Ivory (15 page)

‘Ancient history,' he said. ‘But you're right – my family name's remembered for all the wrong reasons. My old man was a bit of a scoundrel in his youth.'

‘Cad, my father said.'

They both laughed. ‘He mended his ways when he met my mum. Hopefully I haven't inherited his worst traits.' Although he knew he had.

‘Is that how you lost your fingers, in Afghanistan?'

He nodded. He didn't really want to talk about it, but he reminded himself that what he was actually doing here, taking her around the island, was designed to get
her
talking, so he took a breath and told the story.

He skipped over the sheer unadulterated terror of what it's actually like to have someone firing bullets at you and trying to kill you. He left out the bit about one of his marines wetting himself while they were pinned down. He didn't admit what a high, what a rush it was, to raise his head above the medieval mud-brick wall, line up a Talib in the sights of his SA-80, pull the trigger and see the man's face disappear in a spray of red. The killing had given him courage. The rush, the bloodlust of war, had taken over from the cool, calculating decision-making processes they'd taught him during his officer's training. When the grenade had come over the parapet he had pushed his men aside
and dived for it. He'd hefted it with his left hand – his right still holding his rifle – and just about got it away when it went off, mangling his hand and removing two fingers. The left side of his body and face had been peppered with shards of shrapnel.

One of his men had bandaged the bloody mess of his hand and then he, bellowing with pain and rage at what they'd done to him, led them out from behind the barricade to retake the village. Thankfully none of his men had been killed due to his act of madness.

‘Anyone would have done the same thing,' he said. ‘This is our beach bar – hub of all activity on the island.'

Reggae played softly from speakers mounted in the thatch above them and Jose looked up from a book of cocktails. ‘
Inxhlecane
, Alex.'

‘
Inxhlecane
.
Mo hine cu vuka?
'

‘I'm fine, man,' Jose replied in English. Alex liked to stay in practice with his Xitswa, the language of the people who lived on the islands and the mainland coast around Inhasorro and Vilanculos. Alex introduced Jane to the stocky African and he shook her hand.

‘We need some limes. I want to make a mojito for the lady,' Jose said, consulting his book again. ‘I saw it on
Sex and the City
, when the satellite was still working. How about a Coke in the meantime.'

‘Thanks,' Alex said, shaking his head. ‘Jose has a degree in Chemistry – a good background for any successful barman.'

‘
A santi wawena a sassekile
,' Jose said.

‘Jose says he's a better barman than he was a chemist. Don't let him near the swimming pool chemicals.' Actually, Jose had just told Alex that he thought his new wife was beautiful. Alex made a face at him.

Jane laughed. ‘What brings you to the island, Jose?'

‘I was born here,' he said. Jose passed the dripping bottles of cola across the bar then walked around to join them. ‘This reprobate and I grew up together. His father was the owner of the resort and I was the son of the best barman north of Maputo. We played together as children. Then the war happened.'

Alex saw Jane try hard not to stare at Jose's artificial leg. The prosthesis was a modern one, a Cheetah flexible running blade.

‘I was recruited – forced at gunpoint, actually – into the ranks of FRELIMO. I was sent to Russia where I studied Chemistry at university and bomb-making in a military camp. It was around the same time Alex was running guns to my enemies.'

‘What happened to you?' Jane asked.

‘When I came back to Mozambique I was in the bush, fighting RENAMO, when I stepped on an Italian-made landmine. They're plastic, so the mine detectors – even if we'd had them – wouldn't have picked it up. I hate landmines.'

‘But not Alex?'

Alex looked at his friend for a reaction. It was a valid question. ‘We got caught on opposite sides of the war. Alex hated everyone in FRELIMO for a while and I hated everyone in RENAMO and the people who backed them. But I saw my side do some bad things, as he did his. The government told me to reopen the hotel, to lure foreign tourists back, but I'm a chemist and a barman, not an hotelier, so I got the party to endorse Alex's claim on the property. The headache's all his now.'

‘Jose's being modest. He's my business partner.'

‘I can't believe we fought each other, for so long. But things are looking up now. Hopefully there will be no more killing,' Jose added.

‘But I thought the civil war here was long over.'

‘What Jose means,' Alex said, finishing his Coke and setting it down firmly on the bar, ‘is that he hopes this country never sees conflict again.'

‘Exactly,' Jose said.

Alex and Jose spoke briefly in Portuguese and the African nodded.

‘He says he'll have a word to the cook and organise us some giant lobster for tonight. Is that OK?'

‘It's sensational. Bye Jose.'

Alex led her off the beach to an old short wheelbase Land Rover, of similar vintage to the one Sarah had driven into the surf when they'd hijacked the car transport. The top had been removed and the windscreen folded flat to the bonnet, giving it the look of an off-road convertible. Alex opened and closed Jane's door for her, and she nodded her thanks.

The vehicle bounced along the sandy roads and the breeze generated from their motion kept the heat of the day at bay. It took only a few minutes of driving amongst low scrub and palm trees for them to arrive at a cleared area dotted with huts of thatch and woven reed walls. A fire smoked under a rack of drying fish, and a woman in a brightly printed wrap waved and smiled at Alex, without disturbing the ten litre plastic bottle of cooking oil balanced on her head. ‘Most of the island's population left after the revolution, though a few, like Jose, have come back. About fifty local people live here now.'

‘What do they do?' Jane asked, waving at two small girls who had peeked their heads out the door of one of the huts.

‘They fish, to provide for themselves and us at the hotel, and some of the men work for Jose and me as labourers. We've enticed a couple of builders to move here, and I've guaranteed employment to anyone from the village who wants it once the resort's back in business.'

‘That's very generous of you.'

‘It's their island and their wealth, as much as mine.'

‘That sounds a bit socialist for a former British officer and South African Army gun-runner?'

Alex smiled and nodded. ‘It's ironic that the people I wanted to overthrow invited me back, and that one of them was my best chum when I was a child.'

‘Isn't there some lingering animosity towards the former colonial regime – to you, as a Portuguese?'

‘I'm Mozambican, Jane. I was born here, and so was my mother and her parents. I don't agree with everything the Portuguese did here, just as I don't agree with everything the current government does. This is my birthplace, and for people like Jose and me, living here is our birthright.'

From the village Alex took a track which ran close to another beach, south of the main resort. Alex stopped near the shells of a line of eight timber buildings. Little was left of the huts other than splintered beams and dead palm fronds.

‘God, this is a beautiful beach, but what happened to the houses?
Were they destroyed when the Portuguese left?' Jane asked.

Alex shook his head. ‘No, this was my fault. When I first came back to Ilha dos Sonhos, after I'd been invalided out of the marines, I used my compensation payout to build a small holiday resort – a backpackers place with these few huts and a campsite. My plan was to get business back to the island and make some more money before I started restoring the hotel.'

‘What happened?'

‘A cyclone. That's what happened. It's no accident that all the remaining resort hotels along the coast look like concrete bunkers. Nothing less can withstand the force of nature. I was arrogant and I took a gamble. I've learned since then. We were only open a few weeks before the storm hit and I lost everything. I wasted a fortune.'

‘So what do you do for money now?'

He shrugged. ‘We run diving trips and fishing charters from the mainland. It's slowly-slowly now and we don't turn much of a profit. None, in fact. I put all the money back into the hotel. You can't rush Africa.'

He started the Land Rover again and they deviated inland from the coastline. He shifted into low-range four-wheel drive to climb a steep hill. Sand gave way to a rough rocky road carved into the hill. Jane held tight to the dashboard as the Land Rover eased its way to the top. At times it felt like they were climbing steps. It wasn't a high peak, but from the top they could just make out the haze of the mainland, and the next island to the south of them.

‘It's beautiful,' Jane said. ‘It's not every day you meet a man who has his own island.'

‘I just hope I can hang onto it,' he said.

They walked from one side of the clearing on top of the hill to the other and Jane shielded her eyes to take in the view.

‘The pirates,' he said casually, looking out over the ocean, not making eye contact with her, ‘what do you think they were looking for on board the
Penfold Son
?'

‘I've no idea,' she said quickly. ‘Perhaps they were just attracted to her because of her size.'

‘I doubt someone would go to the expense of a helicopter assault on spec,' he said.

She turned and looked at him, staring straight into his eyes. ‘I think I killed a man, Alex.'

He said nothing.

‘Have you – killed, I mean?'

He nodded.

‘I think he would have killed me, if I hadn't shot him first. I don't know what happened to the gun I had. At the time, it was instinctive – the only thing I could have done. I can still see his eyes, through this weird rubber mask he was wearing.'

‘What colour were they?' Alex asked.

She didn't blink. ‘Green. He wasn't a Somali, or a black Mozambican. He was a white man, Alex. You tell me, what do you think they were after?'

He shrugged and walked back to the Land Rover.

G
eorge Penfold smashed his fist into the two-hundred-year-old oak desk and swore.

Reynolds, his head of security, had just left the office. George had ordered Harvey to get Van Zyl on the line, wherever he was. He was looking straight down the barrel of a class-A disaster.

Harvey Reynolds was the only other person in the London office who knew about the exchange. He was the fixer, the man who usually acted as the go-between in the various smuggling deals which resulted in a profit that made the handsome wage George drew from his family's company look like chickenfeed.

There were two George Penfolds.

His family, his employees and the people he did business with saw the youthful, fit, astute businessman steering the company from one successful strategic venture to another. Other men might be sated by this kind of power, but it wasn't nearly enough for George.

From an early age he'd tasted the basest, most intoxicating, most exhilarating pleasures the liveliest sea ports around the world had to offer. Outside his home and his office the other George indulged his favourite, expensive passions – gambling and women. When he gambled, he won and lost fortunes. When he was ready for pleasure the
things he wanted – needed – and the women who offered them did not come cheap.

Some might say his tastes ran to the bizarre, but George knew that when it came to sex, the more he got, the more he wanted. Each new experience had to better the last, and that usually involved spending more money. His wife, Elizabeth, was conservative in her tastes, but that didn't bother him. The deceit – either with a callgirl or a pretty staff member – was half the fun.

He'd started smuggling as a cadet on board the first ship he'd sailed on, in order to supplement his income and pay for his growing menu of vices. He'd worked out early on in his career how many places there were to hide contraband on board a freighter. He didn't use drugs – any more – but in his youth had trafficked not only grass, but also cocaine, heroin, amphetamines and ecstasy.

He wouldn't have needed the illegal money at that age if he'd stayed in the UK and got a job working in head office, as his father had wished. By turning his back on a place in the family company he'd also cut himself off from his generous allowance. He wanted freedom from his family, but he needed money.

And there was the thrill. Evading the amateurish third-world customs officials, even paying the odd bribe, was more exciting, more intoxicating than the highs of any drug. As well as living a carefree life at sea he had cash in his pocket in every port he visited. He might have been a lowly cadet on board, but ashore he ate in the best restaurants, gambled in the high-roller rooms of the best casinos, and bedded the most expensive whores in a score of foreign ports.

When he'd tired of penny-ante drug trafficking and returned to take his rightful place in the company as scion of the Penfold clan, his tastes, his needs and his greed had grown in proportion to his promotion.

In front of him was the news that Iain MacGregor, the first Penfold Line captain he'd sailed under, and one of the few others who knew the secret George, was dead. George felt little remorse for the old Scot, who had bullied him mercilessly during his time at sea. When he'd caught MacGregor smuggling gold out of Malaysia the captain had been
terrified George would turn him in to his father. George had laughed. The bullying had stopped and George began to learn a few more tricks of the smuggler's trade, from a master. But MacGregor was dead and the package was gone. Failure was unforgivable.