He shoved the cellphone into his pocket. It would be his lifeline. But right now, he needed to get going. The thought of being trapped in the house by Oom Daan and Hasie Viljoen drove all others out of his mind.
He raced back to the kitchen, grabbed his fishing bag off the hook and tore through the house, throwing whatever he thought he’d need into it. In the end he didn’t take much – a blanket, the few pieces of clothing he owned, some line, hooks and sinkers, a small pot, a box of matches, a couple of tins of beans, a bottle of water and the bunch of bokkoms his father had been drying for sale. After all, it would only be for a night or two at the most.
He hesitated before the whalebone carving that had stood on the table next to his bed for as long as he could remember – the small seagull Sharkey had made for his young wife as a present when Grant was born. He itched to take it with him but he questioned that feeling. It was born of weakness, surely. Why take a useless little carving all the way to Lüderitz with him? Then he remembered how the rich people had raved about Sharkey’s scrimshaw and been more than happy to swap a whole fridge for it. He threw it into the bag.
He walked briskly through to the kitchen, throwing the knife into his bag, yanking the drawstring closed and settling the bag on his back. He flattened himself against the kitchen wall and peered around the kitchen door. It was semi-dark and quiet, there was no-one outside on the road. He took a deep breath and left the house, closing the door behind him.
As he stepped onto the dusty road he heard the deep diesel rumble of Hasie Viljoen’s truck in the distance. Not a moment too soon.
Chapter 4
Grant slipped off the road and onto a narrow track that ran through the veld. Even though this route led him straight through the front gardens of the old houses of the village, he was less likely to be spotted here than on the tarred road.
His bare feet made hardly any sound going past the houses. No-one heard him leave for no-one came to their net-covered windows and peered out to see who was going by. But he knew that as soon as Oom Daan realised that he was gone, he would alert the neighbours and they would all start looking for him. He speeded up to a steady jog.
Before long he was at the point where the track petered out. He would have to move back onto the tarred road for a kilometre or two in order to leave the village and find the track that led to the dunes. But this section of the road shouldn’t give him any trouble; there were hardly any houses here and very few cars travelled in or out of the village after dark. Oom Daan and Hasie Viljoen would most likely scour the village for him before widening their search, and even if they did come after him straightaway, he could hear Oom Hasie’s truck kilometres away.
Just as his feet hit the tar, something he hadn’t bargained on came cruising around the corner towards him: Constable Henk, the first full-time, permanent policeman in Langebaan, still on the job after all these years, driving his old van. It was too late to hide, he had been spotted.
The policeman wound down the window of his van and Grant was assailed by the strains of the latest sokkie dance hit. “Hello,” Constable Henk shouted good-naturedly, above the music. “Hoe gaan dit? Want a lift?”
Grant thought quickly. Constable Henk obviously thought he was walking towards the village and not away from it, so it would cause far too much suspicion if he refused a lift – unless he could think of a plausible excuse.
“Thanks a lot, Constable, but I’m actually just doing a project for school. We have to try and count how many owls we have around the village.”
“My magtig!” Constable Henk scratched his head. “I didn’t know you kids did such scientific stuff at school. Man, that’s wonderful! Let me know, hey?”
He drove away, waving. As soon as his taillights disappeared around the next bend, Grant started running. Constable Henk was simple but he wasn’t altogether stupid. Even Sharkey had to reckon with Constable Henk from time to time. Grant didn’t dare hope that Constable Henk was going straight home, to the simple lagoon house he shared with his mother over at Churchhaven. He would most likely stop in at the police station at Langebaan first – and once he bumped into Oom Daan and Hasie Viljoen, he’d soon put two and two together.
Grant ran as fast as he could, but he still hadn’t quite reached the dunes when he heard the diesel roar of Hasie Viljoen’s truck in a duet with Constable Henk’s siren, wailing their way out of the village.
Adrenalin lent him some extra speed and he hurtled the last few metres and crashed his way onto the dune track. He had to hide, quickly. The first place they’d look for him would be the dune track, now that they knew he’d left the village. His side ached from a stitch; his chest was rasping and his mouth dry. He tried to silence his breathing as he thrashed through the veld in search of a suitable hiding place. He tripped over what felt like a root and fell heavily; he was winded.
Unbelievably, as he lay there, unable to move, unable to even fill his lungs with air, feeling as if he might just die, he heard the unmistakable sound of Constable Henk’s siren and Hasie Viljoen’s truck roaring past. They hadn’t even thought to stop and search the dune track. Slowly, he regained some control over the muscles in his chest. With it came a horrible gagging that seemed to go on and on. At last, his body normalised and just as he was about to try standing up, he felt a strong vibrating sensation on his leg: another message.
He took Sharkey’s phone out of his pocket, pressed MENU and then went straight into MESSAGES. He looked in the inbox. Someone had left a voice mail. His pulse quickened as he anticipated hearing his father’s voice.
He dialed 100. There were two messages, one saved, the other one more recent. He listened to the saved message first:
Sharkey, I’ve just heard. My friend, that’s the worst luck. Don’t worry. I’m going to sort out Boytjie for you. And I’ll come and see you as soon as I can.
It was Oom Daan’s voice but it didn’t sound like a message to someone who had gone to work in Lüderitz. What was the “bad luck” that had happened to Sharkey?
He saved the message again.
Then he listened to the second message. A voice he didn’t know, a man with a rough West Coast accent:
Sharkey! Sharkey! Do you think you can cheat me?
That voice gave Grant the shivers. Who was it? One of Sharkey’s card-playing Paternoster friends? Or did this message represent something more sinister?
The mist that Oom Daan had predicted was already sliding up the land. It cooled the air and dampened the night sounds. Grant started jogging again, slowly, pondering what he’d just heard.
The messages disturbed him. They didn’t make any sense. He decided rather to concentrate on his plan. What would be the best way to get to Lüderitz? Hitchhike? Too risky. Bus? Man, with R50 000 he could even fly there or take a ship, never mind the bus. Did places like airports use the FLASH system? He wasn’t sure. Where exactly was Lüderitz? He wasn’t sure of that either. Perhaps the best thing would be to figure out a safe way to turn his virtual cash into tangible bank notes before he set off.
The mist reached him, surrounding him completely. He couldn’t see where he was going and his breathing seemed like the only sound in a noiseless world. He shoved the phone back into his pocket and jogged on through the mist. He felt safe in its invisibility. Even if Oom Daan walked right past him, he wouldn’t see him. And now he had an even greater reason not to want to bump into Oom Daan.
How was he going to access the money in Sharkey’s FLASH account? He would have to figure that out in the morning. He ran on, his West Coast instincts guiding him, sure as sonar, through the thick white mist.
Chapter 5
Grant felt the sliding sand of the dunes under his feet and was forced to slow down to a walk. The sandhills were studded with creeping thorn bushes and sharp, slicing reeds. He had to tread carefully because he couldn’t see more than half a metre ahead