Just a Dead Man

by Margaret von Klemperer

  There were no more mysterious vehicles or phone calls. I had no contact with the police, and Paul Ndzoyiya was in Pondoland for his father’s funeral. Despite a nervousness that rose regularly to the surface of my mind when I was alone, I tried to forget my idiotic remark to Thabo Mchunu. I did, however, make a call to Verne to ask him what he knew about Martin Shongwe. He was cagey, said Martin was doing a master’s degree but that he was not Martin’s supervisor, and that he couldn’t think of any reason why he would have reported anything he had overheard to anyone else. I got the feeling he was beginning to find my questions and investigations an irritation and that the repeated visits from the cops were getting on his nerves. Short of trying to contact Martin myself – and I was very reluctant to do that – I didn’t see what else I could do.

  On Saturday afternoon, I once again walked in the plantations with Grumpy. Mike had played his hockey match in the morning, and I had dutifully attended, standing on the sidelines with other parents, cheering on the home team and making sure we did nothing to embarrass the sensitive young players working off their aggression on the pitch. He was now somewhere with his mates.

  Grumpy and I set off up the hill towards the old Voortrekker road that runs along the top. I have never been sure which path it actually is. Although the ruts gouged by the ox-wagons are supposed to be visible as indelible scars in the rock, I have never managed to make them out. One rut in a rock looks much like the next to me. Either way, it was a steep climb, shaded much of the way by tall trees and dense vegetation, now dying back and drying. It was a beautiful afternoon, and to my delight I saw a hoopoe on the track in front of us, its spectacular tan, black and white plumage highlighted in a patch of sunlight. It watched us, moving with jerky, offended steps before it flew off with its curious, uneven flight. Just around the corner, I came across a scattering of porcupine quills – perhaps the owner had had an encounter with a predator and shed some of his protection, including three of his long, thin, curved spines. I picked them up: I would take them home and they could join the others I have found over the years in a faded, pot-shaped basket that stands on the windowsill of my studio. I love their elegant shape and banded colour, the way they bridge a boundary between defence and decoration.

  As I rose to my feet, I sensed Grumpy stiffening, his head up and the soft black hair between his shoulders raised in his best imitation of hackles. In the same moment, I saw a movement on the path further up the hill where someone was jogging down. It is not unusual to see joggers and cyclists out in the plantations, and even in my current state of heightened nervousness, I was not particularly concerned. I put a hand on Grumpy’s collar, and waited.

  A slight figure emerged from a bend in the path, a little way above me, and slowed down. He raised a hand: “Good afternoon, Mrs Marsh.”

  It was Adam Pillay, dapper in blue running shorts and a plain white T-shirt. Now that was a turn-up for the books.

  “Inspector. Uhm … Is this your usual jogging route? And how’s your knee?”

  “It’s fine.” He perched on a fallen tree and unceremoniously wiped his face with the hem of his T-shirt, giving me a glimpse of a well-toned six pack. Nice. He turned to me and smiled, a relaxed and charming smile.

  “Since your spat with my sergeant, I thought I might try out these ‘amenities’ of yours.” He gave a soft laugh. “Very nice they are, too. I’ve been coming up here with my usual running mates this week, but this afternoon they had family commitments, so I came alone. We come in from the other side, on the dirt road, and then run over the top.” He paused. “I’ve been half expecting to meet you, though I didn’t know you usually came up this far.”

  “I don’t often. Grumpy and I are both getting a bit ancient for the hill. But it was a lovely afternoon, and not too sticky, so up we came. I’ve been watching hockey all morning, and felt I would like to stretch my legs.” I could hear myself babbling, and stopped, suddenly feeling rather hot. Grumpy on the other hand, delighted to see someone he had met before, was cheerfully nosing into the inspector’s crotch and licking the sweat off his thighs.

  “Grump! Stop it, you monster.” I grabbed at his collar, and nearly overbalanced onto Adam Pillay’s lap. He put out a hand to steady me, and I decided to sit down myself, out of harm’s way, on another tree covered with moss that was soft and cool under my legs.

  “Actually, I was hoping to see you,” said Pillay. “I wanted to talk to you informally.” He looked at me. “Mr Moyo has told me you asked him whether anyone could have known he was coming to see you on the day he found the body.” He stopped, fiddled with a shoelace, and then straightened up, looking firmly at me. “Laura – you have to be careful. Don’t think for one moment that you can solve this case on your own. Whoever killed Mr Ndzoyiya is dangerous, and if you get in his way, I don’t doubt that he would be prepared to remove you too.”

  I recognised the sincerity of the warning, but something else struck me, forcibly. “Hang on, are you saying you don’t think it was Dan? And he’s rotting there in jail while you go jogging? So your sergeant can pop in on him and make nasty, xenophobic remarks?” Even as I spoke, I knew that I wasn’t being fair. Although Dan was obviously not having a wonderful time, he was hardly rotting – and Adam Pillay was perfectly entitled to a Saturday-afternoon run. I tried to back off a little. “Look, I don’t mean you shouldn’t have time off. Obviously. But it seems pretty rough on Dan. I mean, surely you can see that?”

  Adam Pillay looked unoffended. There was a faint sheen of sweat on his face, but other than that he was quite at ease. “You, Paul Ndzoyiya and Mr Moyo would all do well to stay out of our investigations. Mr Moyo still has questions to answer: personally, I don’t think he killed Mr Ndzoyiya, but we need to know more about what he was doing on the day of the murder, what he wanted from Mr Ndzoyiya and why he behaved as he did when we first questioned him before there is any question of withdrawing the charges. Our investigations are continuing: there are leads to follow. I do understand that you are concerned for Mr Moyo, but you need to accept that we are investigating this with all the resources we have. And rest assured, Mr Moyo is in no way compromised by being a foreigner.”

  I wasn’t so sure of that, but it seemed futile to go on about Sergeant Dhlomo. Adam Pillay trusted him, and even if Dhlomo disliked Zimbabweans, whites, the middle classes, artists, women and most of the other people he met on his daily round, I suppose it didn’t mean he wasn’t a conscientious cop. I had my doubts, but there it was.

  And if Adam Pillay wanted to chat informally with me, even if it was to warn me off, I would return the compliment and chat back. After all, he could hardly leap to his feet and jog off, and maybe I would get some answers. He knew I was doing what he called interfering with his investigation: so, now was my chance to tell him just how much interfering I was doing.

  I settled myself comfortably on my cushion of moss and began to talk. I told him about my contact with Paul Ndzoyiya, how I had got Thabo Mchunu’s number from Rhoda Josephs and, reluctantly, that I had phoned him. I could feel myself blushing as I told him what I had said, naming Flash Funerals. I had been looking down at the ground, but I sensed Adam Pillay shift on his perch, and I glanced up, my face hot. He was looking at me with deep frown lines etched between his brows, but he said nothing.

  I went on, telling him about the car the boys had seen parked outside the gate, about the strange phone calls. Talking about it on a warm afternoon, among the trees with only birdsong to disturb the peace, it sounded pretty feeble, but I ploughed on.

  I explained how I was puzzled that anyone could have known when Dan was going to come and see me. I told him about my last visit to the prison, and how Dan had told me he and Verne had been chatting in the cafeteria, and could have been overheard, possibly by Martin Shongwe, though I had no reason to suppose Martin had anything to do with it. Only that his subject was curatorial policy, which in a way tied in with Dan’s contact with the dead man, or at least with Phineas Ndzoyiya’s apparen
t differences with Thabo Mchunu. And then I stopped. Adam Pillay was watching me.

  I felt as I had as a schoolgirl, embarrassed by my own stupidity, and therefore putting on a defiant face. “Well, Inspector. I don’t think I’ve been very clever, but it’s done now. And the only reason I did anything at all was because of my concern about Daniel. And, although you say his being a foreigner doesn’t make his situation worse, I saw the way your sergeant looked at him and spoke to him on the day the body was found. And … have you found out anything about Flash Funerals? Do they exist? And are they involved with Thabo Mchunu? Or even with Martin Shongwe?”

  There was a long silence. Grumpy, who had wandered away to nose in the undergrowth, emerged from among the trees, stopping to cock his leg on a fine old yellowwood that overshadowed the path. Maybe it had been standing there when the Voortrekker wagons came, or didn’t come, along this way. Adam Pillay straightened up, flexing his shoulders and spreading his fingers on his thighs.

  “Look, Laura. We’re all on the same side here. We all want to see Mr Ndzoyiya’s murderer caught. I’m beginning to agree with you – and so, believe it or not, is Sergeant Dhlomo – that Mr Moyo is not the killer. Maybe the Mendi connection does have something to do with the murder, maybe it doesn’t. There are other issues we are looking into. Mr Moyo has told us that other people could have overheard him talking to Mr Peterson, and Sergeant Dhlomo has spoken to Mr Shongwe.”

  He got to his feet, dusted off his hands, and offered to help me up. We began to walk slowly back down the path, moving between patches of afternoon sun and deep shade where warmth seldom penetrated and the air felt cool and damp against the skin. He went on talking, his voice soft and slow, giving a sense that every word he said had been considered. Not like me, then.

  “I‘m probably going to tell you things I shouldn’t. And I need your promise that you will not, in any way, try to investigate this matter yourself. It is dangerous: to you, potentially to Mr Moyo, and to the police investigation.” He paused. “I want your word, Laura.”

  I noticed that this was the second time he had used my first name. Perhaps he did it to emphasise the informal nature of our conversation. I decided to respond in kind, though I was not so sure of my own reasons. “Okay, Adam, I’ll stop playing detective, if that’s what you think I’ve been doing. But I want Dan released from jail if you guys think he’s innocent.”

  “He will be. Just give us a few days. There are still some loose ends to tie up.”

  We walked on, and I began to think that, despite his warning and my promise, that was the end of the conversation. But the inspector was marshalling his thoughts.

  “I am worried about what you tell me you said to Mr Mchunu. About Flash Funerals. More than worried, actually.”

  I opened my mouth to apologise again: I have seldom wished words unsaid as much as I wished those. But Adam held up his hand.

  “No. I understand. The heat of the moment. And what’s done is done. But I’m afraid you may have alerted him to something he didn’t know we knew about. And that, if he is involved in the murder, makes me concerned – very concerned – for your safety.

  “Is there any way you could move out of your house? Go stay with friends, or your parents? I know you have your son with you, and it might be complicated, but if – and I stress if – you have inadvertently alerted the killer, or killers, to something they didn’t know we knew, you could be at risk. I don’t want to frighten you, but we’re dealing with ruthless people here.”

  “So, you do think Thabo Mchunu is involved. And what about Flash Funerals?” I didn’t really know if he was going to answer that one, but it was worth asking. I might have promised not to interfere, or even go on detecting, but I’m only human. I knew … I had found out … some of the story, and had no wish to be excluded from the rest.

  “Laura!” I could hear that Adam was trying not to laugh. “Please. You promised your Sherlocking days were over. I’m not going to give you details of what we are doing and what we know, or don’t know. But to give you some kind of answer, no. I think it is very unlikely that Mr Mchunu killed Mr Ndzoyiya. For a start, he’s …” Adam stopped. “Maybe you should be a detective. You’re making me tell you things.” He put out a hand, and touched me lightly on the shoulder. “But we are of the opinion that he may be involved in some way, or at least know something.”

  “Have you questioned him?”

  To my surprise, Adam answered. “Briefly. He knew the deceased, and we know they quarrelled. But …”

  “But?”

  “He’s connected, politically well connected. A senior civil servant, with wide business interests as well. We have to be careful – there’s more to this than a memorial to people who died in the First World War. We’re investigating various angles.” He paused. “Including the whole issue of titanium mining contracts on the Wild Coast. I probably shouldn’t have told you that, so please say nothing – to anyone. And Mr Shongwe does know Mr Mchunu – they are related in some way. I’ll tell you that much.”

  We walked on together in silence. Absentmindedly, I took the stick Grumpy was prodding against my thigh and threw it for him. I’m not much of a thrower, and he brought it back with a canine sigh. He isn’t the most energetic of dogs, but he would have liked a better effort than that. Adam held out his hand, and took the stick from me, slobber and all. He pulled his arm back and sent it spinning off into the distance with a neat flick of his wrist. Grumpy lolloped off enthusiastically.

  “Nice throw.”

  “Used to play some cricket, long ago. Now I just run, leave ball games to younger people.” He stopped, turned and looked at me. “And Flash Funerals … Laura, just take it from me that we are investigating them, who they are, and where their vehicles were on the day of the killing. But I’m not telling you any more about that.”

  Grumpy brought a stick back, possibly even the original one. Adam threw it a couple more times, and we continued to talk, though not about the Ndzoyiya case. He asked me about Mike and Rory, and about my divorce. It’s not a subject I’m comfortable with. Fifteen years of my life wasted because of a ridiculous decision made when I was too young. And my self-confidence knocked for a loop into the bargain. But Adam’s questions were gentle, and non-judgemental. I found myself telling him things about the Simon years that I have seldom told anyone.

  He began to talk about the death of his wife and child. Overworked and inexperienced doctors, and a litany of small mistakes that added up to catastrophe. “Afterwards, I threw myself into my work. It seemed to be the only thing left for me. And I suppose it got me through what was a terrible time. I still miss Merushka, of course. But I sometimes think, who knows? Would we have continued to be happy? She didn’t much like me being a policeman: long, unpredictable hours, danger and poor pay. With a child, what would have happened?” He shrugged. “We can never know. And ‘what if’ is not helpful. In the end we have to get on with the hand we’ve been dealt.”

  I stopped to look at him, that neat, dapper policeman. At that moment I could have told him anything, however personal, however intimate. I opened my mouth to say something but before I could speak we heard voices coming up the track towards us, and two mountain bikers came round the corner. They were taking it easy, chatting as they rode, and greeted us incuriously as they passed. The moment was over.

  We carried on down, coming to the place where Phineas Ndzoyiya’s body had lain, though we made no mention of it. As I bent to clip on Grumpy’s lead for the walk back down the road to the house, I realised that Adam Pillay now had a mountain – or a hill at any rate – to climb between himself and his car.

  “Look, you’ve walked all this way with me. I’ll give you a lift back to where you parked. You can’t jog back all that way again, even if you are training for the Comrades!”

  He laughed. “Thank you. I think I’ll take you up on that.”

  We let ourselves in at the gate, and had a glass of ginger beer before heading off. Not for the
first time, as we drove around the town to where, on the far side of the plantations, he had left his car, it struck me that although as the crow might have flown, it was not far from me, that side of the city was a foreign world. Apartheid’s long shadow still lay over the country. Suburbs might have opened up but, human nature being what it is, we still seem to stay in our safe little pockets of familiarity. Or our ghettoes, depending on how you choose to look at it.

  As Adam climbed out of my car, his own keys in his hand, he turned to me again. “Be careful, Laura. Anything – anything at all – that doesn’t seem right to you, or that worries you, phone me. Any time. Day or night. You have my cell number, so use it. And think about what I said: maybe go stay with someone for a while. Just until we get this cleared up. And no walking in the plantations on your own.” Again, he touched me lightly, putting his hand over mine where it lay on the steering wheel.

  25

  BY THE TIME I GOT HOME, Mike and a couple of his friends were lurking hopefully in the kitchen. They claimed to be too poor to see a movie and buy a burger, so was there any chance I could feed them? I sighed, but at least it would keep my mind off my afternoon, and so I set to work to produce a big dish of pasta with mince and tomatoes. Not haute cuisine, but it went down well. Stephen was there again, with his father’s car, and I was impressed that he didn’t have a beer with the other two. I looked questioningly at him and he grinned.

  “I’ll have a beer before the movie, but I promise that’s all. My dad gets kinda worked up about this drink-driving stuff.” I opened my mouth to comment, and he put up a hand and went on: “He’s probably right, I know. Don’t worry, Mrs M. We’ll get home fine. It’s cool.”

  I watched them go, heart in mouth as usual. Still, they weren’t going far. My strictures about Mike being driven by Stephen after dark seemed to have gone by the board, but even I could see they weren’t based on any kind of logic. I had worried about whether or not to give Mike a curfew, but in a few months he would be out on his own, and it seemed silly to confine him only to have him kick over the traces later. He knew that if he was going to be significantly late, he had to phone. And generally, he was pretty good about it. Better than Rory had been, in fact.