horns, guns and knives were hidden deep down beneath the pile of logs.
He took out his phone as he shifted in behind the steering wheel and called Theodore. As arranged, he killed the call after a few rings, then called again.
The signal was bad but he got through.
‘Two,’ was all he said.
‘Good work,’ Theodore’s voice crackled back.
* * *
I was born on 16 September 1952 in Uganda, in the Kabuwoko district in the south-west of the country, the son of a missionary and his teacher wife.
My friends were the children of the peasant farmers of the valley and the domestic workers of the handful of missionaries in the area. My first words weren’t English, but Luganda: ‘Wasuze otyanno’ (Good morning) and ‘Musula mutya?’ (How are you?). It’s a language that is sweet and rhythmic on the ear, permeated with coos and hums. And when people laugh, they laugh uproariously: loudly, clapping their hands, falling around.
My mother disliked it when I laughed in this way. ‘We don’t laugh like that. When we go back to England one day, you’re going to have to behave like a white boy or the children will mock you.’
She’d worried for nothing. I never went to England to stay. My father was happy in his adopted country, a man who pursued his life’s calling in the ministry with enthusiasm and dedication. And Uganda was the only home I knew.
The few times we visited my grandparents in Manchester are some of my worst childhood memories. The cold, grey air, the drab buildings and the cramped little houses – it was all a thousand miles from the blue skies and wide, rolling hills of Uganda.
Ankole cattle with their spectacular horns roamed those hills, cattle that, according to visiting Westerners, showed similarities to the drawings of buffalo-like animals found in Egyptian tombs. Perched on their withers, or on the ground beside their hooves, were the ubiquitous white egrets. It is this image of Uganda that always comes to me first when I remember my childhood there.
It was a carefree time, though I found school a difficult adjustment. Suddenly, I had new friends – white friends – the children of missionaries, teachers and the scattering of white farmers.
One of them was to influence my life profoundly. Though that’s putting it mildly …
* * *
Carina Vosloo was surprised to see Theodore walk through the door of the warehouse. She stood up, touched her hair and self-consciously ran her hands over her slightly creased dress. Her face felt warm. She always blushed when he arrived.
She knew it was silly to feel this way about him. She was a good fifteen years older than him, but he lit her fire. He reminded her of the Camel Man from those cigarette adverts years ago: the wild curls, the tan, the stubble. And those blue eyes that seemed to see right through you. Good-looking. Tough. Inscrutable.
‘I was expecting you tomorrow,’ she said.
‘I was in the area. Has the new consignment come in?’
She nodded and smiled. ‘You’re in luck. It arrived early this morning.’ She pointed across the room. ‘By the wall. I’m impressed with the variety.’
They walked over together. He crouched down in front of the first mask. His chest hair was curling up through the collar of his khaki shirt. It caused her whole body to tingle. God, the man was a testosterone tiger!
He looked up at her. ‘Ashanti tribe in Ghana … is my guess?’
She nodded. ‘We got seven of them.’
‘They always sell well.’
He stood up and walked on, stopping at a different mask. ‘This is extraordinary.’ He bent down and lightly swept his fingers over the wood.
Carina swallowed. What she wouldn’t give to have those fingers running over her skin.
‘From the Masai in Kenya. Turn of the eighteenth century,’ she said.
He nodded. His eyes flashed across the sixty-four masks. ‘Right. I’ll take the lot.’
‘Such a pleasure to do business with you, Theodore.’ She smiled. ‘Ten percent discount sound good?’
‘How about fifteen?’
Her heart jumped. There were tiny laugh lines around his eyes.
‘It’s impossible to refuse you.’ She almost added that that was true of anything he might ask of her.
Back at the counter, he flicked through a wad of notes. He always paid cash, making him by far her favourite client.
‘Nichols will come around on Monday to fetch everything when he takes our next consignment to Cape Town. Would you mind giving me notes on the background of each of the masks again, please?’
‘Of course. It’s part of the service.’
He looked as though he might be in a hurry, but she made a desperate bid to keep him around a little longer.
‘Musina’s damn hot again today. It feels like the middle of summer. Can I offer you a cold beer?’
He wavered, but then shook his head. ‘I’d love to, Carina, but I’m expecting a Mozambican with a delivery of beads. I’m going to have to go.’
She watched his tall figure as he strode away. He always said her name with so much tenderness …
She had to find a way to get to his home. She’d been threatening to for a long time. She figured he had to be pretty lonely out there in the bush …
2
Werner Erwee swore. He had no energy for this day. He wiped a hanky across his clammy forehead. The wind blew litter into the gutters alongside the pavements and against the walls of buildings in Musina’s dusty main street. It wasn’t even ten in the morning and already it was unbearably hot. In the car on the way from Vaalwater this morning, he’d heard the weather report: thirty-three degrees Celsius in the shade. In the middle of winter.
He was on his way to the unremarkable little building squeezed between a spaza shop and Mabel’s Massage Parlour & Hair Saloon. The name above the barred window was hard to make out, because the kerning between the red letters was too narrow: International Endangered Species Agency (IESA).
Maybe he was too early. Perhaps he should wait in the car another fifteen minutes. Or was he just stalling because of the news he had to convey?
Werner shook his head. He should never have become involved. When Tim unexpectedly made him this offer, he thought it might be good for his image. He’d still had parliamentary aspirations back then. Now IESA was nothing but a millstone around his neck. He’d never been interested in the protection of endangered species. He’d been an auditor until his retirement. Numbers were his thing. His political dreams were focused on the contribution he could make to the country’s bank balance. Not its wildlife.
But Tim’s phone call from the States had flattered him. ‘You are the only unimpeachable South African I know, Werner,’ he’d said.
Truth was, of course, that Werner was the only South African Tim knew. They’d met when they shared a room in the students’ residence after Werner had won a scholarship to study in the States.
‘The position isn’t chief executive officer in the traditional sense. It’ll take up very little of your time,’ Tim had explained. ‘All you’ll be required to do is to keep an eye on the finances on behalf of IESA in South Africa. The management officer will deal with the operational side of things.’
It hadn’t worked like that in practice. IESA’s donors were wealthy and influential Americans with a great passion for the cause. They would speak to no one but the CEO. He was forever having to rush around trying to find answers to their questions. Natasha van der Merwe was his only source of information, and