Tony Park - Silent Predator

Tom found the drive informative and also relaxing as Duncan stopped every now and then to point out a colourful bush bird, a small herd of braying zebra, a pair of giraffe, and a shy bushbuck, which had a milk chocolate coat painted with delicate white stripes and spots. He’d almost filled his camera’s flash card when Duncan said, ‘Shush! No talking now.’

Tom and Sannie had been discussing the likelihood of media interest in the minister’s visit. Tom had explained that Greeves’s press secretary, Helen MacDonald, had emailed him advising that the Westminster press gallery had no particular interest in the sale of jet trainers to South Africa, although some defence correspondents would follow up the story and one journalist from a London tabloid had asked if there would be a photo opportunity of Greeves viewing game in the Kruger Park. Helen had said there would not, but warned Tom in her message that the reporter had been quite miffed that there would be no official photos released. There was the remote possibility he would hire a South African stringer to try to get a shot. Sannie had doubted the Johannesburg media would intrude on the visit to Tinga. ‘Compared with your lot, our media are positively well behaved,’ she’d said just as Duncan urged them to silence.

‘There, see the ear?’ Duncan whispered.

‘Got him,’ Sannie said.

‘I can’t see a bloody thing,’ Tom confessed.

‘Don’t look at the bush, look through it,’ Sannie replied.

She leaned closer to him, pointing across his chest to his side of the vehicle. He smelled her perfume. It was like roses. ‘Where?’ he said.

‘There, just past the blackened tree. Rhino.’

He saw its bulk. The dull grey hide was the perfect colour for blending into the dry, dusty growth. Its front horn looked as long as his forearm and hand. Its huge head was lowered, and now that the vehicle’s engine was off and they were all silent, he could hear the almost mechanical sound of its grazing, grunch, grunch, grunch, as it cropped the brittle yellow grass. The rhino’s big trumpet-like ears twitched and swivelled like antennae.

‘This is a white rhino. He cannot see very well, but his hearing is good,’ Duncan explained.

The massive prehistoric beast seemed placid enough to Tom, almost like a giant horned cow. ‘Are they dangerous?’

‘Like most animals, only if you by surprise get too close to them. Sometimes when we walk I will clap my hands, to make a noise to let him know that we are near. We don’t like them getting a surprise. The other ones, the black rhino, are more dangerous. They are aggressive and will sometimes charge if they are having a bad day.’

Tom stifled a laugh.

Eventually, the rhinoceros ambled away further into the thorn thickets, its hide impervious to the scratches, and Duncan started the Land Cruiser. The sun was accelerating towards the horizon and getting redder by the second as it entered the band of dust that seemed to hover above the drying bushveld. Duncan pulled off the dirt track onto a grassy clearing, overlooking a stretch of river.

‘Sundowners,’ Sannie announced. ‘My favourite time of the day.’

Duncan slid a trestle table from brackets at the rear of the Land Cruiser, politely declining Tom’s offer of help. He opened the tailgate and slid out a cool box and a hamper with glasses, plates of snacks and, to Tom’s surprise, a white tablecloth.

Sannie asked for a gin and tonic and Tom decided that the working day had come to an end. He took a can of Castle Lager from the ice. It opened with a satisfying pop. ‘The sounds of the African night,’ Sannie said as she sipped her G and T.

Duncan opened a can of Coke and the three of them stood in companionable silence for a few minutes, watching the sun slide behind the darkening bush. Birds cried and frogs began their evening chorus. Somewhere down in the river hippos honked in unison. Then came a noise that Tom struggled to identify. It sounded like a very loud, very deep wheezing. Ugh… ugh… ugh.

‘ Ngala,’ Duncan said.

‘Lion?’

‘You’re right,’ Sannie said. ‘Most people expect a big roar, like the MGM lion in the movies, but it’s more mournful; softer, even — unless, of course, they’re right outside your tent, then it’s bloody terrifying!’

‘You get lions around your tent here, in Kruger, when you camp?’ Tom asked.

‘No. Here it’s all electric fences. We went camping in Zimbabwe a few times, before it got bad up there, and in some of their parks there are no fences around the camps. We had lions walking through the camp ground. I nearly wet myself.’

‘Just you and the kids? That’s very brave.’

‘No. Me, my husband and the kids.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Sannie,’ Tom said.

She shrugged. ‘It’s funny, but it’s at times like this, when everything is so nice and peaceful and calm, that I miss him the most. I can deal with problems at work, and the rubbish from the kids when they play up. I have to, being a single mom now, but it’s when everything seems to be perfect that I realise I don’t have anyone to share things with. Sorry. I don’t mean to sound so depressing.’

‘No, it’s okay. I was just thinking the same thing. How much Alex would have liked it here. We’d talked about going on a safari holiday for years.’ He realised how much harder the grieving process must be for Sannie, having to bring up her kids and be strong for them. He admired her not just for carrying on in the circumstances but for being so honest. She wasn’t afraid to talk about her grief, something he usually found hard to do.

‘It can’t be easy for you,’ she said.

‘We had our future planned. It was as if we put the first half of our married life on hold, with the idea that we’d make up for it during holidays and after an early retirement… My turn to apologise now. I don’t usually talk this much about Alex.’

She laid a hand on his forearm, briefly. ‘It’s not often I can find someone who’ll listen. I’m sure policemen are the same in England as they are in South Africa. We bottle up a lot of bad stuff and make out it doesn’t affect us.’

She smiled and Tom nodded. It was so hard not just to stand there gazing into her eyes. He felt a growing connection to her that was comforting, exciting and a bit scary all at once.

‘Where was your favourite holiday destination?’ she asked.

He was grateful she spoke again; he was starting to feel as self-conscious as a teenager. ‘A little Greek island, just off the coast of Turkey, called Lipsi. Beautiful, unspoiled, and far from the tourist crowds. A bit like here, I suppose.’

‘Oh, don’t be too sure about that. You should see Kruger in the school holidays — it’s like Jozi peak hour sometimes on the roads here.’

‘More drinks?’ Duncan said. They both said yes, though Tom was a little disappointed that Duncan had interrupted their conversation.

Unlike in England, darkness descended in Africa with the suddenness of a curtain closing. It was pitch black, the night moonless, as they drove back to the lodge. As well as having his headlights on, Duncan held a spotlight in one hand as he drove. He swivelled it continuously left and right, searching for the eyes of night creatures, which he explained would glow like reflectors in the bright beam.

He stopped and Tom peered into the inky bush. ‘In the tree — the big one,’ Duncan hissed.

Tom followed the shaft of light up the pale trunk and saw the cat. The leopard crouched on a branch. Gripped in its vicelike jaws was a fawn-coloured antelope — the cat had it by the throat.

‘He has killed that impala by suffocation,’ Duncan explained in a matter-of-fact tone while Tom’s heart pounded in his chest. He was awestruck, silent. Duncan started the truck’s engine again and turned off the road, moving at walking pace closer and closer to the tree. The leopard stared malevolently down at them, its eyes glowing like yellow beacons. Duncan shifted the light slightly to one side of the animal, so it was still visible but not shining directly into its eyes.