Icarus

by Deon Meyer

  ‘Fok,’ he said again.

  ‘What?’ asked Davids.

  ‘This thing is shaking its head.’

  Lithpel laughed. ‘Yes, Cappie, the iPhone does that.’

  ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘There’s one more possibility.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Was Richter left or right handed?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘Cappie, I thought you were the Great Coloured Detective of the Hawks?’

  ‘That’s Vaughn Cupido.’

  ‘Fair enough. But we will have to find out. Maybe he used his left thumb.’

  Desiree Coetzee told the two detectives that Alibi.co.za was not exactly a giant financial success.

  A surprised Cupido quoted from the Rapport article, which said the company earned nearly a million rand a month, back then already, when they’d interviewed Richter.

  Coetzee said the monthly subscription had nearly doubled since then. The trouble was that the business model was based on even stronger growth, and predictions of quicker economic recovery. And because income had increased more slowly than anticipated, expenses were the big fly in the ointment.

  Alibi’s salary account alone was R1.6 million per month. Then there were the costs of marketing and advertising, rent for the building, electricity, the ADSL lines, the toll-free number; and they weren’t making as much out of the more expensive alibi options as they had initially anticipated. More than 80 per cent of their clients relied on SMSes or telephone calls as the basis for their alibis.

  ‘In July 2013 we launched the website and the app. We knew it would take time to break even, so our agreement with the bank was an overdraft of half a million, until December 2013. Then it had to come down to three hundred thousand by July 2014, and two hundred thousand now, this month.

  ‘Nine months ago, our overdraft was still over six hundred and eleven thousand. The bank said it could not continue like that, and the two venture capital firms were very unhappy. Everyone wanted a strategic recovery plan. We were forced to downsize; we let 20 per cent of the staff go. But by June Ernst could see that it was not enough. Seems like there’s less fooling around in South Africa in the winter, because our income remained flat.’

  ‘And then he cooked the books?’ Cupido asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’ asked Benny Griessel.

  ‘He put some of his own money in, and said we must put it through as sales.’

  ‘Of alibis?’

  ‘Yes. Fictitious clients.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Just enough to get us into the black. Between thirty and fifty thousand a month, since June, until he . . .’

  ‘And you were unhappy about that?’ asked Griessel.

  ‘Of course I was unhappy about it.’ Coetzee still would not look at him, only at Cupido. ‘It’s not a sensible strategy at all. You can’t keep on inflating the books, even if you use your own money. What we should have done was to let more staff go. But Ernst could not do it. He was such a people pleaser.’

  ‘But why?’ asked Cupido.

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why didn’t he just put his money in as . . . What do you call it . . . ?’

  ‘Investment capital?’

  ‘Yes. Why lie about it?’

  ‘Because the venture capital firms are relentless – if something is not working, they are quick to say fire more people. Those firms invest very big money: twenty, thirty million at a go. This company was small fry to them. In the meetings I got the idea Alibi was almost like a game to them. Their dirty little secret; dabbling in the slightly seedy online dating business. But they made it very clear: nobody was allowed to say they were involved. And get the finances right, or we close you down.’

  ‘Who knew, about the book cooking?’ asked Cupido.

  ‘Just me and Ernst, and the chief financial officer, Vernon Visser. They both knew exactly how I felt about it, but Ernst kept on saying, it’s only temporary, just to see us through, things will look up soon.’

  ‘And did they?’

  ‘Yes, but not enough.’

  ‘Not enough for what?’

  ‘Not enough for the bank. In October the overdraft was still half a million. Which was less than in May, but nowhere near the three hundred thousand in the agreement. Then they gave us until the end of the month.’

  ‘This month?’

  ‘Yes. The thirty-first of December. And I have no idea how we are going to make it.’

  25

  Advocate Susan Peires asked Francois du Toit to stop talking for a moment. ‘I just want to stop the recorder. It’s better if our sound files are not too big.’

  He stood leaning against the bookshelf, and raised his hands in a gesture of apology. ‘I’m sorry. I’m going on a bit . . .’

  He reminded Peires of the doctor who had been courting her six or seven years ago, a divorced general practitioner looking for companionship, a partner to travel with and talk to. His attentions as a middle-aged man were pragmatic rather than romantic. ‘I really love your mind,’ he had said more than once. They went out to dinner two or three times a week, and the doctor would tell stories constantly – long anecdotes, but interesting.

  She enjoyed it, for a few months, until he began to get serious. Then she had to let him know diplomatically that she wasn’t interested. She gave professional reasons, but the truth was that she hungered for love, and passion: intellectual, emotional and sexual attraction. Not just camaraderie. And she had never been the kind of woman to live a compromise – she wasn’t that desperate.

  ‘Don’t apologise. I need to hear everything,’ she said to Du Toit, as she fiddled with the buttons of the recorder.

  She looked up to nod at him to continue. And she saw him, in his grey trousers and white shirt and charcoal tweed jacket, suntanned, with intelligent eyes and large hands, his sensual mouth, from which his story emerged with such burning passion. He wanted so badly for her to understand, and to believe him.

  If she were thirty years younger, and he were single. And not somehow involved in a murder case. He would have stirred her, on all the vital levels.

  He continued with his story, and she had to suppress a smile at herself. Fifty-four years old, and nothing had really changed inside.

  26

  Captain Frank Fillander wiped the rubber gloves on the green mortuary sheet, and stroked the knife wound scar behind his ear with the tips of his fingers, as he sometimes did when he was nervous. He had let go of Ernst Richter’s thumb and called his colleague Mooiwillem Liebenberg.

  Liebenberg was on the way to the offices of Alibi.co.za to help Cupido and Griessel, and first had to call Mrs Bernadette Richter to hear whether her deceased son had been right- or left-handed.

  He got the answer and let Fillander know, who received the news with huge relief.

  He phoned Lithpel Davids: ‘He was left-handed.’

  ‘Well, that explains a lot, Cappie. You know what to do. But be careful.’

  Fillander asked one of the pathologists to clean Richter’s left thumb. And then he went through the ritual once more. He walked around to the left side of Ernst Richter’s corpse. He activated the iPhone’s screen with a faintly trembling hand, and picked up Richter’s left thumb. He knew that the stiffness that rigor mortis caused in the body disappeared about eighteen hours after death. So it was easy to pick up the arm, and to turn the thumb so that it fitted snugly against the sensor.

  He leaned in close for a better view, and brought the phone and the thumb pad together.

  The screen changed, the familiar icons appeared.

  ‘Hallelujah,’ said Captain Frank Fillander.

  ‘I’m assuming that signifies success, Cappie?’

  ‘Damn straight.’

  ‘Keep the phone activated, Ca
ppie. Or cut off that thumb, and bring it along.’

  ‘Jirre, Lithpel . . .’

  Vaughn Cupido did not yet know that he was in love.

  That insight would come later.

  But the chemistry of the process was already in motion. His brain and adrenal glands had already begun excreting dopamine. His heart beat a fraction faster, he began to lightly perspire, his awareness of her was heightened. His subconscious was already measuring Desiree Coetzee – her shape, her beauty, her stance, all the involuntary measurements that evolution had laid down in his synapses. And at the same time, measuring himself against her genetic state. Would a woman like her be interested in a man like him?

  There were positive signs. Just a bit earlier, when Benny Griessel had riled her, the Cape Afrikaans had come through in her accent and word choices. Which meant that she might not be too sophisticated for a Hawks detective from Mitchell’s Plain. And she was focusing almost exclusively on him now, even though she had initially assumed that Benny was the boss of their partnership.

  There was still the vague gnawing question in the back of his mind: why was this sensational person involved in the somewhat tacky Alibi.co.za? And how could he get an answer to that?

  ‘I want to take you into my trust, Miss Coetzee,’ he said.

  ‘Desiree,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  Cupido nodded, hiding his delight. ‘Desiree, I am going to tell you things that no one knows, and I want to ask you to keep it confidential.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  ‘We are still waiting for the post-mortem, but the indications are that Richter lived a week or more after his disappearance.’

  Her eyes widened.

  ‘So there is the possibility of abduction too. It’s possible that someone held him somewhere for over a week. Now I want you to think hard. Who would want to do that?’

  She took a while to digest it all. ‘I have no idea,’ she shrugged, the confusion clear in her voice.

  ‘You don’t have to answer now. Think about it first.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I see in the Stellenbosch report that you received a lot of hate mail. Especially Richter,’ Cupido said.

  ‘Every day,’ she said. ‘And not just mail. Through the call centre too. People phoning.’

  ‘And what do they say?’

  ‘They are mostly religious fanatics. “God will smite you.” We are all going to hell. And Ernst was the face of the company, so they called him by name. But the religious stuff wasn’t that scary. The bad stuff, the death threats, were mostly from men who thought their wives were cheating on them, with our alibis. Those were the ones who said they were going to kill Ernst. In the most graphic and violent ways.’

  ‘Were there some of those who said they would strangle him?’

  ‘Is that how Ernst died?’

  Cupido nodded.

  She shook her head, as if to dispel the image. ‘I don’t see all the messages. But they are untraceable anyway. I told that to the other detectives.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘You can ask our IT people. They look at the stuff. It’s all in the database.’

  ‘I would appreciate it if you would take us to the IT people.’

  She stood up, and they did too. She walked to the door, then halted. ‘I don’t know about the abduction thing. That’s new to me. But when I began to suspect that Ernst was . . . That something had happened, I began to wonder. I didn’t think it was a jealous husband or a religious fanatic. I think it was dagga.’

  ‘We know he was a smoker,’ said Cupido. ‘What did you figure?’

  ‘I knew he smoked, because he offered me some. Twice. But I don’t do drugs. Then I thought, his car was found in the Plankenbrug. If a white ou wants to get dagga in the dorp . . . It’s a logical place that. I think he met his dealer there.’

  Of all the detectives in the Violent Crimes group of the Directorate for Priority Crimes, Lieutenant Vusumuzi ‘Vusi’ Ndabeni was the one who was the least bothered by their commanding officer Major Mbali Kaleni’s insistence on neat attire.

  This was because Vusi’s 5ft 6in frame was permanently kitted out in a dark suit with wide lapels, a snow-white shirt and sober tie, with a matching handkerchief peeping out of the jacket pocket. (The fact that he was inspired by the style of a young Nelson Mandela, he revealed to no one.) He also spent considerable time grooming his Van Dyke-style beard and moustache, which he trimmed back neatly with an electric shaver every morning.

  Not even his Hawks colleagues teased him about his appearance. Ndabeni was very popular, thanks to his even temper, and the fact that everyone knew he lived in a tiny Reconstruction and Development home, one of the RDP houses, in Gugulethu, so that he could send the lion’s share of his paycheque to his mother, who lived in a township outside Knysna.

  This moratorium on mockery did not apply to the SAPS Forensic Laboratory in Plattekloof. Especially not to two members of the PCSI, the Provincial Crime Scene Investigation unit: Arnold, the short fat one, and Jimmy, the tall thin one. Together they were known as Thick and Thin, as in the worn-out old joke that they themselves often told: the PCSI stands by you through Thick and Thin.

  ‘We have some really bad news,’ said Jimmy, and pointed at the roll of black plastic on the table.

  ‘What?’ asked Vusi.

  ‘You’re not going to like it, Vusi,’ said fat Arnold.

  ‘You see this material?’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s plastic.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Just by looking at it?’ asked Arnold, in mock amazement.

  Ndabeni knew their ways. He just smiled pleasantly.

  ‘Ready for the bad news?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re really sorry, but there isn’t enough for a suit.’

  ‘A suit?’

  ‘Yes, you know. For you. I mean, it’s your favourite suit colour.’

  ‘Okay, guys, that’s a good one.’

  ‘We can maybe get a tie out of it . . .’

  ‘Or a hanky.’

  ‘Or both.’

  ‘Thanks, guys.’

  ‘But not a suit . . . Not enough for the lapels.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Vusi.

  ‘We do have a little bit of good news too . . .’ said Jimmy, the skinny one.

  ‘Because we are scientific giants,’ said Arnold.

  ‘And genius detectives.’

  ‘The Eagles, to your Hawks.’

  ‘That’s nice, guys,’ said Vusi.

  ‘See that red string?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s called baling twine. The farmers use it to tie up the bales of hay, to stop them falling apart.’

  ‘Hence the name, baling twine.’

  ‘Elementary, my dear Watson.’

  ‘It’s a plastic compound, it’s probably locally manufactured, it also comes in bright orange, and black. It’s mainly sold by agricultural co-ops.’

  ‘We will be doing spectrophotometry on the string, and the plastic, but already, we’ve made your job a lot easier.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘All you need to do is find a hay farmer, who was cheating on his wife.’

  ‘Or maybe, find the wife.’

  ‘Who needed an alibi.’

  ‘That fell apart.’

  ‘And your case is solved.’

  ‘Please, don’t thank us.’

  ‘It’s part of the service.’

  ‘Just the way we roll.’

  ‘In the hay.’

  ‘But only with our own wives.’

  ‘You guys are very funny,’ said Vusumuzi Ndabeni.

  ‘And clever,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘I am going to Salt River now, to pick up Richter
’s clothing. If you could test that for us too, please.’

  27

  In January 1975, Pa Guillaume went off backpacking in France, said Francois du Toit.

  He organised jobs and accommodation for himself via his university professors’ contacts, and for two years he worked in and around Bordeaux. In the winter, he worked as a waiter in the city, in summer on the wine estates. In harvest season, he picked grapes at Lafite.

  ‘Lafite! Château Lafite Rothschild. The Holy Grail, the most famous estate in the world,’ said Du Toit. ‘Those weren’t their best vintage years, they only had a great wine again in ’82, but that didn’t matter to Pa.’

  The young Guillaume breathed it all in – the culture, the tradition, the pride, the incredibly focused striving of the French to make an extraordinary wine, year after year, one that truly reflected the terroir of the region and the estate.

  ‘It had a massive influence on him, I am sure of that. And I think that was the happiest time of his life.

  ‘He never said so specifically. But that was one of the parallels between us. I also went to Bordeaux, in 2009 and 2010. I so wished I could sit with Pa and talk about those times, if he had experienced it as I did. Because it was a revelation to me, such an incredibly big . . . enriching, enlightening experience. Wine. We had a passion for wine, both of us, and you can’t be a wine fanatic in the Gironde for two years and not enjoy it. It’s the Mecca . . . I know it was for him too. That’s why I think he was happy, back then in Bordeaux.

  ‘I had so many questions for him. I couldn’t wait to get back and share it all with him . . . But I never had the chance . . .’ Du Toit’s voice faltered, and Advocate Peires looked at him with concern in her eyes.

  ‘That was just before . . .’ he said, but failed to complete that sentence too.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. Sorry. It was two years ago that Pa . . . and it still gets me . . .’

  ‘Perhaps it’s time to order tea or coffee. What do you prefer?’