The Elephant's Tale (14 page)

“I
know
her,” Lurk insisted. “She ride white giraffe.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lurk,” said Gift. “This is Anna, the sister of a friend of mine from Windhoek. She’s staying at the lodge with her family.”

Lurk’s bulging eyes seemed to bulge even more. His chin rose defiantly. “Not Anna. She Maxine. No, no,
Mar
tine. She from South Africa; from Mr. James’s new safari park.”

“Lurk, you’ve just heard Gift say that this girl is a friend of his from Windhoek,” snapped Theresa, beginning to lose her temper. “She is also a guest of Mr. James at this hotel and the notion that she’s some kind of animal magician, riding giraffes and ordering lions and elephants about, is absolutely preposterous. Now, if you want to remain in Mr. James’s employment another day, my strong suggestion is that you apologize to this young lady, pull yourself together, and get back to work.”

“Sorry for mistake,” growled Lurk, not looking in the least bit contrite. As he slouched from the gift shop, Martine heard him mumble: “Very bad witch, I no forget this.”

“Please accept my sincerest apologies, Anna,” Theresa said, embarrassed. “I can’t think what’s got into him. He can be a bit odd at times, but today he seems quite deranged.”

“No problem at all,” Martine assured her, anxious to get away in case Reuben James came to investigate the disturbance. “It’s an easy mistake to make. He obviously has a grudge against this girl Maxine.”

“
Mar
tine,” Gift corrected helpfully.

“Let me make it up to you, honey,” Theresa offered. “Is there anything you’d like? Can I give you a Hoodia Haven T-shirt?”

“Really, it’s not necessary,” said Martine, feeling like a fraud. The last thing she wanted was a T-shirt advertising her archenemy’s hotel.

But Theresa was adamant she take something, so Martine reluctantly accepted a piece of rose quartz the saleswoman was using as a paperweight. It wasn’t for sale, she told Martine. It was just some rock she’d picked up by the roadside.

Martine suspected that it was worth far more than Theresa made out, but she couldn’t refuse without seeming ungrateful. It could be a present for her grandmother if she ever saw her again.
When,
Martine told herself firmly.
When
she saw her grandmother again.

Thanking Theresa profusely, she and Gift left the shop. As soon as they were in the corridor, Gift said in a low voice, “That was a close call. I think we’d better go before you get yourself into any more trouble. You round up Ben. I need to check with reception to see if the camera lens I’ve ordered has arrived.”

He strode away across the courtyard. Ben stepped out from behind a potted palm tree.

“Ben, did you see what happened?” cried Martine. “Lurk recognized me. He came after me like a psycho.”

“Never mind about that now,” said Ben. “I’ve got something to show you and I don’t want Gift to know about it just yet.”

Ordinarily Martine would have been hurt by his lack of concern, but she could see at once he was onto something. His face was alight with it.

Keeping an eye out for Lurk, who was sure to be as cross as a snake after the gift shop humiliation, he led Martine to the guest lounge, where Gift’s elephant exhibition had been hung. Three women were sitting in the corner tucking into tea and sponge cake, but they were deep in conversation and barely glanced up.

The photos were of a herd of elephants. They were taken over the course of a single day, starting with the first ray of dawn and ending with the ascent of the evening star. Gift had arranged them in a panorama around the room. The rich and varied life of the herd, and the spirit of individual elephants, shone from them.

“Ben, they’re wonderful, but are you sure we have time for this?”

Ben gestured toward three photographs taken shortly before sunset and said, “This won’t take long. What do you notice about these pictures?”

Martine found it difficult to concentrate after the scene in the gift shop. “Umm, I don’t know. I guess they’re well composed.”

“Do you see anything unusual about the elephants?”

“They look like a normal herd of elephants to me. Ben, we should go.”

Ben said patiently, “Look closely. There are sixteen elephants in the first and second picture and fifteen in the third.”

“So what?” Martine checked the door, half expecting Lurk to burst through it. “The pictures were taken five or ten minutes apart. Maybe one of the elephants sloped off to devour a tree.”

“Could be. Only the missing elephant is a young bull. He’s walking slightly apart from the others in the first and second picture. He’s in the background. That’s why you don’t notice him if you only glance at the photos. In the third picture, he’s not there anymore and the other elephants seem to be milling around as if they’re fretting or distressed.”

He paused. “Now look again at the second picture and see what’s in his path.”

Martine squinted at the photo. “A fairy circle!”

“I think,” said Ben, “we’ve just found our Bermuda Triangle.”

“T
he Ark Project?” repeated Gift. “Those were Reuben James’s words?”

“I think so,” said Martine. After questioning Gift and learning that the elephant photographs had been taken on the plain near the Stone Age rock engravings in Twyfelfontein, she’d asked if they could visit them.

“I was listening through a vent,” she went on, “but I’m fairly sure that’s what he called it. He talked about global warming and how what he was doing was for the good of everyone in Namibia.”

“What did I tell you?” said Gift. “You’re both so ready to believe he’s a fraudster because you’re upset he’s bought your game reserve, but what you overheard proves that he’s a generous, decent man. The Ark Project sounds like some sort of conservation scheme, or maybe it’s a code name for the new hotel he’s building.”

“Sounds like a Doomsday project to me,” murmured Ben.

Martine was getting heartily sick of Gift defending his mentor. “They don’t prove anything. For starters, he hasn’t bought Sawubona, he’s tricked my grandfather into signing it away . . .”

“You don’t know that.”

“. . . and besides, the man who was with him, the one with blue-black hair like crow’s feathers—”

“I’ve never seen him before.”

“Well, he accused your Mr. James of pretending to save the planet only because he wanted to make himself richer.”

Gift slowed the vehicle and turned down a gravel track leading to a ring of rocky mountains. “That doesn’t prove anything either. Reuben’s a businessman. Of course he has to work out if a project makes financial sense.”

Martine could have easily burst his bubble by telling him how Reuben James had told Callum that what Gift didn’t know “can’t hurt him,” and that he planned to “put things right.” She could have told him that the men were planning to start a “war.” But she couldn’t bring herself to do that—not yet anyway. Not until they had investigated further. She liked the San boy enormously. He’d almost certainly saved their lives. She didn’t want to cause him pain when she might have misheard or misunderstood what Reuben James was saying.

She took a gulp of clean desert air and resolved not to be cross anymore. “You’re right,” she said, “it doesn’t prove anything.”

Gift’s cell phone beeped. He checked the message. “Typical. The camera lens has just been delivered to the hotel. I’ll need to go back for it. I’ll drop you at the Welcome Center café and you can have lunch and tour the Stone Age engravings while I’m gone.”

He pulled up outside a low, stone building set against a rocky mountain. It was mid-afternoon and the oven blast of desert heat that engulfed Martine as she stepped out of the vehicle threatened to roast her alive.

“Wait,” called Martine as Gift prepared to drive away. “Did you have a chance to speak to your guide friend? Did he know anything about Angel’s past?”

“Unfortunately not. He’s never heard of any zoo in Damaraland, much less one that went out of business. But he did say something that might interest you. Not long after he started in the job three or four years ago, he disturbed Reuben in the midst of a blazing row with Lurk about his mistreatment of an animal, although which animal they were referring to he had no idea. The reason it stuck in his mind is that Lurk cornered him later and told him that it would be ‘big mistake’ for him to ever repeat what he’d overheard; that his job could be in jeopardy.”

Gift glanced at his watch. “I really do have to go. We’ll talk later.”

“When?” Martine shouted as he reversed. “When will you be back?”

But Gift didn’t seem to hear her. “See you soon,” he mouthed, and then he was gone and the blanketing heat was closing in on them once again.

Ben sprinkled salt and pepper on his toasted cheese and tomato sandwich, prepared by a smiling cook in the Welcome Center café and purchased with money donated by Gift, took a bite, and started a list on the back of a Damaraland postcard. “We have a million questions, but these are the most important,” he said. “Number one: Is Reuben James the rightful inheritor of Sawubona or is he a con artist?”

“A con artist,” Martine answered at once.

“We have to be objective, like real detectives,” Ben reminded her. “He’s not my favorite person either, but Gift thinks highly of him and we should take that into account.”

Martine stirred her “Peace” drink, a refreshing blend of
rooibos
tea, orange and lemon juice, and cinnamon, so vigorously that the tourist couple at the next table looked over. As far as she was concerned, if Reuben James was involved in something so explosive it could lead to a war, he was as wicked as she’d thought he was all along. After Gift had gone, she’d filled Ben in on the details of the scene she’d witnessed at Hoodia Haven.

“It sounds as if this man Callum is blackmailing Reuben James,” Ben had said. “It’s as though he wants to start a fight against Reuben’s wishes. But surely they weren’t talking about a real war? Maybe it’s just an expression and they were using strong language because they were angry.”

Martine wasn’t convinced. “Hopefully. I’d hate my grandmother to turn on the news in England to find that war has broken out in Namibia and we’ve both been blown to smithereens.”

Then she said, “Maybe the second question on your list should be: If Reuben James and Callum do start a war, who are they going to be attacking?”

Ben scribbled it down. “We also need to find out what the Ark Project is and what it has to do with global warming.”

“Question number four: Who broke into the house at Sawubona and what were they looking for?” put in Martine. “Oh, and we still have to find out the truth about the elephant’s tale, although I’d be willing to bet that the conversation Gift’s friend overheard was about Angel.”

“Last one,” said Ben. “Are the fairy circles causing the elephants to vanish through: A) Radiation sickness B) Starvation (global warming) C) Aliens! D) The ground is swallowing them (e.g., Bermuda Triangle)?”

He pushed the postcard over to Martine. “All we ever get is more questions. After a week of trying we don’t have a single answer.”

Martine read the list while sipping at her Peace drink. “It’s as if someone’s thrown a million jigsaw pieces in the air and we’re expected to put them together without knowing what the picture looks like.”

“And we’ve got four days to do it in.”

“Four days,” Martine said despondently. Sometimes the sheer scale of the mission they’d taken on overwhelmed her.

Ben finished his sandwich and went through the list one more time. “There’s a pattern here and we’re just not seeing it.” He checked his watch. “I’m surprised Gift’s not back yet, but there’s no point in us sitting around moping. Let’s do a tour of the rock engravings. Maybe they’ll inspire us.”

Martine’s spirits rose as soon as they set off up the path that led to the work of the Stone Age artists. The rocks that weren’t engraved were, in a way, even more fascinating than those that were. They were riven with swirls, loops, and hollows, as if they’d been sculpted by ocean waves and wild gales.