Silent Predator (50 page)

‘Van Rensburg.’

‘Sannie, it’s Henk. Where the bloody hell are you?’

‘Umm …’

‘Bloody hell, woman, it doesn’t matter. We’ve found your kids!’

Sannie squealed with delight, causing the businessman and the check-in clerk to stare at her. She didn’t care. ‘Where? How, Henk? How are they? Please god, tell me they’re safe. If anyone’s touched them I’ll … Where are you … are you on your cell phone?’

‘Slow down, Sannie. Yes, I’m in the car on my cell. Two uniforms have the kids. There was a complaint of some excessive noise in a house in Boksburg. The officers went to visit and there was a shoot-out. There was a man guarding Christo and Ilana. He was killed, but your kids are fine, Sannie. The police with them say they appear to be unhurt.’

Sannie started to cry, cuffing the tears away. ‘Oh, Henk. I have to get to them.’

‘Okay, okay. Where are you? I’ve been to the gym and it’s clear you’re not there.’

She felt guilty and embarrassed about her impetuous actions, and thought about Tom. She had to get
some word to him, but for now he was on his own. ‘I’m at the airport, Henk. International terminal.’

He was silent for a few seconds. ‘On any other day I’d throw the bloody book at you, Inspector. Stay right where you are and I’ll come to you. I’ll lead you to the house.’

‘Just give me the address, man. I’ll drive there myself.’

‘Sannie, I want to be there with you. You’ve been through a hell of a lot. Also, who knows … there might be accomplices on their way back to the house. I need to take charge of the scene and then we’ll move your kids out. I couldn’t let the uniforms take them away just yet. I want to catch these bastards, Sannie.’

‘Me too.’ She knew he was right, and not just about the operational aspects. She needed a friend to lean on now as well. ‘Hurry, Henk.’

She rushed outside and across the road, causing a BMW driver to slam on his brakes. Sannie ignored his insults and ran through the car park, clutching her bag. ‘Oh, no, man!’

The front tyre on the driver’s side was flat. How the hell did that happen? She felt like screaming. She unlocked the car and was lifting the carpet in the boot to get the jack out when her cell phone rang again. She swore, then answered it.

‘It’s Henk. I’m just pulling into the airport car park. Where are you?’

‘You’re here already?’

‘I was already on my way to Boksburg, and travelling fast,’ Henk said.

She gave him directions to the bay where she was parked and he pulled up thirty seconds later.

Henk pushed a button and his electric window slid down. ‘
Ag
, just get in, Sannie.’ He leaned across and opened the passenger door of his Ford Falcon. ‘We can come back for it later.’

Sannie nodded. He was right and she couldn’t wait a minute more to see Christo and Ilana. ‘Okay. Just let me lock it.’ Her gym bag was on the rear seats, where she had just tossed it. She reached in and grabbed it. A car with a flat tyre was like an open cold box to a monkey when it came to thieves. She locked her vehicle with the remote, threw her bag in Henk’s car and jumped in. ‘Okay, man. Let’s go!’

The muscles in the fisherman’s back rippled as he propelled the dugout effortlessly across the lake’s surface. In contrast, Tom was sweating profusely, even though he was doing nothing – other than bailing with the cut-off, capped remains of a plastic Coca-Cola bottle.

The water glittered like a massive silver satin sheet littered with gold coins. Behind them, Lake Malawi was devouring the sun once more.

‘Crocodile Island,’ said the fisherman, lifting one hand from the paddle and pointing to the green speck ahead of them. Tom heard a fish eagle cry, another indicator they were nearing land.

Solomon had told Tom that the island was no more than a kilometre in diameter. It had been developed as a small, exclusive tourist resort and could cater for a dozen people. Khan had bought it as a going concern,
but Solomon had said that, as far as he knew, it was not operating commercially any more. ‘He has friends coming to stay.’

‘Staff?’ Tom had asked.

Solomon had shrugged. ‘Not from around here. No one local. Sometimes, the fishermen say, boats go there in the night-time.’

Tom wore his black swimming shorts and a brown long-sleeve T-shirt which clung sweatily to his skin. It had protected him from the afternoon sun and would conceal his still-pale skin once he was on the island. His trainers were slung around his neck, the laces knotted together. He had borrowed a waterproof rubber bag from the diving and snorkelling supplies at the campsite. In it was Sannie’s pistol and the spare magazines, along with a telescoping club, similar to his Asp, and a pair of handcuffs that Tom had brought with him from Christo’s garage. He’d found a whole trunk of equipment that Sannie later told him her husband had used when working private security jobs, which he sometimes did after hours to supplement his police income. As well as the cuffs and cosh he’d found radios, slimline body armour – for wearing under a suit – and a can of pepper spray.

The fisherman stopped paddling. ‘No further,’ he said.

Tom nodded. The man had already told him he would not risk landing on the island. His English was not good enough for him to explain why. ‘Trouble,’ was all he could say. ‘Okay. Sunrise.’ Tom pointed at the pink sky where the sun had just disappeared and
raised his arm into the air. The fisherman nodded. He would return to the same spot at dawn.

As plans went, Tom’s were virtually nonexistent. He had not been able to find a phone that worked in Monkey Bay, so he couldn’t have told Sannie what he was up to even if he’d wanted to. Not that he would get much support from the South African Police Service where he was now. He’d wanted to pass on the rumours he’d heard about Pervez Khan, although the information from Solomon would hardly be enough for the South Africans to extradite him.

Tom swung his legs over the side of the dugout and slid silently into the water. The bag floated and he held it out in front of him as he swam towards the island, about a hundred metres distant. Despite the name, Solomon had assured him there were no crocodiles in the water. Tom wasn’t sure he could believe the boy, so he breaststroked as fast as he could with one arm.

Solomon had explained that there was a wide, sandy beach on one side of the island, and a rocky shoreline of boulders on the other. With Solomon translating, he’d asked the fisherman to drop him near the rocks. The chalets and bar of the old resort overlooked the sand, Solomon had said.

His feet found slippery purchase on a submerged boulder and he carefully stood upright. He placed the waterproof bag on another smooth, round rock, still warm from the vanished sun, and boosted himself up out of the water. He sat and pulled on his trainers, and took the pistol and spare magazine from the bag. The latter he slipped into the pockets of his board shorts. He had a total of twenty-four rounds with him. He
hoped he wouldn’t need all of them – any of them. He stashed the bag in the cleft of two rocks, the blue plastic just visible, at the base of the tallest tree on this side of the island. With the richly purpled sky behind him he headed roughly eastwards, towards the inhabited side of the island.

The bush was dense, almost tropical, unlike the countryside he’d seen in the rest of Africa so far. He was a world away from London, out of his depth, but driven on with every step. Small things scurried through the sparse undergrowth as he moved. He did his best to ignore them and pressed on. Something screeched in the trees above him, perhaps a bat or an owl.

The vegetation thinned ahead of him, and Tom could see the outline of buildings. He smelled wood smoke and noticed an African-style water boiler, an old fuel drum cemented above a bricked fireplace, with a chimney behind it. There were four simple masonry buildings with sloping roofs made of corrugated asbestos sheet. Staff quarters, he thought. No lights shone.

He moved to the nearest building and flattened himself against its back wall. Peering around, he saw a much more substantial building, whitewashed and thatch-roofed. Either the main lodge or a larger bungalow, he assumed. He continued moving. When he came to the building, he saw now that it was one of a line of four which faced onto a well-kept lawn and, beyond that, a narrow, white sandy beach. Out on the inky waters of the lake he could see the bobbing lights of fishermen in their dugouts. A mild breeze off the
water cooled his face but couldn’t dry the sweat on his body.

A pale glow shone from one of the windows in the main lodge. The smoke from the boiler had told him someone was in residence. He moved from cover to cover, from tree to hedge, to the shade cast by an outdoor umbrella structure made of reed, sheltering a table and chairs.

The lodge had a verandah, set about a metre above the grass with an extension of the roof overhanging it. Tom saw flickering shadows, cast by a candle the flame of which was gently being swayed by the breeze off the lake.

Holding Sannie’s pistol out in front of him, he moved to the side of the lodge building. With his back pressed against the whitewashed walls he edged closer to the verandah. When he came to the corner that marked the end of the built structure, he slowly craned his head around it so he could see out over the deck.

There, sitting in a wicker armchair, and very much alive, was Robert Greeves.

Sannie urged Henk Wessels to drive faster.

‘Hey, I don’t want us getting in a car accident. The house is just up the road.’

‘I know you. You look worried,’ she said. ‘You run your finger around your collar when something’s wrong.’

He looked at her. ‘Of course I’m worried. The sooner we get you reunited with your kids the better. I want them out of that house in case the other kidnappers come back.’

She nodded. It was odd, though, that Henk hadn’t called in more uniformed officers already, to move her children somewhere else. It’s what she would have done, but then, she wasn’t the captain.

‘Here it is.’ Wessels stopped the car.

There was nothing unusual about the modest single-storey home except for the two uniformed police outside, and, additionally, the fact that both the officers were white. There were still plenty of whites in uniform, but it was a little odd to see
a pair of them together. Most of the junior ranks these days were black Africans, unlike when Sannie had joined the police service. Sannie nodded to the officers, who smiled back at her, as she followed Wessels up the garden path, impatient to get to her children.

Wessels pulled out a key and unlocked the front door.

Sannie brushed past him as he opened it. ‘Christo? Ilana?’

She entered the shabbily furnished lounge room, and smelled stale cigarette smoke and old cooking oil. ‘Christo? Ilana?’

‘Mom?’ Christo called from the kitchen. He ran out, his sister hanging on to his shirt tail.

Sannie put her hand to her mouth and rushed to them. She dropped to her knees, flung her arms wide and drew them to her, and buried her head in Chris-to’s shirt, letting the fabric soak her flood of pent-up tears. She was too overcome to speak.

‘Where have you been, Mom?’ Ilana asked.

‘This man who knew Tom came and collected us, Mom. Is Tom okay?’

Sannie sobbed, deep and hard, and stepped back from Christo so she could wipe her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Christo, listen to me. Are you all right, my boy? Are you hurt? Did that man … hurt you? Did he hurt your sister?’

‘No, Mom.’

Ilana looked up at her, and when Sannie saw her blinking back the tears, she started to cry again herself.

‘Mom, are you okay?’ Christo asked.

‘Yes, my boy, I’m fine. Let’s go. I’m taking you home.’

Tom was looking at Greeves and didn’t see the broken beer bottle in the grass. The glass shattered and crunched when he moved his feet.

‘Who’s there?’

Tom made no move to hide. He was more than ready for this confrontation. He stepped into the light.

‘Detective Sergeant Furey,’ Greeves lowered himself slowly back into his chair. ‘Take a seat.’

‘I’ll stand.’ Tom kept looking around him, his pistol hand following his gaze as he swept the verandah, watching the flanks, and the door that led back inside the lodge.

‘I expect you’ve got some questions. Scotch?’

Tom shook his head.

‘Well, don’t mind me if I have another.’

Tom detected a slight slurring of the minister’s words. From what he could see, Greeves looked in fine shape. His face and arms were golden and healthy looking in the reflected light. His hair was brushed and he wore a crisp white cotton shirt, open at the neck, with navy chinos.

‘On your feet. Let’s go.’

‘Oh, not so fast, Tom. You made it this far. At least tell me how you knew it was all a fake, that I was never truly abducted.’

‘You first. Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why did you fake your kidnapping? What kind of a scandal made you do it?’

Greeves said nothing. He refilled his glass from the decanter on the table and took a long sip.

‘It was Ebony, the stripper, wasn’t it?’ Tom listened hard for any sound of movement in the house, and checked each side of the verandah again while he waited for the reply.

‘Yes.’

‘When did you sleep with her?’

‘You tell me.’

Tom looked down into those cold grey eyes. ‘How old was she? Ten? Eleven?’

Greeves exhaled and raised his glass, waving it casually. ‘If you must know, she was twelve. I didn’t know it at the time, I thought she was older.’

‘And you think that makes it all right?’

‘All right?’ Greeves stared back at him, defiant. ‘No. And that’s the truth. I know it’s not all right, but I can’t change it. It’s just the way I am – the way I’m wired. I like young girls. I’d forgotten all about her. It happened in South Africa, years ago. She came to England as an illegal, saw my picture in the newspaper one day, and contacted me. She bloody well made an appointment at my constituency surgery.’

‘And you had her killed.’ Tom felt the anger rising in him and tried his best to control it, to stay calm.