Acacia - Secrets of an African Painting

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – COMING HOME

  We left Cape Town the following morning aboard an Air Zimbabwe plane headed for Harare. Tara seemed to be back to her normal cheerful self again and my worries about her state of mind eased somewhat as the aircraft reached its cruising altitude. Her strange behaviour of the previous day had subsided. When we discussed things once again, she seemed to be in two minds as to whether or not to believe in it. I saw this as a healthy sign that normal service had been resumed and even when I quizzed her on it, she doubted that Frederick had been quite all there when he spoke or wrote about his experiences. Later, I was to wonder to why it didn’t occur to me at the time that this change of mind had happened overnight, with no obvious external influences to change her point of view. However, at the time, I was just relieved that she was talking sensibly again.

  We relaxed into our seats and once again snoozed, ate, read more, and snoozed more our way to our next destination. After a few hours, the Captain made his announcement and the plane’s engines throttled back, the engine noise changing in pitch from a high whine to a lower rumble. The nose pitched forward slightly and we made our approach to Harare. As the tyres hit the tarmac, I looked out of the window and saw a non-descript airport, with the sort of low grey buildings you might find at any provincial airport. I’m not sure what I was expecting here, but the feeling of disappointment inside me was an indication that my expectations had been high for this arrival for some reason.

  We taxied to a halt out on the tarmac and I watched as the usual assortment of vehicles started buzzing around outside to unload cargo, reload fuel, and draw up steps to the door. We took our turn in the line of people heading for the exits and started walking down the steps. The first thing that hit me was the heat that was like a damp, hot blanket being thrown over us as we cleared the air conditioned interior of the aircraft.

  The second thing I couldn’t have been prepared for, as it was a feeling I have never experienced in quite the same way before or since that day. As my feet hit the tarmac, there was an overwhelming feeling that I had come home. It wasn’t just a sense of déjà-vu, as nothing was familiar and the actions of people around me were original and stirred no memories. However, for a second or two, the surrounding noise and movement faded into the background and I simply felt as if I had reached my home, spiritual if you like, but definitely home. The intensity was almost unnerving and I stopped still in order to gather myself. Gradually, the noise and commotion around me returned and I once again felt I was part of the real world, but that feeling remained like a vast echo of something, booming through me.

  I looked at Tara and she gazed back, a smile slowly forming on her face. ‘You felt it too didn’t you?’ she said, almost laughing now. ‘God, what was it? It was so intense, it was incredible.’

  I just shook my head, dumb with the emotion of it, but knowing that I would never experience anything like it again.

  We were both brought crashing back to the tarmac as the people behind us started to shove and push as they tried to reach the bus that had driven out to transport us to the terminal building. We stumbled along, part of the throng, Tara grinning inanely and me just not quite there yet.

  ‘Jesus, are you two on something?’ A loud American accent assailed us as a large, chequered man pushed past, lugging bright red hand baggage, large enough to exceed any limit.

  We both laughed at the retreating back of the bizarrely dressed tourist. ‘Why do Americans dress like that?’ I wondered aloud, ‘is it some sort of law in the States that they have to dress badly in order to clear customs?’

  Tara laughed out loud and we crammed ourselves onto the bus, holding on for dear life as it careened its way across the tarmac towards the ugly grey terminal building I had seen from the plane.

  Once at our hotel, we sat at the table in our room and the maps and other documents once again came out. We started to plan our approach to what we figured was going to be the hardest part of the journey. We were now in the land where so much had happened. This was where Frederick’s companions had been mercilessly killed; where the Matabele had hoarded vast quantities of diamonds; where Frederick had barely escaped with his life, and perhaps hidden a stash of those diamonds. This is also where Nellie had married, lost her children and her husband, and where, I worried, some dark secrets lay in wait for us to uncover and reveal.

  I felt now, more than ever before, that we had been guided here and that our futures might rest on what we now discovered. It was a disquieting feeling that whether we failed or succeeded, our lives would almost certainly change. Tara was still acting normally and I hoped that she had got over whatever it was that had affected her before. The power of hindsight can work in two ways, either providing an extra sense of perception of events past, or allowing you to excuse those events and rationalise them. With Tara, I think I had rationalised her behaviour, minimised it so that what alarmed me before was now just an unsettling feeling, one I was able to put to the back of my mind.

  We pulled out a list Mum had provided for us of family members in the area and quickly ran through it, wondering who we should or shouldn’t make contact with. The revelations of Nellie’s marriage had somehow put a different slant on these people as we considered the possibility that they might have colluded in the chaos of that union. This thought came from an idea I had voiced, that in those days, it was considered a wife should obey her husband. Here, in this harsh land, perhaps women were expected to be strong enough to not complain and just get on with things. We had discussed this possibility after watching a documentary on the colonial era in India and South East Asia where women were thrown into alien circumstances with little no support and simply expected to cope. By today’s standards, it had seemed almost barbaric that any man could treat his wife in this way, but the programme explained that the people who populated the colonies were different and this was the life they had become accustomed to.

  The thought that the same ethos had existed here in what was then Rhodesia was not an unreasonable one. Hence our worry now that the families to whom we were related here may have guilty secrets to hide, or perhaps worse, not consider their actions as anything to be ashamed of.

  There were addresses located in town and country, but we decided for the moment to ignore the town’s folk and instead contact a family who farmed several miles north of Harare, beside whose name Mum had marked an asterisk denoting a good place to start. Before that though, we decided to try and trace Frederick’s journey through the country by re-reading his notes and cross-referencing to the large-scale map of the country we had bought at the airport.

  ‘OK then,’ Tara started, what’s our first clue? He was five days out from the point where Selous left him when the Matabele warriors first approached and told him to go to GuBulawayo to see the king right?’

  ‘Right, so we have to figure out how far they would have got in five days on horseback, at least I assume they were on horseback and not in wagons.’ I frowned, looking through his notes to see if there was any reference to wagons.

  ‘No, there’s no reference here, and in fact, later he says that the horses were dying one by one, so for now, let’s assume they had no wagons.’ Tara made that decision easy. Then she continued; ‘So, where was it that Selous left them?’

  ‘Hang on a sec,’ I scrabbled for the notes I had made at the university with Megan, ‘it was Tati.’ I peered at the map trying to locate the name.

  ‘I can’t see anywhere called Tati, but there is a place here called Old Tate, which could be pronounced Tati, I suppose.’

  Tara leant over the map and pointed to the left of Old Tate. ‘There’s a place called the Tati Siding there, so it must be the right area.’ She marked the map with a cross and underneath wrote neatly, “Selous leaves Frederick”.

  ‘Right, so how far would they get in five days do you think?’ She asked, pensively, still closely inspecting the map and gently biting her lip in concentration.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t really matter,
does it?’ I said, ‘We know where he started and we know that he went to GuBulawayo from there, so we already have our route.’

  ‘Yes, but it would be good if we could trace his every step, wouldn’t it?’ Tara turned to look at me, ‘Just for research sake and so that we can even follow it while we’re here if we get the time.’

  I smiled at her need for accuracy. ‘Okay, you win. Come on, let’s plot his every step then. You’re right that it will be more interesting that way.’

  ‘So back to our question then, how far can a horse go with a full pack and man on its back in one day?’ Again she looked at me expecting an answer.

  ‘Well…,’ I stalled for time, frantically wracking my brain for any point of reference that I could use to work this one out. ‘If a man walks at what, two or three miles an hour, then a horse should be able to walk at several times that pace, shouldn’t it?’

  Tara just stared at me, eyebrows raised in anticipation of the definitive answer. I frowned at her and continued my mental acrobatics.

  ‘So let’s say a horse can walk, unladen, at around seven or eight miles an hour?’ I didn’t have a clue if this was right or wrong, but persevered anyway. ‘But if you put a pack and a man on its back, then it will slow down somewhat. But,’ I raised a finger in the air in my best impression of an intelligent person, ‘a horse can keep going for longer than a man; it would have more staying power, so its average speed over a long distance would be greater. But, they were travelling over rough ground, over rivers, etc, which would slow them down on average quite considerably. So, I conclude that a horse can walk at around, nearly an approximate speed of, in the region of about….four miles an hour!’ I finished with a flourish, summing up as well as the best TV barrister in front of the jury.

  Tara applauded and I bowed, neither of us knowing if my calculations were right or wrong, but it seemed like a reasonable figure, so we decided to use it for now. Then we went back to map and traced from Old Tate a line towards GuBulawayo. The next problem, however, was that we didn’t actually know which direction Selous would have pointed them in. From our research before we came here however, we made the assumption that he would have suggested they head for the kings kraal, as any expedition into the territory would have to be passed by Lobengula first. Also Selous would have known that.

  ‘Okay, but from what he says, they didn’t travel in a straight line to the kraal, because the warriors pointed to the hills to the north of them and those were the Matoppos,’ I pointed out, ‘so they actually went more east-northeast from Tati and then headed north over the Matoppos. Then there’s something else in the diary that has been nagging at me too. His description of the high shelf of rock where there were balancing stones and lizards. I’m sure I’ve heard that description before somewhere, but in a different context.’

  Tara frowned for a moment and then said, ‘You’re right, you know that does ring a bell. Something we have read recently, now what was it?’

  All of a sudden, the penny dropped and I shouted, ‘It’s where Rhodes is buried; it’s the place Rhodes described as the View of The World or something. No, here it is on the map, “World’s View”. It was in the guidebook we read on the plane, as one of those must see places. The description was almost identical to Frederick’s, but Frederick got there first. A coup for the Braughtons I think.’

  We both laughed at the thought that our ancestor had bested the great Cecil Rhodes, discovering his final resting place before him, and noting it as a peaceful resting place himself. We made a note to tell everyone about that when we got home.

  ‘Right then, back to the map.’ Tara took charge again. ‘So, they headed towards the village of Kezi first, which makes sense as it’s on the river, a good place to rest I imagine. Then they turned north to the Matoppos, and then finally, up to Bulawayo, to give it its modern name. Now we just have to figure out where they went from there.

  He says that the plan was to head west from Bulawayo, towards the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, that I assume Selous must have marked on a map for them, but the white man disturbed them on the second night out. So, if we use our estimated speed of travel calculations, they would have travelled approximately fifty or sixty miles, assuming two eight-hour days. That puts them north of present day Lake Cunningham, which then would have just been a river, as it shows on the map as a dam, so another obvious stopping place.’ She grinned triumphantly at the progress we were making. However, now came the hard part, as the next part of the journey was broken and unclear. The horses had died one by one and Frederick’s description had become much less clear. The only clue we had was what Frederick had reported of the injured man’s conversation with them. He had said that the treasure was buried north and west of them about four days ride away.

  I looked at the map and sighed at the size of the area this description could conceivably cover.

  I measured from their probable camp the distance they could have travelled in four days on horseback, directly north. Then, I plotted points in an arc moving steadily westward, each point still the same distance from their camp, producing a curved line from Silobela, due north, to a place on the main rail line called Sawmills, which was east-northeast. Then I reasoned that we should allow for a margin of error in our calculations and so measured each side of that arc the equivalent of half a day’s ride. This gave us an area, which I then shaded, of approximately forty miles wide by one hundred and forty miles long on its long upper edge. That equated to a total area of some five and a half thousand square miles. I slumped back in my chair and threw my pen down.

  ‘How on earth are we going to find anything in an area that large?’ I asked, already feeling defeated by the enormity of the task. ‘We had might as well just go home now, it’s impossible. We have to find a single tree, which may or may not still be there, in an area the size of Hampshire.’

  Tara just looked at me and then at the shaded area I had marked on the map in front of us. ‘I don’t know how we’ll do it,’ she replied, still looking at the map, ‘but if your tone of voice suggests you’re ready to give up on this, then you had just better think again, because we have to keep going. We have to go there and see what we can find, no matter how hopeless it seems at the moment. So, just straighten up, would you, and stop feeling that way. We have to keep going; I just know we will get there in the end.’ Her eyes had filled with tears as she spoke and I could see that the situation seemed as hopeless to her as it did to me, but she was determined it seemed. She wiped her eyes and turned to me again.

  ‘We are not giving up, Okay? We are just not giving up!’

  I looked into her eyes and there was none of the scary stuff I had seen there in Cape Town, just the deep, dark eyes of my best friend. She pleaded with me without saying another word and as usual I melted.

  ‘Okay,’ I said quietly, ‘we’ll give it a go. We can head out tomorrow and see what the area looks like. You’re right; it might be easier to figure it out than it looks on this map. If only we had something to go by though, something that could narrow the search area down a bit.’

  We both sat there thinking hard about everything we had learned so far; all the notes and information we had gathered, but could think of nothing that was going to help us. Then Tara suddenly pointed to the painting we had brought with us.

  ‘Of course! The painting! That’s what will help us find the spot. I knew there was a reason for us to bring it along. If we can find an area that looks like that picture, then we have probably found the treasure. Like I said before, we can use the position of the sun as a guide too.’

  Her optimism was commendable, but I pointed out that it could be anywhere, and that the search area was still several thousand square miles of who knew what. ‘It could be farmland, or mining territory, or military land, or probably worse, virgin bush.’ I said, looking at the painting and wondering out its part in all this. I had to grudgingly admit it did make some sort of sense and that it did have a role to play, as it seemed as if Frederick had s
ketched it during that period his memory had blocked out. I wasn’t sure how he had managed to do that though, as the time scale must have been incredibly short, a point I raised to Tara.

  ‘But again, we have only assumed the time frame was short, haven’t we?’ Tara said. ‘For all we know, he may have missed several days or even weeks from his memory. They say that periods of huge trauma or stress can make the mind do all sorts of funny things. Perhaps this is one of them. He may have had the time to re-hide the treasure, sketch the picture, and still make his way out of the area before he was spotted. We just don’t know.’

  I mulled this over and decided that she was right. We had made assumptions up to now that had proved to be incorrect, so it was time we, or maybe just I, opened my mind a little more to the possibilities.

  The rest of that day we spent wandering around the city doing some sightseeing. We didn’t plan our walk at all, and consequently, ended up not seeing anything of any great interest, but we did come across one or two pavement markets where local artisans were displaying their wares. There were sculptures and trinkets, little cars made out of old milk tins, toys, masks, and paintings of every description. Some of it was very similar to Nellie’s treasures at Acacia, but some looked very new, losing some of that spirit I had come to recognise in the carvings I had grown up with.

  One particular display caught my attention, as each and every piece looked old and just more authentic than any of the others. I knelt down and poked around for a bit before even thinking of looking up to see who was selling this stuff. The face that greeted my upturned eyes gave me a start, as it was staring at me with an intensity that bordered on hatred. He was old, with wrinkled and creviced skin; the hair on his head was thin and grew in grey tufts. He wore modern shorts and a t-shirt, but his feet were bare. It was his eyes that gave me the shock; they were red rimmed with almost no white visible around centres, which looked pitch black. There were depths to them that scared me, but I found I couldn’t look away, and so we simply stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, until he spoke.

  ‘Ingozi. Uyaphi? Ingozi.’

  The words broke the spell and I glanced away for a second towards the next display, looking to see if anyone had heard him and could translate for me. Then he spoke again.

  ‘Danger, great danger. Where are you going? You must leave, the spirits will see you. Great danger.’

  He reached out and touched my hand. I felt a shock, almost electrical. Involuntarily, I took a step back and since I was still in a kneeling position, tripped backwards into the gutter. Tara looked up from where she was examining some trinkets and at first laughed at me floundering by the kerbside. Then she must have seen my face, as I once again stared at the old man, terrified at the sight of him and scared stiff at what he had said. She rushed over and helped me to my feet, peering at the old man whose gaze did not waver from my face.

  ‘What is it James?’ her voice was unsure as she tried to understand what was going on.

  ‘Let’s get away from here.’ I said, still staring at him.

  ‘Why, what’s wrong?’ I was scaring her and her voice trembled a little as I grabbed her arm and started to lead her away across the road to the park on the other side. When we reached the grassed area, I kept on walking fast towards a pool in the centre of the park, with fountains feebly spouting from its ornate stone ornament in the middle. We rounded the pool and found some benches on the other side onto which I slumped. The fear drained away a little, but I felt rivulets of sweat running down my face. Tara anxiously held onto my hand and looked me in the eyes, still scared and confused.

  ‘What the hell happened?’ she asked. ‘You look as if you have seen a ghost.’

  I opened my mouth to speak, but my throat was dry. Tara grabbed a bottle of water from her bag and handed it to me. I gulped, gratefully, trying to collect my thoughts.

  ‘He knows about us,’ I said, sure that what I said was true. The old man had known why we were here and he was trying to warn us off, I was positive.

  ‘Who knows about us, that old man, you mean?’ She was incredulous.

  ‘He warned me of danger and asked where we were going. He said the spirits would find us.’ I looked back at her, trying to convince her of the intensity of what had happened.

  I could see that she was torn between laughing at me and taking me seriously, but the look on my face must have won out. ‘But how could he?’ she asked, not unreasonably, ‘How could he possibly know who you are and why we’re here? Are you sure it wasn’t just a show he puts on for the tourists?’

  ‘No, I felt terrified when he looked at me; even before he spoke there was something there.’ I couldn’t explain what had happened and I knew that even as I spoke, the idea sounded ridiculous. I put my head in my hands and rubbed my face vigorously, trying to erase the feelings that swirled around me. Tara put her arm round my shoulders and waited for me to recover. After a few minutes, I felt clearer and even started to wonder if the whole thing had been a figment of my imagination. Perhaps looking at the artefacts on the pavement and then the shock of looking up into those eyes was most likely the result of too much booze or something.

  I lifted my head again and smiled at Tara. ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I didn’t mean to scare you; he just caught me unawares, that’s all.’

  She looked unconvinced, but grateful that I was returning to normal again. She smiled back. ‘That’s okay, these things happen. Come on, let’s go and get something to eat.’

  We got up and started towards a row of restaurants across the road. As we walked, I thought to myself that these things don’t just ‘happen’, that was the problem. This was something a bit out of the ordinary. I looked back over my shoulder across the park to where the pavement market was, but there was no sign now of the old man or his wares. He had vanished. I shuddered and tried to put the incident out of my mind.

  The next day I was running across the open veld, a screaming group of warriors close behind, their assegais held aloft ready to strike and their spear arms free to pitch their lethal cargos into my retreating back. The sack I carried was heavy, and seemed to be getting heavier with each step, its precious load straining at the canvas material. I could feel its contents starting to move, restless and alive, writhing and clinking against my back, wanting to escape, not willing to be taken away from that place.

  The death had been atrocious, the final horrified cries still echoed through my mind. The spear had gone right through the body, pinning it to the tree trunk which had provided inadequate shelter. Scared eyes stared at me, the life gradually fading from them; thick, scarlet blood pumped from the twin wounds front and back and dripped into pools on the ground. I had just stood and watched, unable to move or speak as death came at last.

  I ran on, slowing down now, unable to run much further. The faceless mass of warriors behind me were getting closer but seemed to move effortlessly compared with the strain I felt with every step I took. I saw a figure up ahead and I tried to scream for help, but my throat was dry and constricted and no sound issued from my cracked lips.

  Another person joined the lone figure, and then another and another and they all looked at me, smiling and not understanding the peril I faced. Inside I screamed, ‘Why don’t you help me? They are going to kill me, help me, for god’s sake help me!’ But they continued to stand and stare and smile. Mum, Nellie and an old black man, whose eyes were red and whose flesh was wrinkled. He raised his arm and pointed at me and he mouthed something I couldn’t understand. As I turned to look at his toothless mouth, straining to understand what he was saying, I tripped and fell headlong, sprawling into the dust. The sack was sent reeling away from me and the stones skittered from its opening, disappearing into the ground like water into a sponge. They glistened like raindrops in the bright sunlight until one by one they were gone and all that was left was the parched, brown earth.

  I rolled to one side and looked back at the warriors and as I did so saw twin flashes of dull stee
l as the spear flew and the assegai arced towards me….

  I screamed and put up my arms to ward off the impact, but I was tangled in something; blankets, sheets. I woke fully then and sat in my bed, sweating and my heart racing, the old man’s red eyes still visible and his words still ringing in my ears. Who had died though? I struggled to remember whose body that was, but it was indistinct, greying, rapidly towards nothingness.

  The morning came, bright and sunny and the nightmare slowly faded away. It had amplified that feeling of disquiet I still couldn’t shake off, but I decided to keep t from Tara for now at least.

  After picking up the Toyota 4x4 rental, we set off towards the northwest on the Kariba road. Our first stop was to be at Mum’s cousin’s farm near Chinhoyi, about a hundred miles north of the capital. We had tried phoning Katie and Albert several times from the hotel, but had had no luck. Mum had told us that the phones out here were a bit old fashioned and that we might have problems getting through. In the end, we decided to drive up there and just pitch up on the doorstep. Mum had already written to them to say we would be in the country, so it shouldn’t come as too great a shock when we arrived.

  The road north was in reasonable condition and there was little traffic, so we made good time, stopping at little roadside grocery stores for drinks only a couple of times. These shacks were very basic affairs, with wooden frames covered with sheets of corrugated iron and the ubiquitous Coca Cola signs everywhere we looked. The red signs could be seen from miles away as they contrasted so starkly with the natural shades of the surrounding countryside. Inside these little stores, there was not generally much for sale. A few dusty tins were stacked on shelves behind the counter and some fruit and vegetables were available from boxes on the floor. Every store, though, sold the staple of the local diet, mealie meal; ground corn meal that was prepared as a thick, glutinous porridge and eaten at every meal. It was the stuff that could be seen on any TV report on rural Africa, as there was always a child somewhere stuffing it in his mouth with his hands.

  At each place we stopped, there were always groups of people milling about or just seated at the assortment of tables and chairs usually found by the roadside in front of these stores. We received cheerful grins and waves from these folk and we chatted with them as we took slugs of thirst quenching fizzy drink.

  I had decided not to tell Tara about my dream of the previous night, mostly because it was just a dream and just a product of my own fevered imagination, and partly because I didn’t want to worry her about my state of mind any more than she possibly already was. It was a strange state of affairs when I thought about it, as only a few days ago, it had been Tara whose mind seemed to be becoming a little loose around the edges and me doing the worrying. Now, however, the situation had reversed and Tara was the lucid, sensible one of the two of us. Now, this was okay while one of us at least was acting normally, but it worried me that at some point, should we both suffer from a slight case of loony-tunes, we could be in serious trouble. So I kept quiet but that didn’t stop me mulling over and over yesterday’s events and the subsequent dream sequence, as for some reason, I felt the two things were linked with stronger bonds than just the brain cells in my head.

  We eventually came closer to the township of Chinhoyi and started to look for any signs for the Leopard’s Leap farm, owned by Katie and Albert Stromberg.

  Katie was the daughter of Mum’s aunt Jane, whose own mother was Nellie’s sister, and represented part of the family that had chosen to stay in Africa. She had also decided to stick to tradition by changing her surname to that of her husband, whereas Nellie and my mother had kept their own name, which is why I am still a Braughton. Albert was a Swiss immigrant, who had come to Africa as a young man and once he had met and married Katie decided it was the place to stay. They had taken over a small family farm and through hard work and ambition, also created two further farms in the area, literally carved from the bush where tobacco was the main cash crop.

  This was the extent of my knowledge about them as we searched in vain for their farm. We decided to stop at the town of Chinhoyi itself and pulled off the tarmac onto a wide area of bare earth in front of a number of small stores and other assorted buildings, including a police station. Our arrival seemed to cause a small ripple of interest amongst the people out doing their shopping or carrying out their business on the site and I watched with interest as a group of young men stared at us unsmilingly as we parked in front of the police station. There was some commotion amongst these men and I saw two of them disappear behind a corrugated building, the others now smiling at us as I continued to stare in their direction. They seemed to lose interest in us then and so we walked over towards the station door.

  The station building itself followed the apparently standard design around here, except that there were some whitewashed stones arranged in a path to the door and there were a couple of bedraggled plants in pots, standing guard each side of the opening. The step was painted with blue edging and an earthy red centre and I thought somehow managed to provide a marginally more welcome entrance than if it had been bare. Inside, the concrete floor was bare, but swept clean and a row of battered, steel-framed chairs lined one wall opposite a roughly made reception desk. Behind this was another door that was closed as we entered and a window covered from the other side with a thin curtain.

  We approached the unattended desk and waited for a minute or two before timidly knocking on its surface and calling out in the general direction of the door. Another minute passed and as we were about to leave, the door opened and a large man stepped through, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he did so.

  ‘Ah, my friends, I am sorry, I did not know there was someone here.’ He said in a heavily accented and booming voice, his mouth cracking into a wide smile, showing off a set of very white teeth.

  ‘How can I help you today?’

  I ignored the fact that we had been waiting for so long and asked if he could point us in the direction of the Leopard’s Leap farm.

  ‘What is your business there? Are you friends of Albert?’ he asked suspiciously, ignoring the first question for the moment. We explained who we were and his tone changed instantly. The smile returned and he grabbed a scruffy piece of paper and the stub of a pencil that had been tucked behind his ear and proceeded to draw us a map with full instructions on how we would reach our destination. We thanked him profusely for his help and shook his proffered hand.

  ‘Anything I can do to help the family of Albert and Katie Stromberg. Please pass the regards of Sergeant Sibanda,’ he said as we headed back into the sunshine again. For an instant, as we were blinded by the bright light after the dim interior of the police station, I couldn’t see a thing, but I sensed a sudden movement over by the four-wheel drive we had hired. I put my hand up to shield my eyes before sliding my sunglasses on and saw two men running across the square with a black case under their arm. It took a second or two for my brain to get into gear and realise that the case was from the back of the car and contained not only the painting, but Frederick’s diary, and all the notes we had made. I ran, shouting after the two men, but by the time I reached the far buildings and scooted around the side, there was no sign of them. A young woman was standing nearby and I furiously turned to her asking where they had gone. She looked scared, as I all but shouted at her, but merely shook her head at my questions. I called out to some other people who must have seen the whole thing, but I was greeted with a wall of silence as they all just stared at us. I marched up to another small group, again asking what they had seen and if they knew the men who had stolen the case. One older man came forward then and quietly said that he had seen the men, but didn’t know who they were. He was local, and if the two had been from this area, he would have known them, but they were probably from a gang up from Harare to see what mischief they could cause out in the country. He explained that the young woman I had accosted first of all had been threatened by another of the gang; a knife had been held t
o her throat. ‘She will not say a thing to you,’ he said, ‘for fear that they will find her and kill her.’

  I stood in the middle of the dusty square, not knowing what to do and furious that we had let this happen. The friendliness of the people we had met on the trip up from Harare had lulled us into thinking that locking the car doors was unnecessary, but that was obviously an error of judgement that had cost us dearly. I walked back to the car where Tara was dejectedly going through our things to see what else had been taken.

  ‘They’ve stolen my camera and your Walkman,’ she said, ‘but I think that’s all, apart from the entire reason we came here in the first place, of course.’ She started to cry then, and in order that I didn’t join her, I swung a fist into the side of the car, simultaneously denting the metalwork and cracking a knuckle in my hand. I yelled out in pain loud enough so that even Sergeant Sibanda came running out of his office to see what the commotion was all about. We explained what had happened and he took us inside to fill out some paperwork and got on the radio to see if he could summon up any help to catch the thieves.

  After about an hour of forms and an endless stream of radio calls and conversations, he admitted defeat for the moment, promising us that they would be caught sooner or later. He promised too that he would keep in touch with us as long as we stayed at Leopard’s Leap. We thanked him again and left, feeling dejected and believing that our journey may well be over. Without the painting, the diary, maps, and the other notes we had made, it was even less likely that we would be able to find Frederick’s hiding place in this vast land.

  THE PRESENT