Heart of the Hunter

P: Proceed, Mr. Groenewald.

G: They supported the former regime?s policy of separate development. They saw it as the way to their own sovereign Zulu state. Elements in the old regime were only too eager to help, promises were made, they worked intimately together. And then F. W de Klerk went and cheated them by unbanning the ANC and allowing free elections.

P: Yes?

G: The Zulu dossier contains names of the secret Organization for Zulu Independence, the OZI. There are politicians, businessmen, and a lot of academics. The University of Zululand was a breeding ground. If I remember rightly, the head of the History Department was head of OZI for years.

P: Is that all? Just a list of OZI members?

G: No, there was more. Weapons caches, strategy, plans. And the name of Inkululeko.

P: You?'ll have to explain.

G: Inkululeko. A code name. It?s the Zulu word for freedom. A member of the OZI who infiltrated the ANC years back. A mole. But high up. There was talk that he also worked for the CIA during the Cold War. Lately I heard a rumor that considering the present government?s attitude to Libya and Cuba, for example, he was still helping the Americans.

P: Do you know who it is?

G: No.

P: But Johnny Kleintjes knows?

G: Johnny knew. He saw the list.

P: Why did he never expose it?

G: I don'?t know. I wondered about that. Remember the violence in Kwa-Zulu, Pillay? Remember the political murders, the intimidation?

P: I remember.

G: I wondered if he didn?'t use the list as a trump card in negotiations. You know, a sort of ?stop your nonsense or I will leak the list? type of thing. The unrest decreased, later.

P: But that is rather unlikely, isn'?t it?

G: Yes. It is.

P: What do you think the real reason is?

G: I think Johnny Kleintjes knew Inkululeko personally. I think he was a friend.

14.

Through the lens of a hidden camera or the eyes of a voyeur the scene would have been sensual. Allison Healy sat before the hi-fi in her restored duplex in Gardens. She was naked. Her plump body glowed from the hot bath, the creams and oils she was massaging into her skin. The CD playing was Women of Blue Chicago: Bonnie Lee, Karen Carroll, Shirley Johnson, and her favorite, Lynne Jordan. Music about women?s trouble with men. There was a cigarette in the ashtray on the small table next to the navy blue easy chair, smoke trailing upward in a tall, thin column. The room was softly lit by one table lamp alongside the small television.

Despite the potential an eye could find in this stage, her thoughts were far from sexual. She was considering a motorcyclist speeding through the night, a mysterious man hunted by law enforcement and intelligence officers. She wondered why.

Before she left the office she had phoned Rassie Erasmus of the Laingsburg police again. Asked questions. There was mischief in their talk, as if they were co-conspirators against the secret forces of the state, but the chat had yielded little new information.

Yes, the request to be on the lookout had come from the regional police head office. And the order to report there if they spotted something. No, it was never explicitly stated that it was the Presidential Intelligence Unit looking for Mpayipheli, but the police had their own language, their own references, their jealousies and envy. He was fairly certain it was the PIU. And from what he could gather, the fugitive had something the PIU was after.

Any news on Mpayipheli, Rassie??

?No. Not a word.?

She reached for the journalist?s study bible? the telephone directory. There were three Mpayipelis and four Mpayiphelis listed. All in Khayalitsha or Macassar, but none had the initial T. She phoned every number, aware of the late hour, knowing she would be disturbing hardworking people in their sleep, but she had a job to do, too.

?I am so sorry to bother you so late, but can I speak to Thobela, please??

Every time the same response: a sleepy voice saying, ?Who??

Just to be sure, she had searched with Ananzi and Google on the Internet, typed in ?Thobela Mpayipheli? and to be thorough, ?Thobela Mpayipeli? and clicked on SEARCH .

Your search? Thobela Mpayipheli? does not appear in any documents.

So she had turned off the computer, took her handbag, said good-bye to the few colleagues still at work, and come home to a long hot bath, half a glass of red wine, her skin-care routine, music, and a last cigarette.

She rose to pack away the bottles and jars in the bathroom and returned to lie back in the chair, drawing deeply on the tobacco, closing her eyes to let Johnson?s ?As the Years Go Passing By? flow over her. It evoked nostalgia in her, for Nic, for the intensity of those moments. No. Longing for a journey. To the smoky blues bars of