Hot Ice (26 page)

‘Dear Jim, I love you, too. Remember that. I’ve loved you since we met. Even when I’m hating you, I still love you.’

‘I have a month before I go and a good deal of overdue leave. Why don’t we grab that? I’ll help you finish your enquiry and we can go to the Caribbean, or Asia, anywhere. You choose. Come with me.’

‘Yes…anywhere…or maybe back to Kasane.’

Later she says: ‘I must go. Dad’s getting up.’

‘Take care. I’ll see you in London.’

He picks up his clothes and walks towards the shower. Feeling heavy with sadness, Chris goes inside and snuggles under her blanket, pulling it over her head to avoid hearing the helicopter.

Jim has gone and there’s an empty feeling deep inside Chris, which she intends to ignore by working twice as hard.

‘Dad, about those claims you passed on to Visser…how close is the nearest one to us now?’ They are having breakfast under the trees: porridge and tinned milk with some canned orange juice.

‘Over four hundred kilometres away to the northwest, about twenty miles due south of the Shimpuru Falls in northern Namibia. This is the rich mine I told you about:
Shimpuru 64
.’

‘Does it still have the same name?’

‘Probably. Changing it would mean a lot of paperwork for nothing.’

‘Have you been there since you gave it to Visser?’

‘No. It’s quite a way north. I don’t prospect there anymore. Too many mines still lying around. I’ve already injured one leg. I don’t want to lose the other.’

‘How did that happen, Dad?’

‘It’s a stupid story. In 1995, a 24-carat pink was found near a place called Luo, on the Chicapa River in Angola. It fetched $10 million in New York. I was panting to get there. After hostilities ceased I went up on a prospecting trip and registered a claim along the same river. I was well established and finding some good stones…already thinking of bringing in a team, when rogue UNITA forces came out of the bush and attacked. I escaped with a wounded thigh. Fortunately I managed to drive to casualty in Saurimo. A nightmare journey, I can tell you.’

‘You’re such a toughie, Dad. Promise me you won’t take chances like that again.’

‘All right.’

‘Can we fly up to
Shimpuru-64?
’

‘Is there a good reason to do that?’

‘Yes, but I’d rather not say right now.’

‘OK. We can go right after breakfast.’

It is eight a.m. and already hot. Chris watches Kelly pull back the sliding iron door and gaze with pride at his old Cessna. Chris tries to share his enthusiasm, but the plane looks past its sell-by date.

Kelly shoots her a rueful glance, part amusement, part apology. ‘It’s good for another few thousand miles at least.’

Chris shrugs and climbs in and they take off, almost scaling the trees at the end of the short
runway. Then they are up and away, her stomach lurching as the plane rises over thermals and falls into troughs. Below, all she can see is sand, under a hazy sky with no hint of a cloud, as usual. They are moving north at 260 kph but there is no change in the boring view, other than the occasional sparse tree.

‘Get ready, we’re coming in to land,’ Kelly calls two hours later. ‘I can’t imagine what you expect to find here.’

‘A derelict mine,’ she replies.

Moments later they are bumping over the uneven surface of the sand, skidding to dead slow and taxiing towards a tall fence. Chris ventures out into a hot blast from a furnace. ‘It’s like being roasted alive in a convection oven.’

‘So let’s try not to be here long,’ Kelly says.

Overhead the saffron sun shines from a jaundiced sky. ‘How strange everything looks,’ Chris mutters.

‘That’s because there’s a sandstorm moving our way. All the more reason to be quick.’

Hurrying towards the fence, she sees large notices pinned to it. Closer she sees a skull and crossbones. Underneath is written:
Warning. This area is mined
. There are other signs in various African dialects. Searching with her binoculars Chris can see no sign of activity.

‘You said this is was a karakul ranch.’

‘Used to be. The farm became part of a massive
land redistribution scheme. The farms were given to local tribesmen, together with the karakul. Most of them ate the sheep, took the roofs off the houses to make shanties, and abandoned the land. Of course, one must also realise that the bottom fell out of the karakul market. Furs went out of fashion because of the anti-fur campaigns, but I don’t think anyone gave up eating lamb chops. For some reason, this mine has been abandoned, too. The farmhouse is five miles away to the west.’ Kelly is looking depressed. ‘We’ll fly over it on our way back. Seen enough?’

‘Sure.’ Chris switches off and rubs her arms, which are prickling all over. An idea is starting up…a thought so preposterous that it makes her shudder. But what if it’s true? As for tracing Visser…Dad has made it easy for her.

As Kelly predicted, the farmhouse is derelict, stripped of its roof and abandoned. There is no sign of anyone, or any karakul. Once there had been a garden, but now nothing remains. They fly on, too depressed to talk, and by one o’clock they are back at Kelly’s camp.

It’s time to leave. The quickest way home, she learns, is via Maun and Gaborone. Kelly promises to collect her suitcases from the Swakopmund Hotel and Kasane and send them on. He will fly her to Maun.

‘Where’s your coat, Chris.’

In Swakopmund Hotel and my anorak’s at Kasane.’

‘I’ll find you an anorak. Wait a minute.’

He bounds up the stairs like a youngster. He’s quite a guy, Chris decides. ‘It’ll be too big,’ she calls after him.

‘Better than catching pneumonia,’ he says as he runs down the stairs. Now put it on.’

It’s huge and she feels absurd.

‘I don’t think…’

‘Humour me, Chris. Now look here…’ He opens the front and shows her a hidden pocket. Put your credit cards, cheque book and money in here and wear it all the time. You don’t know about the unemployment in Africa. Carrying a handbag is a great temptation to those who are hungry, so keep only a little cash in it for your daily use.’

‘Anything you say, Dad,’ she says, teasing him.

‘I’ll miss you, Chris. So where do we go from here?’

‘Same as every other family I suppose. I visit you. You visit me. We email each other and call sometimes… spend holidays together. I’ll miss you, too. It’s been great.’

‘Whatever I have will be yours one day.’

‘Shh, don’t talk about money.’

‘You could join me.’

‘I don’t think I could live in the wilderness. I love my life and my job, and I love London, but Dad,
my life will never be the same again, and I’ll see you often, promise!’

‘I guess so.’ Dad looks so sad that she throws her arms around him and hugs him close. ‘Love you, Dad.’

‘That goes without saying.’

Hours later, Chris is still feeling sad about leaving Dad, but she’s prickling with excitement, too. She can’t wait to get back to London where she can test her hunches. She has to find out whether her father’s marginal mines are part of a portfolio of mines owned by an established mining house and whether or not Visser is in control.

She calls Rowan from the Business Class lounge to let him know she’ll be back in the morning.

‘I hope to finalise this investigation in the next few days,’ she tells him. ‘I know how it’s done. See you tomorrow.’

She boards the British Airways plane at nine p.m. and settles down for an agonising flight. She knows she won’t sleep, she’s too keyed up. Hunched in a blanket she considers her options.

What if she’s right and she gives her findings to Rowan? Rowan will hand the information to their clients and to Scotland Yard, but will the police act fast enough to save Sienna’s life? Chris suddenly realises, with a pang in her stomach, that it’s not a crime to sell ex-quota diamonds…at least, not in Britain. Kidnapping is another matter. Naturally
the kidnappers would get rid of all traces of Sienna as soon as they realise their scam is exposed.

She will have to find Sienna herself before releasing the details, but as Dad keeps pointing out, she’s not a trained sleuth. She only knows law and finance. Chris is far too overwrought to sleep much. Longing for morning, she takes her notebook and drafts her report.

Chris glances at her watch. It’s only four a.m. The night is lasting forever. It seems hours later when the sun rises and they soar over the Alps.

Feeling dazed with lack of sleep and the long journey, Chris sleepwalks though passport control and customs and emerges into the public area to see her name in big black letters, stencilled on a placard, swaying on a stick. The driver wears a green peaked cap, a raincoat and glasses.

‘Hello. That’s me. Thanks for coming.’ She follows the driver to the exit. ‘Is it raining?’

‘Damp,’ he says. ‘Did you have a good trip?’

She shrugs. ‘Over long.’

‘Where’s your luggage? Is that all?’ he asks, indicating her haversack.

‘That’s all.’ She’s blessing Dad for her anorak. After the Namib, London feels like Alaska.

She must remember to thank Rowan for sending a taxi. He doesn’t usually think about little details like this. She follows the driver to his BMW, which is new and elegant. The driver is new, too, she realises. He sounds Irish. Their company’s personnel always use the same taxi service, where they have an account, and most of the drivers there are Caribbean. The driver holds the door open, but he looks tense and glances around nervously.

Something’s wrong. Chris springs to full alert when she sees that there is no two-way-radio for the driver. This is not a hired car. Various thoughts flash through her mind in rapid succession. It’s not too late. She can still get out of this. But finding Visser won’t necessarily lead her to Sienna. Perhaps this is the right way. She thanks him and steps inside.

The driver gets in and the car moves forward as two men leap out of a neighbouring car, and run swiftly towards them. They scramble in and sit on either side of her.

‘What’s going on? What are you doing?’ One of them grabs her arm, pushing up her shirt. She tries not to panic when she feels a sharp pain, as a needle is jabbed into her muscle. There’s a burning sensation which swiftly fades. She feels only a shaft of fear and then nothing.

Her head is pounding and it hurts like hell. That’s the very first thing she becomes aware of. She
stiffens and lies very still, listening. She remembers getting into the car, but did that really happen? She remembers the jab of a needle in her arm. Was that a nightmare? She reaches up and feels the lump. Her arm is badly bruised. It’s real. Panic surges. Where is she?

Someone is breathing heavily only a few yards away. This scares her. Opening her eyes she sees nothing at all. She tries again, but nothing changes. It’s pitch black…the sort of darkness Chris has never experienced. There’s always a glimmer somewhere around. Thoughts of victims buried alive set her shaking. She wants to scream, but she controls the impulse. She feels too scared to make a sound, but she can hear her breath gasping. She keeps still and tries to breathe quietly. The air smells stale, but not damp, as if she’s in the basement of a centrally heated building. She runs her hand around her body. She’s not injured, she’s lying on a mattress which is on the floor in the corner of a room, she realises as she runs her hands around the wall.

The heavy breathing stops abruptly. Whoever it is, knows she’s awake.

‘Chris. Chris…’ She hears the merest whisper.

‘Yes,’ she whispers back.

‘It’s me…Sienna.’ A girl bursts into a flood of tears. ‘Are you hurt?’ she sobs.

‘No.’ Her heart lurches. ‘Do we have to whisper?’

‘No,’ comes the quiet reply. ‘No one comes here at night. Oh, God. I never wanted to see you here.’

‘Don’t cry, Sienna. I’ve been so worried about you. We’ll get out of this. I promise you. Do you know where we are?’