The Last Hunt

by Deon Meyer

  As he recalled it, it was on a corner, looking out over three streets, the quai d’Orsay north of the front façade, the rue Henri-Moissan to the west side, and the avenue Robert-Schuman to the south at the back. All three aspects were equally unattractive, with concrete blocks, like cheese wedges, protecting the windows on its four storeys.

  In those days there had been no cameras. There would be now. And if the Russians and South African Intelligence Service knew about him and his mission, they would be monitoring those cameras. Especially today, if they suspected he was in Paris.

  He had no choice: he would have to see whether he could work there. Circle the place once, take in as much as he could.

  He took the red baseball cap out of his bag and put it into the bathroom bin. He wouldn’t be able to use it again because he’d been wearing it at La Rochelle station. He put on the red T-shirt he’d bought in Arcachon, folded the white T-shirt and put it in one trouser pocket. He put the blue cap into the other. He locked his room, and went in search of a white Panama hat in the boulevard Saint-Germain.

  He thought of his former Stasi instructor, who had taught him to look at people’s shoes. ‘Clothes are easy to change, especially shirts and hats. But those following you never change their shoes.’ Perhaps he should get a new pair of trainers.

  Daniel Darret walked down towards the Métro station Saint-Michel-Notre-Dame, wearing his white Panama hat. He took the RER-C to the pont de l’Alma, climbed the stairs to ground level. He followed the bank of the Seine east, keeping the trees between him and the embassy building. He turned left three times so he could walk around the embassy’s block. He tried to take it all in: the buildings opposite, the streets, the four entrances to the embassy, the many cameras mounted on the walls. He dared not stop: it was quiet there, only a few people on the streets.

  He knew that he was being rushed, but he had to get a feeling for every possibility. He had the overwhelming impression that the cameras were recording him, that teams were being mobilised to follow him.

  Back at the quai d’Orsay he turned west to the Eiffel Tower. His plan was to disappear into the crowds and the maze of the Parc du Champ-de-Mars. That was what he needed – people around him, lots of people.

  Just before the tower he turned left into the park, pulled the white T-shirt out of his pocket and put it on over the red one, discarded the Panama hat in a trash basket, and began to run, dodging through the trees and shrubs.

  He stopped suddenly and looked back for the first time. Nobody was hurrying after him.

  He put on the blue cap.

  He rode the Métro for two hours, back and forth across the city to be sure he wasn’t followed. He thought about the embassy, and knew instinctively that the building wasn’t an option. The only way to shoot the president on Saturday was when he arrived at the embassy, or when he left. Once he was inside, he was hidden.

  There were two entrances for vehicles, and two for pedestrians. If they knew there was any danger, they would probably drive the president through the large steel gates at the rear, off avenue Robert-Schuman. His problem was the high wall: he would have to be seated at a high angle to get a shot when the president exited the vehicle. And the buildings around the embassy were all apartments or offices with locked doors and bells or access codes. In addition, the embassy CCTV cameras would record him if he tried entering any of those doors.

  That wouldn’t work.

  Friday at Versailles was impossible; Saturday at the embassy was off the cards.

  Sunday was all that was left, but he still had no idea where the president would be.

  Chapter 50

  He bought bread and cheese at the supermarket on the rue de Seine and ate it in his room as he took stock.

  He had to get to Amsterdam in a way that would allow him to transport a sniper rifle back to Paris. He couldn’t use public transport. A rented car would put him on the system, where the Russians could find him. He could use one of the false passports, but he didn’t have a credit card. Cash at Avis or Hertz drew attention, out of the ordinary, and he suspected they would be scanning the systems for such deviations from the norm. He wished he knew more about digital espionage.

  Maybe he was overly cautious, but the death of Olivier Chérain, and how quickly they could track him in La Rochelle, disturbed him. Very much. And, besides, after Lonnie’s death, how much could he trust the passports?

  He went to search for a vehicle on autoscout24.fr. He looked at Volvos first: only harmless people drove Volvos – good, safety-conscious, law-abiding people. But the second-hand Volvos were too expensive for his taste. He eventually settled on a Peugeot 3008, a 2010 model, for €7500. Grey, nondescript. A middle-class car, a family car with a hatchback and a large boot, offered by a private seller in Montreuil. Forty minutes from his hotel via the Métro. It had been advertised for sale on the website for over a month: 152,000 kilometres on the clock. The owner would be eager to get something close to his price, grateful to settle the deal.

  He thought through his story carefully, called the number from the hotel phone. The owner was a man, and Daniel allowed his African accent to be apparent; he used the name on the Namibian passport when he introduced himself. He asked whether the car was still available.

  The man confirmed that it was.

  Daniel asked if he could come and have look at it the next day. The owner said only in the evening: he wasn’t available during the day.

  That meant Daniel would have to spend another night in Paris, and only get away to Amsterdam on Wednesday. ‘Ay,’ he said. ‘That’s a pity. I can only come tonight or tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Can you come now?’ the man asked.

  He dressed neatly, took the cash with him. At half past seven he knocked on the door of the simple house in the rue de Plateau. A black boy opened it, maybe nine years old. He reminded Daniel Darret of Pakamile; he felt the pressure over his heart.

  The child invited him in, took him to a kitchen-living room where the family were seated at dinner. Father, mother and three boys. There was warmth. A friendly atmosphere. The man rose, proudly introduced his family, invited Daniel to sit. He was reluctant, feeling emotional, a longing for just such a life. The woman asked if she could dish up a plate of food for him. He said, no, thank you, he’d already eaten.

  They asked about him, so that he was forced to use his fabricated story. He was from Namibia, a motorcycle mechanic. He and a few friends wanted to tour Europe for a month, and they needed a car. His friends were arriving tomorrow.

  The man said their forefathers were from Dahomey, as it used to be called. ‘Benin,’ said the boy who’d answered the door.

  They wanted to know about Namibia, the way of life, the politics. ‘Tell the children what it’s like in Africa. They’ve never been there.’ Daniel talked; his homesickness for southern Africa was genuine. Then he asked about their family, what they did, how old the children were. He wished the meal would end so that he could buy the car and get away. Get away from this beautiful family. Away from his lies, and what he had to do, away from what he wished he could be.

  Tuesday, 29 August

  He found an email from Vula when he used his cell phone just after seven a.m.

  From: vula@protonmail.com

  Subject: Restaurant recommendation

  To: inhlanhla@protonmail.com

  Dear Dr Inhlanhla

  Should you find yourself in Paris on Saturday night and in need of interesting conversation, I can highly recommend the Brasserie Lipp at 151 boulevard Saint-Germain. It is a popular gathering place of diplomats and their chauffeurs. The latter group are always highly informative with regards to social opportunities in that great city.

  Of course, we hope that you won’t be in need of such social interaction at that time.

  As always, you are most welcome to share your progress with us via email in the days ahead.

  Good luck and very best wishes,

  Vula

  He wrote back:
<
br />   From: inhlanhla@protonmail.com

  Subject: Re: Restaurant recommendation

  To: vula@protonmail.com

  Dear Vula

  Thank you very much for the kind recommendation. I shall certainly entertain the possibility.

  I’ll be en route to Amsterdam today, to pursue business opportunities there tomorrow.

  Yours,

  Dr Inhlanhla

  While he ate breakfast in the hotel, he read the article on the website of the Sud-Ouest newspaper. It was about the death of Olivier Chérain. The authorities had acknowledged that the explosion on L’Ange Fou was the result of gas-stove leak. No foul play was suspected.

  Could it have been an accident? Chérain leaving a gas hob switched on in his drunken state? Had he been unnecessarily paranoid, too optimistic about the Russians’ abilities?

  It was quite possible. But Daniel pictured the small two-plate gas stove beside the sink in the boat’s kitchenette. The metal bars of the hob’s pot-stands were speckled with rust. They looked as if they hadn’t been used in months. Chérain preferred his meals in liquid form.

  Or had he woken with a terrible hangover and decided to make coffee, leaving the gas stove on?

  Daniel finished breakfast, checked out and walked to where he’d left the Peugeot, four blocks from the hotel. It was the only parking spot he could find last night, after half an hour of searching. The car was in good condition, despite a faint smell of cigarette smoke.

  He chose small local roads, north-north-east. He avoided Lille, Brussels and Antwerp, on the way to Amsterdam. His eyes kept a close watch on the rear-view mirror. He wondered if ever a day would come when he wouldn’t need to keep looking over his shoulder.

  Part IV

  Chapter 51

  Tuesday, 29 August, Benny Griessel, Woodstock

  Detective Captain Benny Griessel of the Cape Hawks stood on the stage of the MOTH hall in Woodstock with a bass guitar slung round his neck. ‘“Cry To Me”,’ he said.

  ‘“Cry to Me”?’ Vince Fortuin, lead guitarist, asked in an incredulous tone that said Griessel couldn’t be serious. ‘That sad old Staccatos’ song?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Griessel, patiently. ‘It’s the same song, but we’re going to cover the original. The Solomon Burke recording. Blues. Much better.’

  ‘I don’t know it,’ said Vince, unconvinced.

  ‘Before your time,’ said Griessel. ‘Nineteen sixty-two.’

  ‘I know the Rolling Stones cover,’ said Vince, who, in Griessel’s opinion, was the most talented member of the group. He had a preference for sleeveless T-shirts that showed the anchor tattooed on his sinewy shoulder. His small eyes crinkled to narrow slits with sheer joy when the four-man band really got going. He once impishly said: ‘I suffer from syncopation, uneven bar movements.’ By day he was a plumber.

  They rehearsed in the MOTH hall on Tuesdays and Wednesdays during the week before a performance. They called their band Roes, the name chosen because it took the four middle-aged, middle-class, suburban guys five months to shake off their substantial and communal musician’s rustiness. They had slowly built a repertoire of old hits in the hope of performing gigs at weddings and parties.

  This coming Friday they were due to play at a wedding anniversary at D’Aria in Durbanville. The couple, in their sixties, had requested ‘all the old classics’. They were looking for a few extra songs to supplement their usual playlist. They had considered Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Bad Moon Rising’, but Vince said you didn’t sing a bad-omen song like that on an anniversary. So they got Booker T. and the MGs’ ‘Time Is Tight’ under their belts, and rehearsed ‘Ma Belle Amie’ from the Tee Set. The heavy moustachioed rhythm-guitarist, Jakes Jacobs, who usually did most of the singing, had drawn some lively commentary for the way he pronounced the snippets of French. Jakes owned a welding business in Voortrekker Road, Parow.

  ‘The Stones turned “Cry To Me” into a ballad,’ said Griessel, ‘just like the Staccatos. I don’t like that.’

  ‘What does the nineteen sixty-two version sound like, Grampa Ben?’ asked the drummer, Japie Blom. His lank grey hair hung down his back in a neat thick plait, tied back when they performed. A cigarette dangled permanently from his lips. He worked as a fresh produce agent at the Cape Town market from four in the morning. He claimed he smoked so much to stay awake during the day.

  ‘Sixteen-bar rhythm and blues, with a soul groove,’ said Griessel. ‘The chords are one-four-five.’ He turned the volume on his base guitar up a bit, laid the foundation in the key of E, boom, boom, boom, and tapped out the next two beats with a fingertip on the guitar’s string saddle, tip, tip, and then he repeated it. Boom, boom, boom, tip, tip. And again.

  Japie followed him first on the bass drum, then added a bit of kettledrum. Jakes’s rhythm guitar joined in on the second repeat of the sixteen-beat blues, as he said: ‘Benny, I can’t remember the lyrics.’

  Griessel nodded and stood closer to his own microphone, which was usually just intended for his occasional harmony. He kept time with his right foot, his left shoulder making tiny counterpoint motions. He shut his eyes, waited for the beat, and then he opened up, his voice a bit hoarse, a little reedy:

  When your baby leaves you all alone

  And nobody calls you on the phone

  Don’t you feel like crying?

  Don’t you feel like crying?

  Well, here I am, my honey

  C’mon baby, cry to me

  Vince, who’d been standing listening, gradually stopped frowning, and by the end of the second verse he’d made what Japie later called a ‘shit-hot turnaround’: his fingers danced, notes darting and flying as an intro to the chorus.

  Then something happened. It wasn’t the first time. Rust had their moments. Like the day Alexa Barnard sang an impromptu version of Ma Rainey’s ‘See See Rider’ with them, just for the hell of it. Or the night at a wedding reception on a wine farm near Wellington, when Vince played the guitar intro to the Hollies’ ‘Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress’, completely out of the blue and unrehearsed. Pure mischief, and the wedding guests, all a few sheets to the wind, cheered and yelled. And Japie Blom and Griessel, inspired by their response, joined in perfectly. Jakes’s voice sounded practically identical to Allan Clarke’s, and they were just cooking, and the crowd stood a moment and cheered in amazement at the sudden transformation of the mediocre band, then streamed onto the dance floor, and Rust played that song for nine minutes. Vince did a solo and Benny played a riff and Japie showed off his drumming skills, until the sweat was pouring off them and all four were grinning from ear to ear.

  But here in the MOTH hall with ‘Cry To Me’ it wasn’t about the crowd, it was about the musicians, about Vince’s-shit-hot-turnaround, and can-you-fucking-believe-Benny-can-sing-a-bit, and about nostalgia, when everything just works and they could open the throttle and let the demons loose, and when Vince’s final note died away, Griessel was still standing there in the perfect silence with his eyes shut in bliss, away from all the evil of his job, away from himself.

  Then his cell phone rang.

  He was reluctant to answer, unwilling to relinquish that magic moment: he just wanted to make more music.

  He took the phone out of his pocket.

  It was Mbali Kaleni.

  ‘Colonel?’ he answered, while the rest of the band stood looking at him. They knew what was coming next.

  ‘Benny,’ she said, ‘I need you. Now.’ He heard the seriousness, the urgency in her voice.

  ‘Yes, Colonel.’

  ‘I’m going to text you the address. It’s in Observatory. Please hurry.’

  Vaughn Cupido sat at a table outside on the pavement at De Vrije Burger in Stellenbosch, with the delightful Desiree Coetzee and her son, Donovan. They were eating burgers. Cupido hadn’t ordered chips. He didn’t want Desiree to know he was on a diet, so he told her he just wasn’t that hungry. But his mouth was watering for the crispy fries steaming in front of the ch
ild.

  ‘Mommy, you must buy the Audi RS 3,’ said Donovan. ‘That thing is wild.’

  Desiree needed a new car and she couldn’t make a final decision. ‘I want to drive to work, lovey,’ she said, ‘not go racing.’

  ‘Those Audi dudes were real crooks with their diesel emissions,’ said Cupido. ‘Not ayoba. Not cool at all.’

  The child ignored him. ‘Please, Mommy, just not a Nissan.’

  ‘What’s wrong with a Nissan?’

  ‘Boring. Very boring. I won’t ride with you, Mommy. You’ll be on your own.’

  ‘You’re only worried about your image when I drop you off at school. I’m worried about my bank balance.’

  Cupido wondered how he could participate in the conversation; he was trying hard to create a bond with the boy. He remembered something he had recently read. ‘You know the Tesla?’ he asked Donovan.

  ‘Of course.’ He nodded with the know-it-all attitude of a twelve-year-old. ‘Cool car.’

  ‘Damn straight. There’s more technology in that car than in most aeroplanes of ten years ago. I was reading the other day, you get a phone app with that car, you can sit in a restaurant and tell the car to warm the inside, or cool it down, before you go to it. If you forget where you parked it, the app will tell you where it is. If you’re sitting in the restaurant and you want to visit your pal in Athlone, you type the address in the app, and when you get to the car it will navigate for you. Cool, hey?’

  ‘My teacher says there’s an Afrikaans word for “app”,’ said Donovan.