'She does not know?'
'Know what?'
'I sent her a letter. She did not receive it?'
Ben shook his head. 'She says she has not heard anything from you for months. She's been sending you money, but doesn't think you've been receiving it.'
Halima turned her head away and continued walking. 'My parents died four weeks ago.' She resolutely avoided looking at Ben as she spoke.
They walked in silence for a few moments as Ben struggled to think what to say. 'I'm sorry,' was all he could finally manage.
They had crossed the clearing, and now stood at what appeared to Ben to be the edge of the village. There was a large field ahead of them, and it seemed to his untrained eye that it would once have been forest, as it was covered in the sawn-off stumps of the rubber trees he had seen on his way here. It was a sad sight. Beyond it was thick forest.
'What did they die of?' Ben broke the melancholy silence that had descended on them both.
'They say it was malaria,' Halima stated flatly.
'You don't sound so sure.'
Halima shrugged, and fiddled with the token her sister had sent. 'It's possible,' she whispered. 'Malaria is very bad in these parts.'
'Can I do anything to help?' Ben offered.
Halima smiled – the first time she had done so since they met, and the smile lit up her face. 'You are kind,' she said. 'That is not always a good thing here. But if you want to help, you could start by telling me your name.'
Ben grinned at her. 'Ben Tracey. Pleased to meet you.'
'Welcome to Udok, Ben Tracey.' Halima almost fluttered her eyelashes at him. 'You should know that my fellow villagers will think you are insane if they see you having anything to do with me.' She spoke with a smile, but it was clear that she was quite serious. 'So what is it that brings you here?'
'The mine,' Ben explained shortly. 'My father is a scientist. They want him to do some tests there. I just came along for the ride.'
Halima didn't take her eyes off him. 'The mine.' She repeated his words unenthusiastically.
Ben shot her a questioning glance, but she did not seem to want to elaborate, so he tried a different tack. 'Why is everyone so scared of this village?'
The question seemed to catch Halima off guard. 'What do you mean?' she asked, her eyes suddenly darting around as though she was scared someone would overhear them.
'Everyone is reluctant to come here. And even the villagers I've seen don't seem to want to talk to anyone. Except you.'
Halima brushed his hand with her fingers, and opened her mouth to speak; but before she was able to, Ben heard a man's voice a little distance behind him. 'Ben Tracey?'
Halima looked over his shoulder and her expression turned instantly to one of worry. 'I have to go,' she whispered, and without another word she hurried back across the clearing and up the street in which she lived. Perplexed, Ben turned to see a tall, lanky black man with a shaved head and a prominent, protruding Adam's apple bearing down on him. His brow was furrowed, his face serious; it was only once he was a few metres away that he made the effort to fix his mouth into a more friendly expression.
Ben eyed him warily.
'You should not be wandering about by yourself.' The man's voice was hoarse, like a forced whisper. 'I understand you have already discovered what a dangerous place the Congo can be.'
'I wasn't by myself,' Ben stated boldly. There was something about this man's demeanour that he didn't like.
The man glanced after Halima, but she had already disappeared. When he turned back to Ben, his face had softened slightly. 'Your father was worried,' he rasped. 'He says you have a gun.'
Ben remained stony-faced.
'Give it to me,' the man insisted.
Ben shook his head. There was no way he was going to be left alone in the presence of a strange Congolese man with an automatic handgun – not after what had happened earlier. 'I'll go back to the compound,' he countered abruptly, 'but the gun stays with me.'
The man nodded slowly, as though deciding how to react to Ben's sudden determination. 'Whatever you say, Mr Ben,' he whispered, and the two of them stared directly into each other's eyes. There was no friendship in that stare.
'You go first,' Ben instructed.
The man turned and led the way.
CHAPTER SIX
They walked in silence. Occasionally the man would look back at Ben, his strange yellow eyes peering suspiciously out of his face; Ben stared straight ahead, avoiding the gaze of this man who made him feel so uncomfortable.
Before long they were back at the compound. Ben's dad was in the central yard, his tired face a thunderstorm. 'What on earth do you think you were doing?' he demanded of his son the moment he saw him.
Ben stood squarely in front of his father, fully prepared to defend himself and his actions; but suddenly he felt something on his shoulder. He looked up to see the man who had escorted him home, gently resting his arm on Ben's T-shirt and smiling toothily at his father. 'Do not be too harsh on him, Mr Tracey,' he said. 'He is right to take precautions.'
Russell Tracey opened his mouth as though to continue the reprimand, but then seemed suddenly to think better of it. 'I think you should go inside, Ben.' He turned to their guest. 'Half past seven tomorrow morning, then, Suliman,' he said politely. The black man nodded, removed his hand from Ben's shoulder, then turned and left.
Once inside, Ben braced himself for the full force of his dad's displeasure, but it didn't come. 'Guns aren't toys, Ben,' was all he saw fit to say – a bit unnecessarily, Ben thought, given the events of the day.
Ben slept fitfully. The food Abele had brought them had been unrecognizable and not to their Western taste – a bowl of thick mashed cassava root, pungently flavoured with unfamiliar herbs. There hadn't been much of it either, and both Ben and his father had gone to bed feeling hungry. The African night was pitch black and unbearably hot and humid – Ben found himself lying under a rough sheet made damp by his own sweat – and despite the fact that the thin mesh of the mosquito net was draped over his bed, his skin felt itchy, as though it were being feasted on by a million unseen insects. And then there were the noises – slithers and rustles and bumps. After a while it became impossible to determine whether they originated from a distance or nearby, or even from inside the hut. Ben had no love of snakes, and by the darkness of midnight, he had imagined all manner of reptilian horrors making their way across the floor of his bedroom.
By the time morning came, his head felt stuffy and his eyes were tight with tiredness, but he was glad to see the steely grey of dawn lighten up the room little by little. He examined his skin for the telltale red welts of the insect bites that he suspected he would be covered with, but the mosquito net appeared to have done its job. Nevertheless, he gratefully gulped down that morning's dose of Lariam, the anti-malaria medication he had been prescribed. As he did so, he remembered with a grim smile the warning the doctor had given him: that the medicine could have certain side effects – dizziness, nausea, even paranoia. He wondered if the uncomfortable feeling he had about this place was down to the drugs. Somehow he didn't think so.
His dad had explained over supper the previous night that today he would be going to the mine with Suliman, the mine manager. Ben was to stay in the village, where Abele would look after him. Ben hadn't argued – the mine didn't hold much interest for him, and he had too many unanswered questions about what was going on round here to be diverted by his dad's dry experiments and sample-taking.
At seven-thirty exactly, Suliman arrived in an old Land Rover. Flanked by two men who said nothing and lurked at the entrance to the compound, he approached Ben's dad with an outstretched hand and flashed a smile at Ben himself. Any hint of the suspicion he had demonstrated towards Ben the previous day seemed to have disappeared, although he did not seem to want to catch his eye more often than necessary. 'We need to get started, Mr Tracey,' he rasped at Russell. 'There is a lot to get through.'