The Crocodile Tears

Chapter 5 : The Setup

The fifth night in Bushbuck Ridge settled in without wind. The heat from the day was still in the walls of the lodge, but outside everything was still. The cook had left at six. The staff quarters were dark. On the deck there were only two lanterns, and beyond that the black line of bush and the faint smell of dust and water from the dam.

Siya pushed his plate back and stood. “Come,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “Night drive.”

Nomvula was drying her hands on a dish towel. She looked up at him. “It’s late.”

“Mandla said we could use the reserve vehicle,” Siya said. He kept his voice even, like he was talking about the weather. “Spotlights. Twenty minutes. You said you wanted to see a leopard.”

She didn’t want to go. Something about the way he said it made her stomach tighten. But refusing now would look like she was afraid of him, and she had spent the last five days pretending she wasn’t. “Fine,” she said. “Just around the loop and back.”

The Land Cruiser was already waiting by the staff shed. Green paint dulled with dust. Canvas roof. The keys were in the ignition. Mandla had left them there that afternoon after “checking the vehicle.” Siya drove out past the gate and down the dirt road without speaking. For fifteen minutes he pointed at nothing and named stars like he used to when they were young. Nomvula watched the dark on both sides and said nothing.

He stopped at a dry riverbed. He cut the engine. The sudden silence was heavy. Crickets. Nothing else.

Siya got out and came around to her side. He opened her door. “Get out.”

“Here?” Nomvula asked.

“Now.”

She got out because her legs would not let her sit still. The moon was high enough to see the shape of rocks and the bend of dead trees. Siya stood in front of her and for the first time since they arrived, his face was not careful. It was twisted. Ugly.

“You think I’m stupid?” he said quietly.

Nomvula shook her head. “Siya, what—”

“Three years,” he cut her off. “Tuesday afternoons. The messages you deleted. Don’t lie to me in my face, Nomvula. Not after what you did in my house. In my bed.”

The air left her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t,” he said. The word was sharp. “Don’t you dare. You think I was going to let you take half of everything? Take my name and my children and walk away with him? You’re pathetic. You’re a liar and a thief.”

“Siya please, you’re hurting me.”

He grabbed her arm and pulled her forward toward the waterhole. “You did this. You chose this.”

She fought. She screamed once and the sound was swallowed by the bush. There was no one for kilometers. He was stronger and he was furious in a way she had never seen. At the edge of the water he stopped. Below them the surface moved. Two eyes. Then three. Crocodiles, waiting.

“Please,” Nomvula whispered. “Please don’t.”

Siya looked at her. There was nothing in his eyes. “This is where people like you go,” he said. Then he shoved her.

The water was cold and black. She broke the surface once, choking his name, and then his hands were on her again, pushing her down until her arms stopped moving. When it was quiet, he stood there and watched the ripples fade. He waited until the water moved again.

He walked back to the Cruiser. From under the driver’s seat he took the crowbar Mandla had left for him. This was phase two. The story.

He started with the passenger side. He smashed the window. He caved in the door with three hard hits. He reversed the vehicle into the tree Mandla had wrapped in mud and bark that afternoon to mimic elephant damage. He rolled it onto its side. He dragged thorny branches across the bonnet. He poured water and dirt over the seats and cut the canvas roof so it looked torn. By the time he was done, it looked exactly like what they needed it to look like: an elephant had come out of the dark at 3 AM and crushed the car.

When Mandla arrived at dawn with the rangers, this is what they would find. They would find blood on the passenger seat. They would find the vehicle destroyed. They would find no body. And the report would read: _Mrs. Nomvula Dlamini was ejected during the incident. Search of the surrounding bush conducted. No remains located. Presumed taken by predators overnight._ That was the point of the waterhole. No body meant no autopsy. No autopsy meant no questions.

Siya cut a shallow line on his own temple with the crowbar and smeared the blood down his cheek. He tore his shirt and lay down in the dirt next to the wreck. He set his watch to 3:17 AM and closed his eyes. In a few hours Mandla would come with the story already written. In a few hours Nomvula Dlamini would be a tragic accident on a night drive.

The bush was quiet again.