Game of Stones Read online

  ‘When I was certain she had left, I made my way over to the part of the graveyard where I had seen her and found the grave very easily. Jules and Hilton and Nicky had all been buried in one grave next to Jules’ father. I should have thought of that. The marble gravestone simply had their names and the dates of their births and deaths. There were two vases on the grave. One had fresh spring flowers, which I assumed Jules’ mother had just brought from her garden, but it was the other one that drew my attention. It contained a large, and obviously expensive, bouquet of silk roses that were looking a bit the worse for wear and had obviously been there for some time. But it wasn’t the roses that were eye-catching, it was the glass vase. The artificial flowers were being held in place by what must have been the better part of a whole bowl of black Go stones.’

  ‘Go stones?’ Brian enquired.

  ‘Japanese board game,’ Cameron said. ‘War game played with black and white stones, the white ones look like big imperial mints – you must have seen the board in my house. In fact I remember you asking about it.’

  ‘Yes, I’m with you,’ Brian said. ‘I remember it – I just couldn’t place it in the context of a graveyard.’

  ‘Nor could I.’ Cameron said. ‘At least not to begin with. Then I realised it had to be van Zyl playing his sinister games. He was the brains behind the Special Branch in Natal. It was a really hot January day but I could feel myself going cold all over. I once had a conversation with the cold-blooded bastard about Go. He was obviously sending me a message, though exactly what the message was supposed to be wasn’t entirely clear. The weaker player in a Go game always plays with the black stones, so he could just have been saying that I was the inferior player and, with all my black stones captured, my game was now all played out. But that seemed a bit obvious – and, anyway, what made him think it was played out? It seemed more likely that the bastard’s gloating was more unpleasant even than that: Jules and my children were everything I had, all my stones, and now they had been expended.’

  Cameron paused for a few moments again before carrying on.

  ‘I still don’t know how I was supposed to interpret the message. The only thing that was absolutely clear was that it came from van Zyl. Then I saw another message, or at least a little envelope like the ones florists send messages in, half hidden in the flowers. It was in a plastic sleeve, so the rain hadn’t damaged it. There wasn’t anything on the outside of the envelope, just a little piece of paper inside. It just gave a phone number and then said: “Line safe. Lynn.” It was definitely Lynn’s writing, even if it looked a bit shaky. No date – so it could have been put there any time since the funeral. She wouldn’t have realised who had donated the flowers she had hidden her message in.’

  ‘I loved Lynn very much,’ Cameron continued, after another pause. ‘She was generous and kind and motherly – in so far as anyone can be both incredibly sexy and motherly at the same time. There was a time when I hoped we might be able to stay together. One of my biggest regrets was that I didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye to her.’

  ‘But you must have been able to make up for that after you had got safely away,’ Brian said.

  ‘No, I didn’t try,’ Cameron said. ‘The Special Branch knew that I had been living with her for a few weeks before I left. That would have put her in line to be accused of being an accessory to murder. If I had tried to contact her afterwards it could have made her situation a good deal worse. All possible lines of communication to her would be being monitored. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. My immediate reaction on seeing the note was a sharp sense of loss, of regret for what might have been. When my brain kicked in, my first thought was that, of all the people I knew, Lynn was probably the one I could rely on least when it came to knowing whether or not a telephone line was bugged. The obvious thing to do would have been to ignore the note altogether and get the hell out. But I loved Lynn and, given that I was on what probably amounted to a suicide mission, I was acutely aware that that phone number offered my last chance of talking to her, and possibly even seeing her.’

  ‘Sounds like a trap to me,’ Brian said. ‘If Jules’ mother tended the grave with any kind of due attention, surely she would have been bound to spot the note? If she was happy for it to be left where you found it, it had to be a trap of some sort, and she must have been a party to it.’

  ‘Do you want me to tell the story?’ Cameron asked. ‘Or would you rather just carry on speculating about what might have happened? Of course I realised it could be a trap. I knew Pinelands well enough to know where to find a public phone-box that would suit my purposes – provided it wasn’t out of order, which in my experience was about a one in three chance. The one I was thinking of was outside a shopping centre that fronted onto a park. I parked next to it, dialled the number on the note, was relieved to hear the telephone ringing at the other end, and left the receiver on the shelf beside the telephone, still connected. I got into the car and drove round to the other side of the park, several hundred yards away, from where I could watch to see what happened. I figured that if it was a trap the phone would be left ringing for long enough to allow them to get a fix on where the call was coming from, and if Jules’s mother had recognised me the police would already be on their way to Pinelands anyway.’

  Cameron paused to take several sips of water from his glass, the pub felt increasingly airless and oppressive and the smell of hot human bodies, mingling with stale spilt beer, wasn’t enhancing the ambience.

  ‘And?’ Brian prompted. ‘I don’t think I can stand the suspense.’

  Cameron looked across at him sharply, but Brian’s expression didn’t suggest that he was being sarcastic.

  ‘Nothing happened,’ Cameron said. ‘No sirens, no police vans, no flood of unmarked white cars full of Special Branch agents into the area. An elderly woman went into the phone-box about five minutes after I had left it and spent five minutes or so on the phone, which confirmed for me that it was working. So I felt pretty confident that Lynn’s “line safe” was true, and that it would be safe to phone her. But not from Pinelands, just in case Jules’ mother had let anyone know she had seen me there. So I drove to Wynberg to find another telephone-box. Rondebosch would have been a lot more convenient but there was less likelihood of anyone I knew from the university bumping into me in Wynberg, and the longer drive gave me more opportunity to make sure I wasn’t being followed. When I phoned the number, Lynn picked up the phone immediately – which reassured me that nobody would be trying to get a fix on the phone-box.’

  ‘Hearing Lynn’s voice again after over a year had an extraordinary effect on me,’ Cameron said. ‘She sounded strained and forlorn. I just wanted to take her in my arms and enfold her and make love to her and never let her go – to leave all the baggage of the past few years behind and lose myself in her. All the longing for her that I had been suppressing since I left overwhelmed me, and I couldn’t speak at all. I heard her asking “Cameron, is that you?” several times before I managed to get rid of the lump in my throat and answer her. I told her I couldn’t talk for long even if the phone was safe and suggested we should meet for coffee at the café at Rhodes Memorial at 11.00 the next morning. If we were going to meet I wanted it to be on my terms. The phone number was a Pietermaritzburg one and there were enough evening and early morning flights from Durban for her to get down to Cape Town in time. I went back to the ship and spent a sleepless night, excited at the prospect of seeing Lynn but still worried that it might be a trap.’

  ‘The point you made about Jules’ mother,’ Cameron said, looking across at Brian, ‘occurred to me as I drove back. If she held me responsible for Jules’ death she would be only too pleased for the police to arrest me. If that meant I ended up being hanged, so much the better. I was also very conflicted about the possibility that seeing Lynn again might make me have second thoughts about my mission. Making a positive contribution to the struggle was the only
thing that could possibly make all the stress of the years leading up to my departure, and all the anguish of losing Jules and the children, seem even vaguely worthwhile. Mirambo’s question – “How committed to the struggle are you?” – kept coming back to haunt me.’

  ‘The next morning I left the ship early enough to get to the Newlands Forest parking lot by 8.30. I left the car there and walked up the path that goes round above the Newlands Reservoir and found a spot in the trees well above the Rhodes Memorial where there was no chance whatever of my being seen, and from where I could watch the car park. I had borrowed one of the SS Enlightenment’s pairs of bird-watching binoculars. If I needed to, I could slip back onto the path I came along without being seen. Although I felt apprehensive that it might be a trap, I felt strangely at peace. The scent of pine-needles, and the sound of the doves in the pine-trees above me, reminded me of sleepy Sunday afternoons in the summer; and the distant noise of the morning traffic on De Waal Drive below the university sounded oddly reassuring.’

  ‘The feeling of peace and reassurance dissipated instantly sometime around 10am when it became all too clear how much more appropriate the apprehension had been. I saw three white cars – why did they always have to be white? – making their way along the access road and distributing themselves to different parts of the car park. Three men in safari suits got out of each of the first two and walked off to what had obviously been pre-planned positions. Three headed for the café, and the others walked off in different directions, presumably to cut off the escape paths. None of them came up the hill. But my relief was short-lived when I saw two casually dressed couples getting out of the car nearest to me, arming themselves with picnic baskets and blankets, and setting off up the hill towards me. I suddenly became aware of such an urgent need to pee that I was afraid I would wet myself.’

  ‘By the time they had covered nearly half the distance towards me I was getting ready to make a break for it – they would soon be far enough up the hill for me to be visible if I tried to get back to the path. But they stopped under a tree about half way up, spread their blankets and sat down to play picnics. One of the men took his service automatic out of its shoulder holster and put it down behind a picnic basket on one of the blankets. I could see the automatic very clearly through the binoculars, lying there within reach – exactly the way Venter used to put his automatic ready to hand beside him on the passenger seat of the white Corolla. There couldn’t have been a starker reminder of what I was up against.’

  ‘The four picnickers were all facing down the hill with their backs towards me, and there was no sign of any of the other six Special Branch thugs, so anyone in his right mind would have taken the gap and slipped away. But I obviously wasn’t in my right mind. To tell you the truth, it was probably at least a year since I had been entirely in my right mind – however that might be gauged. I felt a perverse need to see whether Lynn would arrive to bait the trap. I knew that, if she did, it would mean that they had tortured her until she agreed to do so. I also wanted very badly – and probably equally perversely – just to see her again.’

  ‘I didn’t have too long to wait. About half an hour before we were due to meet I saw a racing-green Jaguar XJ-something-or-other coming along the road. Who ever heard of a Jaguar saloon in racing-green? The windows were darkened with sun-filter to stop people seeing into the car, so I couldn’t see who was inside, but I knew immediately that it had to be van Zyl himself, the Natal Special Branch king-pin. The car accorded perfectly with the expensive décor I had seen in his office. He had either inherited a fortune, or found some way of using his position to make a lot more money than his Special Branch salary could possibly account for.’

  ‘The car stopped opposite the path to the café and nothing happened for a minute or so. Then I saw the backdoor on the side of the car away from me opening and I watched van Zyl getting out and coming round to open the other back door. I could make out Lynn sitting on the back seat. I was well above the car so I couldn’t see her face properly, but I could see her hair moving backwards and forwards as though she were shaking her head. Van Zyl then reached in and grasped her arm above the elbow and helped, or pulled, her out of the car – I couldn’t tell how much force was being used. He was still holding her arm as I watched them disappear towards the café.’

  ‘Jesus!’ muttered Brian, ‘how did it make you feel to see her like that?’

  ‘You would make a good TV interviewer,’ Cameron said, ‘they never ask what people are thinking, only how they are feeling – usually when it should be blindingly obvious how they are feeling.’

  Cameron didn’t want to be reminded about how he had felt. A rush of tenderness towards Lynn, whose cheeks, hollowed with tension, he had glimpsed – the tenderness wrenchingly conflicted by the realisation that she was allowing herself to be used as the bait in a trap for him. It didn’t look like a particularly willing betrayal, but it certainly felt like a betrayal. It hadn’t taken long for the contradictory feelings about Lynn to be pushed aside by the fear, and the feeling of empty dread, he had so often felt when he lay awake at night listening for the tramp of boots on the path and the banging on the door that would mean they had come to arrest him. Underlying the rest of the mix was a feeling of utter futility and despair.

  He couldn’t go back to the ship. If van Zyl knew that he had just arrived in Cape Town it wouldn’t have taken him long to narrow down how he had got there. It could only have been via the docking of the SS Enlightenment. A quick check would have confirmed that the same ship was docked in Cape Town on the day Cameron disappeared. It was the only cruise ship that was disregarding the economic boycott.

  So he couldn’t go back to the ship. The cane-gun was hidden on board, so he wouldn’t be able to carry out his mission. His attempt to make a significant contribution to the struggle was ending in failure before it had even started. Just how abject the failure would be would depend on whether he could get away without the ignominy of being arrested.

  ‘What I was thinking, not feeling,’ Cameron said, ‘was that I needed to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible, and that I needed to find another way to leave the country. The SB would almost certainly have worked out how I had got to Cape Town and, even if they weren’t all over the ship like a rash, they would certainly be watching it. Although Mark was a draft-dodger, he would probably be OK even if they did go on board. He had changed his name, had a Dutch passport and hadn’t set foot on South African soil for at least ten years. I knew Mark wouldn’t give the game away, and everyone on board knew me only as Christopher Barratt so they might not put two and two together.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ Brian asked.

  ‘I made my way very slowly and carefully back to the path and, once out of sight and earshot, jogged back to the car and hit the road North as quickly as I could. I thought I probably had about half an hour before they realised I wasn’t going to turn up. At that point they would put a call out to have the airport watched, would head for the ship, if that particular penny had dropped, and would organise road-blocks on the main roads. But it would take a bit of time to set road-blocks up. I thought that if I could get through the mountains on the road up towards Port Elizabeth I could turn off the main road and make my way up towards the Lesotho border via the smaller roads. Many of them would be gravel roads in poor condition and the hire car was just a City Golf, but I was in no particular hurry.’

  ‘I made it to Swellendam without being stopped and then went up through the little Karroo. The names of the towns won’t mean anything to you, but travelling from Swellendam to Calitzdorp to Klipplaar to Jansenville, and then on to Hofmeyer and Steynsberg and Burgersdorp asserted the hold the Afrikaners had on the country pretty forcefully.’

  ‘The names have obviously engraved themselves on your memory,’ Brian commented. ‘It sounds a very long way.’

  ‘A bloody long, hot, dusty way,’ Cameron agreed. ‘Exhausting
and nerve-racking too. I spent a few hours during the night trying unsuccessfully to sleep in the car in a lay-by in the middle of nowhere, and every time I stopped for petrol I was worried that that my photograph would have been circulated to the local police, and that people would recognize me from news broadcasts – except, of course, that I hadn’t succeeded in doing anything remotely newsworthy. As it happens, it is highly unlikely that they could have got hold of an up-to-date photograph of me sporting my beard, horn-rimmed glasses and dramatically receding hairline, but one tends not to be entirely rational in such circumstances.’

  ‘I drove up round the Lesotho border as far as Peka Bridge before abandoning the car in a clump of poplars out of sight of the main road, just as night was falling. I crossed the river into Lesotho in the dark, and hitched a lift to Maseru early the next morning. Even when I got there I didn’t feel safe. Lesotho was teeming with apartheid spies and informers, and the South African military had a bad habit of sending raiding parties into neighbouring countries to kidnap and murder South African exiles. I very much doubted I was a significant enough target – although I certainly would have been if I had managed to assassinate Malan – but that didn’t stop me worrying.’

  ‘How did you get across the river?’ Brian asked.