Recoil - Andy McNab [32]
And as I drove out of Bobblestock, windscreen wipers going nineteen to the dozen, I felt that for the first time in nearly twenty-four hours my hand was back on the tiller. But it didn’t feel as good as I’d thought it would.
There was so much about each other we didn’t know.
I had been continually putting off explaining to Silky what I was. I’d told her just before she met him that I’d been a soldier once and had done a bit of parachuting with Charlie, but that was about it. As for the promise to tell her the whole picture that I’d made myself yesterday? Deep down, I knew it was bollocks. It wouldn’t have happened. The plain fact was, I was scared she’d reject me.
She was everything I wasn’t. I came from the world she hated with a vengeance – the world of war and death, the heartless fucking over the defenceless.
As I changed down a gear to drive up Aylestone Hill, I realized I wouldn’t have to explain anything. If it all went pear-shaped, she might be seeing it at first-hand, and in real time.
PART THREE
Cape Town
International
Saturday, 10 June,
16:05 hours
1
We flew round Table Mountain, then north along wide, sandy beaches before circling back inland across vast stretches of vineyard. The city nestled between the lower slopes and the Atlantic.
Thank fuck the flight was over. I’d been jammed in cattle class for the best part of twenty hours. It hadn’t been direct: we’d had two dropo-ffs on the way. I could picture the grin on Crazy Dave’s face, once he’d managed to crawl back to his desk. The bastard must have bought the cheapest ticket going.
I looked for taxi signs as I wandered towards the exit, checking my empty voicemail. Then I punched in Lex’s airfield office number. It was a mass of sevens and fives and I kept getting the little fuckers in the wrong order.
The woman who answered had such a strong accent I felt she was beating me over the head with it.
‘Hello, it’s Nick Stone again. I called last night for Lex. Is he there?’ I carried on through acres of glass and concrete, past Vodafone stalls hiring out mobiles and dozens of businessmen poring over their laptops in the hot zone.
‘You’re late, man. Didn’t you leave last night?’
‘We stopped off in Jo’burg and Port Elizabeth.’ My mouth tasted like a rat’s arse and I could only just peel open my eyes.
‘It’s Saturday afternoon, man. He said he’ll meet you at the bar.’ The way Mrs Bring-Back-Apartheid pronounced it, it sounded like something you’d do if you were looking for an oilfield.
‘Which bar? And what’s his last name?’
‘You coming by car?’ She started spouting roads and exits.
‘Whoa, I’ll find a pen and paper. I’ll call you back.’
I closed down the mobile and went over to a Nescafé stall masquerading as a street barrow. I got the loan of a pencil while the vendor made me a very bad cup of instant coffee. Granules lapped against the rim of the cup as she handed it to me because the water wasn’t hot enough.
Lex being in a bar wasn’t good news. Bars meant alcohol, and where I came from, it was ten hours from bottle to throttle. Well, sometimes.
I called the number again, and had to keep slowing her down until I had the details. ‘OK, the False Bay bar. Where’s that?’
‘Erinvale. He’ll be there all night.’
‘His surname?’
‘Kallembosch.’ She said it like I was stupid and should have known, but I tried to sign off pleasantly.
‘And what’s your name?’ Nice to be nice, and all that.
‘Hendrika.’ She sounded as if she had done resistance-to-interrogation training.
‘Thanks, Hendrika.’ I couldn’t help myself. ‘Have a nice day.’
As I crunched my way through the Nescafé, I checked my balance at an ATM. I knew Crazy Dave wouldn’t have given me a penny, but I lived in hope.
Even in my current state of frustration, I was still struck by the two things that got me every time I came to Africa: the quality of the light and the brilliant blue of the sky. It was like they’d passed a law banning clouds.
I didn’t hold the thought for long. As the taxi turned east out of the airport on to the N2, I resisted the temptation