The Vigil
A night shift. A body. And the education no training prepares you for.
It was a black night. Moonless. Not even a lone star was visible in the sky. And it got darker after the power outage began at 8pm just as the rains started. There was a heavy downpour but it didn’t last. Kip heard the transformer blow. The village was plunged into silence and darkness. Kip had just finished his first week at this rural police post, and he had really been looking forward to binging on Tik Tok. But with the power gone, he would have to ration his entertainment to save his phone’s battery life. These power black outs could last for days because the Kenya Power technicians weren’t the most motivated. Getting them to leave the offices in Siaya would require a call from someone influential.
Everyone in the police post was asleep by 10pm because there was really nothing to do once the power went out and Kip, who was on the night shift, braced for a long uneventful night, listening to the chorus of crickets and faint roar of the river in the distance that was now humming like steady traffic flow.
Corporal Waf, who was his senior, a man old enough to be his father, had scheduled a foot patrol to do an operation on some chang’aa brewers but the rains had killed that plan. It had stopped raining now, and Waf asked him to stay on duty which meant manning the desk. Kip had been told that no one ever stayed up at night but the area MP had been around the week before and complained to the OCS that the police only collect bribes from illicit alcohol brewers and so they had to maintain the optics for at least a few days.
Kip was scrolling through his feed when he heard a scream piercing through the night and he stepped out of the office but all he encountered was the silence of the night. He looked at the time and it was ten minutes past midnight. He couldn’t make out the direction and hearing no new sounds, he returned to his phone.
Approximately, 15 minutes later, a motorcycle rumbled into the compound of the police post. Riding it was a young man sporting dreadlocks. They could have been the same age but he looked flustered and the state of his hair made him look more dishevelled and suspicious. His voice was shaky and desperate. He was asking for Afande Waf.
“Something very bad has happened, I need Afande?”
Kip threatened to throw him in the cell if he didn’t stop asking for Afande Waf and demanded that he state his reason for wanting to wake up the Corporal past midnight. After listening to him, Kip went quickly and banged on Waf’s door and the corporal appeared bare chested with a shuka tied around his waist, his protruding belly dangling over and he was in a foul mood.
The young man who had brought the news shouted a greeting from the distance,
“Afande, ni Rasta” and Waf peered over Kip’s shoulder and returned his gaze to Kip,
“I hope this is serious” and the younger police officer explained the reason for his intrusion. He noticed Waf’s demeanor changed when he mentioned the name of the home where the incident was reported.
“Did you say, mzee Shem home, hmm?” Waf’s face had now turned contemplative.
He retreated back into his house and when he emerged he was dressed in full uniform and donning a combat fatigue jacket and a beret. He strapped his G3 rifle on his shoulder and instructed Kip to grab his gun and follow him. There was a sudden urgency in his step as they straddled the motorcycle, Kip in the middle, sandwiched between Waf and Rasta, the rider. The cold air whipped them as the bike lunged into the squishy earth, throwing their bodies against each other. The darkness was total and it smothered everything around it. The only thing fighting back was the trembling beam of the head lamp punching a hole through the blackness to reveal rocks and thick bush lining the road side. It was a short uphill ride through the stony murram road to a homestead that sat on a plateau and the hum of the river was more distinct from that elevation.
The first odd thing that Kip noticed when the motorcycle’s head lamplight flooded the compound was a distressed elderly woman pacing about the homestead, like she had lost her mind, mumbling to herself.There was a young woman, who bore a close resemblance watching her movements. A lantern had been placed on a three legged curved stool and next to it was a small black leather bound bible. The compound had two houses. A central mud walled house that faced the gateless entrance and next to it, on the right hand side, a larger modern brick house with a L-shaped verandah. In between the two houses was a tall water tank tower and sitting on top of it a large black water tank. As soon as they dismounted from the motorcycle, Rasta pointed at the water tank and Kip’s torch light crawled up the side to reveal a sight that made Waf gasp.
Hanging just below the water tank was a chunky male body. Fully dressed, black shoes, black trousers and white shirt. It was suspended in mid-air, the thick, braided sisal rope cinched into a heavy noose around the throat.
Waf handed Kip his gun and started scaling the metal water tower structure with an agility that Kip did not realise he possessed. He got up to the level of the body without much strain, keenly studying the body using a flash light and careful not to touch it. Then he shouted at Kip to secure the perimeter and ensure that no one came into the homestead.
He climbed back down and made a phone call, spoke rapidly before he turned to Rasta and instructed him to go and fetch the other police man at the post. His name was Brown. They would need all the manpower they had. Then he returned to his phone and started calling a number frantically. It rang for a long time and there was no answer. He tried, again and again and the third time a groggy voice came on the line and Kip noticed Waf straightening up, his other arm lined up on his side like a soldier in a parade. He was speaking to his boss, the OCS at the mother station in Yala. All Kip could hear him say was,
“Yes, Sir! Ndiyo Sir! Yes, Sir!
As he finished the call, Rasta’s bike emerged from the blackness with Brown, the other police man from the post, a tall, lanky, fair skinned man. His jaw dropped when he laid eyes on the suspended dead man. The three men moved in closer to the steel frame of the water tower, almost under the dangling shoes of the suspended body.
Waf took a deep breath and stepped into the centre of the huddle and laid out the protocol. They couldn’t cut the rope. They would have to document the scene and secure the home until the detectives arrived from Siaya.
Kip was to guard the perimeter and Brown was to look around the compound and into the houses for evidence. Kip was now thankful for the rain and the power outage. If the village got wind of this, and found the body, they would demand it to be brought down.
All this while, the older woman just sat on a stool next to the lantern in absolute stillness with the younger woman beside her mimicking the older woman’s rigid posture. But when Waf pulled a chair and sat next to her to begin the interview, she was in no position to talk. She was shivering and so Waf waited patiently until her rapid breathing subsided and the older woman announced, “Now I can talk”.
He began by trying to persuade her to enter the house away from the horror of the sight as they did their police work but she was firm in her refusal.
“How can I stay in the house, yet my son is sleeping out alone in the cold?”
Waf looked at her face that was partly illuminated by the lantern light and he could see the brokenness in her eyes. He instructed the younger woman to fetch her some water and then returned to find Kip snarling at the hanging body.
“Look at this fool”, he pointed, “Making his mother suffer, for what, useless, kabisa! Weak men, will always perish foolishly”
Waf did not react and instead reiterated his instructions. No one comes into the homestead. We secure this home until the forensics guys arrive with their Land Cruiser from Siaya.
“We don’t know how long they will take but pray to God they get here before the morning because once the village wakes up, it will be chaos”.
Then he walked away to speak to Brown who had just finished his sweep of the brick house.
“What do you think?” he asked and Brown dug a finger into his nose and pinched it. He looked at the hanging man and asked Waf,
“Isn’t this your friend?” and then shook his head looking at Waf, “Pole sana” and he tapped Waf’s shoulder.
Waf didn’t answer but they both looked up at the dark mass of the hanging man at the same time, the distress of the scene shared among them in silence before Brown became formal.
“I haven’t found anything suspicious? I think we know what this is…come…I want to show you something”.
Brown led Waf to the verandah of the brick house and behind the low wall was a single white plastic chair and a square wooden table. Placed on it was an empty glass with the remnants of liquor and an empty bottle on the floor. Then Brown shone the ground, following a path that pointed to shoe prints on the stairs leading out to the compound.
“I suspect it happened after the black out and he must have taken advantage of the rain and power cut. Who discovered the body?”
Waf turned and looked in the direction of the elderly woman.
“She was answering a call of nature around midnight”.
Brown followed his gaze and clicked his lips,
“Aaa ya-ya-ya! Poor woman”.
Waf continued, “She was the last person to see him alive. They had an early meal together and he told her, “he was tired and he was going to sleep”.
Waf stared deeply into Brown’s eyes and Brown could see his angst in them and then back at the elderly woman who they could now hear lamenting.
“The young woman is her niece. She was the one who fetched Rasta. He is an immediate neighbour. We are lucky because of that rain, the village is sleeping deeply. I hope the Siaya people get here before dawn or it will get hectic if the elders get involved”.
Kip found them huddled together in silence and reported that the perimeter was secure.
He looked up at the body and shook his head.
“This home is now cursed for generations. Just selfish and then you hear that it was because of a woman!” and he clicked his tongue.
The two older policemen did not respond and their silence began to bother Kip who kept talking.
“Kwani, he didn’t have any friends he could talk to? What is this now?”
It was Brown who placed his hand on Kip’s shoulder and told him, “His mama is seated there. Let’s show some respect”.
That remark got Kip defensive, “I am not disrespecting anyone. I am telling my truth” and with that Waf told him to go back to his station, manning the entrance. Soon after Rasta emerged again from the darkness with a set of plastic chairs and all three men grabbed one and sat down. Waf and Brown sat next to the tank and Kip further away, near the entrance.
At first the darkness held its shape. Kip could barely make out the tank tower from his position nor the body and he had this eerie sense of the dead man watching him. The lantern’s flame was the only light in the home and its unsteady light cast shadows on the mud wall behind the two women. The older woman was no longer whimpering and in the silence that followed Kip heard the river again humming louder as if the stillness of the night had turned up its volume.
Every so often, he noticed that Waf flashed the body with his torch light and he wondered if the corporal was superstitious. Then the cocks began. The first cry distant and a second answered from somewhere nearer and that set off a call criss crossing the dark valley. A dog howled once and it was still again. The darkness receded unexpectedly and Kip noticed that he could now make out the silhouette of the body. An unseen bird made a call announcing the coming of dawn.
The sky changed from black to deep blue and the stars that had been invisible all night came into view. The dead body which had been temporarily forgotten, became visible again as the darkness withdrew making way for daylight. The second cock’s crow came as a chorus and in its wake Kip heard the far-off grind of a familiar engine.
Waf heard it too and looked at the time on his phone. It read ten minutes to five. They could hear the sound of the vehicle getting closer.
Kip finally asked Waf the question he had been holding through the night.
“Senior, sorry if I offended you but do you know this man?”
“Yes”, Waf said after a pause, “I know him well”
Then Kip asked “Do you know why he would do this to himself?”
Waf let out a long sigh and then spoke,
“It doesn’t matter to me what his reasons were but I will tell you something, this village has lost a good man”.
“What do you mean?”
“6 years ago, when I was still very new here, my daughter almost died from malaria. The wife was alone. I was far away. We had gone for an operation in Kisumu, law and order in Kondele, campaign time. He used to have a car those days. When they asked him, he didn’t hesitate. He drove my wife and daughter to Siaya General hospital in the middle of the night and they put her on drip. Her temperature had reached 40 degrees! My first born daughter is doing her form four exams this year, because of this man”.
The motor of a police vehicle driving into the compound interrupted their conversation. Coming through the entrance was a dark blue police Land Cruiser pick up. Waf adjusted his beret and tugged on the strap of his rifle and then walked towards the parked vehicle as two men opened the car doors.
Kip watched him walk away and then turned to the dangling dead body and for the first time that night, he noticed that the dead man’s shoes were polished.
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