by Deon Meyer
FdT: Because I was one year younger than Paul, it was like I saw him from a distance . . .
When I got to the high school, no one would believe I was his brother. He was just so much more . . . I was never jealous of his rugby talent. I admired him for it. But I was jealous of his . . . He had a way with people, even after things began to unravel. They . . . You couldn’t help liking Paul, and you wanted him to like you. He was so extraordinarily handsome, like a figure from a Michelangelo painting . . . And he was a real livewire, always on the go, not still for a minute; he was always taking the lead, tackling something. And he was so incredibly charming. If he noticed that someone didn’t like him, he would set out to . . . Later I realised he was a master manipulator, but in those days, when I was in Grades Eight and Nine, I just thought it was phenomenal. It was so cool to be his brother. When I went to Paul Roos in Grade Eight all the seniors came over to take a look at me, to see this second-rate Du Toit boy. There was a sort of fascination and . . . a relief, I think, that the blinding lightning that was Paul hadn’t struck twice in the same family. It was fair, it made sense; it chimed with their understanding of the balance in the universe . . .
The only thing about Paul that . . . I felt guilty about it, in a way I knew it didn’t help to feel like this, but when he told people he was going to be a wine farmer one day, that he was going to inherit Klein Zegen . . . and he said that a lot, to anyone who would listen. It sat here in my chest, an unease, a feeling that it wasn’t right, because he wasn’t interested. He didn’t love the farm and the vineyards and wine like I did. Why should he get everything? Why couldn’t he just get the sporting prowess and the personality? Why must he get the farm as well?
But somehow I learned to cope with it, learned to make peace with it.
The business with the teacher . . . Actually I knew very little about that. You can imagine, the school and my parents kept it hushed up. The first time that I was really shocked, when I realised he had a big screw loose, was in the Christmas holidays that same year. He had finished Grade Ten, he had played his first match for the first team. Remember, he was only sixteen, it was in the newspaper, Eikestad News . . .
In any case, that holiday . . . My father’s new wine cellar was almost finished. I took great pleasure in it, sitting there in the cool darkness, looking around me at everything, smelling the smells, thinking of the wine we would make. Anyway, I came out of the cellar one afternoon in the middle of December . . . Behind the cellar there were heaps of sand and stone and bricks that hadn’t been cleared away, and I heard someone crying softly. When I went round to see who it was, I found Paul, with two of the labourers’ children. Abie, he was about nine, and his sister Miranda, about fourteen. And . . . Paul was busy . . . We don’t need to go into detail, Paul was busy forcing them to . . . with each other. They both stood there naked, those skinny bodies. It was Miranda who was crying and pleading. It made me . . . Little Abie’s nose was bleeding. I think Paul must have hit him or something. It was a huge shock, and it was Paul who scared me the most. Before they saw me . . . there was this look on his face, this expression, it frightened me. I can’t describe it, I just knew it was . . . sick. That was the first time that I knew there was something seriously wrong with him.
When he saw me, he wasn’t even startled, I remembered that later . . . He just began lying, so glibly, said he found them there like that, they were hotnots who do dirty things, but Miranda said through her sobs that it wasn’t so and, please, I must help them.
Then Paul swore and told them to fokkof, take their clothes and just fokkof, and then he began to threaten me. He said if I said a word, he would tell Ma and Pa that I did this and that – wild, horrible things. I didn’t know what . . . I had never seen him this way before . . . He reminded me of a cornered dog, his lips drawn back, threatening, growling at me . . . I said nothing, I was so totally dumbstruck and disappointed. Paul was my absolute hero . . . and in an instant he was . . . He laughed, and asked if I had seen the expression on Miranda’s face. Then he changed back into his usual charming self.
For two days I walked around with this weighing on me. Then Pa sent me to call one of the labourers. I came across Miranda, at the stream, she just sat there staring and crying. When she saw me, she ran away. Then I knew she thought I was like that too. It was . . . It probably says something about me, my psychology, but I didn’t want her to think I was also like that. So I went to talk to my mother. I don’t know why I didn’t talk to Pa. But today I know it was better that I talked to Ma first.
52
Friday 19 December. Six days before Christmas.
Captain John Cloete was the first in the office, just after 06.30. He made himself a cup of instant coffee and sat down at his desk, with the Tupperware tub full of rusks that his wife packed in for him every morning. He put the day’s papers down in a stack on his right and picked up the first one.
The Son headline screamed across a two-page spread: ERNST ABDUCTED. And below that: Did vigilantes torture Richter for names?
Cloete reached for his pack of cigarettes and lit one while he read. Every now and then he dipped the rusk in the coffee.
The story began, as he had expected, with the ‘exclusive exposé that a source close to the investigation’ said Richter’s body was in too good a condition for the length of time since his disappearance. It was possible that he had been kept captive for a week or longer before being murdered (‘The Hawks spokesman did not deny it.’) – perhaps so the code words for the Alibi database could be obtained. And then the article began to speculate that @NoMoreAlibis was not just one person, but a group of religious extremists, who might be behind the abduction and murder. The newspaper quoted a Facebook comment, more than a year old, which was posted on Richter’s timeline: ‘We will fight you in the Name of the Lord. We will expose you and all the sinners who flock to your website. Your day will come soon.’ The name of the author(s) was simply ‘Revelations’.
Reports about the exposed alibi customers – TV news reader, the ANC Member of Parliament and the soapie actor – featured on page three.
The Hawks liaison officer sighed deeply, put the Son aside and pulled Die Burger closer. The main article was about the former Afrikaans soap star who in a statement, released by his agent, asked the country and his wife for forgiveness for his ‘mistake’, which had been short-lived and ‘foolish’. The Member of Parliament’s reaction to the exposure was also quoted: ‘This is the latest attempt by the opposition party to blacken the name of the government.’ A Democratic Alliance spokesperson said this statement was far-fetched and the ANC member’s unfaithfulness was just another sign of the party’s moral decline.
ALIBI MURDER: EMPLOYEE IS A SUSPECT was the Cape Times’s headline, above a photo of Vaughn Cupido and Benny Griessel arriving at the offices in Stellenbosch. Cloete guessed that the source of the information was a member of the police station at Stellenbosch, because the report mentioned that the car of an Alibi employee was there being investigated by Forensics.
He was still reading the rest of the story when his cellphone began to ring. He knew it would be journalists testing the media’s rival theories.
He drank the last of his coffee before answering.
It was going to be a long day.
The ‘source close to the investigation’ who had been quoted by the Son, was Detective Adjutant Jamie Keyter.
Just after seven he sat, with four other detectives of the SAPS in Table View, looking through the newspapers with a degree of satisfaction that ‘his’ story had made the front page. He eyed the photograph on the front page of the Cape Times with envy, the two Hawks crossing the street with such purpose. This had been his case. His photo should have been on the front page.
He recalled how Cupido had scolded him at the mortuary over his handling of Ernst Richter’s mother. That windgat Captain thought he was the kat se gat, the bee’s knees.
Then he spo
tted the mark on the cheek of the other detective, Benny Griessel.
He knew Griessel, had worked with him a few years ago on the Artemis murders. He didn’t remember him having a birthmark.
And then he recalled the conversation Cupido had had over his cellphone, there in Salt River. He couldn’t catch all of it. ‘Jissis, Arrie, baie dankie. Just keep him there, just don’t book him, please. He’s had a very bad day. I’m on my way, give me ten.’ And: ‘Assault? Benny?’
Benny Griessel, the legendary detective and alcoholic – everyone in the Cape police knew about him, and his drinking habits.
Keyter studied the photo. It was a bruise. Assault? Had Griessel been involved in an assault?
If he had been drunk again, the chances were good.
And ‘Arrie’. You didn’t have to be a mastermind to work out that ‘Arrie’ was a policeman, because Cupido had said ‘just don’t book him’. ‘I’m on my way, give me ten’ meant Arrie was at a station reasonably close to the Salt River morgue. Could it be Colonel Arrie September, station commander of Cape Town Central?
Yes, a very good chance.
Griessel was unaware of the mark on his cheek that had begun to take on a purple shade this morning, though the slight swelling had subsided. He stopped in the basement parking garage of the Directorate of Priority Crimes Investigation building in Bellville, his thoughts on the uneasiness at home this morning. He could see Alexa was unhappy. He knew why. And there was nothing he could do to make it better. She smiled a small, tight, brave smile, and hugged him often, tentative little gestures that he couldn’t quite read.
He still suspected it was a strategy, born out of discussions between her and Doc Barkhuizen.
He knew he had to phone Doc. He didn’t want to. What was the point? He knew exactly what Doc would say to him, and he knew he wasn’t going to listen.
His drinking agenda was drawn up for the day. He had to get Fisherman’s Friend for his breath, and a bottle for his car. Then he would be okay.
He got out of the car. The dull pain from the gunshot wound to his arm had come back. How long before that left his body and his mind? It had been six months since the day he and Colonel Zola Nyathi were attacked on the N1 highway. He survived. Nyathi died.
From the far side of the parking garage he could hear Vaughn’s voice calling him.
Cupido walked over to him. He greeted him and said: ‘Benna, I want to apologise for last night. I thought, I have no right. I don’t have children, I don’t know what it’s like. I was out of line. So I’m saying sorry, Benna.’ He put out his hand.
Griessel took it, surprised, because Vaughn Cupido wasn’t known as a man who said sorry. And he had a good look at his colleague, saw the seriousness, and something else – was it the shoulders, the eyes, the determination around the mouth? Then he noticed the clothes. This morning Cupido fulfilled Mbali’s requirements, dressed up in black trousers and jacket, light blue shirt and black leather shoes. But that wasn’t all. There was an attitude, an air of something different. A calmness, a . . . it was as though Cupido had . . . grown up in the course of one day. Those were the words that came to mind. As if he was embracing the responsibility of JOC, as if it sat easily on him now. And he felt a pride and a loss; he hoped the mischievous Vaughn, the free spirit, the rebel, was not gone for good. And he felt a measure of shame, because Cupido was moving forward and he had slid back.
‘I’m going back to the shrink when this thing is over,’ he said quietly, reluctantly. He had wanted to do it on the quiet, because he didn’t want Cupido to see the effect that last night’s lecture had had on him.
Cupido put his arm around Griessel’s shoulders. ‘That’s great, Benna.’
Then both of them felt awkward, and they walked side by side to the entrance.
Cupido’s phone rang. He answered, listened, then said: ‘What sort of statement?’
‘Just had a call from a big-firm lawyer,’ said Cupido to the meeting. ‘He says he has a client who wants to make a statement to us. The client is the regional manager of Premier Bank. He was using the Alibi services, and he says Ernst Richter tried to blackmail him into providing a big overdraft for the company.’
‘Well, well, everything’s coming out of the woodwork now,’ said Frank Fillander.
‘When?’ asked Mbali Kaleni.
‘He didn’t say. He asked if we could come through for a meeting, so I said he’d better get himself and his client over here – we’re in the middle of an investigation, in case he hadn’t noticed. But the big question is, how many people did Richter blackmail?’
‘And how do we find them,’ said Vusi Ndabeni.
‘That’s why we need Bones,’ said Cupido. ‘Urgently.’
‘Bones might be testifying this morning, I’m still waiting to hear from his commander. But he will be available this afternoon.’
‘Thank you, Major. Uncle Frankie will be looking at the jealous husband angle, and we’re waiting for the forensics on Grobler’s car, and the cellular spider web from IMC. That’s about all we have, until Bones starts looking at the financials. I’m also taking Lithpel to Alibi this morning, to look at the database and stuff.’
Kaleni nodded her approval. ‘Anything else?’
‘Forensics called,’ said Ndabeni. ‘They analysed Richter’s clothing last night. They say they’ve found something.’
Everyone looked at him.
‘The clothes – the jeans and the T-shirt – show residue of . . .’ Vusi consulted an exam pad on which he had written some notes, ‘Triazole. The same fungicide that’s on the plastic. They also found dirt in the back pockets of his jeans, but nothing in the front pockets. They say the dirt is inconsistent with the Blouberg sand, and there are also traces of the same dirt on the back of his T-shirt. Their theory is that the body was dragged through this dirt, on his back, before it was wrapped in the plastic, so it might come from the scene of the crime.’
‘Okay,’ said Cupido hopefully.
‘They’re still analysing the pocket dirt, but the interesting thing is, they’ve found an unusually high number of flower petals and thin twigs of a zigzag shape in the pocket dirt. The petals and the twigs are from a jacaranda tree. They think that’s a pretty good indication that the murder scene was under, or very near, a jacaranda.’
‘That’s not going to help much,’ said Mooiwillem Liebenberg. ‘Do you know how many jacarandas there are in Stellenbosch? Hundreds.’
Vusi wouldn’t let himself be put off stride. ‘I know. I got hold of the director of the Botanical Gardens in Stellenbosch about fifteen minutes ago. He says there are probably around a hundred to two hundred jacaranda trees in Stellenbosch, and they are all of the Blue Jacaranda species, or Jacaranda mimosifolia. These jacarandas flower in November and early December, which is consistent with Richter’s time of death. Now, Forensics say the fungicide and the plastic indicate fruit or vegetable farming, so I asked the guy from the Botanical Gardens about jacaranda trees on the farms around Stellenbosch. And he told me a pretty interesting thing. He said most of those wine estates are very eco-aware, because they are competing on the international market, where these things count. Jacaranda trees are originally from South America, and the government has listed the jacaranda as an invasive species. So the wine farmers have been pulling out a lot of jacarandas. There aren’t many of them left on the farms . . .’
53
December of 2002 was the beginning of nine years of hell for Helena du Toit.
That was the month that her greatest fear was realised: her firstborn son was very sick. After the incident with the teacher she had kept hoping that Paul’s social personality disorder wasn’t so extreme. The psychologists told her there were psychopaths who functioned in the community, whose symptoms were less destructive, with the right supervision they could lead a relatively harmless life.
But the incident with the
labourer’s children struck that hope a fatal blow.
Initially she said nothing to her husband. First she arranged counselling for little Abie and Miranda and personally went to apologise to their parents. Then, in her characteristic intense way she consulted the experts, and studied the literature herself until she was absolutely certain, convinced that no therapy or medication would make a difference. Psychopaths were incurable.
For a long time she fretted over how to handle it all. After seven years of blood, sweat and tears, Guillaume was set to make Klein Zegen’s first high-quality wine of its own. He was burdened by substantial and worrying debt. The establishment of new vineyards of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc was a long and expensive process; the new cellar had cost much more than they had expected.
The next three to five years were crucial for their future. The wine had to be made, bottled, marketed and distributed, locally and internationally. Guillaume had his hands very full; she would have to take responsibility for her son’s condition.
Only in early January 2003, when she had a plan of action, did she sit down with her husband and break the news to him. They wept together, and then she told him what she was going to do. Afterwards they explained the situation together to their younger son, Francois. Eventually she asked Paul to join them.
You can’t help it that you are like this, she said to her elder son. Your brain is simply wired differently; you can’t feel remorse, or empathy. They say it’s a birth defect and you will always be like this. We love you, even though you will never understand what that means. But you are a danger to everyone. You are capable of very evil things, and it is our duty as parents to do everything in our power to keep you from this. Psychopaths don’t respond to punishment, but there is one form of treatment that yields positive results: reward. So from today you are forbidden everything. Everything. But every week that you do no one any harm, we will reward you: with the right to play rugby; with the right to go to school; with the right to be part of this farm and this family.