Black Star Nairobi by Mukoma Wa Ngugi

of poorly paved roads, we came to a wooden gate secured with heavy-duty chains and padlocks.
    “You could just burn the gate,” I said to O.
    “Or saw through it,” O said in turn.
    We rapped on the chains, and big Alsatian dogs leaped up and down—we could see their flashing teeth in the glare of the Land Rover headlights. Someone called to them from inside, asking what we wanted. O explained that we were detectives and the owner laughed.
    “I’ve heard that one before,” he yelled in English through the grated doorframe. We held up our badges above the gate, but he couldn’t make them out from that distance.
    The watchman yelled something at his boss in Kikuyu.
    “But you could be holding a gun to his head,” he yelled back.
    “And I could burn down your gate, shoot your dogs, and come in,” O shouted back at him.
    “The phone number of your station—the desk number, give it to me.”
    O gave him the number and looked at me as if to say it was a good thing he was still working for Hassan and moonlighting for our agency.
    “What are your names?” he yelled after a few seconds. O gave him his name and, after a few seconds, he emerged and locked his dogs up.
    “You can’t be careful enough these days,” he said as he opened the gate and revealed a short, stocky old man. By this time, it was obvious to me that he had nothing to hide. For one, were he involved in something as heavy as the bombing he would not be home, and if he were home, he would not have answered, and if he did—it would be to try to bribe us.
    “We are investigating the Norfolk bombing … an aspect of it, anyway. Have you been there lately?” I asked him.
    “Well, I was there a few days ago, the manager is a good friend and throws work my way, otherwise a job at the Norfolk would never come to a man like me. But I didn’t do any work on the boiler—I ran some diagnostics … oh God!” he exclaimed as the possibility came to him.
    “Are you telling me, all that damage, all those deaths—a boiler did that?” he said with his hand over his mouth. “No, that’s not possible—that level of damage …”
    “What was wrong with the boiler?” O asked him.
    “Old … it needed a new pressure valve. I told them that they needed a new boiler immediately. They said they would order one from the United States and get it shipped in. I guess it’s still on its way,” he said, trying not to smile at his joke.
    “Did you see anything suspicious?” I asked.
    “No, nothing around the boiler,” he answered.
    “Has anyone else come to see you? Americans?” I asked. He looked alarmed. The stories about the U.S.’s extraordinary renditions, when told with a Kenyan flair for lurid details, would alarm even the bravest of us.
    “No, no one else has come to see me,” he answered.
    “You have nothing to worry about,” I reassured him.
    Ngotho really was a working stiff and he looked genuinely unhappy that he wouldn’t be completing the job—he needed the cash, something I understood. We had to go back and continue looking. We left the guard with Ngotho for what we were sure was going to be a long conversation about abandoning his post.
    This was detective work—detail after detail, some leading somewhere, others nowhere, but I had come to learn that there were no wasted details. At least you ruled out something when you were wrong. We had ruled out Ngotho—and without it costing us anything. Because, in Kenya, the truth costs. A Kenyan reporter for CNN had been fired because he was bribing witnesses. But how else was he going to get the truth?
    “It’s a little bit odd that no one else has visited Ngotho,” I said to O.
    “And we’re all looking at the same evidence … someone knew it was a waste of time,” O agreed.
    We needed to dig deeper and more carefully into the records—tedious—but it was what it was.
    “Shit—I forgot my wife’s hair,” O said suddenly.
    Before I could start laughing, I remembered I