African Sky (10 page)

When they'd returned from the crash site in the afternoon, Bryant had knocked gently on the bedroom door and opened it. What he saw shocked him. Catherine was sitting naked on the floor, her knees drawn up to her breasts, a half-empty bottle of gin clutched in her right hand. Her eyes were puffy and red and her cheeks streaked with dried tears. She sobbed as he lifted her to the bed.

‘I told Cook to spit-roast an impala,' she mumbled, as if in a daze.

‘It's all right, Catherine. Get some sleep. We can talk later.'

He'd taken the remnants of the bottle from her and tucked her in. Mercifully, she had drifted off to sleep immediately.

It was dark outside now, though still warm enough for Pip and Paul to be in shirtsleeves. The mechanics stood around a fire pit full of hot coals as Catherine's African cook turned the carcass of the little antelope on the spit. The African askaris and the air force guards sat a little way off, talking among themselves.

Bryant had told Pip about Catherine's condition. ‘It's put all of us behind schedule, but at least the erks seem to be enjoying themselves,' he said, as another chorus of laughter wafted over from the
braai,
along with the tantalising scent and sizzle of roasting venison.

Before taking to the bottle, Catherine had had the presence of mind to order her staff to fetch ice and two crates of beer, and make up some beds from spare mattresses in the lodge's workshop. The maid had shown Bryant and Pip to two newly made-up guestrooms, at opposite ends of the corridor from Catherine's central bedroom. In one respect, Bryant was glad of the delay. If he had been back at Kumalo, he would have been overseeing the arrangements for two funerals, not to mention being neck-deep in paperwork and administration over the current investigations. It would still be there waiting for him the next day. However, for the moment he found he was content to stand next to Pip Lovejoy and savour the familiar feeling of numbness spreading through his veins as his third bottle of Lion Lager took effect.

‘Look, our hostess has risen,' Pip said, pointing with her glass of gin and tonic.

Bryant noticed Pip had been sitting on the drink since sundowners were served. Unlike him, she obviously wanted to keep a clear head for her meeting with Catherine. Once he had reported that Catherine was comatose, the two of them had spent a relaxing afternoon driving some more of the dirt roads around Isilwane Ranch. They had spotted giraffe, wildebeest and a trio of curly-horned male kudus, and had had a fleeting glimpse of a magnificent black-maned lion, not far at all from the house – possibly the same one who was now calling to the other members of his pride. They'd talked about wildlife and, as if a temporary truce were in place, nothing more about the investigations they were both involved in.

‘Constable, Paul, can you ever forgive me?' Catherine asked as she strode from the house into the garden, a mug of steaming coffee cupped in both hands.

‘There's nothing to forgive, Mrs De Beers,' Pip said.

‘Thank you for being so understanding. Please call me Catherine and I shall call you Philippa, if that's not against police regulations.'

‘Pip,' she said, smiling.

‘How are you feeling, Cath?' Paul asked.

‘I'm coping. Of course, I can't stop thinking about poor Flick, but I suppose I'll have to accept it now.'

‘I'm sorry for your loss. She must have been a dear friend,' Pip began.

Paul noticed that Catherine seemed to have pulled herself together. From the distraught mess he'd seen earlier in the day, a composed, svelte, immaculately groomed woman had emerged. Her eyes were a little puffy, but she had done her hair and made up her face. She wore a simple black dress belted at the waist, patent leather sandals and a string of tiny pearls. It was as if she had to dress to impress for every occasion, be it hunting in the bush or mourning.

‘You really can't imagine,' Catherine said.

Pip wondered what that meant. ‘You were at school together?'

‘Yes, here and overseas. We were both sent to England for the last two years of our schooling, in the hope the Brits would make proper young ladies of us.'

‘Must have been a bit of a culture shock,' Pip said.

‘Oh, it was. I'd grown up on a farm and spent half my life hunting with my father. Flick's father was in trade – terribly wealthy, though – and her world had already been a whirl of parties. The two of us were plucked from very adult worlds and dropped into a boarding school full of prim and proper little girls who'd never said boo to a goose. It was the two of us against the world over there.'

‘And you'd stayed friends ever since.'

‘Yes. When the war started, Flick joined the WAAFs. She trained as a parachute packer and was absolutely desperate to try one of the silly things out. I took her up in my Tiger Moth one day and she just did it – jumped out. She was an incredible person,' Catherine said, tailing off as the memories cascaded through her mind.

‘I need to ask you about the company Miss Langham was keeping, Catherine.'

‘Of course,' Catherine said.

‘I'm sorry to tell you this, but the way Miss Langham's body was found and certain other evidence at the scene indicate she may have been the subject of a sexual assault.'

Catherine closed her eyes and nodded. ‘Paul told me. I still can't imagine why someone would do such a thing.'

‘Sometimes these types of attacks are random, but in many cases the attacker is known to the victim. I need to know if Felicity was seeing someone, or if she had spoken of being pestered by a man, or men.'

‘Hundreds.'

‘Excuse me?' Pip said.

‘Maybe thousands. She was
surrounded
by lovesick, homesick men, most still in or barely out of their teens. Hardly a day went by when Flick wasn't asked out to the cinema, to dinner or for something less seemly. I don't know if you noticed, but she was a beautiful young woman.'

Pip nodded. ‘How did she take to these advances?'

‘I could tell you she rejected them all, but that would be a lie. She was a vivacious girl with a zest for life. Wartime loosens some of the constraints of normal polite society, as I'm sure you've noticed yourself. She had a couple of affairs that I knew of, with trainee pilots. Both are overseas now; dead, for all I know. The last was two months ago.'

‘There was no one recently?'

‘No one from the base at Kumalo, not that I know of,' Catherine said, glancing at Bryant as if for confirmation.

Pip took a sip of her drink. ‘Do you get down to Bulawayo often?'

‘Not since just after I pranged my aeroplane. I was there recently for a function in the officers' mess. Since then I've been grounded, literally.'

‘You don't have a motor car?'

‘I do. Several, if you count the hunting trucks. I don't suppose the police are subject to petrol rationing, but we lesser mortals are, and it's damned hard to find someone who'll deliver way out here. Every now and then, when I have enough fuel saved up, I drive to Victoria Falls to visit friends and stock up on supplies.'

‘When was the last time you saw Felicity?'

Catherine stroked her chin and gazed towards the star-filled sky.
‘The morning of the day I crashed the aircraft. We'd done a display at Kumalo, had morning tea in the mess with a few of the instructors, and then I flew home. That was the last time I saw her. Two weeks ago. Excuse me,' Catherine said, wiping a tear with the back of her finger, trying not to smudge her make-up.

‘I'm so sorry. I know this must be hard for you,' Pip said.

‘I hope you find the bastard who hurt her, Pip,' Catherine replied.

Pip nodded. ‘So do I.' She changed the subject. ‘You've a lovely home here.'

‘I
had
a lovely home while Hugo was still alive. Now I've got a big, empty house full of nice things. It's not quite the same.'

‘I met him once. He came to shoot a lion on our farm. He was larger than life.'

‘In every way. He was a friend of my father's. I'd known him since I was a child.'

‘Really?'

‘Good Lord, nothing improper. Hugo was the essence of kindness and decency. I admired him as a child and, when I returned from England, realised I loved him as a man. You've no doubt heard I'm a shameless gold-digger who married a man thirty years my senior to get my hands on all this,' she said, waving a slender bare arm to take in the lodge and the ranch's vast grounds.

‘I try not to listen to rumourmongers.'

‘It's all right, Pip. You wouldn't be the first to think ill of me. But I tell you, honestly, I'd give all this up and live naked in the bush if I could have him back.'

‘Hunting accident, wasn't it?' Pip asked. ‘I remember there being something in the
Chronicle
.'

‘A damn fool South African hunter. It was a terrible thing to witness.'

‘You were there?'

‘Yes. They were stalking a buffalo. The South African had shot but only wounded it, and Hugo was walking through some adrenaline grass trying to put the beast out of its misery.'

‘Frightening,' Pip said.

‘The South African was behind him and I was following. It all seemed rather exciting at first. I saw the whole thing. The Afrikaner tripped and his rifle discharged. It caught Hugo in the back, through the heart. At least he died quickly.'

‘How horrible for you.'

‘Yes and, no offence, Pip, but it was made worse by the rigmarole I went through with the police afterwards. Not unlike now.'

‘I know it's difficult. One more question.'

‘Go on,' Catherine said.

‘Was Felicity seeing any men off the base – civilians?'

Catherine sighed. ‘Pip, I understand you have to ask these questions, but I've a positive army to feed tonight, and this really is rather awful for me.'

‘I'm sorry. But you‘ve spoken of her admirers on base. What about other men?'

‘I don't know, and that's the truth. There may have been others, but she never said a thing to me about them. Paul mentioned she was found in a black part of town.'

Pip looked across at Bryant. ‘Yes, in Mzilikazi township.'

‘Well,' Catherine said, ‘I don't consider myself a racist person, but I would have thought that would give you some leads. I'd hardly think that one of the air force types would take her off base, to a seedy part of town, to have his way with her. She may have been abducted, at random, by an African.'

‘We're pursuing a number of avenues of investigation,' Pip said.

‘For a volunteer policewoman you certainly have the language down pat. I wish I could help you more, Pip, but I need to get this crowd sorted out and, I hope you understand, to work out how I shall cope with this news.'

‘Thank you for your patience. I understand completely,' Pip said.

Bryant breathed a sigh of relief and wandered off to check on the
braai
and find another drink.

*

There was enough moonlight coming through the bedroom window for Pip to read the face of her wristwatch. It was nearly midnight, about an hour since the last of the beers had been drunk. A creaking floorboard had woken her. The timber protested again.

Perhaps it was Catherine or Paul going to the bathroom. She needed to go too and she didn't fancy using the chamber pot shed spied under the bed. Realising she would not get the chance to question the other two once the meal had started, she had relaxed and had another three gin and tonics. She regretted the last now. She swung her legs off the bed, slipped on her trousers and blouse, and tiptoed to the door. She opened it, then quickly pulled it almost closed again and peeked through the crack.

Catherine was dressed in a robe of white silk, her dark tresses streaming down her back. The fabric shimmered on her full hips as she walked down the hallway. She stopped and opened the door to Paul's bedroom, entered, then pulled it closed behind her.

Pip closed her door, then leaned against it with her back. She would have to hold her bladder for a little while.

Bryant had been dozing. He woke with a start and the touch of her finger. ‘What are you doing here? Are you mad?' he whispered.

‘I could never be mad at you, Paul, not even for bringing that nosy copper with you to my home.'

‘We would have been gone hours ago . . .'

Are you sorry that you had to stay?'

‘Did you plan this?'

‘Did I plan Flick's death? No. And, for the record, I don't think you did either. It hit me, Paul, harder than you can imagine. I can't believe she's not here.'

‘Neither can I,' he said. He felt the coolness of the silk against his naked skin as she slid into the bed next to him. The springs creaked as it sagged with the extra weight. Bloody hell, he thought. They'd not only wake the policewoman, but also the airmen in the workshop if
she started something here. Catherine, he knew, was not only unconventional in bed, but also extremely noisy.

‘I just want you to hold me tonight, Paul. That's all.'

‘Of course,' he said. As he closed his eyes he felt the wetness of her cheek against his.

‘M
ay I use your telephone, Catherine?' Pip asked. It was the first thing any of them had said in fifteen minutes, aside from good morning as they sat down to breakfast on the sunlit paved verandah at the front of the house. The cook was busy in the kitchen making up bacon sandwiches for the airmen and askaris.

‘Of course, Pip. But I can't promise the silly thing will work. It's out for days at a time.'

‘I'd like to try to call the police camp and explain my absence.'

‘You're welcome to try,' Catherine said. ‘It's in the living room on the big sideboard.'

Pip excused herself, having already wolfed down her bacon and eggs. She was grateful to get away from the silence around the table. She sensed as soon as she greeted them that both Catherine and Paul knew she had caught them at it. She found the telephone and picked it up. She was in luck. There was a dial tone.

‘Bulawayo Police,' the female switch operator said after two rings.

‘Shirley, it's Pip . . .'

‘Bleeding hell, where are you? Hayes is doing his nut this morning. You'll be lucky to have a job after this, girl. Hope you've got a good excuse for not showing up.'

Shirley was another volunteer policewoman who had recently joined the SRWAPs. She and her husband had only immigrated to Rhodesia a year before the war began, and Shirley had not lost the accent and bluntness bred into her in London's East End. Pip knew Shirley tended to overdramatise most things but, even so, she had not expected to be in so much trouble so soon. It was barely half an hour after the time she should have reported for duty.

‘Put me through to him, please, Shirley.'

‘Lovejoy! Where in the name of God are you? I should have you charged, so help me,' Hayes barked down the line.

‘Steady on, Sarge . . .'

‘Sergeant! And don't tell me to steady on, my girl. I've got a dozen witness statements to get typed up and charges to file. You should jolly well be here to help me. Sometimes I wonder if any of you bloody females are serious about this job or whether you only joined for the blessed uniform!'

Still confused, she ignored the insults and asked: ‘What's happened?'

‘Peace at last,' Catherine said, as Pip departed to find the phone.

‘She wasn't much of a conversationalist this morning, was she,' said Paul, echoing Catherine's sarcasm.

‘You're thinking about last night, aren't you, Paul?'

He looked across the table, trying to read her eyes. ‘Guilty.' He shook his head and grimaced. He had woken, about an hour before dawn, feeling very aroused. She'd had her hand on him, encircling him.

‘I can't sleep,' she'd whispered. ‘You were snoring too loud. I feel lonely, Paul.'

He'd rolled onto his side and caressed her cheek. ‘There's no easy way to get through grief, no matter how many times it happens.' That wasn't entirely true, he thought. He knew that if you did your best not to get to know someone, you barely noticed their passing. That was how he and the older hands in the squadron had coped, by virtually ignoring the newcomers.

‘I'm glad you're here, that you brought the news,' she said in the darkness. ‘I need you, now.'

‘I'm here.'

‘I need all of you.'

‘We'll wake her.'

She slid from the bed and walked to the dressing table, lit a candle, returned to the bedside and stood, facing him, as he propped himself up on one elbow. She unfastened the robe and let it slide to the floor. The mix of fading moonlight and the candle's flickering flame painted her body a lustrous white-gold. His arousal was complete. The sight of her full breasts, the tangle of dark hair beneath her belly, the desire in her eyes, left him speechless. She dropped silently to her knees and unthreaded the silk tie from the loops on her robe. Holding it out to him she saw the hesitation in his eyes and said: ‘Humour me. Nice and tight, Paul.'

He'd taken the tie, thrown back the covers and slid to the end of the bed. She'd held out her hands, wrists together, and he had bound her to the bedpost.

‘Are you . . . all right?' he asked, leaning across the breakfast table to refill the delicate china cup on the breakfast table.

‘No, Paul, I'm not. Flick's dead, remember?'

‘That's not what I was talking about.'

‘I know. And yes, I'm sure I'm just fine.'

He couldn't read her moods. They hadn't been intimate for that long. It was hard to know what was going through her mind, what she wanted from him. He suddenly felt tired of trying.

‘Do you still want to see me, now that Flick's gone?' she asked, breaking the awkward silence. ‘The parachuting displays are over from now on – I'll never find anyone as brave or as silly as she was. Will I still be allowed on base?'

‘You'll always be welcome as a guest,' he said. As for us, I don't know.'

‘You're not giving me the brush-off, are you, Paul?'

‘No. But it's been . . . well, confusing for me.'

‘Confusing? Are you ashamed of what happened, of what you did last night?'

Yes and no, he thought. ‘It's not something I've had experience with, Catherine. My previous times were . . .'

‘Boring?'

‘Let's just say different.'

‘You're not looking for love, are you, Paul? Not searching for a wife, I hope.'

‘No. Not while there's a war on, at least.'

‘Good, because I'm not available. God knows I've had enough suitors. People in town had the gall to call me a gold-digger when I married Hugo, but you should see some of the oily scoundrels who've tried to get their grubby hands on this pile,' she said, waving imperiously at the vista of rolling bush-covered hills in front of them.

‘You're cold this morning, Catherine.'

‘Call it my way of dealing with grief. I've lost one friend. I don't particularly want to lose another. Neither do I need a
confused
man in my life.'

‘The funeral is on Saturday,' he said, not wanting to talk about relationships. ‘You're right for fuel now?'

‘Yes, thank you for that. I'll be staying in the town house.'

Catherine owned the bungalow in Hillside where Felicity had lived. Another white lie he'd told Pip Lovejoy was that he wasn't sure if Flick had resided in town or on base. At the time his initial reaction had been to protect Catherine's name.

They stopped talking and Paul lit a cigarette as the maid arrived to clear the table. When the African woman had gone, Catherine said, ‘Will you be at the wings parade on Monday?'

‘Yes, why?'

‘I was wondering, what with the investigation into Flick's death and the missing Harvard. I thought you might be tied up with other things.'

‘No. I'll be there. As the adjutant I'm probably escorting some politician or senior officer. How did you know about the missing aircraft?'

She sipped her tea, then said: ‘I overheard two of the airmen at the
braai
last night. Seems the kite went down over the border. Is that right?'

‘It'll be all over the newspaper in Bulawayo today. No great secret. We haven't found the Harvard, but the body of the pilot was found by some big-game hunters.'

‘Oh dear. Did he die of thirst?'

‘It looks like he may have been killed by some bushmen.'

She shook her head. ‘Nasty business. How's poor Andy Cavendish doing? Have you packed him off to the army or some such other awful fate?'

‘I can't talk about an ongoing investigation, especially not with you, Cath.'

Don't get all secretive with me, Paul. Look, as I told you last week, I was terribly flattered that he chose my airstrip to crash-land on, but I most certainly did not invite him to fly up here.'

‘I know. You've made that quite clear, as has he. He's sticking to his story about engine trouble. But I've got another question for you, about Cavendish's kite.'

‘Good Lord, I feel like I'm in the Spanish inquisition, what with snoopy Constable Half-Pint and now you grilling me. If you want answers from me, Squadron Leader, you'll have to torture me.'

He raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘That could be arranged.'

‘Dirty swine. All right. Out with it, what did I do now?'

‘How are you off for ammunition up here, Cath?'

‘What? Bullets?'

‘Three-o-three calibre, to be exact.'

‘Paul, dear, as you very well know, Hugo was a hunter and this is, or at least was until the war got underway, a hunting ranch. I've got about a dozen .303s and enough ammunition to defeat the Wehrmacht. If the air force is running short of bullets I'd be happy to lend you some.'

He ignored the jibe. ‘There are about six hundred rounds missing from the two Browning machine-guns that came out of that crashed Harvard,' he said, gesturing with a thumb at the disassembled aircraft sitting on the Queen Mary aircraft trailer.

‘Come with me, Squadron Leader, and I'll show you my armoury right now. I've no need of your paltry bullets and, frankly, I'm a bit offended by the suggestion I'd nick anything from your silly aeroplane.' She folded her arms and sat back in her chair, a frown on her face.

‘Sorry, but I had to ask. Any ideas?'

‘Bloody Africans, I'd expect. I wouldn't suspect my staff, but there may be some scallywags from the neighbouring tribal lands who've been going over the wreck at night. If so, I'll probably wear the consequences through some increased poaching on the ranch.'

He stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. He believed Catherine, and had felt awkward asking. What still confused him was why someone would leave a single belt of ammunition in each gun. If a poacher were going to go to the trouble of opening up the Harvard's wing access panel to steal some bullets, why not take them all? His train of thought was broken by the sound of footsteps from inside the house.

Pip Lovejoy walked back out onto the verandah and said: ‘Good news, of sorts, though I'm in deep trouble for not getting back last night.'

‘What is it?' Catherine asked, sitting up straight.

‘The police have charged an African man with Felicity Langham's murder.'

Catherine closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘Bastard.'

‘I really do have to get back to the station,' Pip said. ‘Appears it's all hands on deck down there today.'

‘Of course,' Bryant said, rising from his chair. ‘Catherine, thanks again for your hospitality.'

Pip looked at the pair of them and smirked inwardly. Pretending nothing was going on between them; she wondered why they were going to such lengths to hide their feelings for each other. ‘Catherine, again, my condolences for the loss of your friend. And thank you for your patience yesterday when we chatted.'

‘I understand. You have a duty to pursue every avenue in an investigation. It was nice to meet you, anyway, and I hope they hang the man
who took my friend away from me,' Catherine said. She extended a hand to shake Pip's and, as she did, the long sleeve of her white blouse rode up her arm a little.

Pip took her hand and immediately noticed an angry red welt that encircled the other woman's slender wrist. ‘Oh dear, that looks nasty.'

Catherine withdrew her hand from Pip's and dropped her arm down by her side. ‘Nothing to worry about. I had the horse's reins wrapped around it yesterday and he got a bit frisky. Gave me a bit of burn, that's all.'

Pip thought back to their first meeting. Catherine had been wearing a short-sleeved blue blouse and, when they'd shaken hands, she'd mentally noted how beautifully manicured the wealthy woman's hands were. She was sure she would have noticed the injury then. She smiled and said, ‘Goodbye.' Paul Bryant, she noticed, had already left the table and was calling to the airmen to finish their sandwiches and climb aboard the trucks.

Bryant walked away from her and the men and stopped to chat with Catherine's stable groom, who was brushing a coal-black mare. The man pointed down the road towards the gate to Isilwane Lodge. She got into the car and Bryant joined her. When they stopped at the thatched gatehouse, he reached into the back of the car and pulled a brown-paper package from his canvas haversack. ‘Enoch Ngwenya?' he called to the grey-haired man standing by the timber gate.

The man came slowly to a semblance of attention and saluted. ‘Yes, sir?' he coughed.

Bryant greeted the man and asked after his health – all in near-fluent Ndebele. Pip was impressed. The Australian handed the old man the package, and the gate guard softly clapped his hands together around it, twice, in the traditional gesture of thanks.

‘What was that all about?' she asked him.

‘His son is a friend of mine. He's the teacher at the Kumalo African school. The old man has pleurisy. That's his medicine.'

As the convoy drove south, across the Gwaai River, Pip was thinking about the silk stocking that bound Felicity Langham's wrists when Paul said, ‘You didn't finish telling me your life story.'

‘Right,' she said. She wanted to get back to the police camp as soon as possible and find out about the man who had been charged. She was confused about Paul Bryant, and not entirely sure she wanted to reveal more of herself to him. This morning she was surprised and unnerved to find she felt slightly jealous that he had slept with Catherine De Beers. She wanted to ask him about the marks on Catherine's wrists, but there didn't seem to be a tactful way of raising the subject. ‘Not much to tell, really.'

‘You said you were studying to be a lawyer.'

‘I was. I met my husband at university in Salisbury. He was a few years older than me, in his last year of study. He graduated and we got married.'

‘Do you regret it? Not finishing your study?'

She saw no reason why she should tell him the truth so, instead, said: ‘Not at all. I've been very happy.'