Despite the Darkness, page 20
‘Thank you,’ Cameron said. ‘I love you.’
Jules got up and left the room to phone.
‘She’s happy for us to go down,’ she said, coming back a few minutes later. ‘I’ll ask for leave and phone the travel agent tomorrow.’
The no-news preoccupation made it very difficult to concentrate on the pile of essays when Cameron eventually returned to his desk. As the evening closed in he gave up on them. If there was no news at this end might it be possible to get news from the other end, as it were? If Mirambo had made it across the border there was a chance that one of Cameron’s contacts in Lesotho might have heard about it. Cameron had a phone number in Maseru he could try, but not from home. He would need to go to his office – or, even better, to the department secretary’s office. It was extremely unlikely that they would have bothered to plant a bug in the secretary’s office.
Peter Jones was a member of the ANC who had been in the Political Science Department but had left in a hurry when he discovered that one of the ANC cadres he was working with was a police agent. He used to go trout fishing with Cameron in the Drakensberg from time to time and had found a way of getting his phone number to Cameron in case it was ever needed. Cameron hadn’t ever tried it – it would be difficult to think of a better way of drawing unwanted attention to oneself than phoning members of the ANC in neighbouring countries – but he was now starting to feel desperate. ANC members in Lesotho had to be constantly on the move, on guard against being murdered during cross-border raids by what the government liked to call its ‘security’ forces. So the chances that Peter would be on the other end of the phone were small, but it was worth a try.
Venter’s lot were off-duty – there was no car to be seen and Cameron was sure he wasn’t being followed as he walked to the Arts block and made his way to the secretary’s office. There was no telltale click as Cameron picked up the phone and dialled the number he had been sent. He was caught off-guard by the rapidity with which the phone at the other end was picked up – it had barely begun to ring. Peter must have been waiting for another call.
‘Hello.’ The voice was Peter’s. ‘Hello. Who is it?’
‘Hello Peter, it’s me, Cameron, can you talk?’
‘Yes – but only briefly. I’m expecting another call – what do you want?’
Not ‘Hi Cameron, good to hear from you after all these years, how can I help?’ Peter sounded very much less than enthusiastic to hear from him – better just get to the point.
‘One of my research students, technically named Enoch Sithole but prefers to be known as Mirambo, could be headed in your direction. I wondered if you had heard whether he has arrived.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t help. Sorry.’
The phone was put down before Cameron could thank Peter for not being able to help. Peter hadn’t said he didn’t know or hadn’t heard, he had just said he couldn’t help. That could mean that he had heard but was constrained from helping – but it could also mean that he didn’t want to help. What did the abruptness, verging on rudeness, mean? That wasn’t the Peter of old. Either Peter must suspect that the phone was bugged and thought it was pretty damn stupid to alert uninvited listeners to the possibility that a fugitive might be heading in his direction. Or, and this was definitely the worse of the two possibilities, Peter had heard the rumour that Cameron was a police agent and was giving it enough credence to make him reluctant to talk to Cameron at all. If that was the answer then Jules and Lynn were wrong – even people who knew him, people who should know better, did believe the rumour.
Thinking of Lynn reminded Cameron that he needed to make another phone-call while he was on campus. Fortunately she was at home.
‘Hi, Lynn,’ Cameron said, ‘I’ve got a big favour to ask. Could I please borrow your car tomorrow? I want to see if I can get some kind of pointer as to what has happened to Mirambo and that will involve going to Edendale. I definitely don’t need company.’
‘You don’t beat about the bush, do you Cameron?’ Lynn responded. ‘Yes thanks, I’ve had a very nice weekend – thanks for asking. It wouldn’t be my company you don’t need would it?’
‘Sorry, Lynn,’ Cameron said. ‘No, of course not – I always need your company, I just don’t need Venter or one of his acolytes following me. I’ve just got into the habit of keeping telephone conversations as cryptic as possible. Are you needing to use your car tomorrow afternoon?’
‘No. I’ve got two classes one after the other – thanks to Patrick who somehow manages to avoid doing any teaching after lunch – so I will be on campus all afternoon.’
‘Would you mind if I borrowed your car?’ Cameron asked. ‘If you park it in the Science car park I could leave without any chance of being followed. I shouldn’t be going far but if I do I’ll put some petrol in.’
‘Sure, but I’m not bothered about the petrol,’ Lynn said. ‘Just please try to avoid my car ending up as collateral damage from an IFP attack. I’m rather fond of it.’
‘There won’t be any danger of that,’ Cameron promised. ‘I’ll be very careful.’
Cameron paused for a moment after switching off the light in the office. The whole building was shrouded in darkness and totally silent but for the distant shrilling of cicadas in the bushes outside. In spite of Lynn’s support, he suddenly felt much more alone than could be accounted for just by silence and darkness.
Chapter 16
The Student Records office was supposed to open at 8.00am, but the door was still closed and locked when Cameron got there a few minutes after eight following another night of fragmentary sleep. The Famous Grouse that had been recruited as an inadequate successor to the Macallan seemed even less able to guarantee a good night’s sleep. But at least the phone hadn’t contributed to the fragmentariness.
The file of correspondence that had been opened with Mirambo’s initial letter of application had been passed back from the History Department to the central records office. Cameron was sure he would find a letter somewhere in the file in which Mirambo had given a contact address in Edendale to which correspondence about his registration should be sent. That was the only lead he had as to where Mirambo might have been headed when he walked off into the darkness. He wouldn’t have gone to ground there for any length of time in case the SB had access to the letter, but someone at the address might be able to tell him where Mirambo would be likely to have gone – or might, at least, be able to give him a pointer as to what had happened to him.
Anita, the keeper of the records, arrived after Cameron had been waiting in the corridor for several minutes. Cameron didn’t have occasion to bump into Anita very often but she frequented the Staff Club from time to time and their interactions had always been friendly. Now she was flustered and out of breath, looked as if she had a worse hangover than he had, and, after a quick glance at him, opened the records office door without a greeting and without any apology for keeping him waiting.
‘I’d like to look at Mr Enoch Sithole’s file please,’ Cameron asked.
‘He’s your research student who went missing last week isn’t he?’ Anita asked. ‘Why do you want his file?’
Cameron was tempted to point out that her job was to give members of staff access to the files, not to interrogate them as to why they wanted them. But Anita’s whole demeanour towards him had changed and he needed to try to establish what had changed it. It couldn’t have been the previous week’s leaflet – he remembered her smiling at him when she came into the club when he had first ventured back. He wouldn’t find out what was bugging Anita by antagonizing her.
‘Yes,’ Cameron said. ‘I’m his supervisor and I’m worried about him.’
‘Why would you be worried about him?’ Anita asked, gesturing towards the row of filing cabinets behind her. ‘I could show you dozens of files of students who have dropped out without letting us know they were thinking of doing so.’
‘I’m sure you could, but I’m equally sure he wouldn’t just have dropped out without telling me,’ Cameron responded. ‘I know him well enough to be confident about that. He was very committed to his research and it was going well.’
‘Well, if you know him so well, why do you need to see his file?’
Anita’s tone sounded purposefully hostile.
‘Why the interrogation?’ Cameron asked, making an effort to avoid letting his irritation show. ‘Academic staff are always needing to look at student files for one reason or another. They don’t usually have to withstand the third degree before getting to see the files.’
‘It is our job to protect student data,’ Anita said. ‘I’m only doing my job.’
‘I think he may have found out that the Special Branch was looking for him,’ Cameron said. ‘He has disappeared, and I want to try to make sure that it isn’t because he has been disappeared.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Anita asked. ‘And how do you know the Special Branch were looking for him?’
‘I know they were looking for him because they made that very clear when they raided my house ten days ago.’ Cameron answered. ‘I want to try to find out what has happened to him because when the SB catch people they are after they sometimes find it convenient to avoid the tedious bureaucracy of record-keeping by just murdering them and burying them somewhere.’
‘The South African Police wouldn’t be trying to find him if they didn’t have good reason to suspect that he had been doing something he shouldn’t,’ Anita said. ‘But how can I be sure that the reason you want to see Mr Sithole’s file isn’t because you want to help the police try to find him?’
‘Why on earth would you think that?’ Cameron asked.
‘I was late this morning,’ Anita said, ‘because there was an urgent meeting of the Non-academic Staff Association Executive this morning at which we were told that, unless you can prove otherwise, in any dealings we have with you non-academic staff should work on the assumption that you might well be a police spy. This isn’t a political stand of any sort, the Association doesn’t take political stands, but it was agreed that it is essential for people who work at this university to have integrity.’
‘Anita, I would have hoped you knew me better than that,’ Cameron said. ‘I can’t possibly prove that I am not a police agent – any more than you could if someone circulated the same rumour about you. In the meantime please just give me the bloody file. That is a perfectly reasonable request which you can’t refuse on the basis of an absurd rumour that I am a police spy or, for that matter, that I’m James Bond or the Fairy Queen.’
‘Please don’t swear at me,’ Anita said. ‘I could report you for swearing at me.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake, Anita,’ Cameron said, ‘please just give me the file. I’m not swearing at you. I am swearing in your presence. There is a difference.’
‘Not to me there isn’t,’ Anita replied, turning to the P – S filing cabinet behind her.
It only took a few seconds for Anita to locate the folder with E. Sithole’s name on it, but there was a puzzled frown on her face as she turned back to the counter with it. The folder was empty.
‘Somebody has taken everything out of the folder,’ she said.
As a statement of the obvious that took some beating. What was much less obvious was why anyone would have done that. Anyone who wanted illicit access to the information it contained would surely just have photocopied the relevant documents and put the papers back in the folder. The Dean would just have asked to see the folder, which would then not have been in the filing cabinet.
‘Has anyone asked to see the file recently?’ Cameron asked after a few seconds.
‘Not that I am aware of,’ Anita replied, ‘and I am one deep here – when I go to lunch the office closes and I can only ever take my holidays out of term time. If anyone who doesn’t normally have access to the files had come in I would have known about it.’
‘Thanks, Anita,’ Cameron said, picking up the pile of essays he’d put down on the counter. He wasn’t going to find what he needed here, and he could ponder the whys and wherefores some other time.
‘My guess,’ Cameron added as he opened the door to leave, ‘would be that your somebody who has taken everything out of the folder really is working for the Special Branch, which I am not.’
The only remaining hope seemed to be that Michelle, their ultra-efficient department secretary, had for some reason not passed Mirambo’s papers on to the Student Records Office. He would ask her when he went to hand in the marked essays and to apologise for not having managed to get through the whole pile. Michelle knew him far too well to go along with the Non-academic Staff Association’s latest, supposedly non-political, piety.
In response to his query, Michelle said she was quite certain that she had forwarded Mirambo’s file to Student Records.
‘So you don’t have Mirambo’s letter of application?’ Cameron asked.
‘No – but I did make a note of the address in Edendale he asked our response to be sent to,’ Michelle said. ‘Patrick took all the papers before the interview – he was much more preoccupied with that particular interview than he usually is – and I was worried that I might have some difficulty in getting the papers back from him in reasonable time to let Mirambo know the outcome.’
‘Michelle, you are a bloody marvel of creation,’ Cameron said. ‘Whoever was responsible broke the mould when he or she made you.’
‘She, probably,’ Michelle said. ‘Why do you want the address?’
‘I’m worried about Mirambo,’ Cameron answered. ‘I feel somehow responsible for him – which I know is absurd. Supervisors aren’t their research students’ keepers. But, if Venter and his lot have got hold of Mirambo, who knows what they might have done to him? I need to try to find out what has happened to him. Can you find that address for me?’
It took Michelle about fifteen seconds to find what she was looking for.
‘Here it is – 142 Mayibuye Rd,’ she said. ‘That is a dangerous part of the world Cameron – do you think it is sensible to go out there looking for him?’
‘Probably not,’ Cameron replied, ‘but I’ve been out there from time to time for UDF meetings and I’m still alive.’
‘Well, make sure it stays that way,’ Michelle said. ‘Apart from anything else, who would I get to mark the rest of your essays if anything happened to you?’
‘Thanks, Michelle – I knew there had to be some reason for your concern.’
Cameron had the weekly department meeting to sit through, and his timetable kept him on campus until after lunch. Lynn passed by his office between tutorials to drop her car keys off. He expressed his appreciation with effusive thanks and a chaste kiss on the cheek. The latter brought him into the ambit of her scent and rather too close to her generous cleavage for comfort. Rather more of it was on display than usual and Cameron found himself wondering fleetingly whether that might not perhaps have been for his benefit.
Borrowing Lynn’s car worked, as he had been sure it would. Cameron’s reflex glances into his rear-view mirror to see whether he was being followed drew a blank. He knew the Edendale road well and was pretty sure he knew more or less where Mayibuye Road joined it, well away from Harewood, which was the main IFP stronghold in the area. How good an omen might it be that Mayibuye, translated from the Zulu, meant ‘bringing back what was lost’?
The house numbering was nothing if not erratic, and identifying a house number generally required the car to be driven at not much more than walking pace. Cameron spotted number 136 and pulled the car in to the side of the road three doors further on, being careful not to get too close to the edge of the badly eroded gutter. There was no number to be seen on the brick house, which looked solid enough but had clearly seen better days.
There were three men on the small verandah beside the front door, two of them sitting on the wall with their backs to the road. The house was only a few yards from the road so there didn’t seem to be much point in going any closer, and Cameron didn’t feel inclined to try to negotiate the accumulated debris in the gutter. As he opened the car door to get out, the two men on the wall turned to watch him. He recognized one of them as an occasional hanger-on at UDF meetings, but couldn’t remember his name. He hadn’t seen either of the other two before. All three looked to be in their late twenties.
‘Sanibona,’ Cameron greeted them. ‘This is number 142 isn’t it?’
There was no response, so Cameron repeated the question. There was still no reply. Although they might not have heard him properly the first time, this time the silence felt threatening. He was feeling more nervous and uncomfortable by the second and felt compelled to say something more – trying not to babble.
‘I’m Cameron Beaumont from the University. I’m supervising the research of a student who calls himself Mirambo who seems to have disappeared. I am worried about him and wanted to try to find out what has happened to stop him coming to the university. He gave this as a contact address when he first applied to us.’
Cameron wasn’t sure he had succeeded in not babbling. The silence persisted. He was about to get back into the car and drive off with his tail between his legs when the UDF man finally spoke.
‘We know who you are and what you are, and you’ve got a fucking nerve coming here. Don’t you know that people around here have guns and don’t like the police? If we knew where Mirambo was you would be the last person we would tell – you and that bastard boss of yours, Venter. If anything has happened to Mirambo we will hold you responsible. We will kill you. If you are stupid enough to come out here again you will have a tyre filled with petrol put round your neck and lit – a necklace would suit you nicely. If you try to hide at home it will be a bullet. Now get the hell out and don’t ever come back to Edendale.’
