Memo From Turner

by Tim Willocks

  He wanted to be done with this madness. He wanted to forget it all. But the look on Margot’s face hung in his mind and he knew she wouldn’t him go.

  46

  Mokoena absorbed the sight of the bloodbath without surprise or any other emotion. He would dwell on its tragic dimensions and the role that he had played later on. Now he had to prevent those dimensions from getting any larger. There were enough players left on the field to do more damage and two of them at least were far from their right minds.

  Turner was shambling towards the Range Rover with the gait of someone suffering from some obscure neurological disease.

  Margot emerged from the wreckage of one of the white vehicles and started after him in a daze. She was carrying a long black Mossberg shotgun. Mokoena had seen her use it and Turner’s head was considerably bigger than a skeet. Switch on the siren? It was as likely to provoke her as bring her to her senses. Her senses were beyond prediction.

  Imi and Dirk were running from the Cessna towards the farm buildings. More fuel to the fire. They no doubt meant well but they were the worst people in the world to try to cool this down.

  Mokoena swerved towards them and put his foot down. His Cherokee sped across the grass and the couple saw him coming and stopped by the wind pump’s water tank. He braked hard and skidded to a halt just in front of them. As he got out he grabbed a pair of handcuffs from the door pocket.

  Margot was still walking after Turner, her intent unclear. Mokoena circled the Cherokee to Dirk and Imi. They both appeared bewildered and horrified.

  ‘Dirk, show me your right hand,’ said Mokoena.

  ‘Why?’ said Dirk, confused, while automatically extending his arm.

  Mokoena snapped the bracelet round his wrist before Dirk even saw it. With another expert manoeuvre he locked the second bracelet to the handle of the Cherokee’s passenger door. Dirk made to protest.

  ‘You’ve done your best,’ said Mokoena. ‘Let me do mine.’ He looked at Imi. ‘Stay here with him. Not a word from either of you. If shooting starts, kneel here behind the engine.’

  Mokoena hurried towards the yard. He drew level with Margot. She was still walking, the Mossberg canted across her chest, her finger on the trigger.

  Turner reached the Range Rover. He must have been aware that she had followed him and now he turned to wait for her. He looked like a man who had just walked across Hell but was still standing on the wrong side of its gates. His Glock was on his right hip. His gaze and Margot’s seemed locked in some unfathomable communion. Margot stopped five metres away from him.

  Mokoena stopped too. ‘Margot?’ he said gently.

  She looked at him. He saw a terrible self-knowledge in her eyes, painful to witness. He felt a deep sadness. He felt ashamed.

  ‘I could have stopped this,’ she said.

  ‘Any one of us could have stopped it,’ said Mokoena.

  ‘Why didn’t we?’

  ‘We can talk about that later. As long as we stop it now.’

  ‘I don’t know if I want to.’

  ‘The rest of us do.’ Mokoena glanced at Turner, an appeal for support.

  ‘No charges will be brought against you,’ said Turner. ‘Or against Dirk.’

  ‘Why not?’ she asked.

  ‘Because enough’s enough.’

  Margot’s mouth curled. ‘Are you telling me I’ve won?’

  ‘You can look at it any way you want,’ said Turner. ‘We just have to carry it.’

  Her expression seemed to clear and for a moment Mokoena thought she would let it go. Then something caught her eye and she stared at the red Range Rover. Her shoulders trembled with a shuddering intake of breath. She held the breath as tears rolled from her eyes. Mokoena looked at the car.

  Hennie sat dead in the passenger seat, his face pressed against the glass.

  ‘Oh, Hennie.’

  Mokoena saw the final collision, as he had seen it from the beginning. He struggled for the right platitude. ‘Margot, please. You know Hennie wouldn’t want this –’

  ‘Mother?’

  Dirk. Mokoena cringed inwardly.

  Margot looked beyond his shoulder at her son. The clarity returned to her eyes. She smiled as if at some secret only she possessed; as if she suddenly knew how to restore order to the world she had built and then destroyed.

  ‘Mother died today,’ she said.

  ‘Margot, I beg you,’ said Mokoena.

  Margot swung back to face Turner.

  ‘Time to hit the road to Dreamland.’

  She snapped the Mossberg to her shoulder with perfect form.

  Turner pulled his left foot back like a duellist as he drew his pistol.

  The slam of the pistol shot blurred into the shotgun blast.

  Blood flew from Turner’s left arm.

  His bullet took Margot through the heart. A single-shot kill.

  The secret smile was still on her face as she dropped.

  ‘Margot gets what Margot wants,’ said Mokoena.

  Turner holstered his gun and walked to the Range Rover. He opened the passenger door and Hennie tumbled out to lie in the dust, his arm stretched out towards Margot. Turner closed the door. He looked at Mokoena.

  ‘Where’s Venter?’

  Mokoena could see no personal advantage in Venter’s survival; only even more difficulties than those he already faced. A dead Venter could shoulder the blame for what had passed. After all, he was the only one placed to orchestrate the conspiracy from the beginning.

  ‘At the hotel,’ said Mokoena. ‘Waiting for my call.’

  ‘Tell him to be outside in twenty minutes.’

  ‘What happened to you out there?’

  ‘It’s better no one knows.’

  He walked around the Range Rover and opened the driver’s door.

  ‘Turner?’

  Turner stopped.

  ‘Life moves on,’ said Mokoena.

  Turner looked at Dirk and Imi. His thoughts and feelings, if any, were inscrutable. He turned to Mokoena.

  ‘Make sure we have no reason to meet again.’

  Mokoena accepted the threat in good grace. ‘Sound advice.’

  Turner got into the Range Rover and drove away.

  Imi and Dirk watched him go. Dirk was in shock. Imi had her arms around him. She was strong. The sight of them, at least, gave Mokoena hope. If anyone could make water flow uphill, Iminathi could. He took the keys to the handcuffs from his pockets and sighed. There was much to do. But if Winston Mokoena was anything, he was a man who got things done.

  47

  Turner stood in the shade cast by the hotel’s yellow canvas awning. He drained the last of the smoothie and put the jug on the ground. As he straightened up Venter came through the glass doors and saw him and stopped.

  He was dressed in a lightweight tan suit and carried a stainless-steel security case. A variety of emotions struggled for control of his face, none pleasant. He fashioned something that was supposed to be a smile.

  ‘Turner. Thank God.’ He saw the blood soaking the arm of Turner’s shirt. ‘You’re wounded.’

  ‘Did you get my memo?’

  Venter frowned, puzzled. ‘No, I – when did you send it?’

  Turner took his phone out. He checked the upload to Cloud. It wasn’t a big file, but at local speeds it still hadn’t completed. He thought about it. Then he cancelled the transfer. He returned the phone to his shirt.

  ‘What did you have to tell me?’ asked Venter.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  Venter tried the smile again. ‘I’m here to organise the search and rescue for you. As soon as I heard you’d disappeared I got on a plane.’

  ‘Get in the car.’

  ‘Where’s Mokoena?’ asked Venter.

  ‘Mokoena’s busy.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘We’re going to examine a crime scene.’

  They got in the car and Turner sat holding the wheel, staring through the windscreen.

  ‘You
sure you don’t need a doctor?’ asked Venter.

  ‘Nineteen eighty-seven,’ said Turner. ‘A street protest in Khayelitsha. Do you remember it?’

  ‘There were dozens of minor riots in the eighties.’

  ‘You were involved in this one.’

  ‘I was involved in many.’

  ‘A young woman was whipped to death.’

  ‘Thousands died in the State of Emergency. I witnessed tragedies every day. That went with the job. It still does, doesn’t it?’

  Turner looked at him. Venter held his eyes, with difficulty.

  ‘If you’re talking about your sister,’ said Venter, ‘I don’t know if I was there. It’s possible, but I don’t remember. Even if the police did kill her, I didn’t. I would remember that. You know me, I haven’t got the stomach for doing that kind of thing.’

  ‘Only for watching it.’

  ‘What could I do?’

  Turner didn’t know how much it mattered. It didn’t matter at all to his plans. He had a path to follow, the only path he could see, and there was no stopping. He wouldn’t find another until he got to the end. What that other path would be, and where it would take him, was the work of tomorrow.

  He put the car in drive and pulled away.

  He drove north from Langkopf. When he reached the pickaxe memorial he turned off the road and followed the tracks, past the bodies of Lewis and Khosi, drying in the blackened dust, and out into the desert.

  He drove in silence. Venter, clutching the suitcase to his chest, did not speak either. He seemed to understand that there was nothing he could say that Turner would hear. Perhaps he too knew that the path he had chosen could only be followed to its end.

  In Turner’s mind – in every cell of his body – the distance to be travelled was immense. The Range Rover consumed it in twenty minutes. The salt pan opened before him. The heat quavered at the limit of his vision. A tall, black obelisk appeared, shimmering, floating above the ground. Its form shifted and danced. For a moment it disappeared. When it reappeared, it gradually resolved into his Land Cruiser.

  As they got closer, a flock of vultures took wing and soared away beneath the noontide sun. Turner drove past the stranded vehicle and swung in a wide circle. He pulled up beside the Cruiser and turned off the engine. He opened the door and got out. Venter stayed inside.

  Turner went to the Cruiser and opened the boot. He took out his trumpet case and his laptop and carried them to the Range Rover.

  He studied the scene of yesterday’s events. His atrocity.

  Already the desert was reclaiming itself. The solar stills were black pits, empty except for Rudy’s boot. The carrion birds had helped themselves to the organs conveniently provided and then stripped the remaining carcass to sinew and bone. Only the one booted foot remained, and even that bore the marks of their appetites. What remained of the shattered skull had been picked as clean as stone.

  Turner opened the passenger door and looked at Venter.

  ‘Get out.’

  Venter got out.

  Turner stowed his laptop and his trumpet case inside. He closed the door.

  ‘Open your jacket,’ he said.

  ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘Open your jacket.’

  Venter put the case down by his feet and held his jacket open. He had a regulation Glock 17 on his right hip and a nylon handcuff pouch on his left.

  ‘You can draw the gun and shoot,’ said Turner. ‘Or you can give it to me, in the holster. Your best choice is to draw.’

  ‘Have you lost your mind?’

  ‘We’ve both lost more than that.’

  Venter’s face writhed as he struggled to come to terms with reality. Turner felt no satisfaction in his panic, no pleasure, no victory. Venter reached across with his left hand and unclipped the holster and gave the gun to Turner. Turner tossed it across the pan. Venter glanced after it and saw the headless skeleton in its shredded uniform. The vacant blood holes. The eyeless skull.

  Sweat poured down his face, provoked as much by fear as by the blinding heat. His defeat was plain to him, yet he went through the following motions as if in a trance. He grabbed his steel security case and laid it on the bonnet of the Range Rover. He appeared to hope that the case and its contents would save him. He produced a ring of keys and selected one and held it between finger and thumb.

  ‘Do you know what’s in this case?’

  Turner held out his hand. Venter gave him the keys.

  ‘Take a look for yourself,’ said Venter.

  Turner checked the keys on the ring. He put them in his pocket.

  ‘What can I say?’ said Venter. ‘I saw my chance and I took it. I missed. I set you up, yes, I betrayed everything I stood for. Everything we both stood for. I’m sorry. But here we are. We both know the reality. The force contains over fourteen hundred officers with criminal convictions. Convictions, not allegations, including murder and rape, including brigadiers and colonels. Your crusade won’t change that. So let’s be grown up about it. What’s in that case is six kilos of twenty-two-carat gold. With you alive, I guarantee we can get more, much more. Margot’s more exposed than ever.’

  ‘Margot’s dead.’

  Venter took that in. He licked his drying lips.

  ‘So are fourteen others.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘If you hadn’t made that call, I wouldn’t have had to kill any of them. I had to kill them all.’

  ‘You take the gold. Take it all.’ Venter started panting. ‘What happened here isn’t in our jurisdiction. Cape Town doesn’t need to know, Christ, they won’t even want to know. Neither will anyone else. Let Mokoena bury it. There’s nothing I can hold over you without hanging myself. I’ll retire. I’ll be out of your life. I’ll be gone and you’ll be compensated for – well, for what you’ve been through. For you it’s a win–win.’

  ‘You mean “be reasonable”.’

  ‘Right. It’s the only intelligent thing to do. Now let’s go back.’

  Turner reached under Venter’s jacket and took the handcuffs from their pouch. The keys to the cuffs were on the ring in his pocket.

  ‘You’re taking me in?’ said Venter. ‘What’s the point? You’ll only damage the service. You think they’ll thank you for that? They’ll have you directing traffic.’

  Turner locked one bracelet around Venter’s right wrist. Venter, resigned, offered his left. Turner ignored it.

  ‘A million years ago this was a sea,’ said Turner. ‘When they brought me out here yesterday, I was probably the first man ever to set foot on it. I doubt anyone will ever set foot on it again. That makes you the last.’

  Turner snapped the second bracelet around the steel handle of the security case.

  Venter gaped at the case of gold chained to his arm. He stared out at the quavering veil that barricaded the salt pan from the rest of creation. He swung on Turner.

  ‘I know you, Turner. You’re not going to do this. This isn’t you.’

  ‘You should have listened to my memo.’

  ‘I didn’t get your bloody memo.’

  ‘You’ve got it now.’

  Turner opened the door of the Range Rover and climbed in, closed the door and started the engine. Venter grabbed the case and staggered round to the passenger door and lunged for the handle. Turner pressed the central locking switch and the locks clunked. He saw Venter’s face through the window. He pitied him. But not enough to reopen the door.

  Let justice be done.

  Turner drove away.

  He didn’t look back.

  As he crossed the pan he saw his own footprints in the salt. Wherever he went he would carry this desert with him for the rest of his life. It was worth carrying. He thought of the nameless girl who had saved him from its timeless embrace. He would carry her too. Much had been taken from him and he’d never get it back. But much endured.

  What had Mokoena said? Life moves on.

  Turner took the bottle of water from his pocket and
poured a mouthful down his throat. It tasted good. When he got within range of a signal, he made a call.

  ‘Mrs Dandala? It’s Turner. How are you?’

  ‘You didn’t answer my messages.’ Her voice was as irritable as ever.

  Turner smiled. ‘I apologise. Work got on top of me, for a while.’

  ‘No one will thank you for it.’

  ‘That’s OK.’

  ‘Well? So where are you now?’

  Turner said, ‘I’m on my way home.’

  Acknowledgement

  I want to thank Albert Zuckerman, founder of Writers House, New York, whose creative expertise helped me knock this novel into shape. No author has a greater friend.

  T.W.

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  Copyright © Tim Willocks 2018

  Jacket design: Dan Mogford

  Jacket photographs © Getty Images (desert, face), Alamy (jeep), Trevillion Images (walking figure) Tim Willocks has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  First published by Jonathan Cape in 2018

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library