WhiteMischief (1982) is an airport book that has attracted a readership of vacationers
to Kenya over many years – and presumably, will continue to do so. In 1941 Nairobi
made international news for the murder of Joss Hay, the 22nd Earl of
Erroll, the first subject in Scotland after the Royal Family, at the age of 39.
Fox
provides an historical account of the twenty-year period leading up to the
murder, the night of the fatality, the trial of suspect Sir John Broughton and his
acquittal, and the author’s years of investigative journalism to discover the
truth.
From
the 1920s, Fox describes the heady two decades of life in Wanjohi Valley - “Happy
Valley” - 100 kilometres from Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. It was the height of
colonial class privilege and bad behaviour, with excesses at every level of
life – alcoholic, drug-induced, financial, and sexual excesses, where love and
love affairs had no boundaries and where both single and married men and women had
no discretion, only flamboyance and infidelity. And in the heat and altitude,
colonials – the white mischief – suffered “debility, irritability, even nervous
breakdown.”
In
the “supremely beautiful landscape” among beautiful people, Joss Hay was
considered particularly beautiful. He was a handsome man with pale gold hair and
a charm irresistible to women. He had married Lady Idina Gordon in 1923, the founding
inspiration of Happy Valley – it was her third marriage and she was infamous
for her own outrageous scandals. They divorced in 1929, and Joss Hay was free
for future marriages and dalliances. He remained in Kenya and married Molly who
died from a heroine overdose in 1939, so he continued to have a serious affair
with a married woman (given an alias in the book) and an open romance with Diana
Caldwell, the wife of John Broughton – his best friend. But he also remained
friendly with a series of “discarded mistresses.”
Hay’s
lover’s husband – John Broughton – was the prime suspect, placed on trial, and
acquitted. Fox details the trial, but it only provided a list of unanswered
questions and theories. On the fateful night, friends and lovers were holidaying
in a large house on the road between Karen (named after Baroness Karen Blixen,
Danish author of “Out of Africa”) and Nairobi. At 3:00am Hay’s Buick ran off
the road. His body was found wedged on the floor beneath the steering wheel
with a bullet hole through his ear. The bullet had travelled “in a straight
line from ear to ear” right through his brain.
The
book concludes in 1981 with the author’s interview with two witnesses who never
took the stand during Broughton’s trial – two 15-year old girls. What did they
see? What did they know? After so many years, what did it matter?
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