by Deon Meyer
He put down the bottle as if it were sacred.
He should open the bottle and pour the brandy down the sink.
But then he would smell it and he wouldnt be able to resist it.
Get control first. He rested his palms on the counter and took deep breaths.
Lord, it had been close, earlier that evening.
Only his hunger had stopped him getting drunk.
He took another deep breath.
Fritz was going to phone him to find out if he had listened to the CD and he would have been drunk and his son would have known. That would have been bad. He considered his sons voice. It wasnt so much the boys interest in his opinion about the music. Something else. A craving. A longing. A desire to make contact with his father. To have a bond with him.
We never had a father.
His son wanted a father now. So badly. He had been so close to fucking it up. So close.
He drew another deep breath and opened a kitchen cupboard. It was empty inside. He quickly picked up the bottle and put it inside and shut the door. He went upstairs. He didnt feel so tired anymore. Second wind, when your brain gets so busy you just keep on going, when your thoughts jump from one thing to another.
He showered and got into bed and shut his eyes. He could see the prostitute and he felt a physical reaction, tumescence and he thought, hello, hello, hello? He felt guilty, as she had just lost her child and this was his reaction. But it was odd because whores had never done it for him. He knew enough of them. They were in a profession that was a magnet for trouble; they worked in a world that was just one small step away from serious crime. And they were all more or less the sameregardless of the fee they charged.
There was something about Christine van Rooyen that set her apart from the others he knew. But what? Then when he lined her up against the rest he identified it. Prostitutes, from the Sea Point streetwalkers to the few who serviced the tourists for big money in the Radisson, had two things in common. That distinctive bittersweet smell. And the damage. They had an atmosphere of depression. Like a house, a neglected house, where someone still lives, but you can see from the decay that they dont really care anymore.
This one was not like that. Or less so. There was a light still burning.
But that wasnt what was giving him an erection. It was something else. The body? The eyes?
Hell, he had never once been unfaithful to Anna. Except by boozing. Maybe Anna reasoned like that: he was unfaithful to her because he loved alcohol with an all-encompassing passion. So she was justified in looking elsewhere. His head said she had the right, but the green monster sprang to life, made him writhe in the bed. He would pulp the fucker. If he caught them. If he should walk into his house and bedroom and they were busy . . . He saw the scene too clearly. He turned over violently, pulled up the sheet, thrust his head under the pillow. He did not want to see. Some or other handsome young shit pumping his wife and he could see Annas face, her ecstasy, that small private sublime smile that told him she was in her own little world of pleasure and her voice, he remembered her voice, the whispering. Yes, Benny, yes, Benny, yes, Benny. But now she would be saying someone elses name and he leapt up and stood beside the bed and he knew: he would shoot the fucker. He had to phone her.
Now.
He had to drink. He must get the bottle out of the kitchen cupboard. He took a step toward the wardrobe. He clenched his fist and stopped himself.
Get a hold of yourself, he said out loud.
He felt the absence below. His erection was gone.
No fucking wonder.
* * *
It was an old stone house with a corrugated iron roof. He climbed a sagging wire boundary fence and had to deviate around the carcass of a Ford single cab pickup on blocks before he could make out the number on one of the pillars of the verandah. The seven hung askew.
It was dark inside. Thobela retraced his steps to the back door. He turned the knob. It was open. He went in, closing the door quietly behind him, assegai in his left hand. He was in the kitchen. There was an odor in the house. Musty, like fish paste. He allowed his eyes to grow accustomed to the deeper dark inside. Then he heard a sound from the next room.
* * *
Once the two from the police forces Social Services had gone, she took a big flask of coffee and two mugs to the armed men on guard outside her door. Then she locked the door and went out onto the balcony.
The city lay before her, a creature with a thousand glittering eyes that breathed more slowly and deeply in the depths of night. She gripped the white railing, feeling the cold metal in her hands. She thought about her child. Sonias eyes pleading with her.
It was her fault. She was responsible for her childs fear.
* * *
From the sitting room he heard a snore like the grunt of a boar: short, crude and powerful.
Thobela peered around the doorframe and saw the man on the couch under a blanket.
Where was the woman?
The Scholtzes. Their two-year-old son had died in hospital in Oudtshoorn two weeks ago from a brain hemorrhage.
The district surgeon had found lesions on the tiny organs and thin fragile ribs and ulna, cheekbones and skull. From them he had reconstructed a jigsaw of abuse. The worst I have seen in fifteen years as coroner, the Sunday paper had quoted his testimony.
He walked closer to Scholtz over the bare floor. In the dark the silver half-moons of rings gleamed in the visible ear. Across the bulky arm was a spider web of black tattoo, the pattern unclear without light. The mouth was open and at the peak of every breath he made that animal noise.
Where was the woman? Thobela smoothed the cushion of his thumb over the wooden shaft of the assegai as he slipped past, deeper into the house. There were two bedrooms. The first one was empty; on the wall hung a childs drawings, now without color.
He felt revulsion. How did these peoples minds work? How could they display the childs art on his bedroom wall and moments later smash his head against it? Or batter him until the ribs splintered.
Animals.
He saw the woman in the double bed of the other room, her shape outlined under the sheet. She turned over. Muttered something inaudible.
He stood still. Here was a dilemma. No, two.
* * *
Christine let go of the railing and went back inside. She closed the sliding door behind her. In the top drawer in the kitchen she found the vegetable knife. It had a long narrow blade, slightly curved with a small, sharp point. It was what she wanted now.
* * *
He didnt want to execute the woman. That was his first problem.
A war against women was not a war. Not
his
war, not a Struggle he wanted to be involved in. He knew that now, after Laurens. Let the courts, imperfect as they were, take responsibility for the women.
But if he spared her, how would he deal with the man? That was his second problem. He needed to wake him. He wanted to give him a weapon and say: Fight for your right to crack a two-year-old skull, and see where justice lies. But the woman would wake up. She would see him. She would turn on lights. She would get in the way.
* * *
Christine sat on the edge of the bath after closing the bathroom door. She took the cap off the bottle of Dettol and dipped the blade of the little knife into the brown fluid. Then she lifted her left foot onto her right knee and chose the spot, between her heel and the ball of her foot. She pressed the sharp point of the blade gently against the soft white skin.
Sonias eyes.
* * *
He walked around the door of the bedroom where the woman lay, right up close. Thats when he saw the key in the lock and knew what he must do.
He pulled the key out of the lock. It made a scraping sound and he heard her breathing become shallow. Quickly he closed the door. It creaked. He pushed the key in from the outside. In haste he struggled to get it in.
He heard her say some
thing in the room, a bleary, unrecognizable word.
At last the key went in and he turned it.
Chappie? called the woman.
The man on the couch stopped snoring. Thobela turned towards him.
Chappie! she shouted, louder now. What are you doing?
The man sat up on the couch and threw the blanket aside.
I am here about the child, said Thobela.
He noted Scholtzs shoulders. A strong man. It was good.
Theres a kaffir in the house! the man shouted to his wife.
* * *
She jabbed the blade into her foot, as hard as she could. She could not help the cry that fell from her lips.
But the pain was intense. It burned the hurt away; it covered over everything, just as she had hoped.
34.
He dreamed wild, mixed-up dreams that drove him from his sleep and made him get up twice before he finally dropped off again at three in the morning. He was busy talking to Anna, a conversation of no use or direction, when the cell phone woke him. He grabbed it, missed, the handset fell from the windowsill and landed somewhere on the bed. He found it by the light of the screen.
Yes? He couldnt disguise his confusion.
Inspector Griessel?
Yes.
Sorry to wake you. Tshabalala here, from Oudtshoorn detective branch. Its about your assegai murderer.
Yes? He felt for his watch on the windowsill.
It seems he was in Uniondale last night.
Uniondale? He found his watch and checked it.
0
4:21.
We have a child batterer here, Frederik Johannes Scholtz, out on bail with his wife. Stabbed to death in his house last night.
Uniondale, he repeated. Where is Uniondale?
Its about a hundred and twenty kilos east of here.
It made no sense. Too far from the Cape. How do you know its my assegai man?
The wife of the deceased. The suspect locked her in the bedroom. But she could hear what was going on . . .
Did she see him?
No, he locked the door while she was asleep. She heard Scholtz shout from inside the house. And he said the guy had an assegai.
Wait, wait, said Griessel. He locked her in the bedroom? How did he get the man out of the bedroom?
The woman says they dont share a bed anymore, since the child died. He slept in the sitting room. She woke up when Scholtz began shouting. She heard him say: Hes got an assegai. But theres something else . . .
Yes?
She said he shouted it was a black man.
A black man?
She said he shouted: Theres a kaffir in the house.
It didnt fit. A black man? Thats not how he had pictured the assegai man in his head.
How reliable that is, Im not sure. It seems they were fighting in the dark.
What does the wound look like?
The fatal wound is in the chest, but it looks like he was trying to fend it off with his hands. There are some cuts. And there is furniture overturned and broken. They obviously fought a round or two.
The chest woundis there an exit wound in the back?
Looks like it. The district surgeon is still busy.
Listen, said Griessel. I am going to ask our pathologist to phone him. There are a lot of forensic details they must see to. Its important
Relax, said Tshabalala. We have it under control.
* * *
He showered and dressed before he phoned Pagel, who took the early call with grace. He passed on the numbers to call. Then he drove to the Quickshop at the Engen garage in Annandale Road. He bought a pile of pre-packed sandwiches and a large take-away coffee and drove to work. The streets were quiet, the office quieter still.
He sat down behind his desk and tried to think, pen in hand.
Union-fucking-dale. He opened a sandwich. Bacon and egg. He took the lid off the coffee. The steam drifted lazily upwards. He inhaled the aroma and sipped.
It would be a day or two before they knew whether it was the same assegai, regardless of how much pressure the commissioner exerted. He bit into the sandwich. It was reasonably fresh.
A black man. Scholtz wrestling with an attacker in the dark, frightened, he sees the long blade of the assegai. Had he made an assumption? Could he really see?
A black man with a pickup. In Uniondale. Big surprises. Too big. The sudden detour to a place five hundred kilos from the Cape.
They didnt need a copycat, God knows. And this thing could easily spawn a lot of copycats. Because of the children.
He began to jot down notes in the crime report file in front of him.
* * *
No, damnit, said Matt Joubert and shook his head with finality.
Griessel and Ngubane were in the senior superintendents office at seven in the morning. All three were too frenetic to sit.
Ive said Ngubane.
Matt, just a few days. Two or three, said Griessel.
Lord, Benny, can you see the trouble if he gets away? Flees the country? These fuckers have false passports like confetti. Theres no way . . .
I said Ngubane.
We have the manpower, Matt. We can shut the whole place down. He wont be able to move.
Joubert still shook his head. What do you think Boef Beukes will do? He has the biggest drug bust of his career and you want to let his big fish out on bail? Hell squeal like a skinny pig.
Matt, last night I said Ngubane.
Fuck Beukes. Let him squeal. We wont get bait like this again.
No, damnit.
Listen to me, barked Ngubane in frustration, and they looked at him. Last night I talked to one of the people from Investigative Psychology at head office. Shes here in Cape Town. Shes helping Anwar with a serial rapist in Khayelitsha. She says if he gets the chance, Sangrenegra will go to the child. Whether she is alive or not. She says the chances are good that he will lead us to her.
Joubert sat down heavily on his chair.
That makes our case very strong, said Griessel.
Think about the child, said Ngubane.
Let the commissioner decide, Matt. Please.
Joubert looked up at the pair of them leaning shoulder to shoulder over his desk. Here comes trouble, he said. I can see it a mile away.
* * *
Pagel phoned him before eight to say indications were that the Uniondale assegai was the same blade, but he would have to wait for the tissue samples being brought by car from Oudtshoorn. Griessel thanked the prof and called his team together in the task team room.
There have been a few interesting developments, he told them.
Uniondale? asked Vaughn Cupido with a know-it-all smirk.
It was on Kfm news, said Bushy Bezuidenhout, just to spoil Cupidos moment.
What did they say?
Its all Artemis, Artemis, Artemis, said Cupido. Why must the media always give them a name?
It sells newspapers, said Bezuidenhout.
But this is radio . . .
What did they say? asked Griessel louder.
They said there is a suspicion that it is Artemis but that it cant be confirmed, said Keyter piously.
Our assegai man is black, said Griessel. That shut them up. He described what they knew of the sitting-room battle in the small town. Then there is the question of the tire tracks from yesterday. Forensics says he drives a pickup, probably a two-by-four. Not yet a breakthrough, but it helps. It can help us focus . . . He saw Helena Louw shaking her head. Captain, you dont agree?
I dont know, Inspector. She got up and crossed over to the notice board on the wall. There were newspaper clippings in tidy rows, separated into sections by pinned strands of different
colored knitting wool.
We researched the publicity surrounding each of the victims, she said and pointed at the board. The first three were in all the papers, and probably on the local radio too. But when we heard about Uniondale this morning we had a look.
She tapped a finger on the single report in a red-wool section. It was only in
Rapport.
So whats your point, sister? asked Cupido.
Afrikaans, genius, said Bushy Bezuidenhout.
Rapport
is Afrikaans. Blacks dont read that paper.