by Tim Willocks
She seemed to expect a response. Turner didn’t have one.
‘Does that surprise you?’ she asked.
‘Surprise cuts down on reaction time. I stopped doing it,’ said Turner.
‘I’m not being honest,’ said Imi. ‘Margot paid me. With this house. She said the marriage was never going to happen but she preferred not to go to work on him. “I want to keep our relationship at least at par,” she said.’
‘Why not throw a fight you can’t win?’ said Turner. ‘Especially for a pay-off.’
‘That’s funny, coming from you. Why don’t you throw your fight? Don’t you know how high your pay-off could be?’
‘You mean “be reasonable”?’
‘The whole world’s at it – read a newspaper. It is reasonable.’
‘If I throw this one, why not the next? And the one after that? For money, for a friend, for a promotion. Then one day I’m arresting some teenager who’s just stabbed his neighbour for a fistful of tik straws and what will I have become? Just another jackboot.’
‘Isn’t that what you already are?’
Turner didn’t look at her because he didn’t want to frighten her with what her insult made him feel. He had more reason than most to share that view of his profession. He understood now why she’d taken him to see her father’s memorial. She wasn’t looking for justice or even sympathy. She’d sold what she knew was best in herself, perhaps more than once. It was a lonely place to be. She wanted company. She wanted him to join her, to ease her aloneness, to banish her shame.
‘You made your choices,’ he said. ‘They seem like good ones. I don’t see anyone judging you.’
She uttered a short, bitter laugh. ‘You just arrived in town so how would you know? And you can’t see your face.’
He smiled. ‘You’re looking at a face that’s been on the road since daybreak.’
‘We’ve all walked past that girl in the street. We walk past her every day. Why does she matter so much now that she’s dead?’
‘Because mattering now that she’s dead is the only right she has left.’
Imi stared at him.
‘Maybe it was the only right she ever had,’ said Turner. ‘But it’s fallen to me to defend it.’
Her emotional confusion vanished. She looked cool and beautiful again.
‘You must excuse me,’ he said. ‘I need some sleep.’
‘Stay with me,’ she said.
He saw no ambiguity in her eyes. Turner thought about it; not for long but long enough to feel regret that the circumstances were not otherwise. She was a grown woman holding her own in a snakepit of killers, thieves and millionaires, and making a good fist of it. But that wasn’t the issue.
He couldn’t abandon the discipline without abandoning himself. The dead girl demanded it, the case demanded it, any and all cases demanded it. He was a beast on a chain. Without the chain he was a mad dog unleashed in a field of sheep. The chain was the rule to which he had committed himself. He yearned to snap the chain. He would have died for the joy of it. But he had chosen against joy. He had chosen the chain. It was a long time since he had questioned it, since he had had cause to question it. The woman looking into his eyes gave him cause.
If he walked through her door, his case was poisoned. Another man could have fucked her without such compromise, but he was not that man. Fucking a woman was a serious matter for a serious man. He brought into his mind the parchment features of the nameless girl’s death mask. He could not contain within himself both the girl and the fucking without breaking the chain.
He held out his hand to Imi. ‘Promises to keep,’ he said.
She understood. His regret became deeper.
She took his hand and squeezed it. She was strong.
‘I’ll swap numbers,’ he said.
‘Sure.’
She gave him her number and he stored it and rang it so that she had his.
Turner dropped a question he had been saving. ‘Did you ever tell Dirk about your father?’
‘Does it make you feel good to humiliate me?’
‘That’s not my intention. I want to know what kind of man I’m after. His reaction to that story would interest me.’
‘No, I never told him. How could it have changed anything for the better, to tell him I thought his family were murderers? I was in love. I didn’t want to spoil what we had.’
‘No reason to blame yourself for that.’
‘Good luck,’ said Imi. ‘You’ll need it.’
She opened the car door and climbed out and closed the door and walked to her house. She opened the door and went inside without looking back.
Turner drove to the hotel on the main drag and parked his car. He shouldered his rucksack from the boot and walked inside. Rudy Britz sat in an armchair in the lobby.
Turner went to the desk and booked a double bed with a mosquito net. He got his key. He wasn’t in the mood to be harassed. He felt the chain stretching thin. He walked over to Rudy and looked down at him.
‘If you’ve come with an apology, I accept it. If not, get out of my sight before I break you.’
Rudy stood up. ‘I do apologise.’ His eyes were as sincere as a pig making a promise to lose weight. ‘I’ve got something else to offer, too.’
‘Goodnight, Sergeant. I’ll drop by the station in the morning.’
‘By then it’ll be too late. They’re circling the wagons.’
Turner studied his face. He had no idea what was going on behind the black brows. No one was more skilled at lying than a seasoned cop.
‘You’re so far out of your depth you can’t see land, Cape Town.’ Rudy snorted. ‘Do you really think you can go toe to toe with the power? With your little badge? The best you can hope for is to go home looking like a fool. The worst …’ Rudy smiled. ‘Well, believe me, it’s a lot worse.’
‘You’re the third person tonight to tell me that. What do you want?’
‘The same thing as you.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Let justice be done though the heavens fall.’
14
The hotel bar was small and empty and opened onto a patio laid around a giant thorn tree. They sat at a table outside. Rudy Britz smoked. The night air was cool. Turner enjoyed it.
‘Mokoena called me,’ said Rudy. ‘You’ve got him sweating like a birdbath.’
Turner couldn’t quite see the image but Rudy seemed to find it pleasing.
‘You’ll need more than luck to arrest Dirk Le Roux. I doubt you’ll ever set eyes on him. You should see their compound.’
‘I have. Google Earth.’
‘You’d need an air strike and a Blackhawk to get in there. Or a warrant, but you won’t get a warrant from any judge in this province, not with the evidence you’ve got. So you’ll talk to your people, and they’ll talk to our people, and our people will talk to other people. Then you’ll be taken off the case and sent to direct traffic in Khayelitsha. I’m a non com too. I know where we stand. I know how little we’re valued.’
Rudy’s bitterness seemed real enough. Turner remembered that Mokoena had been parachuted in above him. ‘Must be tough scraping by on a sergeant’s wage.’
‘Oh, I get my turkey at Christmas. I’m talking about respect. Rudy do this, Rudy do that. You can always count on Rudy.’
‘I can?’
‘I’d like to see the look on Margot’s face when you slap the cuffs on her darling son.’
The spite in Rudy’s eyes went all the way down to what passed for his soul.
‘Show me the noose,’ said Turner. ‘I’ll see if I want to put my neck in it.’
‘You know what would get you that warrant, don’t you?’ said Rudy.
‘A sworn statement from your nephew putting Dirk behind the wheel of the car.’
‘The truth and nothing but the truth. Jason remembers all of it.’
‘Isn’t Jason in with the in-crowd?’
‘Jason’s the only family I’ve got, and vice versa
. His father, my brother Oscar, died when he was a lad. Melanoma. Sucked him down to skin and bone in six months. Horrible. I’ve done my best for him. Took him hunting, helped out on the farm, a shoulder to cry on. That kind of thing gets under your skin. And this is where that arrogant bitch has gone too far. I went to school with her, you know. Poor as dirt. I used to drink with her husband. Look at her now. I don’t know the inside of that compound any better than you do. I’ve never been invited. I remind her of what she was.’
Turner took a drink of Black Label. Rudy was taking pains to establish his motive for going against Margot, as a police would. No doubt the bone had been in Rudy’s throat for a long time, but he was hardly choking on it. Turner set the beer bottle down.
‘So the rich girl’s in her castle and the poor boy’s at her gate. Why is it in your interest, or Jason’s, to make my case?’
‘They want Jason to go down in Dirk’s place, to claim he was the driver. Then Dirk swans off to be an advocate in Pretoria while Jason’s in a cage with a crowd of animals.’
Jason’s phone, and the photos, placed him at the scene. With the right lawyers on hand to strike a plea, a false confession would be hard to crack. The public prosecutor would be unlikely even to try. A clearance was a clearance.
‘They’ll pay him off, of course,’ said Rudy. ‘They’ll “look after him”. But if Jason goes inside he might not come out again. When that switch gets thrown in his head, he’s a terror. If he kills someone, or tries to – because once he goes berserk that’s what it looks like – then “a couple of months”, as Winston puts it, becomes fourteen years minimum.’
‘What makes Margot think he’ll go for it?’
‘Arrogance. Disrespect. Because Rudy will rubber-stamp it for them, won’t he? They’re so fucking haughty it makes them stupid.’
‘Jason will do whatever you tell him to do.’
‘No,’ said Rudy. ‘He’ll do what I think is best for him because he knows I’m the only one who gives two shits.’
‘They won’t be happy with you.’
‘What can they do? Chop my monthly bonus? They can have it if they dare take it, but they won’t. We’re all chained together in the same boat – Margot, Hennie, Winston, me. If one goes overboard, the rest go with him. I know where the bodies are buried, as they say. Literally. That’s the funny part – Dirk’s not chained to anybody. He’s pure as driven snow. Or he was until last night. Let’s face it, he’s not going to prison no matter what happens.’
Turner didn’t see any more in Rudy’s face than what he was giving out. It was simple. It was believable. In his gut, Turner didn’t believe it.
Turner said, ‘So what are you offering?’
‘I’ll prep Jason tonight, you and me go out there first thing tomorrow and get his statement. You take him straight back to Cape Town and keep him safe until you get your warrant. You’ll be gone before they know they’ve been outfoxed. When you come back you bring a partner and you’ll be bulletproof.’
Rudy raised his glass, inviting him to drink to it. Turner clinked his bottle. They drank. Rudy stood up.
‘I’ll meet you outside in the car park at seven.’
‘Make it eight,’ said Turner.
‘Eight, then,’ said Rudy. ‘Sleep tight.’
Turner went to his room and took a long shower.
His gut didn’t feel any easier. His gut knew how easily he could die out here. He considered calling Venter and taking advice but couldn’t face another hour on the subject of the Le Roux. Nothing he had seen or heard had surprised him. It wouldn’t surprise Venter; in any case the captain would back him.
He put a chair against the handle of the door, something he hadn’t done in a long time. He checked his Glock and put it under his pillow; ditto. He plugged his phone charger into the power outlet by the bed.
Before he went to sleep he set the alarm on his phone to 6 a.m.
Part Two: Monday
All Manner of Madness
15
Turner checked out of the hotel at 6.30 a.m.
He drove the Land Cruiser to the service station and filled the tank, checked the water and corrected the tyre pressures. He programmed the coordinates he’d copied from Google Earth into the GPS and headed for Jason Britz’s farm. Thirteen kilometres. He found just one road through Langkopf, two lanes running north and south. Half a dozen single-lane roads branched off within a few kilometres of town but all were cul-de-sacs that fed only local farms and the Le Roux mine complex. Jason’s farm was to the south-west.
The scheme Rudy had laid out had merit but he didn’t want Rudy along. If it proved legitimate, there was no good reason Jason shouldn’t jump in the car and head back to Cape Town with him. If it was a set-up, he’d rather not find himself standing in the tumbleweed with one Britz in front of him and a second behind his back.
Twelve kilometres in, while the tarmac continued across yellow grass and scrub, a metal gate in the barbed-wire fence marked a dirt track that angled off to the right. The GPS told him to turn. The gate was open and he drove through it. In the distance he could see a small cluster of buildings and the tall skeleton of a windmill pump. He passed a dozen black-faced sheep grubbing for a living on land that even by local standards looked barren. In the rear-view mirror dust spiralled up from his wheels. If Jason was up, he’d see him coming. He could see no phone or power lines to the house; presumably a generator. Turner checked his phone: two bars.
His rear-view mirror included a 1080HD camera that captured a near 180-degree image through the windscreen. The camera was synced to supplementary high-sensitivity microphones at either end of the dashboard. The data was stored on a micro SD card and, when in Cape Town, could be networked live to headquarters. He washed the thin film of dust from the windscreen and switched the camera on.
He saw a wind pump that fed an open circular tank on the ground and a row of rusting water troughs. Seven silage bales in black polywrap, stacked three on four, had melted and rotted into a misshapen redoubt by the side of the track. A faded blue tractor had grass growing up around its wheels. An old stone shearing shed. A flatbed Suzuki truck stood in the yard by a single-storey farmhouse, probably four rooms.
The house looked old, a century or more, built of rough pale stone with a low-pitched roof of red tiles. A black iron chimney rose from its centre and a satellite dish, for TV or broadband, was bolted to one corner. A broad stone stoop was painted a faded, peeling red and like much else about hadn’t seen attention in years. Turner stopped in the yard about eight metres from the front door.
Jason stood on the stoop doing mixed-grip sumo dead lifts with what looked like a 120 kilos on an Olympic bar. He wore tight black leggings that emphasised the girth of his thighs and a bottle-green bodybuilder’s vest that displayed the enormous musculature of his torso. His face maintained a fixed grimace that masked whatever he thought about Turner’s early arrival. Eight reps didn’t seem to challenge him too much, though by the end he was short of breath while trying not to show it. He set the bar down on the stones and straightened up. His vest was printed with a slogan in white letters: ‘GET BIG OR DIE’. Epic orchestral music thundered from two speakers set to either side of the front door.
Turner displayed his badge and ID through the windscreen. Jason beckoned him; come on, no problem. Turner got out and left the door open. He didn’t move closer, in part to limit the impact of the music. It was on a repeat loop and made Turner grit his teeth. Propulsive drums, blaring brass and stirring strings battled to outdo each other in heroic drama, as if exhorting the listener to invade a foreign country. It wasn’t that he didn’t like it; it didn’t give you any choice; if you didn’t like it, it would kill you.
‘Amazing sounds,’ said Turner.
‘Basil Poledouris, Conan the Barbarian, 1982,’ said Jason. ‘It helps me push through the barrier.’ He slid another twenty-kilo plate onto either end of the bar. Turner noticed beads of dried blood on his left tricep. ‘This is the best ti
me to train, before the heat gets up. You train?’
‘A little t’ai chi, when I get the time.’
‘I thought that was for health, migraines and shit.’
‘I haven’t had a cold in ten years.’
‘You’re missing out, man. One more set to get the pump and we’ll talk.’
Jason knocked out five reps, music soaring, veins bulging from his forearms, temples and delts. To hoist up the sixth he bellowed with rage.
Turner had to grant him a certain magnificence. He wondered about spending seven hours with the man in the car. He considered encouraging a couple more sets, to wear him out if that was possible, but he didn’t want to hear any more bellowing. Jason dropped the bar to bounce on the stoop. A two-litre plastic jug from a blender sat on a small table nearby. It was two-thirds full of creamy yellow liquid. Jason picked it up and poured a long slug down his throat. He gasped with pleasure and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
‘Two scoops of whey protein, three eggs, two oranges, peanut butter and a banana. Top it up with coconut milk. Build while you burn, see? You want some?’
Turner said, ‘No. Thanks.’
Jason clicked an MP3 device on the table and the music stopped. He picked up a towel and swabbed the sweat from his face, neck and pecs. He looked at Turner as if giving him his full attention for the first time.
‘Turner, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Where’s Rudy?’
‘I thought we’d best handle this without him.’
‘OK.’
‘Rudy said you’d make a witness statement.’
Jason waved the jug. ‘I didn’t hurt a fucking fly in Cape Town.’
‘I didn’t think you did.’
‘Now Rudy tells me they want me in a cell, shitting in the same bucket as five blacks.’
‘Tell me what happened early Sunday morning, outside the shebeen.’
‘You know what happened.’
‘I wasn’t there,’ said Turner. ‘I need to hear it from you.’
‘Dirk was dead drunk. He even drank my last shot – I was close to puking after three. When we left the bar Dirk had the keys, he blipped the locks and I got in the back. I expected Hennie to drive but Dirk got behind the wheel and started her up.’