Ivory (39 page)

They had fought off the urge to spend every minute with each other and retreated to their separate ends of the luxury train for the rest of the journey, except for a blissful three hours when the locomotive pulled up five kilometres short of the historic nineteenth century town of Matjiesfontein. While most of the passengers, including George, took advantage of a chance to stretch their legs with a walk into town, Jane feigned her headache again, to George's obvious annoyance, and invited Alex to her double suite.

With the bright Karoo sun diffused by the carriage's slatted security shutter Alex claimed every inch of Jane's body with fingers, lips and the tip of his tongue. Before she had to disembark, with George already close by inspecting a museum in the station building, Alex and Jane made love for a furious third time, standing in the shower of her ensuite.

Alex tried to convince Jane to leave the train with him, but she insisted that she needed to find out what was in the package MacGregor had given her. Alex would have gladly left the mystery unsolved if she had agreed to go with him.

He called her mobile phone as he pulled into the Radisson's car park and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel while he waited for her to arrive downstairs. She wore black jeans and a dark long-sleeved T-shirt. She got in the car and kissed him and he accelerated back out into the traffic.

‘I didn't know what to bring,' she said.

‘Swimming costume?'

‘Underneath.'

‘Good. I've got everything else covered.'

He wasn't happy about her coming along and told her again that he would have preferred her to simply tell him the location of the package and wait for him to fetch it. ‘You don't trust me, do you?' he said.

‘Of course not,' she said. ‘You're a buccaneer.'

Alex drove to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront complex, one of the busiest tourist destinations in South Africa. He parked in the Victoria Wharf shopping centre car park, got out and opened the car's boot.

Jane slipped out of her jeans, but didn't attract too much attention from shoppers moving to and from their cars, as she was wearing a pair of shorts underneath. Alex changed into a sun shirt and produced wide-brimmed floppy hats for both of them. He lifted out the heavy bag, then closed the boot and locked the car.

Alex led Jane away from the shopping complex to a small beach near the start of the main breakwater. ‘This is Granger Bay,' he said. A man stood on the beach next to two sea kayaks. Alex waved to him.

‘You need to be back before nightfall,' the man said.

Alex nodded as he loaded the dive bag into the front of the larger of the two craft. ‘Don't worry,' he said to the Afrikaner, ‘with what I'm paying you I can't afford a late fee.'

The man laughed.

‘Do you need help?' Alex asked Jane.

‘I'm fine.' She pushed her kayak out a little way, jumped in, and started paddling.

Alex sat in his boat as Jane shot away from the beach, her arms pumping like pistons. Alex dug into the water and was sweating hard before he even got within shouting distance of Jane as she knifed her way across the calm waters of Granger Bay.

‘Where did you learn to paddle?' he called.

‘Just a natural, I guess.' She surged ahead of him and Alex worked his muscled arms hard to keep up. When at last she slowed, near the end of the breakwater, she confessed to Alex, ‘Actually, I row when I'm back home in England, but I'm a little out of practice. If I was on form you wouldn't have been able to catch me.'

When they rounded the main breakwater they turned south and on their right they could see into the Victoria Basin, which was in front of the shopping centre where they had parked. They didn't look out of place as Alex had already spotted two other kayaks and a man on a wave ski making the most of the calm conditions and warm weather.

They crossed the mouth of the Ben Schoeman Dock and Alex led the way towards the Duncan Dock, where the
Penfold Son
was moored on the Eastern Mole. They could clearly see the massive container ship now. The bright lights of a welder flashed on and off and Alex noticed a truck with a butcher's logo drive along the long quay to the ship's gangway.

Instead of paddling into the dock Alex turned left and made for the south spur, another breakwater which jutted out from the end of the quay.

There was a port control building about two hundred metres to their north west, but Alex was sure the staff inside would be looking out to sea, not in at the docks.

‘We'll stop here,' he said to Jane, nosing into the breakwater. ‘Have you ever dived?'

‘Once, on holiday in Teneriffe,' she said. ‘I learnt the basics in a cruise ship swimming pool.'

Alex pulled out two military scuba kits with rebreathers, and two black wetsuits.

‘This works the same way, but uses oxygen instead of air. It's a sealed system so it doesn't produce any bubbles when you breathe, and the tank was small enough for me to hide in the kayak.'

Jane was already slipping out of her rash shirt and pulling on her wetsuit. Alex knew that lithe body now and he hated to think of anything happening to her. ‘I'll ask you again nicely. Please tell me where you hid the package and let me go and get it myself.'

‘Fuck off.'

‘So much for the nice approach.'

‘Where did you get all this gear?'

‘I looked up an old friend of mine this morning. He used to be a navy diver and he's more crooked than I am.'

Alex showed Jane how to fit and operate the rebreather, then he tied both kayaks securely to the breakwater. ‘Stay close to me. Hold on to my weight belt.' He had his Glock wrapped in a plastic bag secured with rubber bands and he slipped it into the front of his wetsuit and zipped it up. Alex slid into the cold water and together they sank beneath the surface.

The sun had set, but arc lights still illuminated the
Penfold Son
as Jane and Alex surfaced beneath the gangway. The metal above them clanged to the sound of booted feet as workmen came and went. ‘It's still busy,' Jane whispered.

Alex nodded and put his fingers to his lips. He swam on the surface but out of sight in the shadow of the dock to the far end, where a van was parked.

‘Wait here,' Alex whispered. He reached up and climbed a set of steel rungs set into concrete. Once on the dock he made sure to keep the grocery delivery van between himself and the security guard posted on the gangway. He unzipped his wetsuit and pulled out the Glock. He unwrapped it, opened the rear door of the van and climbed in.

The coloured delivery man opened the door and stared straight into the barrel of Alex's pistol. Alex let the man know, without words, that if he spoke he would die. He beckoned him into the back of the refrigerated van. Once inside he ordered his captive to strip.

‘I'll freeze!' he hissed.

Alex shrugged. ‘Freeze slowly or die quickly. The choice is yours.' The man started undressing.

Inside were aprons and capes to be worn when carrying sides of beef and pork. Alex took the drawstring from an apron and tied the delivery man's hands securely behind his back. He then took out his diving knife and cut the remainder of the apron into long strips. He balled one and stuffed it in the man's mouth and tied the gag with another.

Alex had seen two workers so he waited inside the chill of the van until the other arrived.

‘Hey, man, where are you? What have you been up –' Alex's Glock and the sight of his colleague bound and gagged silenced the man soon enough. When the second man was also dressed only in his underpants Alex trussed him and moved back to the edge of the wharf. He leaned over the edge and waved to Jane.

Alex and Jane pulled the delivery men's uniforms over their wetsuits. When he was dressed, Alex took the rebreathers and stuffed them under a nearby garbage skip.

‘Is this going to work? They know it's two men doing the deliveries,' Jane said.

‘Put this on.' He handed Jane the meat carrier's hooded cape and lifted a side of pork and balanced it on her right shoulder. ‘Can you carry this much weight?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good. Just keep the meat between you and the security guard on the gangway and follow me in.'

Alex hefted the beef and set off, with Jane close behind him.

‘Hurry it up,' the guard said in a thick northern Irish accent as Alex walked past.

Alex said nothing, but flipped the man the finger with his spare hand. The Irishman swore, but didn't move from his post. He said nothing as Jane walked past.

‘Which way?' Alex whispered once they were inside.

‘Galley. Follow me.'

It was clear to Alex that she knew the ship's layout off by heart, which was not surprising given the time she had spent on board. They made it to the galley coldroom without seeing another person. Jane led him through the intricate maze of alleyways towards the stern of the ship.

 

Cleanliness was next to godliness for Billy Tidmarsh and while he had killed four men in his home county of Ulster it had all been in the name of his religion. The two things he couldn't stomach in life were Catholics and dirt.

And that went for blood, as well. He'd always scrubbed himself thoroughly after a job – not only to get rid of the incriminating gunpowder residue, but also to make sure he hadn't been infected with any filthy Papist blood.

The sight of the drops on the deck irked him. He presumed they'd dripped from the pig or the beef the deliverymen had just brought on board. He picked up a rag lying in a bucket near the gangway and dropped to one knee. On closer inspection, however, he saw the droplets were clear. Looking up he now saw they were spattered all the way down the gangway and, on his other side, into the ship itself. Why would those two men be dripping water?

He would stop them when they came back through. Perhaps a bottle of water had burst in the last delivery load and Billy had failed to notice it. He paced up and down the deck near the gangway, his eyes continually drawn back to the droplets. They annoyed him fiercely. He checked his watch. The men had been inside for more than ten minutes. What were they doing in there?

He walked down the gangway onto the dock and saw the clearly marked trail went all the way back to the van. He decided to investigate.

‘Piet, it's Billy,' he said into his radio as he walked along the dock.

‘Go, Billy.'

‘Somethin's not right here, boss. I'm just on my way to the delivery van on the dock to have a wee look.'

‘I didn't tell you to leave your post. Get back there.'

‘But Piet . . .' Billy was at the van already. He thought he heard movement so he put his ear to the closed rear doors. There was definitely something alive in there, groaning and moving about. He pulled the pistol from his shoulder holster and reefed open the door. ‘Jesus
fooking
Christ.'

 

Alex and Jane could hear the shouts across the water, although they were already three hundred metres away, paddling back towards the main breakwater.

‘It's a mini videotape,' Jane said after she ripped open the package in the car.

‘No diamonds?'

‘Try not to sound too disappointed. Hang on, there's a USB memory stick in here as well.'

After they returned the kayaks Alex drove as fast as he dared back to the Radisson Waterfront. He waited in the car while Jane walked into the hotel, making sure George wasn't in the bar or dining areas, where he might see the two of them walk in together.

Jane called Alex in the car to tell him all was clear and by the time he made it to her room she had her laptop switched on and the memory stick inserted. ‘It's a video – an MPEG. Could be the same as what's on the tape.'

Alex closed the hotel room door and leaned over Jane's shoulder. The screen flickered to life. George Penfold was naked, his back to the camera. A woman was lying spread-eagled across a bed, her wrists tied to the four posts. George walked towards the woman holding a length of rope in his hands. There was no indication that he knew the camera was filming him.

The woman said something that was indiscernible but as he wrapped the cord around her neck she made no further sound and showed no sign of protest. George climbed onto the bed between her legs and began having sex with her.

He appeared to have tied the rope in a single knot. As his thrusts became more furious he began to move his hands wider apart, gripping the rope and pulling it tighter.

The woman began to scream and thrash about on the bed.

‘Oh, dear God,' Jane said.

‘He's killed her.'

A
lex sat on a stainless-steel bench pretending to read a copy of
The Citizen
inside the terminal building of Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport. Although it was cool and gloomy under the soaring thatched cathedral roof he was wearing a baseball cap and dark glasses inside. He didn't want anyone to be able to recall his description, or see it on a security camera video at a later date.

While he waited for the flight to arrive he checked his watch again and thought about Jane, who was at the other end of South Africa. It had gone badly between them.

They had watched the video to the end. The hidden camera had recorded George's behaviour when the girl suffocated. He paused, checked her pulse and completed his sexual act with her. Jane had burst into tears at that point and run for the bathroom. He had heard her being sick in there. When she returned she made herself watch the whole thing. Two Asian men – bouncers by the look of them – had banged on the door of the bedroom and George, still naked, had let them in. There had been an argument over the girl, but in the end all three men had seemed resigned to the fact that nothing would be said to the authorities and that their shared priority should be the disposal of the body.

‘Don't worry, I will pay your employer whatever is required . . . for the girl,' they had heard George say.