African Sky (19 page)

‘It's a pretty safe bet,' he said, offering her a cigarette and drawing one for himself out of the pack with his lips. She accepted and he lit both of them. ‘I'll miss you, Cath,' he said.

‘Will you? I think I confused you, Paul. I don't think you were ready for either Flick or me to complicate your life.'

‘I haven't known a woman like you before. You're so . . . so . . .'

She smiled, finishing the sentence for him. ‘So much like a man, is that what you're trying to say?'

‘I don't think that's quite what I meant.' He grinned.

‘I like sex. I like it whenever and with whomever I please. In that respect, I'm very much like a man. I wanted you, and I had you, and I enjoyed you. I'd like to think the feeling was mutual.'

He laughed. ‘Direct was the word I was looking for.'

‘There's no time for coquettishness in war, Paul. You of all people should know that. Do you have to go to this silly wings parade on Tuesday?'

‘You know I do.'

‘Why not come to Salisbury, meet me at Meikles.'

‘I can't take a day off when two heads of state are coming to the base! Besides, I couldn't afford to stay at that hotel,' he said.

‘I'd pay. Two days, two nights. Just you and me. Call it a farewell celebration.'

He smiled. ‘You know I have to be at the parade. I could visit you in Salisbury once you get set up?'

‘I'm not your popsy, Paul. I'm not going to be waiting breathlessly for you every time you get a weekend off. It's a one-time offer, Squadron Leader.'

‘Then a handshake will have to do,' he said, raising his beer bottle in a friendly toast.

‘I really wish you'd reconsider.'

‘I've got a job to do, Catherine. As you pointed out, we're in the middle of a war.'

‘Well, you've made your choice. If you'd rather have the air force than me, I understand completely.'

‘Don't be churlish.'

‘Churlish? That's a word for little girls. I'm treating you like a man would treat a woman. If we do it, we do it on my terms. I've had my fun with you, and now I'm leaving you to your policewoman.'

‘Don't be angry. Maybe you should give it a few days. You're still in shock over Flick's death.'

‘I'll be in shock over Flick's death until the day I die.'

‘Do you want me to come to your place in town later?' he asked her.

She shook her head. ‘I've just buried the love of my life, Paul. I'm not so much like a man that I'd be thinking about sex tonight.'

Pip stared at the list of names without reading it. It was stuffy in the police interview room and she was perspiring in her shirt sleeves.

She was annoyed at the way Catherine De Beers had interrupted her conversation with Paul, just when he was on the verge of telling her about Felicity Langham. Paul had slept with Felicity Langham – been intimate, as he had put it. She had so many more questions to ask him. How long ago? How many times? Did Catherine De Beers know he had slept with her best friend? It was an effort, but she forced herself to concentrate on the case. She looked across the table at Nkomo and said, ‘You've nice handwriting, Innocent.'

‘You still haven't told me, Constable. Did my alibi hold up? Did the people I told you I was with confirm it?'

You're a smart man, Innocent.'

‘Would you believe I was studying to be a schoolteacher, before the war started?'

‘I'd probably believe you if you told me you were the illegitimate son of Winston Churchill,' she scoffed. ‘It's your stock-in-trade, fast talking. You're still charged with murder, until we see fit to release you.'

‘You haven't answered my question,' he said.

‘And I don't have to, so shut it.'

The list was long. The fifty or so names would take ages to track down. She would have to find out which of Innocent's regular customers had
recently passed on his code word and phone number to a man aged around thirty, with dark hair. The description of the man was as vague as that of the unknown woman to whom he had sold fuel before the man. He'd said she was tall and blonde and good-looking. Nothing more.

‘Are you sure there is nothing else you can tell us about the man you sold petrol to on the morning after Miss Langham's death?'

He shrugged. ‘If I could, I would. I've told you what I remember about him.'

‘Yes, yes, I know' She stared at the list and then at the ceiling. Something clicked in her mind.
What he looked like.
‘I asked you what he looked like, but I didn't ask you what he sounded like, did I?'

Innocent pursed his lips, then closed his eyes as he tried to remember the brief conversation they'd had.

‘What did he say to you, Innocent?'

‘I am trying to remember. It was not very much. We said good morning. I introduced myself and asked him his name. He was a rude man. He said: ‘None of your bloody business, just hand over the petrol.' He gave me the money and I took the first can from my car and put it where he wanted, around the corner, in the alleyway.'

‘You said before you didn't see his car.'

Innocent exhaled. He'd told the story so many times. ‘That's right. He told me to take the can around the corner. Then, when I came back, he was lifting the second can out of the boot. If he is the killer of this woman, then that must have been when he put her things in my car.'

‘Yes, yes. I know that's what you think. But let's stick to the facts for now. What about his accent? Was he Rhodesian? Was he British? Think, Innocent, think.'

‘I am not sure. White people all sound the same to me.'

She shook her head. ‘Very funny. Your life's on the line, Innocent. Face up to the fact that I'm about the only person in this police camp who believes you.'

‘I know,' he said, his face serious again. ‘I worked in a filling station, while I was studying, you know.'

‘So?'

‘So, that is where I learned about fuel. How to find it, who runs the local market.'

‘Go on.'

‘You know, in all the years I worked in a filling station, I never once saw a white Rhodesian man so much as lift a petrol can or fill his tank or wash a windscreen. It wasn't the customer's job to do such things. It was mine.'

Pip sat back in her chair and folded her arms. She thought about all the men she knew. Rhodesian men were a breed unto themselves. They would gladly burn meat on a
braai,
but wouldn't cook in a kitchen or wash or dry a plate. In poorer households, those without servants, the wife did all the housework. A Rhodesian man would light a fire and boil a kettle in the bush for tea, but would expect it to be prepared and served for him in the home. A white tradesman might own his own business, and do his fair share of hard physical work to get the job done, but if he went to someone else's shop or business, he would not lift a finger. She couldn't imagine Charlie, her husband, dirtying his hands or moving anything more than a wagging finger when there was a black man about to do it for him. In fact, she detested the way he would call one of the herd boys from the bottom paddock to lift a single bag of grain onto the back of the truck, rather than do it himself. ‘So what is your point?'

‘I am not sure. I am not being rude when I say this, Constable,' Innocent said, ‘but I thought it was odd that this man would be helping me shift cans of fuel.'

‘Think again what he said to you.'

‘I just can't remember. It was so quick, the meeting.' Innocent laid his head in his palms.

She stood from the table and walked around to him on her way out. She put a hand on his shoulder and said: ‘Think harder, Innocent. Alibi or no, you'll go to the gallows if some of the people around here have their way.'

‘That is not fair,' he said.

‘Life rarely is, Innocent.'

C
hurch bells echoed down Bulawayo's broad, empty boulevards. Parts of the town, especially today when they weren't thronged by people, reminded Bryant of country towns he'd visited in New South Wales. As in those bush towns, Bulawayo's streets were wide enough to turn a bullock dray. The roadsides were decorated with purple-flowered jacaranda trees, another reminder of home. He eased off on the throttle of his Triumph motorcycle and caught the blossoms' scent. It reminded him of perfumed English girls at squadron dances. He gunned the bike again and roared up the deserted street towards the police camp.

He'd risen early and gone to his office just after dawn, where he attended to a score of signals relating to the big parade. In Rhodesia, the war effort slowed at weekends, but it never really stopped. He had the final timings for the scheduled arrival of Smuts' DC-3 Dakota aircraft at Kumalo on Tuesday and, as per the plan he'd drawn up, the South African prime minister would arrive on time, half an hour after his Rhodesian counterpart's motorcade got in from Salisbury. There had been yet another parade rehearsal, postponed to Sunday because of the double funeral the day before, and this one had ended in fits of laughter when Isaac, a burly, well-liked Matabele cook dressed in his best
Sunday suit, had been escorted out in front of the massed ranks and introduced over the Tannoy as The Honourable Jan Smuts, Prime Minister of South Africa. A scowling Flight Sergeant Henderson had stood in for the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia, Huggy Huggins, and while he and Isaac had taken the airmen's grinning salute side by side, Henderson had been clearly unimpressed at Bryant's use of the black man to represent such an important politician. The men had liked it, though, which was the important thing as far as Bryant was concerned. They'd had to endure more square-bashing than any previous course and, after the deaths of Langham and Smythe, he wanted to give them something to smile about. Before dismissing them, Bryant had warned the soon-to-graduate flyers to keep their noses clean on their final weekend, and to save their urge to overindulge in alcohol until after the VIPs had departed on Tuesday afternoon. His work day was not over yet, though.

Even the police camp had a lazy, weekend feel to it as he passed through the gates. There was no one visible in the grounds and he parked the bike next to the one police car in the lot. He strode into the office and a lanky white police officer looked up reluctantly from the newspaper he was reading.

‘Can I help?'

‘I'm looking for Constable Philippa Lovejoy. She's expecting me.'

The man straightened and grimaced, as if he had just swallowed something rotten. ‘Er, can I ask the nature of your business, sir?'

‘Police business,' he laughed. ‘I've been assisting her with the investigation into Felicity Langham's murder, and the disappearance of one of our aeroplanes.'

‘Oh, you're air force?'

After the parade, Paul had changed into mufti, an old pair of khaki trousers, an open-necked white cotton shirt and a pair of locally bought
veldskoen
desert boots. ‘Squadron Leader Paul Bryant,' he said, finding his air force identification card in his shirt pocket and laying it on the desk

‘Ah, yes. Very good, sir. She said you'd call.'

‘That's right. Look, mate, is she here or not?'

‘It's not good news, what's happened, sir,' the constable began.

‘What? Has something happened to her?' He was suddenly alarmed. He'd awoken that morning feeling strangely refreshed and positive. He hadn't had any nightmares and he'd felt relieved rather than sad that Catherine De Beers was leaving for the other side of the country. He realised, too, that he was genuinely looking forward to spending the morning chatting to Pip Lovejoy, and to the possibility of getting her involved in the search for the missing Harvard. Now, he felt dread.

‘Not to her. To her husband,' the policeman said.

‘Oh, Christ,' Paul said, shaking his head. ‘Don't tell me . . .'

‘Afraid so. She telephoned this morning. She'd just found out. Charlie, that's her husband, has been killed in action.'

‘Poor girl. When you see her, tell her I dropped in and I'll follow up my request with Sergeant Hayes.'

‘No, sir . . .'

‘What do you mean, no?' he asked, puzzled.

‘It's a bit odd, but when she called in this morning to say she wasn't coming in, she said that when you dropped by, to tell you that she still wanted to see you and, if you wouldn't mind, perhaps you'd call around to her place.'

‘Really?'

The constable looked at the airman in a new light, and wondered if there were something going on between Pip and the Australian.

Paul caught the look and said: ‘I'm a bit surprised, frankly. I'd have thought she'd want friends or people close to her to be with her today.'

‘My thoughts exactly,' the constable said.

‘Well,' he said, genuinely bemused, ‘you'd better tell me how to find her place.'

He followed the signs out of town towards Plumtree, a small farming settlement near the Bechuanaland border, to the west of Bulawayo.

He gave the bike full throttle on the open road, sticking to the narrow strip of tar on the left-hand side, and following the course of the railway
line, which darted in and out of sight amidst small granite kopjes and stands of long, straw-like grass on his right. The speed helped clear his mind. His body became part of the machine, leaning into the corners, hunching low as he hit a downhill stretch and pushed her to maximum speed. He couldn't decide how to feel about being invited to Pip's place.

He still couldn't read her, although he knew she was passionately dedicated to her job, and to seeking the truth. She seemed far more intelligent, committed and diligent than the bag of wind she worked with.

Given the investigation into Flick's death seemed pretty well over now they had a man in custody, that only left his request for help with the cross-border search for them to discuss. He couldn't accept that she would call him out to her home on the day she'd learned of her husband's death to talk about a missing aeroplane.

Bulawayo was set on a huge plateau and on a day like this it seemed he could see for miles in every direction. A baboon ran across the road in front of him. He followed its path and saw it was part of a large troop of thirty or forty. Several of the females had tiny, big-eared babies, either suckling or hitching a lift, riding jockey-style on their mothers' backs.

He thought about how close he had come to telling Pip everything about his relationship with Felicity and Catherine until, with superbly ironic timing, the wealthy widow had intruded.

Catherine. Around her he was like a child watching a burning firework. He was drawn by her beauty, by her fire, by her danger. Touching her, trying to hold her, he had realised from the start, was a dangerous business. Impossible, as it had turned out. She'd been an experience, he decided. Like first-time fumbling sex. Exciting, new, unknown. Something he'd never forget, but not something he needed every day. He smiled at the crude analogy, but didn't feel bad, as he sometimes had when he'd said his last goodbye to some young English girl he'd met on leave in a pub or dance hall. This time he had been cut loose, by her. He respected her honesty. Whatever judgement one could make of Catherine De Beers, she could never be called a liar. She was honest, to the point of brutality, about her emotions, or lack of them.

Was Pip calling him to her so she could ask him more about Flick
and Catherine? That, too, seemed unlikely, no matter how curious she was about the web that had been woven around him and the two women. It was still so utterly amazing that he wondered whether it had actually happened, or whether it had all been a dream.

And Flick. Of the two of them, she and Catherine, she was the one he would have liked to have known better. He wondered if he'd been like every other man on base, if he had simply wanted her because she had that movie-star unattainability. She was the closest thing to a celebrity at Kumalo, probably in all of Bulawayo, but he had been invited into her world. She wore her worldliness like a new designer dress, something Catherine might have bought for her, or handed down. But even when she tried to shock him he had detected an innocence beneath her words, the gestures, the acts, as if she were indeed a film star playing a role designed to tease him, to please Catherine.

He threw back his head and screamed into the rushing wind. ‘Aaaaaah!' There was only one thing he was certain of right now. He was alive.

A trio of big, curly-horned Kudu bulls that had been grazing on the side of the road took flight at the sound of his cry and the growl of the bike's engine. The graceful antelope bounded high as they ran from him and he envied their freedom and the simplicity of their life. A Rhodesian farmer had told him there were plenty of leopard still stalking the rocky bushland around Bulawayo, and he wondered if there were still lion in the area. He loved Africa's simple, natural rhythms of life. There were dangers everywhere in the bush, but nature had equipped both predator and prey with the skills they needed either to kill or to have some chance of survival. Nature had given the retreating antelope speed, agility, good hearing and horns to stab back at a cat.

Paul Bryant, by contrast, was out of his element, in a foreign country, dealing with emotions and situations neither training nor nature could prepare him for. He felt utterly defenceless.

The ranch was called
Lala Panzi
– a place to lie down. Under the words were the names of its owners, Charles and Philippa Lovejoy.

Bryant turned off the strip road at the carved wooden sign swinging from a mopane pole on rusted chain links, onto a corrugated dirt road. On a low ridge to his left was what he took to be the staff compound, where the farm workers lived. A cluster of red-earthen huts with reed thatch roofs, garden-size plots of straggly maize, whippet-like yapping dogs, cooking fires. An Ndebele woman in a flowered smock looked up from her outdoor washing tub. A line of sheets hung limp in the air, the drying time slower by the day as the promise of summer wetted the air. A man sat in the shade of a
kiah,
his home, smoking. Four children, in ragged hand-me-downs, started running down the hill towards the track at the sight of the man on the motorcycle – rare excitement, indeed. Bryant waved at them. The children shrieked with joy. The woman lowered her head to the washing; the man closed his eyes.

Fat cattle grazed on golden grass in an open paddock on his right. Tick birds rode shotgun on their spines and white egrets shadowed their movements on long, skinny legs. A teenage herd boy in patched overalls raised his stick in a wave. Bryant felt an odd contentment as he bounced along the half-mile track, taking in the simple, timeless rural scenes on either side of him. He'd chafed in the countryside back in Australia, eager to get away from his aunt and uncle and into the thick of city living. Out here, though, he soaked up an innocent peace and quiet that was missing from the constant drone of aero engines and barking warrant officers at Kumalo. He screwed his eyes tight for a couple of seconds, driving by instinct alone, as he tried to force the image of a burning Lancaster out of his mind.

When he opened his eyes he was still in Africa, in front of a modest though well-kept whitewashed single-storey farmhouse with a steeply pitched thatched roof. The grass in the fenced yard in front of the dwelling was as green and clipped as any he'd seen in England's home counties, the flowers bright and cheery Africa was all around, but inside the chicken wire fence was an ideal. A pretty good knock-off of a little piece of a England, re-engineered and built from memory.

Pip pulled back the curtain at the rumbling sound of the motorcycle in her driveway. She'd imagined he would be in an air force car, if he came. The priest had been in a car. She'd only just got rid of him, after two interminable hours.

She drained her gin and tonic. It was her third. Unusual for her, to be drinking before midday. Charlie would have approved. Would have told her she'd finally
loosened up.
When the priest was around she'd had to quaff the second one fast – in one gulp in the kitchen, in fact – just to get through the second hour of patronising condolences and talk of what a good man her husband had been, and how he was now enjoying a better life.

A better life. Was that an impossible concept to grasp? Maybe not. She'd ask Squadron Leader Paul Bryant his thoughts on that one. There was a knock on the door. Too soft, too tentative. He was scared, she thought, or reluctant.

He looked at her when he opened the door, and couldn't hide the surprise on his face.

‘Well, say something, Squadron Leader,' she said.

What he wanted to say was certainly not appropriate. He'd taken in every detail in a single, brief glance, and captured the image of her in his mind, like a photograph. She stood in front of him wearing shorts hemmed at barely a third of the way down her thighs, which showed off a deliciously slender pair of legs, and a yellow short-sleeved summer shirt that was tied, rather than tucked in, at her waist. The narrowest sliver of pale skin was visible above the waistband of her pants. She'd made up her face and her blonde hair framed it perfectly. Her fingernails, like her toenails and lips, were painted blood red. ‘I'm sorry for your loss, Pip.'

‘Thank you, Paul, and thanks for coming out to see me. Do come in, please.' She smiled, turned and led him into the house.

He tried hard not to look at her bum, but failed. Why, he wondered, had she dressed like this?

‘Would you like a drink?' she asked, looking back over her shoulder.

He checked his watch.

‘Don't worry,' she said, ‘I'm three gins ahead of you already.'

‘Hate to see a lady drinking alone.'

‘A lady wouldn't. Scotch or gin?'