Blood Safari

27

After four, when they came to collect Emma for the scan, I fetched the keys of the Audi and went out to find the car.

The car park was chock-a-block full, but I found the car near the entrance, as Maggie T. had promised. It was a two-litre manual sedan, silver, with satellite navigation. Jeanette was not stingy. I got in and drove to Klaserie.

I took the byroads, turned off unexpectedly, accelerated, memorising every vehicle in front and behind, but nobody followed me.

The BMW was no longer beside the R40. Only the deep ruts remained in the long grass, muddy now after the rain. I locked the Audi and walked the four hundred metres back to the T-junction. I felt the aches in my body. From the stop street I walked west to the flyover where the R351 went over the railway line. If I were to set up an ambush, how would I do it?

The two tar roads made a triangle with the railway line. In the middle of the triangle was a rise with rocks and trees. That is where I would position my sniper, because he could see the junction at the stop street. I climbed the wire fence and walked through the veld and up the slope.

How had they known we would come this way?

How had they known we were going to Mohlolobe – and not Hoedspruit? Was it because we drove this route every day? Because the western route to Hoedspruit was just about as far?

Or had they covered both alternatives?

I stood on the rise and looked down. Perfect panorama. You could see the traffic for two kilometres on the R351. Plus at least a kilometre on the R41 north. It was two hundred and fifty metres from the T-junction, equidistant from both roads. A manageable distance for a sniper, wind wouldn’t be a great factor, gradient perhaps twenty degrees.

Still, he would have to know his job. On a moving vehicle, a tyre is not a big target.

Trouble is, there are hundreds of them here. Men who can shoot, who can drop a strolling steenbok at three hundred metres with a telescope – place trophy shots where they will.

But how did they know we would turn left at the stop, to the north? How had they known we were going to Mohlolobe – and not to Nelspruit? If I had turned right, he wouldn’t have got in the second and third shots.

Too many questions. Too many variables. Not enough information.

Where would he have lain in wait? I searched between the trees and rocks for the best spot – room to stretch out on your belly, unhampered vision, scope to swing the rifle through ninety degrees. Enough cover.

I had seen something flash in the seconds before he fired. I drew a line from approximately where we had been on the R351, searching for the logical spot.

There. I jumped down from a rock into a hollow he might have used. No tracks, the rain had seen to that. Grass stems were bent, a couple broken. I lay down, holding an imaginary rifle in my hands. This spot would work – shoot him there, keep an eye on him, see that he isn’t stopping, follow him with the scope, around the corner, wait until the BMW stabilises, fire another shot, another one, see the BMW leave the road. Once we had exited the car he hadn’t been able to shoot at us because there were trees interfering with his line of sight, and long grass. He would have followed our progress here and there. If he had a radio with him, the others could have given him directions, but he wouldn’t have been able to shoot. Would have had to stand up, because this rock directly to his left would have blocked his field of vision.

He had stood up and watched us with naked eyes. Saw us running; saw Emma fall, there, saw the other two running toward us. He would have had to get moving too. Radio in one hand, rifle in the other?

He had only the rifle in his hands when I saw him.

Had he picked up the casings? Was there time?

The bullet casings would have shot out to the right. That way. Rocks and grass. He would have had to look quickly. Three tyres. But there had been more than three shots. One had hit the car. At least four. Could there have been more? Four casings that he had to find, but he was in a hurry, he had to keep an eye on us, he had to shoot us, it was his job, his assignment.

I divided the potential five square metres into quadrants and searched through the grass centimetre by centimetre, between the rust-brown stones, starting with the most likely quadrant. Nothing. None in the second and the third.

The last quadrant, to the right and slightly behind the sniper. Nothing.

Then I saw it, just outside the imaginary line I had drawn. The casing lay deep in the cleft between two rocks, half hidden by grass.

I broke a twig off a tree and poked it into the cleft, lifted out the casing, letting the stick slide into the open end.

Bright and new, 7.62, the longer NATO calibre, standard bullet, mass-manufactured locally.

I rotated the stick so the casing dropped into my shirt pocket.

What had been so odd about the rifle?

I had seen it only for a moment, that awful second or two, behind Emma. He had been lying in the veld on his belly, a big man with a baseball cap and the rifle and tripod and telescope.

It wasn’t big. Was that what was strange? A smallish sniper rifle.

Could be. But there was something else. It wouldn’t come to mind. He had been too far away.

A tripod meant it wasn’t a hunting rifle.

Firearms had been recently removed from the safe that Donnie Branca opened. Was there a connection?

I would have to find out.

I walked down the slope to the place where the BMW had stopped in the grass. The fence was still broken. Traffic drove past on both tar roads. The sun was setting on the Mariepskop side. My shadow stretched long across the green sweetveld.

I tried to follow the route Emma and I had run. I found the antbear hole where she had fallen. Then we turned towards the railway tracks. I scanned the grass for my cell phone. The chances of finding it were slim.

This was where I helped her over the wire just before the railway tracks. Stood here, looked up, saw the two balaclavas waving their arms at the sharpshooter. He dropped to the ground.

So he could take aim at us? In this long grass? Couldn’t be.

Why had he dropped flat? Fallen, tripped perhaps? No, it wasn’t like that, it was deliberate. What for?

This time I climbed through the fence. We had run south beside the train. Emma’s handbag must have dropped here. Right here.

It was lying in the grass, not obvious, but easy enough to see. If Phatudi’s men had been here they would have found it. They couldn’t have been here at the railway track, then.

I picked up her bag and opened it.

It smelled of Emma.

All her things seemed to be there. Cell phone too.

I closed the handbag and walked back to the Audi.

‘There doesn’t seem to be haemorrhage,’ said Dr Eleanor Taljaard in her office. ‘And there’s no indication that the skull fracture has damaged the brain tissue directly. I’m optimistic.’

I couldn’t hide my relief.

‘But we’re not home free, Lemmer, you must understand that.’

‘I know.’

She wanted to say more. I saw her hesitate, reconsider. ‘What is it, Eleanor?’

‘You must be realistic, Lemmer. With coma patients, survival is always our first priority, and her prognosis looks good.’

‘But?’ I said because I knew what was coming.

‘Yes. There is always the “but”. She could survive, but remain in a coma, for an indefinite period. Months. Years. Or she could wake up tomorrow and …’

‘And what?’

‘She might not be the same.’

‘Oh.’

‘I don’t want to give you false hope.’

‘I understand.’

‘You can talk to her again, this evening. If you want to.’

‘I will.’

Then I went up to my VIP suite and sat on the bed with Emma’s handbag. I needed her notes, which she had been making sporadically since we arrived.

I unzipped the bag. The scent of Emma le Roux. She might never wake up. Or be the same. The scent when I carried her into the suite, her warm body, her face in my neck. ‘The other room,’ she had whispered. That smile after I had laid her down, the one that said, ‘Look what I made silent, stupid Lemmer do.’

It had been ten months since I held a woman against me.

Let me concentrate on the handbag.

I looked inside it, couldn’t immediately see the notepaper. I would have to unpack the bag.

It wasn’t a big handbag, but the contents were impressive.

1 cell phone. I put it on the bed.

1 photo of Jacobus le Roux.

1 Afrikaans book, Equatoria by Tom Dreyer.

1 letter of unknown origin – the one Emma received from the Mohlolobe gate guard.

A small black zip-up bag. I opened it up. Cosmetics. I zipped it shut.

1 cell phone charger.

1 purse. A few hundred in cash. Credit cards. Emma’s own business cards.

1 sheet of paper, a web page printout with a map of Mohlolobe. On the back were Emma’s notes. I put it on one side.

Was there something else in the dark depths of the handbag that could help me?

One shouldn’t go through a woman’s handbag, but what if…

1 spectacle case with dark glasses.

1 plastic tampon container.

1 small black address book, somewhat dog-eared, listing names and telephone numbers, here and there an address and a birthday; not recent.

1 pack Kleenex Softique white three-ply tissues. Care on the move.

2 bank slips. I didn’t look at them. Not my business.

2 old shopping lists, short and cryptic, groceries.

9 business cards. Jeanette Louw’s was one of them. The others were unfamiliar advertising and marketing managers.

7 cash slips. Three from Woolworths Food, one from Diesel jeans, two from Pick and Pay, one from the Calitzdorp Guest House. On the back was a recipe for ‘Calitzdorp Apple Tart’.

1 note from the manager of the Badplaas resort with Melanie Posthumus’s contact numbers.

1 Bluetooth earpiece for the cell phone.

1 packet of contraceptive pills.

1 packet of Disprins, the chewable sort. Unopened.

1 small round plastic tub. Mac Lip Balm.

1 small flat river pebble.

1 Mont Blanc black pen.

1 Bic ballpoint pen.

1 packet of matches from the Sandton Holiday Inn.

1 half-used pencil.

3 stray paper clips.

That was the sum total. I replaced everything except the notes, the photograph and the cell phone. I pressed the cell phone button. The screen lit up. YOU HAVE FOUR MISSED CALLS.

I manipulated the keys, MISSED CALLS, CAREL (3). UNKNOWN (1)

YOU HAVE I NEW VOICE MESSAGE. PLEASE DIAL 121.

I dialled.

‘Emma, this is Carel. Just wanted to know how it’s going. Call me when you can.’

I saved the message, turned the cell phone off and put it back in the handbag.

Should I phone Carel? Tell him what had happened? I knew what his reaction would be. ‘Weren’t you supposed to protect her?’

No. Let Jeanette do it.

I picked up the sheet of paper with notes on it. There were fewer than I expected. Just single notations in Emma’s small precise handwriting.

August 1997: Jacobus left Heuningklip.

22 August 1997: Jacobus left Melanie.

27 August 1997: Pa and Ma in accident.

Began work at Mogale in 2000?

Five days after Cobie de Villiers disappeared, Jacobus le Roux’s parents died in a car accident.

Five days.

Coincidence? Perhaps. But Emma hadn’t thought so. She had underlined this entry twice. My belief in coincidence had been severely dented in the last two days.

If it hadn’t been coincidence, what had Cobie’s disappearance to do with the accident?

Where was he going when he left Heuningklip? What had Melanie Posthumus said? Before we got married there was something he had to do. He said he would be away for two weeks and then he would bring me a ring. Something like that. When she asked him what he was going to do, he wouldn’t say. Except that it was the right thing to do and one day he would tell her.

The right thing.

What did it all mean? What had Emma thought?

Not enough information. Not enough to jump to wild conclusions and improbable theories.

I had an idea. I found the pen in Emma’s handbag, picked up the sheet of paper and drew up a table of all the dates and incidents I could remember.

1986: Jacobus disappears in Kruger Park. Age +/- 19?

1994: Cobie starts work at Heuningklip. 27?

22/8/1997: Cobie disappears. 29?

27/8/1997: Parents die.

2000: Cobie arrives at Mogale. 32?

21/12/2006: Cobie disappears after sangoma murder. 38?

22/12/2006: Emma phones, gets phone call.

24/12/2006: Attack on Emma in Cape Town.

26/12/2006: To Lowveld.

29/12/2006: Emma shot.

Eight years between the disappearance of Jacobus le Roux and Cobie de Villiers’ appointment at Heuningklip. Let us assume it is the same man. Even though Phatudi, Wolhuter, Moller and Melanie all say the photo of Jacobus does not look like Cobie. Could someone change so much in eight years? I looked at the photo again. Jacobus was more of a boy than a man. Does someone really change that much between the ages of nineteen and twenty-seven? Hard to believe. Yet Emma had seen similarities.

Eight years after he went missing after a shoot-out with poachers in Kruger Park, he reappears. And only two hundred kilometres from where he disappeared. He told Melanie he had grown up in Swaziland. Kruger was not far from Swaziland. Less than a hundred kilometres away. Did that mean anything?

Eight years.

Why eight years? Why 1994? The Year of the New South Africa. He works for Moller for three years and then he is gone again, invisible, for another three years, nearly, appearing again at Mogale. Why? Why not in Namibia or Durban or Zanzibar? If Jacobus and Cobie were the same person and he had reason to disappear, why did he keep coming back to this area? What kept him here?

Six years at the rehabilitation centre and then the incident with the vultures. Was there significance in these time gaps? Three years at Heuningklip, three years missing, six years at Mogale. Coincidence?

Poachers. Twice he disappears because poachers are shot at. In 1986 he shoots at ivory poachers, in 2006 he is suspected of shooting vulture poachers. Twenty years between the two incidents, but the similarities remain.

What the fuck did it all mean?

I had no idea.

I removed the book from Emma’s bag and took it to read to her.

The bandages on her head and shoulder were fresh and less bulky than the previous ones. Yet she seemed just as vulnerable.

‘Hello, Emma.’

‘I found your handbag. Everything is still in there. Your phone and purse too. I looked at your notes. I think I understand better now. But there’s nothing … Nothing makes sense. What bothers me most, Emma, is why he looks so different. Why would his face change so much between eighty-six and ninety-four? It’s the one thing that still makes me doubt that he’s the same man. I know you thought differently. You believed. Maybe it was that phone call you received. And then you realised that he left Heuningklip just before your parents died. Maybe there was something else, something you didn’t tell me.’

She just lay there, the woman whose naked body I had seen two days before in the reflection from the glass of a picture, so perfect, so alive.

I looked down at the book in my hands. It had a green cover, a close-up photograph of a leaf. There was a bookmark in it. I opened it at that page.

‘I thought I might read to you, Emma.’

And so I began. It was a description of a unicorn hunt. And the hunter becomes the hunted.