Dead Before Dying: A Novel

by Deon Meyer

  He tried getting in through the door. The room was full of people and smoke. In one corner, sitting at a table, was a big man with hair that was too long and too untidy to be a detective’s. It tallied with the description he’d been given. He walked toward him. The man had a cigarette in one hand and a pen in the other. He was talking to a fat man in front of him.

  “They must divide the Peninsula into sectors, Nougat. And not skip an arms dealer or a gunsmith, no matter how small. Now we’re just waiting for the bloody ballistics report.”

  “Here it is,” said the man with the cannonball head and handed Joubert a brown envelope.

  Joubert looked up in surprise. “Thank you,” he said. “Did the General send you?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Joubert looked at his watch. “He’s a man of his word.” He tore open the envelope and read the report.

  “Twenty-two Long Rifle caliber. According to the marks on the case and the cartridge, a Smith & Wesson Escort, the so-called Model 61.”

  “Point two two. Shit. Common as muck,” Nougat said.

  “It does help us, though. They must question the dealers, Nougat. Has someone bought a Smith & Wesson and perhaps had a Mauser serviced. Or bought .22 long ammunition. Or had a Smith & Wesson and a Mauser serviced. Or just a Smith & Wesson . . .”

  “I catch your drift.”

  “Anything, Nougat. We’re looking for needles in a haystack. That doesn’t mean asking a few simple questions and going on to the next shop. They must do it properly. Apply some pressure. Threaten with inspections. The Mauser isn’t licensed.”

  “Leave it to me, Cappy. We’ll get our man.”

  “Woman,” said the man with the cannonball head.

  “What did you say?” asked Joubert, slightly irritated.

  “I think it was a woman, Captain.”

  “Oh?”

  “The Model 61 is a woman’s weapon, Captain.”

  “And who are you, if I may ask?” said Nougat O’Grady.

  “I’m Adjutant Mike de Villiers. From the armory. The General phoned me and asked me whether I’d look through the ballistic report and bring it to you. He said you could ask me questions if you want to. I . . . er . . . I know something about guns, Captain.”

  Joubert looked at the man opposite him, the round head, the absence of a neck, the blue overalls covered in gun oil marks. If the General had sent him . . .

  “What do you know about the .22, Adjutant?”

  Mike de Villiers closed his eyes. “Smith & Wesson made the Escort for the female market. In the seventies. Short grip, small weapon. People called it the Model 61. Fitted easily into a handbag. Semiautomatic pistol, five in the magazine. Not a great success, especially the first produced, which had a weak safety indicator. Smith & Wesson built a magazine safety mechanism into the second model, in ’70, but owners had to take the pistol back to the factory for adjusting. Four models between ’69 and ’71. Good penetration capacity, better than the Baby Browning. Accurate at short distance. Jamming rare but not impossible.”

  Mike de Villiers opened his eyes.

  Joubert and O’Grady stared at him.

  “That doesn’t mean a man won’t use it,” Joubert said, still bemused.

  The eyes closed again. “Short grip, Captain, very short. Small weapon. Your finger won’t even fit into the trigger guard. Doesn’t fit into a man’s hand, doesn’t fit a man’s ego. A man looks for a large gun—9-millimeter, .45 Magnum. Statistics show that eighty-seven percent of handgun murders are committed by men with large calibers. Shooting incidents by women are rare, generally in self-defense, generally small caliber.”

  The eyes opened slowly, like a reptile’s.

  O’Grady’s jaw had come to a halt and dropped slightly. Joubert frowned.

  “But the Mauser is a man’s weapon.”

  “I don’t know anything about the Broomhandle, Captain. If it was made before 1918, I’m not interested,” de Villiers said.

  “Is Captain Joubert here?” the leader of a group of uniforms who had walked through the door called out.

  “Here,” Joubert said and sighed. The place was a madhouse.

  “Did the Captain want to know anything else?”

  “Thank you, Adjutant. I know where to get hold of you if there’s anything else.”

  De Villiers nodded, said good-bye, and quietly left.

  “Looks like a lizard, talks like a computer,” said O’Grady. “Man’s a fucking genius.”

  Joubert didn’t hear him. His thoughts were frustrated, confused by the new information. “Nothing in this investigation makes any sense, Nougat. Nothing.”

  He phoned Stellenbosch University and asked to speak to Dr. A. L. Boshoff.

  “Anne Boshoff,” a woman’s voice answered. He sighed quietly. Another female doctor.

  He explained who he was and asked whether he could speak to her that afternoon, explaining that it was urgent.

  “I’ll prepare in the meanwhile,” she said.

  He closed the station commander’s door. “How peaceful the silence is,” said Lieutenant Leon Petersen.

  O’Grady wiped his handkerchief over his forehead. “All we need is air-conditioning,” he said. Next to him sat Gerrit Snyman with his notebook in front of him.

  “Get on with it,” said Joubert.

  “His full name is Alexander MacDonald, born in Humansdorp on April 8, 1952. Unmarried, no dependents. He is the sole owner of two fishing trawlers, the High Road and the Low Road. According to his documents he still owes the bank 110,000 rand on the Low Road. He had a contract with Good Hope Fisheries and delivers solely to them. John Paulsen is the skipper of the High Road. He’s worked for MacDonald for eighteen years. He says the man was good-hearted but had a terrible temper. When we asked him who would have had reason to murder MacDonald, he said he could think of at least two hundred with no effort. MacDonald never drank at sea but when they were in the harbor . . . He has a criminal record. Driving under the influence, Hout Bay, ’88; assault with intent to cause severe bodily harm, ’89; fifteen complaints of disturbing the peace since ’79. One conviction for deliberate injury to property. He and a few crew members smashed up a bar in Simons Town. And here’s an interesting one. An accusation of rape was laid by one Eleanor Davids two years ago. She later withdrew it. The investigating officers suspected that MacDonald threatened her with violence, but they couldn’t prove anything.”

  “A difficult customer,” Petersen said.

  “A chat with Eleanor Davids could be interesting,” Joubert said.

  “That’s the idea, Captain, that’s the idea.”

  26.

  He drove to Stellenbosch, late for his appointment with Dr. Anne Boshoff. The district manager of Premier Bank, in his luxurious office, had been impatient. The robber was bad for business, bad for the bank’s image. All the negative publicity. Nor was he impressed by the SAPD’s plans. A plainclothes policeman in every branch? What would happen if a policeman scared the robber? He could start shooting. Premier Bank didn’t want to expose its clients or its employees to danger.

  Patiently Joubert had explained that the members of the force were very aware of the danger and that confrontation with the robber would be handled with great circumspection.

  The district manager had said that he saw examples of the police’s circumspection on television every evening.

  Joubert had sighed, stood up, and said that he would mention Premier Bank’s attitude at the press conference.

  The district manager also sighed and said Joubert must sit down. He had to consult head office.

  Head office couldn’t decide, either. They wanted to call a meeting to discuss it. Joubert said he had to go to Stellenbosch. He left Dr. Boshoff’s telephone number. The bank must inform him when a decision had been reached.

  He took the N2 and drove too fast. The big white Sierra kept his thoughts on the traffic. The road was quieter after the R300 exit. He didn’t want to think about the investigation t
oo much, about de Wit’s attempt to replace him, about the meeting at the General’s, about the adrenaline of the chase which, like an old, almost forgotten friend, was rearing its head again. Because he didn’t know whether any of it was worthwhile. Tomorrow or the day after, the excitement would die down. Then he would be alone again, with only his thoughts and his memories.

  He forced his mind back to the appointment ahead. What was he going to say to Dr. Boshoff? I’m here because my psychologist suggested it. She’s a pretty, frail woman with sad eyes and I think I’m in love with her because I told her something about my father that I’ve never told anyone else. Because she’s the first person in more than two years to whom I can talk without being scared of that overdone, artificial sympathy of those who don’t really care. That’s why I’m here, Dr. Boshoff.

  No. He had to get a profile. Not only for the newspapers but for himself. He couldn’t chase a phantom. He was looking for a face. A person with a disturbed mind who took other people’s lives.

  Anne Boshoff’s office was in an old, restored gabled house. In front, in the neat garden, there was a sign: CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT, UNIVERSITY OF STELLENBOSCH. He parked the car and got out. The afternoon was warm and windless. He took off his jacket and hung it over his shoulder. He adjusted the Z88 in the leather holster on his belt.

  Two male students were walking ahead of him on the pavement. They looked at the police vehicle with curiosity, at him and the gun. They saw him opening the garden gate.

  “I knew that paper was too difficult,” one said. “Lock them up.”

  Joubert grinned and walked onto the cool veranda. The front door was open. He walked in hesitantly. The front entrance was deserted. He saw nameplates on doors. He walked down the passage. Right at the end he saw Anne Boshoff’s door. It was open. He peered inside.

  She sat in front of a computer, her back to him. He noticed her short black hair, shorter than his own. He saw her neck, a part of her shoulder.

  She became aware of him and turned.

  He saw her face, the high forehead, the eyes set wide apart, the cheekbones, broad in an almost Eastern manner, mouth wide and full, the strong jaw. She looked measuringly at him from head to toe with dark, bright eyes.

  “I’m Mat Joubert,” he said, aware of his discomfort.

  “You sounded like an old man on the telephone,” she said and swiveled the chair round. He saw that she was full-bodied, her dress short. He tore his eyes away from the well-shaped, tanned legs.

  He stood between the door and the woman. She got up. She was tall, almost as tall as he was.

  “Let’s sit down,” she said and walked to a small desk in the corner of the large room. He saw the muscles of her strong legs moving under the skin. Then he looked away at the rest of the office. It was untidy. There were piles of books everywhere. The small bookcase behind the desk was spilling over. A racing bicycle stood against one wall. The only chair in the room was the one at the computer. Against another wall, under the window, there were cartons filled with documents. She turned and sat down on one of the cartons, the long legs stretched out in front of her. Her ringless hand indicated another carton.

  “Make yourself at home.”

  He shifted the Z88 into a more comfortable position on his hip and sat down.

  “Is it true what they say about men who carry large guns?”

  He looked at her. Her mouth was wide and red and smiling.

  “I . . . um . . .” She was so extremely sexy.

  “Great answer,” she said.

  “Well, I . . .”

  “What do you want from me, Mat Joubert?”

  “I . . .”

  “About the murder case, I mean.”

  “Yes, I . . .”

  “The statistics? They could help. Could give you a picture. But it’s an American picture. They set the pace for mass murderers. And we follow in their footsteps. Little America, that’s what we are. So the figures might help you. Do you know how they’ve increased in the past twenty years? Exponentially. It’s an accusation against Western civilization, Mat Joubert.” She looked at him when she spoke, a focus, a direct spotlight of a focus, a beam, a ray.

  “Is . . .”

  “The statistics say your murderer is a man. A middle-class man with the weight of his background on his shoulders. Why a man? Because most of them are. They’re the sex who have problems in accepting the prison of middle-classness. We live in an era in which we teach our sons that they must achieve, be better, become rich. And if they can’t . . . Why middle class? Because most people are. Isn’t it curious? In previous ages the small handful of mass murderers came from the lowest classes. Slaves and prostitutes and the scum of the earth. In our time it’s the middle classes. Sometimes lower middle class like Charles Starkweather, sometimes upper middle class like Ted Bundy. Their background? It can vary. Do you know how many mass murderers were adopted children? Kallinger. Bianchi. Earle Nelson. And illegitimate. Now some psychologists are of the opinion that Ted Bundy killed because he knew he was an illegitimate child. David Berkowitz was adopted and illegitimate. And so many were orphans or taken by welfare. Fish. Kemper. Olson. Panzram. Bonin. And then they murder to assure themselves of a small place in the community. Tragic, isn’t it.”

  He wrote. It kept his eyes and his hands busy.

  “But do you know what bothers me, Mat Joubert? The weapon and the victims. The Mauser is too blatant. Too macho. A statement. It bothers me. Here sex is raising its horrible head. That long barrel. I checked. Ian Hogg’s book German Pistols and Revolvers. That long barrel. A phallic symbol. A male symbol. This is a man with a problem. All the victims are male. It bothers me. A man with a problem who kills other men. But the victims aren’t gay . . .”

  “They . . . One was,” he said loudly.

  “One? Just one, Mat Joubert? Are you sure? Do you know for certain?”

  “Wallace was . . . promiscuous but heterosexual. Wilson was homosexual. Ferreira . . . I don’t know. He liked blue movies, his wife said. And MacDonald, the one we found this morning. He’d been charged with rape. But the woman withdrew the case.”

  “You see—you can actually speak,” she said in a mock serious tone, frowning, and he wondered whether there was something this woman could do that didn’t make him think of sex.

  “It sounds to me as if they were all closet queens, Mat Joubert. Do you know how many men suppress their homosexuality with promiscuity? And the rape. Perhaps he wanted to prove his masculinity to himself. Come on, I bet you your murderer is going to be gay. It fits. The Mauser. It’s a statement. A sexual statement. By a homosexual man.”

  “From the middle classes. Who was adopted,” he said and frowned as she had frowned earlier on.

  “The captain has a sense of humor,” she said to her bike. She looked at him again.

  “What are you doing this evening? You’re too precious to get away.”

  “Doctor, the problem is . . .”

  “Please don’t call me doctor. Call me anything. Call me sexy. But not doctor. Do you think I’m sexy? Where do you get your name? Mat? An abbreviation of Matthew?”

  “Yes,” he said to save time.

  “Yes, I’m sexy, or yes, it’s short for Matthew?”

  Somewhere on her desk the telephone rang. She got up smoothly and gave one long step. She scrabbled under the books and documents. He watched the muscle of her calf tensing and relaxing and was amazed by its perfection.

  “Anne Boshoff,” she said in an irritable voice. “Just a moment.” She held out the receiver. “For you, Matthew.”

  He got up, put his notebook down on the carton, and took the receiver. It was the district manager of Premier Bank. Head office had agreed that the police could deploy members of the force in their branches. But they urgently requested that the SAPD consider the lives and safety of the bank’s personnel and clients. Joubert assured him that they would.

  “May I use the phone?” he asked and looked round. She was sitting on a ca
rton again, her legs crossed, paging through his notebook.

  “Your handwriting is awful. The long loops of your y and j and g indicate that you’re sexually frustrated. Are you? You’re already using the telephone, Matthew. Just carry on.”

  He dialed the number and tried concentrating on the call. He patted his shirt pocket in search of a cigarette. Then he remembered that they were in his coat pocket. He wanted to smoke. He wanted to do something with his hands to hide his dreadful discomfort and his awkwardness. De Wit answered his telephone in the manner prescribed by the circular of the office of the district commissioner. “Murder and Robbery. Colonel Bart de Wit, good afternoon.”

  He told de Wit about Premier Bank’s decision. De Wit promised to liaise with Brigadier Brown about the arrangements.

  “Where are you, Captain?” de Wit asked.

  “In Stellenbosch, Colonel. With the crimina . . . criminologist.”

  “The press conference has been scheduled for eighteen hundred. In the General’s office. Please don’t be late.”

  “Very well, Colonel.”

  He looked at his watch. He would have to hurry.

  “Freudian slip, Matthew?” Anne Boshoff asked. Her knees were together now, almost chaste.

  “No, it’s a press conference . . .”

  “I’m speaking about the criminal you so very nearly mentioned. Tell me, was it Bart de Wit to whom you spoke?”

  He nodded.

  “I know him. He was in the criminology department at the University of South Africa. I attended a few conferences where he was also present. Good example of a small man. His nickname was Kilroy. Kilroy the killjoy. He looks exactly like Kilroy, the little graffiti man who peers over the wall. Kilroy was here. With his nose. He just doesn’t have the hormones. Didn’t try it on, at even one conference. It made a girl think.”

  “May I have my notebook?”

  “Tell me, Matthew, are you absent, or is it merely your way of putting crooks and villains at ease?” She handed over the notebook. He took his jacket, took out a cigarette, and lit it.

  “Do you know how bad that is for your health?”