Tom Cain - Dictator

As they walked away to the next stand, he asked McGuinness, ‘Just out of curiosity, what chokes have I got?’

‘Quarter and cylinder,’ the gamekeeper replied.

‘Interesting,’ said Carver.

He hoped he sounded relaxed, even a little blase. But inside he was cursing himself. A quarter-choke was the least restriction available; ‘cylinder’ meant an entirely clear barrel. That gave him a much wider spread of shot. At short range that was an advantage; it might have been the only reason he’d been able to hit any clay at all in that disaster of a first round. But the further the shot went, the more holes opened up in the air between the scattered pellets and the tougher it became to get a kill. If they had to shoot at clays flying high, or any distance away, Carver was going to be in trouble.

‘So, we’ve shot grouse, now it’s time for partridge,’ said Klerk as they reached the second stand. It was much simpler than the grouse butt, just a basic square of wooden fencing, hip-high, with a bin for used cartridges attached to the shooter’s side. All the effort had been devoted to creating a classic, mature hedgerow of bushes and trees directly in front of the stand that looked as though it had been a part of the landscape for centuries. Carver marvelled at the effort and cost that must have gone into locating, transporting and replanting the mix of dogwood, spindleberry and hawthorn hedging, as well as the oak and chestnut trees that stood among them.

From behind the hedgerow, Carver heard the noise of a motor starting up followed by a quieter, whirring sound. Somewhere back there at least one mechanized platform was rising into the air, taking with it a trap. So the clays, like the birds they were imitating, would emerge from behind the hedge at a variety of heights.

‘Simultaneous pairs,’ said McGuinness, indicating that both clays would be released at the same time. ‘Mr Klerk to go first.’

Now the strike order had rotated in Carver’s favour. This time he would be the last to shoot.

Klerk took his place behind the fencing and called ‘Pull!’ for the first pair.

The clays emerged from behind the hedgerow, passing over one of the oak trees and rising higher into the air as they flew towards Klerk, angled left-to-right this time. They flew at different heights and on marginally differing courses, adding to the challenge of shooting them both in quick succession.

Klerk tracked the clays as they sped through the sky, swinging his gun round clockwise from twelve o’clock almost to three before he fired. Again his technique was well-schooled and effective. He scored nine out of ten.

Zalika demonstrated once again that she was more gifted than her uncle. She dismissed the first four pairs with her usual accuracy, firing earlier, so that the clays were hit when they had barely passed two o’clock. When the final pair appeared, she destroyed the ninth clay with calm efficiency. But as any serious shot knows, the last bird is often the hardest. It may be a matter of mental fatigue, for even the sternest concentration can slip. Or perhaps complacency is the greater danger, a fractional relaxation brought on by the certainty that the tenth will go down just like the last nine have done. In any event, many a competitor has been undone right at the end of a hitherto perfect sequence. And that was what happened to Zalika Stratten. She looked incredulously at the final clay as it kept flying long after the last echoes of her shot had faded away, then snapped her hand irritably round her cartridges as they sprang from the barrels of her gun.

So the girl was human, after all.

Zalika had given Carver an opening. He had to make sure he took full advantage.

This time there were no distractions. He did not look around. He did not think about anything but the clays. While the others had been shooting he had studied the clays’ flight patterns, noting precisely where they first appeared, relative to the oak tree, taking his mark from one specific branch. He dusted the first four pairs by the time they reached one o’clock.

As McGuinness pressed the control-button for the fifth time, Carver’s eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched slightly, and in a moment of pure focus he felt as though the whole world had slowed down around him, so that the clays seemed to be drifting as big and lazy as two black balloons and he had all the time in the world to bring them down. He shot them both before anyone else had even realized they were there, when they’d barely passed twelve on that imaginary clock.

As he placed his cartridges in the bin and turned round to face the others, Carver noticed a wry half-smile on McGuinness’s lips. The gamekeeper caught his eye and gave a fractional nod of acknowledgement.

Zalika’s lead had been reduced to one. Carver was back in the game.

‘Now let’s bash some bunnies,’ said Klerk.

The third stand wasn’t based on anywhere fancy. There’s nothing fancy about shooting rabbits, no matter where you are. But that doesn’t make rabbit clays any less of a challenge.

They came out of the trap upright, presenting the full face of the clay to the shooters as they scooted along the ground, bouncing up when they hit a bump, or a thick tuft of grass. McGuinness released the clays on report – in other words, pressing the control for the second clay as soon as he heard the first shot – coming first from the right, then from the left.

Zalika went first and shot flawlessly. She swivelled her gun to the right to pick up the first clay, tracked it until it was directly in front of her, then fired. Without pausing, she kept the gun moving to the left, locked on to the second clay, followed it back into the centre and fired again. She scored two hits, then four, six, eight, ten.

When she had finished, she caught the last two spent cartridges, disposed of them and walked away from the stand as though she had never done anything easier in her life. Memo to Carver: whatever you’ve got, I can handle it.

Carver matched her easily enough for the first four pairs. But the first clay of the final pair took a wicked bounce and he missed. The tenth clay was dusted without any trouble, but he was still left cursing his luck. So much for making a comeback: he was back to two behind.

Klerk shot eight. He was out of the running now, but for all his natural, ferocious competitiveness, he wasn’t bothered. It was enough for him to watch the other two struggle for supremacy.

‘Walk with me a moment,’ he said to Carver as they moved on to the next stand. He nodded towards Zalika, who was chatting to McGuinness. ‘Impressive young woman, isn’t she?’

‘Certainly seems to be,’ Carver agreed.

‘I’ll tell you something, though: this is all new. For years after the kidnap, Zalika was dead to the world, completely blank. She had no energy, no passion. She hardly said a word to me, surly all the time.’

‘Not surprising. She had an incredibly traumatic experience, lost her whole family.’

‘Survivor guilt, the shrinks called it. Christ knows I paid for enough of them. Bought her anything she could possibly want. Nothing worked, she was stuck in the past. Then this whole Gushungo business started. Now she’s a new woman. Take yesterday, playing the secretary – she’d never have done that before.’

‘Sounds like it’s given her a purpose in life.’

Klerk nodded. ‘Ja, that’s exactly what I think, too. She wants to get her hands on that bastard Mabeki. That’s what’s driving her, you mark my words. That and having you about the place.’

‘I’m not so sure about that.’

‘Trust me, she insisted on you being involved. But I’ll tell you what, you had better beat her today or she will be severely disappointed. She will hold you in contempt.’