Mosaic (11 page)

“Heathrow,” mused Corner. “Gatwick, Stanstead. Tilbury,

Southampton, Dover—Bristol? Oh yes, that narrows it down nicely.”

Liz ached to sleep off the jetlag but could not afford the time. She showered at her hotel, changed into a dress that shouted London and a picture hat, and carefully (for she did not practise all that often) applied make-up. She wanted people to spot her for an English tourist, and to take her for the kind of visitor they could tell a thing or two about this land.

Pretoria was not London; it was not even Manchester. The number of places where a woman could go in search of plausibly casual conversation with Afrikaner men was limited. She asked the desk clerk to direct her to the city's art galleries, museums, exhibitions of any sort. She spent the afternoon in a cultural daze, smiling a lot and chatting to everyone she could. Twelve times she was welcomed to South Africa, two or three times she received distinctly funny looks and once she was propositioned.

Finally, in an art gallery, she realized that the young man discoursing so knowledgeably on Rubens was a member of the security police. He was using his day off as he apparently used most of them, indulging a passion for European Old Masters. Liz was not naive enough to find that paradoxical, but she was a little surprised to find herself liking him.

He persuaded her to have a drink with him, in much the same way that an impala persuades a cheetah, and she persuaded him to take just a little more wine than he was used to. By late afternoon, when they parted with an almost archaic politeness and a firm date for the museum on his next day off, Liz knew—almost without probing, certainly he would never know he had been grilled—that De Witte was still in hospital awaiting major heart surgery; that despite this and despite his desk being occupied by a man who had every right to call and consider himself acting chief, De Witte himself still ran his department as far as anything important was concerned; and that something very important and top echelon was going on which had upset the most inquisitive members of that highly inquisitive establishment by proving utterly impervious to even professional snooping.

Liz did not know if the repatriation of a former terrorist could possibly be a part of such high-level intrigue, but she left the art-lover knowing where she had to go to pursue her enquiries. She had to take them to De Witte.

That which was fancifully described as his luncheon consumed, Joachim De Witte settled reluctantly into the long grey afternoon that yawned, a vacancy, before him. Afternoon was when he was supposed to rest. Strictly speaking he was supposed to rest all the time, but the hospital had had to make concessions to his commitments. That morning he had seen Botha for an hour—to bring him up to date on the activities of the department he was ostensibly running: poor Walter Botha had been considerably put out on his first visit to find its purpose the precise opposite of what he had supposed—and his secretary for ninety minutes, and this evening Elinor would be here, talking and knitting and generally replenishing his flask of human contentment.

He knew of no way in which she was a remarkable woman, but missing her was an ache: when he woke alone in the night, when she was not there come dawn; not so much during his busy morning but all through the grey tunnel of the afternoon until they brought what was fancifully described as his tea and he could start listening for her footsteps.

The distinctive tap of a woman's shoes, but not nurses'shoes, drew his attention now. The tattoo stopped outside his door. Presently he heard voices, low at first, then louder. Then the woman said, very clearly, “I have never heard anything so witless in my life.”

De Witte could contain his curiosity no longer. He filled his lungs and bellowed, “What the hell is going on out there?”

One of the men watching his door opened it a few inches to show an apologetic, well-scrubbed face. “Sorry, sir. It's a young lady—”

“It's nothing of the sort,” Liz said briskly, elbowing past him. “It's Elizabeth—Hettie's daughter from England.” She stopped at the foot of the bed, smiling at him; gradually the smile faded and the eyes became puzzled. “Uncle Paul?”

De Witte had never been called Paul, did not have a sister by Hettie or any other name, and knew of no relatives in England. But the long afternoons were very boring, and he was considerably in the mood for illicit conversation with a tall, green-eyed girl he had never seen before. His circle of acquaintance had narrowed claustrophobically in hospital. He had taken to thinking of it as Robben Island with enemas. He waved a calming hand at the worried guard and said solemnly, “And how is your mother?”

The girl smiled again, though still a shade uncertainly. “She's fine—up to her blue rinse in other people's business, you know mother, this month it's the turn of the Comforts Fund for Parish Pensioners, even the scarecrow in the turnip field has lost his muffler, and who she imagines is going to benefit from my last year's swimsuit I hate to think.”

De Witte grinned, enjoying himself. “Sit down, girl, make yourself at home. I reckon Hettie hasn't changed too much, then. It's a long time, mind, must be—”

“
Ages,
” Liz supplied emphatically. “You know, I hardly recognized you, but then I could only have been—”

“Oh—like so, only,” said De Witte, waving a hand vaguely over the bedspread at an indeterminate infant height.

“Well, maybe a bit more,” said Liz, and they both laughed.

It was clear to Liz that De Witte was playing a game; probably quite an innocuous one, certainly he had no reason to suspect her of anything more sinister than mistaking the identity of a long-lost relative. She presumed he was teasing her for his own amusement. She could live with that: his sport served her ends well enough. She had managed to meet him, was already laying the foundations for a kind of friendship, and would soon divert the discourse along more profitable routes. First it was necessary to protect herself.

“You gave me the devil of a turn,” she said, “when I finally found your address only to have your housekeeper say you'd been taken to hospital bleeding like a stuck pig. For heaven's sake, Uncle Paul, how long have you been using a chainsaw?—and you still can't do it right. I didn't know whether I'd find you in stitches in casualty or in pieces in the morgue. And then when I asked for you at the desk it was as if I'd discovered the secret hideaway of Joseph Mengele. Whatever have you been doing to deserve all”—she helplessly indicated the door, now closed—“this?”

“I'm an important man,” De Witte said modestly. His voice was deep and musical, rich with subtle modulation.

“An important carpenter? Well, all right,” agreed Liz, “I suppose you wouldn't be the first, but what are they guarding you against? How many enemies does a cabinet-maker make?”

Not without some regret, De Witte decided it was time to come clean. He ran up the flagpole his most charming smile. “I'm afraid, my dear Elizabeth, you've been misled. I'm not a carpenter.”

Liz feigned surprise. “You're not? But mother said—”

“Nor,” he continued solemnly, “am I related to nor so far as I know acquainted with your mother. I am an impostor. My name is Joachim De Witte and I work for the government. I'm sorry, I have been enjoying your company under false pretences.”

He met her gaze, ready for anger, embarrassment, rebuke. He was not prepared for, though delighted by, the laughter that welled from her, deep in her throat and brilliant in her eyes. Her eyes were as green as only a cat's had any right to be.

“You mean I've got the wrong De Witte?” She chuckled. “Oh, for pity's sake. And you!—you might have told me. But listen, you must be related, you two—how many De Wittes are there in this town?”

“A few,” he allowed with a smile. “As far as I know I have no woodworking relative called Paul.”

Liz was still grinning. “Well I have, and thanks to your rather juvenile sense of humour he's been suffering in neglect while I've been exchanging family gossip with a total stranger. I have to find out what's happened to him.”

“Of course; I'm sorry.” He was more sorry to see her going. “Do you want to use the phone?”

She thought quickly. “Yes, thanks—it might save me another wasted journey.” Her boy's grin took the sting out of the comment. “How do I get reception?” He gave her the number and she carefully dialled another, screening the dial casually with her handbag.

She got the laundry. She spoke quickly, making the most of a pause while the supervisor went to close a door between herself and her machines in the obvious hope that this might help her make sense of the conversation.

Liz said, “I was with you a few minutes ago, looking for a De Witte. Well, I've found one but he isn't mine. This one's clearly in for psychiatric treatment whereas mine has a cut foot.” She smiled disarmingly at the subject of her insult. “She's checking.”

The woman in the laundry said, rather kindly, “Look, I don't know—maybe you have the wrong extension?”

“Hello, yes,” said Liz inexplicably. “He is? Oh, that's good. We must have passed on the road. I'll call the house then. I'm sorry to have given you so much trouble.”

“Er—no trouble,” said the laundry supervisor, replacing her receiver with the care she customarily reserved for items fresh from the autoclave.

“Well,” said Liz, “the riddle of the missing uncle appears to be solved. He was never admitted: they fired a couple of stitches into him and sent him home. Have you a phonebook?”

“Underneath.”

“You don't mind?”

“The least I can do.”

She chose a number at random. A man answered in Afrikaans. He did not sound happy to be disturbed. “Uncle Paul? At last! It's Liz—I'm at the hospital, I've been trailing you half-way round this damn town. Are you all right?”

The man at the other end said irritably, “What? Who is that? Ruthie, is this one of your jokes?”

“Thank God,” said Liz with feeling. “I thought I'd arrived just in time for your funeral. Stay put, I'll be right round.”

“Ruthie? I'm telling you, I've had enough of your funny sense of humour.”

“Oh,” said Liz, taken aback. “Oh, well in that case I suppose you'd better go straight to bed. Never mind, I'll come round in the morning, we can talk then.”

“Ruthie, you're going to make me angry. I mean it—”

“Sleep tight, I'll see you tomorrow.” She put down the phone. “The painkillers they gave him are putting him to sleep. I'll go see him in the morning.”

“His foot's all right then?” De Witte enquired politely.

“Just sore enough to make him more careful in future.” She picked up her bag and started to leave. “Well, thank you for the use of the phone—and the conversation, it was most interesting.”

De Witte let her get to the door. She tasted failure. Then he said, “Do you have to go?”

Vanderbilt allowed himself the luxury of sleep. He slept with his clothes on, with his shoes on, with one ear tuned for trouble. He first took pains to secure his prisoner against the triple temptations of escape, assault and self-destruction, and then he slept: for six glorious, uninterrupted hours. It was enough, if need be, to see him through the next two days, and if by then he was not in the pipeline back to Pretoria it would be time to start thinking of cutting himself loose from his burden and making his way home alone. But no dark thoughts of defeat came to disturb his rest. He slept without dreaming.

He woke before dawn, as he had intended to, without haste or alarm but immediately and wholly and without wondering where he was. He knew where he was: curled, not altogether comfortably, across the front seats of the big maroon car with the steering wheel pressing into his thigh and his feet hanging out of the open door. His left arm, pillowed double under his head, had gone numb.

Stretching carefully in the absolute dark, he sat up. He scratched his head and shook life back into his arm. Then he felt for the door light and screwed the bulb back. The pale luminosity that sprang up seemed briefly to fill the barn until his eyes, adjusting, put its power into perspective.

He had found the barn in the same way he had found the stone house the night before. It was almost empty: only a few rows of mouldering hay and the musky scent of departed cattle remained to tell its function. Towards the end of summer the hay would be replenished, ready for the cattle to return with the winter, but until then the barn had no role except as a refuge. Owls used it, and martins, and Vanderbilt had driven the car inside and closed the big wooden doors as confident of privacy as they. There was no other building in sight. Vanderbilt and the martins slept while the owls hunted.

Grant got no sleep, which was also as Vanderbilt had intended. Crucified against the front bumper he could neither sit up nor lie down; the muscles of his shoulders and arms, unnaturally stretched along the chrome tree, bore half his weight and six hours of it reduced his body to a rigid, throbbing crucible of agony that he could not ease. Any attempt at movement brought the tears pricking to his eyes in the dark.

Vanderbilt, strolling round the bonnet with torch in hand, greeted him amiably. Grant replied with the grossest Afrikaans obscenity he could think of. Vanderbilt smiled. He noted with satisfaction the tracks of tears through the dirt on Grant's thin cheeks, the red-raw bracelets of skin where his wrists were roped to the car, the knotted muscles of his shoulders inside the bloody borrowed shirt, and the way his belly heaved to draw enough air into his lungs to swear by. The big man catalogued the hurts with professional detachment. Then he indulged in a lazy grin. “You want to try for the hundred yards'dash again, boy?”

Grant's eyes burned with red-rimmed hatred. “Against you, fat man? Any time. You're slow—even downhill you're slow.”