The Prey (58 page)

Tertia frowned and nodded. ‘So you’re in the clear, but that doesn’t help me.’

‘Berger won’t sell Kilarney once your plans are exposed, but the Chinese will still buy Global Resources. I’ll get my bonus from Mary Li, and we can sell all the shares we’ve been buying through the front companies as soon the Chinese get the mines back up and running and the share price rises again. With Wellington dead and
us out of the
zama zama
business, Eureka will be back in the black in days. All this will be forgotten.’

‘And I’ll be in prison.’

He shook his head. ‘No, you must disappear now. You have the fake passports and IDs that I arranged for you, in the lockers at Johannesburg and Cape Town airports?’

Tertia nodded. ‘Yes, our escape plan. But I want you to come with me. I’ve waited so long to be with you. I can’t bear being away from you any longer. Come, run with me, Karl.’

‘No. I can get through this. I’ll be in Rio with you in a month, with more money than we need.’

She looked up at him and blinked her eyes. After all she had done, all the killings and theft and lies, she was the same big-eyed, adoring, spoiled rich girl he had fallen for all those years ago. He had agreed to, perhaps even been slightly aroused by, her plan to seduce Chris Loubser and use him as their pawn to help undermine the company and the Lion Plains project, and he wondered, often, if she slept with Wellington when they met, for her to take the gold for sale to the Arab buyers. But she
had
changed; he knew it. It seemed the more crimes she committed, the more perversions she indulged in, the more wicked she became. He had disagreed with her decision to sell McMurtrie’s daughter; to him, killing the girl seemed kinder, given that the rest of her family was supposed to be dead.

‘How shall we do it?’ she asked.

‘Put on your jeans and boots and your overcoat, tie a scarf, or better yet a towel around your head to protect you. I’ll hit the emergency stop button and as the train starts to slow, jump for it. Tuck your arms in and keep your chin on your chest, roll when you hit the ground.’

‘Karl …’

‘Do you want to meet the police at the next station?’

‘No.’

He passed her the clothes she needed while she changed out of the cocktail dress she had been going to wear to dinner. He couldn’t
help but notice the expensive lingerie she was wearing; perhaps she’d had a plan to sneak him into her room in the middle of the night. They had been so close.

When she was ready, her head encased in the towel, he took from his suit jacket pocket a small hammer that he had found at an emergency exit, the kind that would shatter reinforced glass. ‘The train’s windows don’t open. We will have to do this quickly.’ He kissed her, long and deep, and thought his heart must surely break.

‘I love you,’ Tertia said.

‘I love you too. Always.’ He smashed the picture window in the cabin with the hammer and the glass fell away like a thousand diamonds being scattered into the night. The wind rushed into the cabin. He knocked the remaining shards from the bottom of the window frame. ‘Sit up here.’

He scooped her in his arms and lifted her so that her legs were dangling out of the window. ‘Mind your head, my love,’ he said. He placed a hand on the top of her head, to shield it from the sill, then moved his palm to the base of her cranium. His other arm he wrapped around her neck, then started to squeeze.

Too late, she felt her airway being constricted and her spine protesting. She tried to look back at him, but he couldn’t bear to see those eyes again. There was no way she would escape South Africa if she survived the fall. It was regrettable, to lose her now, but with Tertia dead he could create a new life for himself, in her honour.

‘Goodbye, my love.’ Her neck snapped and, gently, he pushed her out the window.

Karl Lotz sat in his wife’s cabin, breathing in her scent for the first time in years and the last time in his life.

*

Lotz entered the dining car and shot the starched white cuffs from his suit jacket then smoothed down his hair. He saw McMurtrie, his daughter, Hamilton and Correia all look up at him as he walked through the carriage.

‘Has anyone seen Tertia?’ Lotz asked them.

Kylie shook her head then put down her knife and fork, halfway through her starter. ‘No. Have you?’

‘No, I was tendering my resignation. Hilary Hann accepted it on behalf of the board,’ he said. He looked at Luis. ‘So, are you going to sell your coal to the Chinese? From what I could gather from Hilary, the sale is still going ahead.’

‘It is none of your business,’ Luis said quietly. ‘And I will not rest until I see you in prison.’

Lotz snorted. ‘Well, good luck with that.’

‘I hate that the company can’t put off the sale and do a deal with Luis now that he’s resigned,’ McMurtrie said, loud enough for Lotz to hear as he passed them and took a table by himself. Lotz smiled.

As the waiter was taking his order the train started to slow. He wondered if one of the carriage butlers had discovered Tertia missing and raised the alarm. He rested his forehead against the cool glass of the window and saw the modest outskirts of a Karoo farming town trundling into view. Ahead was the station. A blue light flashed. Lotz felt sweat prick under his armpits. He had to stay cool. Probably Tertia’s broken window and absence from the train had been noticed and the train management were hoping to start a search without alarming the other passengers.

Lotz had ordered the springbok for his main course and the waiter set a weighty steak knife down on the side of his place setting.

Lotz looked behind him and saw McMurtrie easing himself out of his seat. Lotz slid the steak knife from the table and into the cuff of his shirt. Hamilton was getting up too.

‘Jan, Karl, whatever you want to call yourself. Please get up and come with me,’ Cameron said.

Kylie stood behind him, arms folded, trying to look menacing.

‘Why should I?’

‘The police are waiting for you, and in the interests of the other passengers I told the manager I’d escort you off the train and onto the platform.’

‘And what crime have I committed? None. I changed my name by deed poll in Australia, legally. I failed to report a conflict of interest to the board and for that oversight I have just resigned.’

Kylie moved closer to him, also keeping her voice low to avoid making a scene. ‘You were in on it with Tertia all along.’

‘Rubbish. I told you, I was working against her.’

‘Bullshit,’ Kylie said. ‘You were working against
us
. It was you who called a halt to the use of armed security against the
zama zamas
and you who pushed for the Lion Plains mine when the board favoured an early investment in Mozambique. You’ve been working to bring us down for years.’

‘Prove it.’

‘She doesn’t need to,’ Cameron said.

‘I asked Cameron if he had told anyone that we were taking Luis to Hippo Rock after his wife died,’ Kylie said. ‘He didn’t tell a soul, but I did. You. I told you in my daily update that we were going to a holiday house Cameron’s in-laws owned. I just remembered and Cameron told me that he had talked to you about Hippo Rock in the past and emailed you pictures of the house, and that you liked the sound of buying a place there one day. That was the only way Wellington could have known where to find us. Where’s your wife now?’

Lotz shifted his eyes left and right. Most of the other diners were oblivious of their conversation, but some were pointing out the window at the approaching flashing lights.

He looked pointedly out into the darkness and smirked, sure they could see his reflection.

‘Don’t look away from me when I ask you a question, you bastard,’ the Australian woman said.

‘Kylie …’

Lotz saw the movement he had hoped for, in the reflections in the carriage window. Kylie had moved past Cameron and was between him and McMurtrie. Lotz sprang from his seat and raised his elbow up and into her, catching her under the chin so that her head snapped back. Before she fell he caught her, then slid the sharpened steak knife
from his sleeve. He had it at her throat before she recovered from his first blow. McMurtrie, fists balled in impotent anger, took a step back.

Wine glasses spilled, women shrieked and men stampeded for the exits at either end of the carriage. At the same time, he saw Cameron’s kid – the girl – enter the carriage.

‘I’m getting off the train, with Kylie, and she stays with me until I get what I want.’

‘Dad?’ Jess shouted.

Cameron looked back at his daughter. ‘Jess, get out of here. Go back to your cabin.’

‘No, Dad, I’m not leaving you.’

Cameron shook his head and turned back to Lotz. ‘You’re being ridiculous, Karl. You know how it will end. There are a dozen heavily armed police on the station. You know they’ll end up shooting you dead. Do you want to take Kylie with you?’

‘Maybe.’ He pushed the knife into the soft skin of Kylie’s neck. ‘Maybe I’ll just kill her now anyway and let the cops finish me off. My wife’s gone and so is yours, Cameron. I’ve been watching you and this one. I think you’re sweet on each other. If I can’t have the happy ending, then why the fuck should you?’

Lotz backed towards the rear of the dining car. ‘But for now I’ll keep her alive until I can get a helicopter. I see you haven’t pulled a gun on me yet, Cameron. Guess you must have thought you were safe.’ The train juddered and the brakes squealed. ‘Sit down, Cameron, Luis. We’re going to be here for some time while the negotiations play out. Or you can leave if you want.’

‘I’m staying,’ Cameron said. ‘Jess – go.’

‘Good advice. Listen to your father,’ Lotz said.

‘
No
, Dad. I’m staying.’ She glared at Lotz. ‘I’m not going anywhere. You weren’t coming to save me, were you? You were working with Wellington. Did you come underground to kill me?’

‘Clever girl.’

‘For God’s sake, Jess, get under the table,’ Cameron said. ‘If the cops come in shooting there’ll be bullets everywhere.’

‘More good advice from dear old dad,’ Lotz said. Jessica lowered herself to the ground, next to her bag of schoolbooks. Correia, the coward, got down on the floor next to the girl, on his belly. Karl wondered, briefly, what kind of child he and Tertia might have had if they had been given a chance.

‘
Karl Lotz. This is the South African Police
,’ blared a voice through a loudhailer. ‘
Release your hostage and lay down your weapon. Come out with your hands high
.’

‘They’ll have a sniper taking a sight picture on you by now,’ Cameron said.

Lotz laughed. ‘In this
dorpie
? No, that will be hours away. I don’t really think I can wait that long and of course I know you’re right. This will never end with me being flown to Cape Town airport in a helicopter with Kylie as my hostage, and me boarding a plane to Rio. It just doesn’t work that way, does it? There are no happy endings. You lost your marriage; I lost my country and my wife. Be thankful you got your daughter back. Kylie wanted my job, but now she won’t get that because the Chinese will put their own person in, so I think she and I will make our exit now.’

He started to push the knife into Kylie’s neck as she kicked and writhed against him.

Then his world went black, as impenetrable as a darkened mine.

O
NE MONTH LATER

M
usa Mabunda watched in silence as his cousin, Tumi, swept the far bank of the stream with her spotlight, searching for the telltale glow of the owls’ eyes.

They had left the other two passengers in the Land Rover, parked a short distance back, where they had stopped for sundowners. They had arrived at Lion Plains that morning and it was the first time Musa had seen Tumi in person since they had spoken by phone, on the Blue Train.

‘Is it true what they said in the newspapers, that McMurtrie’s daughter helped kill Jan Stein?’ Tumi asked him in a soft voice.

‘Yes. She had Cameron’s gun with her; she feared for her safety after being kidnapped by Wellington. She passed the pistol to the Mozambican, Luis Correia, and he shot Stein – Karl Lotz – between the eyes.

Tumi shook her head. ‘
Eish
. I’m safer here in the bush with all the lions and the leopards.’

Musa laughed quietly. They had come to Lion Plains not just to visit his cousin and spend a night in the lodge, but also to see the
owls that had turned the coalmining project on its head. ‘Are you enjoying being the lodge manager now?’

Tumi sighed. ‘Acting manager. And it’s hard work, but the good news is the community leaders have given up thinking about mining and they are committed to making Lion Plains the best game reserve in the area.’

‘That’s good,’ Musa said.

‘We need to find these owls soon as you have to get back and have dinner. It will be ironic if they have left. But even if they have, I won’t tell the local community.’ She looked back and winked at Musa.

‘We’ve got an early start now. We have to go see our new Mozambican project manager, Luis Correia, in Maputo tomorrow.’

‘Sshh! Musa, look!’

Tumi shone her spotlight and Musa could see the glowing orange eyes staring at him. The owl blinked, but a second later it flew away.

‘Damn, that was the pel’s fishing owl!’ Tumi said. ‘He’s gone. But look at that hollow in the tree trunk, near where the big branch joins it. I’m going to have a look.’

‘But, Tumi, it’s dark, and it’s dangerous out here at night.’

‘Man up, Musa! The researchers I spoke to need as much information as they can get, especially about nesting sites. I’m going to have a look.’

Musa stood disapprovingly with his hands on his hips as his crazy cousin waded into the stream below the bank and scrambled up onto the other side. He shook his head as he watched her climb the tree they had been watching, as agile and sure-footed as a leopard. She hoisted herself up onto the branch and peered into the hollow near where they had seen the owl.

Tumi screamed, and Musa feared for a heartbeat she had been bitten by a black mamba or some other deadly snake. Then he saw the startled blur of wings and feathers as the owl burst from the hollow. Tumi lost her grip on the branch and dropped to the ground.