‘That’s what he said.’
‘Does he still have relations there?’
Wolhuter sank back into the chair. ‘Not that I know of. I sort of had the impression that he was an orphan. Donnie? Did he ever speak of his people?’
‘I don’t know. You know Cobie. Not a great talker.’
‘Where in Swaziland?’
Wolhuter shook his head. ‘Emma, you have to understand. We don’t ask people for their CVs when they come and work here. Most of them are temporary. There’s always an oversupply of volunteers. They do the tour and get all bright eyed, especially the young people and the tourists. It’s a peculiar thing; I think the churches see a lot of it. From the start I say board and lodging is on the house, but no pay. You work for the cause and we see how it goes. We need the extra hands, but they don’t last. Two months or so of sweeping bird shit out of the cages and dragging stinking carcasses out to the vulture restaurant and their eyes stop shining, the excuses begin and they move on. But not Cobie. He was here three, four days and I knew he would stay.’
‘Did you ask for a CV?’
‘For a job that pays nothing?’
‘Did he work for six years without salary?’
Wolhuter laughed. ‘Of course not. By the time we put him on the payroll, I knew him. A man’s character tells you more than a CV.’
‘Where was he before he started work here?’
‘He worked for a man near the Swazi border. Heuningrand.’
‘Heuningklip,’ said Branca. ‘Stefan Moller’s. Stef. Multimillionaire, but he does fantastic work.’
‘What sort of work?’
Wolhuter looked at Branca. ‘You know more than I do, Donnie.’
Branca shrugged. ‘There was this article in
‘Jacobus helped with that?’
‘So far as I could tell.’ Branca shrugged again. ‘Cobie’s a broad-strokes kind of guy. He just said he was there.’
‘What else did he say?’
After an uncomfortable silence it was Wolhuter who tried to explain. ‘Emma, I don’t know how you do things in Cape Town, but here we respect a man’s right to keep his business to himself. Or not. Donnie and I are different. We’re talkers. Sometimes I get sick of hearing my own stories. I was a game warden for Natal Parks Board all my life, and if you would come and sit by the fire with me tonight I would tell you stories until the sun came up. Donnie’s people are from Portuguese Mozambique, and that’s an interesting history. Donnie tells it beautifully. But Cobie’s different. He’ll sit there and if I’m telling stories about animals he’ll soak up every word. Then he asks questions about it, non-stop, to the point of rudeness. Like he wants to suck you dry, hear everything, learn everything. When we talk about other things he switches off, just gets up and goes. He’s just not interested. It took me a long time to get used to that. We all tell stories about ourselves – most of us. It’s how we tell the world who we are, or who we would like to be. But not Cobie. He doesn’t really care how people see him, or don’t see him. He lives in a narrow world … one-dimensional… and people are not part of that dimension.’
‘Cobie doesn’t like the concept of people,’ said Branca.
Emma waited for him to explain.
‘He calls humanity the greatest plague the planet has ever known. He says there are too many people, but that’s not the real problem. He says that if a man must choose between wealth and conservation, wealth will always win. We will always over-exploit, we will never be cured.’
‘That’s why we know so little about Cobie. I can tell you he grew up somewhere in Swaziland; I think his father was a farmer, because now and then he mentions a farm. I know he only has Matric. And he worked for Stef Moller before he came here. That’s all I know of his history.’
‘And there was a girlfriend,’ Branca said.
That made Emma sit up. ‘A girlfriend? Where?’
‘When he worked at Stef s. He said something once …’
‘How do I get to Stef Moller’s?’
13
The barrel of a gun changes everything.
It was quiet in the car when we drove away from Wolhuter and Branca. I pondered the way Emma le Roux had spoken just before we left. She had smoothly and expertly explained their mistake in brand positioning – no hesitant, incomplete sentences, no break in rhythm. With that lovely musical voice and the light of assurance shining in her eyes she had told them that Donnie Branca’s lecture to the public was outstanding, but it had one great failing. If they put that right the donations would increase considerably.
That got their attention right away.
She explained how branding worked, brand name positioning. Every product represents an idea in the mind of a client, a single concept. Take vehicle manufacturers: one occupies the position of ‘safety’ – Volvo. One occupies ‘driving pleasure’ – BMW. One represents ‘reliability’ – Toyota. But no brand name can have more than one position. The human mind does not allow it. When a brand tries that, it fails, without exception.
At Mogale, she had said with knowledgeable enthusiasm, the same principle applied. Vulture rehabilitation was perfect. It was original, unique, strong, fresh, decidedly different – everything required for strong positioning. Branca’s lecture was the perfect pitch – it entertained, educated, was emotional, and spoke straight to people’s hearts. Until he mentioned the other animals, the cheetahs, wildcats, leopards and wild dogs. Then, Mogale became just another brand trying to be everything to everyone.
‘You have two choices. Give the mammal programmes another brand name, or leave them out of the lecture entirely. You make the donors soft on vultures. They sit there thinking, “How much can I give to this amazing cause?” but then you go and multiply their choices suddenly, for no reason, and they don’t know how their money will be spent. If this was my concern, I would shift the other animals out, away from the raptors, set up another centre with another name, where the lecture and the tour focus on one species only.’
On the way out I considered it confirmation of my suspicion that she was – lying is not the exact word – about the other stuff, the attack, Jacobus.
It was my job for twenty years to spot threatening behaviour in people. The best indicator of that was a break in rhythm. Someone out of step with the flow of a crowd, someone whose breathing, movement or facial musculature danced to a different tune. The rhythms of speech – everyone has their own, but when there were great and sudden changes, it meant tension and stress, the bosom buddies of the lie.
Why she should lie, and about what, I could only speculate. People have many inexplicable, complex or simple reasons to lie. Sometimes they do it simply because they can. But Emma needed a motive.
The next item to occupy my mind was the formulation of a new Lemmer Law on Animal Fanatics, but I never got that far. When we drove out of Mogale’s gate the silver Opel Astra was parked across the road, noticeably and blatantly waiting for us.
There were two men in it, a black man in the driver’s seat, a white man in the passenger’s. But it was the barrel of a rifle that got my adrenalin pumping. It was propped vertically in front of the passenger, the barrel obscuring his face. The shape of the sight and muzzle identified it as an R4.
Emma was occupied with the road map, so she didn’t see them.
The firearm is the bodyguard’s single biggest problem; the unarmed bodyguard’s greatest fear. But that wasn’t my only concern. There was the possibility that I was wrong about Emma, about the threat, about her relationship with the truth. That had to wait, however.
I turned on to the tar road and drove off. In the rear-view mirror the Astra followed. No discretion. Two hundred metres behind us. A bad sign.
