by Wilbur Smith
The headquarters of the CID were only a short walk from the House of Assembly and he stepped it out briskly. The episode with Tara and the chest was put out of his mind as he tried to imagine what bad news Louis Nel had for him.
The sergeant at the front desk had been alerted and he recognized Shasa immediately.
'The colonel is expecting you, Minister. I'll send someone to show you up to his office,' and he beckoned one of the uniformed constables.
Louis Nel was in his shirt-sleeves and he came to the door to welcome Shasa and lead him to one of the easy chairs. 'How about a drink?" 'Still too early for me." Shasa shook his head, but he accepted the cigarette Louis offered him.
The policeman was lean as ever, but he had lost most of his hair and what remained was ice white. There were dark pouches beneath his eyes and after his welcoming smile his mouth settled back into a thin nervous line. He looked like a man who worried a lot, worked too hard and slept badly at night. He must be past retirement age, Shasa thought.
'How's the family - your wife?" Shasa asked. He had met her only once or twice and could not remember her name or what she looked like.
'We were divorced five years ago." 'I'm sorry,' Shasa said, and Louis shrugged.
'It was bad at the time.". Then he leaned forward. 'Your family you have three boys and a girl. That's right?" 'Ah! You have been doing a police number on me,' Shasa smiled, but Louis did not respond. His expression remained serious as he went on.
'Your eldest son - his name is Sean. That's right, isn't it?" Shasa nodded, he was no longer smiling either, and he was seized by a sudden presentiment.
'You want to speak to me about Sean?" he asked softly.
Louis stood up abruptly and crossed to the window. He was looking down into the street as he answered.
'This is off the record, Shasa. Not the way we usually do things, but there are extraordinary factors here. Our past association, your present rank --' He turned back from the window. 'In the usual circumstances this would probably not have been brought to my notice at all, at least not at this stage of the investigation." The word 'investigation' startled Shasa, and he wanted Louis to give him the bad news and get it over with but he controlled his agitation and impatience and waited quietly.
'For some time now we have been troubled by a series of housebreakings in the better-class suburbs - you have surely read about them. The press are calling the thief the "Cape Raffles"." 'Of course,' Shasa nodded. 'Some of my friends, good friends, have been the victims - the Simpsons, the Westons. Mark Weston lost his collection of gold coins." 'And Mrs Simpson lost her emeralds,' Louis Nel agreed. 'Some of those emeralds, the earrings, were recovered when we raided a fence in District Six. We were acting on a tip-off and we recovered an enormous quantity of stolen articles. We arrested the fence - he's a coloured chap who was running an electrical business in the front of his premises and receiving stolen goods through the back door. We have had him locked up for two weeks now, and he is beginning to cooperate. He gave us a list or names, and on it was one lovable little rogue named Rufus Constantine, ever heard of him?" Shasa shook his head. 'How does this link up with my son?" 'I'm coming to that. This Constantine was apparently the one who passed the emeralds and some of the other booty. We picked him up and brought him in forquestioning. He is a tough little monkey, but we found a way to open him up and make him sing to us. Unfortunately the tune wasn't very pretty." 'Sean?" Shasa asked, and Louis nodded.
'I'm afraid so. Looks as though he was the leader of an organized gang." 'It doesn't make sense. Not Sean." 'Your son has built up quite a reputation." 'He was a little wild at one time,' Shasa admitted, 'but he is settling down to his articles now, working hard. And why would he want to get involved in something like that? I mean, he doesn't need the money." 'Articled clerks are not paid a great fortune." 'I give him an allowance,' Shasa shook his head again. 'No, I don't believe it. What would he know about house-breaking?" 'Oh, no - he doesn't do it himself. He sets up the job and Rufus and his henchman do the dirty work." 'Sets it up - what do you mean by that?" 'As a son of yours he is welcome in any home in the city, that is right, isn't it?" 'I suppose so." Shasa was cautious.
'According to little Rufus, your son studies each prospective victim's home, decides on what valuables there are and pinpoints where they are kept - strong rooms, hidden drawers, wall safes and that sort of thing. Then he begins an affair with one of the family, the mother or a daughter, and uses his opportunities to let his accomplice into the home while he is entertaining the lady of his choice upstairs." Shasa stared at him wordlessly.
'By all accounts it works very well, and in more than one case the theft was not even reported to us - the ladies involved were more concerned with their reputations and their husband's wrath than with the loss of their jewellery." 'Marge Weston?" Shasa asked. 'She was one of the ladies?" 'According to our information - yes, she was." Shasa whispered, 'The little bastard." He was appalled, and totally convinced. It all fitted too neatly not to be true. Marge and Sean, his son and one of his mistresses, it was just not to be tolerated. 'This time he has gone too far." 'Yes,' Louis agreed. 'Too far by a mile. Even as a first offender, he will probably get five or six years." All Shasa's attention snapped back to him. The shock to Shasa's pride and sense of propriety was such that he had not even begun to consider the legal implications, but now his righteous rage was snuffed out at the suggestion of his eldest son standing in the dock and being sentenced to long-term imprisonment.
'Have you prepared a docket yet?" he asked. 'Is there a warrant out?" 'Not yet." Louis was speaking as carefully. 'We were only given this information a few hours ago." He crossed to his desk and picked up the blue interrogation folder.
'What can I do?" Shasa asked quietly. 'Is there anything we can do 'I've done all I can,' Louis answered. 'I've done too much alread, I could never justify holding up this information, nor could I justii informing you of an investigation in progress. I've already stretche my neck way out, Shasa. We go back a long way, and I'll never forget the work you did on White Sword - that's the only reason took the chance --' he paused to take a deep breath, and Shas sensing there was more to come, remained silent. 'There is nothin else I can do. Nothing else anyone can do at this level." " ' He place peculiar emphasis on the last three words, and then he added seem ir/gly incongruously, 'I'm retiring next month, there'll be someore else in this office after that." 'How long do I have?" Shasa asked, and he did not have to elabor.
ate. They understood each other.
'I can sit on this file for another few hours, until five o'clock today, and then the investigation will have to go ahead." Shasa stood up. 'You are a good friend." 'I'll walk you down,' Louis said, and they were alone in the lift before they spoke again. It had taken Shasa that long to master his perturbation.
'I hadn't thought about White Sword for years,' he changed the subject easily. 'Not until today. All that seems so far away and long ago, even though it was my own g and father.
r 'I've never forgotten it,' Louis Nel said softly. 'The man was a murderer. If he had succeeded, if you hadn't prevented it, all of us in land would be a lot worse off than we are today." th!sI wonder what happened to White Sword - who he was and where he is now? Perhaps he is long dead, perhaps--' 'I don't think so - there is something that makes me doubt it. A few years ago I wanted to go over the White Sword file--' The lift stopped at the ground floor and Louis broke off. He remained silent as they crossed the lobby and went out into the sunlight. On the front steps of the headquarters building, they faced each other.
'Yes?" Shasa asked. 'The file, the White Sword file?" 'There is no file,' Louis said softly.
'I don't understand." 'No file,' Louis repeated. 'Not in police records or the Justice Department or the central records. Officially, White Sword never existed." Shasa stared at him. 'There must be a file - I mean, we worked on it, you and I. It was this thick --' Shasa held his thumb and forefinger apart. 'It can't have dsappeared!" 'You can take my w
ord for it. It has." Louis held out his hand.
'Five o'clock,' he said gently. 'No later, but I will be in my office all day right up to five, if anyone wanted to telephone me there." Shasa took his hand. 'I will never forget this." He glanced at his wristwatch as he turned away. It was a few minutes before noon, and most fortuitously he had a lunch date with Manfred De La Rey.
He headed back up Parliament Lane, and the noon-day gun fired just as he went in through the main doors. Everybody in the main lobby, including the ushers, instinctively checked their watches at the distant clap of cannon shot.
Shasa turned towards the members' dining-room, but he was far too early. Except for the white-uniformed waiters, it was deserted. In the members' bar he ordered a pink gin and waited impatiently, glancing every few seconds at his watch, but his appointment with Manfred was for twelve-thirty and it was no good going to search for him. He could be anywhere in the huge rambling building, so Shasa employed the time in cherishing and fanning his anger.
'The bastard!" he thought. 'I've allowed him to fool me all these years. All the signs were there, but I refused to accept them. He's dirty rotten, right to the core --' and then his indignation went off in , a new direction. 'Marge Weston is old enough to be his mother, how many of my other women has he been boffing? Is nothing sacred to the little devil?" Manfred De La Rey was a few minutes early. He came to the members' bar smiling and nodding and shaking hands, playing the genial politician, so that it took him a few minutes to cross the room.
Shasa could barely contain his impatience, but he didn't want anyone to suspect his agitation.
Manfred asked for a beer. Shasa had never seen him take hard spirit, and only after he had taken his first sip did Shasa tell him quietly, 'I'm in trouble - serious trouble." Manfred's easy smile never faltered, he was too shrewd to betray his emotions to a room full of adversaries and potential rivals, but his eyes went cold and pale as those of a basilisk.
'Not here,' he said, and led Shasa through to the men's room.
They stood shoulder to shoulder at the urinal and Shasa spoke softly but urgently, and when he finished, Manfred stood staring at the white ceramic through for only a few seconds before he roused himself.
'What is the number?" Shasa slipped him a card with Louis Nel's telephone number at CID headquarters.
'I'll have to use the security line from my office. Give me fifteen minutes. I will meet you back at the bar." Manfred zipped his fly closed and strode out of the lavatory.
He was back in the members' bar within ten minutes, by whic time Shasa was entertaining the four other members of the lunct eon party, all of them influential back-benchers. When the finished their drinks, Shasa suggested, 'Shall we go through?" A they moved towards the dining-room Manfred took his upper art in a firm grip, and leaned close to him, smiling as though conveying a pleasantry.
'I've squashed it, but he is to be out of the country within twenty four hours, and I don't want him back. Is that a bargain?" 'I am grateful,' Shasa nodded, and his anger at his son wa: compounded by this obligation that had been forced upon him. I was a debt that he would have to repay, with interest.
Sean's Harley was parked down at the sports hall that Shasa hoc built as a joint Christmas present for all three boys two years pre.
Obviously. It contained a gymnasium and squash court, half Olympic.
size indoor swimming-pool and change rooms. As Shasa approached.
he heard the explosive echo of the rubber ball from the courts and he went up to the spectators' gallery.
Sean was playing with one of his cronies. He wore white silk shorts but'his chest was bare. There was a white sweat band around his forehead, and white tennis shoes on his feet. His body glistened with sweat and was tanned to a golden brown. He was impossibly beautiful, like a romantic painting of himself, and he moved with the unforced grace of a hunting leopard, driving the tiny black ball against the high white wall with such deceptive power that it resounded like a fusillade of rifle fire as it rebounded. He saw Shasa in the gallery and flashed him a dazzle of even white teeth and green eyes, so that despite his anger, Shasa suffered a sudden pang at the idea of having to part from him.
In the change room Shasa dismissed his playing partner curtly: 'I want to speak to Sean - alone,' and as soon as he was gone he turned on his son. 'The police are on to you,' he said. 'They know all about you." He waited for a reaction, but he was disappointed.
Sean towelled his face and neck. 'Sorry, Pater, you've lost me there. What is it they know?" He was cool and debonair, and Shasa exploded.
'Don't play your games with me, young man. What they know can put you behind bars for ten years." Sean lowered the towel and stood up from the bench. He was serious at last. 'How did they find out?" 'Rufus Constantine." 'The little prick. I'll break his neck." He wasn't going to deny it and Shasa's last hope that he was innocent faded.
'I'll break any necks that have to be broken,' Shasa snapped.
'So what are we going to do?" Sean asked, and Shasa was taken aback by his casual assumption.
'We?" he asked. 'What makes you think that I'm going to save your thieving hide?" 'Family honour,' Sean was matter-of-fact. 'You'll never let me go to court. The family would be on trial with me - you would never allow that." 'That was part of your calculations?" Shasa asked, and when Sean shrugged, he added, 'You don't, understand the words honour or decency." 'Words,' Sean replied. 'Just words. I prefer actions." 'God, ! wish I could prove you wrong,' Shasa whispered. He was so furious now that he wanted the satisfaction of physical violence.
'I wish I could let you rot in some filthy cell." His fists were clenched, and before he thought about it, he shifted into balance for the first blow, and instantly Sean was on guard, his hands stiffening into blades crossed before his chest and his eyes were fierce. Shasa had paid hundreds of pounds for his training by the finest instructors in Africa, and all of them had at last admitted that Sean was a natural fighter and that the pupil in each case outstripped the master.
Delighted that Sean had at last found something that could hold his interest, Shasa had, before Sean began his articles, sent him to Japan for three months to study under a master of the martial arts.
Now as he confronted his son, Shasa was suddenly aware of every one of his forty-one years, and that Sean was a man in full physical flower, a trained fighter and an athlete in perfect condition. He realized that Sean could toy with him and humiliate him, he could even read in Sean's expression that he was eager to do so. Shasa stepped back and unclenched his fists.
'Pack your bags,' he said quietly. 'You are leaving and you are not coming back." They flew north in the Mosquito, landing only to refuel in .Johannesburg and then flying on to Messina on the border with Rhodesia. Shasa had a thirty percent shareholding in the copper mine at Messina, so when he radioed ahead there was a Ford pickup waiting for him at the airstrip.
Sean tossed his suitcase in the back of the truck and Shasa took the wheel. Shasa could have flown across the border to Salisbury or Lourenqo Marques, but he wanted the break to be clean and definite.
Sean crossing a border on foot would be symbolic and salutary. As he drove the last few miles through the dry hot bushveld to the bridge over the Limpopo river, Sean slumped down in the seat beside him, hands in his pockets and one foot up on the dashboard.
'I've been thinking,' he spoke in pleasant conversational tones.
'I've been thinking what I should do now, and I have decided to joi] one of the safari companies in Rhodesia or Kenya or Mozambique Then when I've finished my apprenticeship, I'll apply for a huntinl concession of my own. There is a fortune in it and it must be th, best life in the world. Imagine hunting every day!" Shasa had determined to remain withdrawn and stern, and uI until now he had succeeded in speaking barely a word since leavin Cape Town, but at last Sean's total lack of remorse and his cheerfull selfish view of the future forced Shasa to abandon his good intentions.
'From what I hear, you wouldn't last
a week without a woman,' he snapped, and Sean smiled.
'Don't worry about me, Pater. There will be bags of jig-jig, that's part of the perks - the clients are old and rich and they bring their daughters or their new young wives with them--' 'My God, Sean, you are completely amoral." 'May I take that as a compliment, sir?" 'Your plans to apply for your own hunting concession and to run your own safari company - what do you intend using in lieu of money?" Sean looked puzzled. 'You are one of the richest men in Africa.
Just think - free hunting whenever you wanted it, Pater. That would be part of our deal." Despite himself, Shasa felt a prickle of temptation. In fact, he had already considered starting a safari operation and his estimates showed that Sean was correct. There was a fortune to be made in marketing the African wilderness and its unique wild life. The only thing that had prevented him doing it before was that he had never found a trustworthy man. who understood the special requirements of a safari company to run it for him.
'Damn it --' he broke off that line of thought, 'I've spawned a devil's pup. He could sell a secondhand car to the judge who was passing the death sentence on him." He felt his anger softened by reluctant admiration, but he spoke grimly. 'You don't seem to understand, Sean. This is the end of the road for you and me." As he said it they topped the rise. Ahead of them lay the Limpopo river, but despite Mister Rudyard Kipling, it was neither grey green nor greasy and there was not a single fever tree on either bank. This was the dry season and though the river was half a mile wide, the flow was reduced to a thin trickle down the centre of the bed. The long low concrete bridge stretched northwards crossing the orangecoloured sand and straggly clumps of reeds.
They drove over the bridge in silence and Shasa stopped the pickup at the barrier. The border post was a small square building with a corrugated-iron roof. Shasa kept the engine of the Ford running.
Sean climbed out and lifted his suitcase out of the back of the truck, then crossed in front of the bonnet and came to Shasa's open window.