Deon Meyer - Blood Safari

‘Emma le Roux, and this is Mr Lemmer.’

‘Please, sit down. What can I do for you good people?’ He must have been well into his fifties, his face deeply lined with character built by a life in the sun and wind.

We sat.

‘I suspect Cobie de Villiers is my brother,’ Emma said.

The smile froze and then systematically crumbled. He stared at Emma and eventually said, ‘You suspect?’

‘I last saw him twenty years ago. I believed he was dead.’

‘Miss de Villiers …’

‘Le Roux.’

‘Of course. Mrs Le Roux …’

‘Miss.’

‘Le Roux is your maiden name?’

‘Le Roux was Jacobus’s surname too, Mr Wolhuter. It’s a long story …’

Frank Wolhuter slowly sank back into the worn brown leather chair. ‘Jacobus le Roux.’ He seemed to taste the name. ‘You must excuse me, but under the circumstances you may find me somewhat sceptical.’

Emma nodded and opened her handbag. There was no need to wonder why. The photograph appeared. She put it on the desk and pushed it towards Wolhuter. He put a hand in his shirt pocket and drew out a pair of reading glasses which he placed on the bridge of his nose. He took the photo and studied it at length. Outside, a rehabilitating lion roared in its pen. Birds screeched. It wasn’t unbearably hot inside, perhaps because the curtains were half closed. Emma watched Wolhuter patiently.

He put the photo down, took off the glasses, placed them on the table, pulled open a drawer and took out a pipe with a long straight stem. Next a box of matches. He bit the pipe stem between his teeth, struck a match and held it to the tobacco. He sucked the pipe alight with practised ease and blew smoke at the ceiling.

‘Ag, no,’ he said, and looked at Emma. ‘That’s not Cobie.’

‘Mr Wolhuter…’

‘Call me Frank.’

‘Did you know Jacobus when he was twenty?’ I was amazed at the tone of her voice, so reasonable and pleasant.

‘No.’ Sucking his pipe.

‘Can you say with absolute certainty that that is not his photograph?’

Wolhuter merely looked over his pipe at her.

‘That is all I’m after. Absolute certainty.’ She smiled at him. It was a pretty smile. I was sure he would not be able to resist it.

Frank Wolhuter worked on a big ball of smoke and then said, ‘Tell me your long story, Miss le Roux,’ but his eyes were narrowed, an unbeliever.

She said nothing about the attack. A smart move, since I hadn’t found it all that convincing. But this time she told her story in chronological order. Maybe she was learning. She began in 1986, the year her brother disappeared. And how, twenty years later, she saw a face on television and received a mysterious phone call. It was in the same hesitant style of incomplete sentences, as if even she didn’t totally believe in what she was saying. Maybe she wa too afraid to believe. When she had finished, Wolhuter passed the photo to Branca.

‘I’ve seen it,’ the younger man said.

‘And what do you think?’

‘There is a similarity.’

Wolhuter took the photo back. He looked at it again. Gave it back to Emma. He put the pipe back in the still-open drawer.

‘Miss le Roux …’

‘Emma.’

‘Emma, do you have an identity document with you?

A little frown. ‘Yes.’

‘May I see it?’

She glanced at me and then put her hand in her bag. She took out an ID book and gave it to Wolhuter. He opened it at the photo.

‘Do you have a business card?’

She hesitated again, but dug out her purse, snapped it open and brought out a visiting card. Wolhuter took it between his lean fingers and studied it. He looked at me. ‘You are Lemmer?’

‘Yes.’ I didn’t like his tone.

‘What is your interest in the matter?’

Emma drew in a breath to answer, but I was quicker. ‘Moral support.’

‘What is your profession?’

It was his manner which led me to make a mistake. I tried to be clever. ‘I am a builder.’

‘A builder, you say?’

‘I do up houses, mostly.’

‘Do you have a business card?’

‘No.’

‘And what do you intend to build here?’

‘Friendships.’

‘Are you a developer, Lemmer?’

‘A what?’

‘Frank …’ said Emma.

Wolhuter tried to silence her with a good-natured ‘Just a sec, Emmatjie…’, using the Afrikaans diminutive. Bad choice of words.

‘I am not Emmatjie.’ For the first time since I had met her, there was ice in her tone. I looked at her. Wolhuter and Branca looked at her. She sat up straight, cheeks lightly flushed. ‘My name is Emma. If you don’t like that, try Miss le Roux. Those are the only two acceptable options. Are we all clear?’

I wondered fleetingly why she needed a bodyguard.

Nobody said a word. Emma filled in the vacuum. ‘Lemmer is here because I asked him to be. I am here to find out whether Cobie de Villiers is my brother. That is all. And we shall do that with or without your help.’

12

Wolhuter raised a bony hand and slowly rubbed his goatee. Then his face eroded into a wary smile. ‘Emma,’ he said, with respect.

‘That’s right.’

‘You’re going to need that attitude. You have no idea what a wasp’s nest you’re sticking your head into.’

‘That’s what Inspector Jack Phatudi said too.’

Wolhuter gave Branca a meaningful look. Then he asked Emma, ‘When did you speak to him?’

‘This morning.’

‘What do you know about him?’

‘Nothing.’

Frank Wolhuter shifted his body forward and leaned his forearms on the desk. ‘Emma, I like you. But I see from your card that you are from Cape Town. This is another world from Cape Town. You won’t like me saying it, but let me tell you that Capetonians do not live in Africa. I know. Every year I go to Cape Town and it’s like visiting Europe.’

‘What has all this to do with Jacobus?’

‘I’ll get to that. First, let me paint you a picture of Limpopo, of the Lowveld, so you can understand the whole thing. This is still the old South Africa. No, that’s not entirely true. The mindset of everyone, black and white, is in the old regime, but all the problems are New South Africa. And that makes for an ugly combination. Racism and progress, hate and cooperation, suspicion and reconciliation … those things do not lie well together. And then there’s the money and the poverty, the greed.’

He picked up his pipe again, but did nothing with it.

‘You have no idea what’s going on here. Let me tell you about Inspector Jack Phatudi. He is from the Sibashwa tribe, important man, nephew to the chief. And by a mere coincidence the Sibashwa are in the middle of a big land claim. The acreage they want is part of the Kruger Park. And the Sibashwa are no great fans of Cobie de Villiers. Because Cobie is what some would call an activist. Not your usual greeny, your typical bunny-hugger. No. He doesn’t do protest marches or shout from a podium. He’s undercover, he’s quiet, he’s here and he’s there and you never see him. But he’s relentless, never gives up, never stops. He’ll listen, and he’ll eavesdrop, and he’ll take his pictures and make notes – and before you know it he knows everything. He’s the one with the evidence that the Sibashwa have already signed an agreement with a property developer. We’re talking hundreds of millions. So Cobie went and gave this information to the National Parks people and their lawyers, because he believed that if the Sibashwa’s land claim succeeded it would be the beginning of the end for Kruger. You can’t build a bunch of houses and think it’ll have no impact. You can’t …’

He cut himself short. ‘Don’t let me preach to you. The fact of the matter is, the Sibashwa don’t like Cobie. Even before this vulture affair he’s had trouble with them. Gin traps for leopards and wire snares for buck and their dogs forever running around and causing havoc. They know that it’s Cobie that reports them to the authorities, Cobie that shoots their dogs. They know him. They know what he’s like. That’s why they poisoned those vultures, because they knew someone would phone Cobie. It was an ambush. They wanted Cobie there so it would look as though he had shot those people, the sangoma and the poisoners. But it wasn’t Cobie. He couldn’t. He can’t kill anything.’