by Deon Meyer
Cupido was silent for a long time before he spoke. ‘That’s great, Benna, but we’ve got another little problem. Major Mbali has just phoned me. Trouble is, the Son has just phoned Cloete and asked if you were involved in an assault Wednesday night. So Cloete said, of course not, you were on the Richter case. So the guy from the Son asks, then where does the bruise on your cheek come from? ’Cause why he heard a little birdy singing . . .’
Griessel said nothing; he just touched the tender spot of the bruise as he walked out the door of IMC and headed for his office.
‘Benna, are you there?’
‘Yes.’
‘So Cloete said we don’t comment on that sort of personal stuff, and he went to see Mbali, and Mbali called me. To make sure we were together that night.’
Benny could see Mbali Kaleni, down the passage, at the door of his office. ‘Fok,’ he said involuntarily and came to a stop.
‘My sentiments too, Benna. You keep to the story. The Fireman’s swore they wouldn’t say anything, but now I want to know, the ou that you panel beat . . .’
‘I didn’t panel beat him.’
‘Okay. But what are the chances that he’s going to come out of the woodwork?’
‘I don’t know. And Mbali is waiting outside my office for me.’
‘Stick to the story, Benna.’
‘I will.’
‘Okay. So, how do we know that Richter had another phone?’
His relationship with Major Mbali Kaleni was an odd one. Griessel had been her mentor back when he was still with the provincial detective branch and she was an inspector at Bellville SAPS. Just after he had stopped drinking. She only knew him sober and on the wagon, although she must have been told about his old drinking problem.
Then she had been shot during the kidnapping of a young American tourist, three years ago now, and he had been first on the scene. Afterwards she swore Griessel had saved her life.
From then on, in her eyes he could do no wrong. It made him uncomfortable, because he had a history of letting people down. But still, he liked the respect, and the relationship they had, because he admired her. She was everything that a SAPS member should be. Intelligent, principled, fair. Despite her somewhat quirky personality, and her obsession with food, she had risen in the almost exclusively male world of the Unit for Serious and Violent Crimes – no easy feat. And he liked her. Behind the sometimes clumsy and outspoken person he’d caught glimpses of a brittleness, an insecurity at times.
He didn’t want her to find out what a weakling he really was.
‘Hi, Benny,’ she said and he could see it was hard for her.
‘Major,’ he greeted her in return.
‘Can we talk in your office?’
‘Of course.’
He allowed her to enter first, careful to keep his distance, because the peppermints were only effective up to a point. He wanted to close the door, but realised that would seem unnatural.
‘Benny, I’ve just heard that there are malicious rumours about how you got that bruise. The media is out to get us again, but I want you to know I will not tolerate it. Our job is difficult enough.’
At her words, the truth pressed hard against his chest. He wanted to tell her everything, because if this cat got out the bag any other way, the damage to her and their relationship would be much greater. The only thing that stopped him was that telling her now would implicate Cupido too.
‘What kind of rumours?’ he asked and could hear the guilt in his tone.
‘Stupid rumours; you don’t have to worry about it. I just wanted to tell you.’
‘Thank you, Major.’ He saw her weariness, the weight she had lost. Was it just the diet, or was her job taking its toll?
‘You’re welcome . . .’ She moved towards the door and he stood back, so that, please God, she wouldn’t smell him.
‘I think Richter had another cellphone,’ he said to fill the silence, to change the subject.
‘Oh?’
‘I . . .’ Now he was sorry he’d said it, because now he would have to explain, then she would praise him, which wouldn’t feel right at all. ‘Willem and I, we had his number checked against the bank’s regional manager, the guy he wanted to blackmail. Richter didn’t call from his regular cell number. So there might be another one . . .’
‘That’s great, Benny. It just might be . . . If anybody can crack this case, it’s you.’
Cupido sat with Bones Boshigo, who was busy on his laptop trying to sort Richter’s account statements, sent as electronic CSV files by the banks, into Excel. ‘This is not the Stone Age, nè, Cupido,’ he’d said. ‘Doing it by hand will take a week.’
‘And doing it this way?’
‘A day or two.’
He didn’t have ‘a day or two’, but what could you do? Now he sat staring through the glass of Desiree Coetzee’s office at the Alibi staff down on the ground floor.
And there was Desiree, coming through the front door, wearing a white summer dress. She looked beautiful; Cupido’s pulse quickened. She walked up to some of the employees, chatting here, lingering there. She had a way of moving her delicate hands – small, precise movements that captivated him.
There was reserve about her though, and as she approached the stairs, closer to him, he could see her facial expression: the smile was taut and forced.
She wasn’t bringing good news back to her staff.
At the foot of the stairs he saw her suddenly stop and turn her head to the left. Someone had called her. He followed the direction of her gaze. Tricky Rick Grobler was approaching.
Cupido had not known the programmer was at the office today.
Grobler looked stressed, his expression intense. Just before he reached Coetzee he glanced furtively up to where Cupido was sitting, then quickly looked away again. He said something to Desiree. She made a soothing gesture with her hand.
Grobler spoke animatedly.
Desiree nodded. She put a hand on Grobler’s shoulder, comforting, calming. He looked at her gratefully, and Cupido could see there was a certain dynamic. He felt jealousy surge up in him and he knew it was the wrong time for that. He couldn’t allow it to show, professionally or personally.
Desiree Coetzee spoke and Grobler nodded, nodded again, She touched Grobler again on the shoulder, as if encouraging him. Then she turned, walked up the stairs and saw Cupido. She looked him right in the eyes, but he could read nothing in her expression.
He opened the door for her.
‘They are going to close us down,’ were her first words. Her shoulders slumped and she fought back the tears.
He wanted to reach out and comfort her, despite what he had just seen. She must have sensed the wish, because she squared her shoulders again and moved quickly around him to her desk. ‘I’m getting everyone in – the night shift, everyone. I have to let them know . . .’
Bones looked up, took her in. Cupido knew he had an eye for a pretty woman. But he mustn’t start with his tricks now, Desiree was very fragile.
He introduced Boshigo formally, adding, ‘Bones is here to look at the books.’
She greeted him and sat down heavily, as if a great weight pressed her down into the chair. ‘Vernon, the financial manager, will be here in a few minutes . . .’
‘When do you have to close?’ asked Cupido.
‘It will take a month or two. There are a lot of legal implications. But they want us offline before Christmas.’
‘Sorry,’ he said.
She didn’t respond, just brushed her hair out of her face.
‘I see Rick Grobler is here,’ said Cupido.
‘Yes. He wants to get whoever leaked the database . . . He wants to find out who did it, who NoMoreAlibis is.’
‘And how exactly is he going to do that?’
‘Rick is clever with that kind of stuff
. He said he’s already started; he’s going to follow the guy’s digital footprints.’
‘To do what with?’
‘To clear his name with you,’ she said, as if it was just all too much. ‘He said he’s done his research. It’s a criminal act. Digital theft. And why aren’t you lot more worried about it?’
61
He told her that his Ouma died in his final year at school. He said she was barely seventy-five, but you can only bear so much trouble in one lifetime. He often wondered how much she regretted that night when she danced with Oupa Jean for the first time. Her life could have been so different.
But let him move on, because the next seven years were relatively unremarkable, with Paul in jail.
He, Francois du Toit, completed his school education and began to study Viticulture.
His father, his poor father, saw his dream of making fine wines slowly swallowed up in the debts owed to the legal team that defended Paul.
He sold more and more of his new vineyards’ harvest to Oom Dietrich Venske, the old colleague from KWV, who bought the neighbouring Blue Valley Estate in 1994.
Oom Dietrich said Pa was never the same again. It was as if he’d been emptied out. He was doing only the basics, while Venske’s wines fared better and better, finding success first locally and then gradually internationally. It was proof to Francois that this valley, this soil, could produce wonderful wines.
He tried to talk to his father, in his final year at school and during his university studies, partly because he was deeply concerned about Guillaume – who sank deeply, ever more profoundly, into silence and depression – partly because of the farm. And because he wanted to know whether his father would allow him to take over. One day when he was ready, of course.
There was no reaction to speak of. All he got, once, was ‘We will see.’
His mother Helena said ‘Give him time.’
So after his studies he went to France. For three years. To get away from everything. To begin his own life somehow. To wait for news. He worked in the Gironde, he picked grapes and pressed them, swept out cellars and drove tractors, carried crates, waited on tables and worked in a butchery in Bordeaux. He stole with his eyes from the famous and less famous wine estates, asked for advice, always eager to learn. He kept his dream alive. His father’s dream really, which he wanted to bring to fruition.
It was at that butchery in Bordeaux that he met Susanne Taljaard, simply called ‘San’ by friends and family.
Francois was busy cutting up a pig carcass at the back. The owner, Bernard Gaudin, fetched him to act as translator, because Bernard’s English was poor, and there was someone at the counter who spoke only stilted French and was asking important questions.
He put down the knife, wiped his hands on his apron and went with Gaudin to the front. She was standing there. A tall girl, her eyes large and green, her blonde hair cut short, her mouth so luscious and full.
‘Do you speak English?’ she asked plaintively, and he heard her strong accent.
‘I can do better than that,’ he said in Afrikaans, surprising her with the language, enjoying surpassing her expectations..
‘Ek soen jou sommer!’ she said joyfully, but refrained from actually kissing him. But her smile rose like the sun, and he smiled back, basking in the glow of pleasure.
She had come to ask for the recipe for gratton de Lormont, she said. Bernard was famous for this genuine Bordelaise pork terrine, made to a traditional recipe, and grenier médocain, the local sausage, definitely the most delicious in the world – all of this spoken with the sound of Pretoria in her mouth.
‘I’ll have to tell him why you want it.’
‘Because I want to make it and serve it in my restaurant.’
San, the chef. She had completed her studies the previous year and was on a culinary tour of Europe, with big dreams of opening her own, intimate little restaurant in the Cape.
‘If you’ll have dinner with me tonight, I’ll ask him.’
‘Cool,’ she laughed.
She’d only meant to stay in Bordeaux for two weeks. Fourteen months later she went back home with him.
The call came on the second of January, from his mother, Helena.
He and San were in Pau, in the South of France. She was searching for the ‘recipe for the world’s best foie gras’ made by two brothers in the Pyrenees, a heavenly pâté that melted in the mouth.
‘Pa’s dead, Francois, Pa’s dead.’ That was all she could manage to get out before she broke down and had to pass the phone to Dietrich Venske.
Their neighbour, his voice heavy and sombre, told him Guillaume and Paul were both dead. He must come home right away.
62
The Hawks’ Friday dragged on in seemingly endless tedium.
It was dull even for Captain John Cloete, because the media attention was on the published Alibi database, a goldmine that kept the journalists digging for ore, which they could refine into juicy stories for pages one and three.
Benny Griessel had to drive to the city so that the regional manager from Premier Bank could sign documents for a subpoena according to Article 205 of the Criminal Procedures Act. Then IMC could obtain his cellphone records and find out which number had been used to call him on the eighth of May.
It gave Griessel the opportunity to down another two mini-bottles of Jack. He drove the Hawks vehicle, so he made sure his hand hid the bottles while he swallowed first the one and then the other at two different traffic lights.
He wondered why his drinking pressed so uncomfortably on him this time. When he was drinking before, now more than six hundred and four days ago, it hadn’t bothered him. And in those days he had a wife, a marriage, a family. Sort of – because when you drank, none of these things were really functional. And neither were you.
But nobody expected anything of him then. Anna, his ex, didn’t expect him to be a model husband. His children did not expect their boozer dad to be a father figure, and to his colleagues he was simply the drunken passenger of the Detective Branch – Dronkgat Benny: a tragic case (because the same could happen to any of them), but at least a reliable source of tragicomic amusement.
It was his ex-colleague Mat Joubert, now a private detective in Pinelands, who got him on the wagon. And General John Afrika, then Provincial Commissioner, who believed in him. And Musad Manie and the late Zola Nyathi and Vaughn Cupido and Mbali Kaleni, the whole Hawks team, who had given him a second chance at life, and now he was busy pissing it all down his throat. It was because they had expectations of him, that was why he felt so uncomfortable.
He hadn’t asked for it. He hadn’t asked for their trust and friendship and expectations. He couldn’t help it if they were going to be disappointed. That was their problem.
He thought all of this with the warm glow of alcohol soothing him, and the taste of Fisherman’s Friend settling like metal in his mouth.
But he couldn’t shake off the unease.
Vusi Ndabeni postponed his other responsibilities as long as possible, because he didn’t want confrontation.
When the team from Forensics was completely finished with Rick Grobler’s car, he knocked on the door of the station commander at Stellenbosch SAPD.
He introduced himself and said: ‘I’m here about the lost laptop, sir.’
The SC frowned deeply. ‘It is a very big embarrassment, Captain. I run a tight ship. This sort of thing does not happen here.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ve had my people turn the station upside down. I’ve had a look at the evidence registry myself. But it’s gone. Disappeared into thin air. For which I unconditionally apologise. I will call Brigadier Manie before the end of the day and apologise to him too.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Ndabeni, because there was nothing else he could say.
Vernon Visser, the financial director of th
e dying Alibi.co.za was a coloured man with a short, soft body and a goatee to disguise his double chin. He spoke in rapid bursts, as if the words had been damming up and then broke out suddenly. In the intervals, he inhaled sharply and loudly through his nose. Vaughn Cupido and Bones Boshigo had to get used to these mannerisms first before they could properly concentrate on what he was saying.
The books were open, he assured them. It wasn’t a pretty picture, but everything was there, ‘warts and all’. And he would point out to them where he had been ‘creative’, in accordance with Ernst Richter’s instructions.
‘There’s no illegal monkey business,’ he said in one rapid-fire sentence. And then the next one, a heartbeat or two later: ‘I mostly entered Ernst’s contributions as alibis requested by clients.’ Another pause. ‘To appease the venture capital partners. Nothing else.’ The words dammed up again: ‘He wanted me to spread his payments, and also note them as new clients.’ A deep breath through the nose. ‘I said, no, that’s too complicated. And it’s borderline fraud.’ Visser looked at Boshigo. ‘Desiree will confirm it all. She knows everything.’
Cupido suspected the financial director was very nervous; he couldn’t believe the man always talked like this. And he thought Visser and Desiree were of the few coloured employees, if you excluded the usual receptionists and personal assistants – probably Black Economic Empowerment concessions.
‘Why are you so nervous, my bru’?’ he asked.
‘Wouldn’t you be nervous?’ Words dammed up again. ‘The boss ordered me to cook the books legally, and now here’s a man from the Commercial Branch sitting in front of me.’ He pointed at Boshigo.
‘I get that, nè,’ said Boshigo. ‘But not to worry. I’m not here to investigate you for fraud. I’m here to catch a killer.’ Bones could be dramatic when he worked with the Serious and Violent Crimes team.
‘Okay,’ said Visser, tensely. He didn’t seem reassured.
‘So give us the bird’s eye view,’ said Cupido.