Vendetta, page 12
‘We got dropped two klicks from the crash site and we already bumped the enemy. Surely they’re all over that crash site, and if the air force guys survived they’ll be prisoners by now.’
Frank just nodded.
They waited; Adam blinked away the sting as the sweat ran through the camouflage cream on his forehead and washed it into his eyes.
The thwap of rotor blades cleaving hot air interrupted Frank, and Rossouw announced that the bird was inbound.
‘Keep watch, Adam,’ Frank said. ‘If the enemy have closed in on us, they’ll likely open fire with everything they’ve got when the chopper comes in.’
Adam licked his lips and squeezed the pistol grip of his LMG tighter. He was ready. The noise of the helicopter grew louder and Adam, lying on his belly, felt a wave of grit, twigs and leaves sandblast his back as the pilot brought the Puma down.
Frank, Rassie and Rossouw each grabbed the poncho Hennie was lying on and lifted him. Rassie carried the IV bag as well and the chopper tech climbed out and helped them slide Hennie onto the floor of the helicopter amid the swirling dust storm. Adam blinked away grit and scanned the trees, ready to open up at the first sign of movement. Just as he’d wanted to go with Evan and the lieutenant in search of action, now he felt an almost uncontrollable urge to get up, run to the Puma and throw himself on board. However, he held his ground, and his nerve.
Silence and the oppressive heat returned to the bush as soon as the helicopter lifted off. Frank and Rassie came to Adam, who stood. Rassie took a cigarette from a packet in his shirt pocket and lit it with bloodstained hands.
‘Do you think Hennie will be all right, Rassie?’ Frank said.
Rassie inhaled deeply, then closed his eyes as he let the smoke exit his nostrils. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It’s bad.’
Frank gave Rassie a minute to compose himself. ‘All right, put that cigarette out now. We must move to find the others.’
Adam hefted the machine gun and adjusted the belts of ammunition around his body. Frank set off, leading the way in the direction Ferri and the others had gone. They had only been patrolling a few minutes when Frank raised his hand and dropped to one knee. Adam and Rassie did the same and watched as Frank brought his R1 up into his shoulder. While the rest of the white South African soldiers in the stick carried the newer, lighter R4, Frank was old school, preferring his heavy-barrelled version of the R1, which packed a harder punch with bigger rounds.
‘It’s me,’ Lieutenant Ferri called softly as he emerged from the dense mopane bush. He came to Frank and Adam and moved in closer while still watching out, so he could hear what was happening. Evan arrived soon after Ferri, and nodded to Adam.
Ferri pointed in the direction they had just come from. ‘The wreck of the Bosbok is just over there, five hundred metres. There’s five terrs there; three are searching the plane, picking through it, and the other two are keeping watch, one with an RPD. I left the Bushmen there to keep an eye on the enemy.’
Frank nodded. ‘They would have heard the chopper and the gunfight. They know we’re here.’
Ferri ignored the words of caution. ‘Luiz also picked up the fresh tracks of a man walking, across our path, right to left. East German boots; Luiz says he’s limping and bleeding.’
‘Somebody who got separated from his unit, maybe?’ Adam volunteered, wanting to be useful.
Frank shrugged. ‘Just watch out, Kruger. They’re out here, all around us.’ He looked to Ferri again. ‘Any sign of the pilot?’
Ferri nodded. ‘There was the body of one man near the wreckage of the cockpit. It looked like they’d pulled him out. He had a pilot’s helmet on. There was no sign of the other one. Colonel de Villiers told me there were two people on board.’
‘Like I’ve been saying, a Bosbok has a crew of one, the pilot. Who’s the passenger?’ Frank asked.
Ferri looked away from him, out at the bush. ‘I don’t know, but there was no sign of him.’
‘If he lived, he’s a prisoner,’ Frank said. ‘The Angolans would have taken him straight away. The others are probably just looking for intel or souvenirs.’
‘All right, listen up,’ Ferri said, motioning with his hand for all of them to gather around him. ‘We’re going to take out the guys at the crash site and check the aircraft wreckage. Frank, when we get there, I want you to push out to the right, with Kruger and Rassie, to provide fire support with the LMG. Rossouw, Litis and I will be the assault group.’
Frank stared at him for a few moments. ‘That’s your plan . . . sir?’
Ferri glared at him. ‘You got a problem with that, Sergeant Greenaway?’
‘Sir, you said one of those guys has an RPD, a machine gun.’
‘I know what an RPD is, Sergeant. Are you scared? We’ve got a machine gun as well.’
Frank sneered. Adam did not like the way this was playing out. ‘Sir,’ Frank continued, ‘I’m not any more scared than you should be, but usually we’d want odds of three to one to attack the enemy. Those soldiers at the crash site won’t be the only ones in the area. I suggest we call in a sitrep to Ondangs, and ask for aerial photo–’
‘No, Sergeant, we go. Now.’
Adam was torn. He hadn’t been in serious action yet and the thought of hitting the five enemy soldiers, with the element of surprise on their side, was exciting. However, Frank had been in more contacts than all of them put together, except for Luiz and Roberto, and he knew what he was doing. Frank was tired, for sure, but he was no coward.
‘Sir –’ Frank began again.
‘I have orders to get to that aircraft and to clear it,’ Ferri said.
‘What do you mean, “clear it”?’ Frank said. ‘I thought we were just looking for the crew?’
‘We are,’ Ferri said.
‘Is there something you’re not telling us?’ Frank said.
Ferri looked away again, in the direction he had just come from. ‘There are five enemy over there. We have the element of surprise and we will launch an immediate action, and clear the . . . target.’
Frank shook his head but said nothing more. Adam felt his heart rate increase.
*
‘Adam?’ Sannie said.
He was sitting in his home office-cum-library. The paramedics and the local police had left. Neighbours had reported hearing noises when Sannie had arrived, and a couple of volunteers from Pennington Community Watch had also responded. One of them tidied Adam’s ramshackle kitchen after making coffee and rooibos tea for everyone.
Sannie had sat with Adam, drinking her tea. He had gone into one of his lapses of staring out at the sea. It was too dark to see the waves, with no moon above, but the roar of the surf helped calm her.
He turned and smiled at her. ‘Thank you, again, for saving my life.’
She shrugged. ‘All part of the job. You couldn’t sleep either?’
He shook his head. ‘I got up and did some work on my thesis, then went back to bed and was trying to go to sleep when I heard a noise. I thought I was imagining it, but then he jumped me from behind. He must have used some kind of choke hold on me, because I passed out, like, straight away.’
‘You didn’t see anything of him?’
‘No. Like I told the local guys, it was pitch dark and I saw nothing. I do remember, though, that he was wearing gloves.’
Sannie had told the Scottburgh police that she had heard a person in the house when she first arrived, but could not provide a description.
‘Do you have any enemies, Adam? Anyone who would want to hurt you, someone who might think you’ve wronged them?’
He seemed to give the question some thought, then answered with a question.
‘Why would the intruder have left a pistol behind?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that as well,’ Sannie said. ‘Of course, he could have just dropped it.’
Adam nodded. ‘Maybe, but we didn’t have much of a struggle. The guy came up behind me and before I knew it, I was out cold. He sure knew what he was doing.’
‘I told the Scottburgh police that I want to see the results of the fingerprints on the pistol.’ The local police had bagged the weapon and taken it with them.
‘You know I said the attacker had gloves on,’ Adam said.
‘Yes.’
He was looking into her eyes now, present in the moment, not delving back into his memories. They were both thinking the same thing. ‘You think they might find my prints on the gun, that the guy put it in my hand?’
‘I don’t want to get ahead of myself, or to interfere with the local detectives’ investigation, but yes, I did wonder if that person was going to put the gun in your hand when you were unconscious and use it to make it look like you had shot yourself.’
He simply nodded.
‘If someone was going to murder you and make it look like you’d committed suicide then there must be a reason, Adam, and you must know that reason.’
Adam drew a deep breath, then exhaled. ‘There’s a local fisherman. He threatened to kill me.’
Sannie raised her eyebrows. ‘Why?’
‘He’s guilty of shark finning. He wiggled his way out of a charge, but I’ve seen him; I had a video of him doing it and supplied it to the police on a USB stick. It went missing from the evidence locker at Port Shepstone.’
‘Hmm,’ said Sannie. ‘Would someone kill you over shark fins?’
‘George Renshaw, the fisherman, is making millions of rands per year in fin smuggling. He’s not just active here; he runs fishing operations in Mozambique, too. He’s like the Chinese, supplying boats and outboards to the little guys across the border. They’re the ones doing the most damage to the shark populations.’
‘And he sees you as a threat, because of what? Bad PR?’
‘Well, when my attempt to have him prosecuted failed I may have also accidentally damaged one of his boats.’
‘Adam . . .’
He held up his hands. ‘I had an old Land Rover that came with this house. I mistakenly reversed into his boat,’ he couldn’t hide his smile, ‘in the parking lot of the ski boat club at Rocky Bay.’
Sannie folded her arms. ‘I have no time for vigilantes, Adam.’
‘I got my comeuppance. The Land Rover was stolen and torched. Can you think of anyone who would steal a clapped-out old Defender?’
‘I drive a Toyota, so, no. You think it was this Renshaw?’
Adam nodded. ‘I’m as certain as I can be. I went to the police, but they seemed content just to open a case and give me a docket number so I could claim on my insurance. Of course, I didn’t have insurance as I couldn’t afford it.’
‘Do you really think Renshaw would kill you and set it up to make it look like you killed yourself?’
‘Maybe. He did his best to get me eaten by a shark the other day. He was chumming the water, probably to catch sharks and fin them, and came too close to the boat I was on while I was GPS-tagging a guitarfish. I fell in the water and a bull shark came for me – Renshaw just motored away without even stopping to help.’
‘Adam!’
Adam shrugged. ‘Renshaw has good reason to hate me. I pretended to be his friend. He says he was a recce during the war and I buddied up to him for a while, spinning him some stories about my time in Angola and telling him I needed work; this was before he knew I was a PhD student researching sharks.’
Sannie held up a hand. ‘Wait a minute. You went undercover?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I wanted to see finning for myself. It was awful to watch, but I was able to get some video on my phone without him noticing. He knows the South African authorities are trying to crack down on finning and that it’s illegal here, but I think he likes to show off how he can flout the law. It was almost as if he enjoyed it, as well, cutting the fin off a live animal. In the video he was laughing as he tossed a shark back into the water.’
‘Sickening,’ she said. As with what she’d seen with the rhinos, Sannie found the thought of someone being so cruel to an animal hard to stomach. ‘You say he “says” he was a recce-commando?’
‘He’s a loudmouth with too many war stories. Recces aren’t like that, so I thought he might be lying. Anyway, he soon found out who I was – I went to the fisheries authorities and the police with the video. What really set him off, though, was when I went online to a couple of military imposter sites that out guys who make up stuff about their army service. Renshaw saw me posting some questions about him and his service and he went ballistic.’
‘Which either means he really did serve in the recces, or he was embarrassed about being outed,’ Sannie said.
‘The latter, I think. I received a few private messages from guys who said they had served in the recces around the same time Renshaw claims to have, and they’d never heard of him. He called me up after he saw I’d been on Facebook and told me that he was going to kill me, some time when I least expected it.’
‘Those were his words?’
‘Yes,’ Adam said.
‘How long ago did all this happen?’ she asked.
‘Two months ago. In the meantime the case was dropped because the copy of the video I gave to the police went missing, and there was the business with me backing into his boat, him stealing my Land Rover, and then him trying to get a shark to eat me.’
Sannie shook her head. Men. ‘I can talk to my boss at the Hawks. They also had a problem with a load of drugs being stolen from the evidence locker at Port Shepstone, so I’m ashamed to say your video disappearing is something that does happen from time to time.’
‘Yes, I read about the drugs in the Witness.’
‘Didn’t you have a backup of the video?’
‘I did,’ Adam said, ‘on my old desktop computer. I had to erase it from my phone as I needed the memory. My desktop was stolen one day while I was out at sea. Luckily I had my laptop with me. It’s my turn to say I’m ashamed that I hadn’t got around to loading the video on my laptop.’
‘Sheesh, I think you personally have accounted for most of Pennington’s crime stats for the whole year.’
He smiled. ‘Seems like it.’
She looked around at the dark, quiet house. ‘Do you want to stay the night somewhere else?’
‘Are you offering?’
She hoped she wasn’t blushing again. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘I know, sorry, I didn’t mean that either. No, I think I’ll be fine. If it was Renshaw then he’ll know he’s lost the element of surprise.’
Sannie thought about what had brought her here, to Adam’s aid, and the fact that they’d both been up late, messaging each other. ‘Why didn’t you accept my offer of a lift to the Kalahari, Adam?’
He looked out into the darkness again. ‘I think there’ll be other guys going to the funeral, men I served with in the war. I didn’t want to risk dragging you or Mia into some bad stuff that went on between us.’
‘You don’t need to worry about me. Mia and I will keep to ourselves, though she’s naturally going to have questions for men who served with her father. Maybe you should be there, for her. And trust me, Mia has grown into quite a fearless, tough young woman.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ he said. ‘You know, I think I will take you up on your offer, if you’re still willing to drive me all the way to Dune Lodge.’
‘I am,’ Sannie said, ‘but you seem to have some issues about your time in the army. Trust me, I know that trauma can have lasting effects on people, but I just need you to tell me one thing, honestly, about this “bad stuff” you mentioned.’
‘Anything.’
‘Did you do anything illegal when you were in the war? Is there anything I need to know about?’
‘No.’
She looked into his eyes. Sannie had met hundreds of liars in her job. This man was telling the truth. ‘OK. Consider the offer still valid. If I think you’re a responsible driver you can share the time behind the wheel.’
‘I’ve got some money put away so I can contribute towards the fuel.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. Fuel was expensive these days, and while she was mindful of his financial state, she also told herself that if he had wanted to get to Luiz’s funeral under his own steam he would have had to pay the bus fare. She stood.
‘I’ll talk to the Scottburgh guys tomorrow and see what they turn up with Mr Renshaw.’ She raised a finger, admonishing him. ‘But you stay away from him.’
He put his right hand over his heart. ‘I promise.’
Adam stood as well and when Sannie turned to look back at him she saw that half of his face was glowing warm from the light of the paraffin lamp; the other was in darkness. She waved goodbye, not lingering or putting herself in a situation where the thought of a farewell peck on the cheek might put one or both of them in an awkward situation. As she walked out the door onto the stoep, pausing to check the garden, she glanced back over her shoulder.
He smiled at her and put his hand over his heart again. It was a simple gesture, but it gave her a flutter. Despite her tiredness and the rollercoaster evening she’d just been through, her step felt lighter as she walked through Adam’s jungled front yard to her car.
Chapter 12
Mia walked through the sand in the cool of the early morning towards the place where Luiz’s body had been found. She carried her .375-calibre rifle loosely in her right hand. The pangolin waddled ahead of her, seeming content to head in the same direction.
She had spoken to the pangolin researcher she knew, and he had told her that the animal needed to build up its strength before they could release it into the wild again. This involved someone accompanying the little fellow – it was a male – on daily foraging trips of an hour or two. The researcher was away doing some field work in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, but Mia made a plan to take the pangolin to him as soon as possible, so he could examine it and continue with its rehabilitation.
Frank just nodded.
They waited; Adam blinked away the sting as the sweat ran through the camouflage cream on his forehead and washed it into his eyes.
The thwap of rotor blades cleaving hot air interrupted Frank, and Rossouw announced that the bird was inbound.
‘Keep watch, Adam,’ Frank said. ‘If the enemy have closed in on us, they’ll likely open fire with everything they’ve got when the chopper comes in.’
Adam licked his lips and squeezed the pistol grip of his LMG tighter. He was ready. The noise of the helicopter grew louder and Adam, lying on his belly, felt a wave of grit, twigs and leaves sandblast his back as the pilot brought the Puma down.
Frank, Rassie and Rossouw each grabbed the poncho Hennie was lying on and lifted him. Rassie carried the IV bag as well and the chopper tech climbed out and helped them slide Hennie onto the floor of the helicopter amid the swirling dust storm. Adam blinked away grit and scanned the trees, ready to open up at the first sign of movement. Just as he’d wanted to go with Evan and the lieutenant in search of action, now he felt an almost uncontrollable urge to get up, run to the Puma and throw himself on board. However, he held his ground, and his nerve.
Silence and the oppressive heat returned to the bush as soon as the helicopter lifted off. Frank and Rassie came to Adam, who stood. Rassie took a cigarette from a packet in his shirt pocket and lit it with bloodstained hands.
‘Do you think Hennie will be all right, Rassie?’ Frank said.
Rassie inhaled deeply, then closed his eyes as he let the smoke exit his nostrils. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It’s bad.’
Frank gave Rassie a minute to compose himself. ‘All right, put that cigarette out now. We must move to find the others.’
Adam hefted the machine gun and adjusted the belts of ammunition around his body. Frank set off, leading the way in the direction Ferri and the others had gone. They had only been patrolling a few minutes when Frank raised his hand and dropped to one knee. Adam and Rassie did the same and watched as Frank brought his R1 up into his shoulder. While the rest of the white South African soldiers in the stick carried the newer, lighter R4, Frank was old school, preferring his heavy-barrelled version of the R1, which packed a harder punch with bigger rounds.
‘It’s me,’ Lieutenant Ferri called softly as he emerged from the dense mopane bush. He came to Frank and Adam and moved in closer while still watching out, so he could hear what was happening. Evan arrived soon after Ferri, and nodded to Adam.
Ferri pointed in the direction they had just come from. ‘The wreck of the Bosbok is just over there, five hundred metres. There’s five terrs there; three are searching the plane, picking through it, and the other two are keeping watch, one with an RPD. I left the Bushmen there to keep an eye on the enemy.’
Frank nodded. ‘They would have heard the chopper and the gunfight. They know we’re here.’
Ferri ignored the words of caution. ‘Luiz also picked up the fresh tracks of a man walking, across our path, right to left. East German boots; Luiz says he’s limping and bleeding.’
‘Somebody who got separated from his unit, maybe?’ Adam volunteered, wanting to be useful.
Frank shrugged. ‘Just watch out, Kruger. They’re out here, all around us.’ He looked to Ferri again. ‘Any sign of the pilot?’
Ferri nodded. ‘There was the body of one man near the wreckage of the cockpit. It looked like they’d pulled him out. He had a pilot’s helmet on. There was no sign of the other one. Colonel de Villiers told me there were two people on board.’
‘Like I’ve been saying, a Bosbok has a crew of one, the pilot. Who’s the passenger?’ Frank asked.
Ferri looked away from him, out at the bush. ‘I don’t know, but there was no sign of him.’
‘If he lived, he’s a prisoner,’ Frank said. ‘The Angolans would have taken him straight away. The others are probably just looking for intel or souvenirs.’
‘All right, listen up,’ Ferri said, motioning with his hand for all of them to gather around him. ‘We’re going to take out the guys at the crash site and check the aircraft wreckage. Frank, when we get there, I want you to push out to the right, with Kruger and Rassie, to provide fire support with the LMG. Rossouw, Litis and I will be the assault group.’
Frank stared at him for a few moments. ‘That’s your plan . . . sir?’
Ferri glared at him. ‘You got a problem with that, Sergeant Greenaway?’
‘Sir, you said one of those guys has an RPD, a machine gun.’
‘I know what an RPD is, Sergeant. Are you scared? We’ve got a machine gun as well.’
Frank sneered. Adam did not like the way this was playing out. ‘Sir,’ Frank continued, ‘I’m not any more scared than you should be, but usually we’d want odds of three to one to attack the enemy. Those soldiers at the crash site won’t be the only ones in the area. I suggest we call in a sitrep to Ondangs, and ask for aerial photo–’
‘No, Sergeant, we go. Now.’
Adam was torn. He hadn’t been in serious action yet and the thought of hitting the five enemy soldiers, with the element of surprise on their side, was exciting. However, Frank had been in more contacts than all of them put together, except for Luiz and Roberto, and he knew what he was doing. Frank was tired, for sure, but he was no coward.
‘Sir –’ Frank began again.
‘I have orders to get to that aircraft and to clear it,’ Ferri said.
‘What do you mean, “clear it”?’ Frank said. ‘I thought we were just looking for the crew?’
‘We are,’ Ferri said.
‘Is there something you’re not telling us?’ Frank said.
Ferri looked away again, in the direction he had just come from. ‘There are five enemy over there. We have the element of surprise and we will launch an immediate action, and clear the . . . target.’
Frank shook his head but said nothing more. Adam felt his heart rate increase.
*
‘Adam?’ Sannie said.
He was sitting in his home office-cum-library. The paramedics and the local police had left. Neighbours had reported hearing noises when Sannie had arrived, and a couple of volunteers from Pennington Community Watch had also responded. One of them tidied Adam’s ramshackle kitchen after making coffee and rooibos tea for everyone.
Sannie had sat with Adam, drinking her tea. He had gone into one of his lapses of staring out at the sea. It was too dark to see the waves, with no moon above, but the roar of the surf helped calm her.
He turned and smiled at her. ‘Thank you, again, for saving my life.’
She shrugged. ‘All part of the job. You couldn’t sleep either?’
He shook his head. ‘I got up and did some work on my thesis, then went back to bed and was trying to go to sleep when I heard a noise. I thought I was imagining it, but then he jumped me from behind. He must have used some kind of choke hold on me, because I passed out, like, straight away.’
‘You didn’t see anything of him?’
‘No. Like I told the local guys, it was pitch dark and I saw nothing. I do remember, though, that he was wearing gloves.’
Sannie had told the Scottburgh police that she had heard a person in the house when she first arrived, but could not provide a description.
‘Do you have any enemies, Adam? Anyone who would want to hurt you, someone who might think you’ve wronged them?’
He seemed to give the question some thought, then answered with a question.
‘Why would the intruder have left a pistol behind?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that as well,’ Sannie said. ‘Of course, he could have just dropped it.’
Adam nodded. ‘Maybe, but we didn’t have much of a struggle. The guy came up behind me and before I knew it, I was out cold. He sure knew what he was doing.’
‘I told the Scottburgh police that I want to see the results of the fingerprints on the pistol.’ The local police had bagged the weapon and taken it with them.
‘You know I said the attacker had gloves on,’ Adam said.
‘Yes.’
He was looking into her eyes now, present in the moment, not delving back into his memories. They were both thinking the same thing. ‘You think they might find my prints on the gun, that the guy put it in my hand?’
‘I don’t want to get ahead of myself, or to interfere with the local detectives’ investigation, but yes, I did wonder if that person was going to put the gun in your hand when you were unconscious and use it to make it look like you had shot yourself.’
He simply nodded.
‘If someone was going to murder you and make it look like you’d committed suicide then there must be a reason, Adam, and you must know that reason.’
Adam drew a deep breath, then exhaled. ‘There’s a local fisherman. He threatened to kill me.’
Sannie raised her eyebrows. ‘Why?’
‘He’s guilty of shark finning. He wiggled his way out of a charge, but I’ve seen him; I had a video of him doing it and supplied it to the police on a USB stick. It went missing from the evidence locker at Port Shepstone.’
‘Hmm,’ said Sannie. ‘Would someone kill you over shark fins?’
‘George Renshaw, the fisherman, is making millions of rands per year in fin smuggling. He’s not just active here; he runs fishing operations in Mozambique, too. He’s like the Chinese, supplying boats and outboards to the little guys across the border. They’re the ones doing the most damage to the shark populations.’
‘And he sees you as a threat, because of what? Bad PR?’
‘Well, when my attempt to have him prosecuted failed I may have also accidentally damaged one of his boats.’
‘Adam . . .’
He held up his hands. ‘I had an old Land Rover that came with this house. I mistakenly reversed into his boat,’ he couldn’t hide his smile, ‘in the parking lot of the ski boat club at Rocky Bay.’
Sannie folded her arms. ‘I have no time for vigilantes, Adam.’
‘I got my comeuppance. The Land Rover was stolen and torched. Can you think of anyone who would steal a clapped-out old Defender?’
‘I drive a Toyota, so, no. You think it was this Renshaw?’
Adam nodded. ‘I’m as certain as I can be. I went to the police, but they seemed content just to open a case and give me a docket number so I could claim on my insurance. Of course, I didn’t have insurance as I couldn’t afford it.’
‘Do you really think Renshaw would kill you and set it up to make it look like you killed yourself?’
‘Maybe. He did his best to get me eaten by a shark the other day. He was chumming the water, probably to catch sharks and fin them, and came too close to the boat I was on while I was GPS-tagging a guitarfish. I fell in the water and a bull shark came for me – Renshaw just motored away without even stopping to help.’
‘Adam!’
Adam shrugged. ‘Renshaw has good reason to hate me. I pretended to be his friend. He says he was a recce during the war and I buddied up to him for a while, spinning him some stories about my time in Angola and telling him I needed work; this was before he knew I was a PhD student researching sharks.’
Sannie held up a hand. ‘Wait a minute. You went undercover?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I wanted to see finning for myself. It was awful to watch, but I was able to get some video on my phone without him noticing. He knows the South African authorities are trying to crack down on finning and that it’s illegal here, but I think he likes to show off how he can flout the law. It was almost as if he enjoyed it, as well, cutting the fin off a live animal. In the video he was laughing as he tossed a shark back into the water.’
‘Sickening,’ she said. As with what she’d seen with the rhinos, Sannie found the thought of someone being so cruel to an animal hard to stomach. ‘You say he “says” he was a recce-commando?’
‘He’s a loudmouth with too many war stories. Recces aren’t like that, so I thought he might be lying. Anyway, he soon found out who I was – I went to the fisheries authorities and the police with the video. What really set him off, though, was when I went online to a couple of military imposter sites that out guys who make up stuff about their army service. Renshaw saw me posting some questions about him and his service and he went ballistic.’
‘Which either means he really did serve in the recces, or he was embarrassed about being outed,’ Sannie said.
‘The latter, I think. I received a few private messages from guys who said they had served in the recces around the same time Renshaw claims to have, and they’d never heard of him. He called me up after he saw I’d been on Facebook and told me that he was going to kill me, some time when I least expected it.’
‘Those were his words?’
‘Yes,’ Adam said.
‘How long ago did all this happen?’ she asked.
‘Two months ago. In the meantime the case was dropped because the copy of the video I gave to the police went missing, and there was the business with me backing into his boat, him stealing my Land Rover, and then him trying to get a shark to eat me.’
Sannie shook her head. Men. ‘I can talk to my boss at the Hawks. They also had a problem with a load of drugs being stolen from the evidence locker at Port Shepstone, so I’m ashamed to say your video disappearing is something that does happen from time to time.’
‘Yes, I read about the drugs in the Witness.’
‘Didn’t you have a backup of the video?’
‘I did,’ Adam said, ‘on my old desktop computer. I had to erase it from my phone as I needed the memory. My desktop was stolen one day while I was out at sea. Luckily I had my laptop with me. It’s my turn to say I’m ashamed that I hadn’t got around to loading the video on my laptop.’
‘Sheesh, I think you personally have accounted for most of Pennington’s crime stats for the whole year.’
He smiled. ‘Seems like it.’
She looked around at the dark, quiet house. ‘Do you want to stay the night somewhere else?’
‘Are you offering?’
She hoped she wasn’t blushing again. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘I know, sorry, I didn’t mean that either. No, I think I’ll be fine. If it was Renshaw then he’ll know he’s lost the element of surprise.’
Sannie thought about what had brought her here, to Adam’s aid, and the fact that they’d both been up late, messaging each other. ‘Why didn’t you accept my offer of a lift to the Kalahari, Adam?’
He looked out into the darkness again. ‘I think there’ll be other guys going to the funeral, men I served with in the war. I didn’t want to risk dragging you or Mia into some bad stuff that went on between us.’
‘You don’t need to worry about me. Mia and I will keep to ourselves, though she’s naturally going to have questions for men who served with her father. Maybe you should be there, for her. And trust me, Mia has grown into quite a fearless, tough young woman.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ he said. ‘You know, I think I will take you up on your offer, if you’re still willing to drive me all the way to Dune Lodge.’
‘I am,’ Sannie said, ‘but you seem to have some issues about your time in the army. Trust me, I know that trauma can have lasting effects on people, but I just need you to tell me one thing, honestly, about this “bad stuff” you mentioned.’
‘Anything.’
‘Did you do anything illegal when you were in the war? Is there anything I need to know about?’
‘No.’
She looked into his eyes. Sannie had met hundreds of liars in her job. This man was telling the truth. ‘OK. Consider the offer still valid. If I think you’re a responsible driver you can share the time behind the wheel.’
‘I’ve got some money put away so I can contribute towards the fuel.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. Fuel was expensive these days, and while she was mindful of his financial state, she also told herself that if he had wanted to get to Luiz’s funeral under his own steam he would have had to pay the bus fare. She stood.
‘I’ll talk to the Scottburgh guys tomorrow and see what they turn up with Mr Renshaw.’ She raised a finger, admonishing him. ‘But you stay away from him.’
He put his right hand over his heart. ‘I promise.’
Adam stood as well and when Sannie turned to look back at him she saw that half of his face was glowing warm from the light of the paraffin lamp; the other was in darkness. She waved goodbye, not lingering or putting herself in a situation where the thought of a farewell peck on the cheek might put one or both of them in an awkward situation. As she walked out the door onto the stoep, pausing to check the garden, she glanced back over her shoulder.
He smiled at her and put his hand over his heart again. It was a simple gesture, but it gave her a flutter. Despite her tiredness and the rollercoaster evening she’d just been through, her step felt lighter as she walked through Adam’s jungled front yard to her car.
Chapter 12
Mia walked through the sand in the cool of the early morning towards the place where Luiz’s body had been found. She carried her .375-calibre rifle loosely in her right hand. The pangolin waddled ahead of her, seeming content to head in the same direction.
She had spoken to the pangolin researcher she knew, and he had told her that the animal needed to build up its strength before they could release it into the wild again. This involved someone accompanying the little fellow – it was a male – on daily foraging trips of an hour or two. The researcher was away doing some field work in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, but Mia made a plan to take the pangolin to him as soon as possible, so he could examine it and continue with its rehabilitation.
