The Hunter (36 page)

‘Yes.’ She looked down at Mavis again, this time unable to avoid those once beautiful dark eyes, now locked in a gaze of eternal terror. ‘I never thought that there might be two killers.’

‘You said there was bad blood between them,’ Tom reminded her, ‘that they’d been in a fight after Brand shot the poacher in the park.’

‘They wouldn’t be the first partnership to fight.’

‘True,’ Tom said. ‘But Brand shopped De Villiers to the Zimbabwean police. Does that make sense?’

Sannie shrugged. They were dealing with a psychopath or two, not a ‘mastermind’ as the press liked to call repeat offenders. ‘Brand might have just wanted Patrick locked up; he might have enough contacts in Zimbabwe to get a hit put on Patrick in prison. As it was, Patrick got away thanks to a possibly fabricated alibi, and Brand killed him the first chance he got. Patrick wasn’t to know there was a police operation going down here.’

‘Maybe, but we’re not in the business of believing in coincidences. Whatever the case, Brand certainly didn’t do himself any favours by jumping on that aircraft with a wanted woman. We saw him climb aboard just as we got here.’

‘No, he didn’t do himself any favours.’ Sannie placed the backs of her fingers against Mavis’s cold cheek.
I let you down, my friend. I should have seen this coming. There is more to this than Tom and I can see right now, but we will find who did this to you
. ‘
Hamba kahle
, Mavis.’

‘What will you do now?’ Tom asked his wife.

‘We go to work and we find out who did this, and why.’

‘
We
?’ Tom asked.

‘Mavis is dead, Tom. I need help. I need my partner.’

30

T
he aircraft droned over the Lebombo hills and into Mozambican airspace. Andrew turned to port, heading north. Brand opened his email program on his phone and scrolled back to the emails he had received from Dani at the start of the case. It seemed a lot longer ago than it was. He found the message that Dani had forwarded from Peter Cliff, with the photo of Linley Brown and Kate Munns attached.

The picture, which he hadn’t looked at since he’d sat by the Sabie River in Skukuza, showed two young women, both blonde, smiling. The email from Peter Cliff had identified Linley Brown as the woman on the left and Kate Munns as on the right.

He looked from the image to the woman sitting next to him in the aircraft. He held up the phone so she could see what he had been looking at. ‘You really are Linley Brown,’ he said. The passport picture Sannie van Rensburg had handed out also showed a true image.

While Linley and Kate did look somewhat alike, there was no doubt he was looking at the woman on the left. ‘You were expecting Kate?’

Brand used his thumb and index finger on the touch screen to enlarge the image. He wanted to look into the eyes of the two women, and the one sitting opposite him. He had trouble using such features on the phone – his fingers were too big – and before he could zoom in on the two faces, the image froze, zoomed in further down, over Linley’s hands, clasped in front of her. Brand looked from the phone to the woman, and back again. He searched her real eyes. ‘I don’t know what to expect in this case. I do know that Kate did try to fake her own death, before she died for real. I found Dr Rodriguez.’

She nodded. ‘Ah yes, her. I’m not surprised she rolled over on us. She didn’t seem very trustworthy.’

Brand returned his phone to his pocket. ‘Why did Kate want to fake her own death? What was she running away from?’ Brand asked over the noise of the engine.

‘Get me my money and I’ll tell you.’

‘That seems very mercenary of you, Linley. What about your late friend?’

‘She wanted me to have it; at least, she wanted me to have my share.’

‘What was she going to do with hers?’ Brand glanced out the window of the aircraft. Way off to their right was the blue haze of the Indian Ocean. Andrew had told them they would follow the coast north, to Pemba, and refuel there. The trip to Kenya would take eight hours. He had plenty of time to learn the truth.

‘She had issues, OK? Kate presented as Miss Goody-Two-Shoes to the outside world, but she’d done stuff she was ashamed of, stuff that would have hurt her family if they’d known about it. She wanted out, and she wanted to start with a clean slate somewhere. Now, give me whatever papers you need me to sign.’

Brand looked into those eyes and saw the truth. ‘There are no papers; that was a white lie. But the insurance company is concerned about the call you or Kate made to them on the day Kate really died.’

She nodded. ‘That bloody call. We put off making it; Elena had forward-dated the death certificate at our request but we couldn’t put off making the call any more. We were trying to work out what I would say to Anna, to break the news, but we also needed to know how the claim process would work – neither of us had ever done such a thing, of course. But I didn’t sign anything and, besides, the company
knows
we planned to defraud them. I’m sunk, aren’t I? This was all just a lie to hand me over to the police.’

Brand shrugged. ‘I honestly don’t know if you’ll get the money or not. Yes, you intended to commit a crime, but the company’s unlikely to prosecute you. The lawyers and management are discussing it in London, trying to decide if your phone call constitutes making a fraudulent claim.’

‘Call them, tell them I confessed to you that I was making a sick practical joke.’

He shook his head. ‘No, I want more from you before I make any calls on your behalf.’

‘You’re double dipping, aren’t you? You’re working for the Cliffs as well as the insurance people.’

Brand said nothing.

She put a hand to her mouth, as if something suddenly dawned on her. ‘Peter and Anna – they’re here in Africa, aren’t they? He’s here . . .’

Brand nodded.

‘What were you going to do, let them come see me in prison after the South African police had arrested me in your lame-arse little sting operation?’

‘Yes.’

‘I wouldn’t have seen them. I’ve got nothing to say to them, especially her.’

‘Anna? What’s she done wrong?’

‘Make the call.’

‘Help me understand all this, Linley. I want out of this mess just as much as you do, but the Cliffs need closure.’

She scoffed. ‘
Closure?
That’s such a ridiculous American word. How can you close an open wound that you know is going to be infected for life? How can finding out something that ruins two people’s marriage bring “closure”, if it means ending that relationship?’

Brand didn’t know what she was talking about, but he didn’t want to push her. He remained silent, hoping she would fill the void. She stared out the window of the aeroplane for a while, but eventually turned back to him. ‘Kate’s problems started a long time ago, back when she was a young girl.’

Brand waited and, eventually, Linley sighed and carried on. ‘She and her sister were both abused by their father. He threatened to kill them if either of them said anything. Kate wanted to tell their mother, but Anna wouldn’t let her; she was too scared of their old man. He would beat them, as well as . . . well, as well as the worse stuff. One time Kate had to go to Dr Fleming as she had bad tonsillitis. Dr Fleming saw the bruises on her arms and asked her what was wrong. Kate didn’t say anything, but Dr Fleming, who was a good man, came to their house and started asking questions. The girls’ parents sent him away, but Kate caught his eye and she knew that he cared, even if he couldn’t do anything.

‘The girls’ mother was adamant they be sent to boarding school, despite their father’s arguments that they should live at home. Their father had a temper; he would sometimes get drunk and beat their mother. Kate and Anna weren’t sure how much their mother knew about what he was doing, but she stood up for them and forced the issue of them going away to boarding school. Kate heard her mother once say she would call the police if he didn’t allow them to go away, and Kate wasn’t sure if her mother was threatening to report him for beating her, or for hurting the girls.

‘With Lungile and me coming to visit during the holidays it was harder for Kate’s father to get to her, and she moved out of home as soon as she could. A couple of years later the girls’ father was killed – murdered in his home. The killer was never caught. Their mother committed suicide soon after; gassed herself in the family car. Kate suffered, of course, from what happened to her as a kid. It was hard for her to form lasting relationships. When she tried to talk about what happened during their childhood with her sister, Anna refused. It was as if she was in denial.’

That tallied, Brand thought, with Anna’s reaction when he had asked about her family life. He simply nodded and let Linley continue.

‘Kate did eventually find a nice boyfriend, a couple of years ago. His name was George and she thought he was the love of her life, in fact. Anna and her husband Peter had been drifting apart, their marriage stagnating. Anna was lonely and all of a sudden her little sister, who had always devoted herself to her work and hardly ever went out for drinks, had met this fabulous, funny, intelligent lawyer. True, he was quite a few years older than her, but Kate was deliriously happy.’

Brand waited to find out what happened.

‘They all went out to a dinner one night, Kate and gorgeous George, as she called the lawyer, and Anna and Peter. Kate and Peter were the designated drivers, so stayed sober, but Anna and George were having a grand old time, getting drunk. Kate didn’t know it at the time, but that night Anna came on to George while they were both outside sharing a sneaky cigarette, and later in the evening George fucked Anna in the restaurant toilet.’

Brand thought of Anna’s promiscuous come-ons to him, how genuinely lonely she had seemed, and how he had almost succumbed to her. She was a good-looking woman with a high and unfulfilled sex drive. He could picture the scene at the restaurant. One thing he’d learned as a private investigator was that people cheated on each other for the stupidest reasons, not caring how much they hurt those close to them in the process.

‘Gorgeous George broke it off, between him and Kate, and she was distraught. At first he wouldn’t tell her why, just the usual “you’re too good for me” bullshit, but in their case it was true. Kate hounded him, sitting on his doorstep in the rain, showing up at his work, but he got angry and told her what had happened. He was ashamed and never saw Anna again. Kate spiralled out of control for a while, but then she saw a chance to get even.’

Brand couldn’t hold back. ‘What was that?’

‘Not what – who. Her brother-in-law, whom she’d always felt was cold and aloof.’

Andrew had been flying the aircraft with his headset on, talking to air traffic controllers. He removed the headphones from his right ear and turned back to face his passengers. ‘Here’s your new passport, Linley. I picked it up from the FedEx office in Nelspruit this morning. I hope you’ve got a passport, Mr Brand, otherwise the Mozambicans will probably lock you up and the Kenyans won’t let you into their country.’

‘I brought it with me. I’m not going back to South Africa.’

Andrew looked to Linley. ‘He’s coming with us?’

‘Maybe. I still need my money and he needs to organise it.’

Andrew waved a hand in the air and replaced his headphones.

‘What happened between Peter and Kate?’ Brand asked.

‘The good doctor came on to his sister-in-law, in his surgery, in her hour of distress. Suddenly Kate worked out the perfect way to get back at Anna.’

Brand nodded. ‘OK, so Kate got back at her sister by having an affair with Peter, but I still don’t get it, why did she try and fake her death?’

Linley drew a breath. ‘Peter was not just a cheater, he was kinky. He and Anna hadn’t had sex for years because she wouldn’t do the things he wanted to do. Anna had wanted Peter to be some sort of saviour – a father figure in a good way, not like her real father. She mistook his dominance and arrogance for strength of character. Instead he turned out to be a pervert who wanted to sleep around, and more. Anna couldn’t handle the fact that Peter wanted to sleep with other women. Peter, however, took Kate to swingers’ parties, to bondage and discipline parlours, and made her sleep with other guys – even girls. Hookers mostly.’

‘She was a mature, self-assured woman by all accounts,’ Brand said. ‘Was it consensual?’

Instead of answering, Linley said, ‘Kate had a car crash a couple of years ago.’

Brand nodded; he remembered Anna telling him.

‘Well, as a doctor, Peter prescribed OxyContin for her, painkillers, and kept her on them for way too long. The specialist who treated her after the accident was trying to get her off the drugs, but she developed an addiction and Peter was feeding it at the time he came on to her. Half the time she said she was stoned when he used her, when he lent her out to others.’ Linley looked out the window.

Brand hadn’t liked Peter Cliff from the start, but he forced himself to think objectively about what Linley was saying. She was telling him a story, but he wasn’t sure if it was the truth or just her version of the truth, an exercise in self-justification.

He wasn’t buying it, though, as a reason for Kate to drop out. ‘She flew to Zimbabwe ostensibly on a holiday. Presumably she told you all this then.’

‘We’d been talking on email,’ Linley said, ‘but yes, it wasn’t until she came to Zimbabwe that I realised the full extent of what Peter was up to, how he was manipulating her.’

‘So why not just put her into rehab in South Africa?’

Linley licked her lips, as if hesitating about whether or not to go on. ‘She was scared of Peter. Very scared.’

‘Why? Did he hurt her? Physically?’

‘It wasn’t just the physical. Kate could take a certain amount of pain during some of their rough play, and the drugs kept her zonked out most of the time. No, it wasn’t what he did to her, more what she thought he was capable of.’

Brand looked down at the photo again. Some things were not adding up, but others were falling into place. At least this woman was talking, even if it was in riddles. ‘Such as?’

‘He had this thing he used to do with a knife. It’s called “edge play”, I’ve come to learn. He would take a sharp carving knife, sometimes a scalpel, and run it over her skin, dragging the point over her . . . well her intimate places. He didn’t draw blood, but occasionally he’d scratch her. He was fascinated with knives, possibly part of being a trained surgeon, I suppose. She was scared that one day he was going to go too far, or that perhaps he already had.’

‘Already had?’

‘He would pretend, sometimes, when she was tied up, that he was going to stab her, down there, inside her.’

Brand thought of the murdered prostitute by the Phabeni Gate, of Melanie Afrika in Victoria Falls. It was his turn to shiver. ‘Peter has been to Africa before, hasn’t he?’

Linley nodded. ‘Yes, twice that Kate told me about. Once during the soccer World Cup, in 2010, and then again earlier this year, for an international medical conference in Cape Town.’

Brand felt the jolt of adrenaline spread out from his heart to his fingertips. ‘In February.’

Linley pursed her lips, thinking. ‘Um, not sure. Yes, wait a minute. That’s right. Kate’s birthday was in February, the fourteenth, and I remember her emailing me telling me that she was glad he was out of the country, that she could be alone. It was around then, while he was away, that she started sounding me out about dropping out, about faking her own death.’

‘She was scared enough of him to think she would have to disappear completely?’ Brand said.

‘Yes. She couldn’t go to the police, she didn’t have anything on him other than suspicions of what he might have been capable of. He threatened her, on many occasions, saying he would kill her if she tried to speak to Anna about it, or if she left him. He was in love with her, I think, in his own twisted way, and he couldn’t bear to be without her.’