Had she known why Geldenhuis had appeared in uniform she would have recoiled from him in horror.
'You know why we've arrested you?' Geldenhuis asked suddenly, though his voice was still relaxed.
'On a conspiracy charge,' Tandia said. 'It won't hold up.'
'Ja, that's right. But you're wrong, it will.' His voice tightened a fraction. 'Sit please, Tandy.' He pointed to the chair and waited for her to sit. 'So, after all these years here we are at the beginning again, hey?'
'Only in one respect, colonel. This is the second time you have placed me under wrongful arrest. I would like to make a phone call please.'
'Maybe later, it's still early in the morning,' he glanced at his watch. 'Hey man, it's only six o'clock; your boyfriend, Peekay, will still be out running.' It was the first hint of animosity and Tandia braced herself.
'My partner is in Barberton today. I would like to call Hymie Levy.'
The policeman's lips puckered, 'Ja, that's right, I remember now. I was down there yesterday, they told me he was coming.'
'I've read the warrant, colonel, could. you please explain how it involves me?'
Geldenhuis held Tandia's eyes. 'Very simple. We have incontrovertible proof that you were aware of the killing and the identity of the killer of Samuel Nguni.'
'That is not true!' Tandia burst out, the volume of her protest betraying her nervousness.
'That is not for you to say, the court will decide.'
'Will you show me your supporting evidence?' Tandia asked, trying to keep her voice calm.
'Ja, maybe I will, maybe I won't, it all depends…'
'On what?'
'What do you think?'
'On whether I co-operate? I am no more implicated in Samuel Nguni's murder than you are.' Tandia was feeling safer; if Geldenhuis kept it to legal matters she could cope.
From the time he'd placed the plastic folder on the table Geldenhuis started to pace the length of the room, his arms behind his back, his whole attitude seemingly relaxed, never actually looking at Tandia. His manner was almost courtroom procedure, with her seated in the witness box and him prowling the floor as he cross-examined. Now, for the first time, he moved up close and placed his hands on the edge of the table opposite to her, leaning slightly forward so that he was almost directly above her, dominating the space they occupied, forcing Tandia to keep her eyes downcast. 'Cooperation, in our business that's a very important word, wouldn't you say, Tandy? Without co-operation we would be in a lot of trouble. But mostly, people, they're good, they co-operate with the police. Sometimes they need a little help, but mostly they're pretty good.'
Tandia realised that Geldenhuis was using standard authority structure, a slightly patronizing, though initially impersonal manner backed by an acute awareness in the victim of the authority behind it.
She told herself she would need to keep the dialogue on an equal footing as long as she possibly could. 'I cannot cooperate by pleading guilty, colonel.'
Geldenhuis moved even closer to her, raising his voice suddenly, so that she jumped involuntarily, looking up at him. 'I am not a fool, Tandy. I know that!' The expression on the policeman's face changed instantly and he smiled. 'There are lots of sorts of co-operation.' He paused. 'And each kind has, you know, its reward.'
'And what sort of co-operation did you have in mind…' she paused for less than a second before adding, 'Colonel Geldenhuis?'
Geldenhuis realized that she was up to most of his tricks, that Tandia wasn't some ingenue with whom he could toy. But he had a long way to go yet and if she thought she knew where he was coming from, all the better. 'Well let me see now, Tandy, first we have to put our cards on the table. I show you the cards I got hey? Then you show me what you got.'
Tandia forced herself to smile, 'I'm afraid I'm not very good at card games, colonel.'
'Ag, man, it's easy, I'll teach you how to play. It's very simple, really. The one with the best cards wins.' He walked over to the door and closed it.
Tandia followed him with her eyes, noting again the small red light that went on above the door the moment it shut. 'I am not aware of having any cards,' she said, raising her voice so Geldenhuis could hear her.
He turned and walked over to the table. 'No, man, that's not true, you will see when we play the game you have a good hand.' Geldenhuis picked up the plastic folder on the desk and unzipped it. He withdrew two neatly typed pages and, leaning over, placed them in front of Tandia. 'I am putting my first card down. This is known as an ace. Take your time…read it.' He turned and started to pace again.
Tandia began to read the transcript which was headed up in the standard manner of a confession notice. After a few paragraphs she looked up and waited for Geldenhuis, who had his back to her, to turn. 'This is a police verbal, Colonel Geldenhuis.'
'Ja, and that's just the start.'
Geldenhuis dug into the folder again and produced a newspaper photo of Johnny Tambourine taken when he had been written up as the boy who had saved Tandia and Magistrate Coetzee's lives. 'We have positive identification from the cook.'
Tandia ignored him. She read through the documents, trying to seem the lawyer she was, although inwardly she was filled with misgiving.
'…and then man, my Bra comes to me. We are going to hit Nguni he says.'
P: How do you mean hit? To hit with your fist?'
Mendoza: 'No, baas, hit is like a hit-man. We must kill this Nguni guy. He is a bad cat, man.'
P: 'Why must you kill him. Did he tell you why?'
Mendoza: 'For what he did to Mama Tequila.'
P: 'Why would he do that? Was this Mama Tequila a relation or something?'
Mendoza: 'Ja, my Bra says because he killed Mama Tequila…Tandy's friend, when he exploded the bomb.'
P: 'Did he say she knew what he was going to do?'
Mendoza: 'Ja, I think she knew.'
P: 'Think?'
Mendoza: 'She knew.'
When she came to the end, Tandia looked up at Jannie Geldenhuis. 'Colonel Geldenhuis, I don't know what you're trying to do, but this verbal isn't worthy of you. Peekay was in Barberton today interviewing Flyspeck Mendoza. If the prisoner has been over-enthusiastically interviewed by your people this will come out in the evidence. Even the South African courts don't like police verbals obtained under duress and that leak like a sieve. I never knew of Nguni's murder until after it happened. What you're trying to do is clear up Nguni's murder and implicate me in some sort of treasonable conspiracy.'
Geldenhuis rose from the chair, and perched on the corner of the table. He reached down and retrieved the two pages in front of her and returned them to the plastic folder. Finally he leaned over and patted Tandia lightly on the shoulder. 'You're good, Tandy,' he chuckled, 'But I already knew that. I admit, maybe we had to do a few things to get this kaffir boy to talk, but the lowveld court where they're going to hold the trial won't worry about a little thing like that. We're giving them a double murder confession - that's not something that happens every day, a kaffir who has killed two white men. Magtig! What a trial for the district court! Don't you worry, I can make this confession stick all the way, man.' Geldenhuis paused. 'Your boyfriend can do what he likes, I've got a signed confession.' He reached into his pocket and withdrew the gold Rolex watch. Tandia recognized it immediately. Nguni would brag about it to everyone who would listen; it had cost him six thousand American dollars. 'This was found it the pocket of the accused, it is Nguni's watch.' He leaned over and touched Tandia lightly under the chin, grinning. 'And now I've also got you, skatterbol. What do you think your boyfriend can do about that, hey?'
Tandia was repulsed by Geldenhuis touching her and she wanted to jerk her head away, but she didn't have the courage to do so. This was the third time he'd referred to Peekay as her boyfriend and she couldn't continue to ignore him. 'Please, colonel, do not refer to Peeka
y as my boyfriend, it's not true!'
Geldenhuis opened the folder and withdrew a ten-by eight-inch photograph, the size which would normally be submitted as evidence in court. He tossed it carelessly in front of Tandia, not saying a word. Tandia looked down at the picture without picking it up. The black-and-white print was grainy, having been blown up quite a lot from the original sixteen-millimetre negative, but it clearly showed Tandia with her arms around Peekay and her head on his chest.
Tandia's mouth fell open. 'The explosion! It happened after the explosion. Peekay is my friend, I was terribly upset!' she protested.
Geldenhuis's hand shot out and grabbed her by the throat. 'You are fucking him, you hear? Fucking him!! You fucking him at the Jew's house. The Jew bastard who loves kaffirs, he should have died! That bomb should have killed the fucking bastard!'
His voice had started low but now he was shouting, his eyes wild, as though he'd gone suddenly mad, and the corners of his mouth twitched. It was all so astonishingly quick that pure fright had not yet caught up with Tandia. Geldenhuis was choking her and she clawed at his hands, but they were enormously strong for a man his size and the clamp around her throat grew tighter until she started to black out in flashes. As suddenly as he'd attacked her he released his grip, standing up and walking away from the table. He cleared his throat, lifting his chin slightly and adjusting his tie. Then he produced a folded handkerchief and dabbed at the corners of his mouth.
Tandia's head was bent over the table and she was coughing violently, trying at the same time to regain her breath. Tears streamed from her eyes, blinding her. Geldenhuis turned suddenly and pointed his finger at her, taking a step towards the table again. Her tears prevented her seeing him clearly but she instinctively flinched, expecting another attack. But he moved no closer to her. When he spoke his voice seemed to have gained a level of control, though it was still angry. 'You think you so bladdy clever, you two. Two big-time lawyers always in the papers. To me you just a kaffir, you hear? A stinking black kaffir! You think you can do anything you like, that we just all japies, hairy backs, stupid Afrikaners, you think it's a joke. You think keeping our blood pure, it's a joke, don't you?'
'It's not a joke,' Tandia rasped, her voice barely audible.
'Hey? What did you say, kaffir?' Geldenhuis took another step closer to the table, his voice menacing. Tandia pulled back, involuntarily bringing her hands up in front of her face.
'It's not a joke, colonel,' Tandia repeated. She was having difficulty speaking.
'What do you mean by that, kaffir?' Tandia was frightened and her throat burned terribly. She realized dimly that what was happening was not part of the way Geldenhuis had planned things, that he'd lost control. 'Nothing, Colonel Geldenhuis. I meant nothing,' she whimpered.
He sniffed, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, turning away and then immediately turning back again. 'What would you know about racial purity, hey? You part a kaffir and you part a bladdy charra and now you want to do it with a white man so your children will be part of us too! Your filth will come into our blood!' He took a step up to the table and reached over to retrieve the photograph, waving the picture in Tandia's face. 'You tucking him, you bitch, and you got to be punished!'
It was the word 'punished' which acted as the trigger. The vision of his father in the butcher's cold room, his large hairy white flanks bent over the huge buttocks of a black woman, suddenly overwhelmed Geldenhuis. It was his duty, his sacred duty before God to keep the purity, to prevent the blacks from turning them all into bastards and half-castes, into the scum of the earth! His hand shot out to grab her again and Tandia jerked back, over-balancing her chair and landing hard on her back, hitting the back of her head on the cork floor.
For a moment Tandia lay stunned. Then she felt the boot on her neck. The fear rose up in her, a dark animated ghost which started from nowhere and filled her entire being. She was back in the cemetery at Cato Manor; in her mind she heard his voice, a younger voice, but still his. You report this you dead meat, you hear?
'Get up, you black bitch,' she heard Geldenhuis say, though his voice seemed to come from a distance. Tandia lay perfectly still, his boot still on her neck. Then it lifted but she still didn't respond. 'Up!' he shouted and the toe of his boot landed in the small of her back. The pain drove up her spine but she managed to stifle the scream so that it came out as a choking, gasping sound. Still she didn't move, her fear rendering her totally powerless. Now it was a huge wave washing over her senses and drowning them in its roar.
Geldenhuis reached down and grabbed Tandia by the hair, jerking her head from the ground. 'On your knees, kaffir!' He pulled hard and Tandia felt an explosion of pain in her head as it Was drawn upwards. Her eyes remained tightly closed, her traumatized mind still obeying his order in the cemetery a dozen years before. Tandia had no sense of time, she was no longer aware of where she was, her body simply responding to his commands.
Geldenhuis released her hair and still she kept her eyes closed. His words in the graveyard repeated over and over again like a gramophone record stuck in one place. She could hear him panting above her and then his voice again, 'Open your eyes, kaffir!'
Tandia opened her eyes. Geldenhuis stood in front of her, his legs slightly apart; in one hand he held his police revolver and in the other his deformed erection. 'Kiss it better!' he commanded, bringing the barrel of the gun to her forehead. Tandia moved her. head forward, her lips touching him. 'Properly better, man!' She felt the barrel of the gun push into the side of her head. Tandia opened her mouth and took him in. Above her Geldenhuis began to whimper; then she felt his body shudder and then he pulled away from her.
Geldenhuis walked halfway across the room, adjusting himself and replacing his revolver. Then he took his handkerchief out and, without unfolding it, wiped the sweat from his face. He walked over to the phone beside the door. Lifting the receiver he waited, then spoke into it. 'Bring water, drinking water and a glass.' He turned, remaining beside the phone. 'Get up, pick up the chair and sit down!' he commanded.
When the water came he walked over to the table, placed the glass down and filled it, pushing it across the table towards her. In a solicitous voice he said, 'Drink, Tandy, it will help your throat.'
Tandia drank greedily, though the glass chattered against her teeth and she had to hold it in both hands. Her throat hurt to swallow. She put the glass down empty, not looking at Geldenhuis who had brought his chair back to the table and now sat opposite her. He took the empty glass and removed his handkerchief; unfolding it, he wiped the interior of the glass, then he half filled it, drinking himself, though only half the water in the glass.
'That's the difference between us an' you people, we always get even. We never forget. That's why we on top and you on the bottom. Now you and me, we even again, quits.' Geldenhuis paused. 'What's the matter? You think something terrible happened? When you bit me in Durban, that's when something terrible happened. What happened just now, that was fair, you hear? Very fair. I should have killed you for what you did to me. I thought about it a lot. But in the end I am a Afrikaner, we are a fair people. I got even, but I did it fair. You can count yourself very lucky you not dead, man.'
Tandia looked directly at Geldenhuis. She spoke slowly at first, her voice coming out slightly hoarse. 'Since the first day you came into my life you've tried to make a whore of me, Jannie Geldenhuis. But it won't work, you'll never do it.' She sniffed, 'You can't make a whore out of someone who isn't one. But what you just made me do, that won't make you better, because you can't make a man out of someone who isn't one!'
Geldenhuis laughed but Tandia could see in his pale blue eyes that she'd struck home. It was the first time she'd seen confusion in them and she wasn't afraid of him attacking her again; the demon in him was temporarily spent.
'I suppose you think Peekay is a man? Sies! A white man who does it with kaffirs!' he said, but the smile on his face
wasn't secure and he lowered his eyes, unable to hold hers. 'I know nothing of Peekay's sexual proclivities, Colonel Geldenhuis, but I now count you among the kaffir fuckers!' The shock on the police colonel's face was enormous. It was as though he'd walked unexpectedly into a right thrown from way back behind the shoulder; his face seemed to physically crumble, his jaw went slack and he grabbed onto the edge of the table with both hands as though he was preventing himself from falling. Tandia panicked, his sudden reaction triggering the delayed shock of the past hour of horror. She knew suddenly that he was going to kill her and she jumped from her seat and flung herself at the door, hammering at it with her fists. 'Open the door! Open the door!! Please! Please!!' she screamed. Then she saw the phone on the wall and grabbed it, 'Open the door! Please open the door!' she screamed again down the receiver. She turned, weeping with shock, expecting Geldenhuis to leap upon her and instead saw him seated at the table looking at her, the expression on his face benign.
'Come and sit down, Tandy,' he said quietly. 'No one will open the door.'
Her heart still beating violently, Tandia returned to her seat. Geldenhuis seemed perfectly relaxed, one hand on the table the other on his lap. 'Sit, we haven't finished talking yet.'
Tandia sat, avoiding his eyes. 'Look at me,' he said.
Tandia lifted her head to look at him and his hand shot up from his lap and pushed the gun against her forehead and pulled the trigger. The empty gun clicked a fraction before Tandia's scream, her hand grabbing at her neck in fright.
Geldenhuis was even prepared for this and slapped her across the face, cutting the scream cold and preventing the hysteria rising up in her. 'See, there are no bullets,' he said.
Geldenhuis put the revolver back in its holster and then looked up at her again. 'You have broken your neck chain,' he said, pointing to the thin gold chain lying on the table.
He reached over and picked it up, examining the two small pointed gold teeth attached to it. 'There is no escape, we always get even in the end,' he said impassively, then placed the chain back on the table in front of Tandia. 'Tandy, look at me.' Tandia raised her eyes slowly, expecting anything and was surprised to see that Geldenhuis wore a hurt expression. He shook his head slowly, 'You don't understand, do you? You have co-operated with me, Tandy; even if we didn't play our game of cards hey? Never mind, some other time; now you must get your reward.' Jannie Geldenhuis reached over for the plastic folder and withdrew the two foolscap pages of transcript. 'I could have made it stick,' he boasted and tore the manuscript in half. Then he tore it again and again until little squares of paper covered the table in front of him. Finally he looked up and Tandia knew instantly that the policeman had returned. His eyes were hard as he spoke. 'I'm going to get you, Tandy. You and Peekay. But fair and square. Also Mandoma and the Jewboy. All four. You are trying to destroy my country and my people and you will hang for treason.' He pointed to the bits of paper scattered over the table. 'Tonight we fixed one more thing; you and me, we quits now.' Geldenhuis turned to Tandia. 'Will you do me a favour?'
Tandia Page 91