The Leopard Hunts In Darkness Part 18

b) Open checking account and deposit funds.

C) Sell Bawu.

3) Fly ZUrich.

a) Sign share purchase.

b) Arrange payment to sellers.

His panic began to subside. He picked up the telephone and dialled British Airways. They could get him out on the Friday flight to London, and then Concorde to New York.

He caught Jock Daniels in his office. "Where the h.e.l.l you been?" He could hear Jock had made a good start on the evening's drinking.

"Jock, congratulations you have just made yourself twenty, five grand commission," Craig told him and enjoyed the stunned silence.

Craig's list began to stretch out, ran into a dozen pages: 39) Find out if Okky van Renshurg is still in the country.

Okky had been the mechanic on King's Lynn for twenty years. Craig's grandfather had boasted that Okky could strip down a John Deere tractor and build up a Cadillac and two Rolls-Royce Silver Clouds from the spare parts.

Craig needed him.

Craig laid down his pen, and smiled at his memory of the old man. "We are coming home, Bawu," he said aloud.

He looked at his watch and it was ten o'clock, but he knew he would not be able to sleep.

He put on a light sweater and went out to walk the night streets, and an hour later he was standing outside Sally-Anne's apartment. His feet had made their own way, it seemed.

He felt a little tingle of excitement. Her window was open and her light burning.

"Who is it?" Her voice was m.u.f.fled.

"It's me, Craig. "There was a long silence.

"It's nearly midnight."

"It's only just eleven and I have something to tell you."

"Oh, okay door * unlocked." She was in her' dark-room. He could hear the splash of chemicals.

"I'll be five minutes, she called. "Do you know how to make coffeeP When she came out, she was dressed in a sloppy cable knit jersey that hung to her knees and her hair was loose on her shoulders. He had never seen it like that, and he stared.

"This had better be good," she warned him, fists on her hips.

"I've got Rholands "he said, and it was her turn to stare.

"Who or what is Rholands?"

"The company that owns Zambezi Waters. I own it. It's mine. Zambezi Waters is mine. Is that good enough?" She started to come to him, her arms rising to embrace him, and he mirrored the movement, and instantly she caught herself and stopped, forcing him to do the same.

They were two paces apart.

"That's marvelous news, Craig. I am so happy for you.

How did it happen? I thought it was all off."

"Peter Fungabera arranged a surety for a loan of five million dollars."

"My G.o.d. Five million. You're borrowing five million?

How much is the interest on five million?" He had not wanted to think about that. It showed on his face, and she was immediately contrite.

"I'm sorry. That was insolent. I'm truly happy for you.

We must celebrate-"Quickly she moved away from him.

In the cabinet in the kitchenette, she found a bottle of Glenlivet whisky with an inch left in the bottom and added it to the steaming coffee.

"Here's success to Zambezi Waters," she saluted him with the mug. "Now first tell me all about it and then I've got news for you also." Until after midnight he elaborated his plans for her: the development of the twin ranches in the south, the rebuilding of the homestead and the restocking with blood cattle, but mostly he dwelt upon his plans for Zambezi Waters and its wildlife, knowing that that was where her interest would centre.

"I was thinking I'd need a woman's touch in planning and laying out the camps, not just any woman, but one with an artistic flair and a knowledge and love of the African bush."

"Craig, if that is meant to describe me, I'm on a grant from the World Wildlife Trust, and I owe them all my time."

"It wouldn't take up much time," he protested, "just a consultancy. You could fly up for a day whenever you could fit it in." He saw her weaken. "And then, of course, once the camps were running, I'd want you to give a series of lectures and slide, shows of your photographs for the guests- I and he saw that he had touched the right key.

Likeany artist, she relished an opportunity to exhibit her work.

"I'm not making any promises," she told him sternly, but they both knew she would do it, and Craig felt his new burden of responsibility tighten appreciably.

"You said you had news for me," he reminded her at last, grateful for the chance to draw the evening out further.

But he was not prepared for her sudden change to deadly seriousness.

"Yes, I've got news," she paused, seemed to gather herself, and then went on, "I have picked up the spoor of the master poacher"

"My G.o.d! The b.a.s.t.a.r.d who wiped out those herds of jumbo? That is real news. Where? How?"

"You know that I have been up in the eastern highlands for the last ten days. What I didn't tell you is that I am running a leopard study in the mountains for the Wildlife Trust. I have people working for me in most of the jeopardy areas of the forest.

AVe are counting and mapping the ties of the recording their litters and kills, trying territo cats to estimate the effect of the new human influx on them a that sort of thing which me to one o my men.

He is a marvellously smelly old Shangane poacher, he must be eighty years old and his youngest wife is seventeen and presented him with twins last week. He is a complete rogue, with a tremendous sense of humour, and a taste for Scotch whisky two tots of Glenlivet and he gets talkative.

We were up in the Vumba mountains, just the two of us in camp, and after the second tot he let it slip that he had been offered two hundred dollars a leopard-skin. They would take as many as he could catch, and they would supply the steel spring traps. I gave him another tot, and learned that the offer had come from a very well-dressed young black, driving a government Land Rover. My old Shangane told the man he was afraid that he would be arrested and sent to gaol, but he was a.s.sured that he would be safe. That he would be under the protection of one of the great chiefs in Harare, a comrade minister who had been a famous warrior in the bush war and who still commanded his own private army." There was a hard cardboard folder on the camp-bed.

Sally-Anne fetched it and placed it in Craig's lap. Craig opened it. The top sheet was a full list of the Zimbabwe Cabinet. Twenty-six names, each with the portfolio set out beside it.

"We can narrow that down immediately very few of the Cabinet did any actual fighting," Sally-Anne pointed out. "Most of them spent the war in a suite at the Ritz in London or in a guest dacha on the Caspian Sea." She sat down on the cus.h.i.+on beside Craig, reached across and turned to the second sheet.