by Holly Watt
As Casey had been listening in to Drummond’s meeting at the Post, she had simultaneously tracked the plane. The Adsero jet had headed south from Germany, its tail number just clipping Niger as it cruised over the Sahara.
A few hours later, the jet had touched down at Cape Town International, but the plane only sat on the airfield for a few minutes before taking off again, this time arcing north-west towards Zimbabwe.
‘That’s madness,’ said Miranda, when she had finished.
‘I know,’ said Casey. ‘But it might just work.’
‘Well, hello,’ Zac greeted her at the Camps Bay hotel a couple of hours later.
‘Hands off.’
‘But … ’
After speaking to Dash and Miranda, and picking up a new phone, Casey had spent the rest of the morning at the most expensive hairdresser in Cape Town.
Delphine had advised her, laughing.
‘I’ll come with you, Casey. I need a cut anyway. And Cristiano is fabulous.’
‘Could you blowdry it smooth?’ Casey had asked as one of Cristiano’s assistants wrapped her in a long black robe.
‘I’ll make you look glorious,’ the hairdresser promised, wincing at her split ends. ‘Just ravishing, hey, my darling?’
And Casey had buried her head in magazines, refusing to look up at Delphine’s grin.
‘Thank you,’ Casey said later, as she paid, ‘for telling Zac to sail down the coast.’
‘It was nothing.’ Delphine peered in the mirror. ‘I enjoyed it. Sitting in a car at dawn, gaming out all the possibilities. I don’t get to do that any more. I’m a no one now. I’m a mother.’
The insecurity startled Casey. ‘You’re brilliant, Delphine. Miranda always says so.’
Delphine waved her words away. ‘Anyway, apart from you almost dying, it was fun.’
‘Apart from that one little thing.’ Casey rolled her eyes, and they both began to laugh.
‘You look different.’ Zac grinned now as Casey stood in the middle of the hotel room, feeling ridiculous.
‘You would go for blondes,’ Casey aimed for crushing. ‘It’s so clichéd.’
‘I,’ Zac was unabashed, ‘go for anything.’
Hessa had organised blue contact lenses to be delivered to the hotel room. Opening the little packet shortly before she left for the airport, Casey put the contacts in and stared at herself in the mirror. For a moment, she had the oddest feeling that Madison was staring back.
But Madison from Tinder had bouncy blonde curls, bright pink lipstick and sparkly blue eyeshadow. Whereas Casey had made herself up with utter discretion, in shades of tan and fawn and sand. After the visit to the hairdresser, she had gone shopping, picking out ecru linen and taupe silk, neat skirt suits and elegant shift dresses.
And when he arrived at Kizzie’s house, cross off the overnight flight to Harare, Drummond stared at her in bewilderment.
‘But you look just like her.’
‘She looks just like who?’ asked Kizzie, baffled.
‘Serena,’ muttered Drummond. ‘She looks exactly like Serena Brackenbury, my special adviser.’
60
It hadn’t taken long for Casey to arrange a meeting with the Zimbabwean health minister. They would be delighted. First thing the next morning, Drummond grumbled his way to an ugly government block in downtown Harare, and smiled through gritted teeth as the minister earnestly discussed vaccinations and the effects of coronavirus and the constant, unending battle against HIV.
At the end of the meeting, Drummond posed momentarily for a grip and grin, and then he and Casey headed out into the dusty heat of central Harare.
‘Now what?’ Drummond asked bleakly, as they waited for one of Kizzie’s friends to pick them up. ‘You know it’s a sackable offence having off-the-books meetings with foreign government ministers, don’t you?’
‘No one will ever notice back in the UK,’ Casey soothed. ‘You lot spend half your time trying to get these meetings into the paper. Now send that email. Say you’ve flown down here for a meeting with that minister and you’re stuck here for the night and bored senseless.’
Grousing, Drummond tapped his phone. ‘Right,’ he grumbled. ‘Let’s get back to that God-awful house.’
‘Kewlake is lovely.’
‘It really isn’t.’
Back at the rambling house, Drummond stamped off to his bedroom.
Casey wandered out to the verandah where Kizzie was sitting on one of the daybeds, enjoying the peace of the garden on her few hours off. It was still early, steam rising off the termite heap in the cool of the morning. Kizzie poured her a coffee, and for a while they chatted about nothing important. It might have been any beautiful day.
But finally, Kizzie stood. ‘I must get to the hospital.’
‘By the way, have you heard anything about Henke?’ Casey asked quietly.
‘Nothing.’ Kizzie looked grim. ‘Not one word.’
‘They didn’t even report him dead?’
‘No. He just completely disappeared—’
Kizzie was interrupted by a bellow from inside the house: ‘For God’s sake, even this spider’s legs have legs!’
Kizzie smiled, and headed off to her car.
An hour later, Drummond came bounding into the sitting room, where Casey was sitting on one of the velvet sofas.
‘He’s answered,’ he chortled. ‘He’s asking if we want to come over.’
As they waited in the hotel reception, Casey forced herself to concentrate on the comings and the goings of the bellboy.
The bellboy wore a threadbare green uniform and roamed around the echoey hotel lobby, too energetic, too animated, too alive to stand and wait politely at the door. He looked about seventeen: loose-limbed, tall, good-looking.
As Casey watched, the boy washed up beside the welcome desk, half-monitoring the revolving door for the arrival of a guest, half-gossiping with the receptionist. There were a couple of laughed whispers, a sly grin, and then the receptionist rolled her eyes and feigned a slap. A burst of giggles, and a shifty glance round from both, in case the manager had noticed. Probably the same joke, every day, edging incrementally towards a date.
The bellboy was called Justice, Casey read on his nametag, the receptionist Shine.
Casey forced herself to concentrate on the bellboy as he veered around the hotel lobby again, bored as a bluebottle. She concentrated on his gossiping, his ramblings, his occasional dance steps practised half-heartedly.
She concentrated because she knew if she thought about what lay ahead, she might scream, might cry, might run out of the hotel and never stop running.
‘Are you sure it’s safe?’ Back in the hotel in Cape Town, Zac had stood, both hands on the door jamb, as she peered into the bathroom mirror, trying on her unfamiliar bright blue eyes.
‘No.’ Flippant. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘But Garrick might have—’
‘I know.’
‘He certainly won’t expect an attack from this angle, that’s for sure,’ Zac nodded approval at her eyes. ‘Because it’s utter madness.’
But now all the false confidence had ebbed away. Now Casey sat staring across the hotel lobby, her nails gouging white half-moons in her forearm.
It feels as if I have lost my nerve.
It can happen.
What if he guessed? What if he knew?
And what if I can’t?
Drummond was tapping his feet and picking at his cuticles. He was nervous too, Casey thought, quite reasonably. A civilian, after all. And then she realised he was looking at her, concerned.
‘Are you OK, Casey? I mean … Serena.’
Men running up the stairs, their footsteps loud on the treads.
The bellboy was flirting with the receptionist again, Mukadzi akanaka.
Clothes ripping, a gash of agony and a man looking down as she drowned.
‘I’m great!’ Casey knew her smile was too big. ‘Absolutely fine!’
Drummond gave h
er an uneasy look, and Casey turned back to the fidgetings of the bellboy.
You’ll worry him, she thought. Pull it together, or you’ll rattle Drummond too.
But I can’t.
I can’t.
You must.
She dug her nails into her palms and turned back to Drummond, the broadest smile plastered to her face.
‘I’m sure they won’t be long.’
The bellboy ricocheted over to the revolving doors again, with a shout across to the receptionist, Tarisa mota iyi. And Casey stood, smoothed down her clothes and waited for Drummond to stand.
‘They’re here.’
Casey had booked a room at the hotel – five star, approximately – so that they could be picked up at a safe distance from Kizzie’s house. As the big black Overfinch Range Rover pulled up outside the hotel, Casey felt the shudder ripple down her spine again. The interior of this car was black leather, the walnut dashboard inlaid with mother of pearl. The bellboy slammed the car door and tapped the roof with one last smile before turning back to the receptionist.
The engine growled, and Casey felt as if she had been swallowed by some ravening beast.
‘Bailey might have a word with the Zim health minister,’ she had said airily to Drummond. That was before, when they were safely back at Kizzie’s. ‘That’s if he checks anything at all. You are a government minister, after all.’
But this car was an ostentatious display of Bailey’s wealth and power. Not a man who left things to chance. Again, Casey thought of the aggression of the men in Llandudno. The ruthless determination of the man on Hampstead Heath.
And the shape on the floor.
She felt her nerves boil up again, her legs trembling against the smooth seats.
The car accelerated away.
61
The Overfinch cruised through Harare’s streets, purring smoothly. The chauffeur glanced back. ‘Can I get you anything? Chocolate? Peanuts?’
‘We’re fine.’ Drummond barely glanced at the man, pointing out of the window at an ox cart. ‘Look at that, Serena.’
Casey smiled, and looked towards a woman carrying a sack of maize on her head, and slowly she forced the nerves away.
Drummond could be engaging company, Casey decided, as the Overfinch reached the Zimbabwean countryside. In the absence of anyone more important, the practised charisma that had lifted him up through the political ranks was being deployed entirely on her. He could be funny, perceptive, sharp. She didn’t like him, all the same.
As they drove, Casey thought of Colette Warwick marching around the department of health back in London, quite unaware that the last few strands holding up her private sword of Damocles were being carefully unpicked by Hessa.
It was an email that had caught the Health Secretary out. After realising what her husband had done, Warwick had sent him a furious message. Too enraged to think straight, Casey thought. Hammering out an email in a fury, the outrage clear in every line. But there was despair in Warwick’s words, too: she knew what it meant.
She must have regretted those angry sentences the moment she had sent them.
She hadn’t reported her husband, though. Because to report him would have been to jail him.
And, somehow, Drummond had got hold of a copy of that email.
‘You could have faked that email.’ Back in the conference room, Miranda had tried to stare Drummond down.
‘Yes. I didn’t though.’
‘Prove it.’
‘You’d have to go to Warwick before publishing anything,’ said Drummond. ‘And she won’t be able to deny it.’
Ross had leaned forward. ‘If you’re lying to us, Drummond … If these emails turn out to be fake, I’m telling the whole fucking world that you gave them to us, and running every minute of the Poland tape to boot. You’ll be finished either way.’
And Drummond had stared Ross straight in the eye. ‘Deal.’
Casey wondered what she would have done in Warwick’s position, faced with the knowledge of her husband’s deceit. Probably the same thing, although she could never imagine Ed …
No. Don’t think of him now.
Casey realised they were passing the ruins of the old country club. And then the driver was braking, turning sharply towards the red double gates with the big starburst design.
‘Look,’ Casey said brightly to Drummond. ‘This must be it!’
Bailey was waiting for them in front of the main house. As she saw the tall shape, Casey felt the tremor in her legs start again.
But she straightened her back, dropped her shoulders.
You’ve done this a thousand times before.
And you can do it again.
You must. You must.
It is time.
The main house at Njana perched on the top of the hill, the verandah looking out over a vast grassy basin. From here, Bailey and his guests could see for miles. Herds of antelope meandered across the landscape, wandering through thousands of acres of scrub. Fat zebras nibbled at the grass, moving forward in an idle formation. To the north, a couple of giraffes, beautiful in their freakish clumsiness, ambled along, tearing at branches as they passed.
One man, thought Casey. One man owns all this.
‘Quite incredible,’ she murmured aloud. ‘They don’t look real.’
It was early evening. Bailey had greeted Drummond chummily as they arrived, and Casey had managed to breathe again.
‘Excellent to see you, Ambrose. We rarely get the likes of you visiting this crazy old country. It’s a real treat.’
‘What a beautiful place you have here, Elias. Quite remarkable.’
‘I do hope you’ll stay,’ Bailey had gestured, ‘for a couple of nights at least.’
‘Very kind, old boy. And this,’ Drummond drew Casey forward, ‘is Serena, my special adviser. Poor girl, she gets stuck travelling with me a lot. Didn’t think it was fair to abandon her in Harare.’
‘Of course not. There’s plenty of room, as you can see.’
The small talk was oddly comforting, and Casey’s smile was almost real.
‘It’s always a joy.’ Casey found Serena Brackenbury’s cut-glass vowels easy to imitate. ‘All the travelling. It’s fascinating to see so much of the world.’
‘Well, we’re delighted to have you to stay, Serena.’
They were in the main house. Adjacent bedrooms with an interconnecting door, Casey noted. Most discreet. She checked that the door was locked.
The main house was large, breezy, all on one floor. The rooms opened up on to a verandah that ran right the way round the building. She had hoped they might be in one of the guest houses out in the grounds, easier to wander, but this would do.
After Casey and Drummond had settled in, the three gathered on the gallery. Bailey poured gin and tonics – Drummond making predictable jokes about quinine and malaria – and they sat on rattan and teak chairs, looking out over the wilderness.
‘What a wonderful vista,’ said Casey, sincere as Serena.
‘It’s stunning,’ said Drummond.
To the south-west of the house, Casey could see the reservoir, with the rhino enclosure just beside it. Just past the reservoir was the airstrip, Bailey’s private plane sitting on the gravel.
Beyond that, Casey knew the Njana fence threaded its way through the savannah, a strip of emptiness shaved on either side. A narrow track ran along that fence, and Casey remembered sprinting for her life, desperate, panicking, terrified. And somewhere out there, somewhere in this beautiful panorama, Henke …
Casey shut the thought away, and turned towards Bailey with a smile.
‘Do you spend much time in Zimbabwe, Mr Bailey?’
‘Elias, please. And no, not enough,’ he smiled at her.
‘I’m sure a lifetime could never feel like enough.’
One of the housemaids emerged from the house, walking along the verandah towards the small group, and Casey felt her heart rate surge. Every time someone appeared, there was that m
oment of panic. Had this person seen her before, in that terrified dash from the laboratory? And would they know her again?
Bailey’s men must be trawling Cape Town for her.
Logically, rationally, she knew she couldn’t be identified. Her long brown hair was clipped into a smooth blonde bob. In her black silk shirt and dark green capri pants, she was unrecognisable from the maddened figure racing from the shipping containers with Zac. But you never know, a small voice insisted.
You never know.
The housemaid was checking their drinks, handing around pistachios.
‘They’ll be feeding the rhino any minute.’ Bailey looked at his watch. ‘Shall we go and watch?’
‘Sounds delightful.’ Drummond drained his gin and tonic.
Drummond was drinking fast, thought Casey. Nerves, probably. But then she didn’t know what was normal for him.
She turned to Bailey with a big smile. ‘Let’s go!’
62
The herd of rhinos roared and stamped, sending up huge clouds of dust. They shouldered each other, barging casually with a strength that would crush a man.
‘Blimey.’ Drummond clutched the edge of the tree house, peering down over the balcony. ‘Quite lively, what?’
One of the guards was pouring food out of the window of a slow-moving pickup. The rhinos followed the vehicle, rumbling and bellowing, each trying to jostle their way closer to the sack of food. When one of the vast animals got too close to the car, the pickup driver accelerated, keeping just ahead of the tossing horns.
‘I’m not sure it would pass British health and safety standards,’ Bailey grinned. ‘But we’ve never lost anyone yet.’
As they watched, the matriarch jerked her head sideways, thundering at one of the younger males who had come impertinently close to her dinner. The younger animal hopped out of the way and the huge female – nearly a tonne of muscle and bone – lowered her head again, her calf following close behind.
With their awkward outlines, the animals looked as if they had been drawn by a child, but they moved with an extraordinary speed and agility.