The Leopard Hunts In Darkness Part 16

And whatever it was, just how unbiased and reliable would she be if she were a guerrilla sympathizer?

"There is the river," said Sally' Anne as she eased the throttle closed and began a shallow descending turn towards the glint of waters through the forest-tops.

She flew very low aloig the river-bank, and despite the thick cloak of vegetation, picked out herds of game animals, even once with a squeal of glee, the great rocklike hulk of a black rhinoceros in the ebony thickets.

Then suddenly she pointed ahead. "Look at thad" In a loop of the river, there was a strip of open land hedged in with tall riverine trees, where the gra.s.s had been grazed likea lawn by the zebra herds who were already raising dust as they galloped away in panic from the approaching aircraft.

"I bet I could get down there," Sally-Anne said and pulled on the flaps, slowing the Cessna and lowering the nose to give herself better forward vision. Then she let down the landing-gear.

She made a series of slow pa.s.ses over the open ground, each lower than the previous one, until at the fourth pa.s.s her wheels were only two or three feet above the ground and they could see each individual hoof print of the zebra in the dusty earth.

"Firm and clear" she said, and on the next pa.s.s touched down, and immediately applied maximum safe braking that pulled the aircraft to a dead stop in less than a hundred and fifty paces.

"Bird lady," Craig grinned at her and she smiled at the compliment.

They left the aircraft and set off across the plain towards the forest wall, pa.s.sed through it along a game trail and came out on a rocky bluff above the river.

The scene was a perfect African cameo. White sandbanks and water-polished rock glittering like reptiles" scales, trailing branches decked with weaver birds" nests over deep green water, tall trees with white serpentine roots crawling over the rocks and beyond that, open forest.

"It's beautiful," said Sally-Anne, and wandered off with her camera.

"This would be a good site for one of your camps," Peter Fungabera pointed at the great lumpy heaps of elephant dung on the white sandbank below them.

"Grandstand view."

"Yes, it would have been," Peter agreed. "It seems too "A good to pa.s.s up at that price. There must be millions of profit in it."

"For a good African socialist, you talk likea filthy capitalist," Craig told him morosely.

Peter chuckled and said, "They do say that socialism is the ideal philosophy just as long as you have capitalists to pay for it." Craig looked up sharply, and for the first time saw the glitter of good old western European avarice in Peter Fungabera's eyes. Both of them were silent, watching Sally Anne in the river-bed, as she made compositions of tree and rock and sky and photographed them.

"Craig." Peter had obviously reached a decision. "If I could arrange the collateral the World Bank requires, I would expect a commission in Rholands shares."

"I guess you would be ent.i.tled to it." Craig felt the embers of his dead hopes flicker, and at that moment Sally Anne called, "It's getting late and we have two and a half hours' flying to Harare." Back at New Sarum air force base Peter Fungabera shook hands with both of them.

"I hope your pictures turn out fine," he said to Sally, Anne, and to Craig, "You will be at the Monomatapa? I will contact you there within the next three days." He climbed into the army jeep that was waiting for them, nodded to his driver, and saluted them with his swagger-stick as he drove away.

"Have you got a car?" Craig asked Sally-Anne, and when she shook her head, "I can't promise to drive as well as you fly will you take a chaRce?" She had an aparpent in an old block in the avenues opposite Government House. He dropped her at the entrance.

"How about dinner?" he asked.

"I've got a lot of work to do, Craig."

"Quick dinner, promise peace offering. I'll have you home by ten." He crossed his heart theatrically, and she relented.

"Okay, seven o'clock here," she agreed, and he watched the way she climbed the steps before he started the Volkswagen. Her stride was businesslike and brisk, but her backside in the blue jeans was totally frivolous.

Sally-Anne suggested a steakhouse where she was greeted like royalty by the huge, bearded proprietor, and where the beef was simply the best Craig had ever tasted, thick and juicy and tender. They drank a Cabernet from the Cape of Good Hope and from a stilted beginning their conversation eased as Craig drew her out.

"It was fine just as long as I was a mere technical a.s.sistant at Kodak, but when I started being invited on expeditions as official photographer and then giving my own exhibitions, he just couldn't take it," she told him, "first man ever to be jealous of a Nikon."

"How long were you married?"

"Two years."

"No children?"

"Thank G.o.d, no." She ate like she walked, quickly, neatly and efficiently, yet with a sensuous streak of pleasure, and when she was finished she looked at her gold Rolex.

"You promised ten o'clock," she said, and despite his protestations, scrupulously divided the bill in half and paid her share.

When he parked outside the apartment, she looked at him seriously for a moment before she asked, "Coffee?"

"With the greatest of pleasure." He started to open the door, but she stopped him.

"Right from the start, let's get it straight," she said. "The coffee is instant Nescaf6 and that's all. No gymnastics nothing else, okay?"

"Okay," he agreed.

"Let's go." Her apartment was furnished with a portable tape recorder, canvas covered cushions and a single camp-bed on which her sleeping-bag was neatly rolled. Apart from the cushions, the floor was bare but polished, and the walls were papered with her photographs. He wandered around studying them while she made the coffee in the kitchenette.

"If you want the bathroom, it's through there," she called. "Just be careful." It was more darkroom than ablution, with a light-proof black nylon zip-up tent over the shower cabinet and jars of chemicals and packets of photographic paper where in any other feminine bathroom there would have been scents and soaps.

They lolled on the cushions, drank the coffee, played Beethoven's Fifth on the tape, and talked of Africa. Once or twice she made pa.s.sing reference to his book, showing that she had read it with attention.

"I've got an early start tomorrow-" at last she reached across and took the empty mug out of his hand. "Good night, Craig."

"When can I see you again?"

"I'm not sure, I'm flying up into the highlands early tomorrow. I don't know how long." Then she saw his expression and relented. "I'll call you at the Mono when I get back, if you like?"

"I.

like."

"Craig, I'm beginning to like you as a friend, perhaps, but I'm not looking for romance. I'm still hurting just as long as we understand that," she told him as they shook hands at the door of the apartment.

Despite her denial, Craig felt absurdly pleased with himself as he drove back to the Monomatapa. At this stage he did not care to a.n.a.lyse too deeply his feelings for her, nor to define his intentions towards her. It was merely a pleasant change not to have another celebrity boffer trying to add his name to her personal scoreboard.

Her powerful physical attraction for him was made more poignant by her reluctance, and he respected her talents and accomplishments and was in total sympathy with her love of Africa and her compa.s.sion for its peoples.

"That's enough for now," he told himself as he parked the Volkswagen.

The a.s.sistant manager met him in the hotel lobby, wrin ing his hands with anguish, and led him through to his office.

"Mr. Mellow, I have had a visit from the police special branch while you were out. I had to open your deposit box for them, and let them into your room."

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, are they allowed to do that?" Craig was outraged.