Murderous David Hickson (best thriller novels of all time TXT) 📖

murder, not a political act. Nothing but further pain and suffering would result from making assumptions about the motivation of this horrific act. He asked the world to respect the privacy of the families of the victims, who were close friends of his. If it had not been for maintenance issues on his Cessna, he and his son would have been with them now, meeting their Lord and Maker.

There were not many aviation companies in the region. On my third call, I struck gold in the form of a belligerent mechanic.

“I said tomorrow morning,” said the man, who would rather have been speaking Afrikaans, but had switched language when he heard my accent. “I’m short a mechanic, had a cousin in the church, didn’t he? I should say next week, shouldn’t I? Tomorrow is the best I can do.”

“No problem,” I said, trying to put as much as I could of my mother’s accent into it. “There’s no problem. Just wanted to tell you there’s a new process at the gate. I must meet you there.”

“Meet me for what?” said the man.

“Extra security. The boss has been tightening things up. You know what he’s like.”

The man grunted. “You new?” he asked. “Come in with the extra security?”

“Just a general dogsbody,” I said, and gave a ridiculous laugh, which I stifled.

The man grunted again.

“What time shall I meet you?” I asked.

“Nine,” he said, then revised that to “half ten”. In Afrikaans the ‘half’ is half an hour before the hour.

“Employing Brits now, old Piet, is he? Never thought I’d see that day.”

“You know Mr Van Rensburg well?”

“What’s well? Been fixing his planes for years, but I’m just the grease monkey, aren’t I?”

“I’ll see you in the morning then. Which gate will you be coming in?”

“Gate? What the fuck you mean, which gate?”

“There are smaller gates,” I said quickly, “not sure if you maybe use one of those.”

“I’m going to the strip, aren’t I? Not doing the hot wax with happy ending up at the lodge. I’ll be at the fucking airstrip gate.” He ended the call.

The Van Rensburg farm was a four-hour drive from Cape Town. I left at oh four hundred hours, earlier than necessary, but Robyn had not returned the previous day and I was not sleeping. My rental made good time all the way up the coast, and up onto the plateau beneath which the beleaguered town of Minhoop nestled. As I gained the ridge of the plateau the troubled coastal weather dropped away, and clear skies greeted me, the sun low and weak. A little after oh eight hundred hours, I bumped down the dirt road that appeared on the map to come closest to the farm strip that served the Van Rensburgs’ personal aviation needs and provided trouble-free access for their luxury lodge guests.

The gate here was not as impressive as the main gates I had passed half an hour before, but it warranted a sweeping section of stone wall, a security camera, electric fencing and two overweight but cheerful security personnel. They were contentedly engrossed in an early morning omnibus of their favourite soap opera, which was playing on a small black-and-white TV perched on the desk in front of an array of security camera feeds. The TV reception wasn’t working optimally, and drifts of snow rolled up the screen in waves but that did not seem to deter Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who were both transfixed, their bowls of half-eaten pap held in one hand each, with spoons of the porridge floating somewhere en route to their mouths, forgotten in the drama of the moment. It took a few moments for them to realise the reason their guard room had been plunged into shadow was because I was blocking the early morning light at their bulletproof window.

They were all smiles and full of welcome when they had overcome the initial surprise and had reluctantly turned down the volume on their TV. I explained that I was new with Karoo-Air and was a little early. An apologetic newcomer’s smile. Would it be acceptable to them if I brought my car in and waited in the shade for my boss? I didn’t want to sit in the sun out on the dirt road, and I didn’t want to disturb them any longer than necessary. When my boss arrived, I would fill in the details of his car and travel with him. Impress my boss and reduce the inconvenience to them. A conspicuous glance at the soap opera. They understood, showed me lots of white teeth, and watched me with only half an eye between them as I made up a name and phone number to fill into their book.

Petrus of Karoo-Air arrived at the gate in a cloud of dust because he saw no reason to decelerate before locking the wheels with a hard jab of the brakes. Before the dust had settled, I was at the bulletproof glass filling in the number plate. Tweedledum and Tweedledee managed between them to open the gates remotely and I stepped into the road to welcome Petrus, who drove at me for a few seconds but thought better of running me down at the last moment. I climbed into the passenger seat of his car, gave him a dogsbody smile and shook his hand. He was a grizzly man with a long thin face, grey stubble and receding hair that had once been black. He had intelligent eyes which narrowed in order to assess me; the corners creased on lines etched over years of squinting up into the bright sky. I passed his assessment, and he showed me a healthy set of teeth and laughed at the absurdity of my being employed by the Van Rensburgs.

“You’re a sout piel,” he declared as his right foot crushed the accelerator pedal and we leapt away from the security gates, his pale eyes still on me.

“I am,” I confessed and smiled to show that I didn’t mind being called