The Hunter (22 page)

As I passed him I stopped at the kerb, then, as if it were an afterthought, doubled back to his front passenger-side door. His eyes widened in surprise as I opened the door.

‘Hey, what do you think you’re doing?’

‘I need a lift to the bush.’

‘You what?’

The light turned green and the driver behind us started honking his horn as the traffic in front pulled away.

He looked behind him, then at me. ‘I can’t. My boss won’t let me take any non-customer passengers and . . .’

I pulled the revolver from my handbag and, holding it low, pointed it at him. ‘Drive, handsome.’

‘Shit.’

He put the Land Rover in gear and took off, silencing the several other horns that had joined the chorus behind us. We just made the light before it turned red again, leaving more angry drivers in our wake.

‘What’s your name?’

He licked his lips. ‘Bryce Duffy.
Sheesh
, I can’t believe I’m getting hijacked by a chick.’

‘Don’t be sexist. Just drive.’ I looked back to see if there were any police cars behind us. It was all clear. ‘Not too fast.’

‘In this thing? Where are we going?’

I didn’t know. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’ve got to pick up some guests at a hotel in Hazyview and take them into Kruger for three nights. I can’t take you with me.’

‘Er, Bryce, I think while I have the gun I can tell you what you can and can’t do.’

He nodded. ‘Right. Do you want the truck? I mean, like, if you do, that’s cool. I can just pull over and you can have it. That’s what the boss always tells me; no truck is worth a life.’

‘I don’t want your game viewer, Bryce, I need to disappear for a few days.’

He looked at me; his face was pale and he wiped the beaded sweat from his upper lip. ‘You want to come
with
?’

I weighed up my options. I didn’t want to steal his Land Rover as I wouldn’t get far in it, and if the police came looking for me once I let Bryce go the truck wouldn’t outrun a determined officer on a pushbike. I could leave him in Hazyview, the next town he would pass through on his way to the park, but he would report me to the cops and unless I stole or hijacked something faster they would find me soon enough. ‘Give me your phone.’

‘What phone?’

‘Your cell phone, Bryce.’

‘I don’t have one.’

The traffic had spread out now that we were clear of White River, driving through hills covered with plantations of pine trees. I raised the gun until it was level with Bryce’s ear and cocked it. ‘Everyone has a cell phone.’

He shook his head, reached into the top left pocket of his safari shirt and pulled out a cheap Nokia.

‘Toss it over here.’ I caught it and slipped it into my handbag. Keeping the gun on him I leaned closer to him. He flinched away from me. ‘Relax.’ In the centre of the dashboard, where a stereo would normally have been, was a two-way radio. I grabbed the handset by the cord, near where it was connected to the unit, and wrenched it out. I tossed it over the side of the door into the field beside us.

‘Shit, he’ll make me pay for that,’ Bryce said.

I gave a snort. ‘I’ll kill you if you try anything funny.’

Bryce looked at me and sneered. He was getting over his initial shock and I could see the alpha male that lives in all safari guides getting his balls back to their correct position between his legs. I had to show Bryce I meant business. There was no one coming towards us and the Volkswagen Golf that had been behind us had taken advantage of the break in the oncoming traffic to overtake us. I took aim and fired a single shot.

The noise and buck of the pistol in my hand startled me, but not as much as it did Bryce. The bullet had cleaved the air no more than a couple of inches in front of the waxed chest I could see through the folds of his shirt.

‘Fuck!’

‘If you think I’m joking, or I’m not desperate enough to hurt you, Bryce, just try that look on me again.’

‘OK, OK. This is hectic. You’re crazy.’

‘No. I just need somewhere to hide, Bryce. I won’t hurt you, but I can’t have you calling your bosses or the police. Where are you going on your safari?’

‘Balule.’

It was a rustic camp in the Kruger National Park, I recalled from holidays we’d had on the game reserve when I was a kid. Kruger was crowded compared to the national parks from the country of my birth, but success wasn’t a bad thing and the variety and number of wildlife kept the locals and the international tourists coming back. It wasn’t a bad place for me to hide out, as long as I could keep Bryce quiet. If the police did come into one of those camps there would be nowhere for me to run; I’d be like a cornered animal, and despite the effect the single shot had had on Bryce I didn’t relish the idea of firing the pistol ever again. ‘Are you staying in chalets?’

He shook his head. ‘I’ve got tents in the trailer. We’re camping.’

‘Who’s cooking?’

‘I am.’

I raised my eyebrows.

‘I’m a good cook, actually.’

‘I don’t doubt you are,’ I said. ‘But you can tell the people you’re picking up that I’m the cook. I’m a bad cook,
actually
, but that will be one of our many little secrets. I’ll peel the potatoes.’

‘If my boss finds out –’

‘Bryce, if your boss finds out, I’ll shoot your penis off.’

He swallowed and glanced down at the pistol.

*

Bryce turned left off the R538 onto a dirt access road, following a sign that read
Rissington Inn
.

I kept my left hand clamped to the top of the Land Rover’s door top as the truck swayed on its coil springs along the rutted road, but I still held the pistol in my right, covering Bryce. ‘I’m going to put the gun in my jeans when we get to the hotel, but you’re not leaving my sight. If you try anything silly I’ll fill this rust bucket and its engine full of holes and you can try explaining that to your boss and your clients.’

‘It’s a Land Rover. It’s made of aluminium so it doesn’t rust.’

I liked that he was getting his cool back, but he kept licking his top lip; he was still a little nervous. The hotel came into view. It was a low-rise whitewashed colonial-style affair, overlooking a grassy field that gave way to bush in the distance. The countryside beyond was hilly, picturesque. The paths and access road to the hotel were marked with neat lines of painted rocks that contrasted nicely with the blood-red African soil.

Bryce pulled up in a gravel parking bay at the foot of a flight of stairs which led up to the swimming pool and the restaurant and bar beyond. A young man with red hair and baggy shorts came down to greet us.

‘
Howzit
, Bryce.’

‘Ben.’ The guide nodded.

The other man’s idiom was South African but his accent was plummy English. He advanced on me enthusiastically. ‘Hello, I’m Benjamin.’ I just had time to slip the pistol into the waistband of my jeans, in the small of my back, as he opened my door for me.

‘Naomi,’ I said, not wanting to use my real name in front of any of them.

Ben shook my hand. ‘Pleased to meet you. Are you going on the safari as well?’ He looked to Bryce as I tried to formulate an answer.

‘Naomi’s our new cook. Greg and Tracey will tell you all about her, how talented she is, next time you see them.’

‘Right,’ said Ben. ‘Your guests are in the bar. I’ll get Canaan to load their bags in the trailer, shall I?’

‘Yes, that’s fine.’

I followed Ben up the stairs and caught his elbow. ‘Um, Ben?’

‘Yes?’

I lowered my voice. ‘Ben, Bryce’s been a bit careless with the truth. We met at a party and he’s taking me on the safari as, well, a bit of a camp helper. His bosses, Greg and Tracey, don’t know about me coming along, so we’d both really appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to them about seeing me, OK?’

‘Sure. Mum’s the word.’ He touched the side of his nose then bounded up the stairs with the enthusiasm of an English youth abroad amid the intrigue of Africa.

Bryce was just behind me so I reached around, lifted my blouse and showed him the pistol, to remind him. When he drew alongside me I said out of the corner of my mouth, ‘Maybe I’ll fill you full of holes and take the Land Rover.’

‘You won’t get far.’

‘That was stupid of you.’

‘Recklessly brave, I would have said.’ Bryce grinned at me.

‘No.’ I shook my head and stopped on the stone patio, by the pool. He paused beside me as the tourists started bustling out of the bar. ‘Just stupid. I don’t want to hurt you or your clients, Bryce. I need help.’

He looked down into my eyes and I blinked a couple of times. I was talking tough and pretending I was in control, but I wasn’t. I saw his Adam’s apple bob as he read my weakness and swallowed. He really was a good-looking guy, although I couldn’t ever recall seeing an ugly safari guide in all my years in Africa.

‘All right,’ he whispered quickly. ‘But later, I want you to tell me what’s going on.’

He put his hand on my shoulder and I felt myself start to choke up a little as the tears fought to burst from me. He gave me a little squeeze. ‘And don’t do anything to upset my tourists,’ he said, flashing me his goofy grin again.

I wiped my eyes. ‘I won’t. Promise. I’ll just shoot you if you try anything.’

‘OK, well,
lekker.
All right then. I have to look after the clients. Please don’t shoot any of them.’

‘As long as none of them are Americans.’

He chortled, smiling, then walked up the stairs to greet his guests.

A big-bellied, grey-haired man in designer safari gear waddled up to me and stuck out his hand. ‘Herb Lipschitz from New York.’

16

W
hen Brand walked downstairs from the deck of his elevated safari tent he noticed Anna had showered; her damp hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she had changed into a sleeveless floral sundress. Her orange sandals had a slight heel.

They walked together through the grey sand that was typical of Hwange’s soils to Elephant’s Eye’s thatch-roofed and canvas-walled bar and dining area.

‘What can I get you?’

‘Gin and tonic, please, ice and lemon. Double.’

Brand went to the bar and asked the pretty lodge manager for Anna’s drink, and a Zambezi Lager for himself. He took the drinks and led Anna to the lodge’s library, which overlooked a swimming pool. A floodlight had been switched on, illuminating the waterhole beyond.

They sat down on a lounge and Brand set Anna’s drink in front of her.

Brand sipped his beer. She looked good, and as she’d just come from England he guessed the tan on her bare arms and legs was the spray-on kind. Her muscles were toned, no bingo wings as the Brits called flabby arms, and her legs were smooth and nicely sculpted. ‘What do you want to know, Mrs Cliff?’

‘I thought we were past that. Call me Anna. But then, this is business, not pleasure, isn’t it?’

He said nothing.

‘Tell me everything you know about Kate. You said you had confirmed my sister’s death.’

‘Yup.’

‘
Yup
? Can I have some more information, please? You said she had
planned
to fake her own death.’

‘Mrs Cliff, Anna, I know this can’t be easy for you, but your gut reaction was right, in a way. Kate did try to fake her own death. She went as far as buying a phony death certificate from a crooked Cuban doctor. The cause of death was listed as a cerebral haemorrhage. In my experience a sudden medical problem is not uncommon as a fake cause of death in these types of cases, as the police don’t need to be involved. However, your sister’s plan went awry.’

‘Awry.’

He drank some more beer. He noticed that Anna was almost halfway through her G and T already. She looked out at the waterhole, lost in her thoughts for a minute or more, then turned to Brand. ‘Why would she do something like that?’

‘Well, if I was continuing this investigation I’d most likely be asking you the same question.’

‘What do you mean
if
you were continuing with the investigation?’

He shrugged. ‘Now we know your sister’s passed, there doesn’t seem to be much point digging deeper. It’s been my experience that some secrets are best taken to the grave. The insurance company will decide whether or not to pay Linley Brown as soon as I file my final report. I’ve emailed Dani Russo and suggested that she get the company to run through all the contact they’ve had with Linley Brown. We know she and Kate had obtained the fake certificate, but if there was no indication they did anything with it then that plays into Linley’s favour. However, the company will be concerned that there was intent to defraud.’

Anna shook her head and waved to the lodge manager behind the bar. The woman came over to her. ‘Could I have another gin and tonic, please? Double.’ She looked at Brand and down at his beer. He shook his head; he had barely drunk a third of the green bottle.

‘Have another drink with me.’

‘I’m still on duty,’ he said.

‘Consider yourself off duty. Peter’s out like a light and you don’t have to drive me anywhere tonight, or even tell me anything about the trees of Zimbabwe. You’ll be on duty with Peter in the car tomorrow, believe me.’

‘Whiskey and Coke,’ Brand said to the manager, then raised his beer to his lips and chugged it down.
What the hell
, he thought. ‘Double. Bell’s.’

Anna brushed an errant strand of hair from her face and leaned towards him, elbows on her bare knees. ‘I do want you to continue your investigation.’

‘What am I looking for?’

‘The friend, Linley. What if this was all some elaborate con job: Linley cried poor to Kate, perhaps played on some insecurities I don’t know about, lured her back here to Zimbabwe and killed her?’

Brand had heard of more devious crimes, but it seemed unlikely. ‘I interviewed the police officer who attended the car crash. Her report was thorough and I believe she told the truth. Running a car off the road and flipping it is a risky way to try and murder someone if you’re the passenger.’

Anna leaned back in her chair. ‘But there is something wrong in all of this. I’ve no idea why my sister would turn to crime. She had a good job, a place of her own . . .’ She sniffed.

Brand picked up a cocktail serviette and handed it to her. ‘Were you close?’

Anna carefully dabbed her eyes and Brand noticed for the first time the makeup she had applied. He didn’t recall her eyes being lined when he’d picked the couple up from the airport. ‘We were sisters. You know how families are.’

‘My dad was an oil man, in Africa. He married my mom, who was half Angolan and half Portuguese, when he was living in Luanda. When they went back to the States he left her to raise me alone. My family life wasn’t great.’

‘I’m sorry. What family is perfect? Ours was all right, I thought; Kate and I talked often, but we didn’t live in each other’s pockets. I wouldn’t say she told me every little thing that went wrong in her life, but I’m sure that if she was in trouble she would have come to me. It’s ironic, the way she died, as she had a car accident a year ago; quite a serious one in fact.’

‘Dr Fleming mentioned Kate had a pin in her pelvis from a prior accident, further proof that the body he examined was hers.’

‘Yes. She shattered her pelvis and stayed with Peter and me for a month or so after she got out of hospital.’

‘And how did that go? Did you all get on?’ Brand asked.

The waiter brought their drinks. Brand savoured the sharpness of the liquor through the Coke. Anna took two big gulps of her gin and tonic before setting it down on the table. ‘Yes. And when she got better she moved back to her flat in the city.’

‘Boyfriend?’

Anna pursed her lips then looked up as if searching her memory. ‘Nothing steady that I knew of. There was a boy, I forget his name, but he had an affair with another woman and they broke up.’

‘How did she take that?’

Anna looked at him. ‘How do you think?’

Brand nodded. ‘But she wasn’t still in touch with him?’

‘No, not that I know of. As I mentioned to Dani, Kate only had a couple of other shortish relationships. She kept to herself mostly.’

Brand thought of his first reaction when Dani had briefed him about the case. ‘Do you think she and Linley were more than just old school friends?’

‘I did think about that. I suppose people can be clever at hiding their sexual preferences, but no, I never had any cause to think Kate might be gay. We had an aunt, on my mother’s side, who was a lesbian. She was a lecturer at Cambridge and quite out there. She was also our favourite aunt so we never had a history of stigma or shame about that sort of thing in our family. If Kate was in love with another woman she wouldn’t have tried to hide it from me.’

‘Your parents?’

‘Both deceased, but they approved of Aunt Lavinia anyway, so I doubt they would have been shocked if Kate had turned out gay.’

Brand heard a low rumbling noise and raised a hand to his eyes to shield them from the glare of the floodlight.

‘What is it?’ Anna asked.

There was crack from the tree line beyond the ring around the waterhole where the ground had been denuded of grass and pounded to sand and dust by the constant passage of massive round feet. ‘Elephant. Listen. You can hear them communicating with each other – that’s the rumbling – and the sound of them breaking branches. They’ll be coming just now.’

‘
Just now
? You sound like a Zimbabwean. Are you American or African, Hudson?’

He shrugged. ‘Both – either when it suits me, and sometimes neither. Did Kate have any history of gambling or substance abuse? You said she was a troublesome teenager.’

‘I also said she and Linley apparently got up to the usual teenage stuff. But no, nothing else that I was aware of. Dani might have told you; there was money in her bank account. Not a fortune, but about two thousand pounds and very little credit card debt.’

Brand thought about that for a moment. He knew the cost of living was far higher in the UK than in Africa. ‘What about her outgoings; did she spend a lot on clothes, travel, that sort of thing?’

Anna rocked her head from side to side as she mulled the question over. ‘No, not really.’

Brand took another drink. A tiny scops owl made its high-pitched chirping call from a tree nearby and somewhere beyond the waterhole another answered. He’d investigated enough cases to be able to read people, and as far as he could tell Anna Cliff was telling the truth. Her British cool was melting and she seemed to be genuinely at a loss to explain her sister’s actions. ‘No history of mental illness in the family?’

‘None.’

Brand had had the feeling when he was interviewing Geoffrey Fleming that the doctor had held something back about Kate and Anna’s early family life. Fleming had told him he’d have to ask Anna about it. Now seemed like the right time. ‘How would you characterise your childhood, and Kate’s?’

She stirred her drink then looked up at him. ‘Perfectly happy.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, why wouldn’t it be? We grew up in a loving family home.’ She held his gaze, but there was no warmth in her eyes, no nostalgia. ‘This isn’t about our
family
, Hudson, it’s about my sister and this mysterious friend of hers.’

In Brand’s experience there was no such thing as a perfect, loving family, but he sensed Anna would open up no further. ‘So, you want me to find Linley for you?’

‘That would seem to be our best lead, don’t you think?’

He nodded. ‘I do. But I have to warn you, when people go to this length to get away from something it’s rarely a nice story. Are you sure you want to know what your sister was really up to?’

She finished her drink; Brand was only halfway through his. Anna signalled the lodge manager again. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know, but the unknown is eating away inside of me. I can’t sleep, it’s affecting . . . well, just let’s say it’s not making things any better at home.’

Brand didn’t want to go there. ‘I had a South African mobile phone number for Linley, and I called her before I left South Africa, but she never got back to me. I don’t think she wants to be found.’

‘You can track animals in the bush, can’t you?’

‘She’s not an animal.’

‘No, but humans leave a trail, don’t they?’

Brand nodded. ‘They do.’

Anna leaned forward again, closing the gap between them. She put a hand on his knee and her touch felt hotter than the sun had all day through his khaki trousers. ‘Can you find her for me, Hudson? Can you track her down for me?’

‘I’ll do my best for you, ma’am.’ Even as he agreed he felt he was doing the wrong thing. He felt for Anna, and perhaps that was part of the reason the case troubled him. Most of his work was done remotely – emails from Dani asking him to chase down people he had never met. The last time he’d dealt with the family of someone who had tried to fake their own death it had been the Mbudzi clan, and they had very nearly succeeded in leading him to an unmarked grave in the Harare municipal cemetery. There was much more to Linley Brown than Anna knew, or was letting on, and Brand wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what it was. But there was the money to think about.

‘I’ll pay you, of course,’ Anna said. ‘We don’t want for much, Peter and I. He makes good money and we have no children. You can name your price and we’ll pay it; we’re hardly likely to find another private detective in Zimbabwe at short notice.’

‘I’d charge my normal daily fee, nothing extra,’ he said.
Why?
he asked himself, particularly given his reservations.

Anna put her hand back on his thigh and he didn’t move to deter her. ‘Thank you, Hudson, thank you so much.’

The lodge manager had sent a waiter, who arrived with Anna’s drink, forcing her to break the physical contact with him. He saw the longing in her eyes, and perhaps it was not just for answers about her sister. She kept eye contact with him as the man set a fresh gin and tonic down in front of Anna. Her cheeks were already colouring a little. He reached over, took his own glass and finished it. Against his better judgement he said, ‘I believe I’ll have another of those.’

*

Peter Cliff stirred on the bed and blinked. For a moment he was disoriented, not knowing where he was.

He checked his watch; it was after seven and it was dark. His mouth was dry. He reached for the light switch on his bedside table and saw the khaki canvas walls of the tent. He was in Elephant’s Eye lodge. In his dream he’d been in another place, another time. His cock was hard.

Peter had wanted to go to dinner with Anna, to hear what Brand had to say about Kate and Linley Brown, but the fatigue from the journey had overtaken him and, as he’d told Anna, he had passed a loose stool. Peter sat up, stood and went to the writing desk in the room, where he poured himself a glass of water from a jug and drank it. He sniffed under his arms and decided he needed a shower.

In the bathroom, as he stripped off, he saw Anna’s makeup bag and smelled the lingering scent of perfume. Her case was open on the luggage rack back in the room, and the clothes she had worn on the aircraft were folded beside her bag. She had gone to meet the American, he assumed, and he felt a twinge of jealousy.

Peter unzipped the flyscreen door that led to an outdoor shower on the timber deck running along the waterhole side of the tent. He turned on the mixer tap and tested the temperature with his hand. He wondered if his wife fancied the safari guide. Their sex life had been non-existent for a long time. She could not, would not, give Peter what he wanted.

His view of the main dining and lounge area of the camp was blocked, but he could see out over the waterhole. A herd of elephant had silently arrived and were wading into the shallows. He watched the thirsty beasts sucking up trunkfuls of water as he stepped under the shower. His mind wandered from the animals to the subject of his dream, a replay of the last time he’d had really good sex. It was not with his wife, but at a medical conference in São Paulo, Brazil. She was coffee coloured, with big brown eyes and a mischievous wink, and she had been sitting at the hotel bar. Peter had been to dinner with some fellow doctors, who decided to turn in as soon as they returned to the hotel. He had gone to the lifts with them, but had stood back to let in a tired-looking family of four, newly arrived off a late flight and pulling wheelie bags. Instead of taking the next lift he had wandered over to the bar; he had glimpsed the girl on the way in.