The Protector, page 29
‘He was nearly dead when he came to us,’ Taku said, her eyes on the pangolin wandering just ahead of them, ‘but he showed amazing courage and hung on to life, which is how he got his name.’
‘About the pangolin’s diet,’ Doc continued after everyone had said hello and shaken hands, ‘we found that some pangolins we were trying to rehabilitate in South Africa would forage about for food, looking for ants, but sometimes, even when they found a nice big colony, they wouldn’t eat. Others, like the one Geoff has been studying will eat several different types of ants in a day. We worked out that pangolins from Zimbabwe, which account for many of the ones we seize in South Africa and which we subsequently tried to release, would only eat a particular type of ants, found in their home country.’
‘That’s right,’ David said. ‘We worked with Doc and her students and we ended up exporting termites from Zimbabwe to South Africa for the pangolins to eat.’
‘Amazing,’ Ian said.
Doc noticed that Ian seemed to be paying more attention to David and her than Eva and Pär, who were busy taking pictures. Pär was on his belly on the ground again, ahead of Courage, snapping pictures as the pangolin came towards him. Taku had moved aside and was talking to Sue, Zola and Geoff. Moses was lagging about ten metres behind them, checking his phone.
‘David,’ Pär said, standing and brushing dirt from his clothes, ‘can we get a picture of you with the pangolin?’
‘Sure,’ David said. ‘Excuse me, Doc.’
‘No problem.’ She took Ian aside. ‘What were you and Sue talking about?’
Ian glanced away from her, to where the students were laughing about something, then back at Doc. ‘Nothing much.’
She put her hands on her hips. ‘Really?’
Ian swatted at some tiny flies hovering around his eyes. ‘She wanted to know if you and I were an item.’
Doc touched her forehead in exasperation. ‘Oh no. Has it been that obvious?’
‘Not to her,’ Ian said. ‘Apparently Jason noticed something and had his suspicions.’
‘Jason?’
‘Yes. Where is he?’
‘Gone shopping for something, apparently,’ Doc said.
‘Doc?’ David called. ‘Pär and Eva have some more questions about how you and I work together, across borders, though I think that might be a discussion for us over a bottle of red wine.’
‘I’m happy to answer that now.’ She left Ian, annoyed that Jason and Sue had been snooping, and also feeling like there was something Ian hadn’t told her. He had not been able to meet her eye at first, and he looked distinctly uncomfortable.
When she finished explaining her working knowledge of the different termite species of southern Africa to Eva, with some assistance from Geoff who came to her rescue, Doc turned around and saw that Ian had gone.
‘Where’s Ian?’ she asked Zola, who was now standing with Moses.
‘Oh, Margaux came just now and said that our rooms are ready when we are. Ian said he was feeling tired and wanted to go for a nap,’ Zola said.
‘And Sue?’
Zola shrugged. ‘I’m not sure.’
Doc was torn. She had a duty to stay with Eva and Pär and the students, but it was impossible to look after everyone if they were all going to wander off and do their own things during a visit to a facility. She sighed.
‘Everything all right, Denise?’ Moses asked in a sickly sweet, deep drawl.
‘Fine.’ She went back to David.
‘I think we should leave Taku and Courage to their business,’ David said. ‘We don’t want to stress the little fellow too much. I think he’s already seeing spots thanks to Pär’s camera flash.’
‘Good thinking,’ Doc said, relieved. ‘I’ll scoot back and make sure the rooms are all fine.’
‘No problem,’ David replied. ‘Doc?’
‘Yes?’
‘I know you’ve got your hands full, but do you think you might have time for a drink with me before dinner this evening, just the two of us? After all, we are supposed to be talking about formalising our links and sharing information.’
‘I’ve got tourists and students to babysit, Dave.’
‘So, is that a yes, to drinks with me before dinner?’ David said hopefully.
She put a hand on his forearm. ‘I’ll think about it.’
*
Ian lay on his back, shirtless in the midday warmth, on one of the two single beds in his rondavel. He was over his jetlag, but the days had been long. Watching animals was more tiring than it sounded.
He stared at the dry golden grass of the thatch roof above him, and caught a faint whiff of creosote from the black-painted rafter poles. He thought about Doc. She was one of the most beautiful and intelligent women he had ever met, but she was clearly troubled.
The idea that she might be being targeted by a rival academic who was prepared to kill to secure the top spot at a university, or that a criminal gang was setting out to destroy her life for payback, or that some mystery stalker was so obsessed with her that he might murder any man she’d ever had feelings for, would have been too bizarre to contemplate in a country like Australia, but on the African continent it all sounded oddly plausible.
And what of David Smith? He seemed like a good guy – charming and knowledgeable, if a little old-fashioned in the way he addressed women in public. Did Doc still harbour some feelings for David?
Ian saw movement above and for a moment wondered if it might be a snake, but it was a gecko, hanging upside down as it scurried along a beam chasing bugs.
Was he, Ian, feeling jealous? He remembered the moment of resentment he’d felt when David seemed to be flirting with Doc. Was that healthy? He had only just met her, and while they had slept together, they were not a couple – not yet, anyway. She had said she wanted to take it easy. And if their feelings for each other did develop, how would they sustain a relationship between two countries? He hadn’t come to Africa to find love, or to solve a murder mystery, but he found himself flirting around the edges of both.
It was crazy. It was Africa.
There was a metallic squeal and he looked across the room to see his doorhandle turning. His heart lurched. ‘Doc?’ he whispered.
‘No, me.’ Sue Oliver glanced furtively over her shoulder then slipped in and closed the door.
‘Sue . . .’
She put a finger to her lips and tiptoed theatrically across the polished concrete floor to where he was starting to sit up. ‘Don’t get up.’
She put a hand on his chest and it felt like her skin might burn him. With her other hand she started to undo the top two buttons of her bush shirt.
‘No, Sue.’
She grinned at him as her shirt fell open, revealing a lacy red bra. ‘No as in no, or no as in yes, don’t stop?’
‘No means no, Sue.’
She glanced down at his shorts. ‘Someone is saying yes.’
He couldn’t do anything about that. She was standing in front of him, now undoing the top button of her shorts. She undid the zip and let them fall to the floor. ‘Like what you see?’ She reached both hands behind her torso.
‘Sue. I think you should go.’
‘Then you’ll have to dress me, or tell me I’ve been a bad girl.’
‘Sue . . .’
‘Spank me?’
Shit. Doc wanted to cool things; Sue was well into her twenties and not some impressionable teenager. He was single, on holiday. He thought of Doc. No, he told himself. ‘What about Jason?’
She undid the clasp of her bra, took it off and tossed it aside. Sue put a finger to her cheek, dimpling it. ‘Hmm . . . I could ask him if he wants to join us, but I pictured you more as an MFF kind of guy, rather than an MMF threesome.’
‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it.’ He felt like he was pinned to the bed.
She stood there, hands on hips, looking down at him. ‘Don’t you think I’m attractive, Ian?’
‘No. I mean, yes. You are, but that’s not the point.’
She pointed at his crotch. ‘No, that is.’ Sue knelt down on the floor next to his bed. ‘I won’t touch you if you really don’t want me to.’
She lowered her head over his torso and stared into his eyes. ‘I want you,’ she whispered. ‘And I always get what I want.’
‘Sue, no.’
She reached for his pants and before he could grab her wrist she slid her hand under his waistband. Involuntarily, he arched his back and she used the reflex movement to slide his pants down.
Sue raised her head. ‘Going commando? Not as proper as you seem on the outside.’
Ian reached for her arm and tried to sit up. ‘I think I need to take a shower,’ he said. ‘I’m all sweaty.’
She took a long, deep breath through her nose and lowered her face to his midsection. ‘You smell good to me.’
‘Sue, stop, please.’ Enough was enough, he decided. Her advances were all very flattering, but this would only make an already complicated situation untenable. Ian put his hands in her hair and gently but firmly tried to remove himself from her.
There was a rap on the door. ‘Knock-knock,’ Doc called. ‘Can I come in?’
Ian’s heart lurched. ‘Aargh!’ He still had his fingers entwined in Sue’s hair, but hadn’t forced her away from him for fear of hurting her. ‘No!’
‘Ian,’ Doc called from outside. ‘Are you all right?’
Doc threw open the door and stormed in. She stood there, seemingly unable to move for a few seconds, one hand over her mouth. Ian now forcibly moved Sue off him.
Doc turned and ran out of the rondavel.
Chapter 24
How could I have been so stupid? Doc went to her hut and slammed the door behind her.
Almost immediately there was a knock at her door.
‘Go away!’
‘Professor Rado? Denise? Are you all right? I saw you running. You looked in distress,’ Moses Khumalo said from the other side of the door.
She felt even more of a fool. And what was that note in Moses’s voice? Was he gloating? Had he glimpsed something through Ian’s open door? ‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you sure, Prof?’ It was Zola calling now. She must have been with Moses, his little shadow.
‘Yes, I’m sure. Just go away, please!’ She heard footsteps retreating. Doc wanted to roll herself into a ball like a pangolin and grow scaly armour to keep away the world and all the evil and betrayal and greed and deceit in it. She had fallen for a married man, lost the one true love of her life, and she had allowed herself to believe that she might have found a good man once more, in Ian. And then she had pushed him away, and look what had happened next.
She mulled over everything they had discussed in the short time they had known each other. She had wanted to preserve the illusion that she cared nothing for Ian, in order to keep him safe, and five minutes later he had his dick in the mouth of one of her students.
Sue. She was a brilliant student, smarter than the others, but Doc had known she’d be trouble right from the start. And what did her being caught with Ian mean for Sue’s relationship with Jason Chow?
Doc needed time to think. She wanted to run away from this tour and be done with all of them, but that was not possible. How could she even face Ian again, after what she’d just seen? Sue could be forward, pushy, in most aspects of her academic and personal life, but it was clear from what Doc had seen that Ian had been a willing participant.
She sat down on her bed. She wanted to cry, but instead she got up and went to the sink in the rondavel’s small bathroom. Splashing water on her face, she wiped her eyes before a tear could appear. Doc took a deep breath. She had told Ian to stay away from her, and he had. The fact that he’d immediately sought solace in the arms of a twenty-something was his business. Doc had entertained the idea that maybe she and Ian could reconnect after the tour, after she had worked out who exactly was trying to harm her and her work – if, in fact, there was someone and this was not all some unfortunate string of coincidences. But Ian had taken her too literally. She had completely misread him.
Doc tried not to blame Ian, but the image of him and Sue kept forcing its way back into her brain.
‘Shit.’
Now she was angry at him. Didn’t he realise what she had really felt for him, and that all she wanted was for them to pause whatever was between them for a little while? Maybe she was better off without him, without anyone in her life. That way, if someone was out to hurt her, or destroy her, then they would have to do it head on, with her alone, and not by attacking those she was close to.
She looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were red but her gaze was strong. Her mouth was set firm and she gripped the handbasin tightly, not from fear of falling over or wilting like some fragile flower, or to still the rage that was growing inside her. She channelled everything she was feeling – the anger, the hurt, the loss, the fear – into one emotion, one driving force that would meld all these torrents inside her into a river of steel.
‘I am going to fucking get you,’ she said to her reflection.
*
Ian stood under the shower and turned the hot water on full. He let the mercifully strong pressure pummel his face.
‘You stupid, stupid bastard,’ he said into the spray.
He soaped and cleaned himself, got out, and vigorously dried his body. The towel was scratchy and smelled faintly of bleach and Sunlight soap. It brought back a dim memory of his grandmother’s house in Australia. He wasn’t so much angry at Sue but at his own behaviour.
He could have stopped her sooner, and frogmarched Sue out of his rondavel long before he’d actually done so in the wake of Doc leaving. He was middle-aged, more than old enough to be Sue’s father, and maybe he’d been flattered by her advances, at Antares and just now. She was a young woman who liked sex, that much was clear, and it was not as though he was unfamiliar with people looking for casual hook-ups. He’d had a few of his own over the years, and he had also prided himself in the past, when he’d held positions of authority, on recognising the warning signs in young employees who’d had crushes on him, and on knowing how to identify and deal with any inappropriate feelings he might have had towards junior staff.
For those reasons he mentally kicked himself once again as he ran a brush through his hair. He dressed in clean shorts and shirt, and put on his sandals. Ian drew a deep breath as he opened the door and went out into the warm afternoon.
A gardener was watering flowers outside one of the rondavels and he looked up as Ian passed. ‘How are you?’ the man asked.
‘Fine,’ Ian lied. But he wouldn’t be, until he’d spoken to Doc.
He walked between the clutch of rondavels to Doc’s dwelling. There was no one else visible and he guessed the other members of the tour were sleeping or reading, or working on their academic projects.
He stopped, paused a moment to compose himself, and knocked on her door. There was no answer.
‘Doc?’ he tried. ‘Denise?’ There was only silence. He looked over his shoulder, hoping that no one had heard what had gone on earlier, and that no one was spying on him through their curtain. In the car park, he noticed that Jason Chow’s white HiLux, with its distinctive blue and white South African number plate, was now present. It hadn’t been there earlier, so Jason had obviously arrived after the business between him and Sue. Was he with her now? Their group had taken over all of the roundhouses, so Ian assumed that if Jason was staying the night he would be sleeping in Sue’s chalet. Would that be weird for her? Would she tell Jason what had happened between Ian and her? Were they laughing at him even now?
Ian wondered if Doc was just lying low, avoiding him, but as bad as she might be feeling right now, she did not strike him as the type of person who would hide from a confrontation. Perhaps she had gone for a walk.
Ian looked around again and decided to head for the research camp’s dining and common area. Maybe Doc was there. With David Smith.
A rush of jealousy, even resentment, boiled up inside him. Ian had been the innocent party in the incident between him and Sue, and he just wanted a chance to explain to Doc exactly what happened. What if what she had seen had driven her into David’s arms? That would be a monumental disaster. Ian quickened his step. He didn’t know where David lived, but guessed he was in the big old farmhouse that also served as the lounge and dining area.
As he passed the rondavel closest to the large building, however, he heard noises.
There was a squeak, like rusty bed springs, and a sound like a woman moaning. Ian had seen Sue checking into the rondavel at the far end of the complex, the furthest from the dining area, and he had a recollection that Dr Khumalo had asked to be closest to the facilities. It seemed Moses always had to get his own way when it came to accommodation choices or the best seat in a vehicle.
Ian slowed down.
‘Yes!’ a voice called out from inside. It sounded like a woman.
Ian shook his head. It sounded like someone was having sex in the hut. Was it Khumalo and Zola? He didn’t want to be a voyeur, but it was hard to ignore the screech that followed. He was almost at the common area when he heard a male voice, raised, speaking an African language. Ian couldn’t understand what was being said, but he was now sure it was Dr Khumalo, and the woman who answered, in the same language, was definitely Zola. It sounded like a fight.
It was none of Ian’s business, but when he heard a short, sharp crack, like the sound of flesh hitting flesh, he stopped in his tracks.
‘No!’ Zola yelled from inside.
Ian ran a hand through his hair. For the first time since he’d arrived in Africa he wished he was somewhere else. He didn’t know whether to knock on Khumalo’s door and ask what was going on, or to mind his own business. He’d once had a girlfriend who liked to be spanked, and while this could have been some kind of sex game going on between the professor and the student, he’d detected a note of panic in Zola’s cry. He had turned and started heading for the rondavel when the door flew open.
