acknowledged the salute of the doorman and went out into the sunshine.
Shasa did not keep an office in the parliament building, for the seven-storied Centaine House, the headquarters of the Courthey Mining and Finance Co. Ltd was just two minutes' walk across the !
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i llil iji gardens. As he strode along under the oaks he mentally changed hats, doffing his political topper for the businessman's Homburg.
Shasa kept his life in separate compartments, and he had trained himself to concentrate on each in its turn, without ever allowing his energy to dissipate by spreading it too thinly.
By the time he crossed the road in front of St George's cathedral and went into the revolving glass front door of Centaine House, he was thinking of finance and mining, juggling figures and choices, weighing factual reports against his own instincts, and enjoying the game of money as hugely as he had the rituals and confrontations on the floor of the houses of parliament.
The two pretty girls at the reception desk in the entrance lobby with its marbled floors and columns burst into radiant smiles.
'Good afternoon, Mr Courtney,' they chorused, and he devastated them with his smile as he crossed to the lifts. His reaction to them was instinctive; he liked pretty females around him, although he would never touch one of his own people. Somehow that would have been incestuous, and unsporting for they would not have been able to refuse him, too much like shooting a sitting bird. Still the two young females at the desk sighed and rolled their eyes as the lift doors closed on him.
Janet, his secretary, had heard the lift and was waiting as the doors opened. She was more Shasa's type - mature and poised, groomed and efficient, and though she made little attempt to conceal her adoration, Shasa's self-imposed rules prevailed here also.
'What have we got, Janet.'?' he demanded, and as she followed him across the ante-chamber to his own office, she read off his appointments for the rest of the afternoon.
He went first to the ticker-tape in the corner and ran the closing prices through his fingers. Anglos had dropped two shillings, it was almost time to buy again.
'Ring Allen and put him off. I'm not ready for him yet,' he told Janet and went to his desk. 'Give me fifteen minutes and then get David Abrahams on the phone.' As she left the room Shasa settled to the pile of telex sheets and urgent messages that she had left on his blotter. He worked swiftly through them, undistracted by the magnificent view of Table Mountain through the window on the opposite wall, and when one of the phones rang he was ready for David.
'Hello, Davie, what's happening in Jo'burg?' It was a rhetorical question, he knew what was happening and what he was going to do about it. The daily reports and estimates were amongst the pile on his desk, but he listened carefully to David's rsum& David was group managingldirector. He had been with Shasa since varsity days and he was a close to Shasa as no other person, with the exception of Centaine, had come.
Although the H'am diamond mine near Windhoek in the north was still the fountainhead of the company's prosperity, and had been for the thirty-two years since Centaine Courtney had discovered it, under Shasa's direction the company had expanded and diversified until he had been forced to move the executive headquarters from Windhoek to Johannesburg. Johannesburg was the commercial centre of the country and the move was inevitable, but Johannesburg was also a bleak, heartless and unattractive city. Centaine CourtneyMalcomess refused to leave the beautiful Cape of Good Hope to live there, so the company's financial and administrative headquarters remained in Cape Town. It was a clumsy and costly duplication, but.
Centaine always got her way. Moreover, it was convenient for Shasa to be so close to parliament and as he loved the Cape as much as she did, he did not try to change her mind.
Shasa and David spoke for ten minutes before Shasa said, 'Right, we can't decide on this on the phone. I'll come up to you.' 'When?' 'Tomorrow afternoon. Sean has a rugby match at ten in the morning. I can't miss it. I promised him.' David was silent a moment as he considered the relative importance of a schoolboy's sporting achievement against the possible investment of something over ten million pounds in the development of the company's options on the new Orange Free State goldfields.
'Give me a ring before you take off,' David agreed with resignation. 'I'll meet you at the airfield myself.' Shasa hung up and checked his wristwatch. He wanted to get back to Weltevreden in time to spend an hour with the children before their bath and dinner. He could finish his work after his own dinner.
He began to pack the remaining papers on his desk into his black crocodile-skin Herm6s briefcase, when Janet tapped on the interleading door and came into his office.
'I'm sorry, sir. This has just been delivered by hand. A parliamentary messenger, and he said it was very urgent.' Shasa took the heavy-quality envelope from her. It was the type of expensive stationery reserved for use by members of the cabinet and the flap was embossed with the coat of arms of the Union, the quartered shield and rampant antelopes supporting it with the motto in the ribbon beneath Ex Unitate Vires - Strength through Unity.
'Thank you, Janet.' He broke the flap with his thumb and took out a single sheet of notepaper. It was headed: 'Office of the Minister of Police', and the message was handwritten in Afrikaans.
Dear Mr Courtney, Knowing of your interest in hunting, an important personage has asked me to invite you to a springbok hunt on his ranch over the coming weekend. There is an airstrip on the property and the coordinates are as follows: 28o32'S 26o16'E.
I can assure you of good sport and interesting company. Please let me know if you are able to attend.
Sincerely, Manfred De La Rey.
Shasa grinned and whistled softly through his teeth as he went to the large-scale map on the wall and checked the coordinates. The note amounted to a summons, and he could guess at the identity of the important personage. He saw that the ranch was in the Orange Free State just south of the goldfields at Welkom, and it would mean only a minor detour off his return course from Johannesburg to reach it.
'I wonder what they are up to now,' he mused, and he felt a prickle of anticipation. It was the kind of mystery he thoroughly enjoyed, and he scribbled a reply on a sheet of his personal notepaper.
