Q shrugged, and Khanyi reached into her bag and withdrew one of her buff folders. She slid the folder over the table to Q and opened it to reveal a photograph of a smiling Dirk. I watched Q. His face went still for a moment, then he looked up at me.
“That is the man,” he said simply, “the friend of Van Rensburg.” He turned away from me to face Khanyi instead. Considering that Dirk was one of the thirty-three people that he had confessed to gunning down it seemed an inadequate response, but then memory was selective, as I well knew.
“Which of you stepped forward to help him?” I asked. “You or your brother?”
Q shrugged.
“Xolani helped him. Xolani helps people like that. No matter what colour. He called Ayanda, the nurse, and she said we should take him somewhere safe, then I left him with Van Rensburg and took the man away.”
“Left him? Left who?”
“Xolani.”
“You left Xolani with Hendrik van Rensburg? I thought Hendrik van Rensburg drove away and left the friend there.”
“Xolani wanted to talk with Van Rensburg,” said Q.
“And did Xolani want to talk to the friend as well? The next morning perhaps?”
“Xolani left that night. He wasn’t there in the morning.”
“I thought he left on his pilgrimage in the morning.”
Q shook his head. “In the night,” he said.
There was a sudden banging noise from the door behind Q, and it swung open. Warden Noxolo appeared like a genie left behind after the puff of smoke. His face was still squeezed with the effort of managing his sphincter, but it contrived to show how much pleasure he took in announcing that our allocated time was going to be shortened because of the prisoner’s medical condition.
“Prisoner goes back to his cell,” he declared.
We all stood. The guards filed in and started fitting the chains back onto Q’s ankles and wrists. Q looked down at the floor again and started the silent retreat back into his cave.
“You have spoken to your brother?” I asked. “Since he left?”
Q looked up at me. He shook his head and said, “imiyalezo,” the Zulu word for ‘messages’. His eyes held mine, but he said no more. The guards finished fastening the chains and gave him a shove in the kidneys with a quirt, and they processed out of the room. As they formed up in the corridor, Q peered back at me between their shoulders and called out.
“Xolani didn’t do this. Leave him alone. He is a good man.”
Before I had a moment to respond, another quirt in the kidneys pushed him out of sight.
“Waste of time,” said Warden Noxolo as we walked back to the reception area. It wasn’t really a question, and he didn’t bother to conceal the smug glee.
“It was,” I said, “but thank you so much for your cooperation.”
“We know how to do things here,” said Warden Noxolo. “The right way. This new gentle, airy-fairy gay bullshit is always a waste of time.”
“And it was unprecedented,” I suggested.
“Keep the chains on and squeeze until the truth falls out,” said Warden Noxolo. “That’s what works.”
Thirteen
Roelof phoned as I was climbing into my Fiat and was starting to squeeze the water out of my trousers. The rain had built up some strength while I was with the most hated man in the country. The Pollsmoor guards possessed only one umbrella between five of them, and that umbrella was required to prevent Khanyi’s new braids from getting damp in the two metres she would be exposed to the deluge while walking between the covered walkway and her car door.
“Mister Van Rensburg would like to proceed,” said Roelof. “He is happy with the prices, and would like to discuss logistics.”
“Of course,” I said.
“We have an airstrip on the farm. If you could fly in, Mister Van Rensburg would be pleased to host you at your earliest convenience.”
“I will speak with the colonel and let you know.”
“We would like to see a sample of the products and discuss logistics directly,” said Roelof. “With Mr Mabele.”
“I’m not sure that will be possible.”
“Let us know when. I think that you will find our facilities some of the most comfortable this side of the Vaal River.”
He ended the call.
Chandler said it was all wrong.
“We need to do this on our terms, not on their farm, enjoying their hospitality. Keep them begging, Gabriel, for goodness’ sake,” he protested. “You don’t jump into bed on your first date. We’re not ready.”
“It’s our third date, and they’re getting hungry. It’s what we wanted.”
“We shouldn’t even be holding hands yet.”
“You want me to call back and say it’s not possible?”
Chandler gave a heavy sigh. He found it difficult working with amateurs.
“Tell him we’ll do our best for next week,” he said, and ended the call. Chandler, like Roelof, didn’t like saying goodbye.
“It was a disaster,” said Fehrson with the triumphant tone of a man laying the groundwork for the distribution of blame far away from himself. “Khanyisile has already told me all about it.” Fehrson paused as he took in my appearance. “My goodness, young man! What on earth happened to you?” He watched in horror as I dripped onto the floor of his office.
“I’m having a bad parking day,” I said.
“You should have taken an umbrella,” said Fehrson. “Khanyisile carries one in her car.”
“Khanyisile is extraordinarily forward thinking,” I said.
“You don’t need to be touchy about it,” said Fehrson. “And don’t you dare think of sitting on that 17th century Os Du Mouton. Not in your state. Take the Nun’s chair, can’t do much damage to that.”
The Nun’s chair was hiding beside a seven-foot-tall grandfather clock that I hadn’t seen in Fehrson’s office before.
“You bought the Georgian clock?” I asked as I dragged the solid wooden chair over to the desk beside Khanyi. She was seated on a cushioned 17th-century antique, looking very dry, the new beads in her braids glistening gently.
“It was an act of conservation,” said Fehrson. “It was criminal what that cretin was doing. Keeping such a beautiful antique exposed to the elements. Criminal or downright stupid.”
Or downright clever, I thought. No doubt the cretin in question had discovered that his prime customer had a window through which he could see his stall and had carefully positioned the clock for maximum temptation.
“It was a small price to pay to save it,” said Fehrson, and he gazed with admiration at the clock where it stood between the other seven clocks mounted on that wall. Then he brought his attention back to me and the admiration faded. “So we are back to square one,” said Fehrson. “Khanyi has filled me in. You wasted all that time talking about what kind of beer his father drank? You did not even get to the bottom of what happened with poor old Fourie.”
“We learnt a few useful things,” I said. The Nun’s chair was the kind of chair people are strapped into before being connected to electrodes. I realised when I sat in it why nuns spend so much time on their knees.
“Such as?” said Khanyi, who had been waiting patiently for her opportunity to divert the blame.
“His relationship with his brother.”
“His brother?” said Fehrson incredulously. “The priest? What on earth does their relationship have to do with it?”
“Q cares more for his brother than he does for himself.”
“Now you’re the big polygraph machine?” said Khanyi. “Before we went in, you told me it’s not possible to tell when someone’s lying.”
“You cannot tell when someone’s lying based on body language or visual cues,” I said. “But when someone is telling the truth, they can tell the story forwards, backwards or any way up. When someone has built a fabrication, they struggle to do that.”
“In what way did he struggle?”
“He was conf
used about his brother’s departure.”
“Confused?” said Fehrson.
“He said the brother left in the morning, then later said he left that night.”
Fehrson gazed at me. “That’s it? Seems an easy mistake, somewhat subtle.”
“And he’s been medicated,” agreed Khanyi. “No wonder he is confused.”
“And this confusion,” said Fehrson, “tells us what?”
“He is lying about when his brother went away,” I said.
“Do we care when his brother went away?”
“I think we do. Because it could mean that the wrong man is in jail.”
Fehrson studied me with displeasure.
“Could mean?” he said. “That’s what your new interrogation techniques have revealed? Could?”
“The police captain is right. They have the wrong man locked up. Q was nowhere near that church. But he’ll take the rap to protect his brother.”
“Ah, so you think his brother did it?”
“Q thinks his brother did it. That is why he is lying about when his brother left. He is convinced his brother went into that church and killed all those people. Rather than wait for us to figure it out, he will take the blame for it himself. His brother means that much to him.”
“That’s preposterous,” said Fehrson. “What about his DNA?”
“I suggest we call Khanyi’s policeman. Ask whether that DNA could belong to the brother.”
“He’s not my policeman,” said Khanyi, and her face darkened a little. “I will call the captain – but he’s not mine. Why must you men always ascribe ownership?”
Fehrson watched me drip onto his antique furniture for a moment.
“We also have a plausible explanation for why Dirk’s fingerprint could be on the magazine,” I said.
“Ah!” Fehrson brightened a little. “Let’s hear it then.”
“He grabbed at an AK-47 that Van Rensburg handled that night.”
“Grabbed at it?”
“There was a fight between Van Rensburg and Fourie,” said Khanyi.
“We already knew that.”
“It means the gun Hendrik shot that night, or at least the magazine from that gun, was used in the church.”
“That is such an interesting detail,” said Fehrson. “Do you have any more of these gems?”
I said nothing. Fehrson sniffed.
“I’m not sure this whole charade was worth the effort,” he said. “I was hoping for more. The burden of trying to stop something horrific from happening again has fallen to us. And you’ve come back with vague stories of missing brothers, absurd sacrifices, and fascinating details of things we already knew.” He looked from Khanyi to me and settled on me as the more deserving of blame.
“Take your ridiculous assumptions to Khanyisile’s policeman,” he suggested and sniffed. “He seems a good sort. Sensible, clear-headed.”
Khanyisile opened her mouth, but then closed it. Fehrson looked past me to the Georgian long-case grandfather clock, and his look softened.
“Let’s not take up any more of Father’s time,” suggested Khanyi after a long pause.
“Of course not,” I said.
I tried not to make too much noise shifting the torture instrument I had been sitting in back against the wall and kept low so I didn’t block Fehrson’s view of his new purchase on my way out.
I met with Andile in his office at police headquarters. His office was a desk among a dozen others in a room with open windows because the prohibition on smoking indoors wasn’t a rule that Andile’s colleagues took very seriously. An icy wind swept into the office and grabbed at any sheets of paper not weighed down with ashtrays. Andile found a chair for me – a broken chair that had lost its wheels and was leaking stuffing where holes had been burnt into the fabric.
“Fifty percent,” he said. “That’s how much DNA siblings share.”
“So the DNA in the church could have been the brother’s?”
“It could.”
We lit a couple of cigarettes and I ran through our conversation with Q, covered the fight that had broken out between Hendrik van Rensburg and Dirk Fourie, and explained why I thought that Q’s brother was the one aspect of Q’s story that rang false.
“Left him with Van Rensburg?” said Andile.
“That’s what he said. They left him with Van Rensburg.”
“I’ve been looking into that business of the security guard,” said Andile. “The one Nqobeni killed with a screwdriver. Nqobeni couldn’t pick the correct screwdriver when they asked him which one he had used. The investigators blamed it on Nqobeni blocking it from his mind.”
“You think the brother killed the security guard?”
Andile looked out of the open window as if only noticing now that there was a wind blowing through it. “I think it’s possible,” he said. “If I’m right, Nqobeni has lived with the constant fear that his brother will do something like that again.”
“He said he received messages from his brother,” I said, remembering Q’s last comment.
Andile nodded. “We found them on his phone. Very odd messages. You know the Zulu tradition of sending young men out to survive for a period of isolation before becoming men?”
“I’ve heard of it. Is that what his pilgrimage is about?”
“According to the messages.”
“But he’s beyond the age for that, surely?”
Andile sucked at his cigarette, and his eyes blinked in the smoke.
“Way beyond it,” he said. “Which is why those messages are so odd. Nqobeni refused to talk about it.”
Andile stood abruptly and grabbed a coat off the back of his chair.
“Perhaps those messages have a different meaning,” he said. “Because he’s not preparing to become a man at all. Come with me. We need to see Nqobeni.”
They kept the shackles on Q this time and sat him on a broken wooden chair in a tiny interview room with no windows. Q looked as if he had shrunk since that morning. His eyes had retreated into the dark caves beneath his bony brow, and the orange jumpsuit looked as if it was hanging from a cheap metal hanger instead of from the shoulders of a living human.
Andile opened with the suggestion that Nqobeni had lied about the death of the man who had killed his father. The screens in the monitoring room where I sat showed the minute details of Q’s reaction. There was the jagged intake of breath, the pause as he held that breath, and then his body slumped slightly as he released it. The close-up showed his eyes backing up into the dark hollows as Andile suggested his brother had killed the security guard. That Nqobeni, protecting his eight-year-old brother had taken the blame.
Nqobeni stared at Andile. There was a blink, then another, and the dull eyes gazed out, but he said nothing. The sergeant sitting beside me pulled a large handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his brow. The equipment in the monitoring room was heating the small space up, and the sergeant was wearing his winter thermals over many layers of extra fat. Having wiped his brow, he made a note on a pad of paper before him.
Andile moved on to the church killings. He told Nqobeni that he knew he had never been inside the church. Told him that on this occasion he could not take the blame for his brother’s actions. Nqobeni said nothing.
The two of them sat in silence.
“That night of the fight,” said Andile eventually. “The night that you took the white man to the sickbay and left Xolani with Hendrik van Rensburg. Was your brother angry that night?”
“Yes,” said Q. “He was angry.”
“With Van Rensburg? With the White Africans?”
Q nodded. “Van Rensburg has no right to treat us like that.”
“Like what?”
“Threatening us. Taking our girls. Shooting his guns.”
“And your brother took it upon himself to stop him?”
Q shrugged.
“What did he do?”
“He did nothing.”
“When you got back to the field in
the village from the sickbay, what was your brother doing?”
“He was doing nothing.”
“Where was he?”
Q kept silent.
“Had he gone after Van Rensburg?”
“Xolani had an anger that made him do foolish things.”
“What had he done?”
“He followed Van Rensburg.”
“And you? What did you do?”
“I went after him.”
“Did you find him?”
Q shook his head.
“Where did you follow him to? The Van Rensburg lodge?”
Q nodded.
“But you didn’t find your brother?”
“I got a message from him.”
“What did the message say?”
“Ulwaluko,” said Q.
“Could you explain that? Ulwaluko is the isolation before the ritual of becoming a man.”
“He is becoming more than a man,” said Q. He hesitated, then said: “A saint.”
“A saint? Your brother was preparing to become a saint?”
Q nodded.
“How?”
Q didn’t respond for a good minute. He gazed at Andile from the dark hollows of his eye sockets.
“If, however,” he said eventually, as if he was making a pronouncement, “a man acts presumptuously toward his neighbour, so as to kill him craftily, you are to take him even from My altar, that he may die.”
“Is that from the Old Testament?” asked Andile. “You think your brother will be a saint because he enacted God’s will? Is that the idea?”
Q lowered his eyes again and stared at the floor before him.
“Your court appearance is tomorrow,” said Andile. “They will ask you to swear on a Bible. You will have the chance to speak the truth. Taking the blame for your brother’s crimes is not the truth.”
No reaction from Q.
“You need to speak the truth before your brother does something like this again.”
There was still no reaction. The screens in the monitoring room showed Q’s immobile face, as if the image had frozen. No movement to show he was still breathing. A man of stone with dark hollows in place of eyes.
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