The Hunter by Tony Park

about this extra sense; he reasoned it had developed simply because he was in nature’s grip day after day. If he couldn’t see a warning he might hear it, or smell it. The signs were there, one just had to let one’s existing senses hone themselves, over time. He heeded this ability, and exercised caution, but he savoured the tingling sensation in his fingertips and the tightening of his chest when the signs appeared. It was, he had to admit, part of what kept him in Africa.
    Clients sometimes asked if he, as an American, had a love affair with Africa, but he would tell them he did not. ‘You cannot,’ he would reply, ‘love a place where poverty, crime, corruption and illness are so much a part of the fabric of day-to-day life. I am not in love with Africa, I am addicted to her.’ He felt the symptoms of that addiction now, coursing from his heart out to his fingertips, that sudden jolt of fear mixed with excitement and anticipation, masquerading as adrenaline. It was the same when he had hunted men, in Angola.
    ‘I’ll take the case,’ he said to Dani.
    ‘I knew you would.’
    *
    Brand awoke the next morning with a hangover that sharpened the residual pain of his beating. The pills and booze had given him temporary relief after Hannah left, but he had answered the call of nature in the middle of the night and been greeted with the sobering sight of blood in his urine.
    He walked to the kitchen and even the soles of his gritty feet hurt. He tidied the litter from his evening’s excess. No orange juice had mysteriously appeared in the fridge overnight; instead he was faced with his last three bottles of Castle Lager and one of Miller Genuine Draft. He chose the Miller, as to his mind it was a better breakfast beer and, like him, an American Brand now owned by South Africa. He gulped down two Panado tablets from the kitchen drawer and found a banana that was bruised almost as badly as he.
    Brand showered, sipping the cool beer as he let the hot water pummel his aching flesh. After he’d dried off and dressed he finished the second half of the banana and, reluctantly, set about closing all the curtains in his friend’s bush lodge, shutting out the sight of the river. He packed his duffel bag, turned off the gas hot water geysers and spread the dust sheets back over the bed, the lounge suites and the dining table, then closed and locked the door behind him.
    He loaded the duffel into his battered Land Rover Defender. It was an old diesel model, slow compared to more modern vehicles, but reliable. He would travel north towards Zimbabwe through the Kruger Park, he decided, as the view was better and he wouldn’t have to worry about being overtaken by a continuous stream of traffic or being sideswiped by one of the kamikaze minibus taxis through Bushbuckridge.
    The beer had awoken his craving for cigarettes, but fortunately he had none with him. He drove to the entrance gate to the Hippo Rock estate and told the Shangaan security guard, Solly, that he did not know when he would be coming back. As he turned right onto the R536 towards the Paul Kruger Gate, Brand thought about the last insurance investigation he had done for Dani; the one that had landed him in prison in Harare.
    The alleged deceased was the son of a prominent politician from the ruling ZANU-PF party. Brand’s investigation had led him to the politician, a junior minister, and on confronting him Brand immediately realised the man was none too happy about him investigating the circumstances of his son’s untimely demise. He rightly feared that Brand exposing the boy’s sham death would rebound on him and his political aspirations.
    Brand had been staying with friends in Borrowdale, a leafy suburb of Harare inhabited mostly these days by ageing white farmers who had been kicked off their lands. He’d been out to dinner with his friends, an old farming couple, but had become engrossed in a conversation with a thirty-something divorcee. His hosts had