by Sally Andrew
The detective nodded at me, but carried on with his call. He looked big, even when he was sitting down. His desk was solid teak and had a polished reddish glow that went well with his chestnut moustache.
‘Mmm . . . uhuh . . . ’ he was saying, leaning back in his leather chair.
Outside his office window were thorn trees, and the shadows of the branches fell on the white walls and on his shirt and chest.
My chair was also wood and leather. It was a comfortable office of a man who spent a lot of time there. I wondered about his home life.
There was a fan on his desk, and I leaned towards it to feel the breeze on my face. My dress was sticking to me from the heat. Between the files and papers on his desk, I saw a photograph in a silver frame. It was Kannemeyer, younger, with his arm around a woman. She was pretty and her face was turned up to him like a flower to the sun. And he was shining love down on her.
‘Okay. Ja . . . Ja nee. Bye,’ he said.
He put down the phone and cleared his throat.
‘Mrs van Harten,’ he said.
‘I brought you some cake,’ I said. ‘And a slice for Anna.’
I pushed the Tupperware across the table and opened it so he could see the two big pieces wrapped in wax paper. He did that slow smile of his that showed off his white teeth and lifted his chestnut moustache at the corners.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘So, what’s happening with Anna?’
‘There is quite a case against her.’ He ran his fingers across his moustache. ‘Her prints were on a fire poker that was used to hit Martine van Schalkwyk. Fresh tyre tracks from her bakkie were in the dirt driveway.’
‘What does she say?’ I said.
‘She won’t talk to us. She won’t call a lawyer.’
‘Anna wouldn’t kill her friend. She had no reason to.’
‘Could be a crime of passion. Photographs were smashed. Including Martine and Dirk’s wedding photo,’ Kannemeyer said, glancing at his own photograph. ‘Van Schalkwyk says the woman was in love with his wife. Your letters support that. Did you bring them?’
I put my letters on his desk, but I didn’t want them used like that. He was laying out the evidence against Anna. Neatly, like he was laying a table. I didn’t want to eat at that table.
‘The letters show that Martine’s husband was threatening to kill her,’ I said. ‘He broke her arm. It’s him you must arrest.’
‘There’s no evidence that he did kill her.’
‘Were his fingerprints on the poker?’
‘No.’
‘Isn’t that a bit funny?’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t he use the fire poker in his own house?’
I took his piece of cake from the Tupperware and put it on the table. The corner of the wax paper fell open, showing a small dark corner of glistening icing. He looked at the chocolate cake and then at me, as if he had just seen me properly for the first time.
‘Ja, we found it strange,’ he said. ‘Only Anna’s prints were on the handle.’
‘Sounds like someone used it and then wiped the prints.’
Kannemeyer moved in his chair and looked out of the window. There were a few big clouds in the sky. Fat with rain that would probably never fall.
‘It wasn’t the poker alone that killed her,’ he said at last. ‘She had taken – or been given – a strong sedative. Then she was hit on the head with the poker. Afterwards she was suffocated. Probably with a pillow. There were bits of the cushion fibre in her mouth.’
‘What?’ I said.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
Suicide was like killing her twice. Heart and body. But this way she was murdered three times over. I could not believe Anna would do that.
‘It doesn’t sound like a crime of passion to me,’ I said. ‘It must have been planned.’
‘You know, Tannie Maria,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking the same thing myself.’
‘So why arrest Anna?’
‘We need to go on the evidence we’ve got. She’s arrested, not convicted. She can apply for bail. I’m hoping you can talk some sense into her. You are the only one she’s asked for. Convince her to get legal help. And to press charges against Van Schalkwyk.’
‘What does Dirk van Schalkwyk say? Did you question him?’
‘Of course we’ve questioned him. What he said is police business. I am only sharing Anna’s story with you because she needs your help.’
‘Let me see her then. Can you organise us some coffee, please?’ I said, picking up the Tupperware from his desk and closing it. ‘To go with her cake.’
‘I’ll take you to her.’
Kannemeyer led me down a darkened corridor to a back room with a small window and an enamel-topped table and two plastic chairs. The walls were yellow-white and cracked, like a smoker’s teeth.
A policewoman led Anna in. Anna wore jeans and a khaki shirt that hadn’t been ironed. Her short dark hair needed a brush. She scowled at Kannemeyer and the woman.
I opened the Tupperware and put it on the table. We sat down and Anna tried to smile at me but her mouth was too tight.
The policewoman scooted forward to see the cake. I bet she had never seen such a nice chocolate cake, but she wasn’t getting any. Even if Anna offered to share it with me, I’d say no. I could see she needed every crumb of it herself. At the approach of the policewoman, Anna held her mouth even more closed. Her lips almost disappeared. I would have to get her to relax if she was going to talk or eat.
‘Konstabel Witbooi will bring coffee,’ said Kannemeyer, at the doorway.
‘Can we be alone?’ I said to the policewoman. ‘Please.’
The woman glanced behind her as if I might be talking to someone else.
‘I am here for your safety,’ she said.
I looked up at Kannemeyer. He moved his chin to tell her she could go. The door clicked locked behind them.
‘How are you doing?’ I said.
Anna looked at me with those big brown eyes.
‘Oh, Tannie,’ she said.
She lifted her fingers to her forehead and let her head fall into her hand.
Piet came in with coffee.
‘Dankie, Konstabel Piet.’
When he’d gone Anna sat up and looked at me again. I was adding milk and sugar to our cups.
‘Bloody hell,’ she said, kicking the table leg with her boot. ‘I messed up.’
The coffee wobbled and the cake did a little dance. The icing was melting. I passed her coffee to her and tried to take a sip of mine, but it was still too hot. Anna rubbed her hands on her thighs.
‘She’s dead. Dead. And it’s all my fault,’ she said.
Was she giving me her confession now?
‘Oh, Anna,’ I said, then I kept quiet.
If she was going to talk, I’d listen.
‘I got there too late,’ she said.
She ran a hand through her hair, messing it up even more.
‘I knew the bastard would kill her. I could’ve stopped it. But she’d told me not to come round and I didn’t. I was stupid, I should never have listened to her. On Tuesday I was feeding my ducks, when I felt like I was punched in my stomach. I rushed to her house.’ Her gaze shifted to the wall. ‘But it was too late . . . ’
She was not looking at the cracking paint, but at another picture inside her mind.
‘Have some cake,’ I said.
But she didn’t. She had a sip of coffee
‘The poker,’ I said. ‘It had your fingerprints on it.’
‘When I found Tienie dead, I was so upset and angry,’ she said. ‘I was angry with him. With Tienie. With myself. And that blerrie wedding photograph. It sat there, staring at me, lying to me, like it did every time I came to visit. I know it was stupid, but I was just so blerrie freaked out, I picked up that poker and klapped that wedding photograph across the room.’
I took a sip of my coffee.
‘Did you hit Martine?’ I asked.
Her eyes went wide.
I kept looking at her.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I would never hurt her. Never. But Dirk . . .’ She took a big sip of coffee. ‘He’s going to pay for this.’
I peeled the wax paper off the cake and pushed it closer to her, and she started in on it. Now I knew she was going to be okay. She nodded at me, her mouth full, and gave me the thumbs-up.
‘Have you laid charges for what he did at the police station?’ I said when she was finished.
She licked the icing off her fingers and shook her head.
‘This is between me and him.’
‘Anna, you must get legal help. I brought those phone numbers from my letter. Call Legal Aid. Apply for bail.’ I took the paper from my pocket. ‘Here.’
She laughed but it was not a happy laugh.
‘Tannie Maria,’ she said, ‘do you think I care if I go to prison?’ She took the piece of paper but she didn’t look at it. ‘Do you think I care if I die? Have you ever loved someone? I mean, really loved someone?’ I found myself wishing I had brought an extra piece of cake for myself. That was a big slice she ate all on her own.
‘No,’ I said, into my coffee cup.
Henk Kannemeyer came to the door to fetch me and my empty Tupperware. He had chocolate icing on his bottom lip.
‘Will she apply for bail?’ he said as we walked along the corridor.
‘I gave her some Legal Aid phone numbers,’ I said. ‘I don’t think she did it.’
‘That cake,’ he said. ‘Very good.’
As we came to his office, I saw that he’d shared his piece with Piet. Piet was studying every crumb on his plate for clues to how such a perfect chocolate cake was made. The phone rang on the desk, and Kannemeyer stopped to answer it. He lifted his hand, asking me to wait one minute. But I hurried past. I wanted to get home as soon as I could. There was still half a cake in my kitchen.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When I woke up the next morning, I had a bit of indigestion so I chewed a Rennie’s.
On the kitchen table was one last slice of buttermilk chocolate cake. The rest I had eaten the night before while I was not thinking about what Anna had said about love. I made some coffee and went and sat on the stoep to watch the day arrive. It happens all of a sudden in the Karoo. One minute the light is soft and full of the night’s shadows, and then the sun is blasting everything awake. The Rooiberg changes from red to orange to ochre yellow before you can finish a cup of coffee.
The birds and insects were calling and flying about: the drongos eating the purple berries on the gwarrie trees in the veld; the bokmakieries hopping in the branches of the sweet-thorn trees.
All five of my chickens came to say hello, their wattles and combs wobbling and their rust-brown feathers trembling as they ran towards me. I reached into the bucket of crushed mielies that I kept on the stoep and threw them a handful of corn.
I drank my coffee and searched the sky for rain clouds, but there were none. I was wearing my thin blue cotton dress, and had bare feet, but I was already hot.
I packed a fresh tin of muesli rusks for the Gazette office. I looked at the cake on the table. It was the last slice of what may have been the best chocolate cake I had ever made. It was quite a responsibility.
I could not eat it myself. Not just because of the indigestion. That would pass. It always did. I felt I needed to put it to good use.
‘I am wondering how you could help with the case,’ I said to the cake. ‘The other slices did a good job at the police station yesterday. Poor Anna, I hope she gets out soon. I am sure prison food is terrible.’ I sat down at the table. ‘But someone is going to have to eat it.’
My stomach was feeling a bit better after the Rennies so I got up to boil myself an egg. Just one. I sat and ate it at the kitchen table with bread and apricot jam.
‘I think it is that husband, Dirk, who should be eating jail food,’ I said to my egg as I knocked the top off with a teaspoon. ‘I think we should go and have a chat to him.’
When I had finished, I said to the slice of cake in front of me: ‘But I need to be prepared. You can’t just walk up to a murderer unprepared.’
I tidied my breakfast away and made two big roast lamb sandwiches with farm bread. One for Dirk and one for me. With mustard and gherkins and lettuce. I cut them each in half and put them in a Tupperware. The cake slice glistened in its chocolate rum icing. I wrapped it up in wax paper and popped it into the Tupperware too.
The Tupperware and the tin of rusks came with me to the Gazette. I parked in the shade of the jacaranda. The phone was ringing as I stepped into the office and Hattie waved hello to me as she answered. There was no sign of Jessie.
‘Harriet Christie,’ Hattie said. ‘Yes, Mr Marius . . . Certainly, Mr Mar— ’
On my desk was a thick cream envelope with my name and address written in beautiful handwriting. The postmark was Barrydale.
‘We are doing our best, Mr Marius,’ said Hattie.
Mr Marius was a Gazette sponsor. Real estate. Hattie pulled a face at me, pointing her finger at her tongue to show he made her feel sick. I was glad I didn’t have her job. I tuned out her voice as I sat down and read my letter:
Tannie Maria, I like your style. You are one plucky lady.
I am an interior decorator who left Cape Town to retire – sort of – in one of these quaint little Karoo towns. Mostly it’s divine, but some days the small minds of these folk just makes me want me to tear my hair out by the roots and scream for mercy. But let me not digress. It is my boyfriend’s birthday later this month, and I thought I would make him a special meal. I have bought a set of pale turquoise ceramic crockery for the occasion; handmade plates that are just exquisite. He is a growing lad and he loves his meat and carbs, but I think the occasion and the plates call for something more than pap en wors. Any ideas? Something with the right flavours and colours to go on these plates. Something special and feisty – like my boyfriend. Something with balls.
Marco
I closed my eyes, and I could imagine those lovely turquoise-blue plates. What I saw on them was frikkadelle, tamatiesmoor and yellow mieliepap. Ja, those spicy meatballs, together with that chunky tomato sauce, and polenta would be very nice on that blue plate. And maybe a side plate with big chunks of bright roasted vegetables, like beetroot and butternut and yellow pepper. And feta. Oh, it looked beautiful . . .
‘Hey, Tannie M.’ Jessie’s voice dissolved the picture. ‘Who you dreaming of?’
‘Jessie,’ I said. ‘You gave me a fright. I was thinking of meatballs.’
‘How did it go at the jail yesterday?’ Hattie asked as she put down the phone.
‘Did they enjoy your cake?’ said Jessie.
‘Oh, yes,’ I said, getting up and filling the kettle. ‘Coffee and tea?’
‘Ja,’ said Jessie.
‘Please,’ said Hattie.
‘I don’t suppose there’s any more of that cake?’ said Jessie, eying the Tupperware on my desk.
‘There’s one piece left,’ I said. ‘But I’ve got plans for it. I brought you some muesli buttermilk beskuit.’
I told them about my meetings with Kannemeyer and Anna.
‘Does sound like someone wiped off their prints before Anna picked up the poker,’ said Jessie, taking her coffee and a rusk.
‘And it simply doesn’t make sense for Dirk to wipe his own poker, you’d expect to find his prints on it,’ said Hattie, accepting her tea and ignoring the beskuit.
‘Ja, but he is a bloody idiot,’ said Jessie, ‘so he might do such a thing.’
‘I think we must talk to him,’ I said.
‘But would he talk to us?’ said Hattie. ‘I gather he’s not a friendly chap.’
‘I have a piece of that chocolate cake,’ I said, ‘and a lamb sandwich. With mustard and gherkins. That could make him talk.’
‘I don’t think we should be giving that bastard cake and lamb,’ Jessie said. ‘He deserves a sharp kic
k in the balls.’
‘The man has a gun, you know,’ said Hattie. ‘But I agree he’s more likely to talk to a tannie with food than a pair of Gazette investigators.’
‘Okay,’ said Jessie. ‘You can try going in with the food and I’ll wait outside. If you shout, I’ll come running with that kick. And a pepper spray.’
I could’ve used Jessie in my days with my husband. I gave her another beskuit.
‘Dirk’s staying at the Dwarsrivier Bed & Breakfast,’ said Jessie. ‘I saw his car outside and I spoke to Tannie Sarie, who cleans at the B&B. He’s booked in for a couple of days.’
‘Why’d he move out?’ I asked.
‘It’s a crime scene. The forensic team from Oudtshoorn was here – the LCRC. They’ve put that yellow tape all over the place.’
‘Goodness, Jess. How do you know all this?’ asked Hattie. ‘Are you seeing Reghardt then? Does he tell you these things?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Jessie, twirling her ponytail around her finger. ‘We have seen a bit of each other, though, and I did overhear him talking on the phone, and then I just happened to drive by the Van Schalkwyk farm. Came straight back when I saw the LCRC vehicles.’
Hattie shook her head.
‘I think we should visit the crime scene ourselves,’ Jessie said. ‘Soon. Before Dirk goes home. The LCRC will be finished there today and the police guard will be removed.’
‘Oh, golly, Jess, I don’t want you getting into trouble,’ said Hattie.
‘Anna’s the one in trouble, for a murder she didn’t do. We’ve got to try and help her.’
‘We can’t go breaking the law,’ said Hattie.
‘Maybe you can’t,’ said Jessie. ‘You’re the boss. But I’m an investigative journalist; I’m expected to break the law.’
‘Maybe we can stretch the crime scene tape a little,’ I said, ‘without breaking it.’
Harriet sighed, and said, ‘Girls, girls, please don’t do anything stupid.’
Jessie winked at me. We both looked at Hattie with wide, innocent eyes. Jessie had her last sip of coffee. Her hand touched the pepper spray on her belt.