The Hunter (20 page)

They climbed up into the truck and Brand closed their door, then got in behind the wheel and slammed his own door, a little too hard, Peter thought. The man was probably annoyed at Dani leaving him to break the news that she had obviously kept to herself. Peter and Anna had taken the seats immediately behind him. Peter took off his hat and mopped his brow with it. The air was heavy and the air conditioner, while rattling, was struggling to cut through the humidity.

*

‘Tell us, Hudson, please.’

Brand glanced back at the Englishman. He had rimless glasses and a face that never saw the sun. He was also clearly feeling the heat; he now took a handkerchief from his cargo pants pocket and mopped his brow. Peter Cliff had tried to crush his hand when they’d met, and Brand had felt that male-versus-male impulse before, so he had relaxed his grip.

Then there was the business with the hat. Brand liked to let his clients know that he was their guide, not their slave, as soon as the moment presented itself; rarely did it come so soon and so crudely as it had when Peter had asked him to fetch his hat from his bag. He wished Dani had told them about Kate, and that they’d had the good sense to wait until they got to the lodge before they pushed him for the information. Anna Cliff might not need a drink to hear the news, but he sure as heck could have used one to deliver it.

He glanced back at her. She was a pistol. Short women were like that, no-nonsense and full of attitude and at the same time shyly vulnerable. She was angry and upset, and on the verge of punching the back of the seat or bursting into tears. As a man, he couldn’t tell which.

Brand left the car park and turned right onto the main road that led back to Bulawayo, and South Africa beyond. Habitually, his eyes swept left and right as he drove, looking for a kudu that might leap out from the trees, or an elephant he might show to the couple to distract them from the inevitable news of Kate’s duplicity. ‘I don’t know the whole story, the why.’

‘It’s all right. Just tell us what you do know,’ Anna said.

She would have to hear it sometime. He told her about the forged death certificate he had found at the Provincial Registry Office in Bulawayo. When Anna quizzed him about the doctor he told her about his interview with Elena, up until the part where they’d torn each other’s clothes off.

‘Did this Dr Rodriquez say
why
Kate wanted to fake her death?’ Peter Cliff asked.

‘No.’ Brand turned to look back at Peter again, and even as he did so caught the flash of grey from the left in his peripheral vision. The warthog darted in front of the Land Cruiser, its tail pointing skywards like an aerial. Brand braked and the two passengers reached out with their hands to stop themselves slamming into the seats in front of them.

‘Sorry about that, folks.’ He changed gear and accelerated again, cruising past the cops with the speed camera he knew were just up the road. ‘It seems that just three days after your sister bought her fake death certificate she and her friend Linley were then in a real car accident and, unfortunately, Kate died.’

‘Unfortunately,’ said Anna.

Brand waved to another guide he recognised by sight in a Land Cruiser coming towards him. He knew the questions that would come flooding from Anna Cliff, but he had no more answers for her, only a few half-baked theories. He said again, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

‘I didn’t lose her; she ran away, faked her death and then apparently died.’ She began to cry.

‘Anna . . .’ Peter said.

Brand thought it was as if Peter was admonishing her for sniffing in public, for allowing her stiff upper lip to tremble. He had not taken to Peter, and he would have to spend a long time cooped up with him in a vehicle with poor air conditioning. He wondered if Dani would have told Anna about the fake death certificate if Anna had opted to stay in the UK.

‘What reason did my sister give Dr Rodriguez for wanting to fake her death?’ Anna asked again.

‘Dr Rodriguez was big on doctor–patient confidentiality. Probably wise given her line of business. If she knew, she wouldn’t tell me.’ Brand wanted to remind Anna, subtly, that her sister had been embarking on a criminal enterprise, with intent to defraud an insurance company.

‘I want to talk to her.’

‘She has left the country. She was worried I was going to contact the local police,’ Brand said.

‘And did you?’

‘I did. They’ll look for her, but I don’t think she’ll be coming back to Zimbabwe any time soon. If the police start investigating I’m sure they’ll find this isn’t the first time Elena’s issued a fake death certificate.’

‘Elena?’

Brand coughed. ‘Dr Rodriguez. This is forestry land we’re passing through now. Those trees with the bark that looks like pale grey camouflage are Zimbabwean teak. It makes great furniture, and good coals to
braai
on.’ In the rear-view mirror he saw Anna fold her arms and sit back in her seat, her face set in a scowl. She wasn’t interested in the trees of Zimbabwe, or his attempts to change the topic of conversation. He did feel guilty about Elena, but he doubted she could have told them more about Kate’s motives.

‘I want to find Linley Brown, now more than ever,’ Anna said.

‘Yes,’ echoed her husband.

Brand nodded. He had seen that coming and he wondered if Dani had held off telling Anna the news about the fake death certificate in case Anna had had a change of heart and decided to stay in England.

There was little more Brand could tell the couple for now, and they drove on in silence, Anna and Peter absorbing the news and, presumably, pondering Kate’s motives. When they came to the coalmining town of Hwange, Brand pulled into a service station to let the couple stretch their legs. An old steam railway locomotive, a relic of another time and another country, when Zimbabwe had been Rhodesia, was slowly rusting away on a plinth.

‘Your itinerary includes an afternoon game drive through the national park, but I’ll understand if you want to skip it,’ Brand said.

‘No,’ said Peter, ‘we’ll stick to the itinerary. Anna was looking forward to seeing Hwange National Park again, weren’t you, dear?’

‘I suppose.’

They got back in the truck and Brand turned to the couple. ‘For what it’s worth, I find that when I’m down some time in the bush helps me.’

Anna sniffed and dabbed her eyes with a tissue. ‘Sorry. Yes, I suppose you’re right, Hudson. The bush is the one thing I miss about this country when we’re back in England.’

He felt for her. She was a pretty woman, coming to terms with shocking revelations about her sister, and her husband was an asshole. Brand shelved his feelings, though, and went back to business. He drove a short way down the main road, then took a right at a sign that read
Hwange National Park Sinamatella Camp
.

‘Hwange town, as you probably know, has always been tied to coalmining, but you’ll see up ahead there’s a new mine here; this one’s open-cut and run by the Chinese. It’s not a pretty sight.’

The tar road gave way to gravel, the surface lined with compacted coal waste. A water tanker drove towards them, spraying to keep down the dust, but Brand knew this would also create a sticky black mud that would spatter the side of the Toyota. A vervet monkey darted across in front of them, and Brand slowed so the Cliffs could see the rest of the troop.

‘The poor little things; they’re supposed to be grey but they look almost black with soot,’ Anna said.

Brand didn’t like driving this way, but he thought it didn’t hurt to let tourists see how Zimbabwe’s rulers were replacing the old days of white colonialism with new masters from Asia’s booming economies. The road took them through the open-cut mine’s operations. A hill was being carved away and steam curled from fissures in the coal. Workers in black-stained overalls sweated in the midday heat haze.

‘My God, it’s like a scene from hell,’ Anna said.

‘Yes,’ agreed her husband.

Soon, however, they were driving through bush again as they crossed the outer border into the national park. Brand hoped the miners’ insatiable need for coal and the country’s short-term need for foreign currency didn’t result in the mine spreading, but he wasn’t confident. After about thirty kilometres of bouncing along the corrugated surface they arrived at Sinamatella Camp. Brand left the Cliffs in the truck while he went into the office and paid the woman at the desk entry fees for the vehicle and three people, then got back in and drove them a short distance to the camp’s restaurant. They passed a row of green-painted lodge buildings, but there were no cars parked outside any of them; visitors to Hwange were a rarity because of the country’s economic and political problems.

Anna climbed down out of the Land Cruiser. ‘I’m sorry for sounding so harsh and irrational when we first arrived.’

‘It’s OK,’ Brand said. ‘I know how hard this must be for you. But if I can find Linley Brown, or some more answers, I will. The question is, do you still want to go on safari, or do you want to go straight back to South Africa?’

Peter got out of the vehicle and the three of them walked up to a covered verandah. The camp was situated on a mesa
that overlooked a sprawling plain covered in golden grass and leafless acacias. The Sinamatella River wound its way like a snake below them, from left to right. The restaurant behind them had been closed for years.

They took in the view while the Cliffs pondered their options. ‘What do you think, love?’ Peter asked his wife. The man had been adamant that they go on their game drive, but perhaps now he was having reservations.

‘I don’t know. I remember this place from my childhood; it was so busy here all the time, but nothing’s the same any more, is it?’ She looked from the view to Brand, her face crestfallen. ‘What do you think, Hudson?’

‘I’m making enquiries in South Africa already. I can’t hurry them along, and our being there won’t make the wheels turn any faster. We can be in South Africa in a day, if we push it, from wherever we are on the tour if news comes in – even quicker if you decide to fly. In the meantime, there’s plenty of Africa to see.’

Anna looked at Peter, who put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘I’m in no rush to turn around and go back to South Africa yet. I think Hudson’s right; let’s carry on with the tour and if Linley turns up we’ll beetle down to see her. Who knows, once she gets her money, she might come back to Zimbabwe.’

‘Or fly overseas somewhere.’ Anna looked dejected.

‘Shall we continue then?’ Brand said, and led them back to the vehicle.

Their route took them through about one hundred and twenty kilometres of the national park, towards Main Camp, where they would leave the park to drive to the lodge they were staying at that night. Despite Zimbabwe’s problems its parks and wildlife service had kept its national parks ticking over, and Hwange still had the ability to serve up some world class game viewing.

They stopped at Mandavu Dam and Brand escorted the Cliffs to a thatch-roofed hide overlooking a broad expanse of water. He raised his binoculars to his eyes and pointed out a herd of sable antelope grazing on a distant grassy foreshore.

‘Have you ever met Linley Brown?’ Brand asked Anna.

‘Only once, when she and Kate were about sixteen, I think. I was already living in the UK then, and went home for a holiday when the girls were both home from boarding school. I don’t really remember much about her, though. I do recall that Mom was having some problems with Kate at the time, but as far as I could tell it was nothing more than the usual teenage hijinks, some staying out late and drinking and smoking. Mom used to hit the Bols brandy every night, though, and she smoked like a chimney, so it’s hardly surprising Kate and Linley followed suit.’

‘Did Linley ever visit Kate in the UK?’ Brand asked.

‘Not that we ever knew of,’ Peter replied.

They drove to the next picnic site, at Masuma Dam, where another hide overlooked a waterhole. A South African-registered HiLux with a camper unit on the back was parked above the hide. Masuma, Brand knew, was one of the best wildlife viewing sites in Zimbabwe, if not the whole of southern Africa. In the cool of the hide Brand struck up a conversation with the couple from the campervan. They were Serbs who had left their homeland during the fighting that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. It was ironic, Brand thought, that he had come to Africa in search of a war and people like these had fled there to escape one. Many South Africans left Johannesburg to escape the crime, but this couple felt safe there. What, he wondered, had Kate Munns been running from or to?

‘Three wild dog killed an impala here, by the camp fence this morning,’ said the woman, who was short and blonde and still carried the accent of her birthplace.

She pointed out a lioness, sleeping under a tree in the distance, and Brand relayed the sighting to the Cliffs, who followed his directions and eventually picked up the cat in their binoculars. Brand thanked the Serbian woman and they moved on.

Their drive through the long, hot afternoon yielded a sighting of a pride of nine lions just before the main Nyamandlovu viewing platform, but the excitement that usually accompanied such an event was absent. Anna had been born in Zimbabwe and Peter, Brand gathered from some comments the couple had made to each other during the drive, had apparently been to Africa for his honeymoon and at least once more before Kate’s funeral. Perhaps the couple were still coming to terms with the new developments, because they were happy to move on from the lions within a few minutes.

Brand never tired of looking at big cats, even if they did spend most of the daylight hours like these ones, sleeping in the shade of a tree. He marvelled at their muscled necks, their golden eyes and massive paws, then started the engine and drove on.

They exited the park at Main Camp and crossed the railway line that led back to Victoria Falls, then turned left towards the small town of Dete. Before they reached it, Brand turned right towards the lodge where they would spend the night. It was called Elephant’s Eye, and occupied a concession leased from the Zimbabwean forestry authority, which managed the land on the edge of the national park.