by Deon Meyer
“Hmm,” said Griessel.
Bezuidenhout took another file off the heap. “Here’s a list of all the children that were molested by Pretorius. Eleven. Can you believe it! Eleven that we know of. I have started phoning. Most of the parents are in the Bellville area. I’ll start with them tomorrow. It will be a long day. I’ll get the names onto the database too.”
“Use the uniform guys, Bushy.”
“Benny, I don’t want to be funny, but I prefer to talk to them myself. The uniforms are very green.”
“Let them talk to neighbors or something. We have to use them.”
“What about Jamie?”
“What about him?”
“He’s doing fuck-all.”
“Do you want him?”
“I could use him.”
“Bushy . . .” Then he changed his mind. “Jamie,” he called in Keyter’s direction.
“Yes, Benny?” Keyter responded eagerly. He leapt up, almost knocking his chair over.
“Tomorrow you go with Bushy.”
He had reached them. “Okay, Benny.”
“Do the first few interviews with him. Is that understood?”
“Okay.”
“I want you to learn, Jamie. Then Bushy will let you know which you can do on your own.”
“I get it.”
“Jamie . . .”
“Yes, Benny.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Don’t say what?”
“Don’t say ‘I get it.’ It irritates the hell out of me.”
“Okay, Benny.”
“It’s Amerikaans anyway,” said Bezuidenhout.
“Amerikaans?” asked Cupido.
“Yes, you know. The way they say it in America.”
“An Americanism,” said Griessel wearily.
“That’s what I said.”
Griessel said nothing.
“You said ‘Amerikaans,’ you clot. You’re not a language expert’s backside,” said Vaughn Cupido, getting up to leave.
31.
He wanted to go home. Not to the flat, but to his home. Where his wife and children were. He had a pounding headache and a sluggishness as if his fuel had run out. But he steered the car towards the city. He wondered what the children were doing. And Anna.
Then he remembered. He wanted to phone her. About the thing that had been bothering him since yesterday. He took out his phone while driving and looked up her number on the list. He pressed the button and it rang.
“Hello, Benny.”
“Hello, Anna.”
“The children say you are still sober.”
“Anna . . . I want to know. Our agreement . . .”
“What agreement?”
“You said if I could stop drinking for six months . . .”
“That’s right.”
“Then you’ll take me back?”
She said nothing.
“Anna . . .”
“Benny, it’s been barely a week.”
“It’s been nine fucking days already.”
“You know I don’t like it when you swear.”
“All I’m asking is if you are serious about the agreement?”
The line was quiet. Just as he was about to say something, he heard her. “Stay off the booze for six months, Benny. Then we can talk.”
“Anna . . .” but she had disconnected him.
He didn’t have the energy to lose his temper. Why was he putting himself through this? Why was he fighting the drink? For a promise that was suddenly no longer a promise?
She had someone else. He knew it. He was a bloody detective; he could put two and two together.
It was her way of getting rid of him. And he wasn’t going to fall for that. He wasn’t going through this hell for fuck-all. No, damnit, not the way he felt now. One glass and the headache would be gone. Just one. Saliva flooded his mouth and he could already taste the alcohol. Two glasses for energy, for gas in the tank, for running the assegai task force. Three, and she could have as many toy boys as she liked.
He knew it would help. It would make everything better. Nobody need ever know. Just him and that sweet savor in his flat and then a decent night’s rest. To deal with this thing with Anna. And the case. And the loneliness. He looked at his watch. The bottle stores would still be open.
When he arrived at his door with the bottles of Klipdrift and Coke in a plastic bag, there was a parcel on the threshold wrapped in aluminum foil. He unlocked the door first and put the bottles down before picking up the package. There was a note stuck to it. He unpeeled the sticky tape.
For the hard-working policeman. Enjoy. From Charmaine — 106.
Charmaine? What was the woman’s case? He unwrapped the foil. It was a Pyrex dish with a lid. He lifted the lid. The fragrance of curry and rice steamed up to his nostrils. Boy, it smelt good. His hunger overcame him. Light-headed, he grabbed a spoon and sat down at the counter. He dug in the spoon and filled his mouth. Mutton curry. The meat was tender under his teeth; the flavor seeped through his body. Charmaine, Charmaine, whoever you are, you can cook, that’s for sure. He took another spoonful, picked out a bay leaf with his finger, licked it off and put it aside. He took another mouthful. Delicious. Another. The curry was hot and fine beads of perspiration sprang out on his face. The spoon fell into a rhythm. Damn, he was hungry. He must make a plan about eating. He must take a sandwich to work.
He looked at the bottle of Klippies on the counter beside him. Soon. He would relax in his armchair with a full belly and take his drink as it should be: slowly, with savor.
He ate like a machine down to the last spoonful of curry, carefully scraped up a morsel of meat and a last bit of sauce and brought it to his mouth.
Damn. That was good. He pushed the dish away.
Now he would have to take it back to Charmaine at 106. He had a mental picture of a plump young woman. Why was that? Because her food was so good? Somewhat lonely? He got up to rinse the dish in the sink, then the lid and his spoon. He dried it off, found the foil, folded it neatly and placed it inside the dish. He fetched his keys, locked the door behind him and walked down the passage.
She knew he was a policeman. The caretaker must have told her. He would have to tell her he was a married man. And then he would have to explain why he was living here alone . . . He stopped in his tracks. Did he really need to go through all that shit? He could just leave the dish at her door.
No. He must thank her.
Perhaps she wouldn’t be in, he hoped. Or asleep or something. He knocked as softly as possible, thought he could hear the sound of a television inside. Then the door opened.
She was small and she was old. The wrong side of seventy, he judged.
“You must be the policeman,” she said, and she smiled with a snow-white set of false teeth. “I’m Charmaine Watson-Smith. Please come in.” Her accent was very British and her eyes were large behind the thick lenses of her spectacles.
“I’m Benny Griessel,” he said and his intonation sounded too Afrikaans to him.
“Pleased to meet you, Benny,” she said and took the dish from him. “Did you enjoy it?”
“Very much.” The inside of the flat was identical to his, just full. Crammed with furniture, lots of portraits on the walls, full of bric-a-brac in display cabinets, on bookshelves and small coffee tables: porcelain figurines and dolls and framed photographs. Crocheted cloths and books. A giant television set with some or other soapie on the go.
“Please take a seat, Benny,” she said and turned the sound of the television completely off.
“I don’t want to interrupt your program. I’ve actually just come to say thank you very much. It was very nice of you.” He sat down on the edge of a chair. He didn’t want to stay long. His bottle awaited him. “And the curry was fantastic.”
“Oh, it was a pleasure. You not having a wife . . .”
“I, uh, do. But we are —” he searched for the word — “. . . separated.”
“I’m sorry to
hear that. I sort of assumed, seeing your children yesterday . . .”
She didn’t miss much. “Yes,” he said.
She sat down opposite him. She seemed to be settling in for a long discussion. He didn’t want . . .
“And what sort of policeman are you?”
“I’m with the Serious and Violent Crimes Unit. Detective Inspector.”
“Oh, I’m delighted to hear that. Just the right man for the job.”
“Oh? What job is that?”
She leaned forward and stage-whispered conspiratorially: “There’s a thief in this building.”
“Oh?”
“You see, I get the Cape Times every morning,” she said, still in that exaggerated whisper.
“Yes?” A light began to go on for him. There is no such thing as a free curry and rice.
“Delivered to my postbox at the entry hall. And somebody is stealing it. Not every morning, mind you. But often. I’ve tried everything. I’ve even watched the inner door from the garden. I believe you detectives would call it a stakeout, am I right?”
“That’s right.”
“But the perpetrator is very elusive. I have made no headway.”
“My goodness,” he said. He had no idea what else to say.
“But now we have a real detective in the building,” she said with immense satisfaction and sat back in her chair.
Griessel’s phone rang in his shirt pocket.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to take this.”
“Of course you do, my dear.”
He took the phone out. “Griessel.”
“Benny, it’s Anwar,” said Inspector Anwar Mohammed. “We’ve got her.”
“Who?”
“Your assegai woman. Artemis.”
“Assegai woman?”
“Yup. She’s made a complete statement.”
“Where are you?”
“Twenty-three Petunia Street in Bishop Lavis.”
He got up. “You’ll have to direct me. I’ll phone you when I’m nearby.”
“Okay, Benny.”
He switched off the connection. “I’m really sorry, but I have to go.”
“Of course. Duty calls, it seems.”
“Yes, it’s this case I’m working on.”
“Well, Benny, it was wonderful meeting you.”
“And you too,” he said on the way to the door.
“Do you like roast lamb?”
“Oh, yes, but you mustn’t go to any trouble.”
“No trouble,” she said with a big white smile. “Now that you’re working on my case.”
Petunia Street was in uproar. Under the streetlights stood a couple of hundred spectators, so that he had to drive slowly and wait for them to open a path for him. In front of number 23 rotated the blue lights of three police vans and the red ones of an ambulance. Forensics and the video team’s two Toyota minibuses were parked halfway up the pavement. In front of the house next door were two minibuses from the SABC and e.tv.
He got out and had to push his way through the bystanders. On the lawn a colored constable in uniform tried to stop him. He showed his plastic ID card and instructed him to call in more people for crowd control.
“There aren’t any more, the entire station is here already,” was the reply.
Griessel walked through the open front door. Two uniformed members sat in the sitting room watching television.
“No, damnit,” Griessel said to them. “The crowd is about to come in the door and you sit here watching TV?”
“Don’t worry,” one answered. “This is Bishop Lavis. The people are curious, but decent.”
Anwar Mohammed heard his voice and came out of an inner room.
“Get these people outside, Anwar, this is a fucking crime scene.”
“You heard the inspector, hey?”
The men stood up reluctantly. “But it’s Frasier,” said one, pointing at the screen.
“I don’t care what it is. Go and do your work,” said Mohammed. Then, to Griessel: “The victim is here, Benny.” He led the way to the kitchen.
Griessel saw the blood first — a thick gay arc of red starting on the kitchen cupboard door and sweeping up, all the way to the ceiling. To the right against the fridge and stove was more blood in the distinctive spatters of a severed artery. A man lay in a fetal position in the corner of the smallish room. The two members of the video team were setting up lights to film the scene. The light made the reddish-brown blood on the victim’s shirt glisten. There were a few rips in the material. Beside him lay an assegai. The wooden shaft was about a metro long, the bloodied blade about thirty centimeters long and three or four centimeters wide.
“This is not the assegai man,” said Griessel.
“How can you know?”
“Whole MO is different, Anwar. And this blade is too small.”
“You better come talk to the girl.”
“The girl?”
“Nineteen. And pretty.” Mohammed gestured with his head to the door. He walked ahead.
She was sitting in the dining room with her head in her hands. There was blood on her arms. Griessel walked around the table and pulled out the chair beside her and sat down. Mohammed stood behind him.
“Miss Ravens,” said Mohammed softly.
She raised her head from her hands and looked at Griessel. He could see she was pretty, a delicate face with deep, dark, nearly black eyes.
“Good evening,” he said.
She just nodded.
“My name is Benny Griessel.”
No reaction.
“Miss Ravens, this inspector has been working on the assegai case. Tell him about the others,” said Mohammed.
“It was me,” she said. Griessel saw her eyes were unfocused. Her hands trembled slightly.
“Who is the man in there?” he asked.
“That’s my dada.”
“You did that?”
She nodded. “I did.”
“Why?”
She slowly blinked her big eyes.
“What did he do?”
She was looking at Griessel but he wasn’t sure she was seeing him. When she spoke there was surprising strength in her voice, as if it belonged to someone else. “He would come and sleep with me. For twelve years. And I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone.”
Griessel could hear the anger.
“And then you read about the man with the assegai?”
“It’s not a man. It’s a woman. It’s me.”
“I told you,” said Mohammed.
“Where did you get this assegai?”
“At the station.”
“Which station?”
“The station in Cape Town.”
“At the station flea market?”
She nodded.
“When did you buy it?”
“Yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” queried Mohammed.
“And then you waited for him to come home tonight?”
“He wouldn’t stop. I asked him to stop. I asked him nicely.”
“Did you two live here alone?”
“My mother died. Twelve years ago.”
“Miss Ravens, if you only bought the assegai yesterday, how could you have killed the other people?”
Her black eyes moved over Griessel’s face. Then she looked away. “I saw it on TV. Then I knew. It’s me.”
He put out a hand and rested it on her shoulder. She jerked away and in her eyes he saw momentary fear. Or hate, he couldn’t differentiate. He dropped his hand.
“I called SS,” said Mohammed quietly behind him.
“That’s good, Anwar,” he said. Social Services could handle her better. He rose and led Mohammed out by the elbow. In the kitchen, beside the body, he said: “Watch her. Don’t leave her alone.”
Before Mohammed could reply, they heard Pagel’s voice in the door. “Evening, Nikita, evening, Anwar.”
“Evening, Prof.”
The pathologist was in evening wear with his case in
his hand. He shuffled past the video team and squatted down beside the man on the floor.
“This is not our assegai, Nikita,” he said as he opened his case.
“I know, Prof.”
“Benny,” a voice called from the sitting room.
“Here,” he said.
Cloete, the officer from Public Relations, walked in. “Hell, but it’s busy here.” He looked at the victim. “He’s copped it.”
“Oh, so now you’re a pathologist too?” asked one of the video men.
“Look out, Prof, Cloete’s after your job,” said the other.
“That’s because Benny’s sober now. One less job opportunity for Cloete.”
“But Benny doesn’t look better.”
“Shit, but you’re funny tonight,” said Griessel. To Cloete: “Come, we’ll talk in there.” He saw Mohammed following them. “Anwar, get someone to watch the girl before you come.”
“Will she try to escape?” asked Cloete.
“That’s not what I’m afraid of,” said Griessel, and sat down on a chair in the sitting room. The television was still showing a situation comedy. Laughter sounded. Griessel leaned forward and turned it off.
“Did you see the television people outside?”
Griessel nodded. Before he could say more the cell phone in his pocket rang. “Excuse me,” he said to Cloete as he took the call: “Griessel.”
“It’s Tim Ngubane. Joubert says you’re looking for bait. For the assegai thing . . .”
“Yes.” A little surprised at the friendly tone.
“How does a Colombian drug lord who’s got a thing for little girls grab you?”
“It sounds good, Tim.”
“Good? It’s perfect. And I’ve got it for you.”
“Where are you?”
“Camps Bay, home to the rich and famous.”
“I’ll come as soon as I can.”
Before he could put the phone away, Cloete forged ahead. He pointed outside: “Someone told them it was Artemis. The papers are here too. I had to hear it from them.” Accusing.
“I just got here myself.”