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.
‘He can carry between two and three times his own body weight in his jaws. He needs to climb into a tree to eat his prey, otherwise lions and hyenas will steal it from him. This is the big male whose tracks we saw this afternoon on the road.’
‘Amazing,’ Tom whispered.
‘You’re very lucky,’ Sannie said. ‘Some people go their whole life without seeing a leopard.’
The cat walked backwards up the branch and hung the antelope’s carcass in a fork, wedging it there securely. He bit into its rump, his spotted face immediately stained red.
‘They kill by suffocation so that the prey does not make a noise and attract the other predators. The silent predator,’ Duncan said.
Tom lathered his body under the strong, stinging hot shower spray, washing away the African dust that had coated his skin. Despite the short time he’d spent in the afternoon sun, he noticed his arms and legs were already pinking up.
He reached across the ledge and grabbed his Castle. He’d liberated one from the mini-bar to drink while showering, which seemed an appropriately decadent thing to do in the five-star safari hideaway. He smiled as the cold lager ran down his throat in delicious contrast to the water on his body. It had, he thought, been a great day. Business travel for him usually meant moving from one hotel room to another. In the down time there were hotel restaurants and bars which were indistinguishable save for the language of the bar staff. The venues he’d had to advance were more often than not hotel conference rooms or function centres, or perhaps a school or a hospital — other favourite haunts of high-profile politicians. Never had he had an experience on a protection job as he’d had this afternoon. He could see the attraction now of protecting someone like Robert Greeves — even without the two beautiful women he’d also come into contact with.
Tom thought about Sannie and how vulnerable she’d seemed in the moment she’d mentioned going on holiday with her husband and kids. It was amazing that they’d both been thinking virtually the same thing at the same time. He sensed she was still brittle and shook his head at Nick’s insensitivity. Still, he could see how a ladies’ man like him would certainly consider it worth a try.
Carla Sykes had been all ears for Tom’s leopard story when Duncan had dropped them at the entrance to Tinga. He imagined she must hear guests talking about amazing game sightings every working day of her life, but she had seemed genuinely to be hanging on his words. She had laid a hand on his forearm and said, ‘You do realise how very, very lucky you’ve been tonight, Tom. I wonder how we’ll be able to top that experience?’
Flirty, no doubt. It was little wonder she and Nick had hit it off.
He dried and changed into chinos, brogues and a fresh shirt. He checked his watch. Seven-thirty. He opened the door of the suite.
‘Good evening, sir,’ said the uniformed African security guard and saluted him. The man held a torch as long as a night stick, and carried the real thing through a ring on his belt.
‘Evening,’ Tom said. He was impressed at the man’s punctuality. He’d followed the lodge’s rules and arranged for the guard to be at his accommodation at this time. As Carla had briefed him earlier, after dark the lodge encouraged guests only to move to and from the main building with a security escort. They obviously took the threat of encounters with nocturnal wildlife seriously. He didn’t know if Robert Greeves would expect an escort, but Tom felt a whole lot happier knowing there were people who knew the local scene available to perform this task. What would he, an Englishman in Africa, do if he and Greeves were bailed up by a leopard on the walkway? Draw his Glock and shoot it? He smiled at the thought and followed the man.
Sannie was already in the dining room, at a table for two, reading a paperback novel and sipping a glass of white wine. She had changed into jeans and a loose-fitting peasant top, and wore a necklace comprising a shell flanked by chunky wooden beads. She looked relaxed and fresh, and smiled at him when he walked in.
‘Sorry about the book,’ she said, putting it away in her handbag. ‘Too much time waiting around by myself in this job.’
‘I know exactly what you mean.’
‘I’ve already ordered wine, do you want some?’
He nodded and over a drink they talked through the remaining details of the joint ministerial visit — timings, routes, vehicles, communications, and recapped the emergency plan. After discussing business and over a meal of marinated kudu steaks — a bigger type of antelope than the leopard’s meal they had seen earlier, Sannie explained — she talked about her kids and asked him why he and Alex had never had any.
‘It didn’t start out as a conscious decision. It was the job at first, for both of us. She was a doctor — an intern when I met her — and we were both working crazy hours. When I went to what was then known as Special Branch, a lot of my work was undercover or on surveillance, back when the IRA was our main threat. We got used to going abroad for our holidays — spending our wages on ourselves — so I suppose we both eventually agreed children wouldn’t really fit us.’
‘Do you regret it now, now she’s gone?’
He shrugged. ‘I would have liked to have had a reminder of her, I suppose, but I don’t know if that’s a good enough reason to have children.’
‘It was for me.’ Sannie frowned then sipped more wine to hide her sorrow.
He wanted to reach out and hold her hand at that moment, but he didn’t. He knew his attraction to her was growing by the minute, but there were plenty of reasons not to follow his instincts. Firstly, he told himself, it was unprofessional. He told himself, too, that he should still be feeling guilty, even though Alex had been gone more than a year. Thirdly — and if he was honest, most importantly — he didn’t want to do anything too soon which could jeopardise what might just be growing between them. He didn’t want her to think he was using their shared experiences as a pick-up routine.
After dinner Carla joined them for drinks. She had flitted from table to table during the evening meal, ensuring
