by Sally Andrew
We heard a back door open and close, and through the door to the kitchen we saw Ousies appear. She nodded a greeting to us and started to wash the dishes.
Henk opened his mouth and was about to say something when there was a knock at the door. Ricus opened it, and Piet, Reghardt and Johannes fell inside.
‘We’ve found something,’ said Reghardt.
Piet’s eyes were bright, and he was hopping around as if he was barefoot on hot sand. Johannes was lifting his shoulders up and down, but it was Reghardt who spoke: ‘Johannes spotted it. There with all the panel-van parts.’
Henk got up, jumped over the python and followed the three men down the road towards the panel-van laager. Ricus, Esmeralda and I walked after them, at my speed. The morning was warming up, our shadows getting smaller.
‘Johannes saw them,’ we heard Reghardt say.
Johannes said, ‘I know all my parts. And my tools. They’re not mine.’
By the time we caught up with them, Henk was standing in front of the yellow Combi panel van, in the spiky shade of a thorn tree. He was holding a big spanner in one hand and a thin pipe that looked like a piece of car aerial in the other. Each was inside a clear plastic bag.
‘I think we’ve found the murder weapon,’ he said. ‘These were here, amongst the car parts next to the Combi.’
I looked at the aerial and the spanner, not understanding.
‘But Tata was shot,’ I said.
‘This is a handmade gun. A .22 bullet goes in here. And then you hit it with the spanner to fire it.’
‘And then afterwards the murderer just chucked it onto the pile of car parts,’ said Reghardt, pointing to the ring of parts. A gecko peeped out at us from under an old exhaust pipe.
‘The bullet casing is still inside,’ Henk said. ‘This changes the whole story.’
Ricus looked down at Esmeralda on his arm and said what the others didn’t want to say: ‘The murderer was one of us.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
‘Warrant Officer Snyman,’ said Henk, handing Reghardt the aerial and spanner, ‘take this straight away to Forensics in Oudtshoorn. And then go to Records and get anything you can on all the people in this group. Everything from birth certificates to library fines.’ He turned to Piet. ‘Constable Witbooi, go to the house and watch that Ousies doesn’t disappear again.’
Reghardt and Piet left, and Henk looked at Ricus and me. ‘I want to speak to the two of you. In private.’
Ricus said, ‘Johannes, could you take Esmeralda back to the house? And then work on that clutch of Mevrou van Straten’s Mazda?’
Johannes unwound the snake from Ricus’s arm and headed off.
An agama lizard was on the roof of the rusty grey Bedford van, watching us.
Henk said, ‘I want you to show me where each of the people in the group was standing, here by the fire.’
‘I was right here,’ I said, stepping onto my spot. ‘On my left was Lemoni, and on my right was Fatima.’
‘I was here,’ said Ricus, ‘next to Dirk, who was beside Lemoni. And on my left was Ousies, then Tata.’
‘So Tata Radebe was on your right?’ Henk said to me. The agama lizard lifted its blue head up and down.
‘Yes, but not close. He was over there.’
‘Use these stones,’ said Henk, ‘to show me exactly where everyone stood.’ He bent down to pick up a big stone, and exposed a small scorpion, which ran away and hid under a car tyre.
We laid the stones in a circle around the fire, naming each one for Henk.
‘And here, this is where Johannes was,’ said Ricus, putting a black stone beside the red panel van where Johannes had been working. The lizard ducked out of sight as Ricus passed by.
Ricus said, ‘The way Tata fell, shot in the chest, Ousies couldn’t have done it. She was right behind him, catching him as he fell. Also Dirk and me were behind him. The bullet must have come from this direction.’ He pointed towards the stones that marked me, Lemoni and Fatima.
‘Unless he moved before he was shot,’ said Henk. ‘Or Ousies twisted him. Piet told me the tracks show a sudden movement of Tata Radebe’s feet.’
‘We can’t rule out anyone, then?’ said Ricus. ‘What about Johannes? He didn’t have a clear shot of Tata. Dirk, Ousies and I were in his line of fire. And the aerial and the spanner, you found them there, in front of the Combi, behind Maria, quite a distance from where he was.’
‘Ja, but didn’t he knock a gun out of a man’s hand with a spanner last week?’ said Henk. ‘He knows how to throw . . .’
Henk ran his thumb and finger across his moustache. ‘I need to know all about each of the members of this group. Their fears and their secrets.’
Ricus and I studied the empty fireplace. This wasn’t the way I intended to tell Henk about my secret. Ricus took out three folding chairs and laid them out as if we were having a therapy meeting. We sat down. There wasn’t much shade, and the sun was hot. Ricus tapped his fingers on his thighs, on his blue overalls. Henk folded his arms across his chest, making creases in his cream shirt. I pulled my brown dress over my knees.
I wished I had told Henk my story about Fanie earlier. When I could’ve softened it somehow. When Henk himself was softer. Now he was so hard. And when he found out I was a murderer, he might even suspect that I killed Tata.
‘What do you want to know?’ asked Ricus.
He answered Henk’s questions about Ousies, talking about how she and Slimkat had played an important role in winning the land-claims court case. Ricus said Ousies was on good terms with Tata and had no reason to kill him. Ricus told Henk about Fatima’s hard time in Somalia and her troubles here. He shared Dirk’s stories about the army and his wife and son. He spoke of Lemoni’s robbery and Tata’s torture. Henk was interested in the fact that Dirk and Tata Radebe had fought on opposite sides of the anti-apartheid war. Maybe he had the same suspicions as Jessie.
When I listened to the stories of all the suffering carried by this small handful of people, I felt sad, like the world held too much pain. But when I realised the discussion was getting closer to me, I forgot about the world’s troubles and started worrying about my own.
‘And Tannie Maria’s story . . .’ said Ricus gently. ‘That she can tell you herself.’
Ricus was giving me the chance to do what I’d said I needed to do. Tell Henk the truth about Fanie. To tell him here and now, with Ricus’s help. Could I tell him the whole truth? Even Ricus didn’t know the terrible way that I had killed Fanie. Fanie was not a good man; I wasn’t sorry he was gone, but I didn’t know if I could forgive myself for the way I killed him. I opened my lips to speak, but my tongue was like biltong and wouldn’t make the words.
I was saved by the sheep. Kosie came charging down the pathway between the panel vans, stopped in front of Henk and butted him on the knee.
‘They are very good with voices,’ said Ricus. ‘Each lamb knows its mother’s sound.’
‘I’ll take him back today,’ said Henk, scratching Kosie between the horns.
‘You are welcome to leave him. A ewe has already adopted him. One who lost her lamb at birth. He’s very happy here.’
‘Ja, I see that, but when the time comes . . . I do eat lamb, but I don’t want Kosie to end up in the pot.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Ricus. ‘These are all Merino sheep. I farm them for their wool.’
‘Oh. But don’t you also . . .?’
‘Some farmers do. But for me, they’re like pets. No, the sheep here all live a good long life. And I could do with another ram. I’ll buy him from you. In a year or two, the Colonel won’t be able to keep up with all the ewes.’
‘You promise you won’t kill him?’
‘I could say I won’t harm a hair on his head, but that wouldn’t be true; I’ll shear all his wool off every year when the weather is right.’
‘What do you think, Kosie?’ said Henk.
Kosie rubbed his head against Henk’s hand, then danced off into the veld to join
a ewe for breakfast; they nibbled on a grey-green shrub behind the yellow Combi van.
‘The food is good here,’ I said, finding my voice.
‘Okay,’ said Henk. ‘I won’t take money for him, but he can stay.’
‘You can come visit him. Any time,’ said Ricus.
‘You were telling me about the people in your group . . .’ said Henk.
‘I was saying Maria can speak for herself, unless she’d prefer I spoke for her?’
‘I know Maria’s story,’ said Henk.
‘She’s told you?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
I took a deep breath. ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘maybe Tata was killed by mistake. In that smoke and all . . .’
‘Ja,’ said Henk, ‘I have thought of that. So we’re not just looking at motives for killing Tata Radebe but at motives for killing any of the people in the group. Also, when you are dealing with . . . um . . . disturbed people, the motive might not always make sense. We’re digging up what background we can, and I’ll interview everyone again.’
‘Detective Kannemeyer,’ said Ricus, ‘I think this group should meet again. This afternoon.’
‘That’s too dangerous. What if something else happened?’
‘We won’t do the smoke at the end of the session. We could have extra security, tell the group it’s for their own protection. We could even put cameras on the panel vans.’
‘Hmm,’ said Henk.
‘I’m hoping we’ll get a confession,’ said Ricus. ‘That would begin the path to healing.’
‘This is not the time for your psychological . . . stuff.’
‘It may be the fastest way to find the murderer. You can do all the homework you like, and yes do it, but the truth might lie here, inside one of us.’
Henk frowned and looked out into the distance at a stony koppie. A black-shouldered kite was hovering above it, hunting.
‘It’s not worth putting you all in danger,’ he said.
‘Until the murderer is caught, we are all in danger,’ said Ricus.
‘Maria, I don’t want you at risk.’
‘Like Ricus says, we’re all at risk now,’ I said. ‘We need to catch whoever killed Tata. Isn’t that what’s most important?’
For a moment, his grey-blue eyes softened into sadness, then his hard look was back, his mouth tight beneath his moustache.
‘Yes, that is what’s most important. Okay, let’s do it.’
Kosie came back to Henk and nuzzled against his hand before skipping off again.
‘You promise you’ll look after my lamb?’ said Henk.
‘The best I can,’ said Ricus.
‘I’ll miss my lammetjie,’ Henk said quietly, looking out at the veld.
I remembered his lullaby, lamtietie damtietie. I felt a small stab of sadness, sharp as a thorn. I don’t know why; I was sure Kosie would be very happy with Ricus.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
As Henk and I drove back through the veld, I understood why the Klein Karoo was called that. Not the Karoo bit – I know it means ‘place of thirst’ because it is dry, but the Klein part. Small. Everything looked small. The sheep, the koppies and trees. We passed a small gwarrie tree. Hundreds of years old and wrinkled like an old man. Just the sky was big. And Henk, sitting next to me. His arms and his moustache. His silence. Everything about him was big. And the longer we drove in silence, the smaller I felt. I was part of the Klein Karoo, but he belonged to the Groot Karoo. The Big Karoo.
We were close to my turn-off when he spoke. Even though he was sitting right next to me, he sounded as if he was far away, talking from the Groot Karoo.
‘Maria. I know your group is important to you. And you think you can help; I mean I’m sure you can help. But Ricus is experienced. People will talk without you there. Could you consider staying away? Staying out of it?’
‘Henk,’ I said, from the Klein Karoo. ‘How can I explain? Let me ask you this: if you were asked to step away from this case, to let someone else do it – would you?’
A falcon on a telephone pole watched us drive past.
As we turned onto my dirt road, I said, ‘How about I ask Jessie to join the group? She has such good ears and eyes, and people love to talk to her. She’d be extra protection. She’s sharp and always carries . . . stuff on her belt. The group won’t know she’s a . . . um . . . double agent, and she can share her kidnapping story. It will be good for her.’
Henk’s chestnut moustache trembled just a little, but the rest of him stayed still.
‘I’ll make that cottage pie tonight,’ I said. ‘I still have some pear cake. You could come in for a piece now.’
He shook his head.
‘Well, later then,’ I said. ‘I am glad Kosie has a new home. He’ll be happy there. It makes it a bit easier, for us . . .’
Henk pulled up in my driveway, but he did not park in the shade of the eucalyptus tree. He turned off his engine.
‘Maria,’ he said. ‘There can be no . . . us.’
It is strange how I knew what he was going to say, but at the same time it was such a shock. He looked down at his fingers on the steering wheel as he spoke. As much as he loves me, because he loves me, he can’t stay involved with someone who is always in danger. He just can’t take losing me. I had heard all the words before. And there was nothing I could say to him that I had not said before.
I watched the sunlight on the eucalyptus leaves, and a part of me felt relieved because now I wouldn’t have to tell him about what happened with Fanie. Maybe no one need ever know the whole story about Fanie and me. And when I turned for a moment and saw that sad look in his eyes, I knew that he was still grieving for his wife, that he was still in love with her. She would never have got involved in a murder case. She was certainly not a murderer herself. She was probably one of those stay-at-home-and-cook wives. Maybe she was even a better cook than me. His speech didn’t take long, but it was long enough to get hot, sitting in the car in the midday sun. I was sweaty and upset and maybe a bit angry, but even though I was full of all these feelings, I felt kind of empty. I realised I was hungry. Very hungry. I hadn’t had a proper breakfast. There was still some of that cake left over, and I could whip up a quick batch of scones.
‘Goodbye, Henk,’ I said, wondering whether to make cheese scones or plain scones.
* * *
I made both. And ate them with apricot jam and cheese. Together with the cake, they made a three-course lunch. When I was done, that empty feeling was gone.
My phone rang. It was Ricus.
‘Everyone is keen,’ he said. ‘And ready to meet this afternoon.’
‘What will we do about supper?’
‘Dirk will make toasted sandwiches on the fire.’
‘I’ll bring pudding,’ I said, not knowing what kind of pudding I’d make.
Ricus told me that Kannemeyer and two other policemen would be on duty.
I found it hard to decide on the right pudding when I felt deurmekaar, like my life was tumbled upside down.
‘Will you tell the group that the murderer is one of us?’ I asked.
‘No. It’s better they don’t know. Let them think they got away with it. I explained about the security, that the group would be protected.’
I told him my idea about Jessie, and he thought it was a good one.
‘I was wondering, Ricus, do you think . . .?’ I said.
‘Ja?’
‘Do you think I am a good cook?’
‘Tannie Maria, how can you ask that? You know you are the best.’
‘Okay.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘I know – I’ll make a pineapple upside-down cake. I have a recipe for one with nuts. Macadamia nuts.’
I called Jessie at home.
‘Tannie M!’ she said. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Are you free later?’ I said.
‘You need me, I’m there. What’s happening?’
‘Join our PTSD therapy group. From 4 p.m. at Ricu
s’s place. But come to me early, and I’ll fill you in.’
‘I’ll be there at three.’
‘I’ve made scones.’
‘Awesome. I’ll be there at two.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Jessie rode beside me in my bakkie to the farm of the satanic mechanic. She held the pineapple upside-down cake on her lap. It looked wonderful. All sticky and brown with caramelised pineapple and macadamia nuts on its upside-down top. It looked so good that I’d taken diet tablets to stop me from eating some cake right away. I’d brought my handbag along, with some more tablets, in case.
Over scones and tea, I’d updated Jessie on the murder story, but I waited till the rusty chassis with the 10810 number plate before I told her about Henk.
‘Nooit. What do you mean he broke up with you?’
I swallowed and tried to explain. ‘It’s something to do with his wife that died. I keep getting into dangerous situations, and he says he can’t handle losing me.’
‘Ag, no, man, that’s silly.’
I looked out the window and sighed. ‘Well, he is serious.’
‘What’s he want you to do – sit at home all day?’
‘Maybe. Though I think he’d be happy if I just stayed out of murder cases.’
‘And you, what makes you happy?’
‘That’s not my question right now.’ I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. ‘The question is: what is the right thing to do?’
‘Ja, I know what you mean. Sometimes doing the right thing can cost you.’
‘Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe we’re not right for each other any way. He’s a policeman, and I’m a . . .’ But I wasn’t ready to tell Jessie what I was.
We got to the arch of driftwood, bones and horns, and the kudu was standing there, waiting for us. We slowed down to pass under the arch, and he looked at us with his big dark eyes and those beautiful lashes.
‘I haven’t forgotten about Slimkat,’ I said.
‘No, nor me. I often wonder about that poison. Who would know that hemlock is poisonous?’
‘A herbalist?’
‘Or a philosophy student, who knew the story of Socrates.’