The Prey (47 page)

‘Is this where you want us to drill,
baba
?’

He looked out over the vlei and remembered the screams of the women and the children, the blasts as the young ones ran for the shelter of the trees only to meet their agonising deaths in the minefield soon to contain the massacre. He heard the crump of the hand grenades scattering flesh and bone. He saw the white man who had come off the helicopter, the swaggering bravado of the little commander, the tears of his young guard.

‘
Baba
?’

Luis looked back at the driver. ‘No, not here.’

‘This is the place you mentioned, the place of ghosts?’

He nodded his head. No doves cooed here, no cicadas screeched, no kingfishers chirped. Perhaps, at night, there was the plaintive cry of the jackal, or the supernatural whoop of the hyena through this field of ghosts. ‘You can feel it.’

‘This is Homoine,’ the younger of the two said. ‘We learned about this in school. This is where the Renamo dogs murdered the innocents.’

We were all dogs, in our way
, Luis thought,
none of us truly innocent
. Civil war brought out the animal in men. Except that, unlike men, animals killed for a reason.

‘We will not drill here, but we will find somewhere close by, away from this graveyard.’ If it was here, so close to the surface, then it would be nearby as well. He remembered the powder running through the white man’s hands.

Luis led the workers back to the rig, not even bothering any more to cover them with the gun. If they ran, then so be it. He knew the basics of how the rig worked and could pay or press-gang more labourers if needs be. He heard them whispering behind him. Luis opened the door of the truck, climbed up and looked down at them.

‘We will come with you,
baba
. You are not drilling for water, are you?’

‘No.’

‘You are not disturbing the spirits are you,
baba
?’ asked the older of the two. ‘We want no part in disturbing ghosts.’

Luis shook his head. ‘No more ghosts. And do not worry, I will be paying you.’

They both smiled and climbed into the truck. Luis surveyed the land as they drove. When he found the spot he was looking for he told them to stop and to begin unloading the drilling gear.

It was hot, hard, noisy work that cloaked them in dust. The sun came out from behind the clouds and burned down on them mercilessly as they pierced the earth, driving ever deeper.

The rig was shut down and Luis extracted a sample and studied it. He had to rely on knowledge he had not put into use since his university studies, but the indicators he was looking for were plainly there.

‘What is it,
baba
?’ asked the younger of the two. The older probably knew it was better to refrain from asking too many questions of a man who had hijacked their valuable equipment at gunpoint.

Luis allowed himself a small smile. ‘Pack up the rig. It is time for you to go back to the Swedish man. He will be worried about you.’

Luis reached into the pouch hanging around his neck, beneath his sweat-and dust-stained shirt. He opened the envelope containing the money Cameron McMurtrie had given him. He counted out five thousand rand for each of the men and handed it to them. The older man nodded his thanks, while the younger man’s face broke into a wide grin. To the elder, Luis said: ‘I am giving you ten thousand for the Swede, as compensation for the loss of his equipment. Tell him it is a donation to whatever charity funds him. I am sending him an SMS, advising him of this, so don’t cheat me.’

‘I will do as you ask,
baba
.’

‘What did you find?’ asked the young one again.

‘A way home.’

W
ellington parked his Audi out the front of the Hub, the central entrance to the Riverside Mall shopping centre on the R40 between Nelspruit and White River.

The security guard offered to look after his vehicle and Wellington ignored him. He lifted his Ray Ban sunglasses onto his head as he went through the revolving door. There was the usual mix of shoppers: bleached blonde Afrikaner housewives, black diamonds dripping with bling, and swarthy Portuguese on a day’s shopping trip from Maputo in designer beach wear. He turned right and went into the Spur restaurant.

The waitress asked if he wanted smoking or nonsmoking, indoors or outdoors. He chose outdoors for this meeting. He was afraid of no one. Few knew his face and if, by chance, one of them saw him here with his guest, they would be too scared to report him. Besides, who would they report him to?

He stood as he saw police Colonel Sindisiwe Radebe enter the restaurant. She was in sexy mufti: platform shoes and a miniskirt stretched over her ample behind. In her hands she clutched a brace of shopping bags. ‘Sindisiwe, sister, how are you?’

‘I am fine, and you?’

‘Fine, fine.’

‘I got here early, so I did some shopping. I saw you pull up. You make quite an entrance.’

He made a show of pulling out her chair for her. She set her bags down on the spare seat. ‘Johnny Walker Blue Label, on ice, times two,’ he said to the skinny Afrikaner girl who would be their waitress.

‘You remembered my drink.’ She smiled coquettishly.

He had ordered it for room service, after he had bedded her the first time, in a room in the Southern Sun hotel on the other side of the mall complex, near the casino where they had played afterwards. He glanced at the shopping bags and saw one was from a lingerie shop. She saw what had caught his eye. ‘Do you have to get back to work this afternoon?’

She batted her fake eyelashes. ‘At the station in Barberton they think I am at a conference with the provincial chief in Nelspruit. I have the afternoon free.’

The girl brought their drinks. He swirled his, enjoying the tinkling of the ice cubes. Sindisiwe ordered the ladies’ fillet and he chose the ribs. ‘I wonder what we can do to help you while away the hours?’

She leaned forward, elbows on the table. ‘Business first. McMurtrie’s daughter has disappeared.’ She waited for him to say something.

He shrugged and spread his hands. ‘It’s not surprising his daughter has run off. The news media reported her father has died in a plane crash and then, I heard, the mother drove herself off a cliff.’

‘Hmm, yes. Coetzee at the mine said he sent one of his drivers to collect the dominee and the girl after he heard about the deaths of McMurtrie and the Australian woman. The dominee is missing, as is the driver. How did you hear the girl had run away?’

He sipped his Scotch. He didn’t like the seriousness that creased her face. The sex was better for the colonel than it was for him, but he needed her in his pocket if he was to ramp up production at the mine. He had already sent word to his network of
zama zamas
, and those he had not been holding against their will, his hard men and enforcers, had started moving back underground. A small team
had already begun blasting the night before. With the legal mining operations halted due to the enquiry into pollution, his small band had free rein underground. They had even bribed a Global Resources man on caretaking duty to start up the compressors for them, so they could use the power drills left underground by the company. With Global Resources in chaos, the time was right for him to bring his workforce back to what it had been, and potentially double it. ‘I have my sources, just as you do.’

She leaned closer to him, lowering her voice. ‘The mine worker Coetzee sent, Timothy Nyati, was known to us. He had a record for assault. Your kind of man. Was he one of yours, Wellington?’

The waitress brought their food, forcing Sindisiwe to suspend her interrogation and sit back in her seat. He wished she would shut up and eat her food so he could fuck her and be on his way back to his mine. When the white girl was gone he said: ‘I have many men in my pay.’

‘As I said, he’s gone missing as well. Wellington, we have a golden opportunity,’ she let out a little snort at her pun, ‘to make some serious coin out of the mine now. But a missing girl and a missing churchman is already drawing the media to me. It will only be a matter of time before the Hawks descend on me if I cannot solve this case. I will have to do something.’

She folded her arms over her bosom. He cut his ribs up and began chewing. He preferred traditional food,
sadza
as they called the maize meal starch in Zimbabwe, and the rich relish of meat and gravy. But coming here to this wild-west cowboy-themed restaurant, and taking a room at the hotel afterwards, was about status. He chose the time and place of their meetings, and always made them in public, so that Sindisiwe would know who called the shots. If she wanted her share of the money she had to take her share of the risks.

He finished a second rib and licked his fingers. She glared at him over her untouched steak. He took another sip of Scotch and caught the waitress’s eye and pointed at his glass. ‘What if I told you the girl was alive?’

Sindisiwe was a big woman who needed plenty of fuel. Her hunger got the better of her. She cut into the rare steak, and seemed to be forcing herself to play it cool. ‘And the dominee?’

He shook his head and picked up another rib.

She ate a small mouthful. When the waitress returned Sindisiwe asked for a glass of red wine. ‘And this man Nyati? Do you know where he is, Wellington? Look at me when I talk to you, this is important.’

He felt the rage shoot to boiling temperature inside him. How dare she. If she had been his wife, in Zimbabwe, she would have felt the back of his hand for such a remark. ‘You’re not going to get the girl back.’

Sindisiwe shook her head. ‘If she has been with you or your men I don’t want her. Her story will go front page. We will all be finished. They will send the recces underground to kill every last one of you.’

‘She is unharmed. For now.’

Sindisiwe put down her knife and fork and put her hands over her ears. ‘I don’t want to know, but I want this resolved.’

He sucked a rib, grazing the last of the tender meat off with his teeth on either side of the bone. He licked his lips when he was finished and savoured some more Scotch. ‘I want to hear you say it. Tell me you want the girl dead.’

‘Keep your voice down.’

‘Say it.’

She looked nervously around the restaurant at the gossiping housewives, the fat child’s birthday party, the shopkeepers and businessmen taking their lunch breaks.

‘Say it,’ he said again, leaning in.

Her eyelids narrowed and her lips parted a little. He saw her big breasts heaving. Something had changed in her. She had dropped the façade of integrity and concern for a moment and he could see into her dark soul through her limpid, almost hidden eyes. ‘Tell me what you have planned for her,’ she whispered.

‘Mohammed wants to sell her.’

A smile played across the colonel’s painted, glossy lips. ‘So she will make us much money.’

*

After they had showered and Sindisiwe had reapplied her makeup, they both drove back to Barberton in separate cars. Wellington passed her early on, his Audi hugging the twisting turns of the pass as though it was on railway tracks. He waved at her and thought he would not see her again for some time, but her big black BMW loomed large in his rear-view mirror.

She accelerated hard and passed him at a hundred and fifty kilometres an hour. Fuelled by the Scotch and the memory of her screams in the hotel room, he geared down and revelled in the surge of power he felt vibrate up through his body from the engine. He was doing a hundred and sixty when he edged alongside her and they stayed like that for a few seconds. She had been better in bed this time than on any of their liaisons. The talk of the child had done it for her. She was sick.

He gunned the Audi’s engine and left her in his wake. He had work to do. In the mirror he could see her easing back to the speed limit, as befitted a senior officer of the South African Police Service. She was getting back to her patch now and had to be careful.

Wellington took his phone out and dialled Timothy Nyathi’s number while he drove. At Wellington’s instructions Nyathi had stayed away from work, in hiding, since the news of McMurtrie’s and Hamilton’s deaths. As one of Wellington’s paid spies Nyathi had dutifully called Wellington and told him the news as soon as he’d heard it, and relayed Coetzee’s orders to him to go and pick up the dominee and McMurtrie’s daughter. This had given Wellington the opportunity to kidnap the girl and eliminate the minister, though he had not told Timothy of his plans, merely that it was time for him to lay low in preparation for an important, lucrative job.

‘Hello, boss, how are you?’ said Timothy Nyati.

‘Fine. Are you still in Emjindini?’

‘Yes, boss. The newspapers, the radio, they are full of talk about the dominee and the girl, I …’

‘Relax, my brother. It will all be fine. I need to collect you, now, as I have another job for you.’

‘Boss, I –’

‘I will be in the township in ten minutes.’

He pulled up outside the pastel blue house and waited, the engine running. Nyati emerged from the modest backyard, where Wellington knew he had been staying in a shack. A legal miner lived in the house, but he was also on Wellington’s payroll.

Timothy was looking behind and all around him as he darted out to the road and slid into the low-slung car. Wellington spun the wheels as he took off. ‘Boss, I am worried.’

Wellington reached under the driver’s seat and pulled out a brown paper bag. ‘Open that, take a sip.’

Nyati opened the bag and broke the seal on a half-jack bottle of Johnny Walker Blue. ‘Hey, this is the good stuff, boss.’ He took a swig and passed the bottle to Wellington, who made as if he was taking a long draft, but in fact swallowed very little.

‘Have more,’ Wellington said. ‘Open the ashtray. There is a
zol
in there. I want to thank you for what you did, my brother.’

Nyati found the joint and lit it. Sweet marijuana smoke filled the cab. Again, when he passed it to Wellington, the general held it to his lips for a while but inhaled only a little.