by Tony Park
‘I was wondering, Kerry, would you like to come over to Mozambique to see my anti-poaching rangers in action? Now Costa’s dead you wouldn’t be at risk.’
Kerry looked up at him. ‘I don’t know. But I do have a question for you, that I’d like you to answer honestly. Did the guy who was killed in the car crash, Collins, the head of security, know that you were intending on putting that rhino to sleep?’
He took his hand off her. ‘I’m fighting a war, Kerry.’
She took a pace away from him. ‘I know. I was almost collateral damage. What did you do? What were you trying to do, Eli?’
‘The rhino would have recovered quickly, whether Graham reversed the drug or not. I wanted video showing how easy it was to kill an animal in captivity.’
‘But your job, so you told me, was to test the security at the zoo by flying a drone over and dropping an apple – not sedating a rhino. Why did you do it?’
‘This war’s fought in people’s minds, as well as on the battlefield. The media is crucial. I needed footage that showed a rhino passing out, as if it was dead.’
‘But,’ she said, ‘you told me that this was done for internal reasons only. Are you telling me you were going to send your video to the news media or post it online and shame Kwangela when they were getting you on board to try and beef up their security?’
He looked away.
‘Answer me, damn it,’ Kerry said. Eli just looked at her. She remembered something else, a fact she hadn’t been able to recall when they talked over lunch in Cape Town. ‘The poison.’
‘What poison?’
‘Don’t play dumb, Eli. When I heard on the radio you’d been arrested the cops said something about you being found with poison or pesticide on you. I know what it was about. You were going to make a video for the internet, or TV or whatever, weren’t you, with props and all, showing the world how easy it would be to lace a bait with poison.’
He shrugged. ‘Stuff gets leaked to the media all the time. Do you know how much it costs to relocate rhinos to different countries? Millions, Kerry. That’s money that could be spent on guns, bullets, drones, thermal imaging cameras, night vision goggles. I could win the war on poaching in Mozambique with the sort of donor money Sarah and that criminal Costa were going to plough into their crooked, harebrained schemes.’
‘So you lied to the head of security, supposedly your friend, and set out to shame Kwangela publicly, and shame the good people who want to ensure remnant breeding populations of rhinos might survive outside of Africa.’
He clenched his fists by his side. ‘It’s a war,’ he said again. ‘You win by killing people, not by trying to recreate Noah’s ark.’
‘You lied to them. They put you in a position of trust and you were going to abuse it.’
‘It’s a fucking war.’
Kerry stared at him. He was a zealot, prepared to break the rules, to do whatever it took to win. And that was the problem; he seemed as concerned, if not more concerned, about beating his competitors as about saving wildlife.
‘I’m pretty sure Sarah stole my phone,’ he said, filling the silence between them.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘She came to my dressing room after the gig in Cape Town, the fundraiser at the convention centre. I thought about it while I was in prison. I didn’t have my phone from then on. She set me up, the bitch.’
Kerry turned and started to walk back to the lodge.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Away from you.’
Epilogue
Thandi collected Graham from the hospital and drove him home to Hoedspruit. It was oppressively hot. Dave Corlett’s English wife, Veronica, he recalled, had said once in the bar of the golf club that the devil lived in Hoedspruit in October.
The blue sky was being subdued by a tower of ominously black cloud. There was precious little grass and the bare soil around his house was like an angry red graze.
Kerry had called him a couple of times during his stay in hospital, and emailed him, and while he’d been friendly to her he had been noncommittal about them meeting, assuming she was still in South Africa after he was released. He had asked her not to come and visit, inventing a story about a serious infection he had picked up – it was nothing to worry about, but he was in isolation, he said. She seemed to have bought it.
Thandi helped him out of the Land Rover and handed him his walking stick. The bullet had, Dr Bongi quipped, aerated his left love handle. It was still painful, but he had pills.
‘I’ll be right from here, thanks, Thandi. You can take the Landy home with you tonight if you like. It will be a couple more days before I’m up for driving.’
‘It is fine,’ she said. ‘I will get a taxi home.’
‘Serious? There’s no need. No one will be using the Land Rover here.’
‘I’m fine, Graham, really.’
‘Well, suit yourself.’
Graham found his key and opened the door.
Immediately he knew there was something wrong. He couldn’t smell anything. There should surely be the stench of rotting leftovers, the overflowing ashtray, mouldy washing. He set his bag down on the stoep, unzipped it and took out his pistol.
With the stick raised in one hand and his pistol in his right he went in.
‘Graham!’
‘Kerry?’ He lowered the gun.
‘I called the hospital. I didn’t expect you back until tomorrow.’
‘Bongi changed his mind about my release date. More likely he got sick of my complaining about the food and my care. I’ve put neater sutures in a dog’s ball bag.’
‘I’m sure he did a good job.’ Kerry had a spray bottle of household cleaner in one hand and a cloth in the other.
‘I wondered what that foul smell was when I opened the door.’
‘Let me help you.’ She went to the door and picked up his bag.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Waiting for you. I never gave you your key back.’
He looked around. The place was spotless. He suppressed a shiver. It was, however, good to see her. ‘Where’s your father?’
‘In love.’
‘Nice place to be. I went there once.’
‘Would you like a drink, Graham? I found some beers and put them in the fridge.’
‘Um, no, thanks. I’ve been dry these past five days in hospital and I’m enjoying not waking up with a hangover for a change. Water would be lekker, though, thanks.’
Kerry went to the kitchen and took a chilled bottle out of the refrigerator. Graham followed her in.
‘I like what you’ve done with the place,’ he said.
‘It was a bio hazard.’
‘Kerry . . .’
‘Graham . . .’
‘What are you doing here, really?’ he asked.
She put her hands on her hips. ‘If you think you can sleep with me and then walk out and have nothing to do with me, then you don’t know women very well and you certainly don’t know me.’
‘Agreed, at least on the first count.’
‘So, you reckon you know me?’ She poured water for them both and handed him a glass.
‘Yes. I know you’re a good person, with a good heart, who is committed to conservation and the environment, who is principled and honest, and brave enough to travel across a border to try to free a man accused of murder – a man who you hadn’t even met and who screwed up your booking when all you wanted was to come over here and help.’
Kerry swallowed.
Graham held up a hand. ‘Let me continue. I think you might have learned, also, that if you want to do something that matters, it doesn’t matter what cause you support or who you give your money to, it’s what’s in your heart. I also thought about my own life, and how I’ve wasted so much of it staring into the bottom of a bottle when all around us, here in the bush, is this incredible beauty that needs to preserved and protected. I’ve done my bit, over the years, but I realised my work’s
not over, and nor is my life, not while there is wildlife still injured or in danger.’
‘You’ve given this some thought,’ she said.
‘Yes. Pretty deep, eh?’ He forced a chuckle. ‘I did all this thinking while sitting on a bed pan these past five days and, actually, since we, well, spent that time together at Kwangela.’
‘Yes, about that – Kwangela that is, not the bed pan –’ she said, ‘why did you give me the cold shoulder afterwards?’
Outside there was a rumble of thunder and then the gunshot crack of a lightning strike. They both winced.
Graham gulped down some water like it was gin, his face serious again. ‘You know my wife died of malaria?’
‘Yes, you told me,’ Kerry said.
‘She wanted to move to Australia, for good, and as much as I am wedded to this screwed-up continent I loved my wife, Carla, more. We decided that before we left we would go on a final trip around southern Africa. We went to the Kruger – stayed at Boulders Bush Lodge; Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe; and we travelled up the Mozambican coast as far as Pemba.’
Graham took a deep breath and some more water. His mind and body were screaming for a cigarette, but he had decided to give up while in hospital.
‘Does this have something to do with why you didn’t want to go and see the falls when we were in Zimbabwe?’
He nodded and bit his lower lip. Tears welled up in his eyes, as they sometimes did, especially when he was tired. It felt as though there were enough to fill a dam inside him, and now that dam was threatening to burst. When he’d been thinking about Carla, and Kerry, and how close the Australian woman had come to dying because of him, he had started crying in hospital. Tamara Shepherd, now back at work, had sat with him and held his hand. He recognised that he had been fighting so hard, and for so long, to hold in his emotions that it had exhausted him, physically and mentally, to the point where he had welcomed the prospect of death at Boulders.
‘When we were in Zimbabwe, at Victoria Falls, Carla asked me if I thought she – we – should take some anti-malarial pills. We live in a malaria area, in Hoedspruit, but none of the locals take prophylactics. It’s not practical and probably not good for you to take them all the time, so we cover up, use mosquito repellent and sleep under nets, and when anyone develops cold or flu-like symptoms we go to a doctor, that’s how we deal with it.’
‘You checked on me several times, asked if I was taking pills and precautions against malaria.’
‘Yes.’ He gripped the glass in two hands to try and steady himself. ‘But I said to Carla, “No, don’t be silly, we’ll be fine”, and . . . and . . .’ Graham felt his whole body start to convulse and the tears begin to flow.
Kerry came to him and he felt her arms around him as he buried his face in her freshly laundered bush shirt.
‘I’m here, Graham. It’s all right.’
‘No,’ he sniffed, ‘it’s not. Stupid, bumbling, drunken me told her, when I was half-pissed, not to worry about it. That was me, breezing through life thinking everything would be just fine and we had nothing to worry about.’
‘Carla could have made her own decision.’
He cried some more. ‘I know. I’ve told myself that, but she didn’t. She listened to me. She contracted cerebral malaria, the worst kind, in Mozambique, and she fell ill and two days later she was dead.’
‘Oh, Graham.’ She moved him to the lounge room and they sat. She held him tighter and rocked him. ‘Let it out.’
He had been bottling up the grief, keeping it at bay with booze and, sometimes, drugs, for a decade. Now he felt like he didn’t have the strength to keep it in any more. He worried he might dissolve in the flood of tears now that he had started.
In time, he became still and could see again. Kerry held his hand.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘Don’t be.’ She wiped her own eyes and it was only now he could see she had been crying as well.
Kerry stood.
‘Van Rensburg came to see me in hospital, to interview me,’ he said.
‘What did she say?’
‘They never found Luiz. But she did tell me that in the wreckage of the Range Rover, in Sarah’s burned handbag they found a second phone – Eli’s. The theory is that Sarah, directly or indirectly, set Eli up at Kwangela.’
‘I see,’ Kerry said. ‘It doesn’t change what Eli did, drugging the rhino, nor what he intended to do with the video vision he shot.’
‘Yes, I got your email about that. I haven’t heard from him.’
‘Me neither,’ she said. Kerry looked at her watch, then left him and went to the spare room, where she had stayed last time. She came out holding her bag and daypack.
‘Where are you going?’
‘My dad has gone animal crazy. He’s been driving around these last two days – Blyde River Canyon and the Panorama Route up to Graskop and Sabie, but he’s desperate to get back into the Kruger Park. He’s coming to pick me up in an hour. I thought I might be gone before you arrived.’
‘I’m pleased you were here,’ he said. ‘Even if I did end up blubbering like a child.’
‘Don’t discount your emotions, Graham.’
‘That’s what your father’s girlfriend said to me in hospital.’
‘She’s nice,’ Kerry said.
‘She is.’
Graham didn’t know what to say next. They stood there, in the lounge room. Thankfully, his phone rang.
‘Graham Baird,’ he said. He listened to the caller for a while. ‘Shit. OK. I’ll get my bag and be on my way soon.’
‘What is it?’ Kerry asked when he ended the call.
‘There’s a rhino that’s been hit by a goods train. A railway line runs through the Olifants River Game Reserve, not far from here, and while the drivers slow down when they’re passing through the reserve and are watchful for wildlife, accidents still happen. It’s alive.’
‘Are you fit to drive?’
‘No.’ He started to type Thandi’s name into the contacts list on his phone. Hopefully she hadn’t got far. ‘Thandi will take me.’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean, no?’
‘I saw her leave your Land Rover and walk away. She’ll be in a taxi by now. Let me drive you.’
‘What about your father?’
‘He’ll be happy to drive around Kruger by himself. Also, you still owe me a few days of my stint as a paying volunteer.’
‘Are you serious?’ he asked. His heart started to accelerate. ‘Would you like to stay?’
She put down her bags. ‘Can I?’
‘Yes.’
‘For how long?’ Kerry asked.
‘Forever, if you like.’
She grinned and came to him. Outside it started to rain.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There is a real-life veterinarian in the town of Hoedspruit and he has probably done more to save and protect African wildlife than anyone I know. His name is Dr Peter Rogers and he kindly provided assistance with some technical questions I had for Captive.
Peter is assisted sometimes by another veterinarian Dr Hamish Currie, who is also the director of the Back to Africa charity, which has done a fantastic job bringing animals from zoos around the world to their ancestral homelands. Hamish and his team have facilitated the return of northern white rhino to Kenya and roan antelope to Swaziland and South Africa and I am a big fan of their work. I’m very grateful to Hamish for reading and checking the manuscript prior to publication.
Unlike the abrasive fictitious Graham Baird, Peter and Hamish are very nice guys and they have my deepest respect.
There is a real Graham Baird and while it’s probably an exaggeration to say he saved my life, I am sure he saved my left hand. Some years ago, while trying to extract ice from a frozen water bottle in the Kruger Park (to make a gin and tonic), I managed to stab myself in the hand with a very sharp serrated knife. I had just put up the roof tent on my Land Rover and, bleeding profusely, there was no way I
was going to be able to drive myself to help. Graham and his wife, Sharon, who were camping nearby, drove me to a doctor’s surgery where I was stitched up. Without Graham and Sharon’s first aid it would now take me twice as long to write a book. I promised Graham that one day I would use his name in a book and I hope he likes his similarly heroic namesake.
Sarah Hoyland from the Sydney-based Classic Safari Company is a much nicer person than her fictitious alter ego and like a number of other good people, she contributed money to a worthy cause to have her name used in this story. Sarah’s donation was to The Australian Rhino Project. I would also like to thank the following people and the charities they supported: Ruth Nicholas on behalf of Kerry Maxwell (Friends of Robins Camp, Hwange National Park); Kevin Johnston on behalf of Eli Johnston (The Askari Project, which supports elephant conservation in Kenya); Jenny Crameri on behalf of Tamara Shepherd (HEAL Africa, a charity supporting a hospital and community projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other African countries); and Chris Hennessy, on behalf of Desmond Hennessy (Guide Dogs for the Blind).
I’d like to thank my very good friends Charlotte Stapf and Annelien Oberholzer for reading early drafts of the book. Charlotte is a Sydney-based psychotherapist who helps me with matters of the mind and is an eagle-eyed editor, as is Annelien, who corrects my Afrikaans and cultural references every year.
John Roberts, an Australian Army officer who went to Mozambique on a UN mission to clear landmines fell in love with Africa and ended up becoming a Mozambican citizen. Thank you, John, once again for correcting my Portuguese and giving me some excellent insight into a part of the world that captured his heart.
Thanks, as well, to firearms expert Fritz Rabe, for his feedback on guns and ammunition; Wayne Hamilton from swagmantours.com.au who proofs each of my books and helps with my travels in Africa; Dr Neil ‘Bongi’ Taverner for his advice on heart attack treatment; and ambulance paramedic Ashley Lapham who showed me how to insert a cannula one day while we watched a herd of buffalo in Zimbabwe – as you do. Thanks also to Dave and Veronica Corlett and my other friends in Hoedspruit, who always make me feel incredibly welcome when I visit their lovely town.