Chapter 24: The End Of The Trail

1971: Cyrill Connolly had written in his notes -- "The end of the trail." It was notes of his interview in 1971 with Juanita Carberry, June's stepdaughter, who was 15 years old at the time of the murder, and very, very close to Broughton, one of the few people who actually listened to Juanita.

"It wasn't quite the end of the trail, as it turned out. But he had come remarkably close to it, and it was only Juanita's evidence that had kept him [Cyril Connollly] a few steps away." -- James Fox, page 279 or a 299-page book.

Amazingly, Juanita reached out to Connolly for the interview.

The murder took place in 1941. In 1971, thirty years later. Juanita had been 15 years old; she would have been 45 years old in 1971when she met Connolly.

She was exactly the same age as our own granddaughter Arianna in 2021 when I am writing this. It is interesting to imagine "an Arianna" at this age watching the trial of her life, back in 1941. It will help me understand the credibility of Juanita, a 45-year-old remember details of something that happened thirty years earlier, of which she would know only some of the details.

Connolly's notes of his visit with Juanita Carberry:

JC late. Small, close cropped, medium colouring, nice quiet voice. Works as a steward on tankers. Knows many languages, fluent Swahili etc. Lunched at Le Français, drinks milk, orders in French. Impressions: great integrity, sensibility, observation etc.

Then Fox begins his narrative.



Skipping through ten pages ....

... page, 288, just a short paragraph from the end of the book ... and then the last paragraph:

"He [Broughton] never denied his guilt to Diana. He simply told Juanita at a moment of severe emotional stress that it was he who had shot Erroll and she mustn't be frightened.

"The story of Broughton's last days in Africa is indeed a tragic one. Perhaps in the end Africa was to blame. Once Kenya had given Broughton some of his happiest days. In the future it was to provide Diana with her fullest days. She had been accepted. He had paid it one visit too many."

That ends the book.

What we don't know is how he could have possibly done it.

The safari he went on shortly before the trail began shows that he was athletically / physically capable of getting out of the house, grabbing a car, driving quickly to catch Erroll, cut him off, get out and shoot him, and then drive quickly back to home in Karen, during that missing hour.

The problem: how could he do it without anyone knowing or hearing him leave?