by Deon Meyer
And: it seemed that a suspect had brought stolen goods to Muhammed Faizal. That was going to lead to an awkward discussion . . .
And: he swore, twenty-five years ago he would have caught this youngster, he had been quick, in the old days.
And: jissis, but this bike was great, much better than his old black and white Giant, already five years old now. And: fuck, that meant he had been divorced six years already; where did the time go?
He changed gears again, he was going like the wind. He braked for the Fitzroy turn and realised the suspect was heading for the station. He made the turn at the corner by PopUp Tyres, saw he was fast gaining ground on the young man. But was it fast enough, with Goodwood train station just up ahead?
He pedalled faster. In one of the small front gardens an old grandma was watering her plants. She watched as Griessel sped past, shouted, ‘Aitsa!’
The runner was in Station Street, he turned left again, towards the station, only forty metres ahead.
Griessel turned the corner, eyes watering in the wind, spotted the grey station building with its red roof, newly painted and tidied up. Pedestrians stared at the young man sprinting, then at him, as the suspect darted in at the station entrance. Griessel nearly closed the gap, he had to pull the brakes hard, the rear wheel locked and made a high-pitched moaning noise; he threw the bike down and followed the man up the steps to the platform, spotted him dashing past the nose of the waiting metro train. The train began to pull away, forcing Griessel to wait, gasping for breath among passengers who had disembarked, only to see the suspect scaling the high fence on the other side. Benny’s body was far too old for gymnastics like that. And then the young man jogged behind the Grand West Casino buildings, pausing a moment before disappearing to turn back and – Griessel was sure of it – wave politely and sympathetically at him.
4
Griessel wheeled the bicycle into the shop, expecting Cupido to ask right away what had happened, but Vaughn and Love Lips didn’t even notice his return. They were engaged in a heated argument.
‘You tell me how?’ Love Lips said with a desperate note in his voice. He was tall and painfully skinny, with abnormally large hands that he was waving about. And those fleshy lips.
‘But why do they come here?’ Cupido asked accusingly.
‘But how do I keep them away? Don’t you know what’s written on the wall?’
‘People of Cape Town, bring me your stolen goods . . .’
‘Very funny. What is written on the wall?’
‘I don’t care.’
‘It says: “Cashcade”. That means, a cascade of cash. That’s why they bring the stuff here. For the money.’
‘You think I can’t work out what Cashcade means? Which is, by the way, way too clever for your average pawnshop client.’
Love Lips finally spotted Griessel and his whole skinny body was a plea: ‘Benny! Tell this man my books are clean. Tell this man that’s why you, a captain in the Hawks, for God’s sake, are one of my most loyal clients. Tell him . . .’
‘What do you want for this Silverback?’ Griessel asked and pointed at the mountain bike.
Faizal looked at Cupido. ‘You see? You see? Captain in the Hawks, and he doesn’t give me grief about stolen goods, he asks me what I want for the bike. Benny, that’s your Silverback Sesta, that is top of the range, disc brakes, shocks front and back; for you, as my loyal customer, twelve thousand.’
‘Bliksem,’ said Griessel.
‘Negotiable,’ said Love Lips. ‘Always negotiable.’
‘Where are the papers for that bicycle?’ asked Cupido.
‘In my office.’
‘Mohammed is clean, Vaughn,’ said Griessel.
Cupido made a noise in the back of his throat. Sceptical. ‘So what is in that parcel that our fugitive from justice left behind?’
Faizal tore the brown paper off the flat square object that the young man had dropped inside the door.
It was a painting, a hundred and fifty by a hundred and fifty centimetres, give or take.
‘Holy Moly,’ said Faizal.
‘It’s not that bad,’ said Cupido.
‘No, not the quality, the subject matter,’ said Love Lips, crumpling the sheets of brown paper and tossing them aside. Griessel picked up the painting, and flipped it right side up. They stepped back to look. It was a nude study in bright acrylics, a woman lying across a bed on her belly; her raised feet – in high heels – were closest to the viewer, her head of wavy black hair was furthest away, the face somewhat veiled and turned aside. Even to their untrained eyes the quality was somewhat amateurish: the scale and perspective were a bit off, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on exactly where the fault lay.
‘That’s unacceptable to you?’ asked Cupido. ‘That? Bum of a white woman?’
‘No, there’s nothing wrong with that bottom,’ said Faizal, explaining patiently. ‘It’s the blue.’
The quilt that the woman was lying on was a deep blue. The fabric was draped over the foot of the bed, making decorative folds to shield her bosom, and it dominated the colours of the painting.
‘What’s wrong with the blue?’ Griessel asked.
Faizal sighed. ‘Come and look here,’ he said and walked further into the shop. He called loudly to the back, ‘Harry, put the lights on for us,’ and he went and stood between a stack of old government desks and a pile of foam rubber mattresses, where twenty or more paintings were stacked on edge, all more or less square, most large, a few smaller.
The fluorescent lights on the ceiling flickered and lit up.
‘Why do you keep the place so gloomy?’ asked Cupido.
‘Second-hand goods under a spotlight? Clearly you’re no retail expert, my bru’,’ said Faizal, though with only a thin veneer of brotherhood in his tone.
He waited for Cupido to respond. He got nothing. So he turned back to the paintings. ‘Look here, the first ten or so,’ and Love Lips tilted the paintings slowly, one by one, like the pages of a book. Each painting was of a woman, older women, younger ones, black, white, thin or plump, dressed, undressed. There were only two elements that they all had in common – a woman, and the colour blue that practically always dominated the scene. There was a Xhosa woman with a bundle of firewood on her head, her dress and matching headscarf a deep indigo. A grey-haired woman posing on a chair that looked almost like a throne, the upholstery cobalt blue. A coloured woman shelling pomegranates at a kitchen table. The tablecloth was a blue bordering on turquoise. A white teenage girl leaning her head on a horse’s neck. Her riding jacket was navy blue.
‘These last few months,’ said Faizal. ‘They come in here and tune me, “Lips, here’s the woman in blue.” ’
‘The woman in blue?’ asked Cupido.
‘Just like that. The woman in blue. Every time I ask, “What do you mean, ‘the woman in blue?’” and then they just tune me, “The grapevine says there’s big money in the woman in blue.” And I say, every time, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Then they tune me, “No, that’s the rumour, someone is looking for a classic, original painting, not a print, the woman in blue.” As if that’s the freakin’ title, you understand?’
‘The woman in blue.’ Cupido tasted the words again as he paged through the paintings.
‘Exactly,’ said Love Lips Faizal.
‘And then, what do you do?’
‘I pawn each one as they come in. Everything by the book, though. ID, proof of address, the works. All in the files.’
‘How much do you pawn these paintings for?’
‘Fifty bucks, mostly.’
‘Geez.’
Faizal shrugged. ‘That’s what the stuff is worth.’
‘Mohammed, the engagement rings . . .’ said Benny Griessel, because he had already explained to Faizal over the phone what he wanted.
Faizal was grateful for the change of subject. ‘Ja, Benny, congrats, by the way. Alexa is a fine woman.’
‘How do you know Alexa?’
asked Vaughn Cupido.
‘I read the magazines, my bru’.’ Alexa Barnard had been a famous singer in the eighties, before her late husband and the bottle ruined her career. But in the past few years she had been in the news now and again, focusing on her careful return to the stage, and the record company that she successfully managed now. ‘And Benny told me, when he last came to buy furniture here, when they moved in together. We go back a long way, this captain and I.’
Cupido just nodded.
Faizal pointed his thumb at the back. ‘The rings are there in the office safe. Come with me.’ And as they walked towards the office: ‘You know what they say, Benny, the three rings of a relationship?’
‘No.’
‘The first ring, it’s the engagement ring. Then comes the second ring, that’s the wedding ring. And eventually there’s the third ring. That’s the suffering . . .’ And Love Lips laughed.
‘Inappropriate, brother,’ said Vaughn Cupido in disapproval. ‘You don’t say that to a man who’s about to get married.’
‘Then I hope it’s appropriate to talk about the four “c”s,’ said Faizal with a hint of sarcasm and a sidelong glance at Cupido. They sat around the desk in his office, a room that, in contrast to the chaos of the shop, was surprisingly tidy; budget steel shelving along the walls held hundreds of files, Love Lips’s proud record-keeping of each and every transaction.
On the desk lay four jeweller’s trays lined with velvet, the diamond rings displayed in neat sparkling rows.
Cupido didn’t react to the sarcasm.
‘Benny,’ said Faizal, ‘when it comes to choosing a diamond ring, you need to take into consideration . . .’ And he raised his big hands and counted off his fingers: ‘Cut, carats, colour and clarity. The better those four “c”s the better the diamond. And the more it costs. You get your very big carats, like this one, very impressive, but the colour and clarity are very iffy, so that’s why it’s in the below seven thousand tray. This tray here is seven to fifteen, this one is sixteen to twenty-five, and this one twenty-five thousand and above. And to be honest, for a woman like Alexa Barnard we don’t really want to look at anything under twenty-five.’
‘Ay-yay-yay,’ said Benny Griessel despondently.
‘Twenty-two thousand rand,’ said Griessel as they drove back to the Hawks headquarters in A.J. West Street in Bellville.
‘I feel you, Benna,’ said Cupido. ‘But I still think Alexa would be happy with a smaller ring. Or a flawed stone. She’s a class act.’
‘That’s not the problem, Vaughn. Alexa will say we don’t even need a ring. But let me tell you when the ring counts. That moment when the friends see it. When they come rushing up saying, “Oh, wow, Alexa, we hear you’re engaged, let’s see, let’s see.” You wanted to know what love was earlier. This is love. To not let the woman in your life feel ashamed at that moment when she has to show everyone the ring.’
‘I see,’ said Cupido. And a while later: ‘So, basically you’re in your glory.’
‘Right. I have absolutely no idea where I’m going to find twenty-two thousand rand.’
5
It was like when the dog caught the bus, Sergeant Tando Duba, SAPS detective from Somerset West, would later explain to his colleagues. You’re on the lookout for a big fat murder case, because that means attention from higher up, and attention from higher up plus a good investigation plus a conviction meant promotion. And promotion meant a better salary, and, Lord knows, members of the SAPS could always do with a better salary. So, that was the bus all detectives chased: a big fat murder investigation.
Until you were the one who landed the case of the murdered woman lying on the little wall up there on the pass. The one the newspapers had christened the ‘Gebleikte Lyk’ in Afrikaans because it rhymed, and the ‘Bleached Body’ in the English-language papers because of the alliteration.
Undoubtedly, without question, no two ways about it, a big fat murder case. You got to see your name in the dailies on Wednesday morning, and it was a good feeling, because that was a first for you, the blanket publicity. And your station commander gave you all the help you needed, because the media spotlight was focused on the SAPS office in Somerset West. And the head of investigations in the Western Cape – a general! – phoned you in person to wish you good luck and promise support. And you realised this was a big bus, a fat bus, a dream bus. A bus that could take you a long way.
But then Wednesday passed, and Wednesday night and you make no progress at all. Nothing. After the torrent of breathless publicity you wait for the phone to ring, for someone to come forward with a name, an address and a history of the Bleached Body, so that you can determine a motive, and identify suspects. But nothing. You request the description of every missing person from Cape Town to Knysna, send out bulletins, you and your colleagues phone around and follow up on every angle, but there’s nothing to be found. ‘Akhukho nto eyichazayo,’ Sergeant Tando Duba told his wife on the phone in their Xhosa mother tongue. Nothing.
And every five minutes the liaison officer comes to ask for news, because the media want to know. Every five minutes, until the media become an angry, hungry beast that wants to devour everything in its path, and you have nothing more to feed it, and know you’ll be the next item on the menu if you don’t find something.
So you begin to feel just like the dog that caught the bus. Uneasy. Because this big fat bus doesn’t seem to be headed for Promotion. There are a whole lot of other possible destinations.
On Thursday morning Tando asked the media liaison officer to leave him alone. After which his station commander called him in and, in his usual wise and easy manner, said, ‘Tando, you can see the media as your enemy, or you can see the media as your friend. My advice is: go to the mortuary at Salt River and ask them to make up the face of the Bleached Body, and then get some pictures taken. Publish those photos in the very same newspapers and websites that are bothering you so much. Then let the media work for you.’
Suddenly it felt as if the bus was back on track.
‘An engagement ring?’ the woman at the bank queried Griessel.
‘Yes,’ he said.
His loan application lay on the desk between them.
‘And this would be for you?’ Her friendly intonation seemed to invite him to deny it. He couldn’t blame her. Here he was, forty-seven years old, the traces of alcoholism and decades of police work etched into his face, his hair – too messy, too grey – long overdue for a cut. And his eyes, those peculiar eyes that had been described as ‘Slavic’ – though he had no idea what that meant – showing the world that he had experienced much, seen much, and most of it hadn’t been good.
‘Yes, it is for me,’ he said, deliberately, patiently. At the bank, patience was always the best policy.
‘You already have the student loan . . .’ As if he didn’t know it, all too well. His son, Fritz, was a first year student at the film school, AFDA. It was bankrupting him; their student fees bordered on daylight robbery.
‘That’s correct,’ he said, but felt his heart sinking.
‘An engagement ring . . . That’s not good security for a loan . . .’ She let her words hang in the air, allowing him to come to his own despairing conclusions.
‘I can see that.’
‘And the establishment where you wish to purchase it . . . That is not one of our approved retailers . . .’
Establishment. He wondered what Mohammed ‘Love Lips’ Faizal would say if he could hear his Cashcade pawnshop described as an ‘establishment’. He’d probably throw those big hands up in the air, and roar with laughter.
‘You must decide,’ he said. ‘But that is where I am going to buy it.’ He had done his homework. At the traditional dealers he would pay far more for a ring of similar quality.
He stood up. They wanted him to be more solvent, or provide something to serve as security. They wanted something he could not give them.
She seemed on the verge of asking something, but in the end
she just nodded and said, ‘I will let you know as soon as possible.’
On the way to his car he wondered why they always went into so much detail about the reasons why you didn’t qualify for a loan. Why not focus on all the reasons he could be trusted with a loan?
He and Alexa discussed everything. Especially since his psychiatrist had told him his drinking problem was rooted in the fact that he didn’t talk to his loved ones enough, especially about the dark aspects of his work. But this was one thing that he could not discuss with her. She would immediately want to give him the money to pay for it. And moreover she would not understand his dilemma. Her financial affairs were different, and always had been.
The bank was his only solution. But how did this work now? You banked with the same bank for nearly thirty years, always paying back every last cent you owed them, perhaps a little overdue sometimes, and always with a great deal of effort, but over the years you paid them back every single cent. With interest. Mortgage bond, car payments, personal loans, Karla’s student loan, overdraft facilities. Every cent.
But now they have to have a think about it. Because he didn’t have a single thing they wanted to take from him.