Nairobi Heat by Mukoma Wa Ngugi Page A

away and went quickly back down the stairs as we walked through the bedroom to the bathroom. I knocked on the bathroom door, but once againthere was no answer. I opened the door. Samuel Alexander was in the bathtub, neck-deep in bloody water, his hands with slit wrists floating in the water.
    We didn’t have to look far for the note. It had been prominently placed on the bathroom sink. It was addressed to Joshua. It said:
I AM SORRY
. Nothing more. Sorry for what? Did Samuel Alexander have something to do with the white girl? Was he involved in setting Joshua up? If so, why? And, if not, then what was the connection?
    We searched the house, looking for anything that might help, but there was nothing that obviously tied Samuel Alexander to Joshua. Not even the housekeeper knew anything of use. Once again we had come to a dead end.
    Half an hour later we watched aimlessly as a Kenyan paramedic unplugged the tub so that he and his colleague could lift the body out. As the water drained, we made out a locket – he must have been holding it in his hand. The paramedic handed it to me, and I walked over to the sink where I opened it. Bloody water ran out, but to my pleasant surprise the twin photographs behind the glass were not wet. I dabbed the locket dry. On the left there was small photograph of Samuel. On the right there was black-and-white photograph of a black woman with long curly hair. In the photo she was smiling as if someone had just said something to her. She was beautiful.
    ‘Only an unspeakable thing would make a man commit suicide when he has a woman like her,’ O pronounced over my shoulder, and I nodded in agreement.
    One more piece to fit somewhere in the puzzle …
    We walked out of the bedroom behind the paramedics and watched as they manhandled the body down the stairs andout to the ambulance. In the sitting room we found Samuel Alexander’s housekeeper sitting in an armchair crying into a white apron. I tapped him on the shoulder and showed him the photograph. He stared at the woman. ‘It was her. He did it for her,’ he said, pointing a shaking finger at her.
    ‘Who is she?’ I asked.
    He didn’t know, only that he had not seen her around for a while now – a year or so. She and Samuel Alexander were lovers – she had slept over many times. And he didn’t know her name? Master – at last that word came out of his mouth – never told him anything. They walked in late at night, and left early in the morning.
    ‘Look here, old man, your master was not here to stay,’ O said to the housekeeper sarcastically. ‘He would have gone back to his country. What difference does it make to your sorry ass how he departs?’
    The old man looked at O. Even I was shocked at his callousness. ‘You are a cruel man, young man. Someday the sky will fall on you,’ the old man replied and spat on the clean floor.
    ‘Take what you can and go home to your grandchildren,’ O said, his voice emotionless.
    The bodies were piling up fast, I thought as we made our way outside. And I had the feeling that I would soon find myself on the top of the heap unless something gave.
    ‘If they came home late, it must have been from the bars …’ O said as we climbed into the Land Rover. ‘Tomorrow we’ll hit as many as we can. With her looks we will find her sooner or later.’
    When we got home around five we found Maria still up, she had curled herself up in the dining room, dressed in nothing but a sleeping gown, and was reading and sipping hot chocolate. She wasn’t raving mad like my ex – throwing a fit and threatening divorce. Instead she was reading a fun novel – ‘putting in a little me time’ before she went to work. O kissed her and went to take a shower, but I hung around.
    ‘Don’t you ever worry about O?’ I asked her when he was out of earshot.
    ‘Yes, I do worry,’ she said with feeling, ‘but we are what we do and you cannot take a human being in parts. Marriage doesn’t work like that. You