The Hunter (15 page)

Brand read a newspaper – more tales of government corruption and a supposedly last-ditch scramble by politicians and party faithful for the remaining white-owned farms – and then paid his bill and headed out.

He turned the smoking Land Rover around and retraced his route into Bulawayo back out towards Hillside. The GPS guided him, but Brand found he remembered the way quite well. His girlfriend had lived in Percy Avenue, which was off Weir. He turned into the street and began searching for a plaque or sign that would identify the doctor’s surgery. The houses were mostly surrounded by walls but while some had one or two strands of electric fencing on top there was nowhere near the level of security he would have encountered in Johannesburg. Through gates he glimpsed Japanese four-by-fours and late-model BMWs. There was still money in Zimbabwe and Weir Avenue looked relatively prosperous.

He drove to the end of the road and back again and still he could not find an indication of where the doctor lived. The address the insurance company had for him was a post office box. He was wondering what to do next when he noticed a woman in a green maid’s uniform and headscarf walking along the side of the road carrying a plastic shopping bag. Brand pulled over and greeted her. ‘Which one is Dr Fleming’s house?’ he asked, after exchanging the ritual pleasantries demanded by African culture.

She looked over her shoulder and pointed to a whitewashed wall on the corner of a cross street. ‘It was that one, but he now lives in the cottage behind the big house. You turn there,’ she said, twisting her hand to indicate he should go down the cross street.

‘Thank you.’

Brand turned the Land Rover around and indicated into the cross street. He came to a green metal gate in the whitewashed wall with
Dr G. Fleming, MD
engraved on a brass plaque next to it. Brand pressed the button in the intercom on a pole beside the gate.

‘Dr Fleming’s surgery,’ said a tinny voice.

‘Hudson Brand, here for my appointment with the doctor.’

‘Come through, please.’ The gate started to roll open.

In a tight courtyard there were four cars parked close to each other. Brand could see now that a fence separated this plot and a small beige-painted brick house from an older, grander residence which fronted onto Weir Avenue. He parked the Land Rover and walked into the cottage.

‘Mr Brand? Good afternoon.’

The receptionist handed him a pen and a form to fill out and he sat beside a heavily pregnant woman and ticked and crossed the boxes. It was a necessary formality if he was not to frighten the doctor. When he was finished he leafed through a battered copy of
National Geographic
while the pregnant woman went in for her consultation and, eventually, a man older than Brand expected came out and called his name.

Brand took the doctor’s hand and met a strong grip. The man had alert blue eyes that searched his as he said, ‘Mr Brand, I was expecting you.’

Brand followed him into the surgery, realising he had lost the element of surprise. ‘I take it Linley Brown’s been in touch with you.’

The doctor waved him towards a chair and sat down behind his desk. ‘I don’t talk about my patients, but I had heard you would probably be contacting me about Kate’s death. Why did you book an appointment?’

Brand leaned back in the chair. ‘If I’d called you and told you I was an investigator, what would you have done?’

‘The same thing I’m going to do now, I expect.’ The doctor checked his watch. He was handsome, grey-haired, straight-backed. Brand looked around. There was a picture of a boat on the wall, along with a fine shot of a painted dog, and a stuffed orange and black striped tiger fish with vicious teeth.

‘You’re aware there have been a number of cases of people faking their own deaths to claim on insurance policies abroad, especially the United Kingdom.’

Dr Fleming nodded. ‘And you think I’m the type of person who would sell a fake death certificate?’

‘Please don’t take offence, doctor, there is no “type” when it comes to crime, in my experience.’

‘I’m sure. Well, you know I signed Kate Munns’s death certificate. I identified the body positively by the presence of a pin in her pelvis. I’d learned from Linley that Kate’d had a car accident in the UK and I was able to email her surgeon to get the details. Kate’s childhood dentist had long since left Zimbabwe so there were no dental records I could check here. So, what makes this case a suspect one?’

Brand debated how much to tell the man, but Fleming was a step ahead of him already thanks to Linley Brown, so Brand figured it was best to come clean. ‘Kate’s sister raised a red flag with the insurance company. She thought it was odd Kate would make an old school friend the beneficiary of her insurance policy.’

Fleming sipped from a teacup. ‘I’ve heard of odder things. From what I saw of Anna and her husband and learned of their life while they were here for the service, they seemed well off, financially. I wouldn’t have thought they’d be overly worried about not getting Kate’s insurance money.’

‘From what I hear you’re right, and they’re not interested in the money. What can you tell me about Linley Brown?’

‘You seem a smart man, Mr Brand, and all Americans I’ve met seem to have a good working knowledge of the law and medicine thanks to too much television. You should know I’m bound by patient confidentiality.’

‘So she’s a patient?’

‘Very funny, Mr Brand. You know she’s been talking to me; that’s how I knew who you were and why you were coming to see me.’

Brand didn’t feel like the doctor was being belligerent, more like he was involved in a game of chess with him, and was waiting for his next move. ‘Let me ask the question in a different way. What do you know of the relationship between Linley Brown and Kate Munns?’

Fleming stroked his chin again. ‘I delivered both of them, watched them grow up. They were good friends, and quite a bit younger than Anna. Linley’s an only child. They were very close, but I’m as likely to speculate on my patients’ personal lives with a stranger as I am to release details of their medical conditions.’

‘So, you don’t think it’s unusual, then, that Kate made Linley the beneficiary of her policy.’

The doctor shrugged. ‘Perhaps Kate thought Linley would have a greater need for money than her sister.’

It still didn’t gel, Brand thought. He opened his notebook and flipped back a few pages. ‘Kate Munns was . . . thirty-four years old. She should have been a long way off dying, so why should she care about her best friend’s financial position in, say, another forty years or so? Is Linley in financial trouble now?’

‘I don’t know about that.’

‘But surely you must see where the evidence is pointing; Kate makes her friend a beneficiary because she’s living in Zimbabwe, perhaps penniless or just eking out a living like many folks here, but if she lives to a normal age then Linley won’t see any money until she’s seventy.’

Fleming said nothing.

There was something else Brand wanted to raise, but he suspected the doctor wouldn’t answer. ‘How many single thirty-four year olds do you think would even bother to take out a life insurance policy?’

‘I’m sure I have no idea.’

‘Kate had no children, no spouse, no dependents at all who would need caring for if she died.’

Fleming took off his glasses and pulled a tissue from the box on his blotter. As he cleaned the glasses he looked at Brand and rocked back in his office chair. ‘All I can tell you, Mr Brand, is that for whatever reason Kate took out a policy and, as per her wishes, Linley should receive that money. The other thing I can tell you, quite categorically, is that there was a car crash on the Binga road and that Kate Munns was killed.’

Brand checked his notebook again. ‘And she was cremated.’

‘As per her wishes.’

Fleming sighed and put his glasses back on. ‘I know that Anna must think that her little sister is still alive, and that she has faked her death and that she and Linley are living it up in Mauritius or the Seychelles or something like that.’

It was Brand’s turn to say nothing.

‘But it’s not true. I pronounced that poor girl dead and I saw Linley after the accident.’ Fleming took another two tissues and blew his nose. He looked away from Brand. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me.’

Brand was reluctant to get up, but it seemed as though the old doctor was fighting to stay in control of his emotions. Brand figured the guy would be no stranger to death after maybe forty years as a doctor, but clearly this case had shaken him up. ‘One more question, if I may, doctor.’

Fleming blew his nose again and looked back at Brand through red-rimmed eyes. ‘Go on,’ he said in a soft voice.

‘Did you see Kate Munns at all before her death, on her last visit to Zimbabwe?’

He thought about the question for a moment. ‘Doctor–patient confidentiality extends to the grave, Mr Brand.’

Brand nodded. ‘I’m sure it does. But this question of why someone with no dependents and the rest of their life to look forward to would take out a policy and name a friend in trouble as the beneficiary still has me puzzled. A UK insurer wouldn’t issue a policy to someone with a pre-existing condition, but I was wondering, if someone went to their old family doctor in Zimbabwe and, say, confirmed they had a terminal illness, maybe they might consider an assisted suicide and try to cover it up as a road death, in order to help their friend.’

Fleming’s eyes widened. ‘By driving themselves off a bridge? I could think of more efficient ways to commit suicide and make it look like an accident, and I dare say a bright young woman like Kate could as well.’

In spite of his line of questioning, Brand had been thinking the same thing. Another theory was forming in his mind. It was a long shot, a combination of several of the what-ifs he had canvassed with Dr Fleming and Dani. The doctor checked his watch. There seemed to be nothing in Kate’s recent life that pointed to a problem that might force her to abandon her life in the UK. Brand had a thought. ‘You knew Kate Munns and her sister from the time they were born. What was their upbringing like? Was it a happy home?’

Fleming stiffened visibly in his chair, just for an instant. Instead of looking at Brand he opened a diary on his desk and flicked through it. He looked up a couple of seconds later. ‘My next appointment is overdue. Naturally I’ll sign whatever paperwork you wish, in order to complete your investigation,’ the doctor said.

‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘You said the previous question was your last,’ Fleming said. ‘And as I said before, doctor–patient privilege extends beyond the grave. If you want to know about the Munns girls’ childhood you’d have to take that up with Anna, though I doubt she’ll have much to say.’ The doctor pushed back his chair and stood. ‘Now, if you please, Mr Brand.’

‘Much obliged,’ Brand said. ‘I’ll be in touch if I need anything else.’ He got up and let himself out of the surgery, putting on his cap on the way out. Behind him he heard Dr Fleming sniff and wipe his nose again.

11

B
rand drove his Land Rover back into Bulawayo to the police traffic department. It was in the same complex of government buildings as the provincial registry, in the grounds of the Drill Hall. He walked up to the charge desk in the main office, greeted the female constable on duty and asked if he could see Sergeant G. Khumalo from the traffic department.

‘Goodness, she is in the compound, doing police clearances.’ The constable went back to her copy of the Bulawayo
Chronicle
, the government-controlled local newspaper.

So, the sergeant was a woman. Brand walked outside again and looked at the sky. Grey clouds were forming, but not enough yet to block out the sun, which burned down on him ferociously. Bulawayo was up high, like Johannesburg on the South African Highveld, and it often seemed to him that little bit of variation in elevation made a big difference to the impact of the sun’s rays. Closer to the sun, closer to the rain clouds, perhaps closer to God.

His mother had been a staunch Catholic, a legacy of her Portuguese father, but Brand had chafed at being forced to go to mass every Sunday as a child. The war in Angola had put paid to any residual beliefs he might have taken with him into adulthood.

Had Kate Munns really killed herself to help a friend in need? Perhaps the sister, Anna, would know of Kate’s views on euthanasia. Suicide might void her policy; he would have to check that in the fine print, but if she had staged her own death then Dr Fleming might have been persuaded to turn a blind eye if he suspected something. Perhaps Kate had killed herself in some more traditional manner, such as gassing herself in her car or slitting her wrists, and the evidence had been concealed by Linley in a fiery crash after pushing their vehicle off the bridge. Cars didn’t usually burst into flames, despite what Hollywood thought, but carrying plastic jerry cans of petrol in the boot of a vehicle made it a more likely scenario. Brand had seen signs at service stations in Zimbabwe warning that this was an illegal practice, but everyone in Zimbabwe had lived through fuel shortages in the past, so many people still carried a container – legal or not – just in case.

While Dr Fleming had played his cards close to his chest Brand had no doubt the doctor and Linley Brown had been in contact. Reading between the lines, the woman was in trouble of some sort.

In a car park in the police compound twenty or so people were queuing to enter a small timber shack, known locally as a Wendy House because the prefabricated dwelling resembled a child’s playhouse. There was precious little shade and the queuers pressed against the shack’s walls under the asbestos eaves or held newspapers or satchels over their heads to ward off the sun’s rays.

Brand walked to the office door, which bore a sign saying
CID – police clearances
. In order to take a motor vehicle out of Zimbabwe drivers had to get a clearance certificate from their local police station verifying they were the legal owner of the vehicle, or that they had permission to be driving it. In theory, a police officer checked the vehicle’s chassis and engine numbers against the registration papers and the driver or owner’s licence to ensure stolen vehicles were not transported out of the country. In practice this scheme had been reduced to an exercise in queuing and paying. As with most enterprises in Zimbabwe it was also a way for smart operators to make money; at some garages you could pay someone to take your papers and queue for you.

Brand leaned around a man waiting to enter, knocked on the wall and said to the policeman sitting behind a desk, ‘Excuse me, good afternoon.’

The plain-clothes officer looked up, clearly annoyed. ‘Get to the end of the queue.’

‘Sorry, I don’t want a police clearance, I’m looking for Sergeant Khumalo.’

The man tossed his head. ‘Out back. She is at lunch.’

Brand thanked him, nodded an apology to the driver whose clearance he had interrupted and walked outside and around behind the Wendy House. Under a tree three men and a woman sat around an improvised charcoal brazier made from a cut-down oil drum. A pot of
sadza
bubbled on the radiator grill grid. The female police officer stirred the pot with a wooden spoon while the men smoked and talked.

‘Sergeant Khumalo?’

The woman looked up at him. ‘Police clearances are on the other side of the office. You must queue.’

‘No, I’m looking for you. I have some questions about a vehicle accident you attended a little over two months ago.’

Khumalo glanced at the pot. ‘I am about to eat.’

‘It’s important. Perhaps I can have five minutes of your time in private? Or I could buy you lunch.’

One of her male colleagues said something in Ndebele. Brand had a working knowledge of the language, which was a derivative of Zulu. It sounded to him as if the man had said, ‘Order a steak’. Khumalo smiled.

‘I don’t accept gifts or bribes,’ she said, loud enough for the others to hear.

Brand shrugged. He had no reason to doubt her. He’d found that in Zimbabwe and other African countries female police were far more likely to be efficient and less likely to be on the take than their male counterparts. It wasn’t a hard and fast rule, but Goodness Khumalo did not have the look of an overfed cop whose diet was subsidised by bribes.

‘Then perhaps your personal code of honour extends to helping put to rest the concerns of a family who lost a loved one in a terrible car crash,’ Brand said.

Khumalo pursed her full lips. ‘Five minutes.’ She stood and stretched. ‘There is a takeaway shop across the road. Maybe you can buy me a Coke.’

So much for not taking bribes, Brand thought, although it seemed Khumalo was going to come cheaper than Cecelia, the registry clerk. ‘Deal.’ They walked out of the gate. ‘Do you remember the death of a woman called Kate Munns, killed when her car went off a bridge on the road between Dete Crossing and Binga?’

Sergeant Khumalo nodded. ‘Yes, a bad one. But then they are all bad. The driver, Miss Munns, was not wearing a seatbelt because she was in an old car and she was knocked unconscious and trapped behind the wheel when the fire started. Her friend watched her burn. She was stupid to be carrying petrol in plastic containers in the back of the car.’

Brand nodded. That explained the fire. They crossed the street and Brand asked the policewoman what she wanted.

‘Coca-Cola.’

He ordered one for each of them and the shop assistant reminded him they had to drink them on the premises as the glass bottles were refundable, and worth money in Zimbabwe. Brand took a sip; the stuff tasted better out of a slightly scratched, curvy bottle, and the taste and the glass reminded him of his childhood in America. Cold Coke was about the best of it.

‘I’m investigating a claim on the dead woman’s insurance policy.’

Khumalo nodded and sipped from her bottle. ‘It’s not uncommon in this country for people to lodge fake claims. Some police officers will sell real forms which are fraudulently completed, but not me. And I don’t take bribes to write false reports.’

Just Cokes for information, but there was a difference.

‘I’m not suggesting you would,’ Brand said. ‘I’m more interested in the circumstances of the crash.’

‘The insurance company asked for a copy of my report. It was sent, so I am assuming you read it,’ Khumalo said. Her tone was haughty now, slightly miffed that Brand was questioning her integrity. Her blue uniform was crisply ironed, although Brand noticed her skirt was fraying at the hem. Her flat lace-up shoes were polished so that the toecaps gleamed.

They took a seat on plastic chairs outside the small cafe. Office workers and other police streamed in and out, emerging with styrofoam containers of
sadza y nyama
, mealie meal with a meat sauce, and fried chicken heads and feet, which Brand knew were called ‘walkie talkies’ in South Africa. When he was growing up, in Texas, his mother would sometimes make traditional African food for him, but only when no one else was around. ‘I did. It was very thorough. You interviewed the passenger of the car, Linley Brown.’

‘Yes, she was understandably upset. I was working at Binga at the time, relieving another sergeant whose wife had died; I had set up a radar trap about ten kilometres up the road and I was on my way back to the station. I was first on the scene, even before the ambulance.’

‘Where was Linley Brown, the passenger?’

‘She was sitting by the car. I remember her hands were burned and she was nursing them; she had been banging on the window of her friend’s door. The door itself was jammed and she couldn’t get back in via the rear passenger side where she had exited because of the fire.’ Khumalo looked down at her own hands, seemingly inspecting the chipped polish on her bitten-down nails.

‘You identified her when you took her statement?’ Brand took out his notebook and pen.

She looked up at him again. ‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘I checked her driver’s licence. Afterwards I asked to see some other ID and she showed me her passport.’

‘So you’ve no doubt she was who she said she was.’

Khumalo nodded. ‘The driver’s licence was old – the girl in the picture was much younger – but the passport was her, for sure. It was recently issued and the picture was of her, no doubt. Also, when I checked later at the morgue, they said the doctor, Fleming, had examined the remains; he identified a pin in the dead woman’s pelvis that matched an operation Miss Munns had been through. We found her handbag in the car. Everything was badly burned, but the British passport of Kate Munns was in there, burned but the name was still recognisable. I collected it and it was later sent to the family in the UK.’

‘What kind of passport was Linley Brown carrying?’

‘A green mamba – Zimbabwean.’ Khumalo drained her Coke and checked her watch. ‘I need to go if I am going to eat my
sadza
and get back to work on time.’

‘Just one more question.’

‘All right.’

‘I can see you were very thorough in your investigation, but I was wondering – that passport, could it have been a fake?’

She looked at him and he could see her mind ticking over. She was young for a sergeant, maybe mid-twenties, and attractive, with her carefully braided hair piled up high in a bun so as to not get in the way. He wondered if she was a party member, or if she had achieved her rank simply by being good at her job. He had meant what he said about the thoroughness of her investigation; she had taken the time to verify Linley’s ID documents.

Goodness shrugged. ‘It is possible, I suppose. I saw no reason to run the number.’

‘I agree,’ Brand said quickly, ‘you cross-checked her ID, but I need to cover off all bases, and the family of Ms Munns wants to contact Linley Brown to get some closure.’

The sergeant nodded. ‘That is such an American word. It doesn’t really happen here very often, closure.’ She looked around her, as if to check no one was in earshot. ‘Our troubles never end.’

Brand kept quiet. He knew she was wavering and he didn’t want to push her. She would be the sort who would think of herself as by-the-book and thorough. He had planted a suggestion in her mind, but it was up to her to make the decision. He might be able to pay someone in the immigration office in Bulawayo to check a passport number, but it would be quicker and easier for a police sergeant to do it for him.

She stood. ‘All right, Mr Brand. I will check the passport number for you.’

‘That’s much appreciated, ma’am.’ He reached into his pocket.

Khumalo held up a hand. ‘Don’t go doing me any
favours
. I don’t want your money. But if this is a case of fraud, of any sort, I will follow it up. I want to be a detective.’

‘I was just reaching for my card.’ He handed it to her. ‘I’ll share any information I get, if it looks like this case is fishy.’

She looked at it and smiled. ‘Hudson Brand, safari guide and private investigator. You track criminals as well as big game?’

‘That’s the general idea, ma’am.’

‘All right. I am hungry. I will call you later today, perhaps tomorrow.’

He touched his hand to his cap and watched her walk across the road, back to the police compound. She was smart and diligent.

Brand’s phone rang but before he had taken it out of his pocket it stopped. The number was a Zimbabwean mobile phone. He called the number back and Cecelia from the Provincial Registry Office answered.

‘Cecelia, it’s Hudson Brand. How are you?’

‘Fine. I found the name of that doctor you wanted.’ Her voice was faint, as though she was whispering.

‘Who was it?’

‘Can you come, in half an hour? There is something you should see. I don’t want to talk about it over the phone.’

He heard a man’s voice and figured there was someone else in the cubicle, perhaps a supervisor. ‘OK. I’ll see you in thirty.’ He ended the call.

Brand didn’t want to use his laptop in public, sitting in his Land Rover, so he walked down the street to an internet cafe and paid the young man sitting behind the counter for fifteen minutes’ worth of time. The assistant repositioned his headphones and went back to whatever game he was playing.

Brand logged into his email program and open a new message with the subject line ‘Good news’, from the wholesaler who represented his one-man business in the UK, Wayne Hamilton.

Hi Hudson, good news. I’ve just taken a booking for a three-week safari around Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa for a couple from London. The guy is a doctor, so expect a big tip, or a free prostate examination. Details and dates to come, but I’ve taken the liberty of assuming you’re free next week after reading about your exploits with the poacher in Kruger. Regards, Wayne.

Smartass
, Brand thought. He had a suspicion he knew who the doctor and his wife were, so he typed a short email back to Hamilton asking for the names of the clients.

While he was waiting, he googled Linley Brown and Kate Munns. He turned up no hits in Zimbabwe or South Africa for Linley, although there were a couple of stories in an accountancy firm’s corporate newsletter quoting Kate as the human resources manager and some news reports of her death in the car crash. There were no photos of either woman. He tried Facebook, but the only Kate Munns and Linley Brown he could find of approximately the right age were both, coincidentally, in Australia, the former in Melbourne and the latter in Perth. Neither was a match.