The Hunter (3 page)

Rosebank was one of Johannesburg’s old-money suburbs. Here the wealthy lived in fortified mansions, eschewing the relative safety of a sprawling gated
kompleks
in favour of high walls topped with electric fences, as well as big dogs, and armed response security. A sign on the street warned me that men with guns were but a call away.

‘Here it is, number twenty-two,’ I said. Lungile was quiet now. When we worked she was the consummate professional, not the brash party girl she was the rest of the time.

She checked her watch. ‘It’s one thirty; the real estate agent should have packed up and left half an hour ago.’ Lungile reached into the cramped back seat of the car and grabbed the red cushion decorated with a vinyl cut-out of a rhinoceros I had bought at Mr Price that morning. She undid the single button of her jacket and then her blouse, placed the cushion against her belly, then buttoned up again.

I indicated left and drove up the short drive to the electric gate. Its bars ended in sharp spikes at the top and these were crowned with wires promising several thousand volts of electricity. A Rhodesian ridgeback ran up to the bars and started barking.

Fixed to the wall beside the gate was a Pam Golding real estate ‘
for sale
’ sign, with professional pictures hinting at the wonders that lay beyond the fortress walls. In the lower right corner was a mug shot of the agent selling the property. His name was Frikkie. I dialled the mobile phone number under his name and he answered. It sounded like he was in his car, on hands-free.

Like most whites from Zimbabwe I had friends and relatives living in Australia and I’d visited the country a couple of times. I fancied I could do quite a good imitation of a South African living among the diaspora down under. ‘Frikkie,
howzit
, I’m outside number twenty-two, at Rosebank. I’m over here on holiday from Australia and I’m really interested in buying in this neighbourhood. My husband and I have had enough of Australia – it’s too boring and over-regulated.’

‘
Ag
, no, but I’m sorry,’ Frikkie said, ‘I’m on my way to another house showing. The open house for number twenty-two finished at one o’clock. Can we maybe make a plan for me to meet you there tomorrow?’

I already knew Frikkie’s schedule – it was easy to deduce from the advertised listings on the property company’s website – and he was busy for the next three hours at least. ‘Sorry, but I’ve got to fly back to Sydney this evening on the six o’clock flight. I was just out shopping with a friend of mine and we passed this place on the way. From the pictures it looks ideal. My husband told me not to leave South Africa without making an offer on something and, well, I’m worried I’ll be in trouble now, Frikkie.’

There was a pause as he deliberated. The South African property market was flat and there was nothing like the sound of a foreign accent and the promise of overseas cash to get a real estate agent’s pulse pumping. ‘I’ll have to call the owner. Maybe the maid can let you in if she agrees.’

‘That would be so good of you, Frikkie.’ I gave him my mobile number and hung up. While I waited I reached out the car window and pushed the button on an intercom mounted on a pole.

‘Hello?’ said a voice from inside the house.

‘Is the madam home?’ I asked into the intercom, knowing full well she was not.

‘Ah, no. She is not back until five.’

‘We want to come inside and look at the house.’

‘Ah, no, it is not possible,’ said the maid, her voice distorted by the tinny speaker.

My phone rang and Lungile winked at me. ‘
Howzit
, Frikkie,’ I said, recognising the number.

‘Fine, and you? OK, the owner, Mrs Forsyth, says you can go inside and have a look. She’s calling the maid now.’

I thanked him and promised I would call him back to let him know what I thought of the place.

A woman in a brightly printed pinafore emerged from the house and walked down the long curving driveway. Her accent had sounded Zimbabwean and she looked like a Shona; it wouldn’t be unusual for Mrs Forsyth’s maid to be from the same bankrupt country as Lungile and me. We all did what we could to survive. The woman went to the ridgeback and grabbed it by the collar, silencing it, then pushed a remote and the spike-topped gate rolled open. I drove up the driveway and we got out of the car while the maid closed the gate. My heart changed gear; this was almost as addictive as the pills.

‘Hello, how are you, my name is Patience,’ said the maid, who was sharp-eyed and stick insect-thin. ‘The madam says I am to show you around.’

‘
Kanjane
,
sister,’ Lungile said to the woman, then continued on in Shona. Lungile was Ndebele, but had learned the politically dominant tribe’s language far better than I had at school.

The maid’s face softened a little and she smiled as she replied in the same language. Like me, Lungile had immediately recognised the woman’s accented but precise English. It helped ease the situation a little, for all of us.

Patience led us into the house and the ridgeback, sensing all was OK, nuzzled me as I walked. I held out my hand and let him sniff me, then patted his head. ‘Hello, beautiful.’ He panted with pleasure as I stroked him.

The home was even nicer than the pictures on the sale board had indicated. Patience led us through a grand reception area with a marble floor out to a central courtyard dominated by a swimming pool. All of the bedrooms faced onto the pool. The furniture was typical Joburg – big and over the top. I would have gone for something more minimalist. It was interesting, visiting so many other people’s homes, learning about their tastes and their secrets.

I walked around the lounge and let Patience show us the home cinema room. Mostly the home looked like it had been decorated and furnished by a professional designer; there was little in the way of family photographs or the clutter that had always been a part of my family home, growing up in Bulawayo. Behind a bar, though, I saw something that made me stop. It was a plaque bearing the Maltese Cross badge of the Rhodesia Regiment, which was manned by national service soldiers during the Bush War. My father had served in the regiment. Lungile’s father had been a guerrilla leader; such were the ironies of life in our country. I mused silently about how very different my life would have been if Lungile’s father had killed mine.

‘Is the madam from Zimbabwe?’

‘Yes,’ said Patience.

‘And the boss?’

‘Ah, he is dead, of the lung cancer. Just last month.’

Lungile and I exchanged glances, then she put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh my God, sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

Patience’s eyes widened. I patted my stomach and pointed to Lungile’s. ‘It’s the pregnancy.’

‘Ah, shame,’ said Patience.

‘Toilet,’ gargled Lungile.

The maid nodded and led her briskly down the corridor.

‘I’ll just look around a bit,’ I said, but Lungile was running now, and Patience was trying to overtake her and give her directions to the bathroom in Shona.

I found the master bedroom and went to work. The one bedside table’s drawers were empty so I went to the other. In the top drawer was an expensive man’s watch, which I dropped into my shoulder bag, along with a last-year’s model BlackBerry, which had probably been replaced by a newer model when Mrs Forsyth’s contract had come up for renewal. Either that or, like the watch, it was her late husband’s.

I went to the walk-in closet and started going through the drawers there. In the second was her jewellery box. I tipped the contents into the bag. On the opposite side were the late Mr Forsyth’s clothes. She hadn’t got around to donating them, or perhaps she couldn’t bear to part with them. I wondered if he had served with my father – it was a big unit, but it was possible – and not for the first time in recent memory I hated myself.

Perhaps the Forsyths had left Zimbabwe at independence, in 1980, or even earlier, for they had obviously done very well for themselves here in Johannesburg. There were no pictures of children or grandchildren, so I imagined they were childless. I forced myself to stop thinking about them, and what the impact of what I was doing would be on someone recently widowed.

I heard a toilet flush, and then the sound of Lungile and Patience chatting.

Next to the master bedroom was a study with a charger cord snaking across the glass-topped desk, but no laptop. I opened the top drawer of the desk and found the new model MacBook, which joined the other loot in my bag.

‘
Tatenda
,’ Lungile said to Patience, thanking her as I joined them in the lounge room.

‘I think I’ve seen enough,’ I said. Lungile nodded and thanked Patience again, as did I. I said goodbye to the dog, ruffling him under his chin. ‘Look after your mom tonight,’ I whispered to him.

‘I will open the gate from in here,’ Patience said.

Lungile and I walked out, keeping our pace measured but brisk as we went to the Merc and climbed in. I started the car, and as we drove towards the gate it began to roll open. Lungile fished into my shoulder bag and grabbed a handful of treasure. The diamond stud earrings, gold necklaces and other clearly valuable bits and pieces from the jewellery box glittered in her hands.

‘Check,’ she said, holding it up.

I eased my foot off the accelerator as she let all of the jewellery slither back into the bag, save for one gorgeous piece set with the biggest rocks I had seen in a long time. ‘Wedding ring,’ I said. I felt nauseous, the shame bubbling up inside me and fighting to come out. I swallowed.

Lungile nodded.

‘Shit. She probably leaves it at home when she goes out shopping because of bloody crime.’

‘Ironic.’ Lungile laughed, but I hadn’t meant it as a joke. I was almost at the gate when it stopped moving, halfway, then changed direction and began closing. Lungile looked back over her shoulder. ‘She must be onto us!’

‘Fuck!’ I accelerated.

Lungile was looking out the back window. ‘We’re not going to make it. The maid’s probably calling the armed response guys now!’

The panic rose up inside me, but I could not stop the car. We would be trapped. I had a pistol in the bottom of my bag, a puny little .32. It was for self-defence, ironically, against carjackers and other criminals. I had never, and repeatedly promised Lungile and myself that I would never, use a gun in the commission of one of our crimes. I hated myself enough for what I was doing, and I would rather be arrested than harm one of my targets or a policeman.

‘Give me the gun,’ Lungile said.

‘No.’ I snatched the bag from between us and put it under my legs.

I braced myself for the coming impact. The nose of the Mercedes made it through, but the gate closed on my side of the car. Metal on metal made a maddening screech as the whole right side of the sports car fought against the closing barrier. I revved the accelerator hard, fighting for our escape, and we squealed through, suddenly released like a champagne cork. I slammed on the brakes.

Lungile was wide-eyed. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Give me the wedding ring.’

She closed her fist around it and glared at me. But either she softened or she realised we were not leaving until she gave it to me, because she opened her fingers and I plucked it from her palm.

I could see through the mangled gate Patience was now running down the front steps of the mansion to check on our progress, mobile phone clamped to her ear as she yelled into it. There was a mailbox slot in the wall next to the intercom. I walked to it and popped the wedding ring through the slot then turned and ran back to the car.

I put my seatbelt on and stood on the accelerator, sliding the rear of the car out into a right-hand turn. I zoomed up the quiet, leafy street, the engine howling as the automatic gearbox screamed and propelled us up to one hundred and thirty. When I took the next right I eased off a bit. I didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to us, but I knew the bare metal scrape marks down the side of the car would be an instant giveaway once Patience or the Forsyths’ security company put the word out.

‘Taxi,’ Lungile said.

Ahead of us a minibus taxi had pulled over to pick up a gardener in green overalls, his work finished in some rich family’s home. I passed it then pulled over and we both got out. The taxi started moving again and Lungile stepped out onto the road and flagged it down.

I grabbed the bag of loot and went to her side. The driver stared at us incredulously; a black diamond and a
kugel
hailing him was probably a first. He leaned out of his window, looking Lungile over from head to toe. ‘Where to, sister?’

‘Anywhere but here,’ she said.

He looked at the banged-up car and grinned. ‘Climb aboard the love bus.’

Lungile and I squeezed our way in among the dozen domestic staff and the driver took off. I glanced back and saw flashing lights as a security company car rounded the bend behind us. As I continued to crane my neck I saw them slow and stop beside the Merc.

Lungile punched me on the shoulder. ‘Man, that was close.’ She laughed.

‘Too close.’

Hip-hop thumped from speakers in the roof above us, the beat not keeping pace with my heart.

3

H
udson Brand woke an hour before dawn, as he always did. As a safari guide his working day typically began at first light, or just before. This was the time of day when the predators – lion, leopard, hyena and so forth – were most likely to be on the move, finishing their night’s hunting or making use of the cool hours of light to have one more go at killing something.

Before the first tourists rose, however, there was work to be done. In some camps he had guests to wake, doubling as a waiter cum personal valet and delivering tea or coffee prepared by the kitchen hands. More than once he had crept out of a guest’s tent or chalet to quickly shower and don a fresh uniform before starting his pre-dawn chores.

But Darlene had come to his room, so he carefully lifted a spray-tanned arm off his chest and slid across the bed until his feet touched the polished cement floor. ‘Darlene, wake up. You need to get ready for your morning drive.’

She groaned.

Hudson grinned and shook her. ‘Come on, now, sleepyhead. I’m going to grab a shower.’

He walked through the en-suite bathroom, savouring the warmth of the underfloor heating on his bare feet, then through a sliding door to the outdoor shower enclosure on the verandah. The outdoor shower was Africa’s gift to the civilised world, he thought, a successful marriage of first world plumbing and the African sky, which, day or night, was always a treat to behold. Hot water from a shower head the size of a dinner plate encased and protected him from the pre-dawn chill and, as always, it was a mission for him to turn off the tap and return to the cool of the morning. Brand towelled himself dry, then swore silently as he heard the call of a woodland kingfisher.

It was still months before the first of these beautiful, bright blue and white birds were due to return to this part of Africa. They spent the winter in Kenya then heralded the start of summer when they arrived in Kruger, but this one was calling from inside.

‘Phone,’ Darlene mumbled as he walked back in.

He picked up his mobile from the bedside table and snuffed out the bird ringtone by pressing the green answer button. ‘Hudson Brand.’

There was a delay on the line, and the voice, when it came, was faint, but he recognised the English accent as soon as the caller started to speak. ‘Hudson, hi, it’s Dani.’

Brand held the phone in the crook of his shoulder as he pulled on his green shorts and zipped them up. Darlene rolled over and checked the time on her phone as he padded past her and back out onto the verandah. A hyena whooped somewhere on the tree-studded plain below.

‘What was that?’ Daniela Russo asked, before he’d even had a chance to reply.

‘Hyena. It’s early, Dani, as in before dawn.’

‘Yes, I know. It’s even earlier here, still dark, in fact. I wanted to catch you in case you were going out on a game drive.’

She knew Brand had gone back to guiding, in South Africa, after his last case. ‘Good guess. I’ve got to go, Dani. Have a nice –’

‘Stop that. Listen to me.’ Dani was a lawyer of Italian and British descent, with the body of a dancer and the tone of a school principal.

Brand told himself he didn’t need Dani, nor what she was no doubt going to propose. He was about to set off on four days in the African bush with a group of tourists that included a particularly fetching divorcee who made love like a snarling lioness on heat. From Leopard Hills he was taking her to a new camp set up by an Afrikaner friend of his, Gert Pols, in the Timbavati Game Reserve to the north. Gert was running a fly camp, a mobile tented affair that could be set up anywhere on his concession, and the plan was that the guests would go out on walks in the bush every day.

‘I’m still here,’ he said to Dani, ‘but I really do have to go in a minute.’

‘I’ve got another case for you, in Zimbabwe.’

‘I’m not interested.’ In the course of the last investigation Brand had done for Dani he had stepped on some important toes and found himself incarcerated in Harare’s Chikurubi Prison for a week – not a pleasant place to be. He was in the bush, about to go on a walk, and he didn’t want to be anywhere else, least of all Zimbabwe. Brand heard a noise behind him and turned to see Darlene, her hair tousled, standing at the mosquito mesh door with a white sheet wrapped around her like a Roman goddess ready for round two in the local orgy.

‘Come back to bed, Hudson, it’s still dark.’

‘What was that?’ Dani asked down the line.

‘A local bird,’ Brand said.

‘I need you,’ Dani said.

Normally those three words worked like a charm on him, but not this time. ‘No.’ If the walking safari went well, he wanted to do more work for Gert. He preferred tracking animals to people any day and wanted to make the most of the rest of the dry season, the best time for walking, before the rains came.

‘I’ll pay double your normal fee.’

His mouth was dry and his voice ragged from the cigar, which had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Dani worked for insurance companies, so if she was doubling his fee she had to be taking a loss or making next to nothing. She managed a stable of insurance scam investigators and he was her dark horse in Africa. In spite of himself, he was curious. ‘Why double?’

‘It’s not just an insurance company this time. There are also family members here in the UK who want the death investigated,’ she explained.

‘Ah, double dipping,’ Brand said. That made sense. Dani had not made the serious money she had by being overly generous to her employees.

There was a pause on the other end of the line, thousands of kilometres away. All he had done was accuse a lawyer of being mercenary; he knew she wasn’t the pouting kind. Something else was in play here, he thought. ‘It happens to be a friend of mine who’s involved; that’s the family connection.’

Brand checked his wristwatch. It was ten after five. He’d found Dani’s call intriguing, but the wild was calling. He looked along the verandah at the sound of the sliding door. Darlene had walked over to the outdoor shower, not bothering with a towel or a robe. She winked at him as she turned on the water.

‘No, sorry, Dani; like I said, I’m busy.’ Darlene was facing him, soaping her breasts.

‘Triple.’

Brand had made up his mind, rightly or wrongly, and he was not the sort of man who changed it on a whim. Also, he didn’t like Dani thinking he could be bought. He could, of course, and what she was offering was about five times what he would likely make in the next two weeks, even if the tips were good. ‘Goodbye, Dani.’

‘Please, Hudson. For me.’

Dani had once come to South Africa to assure herself and the insurance company she represented that he was on the up, and not likely to fleece her clients like so many of their policyholders were doing. He’d taken her on safari, across the border into Zimbabwe, to Mana Pools in the Lower Zambezi Valley, one of his favourite places. As forthright as Dani was it turned out she was scared of insects – not the lions that growled and the hyenas that prowled their campsite at night – and therefore ended up spending several evenings in Brand’s dome tent for protection. It was a holiday romance, though; she’d told him there was no way she could live in Africa. For his part, Brand had been to London once and had no desire to visit again.

Brand sighed. Darlene turned off the shower and pouted. She walked back inside and then turned to wink at him over her shoulder as she pulled on a purple thong and then green cargo shorts. Dani had cost him enough time this morning. His mind was made up. ‘
Fambai zvakanaka
,’ he said to Dani. He had taught her the farewell before she left Zimbabwe. It meant, in Shona, go in peace. He ended the call.

‘I’d better be moving along,’ Darlene said, pulling on her T-shirt as Brand walked back into the suite. ‘Don’t want to get you in trouble or anything.’

He kissed her. ‘It’s fine. And thank you.’

Darlene put a hand on his chest and looked up into his eyes. ‘No, thank you. For saving me.’

Brand melted, just a little bit. ‘Go on, git.’ He slapped her playfully on the butt and she grinned and walked to the door. She opened it and looked theatrically from left to right, then waved back at him and headed to her suite.

Brand shaved, then combed his hair and brushed his teeth, regarding his lined self in the mirror as he did. He thought again about Dani’s call. The case was unusual, and not just because of the amount of money she was offering. The whole personal connection thing was interesting to him. Brand didn’t say no to her offer just because he was busy or because he had landed in prison the last time he’d investigated an insurance fraud claim in Zimbabwe. He liked investigation work for all the wrong reasons – it gave him a thrill of a different kind from the rush he experienced when he faced down a lion or a blustering elephant on a walk. Here in the bush he would be walking with dangerous game, but on the streets of Zimbabwe, or wherever Dani’s case would lead him, he would be among humans – creatures that lied and cheated and stole and murdered, mostly for money.

He had hunted men before, in Angola, but he had never hunted animals. Brand had turned his back on war, gladly, for the solace of a peaceful life in the remnant patches of unspoiled Africa, but he missed the thrill of the hunt. He wanted to go in peace, yet he had let Dani lead him back into the business of stalking prey. He didn’t like that she could make him do that, or engender in him second thoughts, albeit brief, about a four-day walking safari. He held his own gaze for a couple of seconds, then shook his head. No, he had made the right decision when he refused her offer. He walked out of his suite and surrendered to the incomparable beauty and tranquillity of the African dawn.

*

They saw a leopard on the morning game drive, a young female perched atop a termite mound, keeping watch for her mother, who was out hunting.

Darlene was in awe of the sighting and she clutched Brand’s hand tightly as she feasted her eyes on the beguiling cat. As they left the leopard she kissed him on the cheek and the Leopard Hills guide, who had chosen that minute to glance back at them, winked at him. At least she wasn’t married, he thought. Gossip moved faster than a bushfire in the Sabi Sand.

After breakfast back at the lodge Brand drove Darlene to their next stop, Gert Pols’s camp, Zebra Plains. It was a three-hour drive, out of the Sabi Sand and via the R40 through the sprawling town of Bushbuckridge and then back into the Greater Kruger Park through the Timbavati Game Reserve to the north. They arrived in time for lunch.

Gert’s operation was run on a shoestring, to help him build up the capital he needed to market himself and improve his facilities. Darlene had told her travel agent back in the States that she wanted to walk in the African bush, from a tented camp, and Gert’s start-up suited her budget and her needs.

Gert, however, was in Cape Town on business, and could not be there to escort the walks Darlene and the other guests in residence would be going on. For that reason he’d asked Brand not only to handle Darlene’s transfer, but to accompany his other guide, Patrick de Villiers, as the second rifle on the game walks.

Lunch was served under canvas at Zebra Plains, in an old open-sided army tent, the kind in which Brand had spent many a night in South West Africa and Angola. It was rustic, to the say the least, compared to the air-conditioned luxury of Leopard Hills, but Darlene seemed to be enjoying the change of atmosphere.

Scattered about, as though washed ashore from a nineteenth-century shipwreck, were old steamer trunks, now employed as side tables to deeply upholstered leather lounges. Gert had at least made some effort with the furnishings, to give the place a faux-colonial feel.

The other five guests at Zebra Plains all knew each other. They were two couples, one South African and the other Australian, and a single woman also from the other side of the Indian Ocean. The South Africans, like many Brand had known over the years, had emigrated to Australia. ‘But we love the bush so much, and we miss the Kruger terribly,’ the wife, Sunelle, said to him from across the table.

‘And they give us a Yank to take us around our own country,’ the husband, Keith, said, followed by a big laugh to let Brand know he was just joking – partly.

Brand sized up Keith, who he would have picked as a stockbroker even if Gert
hadn’t already filled him in. His South African accent was almost gone, but he would still fancy himself an expert on wildlife and the bush, Brand guessed. Brand’s strategy for dealing with clients who thought he knew nothing because of where he had been born was to draw on his knowledge of trees. From an early age as a safari guide Brand had studied every tree book he could get his hands on, reasoning that trees, after animals, birds, insects and reptiles, were about the last thing on any bush-lover’s list of things to know.

The single woman, Sharon, who was older, fuller-figured and blonder than Darlene, waved off Keith’s jibe. ‘Well, Sunelle did tell me all safari guides were good-lookers, so I’ve got my value for money already.’

Brand forced a polite smile. He would be friendly and attentive to all the guests and do his best to continue sleeping with Darlene without making it obvious to the rest of the group or showing her undue favouritism. The only person he wasn’t sure how to handle, although he knew him well, was the other guide.

Zebra Plains was different from most other lodges in the Timbavati and the Sabi Sand in a couple of aspects. Firstly, it specialised in walking safaris, rather than driving guests around the bush looking for wildlife. It was modelled on successful trails camps run by national parks rangers in the Kruger Park, where guests walked both in the morning and afternoon, from a fixed rustic camp in the bush. The clientele Gert was aiming for were experienced safari-goers who wanted something more than a mad dash from one animal sighting to another.

‘
Howzit
, all,’ said Patrick de Villiers. Twenty years younger than Brand, with the bow-legged swagger of a bodybuilder, Patrick doffed his cap with one hand, put his right foot up on a vacant chair and rested the butt of his .375 rifle on his knee. ‘Right, who’s ready to go find some man-eaters?’ His left hand, the wrist festooned with copper, elephant-hair and plastic save-the-rhino bracelets, drew a long, fat, brass-encased round from the bandolier on his belt. He worked the bolt on the rifle and proceeded to load the bullet, and four more. As he closed the breech for the last time, he said: ‘Let’s roll, the Land Rover’s waiting.’