by Tony Park
‘No!’ Sannie yelled, as she ran down the embankment after the vehicle.
The pick-up slammed into a tree trunk and the force of the impact activated the driver’s side air bag. The vehicle’s horn blared continuously and steam hissed from the ruptured radiator.
Tom was at the driver’s side, pulling the door open with one hand and covering Roberts with the other. ‘Out!’
‘Ilana? Ilana?’
Tom glanced in the back as he dragged Nick out of the car by his shirt collar, and saw that Sannie had found her daughter lying on the floor in the back of the truck.
Roberts knelt on the ground. When Tom had grabbed him he’d been dazed, but now he started to laugh.
‘She’s breathing. She’s alive, Tom!’ Sannie clutched the little girl, to her breast. She took her cell phone from her shorts and called her mother, telling her to bring the Land Rover.
Tom held his Glock under Nick’s chin as he quickly searched him for weapons. ‘What did you do to the girl, you bastard?’
Roberts shook his head, as if to clear it. ‘Relax, relax. It’s only chloroform. She’ll wake up soon.’
‘His pistol’s in the cab, Sannie,’ Tom said. Still holding her child, she retrieved Nick’s weapon from the front-passenger-side floor.
‘Why, Nick?’ was all Tom could think to say as he stood and took a pace back.
Roberts smiled up at him, then shrugged. ‘Man’s got to eat, Tom. You fucked my life up, old mate. But I reckoned I could earn enough to live nicely from the sale of a little white girl.’
Tom closed the gap between them again and used the butt of his pistol to smack the side of the man’s jaw.
Nick coughed blood. ‘My, my. Gone native, have we? The old Tom Furey wouldn’t have roughed up a prisoner. But he would have gone running to the guv’nor if he’d caught someone else teaching a protester some manners.’
Tom shook his head.
Sannie knelt in the grass behind Tom and lay Ilana down. She smoothed the fair hair from her eyes and leant over her, listening to her breathing. Satisfied the child was alive, she kissed her and stood.
‘So, what happens now, Thomas?’ Nick asked.
‘We call the police, and you go to jail for the murder of Precious Tambo. There’ll also be some questions about the death of Carla Sykes from an overdose of contaminated drugs.’
Nick started shaking his head, and his face broke into a broad grin. ‘If that’s the best you’ve got on me, I’ll never do serious time. They’ll have enough to do me on conspiracy charges, but that’s assuming the UK government wants a public trial. I haven’t read anything about old Greeves in the papers, Tom, since you got back to Africa. That means they’re keeping it hush-hush. What did they do, buy you off with a pension? And no one here cares about that slag, Carla. Nah. You’ve got nothing on me in South Africa, except for maybe breaking and entering.’
‘Kidnapping,’ said Sannie.
He laughed again. ‘Attempted kidnapping? Three to five years, tops.’
‘Shut up, Nick, you’re boring me.’
‘He could be right, Tom,’ Sannie whispered.
‘Listen to the lady, Thomas, she’s a smart one.’ Nick shrugged. ‘I don’t care. I’ll do my time, wherever or whatever it is. And then I’ll come back and find you. And if your kids help put me in stir, Sannie, I’ll track them down and kill them when I get out, and that’s a promise.’
Sannie raised her pistol so that it, like Tom’s weapon, was pointed at Nick’s face. She looked at Tom. He glanced at her briefly, not wanting to take his eyes off Nick for too long, and nodded.
Captain Isaac Tshabalala scratched his bald head. He still hadn’t forgiven Furey and van Rensburg for disobeying him and running off to Mozambique while he was trying to conduct an investigation into the British government minister’s disappearance from Tinga.
He stood beside his patrol car, looking up the hill at the farmhouse where the former police officers both now lived, surrounded by neat rows of banana trees. It was ironic and mildly annoying that after being transferred from Skukuza to Hazyview, one of his first major cases was the investigation of a shooting outside this pair’s property.
One man was dead and another was wounded, though the doctor in Nelspruit said Duncan Nyari would recover.
Furey and Sannie stood beside each other at the end of the deck, their bodies touching as they leaned on the railing and looked out over their farm. Furey waved at Isaac, who waved back. The Englishman then took his woman’s hand in his. They had obviously had a harrowing night.
It was unusual that the villain in this crime was a white man. An armed offender had broken into the remote farm – there was clear evidence of where the man had cut the security fence and entered – and a gun battle had ensued after the owners surprised him attempting to abduct a child. Furey and van Rensburg had stopped the kidnapper’s vehicle, and the man had allegedly fired at them and attempted to escape on foot with the child. The two ex-police officers had returned fire and killed him.
A niggling feeling told Isaac there was more to this crime than met the eye, but he was happy to see these two troubled souls at peace for the moment. The older woman, van Rensburg’s mother, bustled noisily into the house and Sannie’s two children ran past her.
Tom and Sannie turned and hugged the children.
Isaac put his cap back on, got into his car, and drove out the front gate.
Acknowledgements
A very good friend of mine, who wishes to remain anonymous, has worked for many years as a protection officer for the London Metropolitan Police. In the course of his career, he has provided close personal protection for politicians and other important persons who are household names.
Through the course of several conversations and emails, he explained to me the ins and outs of his job and answered dozens of questions. He checked the manuscript and, as well as correcting my many misinterpretations of what he’d told me, proved to be a ruthlessly efficient apprentice copy editor. Thank you.
Tinga Legends Private Game Lodge, and its sister lodge, Tinga Narina, are real places. I was introduced to them by Robert and Lesley Engels, friends from Cape Town, who suggested I set the relevant scenes of this book in existing locations. Thanks to both of you for a wonderful stay and a very good idea.
I hope my descriptions of Tinga Legends Lodge do it credit, as it really is one of the most beautiful places it’s ever been my pleasure to visit. Check it out at www.tinga.co.za
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) no one I’ve met at either of the Tinga lodges remotely resembles the entirely fictitious and extremely bad Carla Sykes.
Thanks, also, to Tinga’s real-life marketing director, Ian Taylor.
Although I travelled to London to research the scenes set in the UK, my friend Ray Philpott helped me fill in the gaps in my failing memory and incomplete notes when it came to some of the places described in the book. Thanks, mate.
Hannelie Dargie, a friend and loyal reader, and Tracey Hawthorne, a friend and scathingly honest critic, both read the manuscript in search of Afrikaans and other South African-specific ‘howlers’. Any that remain are Tracey’s fault.
I have Dr Grahame Hammond to thank for medical information relating to head wounds, and for keeping me sane during the months we spent together in the army, in Afghanistan in 2002.
Thanks, too, to former crime scene investigator Brian Dargie, who helped me stage-manage some deaths and provided lots of gory details about bodily fluids.
My good friend John MacGregor and his brother, Rod, joined Nicola and me in Africa while I was writing Silent Predator and accompanied us on a drive to Mozambique. Although their car hire company might not wish to know the details, John and Rod proved it was possible to drive the Kruger-to-Xai Xai road in a small two-wheel-drive rental car.
I cannot do what I do without the love and support of my wife, Nicola, who has to suffer the long bouts of silence and brooding fits when things aren�
��t going to plan. My aim in life is to be as good to her as she is to me.
As always, my mother, Kathy, and mother-in-law, Sheila, proved to be excellent proofreaders and I thank them for all their help, and for having my wife and me.
It’s true that writing is a lonely business, which is why it’s nice to receive a friendly email or call once in a while, or share a drink or three with other people who know what it’s like. My friends Peter Watt, David Rollins and Di Blacklock are all wonderful people as well as brilliant writers, so go and buy their books.
Five books on, and it’s still hard for me to believe how lucky I was not only to be published, but to end up working with such a professional, friendly bunch of people at Pan Macmillan. Thank you, Deputy Publishing Director Cate Paterson, Fiction Publicity Manager Jane Novak, Senior Editor Sarina Rowell, Publishing Director James Fraser and copy editor Julia Stiles.
And, most of all, since you’ve made it this far, thank you.