by Tony Park
She sat upright and blinked. For a second she had no idea where she was. The room was dark, though a chink of light peeping around the edge of the heavy curtains told her it was daylight. The air-conditioner hummed.
She’d been dreaming of the Norman church in the village where her parents lived, walking down the aisle in an ivory dress with a lace bodice. George was waiting for her, his back to her, but when he’d turned it was Alex’s face she saw. She shivered.
The bed was empty, just an indentation in the mattress beside her and the smell of his aftershave on the pillow. And on her.
She put a hand over her eyes. ‘Oh, God,’ she said aloud.
Right at that moment, Jane wanted to be back in her old room, in her parents’ cottage, with a mum who’d tell her everything would be fine, and a father who’d bring her tea in bed. She wished she’d never met George Penfold or Alexandre Tremain.
She remembered George’s proposal and groaned.
‘George, you’re already married,’ she’d said to him, once the shock had passed.
‘She’s agreed to a divorce, Jane. I spoke to her on the telephone as soon as I learned you were safe. It was hard, of course, but it’ll be an amicable split, I’m sure.’
‘It’s all so soon, George. I’m flattered, honestly, but please, I need some time to think.’
He’d told her how much he had worried about her when she was missing, and how he’d come to the realisation that he needed her in his life. She had been touched and had felt the tears start to well behind her eyes. It had been a very long time since she’d felt needed by anyone.
He’d told her he understood her need for time, and then dragged the upright chair from the suite’s desk into the bathroom and sat and poured them both some more champagne. She’d gone over what had happened to her on the island and in Mozambique – making no reference to what had happened between her and Alex, of course – as she’d finished cleaning herself and then shaved her legs with a pink disposable razor.
When she had finished washing, George had just sat there, sipping his wine, as she’d stood. The soapy water slithered down her body as she reached across to the rail for a towel.
For a moment she wondered if his stillness and silence were signs of pouting, as if he were offended by her lack of commitment. But then she noticed his dark eyes, the only part of him showing any sign of life just then, moving from her face, to her breasts, to her lower belly.
‘It’s started to grow back,’ he said, looking at her.
She blushed, then felt a pang of annoyance. After the second time they’d slept together he’d told her he’d like it if she were bare for him. She’d gone to a beautician for a full wax. It had been painful, but the anticipation of getting it done for him, and of waiting for and receiving his approval, had been incredibly erotic. She’d read in women’s magazines about people playing games of domination and submission in the bedroom and the whole idea had never really appealed to her, until she’d become intimate with George. What she liked about their liaisons was the different feelings and experiences he helped her discover.
But expecting her to maintain some bizarre standard of personal grooming while she’d been away for weeks at sea and then imprisoned on an island in the Indian Ocean was just too much. She started to speak, but he raised a finger to his lips.
‘Stay there,’ he said, and her anger was replaced with a different emotion.
Slowly, he rolled first one, then the other of his shirt sleeves to the elbows. He still wore his silk tie and suit pants and shoes. He leaned across her, the back of his hand lightly brushing one thigh, and she felt the goose bumps instantly rise on her bare flesh. George took a bar of translucent red soap, dipped it in the water and rubbed it into a lather in his left hand. With his right he took the razor she’d used on her legs and sluiced it in the bath.
Jane took a breath and held it as his fingers touched her, slowly, firmly rubbing the suds into the soft folds of her skin.
‘Move your feet further apart,’ he commanded.
She placed her palms either side of her, against the cool, pure white tiles to brace herself as she slid her feet carefully wider on the slippery bottom of the tub. She didn’t want to fall, and the effort of standing still added to the intense feelings of arousal his touch was producing in her.
‘George, can’t we –’
‘Quiet,’ he’d ordered.
Jane stretched now, raising her hands past her head as she yawned in the bed. She remembered the first touch of the blade and the scraping noise it made as she dared not breathe. She lowered a hand beneath the plump duvet and felt the smoothness. Her own touch produced a repeat of the throb that had seemed to resonate through her body last night as he’d held her, in his fingers, and shaved her bare.
After he’d finished she’d turned the tables on him.
She’d stepped from the tub, placing a wet foot either side of him and forcing his legs together so she could straddle him. She noted the quick grimace as suds and water soaked the expensive pressed fabric of his trousers, but also the hardness beneath the material.
His mouth opened, hungrily, to hers as she placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back into the chair. She broke the kiss, amused at how quickly his cool had vanished. He looked imploringly up into her eyes.
‘Please,’ she said.
He swallowed, licked his lips and repeated the word, as she knew he would.
She reached down between them, rocking back a little in his lap so she could undo the zipper. When he reached for her she grabbed him around the wrist and forced his hand back by his side. The memory of how slick he’d been, the slippery fluid welling from him, made her touch herself again now, in the bed.
Jane had freed him and run her hand up and down the thick shaft just twice, before standing slightly and then lowering herself down on him.
She revelled for a few pleasurable minutes in the memory of him inside her, the sense of fullness and completion. She craved that intimacy, more than she’d remembered. But now, as had happened last night, another face invaded her mind as her breathing quickened. Despite her best efforts to blank it out, she saw Alex’s face.
It was no dream, though, what had happened after George had climaxed inside her. She’d stayed there, in his lap, as he’d wrapped his arms around her. As she’d laid her head on his shoulder, spent, he had whispered to her again, ‘Will you marry me, Jane?’
And she, feeling terribly guilty that this man, who would give up his family for her, had been supplanted in her mind by a criminal, who had been using her to find something that did not belong to him, had said, ‘Yes.’
‘I love you. See you at midday.’ George Penfold smiled to himself as he folded his mobile phone closed.
‘Who’s that, the little woman?’ Mitch Reardon asked.
‘None of your business. Tell me again why I’m taking time out of my busy schedule to see you?’
Reardon laughed, and the waitress at the Primi Piatti coffee shop in Melrose Arch was so taken aback by the ferocity of the outburst that she hovered several metres away from the table the men sat at.
Piet van Zyl waved her over. ‘I’ll have another espresso.’
Penfold waved his hand over his latte to signify he wanted nothing, but Mitch said, ‘Cognac, neat,’ and winked at the girl. Johannesburg was full of blondes. ‘You want to go on losing valuable cargo, and you don’t want your stuff back, then just get up and leave now. But don’t forget to leave enough money for the bill, and a nice fat tip for the babe in black and white.’
Mitch had already said as much to Penfold’s henchman, Van Zyl, over the phone before the meeting.
Van Zyl looked military. Probably an ex-Recce Commando, like Mark Novak, Mitch thought. He’d said to Mitch, ‘Tell me something I don’t already know’, and Mitch had been pleased to hear the pause at the other end when he’d replied that he could give the names and the location of all of the men who’d hijacked the Penfold Son.
&nb
sp; ‘Well, go on, what do you have to tell me – or sell me?’ Penfold said.
‘Now we’re talking. I know who raided your ship and where they live.’
Penfold smiled, took a sip of his coffee and reached into the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket. ‘I know you do, Mister Reardon. Because you’re one of them.’
He laid the photograph on the white laminate table. Mitch saw it was a printout of a digital shot. He recalled the moment in an instant. All of them wore their black T-shirts with the skull and crossbones insignia. It had been taken with Lisa’s camera. They’d all been drunk – the night after hijacking the freighter full of booze and widescreen televisions – and not even tight-ass Alex had prohibited Novak’s wife from giving the camera to one of the Vilanculos prostitutes to take a picture of them all.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘That shouldn’t concern you. What should concern you is Interpol. I’m sure they’ll be very interested in chatting to you, now that you’ve all but admitted you helped take my ship by force, damaged a significant amount of my property, and killed one of my captains.’
‘I didn’t kill anyone.’
‘My heart leapt when I saw you, Mister Reardon,’ Penfold smiled. ‘My employee, Mister Van Zyl here, sourced this photo for me, but until you showed up here today we had no idea who most of these men were.’
Mitch nodded. ‘Novak. You got it from Lisa’s place.’ He looked at Van Zyl and saw the reflection of his own soulless eyes. The eyes of a killer. Lisa Novak had never really liked him, but he had hoped that if he ever settled with a woman she would be like her. She was no-nonsense, with a nasty mouth on her when it suited her, and she stood by her husband whatever he was doing, be it serving in the army or as a contractor in Iraq, or ripping off shipping in the Indian Ocean. And she had a sensational body. ‘She obviously didn’t give any more away, or you stole the picture without her knowing, otherwise you wouldn’t be talking to me now.’
‘Brilliant, Mister Reardon. Simply brilliant.’
Mitch had the urge to ram his fist into the supercilious Englishman’s face and feel his nose squish under his knuckles. If they’d hurt Lisa, Novak would be worse than a grizzly woken early from hibernation. ‘Five hundred thousand. Dollars, not rand.’
‘Ridiculous,’ Penfold said. ‘I could pay a team of private investigators to identify the men in this picture. It’d probably take them a week of checking out pubs and resorts on the Mozambican coast.’
Mitch nodded. ‘It’d have to be a big team, and I’m sensing you don’t have a week – otherwise we wouldn’t be sitting in this little yuppie fortress. So make me an offer.’
‘Ten thousand dollars and you not only identify the men, you also give details of where and how to find them, any relatives living in South Africa or Mozambique, what arms they carry, and a map of their location.’
‘Two-fifty and I’ll lead the raiding party to clean them up.’
‘Fifteen thousand and you’ll go as part of Piet’s team.’ Penfold looked to the South African, who had remained silent for most of the conversation. ‘Under his command.’
Mitch scratched his chin. ‘I’ll want a fair cut of whatever loot they’ve got stashed.’
Penfold looked at Van Zyl, who nodded. ‘Then we have us a deal, though any boats the pirates have are to be burned or scuttled. I don’t want you starting up an operation of your own, Mister Reardon.’
Damn, Mitch thought. The guy was smart, and a tough negotiator. But fifteen grand wasn’t bad for a couple of days’ work. In fact, he would have paid that much himself to watch Alex Tremain die.
Alex used the hands-free car kit to talk on his mobile phone as he weaved in and out of the rolling traffic jam that was Johannesburg. He already had the beginnings of a shopping list in mind for the operation.
‘Kim, hello?’ said the cultured female voice, the accent that of a South African of British descent.
Just the sound of her voice did things to his body, but at that same instant he pictured Jane’s face. The Englishwoman was still lurking in his mind, but he and Kim Hoddy had history. They’d been lovers before he’d left Africa to join the Royal Marines for a second time. She had wanted him to stay and marry her, but he’d thirsted for adventure, even more than he craved every long inch of Kim’s supple body. She was rich – very rich – and her parents had not been sad to see the back of the half-Portuguese, half-English boy who wanted nothing more than a humble soldier’s life.
‘Kim, it’s Alex. Howzit?’
‘Alex! My God! Where are you?’
He told her, and she replied that she was getting her nails done in Sandton Mall.
That figured. She’d always been obsessed with grooming and fashion. Kim cultivated that just-stepped-off-the-yacht look and succeeded every time. Chipped nails had to be repaired as a matter of urgency and stray hairs could bring on an anxiety attack. He’d taken her to the Kruger Park once and she’d brought with her a cosmetic case the size of an artillery ammunition box.
‘Aren’t you still living in Mozambique?’
‘Yes. I’m just here for an overnight business trip. How are Brian and the kids?’
He heard the pause on the end of the line as she thought about her answer. ‘Fine. Just fine. Sharna’s five – she’s started school now – and Brent’s ten already.’
She didn’t say anything about her plastic surgeon husband. ‘Is Brian still in the army reserve?’
‘Yes, and the honorary rangers. If he isn’t off on manoeuvres somewhere or jolling about Pilanesberg National Park in his silly ranger’s uniform, he’s on the golf course.’
Alex smiled. ‘I’m close to Sandton now. Have you got time for coffee?’
‘Ja,’ she said. ‘But how about I get the girl to put on a nice brew at home for us, rather than that American rubbish they serve in the mall?’ She gave him her address and he knew how to find the house – it was in the same street where her parents lived. She might look a picture of cool elegance, but Kim had done some things in her folks’ place that would have sent them to early graves if they’d known.
Alex turned off the M1 and when he stopped at a set of lights he beckoned for an old woman with an armful of flowers to come to the window. Her gap-toothed smile pleased him almost as much as his fifty rand did her. He tossed the roses on the passenger seat.
Kim’s house was like every other in the street – invisible behind a high rendered masonry wall topped with a multi-strand electric fence and coils of razor wire. He’d been in military compounds and safe houses in Afghanistan that weren’t as well defended as the average Sandton home. However, it was justifiable paranoia as there were probably more people shot dead each year in suburban Johannesburg than in Kabul. Before he could push the buzzer mounted at window height, the electric gate started to roll open.
There was a bright yellow Chevrolet Crossfire and a British racing-green Discovery 3 – whose numberplate read BEAUTY GP – parked on the driveway gravel, which crunched under Alex’s wheels and was scattered by the galloping approach of two massive Rottweilers. The dogs had diamante collars – at least he supposed the stones were fake.
‘Sunflower! Pansy!’
Alex grimaced, and hoped for the dogs’ sake that they were females. Kim needn’t have bothered, as Sunflower was licking his fingers and Pansy had her face buried in his crotch. Kim lifted a hand to her mouth and giggled when she saw him.
Alex waved. She was even prettier now than she had been the last two times he’d seen her, at twenty and thirty. She wore a simple white v-neck T-shirt with very short sleeves, which showed lots of cleavage and her slender arms. Her denim skirt ended above her knees and she didn’t have to rise too much on her toes to kiss his cheek, thanks to the high-heel black leather boots that encased her calves. She hugged him tight.
‘You look fantastic, Kim.’ She’d straightened her red hair, which had been a mass of curls last time he’d seen her.
She blushed. ‘And you look good eno
ugh to eat, as usual.’
She turned quickly and he followed her inside, across the polished Italian marble tiles. He smelled fresh coffee and the fragrance led them to a kitchen as big as one of the suites in his ruined hotel. Kim gestured to him to take a stool at the breakfast bar opposite her and poured from the percolator jug into oversized white china cups. ‘I’ve given the girl the rest of the morning off. Still just black, no sugar?’
‘You remembered?’ He took the cup and sipped the scalding liquid.
‘All of it. I remember everything about those days. Maybe it’s a symptom of my approaching midlife crisis.’
‘You’re only, what, thirty-five, thirty-six?’
‘Thirty-five!’
He laughed. ‘It seems like only yesterday.’ There were snapshots of her children on the refrigerator, and a clutter of posed studio portraits of the family together and individually on a mahogany dresser behind him in the sprawling lounge room.
‘Nice house. The practice must be doing well.’
‘I’d rather be running a beachfront hotel in Mozambique.’
He shook his head. ‘No, you wouldn’t. I’m just about broke, Kim. You’d hate it. No electricity most of the time, no money, no nothing. Just sea and sand. You’ve got everything here.’
Through the perfectly made-up mask her eyes betrayed her. They looked away from him, away from the comforts of her home and the real dangers of having money in a country full of poor people. ‘I’ve got nothing.’
‘Your kids look lovely . . .’
‘It feels like a gaol sometimes, Alex. Does your life ever feel like that? I don’t know who I am any more, or if I even really exist as anything more than Brian’s wife and Sharna and Brent’s mom.’
He said nothing, but stood and walked around the granite-topped counter to her. He placed a finger under her chin and tilted her face.
‘Tell me I’m beautiful and fuck me, Alex.’
‘Fuck me, you’re beautiful, Kim.’
She laughed.
