Amos was covered in sweat as the toxin did its work, paralyzing and debilitating him, eating him up from within, and causing his body to shut down.
Fires was fascinated by the effects of his work.
This was splendid stuff and far better than he had hoped.
He removed the shabby lace-less work boots from the paralysed kaffir’s stinking, sweaty feet, and then began to cut away the big man’s clothing, shredding it and pulling it free to leave him naked and exposed.
He put the point of the blade against the big man’s throat.
‘Should I put you out of you misery by slitting your throat, like you did my father? Or should I impale you as you did my brother?’
The kaffir’s eyes went wide with shock as he finally realised who this man was, and what it was he was talking about, but he was drooling over himself, trying to shake his head.
‘I could let the poisons finish you off, but that would be far too easy for you...I’m going to butcher you slowly instead.’
He gagged Amos, and brusquely tethered him to the makeshift cot with twine before starting to work on his body.
Fires ignored the blood, the pleading look in the man’s eyes as the tip of the blade sliced open the thick left thigh, paring away the flesh down to the bone, gradually slicing the meat from it in long thin strips. He had watched his father preparing biltong this way.
He calmly placed these off to one side, and then began the same process with the right thigh.
He could tell from the reactions of the paralysed man that this must have been excruciating agony for him, but Fires continued with the live autopsy nonetheless, slicing the meat from the bones, letting the blood soak through the coarse woven fabric of the cot and drip onto the compacted soil floor.
Amos was barely conscious by this time; his body had gone into shock from the combined effects of the snake venom and the loss of blood, despite Fires’ best efforts, and taking great care not to rupture any major blood vessels as he worked.
The torso was much easier to strip of flesh, especially the pectoral muscles, and Fires absent-mindedly thought back to his days of studying Shakespeare and “The Merchant of Venice”.
‘“Mercy is twice blessed”, as the bard once said,’ Fires began quoting, ‘“It blesses him that giveth and him that taketh”, Amos...but I want my pound of flesh all the same...and I will have it...’
Amos was dying. Fires could see the light in his eyes dimming as his consciousness finally faded from him, and this was the moment that he had been waiting for. He looked the black man straight in the eyes as he slowly pushed the blade up through the soft flesh of his double chin, slicing through the tongue and pinning it to the roof of his mouth before moving inexorably into the cranial cavity and ploughing a deep furrow into the brain.
As a child, someone once told him that all kaffirs possessed very small brains, but Fires instinctively knew that this was just arrant nonsense and anatomically incorrect. Despite the differences men had in skin colour, they were essentially all the same underneath.
Before leaving what remained of the corpse to the flies and taking the parcel of fresh meat with him, Fires decided to investigate the truth of this biological fact by smashing the top of the dead man’s skull using the hilt of the knife, and then peering into it.
He added a few slices of brain tissue to the parcel of meat he had already wrapped, mumbling to himself as he did so,
‘The proof of the pudding...’
Satisfied, he carefully crept from the kaia, kept to the shadows and collected his belongings from their hiding place in the bush, before hiking back into town and the hotel room, where he relaxed in a warm bath before dining on the tender morsels of meat and brain that he brought back from his hunt. He even instructed the hotel chef how to cook them for his supper. He invited several other guests at the hotel to sample the steak and brain meat that night and to wash it down with a local red wine as a jubilant celebration of his good fortune and good marksmanship.
Everyone at the table agreed that it was delicious and probably the best meat that they had tasted in a long time.
Fires slept peacefully and contentedly after his supper, and looked forward to catching up with the last of his three most wanted men, Billy Mafokeng, as soon as possible.
He also wondered idly over breakfast the following morning, how difficult it might be for him to discover the names of soldiers that served in the refugee camps during the war.
He would have to investigate the possibility during the summer term at University.
Billy Mafokeng presented Fires with two major problems to solve.
The first was purely a logistical one, as Billy seemed to spread his time migrating between three camps over the working year, one in Pretoria, the other in Johannesburg, and the last one in Durban.
He had a wife in each township and sired a total of seven children with them, so that isolating him from his family was going to be a difficult thing to do.
He also wondered if his conscience would allow him to murder the father of these children. After all, this act in itself was the catalyst for his current course of actions. To orphan seven innocents and leave three women as wailing widows was something that he had never formulated into his plan for the vengeance that he desired so much.
Time was marching rapidly onwards too, and would soon bring the summer break before his final year, so he needed to make up his mind and decide how to proceed quickly.
Malik Rasool also contacted him by letter, and informed him that he required his presence urgently in order to finalise the plans for his imminent inheritance, and asked if it was possible for them to meet up together in Durban during the December break.
Malik invited Fires to join them for Christmas dinner at his home, rather than “endure the stifling stuffiness” of his offices, as he put it, and Fires eagerly accepted his generosity and thoughtfulness.
Christmas was always a lonely time for people with no family...
Frederick Fitzsimons was enthralled by the work that Fires did on his own late at night in the laboratories at University, particularly the notion of modification of protein strands and enzymes in the snake venoms.
‘How easy was it for you to track down the snakes and milk their venom, Fires?’ he asked the young man.
‘Well, it was actually quite easy for me...My father used to take me out on the veldt with him for camping trips now and again, telling me about places to stay clear of, so that I could avoid being bitten. All I had to do was go to the places I was supposed to avoid when I was younger...’
‘Was it difficult to catch them...?’
‘Following your advice and being very careful, I soon found that it was relatively easy, and after my first few nervous and cack-handed attempts, I started to relax a little and actually enjoy it...They really are fascinating creatures close up...’
Talk then turned to the way in which the cholinergic neurons that used the acetylcholine as a transmitter in the victim’s body were attacked by the toxins, destroying the acetylcholinestrase in it, and preventing it from being broken down. This became the subject of an overly long, and sometimes heated, discussion between them.
‘The onset of tetany and fasciculation could be accelerated if this was chemically altered sufficiently...or, conversely...’ Frederick enthused, taking a huge gulp of his wine, ‘decelerated to counteract the effects of a snake bite.’
Fires smiled, wondering where this would lead.
Frederick ignored, or failed to notice, the smile and had continued blithely,
‘After all, these fascinating creatures evolved and developed their venom to slow down their prey to prevent it from escaping...to immobilise it quickly. The killing is really a secondary by-product of the bite and only the elapids such as the mamba are actually fast enough to pursue their prey...’
Fires nodded distractedly, suddenly realizing that the answer to at least one of his problems was right before his eyes, but that he had simply not see
n it from the right perspective.
As they drained the last dregs of their second bottle of wine, he mused over what Frederick had said, and then began to formulate how best to use this for his next kill.
They split the bill for the meal, shook hands in the usual friendly but perfunctory manner, and wished each other well for the festive season, before going their separate ways, promising as always to keep in touch, and leaving the waiter a healthy tip.
Once back at his rented apartment in Durban, Fires pored over the train timetables, began calculating and adding all of the variants he could think of to the equation, such as body mass, venom strength and journey times. The only thing that he could not allow for was any delay with the trains, but that was a chance he had to take, although he knew he really had nothing to lose in the end.
It only required the right preparation...
The meeting with Malik Rasool on December 22nd was a pleasant one for Fires, as he had already planned to spend Christmas with the solicitor at their home on the outskirts of Durban.
The house, when he arrived, turned out to be a well-appointed and largely proportioned middle-class dwelling, with its own private high-walled gardens.
Fires was very impressed by it as Malik took him through from the small driveway into the spacious entrance hall, dropping his bags on the porch and gazing around at what he thought was far from a typical Indian residence.
The décor smacked of Western culture, rather than being adorned with all the usual paraphernalia that Fires had grown accustomed to during his time spent with the Valjee’s, and when he finally met Malik’s wife, Fires was amazed at how young Sulima looked. She must have been at least twenty years Malik’s junior and probably only ten years older than Fires.
She was stunningly beautiful, but with a serenity to it that instantly reminded him of Mohinder, with her raven’s wings of thick black hair. It cascaded around the slim olive-skinned face, and set off her big brown eyes, hovering above silky smooth cheekbones, and full lips below the aquiline nose. There was an inner grace and peace exuding from her, putting Fires instantly at ease and immediately warming to her.
She smiled and welcomed him, directed him to his room, where he dropped his bag, unpacked his things and then lay back on the bed. He gazed up at a ceiling that was decorated quite tastefully, using images lifted from the works of Michelangelo Buonarroti in the Sistine Chapel. It initially seemed strange to Fires to see such incongruous images in what he anticipated being a typical Hindu residence. He realised he had misjudged Malik Rasool entirely.
During the Christmas break, Fires relaxed, put Billy Mafokeng to the back of his mind, and enjoyed the time he spent with the Rasools. Over a sumptuous traditional Christmas lunch, Fires discovered that Sulima too was orphaned by the same plague that had killed Mohanlal’s wife and children, and that she was taken under Malik’s wing for protection and sanctuary in much the same way that Fires himself had been by the Valjees.
They shared a common history, but Sulima had ultimately married her benefactor and now lived in comfort and luxury with him.
Malik wanted them to have children together, but found that this was simply not possible for them, and now, in his late fifties, he had resigned himself to a life without heirs, burying himself in his work and trying to make life for Sulima a happy one, despite the lack of children.
She seemed not to mind this, although a woman of thirty-something was still bound to be listening to the ticking of her internal body clock and feeling those unbidden maternal stirrings now and again.
She had thrown herself into her own education to combat this and, unlike many of her peers, led a life free of drudgery, immersed in intellectual stimulation and edification instead. As a consequence, the evenings that the Rasools were together were usually spent in either philosophical or political discussions that took place out on the veranda overlooking the magnificently landscaped gardens at the back of the house, whilst sipping gin and tonic in the summer, or nestled around the fire mellowing over glasses of mulled wine in the winter.
Malik was often forced away to India on business, leaving Sulima managing the household in his absence, spending her leisure time shopping, or neighbouring, as she called it, with those people that were not so narrow-minded as to see an Indian woman as merely another brown skinned invader. Unfortunately for her, however, since the Asiatic Registration Act of 1906 had come into force, these figures sadly dwindled. Legislation was making them outcasts in the country that they had made home and invested so much in.
Malik was worried about their future here, which was why he had decided to depart to India shortly after the New Year festivities.
He was saddened by this turn of events and knew instinctively that before too long, he and his wife, Sulima, would be cast down and disenfranchised as the blacks had been, and the possibility of losing everything that he had worked for was becoming more than a likely probability. The Pass Laws and Apartheid were a menacing reality for everyone of colour now, partly because of South Africa’s imminent independence, and also in some measure due to unrest being caused by Gandhi and his followers.
Malik had booked tickets for the England cricket team’s tour and the subsequent test at Lord’s in Durban, between the 21st and the 26th January, but was now going to be unable to attend because of the recent political unease, and his imminent trip back home.
He asked Fires if he would mind making some free time from his schedule to accompany Sulima to the cricket match in his place, and Fires readily agreed. Watching cricket in the company of such an erudite young woman was hardly going to be a chore for him, especially one as beautiful as she was, although it would delay his ultimate goal of settling the overdue account with Billy Mafokeng.
Fires remained philosophical about it all, thinking that the business with Billy had waited for several years now since the night of the burglary, and so a few weeks delay would make little difference either way...
On Friday 21st January, Fires rose early, showered and dressed for his day to be spent at Lord’s cricket ground, wearing a lightweight white, short-sleeved cotton shirt, with light cream coloured slacks, brown brogues, and, for a moment, he toyed with the notion of putting on his red silk bow-tie. It was a birthday gift to him from Mohanlal, matching the red pin-stripe braces he wore with the slacks, but then realised that it was going to be very warm that day and left it in the drawer.
He waited patiently, but a little anxiously, for the small two-seated horse-drawn carriage to arrive outside his rented apartment, then nimbly climbed aboard and gave the driver Sulima’s address.
The morning mists burned away quite quickly, and it was going to be a scorching hot summer’s day, possibly leading to a spectacular thunderstorm in the evening because of the humidity.
Fires idled away time on the short journey to the Rasool residence in contemplation of Billy Mafokeng and how to settle his business with the man, realizing that Billy would always spend the winter in Durban and the summer months earning money by working up in the Transvaal.
Billy would have to journey there and back by train, and this gave Fires the ideal opportunity to plan more thoroughly.
He may not be able to isolate Billy from his wives and children in the townships, but whilst he was in transit on the railways, his movements would be far more predictable, and thus make him much more vulnerable, particularly as he would have to change trains at Kroonstad on both legs of his journey.
The crunching of gravel under the wheels of the carriage dragged him from his vengeful thoughts, as Sulima’s house loomed up in front of him, and, right on cue, she breezed airily out of the front door, dressed like a middle-class English lady on a day out.
She wore a long flowing cotton dress in pure white, with a cream sash at the waist, a carefully folded parasol tucked under her arm, and a small white bonnet on her lustrous black hair that she had tied tightly up into a bun.
He jumped athletically down from the carriage, and helped her aboard, befo
re giving the driver instructions to take them to the cricket ground.
They chatted politely about the hot weather and about Fires’ total ignorance when it came to the rules of the game of cricket, about Malik’s business trip and all the while ignoring the stares of passers by, who found the notion of a white man sharing a carriage with an Indian woman completely outrageous. Neither Sulima nor Fires noticed or cared about them, and Sulima gently patted Fires’ thigh and told him how thoroughly smart she thought he looked, with him responding in kind by smiling at her and letting her know how refined and beautiful he thought she looked.
‘We’re like a mutual appreciation society, aren’t we?’ she giggled.
‘Yes, but I seem to be in far better company than you are...’ he responded in flattery.
‘Nonsense Meneer Valjee...’ she teased, causing him to frown.
‘Please...I’ve reverted to using my original South African name of Van Vuuren again now, Sulima. The Valjee family died in the fire at the house down on Umgeni Road, and although I will never forget their boundless kindness to me, and will always treasure the time I spent with them, retaining their name has too much pain attached to it for me...so Fires is fine.’
‘Is he?’ she asked, a frown creasing her forehead, ‘Is he really fine after all that he has been through?’
‘Well...as fine as he can be, I think...here we are.’
The carriage drew to a halt amongst the crowds of people eager to see South Africa beat the English at their own game, and the pair descended from the carriage, mingled and melted into the throng, working their way to their reserved seats.
South Africa were, according to the toss, going to be the first team to bat, and the line-up identical to that of their first test match, with Blythe yet again being left out of the England side.
Fires watched on intently as Stricker notched up 31 runs, before being bowled out by a blistering delivery from Buckenham, with a subdued but thorough commentary provided by Sulima in hushed tones.
Billy (Hunger Book 2) Page 3
