Icarus

by Deon Meyer

  To his great relief Cupido saw Desiree Coetzee crossing the street towards him. She had an athletic stride, and walked with the carefree, unconscious self-confidence of a slender, attractive young woman.

  His gut contracted. Surely this lady was out of his league?

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ she called out as she approached. ‘I was held up.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘But the place is closed.’

  ‘Oh.’ Only slightly caught off balance. ‘Of course. I forgot. Sorry . . .’

  In that moment he seemed to catch a glimpse of the other side, the private Desiree Coetzee when she wasn’t operational manager of Alibi. Softer, a little absent-minded, vulnerable. It melted his heart and gave him a great big dose of courage.

  ‘There must be other coffee shops?’

  ‘Yes. Of course. There, down Church Street . . .’ They walked together in silence, and for the first time Vaughn Cupido wished he wasn’t wearing his flamboyant rebel clothes.

  ‘Do you have children?’ she asked him when they turned the corner and headed towards the early evening bustle of street cafés, people, cars.

  The question was so unexpected that he stammered. ‘I, uh . . . No, I’m not . . .’

  His intention was to tell her he was single, a respectable man. ‘I have never been married.’

  ‘I haven’t either, but I do have a son,’ she said. ‘That’s why I was late.’

  He wanted to bite off his tongue.

  At 19.11 on Twitter

  NoMoreAlibis @NoMoreAlibis

  17 Hours and counting. Alibi.co.za client database on the web. Sample data in 30 minutes. #ErnstRichter #WhoKilledErnst #NoAlibi

  @NoMoreAlibis followers had jumped to 2,467.

  43

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

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

  FdT: Oupa Jean’s will was meant to nail Pa. Pa inherited the farm, but not a red cent with it. There was a life insurance policy and a few investments, not exactly a fortune, and it all went into a family trust. Ouma Hettie had usufruct, a monthly income. And when she died, Pa’s sisters would inherit it all.

  So at forty-two Pa got Klein Zegen, a farm that had been producing fair to poor quality grapes for KWV for half a century – mostly Chenin Blanc and Pinotage. Oom Dietrich Venske joked that the Pinotage that Pa pulled up systematically was so old that it might be Sakkie Perold’s hermitage-pinot-hybrids from 1925. That vineyard was kind of symbolic of everything on the farm: anachronistic. Old and old fashioned. Run-down . . .

  Three months after Oupa Jean’s death we moved to the farm.

  Ouma Hettie wanted to move to town, but Pa talked her out of it. He said he wanted her nearby after all the years of separation. And she was the one who knew the vineyards and the farm accounts the best. She moved to the cottage, about a hundred metres from the homestead. Sixty-four years old, but still young at heart and in her head. She had such a big influence on me . . .

  In any case . . . I was still too small to see it really, but everyone said it was as though Pa had woken up, begun to live – for the first time. He threw himself heart and soul into the farm; he worked from five in the morning to late at night, as though he knew there weren’t many years left to realise the dream that he had for Klein Zegen. For the first time he believed his stars had aligned, because it was 1994, the Year of Democracy. The international wine markets opened up for South Africa, because we were the new, popular, exotic producer and everyone wanted to give our winemakers a chance.

  And Ma stood shoulder to shoulder with Pa. She couldn’t resign from her job as lecturer at the university yet; they were too dependent on the income. But she was behind Pa, with every fibre of her being. Of course from the beginning she said one of their biggest priorities was to look after the labourers. She handled that side. She was counsellor and social worker, nurse and minister, mother hen and magistrate, all in one. She began projects to improve their houses, to make pension plans for them, to create bursaries for their children. And when Pa started to slowly pay off the money he was forced to borrow, she convinced him to give them a share in the farm business.

  They were happy, I think, in the first ten or twelve years.

  And I think of everyone, I was the happiest. I enjoyed the farm the most. It was . . . I don’t have anything to compare it with, it’s all I know, but to me it was a paradise. The whole thing of . . . nature, the soil, the weather – rain and wind, heat and cold – the seasons, everything that worked together to make the wine . . . Pa wasn’t a talker, I think he wanted me and Paul to learn to love wine as he did, through assimilation, experience, by seeing and feeling and smelling, by working and being with the labourers, by growing up between those vines ourselves, pruning and picking . . .

  And I did. But not Paul.

  I just didn’t know how much that upset Pa.

  44

  Griessel fought against the urge to search for booze immediately.

  Jissis, he wasn’t that desperate.

  But Vusi would be there soon. No time to waste.

  He walked past the kitchen. The large stove looked new and unused, gleaming stainless steel. Double door fridge. Expensive coffee machine. Food spatter on the microwave glass door showed that that at least was in use. No dining-room table in the open-plan space. There was a sitting room on the other side. Gigantic flatscreen television, a narrow table under it with a DSTV decoder, a PlayStation 4 and an Xbox 360. Two easy chairs. A wooden cabinet, chunky and modern, against the other wall.

  Liquor cabinet?

  He tore himself away, went to the back. Two bedrooms and one bathroom were also on this level, both rooms unfurnished. He opened built-in cupboards. All he found was a vacuum cleaner.

  He wavered at the foot of the stairs. Vusi would be arriving any moment now.

  He walked quickly back to the cabinet in the sitting room and opened the little door. Wine, whisky, brandy, vodka, liqueurs. Most of the bottles were still sealed, as if Richter had been prepared for a party that never happened. A wide assortment of glasses. A corkscrew and beer bottle opener. Half a packet of salted peanuts.

  He spotted the Jack Daniel’s, half-hidden behind a few bottles of wine: Klein Zegen Fire Opal. He bent down, took out the Jack, and put it on top of the cupboard.

  Have a slug from the bottle, he thought, don’t dirty a glass now.

  He grabbed the bottle by the neck, bent thumb and forefinger around the lid so that he could break the seal, and then he saw himself – for the first time that day he saw his desperation and his weakness, his thirst and his disease. And he remembered how it had been, the darkest years; he remembered the total dependence, the powerlessness, the consuming desire. His head whirled with the excuses of last night – he wanted to bring them back, make them new and strong – but in the moment they failed him. Doc Barkhuizen’s phone calls, Alexa’s SMSes, his children’s disappointment if they knew . . .

  So much emotion, his heart was full, his eyes damp, Lord, did he want to walk that path again, lose everything all over again? Why was he like this? So weak and dependent.

  But you don’t have much to lose, a voice in his head told him.

  Just a sip. Think about all these things later.

  He had to phone Doc now. He took his phone out of his pocket.

  A car door slammed. Vusi was here.

  Hastily he shoved the bottle back in the cabinet, closed the door.

  They sat down at an outside table of the Basic Bistro on Church Street.

  Cupido desperately wanted to break the uncomfortable silence of the last five minutes. And compensate for his slip-up. ‘So, how old is your little boy?’

  ‘Eleven,’ she said.

  A waiter brought them menus. ‘Would you like to eat something?’ h
e asked.

  She gave him a long steady look, as if trying to judge his motives. ‘Are you going to eat?’

  ‘Yes, if you want . . .’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, with a little shake of the head that he couldn’t fathom.

  They studied their menus.

  She put hers down. ‘I was eighteen when I fell pregnant. Here, in my first year at varsity. It was complicated. The father is white – a sort of one-night stand. We were both still kids. Terrified.’ She spoke without embarrassment, in a do-with-it-what-you-will way. ‘Our parents on both sides were furious with us. His because he’d had sex with a coloured girl, mine because they had to sacrifice so much to get me into university. Opportunities squandered, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Where do you come from?’

  ‘Robertson. Small-town girl. You?’

  ‘Mitchells Plain.’

  She nodded, as if that explained something to her, and Cupido burned to ask what that might be.

  The waiter took their order. Cupido said: ‘I may have to take a few calls . . .’

  ‘That’s okay, it’s not a date.’ He wasn’t good at hiding his feelings. She saw the discomfort written on his face and added, ‘I know you’re working.’

  He wanted to ask her how she had ended up at Alibi, a girl like her; if she had a boyfriend. But he knew that would betray him.

  ‘Did you hear someone wants to put your client database on the internet?’

  ‘Yes. It’s going to destroy us. If it happens.’

  ‘But this morning you said you were doomed in any case, because of the overdraft.’

  She picked up a fork, twirled it in her fingers. ‘You want to know something weird? When Ernst went missing, with all the media coverage, our registration stats rose by 32 per cent. There’s no such thing as bad publicity. Die een se dood is die ander se brood. One door closes, another one opens, don’t they say? It’s sad, I know, but that’s how the world works. And today again. I check the stats every day before I leave. There was a big spike this morning: new registrations. But this thing about the database, it’s going to scare people off. Even if it is just a scam.’

  ‘You think it’s a scam?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Who would want to do this? And who can? Any suspects?’

  ‘Too many. All the IT people who were downsized . . .’

  ‘What about Rick Grobler?’

  She considered the idea with downcast eyes, lips pressed together. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why would he do that? What’s to gain?’

  ‘He’s one angry ou . . .’

  ‘He was very angry about the money, but the data . . . that’s his baby. He’s old school. Data security is holy. He takes great pride in his work . . . And . . . I think he likes me, to be honest. Sort of a schoolboy crush . . .’

  She knows she’s beautiful, thought Cupido. And it’s not a bad thing. He himself was a great believer in having a healthy self-image.

  ‘So you know about the money that Richter borrowed from him?’

  ‘Rick came and told me when Ernst missed the first payment. Me and Vernon Visser.’

  ‘Vernon Visser?’

  ‘The chief financial officer.’

  ‘Oh, ja.’

  ‘We went to talk to Ernst. We were very worried. But Ernst said it’s all okay, just wait until the VC partners have had a look at the books.’

  ‘And the email about how Grobler is going to strangle Richter?’

  ‘I didn’t see that. Is that why Rick is a suspect now? Because of an email?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Again the thoughtfully compressed lips. ‘I don’t think . . . No, it wasn’t him. Rick . . . He’s a lamb.’

  ‘A lamb doesn’t write that kind of email. There’s a lot of violence in it, and lots of anger.’

  ‘Genuine?’ With real surprise.

  He nodded.

  She processed that. ‘But you’re not sure it’s him.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because you’re here, and you’re not just asking about Rick.’

  She was a clever woman, he thought. ‘How many people can get at the database? To put it on the internet?’

  ‘The data is very secure from outside hacking. But inside the firewall . . . All the techies, basically. They have to have access to do their work.’

  ‘And you think it’s someone who was fired?’

  Again the shrug, that it’s-not-my-problem air.

  ‘You don’t care?’

  ‘I care, about everyone who works there. But the ship has been sinking for a while, and when Ernst disappeared . . . I just don’t see a future without him. The VC companies are embarrassed about us already, and if the truth about the finances comes out, if the bank recalls the overdraft . . . It’s just a matter of time . . .’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I’ve had my CV out for a few weeks now already . . .’

  They sat a while in silence.

  ‘My colleague believes you haven’t told us everything,’ said Cupido, knowing he had to broach the uncomfortable subject some time or other.

  ‘The one who looks like a Russian politician, with manners to match?’

  Cupido smiled. No one had ever described Griessel quite like that. ‘One and the same. But he’s not always like that; he’s been through a tough time this week.’

  She pulled up her shoulders. ‘I’ve answered all your questions.’

  ‘What else should I have asked?’

  Desiree Coetzee put down the fork and looked at Cupido with those dark eyes, for a long time. Just when she was about to speak, the gourmet burgers arrived.

  On Twitter, at 19.32:

  NoMoreAlibis @NoMoreAlibis

  Alibi client: Userid: DoubleB. Paid by Basil Simphiwe Bhanga. FNB:

  62366255282. Nine alibis. #ErnstRichter #WhoKilledErnst #NoAlibi

  There were now more than four thousand followers. But only four of them – all journalists – were sufficiently well informed to wonder whether this Basil Simphiwe Bhanga was Basil Simphiwe Bhanga, Member of Parliament for the African National Congress.

  Just before eight that night Fillander called the number he had for Sarah Woodruff, the older woman that Richter had seen three times for a lunch hour njaps.

  It rang for a relatively long time before the ‘Hello?’

  A young voice? ‘Who’s speaking?’asked Fillander.

  ‘It’s Soretha,’ with an uncertain questioning tone, making Fillander suspect it was a child. He could hear the sound of a television in the background.

  ‘Is this your phone, Soretha?’

  ‘No, it’s my mother’s, she’s in the toi . . . in the bathroom.’

  ‘Can I speak to her?’

  ‘Just hold on . . .’ He heard her call. ‘Mamma! Telephone . . .’

  Fillander heard a man’s voice, impatient: ‘Who’s looking for her?’

  ‘I don’t know, Pappa . . .’

  He had a strong suspicion about what was going on here. Sarah Woodruff was a married woman. He tried to think of some excuse, a white lie to protect her, but the day had been too long already, so he just said: ‘Never mind, I think this is the wrong number,’ and cut the call.

  He would try again tomorrow morning.

  He phoned Cupido to hear where else he could help now.

  45

  Francois du Toit had come into her office an extremely tense man, but the talking had gradually calmed him down. Now, when he reached his own part in the story, when he spoke about his own brother, Advocate Susan Peires saw the tension returning. As if he was in the final straight and racing towards a conclusion.

  She had to make more and more of an effort to concentrate, because her blood sugar was drop
ping. It was an hour after lunch time. She waited for a pause from him and then said she was accustomed to routine and so was her metabolism, would he mind if she ordered something to eat. There was a sandwich service; what did he like?

  She saw his return to reality, how the focus in his eyes shifted, and the frown of his concentration turned to one of discomfort and apology. He was so sorry, he said. The time, he had lost track, yes, of course, of course, go ahead.

  She smiled and waved his apology away. It was nothing, she understood, and asked what he liked.

  Anything.

  She knew in his embarrassment he would try to choose whatever was the least trouble, and she didn’t want to delay longer than was necessary. She suggested the chicken and bacon, and he said, yes, thanks. Wholegrain? Yes, fine. Tea? Cold drink?

  Tea, please.

  She rang her secretary, placed the order, and asked him to please, continue.

  ‘My brother . . .’ he said, and paused for a long time, picking up the thread of his story again.

  So it was the brother, she thought, her latest guess at who had murdered Richter – the brother Paul, who had inherited Oupa Jean’s violent genes.

  46

  Late that night they sat outside Richter’s house.

  Benny Griessel looked up, at the mountain’s dark jagged outline etched against the starlight and the paper-thin crescent moon that drifted ominously above the peak. Then down, at his four colleagues. He sat with Vusi and Liebenberg on the garden wall, Cupido leaning against the engine bonnet of the Hawks’ BMW. Fillander sat cross-legged on the paving stones. Each of them busy with a can of Coke and a sandwich that Mooiwillem had bought at the Woolies food kiosk at the Engen filling station down the road. They were hungry and thirsty, and cheerful, despite the fact that the search of the house had produced nothing. The conversation darted back and forth, from speculation about the case to general banter and good-natured teasing.

  Griessel was still emotional, an unwelcome cloak that he could not shrug off. Part exhaustion, part alcohol withdrawal. Doc Barkhuizen had explained all these things well enough to him, so he knew that the alcohol was messing with the chemistry of his brain. Insuperable and real, these effects were active now, exaggerating emotions, like his sense of incredible gratitude that he could be there among them – his comrades in arms, his friends, the people who accepted him without judgement. And the bond between them, forged by the mutual experience of the dark side of this community: Members of the Service, forming that oh-so-thin line, the fragile barrier between the devil and the deep blue sea, a solitary – now even rejected – group. A band of outcasts, they truly only had each other.