“Please be careful,” she said. “If anything happens, phone Joseph right away.”
Zoe dressed quickly in jeans and a pullover, drew her blond hair into a ponytail, and put on her sunglasses and a baseball cap. She looked at herself in the mirror and shook her head. The glasses hid her blue eyes, but otherwise her Caucasian features were impossible to miss. She grabbed her backpack off the floor and stuffed it with enough reading material to occupy her for a few hours. Then she locked her flat and drove her Land Rover out of the gate.
It took her barely a minute to reach her destination. As she had done before, she pulled to the shoulder as far from the house as she could without limiting her view of the gate. She studied the guard sitting outside the wall. He had the same muscular physique as the night guard, but he didn’t seem as intent on his duties. He was leaning back in his chair, absorbed in a newspaper.
She took out her iPhone and pulled up another satellite image of the property. She had given little thought to the outbuildings before, but now she studied them carefully. The larger one sat beside the driveway and resembled a garage; the smaller one stood beside the outer wall in the shade of a tree—probably the housekeeper’s cottage. The cottage faced the rear of the house and had a direct line of sight across the pool to the larger outbuilding.
She sent Joseph a text, letting him know where she was.
His reply came swiftly: “Watch the guard. If he gets suspicious, leave. Call if you need backup.”
She looked down the street. The guard had not budged from his seat. She switched on the radio and lowered the volume. She wanted to hear Banda’s press conference but none of the commentary. She took out her copy of Swann’s Way and immersed herself in Proust.
Around nine o’clock, President Banda came on the radio. Zoe listened as he addressed the nation. There was an undercurrent of sorrow in his voice, but his words were generous and conciliatory. He spoke with deep feeling about the country that had elected his archrival to replace him, and he prevailed upon all Zambians to ensure a peaceful transition.
When he concluded, Zoe had tears in her eyes. Never before had she heard an African politician concede defeat with such dignity. Names flashed through her mind: Idi Amin, Joseph Mobutu, Charles Taylor, Muammar Al-Gaddafi, Robert Mugabe—the self-appointed dictator kings of Africa. The list was long and littered with the dead. By presiding over an orderly transfer of power, Banda had not only prevented carnage in the compounds, but he had also refuted the cynic’s song that Africa was an irredeemable land.
Zoe was so enthralled by the moment that she almost missed the Toyota sedan leaving the Nyambos’ property. She blinked in the bright sunlight and realized what she was seeing. Two people were in the vehicle: a man in the driver’s seat and an older woman in the back, dressed in chitenge. The sedan turned left out of the gate and headed in the direction of Bishop’s Road. She keyed the ignition and fixed her eyes on the guard, fearing the sound of the engine would attract his attention. But he seemed oblivious to her.
She accelerated up the lane and kept pace with the sedan as it meandered through the central suburbs. Ten minutes later, the Toyota turned into the Manda Hill shopping center, an ultra-modern Mecca of African consumerism. The driver nosed to the curb in front of Shoprite, and the old woman left the car with a handbag. Zoe pulled into a parking space and watched the driver puff away on a cigarette. She shook her head, marveling at Joseph’s prescience.
Grabbing her backpack, Zoe entered the store and found the old woman pushing a cart through the produce section. She studied the woman while pretending to examine papayas. Her face was lined with wrinkles, and she walked with a stoop, but her stride was strong.
Zoe moved toward the wall, looking for an opening. Eventually, the woman wheeled her cart toward a case stocked with milk and cheese. The closest shopper was twenty feet away. Now, Zoe thought and crossed the floor, stopping beside the woman.
“You work for Frederick and Patricia Nyambo,” she said quietly.
The woman stiffened. “Who are you?” she asked.
Zoe picked up a liter of milk. “I’m an attorney. I’m helping a girl who was raped.”
The woman looked confused. “How does that relate to me?”
Zoe met her eyes. “We believe Darious Nyambo was the perpetrator.”
The woman glared at her. “I don’t know anything about it.” She placed two liters of milk in her cart and moved toward a table piled high with loaves of bread.
“The girl is young,” Zoe persisted. “She needs your help.”
“I don’t know this girl,” the woman said, placing a bag of bread in her cart, then a package of beef from the meat counter. She turned away and angled toward the front of the store.
Zoe delivered a last-ditch plea. “She could be your granddaughter.”