The Hunter (21 page)

The forests acted as a buffer between the national park and surrounding communities, and while they were outside the park proper, there was no fence between them and the reserve and, as a result, there was plenty of wildlife living and moving through the area.

The lodge was aptly named, with safari tents set on stilts that put their guests at about the height of an elephant’s eye. Brand had stayed there before and told the Cliffs they could expect to see herds of the giant pachyderms visiting the waterhole in front of the tents, and possibly munching on the trees between the accommodation units.

Along with a porter he escorted the Cliffs to their tent and told them that he would meet them at the bar and dining area in half an hour. Then he walked over to his own tent, which was next to theirs. The sun was low and red in the band of dust and smoke that sat above the tree line. Brand climbed the stairs, dropped his safari bag on the bed and took out his laptop. He connected to the internet and when his mail program opened he typed a message to Dani:
Cliffs have arrived. Thanks for nothing
.

In his inbox was an email from Captain Sannie van Rensburg of the South African Police Service.

‘Shit.’ He opened it. She wanted to confirm his whereabouts six months ago, and asked if he had been in Cape Town at that time. It would be about the murder of the second prostitute. He shook his head. Van Rensburg was a smart woman, and good looking, but the service she worked for was siloed, under-resourced and overwhelmed with the day-to-day battle against street crime. It didn’t surprise him that she had only just worked out the connection between the murder of the woman whose body had been found near the Kruger Park, at Hazyview, and the woman who had been killed at Sea Point when he was in Cape Town with a party of foreign tourists.

He composed an email to her, confirming he had been in Cape Town for the dates she requested.
But then, I assume you already know that. When do you want to see me?
His finger hovered over the send button. He was not afraid of her, or her questioning, but he did not want to end up in a South African prison because of circumstantial evidence. If he was arrested and charged he wouldn’t be able to afford a lawyer capable of getting him off. He didn’t even know if he was going to return to Hazyview and the house on the Sabie River, but nor did he want it to appear to her that he was on the run.
Not sure of my return date to RSA, but will advise you when I am back in the Lowveld
, he typed. If she wanted to get hold of him sooner she could get a warrant. In the meantime he had his own investigation, and a safari tour, to run.

‘Hello?’ called Anna from outside his tent.

Brand sighed as he walked to the deck outside and looked down at her. ‘Everything all right?’

‘Yes, fine. Peter’s tummy’s a bit upset. He says he’s going to skip dinner. Will you walk me over there? It’s getting dark.’

‘I was going to take a shower.’

‘I promise not to rant,’ she said. ‘It’s just that, well, your news that my sister was planning to commit a crime before her death shook me. God, to tell you the truth, I just need a drink.’

She sounded desperate, both for a drink and company. At some stage he would need to ask her more questions about Kate, and now was as good a time as any. It might be advantageous, he thought, not to have the prickly Peter around when he spoke to her.

‘Sure.’

15

I
ended the phone call and Lungile walked in from the lounge room, joining me in the kitchen of the modest three-bedroom house we were renting in White River.

‘You look worried, sister, who was that?’ she asked.

‘I was talking to Dr Fleming again. He said that investigator I told you about, Hudson Brand, came to see him.’

‘What did the doc tell him?’

‘That he identified Kate’s body by the pin in her pelvis.’

Lungile shrugged. ‘So there’s no problem. You’ll get your money, yes?’

I didn’t know exactly how this would work. ‘Brand said before, when he left me some messages, that he needed to see me and for me to sign some stuff. I didn’t want to, but now I wonder if I acted too rashly. Everything’s in order, Lungile, I just don’t think I can handle being grilled about the accident again.’

She put her hand on my arm. ‘You’ll be fine, don’t worry.’

We went back to the lounge. Fortune ignored us, and continued killing virtual people. He was playing
Medal of Honour
on the stolen Xbox and flat-screen TV he’d acquired with some of the proceeds of our recent heists.

Lungile hadn’t asked me for any money, but I had already made up my mind to give her twenty thousand pounds when the claim was paid. She had been good to me and had helped me survive after the crash, financially and emotionally, even if her job plan and therapy had involved turning me into more of a criminal than I already was.

An explosion and an expletive signalled the death of Fortune. He got up and stretched. ‘Were you two talking about money?’

‘None of your business,’ I said.

‘Now, now, don’t be like that. Once this claim of yours comes through it’s going to be party time. But let’s get it started now.’ He went to the kitchen. His bare feet slapped the white tiled floor as he returned to the lounge room with three bottles, a Carling Black Label and two Savannas. As he neared the lounge he trod on something and cursed, only just managing to avoid dropping the drinks. ‘
Eish
, pick up that empty Doom can.’

I frowned at him. He couldn’t talk; he didn’t know how to pick up after himself. The house had been full of cockroaches when we moved in and I had ‘doomed’ the lounge room overnight with a roach bomb. It was lethal stuff and the other can from the two-pack was sitting on the dining table, waiting for tonight’s attack on the kitchen. Fortune leaned over me and I took the dewy bottle, which he had already opened. The cold cider tasted sweeter than usual. I felt some of the strain of the past few weeks easing ever so slightly in my chest. Lungile was right; everything would be fine.

‘Fortune’s right, for once. Let’s party,’ Lungile said.

‘In White River?’ We had chosen the town, in the hills above Nelspruit, because it was quiet, and we wanted to fly under the police radar for a while after our first job in Nelspruit.

‘We can go to the pub at Casterbridge,’ Fortune said. ‘I sold some more of the loot this morning. Drinks are on me.’

I was easily swayed; I was hungry and the alcoholic cider was going to my head as we hadn’t had lunch. Staying clean and sober while I got over my pill addiction had dramatically lessened my tolerance. ‘OK, but I want my cut as well.’

I went to the bathroom and touched up my makeup; I hadn’t thought about men since the car crash, and only put my face on when Lungile and I were about to play rich housewives or businesswomen at a house inspection. The person I saw in the mirror was a stranger. Who had I become; had I really done all those terrible things? I missed Kate Munns then, so much that my bottom lip started to tremble and I watched, fixated, as the first tears started to gather in my eyes. I sniffed and turned and reached for the toilet paper roll, but it was just bare cardboard. Bloody Fortune. And the seat was up and the place smelled of pee. I looked back at the mirror and convulsed. The tears cascaded down my cheeks, taking my freshly applied mascara with them in muddy black rivulets.

There was a knock on the bathroom door. ‘Are you all right in there,
sisi
?’

I groaned, then sniffed. ‘I’m fine.’

The door opened. ‘No, you’re not.’ Through the fog of tears I saw Fortune hovering behind Lungile. ‘Go away. Leave us for a minute.’

‘All right, I’ll get the car out of the garage. Be waiting for you outside.’

‘It’s all right, baby.’ Lungile knelt beside me, put an arm around me and drew me to her prominent bosom. ‘Shush, shush, you’re going to be
fine
.’

I couldn’t stop the crying, and had to gasp to catch my breath. ‘I was so scared. I watched her
burn
! It was so terrible.’ She rocked me, like a child, and I smelled her perfume and the sickly sweet odour of
dagga
that clung to her hair as I sobbed into her dress.

‘There’s nothing you could have done; it was an accident. She’s at peace now.’ Lungile kissed the tears from my cheek. It was kind, the sort of thing a real sister might have done. ‘Her life was not good but she is in heaven now and I miss her as well, just as you do.’

I looked up into her eyes, and wiped mine with the back of my hands. ‘Where did we all go wrong, Lungile?’

She shrugged. ‘My problem was men and my mom’s cancer. Yours was men and drugs. Hers was men and life. Our country’s a mess; it was so full of promise and then we were all cast aside. I used to think everyone in Zimbabwe was good, but we’re not any more. The government turned us into rats, scrambling around a sinking ship.’

‘Linley, sister. Are you girls all right in there?’ Fortune called.

‘I thought you were getting the car ready?’ Lungile called back out to her brother.

‘I did. It’s out front. Are you coming or not?’

She held me away from her body and raised her eyebrows to me in a question.

I nodded. ‘Just let me clean myself up.’

Lungile helped me to my feet, ran the taps and moistened a facecloth. ‘It’s just the stress leaving your body,
sisi
. You’re going to be high and dry soon.’

I wiped my face and quickly started reapplying my makeup. She stood there, arms folded, watching me, as if I was about to break down again. I looked away from my eyeliner, to her. ‘I’m going to look after you.’

‘I don’t need looking after.’

‘I want to. She would have wanted me to.’

Lungile looked away, out to the lounge room and the open front door beyond. The noise of Fortune’s latest hot BMW being revved hard was her dumb brother’s none too subtle hint that he was ready to go. ‘OK.’ She walked out.

She, and even Fortune in his obnoxious way, had looked after me, and I wanted to give something to Lungile, however at that moment I also wanted to run from the house, from this life. But the reality of the situation was that I wouldn’t, couldn’t, get far without a car. South Africa wasn’t England or Australia; I couldn’t just hop on a passing bus or car and get to Johannesburg airport in safety. There were daily shuttle bus services running from White River and Nelspruit, but I didn’t even know where they went from and, in any case, I didn’t have enough money for a plane ticket anywhere.

The cider had tasted so good that I was craving another. I felt in control enough of my addiction to know I could stick to booze and stay away from the pills. I had survived my old life and survived the car crash. I looked into the mirror and blinked a couple of times.

I put my compact, lipstick and lip gloss in my handbag and went to the front door, which Lungile must have closed behind her on the way out, and was about to open it when I saw the can of Doom on the table out of the corner of my eye. I decided it would be better to set off the insect bomb while we were out; the lingering smell of the insecticide in the lounge room had caused Lungile to cough and splutter when she woke up, such was its potency. When we read the can we realised we shouldn’t have even been in the house in our bedrooms when using the stuff, although Lungile had been too stoned to check the label before going to bed.

I snapped the safety seal on the can, set it down on the floor and depressed the plunger. It locked into place and a noxious stream of spray jetted towards the ceiling. I picked up my handbag, grabbed the door handle and turned it, but as I started to pull, it was flung open into my face. Lungile barrelled into me with enough force to knock me backwards. She reached for me, but I fell to the floor. ‘What the hell . . .’

‘Get up. Come, quickly! Out the back; it’s the police.’

‘What?’

‘They’ve got Fortune, on the ground, with a gun to his head.’

‘Who?’

‘The cops.’ Lungile grabbed my wrist and dragged me to my feet. I coughed as my head passed through the cloud of bug spray. ‘Come on!’

Spluttering, I wiped my stinging eyes. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’

‘Stop, police!’

Lungile pushed me in the small of my back and bent down. I turned, eyes streaming, and saw her scoop up the can. A policewoman, young and dwarfed by the pistol in her tiny hand, pushed through the door. Lungile held the can of Doom out at arm’s length, and directed the spray straight into the officer’s eyes. The cop screamed.

‘Run!’

No
, I wanted to cry. This could not be happening.
What the fuck
, I thought as we ran through the house and out the back door. Fortunately the owners of the house were too stingy or too confident to erect electric fencing on the top of the brick wall surrounding the house. Lungile cupped her hands and I put my bag around my neck and my foot into her clasped palms and she boosted me up. I straddled the top of the wall and reached down for her.

‘Give me your hand.’

Lungile reached up and I grabbed her and started to haul. She was a big girl, however, and I felt my arm being pulled from its socket as I tried to heave her up the wall. Her feet scrabbled for purchase on the cement-covered wall and one of her stilettos felt into the unkempt, weedy garden we’d been neglecting. ‘I can’t hold you. You’ll have to get something to stand on.’

Lungile looked back at the sound of the rear screen door of the house flying open and banging against the back wall. She let go of my hand and fell into the geraniums, dropping to one knee. Then she looked up at me. ‘Go!’

‘You, on the wall, stop!’ yelled the policewoman.

I was going to try to grab Lungile again, but the cop pointed her pistol at us. The pistol kicked in her hand and a bullet drilled into the wall next to my friend, sending a puff of dust and flying masonry into Lungile’s hair. She screamed and put her hands over her face. I put both palms on the top of the brickwork and propelled myself off.

Landing badly, I found myself in the backyard of the house behind us. I got up and ran past a kids’ swing set. The back door of the house opened and an elderly woman with curlers in her hair put her hand over her mouth, then dropped it to say, ‘
Wat doen jy
?’

‘Sorry,
Tannie
!’ I didn’t have time to explain what I was doing, and instead palmed her aside as I ran into her house and down the hallway to the front door.

‘Stop!’

I ignored her as I fumbled with the two locks on the door and let myself out. I ran down the paved driveway and stopped at the iron gates. I grabbed the upright railings and shook them, like a prisoner in a cell. ‘No!’

There were spikes and
a three-strand electric fence running along the top of the front fence. The residents probably assumed no one would break into our house, behind them, and then into theirs. I looked back to the house and saw the woman peering at me from behind the half-closed front door. I glared at her, trying to look as crazy as I could. ‘Let me out!’

An arm protruded from the crack in the doorway and I saw the remote in her hand. She pushed the button, probably figuring she was in more danger having me on her property than waiting for whoever had fired the gun behind her house to come after me. I stepped back as the gates started to swing open inwards. I turned my body sideways and slipped out as soon as the gap was wide enough for me.

Luckily I was still wearing running shoes, having not changed out of them yet; I sprinted down the street, spurred on by the sound of a police car siren wailing nearby. This was so unfair, I thought as I ran. My money was coming to me and I could give up the crime. But if I had stayed, then I would have been implicated once the cops worked out that Fortune had stolen the car. I prayed the police wouldn’t grill Lungile too hard, and that Fortune, the creep, wouldn’t give up his sister and me as part of some plea bargain deal.

I barrelled along the road and then cut right into another street that led me up the hill to Danie Joubert Street. I had no idea where I was going or where I could run to. I needed to get away from White River and Nelspruit, but I had no wheels and precious little cash.

Danie Joubert formed a bypass in downtown White River for traffic heading on the R40 to and from Nelspruit in one direction and the Kruger National Park in the other. I came to a robot and waited for it to turn red. I was panting hard as I checked the stream of vehicles coming to a halt and unslung my handbag from around my neck. I put it on my shoulder and reached into it, feeling the weight of the pistol I swore I would never use in the commission of a crime.

Where did I want to go? Nelspruit was a big city by provincial standards, and in theory bigger places were easier to hide in, but it was also where I had committed my most recent crime. I felt like an animal on the run from pursuing predators; the bush might be the best place for me to get lost in for a few days. I had a gun, a few hundred rand, and my looks. I pushed the hair from my face, undid another button on the simple white blouse I was wearing, then crossed the road to the second vehicle in the queue at the stoplight, a green Land Rover game viewer with a canvas canopy on the top. The vehicle was towing an enclosed trailer. The safari guide behind the wheel was late twenties, I guessed, broad shouldered with dark curly hair. He was good looking. I smiled at him and made eye contact as I darted in front of his vehicle, between it and the Audi in front of him. He winked at me.