The Pride, page 3
She saw people moving, silhouetted against the night sky, and dropped down into a crouch between two dunes.
A girl in her early to mid-teens struggled uphill from the beach, a bulging net bag full of abalone shells on her back. Next came a younger boy with an old backpack, which clacked with the sound of shell on shell as he walked.
Sonja dropped to her belly and leopard-crawled to the edge of the trail, hiding herself like a snake in the low fynbos.
The next person on the well-worn trail was a man in a wetsuit, barefoot, still wearing his BCD vest and oxygen tank and carrying a pair of fins. Sonja drew the Glock from its holster. As he walked past her, oblivious to her presence, Sonja sprang up, moved silently behind him and hooked her left arm around him, hand over his mouth as she jammed the tip of the pistol’s barrel up under his jaw.
‘With me,’ she hissed. She led him back between the dunes, deeper into the tangled coastal vegetation.
‘Hey . . .’ he tried to say behind her hand.
‘Shut up. Unless you’d like to die?’
He shook his head.
‘Take your cylinder and BCD off, and your mask.’ He hesitated so she shifted the pistol to the side of his head with enough force to push his head over onto his left shoulder. He undid the tank and vest and let them fall to the ground. ‘Face down, hands behind your back.’
She knelt on his back, shrugged off her hiking pack, and secured his hands behind him with a cable tie. Then she relieved him of a knife and a tyre iron, which were stuffed in his belt. She threw the lever away, assuming it was the tool he used to prise abalone off rocks and reefs.
‘What’s Denzel doing?’
‘I don’t know any –’
She smacked the side of his head with the butt of the pistol and put the barrel back to his temple. ‘You mean nothing to me. I’ve killed better men than you.’
‘He’s still diving, even in the dark. He’s always one of the last to leave. It’s getting late, though – he’ll be finished just now.’
Sonja took out the tape, tore off a strip and fastened it over the man’s mouth. Next she bound his ankles and knees with several turns from the roll. Sonja hauled on the man’s vest and dive cylinder, then left him lying in the bush and moved to the tallest stubby tree she could see. There, she cached her hiking pack and used a couple of the antiseptic wipes to clean the poacher’s mask and the mouthpiece of his regulator. She double-bagged her phone, secured her pistol back in its holster, and picked up the man’s fins.
Someone would find the diver, eventually, but Sonja planned on being long gone before then. She wound her way down through the dunes, skirting the procession of other poachers and shell bearers following the same track as the others. She assumed they were heading for the rusty bakkies in the car park.
Sonja checked her phone screen through the protective plastic layers. She could see the pulsating red dot that indicated Emma’s iPhone and waded into the ocean towards it. Another diver exited, off to her right, but paid her no attention; with her long hair concealed he probably thought she was just another poacher going in for one last look.
Glancing at the phone and then pressing the menu button on her GPS-enabled running watch, Sonja selected the compass widget and worked out a bearing towards where Denzel was currently diving. She put on the fins, adjusted the man’s mask and started finning.
Without the benefit of a wetsuit she shivered, but had long ago learned to ignore temporary discomfort. These days military people called it ‘embracing the suck’ – not complaining about things out of one’s control, such as cold or rain or heat or dust, but accepting them, even revelling in them. As a young soldier in the British Army she had been put through a gruelling special forces selection course, run by the famed Special Air Service, to prepare male and female recruits from the British Army’s Intelligence Corps to withstand the rigours of undercover surveillance operations against extremists in Northern Ireland. She had experienced near-hypothermia in the snow- and sleet-covered Welsh mountains. This was nothing.
Sonja followed the bearing on her watch, wondering how Denzel could continue stealing abalone in the dark. She had her answer when she picked up the stabbing beam of an underwater torch. She finned her way closer.
Being careful to stay behind the man with the torch, she slowed and adjusted the air in her BCD so that her buoyancy was neutral. She hung there, suspended in the chilly gloom, watching the man at work.
She picked up movement in her peripheral vision, and forced herself to hover motionless as the sleek, grey bulk of a shark cruised past. Sonja looked at the man. If he was aware of the presence of danger, he resolutely ignored it, efficiently working his tyre lever under shell after shell, prising abalone off the rocky reef and slipping each sea creature into the net bag slung around his neck.
Checking around her, Sonja finned her way close enough to confirm, by his athletic build and wavy hair billowing around him, that the diver was, in fact, Denzel. There was no sign of his offsider, the other young man who had tried but failed to calm him down on the beach.
Sonja paused to draw her knife and then closed on the unsuspecting poacher. She came up behind him, reached out and ripped his mask from his face. As his hands came up, trying to grab at whatever or whomever had attacked him, Sonja grabbed Denzel’s air hose and sliced through it. She disengaged, waiting for his next move.
She underestimated him.
Instead of panicking and finning for the surface, Denzel pulled on a slip knot or buckle and let his bag full of abalone fall to the bottom of the sea. He rolled onto his back, pulled his right knee into his chest and drew his knife, which he must have retrieved or replaced. As Sonja tried to close on him again, he kicked out at her. She sliced her knife down as his fin connected with her chest. Denzel’s wetsuit protected him from the worst of the cut, but she did see some blood swirling from the wound on his leg.
Pushed back by Denzel’s kick, though unhurt because the water had slowed the momentum, Sonja swam out of his reach. She had the benefit of oxygen. He gave her a final glare, then headed for the surface.
Sonja headed back to shore, as fast as she could, knowing that she would have the advantage of speed unless Denzel ditched all of his now useless, heavy diving gear; she doubted he would. When she neared the beach she paused to unbuckle and jettison her stolen cylinder, BCD and fins. She emerged from the water cold and wet, but satisfied.
As she trudged through the sand back to where she had left her pack, she took her phone out of the plastic bags and called the number she had saved, that of the police officer who had interviewed Emma.
‘Get down to Silver Sands Beach, now,’ she said without preamble when the woman answered her phone.
‘Who is this?’
‘Denzel, the boy who beat the English girl and stole her phone, will soon be getting out of the water. He’s bleeding, though, so maybe a shark will get him first.’
‘Mrs Kurtz, is that you?’
It was ‘Ms’, but she said nothing and ended the call.
Sonja took up position in the sandhills and watched the granite-like surface of the water. All the other poachers had given up for the evening. Off to the west she saw a couple of people walking, perhaps the last of the bearers. She checked her phone and the app told her that Denzel, stupidly, was still carrying Emma’s iPhone, stuffed somewhere in his wetsuit. She’d made no attempt to take it from him in the water – that would have been too hard without killing him, and it would be better if the police caught him with stolen goods.
She picked up the sight of splashes out in the sea; it was Denzel, laboriously swimming back to shore. She was right, his dive gear was his life. If he hadn’t acted like such a bastard and hurt her daughter, she might almost have felt sorry for him. Sonja drew her Glock and sat waiting.
Here and there lights shone from houses set back from the beach, but there was no night life here, nor beachside bars or restaurants – the nearest place still open was the takeaway shop at the penguin colony, and that was out of sight. The last of the poachers and bearers were now struggling through the dunes.
Denzel was getting closer to shore. Sonja looked up at the sky. Venus was rising, the moon just a low-hanging sliver. She racked the Glock, chambering a round.
Chapter 3
Emma woke the next morning to the sound of knocking on the door of the holiday cottage. She checked her watch on the bedside table; her neck hurt when she turned her head. It was just after eight in the morning.
‘Mum?’ There was no answer. Well rested but groggy, Emma swung her legs out of the covers. ‘Coming.’
She slid her lower jaw from side to side as she walked; it was still sore. She wondered if she had a black eye. She padded down the hallway, still wearing socks and pyjamas. On autopilot, she opened the front door.
A man stood there, holding a dozen roses – except that rather than being a delivery man, he was the friend of the man who had assaulted her.
‘Shit!’ Emma started to close the door, fear and panic rising up inside her as she remembered Denzel’s hands on her.
‘Wait, please wait.’ He held up his empty hand, palm out, and stayed back from the door.
Emma closed it to a crack, fumbled for the security chain and latched it. She’d still been half asleep, not thinking at all about her personal security despite the rawness of her injuries. If she’d had half a brain, she told herself, she would have asked who was there. ‘What do you want?’
‘I came to say sorry.’
Emma watched him. The last time she’d seen him he had been in an old wetsuit, worn and torn. Now he wore jeans, perfectly white sneakers and a pressed, collared shirt. He smiled. Any other time and place she would have fancied him.
‘Your friend fucking punched me.’
‘Yes, I heard. That’s why I brought these.’ He held out the flowers, though did not take another pace closer to the door.
‘How did you know where to find me?’
He looked at his shoes for a moment. ‘I’ve seen you, out running.’
‘So, you’re a stalker as well as a poacher?’
He shook his head. ‘No, please, no. I’m sorry.’
Emma held the front of her pyjama shirt tightly together. ‘Why are you apologising?’
‘I tried to stop him, on the beach, when you were filming us –’
‘Not hard enough.’
‘No, that other woman on the beach with you took care of that. That’s what I was about to say – I’m apologising for not trying hard enough to stop Denzel from coming at you, then, and . . . later. I don’t like seeing men treating women badly.’
Emma narrowed her eyes. ‘You still went into the water with him, like nothing happened.’
He looked down at his shoes. ‘I was wrong and I was scared, and I’m sorry for that, as well. We had it out, later, got into a fight.’
It was only when he looked up that Emma noticed that he, too, had a cut over his eye. She nodded towards it. ‘He did that to you?’
‘Yes. Though I hit him as well. He’s my cousin.’
‘Your cousin the poacher.’
He frowned, glanced down at the flowers and then held them out again.
‘I’m not taking anything from a poacher.’
‘I’m not a poacher. That was my first time in the water with Denzel, and I didn’t take any abalone. My heart wasn’t in it after all.’
‘After all?’
‘I’m studying at varsity and I lost my job as a waiter. I’m stacking shelves at Pick n Pay at the Waterfront, but I’m short for my fees and I needed to get some cash. I knew Denzel was poaching; he’d asked me many times to join him, but I always said no. He told me I could make fourteen hundred rand, nearly a hundred US dollars, per kilo taking abalone, and that I might be able to get eight or nine kilograms in one dive. I think poaching is terrible, but . . . Well, having no money is no excuse, but I’ve never broken the law in my life.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Emma said.
‘You sound like you’re from overseas,’ he said, ‘but not everyone in Africa is a criminal.’
Emma closed her eyes and put a hand on her forehead. She felt a pang of guilt – she had, borderline, insulted him. His words had got under her armour, and he did seem genuinely contrite. ‘You want a cup of coffee?’ She opened her eyes and saw, just then, how his widened.
‘I just came to drop off the flowers and say sorry.’
Emma slid the security chain across and opened the door. ‘Come in.’
‘You sure?’
Emma glanced over her shoulder. ‘My mum’s in her room. She has a gun. Maybe two.’
‘Noted.’
Emma stepped back as he walked in. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Oh, sorry, it’s Kelvin.’
‘Come in,’ Emma repeated, opening the door fully for him and taking the flowers when he offered them to her again. ‘I’ll get some water for these.’
Kelvin looked around as she led him along the corridor to the kitchen. ‘Nice place.’
‘It’s an Airbnb.’ Emma filled the kettle. ‘Coffee?’
‘Please. Where do you usually live? England?’
‘Scotland. I studied there, at university, and liked it, so I got a job there and ended up staying.’
‘So I was right; you’re not local.’
She shook her head and took two cups out of the cupboard. ‘I’m not. My mum’s Namibian-German, but her mother, my gran, was English, so I grew up in England and went to school there. My mum was away, on business, a lot of the time.’
‘What does she do?’
Kelvin seemed nice enough, unlike his cousin, and Sonja was only a scream away, but Emma had always felt a need to be careful about describing what her mother did for a living. She had gone through stages in her life when she’d been honest about it, but as a child this had often led to people bullying her, accusing her of lying. ‘She’s a personal trainer.’
Kelvin nodded. ‘She certainly looked fit. Sorry, I didn’t mean that to come out sounding weird.’
It was Emma’s turn to laugh. She couldn’t tell Kelvin that her mother kept fit training other people to kill, nor that she had shot more people than Emma could possibly have imagined during her career as a mercenary. To change the subject, she asked, ‘What are you studying?’
Kelvin smiled. ‘Medicine. My mom was so proud – I’m the first person in the family to go to varsity. I was stupid getting involved with Denzel. If I’d been charged by the cops it wouldn’t have been good for me.’
The kettle boiled and Emma poured. ‘So, you and Denzel?’
He shook his head and whistled through his teeth. ‘He’s been in trouble since we were kids. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’
‘Tell the police.’
Kelvin looked away, out through the kitchen window at the view of the nature reserve. Emma handed him his cup and he nodded his thanks.
‘I take it you didn’t see him attack me in the dunes?’ Emma pressed.
He looked her in the eye. ‘No. If I’d been there it wouldn’t have happened.’
‘Yet my mum had to stop him from assaulting me on the beach.’
‘Because I couldn’t get to him first.’
‘So, go to the police,’ Emma said again, ‘tell them what he’s like.’
Kelvin paused. ‘His father, my uncle . . .’
‘What about him? You’re scared of what your uncle will say about his son who beats up women and robs them?’
Kelvin looked away again. ‘It’s not what he’d say, it’s what he’d do, especially if he knew the police were involved.’
‘What does your uncle do?’
Kelvin said nothing, just stared out the window.
‘Answer the question.’
Both Emma and Kelvin turned at the sound of Sonja’s voice. She’d arrived from her room without a sound, thanks to her bare feet. She wore a man’s blue cotton Oxford shirt, sleeves rolled up, the tail barely covering her pants. Emma knew the shirt had been Sam’s. Sonja pointed her Glock at Kelvin, who set down his cup and put his hands up.
‘Please . . .’
‘It’s all right,’ Sonja said, ‘I won’t kill you. Not immediately. I’ve been listening to your bleating.’
‘Ma’am, I’m sorry, I –’
‘Save it. Who’s your fucking uncle?’
‘Ma’am –’
‘After what happened to Emma the police will believe that an intruder came to the house, a relative of the accused, to silence her,’ Sonja said. ‘That’s what you’re saying your uncle would do, aren’t you? Kill any witnesses if his precious boy is charged with a crime? Usual bullshit?’
‘Ma’am, I came here to apologise, for what happened to . . .’
‘Emma.’ Sonja rolled her eyes. ‘Good doggy. Now roll over and make yourself useful. Tell me about your uncle and your cousin or I’ll call the cops and then a lack of money will be the least of your problems. Pretty boy like you wouldn’t stay intact for long in Pollsmoor Prison.’
Kelvin grimaced. ‘My uncle, he’s . . . into things.’
‘Such as?’
‘Money-making ventures, ma’am, if you know what I mean. Big money.’
‘Abalone?’ Sonja asked.
Emma sipped her coffee, watching her mother at work. She could see how Kelvin had gone from being confident yet caring, to terrified. There was something about Sonja that made it very clear to anyone who came up against her that she would not hesitate to pull a trigger.
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Kelvin bit his lower lip.
‘Go on. Your coffee’s getting cold, and I’m getting bored. Emma, get my phone and be ready to call the last number, the police.’
Kelvin held up a palm. ‘Yes, ma’am, my uncle is an abalone dealer.’
