Virgin Petra
The smoke from the cooking fires drifted over the valley. It smelt sweet most of the time but when the wind changed it smelt foul. Some people were so poor they were burning other people’s garbage to heat their cooking pots. Petra had gone to visit them.
She wanted to meet the wife of one of the miners who had been killed when her uncle Henry’s guards fired on protesters. The poor woman wasn’t difficult to find. Neighbours were crowding around. Small children clung to her skirt. Petra was overcome with emotion. Mario said she took off her straw hat and sunglasses and shed tears.
He described what happened next.
‘They recognised her, David.’
It was David’s worse fear.
‘They treated her like a saint. Richard has helped the people here. When they saw his daughter it was like those religious services in Columbia. The women there rave over the Virgin Mary. That’s how they think about Petra here.’
David was reminded of something Anna had said about her little sister. They were lying together in bed at the time and Anna was joking about the Virgin Petra. She wasn’t so far off the mark. Her prediction had come true.
He tried to blot out all thoughts of Anna. His mind spun when he thought about her and the terrible way she died. Mourning Anna was something for the future. Right now he had to contend with the present.
He turned to Mario.
‘We have to speak to Winston.’
‘Why?’
‘He knows what goes on around here and he’s tough. So is Elizabeth. They wouldn’t have built up their business if they weren’t tough. They’re into everything. It’s not just this store and filling station. They’ve got trekking lodges and they own trucks.’
‘Can we trust them?’
‘They know about Petra. They must have guessed that she is in danger. They aren’t stupid. We need to speak to them.’
‘Just the two of us?’ Mario asked.
‘No. We’ll take Sipho. They know about him and the connection with the de Villiers. It will look odd if we leave him out. They’ll wonder how we fit in.’
‘What about Petra?’
‘She’s gone to her room. You can explain to her afterwards.’
The small room at the rear of the store was crammed with books. A TV-set perched in a corner and a computer stood on a desk amongst business ledgers and writing pads. Winston sat at the desk dressed in a waistcoat and wearing an eyeshade that projected over his forehead like the peak of a cap. David recalled that his grandfather used to wear one when working on his papers at night.
Elizabeth showed them into the room. Sipho explained that they had a problem and their hosts agreed. Elizabeth said people were talking about Petra and all sorts of wild stories were circulating. Some went so far as to say she had been murdered along with her father and they were seeing her ghost. David said that Petra was very much alive and they wanted to keep it that way.
Winston examined him critically.
‘Did you work for Richard de Villiers?’
David considered the question carefully. His grandfather had taught him never to tell anyone more than they needed to know. Elizabeth and Winston clearly knew a lot already. Their cover had been blown. It was abundantly clear that they were on the run and feared for their safety.
‘I work for people who want to find out who killed Richard,’ David replied cautiously. ‘Sipho and Mario are friends of Petra. They are helping to protect her.’
Winston turned to Elizabeth and nodded. David guessed they had already reached that conclusion.
‘The people who killed Richard de Villiers are very dangerous,’ David continued. ‘You must take down that photograph of Richard in the store and remove anything else that connects you with him.’
‘We did that yesterday,’ Elizabeth replied.
David felt silly. He should have noticed that the photograph was missing. He glanced at Winston who continued to eye him carefully.
‘We need your advice.’
‘My advice …’
‘We can’t stay here, Winston. They’ll be onto us in a flash. These people are clever. They have eyes and ears everywhere.’
‘Who are they?’
‘People who Richard was investigating. They bribe politicians and union leaders. They exploit workers and rig elections. We call them the Cabal. That’s our name for them. Some are South African but most are from other countries. They’re into banking, pharmaceuticals, seed production, mining, television.’ David threw out his hands expressively. ‘They are taking over the world.’
‘Richard was finding out too much about them,’ Mario cut in. ‘That’s why they killed him. His scientists were investigating the pharmaceutical companies. A lot of them are selling drugs with serious side-effects. They make people ill with one drug then sell them another to make them better. It’s the same with the big international seed companies. Some of them are selling seeds that don’t breed true …’
‘What does that mean?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘They engineer seeds that produce plants for farmers. The plants are good but they don’t produce good seeds for planting. That means the farmers have to keep buying seeds and that puts the producers in a very powerful position. They push up the price and the farmers are forced to get a loan for their next crop. A crooked bank finances it and the producers sell the farmers seeds that have been engineered to fail. The farmers don’t have a proper crop to sell so they can’t repay the loan and the bank takes their land …’
Mario carried on. Elizabeth asked more questions and Winston listened intently. David didn’t like the way the conversation was going. Mario was saying far too much. At one point, Elizabeth seemed to doubt his word. She said there was nothing wrong with the seed they were selling to the farmers.
That caused a swift response.
‘I’m not saying that all seed producers are like that, Elizabeth. I’m talking about the bad ones. Believe me. I know how these people operate. I was born into the Cabal. I have heard them talking. You might think that an agricultural bank and a seed company are different but they’re not. They are owned by the same people. Farmers are committing suicide in India because of what these people are doing.’
David wished Mario would shut up. He was saying far more than needed. Elizabeth and Winston didn’t need to know that his parents were members of a murderous gang of power-hungry fanatics who were trying to take over the world. That sort of information was dangerous. David guessed that Mario had spent his life hiding the awful truth. Now he was unburdening himself to strangers.
It was totally over-the-top but it had the desired effect. Winston said he had friends who would hide them. They were Zulus and lived in a remote part of KwaZulu Natal. He would arrange for them to leave at once and go back into South Africa by one of the pony trails. If they went by road they might be stopped and asked to show their papers.
There was no tropical jungle but there were lemurs. Kate poked bananas through the bars of their cages and listened as Rodriquez told her how much they were worth. He said they were not just ordinary lemurs. They were rare lemurs that could be sold at immense profit if they were got to the right place in prime condition.
Prime condition could not be guaranteed if the small creatures were anesthetised and hidden beneath the false bottoms of packing cases. As an animal lover, he had come up with an alternative means of transport. Instead of smuggling an endangered species out of the Republic of Madagascar, his lemurs would be transported in small planes that were not subjected to unnecessary inspection by wildlife officers.
Kate had never liked Rodriquez. The guy was a creep. Nothing about him hung together. She hated to think about what he would be like in bed. Rodriquez claimed to be Portuguese. That could be technically true. He spoke the language but his English was far better. She guessed that he was a Brit pretending to be someone else.
She remained in limbo. Kirstin was sending her emails but David had failed to contact her. She couldn’t do anything to help him if she didn’t know where he was.
Humphrey handed over his tweed jacket to the dry-cleaners. It was one of a number of items that he had failed to launder for the past few years. Kirstin had convinced him that he should consign most to the incinerator but could keep the jacket so long as it was purged of the tell-tail information that it had accumulated on its travels.
The precision with which they had plotted Olaf’s trips around the world was daunting. He had visited three continents in as many years. One might think that no record had been kept. That would be totally wrong. Minute pollen grains had recorded Olaf’s wanderings in detail. Humphrey was determined to avoid that happening to him.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. A series of long-and-short pulses tickled his leg. He had programmed it to send messages in Morse code. Right now the phone was telling him that a call was coming in from one of the sources that he had designated as important.
‘Merci Bien!’
Humphrey grabbed the receipt from the startled shop assistant and made for the door. He had been waiting for this call for days and was determined not to miss it. The phone started speaking before he got it to his ear. He recognized Olaf’s distinctive voice.
‘Hi. Are you there?’
He spoke in Danish.
‘I’m in town right now,’ Humphrey replied in the same language.
‘Sorry I couldn’t get back to you earlier,’ Olaf continued. ‘I was called away. You know how it is in my work. There’s always another priceless treasure to be recorded before some Vandal with a bulldozer destroys it. This one was in Italy. Anyway, I’m back now and I’d like to meet up. There’s a little place called the Café Noir. Do you know it?’
‘Mother and I have had breakfast there.’
‘I can’t manage breakfast. Perhaps a little later … eleven say … tomorrow. Is that okay?’
’11 am at the Café Noir would be fine.’
‘Good. Bring your mother.’
‘I’ll do that.’
‘Bye …’
The phone went dead. Humphrey noted that names had not been used and Olaf had stuck to Danish. He guessed that his recent mission had not been to Italy and had nothing to do with recording priceless treasures before they were bulldozed into the ground. Olaf had gone to South Africa to kill Henry de Villiers and his family.