The Hunter (35 page)

‘That won’t do, Bryce,’ Brand said. ‘She probably hasn’t told you, but Linley’s friend, Kate, who died in the car crash they were both involved in, tried to fake her death a few days before she died for real. Linley was party to insurance fraud, even though her subsequent claim appears to be legitimate. I’ve got to interview her and get some answers for the record before the insurers will pay.’

Brand saw the confusion on the young man’s face. Clearly Linley Brown had only told him as much of her story as she needed to get him to work for her.

‘Why didn’t Linley come herself?’ Brand pushed.

Bryce shrugged. He wasn’t a good criminal, or a good deceiver. ‘You said yourself, you suspect her and her friend of trying to defraud someone.’ He unslung his binoculars and looked at the vehicles outside the reserve, still parked and watching the lion kill. ‘Odd, don’t you think, that the woman in that last game viewer is watching you through a pair of binoculars?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Brand said, silently cursing to himself.

‘You and I both know that’s Greg Mahoney’s Land Rover up there, but it’s not him driving. I called Greg a little while ago and made up a story that I’d had a breakdown and wanted to borrow his Landy; he told me it was in the garage in Nelspruit.’

‘Maybe he didn’t want to hurt your feelings.’

Bryce shook his head. ‘You get on the phone or the radio to your undercover police friends up there in Greg’s game viewer and you tell them Linley’s gone. If you want to do the right thing, then give me her papers to sign.’

‘She’s on the run from the law, son. Her partner in crime assaulted a police officer while Linley was trying to get away. She was going to help her friend fake her own death and that friend died. Maybe you should ask her, and yourself while you’re at it, what the
right thing
is.’

Brand brought his own binoculars up and focused on the game viewer while Bryce stood there, thinking. Elmarie, the detective, perhaps realising her blunder, was staring resolutely at the lions. The traffic jam was breaking up and he could see why. Three of the lionesses, perhaps sated on their share of the buffalo, had left the kill and were walking up a slight rise to where the trees started again, away from the cleared area along the fence. He swung the binoculars to the right, to take in the game-viewing vehicles within the reserve. Two of the vehicles were shifting to follow the walking lionesses, but the third was still stationary. Oddly it had only one occupant, a female ranger, who was looking his way. Although she wasn’t blonde she looked a lot like the woman in the emailed photo he’d received from Dani, and the passport photo that Van Rensburg had distributed.

‘Why don’t you call Linley on the radio and have her drive that vehicle over here and we’ll talk.’

‘What vehicle?’

‘Don’t try and bluff me, Bryce. I saw the brunette driving the game viewer by herself. It doesn’t make sense that a guide would be out on her own in the middle of the peak game-driving time. You and I both know that the lodges might send rangers out as spotters, to find game, or let them go have a look at interesting sightings in their own time, but that would be in the middle of the day. Call her on that radio of yours and get her to take that wig off and come see me.’

‘Give me the papers. Let me sign for her.’ Bryce was quickly losing his cool. He looked towards the vehicle that Brand was now sure was being driven by Linley Brown.

‘No. Let’s see what sort of a guide
you
are, Bryce.’ Brand lowered the binoculars and started running.

28

‘C
razy fuck,’ I said to myself. Hudson Brand, if that was who I thought it was, started to run along the fence line, waving his arms in the air and screaming something indecipherable at the top of his voice. It almost sounded like he was saying, ‘Here, kitty, kitty, kitty’, but that would have been insane.

The other guides and the people watching the lions from outside the reserve were livid and most of them started yelling at Brand to stop, and calling him some foul names in the process.

My first thought was for Bryce. Brand had run fifty metres in our direction and was now turning to run back along the fence towards the termite mound where Bryce had been hiding. At the sound of the mad man’s ranting the lion pride had instantly focused their attention on him. The two lionesses and four cubs still on the kill got off their fat bellies and stared fixedly at Brand. With a silent signal the females moved away from the commotion, the cubs trotting after them on their stubby little legs. The three that had been walking away from the kill towards the waterhole at the airstrip, less than a kilometre away over the rise, went to ground in the long yellow grass.

‘Shit.’ I put the Landy in gear and drove towards Bryce. Brand was slowing to a jog and I noticed the black backs of three sets of ears as the lionesses raised their heads to follow his progress. The number one rule of the bush is not to run, and Brand was giving a lesson on why this was so. The killing team began to stalk him, tails extended, fluffy tips twitching. Brand was safe on the outside of the fence, but Bryce was on the same side as the lions. The bastard was setting him up to be eaten. I floored the accelerator.

‘I’m coming,’ I said into the radio mounted in the Land Rover’s dashboard.

‘This maniac’s trying to get me killed,’ Bryce replied.

I saw Bryce just then. He was on top of the termite mound, climbing a tree that was growing out of it. He hoisted himself into the lower branches as Brand stopped near him, across the fence. The lionesses paused. In a few bounds they would be on the rise, clawing at his feet; the tree was not a big one and Bryce didn’t have much more room to climb.

‘Hah!’ I yelled, waving with one hand as I drove at the lions. The trio looked at me and moved away, but not far. They were irked by the noise, but hadn’t run off. I knew that we humans, Brand, Bryce and I, were inside their ‘fight’ zone now, as they hadn’t taken the ‘flight’ option. ‘Go away!’

I drove up onto the lower slope of the mound and stopped.

‘
Go away?
Did you learn that in Zimbabwe as a child, Linley?’ said an exasperated Bryce.

He clambered down out of the tree and jumped into the front seat of the game viewer beside me. A lioness snarled at the vehicle and took three steps towards us. ‘I think a thank you is in order,’ I said.

‘We’ve got to get out of here. I spotted some undercover cops in a game viewer. They’re heading for Shaw’s Gate,’ he said.

‘Shit,’ I said. The cops would know that we couldn’t get out of the Sabi Sand Game Reserve without using one of the gates, or driving our Land Rover through a highly electrified fence. The vehicle was tough, but I doubted it – or we – would survive a brush with razor wire and several thousand volts without serious damage. The Shaw’s Gate Entrance was still about eight kilometres up the road and the police would then have to double back almost as far again to get to the airstrip once they entered; we had about twenty minutes at the most, assuming they guessed where we were heading.

‘Linley, how bad is it, what you’ve done?’ Bryce asked me as we jolted our way back to the game-viewing road. ‘Brand says you’re a thief.’

‘Left or right?’ I said as we came to a T-junction.

He sighed. ‘Right. Answer me.’

‘Pretty bad.’

‘We can get a good lawyer. My parents have got money, and –’

‘Bryce, I’m a criminal, OK? My friend and I robbed innocent people’s homes. She’s been locked up by the police. I’m a barely reformed drug addict; I still crave it all the time. Fuck – I’ll probably end up back on prescription painkillers the way my life is going. The short version is that I need to get out of this country and I need to disappear.’ An impala started to cross the road in front of me and I swerved hard to miss it. I was driving way faster than the reserve’s speed limit.

‘That man who’s after you, Brand, he said you and your friend – Kate I think he said her name was – were setting up some kind of insurance scam. Is that true, Linley? Is that another reason the police want you?’

Brand had not wasted his limited time with Bryce. ‘Yes, that’s true. Kate wanted to fake her own death and name me as the beneficiary. We were going to split the proceeds and she was going to disappear. She had some shit of her own she wanted to get away from. Unfortunately, Kate died for real. Brand’s an investigator for the insurance company, that’s why he’s following . . .’

I started to sniff. The tears came to my eyes despite me rubbing them with the back of my hand and taking a deep breath. I felt so goddamned tired. The littlest thing could set me off. I thought I was getting over the accident, but there it was again, the flames engulfing the car, my hands burning on the glass of the window. The terrible smell came back to me and I gagged.

Bryce leaned over and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘I want to help you.’

I coughed and spat, and sniffed up my tears. I had to focus and I had to drive. ‘No you don’t, Bryce, you need to find a nice South African girl or a pretty tourist and go manage a luxury lodge in the bush somewhere.’

The Land Rover bounced through a rut and Bryce gripped the dashboard. ‘No, I don’t want a tourist, I want you.’

I forced a laugh and felt bad when I saw the hurt look on his face. He wasn’t joking. He was like a puppy with those dark eyes and I would never feel like I was good enough to deserve his love, or to repay the kindness he had shown me, not if we lived together for the rest of our lives and had beautiful babies. ‘I’m sorry. You’re sweet, Bryce, but as they say in the classics, I’m no good for you.’

I checked my watch. Ahead of us was the long strip of black tarmac that marked the airstrip where light aircraft and regular charter flights dropped and collected guests for the luxury safari lodges in this part of the Sabi Sand Game Reserve. A sign indicated no driving on the airstrip, but I turned onto it and straddled the centre line as I geared down and floored the accelerator.

We whizzed past the terminal building, which was little more than a shady shell for people to wait in, though no one was visible within. I raced to the far end of the airstrip to wait. I didn’t want to risk a lodge vehicle arriving at the building and Bryce bumping into someone else he knew, and having to deal with awkward questions about who I was and what we were doing there. Also, I guessed the police were probably all over the reserve’s local radio network telling any ranger who heard them to be on the lookout for us.

I checked my watch and scanned the empty blue sky.

‘I don’t have my passport with me, so I can’t force myself onto Andrew’s aircraft and come with you, Linley. At least tell me where you’re going, so that maybe I can come looking for you sometime.’

He really was in love. ‘Mozambique.’

‘I won’t tell the police, honest.’

‘I know you won’t.’ I leaned over and kissed him, on the lips, but when he opened his mouth and tried to embrace me I pulled back. I was not out of this, or out of South Africa yet, not by a long shot. I touched his cheek. ‘I know you won’t tell, Bryce, but don’t get yourself locked up on my account.’

He shrugged and forced a smile. ‘I’ll tell the truth, that you carjacked me at gunpoint and I was helpless to do anything other than what you told me to do.’

‘Good boy.’

‘Please don’t patronise me, Linley.’

‘I’m sorry.’ And I was. ‘I’m so sorry, Bryce.’ I felt the pain, as real as any heart attack. ‘I . . .’

I heard the drone of a plane engine from far off and took the guide’s binoculars from the centre console box between us. I scanned the sky and saw the speck coming towards us.

‘What?’ Bryce asked.

‘Nothing. Here comes the plane.’

Bryce slumped back in his seat. He was finally growing tired of the way I was playing him. He would tell the police where I was going, probably because he thought it was the right thing to do and that I would be safer in custody than on the run. He might have been right, but I wasn’t going to take the chance. I put my palm on his chest and felt his warm heart beating. ‘OK. I’m going to Vilanculos, then catching a boat to the
Ilha dos Sonhos
, the Island of Dreams. Do you know it?’

His puppy eyes brightened again. ‘I do. They’ve fixed up the old hotel there and reopened it. I’ll come find you there, once things settle down here.’

‘That would be good.’ Despite all the degrading things I had done, and those that had been done to me, I don’t think I ever felt as disgusted in myself as I did right then, lying to him.

He reached over and took my hand. ‘Linley, this may sound crazy. I’ve only known you a short time and, well, it was pretty hectic how we met. But, I think . . . I mean, I really care for you. I think I . . .’

I lifted my other hand and put my forefinger to his lips. ‘Shush.’ I couldn’t bear to hear what I thought he was about to say. This would have to be the last time I ever saw this good, gorgeous, sensitive man. I needed him not to follow me. ‘Thank you, Bryce, for all you’ve done for me. I’m grateful, but I don’t love you. I’m sorry.’

He looked away from me, out at the bush.

29

S
annie sat in the driver’s seat of her car with the door open, at the entrance to Sabiepark, listening to the radio traffic.

‘
Sannie, this is Mavis, over
.’

Sannie keyed the microphone. ‘Go, Mavis.’

‘
I’m in the terminal building. Linley Brown and an unidentified white male just drove past me in a Land Rover game viewer. They’re parked at the end of the runway. Do you want me to try and arrest them
?’

Sannie thought about Mavis’s request. She had already told Tom and the undercover detectives to head for the airstrip as quickly as they could; they had a circuitous route to get to the reserve gate and would then have to double back to the airstrip. When she and Tom had pored over the maps of the Sabi Sand Game Reserve the private airstrip had leapt out at her. It would be the perfect way for Linley to get away, which was why Sannie had posted Mavis there. ‘The others are on their way to you, Mavis. They shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes. Keep Brown and the man under surveillance. If you try and walk or drive to them that might spook them and they might drive off into the bush. They’re waiting for an aircraft, for sure. If that aeroplane arrives do not let it take off. Do you copy, Mavis?’

‘
Affirmative. And for the record, I’m not walking anywhere, not with all these lions roaming around here
.’

Sannie smiled. Mavis had confided to her that she had only ever been to the Kruger Park once in her life, on a church outing when she was younger. She had never been into the Sabi Sand Game Reserve and made no secret of the fact that she was terrified of wild animals.

Sannie radioed Tom and gave him an update, confirming that Linley and the man were waiting at the airstrip. ‘Hurry, Tom,’ she added. ‘Mavis is worried she’s going to get eaten before you get there.’

‘
Roger
,’ said Tom.

‘
Sannie, this is Mavis, over
.’

Sannie acknowledged the call.

‘
Sannie, a van has just pulled up outside the terminal. It looks like a tour guide. I thought there were no flights scheduled for the next couple of hours
.’

‘That’s affirmative,’ Sannie said. She had checked with the Sabi Sand’s warden’s office. The regular Federal Air flight from Johannesburg was not due for a couple of hours and there were no notifications of private flights coming into the reserve for this time. The last thing she needed was civilians getting caught up in an arrest, especially if Mavis or Tom had to try to forcibly stop an aircraft from taking off. This could get messy. ‘Find out who they are, Mavis, and I’ll double-check with the warden’s office. It might just be some tour guide or travel agent doing a recce. Try to send them away. We also don’t want to spook Linley Brown.’

‘
Affirmative
,’ Mavis replied. ‘
Leave it with me
.’

Sannie called the warden’s office on her mobile phone and relayed the news from Mavis. The assistant warden on duty confirmed there were no scheduled arrivals. Sannie wondered if the van was, in fact, part of Linley Brown’s escape plan. She picked up the radio microphone and keyed it. ‘Mavis, this is Sannie, over.’

She waited, but there was no reply. ‘Mavis, this is Sannie, over.’

Sannie tried a third time and there was still no reply. Perhaps Mavis had inadvertently left her walkie-talkie in the terminal building while she spoke to the driver of the tour van.

They were still a step ahead of Linley Brown, though she wondered where Hudson Brand had ended up after he found himself on the wrong side of the fence. Sannie was about to call him on his cell phone when she heard the low drone of aero engines. Stepping out of her car she saw a twin-engine light aircraft fly low over her head.

‘Mavis, this is Sannie, come in, please. There is an aircraft coming in to land, over.’

Again, there was no reply. She called Tom and asked where he was.

‘In the reserve, but still about fifteen minutes out, I reckon,’
Tom said.
‘I heard you trying to call Mavis. I tried her as well, in case there was a problem with her radio, but I got no answer.’

‘I’m getting worried, Tom. Go as fast as you dare. There’s an aircraft about to land and we can’t let it take off.’

‘Roger.’

She heard the rev of his engine over the radio, and the rush of wind around the open vehicle. She regretted telling him to hurry; if he hit a kudu or an impala and crashed she would never forgive herself. Game reserves were no places to speed. Sannie felt a rising tide of helplessness. She got back in the driver’s seat, closed the door and started her engine. She put on the flashing light. There was no more she could do from outside the reserve and she needed to get to where the action was.

*

‘Hudson Brand,’ Bryce said to me, breaking the silence for the first time since I’d said I didn’t love him. ‘Look, he’s coming out of the terminal building. Crazy fool must have got over the fence and followed us here on foot.’

I took the binoculars from Bryce. He was so damned handsome, I thought, and good, and considerate, and I hated having to force myself to be so callous and cruel to him. And now I was about to leave him for good. It had been torture waiting for Andrew Miles’s aeroplane, but he had landed and was at the far end of the runway and turning around. Once the aircraft was facing us it stopped, engines still running, and Andrew turned his landing lights on and then off, flashing us a signal; he clearly wanted us to come to his end of the strip.

‘Shit, I’ll have to drive past Brand,’ I said.

I put the Land Rover into gear and accelerated hard and fast, picking up speed as I crashed my way to fourth. Hudson Brand stood in the middle of the runway and raised his hand.

‘He’s got a gun!’ Bryce said.

‘He won’t shoot.’

‘For God’s sake, Linley, stop!’

‘It’s a setup. Brand’s working with the cops. This was never about getting me my money. I’ve got to get out of here.’

Brand’s hand bucked twice from the pistol’s kicks, and I heard the crack of the shots. The steering wheel twisted in my hands as the Land Rover slewed crazily down the runway. ‘He’s shot out a bloody tyre.’

I regained control and could hear the flattened tyre slapping the tarmac. Brand fired again and the other front tyre burst. Bryce knocked my hand away from the gear stick and reached over and pulled on the handbrake. ‘You’re going to kill us.’

Brand ran to us and Bryce got out of the truck, putting himself between the American and me. ‘You’re not taking her.’

‘I’m the one with the gun, Bryce,’ Brand said. ‘I’ll do the talking.’

Frustrated, I pulled off the black wig I’d borrowed from one of the lodge’s maids. I glared at Brand. ‘Who do you think you are, some kind of cowboy? All I want is the money I’m entitled to.’

In the distance, over the sound of the aircraft, I heard another engine approaching.

Bryce heard it too. ‘We don’t have time to waste.’

‘There’s a policewoman dead over there,’ Brand said. ‘She’s got a broken neck, and Patrick de Villiers is in there with her, shot to death.’

‘Who?’ I asked.

‘A local thug,’ Bryce explained. ‘Not a nice guy. But who killed them?’

The news shocked me. ‘My God. How? Why?’

‘I’m not sure, but you’re going to help me answer those questions, and others.’ Brand lowered his pistol.

‘But the cops will be here any minute,’ Bryce said.

I swallowed hard, trying not to let the instant flush of fear paralyse me. I thought I knew who might have been behind the killings. I looked from Bryce back to the private investigator. ‘I don’t care about the money now, but I’m not handing myself in to the police. This isn’t just about a few burglaries.’

‘I know it’s not,’ Brand replied. ‘That’s why you and I are going to talk. On the plane.’

‘What?’ said Bryce. ‘You’re going to help her get away? I thought you were working for the cops?’

Brand stuck his pistol in the belt of his shorts. ‘I’m going to help myself get away too, for now. When the police arrive they’re going to try to pin one or both of those killings on me. Let’s go, Linley.’

Andrew Miles, tired of waiting, had released the brakes on his aircraft and was moving slowly down the runway towards us. The three of us started running towards the machine. I thought about Bryce, being left at the scene of a double killing. He had committed no felony, and he could tell the police the truth, that I had hijacked him and forced him to help me. Andrew stopped beside us and left the pilot’s seat. A side door opened a few seconds later.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ he asked.

‘No time for explanations, Andrew,’ I said. ‘And we’ve got a new passenger. Meet Hudson Brand.’

Bryce still had his binoculars around his neck. He raised them, tracking a cloud of dust. ‘It’s a game viewer. Probably those undercover police.’

‘Police?’ Andrew said.

‘I’d get back in the pilot’s seat, if I were you,’ Brand said. He lifted his shirt to show the butt of his pistol.

‘No need for that kind of thing.’ Andrew leaned out of the door, took my hand and helped me up the steps. Once I was aboard Andrew clambered back up front into the pilot’s seat.

‘Bryce . . .’ I said, looking down at him as Hudson Brand climbed into the aircraft. I had an enormous desire to jump out of the plane and rush into his arms, but I couldn’t. I’d be sent to prison and that would help neither of us.

‘Goodbye, Linley,’ he said.

Brand reached behind me and started hauling on the hatch. ‘OK, boarding’s now closed.’

Brand locked the door and I slumped into a seat. Andrew brought the engines up to full pitch and released the brakes. The nimble aircraft leapt away like a cheetah pursuing an impala. I looked out the small perspex window and saw the game viewer with the three people on board bounce off the dirt and onto the tarmac runway.

The Beechcraft left the ground and Andrew banked hard and low over Sabiepark, across the road. I could see Bryce, still watching us disappear as the game viewer made a U-turn and headed back to him.

*

Sannie drove with her blue light flashing along the R536 and then onto the dirt access road to Shaw’s Gate. A couple of senior guys from the Sabi Sand’s security company were at the gate to let her through quickly. She drove as fast as she dared through the reserve, doubling back along the perimeter road to the airstrip. All plans could be improved with hindsight and she wished now she had set up her command post inside the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, closer to the airstrip, but it had only been a suspicion that Linley would try to escape by air; if her quarry had met Hudson Brand outside the reserve then Sannie would have been trapped inside.

She had tried calling Mavis repeatedly, and while the lack of comms could have been something as simple as a flat battery or faulty police radio, in her heart of hearts she knew something terrible had happened even before Elmarie radioed. Sannie’s last fulltime stint in the police had almost ended in the deaths of two of her children, and she had harboured a secret fear that her return to the force would be similarly traumatic.

Tom was outside the terminal building and walked over to the car as she pulled up. He was the one good thing that had come out of her former life as a policewoman. She could see that he wanted to hug her now, to comfort her, but he knew, as did she, that her duty was to see Mavis. She opened the boot of the car, took a pair of latex gloves from the box and put them on. Sannie remembered how Mavis had been sick when she’d seen her first body, that of the dead prostitute. Had that woman’s killer been responsible for Mavis’s death? Sannie forced herself not to jump to conclusions.

She took a deep breath and walked to the terminal, but had to put a hand on the door frame to steady herself as she let her eyes become accustomed to the cool gloom inside. She forced herself not to rush to her partner’s side; this was a crime scene and she needed to respect it. Tom, Elmarie and Jaapie were waiting outside.

Patrick de Villiers lay on his back in a pool of sticky, drying blood, his eyes wide. A wicked-looking folding knife with a bone handle lay on the screed concrete floor by his right hand. There appeared to be two gunshot wounds, one in his belly and one in his heart.
Good shooting, Mavis.

She knelt beside the body of her partner. Such a smart, promising young woman. Sannie ran her fingers lightly over the ligature marks on Mavis’s neck, avoiding the gaze of her lifeless eyes. It was too early to tell, but she wondered if forensics would find traces of the same rope fibres as those found on the other victims.
Did he pack the rope especially
?

Unless Patrick had dropped the knife on the floor earlier, exactly where his dead hand would fall, there was no way he could have strangled Mavis with a piece of rope from behind. And if he had been behind her, there was no way Mavis could have drawn her gun and reached back to shoot him in the heart. Had she perhaps fought him off after he’d crept up behind her and begun to strangle her, and then got the drop on him? Perhaps then De Villiers had pulled his knife and come at her, and she’d shot him.

Sannie shook her head. None of those scenarios made sense. Patrick was maybe twice Mavis’s weight and had the physique of a bodybuilder; she was slight and slender. If he’d got a rope around her neck there was no way she could have fought him off. If she’d been able to draw her gun she might have been able to shoot him in the foot, or back up into his head, but there were only the two bullet casings on the concrete floor. There was no rope visible at the scene; someone had taken it, she realised.

‘Someone else was here.’ Sannie looked around for the source of the voice and saw her husband silhouetted in the doorway. ‘Sorry,’ he added. ‘Didn’t want to disturb you.’

‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I’d just come to the same conclusion. Patrick de Villiers was present in all three locations where the prostitutes were killed – Nelspruit and Cape Town, and then again in Victoria Falls last week.’

‘And so was Hudson Brand,’ Tom said.