The Hunter (30 page)

‘That was her name?’

‘You said you were a cop. I told the guys all this; her name is – was – Melanie Afrika.’

Goodness had never interviewed a witness in a murder case before. She chided herself for not knowing all the facts, but then Isaac and Takeshaw were not about to take the time to fill her in. ‘You saw her with a man last night. The description is of a coloured man, believed to be American, wearing safari clothes. Is that right?’

The woman wrapped her spindly arms around herself. ‘So you do know something.’

‘I want to help catch the man who did this. He’s still out there and he could be a danger to you . . . to other girls in your business.’

‘A serial killer? You think? In Vic Falls?’

‘I don’t know,’ Goodness said. ‘The man you saw your friend with; you’re sure he was American?’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe, though the accent wasn’t strong, not like other tourists I’ve . . . met.’

‘Perhaps American with a bit of South African mixed in? Portuguese maybe?’ Goodness suggested. She was leading the witness, but her excitement level was rising at the same time.

‘Yes, perhaps. I saw them together twice. First time was in the bar in The Kingdom – Melanie was a regular there.’

‘A regular customer?’ The woman looked at Goodness as though the sergeant was a child. ‘Oh, I see. She
worked
there.’

‘Yes. I remember, I was annoyed. I’d seen him first and he was good looking. When I walked past them, she ignored me, but I heard him speaking and I thought, oh my, that Melanie has landed a handsome brown American. He must be loaded.’

Indeed
, Goodness thought. Hudson Brand could easily be seen as a working girl’s jackpot, but she was mildly surprised he was keeping company with prostitutes. She hardly knew him at all, but with his good looks Goodness thought he would have no problem meeting any woman he fancied. She herself had found him attractive; his foreignness added to his mystique, but she shuddered at the direction this interview was taking.
Wait a minute
, she admonished herself. She must not jump to conclusions.

‘And you saw them again?’

The woman nodded. ‘At a nightclub in town. They were dancing, then there was trouble. The coloured man fought with a white man, who was definitely South African, and there was blood. People were screaming something like, “Hey, he’s got a knife”. I saw Melanie getting involved and then I ran outside, like nearly everyone else. Some other tourists were crowding around them, watching the fight. Ai, we don’t need trouble like this in the Falls, not with party coming to town. I went home after that.’

‘No more business?’

The woman frowned. ‘You want to know how bad business is in this town? All the foreign tourists go to Livingstone, on the Zambia side, because they think it’s safer there. Ha!’

Goodness tutted in sympathy, for it was well known that all Zambians were criminals. Despite its poor reputation internationally due to its political and economic woes, her Zimbabwe remained one of the safest countries to visit in Africa, in terms of the low level of street crime and violent crime, but the body being loaded into the van behind them belied those statistics. Within the space of a single night this small town had seen a knife fight in a bar and a woman who had been raped and tortured to death.

‘You didn’t hear the man’s name?’ Goodness asked.

The woman shook her head. ‘All I remember was the accent, and that he was good looking with short hair and about 1.9 metres tall. Khaki shorts and bush shirt, and nicely muscled.’

‘I have one more question. Did he have any distinguishing marks, on his face or his arms or legs? Think carefully.’

‘Umm, I don’t think so. His face was very smooth. He had nice legs and, like I said, good biceps. Hey, wait a minute . . . there is something I forgot to tell the other cop. He had a tattoo.’

Bingo
, thought Goodness. ‘Of?’

‘Of a buffalo’s head, inside his right forearm. I remember now seeing it as he raised his hand to drink his beer, when I walked past him and Melanie.’

It was Hudson Brand, without a doubt.

24

B
rand sat in the driver’s seat of the borrowed Land Cruiser in the Shell service station in Victoria Falls near the Shoprite. The Cliffs were in the small shop picking up some snacks for the road. He felt like he’d been pulled through a wringer backwards; he was sicker and more hungover than he’d ever been in his life.

His phone rang and he saw from the screen it was a Zimbabwean mobile phone number.

‘Brand.’

‘Mr Brand, it’s Sergeant Goodness Khumalo from Bulawayo police, how are you?’

‘Terrible, and you?’

‘Mr Brand, I’m not in the mood for jokes.’

‘If this is about Dr Rodriguez, I’m sorry, I don’t know where she is and had no idea she would be leaving town too soon.’

‘It’s not about her, it’s about you.’

Brand swallowed back bile. ‘What have I done?’

‘Mr Brand, I’m not in Bulawayo, I’m in Victoria Falls on special duties. Do you know a woman by the name of Melanie Afrika?’

‘Why?’

‘I believe at this point I am supposed to say, “I will ask the questions”, Mr Brand. Yes or no, do you know her? She works as a prostitute, and frequents The Kingdom Hotel. That’s where you told me you would be staying, didn’t you?’

Brand started to sober up, quickly. ‘I met a woman called Melanie last night, but she was no prostitute.’

‘Well, be that as it may, I need to meet with you. I have colleagues who need to ask you some questions about Melanie Afrika.’

‘Why? I paid her nothing.’

‘But you had sex with her.’

It was said as a statement, not a question. ‘Sergeant Khumalo, I have two very impatient tourists waiting for me to take them on safari to Chobe National Park.’

‘You need to report to the Victoria Falls criminal investigation department office. Now, Mr Brand.’

‘Why would I want to do that? Has the woman you’re talking about been involved in a crime?’ She had rolled him and probably drugged him but he didn’t need to tell Goodness that yet.

‘She’s dead, Mr Brand.’

He swore under his breath. Peter Cliff was holding his wrist up to the window, tapping his watch. The petrol attendant had finished filling the tank and was hovering expectantly. Brand turned his back to the window and lowered his voice. ‘What happened?’

‘I think you might have some information that will shed light on Miss Afrika’s death, and the Victoria Falls detectives think the same. Come to the station and we can talk.’

‘So, you’re a detective now?’ He felt the dread rising up inside him, remembering what Melanie had asked him to do to her. His DNA was on her, and there would have been people who remembered the ruckus in the nightclub.

‘You helped me, with the lead about Dr Rodriguez,’ Goodness said, filling the void his silence had left. ‘I want to help you, too, Mr Brand. Meet me and we can go to the detectives together.’

She was in this for herself, he realised. She was pretty and ambitious and he guessed it was hard for a woman to get ahead in an African police force. He needed to play on that. ‘All right. I’ll meet you, but I need more information. Tell me, was she stabbed?’

There was a pause as Goodness debated how much she should tell him. ‘Yes.’

‘In her private parts, yes?’

There was no reply.

‘I’m right, aren’t I? Raped and stabbed, down there, strangled to death and her pants removed from under her dress. Yes?’

‘Mr Brand, Hudson, please, you must come and talk to the police. I can help you, believe me.’

His mind, still dulled, processed the events of the night before. ‘Patrick.’

‘Hello, Mr Brand, are you still there?’ Goodness said. ‘Who is Patrick?’

‘I’ll call you back, Sergeant Khumalo.’

Brand ended the call and wound down his window, signalling to Peter Cliff. ‘Can you please pay the attendant?’

With the fuel paid for and the Cliffs back in the car, Brand started the truck and pulled out of the garage, ramming his way through the gears. The sun glared through the Land Cruiser’s windows, topping up his headache. What the hell had happened to him last night? Just past the Sprayview Hotel was the turnoff to the Kazungulu border post, the road to Chobe National Park in Botswana where they were supposed to be going. Brand drove past it.

Peter Cliff leaned forward in his seat. ‘Are you, at some point, going to tell us what is going on with you today? Our itinerary said we were going into Botswana via that road you just drove past.’

Brand took a breath. He was about to fabricate a story for the tourists when he saw the flash of high-visibility fluorescent yellow. A policeman manning a roadblock up ahead was waving to him to stop. ‘Peter, your UK driver’s licence – does it have a photo on it?’

‘What? My licence? Well, in fact, no it doesn’t. I’ve still got one of the old paper licences, never got around to getting a photo one. Why?’

‘I need it, now. Quickly.’

‘What the devil . . .?’

‘Do it, Peter,’ Anna ordered.

Brand glanced back at the couple. Peter had come across initially as a domineering pedant, but right now Brand saw a strength in Anna that he hadn’t picked up on; plus, it was good to see the husband buckling a little.

‘Very well,’ said Peter, reaching for his wallet. He passed the licence to Brand down low, between the two front seats, and Brand tucked it in his shirt pocket.

‘Good morning, how are you?’ asked the policeman.

‘Fine, and you?’ Brand replied, affecting an English accent to match the licence.

‘Ah, but it is too hot. And I am hungry and thirsty. May I see your driver’s licence?’

Brand pulled the piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to the cop, who unfolded it carefully and slowly. Brand’s heart pounded as the policeman studied the document, for what seemed like an eternity. ‘Ah, you are from England. Sure?’

‘For sure.’

‘How is the weather there now?’

‘Cold and miserable.’

‘Myself, I would like to go to England. Perhaps you can give me a job there?’ the policeman said.

‘You wouldn’t like it. It rains all the time.’

The policeman laughed.

‘But maybe I can help your thirst. Anna, can you please get a Coke for the good officer, from the fridge in the back of the truck?’

‘Gladly,’ she said.

The policeman accepted the drink with a polite clap of his hands, signalling his thanks as Brand handed it over.

‘Phew!’ Anna said as Brand put the truck in gear and drove off. ‘Am I the only one here who found that exciting?’

‘Terrifying, more like it,’ Peter said. ‘What have you done, Brand? Why are you hiding your identity from the police? And, more to the point, why should we help you if you’re wanted for something?’

Brand watched the roadblock recede in his rear-view mirror and breathed a little easier. The trouble was there would be more roadblocks if he carried on through Zimbabwe. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong, but the police want to question me about a crime committed last night.’

‘What sort of crime?’ Peter asked.

Brand sighed. They needed to know the gravity of the situation, so that they could decide whether to abandon him or help him. ‘Murder. A woman was killed and the police want to question me.’

‘My God, Hudson. Why not go to the police if you’re innocent?’ Anna asked.

‘This isn’t England, it’s Zimbabwe. I could be locked up indefinitely while the investigation proceeds. Also, because of the work I do, I’ve made some enemies in the government. Once word gets out that I’ve been taken in for questioning I might never get out again. I’ll take you both to the airport, now. If you can’t get a flight out straight away, then you’ll be able to find a driver to take you back to Victoria Falls and across to Chobe if you still want to go there.’

‘No,’ said Peter.

Brand was surprised, again, by the man. He thought he would have been ready to get the first plane out of Zimbabwe, and away from Africa.

‘You’ve broken one law already,’ Brand said, taking out the driver’s licence and handing it back over his shoulder, ‘I can’t ask you to do it again.’

Peter brushed his hand back. ‘Keep the licence. I don’t like you, Brand, or the way you conduct yourself – getting drunk and sleeping in – but I’m trusting you’re a better investigator than you are a safari guide. Without you we’ll never find Linley Brown. I don’t care whether the South African police arrest her or not, but Anna and I need to see her, to put the matter of Kate’s death to rest once and for all.’

Brand nodded. Seemed old Peter had grown half a ball, and he really couldn’t argue with the man’s critique of him as a tour leader on this trip. ‘Anna?’

‘I’m with Peter. We’ve come too far to run away now. I still think you should go to the police, but you’re our only hope, Hudson.’

‘All right. If we continue south, through Bulawayo to Beitbridge, then the police will finally get themselves organised and stop us. There’s a very quiet border post not far from here, at a place called Pandamatenga. We can cross into Botswana through the bush; it’s a big game hunting area, with few people and only a single cop on duty at the crossing. From there it’s a straight run south through Botswana into South Africa.’

As they passed the turnoff to the Victoria Falls airport Brand asked them each again if they were sure they wanted to continue with him; both husband and wife agreed to stay with him. Brand pulled over and took out his phone. ‘I just have to send a quick message.’

‘Righto. I’m going for a leak,’ Peter said, and let himself out.

Brand selected Goodness Khumalo from his list of contacts and typed a brief SMS to her.
Look for a South African tour guide, Patrick de Villiers. He’s probably driving an overland truck, maybe staying in the municipal camping ground. Melanie Afrika stabbed De Villiers in a nightclub last night. There will be witnesses
.

That, Brand thought, would give the sergeant and her comrades something to go on with while they looked for him. To be on the safe side he took the SIM card out of his phone once the SMS had been sent.

‘The woman who was killed,’ Anna said from the seat behind, leaning forward, ‘she was the one I saw coming out of your room last night, wasn’t she?’

Brand turned to look her in the eye. Peter was still out in the golden grass by the side of the road, though he was zipping his flies. ‘You didn’t come to my room to tell me more about Kate, did you, Anna?’ Her cheeks were turning pink and she looked away, unable to hold his gaze. He
did
find her attractive, very attractive, and her girlish embarrassment was endearing. ‘I didn’t kill that woman.’

‘I knocked on your door, after I saw her go, and called your name, but you didn’t answer.’

‘I don’t remember that at all,’ he said honestly. ‘I think she drugged me.’

‘I thought you were avoiding me, or ashamed, or whatever . . .’

He shook his head. ‘No. I wouldn’t have ignored you if I was awake.’ The truth tumbled out before he could disguise it.

‘You had sex with her.’

‘That’s none of your business, Anna.’

‘No, it’s police business, now.’ Anna took a deep breath and looked furtively at her husband, who was coming towards them, then straight into Brand’s eyes. ‘I wasn’t just coming to talk to you about Kate. It might sound silly, but I’m attracted to you.’

‘Your husband,’ Brand said, looking out the window.

‘Doesn’t love me. Don’t worry; I’m over it. We haven’t had sex for ages. He doesn’t find me attractive and last night, when you didn’t answer, I felt like going back to my room and drinking myself into a stupor, which I did.’

‘Anna, I didn’t ignore you. I don’t know that I would have slept with you, or if that would have helped either of us, but I’m not the kind to cower under my blankets.’

‘I feel stupid. You must get women throwing themselves at you all the time. Khaki fever, it’s called, isn’t it?’

‘It doesn’t happen that often,’ he lied, ‘but I’m flattered when it does. I think our main priority here should be finding Linley, don’t you? I don’t want to come between you and your husband and I make it a rule to never sleep with married women.’

Peter opened the door of the Land Cruiser. ‘What are you two conspiring about?’

‘Nothing at all,’ Anna said.

*

Brand turned right off the main tar road about fifty kilometres from Victoria Falls, following a sign to Robins Camp, Hwange National Park.

Once prosperous cattle farms, now populated by subsistence farmers living in mud huts, gave way to thorny bush and acacias, airbrushed uniform grey and khaki by the dry season’s heat, dust and wind. They passed a red-rimmed triangular warning sign with a picture of a rampant elephant on it. ‘Are we in the national park now?’ Anna asked.

‘We’re in the Matetsi Safari Area that borders Hwange National Park and stretches to the Botswana border, where we’re headed. This is a hunting area, policed, after a fashion, by the national parks department.’

‘A good place to get lost in, or to hide,’ Anna said.

Brand nodded. The situation was still messy, but already he was feeling slightly more at ease being surrounded by the bush rather than people. A plume of dust trailed them. Brand slowed when a herd of eight kudu bounded across the road.

‘I’m surprised to see animals here – I would have thought they would be scared of being shot,’ Anna said.

‘There’s not a hell of a lot of hunting going on thanks to the state of Zimbabwe and its economy. Ironically, you can sometimes see more game here in the hunting safari area than in the national park.’

To prove him right they drove past a herd of twenty or more sable, beautiful russet-coloured females and babies shepherded along from the rear by a striking male with a glossy black coat and white underbelly. He held his head high, showing off massive curved horns as Brand geared down so that they could get a better view of the beasts. ‘Sable are rare across southern Africa but quite common in this part of Zimbabwe.’

‘Seems they got one thing right,’ Peter said.

Brand thought about Melanie Afrika as he drove. The smell of her was still on him and he felt a weight of sorrow at the way she had died, no matter what she had done to him. He wondered if Goodness Khumalo had acted on his tip about Patrick de Villiers. When he called Captain Van Rensburg he’d ask her to check if Patrick had been in Cape Town in February, when the prostitute there had been raped and killed. Brand knew Patrick had been in Nelspruit in 2010 on the night of the Australia–Serbia game – half the goddamned province had been there – and he lived in Hazyview, close to where the girl from the nightclub had been dumped outside Phabeni Gate. If he could place De Villiers near the Cape Town murder then it might take some of the police heat off him; as it was he was now wanted in two countries.