‘Not unless you can get him to stamp “The White Company” underneath it you can’t,’ said Ollie. ‘Katie won’t just take any old rubbish.’
Ganju signalled. A group of Americans were going past. Quietly, Ollie, Dan and Maksim slipped into the group. Steve watched them, and they fitted in snugly enough to the party. Dan with his huge build, barrel of a chest, and big hands, could have been a Californian, whilst Maksie, dark, short and swarthy, could have been one of the Poles from the Midwest. Looking further up ahead, Steve could see that Sam, Nick and David were already halfway across the bridge. They were walking slowly, taking it easy, stopping to admire the spectacular views. Just the way real tourists would, Steve reminded himself. So far, so good.
He moved onto the next stall. This time, the wood carvings were mostly of tribal faces. The man in charge had seen Steve buy something from his neighbour, at a good price as well, and reckoned he was an easy mark. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. ‘Listen, mate, I’ve already bought enough crap for one day, I’m just looking, right?’ growled Steve eventually. But it made no difference. For fifty Tukan kwacha, nothing short of the Enfield was going to shut the bloke up. And Steve wasn’t about to go that far.
Ganju nodded towards both men.
A group of South Africans was walking past, and had stopped to look at the carvings. Steve and Ian stepped amongst them. One man in his forties was haggling over the price of a carved lion, and got it down to fifteen rand. That completed, they started to walk back towards the bridge. There were eight of them in total, five men and three women, all in their forties and fifties, casually dressed, and visibly tired after a long day of sight-seeing. They didn’t pay any attention as Steve, Ian and Ganju walked alongside them: even if they did, they were hardly likely to object to three harmless-looking tourists amongst them. They started to walk. It was 500 yards to the bridge, and there was a sentry post right next to it. Five armed soldiers stood grouped around a wooden barrier, but the gate wasn’t down, and so long as you looked like a tourist, the soldiers weren’t checking any papers. Another dozen soldiers were patrolling the path that ran down the side of the lake. They were scanning the lake on one side, and checking the paths cut into the rainforest on the other. They weren’t looking closely at the tourists, noted Steve with relief. They were looking for soldiers.
His carving under one arm and his disposable camera in the other hand he kept up a steady pace every movement calculated to draw as little attention to himself as possible. As they got closer, he could hear the roar of the water, the noise gradually growing in intensity until it drowned out everything around them. And he could feel the spray on his face: a few spits at first, but then a steady, fine mist that left his face damp.
‘Bloody amazing views,’ said one of the South African guys at his side.
Steve grinned. Conversation was good, he reckoned. It made you look like part of the group. ‘Fantastic,’ he replied. ‘Best thing I’ve seen since the Pyramids.’
‘Where you from?’ asked the South African.
‘London,’ said Steve. ‘Well, Bromley.’
‘My cousin lives in Chislehurst. You know it?’
Chislehurst? Christ, thought Steve. About the most boring commuter town on the whole of Network South-East. ‘Lovely spot.’
‘Just had another kid.’
‘Boy or girl?’
‘Boy. Got three of them now.’ The man chuckled. ‘Not much peace in his house, I reckon.’
Steve glanced to the left. They were walking right past the soldiers. A pair of them were scanning faces but they weren’t stopping anyone. There must be twenty or thirty people walking past each minute, judged Steve, and that was a lot of faces to look into. He could see one of the soldiers looking straight at him, and for a second he half-caught the man’s eyes.
‘Girls are less trouble,’ he said to the man next to him.
‘Not my two.’
Steve laughed.
They were ten yards clear of the sentry post now, and walking over the bridge. People were slowing down, taking a last admiring look at the panorama stretching out in either direction. To the left, you could see the deep gorges cut into the ground, then the twist as the Zambezi River continued its course, and then Lake Hasta stretching far out into the distance, like a massive inland sea. To the right, Avalanche Falls. From the bridge, you could look straight into the walls of white water, cascading over the rock. The water swirled and eddied, kicking up foam and spray in every direction. For a moment, Steve just stood and watched, awestruck by the power of the scene. Then he snapped himself back to attention: there were five Zambian soldiers manning a checkpoint on their side of the bridge, and they weren’t safe until they were past them.