Forever yours
Shilo”
He placed the letter on the pillow in front of him and put his head in his hands. What now? A terrible emptiness descended upon him and sat like a cramp in his abdomen.
The sun continued to rise to its white-hot zenith and the cicadas shrieked monotonously from every crack in the earth. And Stratt tried to busy himself with different tasks to take his mind off the amber-haired lady who had stolen his heart. It was pointless pursuing the relationship. She had gone – back to where she belonged. Just as he couldn’t wrench himself from the African bush which he loved so much, he could not expect her to leave what was important to her and what she was used to either. It had been a beautiful, memorable encounter. He was going to have to leave it at that. But she had said she loved him. That was a bitter pill to swallow now. This was going to be just as difficult on her as it was on him.
He was glad that he had not said what he had nearly said before he left the bathroom. He had almost begged her to stay… or to come back… nearly promised her he would change the world to make her happy here …and God knows what else he would have said. Yes. He did love her. But now she was gone.
*
Charles froze mid-stride on the icy pavement as the headlines of The Times caught his eye.
“SERIAL KILLER LEAVES VICTIM ALIVE”
He was the “killer”, he knew that. He wished they had chosen a nickname for him like like The Yorkshire Ripper – that was catchy. But the fact that the victim was alive was going to pose a problem. If she was alive, she could speak. He was sure she had died – he had checked her pulse! He snatched the paper from the vendor and put a one pound note into the seller’s hands, indicating he could keep the change. His heart was pounding. He stepped into a café and sat down. He ordered a double espresso and slowly absorbed what had been written about him. Not only was that stupid slut alive, she was conscious and alert. She remembered everything. His physical description was near perfect. Damn it. The identikit sketch was a good likeness except they had his eyes too close together, his parting on the wrong side and had his nose a little off kilter. What was he going to do? He would have to get rid of the evidence: Alter his looks and sell his car. It was a good excuse to buy that little Audi Roadster he had had his eye on. He had been too careless this time. Maybe he should stop for a while, have a break before he gave himself away. But it was like an addiction – not to kill or to inflict pain, but to have rid the world of another useless working class woman.
“Scotland Yard has several leads, and they are sure that the killer will be apprehended and brought to justice.”
“Not bloody likely,” he said to himself. Just stay calm. He sipped his coffee casually and flipped through the rest of the paper.
*
Lady Carina looked at Charles suspiciously as he strode into the room where she was having her nails done.
“Where did you get those scratches on your face?” she asked.
“Fox hunting,” he said without thinking. “Brambles, I think.”
“Look like human finger nails to me,” she said, “Are you sure you haven’t been marked by some jealous female?”
She looked at this impeccably dressed man, with his seams ironed and starched into his trousers and cringed. Was this really what she wanted for her daughter for the sake of a title? He also had been acting rather strangely of late, as if he were harbouring some deep, dark secret. He disappeared alone some times … but what really got Carina’s mind working overtime was the identikit photograph on the front page of The Sun, just under the headlines:
SERIAL KILLER: DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?
It was Charles to a T. She was going to keep an eye on this paradoxical man.
CHAPTER 11
Shilo noticed that Dorianne looked very depressed on their departure. She had spent some time in Philip’s office before coming to the helicopter, and there were traces of tears in her slate grey eyes. Shilo suspected that Dorianne and Philip had been getting on very well and had become more than just friends. Dorianne had lost her husband to another woman almost ten years ago, and after their divorce he had suddenly and tragically been killed in a motor car accident in the south of France. It had devastated her that he was sleeping with his personal assistant, but his death had left her with lots of questions and smatterings of guilt. It had been the first time that Shilo had seen her warm to another man since then. But, Dorianne brushed off her probing, and said it had just been a “holiday fling”.
As they were nearing Johannesburg, nearly an hour later, Michaela started experiencing agonising cramps in her lower abdomen. Dorianne panicked, but Shilo kept her cool. As the contractions became progressively worse, and she began to hemorrhage, Shilo instructed the pilot to redirect from the Westcliffe Hotel helipad to the Sandton Clinic a little to the north.
They arrived there within ten minutes, and Michaela was rushed off from the rooftop into the building on a gurney. It was only then that Shilo broke down: The emotional stress of her departure from Stratt, the lack of sleep from the night before and the adrenaline rush she had experienced as she cared for her sister had finally got to her. Dorianne assumed the role of comforter.
“I know how you’re feeling,” she said, “we’re all worried about Michaela… and I think that you maybe got too involved with Philip’s son… That’s the danger of holiday romances … they are temporary and cannot lead anywhere. In fact, they should be strictly taboo. One always has to inevitably say goodbye. I made the same mistake and if he’s anything like his father, I’m not surprised you are so sad. Philip had my heart all in a flutter.”
Stratt was more than just a holiday romance, a fling, and Shilo knew it. She would take a long time before she got over him… if ever. But Michaela was the priority now. That had to be her focus and she must stop dwelling on her feelings for Stratt.
Michaela had gone into labour, and there was little anyone could do to halt it. It was hard and agonising, and at two in the morning, she gave birth to a baby girl. The baby, who for the twenty-five minutes of its short life, lived in an incubator with an abundance of doctors, nurses, neonatal specialists and high-tech medical equipment trying to save her life, was to be called Charlotte. But she was just too small, at eight hundred grams, and her little lungs were too underdeveloped, to survive.
Michaela was grieving. She had fallen in love with the life inside her, and had decided, that despite what her parents thought about the shame she would thrust upon their beloved family name, she was not going to give up the child for adoption without a fight. Even if it meant staying in South Africa and starting a new life there. But inside she was convinced that if Henri and Carina saw their first grandchild, it might be harder for them to force her to give her up. So when the little mite did not survive, Michaela was devastated. It was a hard cross to bear. But Michaela was strong, and she was pragmatic.
It was Shilo who seemed to take the whole episode badly. It seemed to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. Reliving that awful experience with Bill Moffat, as she opened up to Stratt, had been stressful; leaving Stratt had been heart wrenching; but the death of this tiny infant, her niece, broke her heart completely. She had watched Charlotte lying on the pale blue standard issue sheet in the incubator. She was minute, only fifteen centimetres long, and small and red and wrinkled. The movements of her minute limbs were jerky, pathetic and sporadic, the noises she made as she struggled to breathe and cry weighed heavy on Shilo’s heart. All those hands and needles, drips and tubes as they tried to save her life were almost too much to bear.
Michaela needed three days in the hospital to get over the traumatic birth process, and her chronic loss of blood left her pale, exhausted and anaemic. And with nothing more to conceal and no reason to continue their sojourn in South Africa, Dorianne started making plans for their return to England.
*
“Good morning, Charles,” said Lady Carina, as Charles sauntered into the solarium. “What have you d
one to yourself? Shilo will barely recognize you when she returns.”
“Good morning, Carina,” he said, his voice thick as treacle.
Carina eyed him critically. He had shaved off his neat little moustache, dyed his hair from a mousy brown to a darker brunette and his neat side path hairstyle was now a jaunty, very out of character brush cut.
“A change is as good as a holiday, I always say,” he continued, aware of her lengthy stare. “My stylist suggested that I needed to look a little more youthful. When is Shilo returning?”
“The day after tomorrow. Isn’t it terrible news about that baby? Poor Michaela, she must be going through hell! But everything happens for the best, I always say.” Carina sipped her steaming cup of Earl Grey and added: “Anything special planned for her return, Charles?”
“Shilo’s?” he replied. “No, not really. There is so much going on around London before Christmas. I thought I might take her to Lloyd-Webber’s new show. I have a connection for the opening night.”
“That would be nice. Henri tells me you bought yourself a new car? An Audi Roadster? Nice, Charles. You certainly have taste. But what on earth was wrong with that lovely little BMW? It was less than two years old,” Carina asked.
“Nothing. I just got a little bored with it,” Charles replied.
He caught sight of The Telegraph on the table in front of her.
“Awful thing, this serial killer story, isn’t it?” he said.
“Seems like one sick puppy, Charles. One very sick puppy,” Carina answered, shaking her head deliberately and staring straight into his brown eyes, and at the traces of the scratches healing on his left cheek.
If only you knew, he thought. But he was a little disturbed at her interrogation and he could not help but wonder if she knew something he did not.
*
Shilo lay awake, the night before their departure, with the sounds of this strange city in her ears. The constant sirens wailing in the darkened suburbs, the weird shrieks of the night birds, dogs barking incessantly, car alarms and the endless cicadas. She had really opened up about her feelings for Stratt in her letter – and she somehow regretted her forthrightness. She had felt, then, that those things needed to be said, but in retrospect she was not so sure she had done the right thing. What had she really expected to achieve by it? Had she expected him to drop everything, rush to Johannesburg after her, and beg her to stay? Or even better, beg her to take him to England for a rosy future together? No, that would never have happened. She didn’t know what she expected him to do at all. He knew where they were staying. He could have called… he could have come here to see her. Soon they would be leaving for familiar shores. She drifted off into a turbulent slumber: her dreams were full of Africa - and in the shadows, on the edges of her dreams, lurked Stratt Ogilvy, like an omniscient protector.
*
In another room, in another part of South Africa, Stratt lay on his oval bed. He had felt a wave of indescribable disappointment when his father had told him about Michaela’s baby. Dorianne had called Philip, who had relayed the news to his son. Everyone at the Lodge had grown to love Michaela and had reveled in her enthusiasm for the baby. Even Shilo had looked forward to its arrival. How was she taking it? Stratt had a feeling that underneath all that sisterly love and “glad it’s not me” attitude she was a little jealous of Michaela’s hidden prize. But weren’t all women like that? They all had some hormonal imbalance triggered by any mention of the word “baby”. Yes, Shilo would be devastated at Michaela's loss, and perhaps he should swallow his pride, his insecurities and make some attempt to convey his condolences to her. He wanted her more than ever. She had said she loved him and he knew he loved her. But what worried him more than anything was what contacting Shilo would do to him … or her. He had tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to lay her to rest…he had tried to start the slow process of moving on. But where to? The future looked very bleak without her. Very bleak and lonely indeed.
*
… She was walking through the long, tawny grass, with the sunshine on her face. A herd of giraffes were nibbling leaves at a nearby copse. Shilo felt totally at peace. There was the sound of wild birds calling; the hush-hush as the warm wind caught the grass…
…. Then she was lying on a large bed. A man was caressing her naked body, tracing the curves with his tongue. She could feel his warmth and indulged in the pleasure he was giving her. She could feel his hands all over her body, could feel his warm breath in her hair, on her neck, could hear his erotic whispers and smell his wonderful masculine smell. Then they were thrashing about in the throes of passion … he was thrusting deep inside her…
Her eyes fluttered open in the dark room, the gasps and groans of her recent dream still echoing in her head; her whole body tingling and her heart pounding. She burst into tears. Suddenly the only thing that mattered at all in the world was Stratt. A feeling of considerable guilt weighed upon her: How awfully she had treated him in the beginning - like a lesser human. What a valuable lesson he had taught her about that! What separated them then was what she considered so important – social standing, wealth, and a family name. Was it really so vital, when all that really mattered was that she loved him and he loved her? And he was an equal … someone o whom she knew her parents would approve. Now it was distance and pride. What was a title like Earl or Viscount, if you were not happy or completely at peace in each other’s company? What was the use of all the money in the world, if you had not found true love?
Could she survive in the African bush? She had up to now, hadn’t she? She had overcome sunstroke, malaria, snakes and even warthogs in the dead of night … what else could there be that she could not endure and survive? There was electricity, hot and cold running water … in fact she had lived in the lap of luxury whilst at the lodge. And what was a hectic social life, if the man you loved wasn’t there to share it with you? The Lodge was the perfect place to live – away from the rat-race, the pestering paparazzi and the hoity-toity, class conscious, status wielding society she was accustomed to, and which now did not seem that important any more.
Yes, she could do it. It would mean change and adaptation – but she could… and she thought she would … if only he would ask her.
The telephone’s shrill call startled her from her reverie. Her travelling alarm clock showed that it was three in the morning. She picked it up the receiver.
“Hello,” she said.
“Shilo? It’s me. Did I wake you.”
It was Stratt, and the sound of his voice sent ripples of excitement through her. He had called!
“No. I was just thinking about you… in fact I had just been dreaming about you,” she said ruefully wishing she sounded more cheerful.
“Shilo? Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m fine. You obviously know about the baby?”
“Yes. I wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I wish I had been there to hold you and say it to you personally… I wish that I could be there now to hold you …”
“Thanks,” she breathed, momentarily imagining what it would be like to feel his arms around her again right now.
“You were dreaming about me?” he said, just registering what she had said some seconds before.
“Yes. Wow! Was I dreaming about you… you and me,” she replied, her voice low, smooth and seductive.
“Sounds good. I miss you so much,” he sighed.
“Me too.”
“Shilo?”
“Yes?”
There was a pregnant pause, as if he was deciding if he would say something or not.
“Nothing… I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”
There was so much she wanted to say, so much she wanted to ask. But she was waiting for her cue and it never came.
“I read your letter,” he continued, “it meant a lot to me. Thank you.”
“Well it’s true. Everything I said was true… I fell in love with you. And that is not easily reversed. I’m just so sad that it all
turned out this way. If I had stayed a bit longer, like we were meant to do, maybe things would have turned out differently,” Shilo said matter of factly.
“Yes.”
There was another long, uncomfortable pause. The silence spoke volumes. They both were dreading the moment when they would have to end the call.
“Shilo,” he finally breathed, “Shilo, I had better go. I’m finding this very difficult…” his voice cracked with emotion.
“Goodbye, my darling,” she said.
“Goodbye,” he answered, and then the line clicked and he was gone.
CHAPTER 12
Charles was lying low. No more trips into the country. No more frequenting of tiny, out of the way taverns and cosy bars in remote villages. Not just yet. He was a little unnerved by this man Corbett, who had publically threatened his neat and organized little world, his secure cocoon, from a podium on television news broadcasts. They were uncomfortably close to getting him. The identikit picture that had heralded the front page of The Sun, The Times and page two of The Telegraph was a remarkable likeness to his old look. Friends and acquaintances had started to joke about it. Even Lady Carina had commented on it, always pressing him for a reaction. He was made out to be sick and perverted by criminal profilers. He did not enjoy killing – he simply hated the resistance. He had enough of that from Shilo. Shilo was always too tired, had a headache or was not in the mood. When she did agree she might as well have been dead she was that unenthusiastic. These girls resisted too, so he quietened them. He did not have a fetish for dead women, like the papers implied. He just needed to kill them … to stop their breath that gave them a voice. Thinking about it began to arouse him. But he tried to overcome the feeling. He had to let Corbett know that they had him all wrong. An anonymous letter or phone call might do the trick.
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