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

crossed because she knew how transparent her dress was. With her glass in the right hand, her left breast was outlined with a rim of gold which reached up over her blonde hair to crown her like a princess.

“I thought it would be you,” she said. “When Hendrik said it was a business dinner, and they would talk about guns, I knew it would be you.”

“We’re talking about guns?” I said. “I had no idea.”

Melissa smiled and even without the Photoshop sparkles, her teeth twinkled brightly.

“I know, it’s not my place to discuss these things. I told him he had enough guns. Hendrik is mad with me. He tells me it is none of my business. It’s only for the men.”

“I’m sure he’ll forgive you when he sees that dress. It would be hard not to.”

Melissa laughed like she was ringing crystal bells, and she dropped her face a little to shift into coy mode.

“Don’t be so sure,” she said. “He is really mad with me.”

“Is he?”

“It’s all your fault.”

“My fault?”

“He saw the way you looked at me. The other night.”

“He shouldn’t have chosen to marry such a beautiful woman if he didn’t want others looking at her.”

“We’re only engaged,” said Melissa. “Not married yet. Besides, what made him really mad was the way I looked back.”

“That’s just the brand of deodorant I wear. You can tell him it happens to me all the time.”

Melissa sounded the bells again. “You are funny,” she said, and looked at me from under her dark eyebrows as she took a sip of her drink. It didn’t look like sparkling mineral water. There was the faint purple tinge of tonic.

“You’ll give me a complex,” I said. “The first time we met, you called me strange.”

Melissa sipped at her drink and looked at me as if she was reassessing my strangeness.

“I’d like to give you a complex,” she said. “Anyway, Hendrik thinks any man I meet is a threat.”

“Is that why he tried to roll the car with me and my boss in it on the way here?”

She laughed and tossed her hair. “He always drives like that. He’s a monster.”

A man in a colourful patchwork shirt appeared beside me.

“The lady is having a gin and tonic,” he said, as if warning me not to hold her responsible for her actions. “Can I give you something?”

“I’ll have the same,” I said, and he bowed in an oriental fashion, although his roots were entirely African, and he walked over to a lavish bar built of bamboo at the far end of the terrace. The sight of Melissa had prevented me from noticing the terrace until now. It stretched across the entire front of the building and seemed large enough to play a game of football. The thatched roof rose above us to form a peak like the prow of an upended ship. A large banqueting table was laid with bowls of fruit and salad, several glasses for each seat, and a row of flaming torches down the centre. Beside the bar another quilt-shirted man was standing at a large grill from which flames were leaping, the smoke sucked up and kept away from the thatch by a floating aluminium extractor fan like a hovering space ship.

“He’s been worse recently,” said Melissa, her thoughts still on Hendrik. “It’s been all this business with the church.”

“That man they accused was on the farm, wasn’t he?”

Melissa nodded. “He was. In the village. He was always crazy. He did crazy things.”

“What kind of crazy things?”

“He came here one night and started shouting and tried setting fire to the place. In the middle of the night.”

“Must have been frightening. This place would go up like a Chinese firework.”

“It’s treated. For fire. You could light a fire under it and it won’t burn.”

“Nevertheless, it must have shaken you.”

“Roelof dealt with it,” said Melissa, and she shivered as the sun melted away and dropped below the horizon.

“I’m not Dicky,” said Fat-Boy as he held Piet van Rensburg’s hand in both of his. “Dicky is my older brother.”

There was an awkward silence. Piet’s smile faded into a question mark as he turned to Colonel Colchester.

“Dicky is having a little trouble that has kept him out of the country,” said the colonel. “Nothing to worry about. He trusts William without reserve, though. William speaks for Dicky, and what William says, Dicky honours.”

“Our mother liked the stories of the English kings,” said William Mabele, his hands still clasping Piet’s hand. “Richard the Lionheart, and William the Conqueror, although sometimes I am William the Bastard.” He opened his mouth wide and laughed in a way that I had never seen Fat-Boy laugh. The stone-faced Robyn beside him allowed herself a tight smile. “Did you know they called him that? The Bastard.” Another guffawing laugh. Piet looked as if he would like to retrieve his hand, but William held it tight. “Billy,” he said. “You can call me Billy.”

“Piet,” said Piet, and he smiled. It struck me as a fairly historic moment. The two men, of matching size, similar clothes, with the same taste in heavy gold jewellery, held hands and smiled at each other across the divide of race. It was an absurd thought because William Mabele was a fabrication. The story about the mother who liked the English kings was a true one, although there had never been any mention of a brother called William.

Billy introduced Robyn as “my girl Bobby” and then he held Hendrik’s hand for an uncomfortable minute. Hendrik was awkward and glum. He watched Robyn as Billy held his hand as if he was trying to work out what was wrong with her. Not, I suspected, because she was pale and leaning on Billy for support, but because she was a variety of female that confused Hendrik. A diametric contrast to Melissa, she was hard where Melissa was soft, challenging where Melissa was submissive.

Roelof was next, dressed this evening in another of his pale grey suits, everything about him well-manicured,