Shelter Rock

by MP Miles

  “I’m sorry, sir. I’d forgotten.”

  The guard stood at attention, flexing his height by rocking forward onto his toes in an effort not to be looked down on.

  “Forgotten?” he said. “You’ve forgotten The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act?”

  Angel knew it only too well. Municipal areas, including beaches, and all public transport, and public services like hospitals and schools, were all reserved for a particular race, with a pecking order of efficiency of service and quality of amenities dependent on skin colour.

  “White, Coloured, Indian, Black, we all have our own places,” the man explained helpfully. “This isn’t Johannesburg Zoo.”

  The zoo and its lake had been established by a special deed that didn’t permit racial segregation. It was one of the very few public spaces in South Africa open to all races.

  Angel stared at him, annoyed at the man’s stupidity, trying to control his anger which was expanding like a heated gas.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Angel repeated. “I thought the law only applied to public places, not private facilities that one had been invited to.”

  The man leant forward, bent stiffly at the waist like an RSM on a parade ground, his head tilted up at a fat neck.

  “Are you one of those clever ones we hear about? Are you Coloured? Educated?”

  He spat it out like an offence had already been committed.

  Roux noticed Angel and came from the bar.

  “It’s okay,” he said to the guard.

  The guard glared at Angel.

  “I’m sorry, Angel,” Roux said. “We’ll talk over here.”

  Roux led Angel into a beautiful garden. Orange, yellow and deep red clivia took shade under the trees among white grandiflora with yellow and mauve markings planted en masse. Elegantly tall arum lilies with long broad dark green leaves towered over them, while Pincushion protea gave a proudly South African touch.

  “What shall I do? Pretend to be picking weeds?” asked Angel.

  “Very funny.”

  Angel looked around. An old white lady loudly admonished a black waitress for forgetting something.

  “Old Mrs Jeppe,” said Roux. “Some relation of the founder.”

  “Okay,” said Angel, keen to leave, “brief me.”

  “What do you know about Safoil?”

  Angel looked at him.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “The Saudi oil crisis in 1973 started it all. Egypt and Syria attacked Israel.”

  Angel nodded.

  “Yom Kippur.”

  “Right. The US then supplied arms to Israel, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries countered initially with a seventy per cent price increase and then an oil embargo. In the end, the price of oil went up four times. We have no oil reserves at all and South Africa finally realised its vulnerability due to its reliance on imported oil. The Minister of Defence saw it as a strategic catastrophe. No oil means no jet fuel for fighters and no diesel for tanks.”

  “And the African hordes with communist help rolling over the veld,” said Angel.

  Roux nodded.

  “Did our nuclear weapons programme really kick off at that time?”

  Angel, like everybody, had heard rumours. He’d heard that they were now close to building the first deliverable bomb, that one had already been tested in the South Atlantic, that they were working on weapons safety and delivery systems, possibly missiles.

  Roux looked away, considering a lifetime of secrets. He thought about his own mantra, ‘Intelligence is the truth well and timely told’. He didn’t consider now to be the intelligent time to tell a truthful answer to that question.

  “I know nothing about that.”

  He continued slowly, tapping nervously at the bridge of his glasses.

  “Encouraged by the government in the 1920s and ’30s, a pioneer in the Transvaal Coal Owners Association did a doctorate at Imperial College London about the carbonisation of South African coal. It’s possible to turn coal to liquid, producing high-grade fuel, through gasification using the Fischer-Tropsch process. Although developed in 1923, and used in World War Two by Nazi Germany, the patent remained the property of a British company. We bought the rights to the process after the war, and a new South African company, Safoil, formed in 1950 to make synthetic fuel. South Africa has no oil but it does have huge deposits of coal and water, the two raw materials required. Safoil has invested 2.3 billion rand, equivalent to 3.4 billion US dollars, in production facilities called Safoil Two and Safoil Three, and a township, a new town called Treilea. Safoil estimated that it needed 37.3 million tons of coal a year, and plenty of water, so the new production site needed to be close to both resources.”

  Roux paused and picked at a flower. Little vygies covered the dry areas and rock gardens with large clumps of upright flame-coloured red-hot pokers beside the pond they stood next to. He pushed his glasses up his nose and inspected the flower, turning it around in his fingers and tilting his head to examine it.

  “In comes ‘Blackie’ Swart, an Afrikaner farmer born in 1916 who owned Wensvolle Farm, 150 kilometres east of Joburg. The farmhouse, Roodhuis, stood in the middle of a square block roughly eight kilometres by eight kilometres, or 6,400 hectares. I’ve seen the paperwork – 7,472 morgen, the old South African measurement of land area. Whatever that is. Probably something to do with how much land a man could plough in a day with a horse… or something. Water came from the Groot Draai Dam. The farm conveniently sat on top of the most extensive coal deposits in South Africa. Luckily for Blackie, he and PW Botha, at that time the Minister of Defence in BJ Vorster’s government, had been friends for a long time. Both their fathers fought together against the British in the Second Boer War. Both of their mothers had been interned in British concentration camps. Before World War Two both joined the Ossewabrandwag, a very right-wing Afrikaner nationalist group sympathetic to the German Nazi party. When Allied victory in Europe looked certain, Botha gave it up and found God and politics, and Blackie went to farm Wensvolle. He had a daughter, Elanza, who became his sole relative when he was widowed.”

  The flower Roux had picked lay crushed in his palm, his fingers stained. Roux rubbed his hand down his trouser leg and kicked a small stone off the grass. Angel watched him with curiosity. They were colleagues at work, but he’d never been to his boss’s home. Angel wondered about Roux’s own often-talked-of garden, his wife, the children photographed jumping ponies, winning tennis trophies, and proudly displayed on Roux’s desk. Angel imagined, sadly, that he’d never meet them, never admire the potted agapanthus collection he’d overheard so much about.

  “Safoil Treilea Townships Limited bought Wensvolle from Blackie in 1974 for ten thousand US dollars a hectare: sixty-four million dollars,” Roux continued. “A lot of money at that time certainly, but the land cost less than two per cent of Safoil’s total investment in Treilea town and Safoil Two & Three. Blackie died in Joburg in 1976 on the day the first resident of Treilea moved into his old farmhouse Roodhuis.”

  “Making Elanza a very rich little girl,” said Angel.

  “Exactly. I’m told her estate is now worth a hundred and thirty million dollars. Blackie’s lawyer Koos Snyman became her guardian and trustee to her estate. He didn’t do a very good job. Elanza drank, drugged and whored her way through the end of the ’70s. She’s recently been diagnosed with some new terminal disease and is now all but blind. They’re calling it AIDS. She’s been given a maximum of eight years to live.”

  Roux took a breath.

  “So, she then gets this lawyer Snyman to make a will.”

  “And leaves it to who?” asked Angel.

  “An English boy she met in a hotel in Joburg. She hardly knew him.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? She had to leave it to someone. She has no family.”

  “A
nd where is this soutie?”

  “The kid? We don’t know. He’s gone walkabout.”

  Angel finished it for him.

  “In Africa.”

  *

  “And how did we become involved exactly?” asked Angel after a pause while he thought of Africa, the dangers a lone white boy might encounter.

  “The lawyer Koos Snyman uses the services of a company called Research Associates. We think it’s a front company for deniable Military Intelligence operations. To be more convincing the company advertises for business as private investigators, tracing debtors, finding missing persons, that sort of thing. The company gets to keep the proceeds from any genuine work they pick up even though it’s staffed by Military Intelligence personnel and funded by the Directorate of Military Intelligence. I’ve known the guy who runs it for a few years. He worked for DMI, probably still does. He was their liaison at BOSS when I worked there. His name is Cornelius Nels. He came to me for help.”

  Angel looked away, stunned. There could be two men with that name.

  “Do you know him?” asked Roux.

  “No. You keep me locked up at work. I don’t get out much. Nick, can I ask a question?”

  Roux nodded and looked at him keenly.

  “What is the security issue here?” Angel asked.

  Angel Rots had always been his protégé. Roux had maintained a firm conviction that in the future Angel would make an important contribution to the country. Roux thought it a valid question but remained quiet.

  “So what if she left her money to the kid? That was her choice, right?”

  “The issue is that the money had never been intended for an English boy. It was South African money.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Look, Angel, you know how the game is played. The National Intelligence Service, our employer, needs to make sure that the Prime Minister uses us as his first choice for security information and that he comes to The Professor and me when things get tough. In this way NIS can control what information he is given, factual information based on quality research which will be of long-term benefit to the nation and not reactionary inflammatory self-serving claptrap from the hawks at Military Intelligence or the thugs from the Security Branch of the South African Police.”

  “We are trying to gain favour with the Prime Minister?”

  “Yes, if you like to put it that way. We’re proposing to look after the best interests of the dying daughter of his old friend, and recover a ton of taxpayers’ money, to gain favour with Mr Botha. It’s one small thing among many that we’re doing to convince him that we are the pre-eminent supplier of security information.”

  “Are we helping this Nels character as well?”

  “No, we’re keeping Cornelius Nels completely out of the loop. He’s working for the lawyer and he came to me for help to find the boy, but I have no problem whatsoever in taking information from Nels and paying him nothing in return.”

  Angel put his hands in his pockets.

  “Is this punishment for being a bad boy?”

  “What?” said Roux.

  “The policemen. Am I being sent out of the way before you sack me or something?”

  Roux sighed.

  “No, Angel.”

  “I couldn’t help myself, Nick. They had no need to beat that guy in the street. It was so unnecessary. Something should be done about these people.”

  “You are the best I have and I need your help, Angel,” Roux said. “But what you did to those policemen I would term uncontrolled and unprofessional. You know the rules. We see this sort of thing all the time. You should have just walked on by.”

  Angel looked away around the garden. There was a vibrant orange and blue flower like a crane’s head with a crown of feathers. He pointed at it.

  “Strelizia,” said Roux. “This isn’t punishment, Angel. This is an important mission which will be of benefit to the Service. Take it seriously and do it well.”

  Roux looked at him earnestly.

  “And be the grey man, Angel, the one no one notices.”

  Angel held out his arms and looked down his body.

  “The grey man. Me?”

  They both laughed.

  “Okay. What do you want me to do?” Angel asked.

  “Until you hear otherwise, find him, keep us informed and look after him.”

  “Look after him?”

  “Protect him, so that we know where to find him, and if the Prime Minister wants us to we can try and influence the outcome.”

  “Does he need protection?”

  “He’s a naive kid, wandering around on his own. It’s a cruel world.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better if he just had an accident out there in this cruel world and disappeared?”

  “If that happened we might have even less influence over what happens with the money. The lawyer is ambitious. He’d probably just do a bunk. It would be easy for him: the money’s already out of the country. And Nels would sell his grandmother for a slice of the pie.”

  “Who is the boyfriend?” Angel asked.

  “The English kid? I don’t know a lot. You’ll have to dig about for more background than this.”

  Roux gave Angel a file, the slim total of the information that Roux had acquired from the police and his own research, without, as Lombard had insisted, Ralph’s photographs, or reference to them.

  “Elanza might be a good place to start. She’s the key. Get to know her. Make friends with her but do not disclose our involvement to anyone, neither Elanza nor the boy when you find him, or anyone in your department at work. I’ll find somewhere for you to use as a base.”

  “Will she even talk to me?”

  Angel thought about the daughter of an Afrikaner farmer born in 1916, a one-time member of a very right-wing nationalist group and with a name like Blackie Swart.

  “Will the colour thing be a problem?”

  “I doubt it. She’s very nearly blind. She’ll never know.”

  *

  Nels, excited at the thought of going to Elanza’s exclusive house in Hyde Park, Sandton, had found her at home in a white open-plan living room, lots of pale leather and chrome and glass, the floors a washed wood. All the furniture had been pushed against the walls. She coughed and staggered across the room to the kitchen as though nearly blind.

  “Hello, my pretty,” said Nels.

  Elanza couldn’t see him but recognised his voice.

  “Piss off.”

  “I only want to have a little chit-chat.”

  He walked across the room towards her.

  “Your new pretty boy Ralph. Where is he?”

  “Ralph? I’ve no idea. He left heading north, but where, how and why he didn’t say.”

  Nels believed her.

  *

  Angel walked from the train station through the wealthy Hyde Park neighbourhood looking for Elanza’s house. Although only sixty-two kilometres from Pretoria, and the train supposed to take an hour, it had taken ninety minutes and had been a longer walk from Sandton Station than he’d thought. Late and lost, he looked around for numbered sign boards. He saw a few happy smiling faces in costly European cars and many tired sad African faces waiting at bus stops.

  Angel whistled. Number Fifty looked a very impressive property. He’d seen such places in magazines – flat roofs on square pillars, all white, the walls green glass, the pool black not blue. He noticed two vehicles standing in the drive as he walked up to the house.

  *

  “Do you just like pretty boys,” Nels asked her, “or would you like a real man?”

  Elanza had always been proud and was now angry.

  “I can’t see one.”

  Nels laughed and crept over to her quietly. She couldn’t see him but she knew he must be there. It made her nervous. He moved c
loser, staring at her with their faces nearly touching. Elanza looked around wildly.

  Suddenly he clamped his hand around her neck. Her hands tried to pull his away and he bent forward and kissed her hard on the mouth. He stopped and let her go. She swung a fist at him but he’d been expecting it. He swatted her arm aside and pulled her over face down on to the couch and held her with one hand on her back. He pulled off her shorts with his free hand, and behind her got himself ready. She started screaming.

  “You can’t. I’m sick. You know.”

  “What can I say?” he said. “I’m a risk-taker. That’s where the fun is.”

  She struggled until he put one hand between her legs, and then she stopped, lay still and lifted her bottom up.

  Nels, excited now, whispered to her.

  “You little whore.”

  The door opened and Nels looked up to see a large man standing in the entrance to the room. Angel dropped his hand to a fire extinguisher on a wall bracket just beside him. He pulled it off the wall and held it, filling the doorway.

  Eight

  Angel thought Nels hadn’t changed at all: a filled-out version of the Army training instructor he well remembered, a man cruel and sadistic like a cancer, something malign. Angel despised him and the girl, their privilege to live in such a place and yet behave as farm animals.

  Nels stopped and let Elanza go, pulling up his trousers hurriedly. She wasn’t the first woman he’d tried to rape but he didn’t need spectators, or witnesses. He shoulder-barged Angel as he walked out.

  “You have a go,” he said.

  Angel felt relieved he hadn’t been recognised, that he’d been just one of the forgettable legion of recruits, white and black, that Nels had abused in his ignoble career. Angel went to Elanza and sat beside her on the couch. She looked around vacantly.

  “I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

  “I’m not,” she said.

  “Are you okay?”

  She nodded and coughed at the same time.