Blood Safari (9 page)

Donnie Branca stopped for a short, meaningful moment. I was ready to give him money. ‘We also have breeding programmes for servals, wild dogs, leopards and cheetahs,’ said Branca. Beside me, Emma shook her head and said softly, ‘No.’

I looked at her in surprise. ‘Poor branding,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll explain later.’

Then Donnie Branca invited us to view the animals with him.

Emma stood in the big cage with a huge glove on her right hand, holding a strip of meat. The Cape vulture flew up from the ground with the noise of a spinning windmill and landed on the glove with extended talons. Its giant wings, spread wide for balance, dwarfed her, and it was so heavy that she had to support her outstretched arm with the other.

‘Hold that meat as tightly as you can,’ Donnie Branca said, but to no avail. The beak took hold of the strip and pulled it effortlessly from her grasp.

I stood behind the other visitors at the door to the cage, watching the childlike wonder on Emma’s face.

‘Jislaaik,’
she said, and the vulture flew off her hand, stroking her short hair with its long wing feathers. The crowd applauded.

Donnie Branca stood at the gate, just beyond the collection box, to thank the visitors and wish them goodbye. Emma made sure we were at the back. Branca smiled at her and put out a hand. ‘You were a real trooper with the feeding,’ he said.

‘Mr Branca.’ She shook his hand.

‘Call me Donnie.’ He liked her.

‘My name is Emma le Roux. I would like to talk to someone about Jacobus de Villiers.’

It took him a second to change gear. The perfect white teeth disappeared. ‘Cobie?’

‘Yes,’ said Emma.

Branca looked at her as if seeing her for the first time, with much-diminished interest. ‘Are you from the papers?’

‘I’m a consultant from Cape Town. Jacobus is my brother.’ She zipped open her handbag.

‘Your brother?’

Emma took out her photo. She handed it to Branca. He took it and studied it intently.

‘But Cobie … I thought…’ He passed the picture back to her. ‘I think you should talk to Frank.’

‘Frank?’

‘Frank Wolhuter. The manager.’

Frank Wolhuter’s office did not have air conditioning. It smelt strongly of animals, sweat and pipe tobacco. He got up and offered Emma his hand, blue eyes scanning her up and down. He was as sinewy as biltong, with ajan Smuts goatee and thick grey hair long in need of a trim. He introduced himself with the happy smile of a man expecting good news.

‘Emma le Roux, and this is Mr Lemmer.’

‘Please, sit down. What can I do for you good people?’ He must have been well into his fifties, his face deeply lined with character built by a life in the sun and wind.

We sat.

‘I suspect Cobie de Villiers is my brother,’ Emma said.

The smile froze and then systematically crumbled. He stared at Emma and eventually said, ‘You suspect?’

‘I last saw him twenty years ago. I believed he was dead.’

‘Miss de Villiers …’

‘Le Roux.’

‘Of course. Mrs Le Roux …’

‘Miss.’

‘Le Roux is your maiden name?’

‘Le Roux was Jacobus’s surname too, Mr Wolhuter. It’s a long story …’

Frank Wolhuter slowly sank back into the worn brown leather chair. ‘Jacobus le Roux.’ He seemed to taste the name. ‘You must excuse me, but under the circumstances you may find me somewhat sceptical.’

Emma nodded and opened her handbag. There was no need to wonder why. The photograph appeared. She put it on the desk and pushed it towards Wolhuter. He put a hand in his shirt pocket and drew out a pair of reading glasses which he placed on the bridge of his nose. He took the photo and studied it at length. Outside, a rehabilitating lion roared in its pen. Birds screeched. It wasn’t unbearably hot inside, perhaps because the curtains were half closed. Emma watched Wolhuter patiently.

He put the photo down, took off the glasses, placed them on the table, pulled open a drawer and took out a pipe with a long straight stem. Next a box of matches. He bit the pipe stem between his teeth, struck a match and held it to the tobacco. He sucked the pipe alight with practised ease and blew smoke at the ceiling.

‘Ag, no,’ he said, and looked at Emma. ‘That’s not Cobie.’

‘Mr Wolhuter…’

‘Call me Frank.’

‘Did you know Jacobus when he was twenty?’ I was amazed at the tone of her voice, so reasonable and pleasant.

‘No.’ Sucking his pipe.

‘Can you say with absolute certainty that that is not his photograph?’

Wolhuter merely looked over his pipe at her.

‘That is all I’m after. Absolute certainty.’ She smiled at him. It was a pretty smile. I was sure he would not be able to resist it.

Frank Wolhuter worked on a big ball of smoke and then said, ‘Tell me your long story, Miss le Roux,’ but his eyes were narrowed, an unbeliever.

She said nothing about the attack. A smart move, since I hadn’t found it all that convincing. But this time she told her story in chronological order. Maybe she was learning. She began in 1986, the year her brother disappeared. And how, twenty years later, she saw a face on television and received a mysterious phone call. It was in the same hesitant style of incomplete sentences, as if even she didn’t totally believe in what she was saying. Maybe she wa
too afraid to believe. When she had finished, Wolhuter passed the photo to Branca.

‘I’ve seen it,’ the younger man said.

‘And what do you think?’

‘There is a similarity.’

Wolhuter took the photo back. He looked at it again. Gave it back to Emma. He put the pipe back in the still-open drawer.

‘Miss le Roux …’

‘Emma.’

‘Emma, do you have an identity document with you?

A little frown. ‘Yes.’

‘May I see it?’

She glanced at me and then put her hand in her bag. She took out an ID book and gave it to Wolhuter. He opened it at the photo.

‘Do you have a business card?’

She hesitated again, but dug out her purse, snapped it open and brought out a visiting card. Wolhuter took it between his lean fingers and studied it. He looked at me. ‘You are Lemmer?’

‘Yes.’ I didn’t like his tone.

‘What is your interest in the matter?’

Emma drew in a breath to answer, but I was quicker. ‘Moral support.’

‘What is your profession?’

It was his manner which led me to make a mistake. I tried to be clever. ‘I am a builder.’

‘A builder, you say?’

‘I do up houses, mostly.’

‘Do you have a business card?’

‘No.’

‘And what do you intend to build here?’

‘Friendships.’

‘Are you a developer, Lemmer?’

‘A what?’

‘Frank …’ said Emma.

Wolhuter tried to silence her with a good-natured ‘Just a sec, Emmatjie…’, using the Afrikaans diminutive. Bad choice of words.

‘I am not Emmatjie.’ For the first time since I had met her, there was ice in her tone. I looked at her. Wolhuter and Branca looked at her. She sat up straight, cheeks lightly flushed. ‘My name is Emma. If you don’t like that, try Miss le Roux. Those are the only two acceptable options. Are we all clear?’

I wondered fleetingly why she needed a bodyguard.

Nobody said a word. Emma filled in the vacuum. ‘Lemmer is here because I asked him to be. I am here to find out whether Cobie de Villiers is my brother. That is all. And we shall do that with or without your help.’

Wolhuter raised a bony hand and slowly rubbed his goatee. Then his face eroded into a wary smile. ‘Emma,’ he said, with respect.

‘That’s right.’

‘You’re going to need that attitude. You have no idea what a wasp’s nest you’re sticking your head into.’

‘That’s what Inspector Jack Phatudi said too.’

Wolhuter gave Branca a meaningful look. Then he asked Emma, ‘When did you speak to him?’

‘This morning.’

‘What do you know about him?’

‘Nothing.’

Frank Wolhuter shifted his body forward and leaned his forearms on the desk. ‘Emma, I like you. But I see from your card that you are from Cape Town. This is another world from Cape Town. You won’t like me saying it, but let me tell you that Capetonians do not live in Africa. I know. Every year I go to Cape Town and it’s like visiting Europe.’

‘What has all this to do with Jacobus?’

‘I’ll get to that. First, let me paint you a picture of Limpopo, of the Lowveld, so you can understand the whole thing. This is still the old South Africa. No, that’s not entirely true. The mindset of everyone, black and white, is in the old regime, but all the problems are New South Africa. And that makes for an ugly combination. Racism and progress, hate and cooperation, suspicion and reconciliation … those things do not lie well together. And then there’s the money and the poverty, the greed.’

He picked up his pipe again, but did nothing with it.

‘You have no idea what’s going on here. Let me tell you about Inspector Jack Phatudi. He is from the Sibashwa tribe, important man, nephew to the chief. And by a mere coincidence the Sibashwa are in the middle of a big land claim. The acreage they want is part of the Kruger Park. And the Sibashwa are no great fans of Cobie de Villiers. Because Cobie is what some would call an activist. Not your usual greeny, your typical bunny-hugger. No. He doesn’t do protest marches or shout from a podium. He’s undercover, he’s quiet, he’s here and he’s there and you never see him. But he’s relentless, never gives up, never stops. He’ll listen, and he’ll eavesdrop, and he’ll take his pictures and make notes – and before you know it he knows everything. He’s the one with the evidence that the Sibashwa have already signed an agreement with a property developer. We’re talking hundreds of millions. So Cobie went and gave this information to the National Parks people and their lawyers, because he believed that if the Sibashwa’s land claim succeeded it would be the beginning of the end for Kruger. You can’t build a bunch of houses and think it’ll have no impact. You can’t …’

He cut himself short. ‘Don’t let me preach to you. The fact of the matter is, the Sibashwa don’t like Cobie. Even before this vulture affair he’s had trouble with them. Gin traps for leopards and wire snares for buck and their dogs forever running around and causing havoc. They know that it’s Cobie that reports them to the authorities, Cobie that shoots their dogs. They know him. They know what he’s like. That’s why they poisoned those vultures, because they knew someone would phone Cobie. It was an ambush. They wanted Cobie there so it would look as though he had shot those people, the sangoma and the poisoners. But it wasn’t Cobie. He couldn’t. He can’t kill anything.’

‘I know,’ said Emma, with feeling. ‘Then why is he hiding?’ The right question to ask.

‘The sangoma who was shot is Sibashwa. But they wanted him out of the way, because he was just as opposed to the development. He wasn’t stupid. He knew everything would change the minute the big money began to flow. It would be the end of their way of
life, their culture and traditions. So how do you solve the problem? You get rid of Cobie and the sangoma, two birds with one stone. Why do you think all the witnesses to the shooting are Sibashwa?’

‘It’s all too convenient,’ said Branca.

‘Exactly,’ said Wolhuter. ‘How objective will Inspector Jack Phatudi be in his investigation? Assuming he’s not part of the whole thing in the first place. And why did they break into Cobie’s room the night before last? Why didn’t Jack Phatudi run up here with a search warrant? Because they’re looking for the copy of the developer’s contract. They want Cobie’s photographs and diaries, all his evidence. Not for the courts. They want it to disappear. Just like they want Cobie to disappear. They want to take Cobie out with a ridiculous accusation, and if they get that right, Donnie and I are next in line; because we oppose the claim and we know about the development. This land claims mess …’

He angrily picked up his matches as his voice rose.

‘Frank …’ said Branca soothingly as though he knew what to expect.

‘No, Donnie, I won’t keep quiet.’ He struck a match, sucked angrily on the pipe and looked at Emma through the smoke.

‘Do you know how many there are that want a piece of Kruger? Nearly forty. Forty bloody land claims against the game reserve. What for? So they can destroy that, too? Just go and see what the blacks have done with the farms they got here in the Lowveld. With their land claims. I’m not a racist, I’m talking facts. Go and have a look at what it looks like. It was prime land; successful, productive white farmers had to get off, and now it’s a wasteland, the people are dying of hunger. Everything is broken – the borehole pumps, the irrigation pipes, the tractors, the pick-ups, and all that money the government put in, gone. Wasted. And what do they do? They say “give us more” and they do nothing and half of them have moved back to where they lived before the whole thing started.’

His pipe had gone out. He struck another match, but it never reached the pipe. ‘These are the same people that want a piece of Kruger, because their great-great-grandfather had three cows that grazed there in seventeen-something. Give it to them and see what
happens. Chop up the park in forty bits of tribal land and that’s the end, I’m telling you, we can all pack our bags and move to Australia, there’ll be nothing left here anyway.’

He leaned back in his chair. ‘And it’s not just the blacks. Greed has no colour.’

He jabbed his pipe stem at me. ‘That’s why I get edgy when a man comes in here and says he’s a builder. There are a lot of them sneaking around here. White guys. Skinny little city slickers in collar and tie, with dollars signs in their eyes and “Development” on their business cards. They feel nothing for conservation. They haven’t come to uplift the disadvantaged. They come here and seduce the people. They create these visions of pots of gold at the end of the land claim rainbow. The people are so poor, they want to believe in it, they are blinded.’

‘Golf estates,’ said Donnie Branca in great distaste.

‘Picture that,’ Frank Wolhuter said, his deep voice passionate again. ‘Go and look at the Garden Route. See what the golf estates have done there. All under the banner of conservation. Show me one thing they have conserved there. Trashed, yes. Wasted. They use more water per hectare than any other kind of development in the world, and now I hear they are going to develop golf estates in the Little Karoo, because there’s no more land left on the coast. With what water, I ask you? The only water is underground and that is a finite resource, but develop they will, because the money calls. And here? A golf estate in the Kruger Park? Can you picture that? Can you see how it would ruin the fauna and flora and the water resources, here where we have a terrible drought every other year?’