by Deon Meyer
‘Do you check for criminal records?’
‘As far as I know. Why do you ask?’
‘Johnson was in the police,’ said Griessel. ‘We’ll also have to look at arrests he made. Maybe someone on the train recognised him, someone who didn’t want to be recognised.’
She thought about that for a moment. ‘It’s very unlikely.’
‘How easy is it to open the windows?’ asked Cupido.
‘From outside, impossible. From inside, very easy. All the windows can open. It’s part of the experience. A unique experience.’
‘So, it’s easy to climb in?’
She paused, then: ‘No. The windows are high. You’d need a ladder or something . . . The train is arriving on Saturday morning again from Pretoria. Why don’t you come and see for yourselves?’
‘Brenda,’ said Cupido, ‘he was thrown out on the left side of the track. Would that be from a cabin or a corridor?’
‘The left side would be from a compartment.’
They walked back to their cars.
‘You don’t throw an ou off a train unless you’re very angry with him about something,’ said Cupido. ‘And you can’t be that angry with an ou if you don’t know him.’
‘The pictures of Johnson in his flat . . . He was fit. Strong. You don’t just have to be very angry, you have to be very strong too,’ said Griessel.
‘Or there would have to be more than one of you.’
‘It was someone who was already on the train, Vaughn.’
‘How do you scheme that?’
‘Let’s say it was someone who was angry with him. That person would have to know he’d be on the train, where it stopped, how to gain entry. And then get to Johnson and overpower him. That’s a lot of knowledge, lots of planning. Scherpenzeel was looking for a place for Johnson on the train only two days before departure.’
‘I read you, Benna.’
They stood staring at the station.
‘Footwork,’ said Griessel.
‘Amen,’ said Cupido.
‘See you at the office. I have to visit the shrink first,’ said Griessel.
‘When is it going to dawn on that aunty you’re batshit crazy beyond redemption?’
Chapter 16
August, Daniel Darret, Bordeaux
He hardly slept a wink. It wasn’t the heat that kept him awake but the memories. He tossed and turned in bed, reluctant to go out in the night and walk his usual insomniac route. The police might still be on the lookout for him, despite the press reports.
At a quarter to five the sun rose, and he couldn’t stay in bed any longer. He washed and dressed. Dark clothing, to be unobtrusive in the hustle and bustle of the street. The training of another lifetime gradually returning.
He inadvertently found himself crossing the pont de Pierre. Midway on the bridge he stopped and made sure nobody was following him. Then he walked up avenue Thiers. He battled the ghosts in his mind, tried to focus on Lonnie May. What did he want? Why was he here? And he didn’t like any of the possible answers that came up.
Lonnie had chosen the cathedral of Saint-André. Good choice for someone unfamiliar with the city. There were better locales. He could think of a few. Mollat’s bookshop, for example, always busy. Or the huge Village Notre Dame, Madame Lefèvre’s biggest rival antiques shop. Quiet corners, easy to keep an eye on the entrances.
What did Lonnie want?
Why was Lonnie being followed?
Twenty minutes later he stopped. He looked at the ugly modern edifice of the unemployment office. He realised he hadn’t picked this direction by chance. It was here in La Bastide that he had first exposed his new identity to official eyes, tested it. It was here that his new life had begun when they’d told him about the job vacancy at the Lefèvres.
Did he really want to meet Lonnie?
He didn’t want to sacrifice this life.
Lonnie would say: ‘Tiny, this place is your balm.’
‘Tiny’ had been his nickname, back in the day.
Lonnie would tell him: ‘Tiny, this country and this city are an anaesthetic. But some time you’ll have to face up to yourself, your history and your existence. You need to find healing, tame your demons.’ Lonnie was always the voice of reason, the responsible mentor, the conscience. Honest Lonnie. Loyal Lonnie.
He didn’t want to tame anything. He wanted to finish his farmhouse table, then the chairs, one by one, and keep learning how to work with furniture. One day, perhaps in four or six or ten years from now, when Henry Lefèvre was too old to work, he would like to follow in his footsteps, until he himself was too old, and then he wanted to teach someone else, draw his pension and die here. Embalmed, anaesthetised. Memory-free.
He stood there for half an hour watching the trams go back and forth, back and forth, slim, modern shapes like bullet trains. Then he turned and walked back to his apartment to try to eat some breakfast before the meeting with Lonnie.
Nearly a thousand years ago a pope had declared this church holy, the Saint-André Cathedral, which the locals referred to simply as Bordeaux Cathedral. Daniel had been in it before, but it was too big for his liking. When he felt the urge sometimes to sit and ask for strength, the strength to forget, he chose the simplicity and gentle dilapidation of the Saint-Michel basilica, or the intimacy of the Église Sainte-Croix.
He knew why Lonnie had picked Saint-André. The magnificent, massive interior space made it easier to spot people, even in a crowd. The crush was never too bad. Only one entrance and exit to watch, on the big place Pey Berland, where you could spot a tail with greater ease. The square had four potential escape routes and one of the busiest tram stations in the city.
Daniel chose the rue du Maréchal Joffre because it was quieter. He made certain that nobody was following him. He took his time, so that he wasn’t too early; the cathedral opened at ten.
He went inside with a few tourists, cameras draped around their necks. He pretended to be overwhelmed by the pomp of the interior, so that they could move on, so that he could see if they took any interest in him. At 10.12 he turned around, walked out again quickly, just to be absolutely sure.
Nobody reacted.
He went back inside, turned right, walked down between the hundreds of chairs arranged in tidy rows to the hollow below the spectacular organ. He couldn’t see Lonnie anywhere. Up the ten steps to the space beneath the organ balcony, he sensed Lonnie was there, to the right in the hidden corner, with his pot belly, thick eyebrows, glasses and bald head. He walked up to his old comrade and they embraced, and Daniel Darret, once Thobela Mpayipheli, wept silently. The first person from his old life – Lonnie May, dear Lonnie May. The longing for the land of his birth and all his lost loved ones overwhelmed him.
Lonnie, so much shorter, his head reaching only up to Daniel’s chest, his spectacles pushed askew in the press of the embrace, said: ‘An agnostic and the Xhosa son of a Protestant preacher furtively embracing in a dark corner of a Roman Catholic church. You can’t make this stuff up, Tiny.’
They laughed through their tears.
They positioned themselves so that Lonnie could look out over the church interior. ‘Two of the buggers have been on my tail all the way from London. That lean and hungry look – thought I was too old to spot them. Must be running all over Bordeaux now, trying to find me,’ he said, in his familiar staccato style, and he laughed his Lonnie laugh, low and secretive. But there was a tension in him.
‘Who are they?’ Daniel stood in the corner, leaning with his back to the wall.
‘Russians, I think.’
‘Russians?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘I’m sure.’
Lonnie was gazing at him. ‘You’re looking great.’
‘Not getting any younger.’
‘Don’t talk to me about age . . . Jesus, Tiny, it was a job finding you.’
‘You seem to have managed pretty well.’
Voices grew louder, tourists approaching. ‘I . .
. We need a better place to talk. This isn’t going to work for very long.’
Daniel had suspected as much. He had already thought of a good place. ‘Au Bistrot. It’s a restaurant on the place des Capucins, across from the market. There’s a cellar, only one stairway, one entrance. I know the owner, François.’
‘Good food?’
‘The best.’
‘Twelve thirty?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s good to see you.’
‘I’ll reserve judgement until I know why you’re here.’ He could see from Lonnie’s face that the news he brought was not good. But Lonnie just nodded, and left.
Daniel Darret waited ten minutes before he followed.
Chapter 17
Lonnie had a bag with him, a small rucksack that he put down beside the table. They spoke Afrikaans, in the cellar of the Au Bistrot, because Lonnie said they couldn’t be too careful. Even if they were alone down there.
Daniel said: ‘The waitress is Dutch.’
‘Then we’ll be quiet when she comes down.’ Lonnie leaned across the table and his voice was quiet, urgent and tense. ‘Thobela, I know my sudden appearance has upset you. I won’t keep you in suspense.’
He steeled himself. ‘Tell me, Lonnie.’
‘We can’t afford our president any more. The damage he’s doing is too great.’
Daniel didn’t need to ask which president. He read daily about the bad news from his birthplace. ‘What has that to do with me?’
‘We want you to . . .’ Lonnie’s home language was English, and he searched for the right phrase in Afrikaans, failed. He glanced at the stairs. ‘You have to take him out, Tiny.’
The brutality of it, the confirmation of who he was, literally rocked him. He shook his head slowly to try to hide the shock. ‘No,’ he said.
‘I know, Tiny, but—’
‘No, Lonnie. You must find someone else.’
‘There isn’t anyone else.’
‘No.’
Lonnie sighed. ‘I knew you would react this way. I’ll let it sink in a while. I’ll give you my full sales pitch. You don’t have a choice.’ He picked up the menu. ‘You’ll have to translate this for me. I haven’t a clue what it says.’
Part II
Chapter 18
August, Benny Griessel, Stellenridge
Alexa called Thursdays their healing days. Griessel didn’t like that term. It was too . . . girly was probably the kindest description he had for it. Too New Age, too affected, too soft, too oh-shame-I’m-broken. And he thought it unrealistic: he didn’t consider himself capable of complete healing. Not with his past, not in this job.
The reality was much more as Cupido would tell him, ‘Go sort out your shit,’ usually qualified with the gentler ‘I need you, Benna. The Service needs you.’
It seemed easy for Cupido to cope with the stress of being a detective. When it came to his personal life or political views it was a different story, but even then, his coping mechanisms were much more effective than Griessel’s former boozing. To blow off the worst of the steam, Cupido would explode, scream and shout. And then be extra silly, cracking jokes about everything, a way of sticking out his tongue at the world – ‘Don’t let the buggers get you down.’ Griessel guessed that was the result of Vaughn Cupido growing up on the mean streets of Mitchells Plain, a jaunty line of attack to counteract the deprivation and hardship.
For Griessel Thursday was simply his see-the-shrink day, and Alcoholics Anonymous evening. He attended the meetings with Alexa, when they could make it. Their healing days, these past eight months, since he had quit drinking again.
It did help, there was no denying it – the psychologist had made a big difference. And the AA nights reminded him of his powerlessness against alcohol, of the way he had to fight his fight day by day. That he wasn’t alone.
The shrink was a pretty woman, Griessel’s age, late forties. In her office there was a big brown teddy bear that stared at him with glass eyes. Accusing. He hated it. He wished she would take it away, but he’d never found the courage to say so. Nonetheless she was the single greatest reason he had been able open the cabinet in Johnson Johnson’s empty flat, look at all the bottles of booze coolly, calmly, close it and move on. It was decades since his craving for alcohol had been so mild.
The psychologist mostly handled SAPS people. She’d taught him that he had a fear of harm from others. She said it was common among policemen and soldiers, in combination with post-traumatic stress disorder. And Gliessen had hitched a sail on all four vanes of the fear windmill – survivor’s guilt, divorce guilt, over-inflated sense of responsibility and self-hatred. It all boiled down to this: in his line of work he was exposed to every wicked thing people did to each other and the deep knowledge that he couldn’t protect his loved ones from it. This fear and his overblown sense of responsibility had driven him to drink.
He worked with her to analyse all the traumatic events in his professional life – all the death and murder, the gruesome crime scenes, the cold-blooded acts – until he understood that he was not responsible for the damage caused, that there was nothing he could have done to prevent it. Even though he was a policeman, who was supposed to do just that.
She also encouraged him to discuss his work and circumstances with his loved ones.
Just as he had done last night with Alexa, after his quick shower. He’d told her about Johnson Johnson, about the grainy cell-phone photos of the body beside the railway track, and how that had made him feel. And Alexa had made sympathetic noises, dished up the tomato bredie and said: ‘Come on, enjoy the food, you’ll need your strength.’
And the stew – praise God – wasn’t too bad after all.
He parked in front of the house in Stellenridge. The psychologist’s office was attached to it, with a separate entrance. Keeping the damaged apart from the whole. He realised he was a few minutes early. Once more he tried the last number Johnson Johnson had phoned before he died. There was still no answer, no voicemail.
He took a deep breath and went in at the little gate. He wondered if he should ask the shrink why he was so scared to ask Alexa to marry him.
He stared at the teddy bear, and the teddy bear stared at him. He explained to the psychologist about the Johnson Johnson case and told her he’d made good use of the techniques she’d taught him when he was looking at the photographs. He mentioned the liquor in the cabinet, and his small victory.
She praised him, but cautiously: she was a smart woman who knew that flattery made him uncomfortable. She called it Griessel’s ‘self-hatred question’.
They went on to talk about his children. About his good relationship with his daughter, Carla, and his poor relationship with his son, Fritz, who still wouldn’t believe that, this time, his father had truly stopped drinking.
He didn’t talk to her about Alexa and popping the Big Question.
Then he drove back to Bellville. As always, he felt empty, tired and just a tiny bit better.
At the office he went straight to the Hawks’ Information Management Centre, commonly known as the IMC. It was the support unit at the DPCI, utilising a broad range of technology in solving crimes. He gave the cell-phone number to the commander of the centre, Captain Philip van Wyk, and asked for his team to identify the owner. He handed in the memory stick he had found in Johnson’s flat for analysis. Then he collected Cupido and they went to Colonel Mbali Kaleni’s office.
‘How did it go, Benna?’ Cupido wanted to know.
‘She said it’s not me, it’s the weird guys I have to work with.’
‘Shrinks,’ said Cupido. ‘They’re the craziest mofos of them all.’
They told Colonel Kaleni that it would be a long and complicated investigation, and explained to her the problem of the sixty-five passengers, nearly thirty rail employees and an analysis of Johnson Johnson’s arrest records. They were hoping she would allocate more members of the Serious and Violent Crimes Unit to the docket. They asked her if she cou
ld use her influence on the pathologists to speed up the Johnson post-mortem.
‘I’ll see what I can do. Captain Cloete is in here every five minutes.’ She was referring to Captain John Cloete, media liaison for the Hawks, pronouncing his name ‘Cluetee’. ‘The press are driving him nuts. A reporter from Rapport has put in a formal request for an interview with you two. I told him it’s not possible.’
Murder on the world’s most luxurious train, Griessel thought. Of course the media circus would be in full swing.
‘We can make time for an interview, Colonel,’ said Cupido.
‘Hayi,’ she said, in her mother tongue, shaking her head, and waving them back to work.
They walked down the passage. When they were far enough away, Cupido mimicked Kaleni’s Zulu-English accent: ‘Maybe I should call Captain Cluetee myself.’
‘You’re mocking a woman who is now a lot slimmer than you,’ said Griessel.
Cupido looked wounded. ‘The knife is in, Benna. Don’t forget to give it a twist.’
Griessel just grinned.
‘I’m serious, Benna. A lekker article in Rapport saying the man on the case is the legendary Captain Vaughn Cupido of the Hawks would go a long way to show that Donovan boy I’m not so bad.’
‘I think he already knows that.’
‘You scheme?’
‘It’s like Eddie Mack sings, Vaughn, “Everybody loves a fat man.”’
‘Who?’
‘Eddie Mack, the blues singer.’ Griessel’s favourite music, the classic blues.
‘Never heard of him. But fuck you and fuck Eddie Mack, I’m not that fat. Let’s phone that aunty who was Johnson Johnson’s hostess.’
‘. . . and, oh, how a fat man can love.’ Benny Griessel sang the rest of the Mack chorus.
At his office Cupido said: ‘Benna, every time you come back from that shrink, you seem to be a little lighter.’
And Griessel knew it was true.