the originally dug trenches and well to lay out my escape hatch.

It is inside these repurposed trenches that I crawl hurriedly along, bumping my head occasionally and hoping that no one had seen me go in. I also hoped that my coming up point had been chosen wisely enough to allow me to escape unspotted. My head aches where I have hit it on the covering, but on the whole this is a much preferable fate to perishing in that fire, or being taken into police custody. The latter had looked attractive while I was trapped under a blaze, but it is downright offensive now. 

Joanna had not thought much about it; she had simply seen a possibility and tried it. Her acting had been superb. No one had suspected her of being a sympathizer. Apart from questions about her identity (hardly a handful of people had seen her before. Few could have forgotten had they seen her before), everyone assumed that her alarm was real and raced off in search for the rapist. When the police had arrived, lobbing teargas indiscriminately, she had vanished amongst the mob and run to the car. Between her charade and the police, she was sure He had as good a chance as any of escaping.

She finds Josephine waiting rather impatiently in the driver’s seat. “Good to see you came to your senses.” She says. Josephine does not act in any way as if she has heard her apart from starting the car and driving slowly through the deserted road. The running battles are taking place in the farms. 

She must know a few things Joanna doesn’t, because she stops at a point two blocks from where the police vehicles are parked. The car is packed curiously close to the hedged fence. So close that she has to climb through the window to get out. Josephine pushes at a part of the hedge, and it parts like a small flap gate.She crawls through.

“Wait there.” Josephine winks at her though the opening, withdraws her face, and disappears behind the hedge.

But I say!  This is the most dangerous part of using an escape hatch for reasons other than that which it was designed.Mine was designed to escape from my compound when the danger was there and there only, not everywhere and anywhere –like now. I can hear nothing from the ground as I approach what I know is the end of the escape route. I have already passed three of the five holes I had sunk on the floor of the trench to mark the end. There goes the four one, and riight there is the fifth. I extend my hand and feel the end of the trench.

Now, like a mole, I must break through the earth. Anyone around, be prepared for a scare of your life. I force my head and shoulders upwards and look around. It is all clear. Now I must head for the hedge flap, a rather ingenious idea of mine, if I say so myself.

I crawl on hands and knees towards the flap, but find my way blocked by a tree with two thin trunks. I don’t remember seeing that here. I look up to see a masked face looking down at me. ‘The strange masked face!’ I think in alarm.

“Hello Lav,” a voice calls. That voice must no care for my response as, before I can respond, I see a blur and something heavy drops on the back of my head.

‘The smooth, singing voice!’ is my last thought before my world goes black with faint sensations of falling from a high point in the sky.

 

 

 

 

About the Author

I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting my writing career. Your financial support (purchasing this book) is especially welcome for me as a full-time writer.

This is my first full novel, but look forward to many more to come, because I am not sleeping. And I mean that literally and figuratively because this head of mine is ever spinning tales, and this hands of mine are ever itching to do that dance on the keyboard that brings you masterpieces (ahem, ahem).

 

To connect with Peter Gatuna:

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            Email: pgatuna98@gmail.com