I accelerated gradually. I didn’t want Emma to know yet.
The road to Klaserie was straight and wide. Beyond 130 kilometres per hour the Astra dwindled, but then it began to close the gap. Past 150 and it was still there.
‘We’ll have to go through Nelspruit to Barberton and then take the R38,’ Emma said, deep in thought. ‘That seems to be the shortest route.’ She looked up and said, ‘We’re not in that much of a hurry.’
I lifted my foot from the accelerator. I knew what I needed to know.
She looked across at me. ‘Are you OK, Lemmer?’
‘I wanted to see what the BMW could do.’
She nodded, trusting me, and began folding the map.
‘What did you think of Wolhuter and Branca?’
Even if there hadn’t been an armed threat on our heels, that would not have been my topic of choice. I didn’t like Wolhuter and company. There is a Lemmer Law that states that he who needs to say ‘I’m no racist, but…’ is one. I knew for a fact that Wolhuter and Branca hadn’t told her everything they knew and I didn’t want to be the one to break that news to her. In my humble opinion, the Mogale Rehabilitation Centre was an ecological rearrangement of the deckchairs on the
I had to deal with the Astra problem, and that meant telling her about it.
‘Emma, I’m going to have to do something and I am going to need your help.’ I kept my voice even.
‘Oh?’
‘But please, you must do exactly as I ask, without hesitation and without question. Do you understand me?’
She wasn’t stupid. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked in an anxious tone, and then she looked back. She spotted the Astra. ‘Are they following us?’
‘The other thing you must do is stay calm. Breathing helps. Breathe slowly and deeply.’
‘Lemmer, what’s going on?’
Calmly and slowly, I said, ‘Listen to me. Stay calm.’
‘I am calm.’
Arguing would be no help. ‘I know you are, but I want you to be even more calm. As calm as … as a cucumber.’ Not very original. ‘Or a tomato, or a lettuce leaf or something,’ I said, and that worked.
She laughed, short and nervously. ‘I think that’s the longest sentence you’ve spoken to me yet.’ Her anxiety had diminished. She took a deep breath. ‘I’m OK. What’s going on?’
‘The Astra has been behind us since the gate at Mogale. Don’t look back again. I’ll have to deal with it. Shaking them off isn’t an option. Opels can keep up and I don’t know the roads that well.’
‘Go to the police.’ So easy. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
‘We could, but the nearest police station is sixty kilometres away. And what would we say to them? What complaint would we have? The problem is, the passenger behind us has a rifle with him. An R4. He went to the trouble of showing it to us. That has me thinking why – and I don’t like any of the possible answers. The best thing I can do is to take the gun away from him. Then we can hear their story. But in order to do that, you must help me by doing what I ask. OK?’
Her reaction was not the one I expected.
‘Why is it that you can talk now, Lemmer?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘For two days you pretend to be this silent, stupid type with nothing to say and no conversation, and now it comes pouring out of you.’
Silent and stupid. I’ll have to suck it up.
‘There I was, crying in front of you last night, and you sat there like a brick wall.’
‘Maybe this isn’t the best time …’
‘A builder? You can tell Wolhuter, but not me?’ Bitterly.
‘Can we talk about this later?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Thank you.’
She did not react, just stared at the road.
‘There’s a filling station up ahead. We passed it this morning. If I remember correctly, there’s a cafe too. I’m going to stop at the petrol pumps and we’re going to get out and walk straight into the cafe. Not too fast, not too slow. Briskly, like people in a bit of a hurry. Right?’
‘OK.’
‘The important thing is that we must not look at the Astra. Not even glance.’
She didn’t respond.
‘Emma?’
‘I won’t look.’
‘You must wait for me in the cafe. Stay there until I get back. That’s very important.’
‘Why in there?’
‘Because it’s a brick building that will shield you from a bullet. It’s public. There’ll be other people around.’
She nodded. She was tense.
I took my cell phone out of my pocket. ‘Type in your number. Call your phone.’
She took it and typed the number.
‘Press “call”.’
It took a while before her phone rang.
‘You can hang up now.’
I took my phone back and put it in my pocket.
‘I didn’t have your number.’
‘Oh.’
‘Remember the breathing. Remember the cucumber,’ I said. Then I spotted the petrol station and put on the flicker.
She didn’t look for the Astra, despite what I’m certain was a strong temptation to do so. Together, we walked up the stairs to the cafe and went inside. There were three customers and a short fat woman behind the counter. The place smelled like salt and vinegar.
‘Stay near the back.’ I pointed at the corner where the drink fridges stood. A stopwatch was ticking in my head.
Thirty seconds.
I looked for the back door. A white wood partition allowed access to a small kitchen where a black woman was slicing tomatoes. She looked up in surprise. I put a finger to my lips and walked past her to the wooden door that I hoped led outside. I turned the knob and it swung open.
Outside, there were four or five cars in various stages of decay or repair. Two men stood at the open bonnet of one. They heard my footsteps as I passed them on the way to the edge of the mopane forest beyond.
‘The toilet is that way,’ one of them called.
I stuck a thumb in the air, but kept on without looking back, not rushing but focused. It was oppressively hot in the bright sun.
One minute.
They must not see me from the Astra, which was all that mattered. The garage and cafe buildings were between us.
I reached the treeline, walked another twenty metres straight on and then looked around for the first time. The bush was dense; I was invisible. I turned ninety degrees to the right and began to run. My foot burned where the glass shard had sliced it the previous night. There wasn’t much time. Hopefully, R4 and his mate had stopped. They would consider the situation and make a decision. The logical one would be to wait a while. Four, five, six minutes, to see whether we came out. That was all the time I had.
I ran far enough that the building would no longer hide the Astra. I turned right again, towards the road.
