The Leopard(196)

84


Reunion  


KAJA BIT HER LOWER LIP. SOMETHING WAS WRONG.

She called Harry’s number again.

And got his voicemail yet again.

For several hours, she had been sitting in the arrivals hall – which, as far as that went, was also the departures hall – and the plastic chair rubbed against all the parts of the body with which it came into contact.

She heard the whoosh of a plane. Immediately afterwards the only monitor present, a bulky box hanging from two rusty wires in the ceiling, showed that flight number KJ337 from Zurich had landed.

She scanned the gathering of people every second minute and established that none of them was Tony Leike.

She phoned again, but cut the connection when she realised she was doing this for the sake of doing something, but it wasn’t action, it was apathy.

The sliding doors to baggage reclaim opened and the first passengers with hand luggage came through. Kaja stood up and went to the wall beside the sliding doors so that she could see the names on the plastic signs and the scraps of paper the taxi drivers were holding up for the arriving travellers. No Juliana Verni and no Lene Galtung.

She went back to her lookout post by the chair. Sat on her palms, could feel they were damp with sweat. What should she do? She pulled down her sunglasses and stared at the sliding doors.

Seconds passed. Nothing happened.

Lene Galtung was almost concealed behind a pair of violet sunglasses and a large black man walking in front of her. Her hair was red, curly, and she was wearing a denim jacket, khaki trousers and solid hiking boots. She was dragging a wheeled bag tailor-made to the maximum measurements allowed for hand luggage. She had no handbag, but a small, shiny metal case.

Nothing happened. Everything happened. In parallel and at the same time, the past and the present, and in a strange way Kaja knew the opportunity was finally there. The opportunity for which she had been waiting. The chance to do the right thing.

Kaja didn’t look straight at Lene Galtung, just made sure she was to the left of her field of vision. Stood up calmly after she had passed, took her bag and began to follow her. Into the blinding sunlight. Still no one had addressed her, and judging from her quick, determined steps, Kaja assumed she had been schooled down to the last detail about what she was to do. She walked past taxis, crossed the road and got into the back seat of a dark blue Range Rover. The door was held open for her by a black man in a suit. Slamming it after her, he then walked round to the driver’s seat. Kaja slipped onto the back seat of the first taxi in the queue, leaned forward between the seats, reflected quickly, but concluded that basically there was no other way of formulating it. ‘Follow that car.’

She met the driver’s eyes and arched eyebrows in the rear-view mirror. Pointed to the car in front of them, and the driver gave a nod of comprehension, but still kept the car in neutral.

‘Double pay,’ Kaja said.

The driver jerked his head and let go of the clutch.

Kaja rang Harry. Still no answer.

They crawled their way west along the main thoroughfare. The streets were full of lorries, carts and cars with suitcases tied to the roofs. On each side, people were walking with huge piles of clothes and possessions balanced on their heads. In some places the traffic had come to a complete standstill. The driver had obviously got the point, and he was keeping at least one car between them and Lene Galtung’s Range Rover.

‘Where are they all going?’ Kaja asked.

The driver smiled and shook his head to signify that he didn’t understand. Kaja repeated the question in French with no luck. In the end she pointed to the people shuffling past their car with an interrogative grimace.

‘Re-fu-gee,’ the driver said. ‘Go away. Bad people come.’

Kaja mouthed an ‘Aha’.

Kaja texted Harry again. Trying to stave off panic.

In the middle of Goma the road forked. The Range Rover swung left. Further on it took another left and rolled down towards the lake. They had come to a very different part of town with large detached houses behind high fences and surrounded by well-tended gardens with trees to offer shade and keep out prying eyes.

‘Old,’ the driver said. ‘The Bel-gium. Co-lo-nist.’

There was no traffic in the residential area and Kaja signalled that they should hang back further, even though she doubted Lene Galtung had any schooling in detecting tails. When the Range Rover stopped a hundred metres ahead, Kaja motioned to the driver to stop, too.

An iron gate was opened by a man in a grey uniform, the car drove in and the gate was closed again.

Lene Galtung could hear her heart pounding. It hadn’t beaten like this since the telephone had rung and she had heard his voice. He had told her he was in Africa. And said she should come. That he needed her. That only she could help him. Save the fine project that was not only his, but would become hers, too. So that he could have work. Men needed work. A future. A secure life, somewhere children could grow up.