Capture

by Smith, Roger

  “I’m going to check forensics with a fine-tooth comb,” Erasmus says. “And I’m going to talk to your little friend, Nicholas Exley.”

  Vernon closes the door—making an effort not to slam it—already scrolling his phone for Exley’s number as he walks through the charge office, past a blonde housewife moaning about a break-in and a drunken Xhosa wrapped in a tribal blanket passed out on a bench. By the time he’s outside in the sun he’s hearing Exley’s voicemail.

  “Call me,” Vernon says, pocketing the phone.

  He lights a smoke as he stares up at the darkie shacks of Mandela Park tumbling down the mountainside like a landslide of shit, spoiling this nice white suburb.

  The toxic smell of the solvents used by the two clean-up men drives Exley upstairs. He is operating on the vague understanding that there are people who need to know about Caroline’s death and that it is important to behave as normally as possible. So he should search her laptop and send out a bulk email to all her contacts, and call her loathsome sister, Kate.

  Exley enters the marital bedroom for the first time since he left for Johannesburg the previous morning. The bed is unmade and discarded clothes litter the room. When she was well Caroline was anally neat.

  During her episodes her slovenly twin took over and it wasn’t uncommon for Exley to find used tampons, the blood gone black and hard, among the cigarette butts in overflowing ashtrays beside the bed.

  The curtains are closed, evidence of Caroline’s oversensitivity to light, a by-product of her condition. Exley pulls them open, letting the sun in. He’d once joked that he’d have to drive a stake through her heart to get rid of her.

  A knife had done the trick.

  And just like that he’s back in the kitchen, the blade sliding into her, blood welling from her mouth. Exley feels dizzy and has to sit down on the roiled sheets. His mouth is full of hot, acid puke and he is up again, dashing for the bathroom. Something cuts into the soles of his stockinged feet but he has no time to investigate, reaching the basin in time to spew.

  It goes on for a long time, this expiation, Exley gripping the ornate chrome faucets, gasping, sweat dripping from his forehead, his abdominal muscles in agony from the heaving. At last he spits and rinses his mouth and splashes his face. He sinks down on the toilet and sits with his eyes closed until he feels stronger.

  As he crosses back into the bedroom, he checks the carpet and sees a sprawl of electronic components and a shattered casing and realizes that he’s looking at the carcass of Caroline’s Mac. Deep gouges in the wall vouch for how the laptop met its end.

  She was always her own sternest critic, he says aloud, as if he’s delivering a eulogy. This makes him laugh, in a way that sounds unhinged and manic.

  He gathers up the wreckage and dumps it in the wicker trash basket that sits beside the bed, letting the computer parts join a pile of Kleenex.

  The pathetic man-in-his-underwear thing is getting tired, so he finds a pair of Diesels in the closet and pulls them on under his T-shirt.

  Removes the socks and replaces them with a pair of Havaianas. He takes the garbage down to the kitchen.

  The trauma cleaners are finishing up, wadding bloody cloths and paper towels into black bags. Except for the carbolic fumes in the air, there is no sign of what happened last night. Even the carpet is restored to its original color.

  One of the men takes the basket from Exley and empties it. “There you go, sir,” he says, tying off the top of the bag.

  “Thank you,” Exley says. “This looks great.”

  “What we do, sir,” the man says, lifting the bulging garbage bag and following his colleague out the door.

  “What do I owe you?” asks Exley.

  “Nothing. You’re a friend of Vernon’s.” The guy is trying a smile but it’s not quite taking and Exley wonders what Vernon has over these men. “Well, I appreciate it,” he says.

  They’re gone and he’s alone with the rest of his life, clueless as to what he’s going to do with it.

  The gate buzzer jams his thoughts and he heads for the intercom, sure that it’s Vernon Saul, ready to invade again, but it’s Gladys the maid, and Exley lets her in. She wears a beret, dark skirt, blouse and formal shoes with gold buckles, despite the molten heat.

  She stands in the doorway and stares at him, her eyes wet with grief.

  “Mr. Nick, I have heard what is happening.”

  “Yes,” he says.

  “This man, he is coming in here and doing this thing? To Miss Caroline?”

  “Yes. I returned from the airport and I disturbed him.” Exley unconsciously mirroring her formal speech patterns.

  “Ay, my gawd, it is too terrible, this.”

  She comes up to him and embraces him and again he loses himself in the warmth of this ample ocean of flesh. She releases him and walks through to the kitchen, her heels smacking the tiles, still clucking softly to herself.

  Gladys stops exactly where Caroline fell and died. Stands with her hands hanging at her sides and looks around the room. She closes her eyes and stays unmoving for what seems like hours. When she opens her eyes and looks at Exley her expression has hardened. She crosses herself quickly and kisses her fingertips, never taking her eyes from Exley’s, her sadness replaced by something else. Something accusatory.

  “Mr. Nick, Mr. Nick, Mr. Nick,” she says, shaking her head. “No, no, no.”

  “What?” he asks, wilting under her gaze.

  “I can’t work here no more,” she says and brushes past him, moving with surprising speed for such a large woman.

  “Gladys?” he says, but he doesn’t try to stop her as she flees the house.

  Relieved that she has gone, this woman who can see the mark of corruption on him.

  Chapter 33

  Vernon’s mood darkens as he drives his Honda across Paradise Park. Being needed—the way Dawn and Nick Exley need him—gives him something, sure, something that goes some way toward filling that big hole that eats away at his innards. But it comes with a price tag.

  Means that demands and pressures and responsibilities burden him. Stress him. Depress him.

  He feels it all the more out here, deep in the Cape Flats with its cramped houses and rust-bucket cars and no-hope people blown every which way by the hot wind crashing in off the faraway ocean like a curse. If he didn’t have so much to do, so many things to manage, he’d set course for Doc’s place and have a shot of his magic juice and just disappear into blankness for the rest of the day, where all his strife and the image of Dino Erasmus’s nostrils sniffing after him would just fade to zero.

  But no. He has his tasks.

  He tries Exley’s cell again. That same not-quite-American voice saying he’s not available. Vernon leaves no message. He went by the house and rang the bell, knowing he was making himself conspicuous by doing it. Sure that Exley was home. The fucker is hiding from him, and that’s a worry. A loose end.

  In an attempt to lighten his mood he gets a bit of Motown going on the sound system, Ike and Tina doing “River Deep, Mountain High.” Always been a sucker for duets. The music helps, him joining in the chorus, fingers tapping on the steering, and by the time he gets to the social worker’s office he is ready to do what must be done. He takes the little gift-wrapped parcel from the seat beside him and walks down the pathway, even finding a joke and a cigarette, just like the last time, for the broken old ex-con who works the garden.

  The man’s eyes, bled of all hope, scare Vernon and he hustles on, making quick despite his dragging leg. He shoulders his way through the mob of sad and useless people and finds the receptionist with her nose deep in a gossip magazine.

  “Vernon Saul for Merinda Appolis.”

  The receptionist sighs and lowers her magazine and speaks into the phone, then dumps it in its cradle. Her eyes are already back in her magazine as she says, “She’s busy. You’ll have to wait.”

  Vernon works hard at self-control. Knows he’s being punished by being made to wait a
mong this smear of useless humanity. He pushes his way outside, standing in the doorway, and lights a Lucky, consciously calming himself as he inhales, feeling the warm smoke in his lungs.

  He’s nearly done with the cigarette when the receptionist calls him and tells him he can go through.

  Merinda Appolis doesn’t meet him at the door this time. Remains seated behind her desk, her knees held primly together.

  She launches her attack before he even has a chance to greet her. “If you’ve come to soft-soap me, Vernon, just forget it, okay? My report will go in tomorrow and I’ll have Dawn Cupido in court by Friday. So if you’re going to try and change my mind, you’re wasting both our time.” She fixes her painted lips into a hard little gash and crosses her arms.

  “That’s not why I’m here, Merinda,” he says, all serious.

  “Well, what do you want, then?”

  “Okay if I sit?”

  She frees a hand and wags it at the chair opposite her. He makes a production of lowering himself, arranging his leg, resting his bandaged arm on the desk. Sees her look at it, but she says nothing.

  “I’m here to thank you, actually.”

  “Thank me? For what?”

  “For doing what I didn’t have the guts to do. I was worried about that child, but I should have reported Dawn long ago. Got you in there sooner. Anyway, you did what needed to be done and it’s all in the child’s best interests.” She’s staring at him skeptically. He puts the parcel on the desk. “For you.”

  “What’s this?”

  “Open it.” She hesitates a moment, but then her curiosity gets the better of her and she tears at the pink wrapping paper with her long red fingernails. She lifts out a transparent plastic container of Ferrero Rocher chocolates, looking like little hand grenades in their foil wrappers. Cost him a fortune at the Waterfront.

  She can’t hold back the smile. “Vernon! My favorite!”

  “I’m glad you like them. Just to say thanks.”

  “I love them. Not good for my figure, though!” The flirtiness is back and she squirms in her chair.

  “Oh, you got nothing to worry about there.” Forcing himself to give her the eye as he stands. “Well, I know you’re busy.”

  “No. Sit.”

  He shakes his head. “I really should go.”

  “What happened to your arm?”

  He shrugs. “There was an incident last night. All under control.”

  He edges toward the door. Then pauses, looking awkward and embarrassed.

  “Merinda?”

  “Ja?”

  “I dunno if I’m out of line here…”

  “What, Vernon?”

  “Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

  A blush touches her cheeks. “Well—”

  “If you have other plans?”

  “No, no.”

  “Do you like Chinese?”

  “Oh, I love Chinese!”

  “Good, there’s a nice place at Canal Walk. Why don’t you give me your address and I’ll pick you up around eight, okay?”

  She scribbles on a little pink Post-it which he pockets. He gives her his best smile and leaves her looking happily flustered.

  Vernon laughs himself back to the Civic, his good mood restored.

  Exley wakes for the second time that day. This time it is not terror that ends his sleep, but grief. As he lies on the sofa cushions he dragged into the studio after Gladys left, he mourns his daughter, feeling more loss and less guilt now that he understands that Caroline was at least as culpable as he was, the evening of Sunny’s birthday. It is a searing, painful grief, one that will take a very long time (maybe forever) for him to recover from, but it is pure and uncomplicated, almost affirming.

  Exley sits up and wipes his tears and walks out of the studio, the late afternoon light washing the front rooms. He is parched but stepping into the kitchen will take him too close to what he became last night, so he goes onto the deck and sits, watching the waves and the seagulls. Sits until thirst finally drives him to his feet and he heads for the kitchen and gets a bottle of Evian from the fridge, trying not to see his wife lying dead on the tiles.

  He takes the water back onto the deck. A kayak drifts past, beyond the rocks, carrying a man, a woman and a child, all in lifejackets. The child’s giggles drift to Exley on the soft breeze, and he hears the woman shout something and laugh.

  Exley tries to remember when he last saw Caroline happy, in more than a transitory, superficial way. It was years ago, before Sunny was born, when her first novel was published. He sees her, radiant and smiling at the book launch in London, posing with him for photographs. Now she’s gone. Whatever her life was it is over.

  And he ended it.

  But Exley can’t deny a sense of liberation. Caroline, with her rages and her depressions and the all-consuming selfishness of the psychologically unstable, leached most of the joy from his life. He became a wife whisperer, attuned to the subtlest seismic shifts in her mood, to protect his daughter and himself.

  The truth is, he feels little guilt at killing her. Only the fear of being caught and that possibility seems remote. The almost obscene haste with which the cops accepted the sacrifice Vernon Saul threw their way means that it is a done deal. Case closed.

  So, sitting out on the deck, watching the last sunlight dance on the waves, Exley thinks, what the hell, maybe Vernon Saul is right: the truth is just the lie you believe the most.

  The gate buzzer grinds inside the house and Exley ignores it. But it sounds repeatedly and he goes to the intercom in the living room. The police captain from last night apologizes for intruding and says he has a few questions.

  When Exley opens the front door he sees the captain is not alone—he’s with a middle-aged brown guy with a snout for a nose.

  “Mr. Exley, this is my colleague, Detective Erasmus.”

  Exley lets the two men enter. Erasmus says nothing, just walks into the house and stops when he reaches the kitchen.

  “This where she died?” he asks.

  “Yes,” Exley says.

  “Already cleaned up, I see?”

  “I had the trauma people in.”

  “Connections of Vernon Saul’s?”

  “Yes,” Exley says. “As a matter of fact they were. Why?”

  The cop shrugs and when his gaze settles on Exley, he finds himself looking into the cold eyes of a fanatic. “Where you from?”

  “I’m an American citizen.”

  “What, another bloody foreigner come out here to get his wife killed and blame it on our crime epidemic?”

  Fragile equilibrium cracking, Exley looks at the black cop. “Captain, what’s going on here?”

  “Detective Erasmus is from Special Investigations. He’d like to talk to you.”

  “What’s Special Investigations?”

  Erasmus leans in close to Exley. “We’re an independent unit, reporting directly to the police commissioner. Let’s just say we’re here to keep the system honest.”

  The captain looks pained but says nothing, his eyes out on the horizon. Erasmus focuses his gaze on Exley. “Tell me what happened last night.”

  “I’ve already given a statement.”

  “Tell me again.”

  Exley looks across at the captain, who nods, so he runs through Vernon’s version.

  When Exley’s done Erasmus says, “The first person you called was Vernon Saul?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why not the police?”

  “I was in shock. Mr. Saul has been very helpful since my daughter’s death.”

  “I bet he has.” The cop sniffs and uses a hand to reseat his balls. “Mr. Exley, your wife was having an affair, wasn’t she?”

  “News to me.”

  “There was an incident yesterday. We’ve spoken to a Mrs. Stankovic who tells us your wife and her husband were having a sexual relationship.”

  “I don’t listen to gossip.”

  Erasmus snorts. “Okay, I’m gonna run something by
you. Let’s say you come back from Jo’burg and Vernon Saul clues you in about your wife screwing around. You confront her and you kill her.”

  “Jesus, Captain?” But the dark cop is far away, somewhere out past the rocks, lost in the honey-colored light.

  “So, you get hold of your buddy Vernon and tell him what’s up. You offer him money to sort out this mess for you. And Vernon does what he’s good at: finds some innocent bugger, plants the knife and your wife’s phone on him, cuts himself to make things look convincing, and blows the guy away.”

  Exley is rocked on his feet, hearing an almost perfect account of last night’s events spewing from this ugly man’s mouth. “I’m not going to listen to any more of this. Get the hell out of my house.”

  Erasmus crowds Exley, washing him with his stale breath. “I would advise you to give all this some thought, Mr. Exley. If you come to us and admit what you and Saul did, the courts may be lenient. Continue lying and you’re going to spend a very long time in prison.” He hands Exley a card. “You phone me when you’re ready.”

  They go, Erasmus striding ahead, the captain giving Exley a helpless shrug.

  Exley locks the front door and calls Vernon Saul, getting his voicemail.

  “Call me,” he says, dropping the phone as he sinks down onto the cushionless sofa, staring at the sun bleeding into the ocean, wondering how long it would take him to drown if he waded out and started swimming into the gathering darkness.

  Chapter 34

  The hot wind mutters and curses its way between the mean buildings on Voortrekker, getting tin cans rolling in the gutters, poking the signs on the sidewalk till they swing and creak, rocking the taxis as they gobble up passengers.

  Dawn, stranded in the middle of the road—trying to find a gap in the evening traffic to cross over to Lips—takes a blast of grit in the eyes like she’s been maced. She curses, rubbing at her eyes, feeling them fill with tears. She’s ready to say fuck it and throw a U-turn and go fetch Brittany from Mrs. de Pontes and eat marshmallows and watch crap on TV.