Memo From Turner

by Tim Willocks

  Mad with thirst. An ancient expression. No thousand words could better it. For nothing could begin to capture the raving, silent, relentless invasion not simply of his brain or his mind but of every particle of being by absolute want. A craving that rendered all previous concepts of desire null and void. Nothing so simple and clear as pain. The ache in his kidneys, the throb of his shrinking eyeballs, the constant oscillation of shards of broken glass in his gullet and throat, these came to seem welcome distractions; then they no longer distracted. During one long trek, slogging from one mark in the dust to the next, he had dwelt upon the millions of creatures who had trodden this path before him; who were treading it now. Crying babies at the shrivelled breast. Animals panting their last in the dry creek bed. Migrants who never reached a place to call home. Then with time, with the accumulation of the tiny distances he stole with each step, he stumbled beyond thirst, beyond the capacity to know it, into a slow descent that left his awareness of self behind. He lost his perception of ‘I’. He became a walking no one.

  He lay now on the desert floor and knew he was no more than a part of it. He accepted the rightness of this communion with rock and sand, with millennia, with slowness, with time. His muscles twitched and cramped, tensing randomly against each another. His joints were loose, rickety; his teeth; he could feel the gaps between the lumps of cartilage in his sternum move as he breathed. His skin felt baggy, like a suit several sizes too big. He would have thought that his body would have stiffened, tightened, as it dried out, but the reverse was the case. All its pieces were shrivelling into themselves, separating, leaving gaps. He felt like a sack of unrelated parts. For this he had killed and eviscerated a fellow man.

  But that didn’t matter now. Nothing did. He had the privilege of meeting death as a vessel of pure being, emptied of all feelings, all fears, all needs. He no longer even felt thirsty, even that vast and all-consuming desire absorbed into zero. Floating in this zero, he had a dream. Or memory that seemed like a dream. Or maybe a hallucination, played out in fragments behind his scorching eyelids.

  A ghetto street and a gang of boys in rags and tags, thirty or so, banging sticks on cans, summoning the spirits of the warriors of old. Kicking a football between them. Their march had started on the wasteland they used as a soccer pitch; he didn’t know why then, he didn’t know now. A boys’ game. An adventure. Make some noise, let the world know they existed. Chanting slogans of freedom they hardly understood. The only place they were going was back to the pitch for another game. They weren’t angry, they were exuberant. It felt good to say fuck you, even if no one was listening.

  But they were listening.

  Two Casspirs arrived as if from nowhere, blocking either end of the street. Enormous riot-control vehicles, armoured, grilled and notorious. The cops poured out and the boys fled through the dust and the sjamboks hummed and cracked on flesh. The game had just become thrilling. As he lay now prostrated on the burning rock his spent nerves tingled still to recall the excitement. For a moment they were no more a carefree rabble, they were heroes. What stories they would tell.

  Thandi should have stayed in the cash store where she worked. He didn’t need her, not to get away from the kwela-kwela, even if he needed her for almost everything else. He had never known his parents; she had. Same mother, different fathers. Thandi was ten years older than him and for as far as he remembered she had raised him. When she ran out into the street shouting his name, the adventure ended and he was no more a warrior. Two cops slashed her legs from under her and as she went down he saw the plastic whip lash her full force across the throat.

  He didn’t stop running.

  After the street was cleared, he crept back. Thandi still lay in the dirt, cops standing over her in attitudes of mild annoyance. A young white officer crouched to feel the pulse in her swollen neck. He shook his head and stood up and gave an order, and they picked her up and threw her in the back of the truck.

  Turner never saw or heard of her again.

  Now he groaned on the burning cap rock. The memory was not new to him. But this detail was: the young white policeman in the street turned and looked straight at him.

  It was Eric Venter. Officious and efficient as always.

  Just doing his job.

  Turner opened his eyes and raw sunlight fried the image from his brain. He tried but couldn’t recall it again. Yet it was still in there somewhere, he knew, hidden where it had been hidden all these years. All these years of serving under him. Admiring him. Trusting him. He closed his eyes.

  He saw Thandi’s face.

  He had to escape the past or he’d surrender and die there.

  He conjured the girl’s face.

  The unknown and nameless girl, who had called him to this moment and this place. She hadn’t surrendered. She had met death in agony and terror, but still fighting, crawling, dragging her bleeding innards towards the phone. Perhaps scrabbling for the card in her purse with his name printed on it, his number written in his own hand. Out of the zero within him, Turner imagined he heard her final desperate cry. As if she had made that call after all, as if, at last, she made it now.

  He worked his hand into the pocket of his pants and found the polythene evidence bag containing the grubby card. He held it in front of his eyes.

  There it was: the seed of will he needed.

  He had not been able to save her. He had only been able to try to give her some shred of dignity, to honour her spirit by defending the only human right she had left, her right to justice. But perhaps she could save him.

  If he no longer much cared whether or not he lived or died, he cared that he had failed her. He let that seed grow. He watered it with madness. To imagine he could get to his feet was madness. But madness was the one resource he had.

  He had rested on the barren ground. He had re-embraced the slowness and it had restored some of his strength. He could feel the heat of the sun on his face; he wasn’t dead yet. He raised his head from the dirt and it didn’t fall back.

  He braced his elbows and raised his chest. He looked for the tracks. There they were. A grey shrub crushed and uprooted; a shallow rift in the dirt. He had wandered several paces away before his stumble. He pulled his knees up beneath him and took his weight onto the palms of his hands. His body desperately wanted more rest. Sleep. The sweet invitation of death. But his reserves were not totally exhausted after all. He pulled the pieces together; he reconnected the broken lines of energy into some semblance of unity. In one movement he straightened his back and rose to one knee and braced his hand on his thigh and stood up.

  He put the card back in his pocket.

  He looked down at the broken trail of the tyre tracks. They seemed to go nowhere. He had no idea how far he had walked. The road was just a strip of tar, almost flush with the desert floor. He wouldn’t see it until he was on top of it. The first thing he would see would be vehicles. There wasn’t much traffic into or out of Langkopf but early morning was the best time to travel. The last things he carried were his badge and his gun. Enough to flag down a car. The gun had chafed the skin from his hips, his thighs. He had moved the holster dozens of times. He had carried the gun in either hand, in both hands. He had cradled it in his shirt. It had come to feel like it weighed more than he did. But he had not abandoned it.

  Turner started walking again.

  Slow and steady; watch for the rocks. Feet on rails. One careful step would earn him another; one careless step could put him back on the ground and he might not get up again. One pace per second. Swing the leg, root the foot, swing the leg. Call it thirty metres a minute. Call it two kilometres an hour. He had an hour left in him. Maybe when he got there he would have more. Don’t think about that. The next step is enough.

  He squinted against the reflected glare and realised he had lost his shades. He didn’t know where. He didn’t turn back to look. To go back and find them might cost him the distance that would save him. To go back and not find them would break him.

&
nbsp; He walked on. He walked on.

  The sun got hotter. His mind blurred again. He held on to his picture of the girl. She drifted away. He lost her. He found her. He brought her back. Watch for the stones. Find her again. His ears had become accustomed to the absolute and measureless silence. It had taken into itself the sound of his own parched breaths, the crunch of his boots.

  When it came, the sound of the plane was unmistakable.

  37

  Over the rim of her coffee cup Margot saw Mark Lewis drive up in his Discovery. She couldn’t help feeling a certain tension. She had learned that she could stare down a Swiss banker, a government minister, a delegation of discontented miners; even a delegation of Chinese investors. None of them could compete with the eyes of Willem when he had raped her, or with the sight of his tortured corpse when she had discovered it and, just in time, shielded Dirk. Her gaze had not faltered on any of those occasions either. Like Meursault, she was not afraid to look her own life in the face. But Hennie’s wet work made her nervous for that very reason: she wasn’t seeing it; she wasn’t in control. She looked at him across the table on the terrace and he read the question in her face.

  ‘I’ll spot Turner from the air. He might have stayed on the salt pan but he’s the type to try to hike out of there. If he did he’ll have followed the trail of the tyre marks, in which case he might have wandered off in the night and got lost. Mark’s wheels will confuse the tracks. Simon takes some crime scene photos – he’ll do a better job than Winston would – and films Mark finding the blown fuse in the engine. Mark fixes it; they bring back Turner’s car and the bodies. Then Venter and Winston write it all up. Signed, sealed and delivered by teatime.’

  Simon met Mark as he got out of the Discovery and started to give him instructions.

  ‘Do you think he’s still alive?’ asked Margot.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Hennie. ‘We took Turner ten clicks farther than Iminathi’s dad. We learned that lesson. And he’d been sweating in the mines for thirty years. He was tougher than a Special Forces veteran. But let’s say an Olympic marathon runner walked from that salt pan. Without water he’d have collapsed about six hours ago, that’s if he had the sense to wait until sundown. Scorpions can’t survive out there. Flies. I’d give Turner a forty/sixty chance of being alive. If he is, he’s unconscious. I’ll put him away in sixty seconds without leaving a trace. If he stayed with the car he’ll be conscious, but if he’s still looking tasty, we just back off and pick him off later. Don’t worry, love. We’re golden.’

  After dinner last night Margot had given Venter a Console Vault security case containing his wages. She didn’t see the point of all that half now, half later nonsense. Just buy him, do it, seal it. Chain him with gold. Was he going to run away in the night? He’d be more afraid of losing what he had than of losing what he hadn’t yet got. Basic human nature. She remembered the look in his eyes as the weight had surprised his arm. Her own arm had given him no warning. The eyes of a man who had surrendered all the soul he had. His gratitude for the privilege of doing so had revolted her. It had confirmed her worst opinions of the species. She had recalled Meursault and soothed herself with indifference. She had let Winston witness the transaction. He would get his bonus. But let him stew in envy and doubt until the game was over.

  ‘You think Venter checked his gold?’ she said.

  ‘He ran every coin through his fingers before he went to bed.’

  Hennie laughed. ‘He slept with both arms around the briefcase.’

  ‘Cheap at the price.’

  ‘Aren’t they always?’

  She saw Simon glance towards the table, his raised brow a request to join them. She nodded and beckoned him. Mark Lewis tagged along as Simon walked over. She was about to offer them coffee when they all heard the sound of the Skyhawk’s engine catch and fire up.

  Hennie instantly looked at Simon. ‘Go.’

  Simon sprinted off down the path to the east gate.

  Hennie grabbed Mark Lewis by the shoulder and shoved him towards the red Range Rover. ‘Get in my car. Now.’

  ‘What do you need me for?’ asked Mark.

  ‘We’re going to find a corpse. I want a witness.’ Hennie turned to Margot. ‘I’ll call you. Got to run.’

  ‘Why?’ She was confused by the sudden action and anxiety.

  Hennie backed towards the Range Rover, pointing in the direction of the airstrip beyond the walls. ‘That must be Dirk. Whatever he’s up to, it isn’t on our agenda.’

  Margot ran after Simon.

  Dirk? She was running too hard to think. Just a sense of rising panic without a focus. Through the arboretum. Another two hundred metres to the airstrip. She heard the revs pick up, ready to taxi. If Simon got there in time he could stand in front of the nose. She could see the gateway in the wall, the reinforced door wide open. Beyond, the plane was moving. She dashed through the gate, saw Simon and the guard standing stranded on the tarmac as the Cessna swooped along the runway and left the ground. She stopped and watched as it gained height into the clear blue sky. Simon jogged towards her. Frustrated. Worried.

  ‘Dirk?’ she said.

  ‘He told the guard they were going to play tennis.’

  ‘They?’

  Simon hesitated. ‘Dirk and Iminathi.’

  ‘She was here?’ Margot felt sick. ‘In the compound?’

  ‘She must have been here all night.’

  All night? She remembered Dirk’s curt ‘Go away’. She had thought he was grieving for Jason. That was why he needed to be alone. Her heart had ached for him as she’d tried to get to sleep. But he’d been grieving with his cock. That fucking scheming bitch. All night. In her house.

  ‘Tell me how that’s possible.’

  Simon was as cool as always but she read his eyes. She turned away to conceal whatever was written on her face. She knew it must be ugly. She tried to control her breathing. It was difficult, and not because of the run.

  ‘The only way she could have got past the gatehouse is in Mokoena’s car. He had no reason to bring her – that makes no sense, even if he wanted to jump ship. She must have hidden in the back seat.’

  ‘How much do you think she knows?’

  ‘Depending on what Venter and Mokoena talked about on their way over here, she could know just about everything.’

  Margot walked back through the gate and half ran, half stumbled towards the house.

  She had felt angry with Dirk often enough. Exasperated. Disappointed. All the rest. She was his mother, it was natural. Everything she had done, from sinking impossible shafts and borrowing impossible sums to this whole blood-drenched fiasco, had been for him. Now he had cold-bloodedly betrayed her; for a cunt and a pair of tits. For the first time since he’d been born, Margot felt something for him that she couldn’t distinguish from hatred.

  She reached the terrace and grabbed her phone. She called Hennie.

  38

  Less than five minutes after their wheels left the ground Iminathi saw her father’s memorial. Beyond it a wide swathe of tyre tracks ran into the desert like the spoor of some fabled creature.

  ‘Can we land down there?’ she asked.

  ‘Too dangerous,’ said Dirk. ‘The stones. Even if the tyres survived a landing, they wouldn’t survive taking off again.’

  ‘If we can’t pick him up, what are we going to do for him? Drop bottles of water?’

  ‘He’ll welcome that for sure, but the basic idea is to watch over him until the cavalry arrive, in the unlikely form of Winston Mokoena.’

  ‘I tried to persuade Winston to bring him in yesterday,’ said Imi. ‘He refused.’

  ‘I’m not going to persuade him. I’m going to threaten him.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘Prison food for the rest of his life. Venter too.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Our bent captains haven’t done any wet work. Their finger-prints aren’t on anything. All they’ve done is talk, which in court boils down t
o one bunch of liars accusing another. And they have all the best lies because they’re cops. At this point they can still cover their tracks and back out before they’re guilty of murdering a fellow policeman. If we give them reason to, they will. If they have to choose between saving their own necks or taking the long drop with their partners in crime, then Hennie and Simon will swing alone.’

  ‘Won’t Hennie and Simon testify against them?’

  ‘Not unless their lawyers have brain damage. The police and the public prosecutor will not want to see two captains dragged through the mud, because there’s never any telling who else might get splashed and the government don’t need any more bad headlines. In a nice quiet plea bargain Hennie could save himself ten years and do soft time, instead of diving head first into Hell on Earth. If he even tried to take two veteran captains down with him, the judge would make sure he died in prison. And to a certainty he would fail. The word of two cop killers, one of them a foreigner, against Winston Mokoena, hero of the struggle for national liberation? Hennie’s lawyers would cut his tongue out before they’d let him testify. He’d be shooting his own hairy British bollocks off.’

  ‘OK. I still don’t hear the threat against Winston.’

  ‘Two witnesses. You and me. We find Turner, take photos, then I tell Winston to come and pick him up. If he refuses, and Turner dies, then that’s a case that not even Winston can beat. I’ll make sure of that.’

  ‘What if Hennie gets there first?’

  ‘We’ve got 130 kilometres an hour over the best Hennie can do.’

  ‘I mean before Winston?’

  ‘We can stay up here for hours if we need to. Circle, keep Turner in sight. Hennie is not an impulsive type. He’s not like my mother. He’s a bastard but he thinks before he acts, he never panics. If we’re up here, he’ll know why. He’s not going to swap attempted murder for the real thing.’