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Camp. Writing up last week’s activities. Preparations for archaeological field trip and Burukanda Competition.
    It was always signed ‘ES’. Elisa Strutton. Also presumably the ‘S blaming everyone else’ mentioned in Nathan’s entry who had the ‘really big argument with B’. B would be the teacher Ian Boyd. In the Chomlaya Log, Murothi noted, there was no mention of any swapping of people on the Buffalos’ trip to Lengoi, or the later-than-planned departure. This was less than accurate, in fact careless , from a person who claimed to be so concerned about record-keeping and responsibilities. There was also nothing at all noted in this book on the day of the disappearances itself, 24 February –
    Unexpectedly came a glimpse of a trail across the surface of all these other people’s words. Urgently, he must find a way to hold it, like setting the plaster cast of a footprint in sand! He shuffled books and folders together, making a quick mental list. First, back to the hospital, speak to Joe. Yesterday, when DCMeshami tried to question him: Did you leave together? Did you cross the stream? not a single question was answered. The boy, it seemed, did not even remember leaving the tents! What could dig such a hole in a youngster’s memory?
    Next, tackle the DC: if these lost people were to be found – found in time – he and DC Meshami must share ideas, not peck and tear at the mystery from rival sides, like vultures –
    He stopped. Why did his head bring him these pictures, with their mood of death and decay?
    A plan was taking shape: suddenly he felt heartened. Rapidly he washed and changed his clothes. Next target: get to Chomlaya. It struck him with the force of sun breaking through cloud that he should take Joe back with him. The sight of Chomlaya again – could this loosen the boy’s mind? If the boy is well enough, if the doctor agrees.
    Get the DC’s approval. Murothi did not need his permission, but it would be polite, respectful , to get his approval.
    Finally, he came to thoughts of Ella again – to her small, pale, obstinate face, to her probable terrors at this place, Nanzakoto, which he himself, an African, found strange and alarming enough.
    How will I ever be able to tell her, if I have to, that her only sister will never return?

8 a.m.
    Ella marched furiously down the corridor. We are not a hotel! It wasn’t so much the nurse’s scalding tongue that upset her; mostly, she was angry at herself. Why did she flee from Joe like that? Squandering the chance to talk to him on her own – probably the only chance she’d get.
    Around her, doors banged, water gurgled, half-heard conversations in unknown languages floated down passageways. She reached the end of the corridor and a door held open with buckets of mops and disinfectant bottles. Through it, and she was in a large, paved yard; the clanks and clinks of kitchen work drifted through open windows to one side. Ranks of sheets hung on drying lines and a woman was pegging them out, making a sing-song whistling though her teeth as she moved. She smiled at Ella, bending to her task in a calming rhythmic flow: bend, lift, peg; bend, lift.
    This side of the hospital’s a better place to wait, Ella thought, looking west towards the mountains: away from sight of the ridges of Chomlaya and the helicopters flying over them.
    She stepped out from the shade of the doorway. The air hadlost its moisture. In the fields behind the hospital there was the shimmer of heat – a rippling wrinkle in the bright air – and the rising shrill of insects. The land spread flat and yellow-brown and unchanging until in the far distance it climbed into the mauves and purples of the mountains. From the little plane she’d seen them clearly, fold on delicate fold on the skyline, their peaks circled by pale cloud, their toes deep in forested foothills.
    On the other side of those mountains was the border, Inspector Murothi said. Hundreds of miles away. The taxi driver in