“This is Laura Marsh, a friend of Dan’s from way back. He was at her house when he found the body. Laura, this is Rhoda Josephs.”
I put out my hand, and she shook it. Her firm grip was cold, despite it being a warm day. And I was quite sure she knew exactly who I was, long before Verne had even uttered a word.
“I believe you introduced Dan to the person who put him in contact with Mr Ndzoyiya.” I could see no harm in being upfront about something like that. If she knew who I was, why not reciprocate?
“Yes, I did. Thabo Mchunu. He’s a civil servant, based in Pretoria, and had met Mr Ndzoyiya over discussions about the best way to commemorate the victims of the SS Mendi disaster.” She drew in a breath. “It is a huge and often dismissed episode in the annals of South African military history; maybe even a war crime.” Her face took on an expression of grief, as if the ship had sunk last week. She was talking to me as if I was the sole audience member at a public meeting. “I have worked closely with Thabo on redressing the balance of our heritage sites and memorials. He told me about this Mr Ndzoyiya and his views on the matter, views we take seriously, even though we don’t necessarily agree with them. I thought, when Daniel told me about his ideas, that it would be good if he and Mr Ndzoyiya could talk, so I asked Mr Mchunu to put them in touch when I saw Daniel that day. But I had no idea what would come of it.” She shook her head, the helmet-hair unmoving.
I nodded. “Yes, Dan was excited about the exhibition when he came to see me. I can’t believe this has happened. I just hope he’ll get bail – the evidence is purely circumstantial.” I watched her as I spoke, but her smooth face betrayed nothing other than a look of concern. “Maybe I could speak to Mr Mchunu? I really want to do everything I can to help Dan. Perhaps if Mr Mchunu would talk to me, or to Dan’s lawyer, we might be able to clarify things.” I made a silent mental apology to Robin for involving him in this. “I mean, Dan hadn’t even met Mr Ndzoyiya when he was killed, so surely there must have been something else? Perhaps Mr Mchunu knows more about who Mr Ndzoyiya’s enemies could have been.”
Rhoda Josephs nodded smoothly. In fact, from her hair to her suit to her expression, she was one of the smoothest people I had ever encountered, presenting the kind of carapace to the outside world onto which no mud or barbs would ever stick. But before she could respond, there was a shout of “All rise”, and everyone shuffled to their feet as the Regional Magistrate entered.
Once again, it seemed to me the court was ignoring its own potential for theatre. What was of enormous importance to the accused and his friends (and maybe his enemies) seemed mundane to those taking part. Robin was no actor who had missed his calling: he had a light, reedy voice, at odds with his teddy-bearish figure. But he was eloquent enough in calling for Mr Moyo, a hardworking man and an artist of enormous promise, to be released. The magistrate, however, didn’t look impressed. He asked Robin about Daniel’s home, and Robin had to say that he was renting a flat in downtown Johannesburg, but that if he was to remain in Pietermaritzburg while proceedings in this case were wrapped up, he would be staying with Verne, another well-respected artist and university lecturer. That didn’t seem to impress the magistrate much either.
He said he would be concerned that Mr Moyo might well be a flight risk. Robin countered by saying that Dan had permission as a political refugee to be in South Africa, and would therefore be very unlikely to go elsewhere – certainly not back to Zimbabwe. From there, they moved on to the evidence, with Robin claiming that it was all circumstantial and effectively a load of rubbish (actually, he didn’t put it quite like that, but that was the gist) while Hannah Bhengu stated that the police were concerned that Mr Moyo had lied about having had previous contact with the victim and had been involved in some violent protests in Johannesburg. It was a depressing business, and the magistrate finally said “Bail denied” and remanded Dan once again. Robin immediately gave notice of his intention to appeal. No one else in the courtroom seemed much bothered one way or the other, and we all stood up and shambled out again.
I caught up with Robin. “Now what?”
“We’re appealing. It’ll probably mean another two or three weeks in jail for Dan, I’m afraid. But Paul Ndzoyiya has given me some leads – and, more importantly, he’s given them to the police. I reckon we should be able to get somewhere. At least far enough for there to be no good reason to keep Dan in custody.” I got the feeling Robin wasn’t telling me everything, but I was anxious to catch up with Rhoda Josephs before she managed to slip away. I contrived to give Dan a quick hug, and tell him we were working on it all, and then I looked around the thinning crowd.
Rhoda Josephs showed no sign of leaving. She was standing in the foyer, looking carefully at everyone. I saw Inspector Pillay and Sergeant Dhlomo, and the latter even gave me, if not exactly a smile, then certainly a slightly less morose look as I tried to convey from across the room my continuing gratitude for his help in changing the wheel. I also saw Paul Ndzoyiya, heading for the doors as inconspicuously as he could. I wouldn’t go up and speak to him there: I had his phone number, and while I wanted to talk to him again, I would respect his fears and do it somewhere where we wouldn’t be seen.
I walked towards Rhoda, and was about to join her when a burly black man in a very smart suit murmured something in her ear before giving her a pat her on the arm and moving on. I’m no fashionista, but that fabric and that cut had not come from Woolworths or any other mall store. That suit had been made strictly for the body inside it, and it looked mighty expensive. Still, whoever he was, he was already on his way out.
“Ms Josephs … Sorry, I’m sure you’re rushing off somewhere, but you were going to give me a contact number for Thabo Mchunu. Could I get that before we all go?”
Rhoda Josephs glanced over towards the door where the well-dressed man was just in view, backlit against the sun, and then turned to me with her smooth smile. “Of course, though I can’t think how he could help. He simply gave Daniel a phone number. It’s disappointing that Daniel hasn’t got bail, but I’m sure the police will get to the bottom of all this. And you – I gather you’re also trying to help?”
“Well, not really.” I had no wish to tell this woman anything about my thoughts or what I was doing. “But Dan’s lawyer is a friend of mine, and if I have any ideas, or hear anything, I’ll pass it along to him.”
“That’s a good idea.” She pulled out a state-of-the-art cellphone that could probably do all kinds of things I had never imagined, and thumbed her way into it, coming up with a number that I carefully wrote down on a piece of paper. I could just as easily have put it onto my own phone, but something about Rhoda Josephs made me want to appear as a bumbling Luddite. It wasn’t that I was trying to hide anything: it was just that such perfection – in her clothes, her smile and gadgetry – irritated me. And, to be honest, I knew it was also beyond me. I mean, I clean up quite well, but at best it’s the cleaned-up art teacher look, not the glossy look of someone who knows how to get to the top without you noticing she’s stuck a dagger in your back. Or the fact that she’s just bludgeoned your head in. I had my doubts about Ms Josephs, though I didn’t really think she was a killer.
However, we parted with mutual expressions of devastation at the outcome of the bail hearing, and, even though out of the corner of my eye I could see Inspector Pillay heading my way, I made my excuses and left. After all, I had told Mrs Golightly I would be back at school in time to take my class and, with a bit of luck and all the traffic lights going my way, I might even do it. Her office window overlooked the staff parking and, while she didn’t obsess about our comings and goings, I had a nasty feeling that this morning a beady eye would be kept on what time I made my appearance.
19
THAT EVENING, MIKE WANTED to know all about the hearing. I didn’t want him involved, not in any way, so I kept to the bare facts. After supper, when he was studying in his room with the door shut and the music loud, I sat down to consider my options.
> If this Thabo Mchunu was involved, then contacting him would be a stupid thing to do. On the other hand, if I didn’t ask him about Phineas Ndzoyiya’s plans and his objections to them, I couldn’t see any other avenues to follow. Of course, Ndzoyiya might well have been killed by a random mugger who didn’t take anything from the body, and then decided to dump it up the road from my back gate, but it seemed unlikely. And Thabo Mchunu might know who else’s toes Ndzoyiya had stepped on regarding memorials to the victims of the sinking of the SS Mendi, or anything else. He had Pondoland connections, after all. And then there was Rhoda Josephs: where did she fit in, if at all?
I went to the phone, and called Paul Ndzoyiya. He didn’t strike me as the patricidal type, so phoning him should pose no danger – to me or him. He said he would come and see me before he went to Pondoland for his father’s funeral, and here the practicalities of combining detection and a private life began to intrude. With Mike at home, I wasn’t particularly keen to have Paul come to the house, unless he could come when Mike was at school, or out. Both Paul and I worked, so that was going to be tricky too. Eventually we decided that all that was left to us was a speedy lunchtime meeting the next day. I would rush home and he would come and join me. Fortunately, I had a free Friday afternoon, and thus had a legitimate reason not to go back to work. I was hoping to work on my paintings, which were falling behind schedule.
He arrived just after I did and I ushered him in quickly. If he was afraid of being followed, there was no point hanging around where he could be seen. I told him about Rhoda Josephs being at the bail hearing and he nodded. He had seen her, too, and worked out who she was. When I told him she had given me a phone number for Thabo Mchunu, he looked alarmed.
“Are you going to phone him? I don’t think you should.”
“Well, I am. After all, there’s no secret that I’m concerned about Dan, and I can say Dan told me where he got your father’s name. So I reckon I can ask if he has suggestions as to what might have been behind the killing. He knew your father, after all, and I can ask if he knew of any enemies he – your father – might have had. I can’t believe it has anything to do with memorials – I mean, why? I’ll leave you out of it, I promise. And I won’t say anything about knowing that the two of them had quarrelled.” I then asked Paul how the police had reacted when he told them about the attempted break-in and the phone call.
“It’s hard to know what they thought. Inspector Pillay seemed concerned: he told me to be very careful, and to report any other suspicious incidents straight away. Sergeant Dhlomo – well, he was initially inclined to dismiss the break-in as the work of kids, but he did seem to take the phone call more seriously. But nothing else has happened. I don’t know what to make of it. Things in this country are not good. The police are overworked and understaffed. And my father was not an important man to them.” He shrugged, weary and dispirited, mourning his father and afraid for himself.
There wasn’t much I could say. I agreed to keep him up to date with anything I found out, and he promised the same. He was heading to Pondoland that evening, and said he would keep an ear to the ground, try to find out if anything more had been done about memorials, or if anyone knew anything about Mchunu’s other plans in the area, or whether his father had annoyed anyone down on the Wild Coast. I showed him out, nervously scouting the street for any unusual cars or sinister watchers before he drove out of the gate.
In an effort to restore some sense of normality, I did my usual Friday-afternoon chores and put away the ironing Doreen, my two-mornings-a-week domestic worker, had finished that morning. I felt bad that I had hustled her out of the house when Paul arrived, but the fewer people who had any idea that we were meeting and what we were discussing, the better. I then headed up the road with Grumpy, feeling absurdly nervous.
Of course, we saw nothing. Grumpy didn’t even manage to see the bushbuck that was there on the side of the track once again, dematerialising against the trees as I watched it. It was a fresh afternoon, and I welcomed the whispers of autumn.
I decided to nip out to fill up my car – I had noticed on my way home from school that the petrol gauge was hovering above empty – before the Friday-afternoon lemming rush to the shops kicked into full gear and, heading down the hill into town, I found myself behind a hearse. The days when they went at a walking pace are long gone, and this one was bowling along cheerfully. And not black and gloomy either. It was gold-coloured, with “KZN’s top funeral directors – Bond Street Burials” emblazoned over the back window, with an address in one of the older townships outside the city. I was pondering the choice of name … presumably Bond Street referred to the West End of London rather than something local, and as a reference I wouldn’t have thought it would exactly resonate with its community. And then suddenly I had a visual recall, so sharp and clear that I almost drove up Bond Street Burials’ exhaust pipe. The white twin cab outside the court, and the one I had seen but not properly noticed the day Phineas Ndzoyiya was killed. I could visualise the logo and the writing as clearly as if someone had shown me a photograph.
I filled the car, and made my way back home as soon as possible. Once there, I phoned Adam Pillay. “Inspector? I’ve got it. The name on the side of the bakkie I saw. And the logo. I could draw it for you. I’ve remembered.”
“Okay, Mrs Marsh. I’ll come round – I wanted to speak to you anyway. I tried to catch you yesterday after the bail hearing, but you rushed off.”
“Yes, sorry. I had to get back to class. But I’m home now.”
When he came, he was inevitably accompanied by Sergeant Dhlomo. I let them in and we went to the studio, where I handed Pillay the sheet of paper on which I had drawn with coloured koki pens the double helix logo I had remembered. Chocolate, gold and a harsh, ugly royal blue. And underneath I had lettered the words “Flash Funerals”.
“I think there was more writing, or maybe a phone number, but I can’t remember, or even be sure. But it was definitely Flash Funerals, and that was the design, or something very like it. The colours are right, I’m certain.”
“And this was on the bakkie that went up the cul-de-sac the day Mr Ndzoyiya’s body was found? Or the one you saw from the court window?” Pillay was watching me carefully.
“I think both. The one that went up the road certainly had the logo – I’m pretty sure of that, though I didn’t take in any writing. And I think that’s what I saw on the one outside court. I mean, it may have been the same bakkie, but I can’t be certain. I suppose the double helix shape is common enough, but the colour combination is unusual.”
Sergeant Dhlomo cleared his throat. He spoke to Adam Pillay rather than to me, but I felt there was something almost conciliatory about him. “That shouldn’t be too hard to track down. Flash Funerals. I have never heard of them, or seen a sign anywhere. There are so many undertakers springing up these days … so many burials. And not all funeral parlours are registered. But someone will know. I’ll get onto it.” He turned his head and looked thoughtfully at me.
Adam Pillay thanked me, congratulating me politely on remembering, even though I couldn’t help feel that my memory was behaving rather oddly lately, coming up with bits of information at strange times. Still, they seemed to believe me, and neither found my delayed and rather patchy recall particularly odd. Maybe all witnesses are like that.
There was an awkward pause. At least, it felt awkward to me. I had told them about my light-bulb moment, and – quite frankly – had nothing more to offer. They had declined tea and coffee on their arrival, and I half expected them to get up and take their double act off on a search of unregistered funeral parlours. But they didn’t move.
Finally, Adam Pillay sat up a little. “Mrs Marsh. I believe you have been in contact with Paul Ndzoyiya.” He paused, and feeling absurdly guilty, I nodded.
“He came to see us, to report an attempted break-in at his home, and a threatening phone call. He said he had told you, because he was concerned that if he was at risk, so mig
ht you be. And Sergeant Dhlomo says that, when he helped you to change your tyre earlier this week, he got the impression you were concerned that it might not have been an accidental puncture.”
Sharp old sergeant. I exchanged a look with him. “Well, not really. But after what Paul said to me, I suppose it did cross my mind that someone might have slashed it, as a warning or something. But I wasn’t really worried.” I smiled, I hoped convincingly, at the sergeant, and again thanked him for his help.
“We obviously take what Mr Ndzoyiya told us very seriously. And the reason we wanted to talk to you is to check whether you have received any threats, or whether anything unusual has happened – anything to cause you concern.”
I wasn’t going to let them get away with that. “But you opposed bail for Daniel. If you think someone else is behind all this, why did you do that? Surely you should be out looking for whoever is threatening Paul! And drop the charges against Dan. Did you find anything in his car?”
The sergeant’s familiar frown and glare were back in place. No sign of those sparkling teeth now. “You may think this is a game, Mrs Marsh, but a man was killed. Your friend Mr Moyo lied about his contact with him. So far, apart from the unsubstantiated word of the dead man’s son, who is understandably upset by his father’s death, we have no other evidence and no suggestion that other people were involved. Okay, you say you saw a vehicle coming up this road on the day Mr Ndzoyiya was killed. But only today – only now, this minute – have you told us anything that might lead to the vehicle being identified. And it may well have had a perfectly innocent reason for being here.”
He was looking angrier by the minute, seeming to swell with rage, and he certainly wasn’t going to answer my question about Daniel’s car. I felt my original fear of him return. “You live in a comfortable, quiet neighbourhood, but there is no law I know of that says a black undertaker cannot drive along your road! Maybe it was his afternoon off and he wanted to enjoy the amenities up there that you seem to think are yours.”
Just a Dead Man Page 10