by Deon Meyer
Principles of Tracking: Recognition of signs
On the way back to Loxton in Emma's Freelander. She drove, I talked.
'Ay,' she said when I had finished, experiencing the same Diederik disillusionment I had, the same sense of something lost, a crack in the honest facade of the Bo-Karoo.
'What are you going to do?'
'Don't know ... I'll sleep on it. Talk to Jeanette first.'
'Probably best,' she said. 'Lourens said you ran into the Harley guys again ...'
I should have known.
'I...' Groping for an excuse, there was none. Emma reached out her hand to touch mine gently, with all its ugly cuts and scratches.
Jeanette Louw was a former sergeant major from the Women's Army College in George, and the founder, managing director and sole shareholder of Body Armour. Her age - estimated to be in the late forties - was a carefully guarded secret. She had a taste for Gauloise cigarettes, for bruised, recently divorced, heterosexual women, for men's expensive designer suits, and brightly coloured ties. She was a demanding employer requiring absolute loyalty, integrity and professionalism from her people - because that is what she gave them.
'I hope you gave him a good hiding,' she said over the phone when I told my story.
'With a golf club.'
'Hah!' Her usual laugh, explosive. 'And you won't leave it at that.'
She knew me.
'No.'
'Listen to me, Lemmer. I am going to phone the bastard and tell him your account will keep running until you find out what is going on. And if he doesn't pay, I will send two gorillas to collect.'
'Thank you.'
'Are you all right?'
'Just a few marks in interesting spots. Very sexy. I can send you photos.'
'Fuck,' she said. 'How am I going to get that image out of my head?'
Late that night, on my bed's snowy sheets, Emma gasped at the sight of the purple and blue bruises and grazes covering my body. She fetched a little first aid kit and slowly and gently anointed me with oils and ointments. Her hands were soft and cool, her voice melodious as she told me with relish about her afternoon with Antjie Barnard, her morning in the church. Antjie saying through a haze of cigarette smoke: 'Emma, you're the right one for Lemmer. But if I were thirty years younger . . .' And, 'The trouble with Diederik Brand is that he gets bored. He's too intelligent just to be a farmer.'
Before church, Emma said, everyone wanted to hear the story of the Knights and the Red Pomegranate. 'This morning the minister prayed for God's hand of protection over our Lemmer and Lourens on their journey.'
Our Lemmer. That was a first.
And what if I should unmask Diederik Brand?
Once she had finished, she packed away the bottles and tubes, turned off the light and lay down beside me, her hand soft on my chest. 'I have to go back to Cape Town tomorrow,' she whispered. Then sighed in great contentment: 'I love you so much.'
'Emma ...'
She put her finger to my lips. 'Sleep well,' she said and kissed me on my unscathed cheek.
Tomorrow morning, I thought. Tomorrow I will tell her everything.
At a quarter to seven on Monday morning there was a gentle knock on my door.
Emma was still asleep. I got up and went down the passage to open the door.
Seventy-year-old Antjie Barnard stood there, with hat, walking boots and stick. She looked me up and down. I realised I was wearing only my rugby shorts, displaying the bruises all over me. 'Mmm,' she said suggestively. 'Kinky.'
'Morning, Antjie.'
'Diederik Brand said he doesn't have your number, but would you phone him urgently. He sounded a little alarmed.' She passed me a scrap of paper.
Emma's quiet footsteps behind me. 'Morning Antjie.'
'Morning, Emma. Don't worry, I would have given him a rough time too.'
It took Emma a moment to catch on. She giggled. 'It was only a warning,' she said.
'Oh?'
'In case he pays you too much attention while I'm away.'
'Lemmer, you have to come and see this,' said Diederik over the phone. He sounded more excited than alarmed.
'Why?'
'Lemmer, this is a party line. Please, just come and see. You're never going to believe this.'
I had other plans. I had to talk to Emma. 'I'll see if I can come out this afternoon.'
'I don't think you want to wait that long.'
'Diederik, what's going on?'
He deliberated over his answer. 'The questions you asked. I think I have the answers. The longer you delay ...'
I was reluctant to believe him, despite the fire and conviction in his voice.
'It's your choice, Lemmer.'
'I'll see what I can do,' I ended the call.
'What is it?' Emma called from the bathroom.
I went to the door. She stood in front of the shower, ready to get in, naked, at ease with her perfect, compact body. It took my breath away. Every time. 'I...'
'Concentrate, Lemmer ...' A mischievous smile.
Unwillingly, I looked away towards the window. 'Diederik Brand wants me to go out there. He's found something, won't say what.'
'I have to leave anyway,' she said.
I had to talk to her first. Not in a rush, I had to say it all in the right way. 'I...'
She turned around, giving me a full frontal view as she leaned seductively against the shower door. 'You wanted to say?'
'Emma ...'
'Yes?'
'I ...' What had I wanted to say?
'What?'
'Do you want to wash the wounds of a seriously injured man?'
'Actually, I'm keen on the healthy bits. And "washing" isn't necessarily on the agenda.'
'You women,' I said, as I took off my rugby shorts in a hurry. 'No respect for personal hygiene.'
'He's with the rhinos,' Marika said at the front door of the homestead, stiff and unfriendly.
I thanked her and went towards the field where, according to Flea's instructions, the animals had to recover and adapt for two weeks before they were released. This was the first time I had seen the farm in daylight. The farmhouse nestled in a hollow of the Nuweveld Mountains, the bright blue sky and rugged, rusty brown mountain tops were a dramatic backdrop to the simple white building and the lush green garden. A jeep track followed the contour of the mountain past an earth dam where ducks swam under willow trees, then through a valley of thorn bushes. Two black eagles swooped silently along the cliffs, northwards, hunting for dassies.
I found Diederik Brand leaning on the gate of the field, beside the concrete reservoir and windmill.
He heard me approach, but did not turn. I stopped beside him. He pointed, 'Look,' he said.
The rhino grazed between the thorn trees, peacefully.
'What?'
He just smiled, dimples beside the moustache.
Then I saw it.
The animals looked ... healthy. Here and there their hides were dark and damp. Bits of mud clung to them. But the Necrolytic Dermatitis was gone, the dark pink, septic growths had disappeared overnight.
35
Decisions made at a glance can often be erroneous, so when encountering new signs, time should be taken to study them in detail.
Principles of Tracking: Recognition of signs
Without a word, and with a triumphant gleam in his eye, Diederik handed me something. As large as his thumb, pink, it formed a pocket. It looked like the snipped-off corner of some container. I took it from him. Plastic. Soft, pliable, strong.
I felt it, looked at the rhino again, my brain too sluggish to process it all.
'It was lying here,' he pointed to where the long grass grew lushly in a spot moistened by the leaking windmill beside the gate.
He watched me while I tried to process this.
'Wait...' I said, because I couldn't make sense of it. I sniffed the plastic. Nothing.
'She's gone,' said Brand.
I tried to keep up with him. 'When?'
'Wait, wait, wait...' Gears ground in my head. 'Flea let them out last night?' Last night when the cages were finally on the ground she had explicitly said, 'Leave them like that.' When Diederik asked why, she had answered that the rhinos' sight was poor. 'They will break the fences if they come out at night. Tomorrow morning we can open up. Only after nine. By then they will be accustomed to the smells and sounds.'
'Cornel,' Diederik said.
'That's what I meant.'
'She must have kept them in the cages so she could get these things off,' said Diederik. 'And I think she hoped they would hide away somewhere this morning, so she could buy more time.'
'Shit,' I said as I began to understand.
'I've just called Ehrlichmann on his satellite phone. He says when they loaded the animals in Zim they were as healthy as they could be. Angry and wild, but no skin disease in sight. She must have stuck the plastic on during the trip. Look carefully, they rolled in the mud beside the trough this morning, look at those dark marks on their skin - everywhere they had those sores. I think the glue is irritating them a bit.'
'Only along the top,' I said.
'What?'
'The sores. They were only on the upper sides of the rhino. Over the neck and back and quarters. Where she could reach them through the bars from above.'
He grinned and nodded. 'You have to admit it's clever.'
I looked at the bit of plastic again. 'But what was in them?'
'God knows. But that's what the hijackers were after.'
'Has to be.'
'You owe me an apology, Lemmer.'
'She was working for you, Diederik ...'
'No! I don't know her at all. Ehrlichmann got her. He pays her.'
'And he says he knows nothing about these things?'
'I told you, he was shocked on the phone.'
'Did you ask Ehrlichmann if she had anything with her when they loaded in Zim?'
'No.'
'How do you know he's not part of this whole thing?'
'Why would he admit the rhinos were healthy?'
Good point. 'I want to talk to him.'
'It's a satellite phone. Calls cost a fortune. What does it matter? The rhinos are here, safe ... Everyone has been paid. You, Lourens, Nicola ...Yes, we've been tricked by a girl, but where's the real harm? I mean, by next week your bruises will be gone.'
'It matters to me, Diederik. And to Lourens le Riche. Come ...' I began to move.
'You still owe me an apology.'
'You forged documents that could have done Nicola a lot of damage. Lourens and I might have spent the night in jail.' And, I could have added, I am on parole.
He looked at the ground, guilty. Possibly afraid I would tell Nicola about his sins.
'Diederik, how did you get hold of the MAG-7?'
'I... it's a long story.' With a shake of his head that said he wasn't going to say.
'Have you paid my boss?'
The dimples had disappeared. He nodded sourly. 'Come, let's get this over with.'
We walked in silence. The extent of Flea van Jaarsveld's deception slowly settled over me.
Just before we went in through the farmhouse door, something else occurred to me: how had she left the farm? 'Diederik, it's sixty kilos to town ...'
'It's ten kilos just to the next major gravel road, Lemmer. And she was tired, I could see.'
'Did you hear anything? A car?'
'You can only hear vehicles once they come through the poort...' he said, pointing to where the road emerged from a cleft in the ridge. Then he said: 'Ay, that Cornel,' and he laughed his dimpled laugh, shaking his head.
We couldn't raise Ehrlichmann on the satellite phone. In Diederik's office he pointed the receiver towards me so I could hear the engaged tone.
'But you spoke to him this morning?'
'His phone is not always on.'
I took out my cellphone. 'Give me the number.'
'There's no reception here,' he said.
I checked my phone and saw he was right.
'You don't believe me?' Diederik asked.
'No. Give me the number.'
He looked at me with some amazement. 'You really can't just let this go, can you?'
I didn't expect him to understand my motivation. I was tired of Diederik, tired of his attitude, his evasions, his self-justification.
'I want Ehrlichmann's number. If you give me a wrong number, I will be back. I want Lotter's number and the Swanepoels' number.
And I assume Jeanette Louw called you this morning to tell you your account will keep running until I am absolutely certain you are innocent of this matter.'
'That's blackmail... And why would you want Lotter's number too?'
I didn't respond.
He shook his head and sighed, as if he had been done a great injustice. But then he reached for a piece of paper and began to write.
I drove back to Loxton in my new silver Ford Ranger, the four-litre V6 King Cab, knowing that Diederik had paid at least the next instalment.
I thought about Flea van Jaarsveld. About her reaction when young Swannie Swanepoel had recognised her, just before we loaded. I don't know you, had been her heated response. It hadn't been bitchiness, it was panic. Her initial, unpleasant aloofness could have been pure tension. She wouldn't want to get involved with Lourens and me, because it is easier to lie to strangers. She didn't want us to stop at the hijacking roadblock. She knew what they were looking for. Inkunzi whispering in her ear ... Did he know she was the smuggler? How?
Her thoughtfulness towards Lourens after the hijacking. Not compassion, but guilt, because his humiliation, his terror, was all due to her. That meant she had a conscience. Not a hardened smuggler. But a very clever one. And nasty. She tried to put the blame on me when she asked, 'What were they looking for?' And she was quite happy for me to suspect Diederik.
What had she been smuggling? I looked at the little piece of plastic in my hand. How many of these ... sachets were stuck on each rhino? Fifteen, perhaps, about thirty in total. Someone must have designed them, filled them with something so valuable that a gang of thirteen men raced a hundred kilometres through the night to intercept us.
Why go to all that trouble to smuggle something out of a country with a border as secure as a sieve?
Agatha, my coloured housekeeper, was tidying up the house. She gave my face a long, disapproving look. 'I heard about the scooter people. Ay, ay. I don't like this lighting.'
Before I could explain, she said: 'Now, we have to unpack that bag, so I can get the washing done.'
I nodded like a scolded child and went to the bedroom, I picked up my bag from where I had left it against the wall, put it on the bed, unzipped it. I started to unpack, my brain occupied with rhinos, bits of pink plastic.
Only when I had finished, did I realise my Glock was not there.
I searched through the clothes, with sudden urgency. I had put the pistol in the bag, while I was tidying up after the attack. Or had I? Racking my brain, anxiety slowly descending on me. After the attack in the night: it was lying there among the clothes, in the headlights of the truck. I had picked it up, dazed. Put it on top of my T-shirt, which was lying beside it. Shoved both items in my bag, last, so that the firearm was on top. Definitely.
I couldn't find it.
I took a deep breath, put everything to one side and looked through it all again, slowly, carefully.
The Glock was gone.
36
Creating employment opportunities for trackers provides economicbenefits to local communities. In addition, non-literate trackers who have in the past been employed as unskilled labourers can gain recognition for their specialised expertise.
> The Art of Tracking
'Fuck, Lemmer,' said Jeanette Louw over the phone, worry in her voice. 'There's a story in the Beeld this morning, an unidentified black man found beside the road near the Lapala Game Reserve. Bullet wound in the head.'
'My fingerprints are on the Glock. And the man's blood, his DNA.'
'Fuck.'
'Flea is the only one who could have taken the Glock. If she ...'
'Then you'll have to find her.'
Ehrlichmann's satellite phone stayed engaged.
I phoned the Swanepoels. It rang for a long time before Pa Wickus answered. 'Swanepoel?'
I explained who I was, asked if they would be on the farm over the next few days. 'We are always here. Is there a problem?'
'Not at all. I want to drop in for a quick visit.'
'Oh?' He waited for me to explain why.
'Do you have a landing strip on the farm?'
'Sort of. But there are no lights or anything.'
'I will ask the pilot to phone.'
'When are you coming?'
'Tomorrow, I hope.'
He was quiet for a long time before he said: 'Well, then,' but he sounded worried.
I left it at that.
I phoned Lotter.
'So how was the trip?' he asked.
'Interesting,' I said. 'Diederik Brand wants you to take me to Musina again. And then to Zimbabwe.'
'And you are prepared to fly in my Vomit Comet again?' Enjoying himself at my expense.
'Prepared' was not the right word, but his RV-7 was the quickest way to get into Zim and I had a few questions for Lotter. 'I'm pinning my hopes on a smaller breakfast,' I said, which was more or less the truth.
'Where exactly in Zim?'
'Near the Chizarira National Park, provisionally. I will let you know if it changes. But we have to land on a farm near Musina first.' I gave him Wickus's number.
Once he had written that down he asked: 'And when?'
'Tomorrow morning.'
'I will have to check the weather again. And Zim ... Getting flight clearance can take time. I'll call you back.'