Dead Before Dying: A Novel

by Deon Meyer

  He realized that it wasn’t enough. Not for a man like de Wit. He knew the time had come to save himself, to grab at the straw. “Colonel, you were right when you said that my record for the past few years hasn’t been good. Perhaps you were also right about my attitude, which was wrong. Even toward the Mauser case—I could’ve put in more by now. But I give you my word. I’ll give it all I’ve got. But don’t take it away from me.”

  He heard himself, how close he was to begging. He didn’t care.

  De Wit looked at him. His hands were on the table. His right hand moved slowly up to his face. Joubert and Vos knew what its destination was.

  “I can’t stop the press if they find out,” he said when the finger reached the mole. Joubert was grateful that the smile remained absent.

  “I know, Colonel.”

  “And if they find out, the commissioner will take you off. You know that?”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  De Wit pointed his mole finger at Joubert. “You must realize one thing. You’ve had your last chance.”

  “Yes, Colonel.” He was grateful that de Wit was using the opportunity for peace. And to regain lost esteem.

  “You’re going to be watched like no other policeman has ever been watched. And I’m not referring to the media, I’m referring to me.”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  “One slipup, Captain . . .”

  The phone rang. De Wit’s eyes were still fixed warningly on Joubert. He picked up the phone. The smile suddenly reappeared. “Good morning, Brigadier.” He waved a hand at Vos and Joubert, dismissing them. The officers got up and closed the door behind them. They walked down the passage.

  “Thanks, Gerry.”

  “It was fuckall.”

  They walked in silence, their footsteps hurried on the bare tile floor. Vos stopped in front of his office door. “Mat, may I ask you something?”

  Joubert nodded.

  “How the fuck do you suddenly get your shoes so shiny?”

  First of all he had the whole area cordoned off—the plot, the small wooden house, the sidewalk, and a part of the street.

  He was astonished by the beauty of the surroundings. The street was a contour against the slopes of Karbonkelberg, the wooden frame houses in an uneven row a picture postcard of Cape beauty. It wasn’t a place for death.

  He had placed the local station’s uniform personnel at the garden gate with instructions that for the present only the pathologist and the forensic unit were to be allowed access to the scene of the murder.

  Fat Sergeant Tony O’Grady had waylaid Joubert and Gerrit Snyman in Murder and Robbery’s parking area. “Can I come with you, Cappy? This thing fascinates me. And Captain Vos says it’s okay.”

  Now the three were looking at the corpse. They couldn’t get too close because blood lay in a wide pool around the body. But they could see that Alexander MacDonald had been a big, rugged man, with thin red hair, a red beard, and huge hands and feet. In his last moments he’d worn nothing except a pair of shorts. Even in death the bulk of his chest and upper arms was impressive.

  They could also see that the murder of Alexander MacDonald was somewhat different from the previous ones.

  The one shot was through his neck, and the blood had spouted onto the wall and the few pieces of furniture and eventually spilled over the floor.

  The other was between his legs, more or less where his sexual organs had been.

  Fat Sergeant Tony O’Grady’s mouth was full of his staple food. It was his escape and his downfall. It was also the reason for his nickname, Nougat. He trod carefully between the pool of blood’s tributaries and said: “This is new, Cappy. This is new.”

  Joubert said nothing. He looked at the room, the way the body was lying.

  “Doesn’t look like an accident, the shot between the balls.” O’Grady bit off another piece of nougat. “Wonder if he was shot there first? Must be fucking sore, hey, Cappy?”

  “Looks as if he was shot at the door. First in the neck, I think. Look at the blood against the wall here. Carotid artery spouts like that. Then he fell. Then he gave him the second shot.”

  “Right up the prick, poor bastard.”

  A uniformed constable called carefully from the small front veranda. Joubert peered around the door. “Here are a lot of people from Murder and Robbery looking for you, Captain,” said the constable and pointed to the street. Joubert’s eyes followed the pointing finger. Eight unmarked police cars had suddenly filled the street. The detectives stood at the garden gate like a rugby team posing for a group photo. He walked to them.

  Murder and Robbery’s only officer of color, Lieutenant Leon Petersen, was the group’s spokesman.

  “The Colonel sent us, Captain. To help. He said the district commissioner had phoned the Brigadier and the Brigadier had phoned him. They’re suddenly wide awake about this”—he indicated the house—“thing. He said the Captain needed more people, the Brigadier must get detectives from all the stations, especially for the groundwork. But we’re here to help.”

  “Thanks, Leon.”

  It was the press, he knew. The pressure was increasing on everyone—from unimportant captains up to generals. Reputations were being laid on the line. The smell of blood was going to drive the press crazy.

  He explained to the group of detectives that he wanted to keep the house and the plot clean until the laboratory team arrived. He sent them in pairs down the street. Perhaps the neighbors had seen something. Maybe they knew something about the deceased.

  The police video unit was the first to arrive. He asked them to wait. They moaned. He beckoned the uniformed sergeant. “Where’s the woman who found the body?”

  “In the back of the police van, Captain,” said the sergeant.

  “In the back of the van?”

  “Just to make sure, Captain,” the sergeant said, aware of Joubert’s disapproval.

  “Bring her here, please.”

  She was a black woman, big and heavy. Her mouth was stiff with anger about the treatment she had received. Joubert held the garden gate for her.

  “I’m sorry about the inconvenience,” he said in Afrikaans.

  “I only speak English.”

  He repeated the sentence.

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  He walked around the house with her to the back door. On the stoop there was an old couch and two old steel-and-plastic kitchen chairs. “Please sit down,” he said, then called Snyman and O’Grady. When they were all present he asked her what her name was.

  “I didn’t do it.”

  He knew that, he said. But they had to have it for the witness forms.

  Miriam Ngobeni, she said.

  Her address?

  The informal settlement, here in Karbonkelberg.

  What precisely happened this morning?

  She had come to work as usual at about half past seven. But the door was open and her employer was there, lying in all that blood. She had a fright and ran to the neighbor.

  Had she seen anyone? Someone who looked suspicious?

  No. Could she leave now?

  If she would answer a few more questions, please.

  According to the uniformed police the man’s surname was MacDonald. Did she know his first name?

  Mac.

  Did she know where in the house he kept his personal documents, like an ID book?

  No. Not in the house. Probably on the boat.

  The boat?

  One of the two fishing boats lying in the harbor. MacDonald’s fishing boats. She had never seen them, but every day she had to try to wash the stink of fish out of MacDonald’s clothes with her hands because he didn’t have a washing machine. You couldn’t leave the clothes in the laundry basket for one day. The smell . . .

  Did MacDonald live alone?

  She thought so. Sometimes, on a Monday morning, there were signs of big parties. Empty bottles and cigarette butts and liquor stains and burn marks on the tables and the chairs and the floors
and the few loose carpets. Sometimes the bed in the main bedroom . . . But apart from that she knew of no permanent woman. She seldom saw him. Often only on Saturdays, when she came to fetch her money. And then she waited at the door.

  What was he like?

  White.

  What did she mean?

  He was difficult, always threatening and complaining that he paid her too much and that she stole his liquor and took the change out of his pockets.

  So she hadn’t liked him?

  Not so. That’s the way white people are.

  Thank you very much for your willingness to answer questions, he said. Could someone take her home a bit later?

  Please not.

  Joubert explained the pattern of the investigation of the house to her. He asked her whether she was willing to wait until it had been completed. He said she had to look through the house to see if anything was missing.

  Must she sit in the van again?

  No. She could sit on the back stoop if she wanted to.

  She nodded her assent.

  They walked round to the front gate. The press had arrived. A horde. In a single glance he counted ten, mostly reporters and photographers. The cameras flashed. “Is there a suspect?” one called out. It became a chorus. They rushed toward the gate. The uniformed constables stopped them.

  “Forensics are inside, Captain,” the constable at the gate said.

  “Thank you. Tell your sergeant to keep the press out, please.”

  He sent O’Grady and Snyman to the harbor to have a look at the boats and to talk to the crew. Then he walked into the house and told the forensic team that they had to search the entire house and the plot as well. They complained. He said they had to hurry because he was allowing no one else into the area until they had finished. They moaned again.

  He stood at the window and looked outside. The appearance of a murder scene, he thought. They all looked alike. Township or downtown. A group of curious onlookers, avid for details, talking to one another behind their hands in hushed voices as if they thought they could wake the dead. The uniforms’ yellow cars with the blue lights. The red and white turning lights of the ambulance. Sometimes, if there was enough hysteria, the press—a moving, noisy mass, almost like a mobile stock exchange. Sometimes the next of kin were also on the stage of death, a small group who clung quietly to one another and hoped for guidance to avoid the bitter knowledge.

  He saw the pathologist making his way past the people at the hedge and reaching the gate, where he showed his plastic card to the uniform. Then he walked over the neglected lawn and entered the house.

  He whistled through his teeth, then saw Joubert.

  “Messy,” said Professor Pagel. He saw the second wound in Alexander MacDonald’s groin. “And a new twist, I see.”

  “Yes,” said Joubert and sighed. “A new twist.”

  Outside, the photographer, the video unit, and the dog unit had arrived. They would all have to wait. They wouldn’t like it but they would have to wait.

  He lit a cigarette and walked out. His radio on his hip suddenly spoke loudly. De Wit wanted him urgently. He thought he knew why.

  25.

  The district commissioner was a major general, a short, square man with black hair that he wore well oiled and combed straight back. He also had a black Charlie Chaplin mustache. The chief of detectives was a brigadier, a tall, large man with a bald patch. They looked like a South African edition of Laurel and Hardy. With one difference: Bart de Wit did not find their presence amusing in the least. The smile on his face was present, but Joubert decided that beyond reasonable doubt it was a nervous smile.

  They were in the General’s office. The office was large and attractive, the walls paneled in dark wood, a large desk at one end and a circular conference table at the other, with ten chairs around it. They sat at the table. Joubert had been in the office before, more than three years ago, after an award ceremony at which he had been honored. The office hadn’t changed, he noticed. But a great many other things had.

  The General wanted to know if the latest murder had supplied any new clues. Joubert told him about the circumstances, the shot in the groin.

  “That’s a new one,” the General said.

  “Indeed.” De Wit grinned.

  “We’ve installed a temporary investigation office at the Hout Bay station, General. The men are still busy doing the legwork, the neighbors, the crew of the boats. We’re looking for relatives and friends.”

  “What else?”

  De Wit’s hopeless gaze was fixed on Joubert. Relax, Two Nose, he thought, I have things under control.

  “I would like to send men to all the arms dealers in the Cape, General,” Joubert said.

  “Haven’t you as yet?”

  “We first tried to trace all the licensed Mausers in the Western Cape, General. It yielded nothing. Now we have to talk to dealers and gunsmiths. Maybe someone somewhere had a Mauser Broomhandle serviced.”

  “Makes sense,” the General said.

  “Undeniably,” said the Brigadier.

  “Of course,” de Wit said.

  “But will it help? People must show licenses if they want to have weapons serviced.”

  “The dealers are only human, General. A few fast rands are often more effective than the rules. If we apply enough pressure . . . Even if they don’t have a name and an address, they might remember what the person looks like.”

  “Then we’ll have a description at least,” the General said. He turned to the Brigadier. “Would you assist in getting Captain Joubert more manpower, Pete? As long as necessary.”

  The Brigadier nodded enthusiastically.

  “There’s something else, General,” Joubert said. “The other weapon in the Ferreira murder. We still haven’t had the ballistic report. If we know the caliber and what kind of weapon it was, we can ask arms dealers about that as well. Maybe, if we’re lucky, someone had both weapons serviced at the same time.”

  “You’ll have your report within the hour, Captain. Believe me.”

  Joubert believed him.

  “And if there’s anything else moving too slowly to suit you, let me know. Or if you need more men. Got that?”

  “Thank you, General.”

  “What else?”

  “I’m going to see all the relatives of the previous victims, General. With the new murder . . . perhaps they’ll remember something.”

  “Fine. What else?”

  “I’m seeing a doctor in criminology at the University of Stellenbosch, General. I —”

  “The one who was in Die Burger?”

  “Yes, General, I —”

  “Why?”

  “I want to put together a profile by tonight, General. Everything we know. It’s not much but we have to take the chance. We think it’s a man because the weapon is large. Perhaps the doctor can help to compile the profile. I want to give it to the press. Maybe someone knows somebody with a Mauser and a small-caliber handgun.”

  “It’s a shot in the dark.”

  “Indeed,” said the Brigadier.

  De Wit nodded and grinned.

  “I simply want to make sure that I’m doing everything possible, General.”

  “Might just work.”

  “More like than not,” said the Brigadier.

  De Wit nodded.

  “What about the bank robber?”

  “General, I firmly believe the robber has nothing to do with the murders.”

  “Tell that to the newspapers.”

  “All we can do is to put a policeman in every Premier Bank branch in the Peninsula—in civilian dress, General. And hope that the man strikes again. But the manpower . . .”

  “Captain, if we’ve made an error of judgment and the robber and the Mauser guy prove to be the same person, you and I will be selling insurance by morning. Every station can afford a few men. I’ll speak to Brigadier Brown. Then you have to talk to Premier.”

  “Thank you, General.”

  �
��Is that the lot?”

  “For the moment, General.”

  “What about a medium?” de Wit asked.

  “A what?” the General asked on behalf of everyone else.

  “A medium. A spiritualist. The English refer to them as psychics.”

  “You mean someone with second sight? A fortune-teller?” the Brigadier said.

  “Are you serious?” the General asked disbelievingly.

  “General, they often use them in England. While I was there they solved two murders like that. One was a body they couldn’t trace. The site the psychic indicated was no more than five hundred meters from where the body was found.”

  “Do you want the Minister to sh —” The General controlled himself. “There’s no money for a circus like that, Colonel. You should be aware of that.”

  De Wit’s smile was a mask. “It needn’t cost us a cent, General.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sometimes these people do the work for free. It’s like a marketing ploy. Publicity.”

  “Mmm. I don’t know. Sounds like a circus to me.”

  “The media would like it,” Joubert said. The others looked at him. “It would give them something to write about, General. Take the pressure off us so that we can get on with it.”

  Joubert caught a glimpse of de Wit’s surprise.

  “That’s true,” the General said. “But on one condition. It doesn’t cost us a cent. And the psychic doesn’t reveal that we asked him to come.”

  “Her,” de Wit said. “The best psychic in England is a woman, General.”

  “Indeed,” said the General.

  “But surely we have psychics here,” said the Brigadier.

  “It’s just that I know her. And the publicity value of a foreign person . . .”

  “Imagine that,” said the Brigadier.

  Joubert said nothing.

  The man in the overalls, with no neck and a head as bald and as round as a cannonball, walked through the crowd of detectives and uniforms looking for someone. He could hardly believe that the Hout Bay station could be so busy. He asked where Captain Mat Joubert of Murder and Robbery was. In that storeroom, someone replied. It’s the investigation office, someone else said.