you his caring, benevolent side, before the enquiry starts.’
‘Obviously,’ muttered Hope. ‘It’s so transparent it’s embarrassing.’
‘Are you going to go?’
‘I’m not so stupid as to think I can find the kind of money he’s talking about through the grants system – not a second time. Although I can’t possibly imagine how this can work. He wants to develop Lara Beach, I want to protect it. But yes, I’m going. I’d be crazy not to.’
Crowbar stood, faced Clay, brought the camera up to his face. ‘Put your hands behind the chair, ja,’ he said. ‘Try to look pissed off.’
‘I am pissed off.’
‘Good, ja.’
‘What the hell are you doing, Koevoet?’
‘Your hands.’
‘Hand.’
Crowbar smiled. ‘Your arms then, soutpiel. Behind, like you’re tied.’
Clay put his arms behind the chair, stared into the lens, understanding.
Crowbar hit the shutter button. The flash pulsed.
Just then, Hope’s mobile phone buzzed. She flipped it open, listened a moment, eyes widening. She started to speak but stopped short. ‘Yes,’ she said, listened again. ‘I understand.’ A few seconds later she closed her phone and looked at Clay. ‘That was Rania’s office. They’ve received a message from her.’
31
This, You Were Given
Hope smiled big like love. He could see it there on her face, in every contracted muscle, in the heat coming from her flushed cheeks, that exothermic reaction over which she had no control going off inside her like rockets.
‘She wants to meet you, Clay,’ she said, breathless. ‘Tomorrow afternoon at the Mephistos copper mine waste pits in the Troodos. Three o’clock.’
‘Slow down, Hope,’ said Clay. ‘Who was it you spoke to?’
‘Someone called Hamour, from AFP’s Istanbul desk. He said you knew each other.’
‘Was he sure it was her?’
‘He said the message came with the story that she filed yesterday. It was attached as an addendum, with my phone number, asking him to pass the message on through me. He’s been trying to reach me since then. That’s all he said.’ Hope shook her head. ‘Why wouldn’t she just call me herself?’
‘If she’s trying to hide, she’s not going to call anyone. Was there anything else in the message?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you sure.’
‘That was it. Just meet her at the mine tomorrow.’
Clay looked at his watch. ‘That gives us about fifteen hours.’
‘Do you know this place?’ said Crowbar.
‘I’ve been there once before,’ said Clay. ‘A local environmental group asked me to do some chemical testing on the waste pits a couple of years ago. Rania knew that – I told her about it. It’s an isolated place, on the western side of the mountains. No vehicle access. A good ten clicks walk to get in there, pretty rugged country.’
‘How far from here?’
‘About five hours’ drive, another couple walking.’
Crowbar put his beer on the table. ‘Then we’d better get moving, broer. Now. Anyone picks a place like that to meet, ja, it’s because someone else is interested.’
‘You have plenty of time,’ said Hope.
‘We’re going to get there nice and early, ooma, make sure that if Rania does show, we have her covered. And if someone else shows up, we’ll ask ’em a few impolite questions.’
Hope looked at Clay. ‘What is this ooma?’
Clay grinned at Crowbar. ‘It means old lady.’
Hope’s expression hardened. She glared at Crowbar.
‘Kak, Straker, fokken roerder,’ Crowbar said in Afrikaans. And then in English, to Hope: ‘No, that’s wrong. It doesn’t mean…’
Hope said nothing, just stared up at him.
‘It’s respect,’ blurted Crowbar. ‘Fok, Straker. Tell her.’
Clay said nothing.
‘You’re not old,’ said Crowbar, fidgeting now. Clay had never seen him like this, was enjoying it.
Hope played him, stood expressionless. After a moment a hint of a smile crept across her face. ‘Why, thank you, Mister Koofoot. Neither are you.’
They had no way of knowing from which direction Rania would approach the mine. There were at least three road access points within ten kilometres of the pits, narrow gravel firebreaks that switch-backed between ancient black-trunked pines and gnarled scrub oak, snaked around crumbling, frayed rhyolite and marble cliffs, the mountainside scarred by the centuries-old quarryings of people long dead, Ottomans, Romans.
They decided to leave Clay’s rental car in Agios Psemanitos, a tiny, near-abandoned village about twenty kilometres west of the mine, and track around to the eastern approaches in Crowbar’s Pajero. By the time they had hidden the 4WD two hundred metres into the forest, behind the boulders of an ancient landslide, the sun was up and the last of the shadows were edging from the deep valleys. It gave them the best part of eight hours before Rania’s appointed time.
It took them less than