Dead at Daybreak

by Deon Meyer

  That didn’t help much.

  But what was W.A. doing so far from home? Why was he hanging around the Cape’s southern suburbs?

  He leaned back in the chair, tried to make sense of the day’s events, tried to slot the new information into what he had.

  So many dead. And now only Venter and Vergottini remained.

  Bester Brits had been the messenger of death then. Involved from the start. But not involved enough to know everything. Like who the protagonist behind it all was.

  One of them would telephone at 14:00, one of them wanted to come in and talk, one of them said he wasn’t part of the thing.

  And the other one had sent four men to shoot his mother.

  What kind of man… what was so big, so important, so wicked that he needed to send four armed henchmen? Was it the money, the huge stack of American dollars? Or was it because he wanted to cover up the evil of twenty-three years ago at all costs?

  Schlebusch. Why shoot your erstwhile team leader if he was on your side?

  And if Schlebusch wasn’t the evil behind the whole thing, who the hell was?

  The timing.

  Brits had said it was because Schlebusch’s picture had been in the newspaper that he was shot. But the timing was too tight. Between five, six o’clock when Die Burger appeared and the phone call, there had been too little time to commit a murder, develop a strategy to lure him, Van Heerden, to Hout Bay, and send troops to Morning Star.

  It hadn’t worked that way.

  Shit, he didn’t know how this thing worked, but he had one thin string he could pull on to see what unraveled. The contents of the wallet.

  He looked at his watch. 13:12. Still time to drive to Observatory before the 14:00 call came. He would have to call Tiny. He replaced the contents of the wallet, snapped it shut, put it back in his pocket. Walked to the door. The Heckler & Koch stood against the wall next to the door. He looked at it. The thing was too big. Too unwieldy. Too obvious.

  He paused.

  Perhaps it was time?

  No.

  What had Mat Joubert told Bester Brits? Unload the burden.

  A moment’s doubt, the old, familiar tug in his stomach when he thought about the Z88, and then he walked to the bedroom, opened the cupboard door, shifted the sweaters in front of the small safe, turned the combination lock, and clicked it open. He took out the old police service pistol and magazine, banged the magazine into the grip—Don’t think, he didn’t want to think—pushed the gun into his belt at the back, pulled his sweater over it, walked to the front door, picked up the Heckler & Koch—he must give it back to Tiny—opened the door.

  “Hallo, Zatopek,” said Kara-An Rousseau, her hand in the air, about to knock. She looked at the machine pistol. “Still love me?”

  50.

  We were standing next to the body of the Red Ribbon Executioner’s first victim when Nagel said: “If anyone ever messes with my wife, I’ll shoot him. Like a dog.”

  Unprovoked. He had bent over the middle-aged prostitute and studied the red ribbon with which she had been strangled and suddenly straightened and looked me in the eye and his Adam’s apple had bobbed with each word. And then he looked away again and studied the crime scene.

  And my heart skipped a beat and my palms sweat, and, terrified, I wondered how he knew, because he couldn’t know, we were so incredibly careful. After the second time I didn’t even park my Toyota near the Nagel house—I left it two blocks away in a café’s parking lot and walked, stooping, like a suspect, like a criminal.

  I, who, despite my minor sins of self-satisfaction and selfishness, had made the conscious decision to strive for integrity, to live with honesty and self-control. I, for whom each crime scene brought a new determination to range myself on the side of the good, to fight and to tame the evil and the bad, the monster that crouched in others.

  Then, and in the years thereafter, I turned that moment over and over like a piece of evidence in my hands and examined it from all sides for clues to Nagel’s words.

  Had my attitude toward him changed when he came back from De Aar? I thought I’d hidden it so well; we still bickered, joked, argued as we’d always done, but perhaps the thin light-headedness of guilt when I met his eyes was visible, tangible.

  Or was it Nonnie’s subtly altered behavior when he came home? Had he perhaps found her in the kitchen, softly singing, and had she said, or not said, something?

  Or was it the famous Nagel instinct, the extra sense that, despite all his shallowness, he was blessed with?

  Was it Jung who said that there was no coincidence? Had Nagel sent me purposely or subconsciously-consciously to Nonnie that first day? I even considered that possibility, but the psychological byways formed a maze of speculation in which I quickly became trapped.

  To my deep shame I must admit that his words, his throwing down of the gauntlet as it were, gave an extra element of excitement and adrenaline to our secret relationship. It was a factor that bound us more closely in our deceit, tightened the bonds of our love. In our stolen moments, in her house, in Nagel’s bed, when we lay in each other’s arms, we would speculate conspiratorially about his suspicions, we would discuss our behavior, looking for moments in which we might possibly have betrayed ourselves—and each time we came to the conclusion that he had no reason to suspect.

  The time we could spend together was so heartbreakingly limited: sometimes an hour or two in a day, when the slow-moving judicial system held him captive as a witness in a court case; when he made himself comfortable on a barstool for an evening’s “serious drinking”; and the oh-so-rare, sweet days and nights when he had to leave the Cape to stretch the long arm of the law into the countryside.

  In those months Nonnie Nagel became my whole life. I thought about her from the moment I opened my eyes in the morning until, with painful longing, I eventually went to sleep at night. My love for her was all-encompassing, all-prevailing, a virus, a fever, a refuge.

  My love for her was right, just, good. Nagel had rejected her, and I had discovered her, embraced and cherished her, made her my own. My love for her was pure, beautiful, gentle. Therefore it was right, despite the terrible daily deceit. I rationalized it for myself, every hour of every day, told her he had had choices, had made his decisions. Together we elevated our relationship to a crusade of love and justice.

  Why didn’t she just leave him?

  I asked her that once and she simply looked at me with those beautiful, gentle eyes and made a gesture of infinite helplessness and I came to my own conclusions. I suspected she was, like many abused women, the victim of a destructive relationship in which one word of praise was the dependency-inducing lifeline in a stormy sea of criticism. I suspected that she didn’t think she could stand on her own any longer, that she didn’t believe she was capable of a life without him.

  I didn’t ask again, knew I would have to take the lead.

  But perhaps it was also the very nature of our relationship that allowed so little time for discussion of the future, perhaps it was because we wanted to be sure, or perhaps we didn’t want to dilute the excitement of the forbidden so soon. We never really spoke about the way in which she should leave her marriage.

  And one afternoon (he was in court again), when we had let the sweat of lovemaking dry on our bodies, I uttered the words that would change so much.

  What I should have said was, Nonnie, I love you. Marry me.

  What I did say had the same tenor, was the product of my feeling of guilt, my fear, my focus.

  “How do we get rid of Nagel?” I asked, without thinking too deeply, without measuring the meaning of my words.

  51.

  Bart de Wit and Mat Joubert had Tony O’Grady on the carpet.

  “Van Heerden made something of this case with nothing—no forensics, no team of detectives, no squad of uniforms, nothing. Now’s the time for you, Anthony O’Grady, to move your ass, because the SANDF is laughing at us and the media are laughing at us and the district co
mmissioner screams over the telephone and the provincial minister of justice phoned to say you’ve got to move it, it can’t carry on like this. You’re in charge now. Tell us what you need. Make things happen.”

  And now he was standing in front of an impressive matron of the Milnerton MediClinic and his meaty face blushed a dark red and his lumpish body shook with rage and his mouth was struggling to choke back words that shouldn’t be used in front of a woman.

  “He’s gone?” he managed eventually.

  “Yes, sir, he’s gone. The military people took him away against the wishes of the entire medical team.” Her voice was calm and soothing; she saw O’Grady’s red face and shaking torso and wondered whether he was going to have a heart attack in her office.

  “Ffffff… ,” he said, and controlled himself with superhuman effort.

  “Just about ten minutes ago. Not even in an ambulance.”

  “Did they say where they were taking him?”

  “Into custody. When I objected, they said they had medical treatment available for him.”

  The curses were poised on his tongue but he bit them back.

  “What was his condition?”

  “He was stable but we were about to run tests on him. A blow like that to the head, there could be major brain damage.”

  “Was he conscious?”

  “Delirious, I would say.”

  “Coherent?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who took him?”

  “A Colonel Brits.”

  The frustration, the impotent rage, washed through O’Grady’s big body. “The bastard,” he said, and then he could no longer hold the obscenities back. “The motherfucking, absolute, total, complete cunt of a bastard,” he said, and deflated like a big balloon.

  “Feeling better now?” asked the matron. But O’Grady didn’t hear her. He was on his way down the passage, cell phone in his hand. He was going to speak to that dolly-bird attorney, but first he would phone Mat Joubert. Joubert must phone Bart de Wit. Bart de Wit must phone the commissioner and the commissioner could phone whomever he wanted, but Bester Brits was going to get fucked before the day was out.

  He was wrong.

  The man whose skull had been cracked by a spade was sitting on a wooden Defence Force chair, in a prefab building in a forgotten area in a Port Jackson thicket on the far edge of the Ysterplaat Air Force Base. He wasn’t tied down or shackled. Bester Brits, standing in front of him, was in complete control: there was no need for restraints.

  Outside there were four soldiers with R5 rifles, and in any case, Spadehead wasn’t in great shape. His head was lolling, the eyes rolled up every few seconds, his breathing was fast and uneven.

  “Does it hurt?” Bester Brits asked, and slapped Spadehead on the purplish red head wound.

  The sound that came through the swollen lips was just decipherable as “Yes.”

  “What’s your name?”

  No reply. Brits lifted his hand again, poised threateningly.

  A sound.

  “What?”

  “Ghaarie.”

  “Gary?”

  Nod, head rolling.

  “Who sent you, Gary, to the house to attack the women?”

  Sound.

  “What?”

  “Please.” Hands lifted to protect the wound.

  Brits swept the hands aside, slapped again. “Please? Please what?”

  “My head.”

  “I know it’s your fucking head, you moron, and I’ll keep on hitting it until you talk, do you understand? The faster you talk, the faster —”

  Sound.

  “What?”

  “Oh-ri-un.”

  “Orion?”

  “Yes.”

  Brits hit him again with the frustration of more than twenty years, all the hatred, the rancor in him that opened like an old, stinking sore. “I know it was Operation Orion, motherfuck.” The words unlocking memories.

  Gary moaning, “No, no, no.”

  “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

  “O-ri-unShh…” The word slurred in the saliva that ran from a corner of his mouth.

  “What?”

  No reply. Gary’s eyes were closed, the head flopping.

  “Don’t pretend to be unconscious, Gary.”

  There was still no reply.

  “I can’t talk to you now,” Van Heerden said to Kara-An Rousseau.

  “I heard it on the radio. About the shooting.”

  “I’ve got to go.” He stood in the doorway of his house, machine pistol in his hand.

  “Why were you at my house last night?”

  “I wanted to… tell you something.”

  “Tell me now.”

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “You want to know why I am like I am.”

  He shifted past her. “This isn’t a good time,” he said, and walked toward his mother’s house. He had to get Tiny.

  “Because you’re afraid you’re like that, too.” Not a question.

  He halted, turned. “No,” he said.

  She laughed at him. “Zatopek, it’s in you, too. And you know it.”

  He looked at her beauty, her smile, the perfect teeth. Then he walked away, faster and faster, to get away from the sound of her laughter.

  At four minutes past two Nougat O’Grady walked into Hope Beneke’s office and said, “We have taken over the case. Completely.”

  “I know,” said Hope Beneke, wondering how she could get rid of him in the next few minutes.

  “I believe Van Heerden has not been absolutely frank with us,” he said, and wondered why this female attorney always wore clothes that hid her talents. He suspected there was a nifty body underneath it all. He sat down on a chair opposite her. “A lot of people have died, Miss Beneke. And unless you share everything with us, the killing won’t stop. Now, do you want that on your conscience?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Then please —”

  The phone rang. She started.

  “Been expecting a call?” he asked, and knew instinctively that something was cooking here. “Please go ahead. We’re a team now, so to speak.”

  The owner of the Girls-to-Go Agency on Twelfth Avenue, Observatory, looked like a retired film star—long, elegant nose, square jaw, black hair flecked with gray, bushy Tom Selleck mustache—but when he opened his mouth to speak, he showed a set of teeth that were terrifying in their decay: stained yellow, crooked, half of them missing.

  “It’th confidenthial information,” he said to Zatopek van Heerden and Tiny Mpayipheli, lisping slightly.

  “A prostitute’s destination is not confidential information,” said Van Heerden.

  “Thyow me your badge.” The lisp was more marked.

  “I’m a private investigator. I don’t have a badge,” he said slowly and patiently. But he didn’t know how much more of the man’s attitude he would be able to take.

  “Here’s my badge,” said Tiny Mpayipheli, the impatience strong in his voice as he opened his jacket to show the Rossi model 462 in its shoulder holster.

  “I’m not thcared of gunth,” the film star said.

  The Xhosa took out the .357 Magnum revolver and put a hole in the O of GO in the sign behind the man, the noise of the gunshot earsplitting in the small room. Behind a door a few women shrieked.

  “The next one goes through your knee,” said Mpayipheli.

  The door opened. A young woman with green hair and big eyes asked: “What’s going on, Vincent?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.” Calm, unintimidated.

  “The address, Vincent,” said Van Heerden.

  Vincent looked at them with eyes that had seen everything, looked at the Rossi aimed at his leg, slowly shook his head back and forth as if he didn’t understand the universe, and patiently pulled a large black book toward him, then took the credit card slip that Van Heerden had put on the counter and lazily started leafing through the book.

  Tiny put the weapon back under his ja
cket. They waited. Vincent licked a finger, leafed on.

  “Here it ith,” he said.

  “This telephone is tapped by Military Intelligence,” Hope said to the man on the phone. “I must ask you to phone another number, a cell phone number. My colleague is waiting for your call.”

  A moment’s silence. “No,” he said. “Go to the Coffee King at the Protea Hotel next to your building. I’ll phone there in five minutes.”

  “Fffff —” said Hope Beneke, biting back the word. “I’ve got to go,” she said, and stood up swiftly behind the desk.

  “I’m coming with you,” said Nougat. “Where are we going?” They ran down the passage, out through the door, down the stairs, and out of the building, a fit Hope ahead, a puffing O’Grady a few yards behind her.

  “Wait up,” he shouted. “They’ll think I’m trying to assault you.” But she kept on running, jerked open the door of the Coffee King, and stopped at the counter.

  “I’m expecting a telephone call,” she said to the Taiwanese woman.

  O’Grady steamed in, breathing hard.

  “This is not a telephone booth,” said the Taiwanese woman.

  “It’s police business, madam,” said O’Grady.

  “Show me your identification.”

  “Jeez, everybody watches television these days,” he said, still trying to catch his breath as he put his hand in his pocket.

  The telephone next to her began ringing.

  “This man urgently needs hospitalization,” said the captain with the insignia of the SA Medical Services on his uniform.

  “Not necessarily,” said Bester Brits.

  “He’s dying.”

  “He has to talk before he turns up his toes.”

  The captain looked disbelievingly at the officer from Military Intelligence. “I… I thought the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had eradicated your kind.”

  “I wasn’t always like this.”

  “Colonel, if I don’t get him stabilized in intensive care, he’s never going to speak again. We have half an hour, maybe less.”

  “Take him, then,” said Bester Brits, and walked out. He walked to a Port Jackson tree, leaned against the trunk. Hell, he wished he still smoked.