by Deon Meyer
She was quiet for three heartbeats. “It was a long time ago,” she said and he heard how tired she was. “Six or seven years. Eight?”
“But he did.”
“Yes.”
“I need a date. And an address and names. Anything.”
“Why? I mean, it was so long ago.”
“I think it’s the connection. I think it might lead to what we’re after.”
For the first time she was aware of his urgency, the vitality in his voice. “I’ll have a look. I’ll call you.”
“Thank you,” he said but she had already hung up.
He looked up the number in the directory. Cape Commercial College, 195 Protea Rd. Woodstock. Box 214962, Cape Town. He dialed. It rang for a long time. He checked the time. Twenty past seven. Too early, he would have to wait. He phoned Gail Ferreira, but there was no reply, either. She must be between her home and work. Why was his timing always so terrible?
No one to send to Wilson’s house and MacDonald’s boat, no people anywhere to answer telephones. He knew he had it, still didn’t know what it meant, but he was right—there was a connection. He was right, ladies and gentlemen, Mat Joubert wasn’t stupid, only storm damage, a little storm damage—okay, okay, a great deal of storm damage, but it could be repaired. The gray matter was still in working order, ladies and gentlemen, and he was going to end this thing today and tonight he was taking Hanna Nortier to The Barber and, ladies and gentlemen, the repair work would begin in all seriousness. Because he was free—the wound was bleeding but it was free of pus.
He wanted coffee and a Wimpy breakfast with eggs and bacon and sausage and fried tomatoes and toast with butter and coffee, and a Winston—life wasn’t so bad—and then he would return to his diet and he would get very thin and fit and become a nonsmoker. He got up, the tiredness thrown off his shoulders like a useless garment. When he went to fetch coffee, he was in the passage when he heard his telephone ringing and ran back.
“It was in 1989,” said Margaret Wallace. “Three months in 1989—August, September, and October. I remember now. He took evening classes and then the whole group went away, at the end, for a few days. There’s a certificate on the wall, and I found a curriculum and a prospectus. They’re on Protea Road, in Woodstock. The man who signed the letters of confirmation was Slabbert, W. O. Slabbert, the registrar. It was seven or eight years ago, Captain . . . What on earth could it mean?”
“I’ll let you know before the day is over.”
Petersen was the first to reach the office. Joubert sent him to Hout Bay to MacDonald’s boat. Then O’Grady arrived and also got an immediate order. Snyman was late. “I recall something like that in Drew Wilson’s wardrobe, Captain, a certificate, among the other stuff, at the back, behind the photo albums, but I didn’t think it was important.”
“I wouldn’t have, either,” Joubert said. “Fetch it for me.” De Wit was pacing to and fro in Joubert’s office, finger nervously next to the nose. Vos was drinking tea, then said calmly: “Now you’re going to nail him, partner.”
The telephone rang. O’Grady calling from Nienaber’s house. “Certificate’s date is 1989, Captain. This is it.”
They waited, talked, speculated. Half past eight. He phoned Gail Ferreira’s work number. “Yes, it was in 1989, Captain. Late in the year. Late in Ferdy’s life. He was useless by then.”
“Seven years,” said de Wit. “It’s a long time.”
“Indeed,” said Joubert.
Telephone again. “This is Basie Louw, Captain.” His voice was weak, like an old man’s.
“What’s the matter, Basie?”
“Jeez, Captain, I had to go out in a boat to find them.”
“And?”
“Seasick, Captain. I get horribly seasick.”
“Is Mrs. Coetzee with you, Basie?”
“Yes, Captain, but she says she doesn’t know the others. She’s never heard of . . .”
“Basie, ask her if Coetzee did a course in small business management in 1989 at the Cape Commercial College.”
“A course in what, Captain?”
“Just ask her whether he was at the Cape Commercial College in 1989.” He said the name slowly, pronouncing each word clearly and distinctly. He heard Louw putting his hand over the mouthpiece, and waited.
Louw replied, surprised: “He did, Captain. He —” Joubert heard the woman interrupting Louw but couldn’t make out what she was saying. He heard Louw saying impatiently, “Yes, yes, yes.” Then Louw spoke into the receiver again. “She said it was that Christmas that he became so involved with the church, Captain. Christmas of ’89. She says that’s when all the trouble started.”
“He said nothing about the course? About the people who were with him?”
Again an indistinct conversation with the woman. “No, Captain, he didn’t say anything.”
“Thanks, Basie.”
“Is that all, Captain?”
“That’s all, Basie. You can . . .”
“The college, Captain . . . is it a new thing?”
“It seems they were all there, Basie.”
“Fuck my duck.”
“You can come back, Basie. Take the boat.”
“Captain?”
“Joke, Basie.”
“Hu, hu.” Louw laughed without humor.
Leon Petersen came back from Hout Bay. “There’s nothing. Not a certificate, nothing.”
“His men?”
“They say they don’t remember anything like that.”
“It doesn’t matter. MacDonald is already involved, through Nienaber.”
“What now?”
“Now we’re going to the Cape Commercial College.”
41.
W. O. Slabbert, the registrar, principal, and only shareholder of the Cape Commercial College, was a bullfrog of a man with multiple double chins, a wide, flat nose, a broad, open forehead, and big, fleshy ears. He had a crew cut. He looked pleased with the deputation from Murder and Robbery who came into his office in single file—Joubert leading, then O’Grady and de Wit, with Petersen bringing up the rear.
“Call me W. O. You probably want to take a course,” he said, pen in hand, after they had introduced themselves and found a seat. He sniffed and his nose made a little curve just above the left corner of his mouth.
“No,” Joubert said.
“You don’t want to take a course?” Sniff. Again the strange movement of the one nostril.
“We’re investigating a series of murders that were committed in the Peninsula in the past fortnight, Mr. Slabbert.”
“Oh.” Disappointment.
“We’ve been informed that Miss Carina Oberholzer worked for you.”
“Yes?” Tentative.
“Tell us about her.”
“Is she dead?”
“She is.”
“Carina dead,” he said as if he couldn’t believe it and sniffed again. Joubert wished the man would blow his nose.
“How long did she work for you?”
“Four, five years. Who . . . How did she die?”
“What kind of work did she do here, Mr. Slabbert?”
“She was in administration. Received the applications and the registrations, sent out the lectures, saw to it that the lecturers received their subject matter. We don’t have lecturers here—they’re part-time, do other work as well.”
“And that’s all she did, the administration?”
“She was only the third or the fourth person I’d appointed. You can imagine, we were very small. Carina grew with the place—bit of this, bit of that, admin, secretarial, answering the phone, doing a little typing.”
“And then she resigned?”
“Yes, she left to join some petrol concern.”
“Why?”
“With Carina it was always money. She was a pretty little thing and a good worker but she was always talking about money. I said: ‘You must be patient, Carrie.’ But she always said that life costs money. She was such a pretty little th
ing, always laughing and talking. And I had to take her off the switchboard because of the endless personal calls.” Sniff.
“She was working for you in 1989?”
“Yes, I . . . Yes, she was, from ’87. Shame, her parents farm in the Northwest. I met them once or twice . . . They must be taking it badly.”
“Does the name James J. Wallace mean anything to you?”
“No, I can’t say . . .”
“Drew Wilson?”
“I can’t . . .”
“Ferdy Ferreira?”
“Aren’t these the Mauser . . . ?”
“Alexander MacDonald?”
“If it’s the Mauser people, why didn’t I read anything about little Carina?”
“Do the names mean anything to you, Mr. Slabbert?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of them. That hair salon chap as well—what’s his name?”
“Nienaber.”
“That’s him, and the one yesterday, the reverend . . .”
“Pastor.”
“Yes, the pastor. But . . . was there another one today? Little Carina?”
“No, not today. How do you know about the Mauser, Mr. Slabbert?”
Sniff, curve. “One could hardly avoid it. The newspapers are full of it.”
“You only heard the names in the media?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know a Hester Clarke, Mr. Slabbert?”
“Yes, I know Hester Clarke. Don’t tell me she . . .”
“Hester Clarke from Fish Hoek? The Christmas card designer?”
“No, I don’t know whether she designed Christmas cards.”
“Fifty-year-old spinster?”
“No, not our Hester—she was a small little thing, young. Young girl.”
“She was?”
“Yes, we don’t know what became of her. Had simply disappeared when we looked for her again. Changed her telephone number or something. Never heard from her again.”
“What was your connection with her?”
“She gave our self-actualization courses. Cute girl, just out of university. We advertised and she came to see me almost immediately. Clever girl, full of bright ideas . . .”
“Your self-actualization?”
“We started the business school for the small businessmen, you know”—sniff—“evening classes. We’d started the evening classes by then but only in the Cape—the correspondence courses for the other stuff, evening classes for creative courses and the business school. First, how to start your own business, the legal aspects, the ways and means, the books, the stock . . . all those small things. Then we saw we needed a last rounding off to send them out into the world. Self-actualization. Norman Vincent Peale, Dale Carnegie—how to make friends and think positively, that kind of stuff.” He sniffed again and Joubert wondered whether he should offer the man a handkerchief.
“She gave a course in self-actualization in 1989.”
“Yes.”
“With evening classes.”
“No, it was little Hester’s idea to take them away for two days, Friday and Saturday, to the Berg River. There’s a little guest farm between Paarl and Franschhoek. It was her idea—she said they were too tired in the evenings during the week. They had to get away, be fresh, out of the usual surroundings. She was full of plans. We still do it in the last part of the course. There are usually ten or twelve in the group and then they finish and we hand out certificates on the Saturday evening.”
“How often did you go away like that?”
“Oh, just once a year. Look, the course is three months of theory in the evening classes because people work during the day. You can’t get them to class every evening—they don’t want it.”
“And that’s all that Hester Clarke did? Two evenings in a year?”
“No, she wrote lectures as well for the creative sections. We still use them. All the introductory lectures about what creativity is, and she checked the little projects set and drew up the little exam papers.”
“Here, in the office?”
“No, I don’t have the money to keep lecturers here. She worked from home.”
“Where did she live?”
“Stellenbosch. I think she was studying part-time as well.”
“And then she disappeared?”
“I won’t say disappeared. But it was very strange. When we tried to find her in the new year, her telephone wasn’t working or someone else answered the phone . . . I can’t remember any longer. We sent letters and telegrams but she was simply gone. I had to find someone else in a hurry. I thought she would probably come back—on holiday or something like that. But later we gave up.”
“Who gives the self-actualization now?”
“Zeb van den Berg. He was in the navy for years and it’s his retirement job. But little Hester’s stuff . . . We’re still using it.”
“Carina Oberholzer? Did she have anything to do with it?”
“She organized the stuff, the accommodation and the lecture hall and the prize giving. She went to the guest farm on the Saturday.”
They chewed on this until Joubert asked: “What year did Hester Clarke disappear, Mr. Slabbert?”
“I’ll have to think.” Sniff. The nose performed its impossible action again, a small muscle spasm. “Let me see . . .” He counted, using his fingers. “’Seventy-eight, ’eighty-eight, ’eighty-nine . . . Yes, ’ninety because we got someone from the Mutual who was doing their training just for a month. But it didn’t work—they wanted too much money.”
“So Hester Clarke did her last self-actualization in 1989.”
“Got to be.”
“Mr. Slabbert, we’re reasonably sure that all the victims of the Mauser murderer were in the 1989 group of your small business course. Have you —”
“No!”
“Have you records of that year’s students?”
“Were they students?”
“Do you still have the records?”
“All students?”
“Mr. Slabbert, the records?”
“Yes, we keep the records . . .”
“May we see them?”
Slabbert returned to reality. “Of course, of course. I’ll show you.” He opened one of his desk drawers, took out a bunch of keys.
“You’ll have to follow me.”
“Where to?”
“Oh, there’s far too much to store here. I have a little warehouse in Maitland.”
They followed him, through the door, past the desks of the administrative personnel, past fourteen women, black and white, at tables on which stood piles and piles of documents.
“There’ll be a photograph as well,” Slabbert said when they were outside.
“Of what?”
“Of the group, with their certificates. But to find it, that’s the problem,” said Slabbert and he sniffed.
42.
The “little” warehouse in Maitland was the size of a Boeing hangar, a dirty, rusted steel construction between a salvage yard and a body shop. Slabbert pushed open the huge wooden sliding door with difficulty and disappeared into the dusk. They heard the click of a switch and then lights flickered and steadied against the high ceiling of the warehouse.
O’Grady turned shit into a three-syllable word. The others simply stared. Piles and piles of brown cartons ran from the front to the back, from side to side, stacked seven meters high, neatly packed on shelves of metal and wood.
“The problem,” Slabbert said when he’d indicated that they must come in, “is that in the beginning we didn’t think that it would grow to be so much. Then people started asking for re-marking and records of scores and copies of certificates and we realized we’d have to store everything. But by then there was so much stuff that we only began a filing system in ’92.”
“And before that?” Vos asked anxiously.
“There’s a bit of a problem.”
“Oh?” Joubert said and his heart sank.
“It hasn’t been filed. There are simply not enough hands
. Hands cost money. Besides, we seldom get any queries for before ’92.”
“Where would the ’89 records be?” Joubert asked.
“In this row.”
“Where in this row?”
“To be perfectly honest, I have no idea.”
Bart de Wit radioed for more help, this time only from Murder and Robbery because he wanted to avoid the Brigadier at all costs. The others rolled up their sleeves and started taking down cartons. They developed a system and when the reinforcements arrived, extended it.
Carton after carton was pulled down, opened, passed on. Another team took out the contents, put them on the floor where Joubert, Petersen, Vos, O’Grady, and, later, Griessel, paged feverishly through the documents looking for dates, names, subjects.
“Who’s going to put it all back?” Slabbert asked with a sniff of annoyance.
“Your administrative personnel,” de Wit said with finality.
“Time means money,” Slabbert complained and he took a hand as well, dragging cartons that had been searched into a corner.
Progress was slow because there was no system in the manner in which the material had originally been packed—documentation on computer repair courses lay next to Introduction to Journalism. Basic Welding was in a carton with Painting for Beginners.
De Wit had lunch delivered—Kentucky chicken and Coke—and they ate while they worked, swore, laughed, had serious discussions. One carton after another was checked without a break. The afternoon slowly wound to an end, the cartons slowly became fewer. Just after three they were halfway, with no success. Ties were off, sleeves were rolled up, shirts had become untucked, the firearms in their leather holsters were in a neat row next to the door. There were dust marks on their clothes, arms, and faces. Occasionally a few words were exchanged while time marched inexorably on.
Joubert and Griessel took a break, stood outside in the sun, their bodies stiff. Exhaustion was stalking Joubert again.
“I’m going to ask the Colonel for leave,” Griessel said and sucked on his Gunston. “I want to take my wife and children away for two weeks to see if we can make a fresh start.”
“That’s good, Benny.”