If it were a novel set anywhere else, critics might say it stretched credulity to breaking point. But given the well-documented, real-life antics of the white community remaining in Kenya, the details of a high society murder currently being retold in a wood-panelled Nairobi courtroom don't sound so far-fetched after all.The case is the reopened inquest into the killing of fast-living artist Antonio "Tonio" Trzebinski, 41, one of Kenya's 5000-strong white elite: born and raised here and educated in Britain. His body was discovered lying next to his Alfa Romeo on October 16 2001 with a single bullet wound to the heart.In court, his fashion designer widow, Anna, has been defending herself against claims by her mother-in-law, writer Errol Trzebinski, that she hired an assassin to kill her husband because he was having an affair.For her part, the "other woman" Tonio was visiting, Danish big game hunter Natasha Illum Berg, has testified that he was "scared" of his wife and regarded Anna's mother, Dodo Cunningham-Reid, as "the most dangerous woman in Kenya".Cunningham-Reid's lover, businessman, Ludovico Gnecchi Ruscone, suggested that Berg might know more about Tonio's death than she is letting on.Their testimonies give a glimpse into the drink- and drug-fuelled promiscuous lifestyles of the descendants of the notorious 1930s "Happy Valley" set of blue-blooded settlers who scandalised colonial Kenya. Today they are carrying on in Nairobi's gated compounds and the clubs of Karen - an exclusive, white "walled playground" -- as if nothing has changed since the empire days."White Kenyans today are a cross-section of characters," insists a third-generation member of this close-knit community."You have farmers, professionals and businessmen who get on with life, but there are also much harder-living 'Kenya cowboy' types. Drug-taking and threesomes are common and there is almost a sense of pride in this."Witnesses have revealed the devil-may-care lifestyle of Tonio and his circle, collectively known as "The Fun Squad"."He was probably the wildest of them all," Tonio's mother has accepted.On the day Tonio died, he had driven the short distance from his home to Berg's, in Karen.It was her security guard who found his body. Anna, his German-born fashion designer wife, was in Arizona, US, in rehab after she discovered the affair. Their 1991 marriage was, by most accounts, turbulent, but had survived infidelity before.From the outset, Tonio's mother, Errol, 79 - who has lived in Kenya since she was 16 - rejected the police's verdict that her son's death was a hijacking gone wrong. Her tireless campaign to identify his killer led to the current inquest.One of the most striking aspects of the proceedings has been the many echoes between Tonio Trzebinksi's case and that of a notorious and still unsolved "Happy Valley" murder. In 1941, Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll, was shot dead in his car after visiting his mistress Diana Delves Broughton nearby.The cuckolded husband, Sir Jock Delves Broughton, was put on trial but acquitted. That trial, too, lifted the lid on the carefree antics of the glamorous "Happy Valley" set and fascinated readers back home in Britain.With no killer ever convicted, it led to an enduring interest, including the 1988 film White Mischief.At times, the proceedings have descended into an unseemly round of tit-for-tat accusations by Tonio's nearest, but not necessarily dearest, and caused an unflattering spotlight to fall on the white enclave.About 15km northwest of Nairobi, Karen is named after Danish baroness Karen Blixen, whose colourful memoir of colonial lives and loves in the 1920s inspired the Oscar-winning film Out of Africa .Karen still contains plenty of descendants of those unruly scions. Its residents all frequent the same watering holes - The Talisman bar, The Tin Roof and Bronze Roof cafés, and the Karen Provision Stores.They send their children to the same elite schools - Banda in Langata for prep, Hillcrest for secondary, then boarding at Pembroke, in the Great Rift Valley, unless they are to be shipped off to the UK.That was Tonio Trzebinski's fate, aged 13, but gaining a first at the Chelsea School of Arts, and doing post-graduate work at the Slade, he was drawn back to Africa at 28 where he became a successful abstract artist, his canvasses selling for £20000 each.Whatever the impression being given at the inquest, Karen is starting to change. Its eponymous club still has a white core of members but is now frequented by the black political elite. Equally, the visit to Kenya at Easter by Prince William - to attend the wedding of his "first love", Jecca Craig - highlighted a different side to white Kenyans.The "Kenyan Cowboys" still play up the "Happy Valley" stereotypes but families like the Craigs show a different side to their community - rooted in a passion for the great outdoors and an addiction not to drink or infidelity but to the natural environment.This love of the African landscape was also part of Tonio Trzebinski's short life, but it is a detail that is unlikely to feature prominently in the inquest...