Just the Memory of Love by Peter Rimmer

Author:Peter Rimmer [Rimmer, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kamba Publishing
Published: 2017-09-16T00:00:00+00:00

While Lindsay was trying to seduce Will before lunch, Shelley Lane was having the best time of her life. Her black hair and brown eyes were now matched by a well-tanned skin that had gone from copper to brown in the African sun without peeling. She had touched her large mouth with shell pink. The almond-shaped eyes were touched with dark eyeshadow. She wore a tight, half-shirt and short shorts and was singing. Byron Langton was the last thought in her mind.

The rule at what Laurie Hall had called Crocodile Camp was no booze. The first three days had been difficult but Shelley now felt better than she could remember.

“Booze and guns, old girl, don’t mix,” he had said when they packed the Land Rover in Mongu with provisions.

Her job at Crocodile Camp was to keep the books. First she packed like-sized skins into bundles of ten, neatly attached a label with a number and wrote it down in a journal. The bundles were then packed in hessian, one hundred skins to the bag, and made ready with an individual waybill for Octavio Goncalves to transport to Livingstone.

At Will’s suggestion, Laurie had telephoned Byron Langton’s office in London before the big shoot, using the telephone in the Mongu Club. The overseas call had taken two hours to make, person-to-person, Laurie using Will’s name as the caller. Byron, always quick on the uptake when there was money to be made, agreed to cover the cost of tanning the skins in Umtali through Manica Trading at the port of Beira.

“There may be an import permit problem into England, Mr Hall,” Byron had told him from a voice halfway round the world. “My problem. I will pay you the market price FOB Beira, all transport costs from Mongu for my account. I can recommend a Swiss holding account for your money and this chief’s. From my experience of Africa, Mr Hall, the less known about your money the better.”

“We’ll need cash for my trackers.”

“Does anyone else know about your crocodile hunt?”

“Not the numbers.”

“On your documents, we may eventually remove a nought from every package on the certified invoice.”

“And if customs counts?”

“We made a mistake. I presume Will said I was trustworthy?”

“He did.”

“And the chief considers Will trustworthy?”

“Definitely.”

“Laurie, if I may call you Laurie. So long as we trust each other then the circumvention of government is incidental. Give my brother my best regards. You can also give him a laugh. Our sister Josephine won a by-election for Labour and now sits in the House of Commons. When’s he coming home? Africa’s a mess … You just ship your skins to Umtali Leather and Tanning and we will do the rest.”

The drums began on the Friday morning before dawn. They had started at the paramount chief’s winter palace at Lealui, eleven miles from Mongu. The drums had spread the message down the floodplains to evacuate the low ground. The beat of the drums was persistent and ominous.

Shelley woke and shivered, listening to the ancient sound of Africa.

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