by Tony Park
‘That maybe one or more of Fletcher’s hunting clients got a little trigger-happy and that Fletcher had to cover it up – by planting a weapon on an unarmed dead guy, or possibly paying bribes to the Zimbabwean police to turn a blind eye.’
‘In which case he’d try to recoup the bribe through extra payments from his clients, or inflated trophy prices.’
‘Exactly,’ Shane nodded. ‘But, as you can see from the accounts, there’s nothing to indicate any irregular payments.’
She saw, however, that he still wasn’t convinced of Fletcher’s complete innocence. ‘Fletcher’s been good to you. To me, as well.’
‘You should be careful, Michelle.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘He’s no saint.’
His attitude was starting to make her angry now. She wondered if he were trying to drive a wedge between her and Fletcher. ‘Who the hell is?’
‘All I’m saying is, don’t go rushing into something with the guy before you know more about him.’
She exploded. ‘No one, and I mean no one, tells me how to run my personal life!’ Michelle stood and marched to the door. She turned, hand on hips to deliver her final salvo. ‘You’re sad, Shane. You know that? I think you’re just jealous of what Fletcher and I have and you’re so screwed up inside you can’t bear to see two other people happy.’
He said nothing – just sat there and stared at her. She turned and stormed back down the hall to her bedroom.
Shane didn’t allow himself time to dwell on Michelle’s accusation – perhaps because it might be true, and he didn’t want to think what that said about him.
He called up the accounts spreadsheet on the computer again and scrolled down, page after page. He paused to pinch his eyes and refocus. It had been a long day. In front of him on the glowing screen was a list of recent purchases made for the business. There was Fletcher’s new Land Rover Discovery – which had cost a small fortune, a tractor for ground maintenance, a generator, thatching and paint for the lodge, and a new Nissan sedan. Shane had never seen a small car at the lodge – it would have been quite impractical for the bush, in any case. He walked over to the battered metal filing cabinet. In the past he had needed to pull out the vehicle licence book – in reality, just a single sheet of paper – for his Land Rover when its insurance had come due, so he knew where Fletcher kept his vehicle records. He found the hanging file marked Vehicles and took it back to the desk and opened it.
He sifted through the licence books for the old Land Rovers and the Discovery, but there was no document for the small town car. Also in the file was a sheaf of insurance policies, held together with a paperclip. He flipped through these and saw they corresponded to the vehicle licences. All except the last one. It was an insurance cover note for a Nissan Sunny sedan, dated to take effect from the same day the vehicle was purchased, from a car dealer in Victoria Falls. Someone, presumably Fletcher, had drawn a line in pen across the piece of paper and scrawled beneath it, Transferred to FN followed by a date – a week later than the car’s purchase date – and a mobile telephone number. Shane wrote the number in his notebook, closed the folder, took out his cigarettes and lit one. A chill took form in the depths of his heart and was pumped through his bloodstream.
Shane changed quickly into fifth gear and Michelle watched the speedometer needle on the Mercedes dashboard pass the one hundred and sixty kilometre per hour mark. They were forty above the speed limit and the Merc felt as though it were flying.
‘Fletcher would have a fit if he knew you were driving his prize possession – let alone breaking the law in it,’ she observed.
‘I know.’
Michelle had regretted her terse words to Shane the night before even as she had uttered them, and although she wanted things to return to the way they were between them, the frosty silence had lingered over breakfast and in the car. As awkward as it was, she needed a lift down to Main Camp to pick up the other Land Rover she had left there when Fletcher had whisked her away in the helicopter. Also, she needed to spend at least some time with Matthew before returning to the Congo. Michelle had initially envisaged a slow, pleasant drive through the national park with Shane to collect the other truck, but speed was of the essence to him today apparently, and he had commandeered the fastest vehicle in Fletcher’s fleet and taken them out to the Bulawayo–Victoria Falls road.
The big diesel ate up the kilometres and they passed little traffic on the drive south. Fletcher was able to import fuel from neighbouring countries, but most other Zimbabweans couldn’t afford or access other sources. As a result, the roads were quieter – and safer – than ever before. Still, the high-speed ride was unnerving. Shane slowed to fifty when they re-entered Hwange National Park and they were soon outside Matthew’s cottage.
‘I’ll see you back at Isilwane tomorrow afternoon,’ she said, closing the door. He didn’t get out of the car and simply nodded. ‘You still haven’t told me what’s so important that you have to go racing back to Victoria Falls.’
‘You don’t need to know.’
‘Need to know? You’re not still in the army, Shane. Tell me if it has something to do with Fletcher. I do need to know if it concerns him.’
‘See you tomorrow.’ He put the car in gear and the tyres spun as they fought for grip on the dirt verge outside the cottage. All that was left of him was a cloud of dust.
‘You do make dramatic entrances and exits,’ said Matthew, as he emerged to greet Michelle.
‘Sorry, Matthew, can you give me a minute? I have to make a phone call.’
‘Sure.’
Michelle had the portable satellite phone with her and, while she knew it was an extravagance, she suddenly felt the need to hear Fletcher’s voice. She dialled and waited what seemed an eternity for the long-distance connection to be made.
She wanted to tell him about Shane’s allegations, and his unusual behaviour. She wanted him to explain his spending. Perhaps there was an offshore account, for tax purposes – that wouldn’t be too bad, surely? She could forgive some creative accounting, but what Shane had suggested, that Fletcher might have been covering up unlawful killings, was something she couldn’t quite believe.
He answered, his voice barely a whisper.
‘Fletcher?’
‘Michelle? Is everything all right? Are you okay?’
She soothed his initial surprise by saying, ‘It’s all right. I’m fine.’
‘Michelle, I’m in the middle of a hunt. We’ve got a forest buffalo cornered, I really can’t chat. Can I call you later?’
She frowned. Was she being silly?
‘Michelle?’
‘It’s okay. It’s nothing that important. We can talk later.’
‘Sorry, my girl. I’ll try to call tonight, all right?’
‘Yes, that’d be nice. Bye.’
She ended the call. It wasn’t all right, at all, but there was nothing more she could do for now.
Shane parked the Mercedes at the Sprayview Hotel on the way into Victoria Falls and took out his mobile phone. He opened his notebook and dialled the number he had written down from the cancelled insurance policy.
‘Fortune Ndlovu,’ said the voice on the other end.
Shane nodded to himself. He was right. He spoke with a phoney American accent when he asked to be picked up by cab from the hotel and taken to the airport. ‘I’ll be there in five minutes, sir,’ Charles Ndlovu’s son said.
Shane waited in reception, behind a large potted plant, and watched the shiny blue Nissan Sunny cab pull up. He noted the registration number was the same as that on the insurance policy originally taken out by Fletcher. He strode across to the car and jumped into the back seat.
‘Airport, sir?’ Fortune said from the driver’s seat, then turned to look at his passenger. ‘Hey, you —’
‘Drive, Fortune.’
‘Get out of my cab. I don’t wish to see you.’
Shane reached behind his back and pulled the Browning pistol from th
e waistband of his trousers. He kept the weapon low, out of sight of a group of tourists milling about outside reception, but Fortune saw the hand gun. ‘Drive,’ Shane repeated.
They turned right and headed back out of town. Shane saw Fortune eyeing him in the rear-view mirror and noted the boy’s panic. ‘I don’t want to die, Mister Castle.’
‘I didn’t imagine you would. We’re going to talk as you drive, Fortune. Why did Fletcher Reynolds give you this cab?’
‘He didn’t give it to me, he sold it to me.’
‘On paper, maybe, but that was a sham. I checked his accounts and saw you paid less than the equivalent of a hundred US dollars for this car. It’s almost brand new. Why did he give it to you? Was your father blackmailing him?’
Fortune looked confused. He opened his mouth to speak, but seemed to think better of it.
Shane carried on with his theory. ‘Your father worked out that Fletcher Reynolds – or possibly one of his hunting clients – shot an unarmed man in the safari area. I was nearby, but I didn’t see the shooting. There were two men, poachers with dogs, but only one of them was armed, with an old rifle. Fletcher and his clients came upon the men and reckoned they opened fire on them. I don’t believe that. I believe that someone in the hunting party fired first and killed those men. There was no second rifle, so Fletcher planted one of his, an old Russian SKS semi-automatic, on the unarmed dead guy.’
‘What does this have to do with me or my father?’
‘You’re not going to tell me?’
Fortune shook his head, so Shane continued. ‘Your father told me he had seen an SKS in Fletcher’s armoury and that he would instruct the other two members of my team how to use the rifle, as part of their training. That never happened, and I forgot all about it. But I think that when Charles went to the safe he found the SKS was missing and he confronted Fletcher about it. He found an entry in the firearms registry book that said the rifle had been handed into the police as part of the government’s plan to get people to hand in unneeded weapons, but I checked the police records and they never received such a rifle from Fletcher – though they did impound it when they collected it from the crime scene. Charles put two and two together and worked out that Reynolds had planted the gun on the dead guy. I reckon Charles started blackmailing Fletcher, who was probably covering up for one of his clients who had done the killing and would have been charged by the police if anyone found out. This cab was part of the payment. It might have looked suspicious if you started throwing US dollars around town, but a car sold to you – even at a discount – wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows.’
‘So, if you have all the answers – if my father was extorting money out of his employer – why did he end up dead, shot as a supposed poacher?’
‘Two possibilities. One, he may have got too greedy and Fletcher set him up – maybe killed him and made it look like he was a poacher. However, to do that he would have needed the cooperation of his hunting client, a rich American dentist who was with him on the day Charles died, and I can’t see a Yank millionaire being involved in something so grubby. The second is that your father really did turn bad. If Fletcher murdered him, I’ll see him brought to justice, Fortune, but I’ll need your help. You got the cab, so you must know the truth.’
‘The truth?’ Fortune broke into laughter. It started as a chuckle and ended up in great bellows that filled the cramped confines of the little car. Shane raised the pistol, wondering if the boy were unstable. As the laughs subsided, Shame noticed a tear rolling down Fortune’s ebony cheek.
‘What is it?’
‘The truth,’ Fortune said, sniffing, ‘is neither of those things you suggest. The truth, Mister Castle, is so terrible, so evil, you won’t believe it.’
26
The national park was like an old friend to Michelle – her best friend, she sometimes thought. During the course of her research she had driven nearly every accessible road and track. She knew every major waterhole and seep, every river and vlei; the locations of dens, the semi-permanent homes for the young of wild dogs and hyena; the burrows of bat-eared foxes, and the favourite mud pits of rare rhinos.
She stopped for a sandwich at the hide overlooking Masuma Dam and paused to reflect on how her world had been shaken. It had been a rocky, unpredictable ride since she’d first received the email advising her funding had been cancelled. Fletcher’s rescue – both of her work and her near-lost love life – seemed to have brought as many hurdles as rewards.
The dam was three-quarters full now that the rains had arrived in earnest, and there was little game to be seen, apart from a basking crocodile and a herd of a dozen waterbuck. Three of the younger antelope were moving closer and closer to the croc, as if silently daring each other to touch it. The lead buck lowered its head until its nose was barely a few inches from the reptile’s snout.
The attendant at Masuma, a smiling African dressed only in baggy shorts and a torn T-shirt, strode fearlessly across the open ground beside the dam, uncaring of what predators might be lurking. He carried a twenty litre jerry can of diesel on his shoulder, to refuel the pump which kept the dam partially filled in the dry months and fed water to the picnic area and small campsite year-round. Michelle envied the man’s confidence and his life as just another one of the bush’s natural inhabitants. Did he get lonely out here, she wondered, spending months at a time away from his family, and with so few tourists passing through the park in these troubled times?
The thatch-roofed stone shelter where she sat was dark and cool in the midday heat. A fish eagle called from its perch in a dead tree and she heard the return cry of its mate somewhere out of sight. They would be together once one of them caught something. The birds, with their distinctive snowy heads, mated for life. Would she and Fletcher spend the rest of their lives out here in the African bush?
She thought again about Shane and the hurt she feared she had caused him, yet she could not deny that she resented the way he suddenly seemed to be hell-bent on unearthing some flaw in Fletcher. She wondered if Fletcher really had covered up an illegal shooting. The death of a poacher – her sworn enemy as well as his – was of comparatively little concern to her; but what was more troubling was the idea that Fletcher might have killed an unarmed man, or been involved in the cover-up of a crime. Shane hadn’t even asked his employer about the journalist’s allegations. She resolved she would ask for straight answers as soon as she was reunited with Fletcher.
Michelle was worried about Shane for reasons other than his covert investigations of her lover. He was like a ticking bomb, she thought. She wondered if he ever let his emotions out. Did he have nightmares? Did he cry in the dark when no one could see him?
It would be just her, Fletcher, Shane and Caesar when she returned to the Congo – she didn’t count Patrice as a friend or confidant, and Marie would only ever be an occasional visitor – so it was vital she make her peace with Shane before they boarded the plane to return. There was still a long drive through the park to Isilwane, so she drained her Thermos cup of coffee and waved goodbye to the attendant trudging across the plain below her. She would cook Shane dinner tonight and they would share a bottle or two of wine. He was one of the few people she could talk to honestly and she realised that even after only a day she was already missing his company.
Shane thought about Michelle while he sat, smoked and waited in a chair on the lodge’s lawn in the long afternoon shadows. He stubbed out the cigarette. He wanted a beer, but knew he would need a clear head when the woman arrived.
He would have to tell her. It would probably drive her away, forever, but she needed to be warned, so that she had time to get out of Africa. His dreams were over as well. He had not raised enough money to buy a place of his own, so he would have to find other work. The prospects of a job for a white male in Zimbabwe or South Africa were grim at the best of times. He would inevitably be tarred with the same brush as his employer, despite his innocence. There was always Iraq, he supposed. More death
.
He held out his hand and stared at it. The tremor was so slight he might be imagining it, but he knew he could only soldier in the killing fields for so long. A return to the army might kill him in other ways. It was ironic. He had seem so much action, so much excitement, that a training or staff posting in Australia would bore him senseless, yet he didn’t really think he could face too much more death either. He wasn’t crazy yet, but he knew he was far from normal, emotionally. What might cure him? Love? A woman? Michelle Parker? Maybe, but she would soon be gone. The sooner he got it sorted, the better.
Shane had dismissed Lloyd – sent him off to the staff compound early for the night, with orders not to disturb him and the woman. He didn’t need the guide and caretaker to announce her arrival, as he heard the growl of her Landcruiser. He wiped his hands on his trousers and stood. He took a good look at the cool, masculine interior of the hunting lodge as he walked through it. He might not see it again after tomorrow, when he planned on returning to the Congo – for the last safari.
Sarah Thatcher was getting out of the four-wheel drive when he walked down the steps. She pursed her lips in disapproval. ‘This better be good, Mister Castle. I’ve delayed my flight back to South Africa for you.’
‘You may as well go back to calling me Shane if we’re going to be working together.’ Her hands were full with her notebook and a videotape, which gave her an excuse not to shake. ‘Come inside.’
Rickards followed them with his video camera and tripod. ‘I’ve got a sense of déjà vu. You’re not going to punch me again, are you?’
‘No, no “money shot” this time.’
‘But I want it all on tape. Everything you told me on the phone. That’s the deal,’ Sarah said.
‘If you stick to your part of the deal. I need to see the video. I need to know what your eyewitness saw, just to make sure.’
‘I hope this isn’t a waste of time,’ she said. ‘I’ll play the tape while Jim sets up. It’s a VHS dub.’