Dead Before Dying: A Novel

by Deon Meyer

“But it’s definitely the Mauser. It isn’t over yet.”

  “Yup, it ain’t over till the fat lady sings, as they say at the opera.”

  And then Joubert suddenly knew where he would take Hanna Nortier when he asked her out.

  “The attaché case is locked, Captain,” Snyman said from the floor.

  “Let forensics check it for fingerprints and then take it to the office. Van Deventer can use his little screwdrivers on it.”

  “He’ll love that,” said O’Grady.

  “Gerrit, we’re going to Nienaber’s wife. Let me know if anything crops up.”

  “Very well, Captain.”

  Joubert took the stairs, followed by O’Grady, Petersen, and Louw. There was a lightness in his step. Because he knew where he could take Hanna Nortier.

  33.

  THE BANK ROBBER liked the names the media had given him. Don Chameleon in the English-language press, Sweetheart Robber in Die Burger. But now he was unhappy. They thought he was the Mauser murderer. And an innocent man lay in the Panorama Clinic, shot through the shoulder because a constable had thought it was the Sweetheart robber.

  He hadn’t wanted violence or anything approaching killing. He hadn’t wanted all the publicity. All he wanted . . . but it didn’t matter any longer. All he wanted now was to rectify the matter.

  That was why he was going to rob a different bank that morning. Premier Bank’s branches were getting too hot. Why had that constable been at hand in the Tygerberg branch? Were they setting traps for him? That big captain who had been on television. He looked somewhat absentminded but he wasn’t a captain for no reason.

  Don Chameleon wouldn’t allow himself to be caught. He would only rectify the matter. And then wait until the whole thing subsided.

  He was a businessman this morning, a bearded, mustached businessman in a black wig, dressed in a charcoal gray, tailor-made suit with a white shirt and a blue-and-orange tie. He walked through the doors of BANKSA’s branch in Somerset West, the furthest he could get from his other working areas. He walked straight to the teller, a short, middle-aged woman, and took a white envelope out of his pocket.

  “Good morning, sweetheart,” he said succinctly.

  “Good morning, sir.” The woman smiled at him. “Words like that can get you into trouble,” she said calmly and unsuspectingly.

  “How so?”

  “The man who robs Premier Bank. Can I help you?”

  “What do you think of the robber?”

  “They say he’s the Mauser murderer. I hope they shoot him before someone else is hurt.”

  “They’re lying,” the robber said angrily. “Do you hear me? They’re lying.”

  “Sir?”

  He opened the left side of his coat. “Do you think this looks like a Mauser?”

  The woman stared at the black pistol under his arm, her eyes frightened now.

  “I want fifty-rand notes. Quickly. And I don’t suppose I have to mention the alarm.”

  The woman nodded. “Just remain calm, sir.”

  “You remain calm.”

  She took packets of fifty-rand notes out of her cash drawer and placed them on the counter.

  “Put it in a bank bag, you moron.”

  The sharpness of his voice startled her. He shifted the envelope toward her. “See that the police get that. Captain Mat Joubert.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  “What perfume do you use?”

  “Chanel.”

  “It disgusts me,” he said, took the bag, and walked to the door.

  Joubert stared out over the Cape Flats and the Hottentots-Holland Mountains but he had no appreciation of the view from the window in Oliver Nienaber’s study. He was exhausted after the session with Antoinette Nienaber.

  They had first gone back to Murder and Robbery to inform de Wit. The Colonel had smiled and phoned the Brigadier. Then they went to the big house in the wealthy suburb and knocked on the door.

  The beautiful blond woman had collapsed—collapsed and screamed, “No, no, no,” an incessant shrill sound that penetrated the marrow.

  Joubert had bent down and placed a hand on her shoulder but she had slapped it away, her face contorted with pain. She had jumped up and with both hands on his chest, had pushed him back across the threshold, outside, while she made wailing noises and slammed the door in his face. There he, Petersen, Louw, and O’Grady had stood, their heads bowed, listening to the sounds on the other side of the door.

  “Get a doctor and a policewoman,” Joubert had said and opened the door again. “Tony, come with me.”

  He’d walked in and walked in the direction of the sounds. A maid stood in the passage.

  “I’m going to phone the police,” she said.

  “We are the police.”

  The black woman said something in Xhosa that he didn’t understand.

  “Mr. Nienaber is dead,” he’d said.

  She called on her gods in her own language.

  “Help us with her.” He gestured in the direction of the noises.

  They had found her in the bedroom on the floor, a framed photo pressed to her breast. She hadn’t heard them entering the room and remained unaware of their presence, only making the noises—not the tearing sobs of grief but the wails of insanity.

  They had stayed with her until the doctor and a policewoman arrived. They had stood there in the bedroom of the Nienabers, next to the big double bed, and tried to see nothing and hear nothing until the tall, slender doctor had eased past them, opened his black bag, and taken out a needle and a small phial. He had tried talking to her first but Joubert had seen that she heard nothing. Then the doctor had given her an injection.

  Now Joubert stood in the study, against the window and felt guilty—all he could think about was having a smoke, to take a deep draw of the rich, full flavor of a Winston and to forget about the message of death that he had brought and the abyss into which it had plunged Antoinette Nienaber.

  “Shit happens, Captain,” O’Grady said at the door.

  Joubert turned and wondered how long the man had been standing there.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “It’s part of the job.”

  “Some job.”

  O’Grady, now wordless, rummaged in his pocket for nougat. He took out a new bar, nimbly tore off the wrapping.

  “It’s all I can do, Captain.”

  Joubert looked out the window again, chewed on the fat sergeant’s words.

  How had he handled it in earlier days? How had he carried the black coat over his shoulders with such ease? How had he acted the angel of death then, without it gnawing at his vitals like a cancer? Had he been too young? Too stupid?

  No.

  It had been ignorance, pure and simple. Death had no capital letters, it was something that happened to other people’s nearest and dearest. A phenomenon, a normal aberration, a source of excitement, the start of the chase, the sound of trumpets as the cavalry was called in. Have no fear, Mat Joubert is here—the great leveler, the long arm of the law, the restorer of the legal scale’s balance.

  And then came the death of Lara Joubert and he had tasted it on the palate of his soul for the first time.

  It’s all I can do.

  “I’ll have to go through the study, Tony.”

  “I’ll cover the bedroom, Cappy. The lieutenant is talking to the maid. I’ll get Basie to come and help you.”

  “Thanks.”

  O’Grady disappeared. Joubert turned and walked to the desk. He sat down in the armchair. A blotter and pencil set lay in front of him. The blotter was a monthly calendar with space for appointments but nothing was written on it. There was a telephone to one side. Next to the telephone was a new Cape telephone directory with two smaller books on top of it. He looked at the books.

  Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.

  Maybe he should read it.

  Bottom-up Marketing.

  Oliver Nienaber’s books. Oliver Nienaber’s keys to fame and r
iches. He shifted the telephone directory toward him. Had Nienaber sat in this chair and read? Had he used the directory to look up Alexander MacDonald’s number, made an appointment? He opened the directory, paged to M, looked for MacDonald. MacDonald Fisheries was underlined. His heart beat faster. F? He found Ferdy Ferreira’s number but it wasn’t underlined.

  Disappointment.

  W for Wallace. Not underlined, either. Wilson, D.? Unmarked.

  Had Nienaber spoken the truth about MacDonald? Joubert closed the guide and started at A. He paged with his middle finger, licking it occasionally.

  Basie Louw came in. “Need any help, Captain?”

  Joubert looked up. “Yes.” He wanted to open a desk drawer but it was locked.

  “We must go through the drawers, Basie. Ask the maid if she knows where the keys are.”

  When Louw left, Joubert paged on, past MacDonald Fisheries again. The next name that was underlined was Oberholzer, C. A., 1314 Neptune’s View, Yates Road, Sea Point. And a number. He stared at it. Why? When? He pulled the telephone toward him, his insides clenching. He dialed the number.

  A long, steady beep.

  He looked up directory assistance, dialed, and asked them to check the number. They said they would phone back.

  He paged on, as far as Z, but found nothing.

  Louw came back. “The woman says Nienaber had the keys, Captain.”

  “See if you can get hold of Snyman, Basie. He’ll have them.”

  Louw walked to the telephone.

  “No, use the car phone. I’m waiting for an urgent call.”

  Louw nodded and left. Joubert got up, idled toward the window. He looked at Nienaber’s newspaper and against the wall again, the smile, the neat hairstyle, the honest face.

  “What did you know, Oliver?”

  He studied all the certificates against the wall: ACADEMY OF HAIR DESIGN GOLDEN SCISSORS AWARD; CAPE COMMERCIAL COLLEGE BUSINESS SCHOOL—THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT O. S. NIENABER COMPLETED THE COURSE IN SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT; JUNIOR BUSINESSMAN OF THE YEAR. And the company registration certificate for Hair Today.

  The telephone rang. Joubert reached it in two long strides.

  “That service was terminated, sir. This morning.”

  He put down the receiver and put his hand into his pocket, looking for a cigarette. He remembered that he no longer smoked. Was his timing right for stopping? He didn’t have the time to worry about it now. He hurried out to the bedroom, where he found O’Grady on his knees, in front of a nightstand.

  “I’m going to Sea Point. I’ll radio them to send a car for you from the office.”

  The elderly woman who opened the door for him spoke calmly about her daughter’s death. Next to her, in the sitting room of number 1314 Neptune’s View, sat her gray husband, thin and quiet, staring at the floor. They were both dressed in black, good clothes.

  “The service was this morning, in the Sea Point church, but there weren’t many people. Five or six who left immediately after the service. At least her boss went to the crematorium with us. This is the way it is in the city. Our neighbors could come but they’ve already gone home. We farm at Keimoes, Captain. Our son is in America, studying. He is on his way, but too late for the service.”

  “Unfortunately I’ll have to question you about her death, Mrs. Oberholzer.”

  “I thought the police had finished the investigation,” her husband said. “They think it was an accident or something.”

  “It must’ve been the local station, sir. I’m from Murder and Robbery.”

  “She fell. Out of the window.” Rina Oberholzer pointed at a room leading out of the sitting room.

  “Do you think they made a mistake? The other police?” her husband asked.

  How could he even start to explain? An underlined name in a telephone directory . . .

  “I don’t know, Mr. Oberholzer. I’m investigating another case. I . . . Her name . . . It might have nothing to do with it.”

  “There’s so much evil in this world.”

  “What kind of work did she do, Mrs. Oberholzer?”

  “Secretarial, at Petrogas. For years now. There’s no work for young people in our town, Captain. They all go to the city to look for work. We were always worried. It’s such a big place. But we thought it was better than Johannesburg.”

  “Did you know her friends here?”

  “Carrie was a social person, Captain. She had so many. Her letters were always full of names. There were so many. But where were they this morning? But that’s the city. Full of fair-weather friends.”

  “Oliver Nienaber?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Alexander MacDonald?”

  No. They didn’t know. So many names.

  Drew Wilson? Ferdy Ferreira? James Wallace?

  They didn’t react.

  “Who are these people, Captain?” Carina Oberholzer’s father asked.

  “They’re involved in another case. Did she have . . . a friend?”

  Husband and wife looked at each other.

  “Yes, a Portuguese.” The man’s voice was disapproving. “A Catholic.”

  “Do you know how to get hold of him?”

  “At work, probably. He has a restaurant on the harbor.”

  “A fish and chips shop.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  Rina Oberholzer took her husband’s hand. “Da Costa,” she said, as if the words were difficult to say. “Julio da Costa.”

  34.

  They had a conference in the parade room, Joubert’s whole team, Griessel and some of his men, de Wit and the Brigadier.

  Joubert read the bank robber’s letter to his audience:

  Dear Captain Joubert,

  I wish to inform you that I am not the Mauser murderer. I also want to inform you that I won’t execute a robbery at Premier, or any other bank, until you’ve caught the Mauser murderer. I’m sorry about the farmer, Scholtz, who was shot but I actually had nothing to do with it.

  Yours sincerely,

  Don Chameleon (the Sweetheart Robber)

  Joubert turned the paper round and showed it to the others. “Typed,” he said.

  “Typewriter. Not a computer printout. No prints,” Griessel said.

  “Fuckin’ asshole,” Vos said. “He fancies his name.”

  “Do you believe him?” the Brigadier asked.

  Griessel was firm. “Yes, Brigadier. He and the Mauser make no sense. Too many differences.”

  “I agree,” the Brigadier nodded. “What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m going to catch him, Brigadier,” Griessel said.

  “I like your optimism.”

  “I’ve got a feeling, Brigadier.” Griessel took a pile of photographs out of his file and got up. “If we look at these pictures there’s one similarity.” He pinned them to the notice board with thumbtacks.

  “Look carefully,” he said. “Look carefully, because I missed it at first.” He stood back so that everyone could see. “One thing doesn’t change.”

  They all screwed up their eyes for a clearer vision.

  “They all look different to me,” de Wit said pessimistically.

  “Brilliant, Colonel. That’s what I kept missing. They all look different. They don’t look like the same person. Except when one looks very carefully. The nose. Look at the nose. Look carefully. It has a little twist at the end. You should be able to see it better from fairly far away because the photos aren’t good. The same guy but he looks completely different every time. And that’s how I’m going to get him.”

  “Oh?” de Wit said, prepared for the possibility of being embarrassed in front of the Brigadier should Griessel be spouting nonsense.

  “He’s a pro, Colonel. Not of robbery, but of disguise. He knows what he’s doing with the wigs and the mustaches and the other stuff. Look at this one where he’s an old man. Hell, he looks like an old man. Look at the wrinkles. Look at the clothes. It’s as if he’s playing a role in a flick. Everyt
hing is just right. It’s too much to fool only the bank cameras. That guy is a pro. He enjoys it. He knows it.”

  Griessel turned back to his audience.

  “It’s his job, his profession.”

  “Ahhh,” said the Brigadier.

  De Wit rubbed his mole, pleased.

  “You’re a star, Benny,” Joubert said.

  “I know. Because that’s not all.”

  They were all attention.

  “He’s got a grudge against Premier. Why rob just them? I don’t mean the last one. That doesn’t count because he’s got cold feet now. I’m speaking about the previous ones. Clever guy like him wouldn’t concentrate on the branches of only one bank. No, no, there must be a reason, because he must know there’ll be hell to pay if he focuses on only one. You don’t have to be an Einstein to know that the cops are going to lay traps for you, unless you screw around a little more. He hits Premier because he’s got a grudge.”

  “You’re simply guessing,” the Brigadier said.

  “I know, Brigadier. It’s a theory. But you must admit it has merit.”

  “Whole fuckin’ country has a grudge against banks,” Vos said.

  “Also true,” Griessel hit back. “But how many professional makeup artists can there be in the Cape?”

  They considered the truth of this statement in silence.

  “You’re going to look for makeup artists,” de Wit said and grimaced.

  “One after another, Colonel. To be honest I’ve already begun telephoning. And they tell me I must start with the Arts Council. And then the film studios. There are about twelve or thirteen of those. They said he might be freelance as well, but in this profession everyone knows everyone else.”

  “Well done,” said the Brigadier.

  “So I’ll ask to be excused, if I may. With my team.”

  “With pleasure, Sergeant.”

  Griessel walked out ahead of them and Joubert noticed the squared shoulders.

  It’s all I can do.

  “Captain?”

  All eyes were fixed on Joubert.

  Joubert straightened the brown files in front of him, picked up the notebook and started paging. He cleared his throat.