Blood Safari

by Deon Meyer

  I hadn’t expected Moller here tonight. It was his voice which had convinced me to come out from cover and call to them, because I didn’t identify him with cold-blooded attacks and violence. It wasn’t just an instinct. Stef Moller had an aura of the oppressed and wounded about him.

  But I did know that he was lying. About something.

  What bothered me about the shed?

  Branca hadn’t been involved in the attack on Emma and myself. I believed him.

  Who was it, then?

  And why was Moller lying? Had he sent someone else? Didn’t he trust Branca enough, and were there other Hb troops willing to do dirty work?

  The people who did it are very dangerous. We must take precautions. We must arm ourselves and make sure that we are never alone.

  Had he said that with authority or a bit of fear? Even so, they hadn’t brought weapons with them tonight. Or were they concealed in the pick-up?

  What had I seen in Moller’s shed?

  I sat down with my Twinkies and Energade. I could not relax. I had to stay alert, ready.

  The day Emma and I were there, the shed had been fairly gloomy, the only light coming through the double doors. There were steel shelves on the walls, big drums of diesel or oil, workbenches covered with spare parts, oil rags, tins and cans, nuts and bolts, tools and …

  I picked up a bottle of Energade and took a swig. I shut my eyes and concentrated.

  On the workbench two metres from Moller there had been a carburettor and the cover of an air filter with the broken air filter beside it and … a tray.

  An old reddish-brown tray with a cork base and a sugar bowl and coffee mugs, that’s what caught my attention.

  The coffee mugs.

  Why?

  Because there were three of them. Three coffee mugs, two empty, one half full.

  I stood up in the dark forest, bottle in one hand, Glock in the other.

  There’s only Septimus and myself, no other labour. That’s what Stef Moller had said. But there were three ugly khaki brown mugs with their teaspoons standing upright in them and someone hadn’t finished their coffee. Two people, three mugs, it didn’t add up. Someone else had been in that shed when Emma phoned from the gate. Someone who didn’t want to be seen.

  I collected my things and began jogging to the homestead. I had a good idea who that third person had been.

  I believed he was still at Heuningklip and that was why Stef Moller was lying to me.

  It took nearly three hours to drive the two hundred and fifty kilometres to Heuningklip. There were heavy trucks in the mountain passes and sharp bends invisible in the night up the escarpment.

  I drove through Nelspruit and wondered how Emma was, wanting to make a detour to hold her hand. Talk to her. I wanted to ask her what she had been thinking when she came and stood beside my bed, but I also wanted her to remain silent so I could preserve the possibility of multiple answers.

  I turned right on the R38 just beyond the Suidkaap river and thought about Stef Moller, the shy rich man. Melanie Posthumus had said he’s this billionaire that bought all these farms and made them nice, but nobody knows where his money came from.

  So where had it come from? And what could it buy?

  I thought myself into a corner. I was tired of thinking, I wanted action. I wanted answers to clear the whole thing up, to lift the heavy dark curtains of deceit and lies and let the light shine on everything, so I could know who to grab by the shirt and could smash my fist in his face and say, ‘Now tell me everything.’

  On the R541 beyond Badplaas I had to slow down to spot the Heuningklip gate in the dark, since there was no ostentatious gateway, just the ghostly game reserve behind the high game fence. I drove a kilometre beyond the little signboard and parked the Audi as far off the road as I could in the long grass. I got out, pushed the Glock into my belt and checked my watch. A quarter to three in the morning. Gestapo time.

  I climbed over the gate, which was three metres high. I would have to follow the track. I couldn’t afford to get lost in the thickets. There might be lions too. Melanie Posthumus had said that Cobie told her when Moller had seventy thousand hectares of continuous land, he would introduce lions and wild dogs. That was a couple of years ago.

  The road wound for the three kilometres up to the humble homestead and outbuildings. I walked. I felt exposed, but on either side the grass was too long and impassable. I walked with my hand on the pistol and listened to the noises of the night. I heard a hyena chuckle, a jackal howl. Dogs barked in the distance. I didn’t know whether wild dogs barked, I knew only that they hunted in packs, chasing their prey for miles and biting chunks out of them until they collapsed from loss of blood and exhaustion. Then the whole pack would join in the orgy of feasting.

  I walked faster, keeping to the middle ridge where my feet made less noise.

  A night bird flew up with a clatter right in front of my face, then another one, three, four, five. They gave me a fright and I stood and swore with the pistol in my hand. It took long minutes for the racket to die down.

  I set off again.

  At last, up the hill, there was the farmyard shrouded in darkness. Not a single light burned.

  Would Stef Moller be home yet? Or did he go to Mogale with Branca?

  I would search the homestead first.

  I crept along the shadows. There was the house, the shed and another long outbuilding. Beyond the rise were four labourer’s cottages, little buildings with off-white brick walls and corrugated iron roofs. Stef Moller had nodded in their direction when he referred to squint-eyed Seppie as his only workman.

  I walked slowly across the veranda to the front door of the house and turned the knob carefully with my left hand, pistol in the right.

  It was open.

  If a door is going to creak, you don’t want to prolong it. I pushed it open quickly, went in and closed it. No appreciable noise.

  It was very dark inside. I couldn’t see the furniture clearly and I didn’t want to collide with any. I would have to wait for my eyes to adjust. To the right was a big room. Was it the sitting room? In front of me was a hallway. I walked down it quietly.

  The first door to the left was the kitchen. There were no curtains and I could see the white enamel of an old stove. There were two more doors, left and right, both open. Bathroom to the left. Bedroom to the right.

  I listened at the bedroom door. Nothing.

  I went on. There were another two doors on both sides. Both were bedrooms, the one to the right was the biggest. Stef Moller would sleep there. It was impossible to see anything. I took a step into the room and stood straining my ears, but all I could hear was the beating of my heart when I held my breath.

  I came out, putting the ball of my foot down deliberately, then the heel, softly, silently, until I was in the third bedroom.

  It was empty. There was no one in the house. Moller was still on his way, or perhaps he was sleeping over somewhere. I walked back to the front door more quickly, since there was no one to hear me. I went out and stood on the veranda. The yard was eerily quiet. The labourer’s cottages lay to the east on my left. There were about a hundred and fifty metres of open ground and crunchy gravel to cross. The tall grass was mowed to two metres from the cottages. I would just have to get there and I would have cover.

  The cottages were on the side of the hill in a crooked row, clearly visible in the soft light of the setting crescent moon and stars, an amazing firmament out here where no other light burned. I would begin with the one on the left, closest to the homestead. I had a problem. Squint Septimus lived in one and I didn’t want to wake him. But which one? It was impossible to say. Probably not the very first one – you don’t want to sleep too close to the boss. I bet on the second one.

  And the man I was looking for? The fourth or the fifth cottage?

  It could be either. I began the long trek across the hard-baked open ground, pistol ready. I thanked the gods for the absence of watchdogs. I put each foot dow
n quietly, so it would not disturb a sleeping man. I aimed for the long grass just left of the first house, taking my time carefully, wondering whether he was asleep in house number three or four, and guessing what he would say when I pressed the Glock to his temple and gently shook him awake.

  Fifteen metres to the grass, then ten. I had to concentrate in order not to rush the last five. Mustn’t make a noise. When I was safely there, I squatted down and stared at the windows of the first house. No curtains. Upper and lower door of wood, the paint peeling.

  I walked, crouching, through the grass to the next house. Dirty white lace curtains with a long rip in them. Where was Septimus? There was Septimus, sleeping, unconscious and unimportant. I crept on another seven metres and squatted on my haunches. I saw the faded yellow curtains in the window of house number three and I remembered Melanie Posthumus saying she had bought some pretty yellow material that was nice and cheerful and I knew where he was sleeping.

  I’ve found him, Emma le Roux, I’ve found the elusive pimpernel Jacobus le Roux, also known as Cobie de Villiers. Murderer, missing person, activist and enigma.

  Something cast a sudden shadow beside me in the thick grass and someone pressed a gun barrel softly against my cheek and said in a very nervous voice, ‘Put down the pistol before I blow your fucking head off.’

  38

  Sudden rage or fright stimulates the medulla to excrete the hormone epinephrine. I knew this because I had read up on it in jail in my eternal search for answers. Epinephrine speeds up the heart rate, raises blood sugar levels and blood pressure, constricts the pupils and the capillaries in the skin, so blood loss will be decreased should you be hurt. It prepares the body to better manage a physiological crisis and is referred to as the ‘fight or flight’ response.

  The books don’t say what it does to the brain, which is that it ignores the temporary madness, the red mist.

  But with a delicately vibrating gun barrel at your temple, fight, flight or madness are not useful responses. All you can do is fight for control and to try to neutralise the effect of the hormone with absolute concentration by breathing slowly and deeply and sitting dead still.

  That was not what the shadow beside me wanted.

  He banged the barrel hard against my skull and said, ‘Put the fucking thing down.’

  His tone was not that of a man in control. It was filled with anxiety and a shrillness that I didn’t like. I slowly lowered the Glock and put it on the grass.

  ‘Who are you?’

  I wanted to look at him, but he pressed the firearm harder to my temple.

  ‘I am Lemmer,’ I said soothingly.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I work for your sister, Jacobus. For Emma le Roux.’

  ‘I have no sister.’

  He was a wire stretched too taut and the trembling of the barrel intensified. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it in front of my ear, and I wondered whether his finger on the trigger was as taut as his voice.

  ‘Then I’ve made a mistake and I’m sorry.’

  That was not the answer he expected. He was dumb for two hammer beats of my heart and then he said, ‘Don’t lie.’

  I kept my voice quiet and even. ‘I’m not lying, Jacobus. I’m truly sorry. Especially for Emma. She has such a terrible desire to see her brother again. I think she really loved him.’

  ‘I have no sister.’ His voice had risen half an octave. My attempt at calming was not very successful.

  ‘I know, Jacobus. I believe you. My work here is done. I will go and tell her that she no longer has a brother.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘May I get up now? I’ll go. I won’t bother you again. You can keep the pistol.’

  He thought about it, and as he did, the barrel of the firearm moved a few millimetres away from my temple.

  ‘Why did you look for me here?’ Less desperate and shrill.

  In an easy conversational way I kept to the truth. ‘Emma and I were here last week. I saw three coffee mugs in the shed. But Stef said there was only Septimus and himself. That’s what made me think someone was hiding here.’

  He didn’t respond.

  ‘You heard the birds I disturbed,’ I said. ‘You’re very good.’

  ‘Francolín,’ he said.

  ‘You move well in the bush. I didn’t hear you.’

  He just stood there, indecisive, like the dog that chased the bus and caught it and then didn’t know what to do with it.

  ‘Jacobus, I’m getting up now. I’ll do it slowly. Then I will walk away and I won’t bother you again. My work is done.’

  ‘No.’

  I knew why he didn’t like the idea. ‘I won’t tell anyone that you are here. I swear to God.’ Maybe that worked in Hb circles. I turned my head very slowly towards him. I saw him looking at the homestead and then back at me. It was Cobie de Villiers, the man in Jack Phatudi’s photograph. He was sweating and his face gleamed in the moonlight. His eyes were unsettled and he held the firearm with straight arms. It looked like a MAC 10. The cheapest machine pistol on the market, but just as effective as the expensive ones.

  He didn’t like me watching him. That was a big danger signal. It’s harder to kill a man once you’ve looked him in the eye. I tried to make eye contact with him. His eyes flicked back and forth, as though he couldn’t make up his mind. His mouth was half open and his breathing was rapid. I knew I had to do something but I couldn’t afford to wait for his decision. He was wanted by the police and he was a fugitive killer who was very seriously considering shooting me. I waited until he looked away for a fraction of a second, then I jerked up my left hand to knock the MAC aside and swung my right leg through. Shots boomed near my ear, deafening me, and I felt a burning sensation at the back of my head. I knocked his feet from under him with my leg and he fell. The machine pistol clattered through an arc, his left arm tried to block his fall and I hit him hard with my fist against his cheek as I grabbed at the MAC with both hands.

  He took the blow well, because he didn’t loosen his grip on the weapon. I felt something warm run down my neck which I suspected was blood.

  Cobie jerked the machine pistol back and forth. He face was distorted like that of a madman and he made a low moaning sound. He wasn’t much bigger than me, but he was strong and he believed that he was fighting for his life.

  I let go of the MAC and hit him again. Aiming for his jaw, I hit his eye socket. His head jerked back, but he swung the machine pistol towards me. I grabbed the barrel with my left hand and hit him against the ear with my right with no noticeable effect.

  Behind us a light went on in the second labourer’s cottage and I could see Cobie’s anguished face. His eyebrow was bleeding.

  I hit him again, as hard as I could. He jerked his head away and I connected with his chin, but with little momentum. I moved to get above him. My right hand searched for his throat as he squirmed and grabbed my forearm with his left hand.

  A door opened and a beam of light shone on the ground. If it was Septimus and he was armed I was in serious trouble. I let go of Cobie and dived into the grass in search of the Glock. I saw it shining, grabbed it, and rolled back to Cobie. He was still down, but he was turning the MAC towards me. I wasn’t going to make it so I dived at him. He aimed and pulled the trigger. Only the sharp click of metal. The magazine was empty. I was on him, bashing the Glock’s barrel violently against his cheek, while looking at the door.

  Squint Seppie stood with a hunting rifle pointing at the stars and a bewildered expression on his face. ‘Cobie?’ he said.

  ‘Drop the rifle or I’ll shoot Cobie,’ I said.

  Cobie grabbed at the Glock. He was beyond fear, desperate and mad. I banged the pistol against his head, rolled away and came up on my haunches. I gripped the Glock in both hands, pointed it at Cobie and said in the most reasonable tone I could muster, ‘This is a .45-calibre, Cobie. I will shoot you in the leg first, but there are some big veins there and I can’t guarantee that you won’t bl
eed to death. It’s your choice.’ Then I looked at Septimus, who stood frozen with the rifle in his hand.

  ‘Septimus,’ I barked.

  He looked at me with an expression of pure fear.

  ‘Put the gun down. Now.’

  ‘OK.’

  He bent slowly and put the rifle down on the slab of cement in front of his door with great respect.

  ‘Lie down,’ I ordered Septimus.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Anywhere you want, you idiot. Just away from the rifle.’

  He lay down on his stomach.

  I stood up and moved closer to Jacobus.

  ‘Cobie, put the gun down.’

  He was reluctant to do so, even though the MAC was empty. I didn’t know whether he had another magazine in his pocket.

  ‘Get up,’ I said.

  He stood up. I kneed him as hard as I could just above his navel. He fell forward, mouth agape, winded.

  I jerked the MAC from his hand and flung it far out into the veld. ‘That’s because you wanted to kill me, Cobus. And to calm you down. Fuck knows, you’re mad as a rabid dog.’

  Cobie curled up like a foetus, desperately gagging for air.

  I touched my head with my left hand where it hurt. I felt the wound, a long deep groove starting just under my ear. It was bleeding. One centimetre closer, one fraction of a second, and I would have been dead. I felt like kicking him again. I suppressed the impulse, went over to Squint Seppie, pushed the Glock into my belt and picked up the rifle. I took out the magazine, worked the bolt to pump out the round in the barrel and threw it and the magazine into the night. Septimus watched me anxiously with one eye. I dropped the rifle down beside him and took out the Glock again. I went over to Cobie, put my knee in his back and pressed the pistol against the back of his head.

  ‘Septimus, look at me.’

  He raised his head and looked.

  ‘I want you to go into your house and bring me some electric cord. The longest piece you have, OK?’