Trackers (26 page)

'You know what I mean, Lemmer. Listen: Julius is not the sort
of guy you want to fuck around with. He's organised crime, specialising in
cash-in-transit robbery, in cahoots with a Mozambican car theft syndicate, they
think he and his gang does forty per cent of car hijackings in Gauteng. And he
has political connections.'

'So why is he messing around with a game truck in Limpopo?'

'That is the question.'

'Which I am going to ask him.'

'You're out of your fucking mind.'

'That's why you find me irresistible.'

'Hah!' she said. Then: 'Go and find Flea van Jaarsveld and
your firearm. That's all Diederik Brand and I are going to finance.'

'Just in case, Jeanette,' I used my new favourite phrase, 'if
I wanted to talk to Julius-the-Bull, how would I go about it?' I knew she would
know all about him. Her network was impressive.

'Get Flea first.'

'Come on, Jeanette ...'

'Christ, Lemmer ...'

I waited.

'The Bull Run. It's a restaurant, beside the Balalaika Hotel
in Sandton. Specialises in steaks. He hangs out there, announcing to all and
sundry that the place is named after him.'

I would have to call Lotter again. Johannesburg was now part
of our flight plan.

When I came back from my late afternoon jog, there was a
message from Lotter on my cellphone. 'Weather is looking good, still waiting
for flight clearance for Zim. I'll pick you up at half past nine.'

I tried Ehrlichmann again. The satellite phone rang.

'Base camp,' a man's voice answered.

'Ehrlichmann?'

The satellite delayed his reply. 'Yes?'

'My name is Lemmer. I worked with Diederik Brand to get the
rhinos here.'

The moment of silence again, the signal bouncing through
space. 'This is not a secure line.' Rhodesian accent, modulated, slow and
patient.

'I need to come and see you.'

'Why?'

Because I wanted to look him in the eye, to see if he was
lying. 'Diederik didn't tell you?'

'Tell me what?' he asked, very careful.

'The ... our cargo. How miraculously they healed.'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'Did you speak to Diederik this morning?'

'Yes.'

'What did he tell you?'

He was quiet so long that I thought the connection was lost.
'I'm sorry. I don't know you.'

'Call Diederik. He will tell you I rode shotgun on the lorry.
He says you spoke about the health of the cargo early this morning.'

He considered that first. 'He asked me if they had a skin
disease when I last saw them. I said no.'

'Nothing more?'

'No.'

'I'm flying up there tomorrow
morning. I need to talk to you.' 'You're flying to Harare?'

'I'm flying to wherever you are. Do
you have a landing strip?'

Another long pause. 'I hope you have a very good pilot.'

While basic tracking skills can
be trained in a short period, the more sophisticated aspects of tracking could
take many years to develop. Furthermore, the intuitive and creative aspects
require an inherent aptitude, so only some people have the potential to become
expert trackers.

The Art of
Tracking

I watched
7de Laan
on TV first.
Then the aromas lured me to the kitchen. Agatha's note on the kitchen table:

Dear Mister Lemmer,

I made your favourite, Mister Lemmer,
to build up your strength. I don't like the fighting, but thank you for
restoring Miss Emma's honour.

Yours sincerely, Agatha le Fleur

She was short and round, sixty-five
years old, had brought five children into the world, and treated me as the
sixth. She made liberal use of the royal 'we' in her scolding and care. 'We
must put the washing in the laundry basket, we spend so much on these clothes,
look how they are just thrown down here.' On a Monday morning: 'We can't leave
the whole weekend's cups and glasses all over the house.' Whenever I came back
from a contract, she always inspected me from top to toe: 'Ay, ay, we are
getting too thin, tomorrow we will have meat, Miss Emma likes a strong man, we
can see that.'

And if there was something serious to
communicate, then there'd be the letter on the table, formal, then it was
'Mister'.

I opened the oven door. Lamb rib,
slow roasted, crackly on the

outside, butter soft on the inside,
the taste ... indescribable. That meant there was salad in the fridge, since,
'We must have a balanced diet,' even though no scrap of salad ever passed her
lips. Tonight it was baby beetroot, round as billiard balls, and feta. I dished
up, opened a bottle of Birdfield red grape juice and poured a glass. Emma had
brought me two bottles in July Since then I had been addicted. I ordered it by
the case from Klawer.

I took my plate, glass and the bottle and went to sit at the
table on the back veranda.

Thank you
for restoring Miss Emma's honour.

She understood because she knew about life without honour.
She knew about poverty and humiliation, she knew first hand the terrible
struggle to maintain her humanity, her dignity. She knew what it was worth.

Diederik Brand had asked: 'You really can't just let this go,
can you?' without understanding.
He
had never
lost everything.

The answer to his question lay in Agatha le Fleur's letter.
And in my childhood. And on a dark road in the Waterberg.

I finished the food, poured the last of the grape juice into
the glass, looked up at the stars, the unutterably beautiful firmament of the
Karoo. Despite the lack of sleep and the pain in my body I found pleasure in
this moment, this place. My house, which I had rebuilt bit by bit, like my
life. Still so much to do, but it was my safe haven, my castle, my refuge.
My
key that fitted in the lock. I knew the sounds
of my house, the creak of old roof beams, the ticking of the zinc roof as it
cooled at night, the moan of antique water pipes. I knew the smell of each
room, the cool corners in summer, the warm glow of the Aga stove in winter. And
under my bare feet the feel of the floorboards in the passage, the carpet in
the bedroom, the stone on the veranda. My sweat and blood and labour was in the
renovated parts, the demolished walls, the calluses on my hands from carrying
bricks and pushing the wheelbarrow and swinging the hammer, until the house had
become part of me.

And all around me, the village, so perfectly silent now. Here
and there a light would still burn, a television flicker: vulnerable, good
people whiling away the hours before bedtime. Soon the speckled eagle owl would
hoot, two lonely syllables from his nest in the pine tree opposite the old-age
home. Two porcupines would push their way under my fence and raid my garden.
The wind would rustle through the pear trees, a truck would drone past on the
tar road on the way to Victoria West. Predictable, routine, ordered, a rhythm
that had not changed in a hundred years. I was crazy about it, I couldn't live
without it any more.

I would be careful, because Diederik Brand was part of this
whole. He might be a cheat and a rascal, but he was Loxton's. His pedigree went
back four generations in this district, he was part of the local DNA. Here he
was tolerated and forgiven, here with a wry laugh they said: 'Ay, that
Diederik,' because there was loyalty forged over decades, forebears who died
together in the Boer War, the shared hardship of drought, pests and plagues,
the isolation that made everyone dependent on each other, tomorrow they still
had to get along, at the co-op, the church bazaar, the livestock auction.

I would need more than a forged permit to punish Diederik.

Sleepless. Emma's scent was still on my bed, the house
incomplete without her, as if the structure and the spaces sensed her absence.
I missed her.

I would drive down to Cape Town, stand in front of her and
lay my life out before her, so that she could say that she just couldn't deal
with it. Then I would live with the consequences. No other choice.

But first I would go looking for Flea and Inkunzi. Get my
Glock. And answers.

I thought of all the unanswered questions, relived the past
seventy- two hours, searching for sense, a tangle of interwoven events, knotted
threads and wires. I picked at it, tugging at ends here and there, and only
pulled the knot tighter. Until I wondered where Flea van Jaarsveld had
disappeared to in the night - sixty kilometres from Diederik's farm to the
nearest town, ten kilometres to the nearest larger gravel road, not even
cellphone reception. She didn't know the area, she didn't know anyone . . .

Then I realised that she did know someone, someone who had
made calf's eyes at her, someone who had tried to explain her attitude with a
compassionate, 'She must be tired.' Someone who had forged a bond with her over
500 kilometres.

I got up and looked at the clock. A quarter to ten. He might
still be awake. I called the regional exchange, asked if they had the number
for the le Riches of Pampoenpoort.

'I'm ringing . . .'

It rang, far-off and monotonous, the static on the line
chirped and crackled. 'Hello, this is Lourens.' Excited, wide awake, hopeful.

'Lourens, it's Lemmer.'

'Hello, Oom, how are you?' Just a touch of disappointment, as
if he had hoped it would be someone else.

'Very well, thanks.' There was no sense in beating about the
bush. 'Lourens, did you pick up Cornel at Diederik's last night?'

A long silence, before he said: 'Oom ... Can I call you back?
From my cellphone?'

He didn't want to answer over the party line. That alone spoke
volumes.

'Of course.' I gave him my number.

It was twelve minutes before he called, in a muted tone. 'How
did you know, Oom?'

'I suspected it, Lourens.'

'Oom, I...'

'This is just between us, Lourens. I give you my word. Did
she ask you to fetch her?'

Hesitation before he answered. 'Yes, Oom.'

'All I really want to know is where you took her.'

'Ay, Oom, I... She ... To town, Oom. I didn't want to just...
But she said someone was coming to pick her up. Why are you asking?'

'We're just worried about her. She didn't tell Diederik she
was leaving.'

'She said she left them a note.'

Flea van Jaarsveld, queen of the white lie. 'It must have got
lost. What time did you drop her in town?'

'It was about three in the morning, Oom.'

'You don't know who picked her up?'

'She just said a girlfriend, Oom. She waited outside the
police station.'

'And she told you to go?'

'Yes, Oom ...' Something in his voice told me there was more.

'This is just between us, Lourens.'

'The thing is, Oom, she says she is in a relationship, she
didn't want...'

'The friend to see you?'

'Yes, Oom,' relieved I understood.

'Last question. What did she have
with her?'

'Shoo, um ... Bags, Oom, two bags, a
red one and a yellow one.'

'What happened to her doctor's case?'

'Shoo, Oom, that's a good question.'

'And the yellow bag? How big was it?'

'Oom?'

'The yellow bag. Bigger than the red
one?'

It took a while for the penny to drop, but despite his state
of infatuation and the minimum of sleep, he did work it out: 'Fu-uck,' he said
softly. 'The yellow one. She didn't have ... At Oom Wickus's place she just had
the red one and the doctor's case.' Then in sudden concern, 'Oom, is she in
trouble?'

'How big was the yellow bag?'

'About... How shall I say, about as
big as a fleece, Oom.'

'A fleece?'

'Yes, Oom, the fleece of one sheep.'

I tried to imagine it. 'How heavy was
the bag?'

'Oom, what has she done?'

'Lourens, it's a long story. When I find out I will let you
know. How heavy was the bag?'

'I don't know, Oom, she loaded and offloaded it herself, when
I tried to help she said she was a strong girl.'

'Have you got her number?' Just in
case.

Another hesitation. 'Oom ...'

'I won't tell her where I got it.' I searched for pen and
paper in the kitchen drawer.

He gave me the number. I let him repeat it. Then he asked:
'Oom, please, what's going on?'