what her daughter thought of her as a mother, Emma would inherit enough to see her way through university, plus a very tidy nest egg. Sonja gave a small nod of satisfaction as she double-checked the balance and closed out of her account and logged off. If sheâd lived in England for every second of Emmaâs childhood they would have barely scraped by. Standing, she painfully stretched her injured leg, then paid the girl behind the steel grille. Her work had its risks, she thought as she walked out into the sun andtowards the supermarket, but she might have died from the inside out if she hadnât fallen in with Martin after the army.
The Choppies supermarket hadnât been there when sheâd last stayed at the safari lodge with Stirling. It was a sign of progress, an indicator that Botswana really was doing well. If you could afford to shop in airconditioned comfort and buy fruit from the Cape and seafood from Mozambique, then your government was doing something right. She ordered a kilogram of fillet steak at the butchery counter and bought some ice cream for dessert. She paid cash for the food, not wanting to leave a paper trail by using a credit card, and stopped in at the liquor store for a bottle of South African red â a nice Alto Rouge â a six-pack of St Louis beer, and a copy of the
Daily News
.
Sonja walked back into the Safari Lodge, through reception and along the edge of the verandah that took in a spectacular view of the Chobe River, whose shiny, still surface was broken here and there by grassy emerald islands, in turn punctuated with the dark dots of grazing buffalo and elephant. Waiters doted on tourists lounging around the swimming pool and children splashed in the clear waters. Not a hundred kilometres away was a country where people starved and died of cholera. That was Africa, Sonja thought.
When she got back to the camp site she shooed a pair of vervet monkeys off Chipchaseâs camping table. She heard snoring from inside the campervan and wondered how the man could sleep in the mobile coffin in the heat of the day. Sheâd slept in his hammock, a mosquito net suspended above her from a tree, soothed to slumber by the grunt of the hippos in the Chobe and glimpses of stars through the riverine bush canopy above her.
She eased herself into the safari lounger, grateful to take the weight off her leg, but pleasingly achey from the walk. Shecouldnât afford to lose muscle tone, even if it hurt a bit during the recovery. Sonja took another big gulp of her fast-warming beer and opened the newspaper.
BDF, POLICE HELP SEARCH FOR ZIM ASSASSIN shouted the headline. She frowned as she read.
The Botswana president said that while he had not always agreed with his Zimbabwean counterpartâs policies and politics there was no excuse for someone to try and kill a head of state
.
Sonja snorted. For years the dinner-party conversation around the world had been âWhy hasnât someone simply killed him?â
Police sources said a description of the alleged assassin had been circulated to them and the Botswana Defence Force, although the identikit picture would not be released to the media
.
âNot surprising,â Sonja said softly. However, the news that the president had nearly been offed by a woman would be too salacious to be kept quiet for too long. It would make travelling harder for her, but not impossible.
Page three of the
Daily News
led with a story sourced from the Botswana presidentâs spokesman admitting a lack of progress in talks with the Namibian and Angolan governments to increase flows from the recently completed dam on the Okavango River. Diplomatic efforts to stop the dam being built had failed and the governments that had part funded the project were pointing to the severe drought as the reason why the impact on the Okavango Delta was so far more drastic than had been predicted. The final stage of the project, the newspaper reported, would
The Choppies supermarket hadnât been there when sheâd last stayed at the safari lodge with Stirling. It was a sign of progress, an indicator that Botswana really was doing well. If you could afford to shop in airconditioned comfort and buy fruit from the Cape and seafood from Mozambique, then your government was doing something right. She ordered a kilogram of fillet steak at the butchery counter and bought some ice cream for dessert. She paid cash for the food, not wanting to leave a paper trail by using a credit card, and stopped in at the liquor store for a bottle of South African red â a nice Alto Rouge â a six-pack of St Louis beer, and a copy of the
Daily News
.
Sonja walked back into the Safari Lodge, through reception and along the edge of the verandah that took in a spectacular view of the Chobe River, whose shiny, still surface was broken here and there by grassy emerald islands, in turn punctuated with the dark dots of grazing buffalo and elephant. Waiters doted on tourists lounging around the swimming pool and children splashed in the clear waters. Not a hundred kilometres away was a country where people starved and died of cholera. That was Africa, Sonja thought.
When she got back to the camp site she shooed a pair of vervet monkeys off Chipchaseâs camping table. She heard snoring from inside the campervan and wondered how the man could sleep in the mobile coffin in the heat of the day. Sheâd slept in his hammock, a mosquito net suspended above her from a tree, soothed to slumber by the grunt of the hippos in the Chobe and glimpses of stars through the riverine bush canopy above her.
She eased herself into the safari lounger, grateful to take the weight off her leg, but pleasingly achey from the walk. Shecouldnât afford to lose muscle tone, even if it hurt a bit during the recovery. Sonja took another big gulp of her fast-warming beer and opened the newspaper.
BDF, POLICE HELP SEARCH FOR ZIM ASSASSIN shouted the headline. She frowned as she read.
The Botswana president said that while he had not always agreed with his Zimbabwean counterpartâs policies and politics there was no excuse for someone to try and kill a head of state
.
Sonja snorted. For years the dinner-party conversation around the world had been âWhy hasnât someone simply killed him?â
Police sources said a description of the alleged assassin had been circulated to them and the Botswana Defence Force, although the identikit picture would not be released to the media
.
âNot surprising,â Sonja said softly. However, the news that the president had nearly been offed by a woman would be too salacious to be kept quiet for too long. It would make travelling harder for her, but not impossible.
Page three of the
Daily News
led with a story sourced from the Botswana presidentâs spokesman admitting a lack of progress in talks with the Namibian and Angolan governments to increase flows from the recently completed dam on the Okavango River. Diplomatic efforts to stop the dam being built had failed and the governments that had part funded the project were pointing to the severe drought as the reason why the impact on the Okavango Delta was so far more drastic than had been predicted. The final stage of the project, the newspaper reported, would
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