The Man in the Wind
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The Man in the Wind
A novel by Vernon W. Baumann
Copyright (c) 2014 Vernon William Baumann
Published by the Paper Corporation 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Although Coffee is based on an actual place (Koffiefontein) the people and circumstances are entirely fictitious. I apologise to anyone I may have inadvertently offended. All the characters (unless otherwise stated or previously arranged) are likewise fictitious in nature and any resemblance to persons, alive or dead, is purely co-incidental. . I apologise for the liberties I took with the landscape, lay-out and naming regarding this pleasant town.
Although I take great care to do the proper research, especially with regards to police and criminal procedure in the South African context, sometimes –as an author – I need to bend the rules. I apologise for those instances where I did not provide an accurate depiction of legal and police procedure. You will understand that the narrative demanded – at times – a certain leniency when it came to verisimilitude. I hope no-one, especially employed within these sectors, takes offence at these necessary “tweaks”.
Cover design: Johann Saaiman / www.123rf.co.za
Acknowledgements
I want to thank the Dear Lord, God in Heaven for giving me the talent, the discipline and the inspiration to finish this book. Praised be your name. Forever and ever.
I want to thank my wife, Rouxlien; for listening to my ideas, for providing insight and suggestions and for putting up with my foul moods. Thank you. Again and again.
I want to thank Major-General Sharon Schutte (retired) of the South African Police. Your help and guidance was absolutely invaluable. Thank you for putting up with the endless questions of an insistent author. This book would have lacked the proper authenticity without you.
I also want to thank Colonel Sandra J Weber for her initial help with my research. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. Thank you also for your patience.
I wish to thank Linda Sparks for her assiduous and rigorous editing of this manuscript. You have helped me so much before. Your assistance becomes more and more valuable with each new book. Thank you. I hope we can both soon start enjoying real success. (Watch out for her books on Amazon!)
I want to thank all of those who took an interest in this book. Thank you for wishing me well and enquiring after my slow progress. It’s finally done!
As always, this book is dedicated to my wife, Rouxlien.
Your love is my home.
Friends who became a part of this book
A posting on Facebook resulted in an interesting experiment. These are the people who lent their names to the characters in my book:
Alte Bismarck – Alte Kuhn
Shaun Hertzog – Shaun Young
Alistair Rockcliff – Alistair Pritchitt
Lizelle Blomkamp – Lizelle van Wyk
Lloyd Botha – Lloyd Minter
Johann Trudouw – Johann Saaiman
Michelle Bismarck – Michelle Liebenberg
Nadine Rockcliff – Nadine Smith
Carol-Ann Botha – Carol Ann de Bruin-Snyman
Linda van Wyk – Linda Sparks / Prof Arlys van Wyk
Miranda Kirsten – Miranda Gouws
Fred van der Merwe – Fred Scott
Elizabeth Trudouw – Elizabeth Tsakani Macleod Mashava
Marike Strydom – Marike Potgieter
List of Characters
Michelle Bismarck – First teen to disappear
Constable Joost van der Merwe – Rookie cop in Coffee
Dawid Bismarck – Police station commander
De Wet Bismarck - Doctor
Alte Bismarck – Wife of De Wet
Wouter Bredekamp – Suicide victim
Shaun Hertzog – Leader of detective unit
Jools van Sant – Detective
Dog Doober – Detective
Chaz Bosman – Detective
Jannie Duvenhage – Detective
Jack Strydom - Butcher
Marike Strydom – Wife of butcher
Frans Joubert – Local pastor
Lloyd Botha – Mayor of Coffee
Carol-Ann Botha – Wife of mayor
Lizelle Blomkamp – friend of Michelle Bismarck
Linda van Wyk – Aunt of Michelle Bismarck
Manie Botha – Second teen to disappear
Fred van der Merwe – Friend of Manie Botha
Elizabeth Trudouw – Third teen to disappear
Johann Trudouw – Wealthy farmer, father of Elizabeth Trudouw
Tony Bredekamp – Son of Wouter Bredekamp
Alistair Rockcliff – Wealthiest man in Coffee
Nadine Rockcliff – Daughter of Alistair Rockcliff
Ronny Kirshenbaum – Victim #1
Josh Katz – Victim #2
Susan Billing – Victim #3
Miranda Kirsten – Social Worker
Table of Contents
Friends who became a part of this book
List of Characters
Once Upon a Time ...
A Town called Coffee
Let us go then ...
Part One
The Vanished, the Suicide and the Mannequins
Part Two
The Spectre from the past
Part Three
The Confession and the Barbecue Bloodbath
The Confession
On the Trail of a Killer
The Child
The Social Worker
The Bloodbath
Epilogue
About the Author
Once Upon a Time ...
The girl clawed her way up the steep slope of the mine dump. She whimpered softly as her torn fingers left bloody indentations in the sooty gravel of the artificial mountain. As she desperately assailed the gradient a stroppy breeze scattered her fierce whispers into the cool night air. ‘Oh dear God please ... oh dear God please ... oh dear God please ...’
And then she reached the summit – a flat plateau that extended endlessly into the darkness of a sickle-moon night. She immediately fell flat on her stomach. Trying to merge with the grungy darkness of the mine gravel. Her long blond hair – heavy with sweat and blood – was plastered to her scalp. She turned her head and the soft light of the crescent moon washed over her features. In another age – in another place – she may have been described as beautiful. But her face was too long; her nose too aqua-line; the contours of her visage too sharp and angular to be recognised as true beauty.
Her chest heaved and fell with suppressed panic. Her breath blasted naked hollows into the compacted surface of the dump summit. Alarm boiled over into uncontrollable terror. And sobs racked her body. She forced a shaky hand – caked with blood and gravel – to her mouth in an attempt to blunt the sounds that escaped from her broken mouth. Her torn cotton dress flapped and twittered in the wind. Its rose motif appearing like blotches of dark scarlet blood in the mitigated moonlight.
And then she heard it.
The unmistakeable sound.
(deargodno)
They were here.
‘No ... no ... no ... no ...’ she whispered with mounting frenzy, whimpering with despair. Digging her chin into the sharp gravel she scuttled backwards, leaving crab-like swirls in the stony surface.
She couldn’t stay here. They would find her.
She couldn’t hide. They would find her.
There was only on
e thing to do.
Run.
And escape.
She moved backwards with rising terror, squashing her body into the gravel. Thinking with irrational fear that it would serve to conceal her. Ever backwards she slithered. Away from the sound.
Away from death.
She felt the dip that marked the end of the summit. Moving slowly she pushed herself down the slope. Careful to make no sound whatsoever.
When she reached level earth she squatted silently. Waiting and watching for any kind of movement. When she was satisfied she slowly rose to her feet. And shifted noiselessly in the degraded light of the crescent moon. The grotesque shadow of the mine’s solitary tower engulfed her as she staggered towards a distant fence that designated the boundaries of the open-pit mining operation. Beyond that was endless veldt. Beyond that. Freedom.
She took a slow tortured step, her hand inserted into a ragged tear in her dress. The violence of earlier that evening had torn the elastic of her bloodied panties. And she had to hold it up with her hand. The very last vestige of dignity.
She crouched low. And prepared to hurry across an open stretch. A distance that would expose her completely.
But then the darkness rushed towards her. And a cold metal surface collided with her head.
She fell to the ground. Bright explosions of noise filled her vision. Fresh blood spurted from her head in sync with her frenzied heartbeat. ‘No ... no ... no ... no ...’
With blind panic constricting her throat and squeezing her chest, she tried to scurry away. Tried to escape the dark shape that loomed over her, a shovel cradled in one hand.
Despite her frenetic breathing. Despite the roaring rush of blood in her ears. Despite the scraping sounds of her broken fingers tearing at the ground. Despite all this she could hear the awful crunch of gravel with each of his footsteps as he calmly stalked her. She tried to increase her speed but he reached her. And planted a heavy boot in the small of her back. Violently shoving her bruised body onto the sharp and angular pebbles. The impact forced the air out of her lungs. She lifted her head. ‘Please don’t ... please ... I beg you ... please don’t ...’
The man remained motionless. And silent. Staring down at her. A nightmare become flesh.
Behind him. In the muted moonlight. Standing at the summit of the mine dump. The dark shapes of four men were silhouetted against the angry sky.
A Town called Coffee
Let me introduce you to the little town of Coffee.
Quaint, pleasant. Bucolic. About halfway between Luckhoff and Petrusburg. At the very heart of what makes the Orange Free State ... the Orange Free State. The pace is sedentary. The lifestyle, pedestrian. The disease known as the rat race doesn’t exist here. For most, it is just that ... an affliction of far-away places.
Coffee is a town not unlike a hundred others spread across the width and breadth of Apartheid South Africa. And, unfortunately, just like so many others, Coffee had been experiencing some major challenges recently. In fact, to say that Coffee had fallen on hard times would be facetious optimism – not much tolerated in these parts of late. Add to that the devastating effects of international sanctions against the Apartheid government of P.W. Botha (and the economic disinvestment which it demanded) and the political picture was looking bleak. These were tough times to be at the sharp point of the world’s outrage.
For now, however, the problems of the world were relatively (and thankfully) distant. The ANC’s bombs were exploding in the urban powerhouses of the Transvaal. The border wars were taking place in other countries. Although significantly more than a hundred explosions, assassinations and other incidents of political violence had already rocked the country that year (and it wasn’t even July), for now, in Coffee ... things were relatively quiet.
For now, in the parochial streets of Coffee, life went on. Quietly. Slowly.
As it always had. As it always would.
Because, surely, Coffee was not unlike other small towns across the vastness of South Africa. Surely. On its surface especially, it appeared exactly like these other small towns. It even smelled like other small towns. Except, of course, that Coffee was nothing like any other town you have ever come across in your entire life.
But come now. Surely Coffee is populated by people that are (by and large) not so different to the people you may meet in small towns across the world. They have the same interests and needs (provincial to be sure) as those people. Old men sitting on faded porches, compiling bucket lists of what-could-have-beens. And they have the same fears. Small-town fears. Except, of course, that the people of Coffee are not anything like the people you would ever wish to meet. God forbid that you should.
You see, there’s something terribly wrong in the small town of Coffee. It’s dark. And it’s dreadful. And it’s about to erupt.
But it’s not what you think.
Let us go then ...
Let us go then, you and I, while the sun is splayed out against the rye.
Let us go then, to a place called Coffee.
Let’s fly across the serpentine route known as the N8 as we head for Kimberley – arguably the world’s most famous mining town. Through sprawling grasslands, golden and eternal, sun-soaked and wind-wiped, we head ever westwards; past open expanses and salt lakes, where horizons never meet earth and earth never meets end; past a thousand spread-out farms, past Oom Dries and Oom Koos, which brings us to Petrusberg where we now divert to the south, on the lonely R48 all the way to Coffee. The landscape changes hardly at all except that the flatlands give way to ridges and koppies (hills). The closer we get to Coffee the more these koppies begin to acquire a conical peculiarity, which is both idiosyncratic and striking. As if the ancient hand of God had tried to pluck these hills from the earth but growing bored then decided to leave it exactly so, for the future people from this district to admire.
Here lies Coffee then.
To navigate its main street we need to cross the old rusty-red iron bridge that spans the fluctuating waters of the Modderrivier (Mud River). At the entrance to this town we are greeted by the world’s largest coffee-pot (according to the Orange Free State Tourism Guide of nineteen-eighty-six) from which pours a constant stream of water into what – one can only assume – must be the world’s largest coffee cup.
Let us fly then over Coffee’s main street, past the OK Bazaars supermarket and the Bosveld Restaurant across from it; past the PEP Stores and the Standard Bank; past the co-op and the liquor store; past the Caltex filling station. And now we take a sharp left and fly over the centre of the town; beautiful and lush, open and amiable... immaculately maintained. One almost cannot believe that this chic manicured landscape is part of the same town that includes the slightly seedy main street from which we just came. But, of course, like all towns (and cities) in Apartheid South Africa, there are different parts reserved for different ethnic groups. The question is how do you take your coffee? Black or White? The town centre is where “White” Coffee “gets down”. The main street area is mostly reserved for Nie-Blankes.
Non-whites.
Dotted along the periphery of what is known as Hoffman Square (inexplicably named as the town centre is composed of a gargantuan traffic circle covered by a verdant lawn) you’ll find Avbob Undertakers here, the First National Bank there and the new police station somewhere in the middle. To one side a huge steepled Dutch Reformed church towers over this pleasant communal area. On the other side of Hoffman Square is a strip mall containing a Spar Supermarket, a Spur franchise restaurant, an Edgars retail clothing store, a hardware store and a pharmacy. Another half a dozen or so small businesses, situated along the edges of Hoffman Square, complete the commercial hub of this Orange Free State town. Here in the heart of Coffee, as one enjoys the verdant and garden-rich vistas of the town centre, one could almost be convinced that Coffee is not a place that conceals a dark secret. But we cannot dwell here. For the sake of our story we must vacate the pleasant environs of Coffee’s town centre and head up ..
. up, towards the north-eastern part of town – where some of Coffee’s wealthiest reside. This is the area that lies in the shade of Signal Hill with its gigantic cross that lights up at night. Coffee doesn’t have an “upmarket” suburb. It’s too small for that. No. It has only an upmarket street. Only one. And this is where we are now heading. Towards Kruger Street where the town’s movers and shakers live side by side. At the end of Kruger Street we spot something strangely out of place. Two bright yellow police vans are parked outside a beautiful Cape Dutch house – broad and expansive. A police sedan with the words “Blitspatrollie” (Flying Squad) emblazoned on the side is parked in the double-lane driveway next to an ’86 C-Class Mercedes Benz 200.
The house is a hive of activity. Constables and Sergeants everywhere. The station commander is taking a statement from his own brother – no less.
Something strange has happened. Something ominous and terrible.
At this stage they don’t yet realise that a dark thing has entered their lives. But they soon will. Just like the rest of Coffee.
And it will change everyone’s lives ... forever.
Let us rise again and leave them momentarily as we now head towards the town’s north-west. Towards the cemetery.
Something has happened here too. Something bizarre and inexplicable. If possible, it’s even stranger than that which was taking place at number forty-five, Kruger Street.
It’s strange, to be sure, but it’s certainly not isolated.
Now we must leave the town environs and travel south, to a smallholding about three kilometres outside of Coffee.
This is the house of a man ... with a dark secret.
We enter the house by the front door. It’s a cliché, but yes, it’s never locked. Not in a place like Coffee. We walk towards the study at the back of the house. A vile stench assails our nostrils. We become gradually aware of a buzzing noise. As we turn the corner we observe the source. Literally hundreds of blow flies crowd the space. They cake the windows and desk.