Elephant Dropping (9781301895199) Read Online Free Page A

his phone call to
Kamau. ‘On your way back to the office can you stop by Gandi's and
buy me the new Nokin phone. It’s about twenty four thousand
shillings, do you have enough cash?’ Azizza nodded. ‘Good put that
down on the expenses account and leave the phone in the office for
me.’
    ‘Ok, see you
later,’ she said to his departing back.
    At four, Patel
left his factory, car keys in hand. ‘It’s alright David,’ he told
the driver hurrying to the 4x4, ‘you can have the rest of the day
off. I will drive myself, see you in the morning.’
    Patel had a
fleet of cars; he opted to take a small white Toyota used on the
school run by his wife. He turned out of the gate and headed for
the suburbs of Malindi where he had bought a house from an old
English settler now in a rest home upcountry. The single story
colonial bungalow was about to fall down and was worthless, but for
now it worked well as an office for Golden Palm. As a concession to
the settler, he had kept on his houseman, who lived on the
property, employed as gatekeeper.
    Patel sounded
the horn and waited for the old man to open the gate. As he drove
up the overgrown drive to the rear of the building, he was pleased
to see the back door shut. Azizza not there, good, he needed time
alone. Entering the house through the kitchen he put the kettle on
and opened the door to the office, the room was sparsely furnished
apart from a long table with computer equipment, an office chair
and filing cabinets.
    Along one wall
was a large map of the Sabaki river plot allocations, areas marked
in red under Golden Palm’s control. He whipped the dustsheet off
the computer, turned it on and went back into the kitchen to make
himself a cup of tea.
    He settled down
at the computer, glancing at his watch making a note of the time.
Tapping in the password, he opened the folder containing the Golden
Palm accounts, and read the current figures. NNB had now lent over
500 million shillings on the strength of the title deeds. At an
average of 750,000 per title, this equated to almost seven hundred
titles over the past five months.
    The land
officer had already consumed two million, the interest rates so
far, just under nine million.
    Patel, with
Azizza’s help, had set up Golden Palm as a legitimate limited
company, its mandate was land buying and real estate and all the
licenses were current. They were both listed as directors of the
company, the majority shares in Patel’s name. The land officer
handed over the title deeds to Azizza, and issued her with a
government receipt for the amount, in the name of the plot owner,
pocketing his fee.
    Each plot owner
was a member of the Sabaki Farmers Co-operative Society. This
fictional co-operative even had an elected chairman and
subcommittee. It was this so-called subcommittee that had voted for
and officially appointed Golden Palm as the co-operatives
agents.
    With approval
from Evans, the NNB bank paid out the loans in cash in exchange for
the title deeds. Golden Palm acted as agents for the small holders
earning an additional fee. The bulk of this money went into a
deposit account with a rival bank in Malindi where Patel and Azizza
were joint signatories.
    Azizza paid the
interest in cash on a daily basis to NNB, as well as submitting any
new loan applications. The cash was carefully calculated and kept
in a concealed floor safe in the house together with all the
pending title deeds. Money accumulated in the savings account in
the rival bank. Golden Palm had bought the Mercedes that Evans was
driving, as a sweetener of things to come. Patel had resisted any
attempt by Evans to get hold of more money. It would earn them all
more on deposit, and they couldn’t risk him overspending and
drawing unnecessary attention to himself.
    As a
concession, Evans was paid a monthly consultants fee, which was
enough to keep him happy for the time being.
    Patel scanned
all the figures, noting with satisfaction, that Azizza kept a tidy
set of