Despite the Darkness, page 6
As he pulled up at the bus stop, he expected to see Venter pull into the side of the road fifty yards or so behind him as usual. He didn’t – he just gave Cameron a mirthless stare as he drove slowly past and on down the road, presumably on his way back to SB headquarters in the city.
Cameron felt oddly uncomfortable as he drove home, without any detours and without his tail. Oppressive as it was to be under surveillance all the time, and to have Venter constantly following him like a stray dog – a potentially rabid stray dog – when he suddenly branched off, as he had done then, Cameron was left feeling somehow even more exposed. At least when Venter was following him Cameron knew where he was and what he was doing.
As Cameron drove home, thinking back over Margaret’s account of her experience, a discarded Castle lager bottle lying in the gutter brought to mind her comment that she had thought Venter must be drunk but couldn’t smell beer on his breath. Alcohol wasn’t the only drug Venter would have access to.
Cameron drove the car into the garage, pulled down the roller-door and went round to the front gate and across the road to where Venter’s car had been parked. The cigarette ends were scattered a little more widely than usual – the wind must have caught them as they were flicked out of the car window. It would have been easier and safer to stub them out in the car’s ashtray, but it seemed to be a point of principle for Venter to spray them onto the pavement – like a lion marking its territory.
A good half of the butts were easily identifiable as the remains of Venter’s usual filterless Texans, but Cameron also saw, with a quickening of his heartbeat, that some had been rolled by hand. He picked one up gingerly and sniffed it. As he expected, it smelt strongly of dope. Margaret would have known it as dagga, but must have been too shocked to smell it, or perhaps to believe it. Cameron put it in his pocket.
So Venter had been smoking pot – probably standard issue pot, intended for the use of police informers. That could certainly account for the wildness of his behaviour towards Margaret and his otherwise wholly unaccountable decision to let Cameron know that he was suspected of having something to do with Mirambo’s disappearance. That almost certainly, by inference, also meant that Cameron was suspected of having had something to do with the bomb and the murder of the night watchman. Why else have a senior Special Branch officer sit outside his house in the immediate aftermath of a lethal bomb blast? But, if that was the case, why had they not already arrested him and searched his house? It wasn’t as if they didn’t know where he lived.
Cameron wondered whether Venter’s superiors knew that he was in the habit of using pot. They couldn’t be aware of the kind of stupidity he was capable of getting up to when he was high. The SB were nothing if not brutally efficient. If the right people got to hear that an SB warrant officer had got himself doped up and alerted a suspect to his suspect status he would be in trouble. Cameron determined that, when the time was right, the right people would get to hear.
Cameron walked round to where Mirambo was hiding and knocked four times on the door, which opened instantly. Mirambo stepped backwards in the gloom and sat on the bed, Cameron again took the chair. Although Cameron’s eyes hadn’t adjusted to the gloom, and he couldn’t see Mirambo’s expression, his outline looked less confident – he seemed somehow deflated.
‘What has been going on, Cameron? I’ve been shitting myself. I heard loud banging on the door and a man shouting. I was sure it must be a Special Branch raid – and then nothing. Silence. I’ve been standing here with my ear to the door listening for hours. Then I hear you coming out of the back door with Margaret and driving off – and then you come back and I hear you shut the garage and expect you to come round here immediately, but again nothing. What has been going on?’
If he had had a bad day, Cameron reflected, Mirambo’s must have been a lot worse. Stuck behind the curtains of a supposedly empty room with nothing to do except wait for the Special Branch to arrive. Bad enough if he had not had anything to do with the bomb, terrifying if he had. From merely agreeing to give Mirambo a bed for the night this whole thing had escalated unbelievably quickly.
The day had clearly taken its toll on Mirambo’s nerves and confidence. Cameron didn’t think that he would be likely to hold out for long in solitary confinement – particularly if his solitariness were to be relieved only by men in safari suits carrying electrical equipment.
‘I’m sorry, Mirambo,’ Cameron said. ‘It’s difficult to know where to start. It was Venter who was doing the shouting. God knows what he thought he was doing, apart from terrifying Margaret. He asked her if there was anyone in the house apart from her – he knew that Jules and I and the children weren’t here – and he said that if you were found here she would be arrested as the girlfriend of a terrorist. I suspect he threatened to rape her, but she was too embarrassed to say so.’
‘Jesus, Cameron, did he mention me by name?’
‘No – I don’t think so,’ Cameron answered. ‘But he didn’t need to – not if the object of the exercise was to let me know via Margaret that he suspected that you might be here. He made it clear to me when I confronted him on the way back from my office that he suspected that you had something to do with the bomb.’
‘What the hell were you doing confronting him? What about? Wasn’t that as good as issuing an open invitation to the SB to raid the house?’
‘The Special Branch doesn’t wait for invitations to raid.’
Cameron paused – it would sound absurdly out of control to admit that, with Mirambo hiding fifty yards away, he had risked provoking Venter over a piece of paper thrown out of a car window. It was unlikely that Mirambo would share his and Jules’s general view of the moral niceties of littering. But Mirambo was right, it had been on the far side of provocative.
‘I just got the hell in with being constantly watched and followed,’ Cameron said. ‘It’s been a stressful night and day, this bloody Berg wind is getting to me, and Venter sitting in his car opposite my house was the last straw.’
‘You think you’ve had a stressful day,’ Mirambo said. ‘But Venter was banging on your front door and shouting at Margaret even before you had confronted him? Why on earth would he have done that? What could he possibly have thought he would achieve by that?’
‘Good question,’ Cameron replied. ‘I can only assume he wasn’t thinking very clearly, if he was thinking at all.’
Cameron fished around in his pocket for the cigarette butt, which emerged even more bedraggled than it had been when it went in.
‘Look what I found among the butts he left on the pavement,’ Cameron said. ‘That’s why I didn’t come straight round when I got back from dropping Margaret at the bus stop. I had a hunch that this is what I would find.’
‘Bloody hell, Cameron,’ Mirambo’s voice was reduced to a whisper as he smelt the butt, ‘that bastard is dangerous enough at the best of times. Who knows what he might do when he is high? But you spoke to him after that – how did he seem?’
‘Hyper-controlled, as a matter of fact – very articulate, viciously so,’ Cameron answered. ‘There was nothing whatever to indicate that he might have been on dope.’
Cameron remembered how exposed his back had felt as he crossed the road to the gate. Well might it have felt exposed – he had been working on the assumption that Venter wouldn’t use the 9mm automatic in broad daylight, but he had also assumed that Venter wouldn’t be high.
‘I don’t have any idea what’s going on,’ Cameron said, looking at this watch, ‘but my gut tells me we need to get you out of here right now. Venter didn’t follow me back here. If he went back to Loop Street, my guess, after what he said, is that it will be to come back with his sidekicks to search the house later. If he is being kept busy organizing a raid he will send a sidekick to take his place outside, but they won’t have had time to do that just yet. I think we need to get you the hell out. Jules could get back any minute and that would mean a two or three hour delay.’
‘Only if you still insist that Jules mustn’t know that I have been here,’ Mirambo said.
‘Let’s not go there again, Mirambo,’ Cameron said. ‘That’s not negotiable.’
‘But it is broad daylight, Cameron, anyone could see me,’ Mirambo said. ‘I can’t just walk off through the white suburbs at this time of day. The place will be crawling with police vans.’
‘No. You are right,’ agreed Cameron, ‘there must obviously be a change of plan. We’ll need to use the car and just hope that Venter hasn’t had time to get back yet. I’ll take you out to my great aunt’s place at the end of Alexandra Rd. It’s in four acres, well off the road, surrounded by bush. I visit from time to time. They don’t have a car anymore and there’s nothing in the garage so the door is always left open. I’ll back the car in and open the boot enough for you to climb out while I pop in to say hello. They have two ridgebacks but I’ll make sure they come inside with me. There’s a door in the side of the garage away from the house so you can get out of the garage without being seen. It used to be a farm so there are lots of outbuildings. There’s an old tool room adjoining the garage that also has nothing in it, so that door is always unlocked too. My aunt works on the assumption that if there isn’t anything to steal it is better to leave the doors unlocked so that thieves don’t go to the trouble of breaking the locks to discover that there isn’t anything to steal. You can wait there until it is completely dark and then head for Edendale. The house must be about halfway there. The dogs are kept inside at night – they’ll bark, but my aunt won’t let them out as she thinks there are leopards around still.’
‘What about all the roadblocks you’ve been so worried about?’
‘They always put the roadblocks round a bend about a half a mile further up the hill towards Richmond – they would be too easily visible lower down and there are too many suburban side streets that cars could duck into. I’ve never come across a roadblock between here and my aunt’s house – not even a drink-driving one.’
‘Surely the house is fenced and gated?’ Mirambo said. ‘How would I get out of the gate?’
‘Getting in is the problem, not getting out,’ Cameron replied. ‘There’s a keypad for those going in who know the code, and an intercom for those who don’t. Opening the gate from inside just involves pressing a button. They are much more worried about not letting the wrong people in than they are about stopping people getting out.’
‘OK – that sounds feasible – but it all depends on nobody following us,’ Mirambo said. ‘You’d better check while I get sorted and go through to the garage.’
Mirambo went into the bathroom – no doubt relieved that with no one else in the house he could safely flush away the evidence of his nervousness.
Cameron walked round to the front of the house remembering how it felt to be almost paralysed with stage-fright whenever he was about to go on stage during his brief acting career with the University Dramatic Society. He used to feel terrified of walking out in front of an audience of many – now he felt even more anxious about a possible audience of one.
The one wasn’t there – Venter’s car wasn’t back in its place, and a quick scan of the pavements in both directions didn’t identify any cars with people in them. Just as he was turning away he saw a police-van turn out of a side street two blocks down and head slowly up the street towards him. Mirambo had been right when he said the place would be crawling with police vans.
When he got back to the garage, Cameron found the door of the student room and the connecting door into the garage both ajar. He closed and locked the former, absent-mindedly putting the key in his pocket. If Jules spotted that the door was open she would wonder who had opened it and why. There was enough light from the fan-lights for there to be no need to turn the garage light on. Mirambo was waiting for him behind the car.
‘If you need to contact me,’ said Cameron, very much hoping he wouldn’t, ‘use the City Library. I’ll go down every two or three days. Leave a piece of paper with a phone number or message inside the back cover of Edgar Brookes’ South Africa in a Changing World. I’ve used it before – nobody ever reads that stuff any more so it is never taken out.’
Cameron lifted the Renault’s hatchback boot lid and watched while Mirambo curled his long frame into the limited space available. It was a good thing he was built like a Kenyan long distance runner. Cameron hoped Mirambo would never need either the speed or the endurance. Just as he was about to close the boot, Mirambo spoke.
‘What’s the gate code? This place sounds as if it could be really useful as a hide-out.’
‘No way, Mirambo – tonight’s a one-off,’ Cameron answered. ‘I’m not having my 85 year-old aunt getting involved willy-nilly in the struggle. I’m taking you there tonight because it’s the only place I can think of. I don’t want her being compromised in any way. Anyway there are the dogs – remember.’
‘Your family always comes first, doesn’t it Cameron? But it is too late to worry about that now – just as it is too late to try to avoid Jules being implicated. Even if they don’t follow us tonight, they will have followed you to this four acre estate in the past, so they will know about the place.’
‘No. I’ve never gone there when I was being followed,’ Cameron said, ‘although they obviously know about my aunt from phone calls, birthday cards and such. But right now there’s no time to waste arguing – Venter could get back any minute. If he has got back, I’ll just have to drive to the supermarket, buy something quickly, leaving you in the car, and come back here and we’ll have to go back to plan A after dark. I’m going to close the boot. I won’t say anything when I undo the catch at the other end in case anyone is around, although that is very unlikely. If you need me to help when things have quietened down let me know. Leave at least a week. But I expect you will be able to find less risky ways to get out. I look forward to hearing from you when you are safely out of the country. There’s still a PhD to complete. Good luck.’
Mirambo didn’t reply.
Chapter 5
Cameron reversed the car out of the garage, got out to close the garage door, and continued down the drive and out onto the road. There was nobody watching the house. He could feel his pulse rate slow just a little as he drove on up the road keeping an eye out for any larger pieces of debris from the wind-blown trees that could damage the car.
Cameron checked the rear-view mirror to make sure that nobody had pulled out to follow him, and headed over the brow of the hill and down towards the Richmond Road, taking a detour to avoid passing the police station. As he was approaching the four-way stop street halfway down the hill, a fully inflated plastic bag suddenly arrived from nowhere and slapped against the windscreen, blocking his view of the road. He saw it a split second before he hit it – a small, horizontal, hot-air balloon swooping across the road, hopelessly out of control.
An empty plastic supermarket bag was obviously never going to do any damage to the car and was bound to be blown away as quickly as it arrived, but if you are going quite steeply downhill on a road covered with bits of assorted leaf and twig, and you brake very hard, you are likely to skid, however fleetingly. The car slithered to an abrupt stop, with the rear wheel sliding hard into the edge of the pavement and ending in a drainage culvert. Cameron heard a muffled ‘Eeeeina’ followed by several choice expletives from the boot.
He climbed out and walked round to inspect the damage. There was no one in earshot – he could risk asking Mirambo if he was OK on the basis that anyone who saw his lips move could reasonably assume that he was either swearing or praying, or perhaps both, rather than talking to someone in the boot of his car.
‘Sorry, Mirambo, a plastic bag blew across the windscreen and I had to brake. Are you OK?’
‘No, I’m bloody well not OK,’ came the muffled voice from the boot. ‘I bumped my head when we banged the pavement – I assume it was the pavement we hit as you skidded – and I think it’s cut. It feels as if blood is trickling down behind my ear.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Cameron said. ‘I obviously can’t do anything about it now, but Jules always keeps a small first aid kit in the glove compartment and I’ll leave it on the roof of the car when we get to my aunt’s garage. My one hubcap is badly dented, and the bump won’t have done my wheel alignment any good, but I don’t think there is any serious damage. At least there isn’t a puncture – that would have made life very difficult with you lying on top of the spare wheel. Mind you, any of the people in the houses around here would have had to be dead impressed with my foresight and organizational skills. Car gets a puncture; driver opens the boot; out pops a spare black man kept there for just such a contingency; black man gets the spare wheel out, changes the tyre and puts it back in the boot; spare black man climbs back into the boot; driver shuts the boot and off they go. Bloody brilliant. You could patent that.’
‘For god’s sake, Cameron, get a grip. This isn’t bloody funny. And I certainly wouldn’t change your wheel for you. Anyone who can see you will be wondering what is going on if you stand making speeches to a bent hubcap.’
‘There isn’t anyone around,’ Cameron said, checking again to make sure, ‘I’m not stupid.’
But Mirambo had a point – he really did need to get a grip. Cameron started the car and felt thankful for front-wheel drive. He inched the back tyre up out of the drain and set off down the hill, gingerly at first to make sure the wheel wasn’t about to fall off.
