She was pinned helplessly as with one hand he swept the wide peasant skirt up above her waist.
‘Scream!’ he whispered gutturally. ‘Scream again.’ And with complete and horrified disbelief she felt those thick brown fingers, calloused and deliberately cruel, begin to prise open her body. They seemed to tear her tenderest, most secret flesh, like the talons of an eagle – and she screamed and screamed.
Mark had lost them in the labyrinthine maze of the jessie bush, and there had been silence now for many minutes.
He stood bareheaded and panting, listening with every fibre of his being in the aching silence of the jessie thorn; his eyes were wild, and he hated himself with bitter venom for letting himself be persuaded by Storm.
He had known how dangerous this man was, he was a killer, a coldly competent killer, and he had sent a girl, a young and tender girl, to bait him.
Then Storm screamed, close by in the jessie, and with a violent lift of savage relief, Mark began to run again.
At the last moment Hobday heard him coming, and he dropped Storm’s slim abused body and turned with unbelievable speed, dropping into the crouch of a heavyweight prize fighter, solid and low behind lifted arms and hunched shoulders, thick and rubbery with muscle.
Mark swung the weapon he had made the night before, a long sausage of raw-hide, the seams double sewn, and then filled with lead buckshot. It weighed two pounds, and it made a sound through the air like the wings of a wild duck and he swung full-armed, the blow given power and weight by his terrible anger and hatred.
Hobday threw up his right arm to catch the blow. The bones of his forearm broke cleanly, with a sharp crackle, but still the force of the blow was not fully expended and the leaded bag flew on, directly into Hobday’s face.
Had he not caught the full weight of it on his arm, the blow would have killed him. As it was, his face seemed to collapse and his head snapped backwards to the full stretch of his neck.
Hobday crashed backwards into the wall of jessie and the curved, red-tipped thorns caught in his clothing and flesh and held him there, sprawling like a boneless doll, arms outspread, legs dangling, his face hanging forward on his chest and the thick dark droplets of blood beginning to fall on to his shirt and roll softly downwards across his belly, leaving wet crimson lines down the khaki drill.
The rain began as they carried Hobday up the track to where the two vehicles were kept under the lee of the cliffs of Chaka’s Gate, on the south bank of the Bubezi. It came with the first splattering of fat warm drops, that stung exposed skin with their weight and momentum. It fell heavily and still more heavily, turning the surface of the track to a glaze like melting chocolate, so they slipped under their burden.
Hobday was chained at his ankles with the manacles that Mark used for holding arrested poachers. His good arm was cuffed to the leather belt at his waist, the other arm was crudely splinted and strapped down to the same belt.
Mark had tried to force him to walk, but either he was shamming or he was really too weak. His face was grotesquely distorted, the nose was swollen and pushed to one side, both eyes almost closed and leaden blue with bruises, his lips also were swollen and thickly scabbed with black dried blood where they had been mashed against his teeth, and through the mangled flesh were the dark gaps where five of the big square teeth had been torn out or snapped off level with the gum by the murderous force of Mark’s blow.
Pungushe and Mark carried him between them, laboriously up the steep path in the teeming, stinging rain, and behind them trailed Storm with baby John on her hip, her hair melting in long black shiny smears down her face in the rain. She was shivering violently, in sudden uncontrollable spasms, either from the cold or from lingering shock. The child on her hip squalled petulantly, and she covered him with a fold of oilskin and tried to hush him distractedly.
They reached the two vehicles under the crude thatched shelter Pungushe had built to protect them from the elements. They put Hobday into the sidecar of the Ariel, and Mark buttoned the canvas screen over him to protect him from the rain and to hold him secure. He lay like a corpse.
Then Mark crossed to where Storm sat, shivering, and sodden and miserable, behind the wheel of the battered old Cadillac.
‘I’m sending Pungushe with you,’ he said, as he took her in his arms and held her briefly. She did not have the strength or will to argue, and she leaned heavily against Mark’s chest for comfort.
‘Go to the cottage – and stay there,’ he instructed. ‘Don’t move out of it until I come for you.’
‘Yes, Mark,’ she whispered, and shuddered again.
‘Are you strong enough to driver he asked with sudden gentleness, and she roused herself and nodded gamely.
‘I love you,’ he said. ‘More than anything or anybody in this world.’
Mark led on the motorcycle over the slippery, muddy track, and it was almost dark when they reached the main road, itself hardly better than a track with deeply churned double ruts in the glutinous mud, and all the time the rain fell.
At the crossroads, Mark pulled the motorcycle off the road, and hurried back to talk to Storm through the open window of the Cadillac.
‘It’s six hours from here to Umhlanga Rocks in this mud, don’t try and push it,’ he told her, and reached through the window. They embraced awkwardly but fiercely, and then she rolled up the window and the Cadillac pulled away, the rear end sliding and skidding in the mud.
Mark watched it over a rise in the land, and when the rear lights winked out over the ridge, he went back to the motorcycle and kicked the engine to life.
In the sidecar the man stirred, and his voice was mushy and distorted through the mangled lips.
‘I’m going to kill you for this,’ he said.
‘Like you killed my grandfather?’ Mark asked softly, and wheeled the cycle into the road. He took the fork to Ladyburg, thirty miles away through the darkness and the mud and the rain, and his hatred, and anger warmed him all the way like a bonfire in his belly, and he marvelled at his own restraint in resisting the temptation to kill Hobday with the bludgeon when he had the chance.
The man who had tortured and murdered the old man, and who had abused and desecrated Storm, was in his power – and still the temptation to avenge himself was fierce. Mark pushed it aside and drove on grimly into the night.
The motorcycle slipped and slid from one verge of the road to the other as he took it up the steep ascent of the Ladyburg escarpment, and below him the lights of the town were blanketed by the falling white fog of rain.
Mark was uncertain as to whether or not the General was in residence at Lion Kop, but as he gunned the machine into the walled kitchen yard he saw lights in the windows, and a clamorous pack of the General’s hunting dogs rushed out into the night followed by three Zulu servants with lanterns. Mark shouted at them.
‘Is the Nkosi here?’
Their answers were superfluous, for as Mark dismounted, he looked up and saw the bulky familiar beloved shape step into the lighted window of the study, head held low on broad shoulders, as Sean Courtney peered down at him.
Mark ran into the house, stripping off his streaming oilskins, and he burst into the General’s study.
‘My boy.’ Sean Courtney hurried to meet him across the huge room. ‘What is it?’ Mark’s whole being was charged with a fierce and triumphant purpose.
‘I have the man who killed my grandfather,’ he exulted, and halfway across the study Sean stopped dead and stared at him.
‘Is it—’ he stopped, and the dread was plain on his face, ‘is it Dirk Courtney, is it my son?’
The servants carried Hobday’s heavy inert body into the study and laid him on the buttoned leather sofa in front of the fire.
‘Who put those chains on him?’ growled Sean, studying the man, and then without waiting for a reply, ‘Take them off him. My God, what happened to his face?’
Ruth Courtney came then, awakened by the uproar and excitement, dressed in a long dressing
-gown with her night cap still knotted under her chin.
‘Good Lord,’ she stared at Hobday. ‘His arm is broken, and perhaps his jaw also.’
‘How did it happen?’ Sean demanded.
‘I hit him,’ Mark explained, and Sean was silent for a long moment staring at him, before he spoke again.
‘I think you had better tell me the whole story,’ he said.
‘From the beginning.’
While Ruth Courtney worked quietly over Hobday’s broken face, Mark began his explanation to the General.
‘His name is Hobday, he works for Dirk Courtney—has done so for years. One of his right-hand men.’
‘Of course,’ Sean nodded. ‘I should have recognized him. It was the swollen face. I’ve seen him before.’
Quietly, quickly, Mark told everything he knew about the man, starting from his first meeting with Hobday at the deserted homestead on Andersland.
‘He told you he was working for Dirk Courtney then?’ Sean demanded.
‘For Ladyburg Sugar,’ Mark qualified, and Sean nodded his white beard on to his chest.
‘Go on.’
Mark repeated Pungushe’s story of the old man’s death, how the three men had come with him to the valley, and how ‘the silent one’ had shot him and waited for him to die, and how they had buried him in an unmarked grave.
However, Sean shook his head, frowning, and Hobday on the couch stirred and tried to sit up. His swollen, distorted jaw worked and the words were blurred.
‘It’s a bloody nigger lie,’ he said. ‘First time I’ve ever been to Chaka’s Gate was three days ago.’
Sean Courtney’s worry showed clearly on his gaunt features as he turned back to Mark.
‘You say you hit this man, that you are responsible for his injuries. How did it happen?’
‘When he came to the valley, Pungushe recognized him as the man who killed John Anders. I lured him out of his camp, and Pungushe and I captured him and brought him here.’
‘After half killing him?’ Sean asked, heavily, and did not wait for Mark’s reply. ‘My boy, I think you’ve put yourself into a very serious position. I cannot see a shred of evidence to support all this, evidence that would convict a man in a court of law – while on the other hand you have assaulted somebody, grievous bodily harm and abduction at the least—’
‘Oh, I do have proof,’ Mark cut in quickly.
‘What is it?’ Sean asked gruffly.
The man on the couch turned his battered face to Sean, and his voice rose confidently.
‘He’s a bloody liar. It’s all lies—’
‘Quiet!’ Sean waved him to silence, and looked to Mark again. ‘Proof?’ he asked.
‘My proof will be in the fact that Dirk Courtney kills this man, or has him killed, the moment we turn him free.’
They all stared at Mark in stunned silence, and Mark went on seriously.
‘We all know how Dirk Courtney works. He destroys anything that stands in his way, or that is a danger to him.’
Hobday was watching him, and for once the eyes were no longer veiled and cold. His mangled lips quivered and gaped slightly, showing the black gaps where the teeth were missing from his jaw.
‘It isn’t necessary for this man to confess anything to us. The fact that he has been here, in this house, with the General and myself, in the camp of Dirk Courtney’s enemies, the fact that his face bears the marks of heavy persuasion – that will be enough for Dirk Courtney. Then one phone call is all it would take. Something like this.’ Mark paused, then went on. ‘“Hobday was with us, he is ready to make a sworn statement – about the -killing of John Anders.” Then we take Hobday down to the village and leave him there. Dirk Courtney kills him, but this time we are ready. For once we can trace the murder directly to him.’
‘God damn you,’ snarled Hobday, struggling into a sitting position. ‘It’s a lie. I haven’t confessed anything.’
‘You can tell that to Dirk Courtney. He might believe you,’ Mark told him quietly. ‘On the other hand, if you turned king’s evidence and did confess, you’d have the protection of the General and the law, all the force of the law – and we would not turn you loose.’
Hobday looked around him wildly, as though some avenue of escape might open miraculously for him, but Mark went on remorselessly.
‘You know Dirk Courtney better than any of us, don’t you, Hobday? You know how his mind works. Do you think he will take the chance that you didn’t confess? Just how useful are you going to be to him in the future? Can you trust his loyalty, now that the shadow of doubt is on you? You know what he is going to do, don’t you? If you think about it, you’ll realize that your only chance of survival will be to have Dirk Courtney locked up safely, or dancing at the end of a rope.’
Hobday glared at him. ‘You bastard,’ he hissed through his broken lips, and it was as though a cork had been drawn; a steady stream of obscenity poured from him, vicious filth, the ugly meaningless words repeated over and over again, while his naked eyes glittered with helpless hatred.
Mark stood up and cranked the handset of the telephone on Sean’s desk.
‘Exchange,’ he said into the mouthpiece. ‘Please connect me with the residence of Mr Dirk Courtney.’
‘No!’ choked Hobday. ‘Don’t do that!’ and now terror had replaced hatred, and his face seemed to collapse around the ruined nose and mouth.
Mark made no effort to obey, and clearly everybody in the room heard the click of a connection being made, and then the squawk of a voice distorted by the wires and distance.
‘This is the residence of the Honourable Deputy Minister for Lands, Mr Dirk Courtney—’
Hobday lumbered off the couch, and staggered to the desk, he snatched the earpiece from Mark’s hand and slammed it back on to its bracket of the telephone.
‘No,’ he panted, with pain and fear. ‘Please don’t do that.’ He hung on to the corner of the desk, hunched up with the pain, clutching his broken arm to his chest, his mashed features working convulsively. They waited quietly, Mark and Ruth and Sean, waiting for him to reach his decision.
Hobday turned and staggered heavily back to the sofa. He collapsed upon it with his head hanging forward, almost touching his knees, and his breathing hissed and sobbed in the silence.
‘All right,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘What do you want to know?’
General Sean Courtney shook himself as though awaking from a nightmare, but his voice was decisive and brisk.
‘Mark, take the Rolls. Go down into town and get me a lawyer. I want this statement drawn up in proper form – I’ m still a Justice of the Peace and Commissioner of Oaths. I will witness the document.
‘Mark parked the Rolls in Peter Botes’ gravel driveway of the big new house on the outskirts of town.
The house was dark and silent, but to Mark’s heavy knocking on the carved teak front door, a dog began to bark in the house somewhere, and at last a light bloomed in an upstairs window and the sash slid up with a squeal.
‘Who is it? What do you want?’ Peter’s voice was querulous and fuddled with sleep.
‘It’s Mark,’ he shouted up at the window. ‘You’ve got to come with me, now!’
‘My God, Mark, it’s after eleven o’clock. Can’t it wait until morning?’
‘General Courtney wants you, now.’
The name had its effect. There was a mumble of voices within the bedroom, Marion’s sister protesting sleepily, and then Peter called down again.
‘All right, give me a minute to dress, Mark.’
As he waited in the driver’s seat of the Rolls with the rain slashing down on the roof, and rippling in wavering lines down across the windshield, Mark pondered briefly why he had chosen Peter Botes. It was not only that he knew exactly where to find him so late at night. He realized that he wanted Peter to be there when they tore down his idol, he wanted to rub his nose in it when they proved Dirk Courtney a thief and a murderer. He wanted that satisfaction, and he smiled
bleakly without humour in the darkened Rolls.
‘I deserve at least that,’ he whispered to himself, and the front door of the house opened. Peter hurried out, ducking his head against the slanting rain.
‘What is it?’ he demanded, through the window of the Rolls. ‘It had better be important — getting me out at this time of night.’
‘It’s important enough,’ Mark told him, and started the engine. ‘Get in!’
‘I’ll follow you in my Packard,’ Peter told him and ran to the garage.
Peter Botes sat at General Courtney’s big desk. Hurriedly dressed, he was without a necktie and his small prosperous paunch bulged the white shirt, pulling it free of his trousers’ waistband. His sandy hair was thinning and ruffled, so that pink scalp showed through as he bowed over the foolscap sheet of paper.
He wrote swiftly, a neat regular script, his features betraying each new shock at the words he was transcribing, his cheeks pale and his mouth set and thin.
Every few minutes he would pause incredulously and stare at Hobday across the room, breathing heavily at some new and terrible admission.
‘Have you got that?’ the General demanded, and Peter nodded jerkily and began to write again.
The others listened intently. The General slumped in his chair by the fire. His eyes were closed, as though he slept, but the questions he rapped out every few minutes were bright and penetrating as a rapier blade.
Mark stood behind his chair, quiet and intent, his face expressionless, although his anger and his hatred cramped in his guts.
Hobday sat forward on the sofa and his voice was a muffled drone in his thick north-country accent, muted in contrast to the terrible words he spoke.
It was not only the killing of John Anders. There was more, much more. Forgery of State documents, bribery of high officials, direct abuse of public office, and Mark started and leaned forward with shock as Hobday recounted how he had tried on two occasions, following Dirk Courtney’s orders, to kill him.