A Sparrow Falls
Mark had not realized nor recognized him, but now Hobday’s stocky shape tied in his memory with the shadowy faceless hunter in the night on the escarpment — and with the other figure seen through the rain and the fever mists. Hobday did not look up as he told it, and Mark had no questions to ask. It was as though once Hobday had started, he must purge himself of all this filth, as though he were now deriving some perverse satisfaction from the horror his words struck into his audience.
They listened, appalled by the magnitude of it all. Every few minutes, Ruth exclaimed involuntarily, and Sean would open his eyes briefly to stare at her, before closing them again and covering them with one hand.
At last Hobday came to the murder of John Anders, and each detail was exactly as Pungushe had described it. Mark felt sickened and wretched as he listened, but he asked only one question.
‘Why did you let him die so slowly – why didn’t you finish him?’
‘It had to look like an accident.’ Hobday did not look up. ‘One bullet only. A man does not shoot himself twice by accident. I had to let him die in his own time.’
There was no breadth nor horizon to Mark’s anger, and this time Ruth Courtney caught her breath with a sound like a sob. Again Sean Courtney opened his eyes. ‘Are you all right, my dear?’
She nodded silently, and Sean turned back to Hobday. ‘Go on,’ he said.
At the end, Peter Botes read the statement back, his voice quivering and fading at the more horrendous passages, so that Sean had to gruff at him fiercely.
‘Speak up, man.’ He had made two fair copies, and Hobday signed each page with an illiterate scrawl, and then each of them signed below him, and Sean pressed his wax seal of office on to the final page of each copy.
‘All right,’ he said, as he carried the top document to the iron safe built into the wall behind his desk. ‘I want you to keep and file the other copy,’ he said to Peter. ‘Thank you for your help, Mr Botes.’ He locked the safe and turned back into the room. ‘Mark, will you telephone Doctor Acheson now, please? We’ve got to take care of our witness, I suppose. Though, for my money, I’d just as soon see him suffer.’
When Doctor Acheson arrived at Lion Kop, it was almost two in the morning, and Ruth Courtney took him up to the guest room where Hobday lay.
Neither Sean Courtney nor Mark went up; they stayed in the study, sitting quietly together across the fire which a servant had built. Against the windows, the wind bumped and the rain spattered. Scan was drinking whisky, and Mark had filled his glass twice for him in the last hour. He was slumped down in his favourite chair now, tired and old and bowed with grief, holding the glass with both hands.
‘If I had the courage, I would take the rifle to him myself – like a rabid dog. But he is still my son, no matter how often I deny it, he is still of my blood, of my loins.’
Mark was silent, and Ruth came into the room.
‘Doctor Acheson is setting that man’s arm,’ she said. ‘He will be another hour, but I think you should come up to bed now, my dear.’ She crossed to Sean’s chair and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘We have all had more than enough for one day.’
The telephone rang on the desk, a tinny irritant sound that startled them all. They stared at it for a full five seconds, until it rang again demandingly and Ruth crossed to it and lifted the earpiece.
‘Mrs Ruth Courtney,’ she said softly, almost fearfully.
‘Mrs Courtney, are you the mother of Mrs Storm Hunt?’
‘Yes, this is correct.’
‘I am afraid we have very bad news. This is the Superintendent of Addington Hospital in Durban. Your daughter has been involved in a motor accident. The rain and the mud, I am afraid. Her son, your grandchild, has been killed outright. Thankfully he suffered no pain, but your daughter is in a critical condition. Can you come to her, as soon as you possibly can? We don’t know if she will last the night, I’m afraid.’
The telephone dropped from Ruth’s hand, and she swayed on her feet, the colour flying from her face, leaving it frosted with icy white.
‘Oh God!’ she whispered, and she started to fall, her legs collapsed and she crumpled forward. Mark caught her before she hit the floor and lowered her on to the sofa.
Sean crossed to the dangling earpiece and lifted it. ‘This is General Courtney,’ he barked angrily. ‘What is it?’
Mark took the big Rolls down the long slanting right hand turn towards the bridge very fast. The woman he loved, the mother of his dead child, was dying—and Mark’s heart was breaking. The road was deep with chocolate mud, and other vehicles had rutted it deeply, churning the mud to a thick ugly porridge. The Rolls flared and kicked in the ruts, but Mark fought the wheel grimly.
The bridge over the Baboon Stroom was five hundred yards ahead of them, still invisible in the endless driving rain. The headlights faded fifty feet ahead, overwhelmed by the flights of white raindrops, thick as javelins.
In the rear seat, Ruth Courtney sat quietly, staring ahead with eyes that did not see. The collar of her fur coat was pulled up around her ears, so she looked small and frail as a child.
General Sean Courtney sat beside Mark, and he was talking quietly, as though to himself.
‘I’ve left it too late. I’ve been a stubborn old fool. I wanted too much from her—I wanted her to be better than human, and I was too harsh on her when she did not meet the standards I set for her. I should have gone to her long ago, and now perhaps it’s too late.’
‘It’s not too late,’ Mark denied. ‘She will live, she must live.’
‘It’s too late for my grandson,’ whispered Sean. ‘I never saw him – and only now I realize how much I wanted to—’
At the mention of baby John, Mark felt the sickening jolt of despair in his stomach again and he wanted to shout,
‘He was my son. My first born!’ But beside him, Sean was talking again.
‘I’ve been a spiteful and unforgiving old man. God have mercy on me, but I even cut my own daughter out of my will. I disowned her, and now I hate myself for that. If only we can reach her, if only I can talk to her once more. Please, God, grant me that.’
Ahead of them the steel guard railings of the bridge loomed out of the torrential darkness, and lightning bounced off the belly of the clouds. For an instant Mark saw the spidery steel tracery of the railway bridge spanning the chasm two hundred yards downstream. Under it, the rocky sides ·of the gorge dropped almost sheer a hundred and fifty feet to the swollen racing brown flood waters of the Baboon Stroom.
Mark touched the brakes, and then double-declutched the gears, bringing the Rolls under tighter control as he lined up for the entrance to the road bridge.
Suddenly, dazzling light flared from the darkness on the right hand side of the road, and Mark threw up one hand to protect his eyes.
Out of the darkness rushed a great dark shape, with two blazing headlights glaring like malevolent eyes as it came.
With sudden clarity of mind, Mark realized that the Rolls was trapped helplessly on the approach ramp to the bridge, and that on his left hand, only a frail railing of iron pipes screened them from the drop and that the monstrous vehicle racing down from the right would come into a collision which would hurl the Rolls through the railing as though it were a child’s toy.
‘Hold on!’ he screamed, and swung the wheel to meet the roaring towering monster of steel, and the blinding white light cut into his eyes.
Peter Botes pulled off the road into the pine trees and switched off the engine of the Packard. In the silence he could hear the pine branches thrashing restlessly on the wind, and the dislodged rain-drops tapped on the roof.
Peter lit a cigarette and the match danced in his cupped hands. He inhaled deeply, waiting for the calming effect of the tobacco smoke, and he stared ahead up the straight roadway that led to Great Longwood, the homestead of Dirk Courtney.
He sensed that the decision he must make now was the most vital of his entire life. Whichever way he decided, his
life was already changed for ever.
When Dirk Courtney fell, he would bring down all those close to him, even the innocent, as he was innocent. The scandal and the guilt would sully him, and he had worked so hard for it. The prestige, the blooming career and all the sweets that he was just now staring to enjoy. All of it would be gone, and he would have to begin again, perhaps in another town, another land, to begin again right at the very bottom. The thought appalled him, he had become used to being a man of substance and importance. He did not know if he could face a new beginning.
On the other hand, if Dirk Courtney did not come down, if he were saved from death and disaster — just how grateful would he be to the man who worked his salvation? He knew the extent of Dirk Courtney’s present fortune and power, and it was conceivable that some of that, perhaps a large slice of that might come to him, to Peter Botes, the man who had saved Dirk Courtney and yet still retained the instrument of his destruction.
It was one of those moments of destiny, Peter realized, that come only occasionally to a chosen few. On one hand dishonour and obscurity – on the other, power and riches, tens of thousands, perhaps even millions.
He started the engine of the Packard and the rear wheels spun in the slimy mud, and then he swerved back on to the driveway, and put the big machine to the hill.
Dirk Courtney sat on the corner of his desk, one foot swinging idly. He wore a dressing-gown of patterned silk, and the lustrous material caught the lamplight as he moved. There was a white silk scarf at his throat, and his eyes were clear and alert in the handsome tanned face, as though he had not just risen from deep sleep.
He spun the duelling pistol on his forefinger as he listened intently.
Peter Botes sat nervously on the edge of the chair, and though there was a fire in the grate that Dirk had poked and fed to a fierce blaze, still he shivered every few moments and rubbed his hands together. The cold was in his soul, he realized, and his voice rose a little as he gabbled on.
Dirk Courtney did not speak, made no comment nor exclamation, asked no question until he was done. He spun the pistol, two turns and the butt snapped into the palm of his hand. Two turns, and snap.
When Peter Botes finished, Dirk cocked the hammer of the pistol and the click of the mechanism was unreasonably loud in the silent room.
‘Hobday, my father, his wife, young Anders – and yourself. The only others that know.’
‘And the Zulu.’
‘And the Zulu,’ Dirk agreed, and dry-fired the pistol. The hammer cracked against the pan.
‘How many copies of the statement?’
‘One,’ lied Peter. ‘In the iron safe of the General’s study.’
Dirk nodded and re-cocked the pistol. ‘All right. If there is another copy, you have it,’ he said. ‘But we don’t lie to each other, do we, Peter?’
It was the first time he had used his given name, there was a familiarity and a threat in it, and Peter could only nod with a dryness in his throat.
Again Dirk dry-fired the pistol, and smiled. It was that warm and charming smile, that frank and friendly smile that Peter knew so well.
‘We love each other too much for that, don’t we?’ He kept smiling. ‘That’s why you came to tell me this, isn’t it? Because we love each other?’
Peter said nothing, and Dirk went on, still smiling, ‘And of course you are going to be a rich man, Peter — if you do as I ask. A very rich man. You will do as I ask, won’t you, Peter?’
And Peter nodded again. ‘Yes, of course,’ he blurted.
‘I want you to make a phone call,’ said Dirk. ‘If you speak through a handkerchief, it will sound as though it’s long distance, and it will muffle your voice. Nobody will recognize it. Will you do that?’
‘Of course,’ Peter nodded.
‘You will phone my father’s house, speak either to him or his wife. I want you to pretend that you are the Superintendent of Addington Hospital, and here is what you will tell them—’
Dirk Courtney sat in the darkened cab of the truck, and listened to the rain as he reviewed his plans and preparations carefully.
He did not like having to move in a hurry, without time for careful planning. It was too easy to overlook some vital detail.
He did not like having to do this type of work himself. It was best to send another. He did not take personal risks, not any more, not unless there was no other way.
Regrets and misgivings were vain and wasted the moments which still remained before action. He turned all his attention back to his planning.
They would use the Rolls, and there would be three of them, the General and his Jewish whore, and that arrogant scheming puppy Anders.
Dirk had picked the spot with care, and the farmyard truck was loaded with fifty sacks of horse-feed. Three tons of dead weight. It would give it irresistible momentum.
Afterwards he must do two things, firstly he must make sure of them. He had a length of lead piping wrapped in hessian packing. It would crack a skull without breaking skin. Then he must take the General’s keys. The key of the safe was on the bunch, and it was on his watch chain. The thought of plundering his father’s dead body did not cause him even a tremor. His only concern was that the keys were retrievable, that there was no fire and that the Rolls was not submerged in the roaring torrent of the Baboon Stroom.
If that did happen, he must rely then on the General not having changed his habits of twenty years before. The spare key had been kept in the wine cellar then, on the rack above the champagne bottles. Dirk had discovered it there when he had used the cellar in a boyhood game, and he had taken the key twice for his own ends, and returned it secretly. The General was an old dog, a creature of habit. It would still be there. Dirk was certain.
All right, then, the safe. Two keys. If neither was available, then it was an old safe, but he did not want to use force on it. He must hope for the keys. Anyway, he was content that he could open it one way or another.
The statement was his, to be carefully burned, and that left Hobday. Probably in one of the guest rooms, sedated, helpless. The lead pipe again, and then an overturned paraffin lamp. It was a big house of old dry wooden beams and thick thatch. It would burn as a pyre, with Hobday lying in it like a Viking chieftain.
That left only Peter Botes, Dirk glanced sideways at him. The situation was containable, it was no worse than fifty others he had survived. It needed only swift, direct action. He spoke encouragingly to Peter.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘After tonight, a new life awaits you. I’m going to take you with me along the paths of wealth and power, Peter. You’ll never regret this night, I swear it to you.’
He squeezed Peter’s upper arm, a comradely gesture in the darkness. Of course, he had a copy of the statement, Dirk thought, but afterwards there would be time — plenty of time to find it and to be rid of the pompous little prig. In a year or so, when the excitement had died down, another little accident, and it would all be over.
‘Have you got the pistol?’ he asked, and Peter gulped nervously, clutching the bulky military model Smith Wesson with both hands between his knees.
‘You are not to use it,’ Dirk warned again. ‘Except as the very last resort. We don’t want bullet holes to explain. You do understand
‘Yes, I understand.’
‘You are insurance, that’s all. Final insurance.’ And out in the darkness, through the slanting arrows of rain a light glowed and faded and grew again higher up the slope.
‘Here they come,’ said Dirk, and started the engine of the truck.
Mark spun the wheel hard right, and thrust the accelerator pedal flat against the floor-boards, trying to ride off the collision and beat the great roaring vehicle to the threshold of the bridge.
Behind him Ruth Courtney screamed shrilly, but Mark thought he had made it, he thought for an instant that the sudden acceleration had forged the Rolls ahead, but the truck slewed hard, swinging viciously, and he felt the crack of impact in every bone of his
body.
It struck at the level of the rear wheels of the Rolls, and the big heavy car snapped sideways, tearing his hands from the steering-wheel and hurling Mark against the door. He felt bones break in his chest like dry twigs, and then the world turned end over end as the Rolls cartwheeled. A shower of bright white sparks flamed like the tail of a meteor in the darkness as steel brushed murderously against steel. There was another jerk as the Rolls crashed through the guardrail of the bridge and then they were dropping free, plunging silently into black space.
In the rear seat, Ruth Courtney was still screaming, and the Rolls struck, a glancing shuddering blow, bounding off the rock wall of the gorge, and leaping out into space once more.
Mark was pressed against the side door, held there by the accelerating dropping force of the plunging Rolls, but at the next impact the door was burst open, and Mark was hurled like a stone from a slingshot, out into resounding swirling darkness.
He saw the burning headlights of the Rolls, spinning in a great vortex of blinding white, below him, and the gorge rang with the iron echoes of steel on rock, and the crazy bellowing roar of the Rolls-Royce engine jammed at full power.
He seemed to fall for ever, through darkness, and then suddenly he struck with a force that drove the air from his lungs. The hard, unyielding impact convinced him for a moment that his body was crushed to boneless pulp on the rocky floor of the gorge, but then the cold, tumultuous torrent of racing water overwhelmed him. He had been thrown far enough to fall into the river itself. ,
Clinging to his last shreds of consciousness, he fought for breath, fought to keep his head above the surface, as the torrent swept him away. Glistening black boulders leapt like predators out of the dark, clawing at his legs, pummelling his injured chest, barging into him with numbing bruising power in the flood, and icy water gushed down his straining throat—burning his lungs, and making him choke and retch for each breath.