He knew nothing about banana farming, but Sannie and Elise were teaching him what they knew, and their neighbours were filling in the gaps. He’d thought they would eventually move to the coast — perhaps Durban or Cape Town — but Sannie had rejected both of those options. The longer he stayed, however, the more he thought of the farm as somewhere he could live, rather than just hide out.
‘When are you going to stop wearing this?’ Sannie asked, lifting the tail of his shirt which he habitually wore hanging out to hide the Glock in its holster.
‘You know when,’ he said.
Tom slept fitfully.
The electricity was out — again. Whether it was load-shedding or the failure of an ageing substation, he wouldn’t know until the morning, but either way it annoyed him. He had no regrets about moving to Africa, but it was sometimes not easy learning to live without things he took for granted in England.
A mosquito buzzed around his ears. No matter how often he slapped himself, he never hit it.
Sannie lay on her back, her chest rising and falling rhythmically. Her golden hair was in disarray, one bare leg sticking out from under the sheet. They had made love when they’d gone to bed. If she’d said she wanted to move to a malarial swamp in the upper reaches of the Amazon, he would have gone with her. He loved her.
He smacked his cheek again, swore quietly, then got up.
He padded on bare feet to the farmhouse’s kitchen. Instinctively he flicked the light switch, but nothing happened. He turned on the rechargeable battery-powered camping lantern on the bench. Inside the fridge was a bottle of water that was still cold. He poured a glass and moved to the window to drink it. He looked out over the seemingly endless rows of banana trees and marvelled at how his life had changed. For the better.
Roxy’s basket was empty. He wondered if she was off chasing a bush baby — one of the small, bushy-tailed primates that lived in the native trees near the house and cried like human babies most nights. But all was quiet.
Normally the big Rhodesian ridgeback was good at sensing movement, and would have been at the kitchen door, tail wagging, hoping for a midnight snack. She only barked at black people — a legacy of the former white owners of the farm who had trained her — but she was usually alert to anyone who was up and about after hours.
Tom took the keys from their hook inside the pantry and unlocked the door. He reached for a mosquito that had hitched a ride on his shoulder blade, missed and scratched. ‘Roxy?’ he called softly.
He walked along the verandah that surrounded the nineteen-fifties whitewashed house. He loved sitting out here with Sannie in the afternoons, watching over the rim of his beer glass the sun go down. He didn’t want to wake the children, but he was sure Roxy would find him by the time he reached Ilana’s bedroom.
He was about to turn back towards the kitchen, giving up on the stupid dog, when he saw the curtain.
Ilana’s window was open.
He lengthened his stride. The fabric hung limply out of the window. The sliding flyscreen should have been down, and the strut that held the window open latched firmly in place. Sannie checked it every night. She was more careful about protecting her children than her husband-to-be from insects.
Tom felt his heart beat faster. He held the curtain to one side and looked in.
‘Ilana!’
He retraced his steps and ran inside. Sannie already had her shorts on and was sitting on the bed pulling a T-shirt over her head when he entered the room. ‘What’s wrong, Tom? Did you call me?’
Tom moved to his side and pulled the Glock from under his pillow. As always, it was already racked. He took a breath. ‘Ilana’s gone.’
Sannie put a hand to her mouth. ‘My baby! Christo?’
‘He’s…’
‘Mommy? Where’s Ilana?’ Christo walked into their room. ‘She’s not in her bed.’
Tom saw the dawning fear and realisation on the little boy’s face. ‘Is it that man?’
Tom had his mobile phone out and was dialling a number. He held it up to his ear as Sannie opened her wardrobe and reached under a pile of winter jerseys. She slapped a magazine into the butt of her RAP 401 and cocked it.
‘Mommy?’
‘Mommy and Tom are going to look for Ilana, Christo. I want you to
…’
Elise walked into the bedroom, tying a robe in front.
Tom had the phone to his ear and was waiting for an answer. ‘Sannie, you’re not thinking straight. You stay here and look after Christo. I’ll get…’ He held up a hand to silence her protest. ‘Hello, Duncan? You’re awake already?’
Duncan Nyari had left his job as a guide at Tinga and was helping Tom and Sannie out on the farm, and running a small freelance tour business from the old manager’s house, where he now lived. ‘Birds making too much noise down the fence, Tom. Thought it might be that leopard that killed the dog on old Du Toit’s farm.’
Tom told him Ilana was gone and ordered him to come to the house to help him look for spoor.
‘ Yebo,’ Duncan replied. ‘I’ve got the shotgun.’
Sannie took Christo’s hand. ‘Come, put some clothes on, my boy.’
‘I have to get you to safety,’ Tom said. He dialled the emergency number for the police.
Sannie looked up at him. ‘I’ll take Mom and Christo to the Du Toits next door. Then I’m coming back to help you.’
Tom nodded. He didn’t want any of them out of his sight, but he and Duncan had to pick up the trail of whoever had taken Ilana. She was a happy little girl and he was under no illusions that she might simply have run away from home and would come back when she was hungry. Tom got through to the police and told them what had happened.
He walked outside with Sannie, Elise and Christo, and put them into the Land Rover. When he looked at the terror on the little boy’s face, he hated himself for bringing more misery to this family. No, his family. They were his responsibility now.
‘Call me when you get to the Du Toit farm and stay there, Sannie.’
The four-by-four blew diesel smoke as she started the engine and revved it. ‘Don’t tell me what to do. Once I’ve dropped Mom and Christo, I’m coming…’
Two shots from the darkness made Elise scream. Christo started to cry. The noise came from down the hill, away from the track that led to the main gate.
‘Go!’
The wheels spun for a second until the chunky tyres dug into the mud, and the Land Rover hurtled away from the house.
Tom had seen the footprints in the mud, but had not pointed them out to Sannie, in case she decided to send her mother off with Christo and join him on the hunt. He needed to know that they, at least, would live, even if he couldn’t save Ilana. Sannie wouldn’t think that way, though.
Tom raised his weapon and moved towards the noise, staying in the first few rows of banana trees rather than using the pathway. It didn’t take him long to find Roxy’s body. She lay on the path, her throat cut. The kidnapper must have lured her close — perhaps with food — and been ruffling her head, keeping her silent, when he cut her throat. Tom knew it was a white man. An Englishman.
Further along, he heard groaning from the grove on the other side of the path. ‘Duncan?’
‘Tom… I’ve been hit.’
‘Stay quiet; save your strength,’ Tom whispered.
He peered out from the banana trees and looked down the track. It seemed clear, and he sprinted from cover and slid in the mud to Duncan’s side. Duncan winced as Tom opened his bloodstained shirt. ‘Shoulder and gut.’ He pulled off his T-shirt and pressed it to Duncan’s stomach wound, which was the more serious of the injuries. ‘Hold this. I’ll call an ambulance.’
‘He… he has Ilana… He is a white man.’
‘I know. I’m going to get him.’
‘Tom… she was not moving. He was carrying her over his shoulder. I couldn’t get a clean shot.’
Tom nodded. He called the ambulance service and spoke quickly, quietly, to the operator, then hung up.
