Icarus

by Deon Meyer

  He went to study for a diploma in graphic design at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. ‘It was hard on me and my mother. There was only just enough money to pay for the classes. I took the train to the city; on weekends and holidays I was a waiter; my mother worked overtime so that we could afford the books and everything.

  ‘In my second year, two of my friends and I started a small web design company. We used the Varsity computers for the first six months, but we could quote cheaper than anyone else, and our designs were cool, and I realised I could sell. I could sit down with a guy and say, usability and aesthetics are two sides of the same coin, the combination is a competitive advantage.

  ‘We could stop being waiters. We made quite good money.

  ‘And then we finished at Varsity and we went on with the business, and it was tough, because we weren’t students any more, and we had to hire an office and buy our own hardware and software, and we had to increase our quotes. But we still believed. We had this big poster of Steve Jobs on the wall: “If you keep your eye on the profit, you’re going to skimp on the product. But if you focus on making really great products, then the profits will follow.”

  ‘And then came the iPhone and the iPad, and because we were such total nerds, we quickly realised that app design was the next big wave. So we were proactive. We started talking to the magazines. Half of the magazine apps you see on an iPad, we designed. We did okay . . . But about two years ago, I got restless. I felt that I needed a new challenge. So I sold my share, and went to see what hadn’t been done yet. That’s how Alibi was born.’

  And the game design?

  He laughed again. He said he designed the Alibi.co.za website. He said it was very attractive and functional. ‘How many websites in the online dating industry can say the same?’

  Game design would remain a dream, because there weren’t big opportunities here on the southern tip of the Dark Continent.

  But adultery apparently offered big opportunities?

  Earnest Ernst again: ‘Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is just living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.’

  ‘Steve Jobs?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes,’ he says.

  ‘Do you feel a connection?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Because of the money? Fifteen thousand clients at R62.50 a month is close on a million, just in basic income. And that’s just the beginning. A lot of money for a young man.’

  The smile evaporates. ‘We’re a long way from making a profit. There’s a lot of hard work ahead. I will never be as rich as Steve Jobs. But I will always follow my heart.’

  17

  Transcript of interview: Advocate Susan Peires with Mr Francois du Toit

  Wednesday, 24 December; 1604 Huguenot Chambers, 40 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town

  FdT: Pa is still a mystery to me.

  Pa never really talked about all of this. Ouma Hettie would, but you never knew what wasn’t said. You only knew what she saw and experienced, and that only from a certain perspective. That’s another thing I learned and experienced in the past year or so: you can never see through someone else’s eyes. And even if you try, it’s a distorted view. So, Ouma Hettie looked through the eyes of a woman who was . . . angry, probably. I don’t know if that is the whole truth.

  My mother would say something here and there, but Ma also comes from a wine estate; it’s a closed community, you don’t talk outside of it, you maintain a united front. Oom Dietrich . . . He’s our neighbour, on the estate next door, Blue Valley. Dietrich Venske. He and Pa worked together for a long time back then, I talk to him a lot about my father. He says, you could see the damage, earlier. And Pa used to tell him things . . .

  In any case, my father grew up on the farm in the sixties. And I have this image in my mind: my father had to watch Ouma struggle with Oupa Jean. Pa must have heard the big fights about the affairs, he must have experienced his father’s rejection. He had to watch Ouma trying to raise his two younger sisters, how she had to manage the workers to get everything done on the farm.

  And because Pa was sensitive, because he had a heart, he felt he wanted to help Ouma. When he was about fifteen, when he heard them fighting again one night, he couldn’t take it any more. He went and told Oupa Jean, stop it, all of it: the sleeping around and the drinking, bullying Ouma, neglecting the farm.

  And Oupa called him a snotkop, and what would a kid like him know? And to get out before he got a hiding. Then Pa said, ‘Hit me.’ And Oupa slapped him. Pa just stood there, and said, ‘Is that the best you can do? Bully women and children?’ Then Oupa hit him with his fist. And Ouma screamed and wept, because Pa’s nose was bleeding. But Pa said, ‘Hit me, I will get up again every time.’

  Then Oupa Jean stormed out, and was gone for a week, no one ever knew where he went. Ouma Hettie used to say sometimes it was the best week of her marriage. But then Oupa came back, and he moved into the spare room, and that’s how they lived, for the rest of his life. A sort of ceasefire between everyone, never officially declared, it just happened that way. Oupa came and went as he pleased, talked less and less to his wife and children, spent less and less time on the farm. And Ouma and Pa gradually took over more and more of the farming.

  But Oupa Jean still had the final say, and the power of the chequebook.

  The farm work was my father’s refuge, I think. At first he worked with the farm labourers – you must understand, on a wine estate the labourers come down the generations on the same farm. They know everything, about pruning and spraying and harvest, the when and the how. So he learned from them, slowly and surely, methodically.

  And in the process he grew to love the vineyards, the grapes. The workers had a very earthy relationship with the farm. I think they have a greater feel for the slow turning of the seasons, for the wind and the rain and the heat and the cold and the soil’s influence – of terroir. We white South Africans want everything now, according to the day or month; we stare ourselves blind looking at the little squares on the calendar on the office wall. When the KWV says harvest, then you harvest. We don’t have a thousand years of making wine behind us, like the French. Especially in those days we didn’t have the patience or the will to make exceptional wines. We didn’t have that understanding of the long term, of nature, of cycles and processes.

  My father learned all this from the labourers. He saw that the grapes were never the same from year to year, and he wondered about that. When he was in Matric, he drove the truck with the grapes to KWV himself, because he wanted to know exactly what they did with them, what happened to our farm’s produce. He saw how they were all thrown together, how our grapes lost their identity in the mass, and it bothered him.

  I think he began to realise how great the potential was, because Klein Zegen was an incredible farm, and the strangest thing, down through the generations, was that not one of the Du Toits had really exploited that. They had just made a living. A good living, some of them . . .

  The farm lay far back in the Blaauwklippen Valley, high up against the mountain. In the summer it was cooler than it was on the plain, the vineyard was well protected from the southeaster, so the grapes could take their time ripening, and the sugar content was lower. The soil was stony and hard, somewhere between Italy’s Chianti region and the croupes of Bordeaux. It was unique, wine growing soil, if you planted the right cultivars.

  Pa didn’t have that insight. Not back then, in any case. But it was as if he had a premonition. As if somewhere deep inside he knew that piece of earth could do more. And love is a funny thing. Passion. It makes you wonder, it releases your creativity, so that you see other possibilities and outcomes. It makes you stop, focus and think. It helps y
ou make choices about your future.

  Pa’s decision was that he wanted to study agriculture. Viticulture. Now, looking back, I wonder how much that contributed to breaking his heart.

  18

  As though he felt the intense gaze on him, Benny Griessel opened his eyes, an instant transition from sleep to waking, and there was Alexa beside him on the bed, her face so tightly drawn, so deeply concerned.

  ‘Benny,’ she said, the single word burdened with so much emotion that her voice cracked.

  Along with the headache that hammered through his head with every heartbeat, came the consciousness of last night. He relived the taste of the Jack, and the effect of it – the anaesthesia, the euphoria. Even now, in his dry, sour mouth, it made the saliva spurt. He remembered with a sudden flood of relief and joy that he had a reason to drink, a good, defendable excuse. He could explain. Rationalise. He could give everyone insight into this thing.

  He could drink.

  ‘Alexa,’ he said, his voice hoarse.

  ‘Why, Benny?’

  He wanted to tell her everything. The words gathered behind his tongue, they tangled in the dullness of his head. ‘To protect you,’ was all he could manage to utter.

  He could see, from the fear on her face, that she didn’t understand. Slowly he sat up in the bed. He took her hand. He said, ‘You don’t need to be afraid.’

  ‘I am afraid, Benny. I’m not strong enough. Last night I realised that. I always believed, the day you needed me, I would be there for you. Like you were there for me, when I started drinking again. But I can’t Benny. I—’ The tear swelled suddenly from her eye, rolled slowly down her cheek.

  Griessel reached out his hand and caught the drop with his index finger. ‘I’m strong now,’ he said.

  ‘Thank God,’ she said and embraced him.

  ‘I want you to understand,’ he said. ‘I am strong enough now to drink.’

  At 07.23 he walked into Cupido’s office. ‘I know you saved my gat, last night,’ he said.

  ‘Jissis, Benna . . .’

  ‘Thanks, Vaughn.’

  ‘It’s Major Mbali’s fault,’ said Cupido. ‘She should never have sent you to Vollie Fish yesterday. Are you okay? Did Alexa brief you?’

  He shook his head. ‘She . . . It was a difficult morning.’

  ‘So you know nothing about Ernst Richter?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You must have seen the posters on the lamp posts this morning?’

  ‘No.’

  Cupido checked his watch, and stood up. ‘We must go and report, Benna, we’ll have to wing it. Just say you were with me when we went to interview Richter’s girlfriend. Her name is Cindy Senekal . . .’

  ‘Why must I say that?’

  ‘You know you tried to moer an ou in the Fireman’s Arms last night.’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘That’s not what he says. Jissis, Benna, how drunk were you?’

  ‘Drunk enough . . .’

  Just then Captain Frankie Fillander walked into the office, and said: ‘I hear you got JOC on the Ernst Richter case?’

  ‘That’s right, Uncle Frankie,’ said Cupido, using the Cape Flats term of respect for older people. ‘Now all the old ballies will see how things are really supposed to work.’

  ‘Heaven help us,’ said Fillander, a veteran with a long scar from a knife wound from his ear to his crown. ‘Hey, Benny.’ And then as he spotted the bruise on Griessel’s cheek: ‘Who tackled you?’

  ‘It was my fault,’ said Cupido hurriedly. ‘Last night I dropped my phone and Benna and I both bent down at the same time to pick it up . . .’

  They sat in Mbali’s big office, the one that used to belong to the late Colonel Zola Nyathi. Around the table were John Cloete, the media liaison officer, Cupido, Griessel, Fillander, Mooiwillem Liebenberg and the small, neat Lieutenant ‘Vusi’ Ndabeni.

  Griessel battled to concentrate.

  Lord, his body and head were not used to the liquor any more, but that would change, he knew. He would get drinking fit again.

  Kaleni said they were all assigned to the Richter JOC, ‘because the Brigadier regards this as the highest priority in the Directorate. He has had calls from our national DPCI, and provincial commissioners this morning. The pressure is on. The PCSI and IMC have been notified, they are clearing the decks. Captain,’ she said to Cupido, ‘if there is anything you need, please tell me.’

  Griessel wondered who the hell Ernst Richter was to warrant all this attention.

  ‘I’ll get to that in my report,’ said Cupido.

  Mbali asked John Cloete to sketch out the state of affairs. He said the Richter murder was headline news, in every newspaper and on every South African website, without exception. The radio stations were humming on every front, from news bulletins to phone-in programmes. ‘And on Twitter, this thing is shaping up to be as big as Oscar. So please, be diligent in your endeavours, and in passing along information to me.’

  Cupido began his report. He gave the basic background to Richter and Alibi.co.za. He said robbery as a motive could be ruled out, because the victim’s wallet was still in his car, and his cellphone had been found beside him in the sand.

  While Vaughn lied that he and Benny went to Stellenbosch together last night, Benny’s thoughts began to wander. Had he really tried to hit some guy last night? In his forty-six years on this earth he had never become aggressive while drinking. In the old days it made him los en lekker, the happy-go-lucky comedian of Murder and Robbery.

  But as for last night, he couldn’t recall everything so well.

  He focused on Cupido again, who was saying: ‘Benny and I agree that the girlfriend is lying about the dagga. We’re not sure about the sex in the car. But we need toxicology on the body, and we need it quickly.’

  ‘I will do my best,’ said Kaleni. But they knew, toxicology testing was one of the Hawks’ greatest headaches. Unlike molecular diagnosis, which was done through the SAPS forensic laboratory, toxicology analysis fell under the Department of Health, and there were only three labs countrywide with that capacity. A report sometimes took six to twelve months to be returned to the detective.

  ‘And we urgently need a post-mortem. Richter went missing twenty-two days ago, but I saw the body last night, and I’m pretty sure he’s only been dead for about a week.’

  ‘Jissis,’ said Captain Frankie Fillander, then immediately, ‘Sorry, Major,’ because Kaleni would not tolerate strong language.

  ‘That’s the kind of thing we have to keep out of the media, please,’ said Cloete. ‘Don’t discuss it with anybody outside this group. They’ll go ballistic.’

  ‘Yes. That is an order,’ said Kaleni.

  ‘Any torture marks on the body?’ asked Vusi Ndabeni.

  ‘Nothing obvious, but I only saw the front side of the upper body. It’s clear he was strangled with something.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Salt River,’ said Mbali. Then, with quiet confidence, ‘You’ll get your post-mortem report by tonight.’

  ‘Okay, thanks,’ said Cupido. ‘There’s a hell of a lot of work to be done, so let’s get started. I’ve printed out all the articles on Richter that John sent me. If you could all read them, please.’

  Major Kaleni nodded her head in approval. Cupido had to focus hard on not getting angry; had she thought he was a fool?

  ‘Willem,’ he said to Captain Liebenberg, ‘if you could do all the interviews with the mother, Bernadette Richter. Uncle Frankie, I’d like you and Vusi to get all the forensic stuff to the PCSI, and all the cellphone records to Philip. We need a web . . .’ Captain Philip van Wyk and his team from IMC, the Hawks’ Information Management Centre, used computer programming to create a spider web showing connections between all cellphone calls or SMSes, from a central number.

  ‘Right,’ said Frankie Fillander.

/>   ‘There was a phone found near Richter’s body. The Table View docket says the phone is stone dead. It’s currently with Forensics in Plattekloof. If you could get it to Lithpel, and see if he can get it going again. If it is Richter’s phone, we also need Lithpel to look at his Tinder account.’

  ‘What is Tinder?’ asked Mbali Kaleni.

  ‘It’s a dating app for phones.’

  ‘A dating app?’

  ‘Yes, Major. To meet people. To get a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend.’

  ‘Hayi,’ said Mbali in disgust.

  ‘Richter met the girlfriend, Cindy Senekal, through Tinder. But there might be other women as well . . .’ He addressed himself to Fillander and Ndabeni again: ‘Also, get Lithpel to look at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, the usual suspects. Richter was in the tech industry, so he’s probably into all that stuff. Benny and I are going to the Alibi offices now . . .’

  In the car, on the way to the Alibi.co.za offices in Stellenbosch, Griessel said: ‘Don’t blame Mbali, Vaughn. She actually did me a favour.’

  Cupido was driving. With a raised eyebrow he cast a sceptical glance at his colleague.

  ‘Vollie . . . if Vollie had been drinking he wouldn’t . . .’

  Cupido snorted in total disbelief.

  Griessel raised his hand, a gesture that said he didn’t expect anyone to understand.

  To his astonishment Cupido did not react. They drove in silence, until Vaughn said: ‘If you want to read the dope on Richter,’ and he pointed at the back seat.

  Griessel wondered what had got into Vaughn. But he merely nodded, picked up the file, opened it and began to read.

  The address that Cupido got from Cindy Senekal was in Distillery Street, past the Stellenbosch graveyard in Bosman’s Crossing. They identified the building – an old factory that had been tastefully renovated – when they spotted the media herd crowding the entrance. Three security guards stood with their backs to the front door, arms crossed, to keep out the reporters, photographers, and one TV camera­man. There were no other visible signs that this was the Alibi office.