by Deon Meyer
‘Yes.’ He was unsure.
‘I’m going to wait here with Cobie and if you come out of that door with anything except the cord, I will shoot him.’
‘OK.’
‘Off you go, Seppie. Be quick.’
He hesitated for only an instant, then scurried into the cottage. Under my knee Cobie de Villiers would not lie still.
‘Jacobus, I don’t want any trouble from you. I swear to God I’ll shoot you if you don’t cooperate. The police will give me a medal.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Still that manic tone.
‘I’m going to tie you up, Jacobus, because you have more tricks than a monkey. And then we’re going to talk. That’s all. If our discussion goes well, I’ll let you go and I’ll leave and I won’t breathe a word about you to anyone. But if you don’t cooperate, I’m taking you to the police. It’s your choice.’
He didn’t reply. He just lay there gasping.
Septimus came out very warily. He had a length of electric cord which he carried in front of him with outstretched arms like a peace offering.
‘Bring it to me, Septimus, and go and lie down on your stomach again with your arms behind your back.’
He did as I commanded with great obedience and concentration. I waited until he was lying down, picked up the cord with my left hand and pushed the Glock into my belt.
That was what Cobie was waiting for. He moved suddenly, trying to roll away and hit at me in one movement. I was expecting it. My patience with him had run out. I grabbed his hand, twisted it behind his back and pushed his wrist up towards his neck, expecting to hear the pop of his shoulder dislocating. He was tough, but not tough enough to ignore the awful pain. He went limp.
‘Mad and stupid is a bad combination, Jacobus,’ I said as I thumped both my knees into his back with my full weight behind them. I heard the wind explode out of him again, grabbed one hand, forced it against the other, reached for the cord and began tying up his wrists. I got off him only when I was dead sure that his hands wouldn’t come loose.
‘Seppie, I need more cord.’
‘I haven’t got any more,’ he said in a small voice.
‘What have you got?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Go and look in Cobie’s house.’
‘OK.’
‘And hurry up, Septimus, or I will shoot Cobie. First in the left leg, and then in the right.’
‘OK.’ He sprang up and ran to the cottage with the yellow curtains, jerked open the door and switched on the light. He came back with an electric cord still attached to a bedside lamp.
‘Break the lamp off, Seppie.’
He did that.
‘Now, lie down.’
He knew the position well enough. I took my knees off Cobie, took the new cord, sat on Septimus and began to tie his wrists.
Cobie de Villiers jumped up.
‘Jacobus!’ I shouted to no avail. He ran away down the hill with his arms behind his back.
‘I’ll shoot your friend, Cobie.’ It didn’t seem to be much of a friendship, because Cobie disappeared into the dark.
‘Fuck,’ I screamed in frustration. What now? First, I had to immobilise Septimus. I worked quickly, winding the cord around Squinty Sep’s ankles and making a hasty knot. ‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ I told him. Then I kicked him lightly in the ribs, pulled the Glock from my belt and set off after Cobie.
What was driving the man?
39
The dark gave him the advantage. He knew the terrain, too. Luckily a man with his hands bound doesn’t have good balance.
I couldn’t see him, but I heard him fall somewhere to the right, a hundred metres or more away. Branches cracked, I heard a dull thud and I ran in the direction of the noise.
If he lay still, he had a chance, but Cobie was bent on getting away. When he staggered upright, I heard his footsteps and saw him as a dark shape against the grey of the long grass, crouched over and stumbling. I set after him and caught up. With every breath he made a noise of desperation. I tackled him from behind and he crashed down. With no hands to break the fall his face ploughed into the grass.
I jumped on him and sat on his back, stuck the Glock in his neck and hissed breathlessly, ‘Jissis, Jacobus, what the fuck is wrong with you?’
‘Shoot me.’ The hoarse whisper was almost inaudible, while he tried to jerk his body in a senseless attempt to get free.
‘What?’ I willed air back into my lungs.
‘Shoot me.’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘No.’
‘You are, Jacobus.’
‘Shoot me. Please.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s better.’
‘Why better?’
‘For everyone.’
‘Why?’
‘Because.’
‘Wrong answer. I’m not going to sit here and shoot the breeze with you, Jacobus. We have to see how Septimus is.’ I got up, but I kept hold of his wrists where the cord was tied. ‘Come.’ I dragged him up, keeping his arms high enough so it hurt if he didn’t cooperate.
‘Shoot me.’ A scream in the night, demonic and full of fear, and he jerked again, ignoring the pain he must have felt in his shoulders. That’s when I realised that my plan wasn’t going to work and I hit him as hard as I could on the head with the Glock.
At last the Honey Badger sank to the ground, out like a light.
I carried Cobie de Villiers over my shoulder to where Septimus meekly lay, just in time to see the light of a vehicle coming up the road from the gate.
‘Who’s that?’ I asked Seppie while I laid Cobie down next to him.
‘I think it’s Stef.’
My troubles multiplied. I could handle these two clowns. But one more?
It was the same Toyota pick-up that Stef Moller and Donnie Branca had been driving earlier. The tyres crunched over the gravelled yard and he stopped in front of the homestead and got out. He would see the lights at the labourer’s cottages. The question was, what would he do about it?
I felt the fatigue rising through my body. Long day. Long night. I knelt beside Cobie and shoved the barrel against his neck.
‘Cobie?’ Moller’s voice in the dark. I heard footsteps approaching over the gravel. Then I saw him on the edge of the beam of light. He had nothing in his hands.
‘No, Stef. It’s Lemmer.’
He saw us and stopped.
‘Come, Stef, come and sit with us.’
He hesitated, looking very concerned. His eyes blinked frantically.
‘What have you done?’ He came closer.
‘His lights are out, but only for the time being. Come and sit down, Stef, so we can talk about your lies.’
He sat beside Jacobus and stretched a trembling hand out to the still figure.
‘I didn’t have a choice,’ he said, and softly stroked Cobie’s hair.
‘You lied.’
‘I promised him. I gave him my word.’
‘He’s a murderer, Stef.’
‘He’s like a son to me. And …’
‘What?’
‘Something happened to him.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know, but it must have been terrible.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I know.’
Cobie stirred. He tried to turn over, but with his hands tied it was a struggle.
‘Easy, Cobie,’ Moller soothed him.
‘He’ll have to talk, Stef. He’s the one with the answers.’
‘He won’t talk.’
Cobie de Villiers moaned and tried to roll over. His eyes opened and he saw Stef Moller.
‘I’m here, Cobie.’
Cobie saw me. He jerked. Moller held a firm hand on Jacobus’s shoulder. ‘No, Cobie, don’t. He won’t do you any harm.’
Cobie didn’t believe him. His eyes flicked between us, well on his way to madness again.
‘Easy, Cobie, easy. I’m here; you’re safe. Easy
now.’
I could see Moller had done this before, the soothing, coaxing him back from the abyss. Cobie stared at Stef, then he seemed to believe him, because he sighed deeply and his body relaxed. I caught a glimpse of their history, their relationship. Also of Moller as a person. It commanded respect, but it didn’t help me. Behind a locked door in Cobie de Villiers’ head there was information that I needed. Moller held the key, if there was a key.
Squint Seppie was quiet, following events with one eye.
‘Stef, let me explain my problem,’ I said in a conversational tone, like a parent that didn’t want to upset a child, my words intended for Cobie’s ears. ‘I am looking for the people that hurt Emma le Roux. That’s all. I’m going to hunt them down and make them pay. I’m not interested in what Cobie or anyone else has done. I don’t want to involve the police. To be honest, I can’t afford to. All I want is a name. Or a place where I can find Emma’s attackers. Just that. Then I will leave. You will never hear from me again. I will tell no one what happened. That’s the promise I am making.’
Stef Moller sat with his hand on Cobie’s shoulder. He blinked slowly but he never said a word. It was Cobie’s decision.
The night was perfectly silent. I looked at my watch. Twenty to five. The sun was on its way. I looked at Jacobus. He just lay there.
Moller squeezed Cobie’s shoulder. ‘What do you say, Cobie?’
He shook his head. No.
I sighed. ‘Cobie, there is an easy way and there’s a hard way. Let’s do it the easy way.’
Moller frowned at me. He didn’t think that was the right approach.
‘No,’ said Jacobus softly.
‘Why not?’
‘Kill him.’
‘He can solve the problem, Cobie,’ said Moller.
‘He can’t. They will kill him too.’
‘No, Cobie,’ I said, but I missed what he added. ‘What did you say?’
‘They are going to kill everyone.’
‘Everyone?’
‘Emma and Stef and Septimus.’
‘Not if I stop them.’
‘You can’t.’ Cobie rolled his head back and forth, with a stubborn look on his face.
My patience ran out. Utterly. I grabbed a handful of Cobie’s hair and stood up. I pulled him upright by his hair.
‘Don’t,’ Stef Moller said, trying to stop me. I shoved his arm away. Cobie made an animal noise. I ignored it.
‘We tried your method, Stef. It’s time to make this arsehole realise what he’s doing.’ I dragged Cobie behind me towards the farm track. He struggled, but not much, because I had a firm grip on his hair.
‘Where are you going?’ Moller wanted to know.
‘Cobie and I are going to see Emma. He can explain to her why they shot her and made her fall off a train. He can make his fucking excuses to her.’
‘No,’ Jacobus screamed.
‘Shut your face and come.’ I pulled and walked fast.
‘Lemmer, please don’t,’ Stef Moller pleaded.
‘Don’t worry, Stef, you’re safe. It will be just Cobie and Emma and me. You stay here.’
‘I thought she was in a coma.’
‘Then we’ll just have to wait until she wakes up.’
‘No, no, no,’ screamed Cobie de Villiers.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ I told him, and dragged the madman with his hands bound and head bent behind me by the hair.
Halfway to the gate, with day breaking over the eastern horizon, Jacobus le Roux said in his rabid voice, ‘I’ll talk.’
I ignored him and pulled harder on his hair.
‘I’ll talk.’ Half an octave higher.
‘You’re lying, Jacobus.’
‘No. I swear.’
‘Jissis, you Hb cunts are fond of swearing. Why do you want to suddenly talk now?’
‘Because it’s just you and me.’
‘You’re going to tell Emma.’
‘No, please, not in front of Emma.’
‘Why not?’
He made a sound, a heart-rending bark that stopped me in my tracks.
‘Why not in front of Emma, Jacobus?’
‘Because it was my fault.’
‘What was?’
‘Ma and Pa. My fault.’
I let go of his hair. He staggered backwards and fell on his backside. His head drooped. In the morning half-light his face was bloodied and swollen from my blows. His shoulders heaved.
Cobie de Villiers wept. The sobs were soft but gradually grew louder until the veld resounded, raw and wrung out. I just stood there with the Glock in my hand and watched him, weary and suddenly sorry for this forlorn wreck.
Maybe it would do him good to cry. Perhaps it would temper his madness. The sounds rose in a crescendo and then diminished. His tears dripped dark dots into the dust.
I stood in front of him and shoved the Glock into my belt. I held his shoulder as Stef had done, and said, ‘Easy now, Jacobus, take it easy.’
Around us the Bushveld awoke. Cobie looked up at me slowly. He didn’t look good, but his eyes were less wild.
‘Can you really stop them?’
‘Not “can”, Jacobus. I will. No doubt.’
I could see that he didn’t believe me, but it didn’t matter to him any more. I untied his hands and rubbed his wrists. He gulped and breathed deeply a few times.
‘I am Jacobus le Roux,’ he said with terrible emotion, as if he had waited twenty years for this chance.
‘I know,’ I said.
‘And I miss Emma so terribly.’
Jacobus le Roux’s story did not come easily.
It took nearly three hours in the telling. Jerkily, struggling, sometimes disjointed so that I had to interrupt him. Every now and then emotion would silence him and I would wait until his shoulders stopped heaving. Every time he wandered off the point to irrelevancies, I would have to draw him back to his story with extreme patience. Later, when the sun was up and the heat rapidly becoming unbearable, I took him to the cool of a shady tree. We needed water. And sleep. But now he had the urge to get it off his chest and I had the thirst to hear it, to have the whole thing make sense.
When he was completely finished, when I had asked my last question and he’d answered it with a now hoarse and exhausted voice, we just sat there in the shade of the thorn tree like two punch-drunk boxers. We stared at the veld and saw nothing.
As those lingering minutes ticked away slowly I wondered what Jacobus le Roux felt. Relief? Relief that he was no longer the only one to know. Fear of what he had unleashed? Hope, that it could end now, this nightmare of twenty years? Or despair that it would never go away.
I looked at him, at the wounds on his face, the lines of tears down his cheeks, the drooping shoulders of someone who has borne too much for too long, and I recalled the picture of the young Jacobus le Roux. A great feeling of pity washed over me and I put out my hand and rested it on his shoulder. So he would know that he wasn’t alone any more.
Then I allowed the red-grey mist of rage to slowly build up, anger at the people who had done this to him and Emma. I had to control it, because I would need a cool head, but I let it flood through me, so it could drive out the exhaustion.
Before I stood up to leave, I said to Jacobus, ‘I’m going to make it right.’
He looked into my eyes. I saw he was empty. There was no madness, but also no hope.
I reversed the Audi out of the long grass beside the road and drove away. There were things I had to do. Eventually, I must go back to Motlasedi – my rented farmhouse below the mountain, beside the river, the ‘place of the great battle’, and I knew that they would be waiting there for me.
They would have heard the cell phone conversations; they had the technology for that. They would have stalked my temporary abode in the darkest hour with their sniper rifles and their balaclavas. They would have found nothing, but they would be waiting there to kill me.
Then they would wait for Emma, until they got to her in some w
ay or another. They would stop at nothing.
I understood most of it now. I couldn’t quite grasp the precise reasons for preserving their great secret with such relenüessness twenty years on, but I would find out.
Today.
40
The awful irony of Jacobus le Roux’s tale was that his father’s military influence was the start of it.
After basic training in 1985, only three national servicemen were transferred to the newly formed Nature and Environmental Conservation Unit of the army, which in total consisted of just over twenty soldiers. Jacobus was one of the chosen because Johannes Petrus le Roux, managing director of the Armscor supplier, Le Roux Engineering Works, had a word with the right general.
He hadn’t felt guilty about it. That was the way life worked. It was whom your father knew that counted. It was better that someone who felt so strongly about the environment should go rather than some dumb private loafing in the bush. So Jacobus le Roux had the opportunity to live his passion at the General De Wet Training Camp at De Brug outside Bloemfontein. More than ten thousand springbuck grazed on the 17,000-hectare property.
He was a self-assured young man, intelligent, passionate, dedicated and in his element. He impressed his superiors with his knowledge and work ethic. The next offer in September 1985 was made on merit.
The colonel came down from Pretoria to inspect De Brug and over a cup of tea in a prefab building he told him about the two army units in the Kruger Park. One was a contingent of 7 SAI, an infantry battalion from Phalaborwa, which patrolled the park’s border with Mozambique. The other was the more obscure ESU, or Environmental Services Unit, initially formed under the influence of the legendary former special forces Major Jack Greeff, but under the control of the Nature and Environmental Conservation Unit. The purpose of the ESU was to halt the epidemic proportions of ivory poaching and smuggling in Kruger.
Would Jacobus be interested in joining them?
He had said ‘yes’ long before his cup of tea was empty. Fourteen days later he reported for six weeks’ intensive training at the 5 Recce Battalion base in the Lowveld. That was where he met Vincent Mashego for the first time, his tracker, partner and future comrade.
Mashego was the opposite of Jacobus. The rich white boy was part of the ruling elite; the young black man grew up in Shatale, Mapulaneng, a member of a dirt-poor, marginalised tribe whose language, sePulane, was not taught in any school or book. His tribal name was Tao, which meant ‘lion’, the totem of the maPulana tribe, but he was so quiet and shy that his people called him Pego. It was the cynical abbreviation of Pegopego – the chatterbox.