The Serpentine Road

by Mendelson, Paul

  ‘I might have known . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘St Jerome’s Chapel.’

  ‘You know it?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ De Vries says. ‘I fucking hate churches.’

  ‘An opportunity for confession, perhaps?’ Ulton says, smiling now.

  ‘No time, man. Hours and hours and I wouldn’t even have begun to scratch the surface.’

  De Vries trots to the mortuary, finds the examination room empty. He moves towards the two small offices at the back of the room: one dark, the other containing the hunched form of Doctor Anna Jafari. He knocks firmly and opens her door even before he has heard a response. He finds her facing him, finger in the air. She does not look up.

  ‘I already know why you are here, Colonel.’

  ‘This is an ongoing murder enquiry. This could be the break-through. What can you do for me, Doctor?’

  ‘What I can always do. Tell you that there must be order, or the system will collapse.’

  De Vries feels the pressure grow inside him; he cannot understand why others cannot see what is obvious to him.

  ‘This is about the murder of a woman; possibly now the death of a young, vulnerable man. Not a hit-and-run, not a drug-related killing. This is something pre-meditated and the killer is out there.’

  Jafari looks up, places her pen neatly in front of her.

  ‘I don’t know how you see me. I don’t care. But, I am a human being. I am trying to live my life well and do my job properly.’

  ‘No one is asking you to compromise that . . .’

  ‘I see women and children every single day of work, Colonel. Abused, bullied, tortured, mutilated, murdered. If I took that to heart, I would never get out of bed.’ De Vries opens his mouth, but she continues, barely raising her voice yet insisting she is heard. ‘I know the statistics. Very few women kill women. Men kill us. Men are weak and pathetic and anything and everything threatens them, so when they find a strong woman, a powerful woman, they are afraid and their defence mechanism kicks in, and that mechanism includes murder.’ She stands up.

  ‘If I dwelt on that, Colonel, I would prioritize every female murder victim, but the sad truth is that men will kill anything, for any reason. So, I attend to my job logically and calmly and without emotion. There is no other way.’ She sits back down, picks up her pen.

  ‘You have your way, Doctor, but we have the media all over us, we have evidence leaking from the enquiry. We need to move this on. We need results.’

  Jafari looks up, her voice calm.

  ‘Have you listened to nothing I said? You have your priorities, and I have my way. I make an exception for you, then there are three other senior investigators in your department and they will all want the same. Speak to General Thulani if you want, but I can only do what I can do.’

  De Vries stares at her for a moment; he sees nothing but total assurance in her expression, such certainty in her eyes that what she says is right. He finds such hubris intolerably frustrating, finds the restriction on what he can say to her stifling. What could be more discriminatory than the fact that he must hold his tongue because she is small, coloured and a woman?

  He calls Thulani’s office, speaks with his secretary, leaves a message concerning post-mortem examinations. He expects nothing, but considers that the more he complains, the more there will be on record when it is proven that the system fails, as he is convinced it does.

  It is 8.50 a.m., and he knows that he should report to Wertner’s office and let the inevitable commence. The sooner Wertner’s team get to work, the sooner they will find nothing and leave him alone. Yet, after two days with no positive developments, he is too charged to stall the enquiry for what he knows is a waste of time. Instead, he pulls Don February from working with the collator and heads for the car park. Even Wertner cannot complain if his meeting is delayed because of a breakthrough in a murder case.

  On their way across town, he updates Don on the discovery of Angus Lyle’s body, the leaflet, the gun and the potential blood spatter evidence. Don listens, says nothing. They reach St Jerome Street, park outside the chapel and head immediately for the porch. De Vries pushes open the heavy door and strides inside. After a couple of steps, he stops. This morning, there are four chandeliers casting a pale, white light from bare bulbs over the pews, in which half a dozen people sit. At the altar, amidst a thick mist of blue smoke, Father Jacobus is speaking. They hear the tinkling of bells, see the thurible swinging on chains.

  De Vries turns, ushers Don towards the door, leaves the church.

  ‘What a miserable way to start the day,’ De Vries says, as they get back into the car.

  ‘Maybe, for those people, it is what helps them through the day?’

  De Vries looks at his Warrant Officer, realizes that he has an empathy he lacks totally; he wonders which of them is the stronger policeman as a result of this inequality.

  De Vries’s cell-phone rings. He studies the screen, sees it is David Wertner, switches it to voicemail.

  ‘Wertner has a dozen officers working for him in his office alone. Imagine how many more crimes could be solved if they were being proper policemen? The only officers we get now are Internal Investigation or Traffic. No wonder it’s out of control . . .’

  Don sits placidly. He has heard all these arguments before, knows that it is best to nod silently.

  They wait for fifteen minutes until they see half a dozen elderly people leaving the church. Brenda Botes is the last to come out. She scans the road, sees De Vries and Don February, ducks back into the church.

  They exit the car and follow her in. She is talking to Father Jacobus at the back of the church.

  ‘I need to speak with both of you,’ De Vries announces loudly.

  ‘Why,’ Jacobus starts, ‘should we speak to you, when you have done nothing about that abomination?’

  ‘Abomination?’

  ‘That exhibition is open again. People are coming to leer at those pictures. The newspapers have made it a shrine to immorality and sinful desire.’

  ‘You made it a shrine,’ De Vries says dryly. ‘No one but a few arty types knew anything about it until you came along and protested publicly.’

  ‘It was your responsibility.’

  ‘It isn’t a police matter . . .’

  ‘You should make it one,’ Brenda Botes says. ‘Our group will not let this matter drop. We have influence . . .’

  ‘You must speak with the council . . .’

  ‘What will they do?’

  De Vries raises his hand.

  ‘We need to talk to you about a man called Angus Lyle.’

  Jacobus’s eyes turn towards De Vries.

  ‘What about Angus?’

  ‘Angus Lyle is dead.’

  Jacobus nods gravely.

  ‘That is very sad. May God bless his soul. But, it is not unsurprising.’

  De Vries turns to Brenda Botes.

  ‘Did you know this man?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I saw him in church occasionally, but I did not know him.’

  ‘You see him on the street?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I must speak to Father Jacobus alone.’

  Brenda Botes glances at Jacobus, turns and walks back to the main door.

  ‘You want to sit down?’

  ‘I want you,’ Jacobus says, ‘to stop coming here. You are upsetting my parishioners.’

  ‘Upsetting them?’ De Vries is shouting now, the echo from the previous word countering his next. He moderates his voice, but he can still hear his words whisper around the stone walls. ‘I come here to tell you that one of them is dead, and you complain that I am upsetting other people. What kind of world do you live in? I am here to ask you about Angus Lyle, and I will continue to come here to ask you about people you know – and who subsequently die – for as long as that pattern continues.’ De Vries takes a deep breath. ‘So, Father, if you want rid of me, answer my questions and
stop acting holier than thou.’

  Jacobus says nothing. He just stares at De Vries blankly.

  Don February says: ‘Let us sit here and talk. Surely you are distressed that Mr Lyle has passed on?’

  The priest twitches, drops into a pew; De Vries and Don take the row behind him. Jacobus twists around and faces them.

  ‘I will tell you if you go away . . .’

  De Vries and Don say nothing.

  ‘. . . Angus Lyle was a very troubled young man. He came from a home with no father, a mother who turned to prostitution to pay her way. People do not appreciate how many whites are suffering in this country now, how many are in poverty. I will not tell you in his words what Angus told me, but I know that he witnessed these men coming to his home to have sexual intercourse with his mother, and I know that there were times he was threatened. It was one of those men who probably introduced him to drugs.’

  ‘He came here regularly?’

  ‘He came when he came. Once he stayed here for three days, sleeping on the floor there. At other times, I did not see him for weeks.’

  ‘And what did you do to help him?’

  ‘I prayed for him.’

  ‘Was that it?’

  Jacobus snorts.

  ‘Yes. If the state could provide counselling for him, if there was a programme to tackle his addictions . . . But there was nothing.’

  ‘Did he hate women?’

  Jacobus frowns.

  ‘That is a blunt question.’ De Vries says nothing. ‘I believe he came to hate his mother. I think he felt that there were other ways to survive, that prostituting herself was the ultimate sin.’

  ‘And who gave him that idea?’

  ‘The Bible proscribes . . .’

  ‘Did he hate other women?’

  ‘He read what he read and formed his own opinion. I tried to interpret and explain for him, but people will read what they will from the Holy scriptures.’

  The frustration and anger wells inside De Vries; he tastes bile. He represses it.

  ‘Did Angus Lyle ever meet Taryn Holt?’

  ‘Not here. That woman was never here.’

  ‘But anywhere else?’

  ‘I don’t know that. How would I know? I doubt it. I would say that they were at the furthest points of the wide divide in this country.’

  ‘You gave him a Bible?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You ever look in it? His Bible?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He seemed obsessed by immoral women. He underlined passages and made notes.’

  ‘That is not uncommon and it is not surprising, given the man’s history.’

  ‘Was Lyle ever violent?’

  Jacobus cogitates.

  ‘He had a temper. When he did not have the drugs and he felt that the world was against him . . . But then, I suspect, you have such a temper also.’

  ‘We’re not talking about me . . .’

  ‘And you are sensitive about it, too. I said what I did merely to illustrate that we all have things in life which disturb us, which might cause us to be bad tempered. I never saw Angus being violent.’

  ‘What about the immoral women? What did he want to do with them?’

  ‘I should think that depended on whether he was reading the Old Testament or the New. With the latter, he would have wanted to save them; using the former, I suspect, he would have wanted to kill them.’

  De Vries turns to Don, then back to Jacobus.

  ‘Was Angus at the demonstration on Wednesday night?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . I thought I saw him at one point, but I’m not sure.’

  ‘But he knew about your protest?’

  ‘I think so. We had been talking about it for a week before the event, saying that this was what we would do if the Holt woman did not cancel the exhibition.’

  ‘Did he see the pictures himself?’

  ‘Possibly. There were leaflets in the vestry we had collected. Angus often let himself in there, looking for me. And, for all I knew, he walked down the street and saw that hideous painting in the window.’

  ‘When did you last speak with him?’

  ‘Not for a while. Monday or Tuesday of last week. Possibly Tuesday.’ He closes his eyes. ‘So many people fall. At least now, he is in the hands of the Lord.’

  De Vries thinks of the body of Angus Lyle, naked and dissected, on a bench in the mortuary, and hopes that now, right now, he is in the hands of Doctor Anna Jafari.

  ‘You have been very quiet.’

  ‘You do not like the priest?’

  De Vries faces him.

  ‘You don’t find him arrogant and fucking annoying?’

  ‘I think he has a difficult job. It is a matter of faith, I suppose.’

  ‘You have faith? You are a Christian?’

  ‘No, sir. That is not it . . .’ He concentrates on pulling out into the traffic. ‘It is not my place to say . . .’

  De Vries studies him.

  ‘Tell me what you think about the case?’

  ‘I do not know what to think. A man like this Angus Lyle. It is not who we thought might have killed Miss Holt.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If we find that he had met her, perhaps been to her house, then I suppose the matter is decided . . . But I cannot see why she would befriend him.’

  ‘We don’t know either of them yet.’

  ‘Is it believable, that he is able to avoid setting off the alarm, that he picks up the shells, leaves no forensic evidence? And where does he find the weapon?’

  ‘That we have to find out. We need to know whether this is a man with a good brain who is disturbed, or whether he is incapacitated by drugs, unable to plan and carry out something like this.’

  They pull up at the traffic lights to rejoin Orange Street.

  ‘And now he is dead, with all the evidence on him . . .’

  De Vries turns to him, holds his cigarette out of the window.

  ‘Ja, I agree. It would be convenient if someone wanted to implicate him to distract attention from themselves, but what bothers me is why? If someone else is responsible, they left no evidence anyway.’

  ‘So, we follow the trail of Angus Lyle?’

  ‘Whether Lyle is responsible or not, we follow it. Either it closes the case or we are being led somewhere for a reason. We go where it takes us . . .’ De Vries looks over to Don. ‘And then we find out where we are.’

  Within five minutes of De Vries returning to the station, David Wertner appears in the squad room and marches over to his office. He lets himself in.

  ‘Is this an official refusal to co-operate with my department, De Vries?’

  De Vries looks up at him calmly from his chair, eyes half-closed.

  ‘Close the door and sit down.’

  ‘In my office, De Vries. Not here, not now. In my office at 9 a.m., that was the arrangement.’

  De Vries feels composed. He has expended his wrath. His head is buzzing with possibilities at the developments of the morning. Wertner now seems no more than a minor irritation.

  ‘We are both senior officers. I am in the middle of a serious, high-profile murder enquiry.’ He sits up. ‘I’m sure that you wouldn’t want to be accused of hindering it?’

  Wertner sits, and De Vries smiles to himself.

  ‘What hinders your work, De Vries,’ Wertner says, leaning over the desk, ‘is your inability to control your team. As we have previously discussed, many times, when I am officially investigating you and your department, which I am now, I have technical rank. That is why you are insubordinate to have deliberately failed to appear before me at 9 a.m.’

  ‘Grow up,Wertner. Insubordinate? We’re not at training school now. This is the real world. I had a breakthrough in my case. It was necessary to interview a difficult witness before certain information reached him. Perhaps you have forgotten the imperatives of an investigation?’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten the way you operate. Have you questioned your team regarding t
his leak of crucial information?’

  ‘First of all,’ De Vries says. ‘It is not crucial information. It was a report that Trevor Bhekifa was present at this station and questioned. Whoever did leak it had no information; that was invented by the newspaper. Secondly, the article included information which I didn’t discuss with Bhekifa. I never overtly asked him if he was having a sexual relationship with Taryn Holt; intimate and close, maybe, but the word sex was never mentioned. Yet that’s what they printed front and centre. Third, I’ve spoken to all my team and they deny making even a casual mention of the topic anywhere that could have been overheard, and finally, to show you that I know exactly what is happening, I used a contact at the Sunday Cape Herald to confirm that the tip-off received was anonymous and that no money changed hands.’

  ‘That does not clear you or your team.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Wertner. Ask yourself: what is the motive for leaking the story? If it’s not money, then it’s troublemaking. They’re trying to turn this into something it isn’t. This is politics and, if you don’t know by now that I don’t do politics, then you know nothing.’

  ‘You could have told me this at our agreed appointment.’

  ‘I’m telling you now. Waste your time interviewing team members, delay my enquiry, or do some thinking and work out who gains from the leak, but it sure as hell isn’t anyone on the right side of the equation.’

  Wertner gets up, runs his hand over his closely shaven head, stretches stiff, thick shoulder muscles. He is still too squat to look physically threatening, De Vries thinks. He is like an elderly attack dog whose muzzle you could hold shut, keep him at arm’s length.

  ‘You always have an answer, don’t you? An explanation for your deficiencies. But, know this: I am watching you all the time.’

  ‘I know you are.’

  ‘So, every last detail of your case had better be watertight, Colonel.’

  He swivels, pulls open the door, marches out, slams it behind him.

  ‘Colonel. You have a call from a Mr Mitchell Smith. He says it’s urgent.’

  De Vries sighs, glances at his watch.

  ‘Tell him I have two minutes only. Then put him through.’

  He has managed to put Mitchell Smith, the memories he conjures, to the back of his mind; he has forced himself to focus on what gets him through each day.