Memo From Turner

by Tim Willocks

  ‘I’m going for a walk,’ said Dirk. ‘In the garden.’

  ‘Will we see you for dinner?’

  Dirk waved vaguely without turning round.

  Margot had other things to do. Like keeping him out of court. If he saw what the law game was like from the wrong side of the witness box, he’d change his tune soon enough. She went into the kitchen and found the secure phone. She called Venter.

  ‘Hello?’

  She was amazed by how much stress could be conveyed in a single word. She hoped Captain Venter would hold up. At the moment hopes were the only wings she was flying on.

  ‘You need to be here in Langkopf by breakfast,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.’

  ‘How do I get there?’

  ‘Our regional airport is an hour north. Charter a Cessna, hire a car. And make the trip official, all in the open, no cloak and dagger. One of your officers is missing and you’re going to coordinate the search.’

  ‘I’ll need notification of that from Mokoena.’

  ‘You’ll have it within the hour.’

  ‘Where will I stay?’ said Venter.

  She understood what he was asking for: an invitation to stay at the compound.

  ‘There’s a tolerable three-star hotel in town.’

  A crestfallen pause. Then, ‘Dinner?’

  ‘Let me know when you arrive,’ she said. ‘I’ll send a driver.’

  ‘And the fee we discussed?’

  ‘Ready and waiting,’ said Margot. ‘As am I.’

  27

  Iminathi watched the video that Turner had left with her twice.

  The second time she stopped it before Jason was killed. She ejected the USB adapter and the SD card and put them both in the watch pocket of her jeans. She sat at the table in Winston’s office and stared at the screensaver and thought about Dirk and Turner and her life and what she should do.

  She was afraid, of everything. She was afraid for herself. Hennie hadn’t realised she had helped Turner but he had been in a hurry and it might occur to him later. She had witnessed Turner’s capture; then, so had others. They really believed the town was theirs to do with as they pleased. They were right. Winston wouldn’t let them harm her, she was sure of that, but only if she kept to her place. What if she stepped beyond it? She couldn’t take them on alone, could she?

  She knew, instinctively, that they had taken Turner to the desert, just as they had taken her father. Tears sprang to her eyes and she cried bitterly, for Turner, for her father, for herself. They would get away with it again. Another good man would die in agony. Their corrupt kingdom would flourish. Could she drive out there and find him? Not in her own car. It was a ten-year-old Polo. She had no friends with a 4×4. Except Winston, who wouldn’t let her get involved, and Dirk, and she didn’t know if Dirk were friend or foe.

  She hadn’t done anything wrong so why did she feel so guilty? Because she had done nothing to avenge her father? Because she had become a tiny cog in the machine that had killed him? Because she remembered the look on Turner’s face in the bookmaker’s: he believed she had betrayed him. He had advised her to leave and that had frightened her too. She had come to feel safe here, which made no sense any more, if it ever had. She was a coward.

  Was Dirk a coward, too, or had he simply not found his moment? Could she help him find it? She had loved him. And though she had denied it this past year and a half, she still did. He was funny and gentle and beautiful; the sex had been intense, deep, at times transcendent. Her body had wanted his children; instead she had broken his heart. She still had his bewildered emails and texts. She didn’t believe, she had never really believed, the explanations she had invented for herself, that he had been captivated by some liberal fantasy of a beautiful interracial marriage, that the spell wouldn’t last, that a man like him would never stand by a woman like her. It was all a justification after the fact. She had never had those fears while they were together.

  She had ended their engagement because she was afraid of Margot, afraid of what she would do not just to her but to Dirk. To make Dirk end it Margot would have had to break his pride, and there was the problem: neither Margot nor Imi had any doubt that she could do it. Why? Why didn’t they believe in him? Why did everyone believe only in Margot? It was a power far beyond her money. The money had grown from that power. Turner had defied her power and money both. Now he was roasting alive in the Thirstland.

  She called Turner’s number. Voicemail replied. She hung up.

  She shut down her laptop and put it under her arm. She locked the office and left by the back door and walked home, to the drab and soulless little house that had been the price of her self-respect. She had a shower but didn’t feel any cleaner. She stood naked in her living room and looked around at her possessions. They were paltry. The only thing that reflected any pride was her bookshelf. She went to her bedroom and curled up on the pillow and hugged herself. She closed her eyes but didn’t sleep. She didn’t know how long she lay there.

  She sat up. Winston paid her a good wage and in Langkopf there was nothing to spend it on. She had some money in the bank, enough to tide her over for a few months. She stood up and dressed in the clothes she had taken off. She pulled her wheeled suitcase from the top of the wardrobe, laid it open on the bed and started to pack. Her degree certificate and papers. The deeds to the house. She paused.

  She had a girlfriend in Kimberley, Sizani, who would put her up for a few nights at least. They had done the same degree course, had met at workshops, spent the occasional weekend together. Things would be clearer there. She called Sizani. It was no problem. She could stay as long as she wanted.

  An hour later Imi put her suitcase in the boot of the Polo and took the road north. She’d turn east on the motorway and be there in time for dinner. As soon as the town fell behind her she felt lighter. It wasn’t her battle. It was only as the tension started to ease from her stomach, her shoulders, that she realised how frightened she had been. A man with a shotgun had dragged her into the street. She had never been that close to gunfire, she’d never seen a gun fired at all, only heard them at a distance. She was entitled to be shaken up.

  Her father’s memorial appeared in the distance. She tried to swallow the sudden lump in her throat. She couldn’t. She dug her phone out and called Dirk and listened. An automated voice told her the number was no longer in service. She understood at once. They’d cut Dirk off from the outside world. They would never let her through the gates. But she’d tried. What else could she do? As she approached the memorial she slowed down. She might never see it again. She had nothing to come back here for. She could sell the house by Internet or phone. She stopped and turned off the engine.

  She called Turner’s number again. No answer.

  She got out of the car. She crouched by the cairn and put her hand on the stones. She had adored her father without ever really knowing him. The man she had known had been too gentle to survive the mines. He had raised her and cared for her, made sure she was as well schooled as she could be, taught her to love books. He had helped her to go far beyond him. She had a degree. He would have been proud of that. She cried again.

  ‘What would you do, Papa?’

  She knew the answer even as she asked it. He had died for such answers. She stood up. She wiped her eyes. A few metres away she saw some loose scrub, recently uprooted. Other of the grey, brittle plants had been crushed to the ground and were trying to spring back up. She walked over and saw the tyre tracks. At least two vehicles, clearly. Here and there one set of tracks were blurred or doubled. She followed them back to the road and saw smudges of dust and sand on the edge of the tarmac, where the tyres had emerged from the desert and turned onto the road, heading towards Langkopf.

  It was already done. Turner was already dying. Slowly.

  Imi walked back to her Polo and started the engine. She made a U in the road and drove back the way she had come. She’d make one last try.

  The sharp edge
of the spear.

  28

  Turner dug the first hole in the pan near Rudy’s body and left the excavated soil in a single pile to one side. The ground had a thin, brittle crust; below that it was firm and bone dry. It crumbled easily so he wasn’t able to square the sides. He made the hole about twenty-five centimetres square and twenty-five deep. He scraped out as much of the base as he could without collapsing the sides. It would do.

  He dug a second hole a metre distant.

  He collected the two empty water bottles and their caps. He found his Swiss Army knife on the ground where Simon had dropped it and put it in his pocket. He rummaged around in the boot of the Cruiser among the stuff that had accumulated there and found an empty soda can. He took the three sheaths of clear plastic in which the laundry had packed his shirts. The plastic was thin, but he didn’t see why it wouldn’t do the job.

  He took the plastic sheaths, the can and one bottle over to the holes. He dug a third hole. With his knife he cut the top off the can and cut the plastic bottle in two through the middle. He wiped sweat from his eyes. He rolled up his sleeves. He looked at Rudy and saw a knife buttoned in a leather holster on his belt. Turner took it and locked it open with his thumb. It was a Gerber with a semi-serrated blade in a black, non-reflective finish. The nylon handle had a slight curve, a finger-stop, and seat-belt cutter. A good work tool for a cop or a hunter. Or a butcher.

  There was nothing else to delay him. He found it strange that he should hesitate. He had examined hundreds of corpses in every state of mutilation and decomposition. He had witnessed dozens of autopsies. He had shot five men that day. And the water was going to be sucked out of Rudy regardless; Turner was just adding another stage to the cycle of nature, by catching it and pouring it through his own body. So get on with it. Find the iron in your soul. If the iron isn’t there, there’s nothing left at all. He held the knife between his teeth. Rudy was slumped over on his side. Turner grabbed him by the back of his belt and the collar of his uniform and dragged him head first towards the nearest hole.

  Rudy uttered a low, rattling groan.

  At first Turner thought the movement had compressed the air from his dead lungs. But then Rudy raised his face from the ground and twisted his head and opened his eyes. He took a breath, confused, then saw the hole just in front of him. The sheet of plastic. The halved bottle. He recoiled with the shock of perception.

  ‘Jessis Christ on the Cross.’

  Turner let go of him and straightened up and took the knife from his teeth. Rudy rolled onto his left side and looked up at the knife. He squinted at Turner. Rudy was a man of the desert. His family had struggled against it for generations. He understood what the holes meant. His crimson-flecked lips parted in a smile, as if he were enjoying some final, macabre triumph. As if he could see into Turner’s heart. His voice was hoarse; a bubbling sound rose from his pierced lung.

  ‘A fresh kill is even better. The blood will flow more easily.’

  Turner neither moved nor spoke. He hadn’t contemplated cold-blooded murder. The law, whatever form it took, was unequivocal. Rudy was alive, even if his death was certain. The unknown girl had been dying, too, but Dirk had killed her. The health of the victim did not mitigate the crime. You couldn’t walk into a cancer ward and shoot someone, even if they begged you to. And this crime would be worse to a wholly other degree. Not a blind accident of timing and folly, but premeditated and in violation of the most basic human values. He was looking at killing a wounded man and drinking his blood.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’

  ‘I’m waiting for you to die.’

  Rudy uttered a short laugh. ‘Better sit down, then. Let’s see who goes first.’

  ‘I told your nephew he was tougher than me. It must run in the family.’

  ‘Prove yourself wrong, man, get on with it. You’d be doing me a mercy.’

  ‘I’m not a murderer.’ It felt like a lie the moment he said it.

  ‘Are you trying to kill me with laughter? This wasn’t Hennie’s idea, or his nigger’s. You put this bullet in my chest.’ Whatever he saw in Turner’s face seemed to confirm it for him. ‘Hats off, my friend. The only law in this land is the law of survival. That’s the way God made it. That’s why I love it.’

  Rudy raised his right hand to shade his eyes. He glimpsed the sun.

  ‘You’re wasting time, man.’ He heaved for breath. He coughed blood. ‘Jessis.’ He spat out a clot of crimson phlegm. ‘If you haven’t got the stomach, I’ll do it myself.’

  He heaved a few more rattling breaths, steadied himself, sought the last dregs of his strength. He threw his hand at the gun holstered on his hip. His finger clawed for the butt, closed round it. He tried to drag the gun free but his last strength failed him. His arm flopped slack across his chest.

  ‘Help me.’

  Pity churned with self-disgust in Turner’s belly. With admiration, with horror, with fear; with confusion of every kind. And with the diamond-hard clarity of his mind. He was either a hypocrite or a murderer. If he helped Rudy to shoot himself, he was both. There was only one other choice. The only legal choice. No, he would not split hairs with his own conscience. Only one moral choice: hold the man’s hand while he died and then sit down and die with him.

  He would never get out of this desert without water. He had known that; they had known that. Yes, he had put the bullet in Rudy’s chest, and had been pleased with his own ingenuity. It had seemed like pure self-defence. The primal right of any living creature. And so it was, wasn’t it? He had made no threat to the lives of any one of them while they had abducted him at gunpoint in order to kill him. If he had somehow managed to shoot all four of them down, he would have been entitled to a righteous pride. And no philosopher of ethics could, or would, have contradicted him. So what was the difference?

  His clarity collapsed, back into confusion.

  No place for philosophers here. His mind was no use to him. Nor was his conscience. If a better man – a weaker man? a stronger man? – would elect to die, then he was not that man. His being demanded life. His being demanded justice. His being demanded truth. His being would not play the role of the fool in someone else’s story. He would rather play the monster in his own.

  His being said: Follow the law of the land.

  Turner threw the knife to stick upright in the dirt. He stooped and took the Z-88 from Rudy’s holster. He checked the bullet in the chamber and stood over him, casting his shadow across his face. Rudy looked up at him. Turner took his shades off so he could meet his eyes.

  ‘When you take those bastards down, tell them you couldn’t have done it without Rudy Britz.’

  ‘I will.’

  Rudy grinned. ‘Don’t waste my brain. It was never much use to me.’

  Turner said, ‘I’m going to take everything you’ve got.’

  Rudy tried to haul himself the last few inches towards the hole. Turner stooped and grabbed his belt and dragged him. Rudy stared into the pit. For the first time he conveyed a sense of fear, though not of death nor of Turner.

  ‘Into Thy hands, dear God, I commend my soul.’

  Rudy turned his head sideways and nodded.

  Turner placed the muzzle and shot him above the ear.

  Blood exploded from the skull and he fired again and again, five, six shots through the same expanding hole, varying the angle. He put the gun down and knelt on one knee and lifted Rudy’s head by the hair with his left hand. A large segment of skull cracked away, hinged and held in place by the scalp. He stuck his right hand down into the hole and felt for the far side of Rudy’s head. A moist sludge was draining from the shattered skull, obstructed by shards of bone attached to rags of skin.

  He took deep breaths to fend off rising nausea. He grabbed a handful of the saturated skeins and sharp fragments and ripped them free. His hand came up clutching a fistful of bloody skin and bone and hair. He dropped it into the hole. He reached in and around again and pushed his fingers through the gaping
hole in the skull and scraped out tissue and membranes. Thin, tough ropes of artery and vein refused to snap. He felt blood pouring over his hand. He pulled his hand out, bright red to the wrist. He gasped for air. He put two fingers to his neck, felt a trickle of blood. His pulse was over eighty.

  He enforced a total coldness on his mind. Do the job, just the job, do it well. No other thoughts. No other feelings. Feel it all later. Plead guilty later. But do it.

  He took the knife and repositioned Rudy’s head and reached the edge of the blade under to the left angle of Rudy’s jaw. He cut deeply, sawing through the muscles, the jugular, the carotid, the windpipe and gullet, the vessels and muscles of the right side, all the way until he felt the edge grind into a vertebra. There was no pressure left in the vascular system but blood still flowed from the gaping stump. Rudy’s skull was attached only by the spine. Even now some deep revulsion, some taboo, some last, useless, shred of decency, held Turner back from cutting his head off. Some voice howled inside him that survival – no, the chance of survival – was not worth the price of his soul. Better to die himself. He heard inchoate grunts issue from his throat, as if it were not he that made them. A cold voice told him that his soul was already pawned, and that he’d never retrieve it. It was too late. The only path was to go on.

  With the serrated half of the knife edge he cut through the cartilage between two vertebrae and slashed through the last shreds of muscle and skin and Rudy’s head came off in his hand. The neck stump lolled over the hole and continued to exsanguinate. Turner staggered to his feet and carried the head to the second hole and laid it inside to drain. He leaned his hands on his thighs and panted. His shirt and pants were splashed with gore. His shadow lay before him on the compacted salt of millennia, fore-shortened, hunched, grotesque. He felt as alone as any man had ever been. A murderer stranded with his prey in the blistering sun, abandoned by even his own humanity. He felt tendrils of madness slither through his mind.