by Wilbur Smith
‘It’s strange to think that it all came out of there,’ Garry said softly. ‘Everything that you and Nana have built up. It makes one feel somehow humble, like when I am in church.’ He was silent for a long moment and then went on. ‘I love this place. I wish we could stay longer.’
To hear his own feeling echoed like this, moved Shasa deeply. Of his three sons, this was the only one who understood, who seemed capable of sharing with him the almost religious awe that this massive excavation and the wealth it produced evoked in him. This was the fountainhead, and only Garry had recognized it.
He placed his arm around Garry’s shoulders and tried to find words, but after a moment he simply said, ‘I know how you feel, champ. But we have to get back home. I have to introduce my budget to the House on Monday.’ It was not what he had wanted to say, but he sensed that Garry knew that, and as they picked their way down the rough pathway in the dusk, they were closer in spirit than they had ever been.
The budget for Shasa’s Ministry of Mines and Industry had been almost doubled this year, and he knew that the Opposition were planning to give it a rough passage. They had never forgiven him for changing parties. So he was on his mettle as he rose to his feet and sought the Speaker’s recognition, and then instinctively glanced up at the galleries.
Centaine was in the middle of the front row of the visitors’ gallery. She was always there when she knew that either Shasa or Blaine was going to speak. She wore a small flat hat tilted forward over her eyes with a single yellow bird of paradise feather raked back at a jaunty angle, and she smiled and nodded encouragement as their eyes met.
Beside Centaine sat Tara. Now that was unusual. He couldn’t remember when last she had come to listen to him.
‘Our bargain doesn’t include torture by boredom,’ she had told him, but there she was looking surprisingly elegant in a dainty straw basher with a trailing pink ribbon around the crown and elbow-length white gloves. She touched the brim in a mocking salute, and Shasa lifted an eyebrow at her and then turned to the press gallery high above the Speaker’s throne. The political correspondents from the English-speaking press were all there, pencils poised eagerly. Shasa was one of their favourite prey, but all their attacks seemed only to consolidate his position in the National Party, and by their pettiness and subjectivity point up the efficiency and effectiveness with which he ran his ministry.
He loved the rough and tumble of parliamentary debate, and his single eye sparkled with battle lust as he took up his familiar slouch, both hands in his pockets, and launched into his presentation.
They were at him immediately, yapping and snapping at his heels, interjecting with expressions of disbelief and outrage, calling out ‘Shame on you, sir!’ and ‘Scandal!’ and Shasa’s grin infuriated them and goaded them to excesses which he brushed aside with casual contempt, holding his own easily and then gradually overwhelming them and turning their own ridicule back upon them, while around him his colleagues grinned with admiration and encouraged his more devastating sallies with cries of ‘Hoor, hoor! – Hear, hear!’
When the division was called, his party backed him solidly, and his budget was approved by the expected majority. It was a performance which had enhanced his stature and standing. He was no longer the junior member of the cabinet and Dr Verwoerd passed him a note.
‘I was right to keep you on the team. Well done.’
In the front of the visitors’ gallery Centaine caught his eye, and clasped both hands together in a boxer’s victory flourish, yet somehow she made the gesture appear at once regal and ladylike. Shasa’s smile faded as he realized that beside her Tara’s seat was empty, she had left during the debate, and Shasa was surprised by his own feeling of disappointment. He would have liked her to witness his triumph.
The House was moving on to other business which did not concern him and on an impulse Shasa rose and left the chamber. He went up the wide staircase and down the long panelled passageway to his office suite. As he approached the front entrance to the suite, he checked suddenly and again on impulse turned at the corner of the passage and went down to the unobtrusive and unmarked doorway at the end.
This was the back door to his office, a convenient escape route from unwanted visitors which had been ordered by old Cecil John Rhodes himself as a by-pass of the front waiting-room, a means for special visitors to reach him and leave again unobserved. Shasa found it equally convenient. The Prime Minister used it occasionally, as did Manfred De La Rey, but the majority of other users were female, and their business with Shasa was seldom political.
Instead of rattling the key in the Yale lock, Shasa slipped it in silently and turned it gently, then pushed the door open sharply. On the inside the door was artfully blended into the panelling of his office and few people knew of its existence.
Tara was standing with her back towards him, bending over the altar chest. She did not know the door existed. Except for the gift of the chest, she had taken little interest in the decoration and furbishment of his office. It was a few seconds before she sensed that she was not alone, and then her reaction was extravagant. She jumped back from the chest and whirled to face him, and as she recognized Shasa, instead of showing relief, she paled with agitation and began to explain breathlessly.
‘I was just looking at it – it’s such a magnificent piece of work. Quite beautiful, I had forgotten how beautiful—’
One thing Shasa realized immediately, she was as guilty as if she had been caught red-handed in some dreadful crime, but he could not imagine what had made her react that way. She was quite entitled to be in his office, she had her own key to the front door, and she had given him the chest – she could admire it whenever she chose.
He remained silent and fastened his eye upon her accusingly, hoping to trick her into over-explaining, but she left the chest and moved across to the window behind his desk.
‘You were doing very well on the floor,’ she said. She was still a little breathless, but her colour had returned and she was recovering her composure. ‘You always put on such a good show.’
‘Is that why you left?’ he asked, as he closed the door and pointedly crossed the room to the chest.
‘Oh, you know how useless I am with figures, you quite lost me towards the end.’
Shasa studied the chest carefully. ‘What was she up to?’ he asked himself thoughtfully, but he could not see that anything was altered. The Van Wouw bronze sculpture of the Bushman was still in its place, so she could not have opened the lid.
‘It’s a marvellous piece,’ he said, and stroked the effigy of St Luke at the corner.
‘I had no idea there was a door in the panel.’ Clearly Tara was trying to distract his attention from the chest, and her efforts merely piqued his curiosity. ‘You gave me quite a turn.’ Shasa refused to be led and ran his fingers over the inlaid lid.
‘I should get Dr Findlay from the National Gallery to have a look at it,’ Shasa mused. ‘He’s an expert on Medieval and Renaissance religious art.’
‘Oh, I promised Tricia I would let her know when you arrived.’ Tara sounded almost desperate. ‘She’s got an important message for you.’ She crossed quickly to the interleading door and opened it. ‘Tricia, Mr Courtney’s here now.’ Shasa’s secretary popped her head into the inner office.
‘Do you know a Colonel Louis Nel?’ she asked. ‘He’s been trying to get hold of you all morning.’
‘Nel?’ Shasa was still studying the chest. ‘Nel? No, I don’t think so.’
‘He says he knows you, sir. He says you worked together during the war.’
‘Oh, good Lord, yes!’ She had Shasa’s full attention now. ‘It was so long ago – but, yes, I know him well. He wasn’t a colonel then.’
‘He’s Head of CID for the Cape of Good Hope now,’ Tricia told him. ‘And he wants you to telephone him as soon as you can. He says it’s very urgent, he actually said “life and death”.’
‘Life and death, hey,’ Shasa grinned. ‘That probably m
eans he wants to borrow money. Get him on the blower, please, Trish.’
He went to his desk, sat down and pulled the telephone towards him. He motioned Tara towards the couch, but she shook her head.
‘I’m meeting Sally and Jenny for lunch,’ and she sidled towards the door with a relieved expression. But he wasn’t looking at her, he was staring out of the window over the oaks to the slopes of Signal Hill beyond, and he didn’t even glance round as she slipped out of the room and closed the door quietly behind her.
Louis Nel’s call had transported Shasa back almost twenty years in time. ‘Was it that long ago?’ he wondered. ‘Yes, it was. My God, how quickly the years have passed.’
Shasa had been a young squadron leader, invalided back from the campaign in Abyssinia where he had lost his eye fighting the Duke of Aosta’s army on the drive up to Addis Ababa. At a loose end, certain that his life was ruined and that he was a cripple and a burden on his family and friends, Shasa had gone into seclusion and started drinking heavily and letting himself slip into careless despondency. It had been Blaine Malcomess who had sought him out and given him a scornful and painful tongue-lashing, and then offered him a job helping track down and break up the Ossewa Brandwag, the Sentinels of the Wagon Train, a secret society of militant nationalist Afrikaners who were virulently opposed to Field-Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts’ pro-British war efforts.
Shasa had worked in cooperation with Louis Net, establishing the identity of the leading members of the pro-Nazi conspiracy and preparing the warrants for their arrest and internment. His investigations of the Ossewa Brandwag ’s activities had put him in contact with a mysterious informer, a woman who had contacted him only by telephone and who took every precaution to conceal her identity. To this day Shasa did not know who she had been, or indeed if she were still alive.
This informer had revealed to him the OB theft of weapons from the government arms and munitions factory in Pretoria, and enabled them to deal a major blow to the subversive organization. Then the same informer had warned Shasa of the White Sword conspiracy. This was an audacious plot to assassinate Field-Marshal Smuts, and in the ensuing confusion to seize control of the armed forces, declare South Africa a republic, and throw in their lot with Adolf Hitler and the Axis powers.
Shasa had been able to foil the plot at the very last minute, but only by the most desperate efforts, and at the cost of his own grandfather’s life. Sir Garrick Courtney had been shot by the assassin in mistaken identity, for the old man had physically resembled his good and dear friend, Field-Marshal Smuts.
Shasa had not thought about those dangerous days for many years. Now every detail came back vividly. He lived it all again as he waited for the telephone on his desk to ring; the reckless climb up the sheer side of Table Mountain as he tried to catch his grandfather and the Field-Marshal before they could reach the summit where the killer was waiting for them. He recalled his dreadful sense of helplessness as the rifle shot crashed and echoed against the rocky cliffs and he realized he was too late, the horror of finding his grandfather lying in the track with the ghastly bullet wound which had blown his chest open, and the old Field-Marshal kneeling beside him stricken with grief.
Shasa had chased the killer, using his intimate knowledge of the mountain to cut off his retreat against the top of the cliff. They fought chest to chest, fought for their very lives. White Sword had used his superior strength to break away and escape, but not before Shasa had put a bullet from his 6.5 mm Beretta into his chest. White Sword disappeared and the plot to overthrow Smuts’ government collapsed, but the killer had never been brought to justice, and Shasa felt once again the agony of his grandfather’s murder. He had loved the old man and named his second son after him.
The telephone rang at last and Shasa snatched it up.
‘Louis?’ he asked.
‘Shasa!’ Shasa recognized his voice immediately. ‘It’s been a long time.’
‘It’s good to speak to you.’
‘Yes, but I wish I was the bearer of better news. I’m sorry.’
‘What is it?’ Shasa was immediately serious.
‘Not on the telephone – can you come down to Caledon Square as soon as possible?’
‘Ten minutes,’ Shasa said, and hung up.
The headquarters of the CID was 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 house-breakings. 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 tipoff 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 co-operate. He gave us a list of 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 for questioning. 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 housebreaking?’
‘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.’