‘I can’t use that as an excuse. You were irreproachably professional and I respect that.’
I couldn’t look at her. The irreproachably professional bodyguard was battling his imagination, which had inexplicably crept under the soft white towelling of the bathrobe.
There are certain things you will wonder about your entire life, because you can’t discuss them with anyone out of fear of being branded a pervert. Like the fact that I was sitting beside her on the veranda, visualising her pubic area. That abrupt triangle of fine, dark brown curls below the smooth brown skin of her belly. All that was necessary was to reach out my hand and lift the flap of the robe and there it would be, as damp as her head, a tropical shell smelling of soap and of Emma as I had breathed it in the previous night. I focused on the baboons, feeling guilty, and wondered whether just men were like this, whether a woman, in similar circumstances, could be capable of this degree of banality.
‘Apology accepted.’
It was some time before she spoke again. ‘I was thinking … if you don’t mind, let’s stay another day. We can do the game drive tonight, have a good meal. And go home tomorrow.’
‘That’s fine.’ Had she seen the light?
‘I’ll pay you for the whole week regardless.’
‘Jeanette does the contracts.’
‘I’ll call her.’
I nodded.
‘Let’s go and get a decent breakfast.’
‘Good idea,’ I agreed.
I was waiting for Emma on the veranda when I heard her call me with excitement in her voice. I rose and found her in the sitting room holding her cell phone.
‘Listen to this,’ she said. ‘Let me play it for you again.’ She pressed buttons on the mobile, listened to it against her ear and passed it to me.
‘You have one saved message,’ the voicemail intoned, and then a familiar voice spoke. ‘Emma, this is Frank Wolhuter. I believe you were right, I found something. Call me, please, when you get this message.’
‘Interesting,’ I said, and gave the phone back to her.
‘That must have been last night, when we were with Melanie. I phoned but there’s no answer. Do we have a phone book here?’
‘In the drawer of the bedside table. I’ll get it.’
Back in the sitting room, we looked up the number of the Mogale Rehabilitation Centre and called. It was a long time before someone picked up and Emma said, ‘May I speak to Frank Wolhuter, please?’
A man spoke over the connection. I couldn’t hear the words, but Emma’s face registered shock and she said, ‘Oh my goodness,’ and moments later, ‘Oh no,’ and, ‘I’m so sorry. Thank you. Oh my word. Goodbye,’ and she slowly lowered the phone to her lap.
‘Frank Wolhuter is dead.’
Before I could respond, she added, ‘They found him in the lion camp early this morning.’
We didn’t have that breakfast. Instead we drove to Mogale. On the way, Emma said, ‘This is no coincidence, Lemmer.’
I had expected her to say that. It was a bit early to make assumptions.
Ten kilometres from Mogale’s gate an ambulance passed us going in the other direction without lights or a siren. At the rehabilitation centre there were four police vehicles and a handwritten notice on a sheet of cardboard: ‘We are closed to the public until further notice.’ A uniformed constable guarded the gate at the auditorium.
‘They are closed,’ the constable informed us.
‘Who’s in charge?’ asked Emma.
‘Inspector Phatudi.’
‘Ah.’ Caught off balance for a second. ‘Could you please tell him Emma le Roux is here to see him?’
‘I cannot leave my post.’
‘Can I go in? I have information for him.’
‘No. You must wait.’
She hesitated and then turned and went back to the BMW, which was parked under the roof next to the ‘Visitors: Please park here’ sign. She stood at the front of the car and folded her arms over her bosom. I went and stood beside her.
‘Do you know the police, Lemmer?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you know how their ranks work?’
‘Sort of,’ I lied.
‘How senior is an inspector?’
‘Not very. It’s above a sergeant and below a captain.’
‘So Phatudi isn’t the chief?’
‘Of the police?’
‘No! Of Serious Crimes.’
‘No. That would be a senior superintendent, or a director.’
‘Oh.’ Satisfied.
She nodded. We waited in the heat until it became unbearable. Then we climbed into the BMW, switched on the engine and the air conditioner. After a quarter of an hour the engine began to get hot. I turned it off and we rolled down the windows. We repeated this sequence for an hour until the uniform from the gate approached and said, ‘The inspector is coming.’
We got out.
Phatudi emerged from the auditorium accompanied by our two shadows from the day before – the black sergeant and the white constable with the broken nose. He wore a white plastic strip across his nose and both eyes were purple. Neither one of them was happy to see us.
Emma went up to greet Phatudi, but he held up a hand and scowled. ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’
Her reaction took us all by surprise. She lost her temper. Later, I would consider this piece of her personality jigsaw puzzle and come to the conclusion that it was her way of dealing with stress – a spectacular short circuit when the wires were overloaded, as they had been the previous day, in the car. But today’s was more intense, and out of control. Her head jerked up, she squared her pretty shoulders, lifted a small hand with a pointed index finger and went right up to the big policeman. ‘What kind of detective are you?’ She punctuated the last word with a stab of her finger on his broad chest. Her hand looked like a tick-bird pecking at a buffalo.
I hoped she had more to say than this single phrase.
‘Madam,’ he said, gobsmacked, arms hanging down passively at his sides while her finger drummed on him and a deep red flush crept up her neck to her forehead.
‘Don’t “Madam” me. What kind of detective are you? Tell me. I have information. About a crime. And you don’t want to talk to me? How does that work? Is protecting your people all that interests you?’
‘Protecting my people?’
‘I know all about you, and let me tell you I won’t let it rest here. This is my country, too. My country. You’re supposed to serve everybody. No, you’re supposed to serve justice and, let me tell you, I won’t let it rest here. Do you hear?’ Every ‘you’ was a finger stabbed at his heart.
The sergeant and constable just stood there in amazement.
‘Protecting my people?’ Phatudi gripped her wrist in his big hand in an attempt to halt the irritating poking.
‘Let me go,’ said Emma.
He kept hold of her wrist.
‘You have ten seconds to let go of her arm, or I will break yours,’ I said.
Slowly he turned his head to face me, Emma’s arm still in his grasp. ‘Are you threatening a policeman?’
I moved closer. ‘No. I never threaten. I usually give only one warning.’
He let go of Emma’s arm and stepped towards me. ‘Come,’ he said, and rolled his bodybuilder’s
