‘Of course you will,’ said Cornelius, smiling. ‘That’s your prerogative.’
As they left the Gurney Kroheim offices, Benton clapped Cornelius on the back. ‘You’ve hung them out to dry! There’s no way the banks will let them delay recommending our offer. You could see it in Rollinson’s eyes.’
Dower glowered. ‘We’ll have to wait to see what Laxton come back with,’ he said. ‘We can’t be sure they were bluffing.’
Benton caught Cornelius’s eye and winked. Dower glowered some more.
Calder drove over to the hospital to see how Anne was doing. The doctors were pleased with her progress, but she was still unconscious. There was good news from Todd. He was awake: awake but very groggy.
Kim was ecstatic. Todd had no clue where he was or what he was doing there, but he had recognized Kim. They had spoken, though he had made little sense and soon gone back to sleep. But it was a beginning. Cornelius’s plan, to which Kim had grudgingly agreed, was to move him down to a private hospital in London sometime during the next couple of days, but until then she was determined to stay at his bedside as long as they would let her in case he woke up again.
Calder had difficulty persuading her to leave him for half an hour. They strolled out of the entrance to the main hospital building and wandered through the grounds, such as they were, ignoring the racks of polysyllabic signs pointing in all directions. Calder recounted his interview with Inspector Banks, although he didn’t mention her probing questions about Kim’s relationship with Todd.
‘Let’s hope she gets somewhere with Cornelius,’ said Kim.
‘I was thinking,’ Calder said. ‘Whoever planted the bomb in the Yak must have known that Todd and I were going to fly that plane on that day. Now, people at the flying school would have known, and it would have been on the booking sheets there, but it’s highly unlikely that an enemy of Todd’s would have checked. Which leaves the question—’
‘Who did we tell?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I told my parents on the phone, I remember that.’
‘They’re in Liverpool, aren’t they?’
‘That’s right. And when we saw Cornelius in London, we had a conversation about it. I said I was worried about the safety of such an old plane. He just said it sounded fun.’
‘Very interesting. Did you mention it to anyone else?’
‘No.’ Kim screwed up her face, thinking. ‘Just Cornelius and my parents.’
‘I think we can rule your parents out. Your father isn’t an international terrorist with a grudge against Todd, is he?’
‘No. He’s the retired owner of a lighting shop who dotes on him,’ Kim said.
‘That leaves Cornelius.’
They walked on, passing an elderly lady with a patch over one eye making slow progress towards an outpatients clinic. She paused for breath and to wish them a good evening.
‘There’s not much more we can do here,’ Calder said. ‘I think the next step is for me to go down to South Africa. See where Martha died. See where she lived. See if I can find anyone who knows anything about the last few weeks of her life. Perhaps try to find the diary. I was hoping Todd might be of some help.’
‘He might be later, but not now,’ Kim said. ‘What about Caroline?’
‘She was only twelve at the time, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes. But she noticed the diary. And she told Cornelius she wanted to find out more, remember. I could call her, if you like. She and I got on quite well. In fact—’ Kim pulled out her mobile ‘— I could call her now.’
‘OK,’ Calder said. ‘Go for it.’
They sat on a grassy bank outside the orthopaedic outpatients clinic, and Kim rummaged in her bag for a number. It was about six o’clock English time, so morning in San Diego. She punched out the number, and Calder sat with his ear close to Kim’s to hear the conversation.
Caroline answered and seemed happy to hear from Kim, and very happy to hear that Todd had woken up. Then Kim explained what Calder was going to do, and asked Caroline whom he should see.
‘That’s hard,’ Caroline said, her voice sounding noticeably more Californian over the airwaves. ‘Mom and Dad were often entertaining people, but I’m not sure which ones were true friends, or whether Mom would have confided in any of them. There’s Zan, of course, who was staying there at the time. She lives in Camps Bay now, I think. It’s a swish suburb of Cape Town.’
‘I’ve got her address,’ Kim said.
‘OK, good. And Doris, who was the maid. If Alex sees her, tell him to give her a big hug from me. I really liked her. Wait, there was a newspaper guy who worked for Dad, George something, George Field, I think. Mom and he became quite close. And she used to go off to some kind of project in one of the townships a lot. Guguletu. She had friends there. It’s kind of hard to think of anyone else. I remember my friends’ parents quite well, but they were important to me rather than Mom.’
‘What about the diary?’ Kim asked.
‘Hondehoek has been sold now, of course. She said it was hidden in a desk with some tax stuff, didn’t she? God knows where that is. Perhaps at Dad’s house in Philadelphia? Most probably the desk was sold in South Africa and the old tax papers thrown away, like Dad said.’
‘Oh,’ Kim said, disappointed.
‘But there is something else I’ve remembered about the diary. Actually, I’ve always known it, it just seemed that Dad was so jumpy at that dinner the other night, I didn’t want to mention it then. You remember I said I saw Mom copying something into her diary from a man’s briefcase?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t know the name of the guy with the briefcase, but I do remember the name of the other man. Andries Visser. I remembered it because “Visser” was the last name of my best friend, and it was one of the few other Afrikaner names in our school, so I was curious. I asked her about him, in case it was her father or something, but she didn’t know him. He did have a limp, I remember.’
Kim raised her eyebrows to check that Calder was listening. He nodded to show he was. ‘Well done, Caroline,’ she said.
‘I was afraid of mentioning the name at the dinner. Dad was obviously pretty touchy about the whole thing. And Edwin was there.’ She paused. ‘I don’t trust Edwin. In fact I remember he and Mom got on particularly badly.’
‘I understand,’ said Kim. ‘What about Zan?’
‘No, she did fine with Mom. We hadn’t seen much of her since I was very little, but then she showed up that winter and stayed with us for a couple of months. Mom and she seemed to get on really well. She might be worth speaking to.’
‘Thank you, Caroline.’
‘Look,’ she said. ‘If you need any financial help with any of this, please let me know. Perhaps I can help with paying for Alex’s trip?’
Kim glanced at Calder, who shook his head. ‘I’ll ask him. And we’ll let you know what happens.’
‘Good. And Kim?’
‘Yes?’
‘Give Todd a kiss from me, will you?’
They walked back towards Todd’s room.
‘It’s funny,’ Kim said. ‘After I saw that woman Donna here I was scared of Todd waking up, scared of how I would feel about him. But I’m just pleased. Thankful. Happy.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘This may sound stupid, but I think what you and I did made me less angry with him. I’m more angry with myself perhaps, but it’s made it easier to forgive him. Maybe our whole marriage will fall apart when he recovers, but I hope it won’t. I’m willing to try again if he is.’
‘He’d be a fool not to,’ Calder said.
Calder spent the evening preparing himself for his trip to South Africa. He logged on to the internet to buy an air ticket to Cape Town for the following day and to do some preliminary research. He checked out Andries Visser. There were several men of that name mentioned on Google, of course, but the most likely candidate was a bureaucrat in the South African Finance Ministry in the 1980s and 1990s. There wasn’t much about him: some speeches he made to conferences, his name among a list of members on dull-sounding committees. It was odd that someone like that would have had a significant meeting with Cornelius. There was no indication of his current job or whereabouts, but at least it was a start.