Black Horn (6 page)

She opened her mouth to speak but saw the look in his eyes and shut it.

He went on, "There is another aspect. You know that Michael and I are staying at a
whorehouse. I told you a little bit about Blondie, the Madame. She's about
seventy years old, Italian by birth and not blonde at all. She's been a friend
of mine since I was in the Foreign Legion, twenty-five-odd years ago. I won't
bore you with the reasons why she's such a close friend, but she is. It so
happens that Maxie's wife Nicole used to work for Blondie. I borrowed Nicole to
act as a decoy, in Washington back in '89. It was part of the operation I
had going there with Jim Grainger. In fact, Jim met her there. Maxie was also
on that operation and worked with Nicole. It was a dangerous time and, as
happens at such times, Nicole and Maxie fell in love. When they returned to
Europe, she quit her job with Blondie and he gave up being a mercenary. They
bought the bistro and run it with Nicole's younger sister." He paused and
glanced at his watch and then his voice quickened slightly. "Now this afternoon,
I got a hell of a surprise. Blondie announced that she would come with us to
dinner. She hardly leaves the Pappagal and, in my memory, never at night. But
she's very fond of Nicole and I guess, in a strange way, she's paying Nicole an
honour. Because of that, Blondie has dressed up as though she's going to a very
important occasion, even though it's taking place in a modest bistro. That's
why I left a message with Ruby asking you to dress up. The point I am making is
that tonight you're having dinner with the Madame of a whorehouse. If you
offend her, you will offend Nicole, and if you offend Nicole you offend Maxie.
Of course, he will still answer my questions and give me advice, but there is
something else I want from him."

She
couldn't help herself. The question came out. "What?"

Again,
he held up his hand.

"That
will have to wait until later, after I have judged his mood and Nicole's, but
Blondie could be a help."

The
limousine turned into a side-street and pulled up in front of a building with a
small neon sign, reading 'Maxie's'.

Creasy
said, "So, Mrs Manners, it's important that tonight you control your
natural impulse for abrasiveness." He pointed at the bistro. "You
can't wave your magic wand to get those people to do what I want."

They stared
at each other and then she asked, "Do you know what time it is?" she
asked.

"Yes.
Around ten o'clock."

She
nodded. "I usually take dinner at eight. I'm damned hungry...Let's
go."

Inside, the bistro was small and warm. On one side of the room was a long bar. There
were only eight tables, covered by blue and white gingham tablecloths. Michael
was sitting at a corner table together with an old woman dressed in a long
turquoise gown. Her face was heavily made-up and diamonds and gold, glistened
on her wrists, fingers and in her ears. Her jet-black hair was carefully
coiffeured on top of her head. Her thin lips were bright crimson. There were
only six other diners at an advanced stage of their meals. The bartender came
round from behind the bar and greeted Creasy in a strange manner. The two men
put their left hands behind the other's neck and kissed each other briefly but
hard on the cheek, close to their mouths. Then Creasy turned and introduced him
to Gloria. She was then introduced to Nicole and her young sister, Lucette.
Creasy gestured to Ruby to push the wheelchair across the room. Michael stood
up and introduced Gloria to Blondie.

For the
next half an hour, Gloria was uncharacteristically subdued. She sat across the
table from Blondie, who was obviously in her element, half-grande dame and
half-coquette. Lucette served the food, and it wasn't long before Gloria could
see that there was something between her and Michael. Every time she leaned
across the table to place a plate or retrieve something, her arm managed to
touch his.

At
first, the conversation was mostly between Blondie and Maxie, as they discussed
old friends and acquaintances. Ruby sat on Gloria's right and didn't utter a
word, but she hardly took her eyes from Blondie's face.

Suddenly,
Blondie was talking to Gloria in her heavily-accented English. "Creasy
told me about your daughter. I'm very sorry. I also lost a daughter once. Of
course, the pain never goes away, but I can tell you that the passing of time
makes the pain easier to bear."

"How
old was your daughter?" Gloria asked.

"She
died the day after her sixth birthday."

"Any
other children?"

"No.
I can't understand why, but after that I did not want any more...and the times
were not good. It was just after the war and those days in Italy were hard
days... have you always been rich, Mrs Manners?"

Creasy
was watching Gloria. He saw her shake her head as she said, "No. I know
what it's like to be poor."

Creasy
saw the faintest smile cross her lips.

She
said, "To quote Eartha Kitt: 'I've been rich, and I've been poor...
and being rich is better'."

Blondie
gave a deep chuckle. The other customers had left and now Maxie and Nicole
joined them at the table, while Lucette cleared away the plates. Then the young
girl brought espressos and a bottle of cognac and abruptly the mood changed.

"So
what do we have?" Maxie asked Creasy.

"We
have a murder. As you know, it was Gloria's only daughter and only child. It
happened by the Zambezi... in an area near to the Cheti. You know it
well."

"I
know it very well. That was my area of operation for more than half a year in
nineteen seventy-eight."

Creasy
turned to Gloria and explained. "As I told you on the plane, Maxie was
more or less a founder member of the Selous Scouts. I was attached to them for
a while in 'seventy-seven, but I operated on the other side of the
country, near the Mozambique border. I need to tell you a bit more about the
Selous Scouts. They were a very elite unit of the Rhodesian Army and named
after the famous nineteenth-century explorer, tracker and hunter. The idea was
to turn captured terrorists, or what are now known as freedom fighters, who
were infiltrating across the Zambezi from Zambia on the North-West border and
across from Mozambique in the East and then send them out in the bush with some
of our own troops, who were pretending to be terrorists, using Chinese or
captured weapons. Obviously, there were only a few white Selous Scouts."
He smiled across the table at Maxie and went on, "But if you drink in bars
from Harare to Cape Town, enough whites will tell you that they were Selous
Scouts to tilt the whole of Africa. In fact, there were never more than a
hundred whites in the unit. They also raided terrorist headquarters and training
camps in Zambia and Mozambique with great success. They were probably the best
trackers in the world, and could live off the land with only their bare hands
for any length of time. The point is, Mrs Manners, that with the end of the war
and the coming of independence, the Selous Scouts just sort of drifted away
into oblivion. No photographs were taken of the black members, unless their
faces were covered. All records were destroyed. Many of those black members are
now in positions of authority in that country, while others went back to their
villages. With independence, the new black government carried through, after
some years, a remarkable policy of conciliation between the forces who fought
for independence and the forces who fought against it. They created a cohesive
single army, some of whose members were Selous Scouts." He turned back to
Maxie and said, "The police made exhaustive enquiries, particularly as
they were highly pressured by the American government, a major aid donor to the
country. Mrs Manner's daughter, Carole, had been spending a few days at camp
with a white South African friend. He was an eminent zoologist and was doing
research work in the Zambezi Valley on the after-effects on wildlife after the
creation of Lake Kariba. He was thirty-five years old and well versed in bush
lore. So much so, that he liked to be on his own without African helpers and,
as a matter of principle, never carried a gun."

Maxie
muttered something under his breath.

Immediately,
Gloria asked, "What did you say, Mr MacDonald?"

He
shifted his eyes from Creasy to her. "It was just a curse, Mrs Manners. I
know the type. In a way, it's kind of a macho syndrome, to go out in the bush
and commune with nature. That's fine, if you do it totally on your own and
accept the risks... but you don't do it with a companion, especially not with a
city girl... and especially not in an area like that, where elephant and rhino
poachers roam around with high-powered assault rifles."

Gloria
was nodding, but she said, "I cannot blame the man entirely. His name was
Cliff Coppen and while he spent a few weeks in Bulawayo, Carole fell very much
in love with him. She wrote me a letter, saying that she wanted to go on a
field trip with him, but that he had refused because of possible danger. In
that letter, she also told me that she knew where his camp was going to be, and
that she was going to travel to Victoria Falls, hire a Land-rover and driver,
and have him take her to that camp... You have to understand, Mr MacDonald, that
my daughter was a headstrong and determined woman... and a very beautiful one.
I don't think that an idealistic zoologist would have been much of a match for
her."

Maxie
smiled slightly.

"She
was your daughter, so I get the picture."

He
looked again at Creasy and asked a one-word question. "Poachers?"

"Possible
but very doubtful. There are few rhinos left in that area. The Zimbabwe police
report also shows that an anti-poaching patrol had passed by only forty-eight
hours earlier. They had seen and spoken to Cliff Coppen and Carole. There were
no tracks anywhere around the camp. The motive was not robbery because nothing
was taken. The bodies were not discovered until three days later, by which time
there had been heavy rainfall."

The two
men began to speak in a sort of jargon.

"Bullets?"

"7.62
millimetres."

"How
many?"

"Three,
same rifle. Two in the man. Stomach and upper spine. The bullet that killed
Carole was a heart shot."

"A
loner?"

"Looks
that way."

"Close
target?"

"Penetration
gives an estimate of four to six hundred metres."

"A
pro?"

"Looks
like it."

Creasy
sighed and looked at Gloria. She was sipping her brandy, looking down at the
table. Creasy switched his gaze back to Maxie and said, "Coppen was clutching
a long stick. The end was blackened. They were shot by an open wood fire. My
guess is that Coppen was on his haunches prodding at it, with Carole standing
beside him -- I've seen a position drawing. The gunman shot her first because
she was standing and could move faster. The fact that it was a heart shot shows
that he knows his business. He would have shot Coppen as he rose. With that
movement, Coppen took the first bullet in his stomach. He was spun around and
knocked flat because the second bullet was angled towards the neck."

"He
didn't waste bullets," Maxie said. "No tracks at all?"

"Everything
washed out."

"Casings?"

"None."

"A
pro."

"Yes,
a pro."

The two
men fell silent into thought. Nicole was looking at Gloria, who was still
holding her glass near her lips and taking frequent sips.

Blondie
broke the silence. She said to Gloria, "It is a fact that Creasy is
probably the most effective soldier roaming around this globe, and I well know
that Michael has been trained by him in his image. I also know that Creasy came
here, not just to see me, but to dig into the mind of Maxie. You are leaving
for Zimbabwe early tomorrow morning. I think, in the back of his head, Creasy
would be happy if Maxie goes with you too, because Maxie was a Rhodesian. He
will not ask him because, when Maxie married Nicole, he promised to give up
that work. But three years ago, Nicole pushed him out to destroy some very evil
people. That is how Juliet came to be Creasy's daughter." Blondie was looking
directly at Nicole. She went on, "I know my Nicole. She loves her man and
is confident in his love for her. But she is wise enough not to hold him back
from something he wishes to do ... and something he feels he should do."

Immediately,
Nicole answered, "We have a part-time bartender who can become full-time
anytime. Maxie still has distant cousins in Zimbabwe and many friends. Some of
them come here to see him, but others cannot afford to leave Zimbabwe. Maxie
should see them. If he wants to go, I raise no objections." She smiled.
"In fact, for the past few weeks, he's been restless. Maybe some time in
the bush will do him good."

Gloria
turned to look at Creasy.

"Do
you need him?"

Maxie
himself answered the question. "He doesn't 'need' anyone. He
won't admit it, but he knows the bush, as a whole, as well as I do. On the
other hand, he does not know that area of it as I do. Creasy has friends in
Zimbabwe, but since I was born and grew up there, I have more friends... and
more contacts. And I also have cousins there. Creasy would never admit to
needing me but, as Blondie said, in the back of his mind he's sitting across
the table in my bistro because he wants me out there in the bush. He wants me
because he knows that if we find a clue as to who killed your daughter, it's
more likely that we'll find that clue somewhere in the bush, near the
Zambezi."

Again, Gloria glanced at Creasy. He simply nodded.

The Gulfstream IV lifted off from Brussels airport at nine o'clock the next morning.

Lucy
found the file after four days. During those four days, she realised the extent
of her father's life-work, the esteem in which he was held by others in the
field, and the vast number of overseas contacts. He was not only a graduate of
Guy's Hospital in London, but also had a Master's degree from John Hopkins
University in America. His speciality, however, was in Chinese medicine and its
relationship and possible influence, both past and future, on modern Western
medicine. The walls of his library were filled from floor to ceiling with
ancient books and the walls of his laboratory were lined with bottles and
flasks containing the plants, herbs and liquids and animal parts and organs
which were all part of Chinese medicine. The files of correspondence with other
experts from both the West and the Eastern world were voluminous. Every
evening, Colin Chapman would arrive at the house, have a quick dinner with her,
and then help. Because of his vast knowledge of written Chinese, he
concentrated on the correspondence between her father and the professors and
doctors on mainland China, while she went through the English language
correspondence.