Black Mischief Read Online Free PDF Page B

believe that a part of you fears us. Yes, fears. Sounds crazy?’
    â€˜Not so crazy perhaps, not so crazy.’ Abel closed his eyes and seemed about to doze off. A beaming smile lit up his face and his eyes popped open and completed a picture of contentment. He leaned forward in his seat and pointed his finger in the general direction of Tom and Alex. There was no malice in the gesture.
    â€˜And then again we are learning from you. But soon, I think, the days of fearing and learning will be over.’ He raised himself to his feet and walked slowly towards Reuben. Reuben, standing now, looked warily at his father as he came closer. When Abel raised his arm Reuben ducked to avoid the blow that never came. Instead Abel closed his arm around his son’s shoulders and led the pair of them down the steps off the veranda towards the nearest of the two Mercedes, turned and took a step back towards the veranda and fired his parting shot to Tom.
    â€˜Thomas McCall, the girl is yours again now. But my son did not have to die for this. Yes, he was headstrong and you knew this, too. There was no need for you to be in that place. Julius’s quick temper cost him dearly that night.’
    There was no smile now. He spoke the words in the solemn, neutral way of a judge pronouncing sentence on a criminal. Moments later the dust raised by the car speeding up the dirt track leading up to South Lake Road was settling back to earth.
    Tom and Alex did not move, did not speak. Tom looked down towards the lake and watched Rebecca and her sister leading the Rubai children back to Londiani. They were skylarking and in the still air the sound of their laughter was clear to the two serious faced men waiting up at Big House.
    The voices of Angela and Stephen Kamau could be heard in the sitting room. Stephen was first to join them on the veranda. He was surprised to find no Rubais present.
    â€˜Bwana, sorry to be late. There was a little bit of trouble with a machine in the loading bay. It is fixed. But where is the Rubai family? Angela told me I must hurry.’
    â€˜Sit down, Stephen. Please, Angela, this time.’ Reluctantly she obeyed. ‘Angela, I don’t know if you heard any of that row that was going on here just now.’
    â€˜Mr Alex, when my girls left to take the Rubai children to see the lake, I borrowed the bicycle to go down to the fields to fetch Stephen.’
    Stephen was scrutinising his bosses’ faces. ‘Thomas, are you well? You are very pale.’
    â€˜Stephen, someone has just let me know that he thinks that I’m a murderer! Not very pleasant. But if I am as pale as all that, it’s because I think that person may have a point.’
    Tom was trembling. ‘Sorry about all this.’ He was trying to gather himself. ‘It’s almost five months since it happened and every day it’s been the same question: did I need to be at the club that night? I’ve wrestled and wrestled with this and my best answer is that I wanted to see her once more before she, well, belonged to him. I never expected to see him, didn’t enter my head. There were five seconds when it could have happened and it did, it did.’
    Before a shaken Alex could try to console his son, Stephen had moved to Tom’s side, put his arm around his shoulders and grasped tightly. Rebecca and the children were almost off the plain and onto the gravel of the driveway.
    â€˜Thomas, take a good look at her. What do you see?’
    â€˜You know the answer to that.’
    â€˜Sure. There was a time when the idea scared me. A long time ago now. You talk about Julius Rubai. Such a mixed up man. He was a headstrong, selfish person. The Bible says that we should not judge others, but it also says that we must be as wise as serpents. That young man did not have to die, but, Thomas, you did not make this thing happen. He had a choice.’
    â€˜And so did I, Stephen! I knew that the engagement party