Black Heart

by Mike Nicol

  He poured himself a short vodka, wished his mother had kept whisky. Forced himself to sit down and drink it slowly.

  July’s long light was a downside. But the man Richter sat it out. With the twilight, switched on lights in the apartment for the benefit of the two men in the Audi. Ensured they saw his shadow pass across the windows.

  In the dying day, fifteen minutes before the train was due, he left the apartment. Paused once in the doorway to look into the sitting room, a sentimental moment. Quickly he pulled the door closed, locked it.

  He left the block by a back exit through a park. Only groups of teenagers still on the grass. Drinking beer. Smoking. Listening to loud rap music. He came out three streets from the station. Quiet streets where a man could hurry past the open doors unnoticed. He took the last train to Berlin. Easy as that. From the train’s phone made the hotel reservation.

  Heard the proprietor’s bluster, ‘This is very late for a reservation.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Can you help me?’

  The tutting. ‘Ja, gut, we have one room only. A single room.’

  ‘That is all I need.’

  At Berlin Zoo the man Richter left the suitcase in a locker, walked up the Kurfurstendamm while the storm rumbled nearer. No reason to think anyone knew where he was.

  He went for a run early the next morning. Along Knesebeck to Ku’damm, up the slow rise to Halensee. Running easily, sweating in the hot and humid dawn, the city unrelieved by the rain storm. At the lake he watched the swimmers, pale flesh in the brown water, couldn’t see what pleasure they took. Most of them naked. Older people, impossible to tell the genders apart.

  By now the men in the Audi would be hunting him again. They would know he’d caught the Berlin train. They would be here watching the airports. And the stations, Haupt, Zoo. Richter decided he would take buses, then regional trains to a big city, Leipzig maybe, hire a car there. Keep moving. It was best to keep moving. Drive to Vienna. They would not be watching that airport. Get a flight to Dubai. A link to Johannesburg. Ja, gut, to quote the pension proprietor. Why not? By Wednesday he would be home in Cape Town. A different man.

  Smiling, Richter left the swimmers of Halensee, jogged easily up the hill to the interchange, crossed the railway bridge, loped down the wide pavements. Antsy to be on the stir again.

  At the pension he showered, changed into a golf shirt, brown chinos, moccasins, no socks. Stuck his sunglasses in the neck of his shirt. A man with casual business in the city. Perhaps in tourism. Or sports accessories. An unpretentious man who preferred quaint pensions to the big hotels. A man relaxed in the breakfast room, admiring the high moulded ceilings, photographs of old Berlin on the walls.

  In English he advised a young American couple to take a booze cruise along the Spree. They looked like kids, early twenties at best. ‘Not long ago there were gunships on the canal,’ he told them, ‘now it is a tourist pleasure. The world changes.’

  The couple laughed. The boy-man said, ‘Great, hey thanks, man.’ The girl-wife doing a full teeth display.

  The couple went off.

  Richter smiled. What was great? The world changing? The gunships? The outing? Perhaps it was George Bush-land made them peculiar.

  The proprietor approached, offered a coffee refill. Asked if mein Herr would like the room for another night?

  Richter said, unfortunately, no. A lovely hotel – made an expansive gesture round the room – but he was on his way to Hamburg. To spend the weekend with family. A sister’s brood.

  Ja, gut, said the proprietor, he would make out the bill.

  An hour later aka Richter sauntered along Knesebeck towards Zoo. A man seemingly at leisure, except the man wasn’t. The man watched ahead. Checked in shop windows at those behind him. Stopped suddenly to search in his bag, took time to scan the street. Ten paces on did it again. And at the railway bridge. You couldn’t be too careful.

  Not in this heat. Not when you sweated just walking fifty metres. The heat made you fuzzy. Inattentive. Likely to make mistakes. Better to be on a bus, minimise the risk. But first there was his suitcase in the locker. His laptop. The files.

  On the corner of Kant a man grabbed his overnight bag, wrenched it from him, threw it into the back of a white Audi. The man shoving him after it. Richter sprawled onto the seat. The man ducked in behind him, pushed a gun into his kidneys.

  The car pulled off slowly. A pedestrian running alongside, knocking on the window. Shouting, ‘Halt, halt.’

  ‘Polizei,’ the driver shouted back. The citizen stopped, stood watching the car merge into the traffic.

  ‘We are going somewhere quiet,’ said the man in the back seat, speaking Albanian. ‘And no more Herr Richter, okay.’ Pinching Richter’s cheek. ‘What do you like to call yourself these days? Max Roland, isn’t it? We have a lot to talk about, not so, Max?’

  ‘Tricky Max,’ said the driver, grinning at him in the rearview mirror. Playing with him, reaching over to grab his left hand. ‘Ah, there we are, Max.’ Holding up Max Roland’s small finger. ‘Only one knuckle. This’s how they told us we would recognise you.’ He held up a photograph. ‘In case you were in disguise. But you’re too cocksure for that.’ He flipped the photograph onto the passenger seat. ‘Come, Max, don’t be so disappointed. Be happy it is us. If it wasn’t, you would be in the shit with the guys from The Hague.’

  ‘Locked away forever,’ said the man beside him. ‘What a sad life that would be.’

  The two men laughed.

  Max Roland swallowed hard, wanted to puke.

  Saturday, 23 July

  2

  ‘Mr Oosthuizen,’ the voice said. ‘I think you need my help.’

  Magnus Oosthuizen glanced at his cellphone screen: private number.

  ‘Who is this?’ he said.

  ‘Right now who I am doesn’t matter,’ said the voice.

  A woman’s voice, clear, bold. Slight accent on the vowels, made them too full, over elaborate. Cape Town. Probably coloured, he reckoned. One of the educated ones straining to overcome the nasal flatness of her kind.

  ‘What matters is that I know about your weapons system and that I know you need fathering – or should I say mothering. Seriously, I’m surprised you’ve managed this long without anyone to smooth your way with the government people, but as you know that time has ended.’

  ‘I don’t know who you are,’ said Oosthuizen. ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘If I were you,’ said the caller, ‘I would be curious. I would want to know how this mysterious person got my cell number. How she knew about the weapons system. How she knew that once I had the ear of the right government men. And I would want to know what was meant by “that time has ended.” With so much money at stake, I would be anxious. Like you I would huff and bluff, but I wouldn’t let this unexpected conversation end, shall we say, inconclusively.’

  Magnus Oosthuizen closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. Released his fingers. Shivered, turned up the temperature on the heater. Damp Cape Town winters got into your bones.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘One thing you will have to learn about me, Mr Oosthuizen, is I’m not big on repetition.’

  Oosthuizen rose from the couch to stand at the window looking into the garden: long bright lawn edged with lavender bushes, at the far end the gardener skimming leaves from the pool. Might have been poling a gondola down a Venice canal with that action. John the Malawian. Probably got the motion growing up on the lake, Oosthuizen liked to joke to his cronies.

  ‘Shall I help you out, Mr Oosthuizen? Shall I answer some of those niggling questions for you?’

  Niggling. Truly a jumped-up lady.

  ‘Ja,’ said Oosthuizen. ‘Okay.’ He sat down again. Chin-chin his Chihuahua in a tartan jacket pawed to be picked up. Stared at him goggle-eyed, whining. ‘Ag, no, man,’ he whispered at the dog, brushing it away. Chin-chin came back, snapping at his fingers.

  ‘Let me give you the name Mo Siq.’

  ‘What about him?�
��

  The dog yapped, high-pitched, insistent. Oosthuizen bent over to scoop him up, settled the animal on his lap.

  ‘Is that a Chihuahua?’ said the woman.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Horrible dogs,’ she said. ‘Very northern suburbs.’

  ‘Mrs,’ said Oosthuizen ‘I …’

  ‘Ms. But we’ll get to my name. Back to Mo Siq. Government front man on the arms deal, till he was assassinated. Before that your advisor. Proposer. Guardian angel. Inside man. How you’ve managed these last few years without him, I don’t know. Congratulations, Mr Oosthuizen. You survived the vipers. That took some doing. And fancy footwork. Perhaps you are a ballroom dancer. Any questions so far?’

  ‘How did you get my phone number?’

  The woman laughed. A light gentle laugh. ‘That’s an easy one. It is right here in Mo’s laptop. Let me put it this way: Mo’s laptop was one of the things I inherited on his death.’

  ‘You stole it.’

  ‘Inherited, Mr Oosthuizen. There are circumstances you are not aware of. Now …’ – she paused, he heard the splash of a drink being poured – ‘prost, Mr Oosthuizen …’ – he heard her sip – ‘nothing to beat the sauvignon blanc, when it’s good.’ Another sip. Oosthuizen checked his watch. Wine at eleven-forty on a Tuesday morning! ‘Now, Mr Oosthuizen, what you should want to know’ – her voice more liquid, oiled – ‘is what do I know that you don’t?’

  ‘Listen, Ms …’

  ‘No, you listen, Mr Oosthuizen, this will be worth your while. You see I know that the Europeans have an offset budget as part of their tender for the weapons system.’

  ‘That is no secret.’

  ‘By offset, I mean, not to be prissy about it, bribes. Not promises of stainless steel plants. Not aluminium smelters. Not condom factories. Bribes, Mr Oosthuizen. Money in the back pockets of the government men. In Cayman accounts. Or Channel Islands, Iceland, Barbados, wherever their back pocket happens to be. The sort of back pockets you cannot fill, Mr Oosthuizen, which is why you need me.’

  ‘And what can you do?’ Oosthuizen snorted, squirmed to resettle the dog from squashing his balls. Chin-chin grizzled.

  ‘A lot,’ said the voice. ‘Believe me. Keep your scientist Max Roland alive for one thing. Get him freed for another. Even help you bring him home.’

  ‘Where are you?’ said Oosthuizen.

  ‘In the same city as you, Mr Oosthuizen. How about a drink this afternoon at the Waterfront? Den Anker. We have much to discuss. Why don’t you join me?’

  ‘How will I recognise you? I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘You won’t. And admittedly, you don’t. Much better you don’t know my name until we meet. All very mysterious, I realise, but that’s my style, Mr Oosthuizen. Shall we say at five? I’ll be the blonde with the rosebud. But don’t worry, I’ll recognise you.’

  3

  Sheemina February switched off the handset.

  Mr Magnus Oosthuizen, one of the world’s survivors. Like her. Like her, an operator working the system, except he didn’t know how the system was about to work him. And the attractive Max Roland. The ladies’ man.

  She put down the phone, went to stand on the balcony with her glass of wine. Rested her rigid left hand on the stainless steel railing. Looked down at the sea, still wild from the last storm, still lathered with brown foam, still pounding on the rocks three storeys below. She could have bought that apartment, the lowest one: had seen it on a calm day with the sea a slow gurgle along the rockline. Very beguiling. Seductive. To sit on the balcony so close to the water, like being on a boat. But she knew the Cape Town seas, knew they could rise up with power and destroy. Hadn’t happened yet but the chances were it would one day.

  She took a sip of the wine, held it in her mouth to absorb the flavours.

  The pity of it was she would have to leave her lair. Her white lair, this cave in the cliff face. A luxurious cave in a cliff of expensive caves owned by film stars, rich business machers, trust babies, highflying models with too much money too soon.

  But for her plans to succeed she had to leave the flat and wait. Ever the black widow under the eaves, waiting for the fly, Mace Bishop.

  For years she had treasured the apartment. Allowed no one into it. Not even casual lovers. Lair and sanctuary was how she saw it. All that was ended now, now it was a web.

  She turned to face the room: the white couches between white flokatis on ash flooring. On most surfaces, white votive candles that she lit at night. Limewashed dining-room table and chairs. Her haven. Her large, open-plan ritual of white.

  Except she wore black: boots, slacks, a roll-neck top. A black leather glove on her tormented hand when she went out. A long black coat against the cold. Sometimes a pashmina under the collars hanging down. For flair. For her tall elegance. Black to sharpen the ice-blue of her eyes. Black in this bright white world. Apart from her short blond hair. But that was temporary, a disguise of sorts. Not her colour or her style, just an expediency. Times would change she’d go back to the black bob.

  She sipped again at the wine. What a wonder was life?

  Sheemina February smiled at her reflection in the plate-glass picture windows. Gave a flick to her blond hair. Sometimes life played into your hands. Hand. Magnus Oosthuizen and Max Roland were prime candidates for Mace Bishop’s services. How convenient. And at a time when Mr Bishop was staggering with grief, mourning for his lovely Oumou, and slowly losing his daughter. Poor man, this couldn’t come at a worse time for him. If she could swing it his way which she was sure she could. Magnus Oosthuizen would be clay. Like the clay Mace’s lovely wife Oumou had used to make her little pots.

  ‘What’re you but a matchmaker, Sheemina,’ she said aloud. ‘You should get a commission.’

  She went inside, drew closed the sliding door. On her laptop were pictures from Mart Velaze, pictures of Max Roland, a completely naked Max Roland. The background was a white tiled wall, his hands were raised above his head, tied with plastic straps to a shower nozzle. The position gave excellent definition to his body: the line of his arms, chest, flat stomach, strong thighs, although his calves were too small. A well-toned body that needed more work on the calves. A runner, they said. Sometimes runners had surprisingly small calves. Swimmers, too. Like Mace Bishop. For a long-distance swimmer he had thin calves. The longer she stared at the body of Max Roland the more his physique reminded her of Mace Bishop. Perhaps that was the attraction.

  She sat down at the dining-room table, pulled the laptop closer.

  A series of four photographs, taken over some hours, she imagined. In the first there was still strength in Max Roland’s body. Resignation on his face, his feet planted apart. In the second: his right leg bent at the knee to prop himself against the wall. Something starting in his face: a tightening at the eyes, his lips slightly parted. The next showed his hand clasping the showerhead as if he were trying to hold himself upright. His mouth open. She imagined he was panting. Sheemina February zoomed in on his nostrils. Examined how they flared wider in each of the pictures. Also his lips were dry. She could see the tip of his tongue in the third photograph. And his eyes had gone feral: tiny black pupils staring off to the left. In the fourth he was wet, his blond hair plastered against his scalp. Droplets on his chest hair. His eyes were closed, his mouth gaping. They’d opened the shower to revive him but it hadn’t: he dangled from the nozzle, his full weight dragging on his arms, his body arching forward, his feet buckled under him. He would be hurting. Sheemina February reckoned twenty-four, thirty hours maximum to get him to that state. Probably with some help that was invisible in the photographs. A couple of jabs with a taser worked wonders.

  Imagine having Mace Bishop in that condition? In that position?

  She zoomed in on the genitals. In number one the scrotum tight, the penis withdrawn into its bush. Reminded her of a moray eel. Number two was different: his sac fallen, his cock thrust forward by the posture. Drooping in the third photograph, thin and us
eless. Lastly, fallen forward like old fruit left too long on the tree, purpled, stung by wasps and flies.

  Sheemina February closed the file, opened the document that contained the other information about Max Roland. For an hour she read through it, too absorbed even to refill her glass of wine.

  Afterwards she made a salad for lunch, took another glass of the sauvignon blanc. Undoubtedly Max Roland and Magnus Oosthuizen would make excellent clients for Mace Bishop. How strangely the world worked. How conveniently sometimes.

  She fished from her handbag the photograph of Mace Bishop she kept in a plastic sleeve. Mace wearing a black Speedo about to dive into the gym swimming pool where three times a week he put in the laps. Where she’d go to watch, if the urge took her. Watch without his knowing. Just like she’d snapped the photo surreptitiously. He had a good figure for the most part, perhaps a thickening at the waist, but otherwise trim enough. She held the picture in the fingers of her rigid hand.

  At four-fifteen Sheemina February left her apartment. From the marble corridor she activated the alarm system by remote. Took the lift up two flights to the foyer, the stairs to the rooftop parking. Three cars in the visitors’ bays, other than that her neighbour’s Merc, the BMW of the widow below her. Next to it her big BMW X5. The breeze pulled at her coat, a cold viciousness off the sea that made her shiver. She drew closed the coat with her gloved hand. Breathed in deeply the strong tang of the sea.

  Twenty-five minutes later Sheemina February took a table in the restaurant facing the door, laid a rosebud across the tablecloth. She was well ahead of time. She had no doubt that Magnus Oosthuizen would be early too. He was that sort of man. Wary. Suspicious.

  Sunday, 24 July

  4

  Mace Bishop, an empty coffee mug in his hand, sat on the deck of his house staring over the city. Cape Town on a cold afternoon, daylight fading, rain still in the air. Solid Gold Sunday on the radio. Thought of how it was seven or eight weeks back. How it was before Oumou was killed. Her lovely presence. Her calm. Her quiet. The touch of her. Their daughter Christa standing with an arm around them both for a photograph. Before Oumou was slashed to death downstairs in her own pottery studio, the blood, the blood pouring from her, her body heavy in his arms, on a Sunday like this. Except earlier they’d been laughing. Happy times then.