The Hunter (38 page)

‘Do you think you’ll get approval to go get Cliff?’ Tom asked.

Sannie shrugged. ‘You know what it’s like trying to get money for a flight from any police service. We need to strengthen the link between Patrick de Villiers and Peter Cliff, and to review the forensic evidence from the deaths of the women at Hazyview and Cape Town. If we can match Patrick de Villiers’s DNA to them we’ll have a start, but that will take time. The killer was very careful – dare I say it, surgical. Cliff would have known how to minimise the transfer of evidence. And poor Mavis, we’ll have to wait for the medical examiner to check her, to see if there is some DNA or other physical evidence to help us identify the other person in her killing.’

‘I wish we’d had better luck with the witnesses,’ Tom said. They had been over it several times. The security guard at the Shaw’s Gate entrance to the reserve remembered Patrick arriving – he was a regular visitor transferring clients to and from the reserve – and the record showed he had paid for himself and another person to enter. The guard hadn’t bothered checking inside Patrick’s van, and as the windows were darkly tinted he hadn’t been able to see Cliff, who was presumably the passenger on board, if Brand’s theory was correct.

‘We still don’t know how Peter got out of the reserve after killing Mavis,’ Sannie said, ‘assuming it was him.’

Tom nodded. They had been over this, as well. ‘Best guess is that he went on foot through the reserve back to the hotel fence and climbed over somehow.’ The hotel, where they now sat, was located on the extreme southeastern corner of the Sabi Sand, and shared a fence with the reserve. They had walked the perimeter and found no breaks in the fence, but they theorised that it was possible Peter could have walked down to the Sabie River, along the waterfront, and then made his way back into the hotel complex where the fence had been damaged by warthogs burrowing under it.

‘All in broad daylight?’ Tom asked. A hippo honked from the river in front of them.

‘Not easy, but possible.’ Sannie pushed her plate to the centre of the low table in the
lapa
and called for the waiter to bring them the bill. ‘Peter had loose ends to tie up; he needed to get rid of Patrick.’

‘Are you ruling out Brand as a suspect altogether?’ Tom asked.

‘I’m still keeping an open mind about him, in case all of this is an elaborate story to throw us off him as our main suspect.’

Tom didn’t look convinced. ‘He’s calling us from Kenya, revealing his location, to try to help us get the goods on Peter Cliff. We need to keep digging; we’re still missing some vital piece of information that conclusively ties Peter to the women’s deaths,’ Tom reiterated.

Sannie knew her husband was right. They would have to go back to the beginning. ‘The only person who could have told us, in detail, what Peter’s movements were during the World Cup and in Cape Town, and in Victoria Falls, was Patrick de Villiers, and he’s conveniently dead. We have to go back to Patrick’s boss, Tracey, and get whatever other information we can to recreate those tours that she booked him on. We need more detail – hotel vouchers, soccer bookings – more than just her diary entry that said De Villiers was booked to escort Cliff.’

Tom stood. ‘OK, then, love, let’s get back to it.’

‘Good old-fashioned legwork.’ She saw the smile on his face. ‘You look like you’re almost enjoying this,’ she said as she walked down the stairs from the
lapa
to the raised timber walkway above the river’s edge.

‘I would be if it wasn’t for Mavis, but I could follow your legwork all day.’

*

‘There is a crossing possibly about to happen,’ Godwin told Brand, Kate and Andrew.

‘Is it far?’ Kate asked.

Brand studied her face. She looked so innocent, so excited. It was hard for him to connect her with what he knew of her, her troubled past and her recent life of crime. Africa, the wild, had a way of bringing out the child in everyone.

‘We can get there,’ Godwin said, ‘and it won’t make us too late, as long as the wildebeest don’t take too long to cross.’

‘I can wait,’ Kate said.

Godwin left the lions and they headed south, towards the Mara River. As with the lion sighting they saw the gathering of vehicles before they saw the animals themselves, but this time the number of humans was even greater. There were scores of vehicles, perhaps sixty or more, lining the bank of the river on their side.

‘There they are,’ said Kate. They saw the procession of black blots on the far side of the river, milling backwards and forwards, and heard the uncertain bleating of the wildebeests above the chatter of the breathlessly expectant humans.

‘This isn’t what I expected; it’s a mess,’ Kate said.

Brand had seen it several times before, the jockeying and selfishness of the tour guides, egged on by their clients, who jostled and queued for what they believed would be the best position on the steep banks of the river.

‘Every time the wildebeests see a gap on this side of the river some idiot parks his truck there,’ Kate said.

‘You got it,’ Godwin nodded. He had parked away from the river, on a slope overlooking it, and scanned the banks up and down the watercourse as he tried to gauge when and where the animals would cross and the best place from which to view them.

There was a single Kenya Wildlife Service ranger in a green Land Rover, who trundled up and down the waiting ranks of game-viewing vehicles, trying to keep them in some semblance of order and ensure there was a clear space left along the bank for the wildebeest to aim for, so they could exit the river if they made it across safely. As soon as the ranger established an exit point and moved on, the safari vehicles filled the gap like a returning tide.

Godwin drove along the river until he spied a group of wildebeest massing on the far side. ‘These ones look ready to cross, but most of the other vehicles are waiting further up the river for that last group.’

‘Well done, Godwin,’ Kate said.

Brand swatted away a fly. It was a waiting game. He marvelled at Kate’s enthusiasm for the crossing. There was a man on his way here, possibly with the intention of killing her, and all she wanted was to see some animals cross a river.

‘Come on, come on,’ she urged them.

‘Look!’ Andrew pointed. The lead animal in a herd of about thirty wildebeest took a plunge off a rock, jumping about ten metres into the brown water below. ‘He’s going for it.’

As soon as the first animal’s hooves had hit the water his comrades started leaping in after him. All it had taken was for that one beast to take the plunge. The lead animal was swimming now, fighting the current, his shaggy bearded head jutting forward.

Brand raised his binoculars. ‘Croc coming, behind the first guy.’

‘No!’ Kate put her hand to her mouth. ‘It’s going to get him.’

A massive reptilian head breached the churning water as the crocodile tried to get its snout around the back of the wildebeest’s neck. The herbivore, however, surged on, shaking its head to try and keep the crocodile at bay.

‘He’s done it!’ Kate yelled. The wildebeest had made the bank on their side and was scrabbling for purchase on the red clay. The exit path above him was steep, but he slowly made ground. Behind him the crocodile was drifting downriver and the following animals were making land, bunching up in a bleating black traffic jam at the water’s edge.

Godwin shook his head. ‘These guys are idiots.’ He wasn’t talking about the wildebeest, but about several other safari guides who had raced their vehicles to the new crossing point and were now pulling up along the edge of the riverbank. ‘Give them some room,’ Godwin called to the other operators, but they ignored him.

‘The poor wildebeest can’t get up,’ Kate said despairingly.

Brand watched them through the binoculars and saw their panic and confusion. ‘You’re right. Look, the lead guy is getting back in the water.’

‘No,’ she cried.

The wildebeest was swimming again, back the way he had come. Brand saw the knobbly head of the crocodile break the surface for an instant, just to ascertain it was on the correct heading. When it was halfway across the river the wildebeest’s head was drawn under. There was a volcanic splash of water and wild thrashing and beating for a few seconds until the wildebeest was stilled.

The croc came to the surface again, all four metres of his ridged back visible as he steered his lifeless prey to the far bank. Kate, who had disparaged tourists who showed emotion over the deaths of animals in the wild, started to cry.

33

T
racey Mahoney’s maid said her employer had gone into Hazyview to have lunch with a friend, so Sannie decided she and Tom should pay a visit to Koos de Villiers’s farm, where Patrick had stayed in between guiding jobs.

Sannie drove them into the hills from Hazyview towards White River on the R40 and passed their own farm. ‘Do you wish we were there now, just sitting on the
stoep
or supervising the harvest?’ she asked Tom.

‘No.’

‘Why not? I know you’re always so supportive, baby, but I thought you didn’t like me going back to work?’

Tom reached over and laid his hand on her thigh. He gave it a little squeeze. ‘I didn’t, not because I didn’t think it was your place to work, or because I turned my back on the job, but because I was worried about you. But now I know. Now I remember. I wouldn’t be anywhere else but here right now.’

She nodded, and though she smiled she felt a little choked up. ‘I love you, Tom.’

‘I love you too, babe, with all my heart. Now let’s go kick this fucker’s door in.’

‘I’m sure it won’t come to that.’ She took the turnoff to Kiepersol and followed the narrower, winding road through more plantations until they came to the De Villiers farm. Sannie pulled up at the electrified barbed-wire gate and pushed the button on an intercom on a stalk.

‘Hello?’ said an African voice.

‘Captain Van Rensburg, here to see Koos de Villiers.’

‘One minute.’

After a short pause a gruff voice said through the tinny speaker, ‘
Voetsek
.’

‘I’m not going anywhere, Koos. I’m sorry for the loss of your brother, but I have to talk to you about his death.’

Koos said nothing and they waited a couple of minutes. Eventually the big, bearded farmer came striding down the driveway from the ramshackle single-storey farmhouse. His big hands dwarfed the shotgun he carried. Sannie got out of the car, as did Tom.

‘What do you want?’ Koos said as he approached the gate.

Sannie had her hand resting on the butt of her Z88 service pistol. ‘We need to come in and talk to you, about Patrick.’

‘You can talk to me through the
bladdy
gate, woman.’

‘Show some respect,’ Tom said.

‘Who the fuck are you to tell me how to speak, Englishman?’ Koos spat on the ground.

Tom reached around his back for his own pistol, but Sannie held up a hand to stay him. ‘Koos, I know this is a bad time for you,’ she said in Afrikaans. ‘I’m sorry for the loss of your brother, but we need to come in and talk to you. We need to ask you some questions about people he had escorted in the past.’

‘I got nothing to say to you people.’

‘Sannie,’ Tom said.

‘What?’ She didn’t want to take her eyes off Koos. The big man had a reputation as a violent bully and his eyes were red from crying, presumably over the loss of his equally detestable brother.

‘There’s smoke coming from the chimney at the house. It’s nowhere near cool enough for a fire,’ Tom murmured.

‘What are you burning, Koos?’ she asked the farmer.

‘None of your business. Wood.’

‘I don’t think so. Is it some of Patrick’s things?’

Koos shrugged.

He was not the smartest man in town, not by a long way. ‘You want to burn some of the things of his so they don’t remind you of his loss, is that right?’

Koos frowned. ‘Yes, that’s it.’

‘Right,’ she said. ‘We’re coming in.’

Sannie had noticed that while the gate was closed it was not padlocked. She grabbed the frame and began sliding it. Koos strode to her, but she was through already. Tom was right behind her. Koos had the sense not to level the shotgun at her, but he transferred the gun to his left hand and shoved his huge palm into her chest. ‘Get off my land, bitch.’

Sannie reeled back a pace, but before she could draw her weapon Tom was between them. His first punch caught Koos on the chin and snapped his head backwards. As he fell on his arse Koos began to bring the shotgun to bear.

‘Drop it!’ Tom’s foot was on the bigger man’s belly and his SIG Sauer, held in both hands, was pointed between Koos’s eyes.

‘Roll him over,’ Sannie said. Tom snatched the shotgun, now lowered, and encouraged Koos to obey with a kick in his ribs. Sannie pulled out her cuffs and snapped them on Koos’s wrists. ‘Bring him, please, Tom.’

She broke into a jog and kicked open the door of the farmhouse, her Z88 leading the way, ‘Police!’ she called, but the house was empty. In front of the fire were papers, letters and a stack of magazines. One glossy publication was half devoured by the flames. Sannie saw the contorted faces as she reached the fireplace. Tom pushed Koos into the living room behind her. Sannie bent and picked up the next magazine to be burned and flicked through it. ‘Hardcore, foreign stuff. Women being tortured, cut, beaten. Your brother was into some sick shit, Koos.’

‘It’s not illegal,’ the farmer said.

‘Then why are you burning it?’ Tom asked.

Sannie kicked a shoebox open. A plastic bag full of what looked like
dagga
, marijuana, fell out. Under the box, of more interest to her, was an old-model laptop computer. ‘This was Patrick’s?’

‘I got nothing to say to you,’ said Koos.

‘Sit him down, out of reach,’ Sannie said to Tom. She sat on a vinyl lounge, the greasy imitation leather peeling away, and opened the computer and started it. ‘No password needed, I see. He was about as smart as you, Koos.’

Koos wriggled on the battered armchair, straining to get up, but Tom pushed him in the chest, keeping him down. ‘You got no right to go through his stuff.’

Whether Koos knew it or not, Sannie knew he was right, but the urgency with which Koos was burning his brother’s possessions told her that the older brother knew there was information here that would incriminate Patrick. Sannie opened the email program on the computer. The address of the last email made her gasp.

‘What is it?’ Tom asked.

She opened it and began to read. ‘My God.’

*

Brand, Andrew and Kate sat on fold-out camp chairs in the shade of a lone tree on the short grass plain of the Masai Mara, eating boiled eggs and chicken from lunch boxes that had been provided for them in Godwin’s vehicle.

They had left the main body of the migration behind at the Mara River. A herd of a dozen or more topi antelope watched them, warily, from a nearby rise. Godwin was seated in the Land Cruiser, talking on the radio in Swahili. When he finished talking he came to Hudson and said quietly: ‘Sir, you asked the lodge to tell you when the other guests have arrived at the airstrip. They are there now.’

Brand had no signal on his phone at this spot in the reserve, but had left instructions before he had lost reception. ‘Well, Peter and Anna have arrived,’ Hudson announced to the others. ‘You’re going to get what you wished for, Kate.’

She put her lunch box down, hardly touched. ‘I’m ready. Where will we meet them, back at the camp?’

Brand looked to Andrew. The pilot rubbed his stubbled chin. ‘Could get messy if this Peter fellow tries something. Might be best not to make a fuss in front of civilians.’

‘Out here?’ Brand said.

Andrew nodded. ‘He won’t have been able to get a firearm or any weapon of note onto a civilian airliner, and all three of us are armed. We can cover him, or do you want to call the Kenyan police in first?’

‘We don’t know how long it would take for them to get to us, plus there would be a lot of explaining to do in advance. Also, to be fair, we’ve got to hear what Peter has to say for himself. It’s all conjecture right now.’

Kate looked down at her fingernails. ‘He’s guilty. I know it.’

‘Godwin,’ Brand said, ‘do you know a place where we can have a private meeting with these other people who have arrived? Not like here, where all the vehicles stop.’

‘
Ndiyo
. Yes. I can find us a quiet place, on the river, but not where the crossings are taking place. There will be no one else there. Will there be trouble?’

‘I hope not. Radio the location to camp and please ask them to pass it on to the driver picking up Dr and Mrs Cliff from the airstrip. Say there are some people who wish to meet with them. They will understand.’

‘All right,’ Godwin said.

Andrew and Brand helped Godwin pack the chairs and they set off, bouncing on the rutted roads. They threaded their way through a herd of several hundred wildebeest and followed the course of the Mara away from a growing gaggle of tourist vehicles and a line of nervous animals on the other side of the river preparing to cross back over.

‘Give me your gun,’ Brand said to Kate.

‘No.’

‘Give it to me or I’ll tell Godwin to take us back to the camp. You can take on your relatives by yourself.’

Kate stared defiantly at him for a few seconds, but eventually reached into her daypack, pulled out her .32 calibre semi-automatic and handed to him. ‘You know I want to kill him, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Brand, ‘which is exactly why I’m taking this.’ He slipped the small pistol into the cargo pocket of his trousers. He took out his own nine-mil, ejected the magazine, unloaded and reloaded the bullets, then slid it back into the butt, slapped it home and cocked the pistol. He slipped it into the waistband of his trousers.

Andrew took his own weapon out of his bag and checked it. ‘We’re not going to let anything happen to you, Kate,’ the pilot said to her.

Godwin glanced back over his shoulder, his eyes wide at the sight of the guns. ‘At least we will be safe from the lions.’

They stopped at a bluff on a bend of the Mara River. The bank on their side had been cut by the river when it was in full flood, leaving a vertical drop of exposed pale sand below them. On the opposite side boulders and rocks worn smooth by the water studded the point on the bend. The river was red-brown, fast flowing. A line of trees provided shade.

‘This is fine?’ Godwin asked.

‘It’s OK,’ said Brand.

‘OK Corral, more like it,’ Andrew said.

They sat and waited in the shade, watching the river, occasionally spotting a hippo, or an animal on the shore. ‘You might have to testify if Peter gets extradited to South Africa,’ Brand said to Kate.

‘I’ll cross that bridge when and if I come to it,’ she said, picking up a rock and tossing it over the bank and into the swirling waters about five metres below. ‘I just hope the South African police can link Peter and De Villiers to the murders by other means. I don’t want to go to prison, but I do want to reimburse the people I stole from.’

‘You know I can’t recommend you get the money from the life insurance claim,’ Brand said.

Kate nodded. ‘I know that. I need to find a proper job, either here in Kenya or somewhere else in the world, and save up to try and right the wrongs I’ve caused.’

Andrew stood from the chair he’d been sitting on and picked up a pair of binoculars from inside the Land Cruiser. ‘Dust plume. Vehicle coming.’

Godwin went to the radio and spoke rapidly into it. ‘It is them,’ he announced when he’d finished.

Kate stood and Brand noted that her hands were clasped in fists by her side. A muscle pulsed in her jawline as she ground her teeth. Brand felt for the pistol in the small of his back; it was ready for use if he needed it. He thought Peter would try and bluff his way through, but he reminded himself the man was a violent serial killer who had proved adept at covering his trail for several years.

The vehicle grew in size and shape and Brand could see it was a Land Rover game viewer with a canvas awning on top, strung between the bars of a roll cage. Anna and Peter were sitting in the seats behind the driver, who was wearing a traditional Maasai blanket, unlike Godwin who was in khakis. The vehicle stopped about ten metres away and the two guides waved to each other in greeting, as if this was any other ordinary bush rendezvous.

‘Kate, my God! It’s you!’ Peter said as he vaulted from the vehicle.

‘He’s doing a good job of looking surprised,’ Andrew said to Brand out of the side of his mouth. Kate remained immobile, silent, beside him.

Anna climbed down and walked towards her. ‘I can’t believe it. Oh my God.’

Kate stayed still, arms by her side, as Peter stopped a metre from her. ‘Why did you run away?’

Brand heard her faint reply above the rush of the river below and behind them. ‘You of all people should know that.’

Peter took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. He was lost for words, Brand assumed, overwhelmed to see her even though, by reversing the photo of Kate and Linley that he’d sent Dani, Peter must have known it was going to be Kate who he would meet, and not Linley Brown.

‘Why?’ was all Anna said to her sister.

‘Hello, Anna,’ Kate said. ‘I’m sorry.’

Anna stared at Kate, not reaching for her, not hugging her, not crying. Brand watched the two women closely. ‘Sorry for what?’

‘We can talk later, can’t we?’ Peter said quickly. ‘It’s just so marvellous that we’ve got Kate back, isn’t it?’

Brand wondered to whom he was asking the question. Kate eyed him coldly; Anna ignored her husband. ‘Sorry for what?’ she asked again.

Peter reached out a hand, as if to assure himself Kate wasn’t a ghost. Kate took a step back, physically shuddering. A hippo mocked them all with its belly laugh.

‘Don’t you touch me, you bastard,’ Kate hissed at Peter, who lowered his arm.

He looked bereft, Brand thought, as though he’d had a prize given to him then taken away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly.

‘Sorry for what?’ Anna demanded. ‘Is someone going to tell me what’s going on here?’

Kate drew a breath. ‘I ran away from Peter, Anna. We were having an affair. I got scared.’

‘Scared?’ Peter said.

Anna looked from her sister to her husband, but said nothing. Brand noted the older woman’s chest rising and falling, the colour rushing to her cheeks, her fury barely in check. Brand felt for her.

‘You had nothing to be scared of,’ Peter said to Kate. ‘I’d never have really hurt you. Kate, no, you must have realised I never wanted to harm you.’

‘I was too stoned to realise anything half the time. What I do remember is you using me, like a whore, and that
special thing
you liked to do with the scalpel.’