The Baron of the Namib (eBook)

An SA Police Series Suspense Story, Book 12

Meiring Fouche, Pieter Haasbroek (Autoren)

Pieter Haasbroek (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
106 Seiten
Pieter Haasbroek (Verlag)
9780001026421 (ISBN)

Infos

A lifetime of work.

A fortune in diamonds.

A single bullet to steal it all.

The desolate edge of the Namib Desert. After seven years of brutal solitude, prospector Nico Versveld is finally ready to return to civilization a rich man. But a masked stranger with glittering eyes appears from the dust, and a single gunshot leaves an honest man dead for a bag of worthless stones.

The killer, a ruthless Baron with a hidden claim to the land, realizes he's been tricked and returns for the real fortune. He finds Nico's grieving daughter, Ida, abducting her and dragging her deep into the merciless wasteland. Now, Constable Ryk Schutte, a friend of the murdered prospector, must race against time to save her from a man who knows the desert's every deadly secret.

Unarmed, outmatched, and left for dead under the scorching sun, their only chance is to outwit a murderer on his own turf. Failure means a slow, agonizing death while a killer escapes with a fortune soaked in blood.

This high-octane action-adventure thriller combines the relentless pace of a modern mystery with the raw grit of a classic frontier story. Perfect for fans of Alistair MacLean, Wilbur Smith, and classic pulp adventures where the stakes are life and death.

If you crave relentless action, gritty pulp, and mysteries ruled by a powerful new evil, the twelfth installment of the SA Police Series will blow you away. The Namib has a new master, and his reign is built on fear. Don't miss The Baron of the Namib, challenge his rule now!

Textauszug

Chapter 2

It is already well after dark when Constable Ryk Schutte arrives at the deserted house on the edge of the Namib. The wind is blowing strongly. It has blown strongly all day. It blew strongly last night.

The house seems completely still. The constable had seen from afar that it was completely dark. It fills him with foreboding.

He knows the deserted house. He even knows its name, Rheinplatz. He also knows its history. A house in this part of the world is truly something remarkable. It stands seventy-six kilometres from the nearest people. Alone, conspicuous, neglected, and dilapidated, it stands here just where the Namib begins.

Constable Ryk Schutte had barely been at Gemsbokloop, the small police station on the western side of South-West, before he began to inquire about Rheinplatz. He had been at Gemsbokloop for scarcely a week before the sergeant instructed him to undertake a patrol all along the forbidden diamond territory and specifically told him about the deserted place, Rheinplatz. He was instructed to visit Rheinplatz in particular because the sergeant knows from experience that poachers and other wrongdoers like to hide there.

And then Constable Schutte began to inquire about the history of Rheinplatz. He was told that Rheinplatz was built by a German baron who had been declared a black sheep by his family in Germany and sent out to South-West Africa. He developed such a grudge against life that he became a complete recluse. He built Rheinplatz to hide away in it. To cut himself off completely from civilisation. People were afraid of him. About once every three months, he would come to Gemsbokloop just to buy supplies. Then he would disappear again and not make an appearance for a long time. He was so enraged with life and with people that he later showed up about every six months. After three years, he disappeared completely. The police went to search. The house was closed up. The shutters, the doors, the windows, everything was tightly shut. But of the German baron, there was no sign. To this day, he has never been found. He simply vanished without a trace.

And now Constable Ryk Schutte stands before Rheinplatz again. He had tried to reach the old house earlier but had not succeeded. Now it is already pitch-dark. He regularly comes to Rheinplatz when he is on patrol in the area, because Rheinplatz is now inhabited. It is inhabited by the prospector Nico Versveld. Ryk Schutte knows Versveld. He made his acquaintance a long time ago and he likes the man. Never has he been able to pin anything on Versveld. Versveld conducts himself with the utmost propriety and he is as honest as the day is long. When Ryk Schutte comes on his patrols, he usually brings the prospector one thing or another, cigarettes, a little liquor, and a few tins of food. It has become a standing arrangement between them. In addition, he always brings Versveld his post.

The constable stands before the front door of Rheinplatz. It is strange to him that he sees no light tonight; it has never happened that he has come here and Versveld was not at home.

In this old house, he and Nico Versveld had spent many an interesting hour as Versveld showed him his soil samples as well as some of the diamonds he had extracted.

Ryk stands uncertainly before the front door for a while. He turns in the wind and looks into the darkness. He listens to the force of the wind. It sings through the dry grass that surrounds the old house.

Then he hesitantly reaches his hand out to the heavy doorknob. He turns it, pushes, and the door opens with a heavy, dry creak.

He steps over the threshold. Inside, it is very dark.

The place smells musty. But through the mustiness, there is also the unsavoury fresh scent of bat droppings.

Somewhere a shutter bangs. Somewhere the woodwork creaks in the wind.

Ryk Schutte’s body turns cold where he stands. He feels the gooseflesh appear on his skin.

In the past, he had never been alone in this house. Not alone at night. The times he was here, the old house of Rheinplatz was quite convivial, for Nico Versveld is an entertaining and sociable man who could converse endlessly on any number of subjects and who could share interesting experiences.

Ryk does not really know what to do. The place is as silent as a crypt. Should he try to find out if anyone is here? That is the obvious thing to do. He knows that Nico Versveld always had a room on the first floor. Nico believed it was cooler there.

Step by step, and feeling his way, Ryk moves towards the staircase. He finds it and slowly begins to climb. The staircase creaks loudly. So loudly that it unnerves Ryk. In the past, he had never noticed that the staircase could creak so loudly.

Then he is up on the landing, and it is as he stands still on the landing that, to his astonishment, he sees light shining from under a door. It must be Nico Versveld’s room. Could the man be ill? He must surely have heard the creaking of the stairs.

Slowly and half-reluctantly, with his heart in his throat, the constable walks over to the door. He reaches out his hand and knocks softly three times. He listens. He hears no movement.

He finds it peculiar. Could it be that Versveld is already in bed?

Surely not. The prospector usually goes to sleep early, but not with the chickens. The constable takes hold of the cool doorknob and turns it. This door, too, opens with a loud creak.

Ryk Schutte stands on the threshold. He looks at the bed to one side against the wall. Then he looks at the lantern burning on the old-fashioned dressing table. The German Baron had left his old house just as it was. All the furniture is still just as he left it here. No one has yet come to claim it. No one has even deigned to steal any of it.

But the constable looks at the lantern for only a moment. Then he looks at the bed again. He has the strangest feeling in his gut. A feeling of dread and shock and even of revulsion.

Nico Versveld is lying on his bed. He is lying on his back. His head is slightly raised on the pillow.

Schutte looks at the man’s chest. It is actually unnecessary for him to check if Versveld is breathing, for on Versveld’s strong features there is the distinct colour and expression of death. It is sallow-grey, very still, and too calm.

Too calm for the face of a sleeping man.

Ryk Schutte shivers. He feels the shock course through him in waves.

Very slowly, carefully, half on his toes, he walks over to the bed. Over Versveld lies a snow-white sheet, pulled up to his chest. His hands are folded on his chest. And when the constable touches the man’s hand, he shivers again. It is the hand of death. Vacantly, he looks down at the dead face.

And then he becomes aware of something he had not been aware of. Versveld has clearly been dead for some time. The odour of death is already distinct. And yet the light is burning. Here, a few paces from him, the lantern is burning. He turns his head slightly and looks at it. The flame is small and yellow.

And it is while Ryk Schutte is looking at the lantern that he becomes aware of movement behind him. Also of a light creaking of the floor. Perhaps it is actually the movement that catches his attention. It is that extra sense that all policemen develop that strikes him and piques his senses.

He spins around quickly and then he staggers back. His eyes grow large and bright.

Ryk Schutte does not have a cowardly hair on his head. But still, he gets such a fright now that his insides start to tremble. For a moment, he imagines that it is a spirit that has appeared there. It is so unexpected, such a surprise, and so threatening.

“Stay right where you are,” comes the command.

She is slender, almost frail. Her face is ashen white. Her black eyes are large and wide. And her black hair gleams in the dim light of the lantern.

Ryk’s first impression is that she is a beautiful person. But behind her beauty, he sees the shock and the anguish. He gets the impression that she has aged in an hour. It looks as if her eyes are sunken into her head. Her cheeks look hollow.

But that is not what strikes him most. What strikes him most is the double-barrelled shotgun she has against her shoulder. The two barrels are aimed steadily and precisely at him.

No, the shotgun is not aimed as steadily at him as he had thought at first glance. He sees it trembling in her fists.

And then he sees how the tears lie bright and shiny in her eyes. He realises that she is on the verge of hysteria. It looks to him as if she could collapse at any moment.

“Excuse me,” says Ryk. “You can lower the shotgun. I am a good friend of his.” He gestures towards the body lying on the bed. “Am I to assume that you are his daughter? Are you Miss Ida Versveld? He told me a lot about you. Tell me, what happened here? What befell him?”

For a long while, she remains standing. It seems as if she is not even capable of words. Then the shotgun begins to waver violently in her hands. Ryk springs forward quickly, grabs the double-barrel, and then puts his arm around her waist. Just at the moment when she was about to collapse. He helps her to the other bed. He sits her down on it. Then he stands the shotgun upright against the wall. He helps her so that she is lying down. She turns her face away and then she begins to weep with a passionate, pathetic cry. He stands there and lets her weep. He knows that this is the best medicine for her now. Everything that had been bottled up inside her now bursts out.

He leaves her there, goes out of the room, down the stairs to the outside where his Land Rover is parked. He takes out the flask of brandy that he always carries...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 18.9.2025
• Übersetzer: Pieter Haasbroek, Ai
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• ISBN-13: 9780001026421 / 9780001026421