to grasp the significance of what he’d just read. Despite his old-fashioned ways, Sharkey was on the cutting edge when it came to banking. Oom Daan had introduced him to the cellphone banking concept that he used because, as Sharkey had explained to Grant when he showed him how to use it and shared his secret code with him, it was “Daan’s way of keeping things anonymous”. Whoever ordered fish or crayfish from the Beach Café simply deposited money into Sharkey’s FLASH account. The account number was the same as his cellphone number. When Sharkey wanted to use that money, he simply downloaded it to Oom Daan’s FLASH account. Oom Daan then either gave him cash out of his till or Sharkey bought food and other provisions from the Beach Café with it. He never downloaded the virtual money in his FLASH account into a normal bank account like most other people did.
Although Grant didn’t always know what amounts were being deposited, he was very sure that it had never held anything more than about R200 or R300 at a time – the price of a few fish or crayfish. Where had such a huge amount as R50 000 come from? And why did Sharkey need to go to Lüderitz to work if he had R50 000 sitting in his cellphone account? And why, oh why, sell the house!
Then a horrible thought gripped him: That’s why Oom Daan wanted Sharkey’s cellphone! He knew about the money and he wanted it for himself. He wanted it so badly that he had even gone into their home when no-one was there, to look for it. Hadn’t he said so himself?
Usually Langebaners didn’t mind their friends coming into their homes when they weren’t there, but normally this was just done to drop something off or to wait around for the owner of the house to return. Even in Langebaan it would be considered unacceptable to enter someone else’s house in order to rifle through their things.
Grant looked at the face of the phone again. He counted the noughts and checked the commas. Yes, it was definitely R50 000. Then it dawned on him: he knew Sharkey’s secret code. If there really was R50 000 in Sharkey’s FLASH account, he could get to it, use it to travel to Lüderitz and speak to Sharkey himself, face to face.
Yes, he would hide out tonight amongst the dunes, and tomorrow he’d head straight for Lüderitz – wherever that was.
Grant’s spirits soared. The mysteries would all be solved when he got to Lüderitz and spoke to Sharkey. All he had to do was stay well and truly out of Oom Daan’s way until then.
He shoved the cellphone into his pocket. It would be his lifeline. But right now, he needed to get going. The thought of being trapped in the house by Oom Daan and Hasie Viljoen drove all others out of his mind.
He raced back to the kitchen, grabbed his fishing bag off the hook and tore through the house, throwing whatever he thought he’d need into it. In the end he didn’t take much – a blanket, the few pieces of clothing he owned, some line, hooks and sinkers, a small pot, a box of matches, a couple of tins of beans, a bottle of water and the bunch of bokkoms his father had been drying for sale. After all, it would only be for a night or two at the most.
He hesitated before the whalebone carving that had stood on the table next to his bed for as long as he could remember – the small seagull Sharkey had made for his young wife as a present when Grant was born. He itched to take it with him but he questioned that feeling. It was born of weakness, surely. Why take a useless little carving all the way to Lüderitz with him? Then he remembered how the rich people had raved about Sharkey’s scrimshaw and been more than happy to swap a whole fridge for it. He threw it into the bag.
He walked briskly through to the kitchen, throwing the knife into his bag, yanking the drawstring closed and settling the bag on his back. He flattened himself against the kitchen wall and peered around the kitchen door. It was semi-dark and quiet, there was no-one outside on the road. He took a deep breath and left the house, closing the door behind him.
As he stepped onto the dusty road he heard the deep diesel rumble of Hasie Viljoen’s truck in the distance. Not a moment too soon.
Chapter 4
Grant slipped off the road and onto a narrow track that ran through the veld. Even though this route led him straight through the front gardens of the old houses of the village, he was less likely to be spotted here than on the tarred road.
His bare feet made hardly any sound going past the houses. No-one heard him leave for no-one came to their net-covered windows and peered out to see who was going by. But he knew that as soon as Oom Daan realised that he was gone, he would alert the neighbours and they would all start looking for him. He speeded up to a steady jog.
Before long he was at the point where the track petered out. He would have to move back onto the tarred road for a kilometre or two in order to leave the village and find the track that led to the dunes. But this section of the road shouldn’t give him any trouble; there were hardly any houses here and very few cars travelled in or out of the village after dark. Oom Daan and Hasie Viljoen would most likely scour the village for him before widening their search, and even if they did come after him straightaway, he could hear Oom Hasie’s truck kilometres away.
Just as his feet hit the tar, something he hadn’t bargained on came cruising around the corner towards him: Constable Henk, the first full-time, permanent policeman in Langebaan, still on the job after all these years, driving his old van. It was too late to hide, he had been spotted.
The policeman wound down the window of his van and Grant was assailed by the strains of the latest sokkie dance hit. “Hello,” Constable Henk shouted good-naturedly, above the music. “Hoe gaan dit? Want a lift?”
Grant thought quickly. Constable Henk obviously thought he was walking towards the village and not away from it, so it would cause far too much suspicion if he refused a lift – unless he could think of a plausible excuse.
“Thanks a lot, Constable, but I’m actually just doing a project for school. We have to try and count how many owls we have around the village.”
“My magtig!” Constable Henk scratched his head. “I didn’t know you kids did such scientific stuff at school. Man, that’s wonderful! Let me know, hey?”
He drove away, waving. As soon as his taillights disappeared around the next bend, Grant started running. Constable Henk was simple but he wasn’t altogether stupid. Even Sharkey had to reckon with Constable Henk from time to time. Grant didn’t dare hope that Constable Henk was going straight home, to the simple lagoon house he shared with his mother over at Churchhaven. He would most likely stop in at the police station at Langebaan first – and once he bumped into Oom Daan and Hasie Viljoen, he’d soon put two and two together.
Grant ran as fast as he could, but he still hadn’t quite reached the dunes when he heard the diesel roar of Hasie Viljoen’s truck in a duet with Constable Henk’s siren, wailing their way out of the village.
Adrenalin lent him some extra speed and he hurtled the last few metres and crashed his way onto the dune track. He had to hide, quickly. The first place they’d look for him would be the dune track, now that they knew he’d left the village. His side ached from a stitch; his chest was rasping and his mouth dry. He tried to silence his breathing as he thrashed through the veld in search of a suitable hiding place. He tripped over what felt like a root and fell heavily; he was winded.
Unbelievably, as he lay there, unable to move, unable to even fill his lungs with air, feeling as if he might just die, he heard the unmistakable sound of Constable Henk’s siren and Hasie Viljoen’s truck roaring past. They hadn’t even thought to stop and search the dune track. Slowly, he regained some control over the muscles in his chest. With it came a horrible gagging that seemed to go on and on. At last, his body normalised and just as he was about to try standing up, he
