Vengeful: A Conspiracy Crime Thriller (The Gabriel Series Book 3)

by David Hickson

  “Our Master,” announced the round man reverently, and he held up a hand to prevent me from getting too close. “You will want to wear your hat,” he reminded me.

  I pulled the hat on and felt foolish as we stood silently, waiting for the man in the suit to notice us. He lowered the frame and squeezed the accordion-style grip of the smoker so that a cloud of smoke emitted from the spout. Then he gently inserted the frame back into the hive he was standing beside. He swung around and looked at us for a beat, the smoker still producing puffs of smoke as his hand sporadically pumped it. The round man raised his hand in their style of greeting, which suddenly reminded of me of an old science fiction movie and I wondered whether that had been the inspiration for it.

  The beekeeper raised a gloved hand to return the greeting and then beckoned with it.

  “You may approach our Master,” said the round man in case I had not understood their arcane gestures, and I stepped forward in order to do so.

  Johannes Stephanus Erasmus responded to my suggestion with a dismissive laugh. There was none of the reluctance of the late Justice Francois Rousseau, and none of the shaking fear of the late Jessop Ndoro MP. Just a brazen, arrogant laugh.

  “I have nothing to fear,” he said and looked up at the sky, through the cloud of bees that surrounded us, to remind me that his God was still watching over him. “Our Father sees everything I do, and his forgiveness is complete. No …” He looked back down at me. “I have nothing to fear.”

  “Justice Rousseau and MP Ndoro have both died,” I pointed out.

  JS Erasmus laughed again and reached into the hive between us with a metal grasping tool in his gloved hand. He pumped smoke at the crawling mass of bees, which buzzed angrily and sought refuge deeper in the hive. The tool gripped the top of a frame and he tugged at it to break the propolis seals, then pulled it out. It was dripping with bees, which crawled frenetically over the surface, as if the frame itself was alive.

  “Spring is nearly here,” said the church leader, “abnormally early this year. Normally I wouldn’t open these hives for many weeks, but look at this.” He held the frame up for me to see more clearly. I saw nothing except for a mass of bees.

  “Drones,” he said. “They’ve started making the drones already.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “Good? Bad? It’s God’s will, that’s what it is. God’s bounty will be great this year.”

  “Because of the drones?”

  “The drones are these big bees, you see them? Bigger than the others, and fewer.” He held the frame closer to my face, and I tried to make out the bigger bees, although they all looked much the same size to me. Then I spotted a slightly larger bee that was not moving as frenetically as the others, like someone standing lost in a busy thoroughfare.

  “That one there?” I asked. “Not moving as much as the others?”

  “That’s a drone. They are the male bees. The rest of the hive is female, a matriarchal society. The queen lays the eggs and the workers are all female. But in early spring they raise some big fat drones that do nothing but eat the honey. That’s how we know that spring is coming early.”

  “The drones don’t do any work?”

  “Not unless you call their pursuit of the new queen work. They chase her up into the sky, and the strongest, or fastest, gets to impregnate her.”

  “Only one succeeds?”

  “Only one. Then he, and all the rest, suffer the fate of all men. They are cast out from the hive, denied food, and left to die.”

  “Is that the fate of all men?”

  “Unless you are a man who knows how to make use of your innate God-given power.”

  He looked at me in the way that a man who has discovered how to make use of his innate God-given power looks at a man who hasn’t.

  “I’m not sure that I am,” I admitted.

  “That’s because you are blind to it,” said Father Erasmus. He puffed smoke into the hive to clear bees away from the space left by the frame, and gingerly replaced it, careful not to crush any bees. “Just as that judge and the politician were blind to it. Human drones – that is what most men are.”

  Although his face was partially obscured by the black veil, I could make out the sharp cheekbones, pointed nose, and thin lips in the ruggedly handsome face which had adorned so many magazine covers. There was a fascination to him. I could sense it now. He was charismatic, imbued with a confidence that drew people towards him. But there was more than charisma and confidence. It was easy to see why he was described by entranced journalists as the ‘Hypnotist of the Church’, but it was also a little frightening.

  “You are blind to it,” he said, still speaking about the fate of man, “because you have been deceived by the feminist narrative; women that want us to apologise for being men, take everything we have built away from us, because of their absurd demands for equality. We are taught to love our mothers, but honour our fathers. Then our mothers take that love and twist the knife that it becomes in our hearts.”

  “Not all of our mothers,” I suggested.

  He looked up at me again, his pale blue eyes cold and angry.

  “We should be grateful for those who do – they open our eyes to the truth.”

  “About the fate of all men?”

  “Women need to be controlled,” said the man who guided the most powerful church in the country. “That is the truth, and they need us to control them.”

  “But sometimes that control goes too far, doesn’t it? And the women get hurt – some of them don’t survive the control.”

  His cold eyes stayed on me, and the hand with the smoker stopped its constant pulsing. We stared at each other for a moment.

  “Why did you come to see me?” he asked, his voice cold and threatening. “Aside from your absurd suggestion that my life is in danger.”

  “I know about your club,” I said. “And the young girls that you traffic; one girl in particular who didn’t survive what you, Justice Rousseau and Minister Ndoro did to her.”

  I could see the surprise wash over him – the sudden dilation of the pupils, the way his mouth opened as if to say something – but no words came out. The rhythm of the hand pumping the smoker faltered, but then he recovered quickly. JS Erasmus laughed another nasty, arrogant, humourless laugh.

  “There was someone who tried this before you,” he said, when he had finished laughing. “Did you know that?”

  I expressed surprise through the veil of my beekeeper’s hat.

  “A journalist, she was full of anger like you, but didn’t have the gall to confront me in person – I would have been happy to meet her – but she sneaked around in the way women do, planning to trap me. What is the word they use? Ensnarement? Or is it entrapment? She used a lot of big words, speaking of sin, penance, atonement, retribution. But those are my words, and I am their master.”

  “What did you do to her?” I asked.

  The hand on the smoker gave an involuntary squeeze, and a puff of smoke came between us. It took only a moment for JS Erasmus to realise his mistake, but instead of retreating into denials he gave another humourless laugh.

  “You don’t want to know,” he said.

  “Actually, I do want to know what you did to her. Did you send those men to take her from the house in Muizenberg? They were members of your congregation, members of the House of your Lord.”

  The church leader said nothing. His mouth smiled, but his eyes were cold.

  “And did you order those men to be killed, too? Did you send more members of your flock out to cut their throats and set fire to their car?”

  “It is you,” said Father Erasmus in a quietly menacing voice, and the hand pumped more smoke between us. “You killed the judge and the politician, and now you threaten me. Why are you doing it? Is it vengeance? What is it you want?”

  “I want to know what you did to the journalist.”

  Father Erasmus kept his eyes on me, but he raised the hand that was not holding the smoke
r and a moment later I heard the rustling approach of his round secretary.

  “Take him away,” said Father Erasmus. “Make sure he leaves the property.”

  “Of course, Father,” said the secretary.

  The cold blue eyes were still on me. He lowered his hand and resumed the pumping of the smoker.

  “She died,” he said. “The journalist died. You should have considered that before you came here and sullied the House of Our Lord with your threats.”

  “It’s not a threat,” I said. “It is a warning.”

  “Take him,” said the church leader, and I felt the limp hand of his secretary grasp at my arm. I shook it off, but turned and walked away from the leader of the House of Our Lord, pulling the absurd hat from my head. The secretary scurried after me.

  “You have deceived us,” said the round secretary as we made our way back through the orchard. “If I’d known you were going to upset our Master, I would never have allowed it. You said you were concerned, but now you have upset him. It is most deceptive.”

  “Are your novitiates all men?” I asked.

  “They are,” said the secretary, and almost added something, but then closed his mouth with irritation. He would not give explanations to someone who had sullied the House of their Lord.

  “Any women on the staff?”

  “A few. The cooks, the nanny.”

  “How long have they been with you?”

  “What business is it of yours?”

  “With that great big wall of yours, the electric fence and all those cameras, the greatest threat to the life of your master will come from inside these walls.”

  “You think the women are a threat?” he scoffed. “That’s absurd. They love our Master, as do we all. The House of Our Lord is a house of love.”

  I said nothing more about it. We reached the edge of the orchard and crunched across the gravel to my car. The round secretary didn’t want to offer me his limp hand, but I held mine out and so he allowed me to squeeze it again, then he went to stand at the top of the stairs to watch me drive off and ensure that I kept driving until I was out of sight.

  Twenty-One

  While speaking with the paragon of Christian virtue, I had missed a call from Bill. I felt a momentary pang of guilt because I had not spoken to him since the dinner at which he had suggested that I stop searching for Sandy. I called back and greeted him cheerfully, but that did not ease the anxiety in his voice.

  “The police were here,” he said. “Looking for you.”

  “Were they?”

  “A skinny policeman,” protested Bill, “from homicide. What’s happened? What have you been doing, Gabriel? They said two people have been murdered.”

  “Shall I come around?” I suggested. “We could sit down and talk about it.”

  A pause as Bill considered this.

  “How about Fisherman’s?” he said.

  “Fisherman’s would be great.”

  The Fisherman’s Wharf was a restaurant in Hout Bay harbour, set on the edge of the sea and renowned for its fresh fish.

  “Tonight?”

  “Eight o’clock,” I said. “See you there.”

  Bill ended the call, and I reflected on the fact that he had suggested meeting at a restaurant. In all the time I had known Bill, we had not once met at a restaurant. It had always been at his house, with a new dish he had created, and bottles of his favourite wine. But I supposed that when the person you are meeting is wanted for double homicide, even if they are someone one might call a friend, a restaurant is a more appropriate place to meet.

  The Fisherman’s Wharf is a weathered, unprepossessing building that squats, as its name implies, on the edge of a working wharf against which the boats of fishermen were tied that evening. Several of the fishermen stood about on the wharf, while others sat on wooden stools repairing their nets or perched on bollards, whiling away the evening with chatter. The restaurant was on the first floor of the building, above the fresh fish market which was closing as I arrived, a young Korean man winding down the metal shutters, although that made little difference to the pervasive smell of fish emanating from inside.

  Bill had booked a table at the far end of the restaurant, largely hidden from the view of other diners by the assortment of lobster pots, fishing nets, rowing oars and other paraphernalia that hung from the ceiling. The table was beside a window that looked over the sea and was opened enough to allow the chatter of the fishermen below to seep in.

  The turn in the weather observed by JS Erasmus seemed to be lasting, and the evening had the feel of early spring, although an occasional gust came in over the water to remind us that winter wasn’t over yet.

  Bill was occupying one side of the table like a sumo wrestler preparing to consume his daily ration. He ordered the calamari for both of us; he had seen them bringing it in that afternoon and it looked good enough for our consumption. To accompany the calamari, he ordered a bottle of Chardonnay, which he insisted they allow him to feel with a fleshy palm to confirm it was sufficiently chilled. He flapped the menu in his hands to cool himself because he was overheating in his lime green linen suit and wool shirt with thermal under-vest. Then he unbuttoned his collar, loosened the tie, and gazed at me with apprehension.

  “Who died?” he asked. “That homicide detective wouldn’t say a damn thing, except there were two of them.”

  “A judge,” I said, “and a politician.”

  “Was it Judge Rousseau?”

  I nodded.

  “And the politician?”

  “Ndoro.”

  Bill took a sip of his wine and used his tongue to guide it on a tour across all the taste sensors. Then he removed his spectacles, ran a sweaty hand through his hair and squared his shoulders.

  “Why do the police want to talk to you about it?”

  “Because I saw both men shortly before they died.”

  A gust of icy air came in through the window and caught a tuft of Bill’s hair, which bounced up and then flopped back onto his forehead as if expressing surprise.

  “Why?” he asked.

  I told Bill about the house in Muizenberg, and the letter Sandy had written to her father. And the three founders of a private club whom she accused of killing her sister. Bill listened intently and said nothing. Our waitress arrived with the calamari which she placed before us without ceremony, then pulled the bottle from the ice bucket.

  “Don’t you dare,” said Bill, his eyes closed as he breathed in the aroma of the calamari. “We’ll pour our own wine.” He opened his eyes and fixed the waitress with a stare. “We apportion quantity according to body weight, which is the correct approach, not according to favouritism, which would be your approach.”

  The waitress opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it when Bill closed his eyes again and inhaled deeply to gauge the quality of the calamari.

  “Service here is shocking,” he said before the waitress was out of earshot, “but the quality of the food makes up for it.”

  He opened his eyes, raised his knife and fork, then held them in his fists beside his plate like he was waiting for a signal to start.

  “Do you think Sandy disappeared in order to do this?” he asked. “To set up a house of call-girls and find the men who killed her sister?”

  “No, I think she did that while still living with me. Do you remember all the research trips she did in those last few months?”

  Bill took a mouthful of calamari, which he chewed upon as he pondered this.

  “So what happened? Why did she stage her disappearance?”

  “I don’t think she staged it, Bill. A girl she had taken in spoke to a man who’d been her pimp. He was connected somehow to the men Sandy was trying to find. They sent men to the house in Muizenberg, tried to kill one of the girls, and took Sandy away with them.”

  “Took her away?”

  “I think that is when she disappeared. It wasn’t staged at all.”

  Bill poured us more wine, carefu
lly apportioning it according to body weight.

  “Her clothes were collected from the apartment,” he said. “And she wrote me that note, remember?”

  “I think they did that. The people who took her. Think about it. Because of those two things there has been no investigation into her disappearance.”

  “You mean they forced her to write that note? I can’t see her doing that.”

  Bill’s gaze held mine. Then he looked down at his plate of calamari, and placed his cutlery to the side.

  “You think they killed her, don’t you?”

  “I think we need to consider the possibility.”

  Bill said nothing. He took another mouthful of calamari, but looked as if he was struggling to swallow it. The murmuring chatter of the fishermen filled the silence between us. Then Bill reached for his spectacles and put them on, shoved them against the bridge of his nose with a heavy finger and looked at me through them as if he was trying to see me properly.

  “Who killed those two men?” he asked. “The judge and the politician.”

  “I am not the only person who read the letter Sandy wrote to her father, or knew about her suspicions of those men.”

  “You think her father did it?”

  “Not her father, no.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Gabriel, but I can understand why the murder squad are looking for you.”

  “You can?”

  “Yes. You are the person most likely to have killed those men.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “You have a vengeful temperament, and I know what you did in the British army – Sandy told me you are no stranger to killing.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You said three men. Who is the third?”

  “He’s a man of the church.”

  Bill lifted his glass to his lips and waited for me to say more.

  “JS Erasmus,” I said.

  Bill put the glass down again.