Authors: Judith Stephan
“Stratt?” said Rebecca, who sat behind the courtesy desk, interrupting his thoughts, “Lady Delucci said I should give you this.” She held up a neat white envelope with the lodge logo emblazoned on it in embossed gold.
“Thanks,” he said, and his heart beat loudly in his chest as he sensed it was a last message from Shilo
He took the envelope up to his room and lay on his stomach on his bed. He ripped it open and withdrew a crisply folded page with the Malebane Lodge logo and address in the top right hand corner. Her writing was small, cursive and feminine with attractive loops and curves.
“
Dearest Stratt,
I’m really sorry I have to go so soon. It feels strange admitting that, as I never wanted to come to Africa in the first place. And then I met you. You taught me a lot, Stratt: You taught me not to prejudge people, you taught me not to be such an arrogant snob…”
Stratt smiled to himself as he recalled several of their heated encounters and especially the screaming match that had ended up in them making love…
“… And more than anything, you taught me how to love…”
He froze. Love? He read on.
“
I don’t know exactly how you feel, but I know I was falling in love with you, with every cell of my body. It’s really hard to admit that especially now that I have to leave you. Who knows what would have happened if we had stayed longer.
Come and see me in Johannesburg, if you get the chance. And if you’re ever in London, I’ll never forgive you if you don’t look me up. You can write to me too: My address in England is:
[email protected]
If you want to visit just ask for
Lady Shilo Delucci at Cairnsway in Somerset.
There’s so much I want to say
, so much that is weighing on my heart, so much unfinished business between us… but I must go. I love you and you’ll always have a special place in my heart.
Forever yours
Shilo”
He placed the letter on the pillow in front of him and put his head in his hands. What now? A terrible emptiness descended upon him and sat like a cramp in his abdomen.
The sun continued to rise to its white-hot zenith and the cicadas shrieked monotonously from every crack in the earth. And Stratt tried to busy himself with different tasks to take his mind off the amber-haired lady who had stolen his heart. It was pointless pursuing the relationship. She had gone – back to where she belonged. Just as he couldn’t wrench himself from the African bush
which he loved so much, he could not expect her to leave what was important to her and what she was used to either. It had been a beautiful, memorable encounter. He was going to have to leave it at that. But she had said she loved him. That was a bitter pill to swallow now. This was going to be just as difficult on her as it was on him.
He was glad that he had not said what he had nearly said before he left the bathroom. He had almost begged her to stay… or to come back… nearly promised her he would change the world to make her happy here …and God knows what else he would have said. Yes. He did love her. But now she was gone.
*
Charles froze mid-stride on the icy pavement as the headlines of The Times caught his eye.
“
SERIAL KILLER LEAVES VICTIM ALIVE
”
He was the “killer”, he knew that. He wished they had chosen a nickname for him like like The Yorkshire Ripper – that was catchy. But the fact that the victim was alive was going to pose a problem. If she was alive, she could speak. He was sure she had died – he had checked her pulse! He snatched the paper from the vendor and put a one pound note into the seller’s hands, indicating he could keep the change. His heart was pounding. He stepped into a café and sat down. He ordered a double espresso and slowly absorbed what had been written about him. Not only was that stupid slut alive, she was conscious and alert. She remembered everything. His physical description was near perfect. Damn it. The identikit sketch was a good likeness except they had his eyes too close together, his parting on the wrong side and had his nose a little off kilter. What was he going to do? He would have to get rid of the evidence: Alter his looks and sell his car. It was a good excuse to buy that little Audi Roadster he had had his eye on. He had been too careless this time. Maybe he should stop for a while, have a break before he gave himself away. But it was like an addiction – not to kill or to inflict pain, but to have rid the world of another useless working class woman.
“
Scotland Yard has several leads, and they are sure that the killer will be apprehended and brought to justice.”
“Not bloody likely,” he said to himself. Just stay calm. He sipped his coffee casually and flipped through the rest of the paper.
*
Lady Carina looked at Charles suspiciously as he strode into the room where she was having her nails done.
“Where did you get those scratches on your face?” she asked.
“Fox hunting,” he said without thinking. “Brambles, I think.”
“Look like human finger nails to me,” she said, “Are you sure you haven’t been marked by some jealous female?”
She looked at this impeccably dressed man, with his seams ironed and starched into his trousers and cringed. Was this really what she wanted for her daughter for the sake of a title? He also had been acting rather strangely of late, as if he were harbouring some deep, dark secret. He disappeared alone some times … but what really got Carina’s mind working overtime was the identikit photograph on the front page of The Sun, just under the headlines:
SERIAL KILLER: DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?
It was Charles to a T. She was going to keep an eye on this paradoxical man.
CHAPTER 1
1
Shilo noticed that Dorianne looked very depressed on their departure. She had spent some time in Philip’s office before coming to the helicopter, and there were traces of tears in her slate grey eyes. Shilo suspected that Dorianne and Philip had been getting on very well and had become more than just friends. Dorianne had lost her husband to another woman almost ten years ago, and after their divorce he had suddenly and tragically been killed in a motor car accident in the south of France. It had devastated her that he was sleeping with his personal assistant, but his death had left her with lots of questions and smatterings of guilt. It had been the first time that Shilo had seen her warm to another man since then. But, Dorianne brushed off her probing, and said it had just been a “holiday fling”.
As they were nearing Johannesburg, nearly an hour later, Michaela started experiencing agonising cramps in her lower abdomen. Dorianne panicked, but Shilo kept her cool. As the contractions became progressively worse, and she began to hemorrhage, Shilo instructed the pilot to redirect from the Westcliffe Hotel helipad to the Sandton Clinic a little to the north.
They arrived there within ten minutes, and Michaela was rushed off from the rooftop into the building on a gurney. It was only then that Shilo broke down: The emotional stress of her departure from Stratt, the lack of sleep from the night before and the adrenaline rush she had experienced as she cared for her sister had finally got to her. Dorianne assumed the role of comforter.
“I know how you’re feeling,” she said, “we’re all worried about Michaela… and I think that you maybe got too involved with Philip’s son… That’s the danger of holiday romances … they are temporary and cannot lead anywhere. In fact, they should be strictly taboo. One always has to inevitably say goodbye. I made the same mistake and if he’s anything like his father, I’m not surprised you are so sad. Philip had my heart all in a flutter.”
Stratt was more than just a holiday romance, a fling, and Shilo knew it. She would take a long time before she got over him… if ever. But Michaela was the priority now. That had to be her focus and she must stop dwelling on her feelings for Stratt.
Michaela had gone into labour, and there was little anyone could do to halt it. It was hard and agonising, and at two in the morning, she gave birth to a baby girl. The baby, who for the twenty-five minutes of its short life, lived in an incubator with an abundance of doctors, nurses, neonatal specialists and high-tech medical equipment trying to save her life, was to be called Charlotte. But she was just too small, at eight hundred grams, and her little lungs were too underdeveloped, to survive.
Michaela was grieving. She had fallen in love with the life inside her, and had decided, that despite what her parents thought about the shame she would thrust upon their beloved family name, she was not going to give up the child for adoption without a fight. Even if it meant staying in South Africa and starting a new life there. But inside she was convinced that if Henri and Carina saw their first grandchild, it might be harder for them to force her to give her up. So when the little mite did not survive, Michaela was devastated. It was a hard cross to bear. But Michaela was strong, and she was pragmatic.
It was Shilo who seemed to take the whole episode badly. It seemed to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. Reliving that awful experience with Bill Moffat, as she opened up to Stratt, had been stressful; leaving Stratt had been heart wrenching; but the death of this tiny infant, her niece, broke her heart completely. She had watched Charlotte lying on the pale blue standard issue sheet in the incubator. She was minute, only fifteen centimetres long, and small and red and wrinkled. The movements of her minute limbs were jerky, pathetic and sporadic, the noises she made as she struggled to breathe and cry weighed heavy on Shilo’s heart. All those hands and needles, drips and tubes as they tried to save her life were almost too much to bear.
Michaela needed three days in the hospital to get over the traumatic birth process, and her chronic loss of blood left her pale, exhausted and anaemic. And with nothing more to conceal and no reason to continue their sojourn in South Africa, Dorianne started making plans for their return to England.
*
“Good morning, Charles,” said Lady Carina, as Charles sauntered into the solarium. “What have you done to yourself? Shilo will barely recognize you when she returns.”
“Good morning, Carina,” he said, his voice thick as treacle.
Carina eyed him critically. He had shaved off his neat little moustache, dyed his hair from a mousy brown to a darker brunette and his neat side path hairstyle was now a jaunty, very out of character brush cut.
“A change is as good as a holiday, I always say,” he continued, aware of her lengthy stare. “My stylist suggested that I needed to look a little more youthful. When is Shilo returning?”
“The day after tomorrow. Isn’t it terrible news about that baby? Poor Michaela, she must be going through hell! But everything happens for the best, I always say.” Carina sipped her steaming cup of Earl Grey and added: “Anything special planned for her return, Charles?”
“Shilo’s?” he replied. “No, not really. There is so much going on around London before Christmas. I thought I might take her to Lloyd-Webber’s new show. I have a connection for the opening night.”
“That would be nice. Henri tells me you bought yourself a new car? An Audi Roadster? Nice, Charles. You certainly have taste. But what on earth was wrong with that lovely little BMW? It was less than two years old,” Carina asked.
“Nothing. I just got a little bored with it,” Charles replied.