Carla
Sipho sneaked in through the backdoor and made his way to the kitchen. Anna’s people were already there. It was like witnessing an invasion. Two vehicles had followed Anna’s limousine into the grounds. They were the sort the local security companies used but the people in them weren’t South African … they were South American.
A woman and a man were giving instructions to the staff and inquiring about the contents of the wine cellar. They were speaking in highly accented English. Sipho guessed they wouldn’t understand a word of Xhosa.
He stood in the doorway and nodded to one of the cooks. The elderly woman belonged to his tribe and he knew her well. She raised her head, in a sign of recognition, and walked across.
‘I must speak to the mistress.’
He called Petra mistress as a mark of respect. It was the traditional Xhosa way of referring to people in authority. A younger generation might find that old fashioned. In the tribal homelands it was the way things were still done. To do otherwise would be regarded as boorish and rude.
‘The mistress is upstairs with her sister and those people.’
Sipho noticed that the old woman had consigned Anna to the lowly role of sister. She clearly shared his views on what was going on.
‘I must speak to the mistress alone,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll go into the kitchen garden and wait for her there.’
Petra pushed the backdoor open and peered into the garden. She had managed to slip away while Anna was screaming into a phone, telling someone to get off their arse. To her relief, Sipho was there. She restrained a desire to collapse into his arms.
‘Sipho. I’m so glad to see you.’
He was like a big brother and she desperately needed one now.
‘Mistress …’
He spoke in Xhosa.
‘No, Sipho.’ She grasped his hand. ‘Call me Petra. You do that when we speak English. Call me Petra now … I’m feeling so lonely.’
‘Petra. What is going on?’
‘I don’t know. Richard has been missing for almost a week …’
They spoke in a confused mixture of Xhosa and English. Petra always referred to her father as Richard when she spoke English. In Xhosa he was lord. She decided to stick to Richard and forget the niceties of tribal practice.
Sipho changed the subject.
‘David …’
‘What about him, Sipho?’
‘He is weird.’
‘What do you mean?’
He told her about the meeting at the airport and how David had bombarded him with questions before agreeing to get into the car.
‘David is a special agent.’
‘A what?’
‘He has been sent to look after us, Sipho.’
She told him about Steven Mason and how he was a close friend of her grandfather when he was alive.
‘You must help him, Sipho. Tell him you have spoken to me. Anna is here with her gang of Brazilians. Uncle Henry will arrive soon from Columbia. His people are even worse than Anna’s.’
A helicopter appeared overhead. David drew back into the shelter of a doorway as it blew leaves from trees and stripped clothes from a washing line. Henry de Villiers had arrived and he wasn’t the sort who wasted time traveling by road. His private jet had landed at Cape Town international airport and he had flown on from there.
Sipho had told him about Petra’s Uncle. Most of it he knew already from the briefing he had received from Charlie and Sir George. Henry de Villiers was Richard’s younger brother. While their father was still alive, he had been sent to live in Columbia and look after family interests there. Henry married a fiery Columbian lady and they had a daughter called Carla, who was accompanying her parents on their visit.
The helicopter blades slowed. A door flew open and a figure jumped out. David guessed it was Carla. Charlie had shown him photographs of her. He said the lithe, dark-haired beauty fancied herself as a gymnast and had won prizes in international competitions.
The pilot signalled for her to wait until the blades came to a halt. Carla took no notice. Neither did her parents. They were not the sort who took orders from servants.
Carla stormed in. She knew the old house well and had no trouble finding her way around. Petra watched as her cousin poked her head around corners and peered down corridors. Her tongue lashed out and her dark eyes flashed. Carla had inherited the features and fiery temperament of her mother’s Spanish forbears.
‘Where is she?’
They were the first words she said. Petra assumed they were addressed to her. Carla had entered the house without a single hello or any other form of greeting.
Petra was determined to keep her cool.
‘To whom are you referring?’
She spoke in the carefully-modulated voice she used in class when debating with other students. Carla didn’t scare her. Her cousin sounded more like a chicken in a farmyard than the formidable lady she claimed to be.
‘Anna, of course!’
Carla expected other people to be mind-readers.
Petra’s face remained calm.
‘She is talking to her friend.’
‘What friend?’
‘His name is Mario.’
A shadow entered the hallway. Petra saw Anna. Her sister had Mario in tow. He lagged behind. She advanced with long determined strides. Petra was reminded of a prize-fighter spoiling for a fight.
‘Slut!’
Carla let fly with a tirade of abuse. She began in English and lapsed into Spanish. Petra concluded that it was richer in the sort of words Carla needed. She knew enough Spanish to know that Carla regarded her sister as a whore, harlot, fag and a hundred other things that would damn her in the eyes of certain important people.
She kept referring to them but it was far from clear who the important people were. One thing was certain. Mario was the cause of the upset. Both women thought they owned him.
Mario stood to the side with a bemused expression on his face. Petra wondered what was going on in his mind. Two women were fighting over him. He seemed more amused than disturbed by the incident.
Carla grabbed his hand.
‘You will sleep with me and my parents in our quarters.’
‘No! He will not!’
Anna grabbed the other hand. It was a ridiculous situation. Petra stepped forward and intervened. She was reminded of the biblical story about two women fighting over a baby. The wise King Solomon volunteered to cut the child in half to decide the issue. That seemed an inappropriate solution to the present problem.
‘There is a spare room next to mine,’ Petra said. ‘I use it as a study. A bed can be brought in and Mario can sleep there.’
‘That’s fine by me.’
Mario was quick to agree.
‘Good. That’s settled.’
Petra took Mario’s arm and led him away before the two women had a chance to object. Uncle Henry and the rest of his entourage were streaming into the house. She guessed that neither Carla nor Anna would create a scene in front of them.