The Snow Angel Read online

  ‘If life is so full of happy endings, where is Snow?’ demanded Makena. ‘My friend, Snow, have you found her?’

  ‘Helen said you talked about her in your sleep. The albino girl? We’re concerned for her safety too. We’ve made some enquiries, but there’s no news yet.’

  ‘What about my mama and baba? Are you going to turn back the clock and bring them back to me?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘Is Helen here like she promised?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘Do you think someone will adopt me?’

  ‘We will try to find you a family, of course. But after the age of four or five—’

  ‘I know. Who would want a twelve-year-old, right?’

  ‘It’s harder but that doesn’t mean—’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Makena. ‘I don’t want anyone. They’ll only leave. That’s what grown-ups do. They leave. Friends too. Everyone leaves.’

  There was a long silence. Serena said tiredly: ‘You should eat something, Makena. Can I get you some soup?’

  Makena turned her face to the wall.

  A LAND FIT FOR NOTHING BUT POLAR BEARS

  Inverness, Scotland. Six months later…

  ‘Brace yourself, Makena. You’re not in Africa now.’

  Makena pulled her scarf over her face to hide a scowl. She knew very well that she was no longer in Africa. It had been blindingly obvious from the moment the Kenya Airways flight thudded on to the rain-drenched runway at Heathrow airport. Many hours later, another delayed, gale-tossed plane had deposited her in Inverness, Scotland, a place that made London look like a tropical paradise.

  And here she was, being led out into a wind with the chill factor of the freezer her parents had owned in Nairobi. On hot days, Makena had loved to lean into it and sneak spoonfuls of her mama’s homemade ice cream.

  The memory brought burning tears to her eyes. Helen Stuart, who’d be fostering her for the next month, gave no sign of having noticed. It was probably just coincidence that she hugged Makena tighter as they fought their way across the dark car park to an ancient Jeep.

  ‘Unfortunately, this old girl has only two temperatures – sub-Arctic or Saharan sizzler,’ Helen said as she started the engine. ‘Keep your jacket on until it’s too hot to bear.’

  The jacket, fleece and tartan scarf were new. So were the jeans. Gita, the Hearts4Africa volunteer who’d travelled with Makena as far as London before handing her over to a British Airways ‘unaccompanied minor’ flight attendant, had bundled her up in two cotton jumpers and leggings. Apparently, they were no defence against a Scottish winter. Helen had greeted Makena with a bag full of cold weather gear and insisted she change before they left the airport.

  She looked older than Makena remembered, and whiter. Then again it was half a year since Makena had last seen her and back then she’d barely been conscious. Helen had sent her postcards of the Scottish Highlands, but Makena had barely glanced at them. From what she could tell, they were full of cheerful chitchat about the dire Scottish weather and sightings of birds and deer. There was nothing about why Helen had left so suddenly and never returned.

  ‘Family troubles,’ was all Edna would say.

  She, Serena and Matron Wanjiru had become Makena’s surrogate mothers. They were all wonderful, even strict Matron, but Makena had not allowed herself to grow attached to any of them. Why would she? Even the best people made promises they couldn’t keep.

  ‘We’ll be back from Sierra Leone before you know it,’ her mama had said. ‘You won’t have time to miss us.’

  ‘You’re safe now,’ Helen told her. ‘I’m going to take care of you. I’ll never abandon you, I promise.’ Then she had.

  Makena suspected that the orphanage director had only asked her to come to Scotland for Christmas because she felt guilty. She wasn’t sure why she’d agreed to the visit. Perhaps because she was curious to see the place her father had talked of so often. She’d have to guard against getting close to Helen. If you didn’t care about grown-ups, they couldn’t hurt you. It was that straightforward.

  The same applied to friends. One minute she and Snow had been as close as Siamese twins. Next, Snow had disappeared without trace. Edna and Serena had done everything they could to try to find her, but she’d vanished off the face of the earth. ‘Presumed dead,’ was what Makena had overheard a detective telling Edna.

  ‘I can’t believe I forgot gloves,’ sighed Helen. She took Makena’s dark brown hands and rubbed them briskly between her pale ones.

  Embarrassed, Makena pulled away. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘How about some hot chocolate?’ Helen asked brightly, producing a flask. ‘My grandmother’s secret recipe. You can wrap your fingers around the cup. Stave off frostbite.’

  Makena didn’t answer but Helen poured her some anyway. Her hands trembled as she handed it over and Makena realised that she was nervous too. Even her voice was wobbly.

  ‘It’s so good to see you, Makena. Thanks for coming all this way. You must be exhausted. Once you’ve settled in and have caught up on sleep, I do hope you’ll enjoy it. Nobody comes to Scotland for the weather, but it has other ways of stealing your heart.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Right, let’s get moving before we turn into ice statues.’ Putting the Jeep into gear, she reversed.

  A glimmer in the wing mirror caught Makena’s eye. Something darted swift and low across the tarmac. Sparks spat behind it, like the tail of a shooting star.

  ‘Stop!’ yelled Makena.

  Helen slammed on the brakes. Hot chocolate splattered against the windscreen and poured down Makena’s front.

  ‘Oh, my goodness. I’m so sorry. Are you burned?’ Frantically, Helen swabbed her down with tissues.

  ‘I’m okay, I’m okay.’ Makena snatched the box and mopped her dripping jacket herself. She’d been in Scotland less than an hour and already it was a disaster. She should never have come.

  ‘My new clothes are ruined and it’s all my fault,’ she burst out.

  But Helen wasn’t upset or cross. She was smiling. ‘Don’t be daft. I’ll pop everything into the washing machine and it’ll be clean and dry by morning. It’s really my fault for not bringing you a cup with a lid. Besides, you saved us from having an accident. What did I nearly hit?’

  She twisted round to scan the empty car park. ‘What did you see?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Makena was reluctant to admit that her mind had likely been playing tricks on her. ‘I saw something. I definitely saw something.’

  SILENT NIGHT

  Makena had spent much of the flight trying to picture Helen’s home and was convinced she’d know it by sight. At the orphanage, Helen’s room had been furnished with a single bed, a plain rug, one picture, a Bible and a few dog-eared novels. Makena had caught a peek of it on the day Serena moved into it and had been surprised that the co-director of Hearts4Africa had lived so humbly and in one room. Edna, the other director, lived in a cottage in the grounds, but then she had a husband and three children.

  However, everyone knew that in the UK things were different. It wasn’t that Makena imagined that all British people lived in castles and stately homes. But Helen’s Scottish house would, Makena felt sure, be large.

  She had an idea that it would be painted cream and have a long curving driveway and columns framing a forest-green front door. There was bound to be a library. Helen, she’d been told, loved books as much as she did. The kitchen would be hung with hams (Makena tried not to think about the hams or the haggis) and bulbs of garlic. The living room would be tidy and decorated with antiques and velvet armchairs. She and Helen would drink tea and eat cream scones in front of a crackling fire.

  On the way out of Inverness she actually glimpsed such a house, its windows cheerfully lit. But Helen drove past it and on into the night. Suburbs and one-shop villages gave way to lonely landscapes of unremitting bleakness.

  The roads emptied and for a while they saw nothing and no one. Then two lorrie
s screamed over a rise, the gale of their passing almost blowing the Jeep off the road. The cab of the first lorry was briefly illuminated. The driver hunched over the wheel, jowls taut with concentration.

  Is he a man or a Tokoloshe? Makena wondered. From what she could tell, Scotland appeared a great deal more suited to water-sprites with dark impulses than sunny Africa. She pictured them lurking under bridges with trolls. Coaxed out by drivers desperate to stay awake, the bad fairies would take the wheel of lorries bound for distant cities. Later, they’d demand payment in chocolate and haggis.

  Thinking about the Tokoloshe reminded her of the drive to Nanyuki with her mama and Uncle Samson. She’d been so innocent then. Secure in her parents’ love, the future had seemed as limitless as the blue sky arching overhead.

  She remembered bouncing in the backseat (she was always bouncing in those days), brimming over at the thought of the mountain adventure to come. It had annoyed her that her mother wanted to take a detour to the rose farm. ‘You’re always in such a hurry, Makena… If all you do is run, run, run, you can miss what is right in front of you.’

  She’d been right. Makena had been so busy obsessing about the days ahead that she’d hardly been able to focus on anything else. If her mama had been a different sort of person, they might have driven past Tambuzi without turning their heads. They’d never have stopped to smell the roses.

  Days later, her mama and her baba were gone for ever and not so long after that she’d been at the mercy of Priscilla.

  As soon as she’d got her strength back at the Home for Girls, she’d called her uncle. Serena had given her permission to use the orphanage phone.

  Throughout her month in the slum, Makena had felt a nagging sense of guilt. It had been wrong of her to persuade the lorry driver to drop her off at her old house, and unforgivable that she hadn’t contacted Uncle Edwin to say that she hadn’t felt able to go to the Tings.

  Once he discovered that his niece had never arrived at her friends’ home, Edwin was sure to have called the police. For all she knew, detectives had been combing Nairobi for months, trying to trace her. Priscilla could have repented of her actions within hours of Makena leaving. She and Edwin might have been in despair ever since, fearing the worst.

  When she’d finally called, Edwin had answered on the first ring. The baby was crying in the background.

  ‘Ah, Makena, it’s you,’ he said without enthusiasm. ‘Sorry I haven’t been in touch but you won’t believe what’s happened since you left. I have been through hell.’

  Makena immediately leaped to the worst conclusions. One of the children had a terminal illness. Edwin had been fired and the family was destitute and out on the streets. Priscilla had abandoned the children and run off with her secret friend. Edwin had a terminal illness.

  Her uncle said hoarsely: ‘Priscilla has left us – me and the kids. She’s taken up with a rich lawyer. He’s divorced; a terrible man. Everyone knows that he beat his last wife. Because I have wronged her, Priscilla is not seeing straight. When she does, she will come home. We miss her. We are not coping on our own.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Uncle,’ said Makena. And she was.

  The baby squalled louder. Her uncle carried the phone to the pram. He squeaked a toy and jingled a bell.

  Makena held the receiver away from her ear. When the baby calmed, he came back on the line. He sounded stressed.

  ‘How are things, Makena? The lorry driver told me you’re in a great home. He said that when he dropped you off, the man who came to greet you was dressed like a rich politician. He told me the lawn was like the putting green at a golf club.’

  ‘Yes, I’m very fortunate,’ said Makena, and she was. Fortunate to be in Hearts4Africa’s caring Home for Girls. She’d been rescued from the streets. Countless others hadn’t.

  ‘Any day now, Priscilla will be home,’ Edwin was mumbling. ‘Perhaps it’s better if you don’t call here, Makena. Not for a while. I don’t want her frightened away again. If you need me, you can always leave a message at the garage.’

  ‘Bye, Uncle Edwin.’

  ‘Go well, niece.’

  Makena hung up. She felt as empty as a fallen dove’s egg, its shell pecked clean by crows.

  The drive to Helen’s home seemed interminable. The Jeep groaned up hills and creaked round hairpin bends. Makena was aching with weariness when at last a mountain road led them to a five-barred gate. Beyond it was a dark stone cottage. In the glare of the headlights, the smoke from the chimney zig-zagged in the fierce wind. A creaking sign was painted with the words: ‘The Great Escape’.

  ‘My mum came up with the name,’ Helen said with a laugh. ‘She and Dad spent decades doing dull, safe jobs in London before they had an epiphany – a revelation. They decided that what they wanted more than anything was to live in nature, surrounded by mountains, doing jobs they loved. So they packed up pretty much overnight and … escaped.’

  She jumped out to open the gate, letting in an icy gust. When she climbed back into the Jeep her face was serious.

  ‘Makena, I should tell you that my mum passed away at the end of June. That’s why I had to leave the orphanage – and you – and come rushing back to Scotland. Dad’s not been the same since. The shock of Mum’s death brought on a mild stroke and he’s lost the ability to speak. Doctors say there’s no medical reason for it. Whatever the cause, he doesn’t talk. Doesn’t do much of anything if I’m honest. All I’m saying is, don’t take it personally.’

  She smiled but her eyes were sad. ‘And on that note, welcome to The Great Escape.’

  The hallway had been designed for dwarves. Helen had to duck as they entered. But the cottage seemed to expand as they went. The kitchen was enormous. A welcome wave of warmth enveloped Makena as they walked in. The source of the heat was the Aga, an old-fashioned oven, which, like the cabinets, was a spirit-lifting blue. An oak table was laid for dinner with a cracker beside each plate.

  The kitchen opened out on to a glass room called a conservatory. It was a friendly space decorated with a squashy sofa, a coffee table piled with books and a Persian rug. It was too dark to see the view outside but that didn’t matter because Makena only had eyes for one thing: the Christmas tree sparkling in the corner.

  It was a chunky tree with attitude. Its bristly arms supported reindeers, bears in Santa hats and any number of red, gold and silver balls. Stars twirled and winked. As Makena moved closer, the smell of wood and pine needles transported her straight to Mount Kenya. She gasped with delight.

  ‘It’s a Norway spruce,’ said Helen. ‘I was planning a bog-standard balsam fir but it was love at first sight. There’s only one thing missing and that’s the angel at the top. I thought I might leave that for you to put on.’

  Her words were a dash of cold water in Makena’s face. She had no right to be happy. How could she be happy when her parents were dead and her best friend had met some unknown fate?

  ‘I don’t believe in angels,’ she snapped. Then she marched to the door and picked up her suitcase. ‘Where should I put this?’

  If Helen was crushed, she hid it well. ‘I’ll show you to your room shortly. First, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to meet my father.’

  In the living room, the fire was dying. The television screen was a hissing grey fuzz. Helen turned on a lamp. A ghost of a man slumped in an armchair, staring blankly at the screen. He barely registered their presence.

  Helen started forward. ‘Oh, Dad, why have you been sitting in the dark again? And I’ve told you a hundred times that if you press the DVD button on the remote, it all goes to pot.’

  Exasperated, she turned off the TV. ‘Dad, this is Makena, who’ll be joining us for Christmas and most of January. You have loads in common so I’m sure you’ll get along famously. Makena’s father was a mountain guide too. He led dozens of expeditions up Mount Kenya. Makena, meet Ray.’

  Makena approached shyly. She extended a nervous hand.

  Ray’s grey eyes swept over her unseei
ngly. When his fingers touched hers, they were as cold and bony as a skeleton’s. It was all Makena could do to keep from screaming.

  ‘Who’s hungry?’ asked Helen with fake cheer. ‘Makena, Dad, would you like some soup and nibbles?’

  Her father shook his head without enthusiasm.

  The plane food had been inedible and Makena was starving, but the thought that she might be presented with cow’s stomach lining stuffed with sheep’s heart, liver, lungs and oatmeal was not appealing.

  ‘I don’t need anything. Thanks,’ she added, remembering her manners. ‘Please, I’m very tired. Is it all right if I go to bed now?’

  Helen opened her mouth then shut it again firmly. As she led the way up the stairs, Makena heard her mutter: ‘At this rate, Christmas really will be a silent night.’

  LIONS, FOXES AND BEARS

  At Hearts4Africa’s Home for Girls, Makena’s nightmares had ceased soon after the Reaper and Diplomat were arrested. Turned out, the Diplomat was not an attaché to a foreign embassy at all. He was a greedy local businessman in league with the Mungiki mafia. He paid a pittance to the Reaper, whose real name was Demetrios, to trawl the slums for stray children fit enough to work in his sportswear factory. In exchange for what one boy claimed was rat stew, and lodgings not fit for cattle, they had to work around the clock making trainers and polo shirts.

  According to Serena, Demetrios himself had been abandoned as a baby. The sailor who found him on the docks in Mombasa had named him Demetrios because the last ship to leave the port was returning to Athens. It was the only Greek name he knew.

  ‘The Reaper’s Greek?’ marvelled Makena, recalling the giant as she’d seen him in the storm. He’d reared out of the driving rain like Zeus, the dark god of thunder and lightning.

  Once she knew his history, her nightmares about Demetrios stopped, perhaps because she no longer saw him as a monster but as another of Mathare Valley’s tragic stories. During her last month in the orphanage, she’d slept the fathomless sleep of the world-weary in her hammock in the library.