Carte Blanche - Jeffery Deaver [122]
‘You’re not joining me?’ Bond nodded towards an empty chair. Jordaan was standing, leaning against the sink, arms folded across her voluptuous chest.
‘I’ve finished eating,’ she said, the words clipped. She remained where she was.
Friend or foe . . .
He finished the food. ‘I must say you’re quite talented – a clever policewoman who also makes marvellous beer and,’ a nod at the cooking pot, ‘bobotie. If I’m pronouncing that right.’
He received no response. Did he insult her with every remark he made?
Bond tamped down his irritation and found himself regarding the many photographs of the family on the walls and mantelpiece. ‘Your grandmother must have seen a great deal of history in the making.’
Glancing affectionately at the bedroom door, she said, ‘Ugogo is South Africa. Her uncle was wounded at the battle of Kambula, fighting the British – a few months after the battle I told you about, Isandlwana. She was born just a few years after the Union of South Africa was formed from the Cape and Natal provinces. She was relocated under apartheid’s Group Areas Act in the fifties. And she was wounded in a protest in 1960.’
‘What happened?’
‘The Sharpeville Massacre. She was among those protesting against the dompas – the “dumb pass”, it was called. Under apartheid people were legally classified as white, black, coloured or Indian.’
Bond recalled Gregory Lamb’s comments.
‘Blacks had to carry a passbook signed by their employer allowing them to be in a white area. It was humiliating, it was horrible. There was a peaceful protest but the police fired on the demonstrators. Nearly seventy people were killed. Ugogo was shot. Her leg. That’s why she limps.’
Jordaan hesitated and at last poured herself some beer, then sipped. ‘Ugogo gave me my name. That is, she told my parents what they would call me and they did. One usually does what Ugogo says.’
‘“Bheka”,’ Bond said.
‘In Zulu it means “one who watches over people”.’
‘A protector. So you were destined to become a policewoman.’ Bond was quite enjoying the music.
‘Ugogo is the old South Africa. I’m the new. A mix of Zulu and Afrikaner. They call us a rainbow country, yes, but look at a rainbow and you still see different colours, all separate. We need to become like me, blended together. It will be a long time before that happens. But it will.’ She glanced coolly at Bond. ‘Then we’ll be able to dislike people for who they really are. Not for the colour of their skin.’
Bond returned her gaze evenly and said, ‘Thank you for the food and the beer. I should be going.’
She walked with him to the door. He stepped outside.
Which was when he caught his first clear glimpse of the man who’d pursued him from Dubai. The man in the blue jacket and the gold earring, the man who had killed Yusuf Nasad and had very nearly killed Felix Leiter.
He was standing across the road, in the shadows of an old building covered with Arabic scrolls and mosaics.
‘What is it?’ Jordaan asked.
‘A hostile.’
The man had a mobile but wasn’t making a call; he was taking a picture of Bond with Jordaan – proof that Bond was working with the police.
Bond snapped, ‘Get your weapon and stay inside with your grandmother.’
He sprinted hard across the street as the man fled up a narrow alley leading towards Signal Hill, through the deepening dusk.
51
The man had a ten-yard lead, but Bond began closing the distance as they pounded up the alley. Angry cats and scrawny dogs fled, a child with round Malaysian features stepped out of a door into Bond’s path and was instantly jerked back by a parental hand.
He was nearly fifteen feet from the assailant when operational instinct kicked in. Bond realised that the man might have prepared a trap to aid his escape. He glanced down. Yes! The attacker had strung a piece of wire across the alley, a foot off the ground, nearly invisible in the darkness. The man himself had known where it was – a shard of broken crockery marked the spot – and had stepped