Dictator

Home > Other > Dictator > Page 31
Dictator Page 31

by Tom Cain


  ‘Considering this country was starving six months ago, this isn’t a bad bit of steak,’ Carver said.

  Brianna Latrelle laughed politely. She was sticking to mineral water. She had to. She was seven months pregnant.

  ‘It was never really a starving country,’ she replied. ‘It was a prosperous, fertile country starved by a mad dictator.’

  ‘Whatever happened to him, I wonder?’

  This time her laugh was a lot more spontaneous. Brianna had quite a dirty cackle when she really laughed, Carver thought. It was one of the many things he was discovering he liked about her.

  ‘Who’d have guessed it would turn out this way?’ said Brianna. ‘Tshonga coming out of hiding, demanding an election, with a fair count this time …’

  ‘The guy’s got a helluva nerve, hasn’t he?’ said Carver. ‘You’ve got to admire him, really, the way he can talk about peace and democracy and keep a straight face.’

  ‘Well, he truly believes in them.’

  ‘Up to a point.’

  ‘Yeah, OK, so maybe he slipped up once or twice. But be fair, round here that’s nothing.’

  ‘And it helped that there was such a handy scapegoat, who just happened to have been the only survivor of the Gushungo assassination, found conveniently dead on a hill by the South African border, his body having been used for dinner by a lion.’

  ‘Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,’ Brianna said.

  Carver raised his glass. ‘I’ll certainly drink to that.’

  They ate in companionable silence for a while, then Carver said, ‘So here we are, two directors of the Kamativi Mining Corporation. How did you think the first annual shareholders meeting went, Madam Chairperson?’

  ‘I think it went well, Mr Carver,’ she replied.

  ‘Bizarre how it’s all worked out, isn’t it? I take the mickey out of Tshonga, but he kept his word about the deal.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t he? You fulfilled your side of it.’ She smiled at Carver’s quizzical expression. ‘Yes, I know what your side of it was. Wendell told me when we were flying down to Jo’burg, that last time. We shared a lot more than he or I ever let on. You know I had a bad feeling about what went down, that weekend at Campden Hall. I told you then. But the mine was always a good deal for Malemba. So why shouldn’t Tshonga keep to it?’

  ‘I should have listened to you that time.’

  ‘Damn straight you should have … and when we met at the house in Sandton. It’s weird, looking back. I always sensed something had gone wrong with Zalika, even if I didn’t know what. I used to tell myself I was being unfair, that I was just jealous of how much Wendell cared for her. I should have trusted myself more.’

  ‘And I should have trusted her less.’

  Carver didn’t want to think about Zalika Stratten any more than he had to. Time to change the subject.

  ‘So, the baby … did you tell Klerk about it?’

  ‘Yeah, just a few days before he died.’

  ‘He must have been ecstatic. He didn’t think he could have kids.’

  ‘I guess he hadn’t found the right girl,’ Brianna said with a melancholic mix of sadness and contentment in her voice.

  ‘Well he found the right girl in you all right. I just hope he knew it.’

  ‘He knew it,’ she said.

  Her eyes began to fill with tears.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Carver said, reaching out to hold her wrist. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  ‘No, it’s all right, you didn’t.’ She took a deep breath, dabbed her eyes with her napkin and forced a bright smile. ‘So, anyway, tell me about Justus and … what were those kids called again?’

  ‘Canaan and Farayi. They’re fine. Better than fine, actually. They got their farm back. Justus is rebuilding the house. He’s got a new tractor.’

  ‘Really?’ Brianna said. ‘That sounds expensive.’

  ‘The man got shot doing me a favour. It wasn’t a lot to do in return …’

  ‘You know, Wendell was right about you,’ she said. ‘He always liked you, even when you turned him down. He used to say’ – she lowered her voice into a feminine approximation of Klerk’s bass rumble – ‘ “That Carver, he keeps his word. He does what he says he’s going to do. And he can shoot the balls off a horsefly at a hundred metres.” ’

  Once again their laughter lit up the table.

  ‘I’d better write that down,’ Carver said. ‘It’ll come in handy for my tombstone.’

  Brianna smiled fondly. ‘You’re a good man, Sam Carver,’ she said. Then a look of concern crossed her face as she saw him frown and twist his lips in an unexpected grimace. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Just that the last woman who said that to me tried to kill me three days later.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I have no intention of killing you.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Carver, reaching for the bottle of Jardin Sophia. ‘Then I’ll drink to that, too.’

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks go, as always, to Julian Alexander and Peta Nightingale at LAW, without whom I would have neither contracts, nor manuscripts; to my editor Simon Thorogood – with special kudos for being such a gent over ‘that difficult chapter’ along with so much else – and to Daniel Balado-Lopez, who copyedited with such care and perception. In addition I must credit the original Flattie (you know who you are) for providing me with both a character and an ear for the rich and colourful obscenity of ex-Rhodesian Army conversation. The shooting scene would have been impossible without the technical advice and vivid imagination of Jonathan Irby at the West London Shooting School, not to mention the inspiration of Ian Fleming, to whose golf match in Goldfinger it is an admiring and respectful homage … Speaking of which, the character of Lobengula the lion was inspired in part by the many mighty cats that appear in the works of Wilbur Smith, for whose encouragement and support I remain enormously grateful. I should, however, add that the behaviour of a lion confronted by a truck when trying to get some sleep was taken directly from my own experience one memorable night in the Pilanesburg game reserve, South Africa – and you should have seen what the lion’s mates and girlfriends were getting up to … Caroline Driggs sparked my imagination with her recollections of Chinese grocery stores.

  David Hart’s hospitality at his magnificent home in Suffolk was similarly inspirational, though I should say that he bears no resemblance whatsoever to the character of Wendell Klerk. Finally, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Jamie Allday, my office landlord, who has had to put up with me describing, acting out and asking for endless advice on scenes from this and other books. And of course, above all, to my wife Clare and my children, who have had to put up with everything, for ever …

  TC, West Sussex, March 2010

  Tom Cain is the pseudonym for an award-winning journalist with twenty-five years’ experience working for Fleet Street newspapers. He has lived in Moscow, Washington DC and Havana, Cuba. He is the author of The Accident Man, The Survivor and Assassin.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Copyright

  Also by Tom Cain

  Part 1: Ten Years Ago

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Part 2: Now

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Ch
apter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Six Months Later …

  Chapter 100

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

 

 

 


‹ Prev