The Man in the Wind

by Vernon W. Baumann

  ‘This is my son, Pasqual.’ She looked at her son, furrowing her brow. It was supposed to be a look that expressed compassion. But it came out as something else. Hertzog and Jools watched her intensely. Detective Constable Duvenhage watched the young man. She turned to the three policemen. ‘He had ... an unfortunate accident ... about a year ago.’ Feeling that the brief explanation was enough she turned towards the interior of the house. ‘Sara,’ she shouted. Moments later an elderly black domestic appeared and led Pasqual up a balustraded stairway ascending along the right side of the foyer. He mumbled inane words as he walked up the staircase. ‘Please, this way,’ Carol-Ann Botha said, indicating an archway to their left. She led them to a formal sitting room with expensive wooden furniture that seemed to recall the fading glory of the Bourbon kings.

  The three policemen each occupied a chair. While Carol-Ann sat in a chair that obviously sat at the “head” of the group of chairs. She crossed her legs. And folded her hands on her lap. The unchallenged doyenne of her world. ‘How may I help you, Lieutenant Hertzog?’

  ‘Captain.’ Hertzog nodded cordially.

  She returned the nod. ‘Captain ... Hertzog.’

  ‘We’re investigating the disappearance of your son ... Manie Botha ... as well as Michelle Bismarck.’

  ‘Strange.’

  ‘Strange?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mrs Botha replied. ‘I hardly think the two cases are ... connected in any way.’ She pointed towards her left, in the vague direction of the Bismarck house. ‘And while the Bismarcks are dear ... dear friends ... Michelle is hardly in my son’s league.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I’m not going to beat about the bush, detective, but she had loose morals. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was shacked-up with some Bantu lover.’

  Bantu. A word with a similar connotation to Negro.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Hertzog smiled, friendly. He leaned forward. ‘Tell me, Mrs Botha, do you know of anyone who would want to ... kidnap your son?’

  She looked around, blinking dramatically. ‘Well ... I ...you know ... who could ...’

  ‘Does your son have any enemies? Any enemies ... at all?’

  ‘No, of course not. Manie was a good boy. He was a good student. And he was a good son. So, no ... I doubt very much whether he had any enemies at all. Especially someone that would have wanted to do ... this.’ She paused. And stared into the distance. ‘But then again ... everyone has enemies.’

  Jools and Hertzog exchanged glances.

  ‘I see,’ Hertzog said. ‘Mrs Botha ... did your son maybe mention something out of the ordinary ... in the period before his disappearance?’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Not at all. He didn’t say anything. At all.’ She paused, staring into the distance. ‘But then again, he said a lot of things.’

  Hertzog studied her with keen interest.

  Jools turned in his chair to better face her. ‘Mrs Botha, we’ve heard your son was seeing someone. We believe she –’

  ‘No!’ The word came out too loud. Like the lash of a whip. She quickly composed herself. ‘No,’ she repeated softer. ‘It is a vicious rumour. My son was seeing no-one. I would have known about it. And I don’t, therefore he didn’t.’

  Jools nodded. ‘What if he was secretive about it? About his relationship?’

  She gave Jools an icy stare. ‘Not possible. I knew everything that was happening in my son’s life.’

  ‘You don’t think it’s at all possible he could have been seeing ...’ Jools raised his eyebrow. ‘Michelle Bismarck?’

  ‘How dare you?’

  ‘Maybe that’s why he was so secretive.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Maybe that’s why he said nothing to you.’

  She stood up. ‘You know nothing about my son.’ She pointed at all of them. ‘You all ... you know nothing about us.’

  Hertzog stood up. ‘Mrs Botha, we’re concerned only with finding out what happened to your son,’ he said in soft placating words. He fixed her with a gentle stare. ‘We have no hidden agendas.’ His words calmed her somewhat and she seated herself again.

  ‘Detective Hertzog, we’ve been through unbelievably tough times,’ she said after a while. ‘We’ve been slammed down by the hand of fate. But we’ve risen every single time. The drought of ’83 couldn’t break us. The diamond slump of ’81 couldn’t snap our spirits. It almost destroyed our mine. But it would never destroy our souls.’ She gesticulated wildly. ‘You’ve seen the headlines. The floods of this year nearly turned half of our crops to rot. But we survived.’ She gritted her teeth. ‘When that damn fire of nineteen-seventy-three destroyed the entire eastern part of Coffee ... we stood up .... out of the ashes ... and we rebuilt our town.’ She waved a finger at Jools, baring her teeth. ‘We’ve been through hard times. The likes of you ... detective ... will not come here and break our spirits ... and wave around wild accusations. Do you understand me?’ Jools looked at her with measured coolness.

  ‘No-one accused you of any–’

  ‘Of course, not Mrs Botha,’ Hertzog said calmly. ‘We would never think of doing anything of the sort.’

  ‘I think this ... interview has come to an end.’ Carol-Ann Botha stood up. And straightened the non-existent creases in her dress.

  Hertzog ruminated for a moment before he rose. ‘Yes, of course.’ Jools and Duvenhage took Hertzog’s cue and also stood up. Mrs Botha walked stiffly towards the door and opened it. Hertzog held back allowing his two juniors to take the lead.

  ‘Ma’am,’ Detective Constable Duvenhage said as he passed her, exiting.

  ‘Hmm-huh,’ Jools said, nodding curtly.

  Hertzog paused. ‘Mrs Botha, would it be correct to say that Manie and ... Michelle Bismarck were ... familiar with each other?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. Not quite polite, not quite rude. The smile from earlier was absent. ‘They grew up in the same town. Here, everyone knows everyone else.’

  ‘Naturally.’ Hertzog nodded. ‘Just one more thing. Besides growing up together in Coffee ... is there anything ... anything at all that may connect them? Is there any other kind of link between them ... that we may not be aware of?’

  Carol-Ann Botha, doyenne and matriarch of Coffee stared at some distant point in space. ‘Good day, detective.’ She fixed Hertzog with cold green eyes. Emerald green eyes. Like that of her son. ‘A pleasure, I’m sure.’

  Hertzog smiled pleasantly. Nonplussed. ‘Good day, ma’am. It was indeed a pleasure.’

  He walked down the walkway to meet his detectives as the door quietly closed behind him. They formed a triangle in front of the Landy. Hertzog had his hands behind his back. ‘Hmm,’ he said with a smile. ‘Quite a character.’

  ‘I’d say.’ Jools cast a sour look at the house, where a lace curtain moved in a side window.

  Hertzog looked at Duvenhage. ‘Detective Constable, please tell me your impressions.’

  Duvenhage looked with uncertainty at Jools. ‘Erm ... well, sir, I think she’s lying.’

  ‘Hmm, yes. Okay. If not lying then certainly hiding something.’

  ‘I don’t think we came close to asking the right questions,’ Jools said, casting another look at the house.

  ‘Hertzog nodded. ‘Agreed.’ He faced Duvenhage again. ‘Anything else, detective?’

  Duvenhage licked his lips, uncertain. ‘She’s ashamed of her son.’

  ‘Very good. At the very least she’s ashamed of his present condition.’ Hertzog now also stared at the house, frowning a little. ‘Our mayoral wife abhors weakness.’

  A cold wind whipped at their clothes.

  Hertzog turned to his rookie. A smile returned to his lips. ‘Anything else?’ Jannie Duvenhage stared with a blank expression at his boss. ‘Anything in the way she spoke about her disappeared son?’ Duvenhage sighed, exasperated. ‘Don’t worry,’ Hertzog said after a while. ‘It’s early days. Remember, all experts were once novices.’ He turned to his deputy. ‘Lieutenant?’

  ‘She referred to her
son in the past tense,’ Jools said. ‘Very strange.’

  ‘Very strange indeed,’ Hertzog repeated. He looked at his subordinates with concern. ‘All in all, a very strange interview. She lost her first son to a ... what did she say ... and unfortunate accident? She has just lost her second son to a bizarre kidnapping. And yet. Just now in that interview she took great pains and spent a great deal of time ... telling us absolutely nothing. She didn’t say one thing that was useful.’

  ‘Makes no sense whatsoever,’ Duvenhage said.

  ‘Oh it makes sense alright,’ Jools said. ‘On a level we just don’t understand yet.’

  The Landy’s radio unit crackled again. ‘Charlie Foxtrot One. Message from Charlie Foxtrot two.’ This time it was Dog.

  ‘Yes, Detective Doober?’

  ‘Boss, I had a chat with the Botha kid’s friend, Fred van der Merwe.’

  ‘Hm-huh. What did you learn?’ Jools and Duvenhage joined Hertzog at the car.

  ‘A few things. It seems the Coffee boys didn’t do such a good job interviewing him.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I pressed him on the girlfriend. The Botha boy’s girlfriend. He said Manie never mentioned anything about seeing his girlfriend that evening. Instead he was going to meet up with a friend.’

  ‘A friend? Who?’

  ‘He doesn’t know, boss. He said Manie never told him who the friend was.’

  ‘Why keep so many secrets? Strange.’ Hertzog sighed. ‘Anything about the mysterious girlfriend’s identity?’

  ‘Nothing, boss. He just told me they had been dating for around a year.’

  ‘And he has no idea who the girl is?’

  ‘Nope. He says he tried on numerous occasions to find out. But Manie just wouldn’t tell him. He also confirmed, boss. Manie didn’t tell his parents anything. In fact, they didn’t even know he was seeing someone.’ Hertzog gave Jools a meaningful look.

  ‘My goodness,’ Jools said, ‘it seems the grand dame was actually telling the truth.’

  ‘Detective,’ Hertzog said, ‘keep on poking around. Somewhere ... somebody must know who this girl is. She’s the key to everything.’

  ‘I’m on it, boss.’ There was a slight pause. ‘Oh yes, one more thing. The friend said that whoever the girl was she obviously had a lot of money.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘He said she kept on buying Manie a lot of expensive gifts. Lots of imported cassettes and things like that.’

  The trade embargo on the Apartheid state meant that more and more items were no longer available to the local market. Things like music cassettes and albums.

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Ja. He said most of the things are at his place. The van der Merwe boy’s place. He said Manie didn’t want his parents to find out about the gifts.’

  ‘Excellent. Detective Doober, see if you can get your hands on those items. We’ll send them to Pretoria for fingerprinting and so on.’

  ‘I already did, boss. He handed them over willingly. I’ll get them couriered to hoofkantoor straight away.’

  Hoofkantoor. Head office.

  Hertzog signed off. He looked at his two subordinates. ‘Intriguing, gentleman. Now tell me. Why would a teenage boy, who’s been seeing a girl for a whole year, not tell anybody about her? Not even his best friend.’

  ‘He’s ashamed of her. Or at least embarrassed by her.’ Duvenhage looked towards Jools for confirmation of his words.

  ‘Very possible,’ Jools said.

  Silence.

  ‘Either that ... or he’s hiding an even bigger secret.’ Hertzog frowned at the implications of his words.

  Sixteen

  ‘Her aunt was right. She was changing.’

  The girl put up her hand and waved impatiently at a black waiter. He approached the table.

  ‘I asked for double strength filter coffee.’ She pointed at the cup with the Wimpy logo on the side. ‘This is piss water. Please. Bring me what I asked for.’

  The waiter nodded meekly. ‘Eh, mies.’

  ‘Eh,’ she said in curt parody. She looked at Chaz Bosman, shaking her head as the black waiter returned to the kitchen. ‘You have to tell them everything twice.’

  Chaz said nothing. He studied the young twenty-something girl in front of him. Cheap make-up had been applied without finesse. Her mascara was clotted in places. Her blush uneven. Her lipstick was too red. Constant bubblegum chewing revealed nicotine-stained teeth flecked with lipstick. Her hair was teased into the popular style of the moment. Dried hairspray clotted in little clumps of split ends.

  ‘By the way ... Lizelle,’ Chaz said consulting his notes, ‘thanks for meeting me on such short notice.’ He indicated the interior of the Wimpy restaurant

  ‘No problem, ‘tective. I’ll do anything to help you find Michelle,’ Lizelle Blomkamp said.

  Chaz nodded. ‘You mentioned Michelle ... changing?’ The girl nodded. ‘I spoke to her aunt. She – just like you – is adamant that Michelle was no longer the girl people thought she was. The girl she used to be.’ Lizelle nodded. ‘Now this is what I want to know. She describes a gradual change coming over –’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. It wasn’t gradual at all.’

  ‘The change?’

  ‘Yes. It wasn’t gradual at all.’ She leaned over towards the aged detective. ‘It was like this.’ She snapped her finger. ‘The one day she was the old Michelle. You know ... loud, wild, party animal. And the next day she was ... I don’t know. The new Michelle. Suddenly she was all adult and mature. Focused, you know.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘I’m not sure. About six months ago.’

  Chaz scribbled in his notebook. ‘Really? And do you know why –’

  ‘Well, it obviously had something to do with the money.’

  ‘I see.’ Chaz paused, surprised. ‘And you knew about ... the money?’

  ‘Oh well, it was obvious. No-one could miss it. I mean, the one day she was struggling – we all are – and then suddenly, she just had all this money.’ She leaned forward again in shared conspiracy. ‘It changed her. But in a good way.’

  ‘And ... do you have any idea where all this money came from?’

  ‘No idea. But it was real money, you know. Thousands. About a month ago she bought the new Beamer. Put down like twenty grand deposit.’ The waiter brought Lizelle another cup of coffee. ‘I hope it’s right this time,’ she said with distaste.

  Chaz smiled at the waiter, nodding in thanks. He waited for him to leave. ‘And you never asked her? About the money?’

  ‘Of course I did,’ she said. ‘But she wouldn’t tell me. She said it was a secret.’ She winked at the policeman. ‘She said if she told me she would have to kill me.’

  Chaz frowned. ‘Really?’

  ‘It was just a joke, detective,’ she said with indignation.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He scribbled in his book.

  She looked at Chaz with intensity. ‘But it wasn’t a bad thing. The money. She wanted to go study. And open a hair salon.’ She paused. ‘The money brought out something in her that was always there. She comes from a very successful family, you know?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Yes. I mean, she suddenly became all ... serious. She stopped partying so much.’ Lizelle stared into space. ‘She changed.’

  Chaz nodded in contemplation. ‘Tell me, do you know if she was seeing anybody?’

  ‘You mean like a boyfriend?’ Chaz nodded. ‘Well, I mean, we all did lots of guys. But I don’t think so.’ She paused. ‘But then again, she was always very secretive, you know. Especially the last few months.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, there was ...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She mentioned once how she had run into someone from her hometown. Coffee, you know.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Chaz scribbled.

  ‘Somebody unexpected. But that was basically all she said.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘She
really was very secretive.’

  ‘And you never met this person? Or saw him?’

  ‘No. Never.’

  Chaz nodded, mulling over her words.

  ‘If you really want to find out about this guy, why don’t you just read her diary?’

  ‘Her diary?’

  ‘Ja. She wrote down everything in it.’

  ‘I didn’t see anything in the notes about a diary.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. She kept it hidden. From everyone. Even her aunt.’

  Chaz looked at her then made a notation in his notebook.

  Silence. Across the road a gaggle of geese descended into the artificial lake of Loch Logan.

  ‘Tell me about the night she disappeared.’

  ‘Well, we went out to Valentino’s like we used to.’ She pursed her lips. ‘It had been a while, you know, since she went out with us.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘We had a good time. Like we used to. We drank a few shooters. Some guy bought her a drink. We danced ...’

  ‘Some guy?’

  ‘Oh it was nothing. He left soon afterwards. When he saw she wasn’t interested.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Would you recognise him if you saw him again?’

  She paused. ‘I guess.’

  ‘Okay. What then?’

  ‘Well, I was dancing with Frikkie, my boyfriend, and we were really just chilling ... and I guess I saw her hugging someone, on the other side of the club ... you know, it’s very dark.’

  ‘Was it the guy who bought her the drink?’

  ‘No. I mean, it couldn’t have been the guy from the bar. This person wasn’t nearly as tall ... or big, I guess.’

  ‘Could you see the person?’ Chaz sat on the edge of his chair, excited. ‘Would you be able to identify him?’

  ‘No ... I ...’ She became perturbed. ‘No ... I ... I didn’t see him. I’m sorry. It was very dark. And they use strobes and all sorts of lights.’ She looked at Chaz with regret. ‘I’m sorry.’