Dictator

34

Wendell Klerk’s gamekeeper Donald McGuinness was a wiry Scotsman who combined an impeccably polite manner with a sharp, sceptical look in his eye that suggested he was a very easy man to get along with, but a very hard one to impress.

‘If ye’ll just follow me, please,’ he said in a soft Highland burr, leading Carver, Klerk and Zalika down a set of stairs that led to a subterranean hallway off which there were two doors. One of them led to the wine-cellar of which Klerk was so proud. McGuinness ignored it. He went directly to the second door, to one side of which was a keypad. McGuinness punched in a number.

Klerk looked at Carver. ‘I think you’re going to like this,’ he said.

Carver heard the sound of a lock being released. The door swung open. It was solid steel and hefty enough to resist anything short of an artillery shell. McGuinness stood aside to let them through, and Carver followed Klerk and Zalika into a room about forty feet long and fifteen wide. Three of the walls were wood-panelled and decorated with photographs, prints and oil paintings that depicted shooting scenes, dogs and artful arrangements of dead game. The fourth was taken up with a gigantic cabinet. Its lower portion consisted of a series of twin-door wooden cupboards, rising some three feet from the floor. Above them, the rest of the cabinet was set back behind a narrow shelf, covered in green baize. This upper section rose to the ceiling and was fitted with toughened, shatterproof glass. Behind it, a long line of guns marched the full length of the room.

The majority of them were shotguns, presented in matched pairs. Beyond them came a much smaller selection of rifles for use in target-shooting or stalking deer. There must have been at least a hundred weapons, enough firepower to equip a company of soldiers, and their quality was as striking as the quantity.

Klerk was smiling more broadly than at any time in the entire weekend, clearly delighted by Carver’s evident appreciation of his collection. ‘Pretty impressive, hey?’ he said. ‘And look here…’ Klerk opened two of the low cupboard doors to reveal a metal cabinet that looked like a small safe. Above its door, a digital readout showed the figure 68.5. ‘That, my friend, is a climate-controlled ammunition store. The temperature is constant. The air is dessicated to prevent any moisture corrupting the cartridges and their contents. When you fire my ammunition, Sam, you get the best bang my bucks can buy!’

Carver got the feeling that this was not the first time Klerk had used the line, but he was impressed nonetheless.

‘So,’ Klerk continued, ‘let us choose our weapons. I’ll have my usual gun, please, Donald.’

McGuinness unlocked one of the panes of glass and slid it open. He took out a supremely beautiful double-barrelled twelve-bore shotgun engraved with an image of a pair of pheasants taking to the air. Around the birds, the gun’s action was decorated with an intricate swirling pattern of stylized leaves and flowers. In the midst of them a scroll bore the words ‘J. Purdey amp; Sons’. The Mayfair-based gunsmiths, founded in 1814, were to shotguns what Rolls-Royce were to cars: the ultimate example of traditional British craftsmanship and luxury. Their products were priced accordingly: a gun like Klerk’s, Carver reckoned, must have cost seventy thousand pounds at the absolute minimum. It was as much a work of art as a firearm.

Klerk turned to Carver. ‘What will you have, Sam?’

‘I’ll wait my turn,’ he said. He looked at Zalika. ‘Ladies first.’

Carver was acting the gentleman, but his intention was far less chivalrous. He wanted to see what kind of weapon Zalika chose. It would be the first clue as to the kind of opponent she was likely to be.

If Zalika was aware of the game Carver was playing, she gave no sign of it. She strolled along the full length of the cabinet, looking at the guns as casually as a woman eyeing up fruit on a market stall. Carver expected her to stop by the lighter, small-bored ladies’ guns, whose barrels were typically twenty-eight inches long. She ignored them. Instead, she pointed at a twelve-bore Perazzi MX2000S with thirty-inch barrels. ‘That one, please, Donald,’ she said.

Carver wondered for a moment whether she was putting on an act. The Perazzi was a serious competition gun, used by Olympic-level shots. It was entirely bare of fancy decoration. This was a gun that had no need to look pretty. Its only purpose was to shoot straight. It was his kind of weapon.

With gun-barrels as with skis, beginners go short for easier control, while experts go long for greater performance. Zalika frowned at the gun McGuinness was holding out to her. ‘Pity it’s only got thirty-inch barrels,’ she said.

‘Not to worry, Miss,’ McGuinness replied, placing the gun carefully on the green baize shelf. ‘I should have some thirty-twos available as well. I’ll get them fitted right away.’

‘Thank you, Donald,’ said Zalika with a gracious smile. ‘Would you mind putting full and three-quarter chokes in them, please?’

‘Certainly, Miss.’

Carver’s face remained impassive, but his mind was racing. The choke was a fitting placed into the end of the gun-barrel that restricted the blast of pellets from the cartridge, compressing them into a much tighter spread. This gave the gun much more hitting power, particularly at a distance. But it also placed a huge premium on the shooter’s accuracy because there was far less margin for error than a wider spread of pellets allowed. Zalika Stratten was either a seriously good shot, Carver decided, or she was playing her own personal game of bluff, raising the stakes without the hand to back it up. One way or the other, she was certainly ready to compete with him before a single shot had been fired.

So far he’d thought of her challenge to him as little more than a game, just another flirtation on the way to an inevitable conclusion. But it struck him now that he really wanted to beat her very much indeed. It wasn’t just because she’d made that a condition of having her. It was the fact that she’d been playing him, one way or the other, ever since he’d stepped inside the house, and now he’d had enough. Carver was not a man who sought either conflict or competition. But if anyone insisted on taking him on, then they were going to pay for it. It was time he taught Miss Zalika Stratten a lesson she wouldn’t forget.

‘And you, sir?’ McGuinness said, interrupting Carver’s train of thought.

‘I’ll take a Perazzi too,’ Carver said.

‘Longer barrels?’ McGuinness asked.

‘Sure.’

‘How about choke?’

Zalika had gone to one extreme by being so specific, Carver decided to go to the other. ‘I’ll just take it as it comes, thanks,’ he said.

He was pleased to see Zalika’s brow crinkle into a frown. She would, he hoped, be wondering why he could afford to be casual about his gun. Was he really that good, that confident of victory?

‘Interesting choice you made,’ Carver said.

‘I’ve always liked the trigger-pull on the Perazzi,’ she said. ‘It’s got a nice, even weight. Very crisp, don’t you think?’

Klerk was watching the two of them with detached amusement. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘let’s get out of here. We’ve chosen our weapons. Time we went and used them.’