by Tony Park
‘OK.’
‘Flights? It’s short notice.’ He was feeling a little light-headed. It was shock and blood loss.
‘I can use my phone – book online.’
He pulled his wallet from his pants and passed her a credit card. ‘Good. We can change my return flight; travel tonight, via Perth, get you on the same one with a bit of luck. You book us two tickets to Kigali – the South African home affairs people won’t let you into the country on a one-way ticket unless you’ve got an onward flight.’
Bilal drove them to a park on the edge of a narrow waterway. A sign said it was Cooks River. They got out and Bilal looked around to make sure no one was nearby. ‘Dump the knife and the gun in the river.’
‘OK.’ Richard limped close to the water’s edge and threw both weapons out into the middle of the murky-looking stream. When he was done they got back in the cab and Bilal took them to a pharmacy.
‘I’ll go in,’ Bilal said. ‘You two got too much blood on you. People will remember you.’
‘Get me some steristrips, Betadine, gauze, pressure bandages . . .’
Bilal held up a hand. ‘I done this before, OK, mate?’
Richard nodded.
When he came back, Bilal drove around until he came to a deserted alley, where he pulled up. He got out and from the boot of his car pulled a plastic five-litre water container. ‘I keep this for the radiator.’ He helped Richard out of his jeans and washed down his leg. While Richard bandaged himself, Bilal helped Collette wash the blood from the cut under her chin. Richard cleaned his hands and his face. When she saw what he was doing, washing the gore from his face, Collette threw up beside the car. Richard found a clean T-shirt for Collette in his pack, and a change of clothes for himself. Bilal turned away modestly while Collette changed out of her blood-soaked blouse into the baggy shirt. When they were done, Bilal balled their soiled clothes and tossed them into a rubbish skip.
He drove them to Bexley and Richard waited in the cab, eyes closed and head back. She returned with her passport and a hiking pack. ‘I had some old clothes I left with them. I wanted to leave a note, but then I thought better of it.’
When they arrived at the passenger drop-off zone outside the Qantas domestic terminal at Sydney Airport, Richard checked his watch and saw it was less than an hour since they had killed the two kidnappers. He got out and Bilal retrieved his bag from the boot of the cab. ‘Thank you.’
Bilal shrugged. ‘Broke the monotony, mate.’
‘If the police find you . . .’
‘Mate,’ Bilal said to him, his mouth curling in a smile, ‘I’ll sing like a canary – tell them everything I know about you.’
‘I’d expect nothing less. Thank you.’
‘As long as the lady’s OK.’
Collette moved to him and kissed him on the cheek. He blushed and got back into his car. ‘Good luck.’
Richard had a feeling they’d need it.
22
Liesl stepped out of the lift and saw Carmel, who was sitting down to breakfast at a table in the Hôtel des Mille Collines’ restaurant on the sixth floor. She walked over to her. If Carmel had seen her she gave no indication.
‘Mind if I join you?’
Carmel raised her eyes from the iPhone beside her plate, then looked around. Liesl sat opposite her anyway.
‘Coffee, please,’ Liesl said to a passing waitress.
She looked out at the city. Kigali tumbled down the hill into the valley below and struggled up the hills on the other side, before the city petered out into the endless green hills that stretched into the morning mist. A squadron of yellow-billed kites dived and wheeled above the construction site across the road.
‘My coffee?’ Liesl asked the same waitress. The woman nodded, turned and walked away. ‘Sleep well?’ she said to Carmel.
Carmel looked up again from the phone screen. ‘I’m not much of a morning person.’
Liesl slumped back in her chair. This was always going to be trying. ‘Sorry you had to leave early last night. Were you not feeling well?’
Carmel sighed. ‘I don’t drink alcohol. I wasn’t in any mood to sit around and watch you and Henri get hammered. It was a long day. All right?’
‘All right.’
Defeated, Liesl got up and went to the egg station where she ordered an omelette with cheese and chopped chilli from the African cook. It was one of her staple hangover cures. That and vodka. Reluctantly, she made her way back to Carmel’s table via the fruits and yoghurt. She heaped melon and pineapple into her bowl.
‘Any sign of Henri yet?’ Liesl asked as she sat down again.
Carmel chewed her food and looked out over the city. When she was finished she took a sip of orange juice. ‘I would have thought you’d have a better idea of his movements this morning.’
‘What?’
Carmel stared at her from across the table, as if daring her to break eye contact. ‘You know what I mean.’
Liesl clenched her jaw. She held Carmel’s gaze. ‘No, I don’t.’
But she did. Shit, she thought to herself. She’d invited Henri into her hotel room after they’d returned, drunk, from dinner. He’d wanted to borrow what appeared to be the hotel’s only multi-plug power board. She’d finished charging her phone and laptop and topping up her camera batteries and she could have just passed the power board to him through the door. Instead, she’d faffed about unplugging stuff and told him to come in and get it. Once inside, he’d leaned against the wall and looked at her.
‘What?’ she’d asked him, smiling.
‘Nothing. I’m just looking at all the stuff you have to charge. You’re like a one-woman electrical store.’
She’d laughed. ‘I’d offer you a drink if I had one.’
Henri had moved his hand from behind his back and held up a bottle of cognac.
‘Bad man,’ she’d chided, wagging a finger at him.
He’d shrugged. ‘Sometimes.’
She’d seen the look in his eye. Maybe it was just the drink, but she was sure he would have stayed in her room for the night, given half the chance. He’d been probing her all night, asking questions about her life, her work, her plans for her trip in Rwanda. He’d offered to help her with contacts in the country and had suggested she stay close to him and Carmel, for safety’s sake, while she investigated who was behind the apparent plot to harm them.
Henri was handsome, and he liked to party, and as far as she knew he was single. Ordinarily there would have been nothing stopping her having a nightcap with him, and perhaps more. But she’d thought of Carmel, and the business with Richard all those years ago. ‘I think I should get to bed,’ she’d said to Henri.
‘But of course,’ he’d smiled. He’d even bowed a little as he’d taken the power board and wished her goodnight.
Carmel’s dark eyes felt like lasers, boring into her conscience. She had nothing to hide and, now that she thought about it, no reason to feel bad. ‘Tell me something, then, since you don’t believe me – are you and Henri an item? Or were you?’
Carmel flinched. ‘Your omelette’s here.’
Liesl turned to see the waiter hovering behind her. ‘Thank you,’ she said. She was trapped now. She couldn’t very well get up and take her food to another table.
Carmel leaned forward on her elbows and lowered her voice. ‘You’ve got a thing for men I’m involved with, don’t you? Or perhaps any man is fair game to you, Liesl.’
Liesl leaned back, away from the attack, and folded her arms. The woman was a professional victim. As far as Liesl was concerned, Richard could have called a halt at any time. It wasn’t up to her to monitor his relationship status. Besides, he’d been two-timing Carmel, so what did it hurt if she’d had sex with him as well? That day, after the things she’d seen, she just wanted to feel another human next to her.
‘It was easy for you,’ Carmel continued. ‘He was just another lover for you. But I’d planned my life around Richard. I had to come to terms with the
fact that he’d lied to me twice over and that he’d never had any intention of coming back to Australia with me. I was a fool and you just made it that little bit worse for me.’
There was more Liesl could have told Carmel. She wanted to, but she knew it wouldn’t help. She’d felt no sense of victory, sleeping with Richard. It hadn’t been about taking him from someone else. It had been all about her – the need to fill the emotional gulf that day at Kibeho had ripped from her soul. Carmel was taking it personally, which was understandable, but she could never know just how much Liesl regretted her liaison with Richard.
The hell with it, and the hell with her, Liesl thought. She pushed her plate away and got up. As she turned and started walking out of the restaurant she saw Henri emerging from the lift. He smiled his crooked smile at her and raised a hand to his brow as though his head was aching.
‘Morning,’ he said.
Liesl strode past him and into the lift. In her room she made a cup of instant coffee while she waited for her laptop to boot up. As she sipped the bitter brew she opened her emails and had her first good news of the day.
It was a message from Pierre Rwema, a Rwandan Tutsi who’d worked as a driver and fixer for herself and a number of other freelance journalists and photographers in the aftermath of the genocide. Pierre said he was happy to hear from Liesl and looked forward to meeting her again. Liesl was pleased, although she also felt a little guilty. The reason she had Pierre’s email was that he had contacted her – and presumably many of the other whites he’d helped back in the old days – about six years ago, asking for money. Liesl recalled a story about wanting to put his children through school. She’d ignored it.
Liesl used her mobile phone to call the number Pierre had emailed. He answered after only two rings. She went through the ritual of asking him how he was, and he her.
‘Pierre, I need some help. I’m looking for some people here in Rwanda and I also need to get to Ruhengeri to see the mountain gorillas, and Nyungwe to see the chimps.’
‘I can help, for certain. By the way, I emailed you some time ago. Did you not get my message?’
Liesl had been expecting this. ‘I was overseas at the time, covering the war in Afghanistan, Pierre. I couldn’t call you from there and I had no money, but I can pay you for your help now.’
‘It will be fine. We can discuss that later. You are staying at the Mille Collines, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘When would you like me to come around? I can be there in half an hour if you wish.’
‘That would be perfect. Thanks so much, Pierre.’
She hung up and got her camera bag ready. She was on assignment in Rwanda, as well as trying to work out who was trying to kill her, so she checked her cameras and her batteries, and her digital voice recorder. It took her back to the days when she’d been preparing to go out and document another day’s worth of atrocities. While she waited, she thought about the confrontation with Carmel.
The Australian woman didn’t know anything about her. They’d all been confused back then. Half the press corps was sleeping with each other, and the hotel staff were prostitutes for the UN workers and cameramen. It was as if the horror provoked some primal need to procreate. She guessed it was a similar phenomenon to the baby boom after the Second World War.
She’d been crazy not to use a condom with Richard. Even back in 1995 everyone was aware of the scourge of AIDS. It was as if she’d suffered a bout of temporary insanity. Liesl screwed her eyes shut and placed balled fists to her lids to try to force away the images.
The sex.
Carmel bursting in.
Richard leaving.
The clinic.
The tears squeezed out, finding their way to the surface despite her best efforts. She got up and went to her backpack and found the bottle of vodka buried in her clothes. She unscrewed the cap and took a decent slug. The spirit warmed and soothed her. She’d lied to Henri last night because she didn’t want him to polish off her emergency stash of liquor.
She’d been too embarrassed and guilt-ridden to find Richard and tell him about the pregnancy that had resulted from their afternoon together. She had thought she was doing the right thing for her career, getting an abortion at a private clinic in Nairobi, but she’d carried deep feelings of guilt and loss ever since.
The confrontation just now with Carmel had shaken her. That bitch. What did she know about anything? Carmel didn’t want her in Rwanda, which was fine with Liesl. As a photojournalist she was used to doing her own digging, and she was no stranger to danger. It was time, she thought, to forget about the others – Richard, Carmel and the handsome Henri – and take matters into her own hands.
Liesl dried her eyes on the back of the sleeve of her bush shirt, hefted her heavy camera bag and walked out of the room.
*
‘You’re quiet this morning,’ Henri said to Carmel.
‘Am I?’
‘Yes. You’ve hardly said three words – and they were “pass the sugar”.’
She didn’t smile. She was so angry at Liesl, and him, right now, that her breakfast had given her heartburn. Carmel was confused, too. She didn’t know whether to confront Henri about what had happened last night, or not. If she did, it might seem as though she had thought there was more to their relationship than there actually was. If she said nothing, then there was no way she and Henri could ever be more than acquaintances. The thought of making a fool of herself over a man again was tearing her up inside. Despite all of the work she had done to put her life back together and to become someone who was functional and in control of her demons, she was obviously utterly hopeless when it came to men. Jesus, she thought, what’s wrong with me?
‘Do you need a power adaptor, for your laptop or camera or whatever?’ Henri asked, then sipped his coffee.
The streets below were alive with the rising hum of traffic and the ever-present blare of moto horns.
Carmel figured it was a safe enough question to answer. ‘I brought a multi-adaptor with me. It works for all countries, so I’m fine thank you.’
‘Very organised. Just as well, as Liesl had the only one in the hotel, apparently. I borrowed it from her last night, after we got back from dinner. We were both pretty drunk, so I hope we didn’t disturb you when we came back to the hotel.’
‘No, not at all,’ Carmel lied. ‘So did the party carry on when you got back?’
Henri raised his eyebrows, then leaned back in his chair as he regarded her. ‘Ah, so you think there was some of the hanky-panky last night? Between me and Liesl?’
She folded her arms. ‘None of my business.’
Henri smiled. ‘I went to her room to get the adaptor board and I offered her a cognac, but sensibly she refused and sent me on my way. That’s probably the only reason I am awake at all this morning.’
‘Really?’
‘Carmel, did you really think I had feelings for Liesl after just meeting her?’
‘No, I . . .’
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, and put his palms face down on the starched white tablecloth. ‘Carmel, I like to think that we are friends, yes?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Even though we have only just met in person, I like you, Carmel. Very much. You are strong and brave, and you care for wildlife, as I do. I do not presuppose anything, but I would like to continue to be your friend and perhaps, well, perhaps when we sort this business out, then maybe you and I might spend a little time alone, getting to know each other better?’
‘I . . .’ Carmel felt the burn in her chest again and found the words wouldn’t come.
‘It is all right. Perhaps I have been too forward.’
‘Not at all,’ she said.
Carmel had interviewed enough criminals and witnesses in her time to come to the conclusion that she was about ninety-five per cent sure Henri was telling the truth – that nothing had happened between him and Liesl. She hoped he was telling the truth. He smile
d at her, perhaps reading her thoughts, and she could feel her cheeks cool a little. She didn’t particularly care that Liesl had left in a huff because Carmel had never forgiven her for the way she had broken up her relationship with Richard. Also, while she was concerned for Liesl’s safety, it was actually a hell of a lot simpler if she didn’t tag along with them to this morning’s meeting with the Rwandan chief prosecutor. Carmel knew the power of the media, and had discreetly briefed journalists on occasion when she thought it would serve her interests or those of her clients, but she failed to see how having a South African photojournalist in tow could make it any easier for her to enlist the help of the prosecutor.
‘You’re planning on seeing the chief prosecutor today?’ Henri asked as he pulled apart a croissant and spread butter on it.
‘Yes,’ Carmel said.
‘I’ve seen the concierge already and ordered us a car and a driver. I would like to come with you, but I understand that it will not help having a stranger along, so I will wait outside while you have your meeting, and then perhaps I can assist you around Kigali, depending on what happens with the prosecutor. I still know my way around and, although it’s a little rusty, my Kinyarwanda is passable.’
Carmel nodded. ‘That sounds perfect, Henri, thank you.’ She was wondering what she was going to do with him and how she would explain his presence and role to the prosecutor. In fact, Henri didn’t have a role in any of this except that he genuinely wanted to help her. She was impressed by his tact and his concern for her.
She looked at her watch. ‘My meeting with the chief prosecutor is in twenty-five minutes. We should get moving.’
‘Of course,’ Henri said. He stood and nipped around to her side of the table to pull her chair out for her.
‘Thank you,’ Carmel said.
‘My pleasure.’
*
‘Liesl, it makes my heart so happy to see you.’ Pierre Rwema shook her hand and then clasped both of his over his chest. ‘I have my car outside, but I thought perhaps you would first like to hear what I have found out.’
‘Of course, we can sit over there.’ She ushered Pierre towards a lounge suite near reception. Liesl noticed he was walking with a pronounced limp. ‘What happened to your leg, Pierre?’