people in South Africa still believed having sex with a virgin was a way to cure HIV-AIDS. Sannie sniffled back the tears before they came; she had to be strong. She’d asked herself, over and over, what she would say to Tom if he called. Part of her wanted to do exactly what the kidnapper said — to get him to drop his foolish quest. However, the very demands the man had made on the phone confirmed that Tom was on the right trail, and dangerously close to whoever was behind this bizarre plot. The other part of her — the veteran police officer who had faced bullets and death in the line of duty — wanted to find these men and arrest them.
No. Find them and kill them.
Sannie peeked through the door at Wessels, who was now snoring in front of the TV, which was tuned to the sports channel. A golf tournament had put him to sleep. She picked up her handbag, and took the cordless phone from its cradle and walked outside into the yard. It was just after eleven and she shielded her eyes with her free hand against the sun’s glare.
‘South African Airways, good day,’ said the female operator.
‘Hi. I need to make a booking, please. What time is your first flight to Lilongwe, Malawi?’
Inside the house again she went to her bedroom, stripped off the blouse, pants and boots she’d been wearing for nearly twenty-four hours, and stepped into the ensuite to shower. She took only a few minutes to wash and then dress. She selected a short-sleeve khaki bush shirt and matching trousers and hiking boots. From the closet she fetched her gym bag and packed it.
Wessels stirred as Sannie walked back out into the lounge room. He yawned. ‘What are you up to?’
‘I know it sounds crazy, but I’m going to the gym, Henk. I think some exercise might help me. I’ll only be gone an hour and I’ve got my cell phone.’
He rubbed his stubbled chin and then stretched his arms. ‘ Ja, a workout might help relieve the stress. I’ll stay here until you get back and then I’ll have to go into the office. A couple of detectives will be here soon to stay with you — in case he calls again.’
‘Okay, see you.’ She walked out quickly, before he twigged that hiking boots weren’t the most normal thing to wear to the gym.
In the garage Sannie shifted some boxes — mostly Christo’s old stuff — and found his diving gear in a tin trunk. She rummaged through the mask, fins and life vests until her hand closed around the solid length of the weapon. She lifted the diving knife free of the clutter and unsheathed it. The stainless-steel blade was nearly thirty centimetres long. Razor sharp on one side — she remembered how he used to test it by shaving the hairs on his forearms, which always made her shiver — and wickedly serrated on the other. It glittered in the pale dawn light coming through the window. There was no way she would get on to a commercial flight with her police-issue pistol unless she had the paperwork to prove she was on official business. But she wasn’t going into their lair unarmed. She carefully replaced the knife in the stout plastic scabbard and buried it at the bottom of her bag, under the lift- out semi-rigid piece of vinyl covered card that kept the bag’s shape. If her bag was inspected by customs when she got to Malawi, a woman carrying a diving knife but no scuba gear might provoke questions and she didn’t want to be delayed. She zipped the bag shut and got in the car.
So far on his trip Tom had only called in the evenings and she knew he wouldn’t bother trying again until tonight. He would be at Cape Maclear long before then. She only hoped she could beat him there. She started the car and opened the security gate.
30
The turquoise waters of the lake were fringed by a long white crescent of sand that stretched away as far as Tom could see. The beachfront here was not overdeveloped, as it had been at Senga Bay.
Instead of midrange concrete hotels, there were backpacker joints consisting of sandy camping sites and simple reed and thatch bungalows and, closer to the national park at Cape Maclear, at one end of the beach, were the holiday houses of Malawi’s wealthy minority and expatriate investors.
He wore a cap pulled low down over his eyes, a pair of sunglasses and his board shorts. Despite the liberal smearing of sunscreen he’d applied, he could feel his back burning in the midday sun. If he looked like a silly white tourist, all the better, he thought. He strolled along the water’s edge, politely but persistently waving away the diminishing gaggle of touts who trailed him down the beach.
‘You want souvenir, Mr? Painting? Wood carving?’
‘No thank you.’
‘You want dagga, Mr? Malawi Gold?’
‘Definitely not, thank you.’
‘You want girl, Mr?’
And so it went on. Eventually, he hoped, they would tire of him.
The camping ground where he’d parked the Land Rover was typical of the others he’d passed. Each was separated from its neighbours by a flimsy U-shaped fence of woven reed, with the side facing the beach left open, to allow the guests to enjoy the view and, presumably, the touts to ply their trade uninterrupted.
A pair of bronzed girls with Australian accents sat together on sarongs smoking and chatting as an African girl threaded beads into their hair and braided it. It was a good look on black women, Tom thought, but he wasn’t sure how it would go down in Sydney.
Further along the beach, half-a-dozen tourists in wetsuits and masks waded into the clear water and squatted to put on their fins. The South African dive master went from person to person, helping them through the ungainly manoeuvre.
Out on the water a fibreglass speedboat sent up a fantail of spray in a tight turn which the water-skier behind couldn’t handle. With a squeal she went skidding off, hitting the surface with a painful-sounding slap. Tom shook his head.
Beyond the ski boat, which was returning to pick up the now-laughing girl, was an island that looked like a clump of granite boulders, topped with tall trees. A pair of fish eagles, their distinctive white heads and red-brown bodies standing out plainly from the dark foliage, watched the waters for their next meal.
From what he’d seen on posters in the campsites and hotels, and learned from the touts who persisted with him, the lake was home to myriad brightly hued tropical fish called cichlids. If he’d been here on holiday he would have gone snorkelling or diving, but he was searching for something else — a house with a bougainvillea-covered archway leading to the beach and lake.
As Tom neared Cape Maclear itself he noticed that the houses became larger, grander and better kept. Most, he guessed, dated back to the sixties and the height of British colonialism in what was then known as Nyasaland. As such, they tended to be single-storey villas, with whitewashed rendered facades. The current owners, whoever they were, had maintained neatly trimmed lawns and gardens. It was, he supposed, what passed for millionaire’s row in a dirt-poor country. He also noticed fewer touts — even his own entourage had dwindled to one persistent teenager. When a blue-uniformed security guard stepped from a lawn onto the white sand, the boy turned quietly and walked back along the beach.
Ahead of him he could see a fence and sign marking the end of the public beach and the beginning of Cape Maclear National Park. From his enquiries at the campsite he had learned that to enter the national park one had to go inland a little way to the road that led to the point. Beyond the fence the shoreline was pristine bush and boulders, the latter perfect for diving off and snorkelling amid. A pair of guards sauntered onto the beach from another villa and Tom slowed his step. He yawned and stretched, and then turned and waded into the water. Leaving his cap and sunglasses on, he started breaststroking out towards the middle of the lake. When he had covered about fifty metres he turned and floated on his back. Looking towards the shoreline, he now had a better view of the fronts of the line of villas leading to the park boundary.
Near the end of the row Tom saw a trimmed hedge, about the height of an average-sized man, which obscured the view of a house. Above the hedge was a glittering coil of razor wire, which meant that behind the shrubbery there was a security fence, perhaps electrified. What interested him most, however, was the gate in the centre of the hedge, in which a security guard stood. Framing the man was a lattice covered with red bougainvillea. Slowly he turned on his side and started swimming back the way he’d come.
On the beach, a hundred metres further down, he emerged from the water to be greeted by the dogged
