Devil's Peak bg-1

by Deon Meyer

  Thobela waited.

  For a long time Khoza hesitated. “The Yellow Rose,” he said, and opened the door. A high scream, almost human, rang out from inside. Behind Thobela the pigs surged urgently and pressed against the bars.

  9.

  Thobela drove to the Waterfront, deliberately choosing the road that ran along the mountain so that he had a view of the sea and the harbor. He needed that—space and beauty. The role he had played had disturbed him and he couldn’t understand why. Impersonation was nothing new to him. In his days in Europe it had been part of his life. The East Germans had coached him in it down to the finest detail. Living the Lie was his way of life for nearly a decade; the means justified by the goal of Liberty, of Struggle.

  Had he changed this much?

  He came around the bulging thigh of the mountain and a vista opened up below: ships and cranes, wide blue water, city buildings and freeways, and the coastline curving gracefully away to Blouberg. He wanted to turn to Pakamile and say: “Look at that, that is the most beautiful city in the world,” and see his son gaze in wonder at all this.

  That is the difference, he thought. It felt as though the child was still with him, all around him.

  Before Pakamile, before Miriam, he had been alone; he was the only judge of his actions and the only one affected by them. But the boy had moved his boundaries and widened his world so that everything he said and did had other implications. Lying to Lukas Khoza now made him as uncomfortable as if he had been explaining himself to Pakamile. Like the day they went walking in the hills of the farm and he wanted to teach his son to use the rifle with greater responsibility, a piece of equipment to treat with care.

  The rifle had awakened the hunter in the boy. As they walked he pointed the unloaded rifle at birds, stones and trees, made shooting noises with his mouth. His thoughts went full circle until he asked: “You were a soldier, Thobela?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you shoot people?” Asked without any macabre fascination: that is how boys are.

  How did you answer that? How did you explain to a child how you lay in ambush with a sniper’s rifle in Munich, aiming at the enemy of your ally; how you pulled the trigger and saw the blood and brains spatter against the bright blue wall; how you slunk away like a thief in the night, like a coward. That was your war, your heroic deed.

  How did you describe to a child the strange, lost world you lived in—explain about apartheid and oppression and revolution and unrest? About East and West, walls and strange alliances?

  He sat down with his back to a rock and he tried. At the end he said you must only take up a weapon against injustice; you must only point it at people as a very last resort. When all other forms of defense and persuasion were exhausted.

  As now.

  That is what he would like to tell Pakamile now. The end justifies the means. He could not allow the injustice of his murder to go unpunished; he could not meekly accept it. In a country where the System had failed them, it was now the last resort, even if this world was just as hard to explain, just as complicated to understand. Somebody had to take a stand. Somebody had to say, “This far, and no further.”

  That is what he had tried to teach the boy. That is what he owed his son.

  * * *

  He knocked on doors the whole afternoon, and by four o’clock Detective Inspector Benny Griessel knew the victim was forty-six-year-old Josephine Mary McAllister, divorced in 1994, dependable, unremarkable administrative assistant at Benson Exports in Waterkant Street. She was a member of the New Gospel Church in Sea Point, a lonely woman whose former husband lived in Pietermaritzburg and whose two children worked in London. He knew she was a member of the public library, favoring the books of Barbara Cartland and Wilbur Smith, owned a 1999 Toyota Corolla, had R18,762.80 in a current account at Nedbank, owed R6,456.70 on her credit card, and on the day of her death had booked a plane ticket to Heathrow, apparently planning to visit her children.

  He also had, as with the previous two murders, not a single significant clue.

  When he dragged his cases across the threshold of her apartment he understood the risk in what he was doing, but he told himself he had no choice. Where the hell should he go? To a hotel, where alcohol was one finger on the telephone away? Forensics had already been through here and there was no other key but the one in his pocket.

  Josephine Mary McAllister’s flat had no shower, only a bath. He ran it half full and lay in the steaming water, watching his heart sending delicate ripples across the surface with each rhythmic beat.

  The broad connection between McAllister, Jansen and Rosen was elementary. All middle-aged, living alone in Green Point, Mouille Point. No forced entry. Each strangled with an electric cord from the victim’s kitchen. How did the perpetrator pick his victims? On the street? Did he sit in a car and watch until he spotted a potential victim? And then just knock on the door?

  Impossible. McAllister and Rosen’s apartment blocks had security gates and intercom systems. Women didn’t open up for strange men—not anymore. Jansen’s house had a steel gate at the front door.

  No, somehow he befriended them. Then made a date for a Friday night and picked them up or brought them home. And used the electric cord, which he found in the kitchen. Did he take it into the sitting room or the bedroom? How did he manage to surprise them? Because there was not much sign of struggle—no tissue under fingernails, no other bruising.

  He must be strong. Fast, and methodical.

  The forensic psychologist in Pretoria said the fucker would have a record, possibly for minor offenses: assault, theft, trespassing, even arson. Most likely for sexual offenses, rape perhaps. “They don’t start with murder, they climb the ladder. If you catch him, you will find him in possession of pornography, sadomasochistic stuff. One thing I can tell you: he won’t stop. He’s getting more skillful and more and more self-confidence.”

  Griessel took the soap and washed his body, wondering if she had sat in here before he fetched her. Had she prepared herself for the date, unknowing, a lamb to the slaughter?

  He would get him.

  Friday nights. Why Fridays?

  He rinsed off the soap.

  Was Friday the only night he was free of responsibilities? What professions were off on Friday nights? Or rather what professions worked on Friday nights? Only bloody policemen, that’s all—the rest of the world partied. And murdered.

  He climbed out of the bath, walked dripping over to his cases and took out a towel. Anna had placed one neatly on top of the clothes. She had packed carefully for him, as if she cared. But now he rummaged around in the suitcases. He would have to hang the clothes up, or they would be wrinkled.

  He had to find a place to stay. For six months.

  He listened to the silence in the flat, suddenly aware that he was alone. That he was sober. He chose some clothes and dressed.

  Despite her anger, Anna had packed his clothes with care. She would be in the kitchen now, still in her work clothes, clattering pots and pans, radio playing on the table. Carla would be sitting at the dining-room table with her homework books, twisting the point of the pencil in her hair. Fritz would be in front of the television, remote in hand, skipping channels continuously, searching, impatient. Always on the go. He was like that too—things must happen.

  Jesus, what had happened to his life?

  Pissed away. With the help of Klipdrift and Coke and Jack Daniel’s.

  Alcoholics Anonymous, Step Ten: Continue to take personal inventory and when you are wrong, promptly admit to it.

  He sighed deeply. Desire pressed against his ribcage from inside. He did not want to be here. He wanted to go home. He wanted his family back, his wife and his children. He wanted his life back. He would have to start over. He wanted to be like he was before—the policeman from the Parow station who laughed at life. Could one begin again? Now. At forty-three?

  Where would you begin, to start over?

  You don’t have to be a genius to work that one out.

&
nbsp; He wasn’t sure whether he had said that out loud.

  He must buy a newspaper and look for a place in the classified ads, because this fucking flat gave him the heebie-jeebies. But first he must phone. He found Mrs. McAllister’s phone directory in a drawer of the cupboard by the phone. He opened it near the front, and slid his finger down the list, turned a page, looked again until he found the number.

  He would try one more time. One last fucking time.

  He rang the number. It did not ring for long.

  “Alcoholics Anonymous, good afternoon,” said a woman’s voice.

  * * *

  By chance Thobela bought the Argus.

  It was something to do while he ate fish and chips from a cardboard carton, the seagulls waiting like beggars on the railing for alms. He spread the paper open on the table before him. First he read the main article without much interest—more political undercurrents in the Western Cape, allegations of corruption and the usual denials. He dipped the chips in the seafood sauce. That was when he spotted the small column in the right bottom corner.

  COPS CALLED ““INCOMPETENT”—BABY RAPIST CASE DISMISSED

  He read. When he had finished, he pushed the remains to one side. He gazed out over the quiet water of the harbor. Pleasure boats with sunburned tourists on board cruised out in a line to serve cocktails off Llandudno and Clifton when the sun went down. But he was blind to the scene. He sat there staring and motionless for a long time with his big hands framing the article. Then he read it again.

  * * *

  There was a knock on the study door and the minister said, “Come in.”

  The woman who put her head around the door was in her middle years, her black hair cut short against her head and her nose long and elegant. “Sorry to disturb you. I have made some snacks.”

  The two women summed each other up with a glance. Christine saw false self-assurance, subservience, a slim body hidden by a sensible frock. A busy woman with able hands that only labored in the kitchen. The sort of woman who had sex in order to have children, not for pleasure. A woman who would turn away stiffly if her husband’s mouth and tongue slid lower than the small, worn breasts. Christine knew her type, but she didn’t want to let on and tried to seem inconspicuous.

  The minister stood up and crossed to his wife to take the tray from her. “Thank you, Mamma,” he said.

  “It’s a pleasure,” she said, smiling tight-lipped at Christine. Her eyes said, for the tiniest moment, “I know your kind,” before she softly closed the door.

  In a detached way the minister placed the tray on the desk—sandwiches, chicken drumsticks, gherkins and serviettes.

  “How did you meet?” she asked. He had gone back to his chair.

  “Rita and I? At university. Her car broke down. She had an old Mini Minor. I was passing on my bicycle and stopped.”

  “Was it love at first sight?”

  He chuckled. “It was for me. She had a boyfriend in the army.”

  Why, she would have liked to ask. What did you see in her? What made you choose her? Did she look like the ideal rectory wife? A virgin? Pure. She imagined the romance, the propriety, and she knew it would have bored her to death at that age.

  “So you stole her away from him?” she asked, but wasn’t really interested anymore. She felt an old jealousy rising.

  “Eventually.” He smiled in a self-satisfied way. “Please, have something to eat.”

  She wasn’t hungry. She took a sandwich, noting the lettuce and tomato filling, the way the bread was cut in a perfect triangle. She placed it on a plate and put it on her lap. She wanted to ask how he had managed to wait, how he had suppressed his urges until after the wedding. Did student ministers masturbate, or was that a sin too in their world?

  She waited until he began to eat a drumstick, holding the leg bone in his fingers. He leaned forward so that he ate above the plate. His lips glistened with fat.

  “I had sex the first time when I was fifteen,” she said. “Proper sex.”

  She wanted him to choke on his food, but his jaw only stalled a moment.

  “I chose the boy. I picked him out. The cleverest one in the class. I could have had anyone, I knew that.”

  He was helpless with the chicken half eaten in his hand and his mouth full of meat.

  “The more my father prayed about the demons in me, the more I wanted to see them. Every night. Every night we had to sit in the lounge and he would read from the Bible and pray long prayers and ask God to cast the Devil out of Christine. The sins of the flesh. The temptations. While we held hands and he sweated and talked till the windows rattled and the hair on my neck stood up. I would wonder, what demons? What did they look like? What did they do? How would it feel if they came out? Why did he focus on me? Was it something I couldn’t help? At first I didn’t have a clue. But then boys at school began to look at me. At my body.”

  She didn’t want the plate on her lap anymore. She plonked it down on the desk and folded her hands under her breasts. She must calm down; she needed him, perfect wife and all.

  Her father would inspect her every morning like one of his men. He would not let her out of the door until he had approved the length of her skirt. Sometimes he would send her back to tie up her hair or to wash off some barely visible mascara, until she learned to leave a little earlier and apply her make-up in the mirror of the school toilets. She did not want to forgo the newly discovered attention of boys. It was a strange thing. At thirteen she had been just one of the crowd: flat-chested, pale and giggly. Then everything began to grow—breasts, hips, legs, lips—a metamorphosis that made her father rabid and had an odd effect on all the men around her. Matric boys began to greet her, teachers began to linger at her desk, Standard Sixes began to look at her sideways and whisper to each other behind cupped hands. Eventually she twigged. It was during this time that her mother began to work and Christine became part of a group who went to a parentless house after school to smoke and occasionally to drink. And Colin Engelbrecht had said to her from behind the blue cloud of a Chesterfield that she had the sexiest body in school, it was now officially accepted. And if she would be willing to show him her breasts, just once, he would do anything.

  The other girls in the room had thrown cushions at him and screamed that he was a pig. She had stood up, unbuttoned her shirt, unhooked her bra and exposed her breasts to the three boys in the room. She had stood there with her big boobs and for the first time in her life felt the power, saw the enthrallment in their eyes, the jaw-dropping weakness of lust. How different from her father’s terrible disgust.

  That is how she came to know the demons.

  After that, nothing was the same again. Her display of her breasts was talked about, she realized later, because the level of interest increased and the style of their approach changed. This act had created the possibility of wildness, the chance of getting lucky. So she began to use it. It was a weapon, a shield and a game. The ones she favored were occasionally rewarded with admission to her room and a long sweaty petting session in the midday heat of Upington, the privilege of stroking and licking her breasts while she watched their faces with absolute concentration and cherished the incredibly deep pleasure—that she was responsible for this ecstasy, the panting, the thundering heartbeat.

  But when their hands began to drift downwards, she returned them softly but firmly to above the waist, because she wanted to control when that would happen, and with whom.

  The way she wanted it, exactly as she fantasized when she lay in her bed late at night and masturbated, slowly teasing the devil with her fingers until she drove him out with a shuddering orgasm. Only to find the next night that he was back inside, lurking, waiting for her hand.

  It was at the school sports day of her Standard-Eight year that she seduced the handsome, good and clever, but shy Johan Erasmus with his gold-rimmed glasses and fine hands. It happened in the long grass behind the bus shed. He was the one who was too afraid to look at her, who blushed blood red if she said hello. He was soft—his eyes, his voice, h
is heart. She wanted to give her gift to him because he never asked for it.

  And she had.

  10.

  My name is Benny Griessel and I am an alcoholic.”

  “Hello, Benny,” said thirty-two voices in a happy chorus.

  “Last night I drank a whole bottle of Jack Daniel’s and I hit my wife. This morning she kicked me out the house. I have gone one day without drinking. I am here because I can’t control my drinking. I am here because I want my wife and children and my life back.” While he was listening to the desperation in his voice, someone began to clap, and then the dingy little church hall resounded with applause.

  * * *

  He lingered in the dark outside the long, unimaginative building, instinctively taking an inventory of exits, windows and the distance to his pickup. The Yellow Rose must have been a farmhouse once, a smallholder’s home in the 1950s before the high tide of Khayelitsha pushed past.