Shasa, are you mad? This is my party, my engagement party. 'I'll bring the jag around to the tradesmen's entrance, he said. 'You'll need a wrap, it's cold out. He parked the jag close in against the wall. This was where they used to conduct those long lingering farewells.
He switched off the headlights. He knew she would not come, but nevertheless, he waited.
His surprise was genuine, his relief intense when she pulled open the door and slid into the passenger's seat. She had changed into slacks and a rollneck sweater. She wasn't going back to the party.
Drive! she said. Get away from here. They were silent for a while, and he glanced at her every time a street lamp lit the interior.
She was looking straight ahead smiling faintly, and at last she spoke.
You never needed anything or anyone before. That was the one thing I couldn't stand about you. He did not reply.
I think you need me now. I sensed it the very moment I saw you again. You truly need me at last. He was silent, words seemed superfluous. Instead he reached across and took her hand.
I'm ready for you now, Shasa, she said. Take me somewhere we can be alone, entirely alone. There was enough moon to light the pathway. She clung to him for support and they laughed breathlessly with excitement and stopped halfway down the cliff to kiss.
He let them into the shack and lit the paraffin lamp. With relief Shasa saw that the servants from Weltevreden had followed his orders. There was fresh linen on the bunk, and the floor had been polished.
Tara stood in the centre of the floor, her hands clasped protectively in front of her, her eyes huge and luminous in the lamplight, and she began to tremble when he took her in his arms.
Shasa, please be gentle, she whispered. I'm so scared. He was patient and very gentle, but she had no yardstick by which to recognize how immensely skilled and certain he was. She only knew that he seemed to sense each nuance of change in her feelings, anticipating each response of her body so that she felt no shame at her nakedness, and all her other fears and doubts dissolved swiftly under his tender hands and soft loving lips. At last she found herself running ahead of him, learning swiftly to guide and encourage him with subtle little movements and small gasps and cries of approval.
So that at the end she gazed up at him with wonder, and whispered, huskily, I never thought, I never dreamed it would be like that. Oh, Shasa, I'm so glad you came back to me. The Fordsburg branch of the Standard Bank serviced all the gold mines of the Central Rand complex. all the wages of the tens of thousands of weekly paid black mine workers were drawn from this branch and the senior accountant was a member of the O B.
His name was Willem De Kok, a small pasty-faced runt of a man with myopic misty eyes behind thick lenses, but his looks were deceptive. Within a few minutes of their meeting Manfred De La Rey found he had a quick mind, a complete dedication to the cause and almost too much courage for his small body.
The money comes in on Thursday afternoon, between five and six o'clock. They use an armoured car and there is a police escort on motorcycles. That isn't the time to do it.
There would almost certainly be shooting. I understand, Manfred nodded. Before you go on, please tell us how much money is usually transferred. Between fifty thousand and seventy thousand pounds Thursday of each month, when we make except on the last provision for the monthly paid workers on the mine properties. Then it will be closer to a hundred thousand. In addition there is always our ordinary cash float of approximately twenty-five thousand. They were gathered in the home of one of the mine officials of the Crown Deep gold mines. The same man had recruited the local stormiagers for the operation. He was a big red-faced man named Lourens, with the look of a heavy drinker. Manfred was not entirely happy with him; although so far he had found no real cause for his mistrust, he felt the man would be unreliable under stress.
Thank you, Meneer De Kok, please go on. The bank manager, Mr Cartwright, opens the back door of the building and the money is brought in. Of course, at this time in the afternoon the bank is closed to normal business. Mr Cartwright and I, together with our two senior tellers, count the money and issue a receipt. it is then deposited in the vault and locked up for the night. I have one key and half of the combination. Mr Cartwright keeps the other key and has the other half of the combination. That would be the time, Manfred anticipated. After the police escort has left, but before the vault is locked. That is a possibility, De Kok nodded. However, at that time it will still be light. Many people on the streets. Mr Cartwright is a difficult man, many things could go wrong.
May I tell you how I would arrange it, if I were in command? ,Thank you, Meneer De Kok. I'm glad of your assistance. It was ten minutes before midnight when Mr Peter Cartwright left the Freemason hall at the end of the meeting. He was the master of the lodge and he was still wearing his apron over his dinner jacket. He always parked his Morris in the lane behind the hall, but tonight as he sat in the driver's seat and fumbled with the ignition key, something hard was pressed into the back of his neck and a cold voice said quietly, This is a pistol, Mr Cartwright. If you do not do exactly as you are told, you will be shot in the back of the head. Drive to the bank, please. Terrified for his life and following the instructions of the two masked men in the back seat of the Morris, Peter Cartwright drove to the bank building and parked the Morris near the back door. There had been a spate of bank robberies over the last few months, at least four on the Witwatersrand and during one of them a bank guard had been shot dead.
Cartwright was in no doubt as to the danger of his position or the ruthlessness of his captors.
As soon as he climbed out of the Morris, they closed on each side of him, pinning his arms and hustling him to the back door of the bank.
One of them tapped upon it with the butt of his pistol and to Cartwright's astonishment it opened immediately. Only when he was inside did he realize how the robbers had gained access. His senior accountant Willem De Kok was already there, in pyjamas and dressinggown, his hair tousled and his face slack and ashen with terror. He had obviously been dragged from his bed.
I'm sorry, Mr Cartwright,he blubbered. They forced me. Pull yourself together, man, Cartwright snapped at him, his own fear making him brusque, then his expression changed as he saw the two women: De Kok's fat little wife and his own beloved Mary in hair curlers and pink fulllength dressing-gown with artificial pink roses down the front.
Peter, she wailed. Oh Peter, don't let them do anything. Stop that, Mary. Don't let them see you like that. Cartwright looked around at his captors. There were six of them, including the two who had waylaid him, but his training in character judgement enabled him to pick out the leader almost immediately, a tall, powerfully built man with a dense black beard curling out from under his cloth face-mask, and above the mask a pair of strangely pale eyes, like those of one of the big predatory cats. His fear turned to real terror when he looked into those yellow eyes, for he sensed that there was no compassion in them.
Open the vault, the man said. His English was heavily accented.
I don't have the key, Cartwright said, and the man with yellow eyes seized Mary Cartwright by the wrist and forced her to her knees.
You wouldn't dare, Cartwright blustered, and the man placed the muzzle of his pistol to Mary's temple.
MY wife is going to have a baby, Cartwright said.