The Fallen Read Online Free PDF Page B

she asked, hurrying to keep up with him as he strode across the terminal building.
    ‘Plane was just about empty,’ he said.
    He didn’t elaborate further. As they headed towards the airport exit gate, Jade glanced at him again, but he was staring straight ahead, stony-faced.
    What on earth was bothering him? Work pressure? He’d said that the shit had hit the fan on one of the cases he was working on, but that was nothing unusual. She sometimes thought that ‘hitting the fan’ basically defined his job description.
    With a twinge of guilt, she remembered Robbie’s night-time visit. Had David somehow found out that the gangster had contacted her again? Surely not. In any case, there was nothing she could have done to stop him and she had, after all, said no to his offer.
    Jade forced herself to stop being paranoid. Whatever was bothering David, she was sure he would open up about it after a few drinks and a good dinner. Earlier that morning, she’d put a bottle of Villiera Brut Natural sparkling wine in their chalet’s fridge and marinated two large free-range fillet steaks in red wine and rosemary. If that didn’t improve David’s mood, then nothing would.
    The journey back to Scuba Sands passed in heavy silence. A full two and a half hours of it. Jade concentrated on her driving and tried to suppress the growing suspicion that David’s mood had something to do with her.
    David didn’t comment on the amazing aquamarine-blue of the ocean that had taken Jade’s breath away the first time she’d seen it. He didn’t say anything about the vast tracts of coastal forest that hemmed the white-gold beach, or the sign at the lake that warned people against swimming because of the hundreds of crocodiles that lurked in its innocent-looking waters. He didn’t even comment on the lack of security when they drove through the resort’s wooden gate and headed down the driveway towards the chalets.
    Two narrow brick tracks branched off the driveway just before Jade’s chalet, forming a makeshift parking bay under a tall and leafy tree. Reading the brochure on the living room table, Jade had discovered the tree was a hardwood, one of many that flourished in the area and that were more commonly found on the leeward side of the enormous dunes that fringed the coastline.
    She stopped the car in the shade and climbed out. ‘We’re in the Huberta room,’ she told him.
    He cleared his throat. ‘What’s that?’
    Jade hoped the room’s history would cheer him up, or at any rate distract him from whatever was bothering him.
    ‘When I checked in, Neil—the resort owner—told me that Huberta was a very famous hippo. Probably the most famous hippo in the entire history of South Africa. She lived here, in St Lucia, but one day in 1928 she decided to start roaming for some reason. And she just went. Across rivers, across roads, throughfields … For miles and miles, all the way down the Natal coastline. She wasn’t scared of people, so she munched her way through parks, gardens, farms and even golf courses as she went, followed by larger and larger numbers of interested people who watched her and photographed her, and tossed her fruit and sugarcane.’
    ‘Hmmph,’ David grunted.
    ‘The authorities decided to try and capture her for the Johannesburg Zoo, but she evaded pursuit and just kept going, pursued by hordes of journalists and photographers. When she was in a playful mood, she’d chase the photographers up trees. She actually walked right across the verandah during a big function at the Durban Country Club. Then she spent time in one of the Zulus’ sacred pools, which convinced them that she had a connection with King Shaka, and she became a godlike animal in their eyes. And Neil also told me the Xhosa believed that she was the spirit of a great chief who’d returned to seek justice for his people.’
    ‘Interesting,’ David muttered.
    ‘Then she was declared royal game and it became illegal to try to catch or