Vultures in the Wind

by Peter Rimmer

  The slightly ‘what-ho’ look he put on as Helena’s cuckolded husband and Armscor boffin had gone. His eyes examined his co-workers one by one, and reduced the conversations around the table to silence. Hector waited – keeping them under control before involuntarily touching the lobe of his ear. There were five members of the SA communist party in the room, all white, and twelve members of the African National Congress, all black. There were no women. Luke Mbeki was not present, having received his instructions the previous day before returning to Lusaka in the newly independent Zambia, the capital of the liberation movement being funded and armed by Russia.

  “I asked you here to meet Father Porterstone who is being sent to Soweto to run a small Church of England mission and to train black members of the church. Over the next few years, the Father will select a black clergyman for high office in the church, a man dedicated to liberation theology, the black nationalist cause, but above all the African National Congress. Our man will be your man, but we will pay the bills. Moscow has provided a one hundred thousand pound fund which will be paid to the church through Soweto, through a donation from the British Trade Union Council, an organisation dedicated to the anti-apartheid cause. I want you to give the Father and his protégé every assistance in the years to come. However, none of you are to contact the Father openly while you are inside South Africa. It is essential that myself and my colleagues shall not be shown to have links to your organisation, as we wish to have the political support of the Americans as well as the Russians.

  “The civil rights movement in America will ensure that WASP politicians in Washington use the whites in colonial and racist Africa as convenient whipping boys to assuage their own consciences and attract their own black vote. My party must not stand in the way of this American support, which has forced the British government to do everything in its power to bring down the Smith regime in Rhodesia. Our propaganda experts will be assisting you in an orchestrated plan to link the American civil rights movement with the anti-apartheid movement, isolating the Vorster government of South Africa, turning them into the pariahs of the world. World opinion and sanctions will put you into power and your people will be liberated… AMANDLA!” shouted Hector, stretching his clenched fist high above his head as he stood erect to give the black power salute. If he had kept his arm out in front with the hand flat and pointing at his audience, he would have given the perfect Nazi salute. The return cry of “Amandla! Power!” was generated by the same hysteria of nationalism, and was equally deadly to anyone who disagreed with the party.

  The Reverend Andrew Porterstone did not believe in God, but what he did believe in was the communist philosophy of Marx and Lenin. He believed sincerely in reward according to a man’s need and the equal distribution of earth’s bounty among all men and women. Andrew, like Hector, was the product of the English public school system from a middle-class, wealthy family that provided him with all the material comforts of life, including a tertiary education. World order by one-World government had suggested to Andrew the obvious solution to man’s poverty, greed, waste, ignorance and constant wish to wage war.

  Born at the end of 1926, he had turned eighteen after the Normandy landings in Europe and, though he put on uniform for the last few months of the Second World War, all he saw was the destruction, the aftermath, and none of the fighting. When he entered the rubble of Cologne, he was not sure whether the RAF was any better than the Luftwaffe in bombing women and children, despite Andrew having spent 1940 through to 1944 under a hail of German bombs, delivered and self-propelled, eleven kilometres from the heart of London. Only when a V1 had taken out his school during the summer holidays of 1944 was he sent north to avoid the bombs, Englishmen of his class believing they could take anything the Germans could fly across the English Channel.

  When he reached Oxford to read physics, philosophy and economics, he was an easy target for the Russian agents preparing the way for the Cold War and world domination. Andrew swallowed the utopia of world hegemony in one piece and never wavered from his convictions. The party, with a view to liberation theology being applied alongside liberation movements in Third World countries, concluded that there was a need to infiltrate the soft targets of the Christian churches that always sided with the oppressed in the name of Jesus Christ. The few communist party members in the know joked about the church and the revolutionary parties being made for each other in heaven. Andrew Porterstone was sent to theological school by the British communist party with funds channelled to it by the trade union movement of Great Britain, which was successfully and very quickly taking the ‘great’ out of Great Britain.

  Now at the age of forty Andrew was being placed in position to put communists into strategic positions in the Church of the Province of Southern Africa. Trade Unions were banned in the prosperous South Africa of 1966, but the church was ripe and ready for infiltration. Andrew, settling into his seat aboard the 707 of South African Airways bound for Johannesburg, was going to enjoy himself. Finally his real work was about to begin and he was as ready and dedicated as any man had ever been in pursuit of his life’s goal.

  Matthew Gray was looking forward to seeing Sunny and spending long days at his new smallholding at Halfway House. The small farm was twenty-five kilometres outside Johannesburg, with a strong borehole that watered the nine hectares of pasture in the dry season growing enough grass for two good horses and eventually, when Matthew considered his horse riding good enough, a string of polo ponies. Not only did the sport itself appeal to Matt, he was attracted to the people who played polo. They liked animals, were rich and good for business. And polo clubs were that much more exclusive than golf clubs.

  Matt settled into his window seat, well satisfied with the funds in his Jersey trust account and the progress made in buying Security Holdings shares. He deserved a holiday, and there was no better way of spending it than on his own property, on his own horse with his own girl. The antique ruby ring his art dealer had searched out for him was in his pocket, and he did not even care if customs charged him the right amount of duty. The central stone was a 4.8 carat, square cut Burmese ruby, richer in red than any sunset Matt had ever seen. Clustering the jewel were small diamonds, but it was the ruby that would reflect the lighter yellow in the green eyes of his lady.

  The plane was due at Jan Smuts airport at nine o’clock South African time that evening and, just in case his bar was empty of champagne, he had two bottles of Charles Heidrick 1947 in his suitcase to complete the surprise. This time, after so many cancellations, he had not warned Sunny he was on his way home. The ring, the champagne and Matt were going to make up for his business preoccupations. Sunny was going to have all his attention for the first time in weeks. The fat man next to Matt leaned forward to look out of the window while the plane climbed away from the thick haze that covered London below him. Matt closed his eyes and was soon fast asleep. When he awoke, he found his head resting on the comfortable shoulder of the fat man next to him. As he jerked awake, he noticed the white dog-collar round the man’s thick neck.

  “Sorry, reverend. Nodded off.”

  “Best way to travel,” replied Andrew Porterstone.

  By the time the two men had shared lunch and supper in close proximity, they had enthusiastically agreed to meet again in Johannesburg.

  “Do you belong to a church?” the reverend asked Matthew.

  “No, that I’ve never done. I’ve never even been baptised. I was born in a rather wild place. Dad was killed in the war and my mother died when I was thirteen.”

  “You should join the Church of England. Or the Church of Scotland.” They had learnt a lot about each other on the fifteen hour flight, and both men laughed companionably.

  By the time the plane came in to land, Matt was overexcited. “Normally I would give you a lift but no one knows I’m arriving,” he apologised.

  In the rush of arrival at customs and immigration, they forgot to exchange telephone numbers. In the taxi halfway to his home, Matthew s
hrugged. He had met many people on aeroplanes around the world with whom he had vowed to remain friends for life. They never met again, but it made the boring process of air travel more agreeable. He mentally wished the Reverend Porterstone the best of luck and dismissed him from his mind. His watch read ten past twelve, the plane having been delayed by a minor technical problem at Nairobi airport. Sunny would be asleep, but he would soon change that. His excitement had created a tension throughout his body.

  “Drop me at the gate. I want this to be a real surprise.” The taxi driver took his double fare and turned to drive back to the airport. There was a KLM flight due in at ten past one.

  Matthew was left at his gate with his suitcase. After opening and closing the metal catch, he walked the three hundred metres up the driveway towards his darkened house. The night was dark with no moon, and limited cloud cover obscured most of the stars. He stumbled once over a pile of horse-droppings. The horses kept the grass short in the long driveway.

  Reaching the front of the house, Matt was surprised to find a 45O SLC Mercedes parked under the pagoda. Putting down the suitcase with the two bottles of champagne, Matt walked round his darkened house. At the back there was a light, and the sound grew stronger and very familiar.

  When he reached the window of his bedroom, the pain betrayal was absolute. On his bed, on his lady, was a strange man pumping rhythmically, with the familiar voice frantically calling him to climax.

  Softly, agonisingly, Matt retraced his steps, opened the door to his garage and put his suitcase in the boot of his car. This time he was not going to smell joss sticks for the rest of his life. As quietly as possible he reversed out of his garage, turned his Chevrolet Malibu in the wide courtyard and drove down the driveway, out of her life.

  2

  Chelsea de La Cruz was created from a bloodline of Nguni, Portuguese, English, Irish and French, and had taken from each member of her ancestral parentage the perfect genes. She was tall, long-legged and high-breasted with perfect, tight buttocks. Her features were aquiline, her eyes dark brown and her hair pitch-black and smooth. The most startling of her European features was the dark soft-brown skin.

  From the age of twelve, she had noticed that not a man looked at her without his eyes saying he wanted to take her to bed, there, now and quickly. The flame she created in men was an instant fire and, by the age of fifteen, she had begun to use that fire to her own advantage.

  She had grown up in Mozambique, her mother with an English background and her father a small time store owner in Villancoulos, who had progressed to owning a holiday resort island. Ostensibly they were Portuguese but, in reality, both of them had mixed Nguni and European blood. In early 1966, with the Portuguese army fighting a guerrilla war against Frelimo, a war that would eventually push the Portuguese out of Africa after four hundred years, Chelsea met a South African tourist who was visiting her father’s coral island to fish for marlin, and took him up on his invitation to visit Europe. She was seventeen.

  The man, realising that apartheid laws in South Africa prevented him from achieving his ambition in that country, flaunted the excitement of Europe and, with permission from her parents who only wished the best for their daughter, flew her by light aircraft to Lourenco Marques and by TAP to Lisbon. When the man flew to London on business, Chelsea, now clothed exquisitely, went along, despite the arrival of the man’s wife in England the following day, leaving Chelsea without a chaperon. But she spoke English, had a six month visitors’ visa, a thousand pounds from her lover and an excitement that rivalled her lover’s lust for her body. Chelsea lived for music, and rhythm was in every sinew of her body. She moved to music as she moved to men, in perfect harmony. With the young Londoners she jived all night and eked out her money by taking a bed-sitter in Notting Hill Gate, where her dark skin felt more comfortable among the immigrants from the British West Indies. She was so happy that she was ready to fly, and Africa was as far from her mind as the moon.

  Matthew Gray had driven back to Jan Smuts airport and caught the first Air France flight to Nice and Paris, getting off at Nice to catch his breath. At the start of the flight he had felt utterly sick at heart; thoughts of suicide even fluttered briefly through his mind. The bitterness of having been deceived and betrayed, first by Sandy and now by Sunny, almost crushed him. But it was not long before his-natural resilience took over, although the deep wounds on his soul were still there. He would get over this, he told himself grimly. But in the meantime, he just wanted to forget. And the best short-term cure he knew was alcohol. Then he would set his mind to enjoy life again.

  He had drunk steadily all the way back to Europe and needed a night’s sleep before he could really start to party. There was only one way in his mind to dispel the smell of joss-sticks and the voice of his about-to-be wife striving for her climax, and that was in the beds of women, many women, all types of women. One-man-one-girl relationships were out. Lucky and Archie were right. If you had money, spread the happiness; and Matt, when he woke from a sound sleep in a good French Riviera hotel, was ready and willing. If he broke ladies’ hearts and they believed his stories of instant love that was their problem. He had had enough problems of his own.

  Paris followed Nice and London followed Paris, where he moved into Archibald Fletcher-Wood’s new flat in Baker Street, an upmarket version of Archie’s previous luxury flat. Though the capital stayed in the Jersey Trust, income was paid to Archie and Lucky every month. Only Aldo had returned to Africa with his lump sum payment, to buy a game ranch lower down the Zambezi from Chirundu, where he would build his hunting lodge for rich tourists from America.

  The party was on, and the three friends went on a sexual rampage, competing with each other for more and more women in their hedonistic frenzy. After the first week in London, the pain of Sunny’s betrayal had gone, along with the smallholding which he had sold from under her feet. No one was ever going to do that again to Matthew Gray.

  Lucky had purchased a convertible and was back to his old tricks, weather permitting. One gash in the top of his head ensured that he checked the roof and pushed the button to wind back the canopy. Then he leapt out. After a week he was not sure whether a saloon car was not more appropriate for his age and the English climate.

  The dark girl with the sexy continental accent giggled when he leapt over the side. “Aren’t you a little bit old for that kind of thing?’

  “You get known for doing something stupid.”

  “I don’t know you,”

  “You will.” Lucky was still confident. “You want to come back to the flat?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “We’re having a party on Saturday night.”

  Without further argument, Lucky drove her to Notting Hill Gate from the jazz club. He was prepared to wait for really good ones.

  “You want to come up for coffee?” she asked at the door to the house.

  “No. thanks. Saturday, nine o’clock. What’s your name?”

  “Chelsea de La Cruz”

  For the first time, with the hood down, Lucky opened the driver’s door and climbed into his Aston Martin DB4. She was still standing on the step under the street light. He could smell the lime trees. Their eyes met for a moment, but neither of them waved as he drove away.

  The following day, Matthew took a taxi into the city of London, having listened to Lucky describing the attributes of the girl he had danced with at the jazz club. Lucky was not usually so effusive but, by the time the taxi reached the Monument, Matt was thinking of business rather than girls. Now, after Sunny, to wait another three and a half years before returning to the insurance business was impossible. Could he find some way around the agreement he had signed with David Todd without violating his integrity?

  The Queen’s Counsel was as dry as the dark woodwork in his office. Matt took a leather-bound seat with the stuffing coming out. He was not offered coffee or anything else. He would have to get used to the English way of doing business, Matt told himself.

>   “Mister Gray, I have read the documents of sale and my opinion is that you are perfectly entitled to conduct insurance business in the United Kingdom, provided you do not take business from Security Holdings. Under British case law, an agreement may not prevent a man from earning his living.”

  “You mean if I start an insurance company but refrain from attacking David Todd’s clients, there is nothing he can do?”

  “That is exactly what I mean.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Mister Gray…”

  “You-said it was your opinion.”

  “My opinion, Mister Gray, is always right.”

  “Thank you. How much do I owe?”

  “You will receive an account through your solicitor. Good day.”

  “Good day, Sir George.” Outside on the pavement, Matt wanted to jump in the air and stamp his feet. The barrister had not even discussed his problem. The old fool was so sure.

  The Threadneedle Insurance Company had tried a madcap scheme about which the Scotsman should have known better. He had given underwriting authority to an Australian who had promptly insured large numbers of Sydney taxi cabs, a well-known bad insurance risk. At considerable loss, the Threadneedle had withdrawn from Australia shortly before the Scotsman died.

  The company was run exclusively by a general manager. Matthew retained a balance sheet from the English authority that monitored the solvency of insurance companies. The Threadneedle underwrote small lines on the fringe of Lloyd’s and a portfolio of personal insurances relating to the three partners’ clients, where the industrial business had been placed with Lloyd’s underwriters. The short-term account was of little interest to Matt, as he preferred broking ‘fire and accident’ business rather than underwriting the risks.