Ghosts of the Past

by Tony Park

  ‘Y-yes, sir . . . I saw them. They were heading towards town. I fell asleep on the side of the road for a while, near the Selati line, sir, in the long grass. I woke up to the sound of a horse and cart, sir, and I saw them again. They were on one horse before but now they had a wagon as well. They went up the branch line.’

  ‘How long ago, Private?’

  ‘About an hour, no more, sir.’

  ‘Good man.’

  Dan breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Walters pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 27

  Skukuza Rest Camp, Kruger National Park, the present day

  Nick barely slept. He had tried calling Lili again several times, but could not get through to her.

  He was frustrated because he didn’t know Lili’s address and he didn’t know the names of any of her friends. Pippa might have it, but when Nick looked online at Australian directory assistance he couldn’t find Pippa’s landline – he assumed it was an unlisted number. He had tried Pippa’s mobile, repeatedly, but he knew she had a house in the country, near the wine-producing town of Mudgee northwest of Sydney, and a signal at her place, he had learned when he once needed to contact her on the weekend because of a client emergency, was non-existent.

  Still jetlagged, Nick was fully awake at four in the morning. As much as he had wanted to explore more of the areas where Blake had served he felt he needed to do something more than sightsee. Something was definitely not right and Nick knew Susan would have some answers.

  Given what had happened to his aunt and Anja, and now Lili dropping out of contact, he wondered now if something bad had happened to Susan. Whatever had gone on with her he told himself he needed to see her in person.

  He got online and found there was space on the next flight to Cape Town, which left from Skukuza Airport at 11.20 am. He booked a one-way ticket, not knowing where he would end up after that.

  As the sun was rising he walked around the camp to try and calm his nerves. He followed the Sabie River and watched a troop of vervet monkeys sitting in the sun grooming each other, stretching and yawning like little humans starting a new day. Then he walked through the camping ground, feeling envious of the local families and foreign couples enjoying a simple holiday.

  As he weaved his way to the big reception building he saw that it also contained a bank. He stopped to draw out money and his phone rang.

  ‘Nick?’ said Pippa’s voice as he answered. ‘I got your messages, all five of them. You’re in Africa?’

  ‘Yes, South Africa.’

  ‘I came into Mudgee town, to have dinner. You want to know if I have Lili’s address?’

  ‘Yes, please. I think something may have happened to her, Pippa.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘She was helping me with something, a story, and a woman here in Africa who was interested in the same stuff was assaulted and robbed. I’m pretty sure someone broke into the place where I’m staying and tried to rob me, but covered their tracks.’

  ‘Pretty sure? Nick,’ Pippa said, and he could hear her exhale, ‘this is Australia, not Africa. People get attacked all the time in South Africa according to all the Saffers I know.’

  ‘My aunt’s house was robbed – she also had access to the material that Lili, the woman here and I all have. Also, the woman who was mugged here foiled an attempt by a guy to rob her mother in Germany. Pippa, look, it’ll take me a long time to explain all the ins and outs. Do you have Lili’s address?’

  ‘Yes, I do, but only at the office. There’s a copy of her tax declaration form at work, but I don’t have her details with me.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Nick said.

  ‘Hey, I’m trying to help here,’ Pippa said.

  He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Sorry. Is there any chance you could get to the office?’

  ‘It’s a five-hour drive from here and I’m on my way to dinner on a Saturday night, Nick. I can’t just pop down the street.’

  ‘When will you be home?’

  ‘Sunday afternoon or early evening.’

  ‘Could you go then?’

  ‘Nick –’

  ‘Please, Pippa. I called Lili and I was waiting on the line while she was heading home after a big night. The signal went out here and I haven’t been able to get through to her even though I now, clearly, have reception. She knew how worried I was about her and she hasn’t called me back.’

  ‘She’s barely out of her teens, Nick, a young girl on a working holiday. She’s probably still sleeping off her hangover – either that or she doesn’t want to call you in South Africa because she’s worried about the cost.’

  ‘Then why is her phone not answering?’

  ‘Flat battery?’ Pippa asked.

  These were plausible answers but Nick was worried for Lili and he didn’t seem to be able to get Pippa to take it seriously.

  ‘You have to do something, Pippa.’

  ‘No, Nick, I don’t. Neither of you works for me any more and, to tell you the truth, I was getting a bit worried about you. You seemed depressed and stressed at work, and –’

  ‘And so you fired me. I get it.’

  ‘Calm down, Nick.’

  ‘Don’t tell me to calm down. A young woman’s life could be at risk. She might have been injured.’

  ‘Yes, and you might just be overreacting. I’ve had enough of this.’

  ‘Wait –’

  Pippa ended the call and Nick swore again and walked back towards his riverside bungalow. He knew she thought he was a flake, and maybe he was. It was possible the string of crimes was unrelated.

  But Anja had been robbed of her research, print and electronic, and there seemed to be a crossover with the material in the memoirs that his aunt had given him. A criminal had almost talked his way into Anja’s mother’s home, Sheila’s place had been burgled and his rondavel had been trashed – if not by baboons then by humans. That meant that if someone had tried to rob him they might very well still be here, in the Kruger Park. He looked over his shoulder; now he really was being paranoid, he told himself.

  There was no one following him.

  Nick remembered Anja saying that her attackers had ransacked her hotel room and later come back for her. Suppose the person who had searched his hut was waiting somewhere for him? He slowed his pace and stopped within sight of his rental car and rondavel.

  Everything looked fine. His neighbour was gone.

  Nick remembered the man saying he was in the park for another two nights. He wondered if the man might have noticed something suspicious. Nick went to his hut, circled it, not really knowing what he was looking for, then went inside to pack his bag.

  When he finished he went back out, taking his notebook and pen. He thought he would slide his name and number under the neighbour’s door, asking him to give him a call so he could ask him more about the alleged baboon raid and if he had maybe noticed anyone hanging around, acting suspiciously. However, when Nick went to the next rondavel a woman in national parks uniform came out sliding a bucket and mop with her foot.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I just want to leave a message for the man who is staying here.’

  ‘Sorry, sir, this man has checked out,’ the cleaner said.

  ‘I thought he was staying a couple more days?’

  ‘The man, he said he had to go home early, some emergency with his business.’

  ‘Oh. Thanks,’ Nick said.

  Nick gave his rondavel one last check, in case he had forgotten anything. When he was done he drove towards the entry gate but on a last-minute impulse he turned into the parking area in front of reception. He got out and went to the reservations desk.

  ‘Morning,’ said a young woman with ornately braided hair.

  ‘Hi.’ Nick took a seat in front of her and took out his booking confirmation
form. ‘I wonder if you can help me, please. I was staying next to a man here in the camp and he left this morning. I really need to get in touch with him and I wonder if you could please give me his contact number. I imagine you’d have it with his reservation.’

  ‘I’m sorry sir,’ the woman said, ‘I can’t give out that sort of information.’

  Nick had expected this response and had already thought up a cover story. ‘The guy left his gas bottle and cooker behind and I want to let him know I have it.’

  ‘We have a lost property office here, sir, you can leave the gas bottle with us.’

  ‘I don’t want him to have to come back to Skukuza if he doesn’t want to, and he was very helpful to me. It would also save you the trouble of having to contact him. He was in number ninety-one.’

  The woman frowned, and Nick hoped she hadn’t seen through his lie immediately, but he smiled gormlessly at her and she began tapping her keyboard with glittery nails.

  ‘Ninety-one. Mr Human.’

  Nick remembered the man’s first name. ‘Yes, Chris.’

  ‘The woman shook her head. No, Charl. That’s an Afrikaans name.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. I must have misheard – I’m from Australia so maybe it was his accent.’ Bullshit, Nick thought. He had taught himself, as a young journalist, to remember people’s names. He felt a jolt of adrenaline. His neighbour had given him a false name – he was now as sure of that as he was of having locked the rondavel’s window before leaving. Something definitely didn’t add up.

  ‘Sure,’ said the woman. She tapped her keyboard some more and looked at her screen. She smiled. ‘I am sure he will be back today or tomorrow for his lost property. He’s staying at another camp tonight, not far away.’

  Nick was about to say to the woman that Chris – real name Charl – had told him that he was staying in Skukuza for a few more days. He had lied about that as well. ‘Can you tell me where he’s staying next?’

  The woman’s mouth turned down again. Nick thought she was debating with herself how much more information she could or would release.

  ‘Maybe I can take a drive to his camp or meet him halfway?’ Nick suggested.

  The woman looked at him and must have judged him to be harmless. ‘It says he will be at Satara camp on the twenty-second and twenty-third and then Pretoriuskop on the twenty-fourth, then his booking ends.’

  Nick swallowed. Charl had Nick’s exact itinerary, yet he had lied to him.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘What? Oh, no.’ Nick thought the colour might have gone from his face. He stood, his legs a little shaky. ‘Thank you.’

  Nick left the reception building and went back to his car. It was only a few kilometres from the camp to Skukuza Airport and on the way he passed a trio of giraffe which looked inquisitively at him from over the tops of the low trees they were browsing on.

  A few kilometres on, two male impalas ran across the road, one chasing the other, forcing him to brake suddenly, and he realised that despite the turmoil in his mind and his fretting over not hearing from Lili he needed to be aware of his surroundings.

  Be careful, Susan had warned him.

  The low-level bridge over the Sabie River was clear, but he slowed and stopped briefly, looking once again at the old bridge that had carried the ill-fated Selati rail line.

  There was something here, back then and maybe now, that Blake and Claire Martin had become involved in. They were two people on the run, but for more than the crimes they had committed in the course of their wartime duties. There was something that the English intelligence officer, Llewellyn Walters, had been prepared to kill for, and there was something in the papers that he and Anja had been entrusted with that someone was prepared to rob and threaten violence over.

  The airport was not far once he’d crossed the bridge and he parked, handed in the keys for his rental car at the Avis office and checked in. While he waited to board his flight to Cape Town Nick checked his emails and found two from Anja – each contained her rough translation of the two chapters following where Lili had got up to.

  The first focused on Blake and Claire making their way along the disused Selati railway line – the same route he had taken to Crocodile Bridge camp and Komatipoort, but in reverse. The chapter ended with the soldier the pair had met on their travels being killed by the ruthless Captain Llewellyn Walters.

  The small departures area of the terminal was open on the side that faced the runway and overlooked a tasteful water feature. Scores of small wooden birds were suspended from the thatch roof above him. It was as serene and beautiful as an airport building could be, and here he was, just reading about cold-blooded murders being committed on the day a war had ended.

  Nick opened his computer, and while he waited for it to come to life he thought again about how Charl’s itinerary had exactly matched his own. Along with everything else that had gone on, this was too much of a coincidence.

  The last piece of the puzzle clicked into place. Only one person other than Nick knew that his aunt and Lili had the manuscript, and that he’d been in contact with Anja Berghoff. That person also knew his exact itinerary in the Kruger Park, because she had helped him book it.

  Susan Vidler.

  Chapter 28

  South Africa, 1902

  Claire’s stomach rumbled, but she was too excited and nervous to even think about raiding their meagre stock of food in the saddlebags. The track they were on petered out as they ascended a particularly rocky section, at the foot of a koppie made of impressively large boulders. They could take the wagon no further.

  Claire reasoned that the cave noted on Nathaniel’s map must be close, as even with a good number of men it would be hard work ferrying the gold from the wagons.

  ‘End of the road?’ Blake said.

  ‘We have to go on foot from here,’ Claire said, ‘but we must be very careful. I’ll take the lead.’

  Blake dismounted and took his rifle. ‘Koppies like this are good leopard country. Are you sure you want to go first?’

  Claire worked the bolt of her own rifle. ‘I’ll be just fine, thanks.’

  Blake tethered Bluey to the wagon and followed her, his eyes and his rifle barrel moving in a continuous arc, left, right, ahead and behind them. Claire moved as briskly as she dared, her eyes down, watching her feet and checking the hand-drawn map.

  She held up her free hand and Blake stopped behind her.

  ‘What is it?’ he whispered.

  She pointed to the ground. There was a pile of rocks that might have looked natural unless one knew to look for it. ‘Move off the track, to the right, and skirt this part of the path. There’s danger here.’

  Blake came to her and Claire pointed to some notations on the map.

  ‘“STT”? What does that mean?’ Blake asked.

  ‘It took me a while to remember,’ Claire said, ‘but on the night before your raid, Nathaniel made a point of telling me about a terrible weapon his superior officer had developed during the American civil war. It’s called the sub-terra torpedo – STT.’

  ‘What the hell is it?’

  ‘Buried explosives, detonated by stepping on a hidden metal plate.’

  Blake dropped to one knee and carefully examined the ground near the rock cairn. He snapped a leafy twig from a nearby tree and used it to brush away some soil. Just as Claire had warned, a rusted metal plate came into view.

  Blake gave a low whistle. ‘Tell me again this is worth it.’

  ‘Your boat and my ticket to a brighter future. It’s worth the effort, trust me.’

  ‘If I don’t get my bloody legs blown off.’

  Claire set off again and the path climbed steeply, up into the koppie. She stopped and reached out, touching the surface of a granite boulder.

  ‘What’s that? Paintings?’

  She
nodded. ‘Yes, as noted on the map. They’re by the bushmen. Maybe a thousand years old.’

  They both paused to look at the detailed, instantly recognisable images of kudu and sable antelope, lions, giraffe, elephant and rhino. The animals were all to scale and faithfully rendered, but the people were larger than life and abstractly depicted. Claire walked around the boulder.

  ‘Here it is.’

  Blake joined her, still scanning the rocks above and below them for ambushers or pursuers, then followed her into the gloom.

  ‘Have you a match?’ she asked.

  He held his rifle in the crook of his arm and struck a light. Claire picked up an old bundle of rushes tied with twine and held them to the fire. The rudimentary torch caught light and illuminated the interior of the cave, revealing dozens of wooden boxes stacked atop each other.

  Blake bent to inspect the writing.

  ‘Ammunition, artillery shells.’

  ‘Give me your Mauser,’ Claire said.

  Blake looked up at her, dubious, but pulled the pistol from its holster. ‘This isn’t the bit where you kill me, is it?’

  Claire smiled and took the pistol, cocking it with the ease and confidence of a born soldier. She pointed it at the padlock on a box on the top of the stack.

  ‘Claire! You’ll kill us if that lot goes off!’

  Claire fired before he could stop her and the shot assaulted their eardrums in the confined space. She knocked the remains of the lock away with the smoking barrel of the pistol then opened the box. Blake, now holding the torch, peered inside and brushed away some of the straw that had been used as cushioning material.

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  The gold ingots inside reflected the warm orange of the flames.

  Blake looked up, his eyes roaming over the stacked crates. ‘How much is here?’

  ‘I’m told about two hundred thousand pounds’ worth, give or take,’ Claire said. ‘Kruger’s gold was split into ten shipments and this is just one of them. The other loads were sent to different secret locations, each with a detachment of trusted Boers to guard them, in this case loyal American volunteers. And in case you’re wondering, this little lot weighs about a ton.’