by Tom Cain
31
The dinner was as magnificent as Klerk had promised. The truffle souffles were almost as light as the air around them. The main course was a leg of tender pink roast spring lamb, served with fondant potatoes and a fricassee of baby vegetables picked barely an hour earlier. For dessert they ate fresh strawberries and cream, dusted with ground black pepper to bring out the sweetness of the fruit. All the ingredients came from Campden Hall’s own home farm. Even the truffle had been found in one of the patches of woodland that dotted the estate. Only the wines had been imported, and for Carver, the journey from Geneva was entirely justified by the chance to sample the 1998 Cheval Blanc, a red wine from the Bordeaux commune of St Emilion, which accompanied the lamb. He wasn’t a man who sat around thinking of pretentious adjectives to describe what he was drinking. It was simpler just to say that the wine tasted even better than Zalika Stratten looked.
No one talked about Malemba, or Gushungo, let alone the reason why Carver was a guest at the meal. It was as if there were an unspoken agreement to keep the conversation light and trivial.
After the meal, the diners began to drift upstairs to bed. Carver’s room was on the same corridor as Zalika’s. They went up together.
‘Well, this is me,’ she said, stopping outside her door.
They stood opposite each other, so close that it would take only the slightest inclination of their heads to join in the kiss that would open the door and take them both inside. The tension between them mounted. Then Zalika leaned across and gave Carver an innocent peck on the cheek. He did not move as she turned the handle, half-opened her door and then paused at the entrance to her room. She looked him in the eyes. And then she was gone.
Before long, only Tshonga and Klerk were left downstairs. They discussed their impressions of the afternoon’s discussion over brandy and cigars. Then the Malemban called it a day, leaving only Klerk behind.
In the small hours of Saturday morning, when all but one of the inhabitants of Campden Hall were lost in sleep, a mobile phone was used to contact a number in Malemba.
‘Carver arrived here today,’ the caller said. ‘We offered him the Gushungo assignment. He hasn’t accepted yet.’
The voice on the other end of the line was hard to make out. The reply had to be forced through a lazy mouth filled with spittle and incapable of precise speech: ‘Did you make sure he was tempted as I suggested?’
‘Oh yes. He knows you are still alive. We told him this is his chance to finish the job he started ten years ago.’
‘Did he like that idea?’
‘Hard to say. He wouldn’t commit himself.’
Moses Mabeki gave a long, rattling sigh, like a hiss from an irritable venomous snake.
‘I want them all dead: Gushungo, his bitch wife and Carver. All of them.’
‘Relax. He’ll take the job. It’s just a matter of time.’
‘Good. Everything we planned depends on that.’
‘I’m well aware of that,’ said the caller.
Then the phone snapped shut, the call ended, and within three minutes every bed in Campden Hall was occupied once again.
32
Wendell Klerk didn’t like to be hurried on a Saturday morning and saw no need to hurry his guests. The staff were on hand from the crack of dawn to provide anything anyone might want, but the first set event of the day was a midday brunch.
‘So, Sam, are you ready to shoot some clay pigeons?’ Klerk said, emphasizing his words with jabs of a sausage-laden fork.
Zalika smiled at Carver. ‘My uncle is very proud of his shooting ground. He had to bulldoze half of Suffolk to make it.’
‘At least half!’ said Klerk. ‘Patrick, will you be joining us?’
Tshonga smiled and shook his head. ‘No, Wendell, I have never had any skill with a gun. While my brothers were fighting for freedom in the bush-’
‘Ja, fighting me!’ Klerk interrupted.
‘I was studying law. All these years later, I am still happy just to read while others play with guns.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Klerk. ‘Brianna is not a great fan of shooting either, are you?’
‘Well, it’s not as boring as golf,’ Brianna sighed.
Carver laughed. So the plaything had a sense of humour hidden away inside that doll-like figure. There was more to her than met the eye. She had that, at least, in common with Zalika.
‘Very good,’ said Klerk, sounding rather less amused. ‘So now we three who will be shooting must agree on the stakes. What do you say, Sam, how about the two losers each give the winner ten thousand US?’
‘If you like,’ said Carver, unenthusiastically.
‘Not enough for you? What if we make it fifty grand each?’
‘Honestly, Wendell, can’t you see Sam’s not interested in money?’ Zalika said.
‘He was the last time I paid him.’
‘Well of course, that was business,’ Zalika insisted. ‘But if we want to get him interested today, it has to be something more personal. Now, I seem to remember that yesterday he called me, and I quote, a “screwed-up schoolgirl who’s got bugger-all training, experience or competence for this kind of work”. Sorry, Sam, but that’s not the sort of thing a girl forgets in a hurry. So my wager is this. I bet you can’t beat little schoolgirl me in a straightforward head-to-head shooting match. And I’m not going to put any money on it because I know that if you, the great Samuel Carver, action hero extraordinaire, can’t shoot better than a helpless, weak and feeble female, you’ll lose something – well, a couple of things, actually – that say more about you than cash ever can.’
‘Ahahaha!’ Klerk burst out laughing. ‘You’re really putting your balls on the line here, my man! Don’t be fooled by this kid. She’s a Stratten. She was blasting away all over the family estates when she was still in nappies.’
‘You’re on,’ said Carver.
Zalika smiled. ‘Excellent.’
One by one the others drifted away until Carver and Zalika were alone in the room. She sat herself down next to him and pulled her chair right over to his. Then she leaned forward so close it seemed to Carver that her sea-blue eyes were not just looking at him but through him, and very softly said, ‘If you want to take me, you’ll have to beat me first. And believe me, Carver, I won’t make it easy.’
33
The open trucks came rumbling down the dirt track that snaked between the rolling hills of south-central Malemba, throwing up a choking cloud of parched red earth over the tightly packed huddles of fearful, half-starved men, women and children crammed into their cargo bays. A horn blared from the leading vehicle and a uniformed soldier with sergeant’s stripes on his arm and his eyes hidden behind fluorescent yellow-framed sunglasses got out of the driver’s cabin. He slammed the door behind him and lifted his AK-47 assault rifle one-handed into the air. He fired off a volley of shots then shouted, ‘Move! Move! Clear the way!’
Ahead of him the track was blocked by more people: a horde that stretched away to either side, covering the rolling ground as far as the eye could see. There were more than thirty thousand of them, covering a barren wasteland that had once been occupied by flourishing crops and cattle made sleek and contented by lush green grass. Camps like this had sprung up all over the country, filled by families ejected from rural villages, estates seized from their white owners and urban neighbourhoods, just like Severn Road, that had dared to vote against Henderson Gushungo. Officially, the forced eviction and transportation of hundreds of thousands of people was known as resettlement. In reality, it was more like a form of ethnic cleansing, except that Gushungo terrorized members of his own tribe as willingly as he did those from other social and ethnic groups. Once moved, the people were simply dumped, without food, water or shelter, and left to fend for themselves. That they were doing so on land that belonged to other Malembans did not concern Henderson Gushungo in any way at all.
A two-storey house, constructed of breezeblocks with a corrugated iron roof, stood li
ke an island in this ocean of humanity, some fifty metres from where the trucks had stopped. All around it, wisps of smoke rose from smouldering cooking-fires and women sat before huts and tents cobbled together from whatever scraps of rag, wood and corrugated iron they or their men could find. Here and there small children with legs like fragile twigs and bellies as swollen as honeydew melons tried to play. But they had no energy to run or jump; no toys for imaginary tea-parties or battles; no light in their round, enquiring eyes.
There was a slow, tired, hungry ripple of movement in front of the line of trucks and a few metres of track were cleared. The trucks rumbled forward again until they were swallowed up in the ocean of humanity and had to stop once more, some thirty metres now from the house. The man with the gun, who had been walking beside the leading truck, kicking people out of his way, fired another burst into the sky, and again a path through the throng, shorter and narrower this time, briefly appeared. When even this progress had reached its limit, the man accepted the inevitable. He turned round to face the line of trucks and shouted, ‘Enough, we stop here! Get them out!’
A dozen or so more soldiers spilled from the trucks’ cabins. They went round to the backs of the cargo bays and opened them up, screaming ‘Get out!’ to the people inside, prodding them with the barrels of their AK-47s and lashing out with the butts at anyone who dared protest, or even ask where they were or what was going on.
Mary had learned her lesson the previous night. She said nothing. She just held Peter tight, hoping that he would keep quiet. It made no difference. One of the soldiers smashed her in the face with his gun, just for the hell of it. He laughed and pointed Mary out to his mates as she fell to the ground, one hand still clinging to her baby, the other clasped to her face, blood seeping out between the fingers.
‘Stop that!’
The shout came from the building. A boy in his late teens and a girl of about the same age – brother and sister by the look of them – were standing in the open front door. They seemed a little healthier and better-fed than the rest of the people around them and they carried themselves with the confidence of young people who have been raised in the belief that anything is possible and have yet to discover the limitations and dangers of that particular delusion.
It was the boy who had shouted. Now he was walking through the people towards the truck, moving with the purposeful stride of a warrior prince. He ignored the soldiers and went straight to Mary Utseya, crouching on his haunches beside her and wrapping a consoling arm round her shoulders.
The boy looked up at the soldier who had hit Mary. ‘Shame on you,’ he said with dismissive contempt. ‘A real man has no need to hit a defenceless woman.’
The soldier took a step forward and the boy sprang to his feet to meet him. They stood opposite each other, glaring, barely a pace apart.
‘This woman needs help, her child too,’ the boy said. He turned his head towards his sister and called out, ‘Farayi, come and give me a hand.’
The girl ran towards him, picking her way through the crowds with the sure-footed grace of a young gazelle. She took hold of Mary’s elbow, gently guiding her as the boy lifted her to her feet.
‘We’re taking her to the house,’ the boy said.
He turned to lead the two women in that direction. They’d only taken three shuffling steps towards their destination when the sergeant’s voice rang out again: ‘Where you going, boy? You stay right here.’
The boy hissed at his sister, ‘Keep going. Ignore him.’
She hesitated for a second. ‘Canaan, do what he says.’
The sergeant ignored them both. He had his own way of resolving tricky situations. He slammed a fresh magazine into his AK-47, took careful aim and fired a three-shot burst. Mary Utseya seemed to dance in the two kids’ arms, then her body slumped to the ground as the boy and girl jumped aside, away from any more shots.
Peter was left lying on the ground between them. He started to cry. The sergeant walked up to the small bundle wriggling on the bare red earth. He aimed his gun at it then lowered the barrel. No need to waste a bullet. He raised his right foot high in the air, bringing his knee up almost to his chest, then slammed it down, crushing the baby’s skull with one blow of his boot heel.
‘Now you got no reason to go to the house,’ the sergeant said, rubbing his boot in the dirt to scrape the fragments of skull and brain matter off its sole.
He pointed his index finger at four of his men. ‘You, you, you, you.’ He jerked a thumb at Canaan and Farayi. ‘Seize them. They are rebels. They are trying to sabotage our mission. They must come with us.’
‘No!’ The simple word was dragged out into a long, wailing cry of despair as a third person came out of the house, a middle-aged woman, her once-elegant features ravaged by exhaustion and stress. ‘You will not take my children!’ she shouted, hurrying towards the trucks.
‘Stay away!’ the sergeant shouted, but she kept going.
‘Do what he says!’ Canaan cried, struggling to free himself from the soldiers who had him in their grip.
His words were drowned by the chatter of the gun.
As Nyasha Iluko – wife of Justus Iluko, mother of Canaan and Farayi – lay on the ground, twitching in her final death-throes, the sergeant walked up to Canaan and jabbed him in the chest with the burning-hot barrel of his gun. ‘You see, young man? This is what happens when you meddle in another man’s business. These two women, this child, they all died because of you.’
34
Wendell Klerk’s gamekeeper Donald McGuinness was a wiry Scotsman who combined an impeccably polite manner with a sharp, sceptical look in his eye that suggested he was a very easy man to get along with, but a very hard one to impress.
‘If ye’ll just follow me, please,’ he said in a soft Highland burr, leading Carver, Klerk and Zalika down a set of stairs that led to a subterranean hallway off which there were two doors. One of them led to the wine-cellar of which Klerk was so proud. McGuinness ignored it. He went directly to the second door, to one side of which was a keypad. McGuinness punched in a number.
Klerk looked at Carver. ‘I think you’re going to like this,’ he said.
Carver heard the sound of a lock being released. The door swung open. It was solid steel and hefty enough to resist anything short of an artillery shell. McGuinness stood aside to let them through, and Carver followed Klerk and Zalika into a room about forty feet long and fifteen wide. Three of the walls were wood-panelled and decorated with photographs, prints and oil paintings that depicted shooting scenes, dogs and artful arrangements of dead game. The fourth was taken up with a gigantic cabinet. Its lower portion consisted of a series of twin-door wooden cupboards, rising some three feet from the floor. Above them, the rest of the cabinet was set back behind a narrow shelf, covered in green baize. This upper section rose to the ceiling and was fitted with toughened, shatterproof glass. Behind it, a long line of guns marched the full length of the room.
The majority of them were shotguns, presented in matched pairs. Beyond them came a much smaller selection of rifles for use in target-shooting or stalking deer. There must have been at least a hundred weapons, enough firepower to equip a company of soldiers, and their quality was as striking as the quantity.
Klerk was smiling more broadly than at any time in the entire weekend, clearly delighted by Carver’s evident appreciation of his collection. ‘Pretty impressive, hey?’ he said. ‘And look here…’ Klerk opened two of the low cupboard doors to reveal a metal cabinet that looked like a small safe. Above its door, a digital readout showed the figure 68.5. ‘That, my friend, is a climate-controlled ammunition store. The temperature is constant. The air is dessicated to prevent any moisture corrupting the cartridges and their contents. When you fire my ammunition, Sam, you get the best bang my bucks can buy!’
Carver got the feeling that this was not the first time Klerk had used the line, but he was impressed nonetheless.
‘So,’ Klerk continued, ‘let us choose our we
apons. I’ll have my usual gun, please, Donald.’
McGuinness unlocked one of the panes of glass and slid it open. He took out a supremely beautiful double-barrelled twelve-bore shotgun engraved with an image of a pair of pheasants taking to the air. Around the birds, the gun’s action was decorated with an intricate swirling pattern of stylized leaves and flowers. In the midst of them a scroll bore the words ‘J. Purdey amp; Sons’. The Mayfair-based gunsmiths, founded in 1814, were to shotguns what Rolls-Royce were to cars: the ultimate example of traditional British craftsmanship and luxury. Their products were priced accordingly: a gun like Klerk’s, Carver reckoned, must have cost seventy thousand pounds at the absolute minimum. It was as much a work of art as a firearm.
Klerk turned to Carver. ‘What will you have, Sam?’
‘I’ll wait my turn,’ he said. He looked at Zalika. ‘Ladies first.’
Carver was acting the gentleman, but his intention was far less chivalrous. He wanted to see what kind of weapon Zalika chose. It would be the first clue as to the kind of opponent she was likely to be.
If Zalika was aware of the game Carver was playing, she gave no sign of it. She strolled along the full length of the cabinet, looking at the guns as casually as a woman eyeing up fruit on a market stall. Carver expected her to stop by the lighter, small-bored ladies’ guns, whose barrels were typically twenty-eight inches long. She ignored them. Instead, she pointed at a twelve-bore Perazzi MX2000S with thirty-inch barrels. ‘That one, please, Donald,’ she said.
Carver wondered for a moment whether she was putting on an act. The Perazzi was a serious competition gun, used by Olympic-level shots. It was entirely bare of fancy decoration. This was a gun that had no need to look pretty. Its only purpose was to shoot straight. It was his kind of weapon.
With gun-barrels as with skis, beginners go short for easier control, while experts go long for greater performance. Zalika frowned at the gun McGuinness was holding out to her. ‘Pity it’s only got thirty-inch barrels,’ she said.