Dictator (40 page)

‘Considering this country was starving six months ago, this isn’t a bad bit of steak,’ Carver said.

Brianna Latrelle laughed politely. She was sticking to mineral water. She had to. She was seven months pregnant.

‘It was never really a starving country,’ she replied. ‘It was a prosperous, fertile country starved by a mad dictator.’

‘Whatever happened to him, I wonder?’

This time her laugh was a lot more spontaneous. Brianna had quite a dirty cackle when she really laughed, Carver thought. It was one of the many things he was discovering he liked about her.

‘Who’d have guessed it would turn out this way?’ said Brianna. ‘Tshonga coming out of hiding, demanding an election, with a fair count this time …’

‘The guy’s got a helluva nerve, hasn’t he?’ said Carver. ‘You’ve got to admire him, really, the way he can talk about peace and democracy and keep a straight face.’

‘Well, he truly believes in them.’

‘Up to a point.’

‘Yeah, OK, so maybe he slipped up once or twice. But be fair, round here that’s nothing.’

‘And it helped that there was such a handy scapegoat, who just happened to have been the only survivor of the Gushungo assassination, found conveniently dead on a hill by the South African border, his body having been used for dinner by a lion.’

‘Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,’ Brianna said.

Carver raised his glass. ‘I’ll certainly drink to that.’

They ate in companionable silence for a while, then Carver said, ‘So here we are, two directors of the Kamativi Mining Corporation. How did you think the first annual shareholders meeting went, Madam Chairperson?’

‘I think it went well, Mr Carver,’ she replied.

‘Bizarre how it’s all worked out, isn’t it? I take the mickey out of Tshonga, but he kept his word about the deal.’

‘Why shouldn’t he? You fulfilled your side of it.’ She smiled at Carver’s quizzical expression. ‘Yes, I know what your side of it was. Wendell told me when we were flying down to Jo’burg, that last time. We shared a lot more than he or I ever let on. You know I had a bad feeling about what went down, that weekend at Campden Hall. I told you then. But the mine was always a good deal for Malemba. So why shouldn’t Tshonga keep to it?’

‘I should have listened to you that time.’

‘Damn straight you should have … and when we met at the house in Sandton. It’s weird, looking back. I always sensed something had gone wrong with Zalika, even if I didn’t know what. I used to tell myself I was being unfair, that I was just jealous of how much Wendell cared for her. I should have trusted myself more.’

‘And I should have trusted her less.’

Carver didn’t want to think about Zalika Stratten any more than he had to. Time to change the subject.

‘So, the baby … did you tell Klerk about it?’

‘Yeah, just a few days before he died.’

‘He must have been ecstatic. He didn’t think he could have kids.’

‘I guess he hadn’t found the right girl,’ Brianna said with a melancholic mix of sadness and contentment in her voice.

‘Well he found the right girl in you all right. I just hope he knew it.’

‘He knew it,’ she said.

Her eyes began to fill with tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ Carver said, reaching out to hold her wrist. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘No, it’s all right, you didn’t.’ She took a deep breath, dabbed her eyes with her napkin and forced a bright smile. ‘So, anyway, tell me about Justus and … what were those kids called again?’

‘Canaan and Farayi. They’re fine. Better than fine, actually. They got their farm back. Justus is rebuilding the house. He’s got a new tractor.’

‘Really?’ Brianna said. ‘That sounds expensive.’

‘The man got shot doing me a favour. It wasn’t a lot to do in return …’

‘You know, Wendell was right about you,’ she said. ‘He always liked you, even when you turned him down. He used to say’ – she lowered her voice into a feminine approximation of Klerk’s bass rumble – ‘ “That Carver, he keeps his word. He does what he says he’s going to do. And he can shoot the balls off a horsefly at a hundred metres.” ’

Once again their laughter lit up the table.

‘I’d better write that down,’ Carver said. ‘It’ll come in handy for my tombstone.’

Brianna smiled fondly. ‘You’re a good man, Sam Carver,’ she said. Then a look of concern crossed her face as she saw him frown and twist his lips in an unexpected grimace. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Just that the last woman who said that to me tried to kill me three days later.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I have no intention of killing you.’

‘Excellent,’ said Carver, reaching for the bottle of Jardin Sophia. ‘Then I’ll drink to that, too.’

Acknowledgements

My thanks go, as always, to Julian Alexander and Peta Nightingale at LAW, without whom I would have neither contracts, nor manuscripts; to my editor Simon Thorogood – with special kudos for being such a gent over ‘that difficult chapter’ along with so much else – and to Daniel Balado-Lopez, who copyedited with such care and perception. In addition I must credit the original Flattie (you know who you are) for providing me with both a character and an ear for the rich and colourful obscenity of ex-Rhodesian Army conversation. The shooting scene would have been impossible without the technical advice and vivid imagination of Jonathan Irby at the West London Shooting School, not to mention the inspiration of Ian Fleming, to whose golf match in
Goldfinger
it is an admiring and respectful
homage
… Speaking of which, the character of Lobengula the lion was inspired in part by the many mighty cats that appear in the works of Wilbur Smith, for whose encouragement and support I remain enormously grateful. I should, however, add that the behaviour of a lion confronted by a truck when trying to get some sleep was taken directly from my own experience one memorable night in the Pilanesburg game reserve, South Africa – and you should have seen what the lion’s mates and girlfriends were getting up to … Caroline Driggs sparked my imagination with her recollections of Chinese grocery stores.

David Hart’s hospitality at his magnificent home in Suffolk was similarly inspirational, though I should say that he bears no resemblance whatsoever to the character of Wendell Klerk. Finally, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Jamie Allday, my office landlord, who has had to put up with me describing, acting out and asking for endless advice on scenes from this and other books. And of course, above all, to my wife Clare and my children, who have had to put up with everything, for ever …

TC, West Sussex, March 2010

Tom Cain
is the pseudonym for an award-winning journalist with twenty-five years’ experience working for Fleet Street newspapers. He has lived in Moscow, Washington DC and Havana, Cuba. He is the author of
The Accident Man
,
The Survivor
and
Assassin
.