‘Including Moses Mabeki,’ Tshonga interjected.
‘So they’re blood diamonds,’ said Carver.
‘Exactly,’ said Zalika. ‘And one of the reasons Gushungo has bought a place in Hong Kong is that he thinks he can sell his diamonds there. He’s trying to put a deal together with the Chinese government. They have an almost unlimited need for industrial-quality diamonds. But the best stones, millions of dollars’ worth of uncut diamonds, he wants to sell separately. Well, I say “he” wants to sell them, but that’s not quite right. Because the real brains behind this scheme is not Henderson Gushungo at all, but his wife.’
The contrast between the images of the desperate, filthy prospectors at Chidange and the woman who now appeared on the screen could not have been more acute. She appeared first as a young bride, resplendent in a flowing, lacy white wedding dress, smiling and waving at the camera with Gushungo standing in formal morning dress beside her. Then came another image, evidently taken a few years later. The wedding dress had been swapped for a black outfit, and her face had hardened: her mouth was set in an expression of tight-lipped disdain, her eyes invisible behind dark glasses whose frames were studded with crystals.
‘This is Faith Gushungo, Henderson’s second wife,’ said Zalika. ‘And there’s no point getting rid of him if you don’t get her as well.’
Carver didn’t like the way the conversation was heading. ‘Just how many people am I supposed to be hitting? First we had Gushungo, then Mabeki, now the wife. Who’s next? Any kids you want me to get rid of? Pets, maybe?’
Klerk looked to the heavens and sighed. He pulled out a BlackBerry and pressed a speed-dial letter. ‘Terence, it’s Mr Klerk. Tell Jean-Pierre to take his souffles out of the oven. We could be a little late for dinner. Tell Jean-Pierre, if he’s got a problem, take it up with Miss Latrelle. She can deal with it.’
Klerk put the phone away. ‘Carry on, Zalika. You were about to tell Sam about Faith Gushungo. Fascinating woman. Let us hope she’ll soon be burning in hell, hey?’
‘She doesn’t believe she will,’ said Zalika. ‘She’s Faith by name and faith by nature: a devout Christian, just like Henderson. They spend six days a week doing nothing but evil, then they say their prayers on Sunday, take communion and think that everything’s forgiven. They make their bodyguards do it, too. The whole household comes to a standstill. It’s so hypocritical it makes me sick. This is a woman who’s ordered the construction of a new presidential palace, which will cost at least twenty million dollars. She goes on shopping trips to London, Paris and Milan, blowing hundreds of thousands more at a time when the country is desperately short of foreign currency to buy food or oil for its people. And she’s got the nerve to claim that she’s religious.’
‘So Mrs Gushungo’s Africa’s answer to Imelda Marcos,’ said Carver. ‘It isn’t pretty, but it’s hardly a capital offence.’
‘Imelda Marcos… and Lady Macbeth,’ Zalika countered.
‘Perhaps I can explain,’ said Patrick Tshonga. ‘You understand, Mr Carver, that Henderson Gushungo is a very elderly man. His ability to retain command of the country is remarkable, but still he is mortal and his faculties are diminished. Faith, however, is still a young woman, in the prime of life. She is filled with energy. She is also filled with hatred, spite and malice. These days, when the veterans seize property or attack people who are deemed to be opponents of the government, as like as not they are doing it on Mrs Gushungo’s orders, not the President’s. She has built vast estates from all the farms she has appropriated. And in every case, it is not just the white owners who have been forced to flee. All the people who worked for them are evicted also, their possessions are seized and their homes are given to Mrs Gushungo’s supporters. And you will note that I say “Mrs Gushungo’s supporters”. These people owe their loyalty to her, not her husband. She has built up an entire power-base of her own. She knows that her man will soon be gone, either because he dies or is finally removed from office. And when that day comes, she does not intend to go with him. No, Faith Gushungo will stay and fight for power for herself.’
‘So where do Hong Kong and the diamonds fit into all this?’ asked Carver.
‘Simple,’ said Zalika. ‘They’re Faith’s Plan B. If it all goes wrong and she gets kicked out along with her husband, then she’s got somewhere to go and a very large amount of money, she hopes, to keep her in comfort and idleness when she gets there.’
‘And what does it all have to do with us?’
Zalika smiled. ‘Well, the Gushungos have a hard time getting any bank to take their business. So when they’re in Hong Kong they keep their diamonds at home. Now, what if someone tried to steal those diamonds?’
‘The robbery might go wrong, people might get hurt and no one would suspect a political motive,’ said Carver. ‘It’s an excellent idea…’
‘Thank you,’ said Zalika, giving an ironic little bow.
‘… but I might have one that’s even better.’
‘Really? What might that be?’
She looked him straight in the eye, challenging him.
‘I don’t know yet. I’ll tell you when I get it.’
‘So, Sam,’ said Klerk, cutting through the growing tension, ‘you will accept my offer?’
‘I don’t know that, either,’ said Carver. ‘I’ll give you my answer tomorrow afternoon, right here, seventeen hundred hours. You happy with that?’
‘It sounds like I don’t have a choice. Ja, I can live with tomorrow afternoon. Before the meeting we will go shooting. Then we will talk. Meanwhile, let’s eat.’ He glared at Carver and Zalika. ‘You two can sort out your differences over Jean-Pierre’s damned truffle souffles.’
30
There was a time when Severn Road might easily have been a desirable neighbourhood in the stockbroker belt of Surrey. The substantial houses, set amid croquet lawns, tennis courts and shrubberies, had all been built in the 1930s. They had steeply gabled roofs, half-timbered mock Tudor facades and verandas on which privileged ladies, burdened neither by jobs nor household chores, could comfortably take their tea. The men who owned them had all been educated at the same small group of private boarding schools and shared identical, unquestioned assumptions about their innate superiority, the lesser status of anyone unfortunate enough to be black, brown, yellow or French, and the utter deviousness of Jews.
Yet Severn Road lay not in southern England but southern Africa, in what had once been a suburb of Fort Shrewsbury, capital of British Mashonaland. Its houses were built for the families of the colonial administrators, army officers and businessmen who ran this particular outpost of Empire, as well as the native servants who tended to their needs. For half a century, nothing changed. Then a civil war was fought and lost and British Mashonaland became the independent state of Malemba. Fort Shrewsbury changed its name to Sindele and the white inhabitants of Severn Road made way for a new governing class of African bureaucrats, lawyers and entrepreneurs. By and large, they kept on the servants who had once waited upon their country’s white masters. They even retained some of the old furniture, left behind as the whites fled for the old country. The new bosses were, in some respects, just the same as the old ones.