Talion

by Beyers de Vos

  Sophie October has no idea who Freya Rust was or what she had been doing there, nor has she heard of Benjamin Rust. But she told an interesting story about a man named Slick and the boy named Lucky Tshabalala who worked for him, apparently holed up in the holding cells at Brooklyn at this very moment. Nolwazi would have a quiet word with Lucky before sending him off to Sunnyside for questioning, just to sate her own curiosity. Slick, Sophie claims, had threatened to kill her father multiple times, which is why Abraham October had been carrying a gun when he was ostensibly going to a weekly poker game.

  Slick had no apparent connection to Freya Rust at all, and it doesn’t appear that the two of them were working together.

  Two unconnected gunmen, two assassins, on the same night and for different reasons? What are the chances?

  As for Frik, well he is still nowhere to be found. Unable to explain why he hid the record of Benjamin Rust’s second phone from her, unable to account for his fraud.

  But she’ll track him down.

  They found the second phone during a raid on Freya Rust’s flat about an hour ago, and Nolwazi is confident that on that phone she’ll find some connection between Abraham October and Benjamin Rust – some piece of evidence that will explain all of this.

  In her mind’s eye, Nolwazi replays the events of the previous night. Freya Rust, Abraham October, the man named Slick. A triangle of coincidence and consequence and crime.

  As soon as they see the strangers in their garden, Abraham October tells his daughter to run into the house. The strangers let her escape; they are not there to harm her. In fact, she is not supposed to be there at all. She is supposed to be at a friend’s house, like she is every evening. But Sophie October doesn’t barricade herself in the house. No, she turns at the last minute, and pleads. She pleads with Slick to stop. Stop this pain. Her words fall on deaf ears.

  It all happens, is all over, in no time at all.

  Freya Rust acts first.

  She shoots Abraham October.

  The bullet flies through the night.

  It hits him in the chest.

  Abraham October dies instantly.

  He doesn’t suffer.

  Seconds later, there is a second shot.

  Slick’s bullet hits Freya Rust with so much force that she is pushed backwards.

  The bullet travels straight through her heart.

  She, too, is dead within seconds.

  According to Sophie October, Slick’s bullet would have hit her father had he not fallen to the ground seconds before; Freya Rust was killed by her own fast hand. By her own good aim.

  Slick, the sound of Freya Rust’s anguish spurring him on, runs quickly through the garden and disappears into the night. In his haste, he leaves behind a backpack. Inside the backpack: a phone, extra ammunition, an envelope of cash, a change of clothes, a train ticket and a framed but damaged photograph of a beautiful woman. He also drops a knife which will, she hopes, yield some fingerprints.

  The man named Slick has not been seen since.

  As Nolwazi nears the station, the glow of daylight begins echoing through the streets.

  Nolwazi stops her car.

  She needs a moment, a moment to breathe. When she walks into the station she won’t have time for introspection or philosophy. She won’t have permission to be distraught, to be angry, to be a victim. She’s a police officer; it’s her job not to be those things.

  So she needs a moment to forget Freya Rust’s dead face: the halo of dirt around her hair, her slack and empty eyes. Her skin so white and smooth that it seemed to be evaporating into the moonlight. Forget Abraham October’s browned and ragged skin, the open cut on his cheek smeared with grass and mud, the small, incredible smile on his white lips – like he was taunting the world.

  She needs to forget.

  She’s a block away from the station. She parks under a jacaranda tree, so grey in the early morning light that it looks to be wrought from the sky itself.

  In front of her, the skeleton of a new building rises out from behind an old wall.

  An old wall covered in graffiti.

  Nolwazi would normally have no problem admitting that she likes the city’s graffiti, likes the way it speaks and moves and changes, the way it exists in rebellion. Graffiti is a gift to the modest Pretoria streets, an extra layer of life.

  But even she shrinks back from the graffiti before her now.

  Before the angel who stands in judgement.

  As Nolwazi looks up at the black angel, at her unbalanced scales, at her wings outstretched against an invisible storm, she is filled with a strange sense of purpose. The angel summons forth something dark and ruined inside her, something urgent. Nolwazi wants to scream at the angel, wants to break her apart. She has something inside her that needs to be understood: it is an apology.

  It is an accusation.

  Time has smudged the angel’s features, blurring her lines. A crack has opened wide at the base of the wall on which she is painted and torn apart the army of people at her feet. The light of dawn casts a red shadow across the angel’s face.

  And Nolwazi’s words collapse into nothing as she meets the angel’s angry eye, as she watches the angel’s twisted mouth preparing to speak.

  The angel is looking directly at Nolwazi. The angel is looking directly at the whole wicked city.

  I see you, the angel says. And I know what you have done.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  To my parents, Astrid and Francois, for filling the house with ideas and art and stories and happiness. For raising us to be thoughtful, curious, and fierce. For teaching us to know ourselves, a difficult magic trick. When I said, ‘I want to be a writer,’ they said, ‘Then go, be a writer,’ which is the greatest encouragement in the world – in every way, the only encouragement that mattered.

  To my brother and sister, for your humour, for your loyalty. For being the best people I know. Thank you.

  To Nadine, number one friend, badass co-conspirator, and soulmate – thank you for the adventures. You can only write if you live; and boy, do we live.

  To Nolwazi – roommate, confidante, moon-queen – for letting me use and abuse your name so callously, so ungraciously. Thank you. For ever and ever, thank you.

  So much goes into writing a novel. You spend too much time inside a different world, inaccessible to everyone else; often you don’t come out for days at a time. So to all those friends whom I neglected, who had to stand aside while I thought about murder and art and how to use semi-­colons, thank you. It’s bound to happen again.

  To my mentor, and friend, Etienne van Heerden, who read this book first, and called it worthwhile. Thank you for the invaluable advice.

  To Fourie Botha, publisher and gentleman, thank you for taking a chance on a new writer.

  To Claire Strombeck, Beth Lindop and Elzebet Stubbe, most diligent of editors. Thank you for your careful and necessary pruning. It was a privilege to work with you. Let’s do it again sometime.

  And lastly, to you, a reader. If you’ve got to this page, I can only say I hope you enjoyed the ride; the dark, dark ride. Thank you for your support. Watch this space.

  Did you enjoy this ebook? Please rate or review it online or get in touch with us at queries@penguinrandomhouse.co.za.