by Tim Willocks
‘Imi, you are right. And the rest of us are wrong. But don’t you see? We all know that. It’s not about right and wrong. It never was. That’s not what matters.’
‘It matters to Turner.’
The front doorbell rang. Mokoena saw the hope die in her eyes. He nodded.
‘That’s why Turner is a dead man walking.’
30
Turner woke from an uncomfortable doze. He shook off the aftermath of bad dreams, and stretched his legs. The shade thrown by the blanket had grown but the heat was intense. He stood up. The atmosphere shimmered at a distance he couldn’t guess, like some translucent but impenetrable barrier. The silence was eerie, absolute; the silence that would one day prevail over all things.
His throat felt raw, his tongue heavy. He was more thirsty than he could remember being, even during the forced training marches of his army days. It was a strange feeling, this thirst, this true thirst. He would never use it as a metaphor again. He would not thirst for justice, or vengeance, or love. He had never wanted anything the way he now wanted a glass of water. This desire wasn’t confined to his throat, his tongue. His entire body murmured with yearning, a rising cellular desperation, as if his nerves and membranes and tissues, his spinal cord, knew that what was to come would transcend mere pain. Pain could be located; no matter how severe, that at least established some kind of distance. The torment of thirst would saturate his being; he felt its threat. He realised his body was afraid and with that Turner was afraid, in a way that he had never been afraid before.
He walked over to check on his stills. Three holes in the salt pan, each covered with a clear plastic sheet; each sheet sealed to the ground by a miniature embankment of dirt running along all four edges. He crouched over the middle still, the one with the aluminium can. The plastic sheet was opaque with condensation. He couldn’t see through it clearly. He removed the bone fragments weighting the drip point. They were hot but hadn’t melted through. The inverted cone held its shape, permanently stretched. Through the grey blur he saw a ripple as a droplet fell onto a liquid surface.
He scraped back the dirt from two adjoining sides of the seal and lifted one triangular half of the plastic sheet. He jerked his face away from the smell. A foul stew of simmering human offal. The solar still was in effect a kind of oven. Out here where he stood the temperature was in the low forties. He could have cooked a steak on the roof of the car. Down in the hole, conditions were not dissimilar to those in a microwave. For all he knew that’s exactly what it was. He swallowed on the urge to vomit and turned to look.
The organs – liver, lungs, heart – were a mixture of pale browns and greys, shrivelled and sweating. The can was not only filled to the brim, it appeared from the water trapped in the creases around its base to have been overflowing for some time. He draped the lifted triangle of plastic across its counterpart and let it lie. He crabbed his fingers and thumb around the can from above and pulled, carefully. It resisted. He broke the grip of the clinging offal with the tips of his fingers and pulled again and the can came free with a sucking sound. A little water spilled over the rim. He lifted it slowly and rose to his feet and carried it away into a patch of clean desert air.
He put his lips to the rim and sipped. It was hot but it was wet. It was water. It didn’t taste good but his tongue craved more. He tilted the can and drank in careful swallows until it was empty. He wanted more. He looked at the printing on the can: 330 millilitres. If he remembered correctly, it wasn’t the stomach’s job to absorb water. Give it a chance.
He looked at the sun in the west. Another couple of hours at least, he thought, though he had never had cause to make such a calculation before. The half-bottles in the other holes were three times as big. They wouldn’t be full yet. He went to look. Through the clouded plastic of the first still he could make out the rim of the bottle, and a falling droplet, but no ripples.
He knelt by the second hole and mastered his nausea at the stench. He couldn’t afford to vomit now. He slotted the can back into the cylindrical space it had left. He unfolded the triangle of plastic. In patches it was stuck to its opposite, tethered half. A mistake. He should have held it proud and drunk the water right here and replaced the can quickly. He slid his hand between the two halves and feathered the plastic sheets apart, millimetre by millimetre. He felt his own sweat beading on his brow. He flicked his head so that the drops fell into the hole. At last the whole sheet was unfolded. It was stretched and sagging in patches, but the surface was not breached.
He placed the corner of the sheet back against the ground and weighted it with the Z-88. He pulled the edges as taut as he dared, trying to even out the sags as he rebuilt the seal of dirt. The sags persisted. The end result was a poor imitation of its original, flat, form. The noxious vapour resumed its condensation, but the sags, though shallow, formed new drip points, away from the mouth of the can, and their drops were wasted. He replaced the shards of bone in their shrivelled cone without knowing if they were useful any longer. He wondered if the sweat he had lost to reconstruct the still would be worth its future yield.
He retreated to his patch of shade. His thirst had waned a little. The water from Rudy’s liver, heart and lungs had started to make its way through. The fear lingered. He thought about it. So he would suffer for hours, maybe a day, then he would die. The kind of fate he had glanced at in the paper a thousand times without troubling to read the details. An event of no importance. He could look that in the eye.
He remembered the San Bushman.
Turner would cross the desert, if cross it he could, in the cool of the night. He would walk in darkness. Whether he died in this desert or not, he knew he would walk in darkness for the rest of his life.
31
Iminathi was familiar with Winston’s house. She had a key. As his assistant she was often sent there on errands official and domestic. To collect files. To deliver his laundry to or from the cleaner’s. To stock his fridge, to cook his dinner, to let the cleaning lady in on Thursdays. If he wasn’t in his office at La Diva he often took paperwork home. He avoided the drab utilitarian confines of the police station as much as possible. So she felt no discomfort in sneaking from his study to eavesdrop on his meeting with Margot and Hennie.
It took place in the living room. No one sat down. The living room had two doors, one from the entrance hallway, and the one at which she listened that opened on the inner corridor to the study, bathroom and spare bedrooms. Winston had left this door ajar. She was only three steps from the study. The first voice she heard was Winston’s.
‘The car breakdown is a little convenient. It might raise eyebrows in Cape Town.’
She’d been right, about both Turner and her father. A faked breakdown in the desert.
‘We’ve got our own eyebrows in Cape Town,’ said Hennie. ‘They’ll go up and down on our command.’
‘That was quick,’ said Winston.
‘You said we couldn’t just pick up the phone and buy a captain,’ said Margot. ‘But there was nothing to stop the captain calling us.’
‘Venter?’ asked Winston.
‘He’s on his way,’ said Margot. ‘What else do we need?’
‘We have corpses to collect at the Britz farm before the vultures make the job more obnoxious,’ said Winston. ‘A truck and some trustworthy manpower would help.’
‘No problem,’ said Hennie.
‘Legally speaking the death of the girl is discrete from today’s events,’ said Winston. ‘Who killed the girl? Jason killed the girl. The end. I suggest I take witness statements from you and Simon today. We can close that case by tonight and have Venter sprinkle holy water on it when he arrives. Tomorrow your detectives will find Turner and piece together the regrettable case of – let’s call it “Rudy’s Revenge” – from the abundant evidence you tell me we will find. I still think it will raise eyebrows other than Venter’s, but no one will want to pursue it too far. Rogue cops killing each other leaves a nasty smell. Everyone will be
happy to waft it away. The only remaining wild card is Dirk.’
‘Don’t worry about Dirk,’ said Margot.
‘Some media management will be required,’ said Winston.
‘We can control that narrative,’ said Margot.
‘I’d better get to work,’ said Winston.
Iminathi heard movement towards the far door. The voices retreated.
‘I want you to come to dinner tonight,’ said Margot. ‘Give me a read on Venter.’
‘What time?’
‘It depends on when he gets here. I’ll let you know.’
‘Will Dirk have to join us?’ The question conveyed Winston’s doubts as to the wisdom of the idea.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said Margot. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘And do us all a favour, Winston. Have a shower and a shave.’
Imi heard the front door open and close. She returned to the study, closed the door and sat down. A few moments later Winston appeared and waved his car keys.
‘Duty calls,’ he said. ‘What are you going to do?’
Imi stood up. They walked to the living room. ‘I’m going to Kimberley, like I planned.’
‘Good. Take a few days. Let the dust settle. It always does, no matter how calamitous the storm.’
‘Thanks for listening to me.’
‘My pleasure. You are dear to me, Imi. At this point in my life you are the only person to whom I can say that.’ He smiled his big heart-melting smile. ‘So I hope you decide to come back – I don’t know how I’ll function without you – but as I said, if you don’t, you can always count on me.’
Imi kissed him on the cheek. He laughed and she felt guilty.
‘I’ll get my car,’ she said.
She drove out of the garage and found Winston waiting on the driveway in his big black Cherokee, the tinted windows down.
‘Call me,’ he said. He smiled.
Imi waved goodbye and drove off down the road. He followed behind her until they reached the main road at the north edge of town. She turned right and watched in the rear-view mirror until she saw the Cherokee turn left and disappear. She drove on for a while. Her heart no longer battled with her head; they were in agreement. It was just that she felt sick with fear. But what was the worst that could happen? Some embarrassment? She performed her second U-turn of the day and headed back to Winston’s house.
32
Turner practised his long notes in the twilight until a narrow ribbon of gold separated the sun from the horizon. Playing against the sky, blowing into all that space, gave him a volume he hadn’t reached before, even on the mountain top. He imagined the notes soaring around the desert until the end of time, unheard but freed from the urge to be heard. If he could have frozen the moment and stayed there forever, he would have. But the Earth was still moving and he had to rejoin it.
Turner locked his trumpet in its case and put it in the boot. He emptied his rucksack. Every gram of weight would count. He opened the lock box and stored his laptop inside. He took out the night-vision 2G+ monocular surveillance pack. Simon must have seen it but they weren’t worried about him walking out at night; they’d expect to find him dehydrated and collapsed long before he got there. The full pack included a hands-free head mask, a long-range laser illuminator, and additional high-magnification lenses. Tonight all he needed was to see the tyre tracks ahead of him, so he took only the basic unit. It weighed 350 grams and was the length of his hand. He installed a fresh battery and put the monocular in the rucksack.
Simon had also left the box of oatmeal energy bars. Eating sucked water out of the blood for digestion. They were useless.
Turner stowed his Glock in its hip holster in the mesh pocket on the outside of the rucksack. He added a spare magazine. He took his boots off. Among his clothing was an unworn pair of hiking socks, merino wool and synthetics. He took off the socks he was wearing, checked his toenails, and put on the new ones. He laced his boots snugly. It got cold at night, no humidity, but how cold could it get? He’d be walking. He packed a lightweight hard shell jacket and the space blanket.
He took a plastic evidence bag and used Rudy’s Gerber knife to scrape a small pile of crusted salt into it. It was pale beige. More than he’d need, if he needed it. How would he know? He’d think about it. He emptied his pockets: he’d keep his badge, his wallet and his house key. He took the medical kit. He packed it all in the side pockets with the Gerber.
There wasn’t much in the rucksack. Was it worth carrying? He’d need it for the water. When the water was gone, he could abandon it. In the glovebox he found the old car manual and tore off the laminated cardboard cover. He rolled it into a funnel and jammed it into the neck of the second, undamaged, two-litre bottle. He put the bottle cap in his pocket and went to check the output of his stills.
He stripped the plastic sheet from the first hole. Rudy’s boot was mortared to the floor of the pit by a cracked, black mass of dried blood. The half-bottle stuck inside the boot was full almost to the brim. He removed the sock and eased back the boot tongue and carefully worked the bottle free. He lifted it out. He drank four swallows. Hot enough to shave with; but pure and good. He poured the rest down the funnel into the spare bottle and went to the third hole.
He took a deep breath and held it and stripped off the sheet. A ghastly stench penetrated his nostrils. The entrails had shrivelled and contracted into a grey, wrinkled pudding. The half-bottle had tilted as the mass had settled. It was full to the brim and water had spilled out over the lower edge. He worked it loose, rotating it back and forth. He lost a little more water before it came free. He poured it down the funnel and checked the level. He had, he reckoned, about 1.7 litres. It looked like plenty; but the proof of that would come in forty kilometres, if he got that far. He would have about nine hours of darkness. Five kilometres an hour seemed a reasonable pace. The difference between the first five and the last wasn’t something he could worry about right now. He screwed the cap back on the bottle.
He opened the last still. The cola can had overflowed again. Turner worked it free. He recalled that it was best to drink before you became too thirsty. He poured the can down his throat and tossed it back among the cooked organs. Strangely, in the circumstances, he felt a stab of guilt for littering the wilderness. He recovered the can and threw it in the back of the Cruiser.
He put his bottle of water in the rucksack.
The heat had waned but remained fierce. He looked at the salt pan which had lain pristine and undisturbed for millennia and was now an arena of atrociousness. The decapitated hulk of Rudy’s corpse with its one naked foot. The blackened and gaping void between his splayed ribs, the shattered, severed head, the face blistered, wrinkled and sucked dry by the sun. The reeking holes, the blood-encrusted boot. The diverse stains baked into the surface of the ancient lake bed, as if even time would fail to erase them.
Twilight in Heaven. Sundown in Hell.
Turner took a moment to be there. To know that he was there. This was where his life had brought him. This was where he had somehow brought himself. Despite that he had been driven to this place at gunpoint, it was his own choices – many choices – that had made it happen. It was his place now, his alone. He took its truth into his spirit. It was harsh, it was bitter; but if he did not make that harshness his own, he would not survive.
Turner hoisted the rucksack onto his shoulders and tightened the straps and fastened the hip belt. He walked away from it all and started out across the salt pan without looking back.
33
Iminathi sat in the dark in the back seat of Winston’s Cherokee and watched the front door of the bungalow, waiting for him to come out. Since turning back she’d waited for hours but it had given her time to get used to what she was doing and convince herself she wasn’t insane.
She had left her Polo two kilometres away where she could be sure Winston wouldn’t drive past it. After that she jogged back to the house, let herself in and switched off the ala
rm. She recovered the data card from the garbage, wiped it clean of the remains of an omelette, and secured it in her watch pocket. She took a long shower and rinsed her hair only with water to be sure she didn’t smell of perfume or any other beauty products. She wiped and dried the shower with a used towel from the laundry basket. She dressed in jeans, black sneakers and a clean black blouse she had brought from her suitcase. She buried her T-shirt in the bottom of the basket. She called Sizani and cancelled her trip but promised to see her soon. She set her phone to silent mode. She found Winston’s spare car keys in the drawer of his desk.
By the time Winston returned from the Britz farm it was almost 8 p.m. and it had just gone dark. When Iminathi heard the Cherokee and saw his headlights coming down the road she reset the alarm and left by the back door. She watched him drive up and park and get out of the car. He wasn’t carrying anything. He looked weary. He didn’t lock the car so she didn’t need the keys. Lights went on. She crept back around the house and stood by the bathroom window until she heard the shower, then she returned to the driveway and opened the rear door of the car.
The dome light came on. The back seat was empty. She sat inside and closed the door and waited for the light to die. The interior smelled of cigars. He was going to dinner. She couldn’t think of anything he would need to take with him, no reason to open the rear door or look in the footwell. The front seats were wide and high. The windows were black. She watched the front of the house.
Thirty minutes later Winston reappeared in a dark suit, white shirt and tie. She tucked herself down into the footwell on her back, her head behind the driver’s seat. The door opened, the dome light flared, she felt his weight thump into the seat against her head. The engine started and a Beethoven piano sonata drifted gently from half a dozen speakers. She was on her way. Back to the compound for the first time in eighteen months.