Icarus

by Deon Meyer

  ‘Jissis,’ he said, under his breath. She was right. That was precisely what was going on in his fucking head, what was driving him crazy.

  ‘Let’s not forget to add post-traumatic stress to this unholy brew,’ she said. ‘You didn’t pick an easy profession.’

  A thought suddenly occurred to him. ‘But there’s one of my colleagues . . . One specifically, who doesn’t seem to be bothered by any of these things . . .’

  She smiled sympathetically. ‘What you are exhibiting is the “why me” syndrome. That’s normal. I have a theory . . . I’ve been treating policemen for six years now. I think it has everything to do with the capacity for altruism. Not all of us have the same degree of altruism. The interesting phenomenon is that the detectives with greater altruism, work on the one hand considerably better in certain circumstances as a consequence, and on the other hand they suffer more from depression because of it. It’s a double-edged sword . . .’

  ‘I’m not a better detective than Vaughn . . .’

  ‘I said in certain circumstances. It’s a big subject this, but let’s talk about it for a moment: You are good at putting yourself into the shoes of the criminal, aren’t you?’

  He just shrugged.

  She smiled. ‘There’s the self-hate again. Embrace your talents.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘The ability you have to identify with the criminal is a form of altruism. In certain circumstances it gives you a great advantage in the approach to solving a case. But it’s not the only weapon that a detective must have in his arsenal. Analytical reasoning, the ability to process large swathes of data, social skills, the ability to read people, to put them at ease . . .’

  ‘That’s Vaughn, all right . . .’

  ‘Precisely. Why do you think it’s a world-wide practice to make detectives work in teams? Because no two people have precisely the same talents.’

  The heart of the matter is, I can’t be Vaughn the Terrible, if you aren’t Benna the Sober. Like that line in the movies: You complete me.

  ‘Okay,’ said Benny Griessel.

  ‘Is that acceptance I hear?’

  ‘I probably don’t have a choice.’

  ‘That’s a big step forward.’

  ‘How do I stop drinking?’

  ‘Therapy is the only successful treatment for all four of these subscales that we associate with the fear of harm to others. We can look at anti-depressants as an interim measure, but you were opposed to them when I last saw you.’

  ‘I don’t want pills. That’s just another sort of addiction.’

  ‘Then you will have to come for therapy. Intense therapy.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘How long do you still want to be a detective?’

  ‘Jissis.’

  ‘The purpose of therapy is to analyse the traumatic events with you, until you understand that you are not responsible for the damage that’s been done. The dilemma is that your job is one long string of traumatic experiences. You told me yourself how you experience the last moments of the victims’ lives, every time you arrive on a murder scene. But it isn’t all as terrible as it sounds. With hard work you can master the techniques to handle this on your own in due course. With the emphasis on hard work: in therapy, twice a week, for the next month or two. Then we can scale it back.’

  Was he up for that?

  ‘Oh, and another thing that helps a lot is to involve your family in it.’

  ‘They have to come and sit here too?’

  She smiled. ‘No. Although a single session with your family would make sense. But you at least have to tell them about your condition. Their love and understanding can make a big difference.’

  When he left the building, it was already dusk. The southeaster had begun to blow: a bleak, inconsolable wind. There was an SMS from Cupido. Come to the office when you are done.

  It was a fifteen-minute drive from the psychologist’s office in Stellenridge to the DPCI, but it took twenty. He felt drained, dog-tired, blunted.

  He would have to tell Alexa and the children. If Alexa was willing to take him back.

  Anna hadn’t been. Even after he had dried out, back then, she’d left him for that little shit of a lawyer with his silver BMW and his shiny suits. Maybe Alexa also had a plan B somewhere. How would he know?

  Fok, best not to go looking under rocks like a baboon. Don’t need a nasty surprise . . .

  He must tell Mbali too.

  The shrink’s opinion was that he couldn’t tackle this long road without the support and understanding of his commanding officer. ‘I will contact her as well, but with your permission.’

  Complications. Something like this could kick up a real fuss, and he didn’t like people getting in a flap. He preferred to just get on with his life, do his work, without people faffing over him. And Mbali would faff. She was also one of the altruistic types, though she hid it better than he did.

  The trouble was, if he told Mbali, she would know that Vaughn had lied about the other night.

  Or would she? If he could approach this thing properly and cleverly and carefully . . . They could say that he was just a bit tipsy on Wednesday, that’s how he’d bashed his face.

  He would have to discuss it with Vaughn first.

  And he would have to tell Doc. That was the easy part, because Doc would say, ‘How long have I been begging you to see a shrink regularly? But no, you’re an Afrikaner man. Too clever and strong and macho.’

  They both knew it wasn’t true, Doc was just messing with him.

  He just didn’t like anyone probing into his mind. He had never been important enough for that.

  Therapy twice a week. Just him and the teddy bear and the shrink.

  Jissis.

  75

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

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

  FdT: People rationalise. If two million rand is lying there in front of you and that’s the solution to all your problems, you see it as fate, as if the universe is putting right all the evils of the last two generations, the stars realigning. You think about making the wine, the incredibly thrilling challenge, you think about what the man said. Who will know? Who is being hurt by it? A bunch of nouveau riche Chinese who won’t know the difference between Château Lafite Rothschild and Château de Boxwine. You think of your wife-to-be, who has found herself part of a family with so many troubles. You think about the dreams she has, dreams that you would so love to help her realise. You think, next year you want to get married, and you want to be able to offer her something at last.

  That’s how you rationalise.

  And you decide to do it. You lie to your future wife, and you lie to your good, loyal neighbour, Dietrich Venske, and you feel bad, but only for a day, about the disappointment in his eyes when you tell him that you’ve decided not to sell your harvest to him after all. Because the next day you remember that he’s a wealthy man with a brand that is drawing increasing attention in Britain and America; he can do without this harvest, but you can’t.

  And then you make the wine.

  And you know, it was fun. If I end up sitting in jail, I will try and remember that. It was an unbelievable experience. A fantastic apprenticeship. Ernst Richter was right. We all try to copy the best French wines. The whole world – California, Chile, Australia, New Zealand . . . Because through this process of copying we learn to find our own wine voice.

  Hopefully. Eventually.

  And here I sit now, with my own wine voice, knowing what notes I can reach, but with a very good chance that I will never be able to sing like that again.

  76

  They all walked together to Mbali’s office where she sat waiting for them. They sat down around the conference table. The entire team
was there. Bones Boshigo as well.

  Cupido said they had a lot of information, but still nothing to get excited about. He summed up the main points.

  One. Ernst Richter’s financial hourglass had practically run out. This December the bank would have called in Alibi’s overdraft. And Richter’s personal funds were exhausted. Alibi would have had to close and Richter would have been bankrupt. He would have lost everything – the business, his car, his big house. But more: he was a man who loved his status and reputation. He would have lost that as well. This of all things was perhaps more than his ego could stand.

  Two. He had begun to behave criminally in order to save his butt. Since at least November of last year Richter had tried to blackmail his own clients. He had forged an ID document and proof of address to acquire a cellphone. Those were two crimes that they knew of. If you followed the old detective principle of ‘former behaviour determines future behaviour’, there was a strong possibility that he had committed other crimes as well. Including trying to blackmail other people but:

  Three. Since November last year he had had no payments into any of his own accounts. Therefore they could assume that none of his blackmail attempts had met with success.

  Four. From February to November 2011 Richter had been travelling through South East Asia. In June and July 2012 a Chinese bank paid him three amounts to the value of four point two million rand. In dollars. Of which his mother knew nothing. That was significant. Taking everything into account, it was highly probable that the money had been acquired criminally, most likely through some drug deal.

  Five. All the above-mentioned suggested that a month ago, in November, Ernst Richter did something in order to get his hands on a large sum of money quickly, in an attempt to save Alibi. And that caused his death. But they still didn’t know what that was.

  Did they all agree, so far?

  Yes, they all agreed.

  ‘So far, so good,’ said Cupido. ‘So how do we find out what he did? Where he went? Who he met? Basically, what we have is the forensics from what we think is the actual crime scene, and that’s not very specific. We have the laptop that was stolen from the Stellenbosch evidence locker that can link to the killer or killers. We have the other calls he made from the cellphone he faked an ID to buy, and we have the Chinese bank. Which isn’t really useful, so we might as well forget about that . . .’

  ‘Why?’ asked Mbali.

  ‘Major, the bank is all the way over there in China. They’re this Communist state; it’s not like we can call them up and say hey, pêllies, there’s this guy who ran a website for wife cheaters who went and got himself killed, how about showing us all your secret bank files . . .’

  ‘I think you are wrong,’ said Mbali.

  Cupido held himself back. He merely lifted sceptical eyebrows.

  ‘The Chinese are our biggest trade partners,’ she said. ‘Our president was there just the other day. They want to build us nuclear power stations. I think if the brigadier talks to the national commissioner, and the commissioner talks to the minister, and the minister talks to the Chinese ambassador, you might be surprised at what could happen.’

  Cupido’s eyebrows knitted into a scowl. ‘Major, with all due respect, that’s a big if.’

  ‘Stranger things have happened,’ she said with quiet self-assurance.

  ‘We . . . That would be great . . .’ He pulled himself together again and addressed the team: ‘In the meantime, we need to look into the calls on the fake-ID cell, and that laptop. Uncle Frankie, you’re a family man, if you want to take the Sunday off, and Benna, you too . . .’

  ‘No,’ said Benny Griessel, much louder than he’d intended, because if he were to sit totally alone and idle at Alexa’s house tomorrow, he would go off his head, and straight back to the bottle. He had to suppress the ‘please’.

  ‘Cool,’ said Cupido. ‘Then I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Let’s start at nine . . .’

  When everyone had left, and the light was soft and pale gold outside her window overlooking Boston Street and the Bellville library, Major Mbali Kaleni locked her office door. She sat down again, and unlocked the third drawer of her desk. Under the bag containing her emergency cosmetics, lay the slab of chocolate. Lindt Excellence 70% Cocoa. Dark chocolate. According to many studies it was very good for one: for the heart, for the mood.

  She respected Professor Tim Noakes. He was a clever man. But one should never forget that he was a man. And men don’t really understand the heart of a woman.

  Once a week she had to feed her heart as well, after the low-carb, high-fat Banting regime promoted by Prof Noakes, with all the full fat yoghurt, the meat and fish and chicken and cauliflower.

  She put the slab down on her desk. She would get to that in due course.

  One last task first.

  She picked up her phone and called Brigadier Musad Manie.

  ‘Good evening, Mbali,’ he said, his voice deep. In the background she could hear a TV being quickly turned down.

  ‘Good evening, sir, I am happy to report that we have a new lead in the Richter case. It is one of those that might be big or it might be nothing, but we need your help in exploring it to the fullest.’

  ‘Yes?’

  She explained about the payments that had been made to Richter from a Chinese bank. And she asked him to call the National Commissioner of the SAPS, so that the request for cooperation would go through official channels to the Chinese ambassador.

  ‘Let me see what I can do . . .’

  Only then did the ritual unwrapping of the slab of chocolate begin.

  Griessel didn’t turn right at the intersection of Voortrekker Road and Mike Pienaar Drive to take the N1 to the city.

  He drove straight on, to Parow.

  It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Something drew him, and he was too weary to resist. From Voortrekker he turned right into Tallent Street, then left into Second Avenue. He slowed, and stopped in front of the house where he had grown up. Switched off the engine, opened the window.

  The wind blew in, along with the sounds of suburban Parow, here where the houses and gardens were small, where blue-collar workers like his father had been able to afford to buy.

  Their house – long since someone else’s – was surrounded by a cream-coloured concrete wall, but it was still the same house. Here in the street they had played cricket until late, under the street lights. There, in that room in the middle, he had sat learning to play his bass guitar for hours on end. The dreams and stirrings of teenage love, Lord, how many hours? So many dreams, of the fame and riches and happiness that lay in the future.

  He sat there for nearly forty minutes, reminiscing. He smoked two cigarettes and longed for the simplicity of that existence, amazed by the journey he’d taken to this point. And the disappointment that was his life.

  Then he drove home. Alexa’s home really, though she talked about ‘our house’.

  The city centre was aglow with Christmas lights.

  He thought about the last Christmas that his family had been whole, when he was still reasonably sober. Ten years ago? When he and Anna had brought the children here so they could enjoy the spectacle of the lights.

  This year Christmas should just rather pass him by. It was going to be a lonely one. The children were with Anna, as they were every year, because with her and her little lawyer it was a ‘warm family atmosphere, no one living together in sin’. As if she and the little legal eagle had never got up to mischief before they were married. As if he and Alexa could never be a family.

  There was a chicken and broccoli dish on the kitchen table, with a note stuck to it: 35 minutes at 180 degrees. You must eat. In Alexa’s handwriting.

  She had been here. But she was gone again.

  Through the fatigue he felt a tiny bit of hope. Tomorrow Doc would phone Alexa . . .

  He switched on
the oven and waited for the food to cook. He ate it out of the packaging. Then he showered and got into bed.

  He sent Alexa an SMS, even though Doc had said ‘leave her alone’. One day without a drink, he wrote, and lay and waited. Perhaps she would answer.

  The phone was silent. He slept restlessly, because the withdrawal and the day and everything would not go away, no matter how tired he was.

  Mbali was already in bed with her iPad when Musad Manie phoned back.

  ‘Major, we have a slight problem,’ he said.

  ‘What is that, sir?’

  ‘The commissioner spoke to the minister, and the minister apparently spoke to a few of his colleagues. He wanted to proceed through the correct channels, and it took a while before the message came back to the commissioner. Mbali, do you know that we have one ANC Member of Parliament, two provincial MEC’s, a deputy director general of foreign affairs and an ANC town mayor all implicated as clients of this Alibi thing?’

  ‘Cloete has kept me posted, sir. Lots of other people too.’

  ‘Well, apparently the top hierarchy does not care about the other people. But they do care about the whole mess. So the message I have to give you is that they will ask the Chinese for their help. But they expect us to catch the person or persons who published that database on the internet. And they demand that we prosecute him or them to the full extent of the law. And they will monitor our progress, they say. And they will evaluate our performance in this matter. Mine, and yours, and that of your team.’

  ‘Yes, sir. We will see what we can do.’

  After she had rung off, she uttered one loud ‘Hayi.’ And then she decided she would pass this news on to Vaughn Cupido in the morning. Let him have a good night’s sleep first.

  77

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