The Leopard(65)

Harry’s eyes stopped at the letters discreetly stamped on a black case.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ Harry asked.

‘Märklin,’ said Van Boorst. ‘A rare rifle. It was manufactured in very limited numbers as it was a fiasco. Much too heavy and large a calibre. Used to hunt elephants.’

‘And humans,’ Harry said softly.

‘Do you know the weapon?’

‘World’s best telescopic sights. Not exactly something you need to hit an elephant at a hundred metres. Perfect for an assassination.’ Harry ran his fingers along the case as the memories streamed back. ‘Yes, I know it.’

‘You can have it cheap. Thirty thousand euros.’

‘I’m not after a rifle this time.’ Harry turned to the shelving unit in the middle of the room. Grotesque white wooden masks grimaced at him from the shelves.

‘The Mai Mai tribe’s spiritual masks,’ said Van Boorst. ‘They think that if they dip themselves in holy water, the enemy’s bullets cannot hurt them. Because the bullets will also turn to H2O. The Mai Mai guerrillas went to war against the government army with bows and arrows, shower hats on their heads and bath plugs as amulets. I am not kidding you, monsieur. Naturally, they were mown down. But they like water, the Mai Mai do. And white masks. And their enemies’ hearts and kidneys. Lightly grilled with mashed corn.’

‘Mm,’ Harry said. ‘I hadn’t expected that such a basic house would have such a full cellar.’

Van Boorst chuckled. ‘Cellar? This is the ground floor. Or was. Before the eruption three years ago.’

Everything fell into place for Harry. Black boulders, black icing. The floor upstairs that was lower than the street.

‘Lava,’ Harry said.

Van Boorst nodded. ‘It flowed straight through the centre and took my house by Lake Kivu. All the wooden houses around here burned to the ground; this brick house was the only one left standing, but was half buried in lava.’ He pointed to the wall. ‘There you can see the front door to what was street level three years ago. I bought the house and just put in a new door where you entered.’

Harry nodded. ‘Lucky the lava didn’t burn down the door and fill this floor too.’

‘As you can see, the windows and doors are in the wall facing away from Nyiragongo. It’s not the first time. The bloody volcano spews lava on this town every ten or twenty years.’

Harry cocked an eyebrow. ‘And still people move back?’

Van Boorst shrugged. ‘Welcome to Africa. But the volcano is bloody useful. If you want to get rid of a troublesome corpse – which is a fairly normal problem in Goma – you can of course sink it in Lake Kivu. But it is still down there. Whereas if you use Nyiragongo … People often think that volcanoes have these red-hot, bubbling lava lakes at the bottom, but they do not. None of them. Apart from Nyiragongo. A thousand degrees centigrade. Drop something down there and, pouf, it is gone. It returns as a gas. It is the only chance anyone in Goma has to reach heaven.’ He broke into a hacking laugh. ‘I witnessed an overenthusiastic coltan-hunter drop a tribal chief ’s daughter on a chain into the crater up there once. The chief wouldn’t sign the papers giving the hunters the right to mine on their territory. Her hair caught fire at twenty metres above the lava. At ten metres above, the girl was burning like a candle. And five metres further down she was dripping. I am not exaggerating. Skin, flesh, it flowed off her bones … Is this what you were interested in?’ Van Boorst had opened a cupboard and taken out a metal ball. It was shiny, perforated with tiny apertures and smaller than a tennis ball. From a slightly larger opening there hung a wire loop. It was the same instrument Harry had seen at Herman Kluit’s house.

‘Does it work?’ Harry asked.

Van Boorst sighed. He stuck his little finger in the loop and pulled. There was a loud bang and the ball jumped in the Belgian’s hand. Harry stared. From the holes in the ball were protruding what looked like antennae.

‘May I?’ he asked, and put out his hand. Van Boorst passed him the ball and watched with great vigilance as Harry counted the antennae.

Harry nodded. ‘Twenty-four,’ he said.

‘Same as the number of apples made,’ said Van Boorst. ‘The number had some symbolic value for the engineer who designed and made it. It was the age of his sister when she took her own life.’

‘And how many of them have you got in your cupboard?’

‘Only eight. Including this pièce de résistance in gold.’ He took out a ball which gleamed matt in the light from the electric bulb, then returned it to the cupboard. ‘But it is not for sale. You would have to kill me to get your paws on that one.’