Zambezi (21 page)

Chris was also concerned about Jed Banks. She had hoped to be in and out of Mana Pools with as little fuss as possible, but the Special Forces soldier’s arrival had put the brakes on her plan. She needed, as a matter of urgency, to get into Miranda’s laptop and check her emails for any sign she’d been up to something Chris didn’t know about. In the back of her mind was the disturbing revelation of a possible romantic attachment between Miranda and a man.

Her own concerns aside, she also felt sorry for Jed Banks. No, it was more than sorry, she told herself as she drove into the dusty staff encampment. She shared Jed’s pain. Miranda was more than just a research colleague or protégée to her. Chris had seen herself in Miranda. Her idealism, her devotion, her need to do good and right in a world with precious little reserves of either. She had worried about sending Miranda on her assignment to Zimbabwe, but it was nothing she would not have done herself. At the time, the risks had seemed acceptable. Chris had never had a child, but she could imagine, and see in Jed’s eyes, the unbearable pain of losing your only offspring.

Chris also couldn’t help but see Miranda’s striking looks mirrored in her father’s fair hair and blue eyes. Although twenty-odd years of outdoor military life had crinkled the tanned skin around his mouth and eyes, there was no denying he was a handsome man. There were flecks of white in his sprouting gingery beard, but his T-shirt hugged biceps and pectorals that would cost a city executive thousands of dollars and buckets of sweat in a gym. Jed Banks had got to look that way by getting up and going to work each day, sometimes not knowing if he would live to see the next dawn. She didn’t think she could ever really fall for an office worker. The guy from the embassy had been nice, but his hands were too soft, his tummy too flabby and his discomfort tolerance too low for her liking. The ranger in Kruger was cute, and energetic, but arrogant as hell and too young for her.

At another time, in another place, if she had struck up a conversation with Jed Banks, if he had made a pass at her, she … well, she might have dropped her guard. But here and now she had to concentrate on finding out once and for all what had happened to Miranda. Chris was worried, very worried, that the girl was gone for good. However, like Jed, she needed proof.

The circumstances and timing of Miranda’s disappearance were more of a concern to Chris than she was prepared to admit to Jed. To Jed the time, place and manner of his daughter’s disappearance seemed random. To Chris they were suspicious, but she wasn’t about to let Jed in on her darkest fears.

The first thing Jed noticed about the staff living quarters, simple rendered brick buildings with corrugated asbestos roofs, was that they were painted grey instead of the usual olive drab. Nothing like a little variety, he supposed. The accommodation wasn’t bad, considering what Jed had seen so far of the way ordinary Africans lived, but neither could it be described as modern or even comfortable.

An elderly bald-headed ranger in a pressed khaki uniform with sergeant’s stripes on the sleeve walked out of the deep shade of a mature tree.

The ranger greeted him and explained what the group was doing in the staff compound.

‘Welcome,’ the older man said solemnly. ‘I will show you where the storeroom is.’ He led them away from the housing complex to a grey building isolated from the others by a rusting wire fence.

The headquarters ranger tried three keys in the padlock before he finally said, ‘Ah, this is the one.’

The hinges protested as the door swung open. The ranger reached in and pulled an old-fashioned light cord, illuminating a single naked bulb.

‘Your daughter’s things are all at the far end of the building, Mr Banks.’

It was hot and musty inside and Jed felt his shirt stick to his back immediately. Looking around he saw broken furniture, presumably from the park’s lodges, and mould-spotted cardboard boxes overflowing with carelessly archived paperwork. There was a crate of long-empty beer bottles in one corner and, of passing interest to Jed, some metal ammunition tins and some more boxes containing green army web gear, including packs, belts and pouches. A wooden gun rack ran along a section of one wall, a chain passing through the trigger guards of five AK-47s and three FN Self-Loading Rifles.

The ranger, who was leaning half in through the doorway, said, ‘The anti-poaching patrols store some of their equipment here, but they have not disturbed your daughter’s possessions. I am always here when they secure their weapons.’

Miranda’s possessions were stacked neatly at the far end of the room. Loose floorboards creaked under Jed’s feet as he approached the pile of belongings. He did a quick inventory. Most obvious were six aluminium trunks, the kind professional photographers used to ship expensive gear and, he realised, the kind the Army used to house breakable stuff, such as computers and radios and some weapons systems.

Next to the boxes was a purple backpack, which he remembered Miranda carrying on their camping trip. A lump came to his throat and he fought to retain his composure. There was a camping fridge, the kind that ran on gas, electricity or a car battery; two liquid petroleum gas bottles; a shovel; a folded camp bed; a rolled foam mattress covered in green canvas; two green plastic boxes with lids; and a bulging black plastic garbage bag tied in a knot. There were also two green canvas bags that, from their shape, he guessed contained Miranda’s folded tent and its accompanying poles.

He ran his hand over one of the metal cases. His fingers left a bright trail in the thin coating of dust. She’d been missing for nearly a week now. Was the trail impossibly cold? Before moving anything he noticed that the layer of dirt was uniform across everything. Nothing had been opened or moved since all the gear was deposited in the storeroom. Jed kneeled and stared at Miranda’s backpack for a moment. He was almost reluctant to open it. What good would it do anyway? He heard the floorboards creak behind him and turned. Chris stood, her hands folded across her front.

‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘Come take what you want. I only want her personal things.’

Chris moved forwards and counted the boxes. She stood beside Jed and checked the fastenings on each box.

‘They’re all locked,’ she said.

‘Funny, so is the backpack.’ Jed fingered the tiny brass padlock. The lock was the cheap kind sold in airport shops, hardly a deterrent to any determined thief.

‘It was good of your staff to pack everything so neatly and lock all the baggage,’ Chris said to the ranger, who stood inside the building, still holding his bunch of keys.

‘No, Professor. Everything you see here is exactly as we found it, except for the tent, of course, which we packed after the police had finished their investigation. All of the boxes and the pack were locked and there were no signs of keys anywhere. The plastic bin bag has a few loose pieces that were in the tent.’

Jed reached for the bag and undid the knot. He opened it and peered inside. ‘Not much. A black tin kettle, a gas burner and some barbeque utensils. A gas-powered camp light and a torch.’ Next he lifted the lids on the green plastic boxes. ‘Plates, pots and pans, cutlery.’

Jed opened the pouch on his belt and pulled out his Leatherman. He unfolded the pliers and used them to grip the padlock on Miranda’s pack. The lock sprang open with one good twist and he unzipped the bag. Inside were neatly folded clothes, most of which seemed to be heavyweight items – woollens, jeans and a parka. He lifted a sweater and raised it to his face. It smelled musty. A quick sniff of a couple of other items of clothing yielded the same thing. ‘This bag hasn’t been opened for a long time.’

‘She wouldn’t have had much use for those clothes up here in the valley. They were probably her spare things,’ Chris said.

Jed rubbed the prickly hairs on his chin. ‘Presumably she used a laptop computer to record her research findings. I’d like to have a look at it, if you don’t mind, in case she kept some personal stuff on the hard drive.’

‘What? Oh, sorry, I was thinking about something else. The computer, ah, sure, no problem.’

‘Same with notebooks, letters, that sort of thing,’ Jed was watching Chris’s face.

‘Um, yeah. No problem.’ She looked back at the stack of locked boxes. ‘I’ll go through all this stuff later and do a double-check.’

‘Right,’ he said.

‘Right.’

Moses walked in, breaking the awkward silence that had descended. ‘I’ve brought some Cokes from the car fridge, Jed.’

Jed felt somehow comforted by the big man’s presence. ‘That’s great, Moses. Can you give us a hand to move all this stuff?’

‘Got to earn my money some way.’

Jed took a swig of the cold soft drink then asked the ranger, ‘Can you take me to my daughter’s campsite?’

‘Ah, of course, but it is getting late now, sir. The guides are all finished for today, but maybe tomorrow.’

Moses spoke rapidly to the ranger in Shona, then said to Jed, ‘I know this place well, where your daughter camped. I can take you there, no problem. But this man is right, it is getting late. I think we should wait until tomorrow morning.’

‘Today’s been tiring,’ Chris said. ‘I’m for calling it a day once we get this stuff stored in the lodge.’

‘OK,’ Jed agreed. However, his mind was anything but tired. It was racing.

Chris had rented a two-storey lodge on the banks of the Zambezi River.

‘I’m gonna take a shower,’ she told Jed. ‘Make yourself at home.’

Chris took a refreshingly cool shower downstairs, looking out at the bush through slits in the brick wall, which also allowed the last vestiges of the afternoon breeze to brush her wet skin. She had no concerns about anyone seeing her, as the lodge attendant had retired to the staff compound and the nearest building was a couple of hundred metres away, out of sight and earshot. Moses had politely declined her invitation to stay, for this first night at least, saying he had friends in the staff village he planned on visiting. Chris smiled to herself at his poor attempt to hide his embarrassment. The tracker’s inability to meet her eye told her that at least one of those friends was a woman. Good luck to him, she thought as she rinsed the soap from her body and struggled to shut off the rusting taps.

She towelled off and wrapped herself in a colourful African-print sarong. The shower was in the lodge’s open car port, and she walked back inside through the kitchen. The cooking area looked a little sad, with its cheap cupboards, scratched benchtops and antiquated gas cooker, but it did the job.

The paneless windows were covered in chicken wire and mosquito gauze to keep out primates and insects. She stopped by the big gas-powered deep-freeze in the dining area and grabbed two green bottles of Zambezi Lager.

She padded barefoot across the stone-floored lounge room, past low armchairs made of heavy dark wood. The zebra-print cushions on the chairs matched the curtains. The park’s lodges were simple and functional, not as tastefully decorated as their privately owned counterparts in safari camps, but they provided Zimbabweans and tourists with affordable accommodation and a measure of comfort in one of the wildest places on earth. Upstairs there were beds for eight people, with most of them arranged on a wide verandah under mosquito nets suspended from wooden frames.

She entered one of the two upstairs bedrooms and changed into a diaphanous long-sleeved blouse, khaki trousers and boots and socks. It was still warm even though the sun was behind the Zambian hills across the river, but she covered her body to protect herself from malaria-bearing mosquitos.

She unfurled the mosquito net hanging over her bed, tucked its edges securely under the mattress and then sprayed the net with insecticide. Outside, she lit citronella oil candles at intervals along the verandah. As an afterthought, she returned to her room and opened her toiletry kit. It was a green canvas zip-up affair, designed for a man. She found the old, nearly empty bottle of perfume and sprayed a little on her wrists, then wiped the residue behind her ears. Before leaving her room she checked herself in the mirror and decided there was nothing more she could do about her wet hair, which was tied back in a simple ponytail.

She knocked on Jed’s bedroom door.

‘Come in.’ He was sitting on the bed, the contents of Miranda’s backpack spread around him on the floor.

‘Brought you a sundowner.’ She held up the two beer bottles. ‘Although I’m afraid you’ve just missed the sunset.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, accepting a bottle. He gestured to the still-folded winter clothes around him.

‘This is all I have left of her. It’s her stuff, but there’s nothing of her here, if you know what I mean.

No pictures, no trinkets, no letters, no personal stuff. What have you found?’

‘Nothing yet. I’ll inventory the boxes tomorrow, but they only contain the monitoring gear – radiotracking collars, transmitters and receivers, that sort of stuff.’

Chris extended her free hand. ‘Come with me.’ Jed looked up at her, surprised, then reached out and let her gently lead him up off the bed and outside onto the verandah. The Zambezi shone like a river of red-gold lava in the last light of the departed sun. Exotic birds farewelled the day. The sting of the tropical sun was gone, but Jed was still hot.

He let his hand slip from Chris’s and stood, leaning on the verandah railing, staring blankly and sipping his beer. The dew from the bottle was wet on his fingers and soothed his brow when he went to wipe the sweat away. ‘What does it all mean, Chris? It’s like she vanished.’

‘She has vanished, Jed. There is absolutely no doubt about it. Miranda has gone from both of our lives.’

He turned to look at her. ‘But where are her day clothes, her personal things, her goddamned toothbrush? It looks more like she packed for a trip away and left without telling anyone.’

Chris finished her beer and stood next to him at the railing, closer. She looked straight ahead and said softly, ‘Jed, there are a thousand explanations for not finding all of her personal stuff, and you know it. The Africans who work here are good people, but this country is crippled by inflation and poverty If anything was to go missing from Miranda’s tent it would be things the park workers thought no one would miss – her day clothes lying across a chair, her food supplies, her toiletries, even her toothbrush. It doesn’t surprise me a bit. People here wouldn’t steal expensive electronic gear or break the lock on a backpack, because that would lead to an investigation.’