Ghosts of the Past

by Tony Park

  She gave him the passwords.

  ‘Good.’

  The gunman held her head up, by her hair, while the second man fixed a piece of tape over her mouth. Hurriedly, they bound her ankles, then left the room.

  The tears poured down her face and soaked into the cheap nylon bedspread.

  Anja did not know how long it was before the police and the night porter arrived in her room, but it was almost too long to bear. Her mind raced with visions of the men returning to assault or kill her.

  A female detective and a uniformed male officer cut her bindings and then the detective ordered the night manager to make her a cup of coffee, or get her something stronger. Anja asked for tea and a brandy then gave the detective a statement about what had happened and what had been stolen.

  While waiting for the drinks, Anja called her bank in Munich and cancelled her credit cards. The customer service officer told her, to her relief, that none of her funds had been withdrawn or spent by the thieves.

  The detective reviewed her notes. ‘You say they asked for your email password?’

  Anja nodded.

  The detective tapped her pen against her notebook. ‘That’s a new one for me, but in this age of identity fraud who knows what the criminals are after next.’

  ‘I need to change it as soon as possible,’ Anja said, fighting back tears, ‘but they have taken my iPad, my laptop, my purse and all my cards, my phone, my hard drive. I feel like everything I have, everything in my life, is gone.’

  The female detective reached out and took her hand in hers; the touching gesture made Anja want to cry again.

  ‘You weren’t hurt seriously, be thankful for that, praise God,’ the detective said. ‘Why would someone be interested in your PhD research papers?’

  Anja thought about the question. ‘I don’t know. People say I’m overprotective of my research material, but I didn’t think they were worth being assaulted for.’

  ‘What is your research about?’ the detective asked.

  ‘The desert horses of the Namib, the Anglo-Boer War and the wars against the Herero and the Nama.’

  The detective pursed her lips. ‘When we investigate crimes we look for motives. Can you see anyone making money out of your work?’

  Anja shrugged. ‘No, not that I can think of. I’m protective of it, but is it worth stealing? Probably not. The research papers can be easily found in the German archives.’

  ‘What can you tell me about the men who attacked you? Height? Build? Race? Eye colour.’

  ‘At least one was white, with brown eyes, I think. They wore black clothes, ski masks, and gloves,’ Anja said. ‘Average height, I suppose, both very strong, muscled. They were behind me or had me face down nearly all the time.’

  The detective looked up from her notebook. ‘Nearly?’

  Anja nodded. ‘I got a glimpse of one man’s hand. His skin had those liver spots that are common on older people, and he had a scar.’ Anja described the location.

  The detective made notes.

  Anja couldn’t see any sense in this attack. Her logical brain also told her that the two men who had robbed her were not starving street urchins. Having ransacked her room they had hidden somewhere, on the grounds of the guesthouse probably, and calmly waited for her to return. They had been quick and ruthless, and, as terrifying as the ordeal had been at the time, she now realised they had not been overly violent, but had rather used just enough physical and mental force to get her to give them what they wanted. In short, they had been professional. She explained as much to the policewoman, and detailed as much as she could remember of what they had said.

  ‘I expect they wanted your email and computer passwords to find out your banking details.’

  ‘I’ll cancel the accounts.’

  ‘Anja,’ the detective said, leaning closer and lowering her voice a little, ‘is there anything incriminating on your computer, something you wouldn’t want someone to see? Sometimes blackmail is a motive.’

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing. Perhaps they confused me with someone else? Perhaps they had been told to raid the hotel room of a rich German tourist and all they got was some credit cards with low limits and a laptop full of notes and a draft of my thesis?’

  The detective sat back, closed her notebook and gave Anja a business card.

  ‘Call me if you can think of any other reason why these men attacked you, in particular, and what they might have wanted in your papers and your computer.’

  ‘I will.’

  When the police left, Anja’s composure cracked and she started to cry.

  Chapter 19

  Johannesburg, South Africa, the present day

  Nick woke and had no idea where he was.

  The room was blacked out thanks to heavy curtains, but his mind picked up the hum of traffic. He groped around him, feeling for a bedside light switch as he registered that he was in Johannesburg.

  His fingers brushed his phone and he pushed the button and the screen lit up. It was four in the morning. He now felt wide awake so he swung his legs out of bed. From the glow of the phone he found the light switch.

  The jetlag had woken him. He had forced himself to stay up as late as he could, waiting until he heard from Susan that she had arrived safely in Cape Town, which he did while he was having dinner at a steak restaurant at Emperor’s Palace. He had taken the free shuttle bus to the casino complex near the airport and checked into one of the hotels there, the Peermont Metcourt. It was a good place for an overnight stop.

  He got up, showered and shaved, and put on clean clothes. At Susan’s suggestion he had booked the hotel room and a rental car online from the Qantas Club. His mind replayed their lovemaking in the shower room. He was missing her already. Again, Jill entered his mind. Jill was his soul mate, but he couldn’t deny the feelings he had for Susan. Maybe it was just lust, or an infatuation, but meeting her had given him something to look forward to.

  Before they had left Sydney Susan had also gone online and showed him how to book and pay for his first four nights in the Kruger National Park. For his first night she had found accommodation for him at Skukuza Rest Camp, which was close to the park’s airport. After that he had two nights at Satara camp and one at Pretoriuskop. So far the names meant nothing to him.

  ‘I’ll come see you soon, promise,’ Susan had said as they had kissed for the last time after collecting their baggage. She hadn’t lingered – she needed to rush to make her connection to Cape Town.

  Was he crazy? he asked himself.

  Maybe. But if this was madness then he wanted more of it. He felt wired, and at the same time relaxed, having been relieved of the crushing feeling of having to face another day in a job he had never really liked. He wondered if this was what retirement felt like. He was realistic enough to know that he would have to find another job some time, but the thought of blowing a good chunk of his severance pay did not bother him right now.

  Nick had downloaded a non-fiction book called Steinaecker’s Horsemen on his Kindle ebook reader, about the unit Cyril Blake had been in during the Boer War. While eating his breakfast and sipping coffee at the hotel restaurant downstairs, he skim-read the book. It soon became apparent that the unit was irregular in every sense of the word.

  With a walrus moustache whose nine-inch length was perhaps an attempt to compensate for his short stature, and a penchant for dressing in elaborately ceremonial uniforms trimmed with silver braid and sashes, Ludwig von Steinaecker seemed as colourful as the brigands, hunters, goldminers, traders and chancers he commanded. Steinaecker had a mouthful of jagged yellow stumps of teeth and was known to his men as ‘Old Stinky’.

  Nick finished breakfast, went back up to his room and fetched his bag. After checking out he waited a few minutes for the hotel’s shuttle bus back to the airport. Once he had checked in for his flight to Skukuza he made his
way through to departures in the domestic terminal. With another coffee in hand he found a seat and called Susan.

  ‘Howzit,’ she said. ‘Miss me?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, yes.’ He couldn’t keep the smile out his voice. ‘What are you up to? Are you driving?’

  ‘Ja, I’m on Bluetooth. Cape Town traffic hasn’t got any better while I was in Australia. I’m just going to have that meeting with my client and end it.’

  As someone who had just lost his only source of ongoing income he had a new-found respect for financial security and he hoped Susan knew what she was doing. ‘Well, if you’re sure . . .’

  ‘The money I get isn’t worth it for the amount of shit I have to put up with and the things I have to do. Besides, now that I’m on the trail of a really good story again I’ve realised how much I want to return to journalism, rather than PR.’

  He wondered exactly what it was that Susan had to do for this man, or what sort of person he was. She had told him she just had to smooth out some problems, but her sudden flight back to South Africa and her reference to ‘shit’ she had to put up made her meeting with the client sound more serious than she had initially indicated. Nick felt instantly protective towards her. ‘Do you want me to have him horsewhipped?’

  She didn’t laugh at his attempt at humour. ‘As soon as I finish I’m going to book a flight to Skukuza.’

  ‘Great,’ he said, feeling genuinely happy.

  ‘There’s something important I have to tell you.’

  He licked his lips. ‘OK. Something good, I hope.’

  She paused. ‘Important. But, yes, I hope good in the long run. I really like you, Nick. I’ll explain when I see you.’

  He exhaled. ‘Same. Are you all right, Susan?’

  ‘Nervous. A little scared, maybe, but this is for the best. I needed to come back to South Africa to do this in person, but I don’t care where we go after I see you, Nick.’

  ‘This is all sounding very mysterious, and a tad dramatic,’ he said, trying to keep the conversation light.

  ‘It is serious, Nick, but I want you to trust me that I know what I’m doing. Nick . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Take care of yourself, please.’

  ‘I’ll try not to get eaten by a lion or stomped on by an elephant. Oh, and you said buffalo are really dangerous, too, didn’t you?’

  She paused again. ‘I’m not joking, Nick. Africa can be dangerous. Watch yourself, and don’t do anything dumb until I see you, OK?’

  ‘All right, I’ll wait until I see you to do something dumb. In fact, you can pretty much count on it.’

  ‘Nick . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I . . .’

  He felt his tummy flip. He wondered if she was about to say she loved him. His mind turned in time with his innards. Did he love her? Their lovemaking had been sensational, as though their bodies had been made for each other, and they had much in common with their journalistic backgrounds. Now that he thought more about her he realised that from his side of things it was more than just a fling. Not even his thoughts of Jill could change his mind.

  ‘What is it, Susan?’ he asked.

  ‘I . . . I was just going to say that as soon as I get this done I’m going to go to the bar at the Vineyard Hotel in Cape Town and have a mojito. The barman there is a friend of mine and he’s the best, he’ll have a drink waiting for me when I get there and I’ll call you. You should go there some time.’

  She said it so matter-of-factly that he just agreed.

  There was a pause, then Susan said quietly, ‘Nick. I’m nearly at the office, I’d better go.’

  ‘OK.’ Nick thought back over their conversation; Susan’s tone of voice. ‘You’re making me worried about you, Susan,’ he blurted.

  ‘Don’t be. I’ll be all right, once I’ve seen this through. I’ll come find you, Nick. Be careful.’

  ‘What do you mean, be –?’

  But Susan had ended the call.

  Nick fretted for a while as he finished his coffee, but when he tried calling Susan back his call went straight through to voicemail. He reasoned that she must have gone into her meeting. He read a newspaper and told himself not to worry, and soon it was time to go to the gate for his flight to Skukuza in the Kruger National Park.

  He took an escalator downstairs to the tarmac level where buses took passengers to flights servicing regional destinations in South Africa. Nick took a seat while he waited for the Skukuza flight to be called. He took out his Kindle and turned it on.

  ‘What’s it like reading one of those little things?’

  Nick looked up from the device and at a rotund man sitting next to him. He was dressed in a khaki and blue shirt, work shorts and desert boots. ‘It’s OK. I still like paper books, but ebooks are good for travelling.’

  The man snorted, and said with a strong Afrikaans accent, ‘Myself, I read only books made from paper. I like the feel and the smell of a book. From where are you?’

  ‘Australia.’

  ‘I have relatives in Perth, but then again, half of South Africa has family living in your country. My name’s Danie.’

  ‘Nick.’ They shook hands.

  ‘What are you reading?’

  ‘It’s a book about a unit in the Boer War, Steinaecker’s Horse. They were based in the Kruger Park area,’ Nick said.

  Danie nodded. ‘I have heard of them. Oh, and by the way, we call it the Anglo-Boer War as it takes two to tango, as you would say, né?’

  Nick smiled and nodded. ‘I didn’t know that, but thanks.’

  ‘There was a display about those Steinaecker’s Horse guys at the camp at Mopani, in the north of Kruger. One of their bases was up there and some archaeologists did a dig there and came up with some stuff. Lots of old whiskey and gin bottles from what I remember.’ He laughed.

  ‘Yes,’ Nick said, ‘from the little I’ve read so far it seems like they were quite a rough bunch.’

  ‘From what I know they spent more time hunting elephants for ivory and searching for Oom Paul’s gold, rather than fighting the Boer commandos.’

  ‘Who Paul?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Oom – that’s our word for uncle, a term of respect in Afrikaans – and Paul was Paul Kruger, the president of our republic at the time. When he retreated from the British, on a train to Mozambique, they say he took the Transvaal’s gold reserves with him, but the gold disappeared. Many people think Oom Paul or his followers hid it somewhere in the lowveld, where the Kruger Park is. Every now and then some oke claims to have found it, or part of the hoard.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Nick said. This story had everything – colourful characters, spies, a war, and now even a lost treasure. What Danie had said got him thinking about the pickle his ancestor Cyril seemed to have landed himself in. He couldn’t wait for more translations to come from Lili, but in the meantime he had his trip to the Kruger Park to look forward to.

  Their conversation was cut short by a South African Airlink ground crew person who called their flight. They picked up their carry-on luggage and made their way through the doors to the bus that would take them to their aircraft.

  Nick wanted to call Susan again, but he stopped himself. He didn’t want to come across as needy or a worrier.

  The flight was short, less than forty-five minutes, and when he landed at Skukuza, inside the Kruger National Park, Nick completed the paperwork to collect a rental car and to enter the reserve.

  Leaving the airport he stopped his Toyota Corolla on the low-level concrete bridge across the Sabie River. The bridge was only one lane and he’d had to wait a while for his turn to cross. There were a couple of parking bays halfway along and he pulled into one.

  It was an almost surreal experience. On his left a hippopotamus had just wiggled its ears at him and then submerged, and there was a h
uge crocodile, maybe three metres long, basking on a sand spit by a clump of reeds. For the first time since he arrived he felt like he was truly in Africa.

  He wound down the window and carried on, enjoying the fresh air. Once over the concrete causeway he turned left then right, and stopped as a graceful giraffe crossed the road. He was too slow to get a photo, but all the same his heart beat a little faster at seeing this magnificent creature in the wild.

  Nick navigated his way to Skukuza Rest Camp and entered via a thatch-roofed gate. He pulled into a car park, got out and checked into his accommodation in the reception building. The woman on duty printed out his reservation form, which included the additional nights Susan had booked for him. Armed with a photocopied map of the camp he made his way to his riverside rondavel, a circular self-contained bungalow.

  The river he had just crossed glittered like burnished bronze in front of him and a lone buffalo wandered among the reeds on the other side. This camp was more or less on the site of Steinaecker’s Sabie Bridge headquarters. He imagined Cyril Blake standing in this very spot, taking in the same view more than a century earlier. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  Inside, his accommodation was simple but neat. There was a small kitchen on the verandah outside, with a fridge behind a metal security door; a sign told him baboons and monkeys were a problem in the camp and the fridge was clearly a prime target. He turned the air conditioner on and it rattled and hummed to life. He took his laptop and phone back out to the verandah, powered up the computer and connected to the internet.

  While his emails were loading, slowly, he called Susan. The call went through to voicemail again.

  ‘Hi, it’s Nick,’ he said. ‘I hope things went OK with your client. I’m at Suzuki, or Skukoozy, or however you pronounce it. I saw a hippo and a croc on my drive here, and an elephant from the plane on the flight in. Amazing. Look forward to seeing you again soon, and to hearing from you. Bye.’

  He hung up, feeling mildly disappointed that she hadn’t called him already. He was sure she would.