Deon Meyer - Blood Safari

And that led me to wonder whether Emma still believed the Cobie de Villiers of Heuningklip and Mogale was one and the same person as Jacobus le Roux. On what grounds? I tried to weigh the compulsion to track down a lost brother against the evidence of the day and came to only one conclusion – her hopes must be dashed. The evidence was against it. But then, I was an objective bystander.

Emma was no Melanie Posthumus. She was smart. She stood up for herself. I respected her perseverance, her relentless crusade to reveal the truth, to ‘know for sure’, as she repeatedly said. But could she see the truth when it was right in front of her nose? Could she take a step back and evaluate the facts without emotion?

Emma slept while I answered Jeanette Louw’s daily ‘ALL OK?’ SMS with one hand. I would have liked to add ‘except for my client’s grasp of reality’ to my ‘ALL OK’, but Body Armour’s code of conduct didn’t provide for that.

Emma didn’t wake when I stopped in front of the Bateleur suite in the Mohlolobe Game Reserve at three in the morning. She was a vulnerable figure in the front passenger seat: tiny, silent, asleep.

I got out, unlocked the suite and turned on the lights. The door had been repaired, the lamp replaced and there was a giant bowl of fruit, chocolate and champagne on the table in the sitting room. I walked around checking the rooms inside, then outside, testing all the windows. Back at the car, Emma was still asleep.

I didn’t want to wake her. Nor did I wish to spend the night in the car.

I stood looking down at her for a long time and then quietly opened her door and gently picked her up, her head against my neck, one of my arms around her back, the other behind her knees. She was as light as a child. I felt her easy breathing against my skin and smelled the blend of her body scents.

I carried her up the steps, and when I took her into her room, she whispered in my ear, ‘The other room.’ I saw that her eyes were still closed. I turned and went into my bedroom. I put her gently down on my single bed and pulled back the covers of the other. Picked her up again, put her in her own bed and pulled off her shoes. Covered her with the duvet.

Just before I turned away to go and lock the car, I caught a glimpse of the very faintest smile of contentment on Emma le Roux’s face. Like a woman who has won the argument.

16

At eight in the morning, I was sitting outside on the veranda drinking coffee when Emma appeared, wrapped up in the complimentary white bathrobe, her hair still wet from the shower.

‘Morning, Lemmer.’ The musical tones were back in her voice. She sat on the chair beside me.

‘Morning, Emma. Coffee?’

‘I’ll get some in a moment, thanks.’

The flaps of the bathrobe slid back to expose her tanned knees. I concentrated on the animals that I had been watching. ‘Baboons,’ I said, pointing at the troop on the opposite riverbank on their way to water. The males, like bodyguards, kept watch over the females and little ones.

‘I see them.’

I drank my coffee.

‘Lemmer …’

I looked at her. The idea that she might be wearing nothing under the bathrobe interfered with my concentration.

‘I’m sorry about yesterday.’

‘No apology necessary.’

‘It is. It was wrong and I’m sorry.’

‘Forget about it. It was a rough day, with the snake and everything.’

‘I can’t use that as an excuse. You were irreproachably professional and I respect that.’

I couldn’t look at her. The irreproachably professional bodyguard was battling his imagination, which had inexplicably crept under the soft white towelling of the bathrobe.

There are certain things you will wonder about your entire life, because you can’t discuss them with anyone out of fear of being branded a pervert. Like the fact that I was sitting beside her on the veranda, visualising her pubic area. That abrupt triangle of fine, dark brown curls below the smooth brown skin of her belly. All that was necessary was to reach out my hand and lift the flap of the robe and there it would be, as damp as her head, a tropical shell smelling of soap and of Emma as I had breathed it in the previous night. I focused on the baboons, feeling guilty, and wondered whether just men were like this, whether a woman, in similar circumstances, could be capable of this degree of banality.

‘Apology accepted.’

It was some time before she spoke again. ‘I was thinking … if you don’t mind, let’s stay another day. We can do the game drive tonight, have a good meal. And go home tomorrow.’

‘That’s fine.’ Had she seen the light?

‘I’ll pay you for the whole week regardless.’

‘Jeanette does the contracts.’

‘I’ll call her.’

I nodded.

‘Let’s go and get a decent breakfast.’

‘Good idea,’ I agreed.

I was waiting for Emma on the veranda when I heard her call me with excitement in her voice. I rose and found her in the sitting room holding her cell phone.

‘Listen to this,’ she said. ‘Let me play it for you again.’ She pressed buttons on the mobile, listened to it against her ear and passed it to me.

‘You have one saved message,’ the voicemail intoned, and then a familiar voice spoke. ‘Emma, this is Frank Wolhuter. I believe you were right, I found something. Call me, please, when you get this message.’

‘Interesting,’ I said, and gave the phone back to her.

‘That must have been last night, when we were with Melanie. I phoned but there’s no answer. Do we have a phone book here?’

‘In the drawer of the bedside table. I’ll get it.’

Back in the sitting room, we looked up the number of the Mogale Rehabilitation Centre and called. It was a long time before someone picked up and Emma said, ‘May I speak to Frank Wolhuter, please?’

A man spoke over the connection. I couldn’t hear the words, but Emma’s face registered shock and she said, ‘Oh my goodness,’ and moments later, ‘Oh no,’ and, ‘I’m so sorry. Thank you. Oh my word. Goodbye,’ and she slowly lowered the phone to her lap.

‘Frank Wolhuter is dead.’

Before I could respond, she added, ‘They found him in the lion camp early this morning.’

We didn’t have that breakfast. Instead we drove to Mogale. On the way, Emma said, ‘This is no coincidence, Lemmer.’

I had expected her to say that. It was a bit early to make assumptions.

Ten kilometres from Mogale’s gate an ambulance passed us going in the other direction without lights or a siren. At the rehabilitation centre there were four police vehicles and a handwritten notice on a sheet of cardboard: ‘We are closed to the public until further notice.’ A uniformed constable guarded the gate at the auditorium.

‘They are closed,’ the constable informed us.

‘Who’s in charge?’ asked Emma.

‘Inspector Phatudi.’

‘Ah.’ Caught off balance for a second. ‘Could you please tell him Emma le Roux is here to see him?’

‘I cannot leave my post.’

‘Can I go in? I have information for him.’

‘No. You must wait.’

She hesitated and then turned and went back to the BMW, which was parked under the roof next to the ‘Visitors: Please park here’ sign. She stood at the front of the car and folded her arms over her bosom. I went and stood beside her.

‘Do you know the police, Lemmer?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Do you know how their ranks work?’

‘Sort of,’ I lied.

‘How senior is an inspector?’

‘Not very. It’s above a sergeant and below a captain.’

‘So Phatudi isn’t the chief?’

‘Of the police?’

‘No! Of Serious Crimes.’

‘No. That would be a senior superintendent, or a director.’