He had tried to think of a way of getting out of town without being followed, but it was hopeless. Whoever the bastards were, they knew he was in the Europahof, they knew his Landrover. The town was too small, the desert was too open.
He could see no evidence of being followed, however. They left Swakopmund in the dawn; the little German town was silent. They got onto the road to Windhoek, and as the sun came up, blinding gold and red over the desert, his tension began to lift. Just before the scrub-tree country began, a white Ford appeared in his rearview mirror. It cruised past them. There were two men in it. McQuade made a mental note of the number. When they passed through Usakos he saw the same vehicle at the petrol station. Thirty minutes later it overtook them again, and disappeared. It was after ten o’clock when they were driving into the hills surrounding Windhoek. He did not see the white Ford again. He drove into the city and parked near the Kalahari Sands Hotel.
He held a finger out at her. ‘No questions – you agreed.’ He led her into the shopping complex and up into the hotel foyer. ‘I’ll meet you here in about an hour. If you want to look at the shops, stay within this complex. Amongst people.’
He asked at the reception desk for the telephone directory. He found the address of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registry. Then he hurried out into Kaiser Wilhelmstrasse. The sun beat down, people of all colours were thronging. German colonial architecture dominated the street, but there were modern buildings. Up on the hill were the government buildings, and over there was an equestrian statue of General von Leutwein, on his horse, surveying his subjects with no-nonsense forbearance.
An hour later, having told the clerk that he was trying to trace a distant relative, and having paid a search-fee, and having waited a remarkably short time for the computer’s print-out, he walked back to the Kalahari Sands Hotel feeling he had got somewhere. It was not conclusive because there were many people named Strauss, but no Heinrich Strauss had died since 1984 when South Africa granted limited self-government to Namibia.
He took the dirt road south to the Kupferberg Pass, to show her the hill country; they would spend the night at Maltahoe and reach Ai-Ais next morning. They were ten miles into the hills when he noticed the vehicle behind.
It was a four-wheel-drive truck, probably a Toyota Landcruiser. He watched it in the rearview mirror, several hundred yards behind, in his dust, but making no attempt to overtake them. Sarah looked back. ‘Worried about them?’
‘Not yet. I’ll give him a chance to pass on the next straight bit.’
There was no other traffic but it was difficult to overtake. Then the road straightened out, and McQuade slowed down. The Toyota slowed down also. McQuade waved the driver on impatiently. The Toyota slowed further, driving in thick dust. The straight piece of road was ending: McQuade accelerated again. ‘Maybe he’s just a nervous driver.’ He rammed into third gear and ground into the Pass.
The Toyota dropped further behind. Now they could no longer see it. They churned on, winding round the bends and grinding down through rocky hills. Only a reckless driver would attempt to overtake them here. Finally they emerged into the flatter country below. A few minutes later the vehicle reappeared.
It surged up behind them, then it swung out to overtake, and went roaring past them with a cloud of dust. There were two men in it. ‘Make a note of its number,’ McQuade said.
The Toyota roared away ahead, disappearing in its own dust. ‘Strange,’ Sarah remarked.
Five minutes later they saw it again. They came round a bend and the vehicle was on the shoulder of the road, about to turn around, and McQuade’s pulse tripped. The next moment it pulled onto the road, and slammed to a stop across it. ‘Oh Christ!’
McQuade slammed his hand on the horn and rammed the Landrover into third gear. A man got out and waved both his arms, seventy yards ahead. McQuade searched the bush frantically on both sides of the road. The Landrover was down to twenty-five miles an hour, the Toyota fifty yards ahead. ‘Hold tight!’
McQuade rammed the vehicle into second gear, trod on the accelerator and swung the wheel. The Landrover went onto the shoulder of the road, then off it, bouncing and roaring. He went roaring through the sparse scrub, bouncing and bashing over bushes and stones, then he swung the wheel and went charging back up onto the road again beyond the Toyota. He rammed the gears and trod on the accelerator, and they went roaring off in a fury of dust.
‘Well done!’ Sarah gasped. McQuade looked frantically in the rearview mirror. He could see nothing for dust. He kept to the middle of the road. Then a blaze of headlights appeared.
The Toyota was roaring up behind, only its headlights visible, its horn blasting. It swung out to overtake, but McQuade swung the same way to block it, there was a screech of metal and sparks flew, and the headlights dropped back. Then it swerved the other way. McQuade swung in the same direction and the vicious headlights surged up again, and there was another crash and the Landrover jolted. Then the vehicle swung off the road, and over the shoulder. It went pounding through the scrub alongside the road. It roared up parallel with the Landrover. McQuade rammed on the accelerator, desperately trying to make the old Landrover go faster, and the Toyota roared and bounced along beside them; for a hundred yards they raced each other, then the Toyota got ahead and swung to remount the road and McQuade swung at it, his teeth clenched furiously, and the Toyota swerved away at the last instant. McQuade swung back into the centre of the road. He looked desperately in his mirror; the headlights were back on the road, roaring up on him again, and he swung out furiously. There was another crash of metal and the Toyota surged ahead. It went blasting past and swung in front, and then another vehicle appeared.
It was a cattle-haulage truck, bearing down on them in a cloud of dust three hundred yards ahead. McQuade swung desperately onto the shoulder, and the Toyota swung in front of him, and there was nothing in the world but the terrible cattle-vehicle screaming down on them with a howling blast and the screaming hissing of its brakes. McQuade swung wildly off the shoulder onto the verge praying Please God, please God. The cattle-truck went screaming past in a howl of horn and McQuade swung desperately towards the trees.
Ahead was a barbed-wire fence. He roared straight at it and hit it at thirty miles an hour, and there was the wrenching of it dragging behind him, before he broke free of it. He went racing flat out through the trees, wildly swinging left and right, skidding and churning, going any way he could, and back on the road the Toyota turned with a scream of gravel, going for the hole in the fence.
McQuade went churning through the bush, bouncing and banging. The Toyota charged at the flattened fence, following McQuade’s tracks. McQuade could not see the Toyota for dust. Suddenly there was a farm track in front of them. McQuade swung wildly onto it. He could go twice as fast on this. He raced down the sand track at fifty miles an hour. Ahead another track joined his at right angles leading back towards the road. McQuade swung onto it. He looked wildly behind and he could see nothing through his dust. Then through the trees he could see the road again beyond the fence, and he desperately charged at it. There was a great crashing and jolting of barbed wire again, and they burst through. McQuade roared up the verge and onto the road, and swung towards Windhoek. He went roaring down the road.
‘You’re going the wrong way!’
McQuade looked feverishly behind but could see nothing through his dust. ‘We’re going back to Windhoek to put you on a fucking aeroplane to Johannesburg!’
‘Like hell you are! Unless you’re coming with me! Who are these bastards?’
‘The same bastards who beat Jakob to a pulp! And I’m not having you involved!’
She cried, ‘I am involved!’
McQuade looked in the rearview mirror. He could see no vehicle. He took a shaky breath.
‘Not far from here is the turn-off to Rehoboth and the main road. Fifty miles north of that is Windhoek, which has an airport. That’s where I’m taking you. You’ll be in Johannesburg by tonight. Thirty-six hours from now I’ll be in Johannesburg also, and I’ll tell you what a wonderful trip I had through the desert!’
‘Like hell I’m flying to Johannesburg!’
‘You’ll do as I bloody well say!’
There was something else he had to do – and he was furious with himself for not thinking of it this morning: he had to go to Jakob’s kraal and tell his wife and Skellum not to breathe a word to the police or anybody about what happened forty years ago.
Dammit, why hadn’t he thought of that this morning?