We were going to call Danilo in the morning. Even if he, too, flew down as fast as possible, everyone should be in position before he came.
The night was paradise compared with its predecessors, but still far short of heaven. In the morning I felt a good deal stronger; there were no more cramps and the fire in my throat would no longer frighten Celsius. I got myself to the bathroom looking as bent as old Adam the gardener, but I got there; and I ate the banana which Conrad brought me for breakfast.
Evan had gone to telephone Danilo, Conrad said, and Evan came later with a satisfied smile.
‘He was there,’ he said. ‘And I’d say there was no doubt he swallowed it. He sounded pretty worried... sharp voice, that sort of thing. He asked why I was so sure about the gold pencil. Can you believe it? I said Conrad had lent it to you Thursday evening and I’d seen you put it in your pocket. Then, Friday morning, you went off to Johannesburg without giving it back.’
Chapter Seventeen
The hardest thing I ever did was to get back into that car.
We reached it at half past ten, and Evan and Conrad busily rigged up various bits and pieces, including a warning buzzer which would tell me when Danilo was approaching.
Half an hour later, when they had finished, the day was stoking up to another roaster. I drank the whole of the bottle of water we had brought from Satara and ate another banana.
Evan danced up and down. ‘Come on. Come on. We haven’t got all day. We’ve got to hurry to Skukuza to meet van Huren.’
I left the station wagon, hobbled across to the car, sat in the front seat, and fastened the seat belts.
The dying aches flared up at once.
Conrad approached with the handcuffs, and my throat closed. I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t look at Evan... at anything. Couldn’t do it... all my nerves and muscles revolted.
Couldn’t.
Conrad, watching me, said practically, ‘You haven’t got to, Link. It’s your own idea, dear boy. He will come, whether you are here or not.’
‘Don’t try and dissuade him,’ Evan said crossly. ‘Not now we’ve gone to all this trouble. And as Link pointed out himself, if he isn’t in the car when Danilo comes, nothing will be conclusive.’
Conrad still hesitated. My fault.
‘Get on with it,’ Evan said.
I put my arm through the steering wheel. It was trembling.
Conrad clicked the handcuffs shut first on one wrist and then the other, and I shuddered from head to foot.
‘Dear boy...’ Conrad said doubtfully.
‘Come on,’ Evan urged.
I didn’t say anything. I thought that whatever I might start to say, it would come out as a screaming plea that they wouldn’t leave me. Leave me, however, they must.
Evan shut the car door brusquely, and jerked his head for Conrad to follow him into the estate car. Conrad went with his head turned backwards, looking to see if I were calling him.
They climbed into the front seat, reversed, turned, drove away. The silence of the tinder-dry park settled around me.
I wished I had never suggested this plan. The car seemed hotter than ever, the heat more intolerable. Within an hour, and in spite of the quantities of water I had drunk that morning, fierce thirst returned.
Cramps began again in my legs. My spine protested. My shoulders pulled with strain.
I cursed myself.
Supposing he took all day, I thought. Supposing he didn’t fly down, but drove. Eight o’clock, when Evan telephoned him. At least five hours’ drive to Numbi, another hour and a half to reach me... He might not come until three or four... which meant five hours in the car...
I tucked my hands into my shirt sleeves and rolled my head back out of the sun.
There was no water vapour, no plastic bag, to keep my mind occupied. The pencil-written sheets lay on my knees, with Conrad’s gold pencil, companion to his pen, clipping them together. There was no leaping from hope to despair and back again, which was certainly a blessed relief, but unexpectedly left too much time free for pure feeling.
Every minute dragged.
The premiere, I thought, was due to be held the following night. I wondered who would be arranging everything, with poor Clifford Wenkins in his watery grave. I wondered if I would get to the Klipspringer Heights Hotel on time. In another twenty-four hours, shaved, bathed, rested, watered and fed, perhaps I might just make it. All those people paying twenty rand for a seat... unfair not to turn up, if I could...
Time crawled. I looked at my watch. It wasn’t trying.
One o’clock came. One o’clock went.
Conrad had fixed a radio transmitter with a button for me to press if I simply could not stand any more. But if I pressed it, the whole of today’s effort would be wasted. If I pressed it, the cohorts would rush to my rescue, but Danilo would see the activity, and would never come near.
I wished Conrad hadn’t insisted on that button. Evan said it was necessary, so that he and van Huren and the police would know for certain that Danilo had come, if they should by some mischance miss him on the road.
One buzz was to mean that Danilo had come.
Two buzzes that he had left again.
A series of short buzzes would bring them instantly at any time to set me free.
I would wait another ten minutes before I gave up, I thought.
Then another ten.
Then another.
Ten minutes was always possible.
Conrad’s warning buzzer sounded like a wasp in my ear and jerked me into action.
Danilo drove up beside me and stopped where the station wagon had been.
I pressed the buttons taped within reach on the steering column.
I put all the actor’s art I had into looking not far from death: and didn’t have to elaborate all that much on what I knew of the real thing. A couple of vultures had conveniently flapped and spiralled down, and now perched on a nearby tree like brooding anarchists awaiting the revolution. I eyed them sourly, but Danilo was reassured.
He opened the door and through slit eyes I saw him draw back when the unmitigated heat-stoked stench met his nostrils. It had been worth not washing, not changing my clothes. There was nothing about me to show I hadn’t sat in that spot continuously since he had left me there, and a great deal to prove I had.
He looked at my lolling head, my flaccid hands, my bare swollen feet. He showed no remorse whatever. The sun blazed on the bright blond head, giving him a halo. The clean-featured all-American boy, as shiny, cold and ruthless as ice.
He bent down and practically snatched the papers off my lap. Unclipped the pencil and threw it on the back seat of the car. Read what I had written, right to the end.
‘So you did guess... you did write...’ he said. ‘Clever Ed Lincoln, too clever by half. Too bad no one will ever read this...’ He peered down into my half shut eyes to make sure I could hear him, could see him. Then he took out a cigarette lighter, flicked the flint, and set the corners of the papers into the flame.
I shook feebly in my seat, in mute protest. It pleased him.
He smiled.
He turned the papers, burning them all up, and then ground the ashes into just more dust in the dusty grass.