Tefuga by Peter Dickinson

before replying. Jackland took the chance, and the excuse of his own gesture, to move the discussion, not too wrenchingly, nearer the subject of his own real interest.
    â€œI could have used that if I’d spotted it sooner,” he said. “Oh, I don’t know. There’s so much you can’t fit in without raising extraneous questions. It would have done for a straight documentary, though.”
    â€œYou are making this your film about the Tefuga Incident?” said the Major, so readily that it was apparent that he too had been waiting his chance.
    â€œNot exactly. We’re making a film about my mother’s experiences as the young wife of a colonial official. The deposition of Kama Boi and the Tefuga Incident happened while she was here. We couldn’t have avoided them. The whole thing’s practically finished—we’re just here to do a spot of tidying up. We hadn’t planned to go out to Tefuga at all, but now it looks as though we’re going to have a free afternoon so some of us might make the trip.”
    â€œThe project is almost complete, you say?”
    â€œPretty well. We’ve seen the first rushes. The rest of it should be waiting for us in London when we get back.”
    â€œI see.”
    Having made all the points he wished, with complete truth if some disingenuousness, Jackland reached forward to switch the ignition on. As he did so he took a last glance towards the scene on the bridge. Seeing his head turn the young woman raised an arm in a waving gesture, a quite clear signal that she wished to make contact. Jackland took his hand from the switch and sat back, watching her come.
    â€œYou know this woman?” said the Major.
    â€œNot yet,” said Jackland.
    Despite her high heels the woman negotiated the swaying planks of the footbridge with complete confidence, and once on dry land came forward with long, elastic steps. The heels and her skin-tight jeans gave her the stilt-legged look of those Nubian dancers shown in Egyptian friezes and still, amazingly, performing (at least for touring TV crews) in their desert settlements. The insect-like effect was enhanced by enormous opaque sunglasses. Her skin was mid-brown, the wiry black hair cropped close on the small round skull. She looked in her early twenties.
    â€œMr Jackland?” she said, holding out a card. “I am Annie Boyaba, A.N.B.C.”
    The card confirmed the information, adding that A.N.B.C. was “The Voice of the West.”
    â€œI am hoping that you will grant me the honour of an interview,” she said.
    Her voice was crisply English, almost absurdly so. Shut your eyes and you might have been listening to minor royalty.
    Jackland smiled, not apparently at her but at some sudden private thought.
    â€œThis is Major Kadu of the Nigerian Army,” he said. “We’ll give you a lift into town and talk about it there. Let Miss Boyaba up, Major. She will provide excellent camouflage. By the same token, I wonder if you would mind removing your cap.”
    â€œWhat is this for?” said the Major.
    Jackland smiled yet more broadly. His pale blue eyes sparkled beneath the jutting brows.
    â€œPlease,” he said. “I want it to be a surprise.”
    With obvious doubt the Major moved to the centre of the bench seat and took off his cap, revealing short iron-grey hair. Miss Boyaba climbed up and Jackland drove on. The highway, though built mainly to link with the unfinished bridge, continued along the line of the old road as far as the ferry, skirting New Kiti, a sprawl of buildings ranging from two-storey breeze-block houses to iron-roofed huts, none at all pleasing. It was still barely a town, having expanded far less than most Nigerian conurbations. The hinterland of Kiti was too thinly populated to swell it greatly, and most of those with the initiative to leave their villages had also perceived its hopelessness as a place of opportunity and moved on, at