Dead Before Dying

Dead Before Dying

Deon Meyer

Copyright 1996 by Deon Meyer

Translation copyright 1999 by Madeleine van Biljon

Also by Deon Meyer

Heart of the Hunter

Dead at Daybreak

Tutta la vita č morte

— Giuseppe Verdi

PURGATORY

He grimaced in the dark but he didn't realize it. His hands were shaking, hanging next to his body, his eyes were still closed.

“That’s the problem, when you can’t get out of your own head. You think you’re so clean. Because Silva was so dirty. We think in terms of black and white. Silva was a killer, dirty and black as sin. And I was the clean, white light of justice. And they encouraged me. Get him. They made me even cleaner. Get Silva for the girls, the two women he had thrown away on a rubbish tip like so much human garbage. Get him for the cop of Murder and Robbery with the hole in the forehead. Get him for the drugs, for his invulnerability, for his dirty, black soul.”

Joubert looked back and saw that he had made progress on the thin wire.

He took a longer step . . .

1.

IN THE AFTERNOON HUSH of the last day of the year, Mat Joubert thought about death. Mechanically his hands were busy cleaning his service pistol, the Z88. He sat in his sitting room, leaning forward in the armchair, the parts of the pistol lying on the coffee table in front of him among rags, brushes, and an oil can. A cigarette in the ashtray sent up a long, thin plume of smoke. Above him, at the window, a bee flew against the glass with monotonous regularity, in an irritating attempt to reach the summer afternoon outside, where a light southeaster was blowing.

Joubert didn't hear it. His mind wandered aimlessly through memories of the past weeks, among chronicles of death, his bread and butter. The white woman on her back on the kitchen floor, spatula in her right hand, omelet burnt on the stove, the blood an added splash of color in the pleasant room. In the living room, the boy, nineteen, in tears, 3,240 rand in the pocket of his leather jacket, saying, over and over, his mother’s name.

The man among the flowers, an easier memory. Death with dignity. He recalled the detectives and the uniformed men on the open industrial site between the gray factory buildings. They stood in a circle, knee-deep in the wildflowers thrusting up yellow and white and orange heads. In the center of this judicial circle lay the body of a middle-aged man, small in stature. An empty bottle of meths was gripped in one hand, he was facedown, cheek against the soil.

But his eyes were closed. And his other hand clutched a few flowers, now faded.

It was the hands that Mat Joubert remembered most vividly.

On Macassar beach. Three people. The stench of burning rubber and charred flesh still hanging in the air, the group of the law and the media forming a barrier downwind against the horror of multiple necklace murders.

The hands. Claws. Reaching up to the heavens in a petrified plea for deliverance.

Mat Joubert was tired of living. But he didn't want to die like that.

Using thumb and forefinger, he placed the fifteen stubby 9 mm bullets into the magazine one by one. The last one flashed briefly in the afternoon sun. He held the bullet at eye level, balanced between thumb and forefinger, and stared at the rust-colored lead point.

What would it be like? If you pressed the dark mouth of the Z88 softly against your lips and you pulled the trigger, carefully, slowly, respectfully. Would you feel the lead projectile? Pain? Would thoughts still flash through the undamaged portions of the brain? Accuse you of cowardice just before the night enveloped you? Or did it all happen so quickly that the sound of the shot wouldn't even travel from gun to ear to brain?

He wondered. Had it been like that for Lara?

What was it like— her light being switched off and watching the hand on the switch? What did she think about in that last fleeting moment? Life? Him? Perhaps she felt remorse and wanted to give a last mocking laugh?

He didn't want to think about it.

A new year would start the following day. There were people out there with resolutions and dreams and plans and enthusiasm and hope for this new era. And here he sat.

Tomorrow everything at work would be different. The new man, the political appointment. The others could talk about nothing else. Joubert didn't really care. He no longer wanted to know. Either about death, or life. It was simply one more thing to survive, to take account of, to squeeze the spirit out of life and lure the Great Predator even closer.

He banged the magazine into the stock with the flat of his left hand, as if violence would give his thoughts a new direction. He thrust the weapon into its leather sheath. The oil and the rags went back into the old shoebox. He dragged on the cigarette, blew the smoke in the direction of the window. Then he saw the bee, heard exhaustion diminishing the sound of the wings.

Joubert got up, pulled the lace curtain aside, and opened the window. The bee felt the warm breeze outside but still tried to find a way out through the wrong panel. Joubert turned, picked up an oily rag, and carefully swiped it past the window. The insect hovered briefly in front of the opening, then flew outside. Joubert closed the window and straightened the curtain.

He could also escape, he thought. If he wanted to.

Deliberately he let this perception fade as well. But it was enough to have him make an impulsive decision. He’d walk across to the neighborhood barbecue this evening. Just for a while. For the Old Year.

2.

The first step in the rebirth of Mat Joubert was physical. Just after seven o’clock that evening, he walked across the tree-lined street of the middle-class Monte Vista to the Stoffberg home. Jerry Stoffberg of Stoffberg & Mordt, Funeral Directors, in Bellville. “We’re in the same business, Mat,” he liked saying. “Only different branches.”

The door opened. Stoffberg saw Joubert coming into the house. They said hello, asked the ritual questions.

“Business is great, Mat. Profitable time of the year. It’s as if many of them hang in there until just after the festive season,” he said as he put the beer that Joubert had brought into the refrigerator. The undertaker wore an apron announcing that he was THE WORLD’S WORST CHEF.

Joubert merely nodded, because he’d heard it before, and uncapped the first Castle of the evening.

The kitchen was warm and cozy, a center of enthusiasm and laughter. Women’s voices filled the room. Children and men traffic-patterned their way easily past female conversations and the ritual of preparations. Mat Joubert navigated his way outside.

His consciousness was internalized, his perceptions withdrawn like the retracted feelers of an insect. He was untouched by the warmth and the domesticity.

Outside, the children moved like shadows through pools of light and darkness, divided into squads according to age but united in their carefree exuberance.

On the porch teenagers sat in an uneasy, self-conscious no- man’s-land between childhood and adulthood. Joubert noted them briefly because their clumsy attempts to appear at ease betrayed them. They had transgressed. He concentrated until he realized what they were trying to hide: the glasses on the porch table were filled with forbidden contents. Two, three years ago he would’ve smiled about it, recalled his own stormy adolescent years. But now he simply withdrew the feelers again.

He joined the circle of men around the fire. Each one’s passport to the group was a glass in the hand. Everyone stared at the lamb that, naked and without dignity, was turning on Stoffberg’s spit.

“Jesus, Mat, but you’re big,” Wessels, the press photographer, said when Joubert came to stand next to him.

“Didn't you know he’s Murder and Robbery’s secret weapon?” Myburgh, Bellville’s traffic chief, asked from across the fire. His luxuriant mustache bounced with each word.

Joubert’s facial muscles tightened, showed his teeth in a mechanical smile.

“Ya, he’s their mobile roadblock,” said Storridge, the businessman. They laughed respectfully.

Casual cracks and remarks were tossed back and forth across the sizzling lamb, all of it aware of and careful about Joubert’s two-year-old loss— brotherly, friendly, fruitless attempts to rouse his quiescent spirit.

The conversation took a quiet turn. Stoffberg turned the spit and injected the browning meat with a secret sauce, like a doctor with a patient. Sport, quasi-sexual jokes, communal work problems. Joubert shook a Winston out of a packet in his shirt pocket. He offered it around. A lighter flared.

Members of the circle at the fire came and went. Stoffberg turned the spit and checked the progress of the meat. Joubert accepted another beer, fetched another a while later. The women’s kitchen activities had decreased. They had spilled over into the adjacent television room.

Outside, the conversation was geared to Stoffberg’s lamb.

“No use giving it another injection, Stoffs. It’s dead.”

“I'’ve got to eat before sunrise, Stoff. I have to open shop tomorrow.”

“No way. This liddle lamb will only be ready in February.”

“By that time it’ll be mutton dressed as lamb.”

Joubert’s eyes followed the conversation from face to face but he took no part. Quiet, that’s how they knew him. Even before Lara’s death he hadn't been a great talker.

The children’s voices became softer, the men’s louder. Stoffberg sent a courier to give the guests a call. The tempo of the party changed. The women called the children and walked out with plates laden with side dishes to where Stoffberg had started carving the lamb.

Joubert sucked at a Castle while he waited his turn. The alcohol had misted his senses. He wasn'’t hungry but ate out of habit and politeness at a garden table with the other men.

Music started up inside, the teenagers rocked. Joubert offered cigarettes again. Women fetched men to dance. The music grew steadily older but the decibels didn't. Joubert got up so as not to be left alone outside and grabbed another beer on the way to the living room.

Stoffberg had replaced the room’s ordinary bulbs with colored lights. Writhing bodies were bathed in a muted glow of red and blue and yellow. Joubert sat in the dining room, from where he had a view of the dancers. Wessels’s short body jerked spasmodically in imitation of Elvis. The movements of the teenagers were more subtle. Dancing past a red light, the body of Storridge’s pretty, slender wife was briefly backlit. Joubert looked away, saw the daughter of the house, Yvonne Stoffberg, her breasts bouncing youthfully under a tight T-shirt. Joubert lit another cigarette.

Myburgh’s fat wife asked Joubert for a traditional waltz. He agreed. She guided him skillfully past the other couples. When the music changed, she smiled sympathetically and let him go. He fetched another Castle. The tempo of the music slowed. Dancers moved closer to one another, entered the evening’s new phase.

Joubert walked outside to empty his bladder. The garden lights had been switched off. The coals under the remains of the lamb were still a glowing red. He walked to a corner of the garden, relieved himself and walked back. A shooting star fell above the dark roof of the Stoffbergs’ house. Joubert stopped and looked up at the sky, saw only darkness.

“Hi, Mat.”

She suddenly appeared next to him, a nymphlike shadow of the night.

“I can call you that, can’t I? I'’ve done with school.” She stood silhouetted against the light of the back door, her rounded young curves molded by T-shirt and pants.

“Sure,” he said hesitantly, surprised. She came closer, into the protected space of his loneliness.

“You didn't dance with me once, Mat.”

He stood rooted to the earth, uncertain, stupefied by seven Castles and so many months of soul-searing introspection. He folded his arms protectively.

She put her hand on his arm. The tip of her left breast lightly touched his elbow.

“You were the only man here tonight, Mat.”

Dear God, he thought, this is my neighbor’s daughter. He recalled the contents of the teenagers’ glasses on the porch.

“Yvonne . . .”

“Everybody calls me Bonnie.”

For the first time he looked at her face. Her eyes were fixed on him, shining, passionate, and purposeful. Her mouth was a fruit, ripe, slightly open. She was no longer a child.

Joubert felt the fear of humiliation move in him.

Then his body spoke softly to him, a rusty moment that came and went, reminding his crotch of the rising pleasures of the past. But his fear was too great. He didn't know whether that kind of life had died in him. It was more than two years . . . He wanted to check her. He unlocked his arms, wanting to push her away.

She interpreted his movements differently, moved between his hands, pulled him closer, pressed her wet mouth to his. Her tongue forced open his lips, fluttered. Her body was against his, her breasts pinpoints of warmth.

In the kitchen someone called a child and alarms broke through Mat Joubert’s rise upward, toward life. He pushed her away and immediately started toward the kitchen.

“I’m sorry,” he said over his shoulder without knowing why.

“I'’ve done with school, Mat.” There was no reproach in her voice.

He walked to his house like a refugee, his thoughts focused on his destination, not on what lay behind him. There were cheers announcing the New Year. Fireworks, even a trumpet.

His house. He walked past trees and shrubs and flowerbeds that Lara had made, struggled with the lock, went down the passage to the bedroom. There stood the bed in which he and Lara had slept. This was her wardrobe, empty now. There hung the painting she’d bought at the flea market in Green Point. The jailers of his captivity, the guards of his cell.

He undressed, pulled on the black shorts, threw off the blankets, and lay down.

He didn't want to think about it.

But his elbow still felt the unbelievable softness, her tongue still entered his mouth.

Two years and three months after Lara’s death. Two years and three months.

Recently, late in the afternoon, early evening, he stood in Voortrekker Road and looked up the street. And saw the parking meters that stretched for a kilometer or more, as far as he could see, on the arrow-straight road. The parking meters so senselessly and proudly guarding them all, were empty after the working day. Then he knew that Lara had made him into one— an irritation during the day, useless at night.

His body wouldn't believe him.

Like a neglected engine it creaked and coughed and rustily tried to get the gears moving. His subconscious still remembered the oil that waited in the brain, chemical messages of the urge that sent blood and mucus to the front. The machine sighed, a plug sparked feebly, a gear meshed.

He opened his eyes, stared at the ceiling.

A virus in his blood. He could feel the first vague symptoms. Not yet an organ that grew and strained against material with a life of its own. At first only a slow fever that spread through his body and slowly, like a tide, washed the alcohol out of his bloodstream, drove away sleep.

He tossed and turned, got up to open a window. The sweat on his torso gleamed dully in the light of a streetlamp. He lay down again, on his back, searched for a drug against longing and humiliation.

The yearning in his crotch and in his head was equally painful.

His thoughts were driven by a whirlwind, spilled over the barriers.

Emotion and lust and memories intermingled. Lara. He missed her and he hated her. Because of the pain. Jesus, but she’d been beautiful. Lithe, a crack of a whip, a tempest, a tease. A traitor.

The softness of a breast against his elbow. His neighbor’s daughter.

Lara, who’d turned him into a parking meter. Lara, who was dead.

Lara was dead.

His mind searched for an escape in the face of this, shunted his thoughts into the disconsolate safety of a gray depression in which he had learned to survive in the past months.

But for the first time in two years and three months, Mat Joubert didn't want that as an escape hatch. The great drive-shaft had turned between the roughened ball bearings, the valves moved in their cylinders. The machine had forged an alliance with Yvonne Stoffberg. Together they were fighting the approaching grayness.

Yvonne Stoffberg fluttered in his mouth again.

Lara was dead. He drifted down into sleep. A duel without a winner, a new experience.

Somewhere on the borderline of sleep he realized that life wanted to return. But he crossed over before fear could overcome him.

3.

Detective Sergeant Benny Griessel called the Murder and Robbery building in Kasselsvlei Road, Bellville South the Kremlin.

Benny Griessel was the one with the ironical sense of humor, forged in the fire of nine years of crime solving. Benny Griessel called the daily morning assembly in the Kremlin’s parade room the circus.

But this was a cynical remark made during the time of the ascetic Colonel Willy Theal, of whom fat Sergeant Tony O’Grady had remarked: “There but for the grace of God goes God.” O’Grady had laughed loudly and told no one that he had stolen the quip from Churchill. In any case none of the detectives had known it.

This morning was different. Theal, the commanding officer of Murder and Robbery, had taken early retirement on December 31 and was going to grow vegetables on a smallholding in Philippi.

Coming in his place was Colonel Bart de Wit. Appointed by the minister of law and order. The new black minister of law and order. As of January 1, Murder and Robbery was officially part of the New South Africa. Because Bart de Wit was a former member of the African National Congress who had resigned his membership before accepting the command. Because a cop must be impartial.

When Joubert walked into the parade room at seven minutes past seven on the first of January, forty detectives were already seated on the blue-gray government-issue chairs placed in a large rectangle against the four walls. The muted buzz speculated about the new man, this Bart de Wit.

Benny Griessel greeted Mat Joubert. Captain Gerbrand Vos greeted Mat Joubert. The rest carried on with their speculations. Joubert went to sit in a corner.

At exactly quarter past seven the Brigadier, in full uniform, came into the parade room. Behind him walked Colonel Bart de Wit.

Forty-one pairs of eyes followed him. The Brigadier stood up front next to the television set. De Wit sat down on one of the two empty chairs. The Brigadier greeted them and wished them all a Happy New Year. Then he started a speech, but the detectives didn't give it their full attention. Their knowledge of human nature, their capacity to evaluate others, was centered on the commander. Because their professional future was tied up with him.

Bart de Wit was short and slender. His black hair was thin in front and at the back on the crown. His nose was a beak with a fat mole on the border between organ and cheek. He wasn'’t an impressive figure.

The Brigadier’s speech about a changing environment and a changing police force was nearing its end. He introduced de Wit. The commander stood up, cleared his throat, and rubbed the mole with a forefinger.

“Colleagues, this is a great privilege,” he said, and his voice was nasal and high-pitched, like an electric band saw. His hands were folded behind his back, his short body was stiff as a ramrod, shoulders well back.

“The Brigadier is a busy man and asked that we excuse him.” He smiled at the Brigadier, who took his leave as he walked to the door.

Then they were alone, the new commander and his troops. They looked at one another, appraisingly.

“Well, colleagues, it’s time we get to know one another. I already know you because I had the privilege of seeing your service files, but you don’t know me. And I know how easily rumors can spread about a commander. That’s why I’m taking the liberty of giving you a short résumé. It’s true that I'’ve had no experience in local policing. But for that you must thank the apartheid regime. I was taking a course in policing through the University of South Africa when my political beliefs made it impossible for me to stay in my motherland . . .”

De Wit had a weak smile on his lips. His teeth were faintly yellowed but even. Each word was flawlessly rounded, perfect.

“In exile, among a valiant band of patriots, I had the privilege of continuing my studies. And in 1992 I was part of the ANC contingent that accepted the British offer for training. I spent more than a year at Scotland Yard.”

De Wit looked around the parade room as if expecting applause. The finger rubbed the mole again.

“And last year I did research at Scotland Yard for my doctorate. So I’m fully informed about the most modern methods of combating crime now being developed in the world. And you . . .”

The mole finger hastily sketched a square in the air to include all forty-one.

“. . . and you will benefit from that experience.”

Another opportunity for applause. The silence in the room was resounding.

Gerbrand Vos looked at Joubert. Vos’s mouth soundlessly formed the word

patriots

and he cast his eyes upward. Joubert stared at the ground.

“That’s all as regards my credibility. Colleagues, we’re all afraid of change. You know Toffler says one can never underestimate the impact of change on the human psyche. But at the end of the day we have to manage change. The first manifestation is for me to tell you what I expect of you. If I prepare you for change you can facilitate it more easily . . .”

Benny Griessel banged the palm of his hand against his head just above the ear as if he wanted to get the wheels turning again. De Wit missed the gesture.

“I expect only one thing from you, colleagues. Success. The minister appointed me because he has certain expectations. And I want to deliver the kind of input that will satisfy those expectations.”

He thrust his forefinger into the air. “I will try to create a climate in which you can achieve success— by healthier, more modern management principles and training in the latest crime- combating techniques. But what do I expect of you? What is your part of the contract? Three things . . .”

The forefinger acquired two friends held dramatically in front of de Wit.

“The first is loyalty. To the service and its aims, to the unit and your colleagues, and to me. The second is dedication. I expect quality work. Not ninety percent but one hundred percent. Yes, colleagues, we must also strive for zero defect.”

The detectives started to relax. The new man spoke a new language but the message remained the same. He expected no more than any of his predecessors. More work at the same inadequate pay. Results, as long as his back was covered with the higher-ups. And his promotion was assured. They were used to it. They could live with it. Even if he had been a member of the ANC.

Joubert took the red packet of Winstons out of his pocket and lit up. A couple of others followed his example.

“The third is physical and mental health. Colleagues, I firmly believe that a healthy body houses a healthy mind. I know this will make me unpopular in the short term, but I’m willing to take the chance.”

De Wit knotted his hands behind his back and straightened his shoulders again as if expecting an attack. “Each one of you will have to undergo a physical examination twice a year. The results remain confidential between us. But if the doctor finds certain . . . deficiencies, I expect you to correct them.”

The hands behind the back were released. The palms turned out as if he wanted to ward off an approaching attacker.

“I know, I know. It was the same at the Yard. I know how difficult it is to be fit all the time. I know your stress levels, the long hours. But colleagues, the fitter you are, the easier it is to overcome the obstacles. I don’t want to be personal, but some of you are overweight. There are those who smoke and drink . . .”

Joubert stared at the cigarette in his hand.

“But we’ll tackle it together. Together we’ll change your lifestyle, help you to get rid of your bad habits. Remember, colleagues, that you’re the cream of the service, you project the image both here and outside, you are ambassadors, PR representatives. But most important of all, you have a duty toward yourself to keep your body and mind in shape.”

Again the slight hesitation, the pause for applause. Joubert killed the cigarette. He saw Vos dropping his head into his hands. Vos didn't smoke but he had a beer gut.

“Right,” said Colonel Bart de Wit. “Let’s handle today’s workload.” He took a notebook out of his jacket pocket and opened it.

“Captain Marcus Joubert . . . Where is Captain Joubert?”

Joubert raised his arm to half-mast.

“Ah, we’ll meet formally a little later on, Captain. Is it Marcus? Do they call you . . . ?”

“Mat,” said Joubert.

“What?”

“Like in rug,” said a voice on the other side of the room and a few detectives gave a subdued laugh.

“I’m called Mat,” Joubert said more loudly. De Wit misheard him.

“Thank you, Captain. Very well, Captain Max Joubert will lead the standby team for the coming week. With him are Lieutenant Leon Petersen, Adjutants Louw and Griessel, Sergeant O’Grady, Constables Turner, Maponya, and Snyman. I’ll get to know you all, colleagues. And Captain Gerbrand Vos led the standby team over the festive season. Captain, is there anything you want to discuss?”

The professional life of a Murder and Robbery detective didn't leave much time for extended sympathy when a colleague lost his grip. There was comprehension because it could happen to anyone. There was gratitude because it hadn't happened to you. And there was sympathy, which lasted for a month or two, until the fated colleague became a millstone round your neck in the execution of your duty.

Two colleagues in Murder and Robbery had retained their sympathy for Mat Joubert for two years— each for his own reasons.

For Gerbrand Vos it was nostalgia. He and Joubert had started together at Murder and Robbery as detective sergeants. The two shining new stars. Willy Theal allowed them to compete, to strive for more and more accolades, but they were promoted together to adjutant, to lieutenant. In the force they were a national legend. The Afrikaans Cape newspaper,

Die Burger,

wrote a quotable piece about them on the center page when they were promoted to captain simultaneously. Always simultaneously. The young reporter was obviously impressed by them both. “Captain Vos is the extrovert, the big man with the face of an angel, dimples in his cheeks, baby blue eyes. Captain Mat Joubert is the quiet one, even bigger, with shoulders that will fill a doorway and the face of a hawk— brown eyes that can look straight through you,” she had written dramatically.

And then Lara’s death came and Vos accepted that his colleague no longer wanted to compete. And waited for Joubert to complete the grieving process. Gerbrand Vos was still waiting.

Joubert was busy with the first case dossier of the morning. Seventeen more stood in three piles on his desk, yellow-gray SAP3 files that regulated his life. He heard Vos’s purposeful tread on the bare gray floor tiles, heard that the footsteps didn't end at the office next door. Then Vos was in the door, his voice subdued, as if de Wit was in the vicinity.

“General forecast deep shit,” he said. Gerbrand Vos used language like a blunt weapon.

Joubert nodded. Vos sat down on one of the blue-gray government-issue chairs. “Patriots. Patriots! Jesus, it makes my blood boil. And Scotland Yard. What does Scotland Yard know about Africa, Mat? And ‘colleagues’ all the time. What kind of CO calls his people ‘colleagues’?”

“He’s new, Gerry. It’ll blow over.”

“He wants to see us. He stopped me at tea and said he wanted to see each and every one of us alone. I have—” Vos looked at his watch—“to be there now. And you’re next. We’ve got to hang together, Mat. We’re the two senior officers. We’ve got to sort out this fucker from the start. Did you hear him on fitness? I can see us doing PT in the parking area every morning.”

Joubert smiled slightly. Vos got up. “I’ll call you when I'’ve finished. Just remember: band of brothers. Even if we’re not fucking patriots.”

“It’s okay, it’s only jam, Mat,” Vos said thirty-five minutes later when he walked in again. “He’s waiting for you. Quite friendly and full of compliments.”

Joubert sighed, put on his jacket, and walked down the passage.

Colonel Bart de Wit had taken over Willy Theal’s office and made it his own, Joubert saw when he knocked and was invited in.

The team pictures against the wall were gone. The dirty green carpet on the floor was gone, the sickly pot plant in the corner had disappeared. Three certificates of degrees conferred now hung against the newly painted white wall. The floor was covered in a police-blue carpet and in the corner was a coffee table on which a small plaque announced I PREFER NOT TO SMOKE. On the desk was a holder with four photographs— a smiling woman in glasses with heavy frames, a teenage boy with his father’s nose, a teenage girl in glasses with heavy frames. The other pictures showed de Wit and the minister of law and order.

“Do sit down, Captain,” said de Wit and gestured at the blue-gray chair. He also sat down. A small smile instantly hovered.

Then he straightened the thick personnel file in front of him and opened it. “What did you say? That they called you Max?”

“Mat.”

“Mat?”

“They’re my initials, Colonel. I was christened Marcus Andreas Tobias. M.A.T. My father called me that.” Joubert’s voice was soft, patient.

“Aaah. Your father. I see he was a member, too.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Never an officer?”

“No, Colonel.”

“Aaah.”

A moment’s uncomfortable silence. Then de Wit picked up the staff file.

“I don’t play my cards close to the chest, Captain. Not about my political views then and not about my work now. So I’m going to be painfully honest with you. Things haven’t been going well. Since your wife’s death.”

The smile on de Wit’s face didn't match the seriousness of his voice. It confused Mat Joubert.

“She was also a member, wasn'’t she?”

Joubert nodded. And wondered what the man across the desk knew. His stomach muscles contracted and doors closed in his mind as a precaution.

“She died in the course of duty?”

Again Joubert nodded, and his pulse rate increased.

“A tragedy. But with respect, Captain, since then things have gone badly for you . . .” He looked at the file again. “One serious disciplinary warning and two petitions from seven NCOs. A decrease in the solving of crimes . . .”

Joubert stared at the photograph of de Wit and the minister. The minister was a half meter taller. Both were smiling broadly. It was a clear picture. One could see the mole.

“Do you want to comment, Captain?”

The curious smile on de Wit’s face unnerved Joubert.

“It’s all in the file, Colonel.”

“The disciplinary action.” De Wit read the document in front of him. “The Wasserman case. You refused to make a statement . . .” He waited for Joubert to react. The silence grew.

“It’s all in the file, Colonel. I didn't make a statement because Adjutant Potgieter’s statement was correct.”

“So you were guilty of unbecoming conduct.”

“According to the definition, I was, Colonel.”

“And the two petitions from the seven NCOs that they didn't want to be with you on standby again?”

“I don’t blame them, Colonel.”

De Wit leaned back in his chair, a magnate. “I like your honesty, Captain.”

Joubert was astonished at the way the man could smile and talk at the same time.

“But I don’t know whether it’s going to be enough to save you. You see, Captain, this is the New South Africa. We’ve all got to make a contribution. Shape up or ship out. There are people in disadvantaged communities who have to be uplifted. In the police service as well. We can’t keep deadwood in officers’ posts for sentimental reasons. Do you understand?”

Joubert nodded.

“Then there’s the question of my appointment. The pressure is heavy. Not just on me— on the new government. Everybody’s waiting for the mistakes. The whites would love the black government to make mistakes so that they can say we told you so.”

De Wit leaned forward. The smile grew.

“Here there are going to be no mistakes. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Shape up or ship out.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Ask yourself, Captain: Am I a winner? Then you’ll always be welcome here.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

De Wit sighed deeply, the smile in place.

“Your first medical examination is at fourteen hundred hours, day after tomorrow. And a last point: The service contracted two clinical psychologists for members who need it. I referred your file. They’ll let you know. Perhaps by tomorrow. Have a good day, Captain.”

4.

Premier Bank started out as a building society seventy-five years ago, but this kind of financial institution had become unfashionable.

So, like most other financial institutions, it broadened its scope a little. Now, in addition to home loans, its clients could also drown in overdrawn accounts, installment plans, and every other conceivable method of squeezing interest from modern man.

For the average client there was the Ruby Plan with the pale mauve-and-gray checkbook and its imprint of a red precious stone. Those with a higher income and more debt qualified for the Emerald Plan— and a green gem. But, above all, the Premier wanted all its clients to aim for the Diamond Plan.

On Wednesday, January 2, Susan Ploos van Amstel saw the attractive man with the gold-framed glasses, the blond hair, the deep tan, and the steel-gray suit walking toward her teller cubicle and knew he was a Diamond Plan client.

Susan was plump, thirty-four years old, with three children who spent their afternoons in a play school and a husband who spent his evenings in the garage tinkering with his 1962 Anglia. When the blond man smiled, she felt young. His teeth were a flawless, gleaming white. His face was finely made but strong. He looked like a film star. A forty-year-old film star.

“Good afternoon, sir. How may I help you?” Susan gave him her best smile.

“Hi,” he said, and his voice was deep and rich. “I heard that this branch has the prettiest tellers in the Cape. And I see it’s true.”

Susan blushed, looked down. She was enjoying every moment.

“Sweetheart, won’t you do me a great favor?”

Susan looked up again. Not an indecent proposal, surely? “Certainly, sir. Anything.”

“Oh, dangerous words, sweetheart, dangerous words,” his voice loaded with meaning. Susan giggled and blushed a deeper red.

“But I’ll leave that for another occasion. Don’t you want to get one of those large old bank bags and fill it with notes— fifties and higher? I'’ve got this large old gun here under my jacket . . .”

He opened his jacket slightly. Susan saw the grip of a weapon.

“. . . and I don’t want to use it. But you look like a pretty and sensible girl. If you help me quickly, I’ll be gone before anything nasty can happen.” His voice remained calm, the tone conversational.

Susan looked for the smile that would show he was joking. It didn't arrive.

“You’re serious.”

“Indeed, sweetheart.”

“Good God.”

“No, sweetheart, nice large notes.”

Susan’s hands started shaking. She remembered her training.

The alarm bell is on the floor. Press it.

Her legs were jelly. Mechanically her hands took out the canvas bag. She opened the money drawer, started transferring the notes.

Press it.

“Your perfume is delicious. What’s it called?” he asked in his beautiful voice.

“Royal Secret,” she said and blushed, despite the circumstances. She had no more fifties. She gave him the bag.

Press it.

“You’re a star. Thank you. Tell your husband to look after you. Someone might steal you.” He gave a broad smile, took the bag, and walked out. When he went through the glass door Susan Ploos van Amstel pressed the button with her toe.

“It could be a wig, but we’ll get an Identikit together,” Mat said to the three reporters. He was investigating the Premier robbery because his manpower was deployed in the Upper Cape, where a bag person had set a friend alight in a haze of methylated spirits; in Brackenfell, the scene of a shotgun robbery in a fish shop; and in Mitchells Plain, where a thirteen-year-old girl had been raped by fourteen gang members.

“Only seven thousand rand. Has to be an amateur,” said the reporter from the

Cape Argus

and sucked her ballpoint pen. Joubert said nothing. Better that way when handling the media. He looked through the glass door of the manager’s office, where Susan Ploos van Amstel was telling her story to even more clients.

“The Sweetheart Robber. Could become a nice story. Think he’ll try again, Captain?” the man from

Die Burger

asked. Joubert shrugged.

Then there were no more questions. The reporters excused themselves. Joubert said good-bye and sat down again. The Identikit people were on their way.

He drove the service vehicle, a white Sierra, because he was on standby. On the way home he stopped at the secondhand-book shop in Koeberg Road. Billy Wolfaardt stood in the doorway.

“Hi, Captain. How’s the murder business?”

“Still the same, Billy.”

“Two Ben Bovas have come in. But I think you’ve got them.”

Joubert walked to the science fiction section.

“And a new William Gibson.”

Joubert ran his finger down the spines of the books. Billy Wolfaardt turned and walked to the cash register at the door. He knew the captain wasn'’t a great talker.

Joubert looked at the Bovas, put them back on the shelf, took the Gibson, paid for it. He said good-bye and drove off. On the way home he bought Kentucky chicken.

An envelope had been pushed under his door. He carried it to the kitchen with the paperback and the chicken.

The envelope had a drawing of flowers in pale pastel colors. He put down the rest of the stuff, took a knife out of a drawer, and slit open the envelope. It contained a single sheet of paper with the same floral pattern, folded in half. It had a sweet smell, familiar. A perfume. He opened it. The handwriting was feminine and impressive, looped. He read:

The hot embrace

Of my deep desire

Ignites the flame

Of your hottest fire

Taste me, touch me, take me

Impale me like a butterfly

My lovely love, oh can’t you see

To love me is to make me die.

It was unsigned. The perfume was the signature. He recognized it.

Joubert sat down at the kitchen table. Why was she fucking with him? He didn't need another night like the last two.

He read it again. The unsubtle verses created visions in his head— Yvonne Stoffberg, her young body naked, underneath him, sweat gleaming on the full, round breasts . . .

He threw the poem and the envelope in the wastebasket and, muttering, walked to his room. Not another night like that. He wouldn't be able to cope. He threw his tie onto the bed, went to fetch the paperback, and took it to the living room.

He had difficulty in concentrating. After seven jerky pages he fetched the verses out of the wastebasket and read them again, annoyed with his lack of discipline.

Should he telephone her? Just to say thank you.

No.

Her pa might answer, and he didn't want to start anything.

Just to say thank you.

He’d thought the urge had died. The same time two days ago he still believed the urge was dead.

The phone rang. Joubert started, got up and walked to the bedroom.

“Joubert.”

“Radio control, Captain. Shooting incident at the Holiday Inn in Newlands. Deceased is a white man.”

“I’m on my way.”

5.

The other colleague who hadn't given up on Mat Joubert was Detective Sergeant Benny Griessel. Because, despite all his cynicism, Griessel drank like a fish. And completely understood Joubert’s withdrawal. He believed that something had to give in the life of a Murder and Robbery detective, where death was your constant companion, the source of your bread and butter.

For a little more than a year, Griessel had watched Joubert sinking deeper and deeper into the quicksand of depression and self-pity— and not necessarily being able to pull out of it. And said to himself: Rather that than the bottle. Because Benny Griessel knew the bottle. It allowed you to forget the shadow of death. But it sent your wife and two kids fleeing headlong, away from the abusive, battering drunk who made their lives hell on a Saturday night. And later, many other evenings of the week as well.

No, Mat Joubert had a better deal going.

Griessel was the first to reach the scene. He was of medium height with a Slav face, a broken nose, and black hair worn rather long. He wore a creased blue suit.

Joubert pushed his way through the crowd of curious onlookers, bent under the yellow plastic band with which the uniformed men had cordoned off the scene, and walked to Griessel, who was standing over to one side talking to a young blond man. The uniforms had thrown a blanket over the body. It lay shapelessly in the shadow of a steel-blue BMW.

“Captain,” Griessel greeted him. “Mr. Merryck here found the body and called the station. From hotel reception.” Joubert smelled the liquor on Griessel’s breath. He looked at Merryck, saw the gold-framed glasses, the sparse mustache. A fleck of vomit still clung to his chin. The body couldn't be a pretty sight.

“Mr. Merryck is a hotel guest. He parked over there and was on his way to the entrance when he saw the body.”

“It was quite awful. Sickening,” said Merryck. “But one has to do one’s duty.”

Griessel patted him on the shoulder. “You can go now. If we need you, we know where to find you,” he said in his faultless English. He and Joubert walked to the body. “Photographer is on his way. I'’ve asked for the pathologist, forensic, and the fingerprint guys. And most of the others on standby. He’s white,” said Griessel and pulled away the blanket.

Between two staring eyes lay the blood-filled lake of a bullet wound, gaping, mocking, in flawless symmetry.

“But take a look at this,” said Griessel and pulled the blanket down further. Joubert saw another wound, a bloody blackish-red hole in the chest, in the center of a stylish suit, shirt, and tie.

“Jesus,” Mat Joubert said and knew why Merryck had vomited.

“Large caliber.”

“Yip,” said Griessel. “A cannon.”

“Check his pockets,” said Joubert.

“wasn'’t robbery,” they said virtually in unison when they saw the gold Rolex on the arm. And they both knew that this complicated the case infinitely.

Joubert’s hand moved quickly over the lifeless eyes, smoothing down the eyelids. He saw the defenselessness of the dead, the way in which all bodies lay, unmistakable, vulnerable, the hands and arms finally folded never again to defend that showcase of life, the face. He forced himself to keep his mind on his work.

Voices behind them, saying hi. More detectives from the backup team. Joubert rose. They were coming to look at the body. Griessel chased them away when they blocked out the pale light of the streetlamps.

“Start there. Walk the whole area. Every centimeter.”

The usual moan started, but they obeyed, knew how important the first search was. Griessel carefully went through the deceased’s pockets. Then he got up with a checkbook holder and car keys in his hand. He threw the keys to Adjutant Basie Louw.

“They’re for a BMW. Try this one.”

Griessel opened the gray leather checkbook holder. “We have a name,” he said. “J. J. Wallace. And an address. Ninety-six Oxford Street, Constantia.”

“The key fits,” said Louw and took it out carefully, so as not to leave his fingerprints in the car.

“A rich bugger,” said Griessel. “We’ll hit the headlines again.”

It was a young detective constable, Gerrit Snyman, who found the cartridge case halfway under a nearby car. “Captain,” he called, still inexperienced enough to get excited immediately. Joubert and Griessel walked toward him. Snyman lit the empty cartridge case with his flashlight. Joubert picked it up, held it against the light. Griessel came closer, read the numbers on the back.

“Seven point six three.”

“Impossible. It’s short. Pistol case.”

“There. You read it. Seven point six . . . three. It seems. Might be badly printed.”

“Probably six two.”

Benny Griessel looked at Joubert. “Must be. And that means only one thing.”

“Tokarev.” Joubert sighed.

“APLA.” Benny sighed. “Fuckin’ politics.”

Joubert walked toward his service vehicle. “I’m going to radio the Colonel.”

“De Wit? All he’ll do is to puke his fuckin’ heart out.” Benny’s grin shone silver in the streetlight.

For the moment Joubert had forgotten that Willy Theal would never visit a murder scene again. He felt gloom rising like damp.

The house at 96 Oxford Street was a large single story set in huge grounds. The garden was a controlled lushness, impressive even in the semidarkness.

Somewhere deep in the house the doorbell sounded, briefly overriding the sound of a television program. The seconds ticked past. Inside, their carefree time was decreasing, Joubert thought. The angels of death were at the front door. The tiding, like a parasite, was going to suck life, joy, and peace out of their lives.

A woman opened the door, irritated, a frown of small wrinkles. Long, thick auburn hair hung over one shoulder, covered part of the yellow-patterned apron, and guided their gaze away from her eyes.

Her voice was melodious and annoyed. “Can I help you?”

“Mrs. Wallace?” he asked. Then he saw the eyes. So did Griessel. A mismatched pair, the one pale blue and bright, the other in shades of brown, somewhere between light and dark. Joubert tried not to stare.

“Yes,” she said and knew it wasn'’t a sales ploy. Fear moved like a shadow over her face.

“It’s James, isn’t it.”

A boy of about ten appeared behind her. “What is it, Mom?”

She looked round, worried. “Jeremy, please go to your room.” Her voice was soft but urgent. The boy turned away. She looked back at the detectives.

“We’re from the police,” Joubert said.

“You’d better come in,” she said, opening the door wide and taking off her apron.

Mrs. Margaret Wallace wept with the total abandon of helpless grief, hands in her lap, shoulders slightly bowed. Tears stuck to the yellow wool of her summer sweater and glistened in the bright light of her living room’s candelabra.

Joubert and Griessel stared at the carpet.

Joubert focused on the ball and claw of the coffee table’s leg. He wanted to be in his chair in his own home, the paperback on his lap and a beer in his hand.

The boy came down the passage. Behind him was a girl somewhere between eight and ten.

“Mom?” His voice was small and scared.

Margaret Wallace straightened her shoulders, wiped the palm of her hand over her face. She got up with dignity. “Excuse me.” She took the children’s hands and led them down the passage. A door closed. The silence was deafening. A cry sounded. Then there was silence again.

They didn't look at each other because that would be an admission.

Eventually she came back. Her shoulders were still gallantly erect, as though she could contain her emotions physically. But they knew.

“I must call my mother. She lives in Tokai. She can help with the kids. I’m sure you have many questions.” Her voice was neutral, like a sleepwalker’s.

Joubert wanted to tell her that they would come back later, that they would leave her with her pain. But he couldn't.

She came back within minutes. “My mother is coming over. She’s strong. My dad . . . I'’ve asked the maid to make us some tea. I take it you drink tea?”

“Thank you, but . . .” Joubert’s voice was slightly hoarse. He cleared his throat.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll stay with the kids until she arrives.” She didn't wait for an answer and walked down the semilit passage.

Joubert’s pocket radio beeped. He looked at the LCD message on his screen: RING ADJ LOUW. There was a phone number attached.

He’d sent Louw and three other detectives to the hotel because the rooms overlooked the parking area. This was after the pathologist had mumbled over the body. And before Bart de Wit had turned up and called a media conference about a murder on which they had no information. He and Benny had fled to Oxford Street just after it started.

“The man is a clown,” Benny had said on the way. “He won’t last.” Joubert wondered if the OC had called in the NCOs one by one as well. And if de Wit was aware of Griessel’s drinking problem.

“Basie wants me,” he said, breaking the depressing silence, and got up. He walked to the room from where Margaret Wallace had earlier made a call. He heard the maid clinking china in the kitchen.

It looked like a study. A desk with a computer and telephone stood in the center. Against the back wall was a bookcase with hardcover files, a few books on business practice, and a handful of

Readers’ Digest

condensed books in their overdone mock leather bindings. The wall next to the door was covered in photographs and certificates. There was also a large cartoon by a local cartoonist. It depicted James Wallace— thick black hair, luxuriant mustache, slightly bulging cheeks. The caricature wore a neat suit of clothes. One hand held a briefcase with the logo WALLACE QUICKMAIL. The other arm clutched a cricket bat; the hand held a flag with WP CRICKET on it.

Joubert dialed the number. It was the hotel’s. He asked to speak to Basie and waited a few moments.

“Captain?”

“Yo, Basie.”

“We’ve found someone, Captain. Female, blond. She says Wallace was with her in the room. But we didn't question her further. We’re waiting for you.”

“Can you stay with her? Benny and I are going to be here for a while.”

“No problem, Captain.” Louw sounded keen. “Oh, and there was another spent cartridge. Under the body.”

When Joubert walked out of the study, he glanced at the cartoon against the wall again. And knew that the insignificance of life was just as sad as the finality of death.

“He started business on his own,” said Margaret Wallace. She sat on the edge of the big, comfortable chair, her hands in her lap, her voice even, without inflection, controlled.

“He was awarded the contract to deliver the municipal accounts. It was tough at first. He had to import an Addressograph and a computer from the United States, but in those days every letter had to be inserted into the envelopes by hand, then sealed. I helped him. We worked through the night. Often. He sold seventy percent of the shares to Promail International two years ago, but they stuck to the original name. He’s still on the board and acts as a consultant.”

Joubert noted that she was still speaking about her husband in the present tense. But he knew that would change on the following day, after the night.

“Was your husband involved in politics?”

“Politics?” Margaret Wallace said, wholly uncomprehending.

“Was Mr. Wallace a member of a political party?” Griessel asked.

“No, he . . .” Her voice cracked. They waited.

“He was . . . apolitical. He didn't even vote. He says all politicians are the same. They only want power. They don’t really care about people.” The frown on her forehead deepened.

“Was he involved in the townships? Welfare work?”

“No.”

“His company?”

“No.”

Joubert tried another tack. “Were you aware of any tension at work recently?”

She shook her head slightly and the auburn hair moved. “No.”

The unmatched pair of eyes blinked. She was fighting for control, Joubert knew. He helped her: “We’re sure there must be a logical explanation for this terrible thing, Mrs. Wallace.”

“Who could’ve done such a thing? Haven’t we had enough death and destruction in this country already? James wasn'’t perfect but . . .”

“It could’ve been an accident, Mrs. Wallace. Or a robbery. The motive for this sort of thing is usually money,” Griessel said.

Or sex, Joubert thought. But that would have to wait.

“Do you know if anyone owed your husband money? Any other business ventures, transactions . . .”

She shook her head again. “James was so responsible with money. He didn't even gamble. We went to Sun City last year, with the people from Promail. He took along five thousand rand and said that when that was gone, he would stop. And he did. The house doesn’t have a mortgage, thank the good Lord . . .”

Griessel cleared his throat. “You were happily married.” A statement.

Margaret Wallace looked at Griessel and frowned. “Yes, I would like to think so. We had the usual little squabbles. James loves cricket. And sometimes he comes home a bit tipsy after a night out with the boys. And sometimes I’m too sensitive about it. I can be moody, I suppose. But our marriage works, in its strange way. The kids . . . our existence revolves around the kids these days.” She looked in the direction of the bedroom, where her mother had to be the comforter now.

The silence grew. Then Joubert spoke. He thought his voice sounded artificial and overly sympathetic. “Mrs. Wallace, according to law you have to identify your husband at the morgue . . .”

“I can’t do it.” Her voice was muffled, and the tears were about to fall.

“Is there someone else who could?”

“Someone at work will have to. Walter Schutte. The managing director.” She gave a telephone number, and Joubert wrote it down.

“I’ll give him a call.”

They got up. She did, too, but reluctantly, because she knew the night lay ahead.

“If there’s anything we can do . . .” Griessel said and he sounded sincere.

“We’ll be fine,” said Margaret Wallace and started crying bitterly again.

The blonde sat on one of the hotel’s bedroom chairs. Her name was Elizabeth Daphne van der Merwe.

Joubert sat in the other chair. Griessel, Louw, and O’Grady were perched on the edge of the big double bed, arms folded, like judges.

Her hair was straw-colored out of a bottle. Her face was long and thin, the eyes big and brown with long lashes, the nose small and delicate. Tears had drawn mascara tracks down her cheeks. But Lizzie van der Merwe had missed true beauty with a mouth that didn't match. Her front teeth were a bit rabbity, the bottom lip was small, too near the weakness of her jaw. Her body was tall and slender with small, high breasts under the white blouse. She had angular hip bones and wore a black skirt that showed too much of her legs in cream-colored stockings ending in elegant high heels.

“Where did you meet the deceased?” Joubert’s voice was wholly without sympathy now, his choice of words deliberate.

“I met him this afternoon.” She hesitated, looked up. The detectives all stared at her, their faces impassive. The long lashes danced across her cheeks. But no one reacted.

“I work for Zeus Computers. In Johannesburg. I phoned last week. We have new products . . . James . . . er . . . Mr. Wallace . . . They referred me to him. He is their consultant on computers. And so I flew down this morning. I had an eleven o’clock appointment. Then he took me to lunch . . .” Her eyes moved from face to face, looking for one that showed sympathy.

They waited in silence. Her lashes danced again. The lower lip quivered and placed more emphasis on the two front teeth she tried to hide. Joubert felt sorry for her.

“And then?” he asked softly. She embraced his tone of voice and focused the big eyes on him.

“He . . . We had wine. A great deal of wine. And we talked. He said he was very unhappy in his marriage . . . His wife doesn’t understand him. There was something between us. He understood me so well. He’s a Ram. I’m Virgo.”

Joubert frowned.

“Star signs . . .”

The frown disappeared.

“Then we came here. I have a room here because I’m staying over. I have another appointment tomorrow. With someone from another firm. He left after six. I’m not sure of the time. And that’s the last time I saw him.”

The lashes fluttered again and the mascara tracks increased.

Basie Louw cleared his throat. “What happened here? In this room?”

She cried harder.

They waited.

She got up and went into the bathroom. They heard her blowing her nose. A tap ran. Silence. Then the nose being blown again. She came back and sat down. The mascara tracks had disappeared.

“You know what happened. Here . . .”

They looked at her expectantly.

“We made love.” She cried again. “He was so gentle with me . . .”

“Miss, do you know anyone in Cape Town?” Mat Joubert asked.

She took a tissue out of the sleeve of the white blouse and blew her nose again. “I have friends here. But I haven’t seen them for ages.”

“Is there anyone who’d be . . . unhappy if you slept with other men?”

Her head jerked up. “I don’t sleep with other men . . .”

The eyebrows of the three detectives on the bed rose with military precision.

“Don’t you understand? There was a vibe. We . . . we were . . . It was beautiful.”

Joubert asked again: “Miss, we want to know if you’re involved with anyone else who would mind that you and the deceased slept together.”

“Oh, you mean . . . No. No, never. I don’t even have a permanent relationship.”

“Do you belong to a political party or group, Miss van der Merwe?”

“Yes.”

“Which one?”

“I’m a member of the Democratic Party. But what has . . .”

Griessel didn't give her a chance. “Did you ever have any connection with the Pan African Congress?”

She shook her head.

“Or with the Azanian People’s Liberation Army?”

“APLA? No, I . . .”

“Do you know anybody who belongs to these groups?”

“No.”

“What did the deceased say when he left here? Did he have another appointment?” Griessel asked.

“He said he had to go home, to his children. He is . . . was a good man . . .” Her head drooped. “There was a vibe. So beautiful,” she said.

Mat Joubert sighed and got up.

6.

He dreamed about Yvonne Stoffberg. They were in the mountains. She ran ahead of him, her white bottom bobbing in the moonlight, her brown hair floating. She was laughing, skipping over river stones, past a rippling stream. He was also laughing, his hard-on rigid in the evening breeze. Then suddenly she screamed, a scream of terror and surprise. Her hands shot to her breasts, trying to hide them. Ahead of them on the mountain track stood Bart de Wit. Between his eyes there was a third eye, a staring, scarlet pit. But he could still speak: “Ask yourself, Captain. Are you a winner?” Over and over again like a cracked record in that high, nasal voice. He looked round, searching for Yvonne Stoffberg, but she had vanished. Suddenly, de Wit was gone, too. The dark invaded him. He felt himself dying. He closed his eyes. Long auburn hair drifted across his face. He was lying in the arms of Margaret Wallace. “You’ll be okay,” she said. He started crying.

At the traffic lights Joubert stared at

Die Burger

’s poster as he did every morning without seeing it. Then as the letters took on meaning, he was startled: CHINESE MAFIA BEHIND BRUTAL KILLING OF CRICKET FAN?

The lights changed to green and he couldn't stop next to the newspaper seller. He drove to a café in Plattekloof, bought a newspaper, and looked for the report on the front page as he walked back to his car. He found it.

Cape Town— A murder gang of the Chinese Mafia may possibly be behind the brutal slaying of a wealthy Cape Town businessman who was shot with a Tokarev pistol at a Newlands hotel last night.

According to Col. Bart de Wit . . .

Joubert leaned against the car and looked up at Table Mountain. He sighed, not seeing how clearly the mountain was visible this morning or how the morning sun made a bright splash in the bay. Then he folded his newspaper, got into the car, and drove off.

“What’s beyond me is why he had a bit on the side with a horse-faced blonde when he had a film star at home,” Griessel said.

Joubert wasn'’t listening. “Have you seen the paper?”

“No.”

Then de Wit came in, ramrod straight, self-satisfied. The detectives fell silent.

“Good morning, colleagues. Beautiful morning, isn’t it. Makes one grateful for the privilege of being alive. But there it is, we have to get on with the job. Before we discuss yesterday’s cases . . . I'’ve now met all the officers personally and we had productive discussions. Today I’m starting with the noncommissioned officers. I want to get to know you all as soon as possible. Mavis has a list. All the adjutants must check the time of their appointments. Right, let’s discuss yesterday’s cases. Captain Mat Joubert called me for assistance with a murder in Newlands . . .”

He looked at Mat and gave him a friendly smile. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Captain. Can you give us a progress report?”

Joubert was somewhat taken aback. He’d asked de Wit to come to the scene because it was standard procedure with all murders that had a high publicity potential. Now the man was giving it a different interpretation.

“Uh . . . It’s pretty thin, Colonel. The deceased certainly had extramarital relationships. Today we’ll check whether there’s a jealous husband in the picture somewhere. Perhaps someone at his office . . .”

“You can drop that,” de Wit interrupted him. “As I told the press last night, this is the work of a Chinese drug ring . . . Good piece in

Die Burger

this morning. If you dig deeply enough into the deceased’s background you’ll find the connection. I think the investigation can only benefit if you involve the narcotics bureau as well, Captain. Drop that jealous husband theory of yours. Interestingly enough, last year at the Yard we had two similar murders . . .”

De Wit broke eye contact with Joubert. Joubert stopped listening. There was an uncomfortable feeling in his belly, as if an insect were scrabbling through his entrails.

Reluctantly he phoned the officer commanding SANAB— the South African Narcotics Bureau— after the morning assembly.

“What have you appointed there this time, Joubert?” the voice at the other end asked. “A clown? Cloete of public relations has just phoned me, asked whether de Wit had spoken to me. Cloete is mad as hell because your new boss chats to the newspapers himself. Cloete wants to know whether he can retire now and fish full-time. and what’s this crap about the Chinese mafia?”

“It’s based on the previous experience of my commanding officer, colonel. at this stage we have to investigate all possibilities.”

“Don’t give me that official smokescreen, Joubert. you’re just shielding de Wit.”

“Colonel, I would appreciate it very much if you and your staff would provide murder and robbery with any information which could cast more light on the possibility.”

“Ah, now I'’ve got it. You’re under orders. Awright, you have my sympathy, Joubert. If we uncover a Chinese smuggling ring in the next two hundred years, you’ll be the first to know.”

The investigating officer had to be present during the postmortem. That was the rule, the tradition— no matter what the state of the remains.

Joubert had never enjoyed it, not even in the good old days. But he could erect barriers between himself and the unsettling process that repeated itself time after time on a marble slab in a white-tiled room in Salt River, where the dead lost the last remnants of dignity.

Not that Professor Pagel forced his scalpel and clamps and saws and forceps through skin and tissue and bone without respect. On the contrary, the state pathologist and his staff approached their work with the seriousness and professionalism that it deserved.

It was Lara’s death which had destroyed his barriers. Because he knew she had also lain there. Images recalled from past experience had helped to reconstruct the scene. Naked, on her back, clean and sterile, her lithe body exposed to the world, to no effect. The blood washed from her face, only the small star-shaped bullet wound visible between the hairline and the eyebrows. And a pathologist explaining to a detective that it was characteristic of a contact shot, the point-blank killing. Because the compressed gases in the gun’s barrel landed under the skin and suddenly expanded, like a balloon bursting, the Star of Death was awarded, so often seen in suicide cases . . . But not in Lara’s. Somebody else gave her the star.

Every time he walked down the cold, tiled passages of the mortuary in Salt River, his mind screened him the scene, a macabre replay he couldn't switch off.

Pagel was waiting in the little office with Walter Schutte, managing director of Quickmail. Joubert introduced himself. Schutte was of medium height with a deep voice and hair that protruded from every possible opening— his shirt collar, the cuffs, his ears. They walked to the theater where James J. Wallace lay under a green sheet.

Pagel stripped off the covering.

“Jeez,” said Walter Schutte and turned his face away.

“Is this James J. Wallace?” Joubert asked.

“Yes,” said Schutte. He was pale and the line of shaven beard showed clearly on his skin. Joubert was astonished by the hairiness of the man. He took him by the shoulder and led him back to Pagel’s office, where Schutte signed a form.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions in your office later on.”

“What about?” Schutte’s self-confidence was slowly reasserting itself.

“Routine.”

“Of course,” Schutte said. “Anytime.”

When Joubert walked back, Pagel switched on the bright lights, thrust his short, strong fingers into the transparent plastic gloves, took off the cloth covering the late James J., drew the arm of the large mounted magnifying glass toward him, and picked up a small scalpel.

The pathologist began his systematic procedure. Joubert knew all the

mmm

sounds the man made, the unintelligible mutter when he found something important. But Pagel only shared his discoveries when he was quite certain about his conclusions. That’s why Joubert waited. That’s why he stared at the sterile washbasin against the wall, where a drop of water pinged against the metal container every fourteen seconds.

“Head shot could’ve caused death. Entry through the left frontal sinus, exit two centimeters above the fontanel. The exit wound is very big. Soft-nosed bullet? Could be . . . could be. Must have a look at the trajectory.”

He looked at Joubert. “Difficult to judge the caliber. Entry wound in the wrong place.” Joubert nodded as if he understood.

“Relatively close shot, the head shot. Two, three meters. The thorax shot probably equally close. Could also have caused death. Wound is typical. Additional signs less obvious. The clothes, of course. Heat absorbed. Powder particles. Smoke. Through the sternum. Bleeding absent.”

He looked up again. “Your man was already dead, Captain. After the first shot. Doesn’t matter which one it was. Dead before he hit the ground. The second one was unnecessary.”

Fuel for de Wit’s Mafia mania, Joubert thought. But he remained silent.

“Let’s go in,” Pagel said and picked up a larger scalpel.

Walter Schutte didn't get up when Joubert and Griessel were escorted in by the secretary. “Sit down, gentlemen.” He swung a jovial arm at the modern leather and chrome chairs in front of the big desk with its sheet of glass. “Tea or coffee? I’m having something so please don’t hesitate.” The pale uncertainty in the mortuary had disappeared.

They both chose tea and sat down. The secretary closed the door behind her.

The morning wasn'’t far advanced but Schutte’s beard already cast a shadow over his cheeks. His teeth flashed white when he gave a quick, bright smile. “Well, in what way can I assist you?” Then the smile disappeared like a light that had been switched off.

“We’d like to know more about James Wallace, Mr. Schutte. You must’ve known him well?” Joubert asked.

“I met James for the first time two years ago, when Promail appointed me here. He was a wonderful man.” Schutte’s voice was loaded with veneration.

“Is that what you called him? James?”

“Most of us called him Jimmy. But now it sounds so . . .” Schutte flashed a gesture and a smile.

“What were his relations with the people at work?”

“We all liked him. Oh, hang on, I see what you’re driving at. No, Captain, you won’t find his murderer here.” Schutte waved both hands in front of him as if warding off an evil spirit. “We’re like one big family, I always say. And James was a part of the family. A much loved part. No, Captain, look for your murderer somewhere else.”

“Do you know whether the deceased had any other business interests?”

“No . . . I don’t think so. Jim . . . James told me that all his money was invested in unit trusts because he didn't want to worry about it. As far as I know he only had Quickmail, his cricket, and his family.”

“Has your firm done any business for Chinese firms?”

Schutte frowned. “No. What has that—”

Griessel interrupted him. “Have you seen this morning’s

Burger

?”

“No.” Schutte was off balance.

“The way in which Wallace was murdered, Mr. Schutte— it’s similar to the modus operandi of the Chinese drug dealers. Did he have any contact with people from Taiwan?”

“No.”

“The local Chinese community?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Pharmaceutical companies?”

“There is one for whom we send marketing brochures to the medical profession, but Jimmy never worked with them.”

“Did he use drugs?”

“Never. It’s an absurd idea. Jimmy wasn'’t the sort.”

“Mr. Wallace’s politics. Did he have strong political opinions?”

“Jimmy? No . . .”

“Did you do business with any political group?”

“Not at any time.”

“Do you know how he and his wife got along?”

Schutte sat even straighter in his tall chair. “You’ll find nothing there, either, Captain.” His voice was reproachful. “James and Margaret were the perfect couple. In love, successful, beautiful children . . . young Jeremy plays a fantastic game of cricket. No, Captain, you won’t find anything there.”

Joubert realized that the time had come to free Schutte of his excessive respect for and protection of the dead.

The secretary brought in a tea tray with three cups and put it on the desk. She poured and they thanked her. When everyone had stopped stirring, Joubert asked: “Do you know why the deceased went to the Holiday Inn in Newlands yesterday?”

Schutte moved his shoulders as if the question was obvious. “James often had a beer there with his cricketing friends.”

“Mr. Schutte, how did the deceased get along with the women working here?”

“Very well. He got along with everyone.”

In the good old days, when Mat Joubert still performed his day’s work with the zeal of the newly converted, he developed a technique for reluctant witnesses like Walter Schutte— the Bull, as his colleagues called it. He would lean his big body forward, square and broaden his shoulders, drop his head like a battering ram, lower his voice an octave, and fix his eagle’s eyes on the specific person. Then he would speak, pulling no punches, in a somewhat superior, threatening tone. It was melodramatic, overdone, and feigned. But it worked.

But as Tony O’Grady said one day, a year or two ago, Joubert had lost “the beat in his baton.” And with it the motivation to use the Bull.

Whether it was the flickering flame of sexual hunger ignited by Yvonne Stoffberg, or Colonel Bart de Wit’s challenge to the remnants of his ego, Joubert would never know. When he switched to the Bull it was probably not a reasoned act but more than likely pure reflex.

The physical side of shoulders, head, and eyes he managed, but initially he had problems with the voice and the choice of words. “Yesterday afternoon Jimmy Wallace spent the last hours of his life . . . on top of a blonde. I’m sure it wasn'’t his first . . . escapade. And . . . I know someone in the office must know about his escapades because someone had to protect him when Mrs. Wallace looked for him. You now have a choice, Mr. Schutte. You can go on telling fairy tales about Jimmy Wallace and how exemplary and wonderful he was. Then I’ll have to bring in a team of detectives, which will keep each of the employees busy for hours. Or you can help us and we’ll leave as soon as possible.”

Joubert maintained his aggressive pose. Schutte opened his mouth and closed it again, struggling to find the right words.

“Jimmy . . . Jimmy had his little diversions.” The hands were quiet now.

Joubert leaned back in his chair— the Bull was no longer necessary.

“Mr. Schutte, you saw what James Wallace looks like now. We’re trying to find the person who had a reason for doing that to him. Help us.”

“He . . . liked women.” Schutte glanced swiftly at the door as if he expected James Wallace there, eavesdropping.

“But he had two rules. No nonsense at work. And no long relationships. Just once with each one. Into bed and that was it.”

Schutte’s hands started to move again. He was gaining momentum.

“You should’ve known Jimmy . . .” He gestured with his hands indicating a search for words. “He attracted people like a magnet. Anyone. He was mad about people. We were in a restaurant in Johannesburg and he bet us that within twenty minutes he could convince the brunette in the corner to go to the ladies with him. We accepted the bet. We weren’t allowed to look at them and he had to bring back a piece of evidence. Eighteen minutes later the brunette kissed him good-bye outside the restaurant. And when he sat down he took her panties out of his pocket. Red ones with a black . . .” Then Schutte blushed.

“We want you to think carefully, Mr. Schutte. Do you know of any of his relationships that might have resulted in conflict or unhappiness?”

“No, I told you he had no relationships. In his way he was very fond of Margaret. Okay, occasionally he broke one of his own rules. There was a little secretary here, a young pretty number with big . . . But it only lasted a week. In all honesty I can’t think of anything that would’ve made anyone want to murder him.”

Joubert looked at Griessel. Griessel shook his head slightly. They got up. “We’re sure there’s a jealous husband somewhere who didn't like Wallace’s rules, Mr. Schutte. Please phone us if you can think of something that would be helpful.”

“Of course, absolutely,” Schutte said in his deep voice and also stood. Solemnly they shook hands.

“I haven’t seen the Bull for a long time, Captain,” said Griessel when they were in the elevator on the way down to street level.

Joubert looked questioningly at him.

“The one where you lean forward like that.”

Joubert gave a lopsided, self-conscious grin.

“We all tried to imitate it,” Benny Griessel said, openly nostalgic. “Those were the good old days.”

Then he realized that Mat Joubert might not want to be reminded of them and he shut up.

7.

The doctor’s reading glasses were perched on the end of his nose. Over them he stared at Joubert, grave and portentous.

“If I were a mechanic this would be the moment to whistle and shake my head, Captain.”

Joubert said nothing.

“Things don’t look too good. You smoke. Your lungs don’t sound good. You admitted that you drink too much. You’re fifteen kilos overweight. You have a family history of cardiovascular disease. You work under stress.” The doctor linked his fingers on the desk in front of him.

The man should’ve become a public prosecutor, Joubert thought and stared at a plastic model of a heart and lungs that stood on the desk. It advertised some remedy.

“I’m sending the blood sample for tests. We must check your cholesterol level. But in the meanwhile we must consider your smoking.”

Joubert sighed.

“Have you thought of giving it up?”

“No.”

“Do you know how harmful it is?”

“Doctor . . .”

“It’s not only that you’re exposing yourself to diseases. It’s the manner in which you’ll die, Captain. Have you ever seen someone with emphysema? You should come to the hospital with me, Captain. They lie there in oxygen tents, slowly smothering in their own mucus, like fish on dry ground, unable to breathe.”

On the desk there was a penholder in the shape of a pill. It advertised another kind of medicine. Joubert folded his arms and stared at it.

“And those with lung cancer?” the doctor continued. “Have you seen what chemotherapy does to one, Captain? The cancer makes you thin and tired, the treatment makes your hair fall out. The living dead. They don’t want to look into a mirror. They’re emotional. Adult men weep when their children sit next to the hospital bed.”

“I don’t have children,” Joubert said softly.

The doctor took off his reading glasses. He sounded defeated. “No, Captain, you don’t have any children. But living a healthy life one does primarily for oneself. For your own mental and physical health. And for your employer. You owe it to your employer to be fit. Then you’re alert and productive . . .”

The reading glasses were replaced on his nose.

“I’m not going to prescribe something before we have the results of the blood test. But I must urge you to think about the smoking. And you must exercise. And your eating and drinking habits . . .”

Joubert sighed.

“I know it’s difficult, Captain. But weight is a dodgy issue. The longer you leave it, the harder it becomes to get rid of it.”

Joubert nodded but he didn't meet the doctor’s eyes.

“I’m obliged to send a report of this examination to your employer.” Unaccountably the doctor added: “I’m sorry.”

The Police College in Pretoria took every group of student constables to the service’s museum in Pretorius Street in the old Compol building. In general the visits were never a great success. The students spoiled it, in a manner typical of their age, by vying with one another in friskiness and unsophisticated humor.

That was why Mat Joubert only started loving the museum when, years after his college days, he had to give evidence in a murder case in Pretoria. During the five days he had to wait before being called as a witness, boredom drove him there.

He moved from exhibition to exhibition, his imagination gripped. Because by then he had the experience and insight to know that every rusty murder weapon, every yellowed piece of documentary evidence, had cost some long-forgotten detective hours of sweat and labor. With eventual success.

He’d been there again the following day. And Adjutant Blackie Swart had noticed him. Blackie Swart, face deeply lined, a chain smoker with a voice that sounded like boots on gravel, was the factotum of the museum— a post he had evidently acquired because he had worn the General down with his constant pleading.

He was fifteen when he joined the force, he told Joubert in his broom closet office in the cellar. “Did horse patrol between Parys and Potchefstroom.” Joubert was entertained for hours on end with anecdotes and police coffee, the brew that was made tolerable by a small shot of brandy.

Blackie Swart’s life was on exhibit in the museum, especially in the glass cases below the sign THE HISTORY OF CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION.

“I was part of it all, Matty, saw it happen. I first saw the museum when I came to fetch my twenty-five years from the General, here at headquarters. And I knew I wanted to come back one day. Then I took my pension at sixty with forty-five years of service and I went to Margate and for three months I watched my car rusting. Then I phoned the General. And now I’m here every day.”

Joubert and the old man chatted and smoked the day away. It wasn'’t a paternal relationship, a friendship rather, possibly because Blackie Swart was so wholly different from Joubert’s father.

After the week in Pretoria they met sporadically. Both were bad telephone communicators but Joubert phoned occasionally, especially when he wanted advice about a case. Like now.

“The doctor says I must stop smoking, Uncle Blackie,” he said into the receiver, using the respectful Afrikaans way of addressing elders.

He heard the hoarse cackle of laughter at the other end. “They’ve been telling me that for the past fifty years, Matty. And I’m still hanging in there. I’ll be sixty-eight in December.”

“I'’ve got a funny murder here, Uncle Blackie. My OC says it’s the Chinese Mafia.”

“Is that

your

case?

Beeld

quoted de Wit this morning. I didn't understand it, but then . . .” His voice became conspiratorial. “I hear his black colleagues in the ANC called him Mpumlombini. De Wit, I mean. In the old days, in London.”

“What does it mean, Uncle?”

“Xhosa for Two Nose. The man evidently has a mole . . .” Blackie Swart chuckled.

Joubert heard a cigarette being lit at the other end of the line. Then Blackie had a prolonged coughing attack.

“Maybe I should also give up, Matty.”

Joubert told him about James Wallace.

“De Wit is right about the modus operandi, Matty. Chinese did it that way in London last year. But they have other ways as well. Fond of the crossbow. Dramatic stuff. Much more finesse than the American Mafia. But the Chinese aren’t only involved in drugs. Look at credit card fraud. They’re heavily involved in that. Trading in forged documents. Passports, driving licenses. Wallace had a mailing service. Did they send out banks’ credit cards? He could easily have supplied the Chinese with the numbers.”

“His employees say he did no business with any Eastern companies.”

“Ask his wife. Perhaps they saw him at home.”

“He slept around, Uncle Blackie.”

“Could be, Matty. You know what I always say. There are two kinds of murder. The one where someone suddenly loses his temper and uses the first weapon at hand to hit or throw or shoot. And the other kind is the one which is planned. Head shot in a parking area sounds planned to me. And a man who sleeps around . . .”

Joubert sighed.

“Legwork, Matty. That’s the only way. Legwork.”

He drove to Margaret Wallace’s. He wondered how far she had traveled on her road of grief. Then, on the N1 between Bellville and the southern suburbs, he remembered his dream of the previous night for the first time.

He suddenly knew that for the past two years he had been someone in the process of drowning. He had struggled on the surface of his consciousness, too frightened to dive into the dark water. He could remember dreams that had come back to him during the safety of daylight. But he’d kept them deeply submerged while he drifted on the surface. But now he could plunge his head below the waterline, keeping his eyes open, and look at his dream because Lara had been no part of it. Yvonne Stoffberg was there. How clearly he’d seen her body.

Would he be able to?

If dreams became a reality and she stood in front of him, an open invitation. Could he do it? Would the tool of love, so dulled, be able to function? Or was its blade too blunt to prune the past, allowing new growth?

The uncertainty lay like a weight, low in his abdomen, gripped like fear. His neighbor’s eighteen-year-old daughter. Or was it seventeen? He forced his thoughts to the other characters in his dreams. What was Bart de Wit doing there? With the hole in his head. And Margaret Wallace? He was amazed by the mystery of his subconscious. Wondered why he hadn't dreamed of Lara. Wondered whether she would come back that night. The old monsters found their way into the pool of his thoughts. He sighed. And shot back to the safe surface.

The woman who opened the door had to be Margaret Wallace’s sister. Her hair was short and redder, her skin lightly sprinkled with freckles, her eyes pale blue, but the resemblance was unmistakable.

Joubert asked to see her sister.

“This isn’t a good time.”

“I know,” he said and waited, uncomfortable, an intruder. The woman gave an annoyed sigh and invited him in.

There were people in the living room speaking in hushed voices that stopped when he stood in the entrance hall. They looked at him, recognized the Law by his clothes, his size, and his style. Margaret Wallace sat with her back toward him but followed the others’ eyes. She got up. He saw that she had traveled a long way on her road. Her eyes were sunken and dark. There were lines around her mouth.

“I’m sorry to trouble you,” he said, made uncomfortable by the silence in the large room and the reproachful looks of all those present.

“Let’s go out into the garden,” she said softly and opened the front door.

The southeaster was ruffling the tops of the big trees but down below it was almost still. Margaret Wallace walked with her arms folded tightly across her breasts, her shoulders bowed. He knew the body language so well, the label of the widow, universally recognizable.

“Don’t feel bad. I know you have a job to do,” she said and tried to smile.

“Did you see the newspaper?”

She shook her head. “They hide it from me.”

“My superior . . . There’s a theory . . .” His mind sought desperately for euphemisms, looked for gentle synonyms for death. He wished Benny Griessel were there.

“In Taiwan organized crime uses the same methods . . . in their . . . work. I have to pursue the possibility.”

She looked at him and the wind blew her hair over her face. She wiped it away with a hand, folded her arms again. She waited.

“Your husband might have done business with them, perhaps indirectly . . . With the Chinese. Would you know?”

“No.”

“Mrs. Wallace, I know this is difficult. But if there could be some explanation . . .”

“Haven’t you found anything?” she asked, no reproach in her voice, as if she already knew the answer. Her hair blew over her face again but she let it be.

“Nothing,” he said and wondered whether she would ever find out about Lizzie van der Merwe and the other women with whom James J. had shared a night or two.

“It was a mistake,” she said. “An accident.” Her arms unfolded, a hand comforted his upper arm. “You’ll see. It has to be.” Then she folded the hand away again.

He walked back to the house with her, took his leave. He drove home and wondered why the number of trees in a suburb equaled the per capita income of the breadwinners living there.

It was past seven but the sun was still high above the horizon. Joggers were sweating in the traffic fumes at the side of the road. He lit a cigarette and wondered what he was going to do about his health. Perhaps he should exercise. Jogging was out. He hated jogging. He was too big to jog. Swimming maybe. It would be nice to swim again. Not competitively. Just for fun. Forgotten memories surfaced. The smell of the swimming pool’s changing rooms, the footbath with Dettol in it, the fatigue after hours of practice, the taste of chlorine in his mouth, the adrenaline when the starter’s pistol went off.

At home another letter had been pushed under his door.

Why don’t you reply?

The discomfort was back in his belly. By now he recognized it. There was a lane in Goodwood, behind the cinema on Voortrekker Road. They said that was where motorcycle riders did stuff. He was eight or nine. And every Saturday night he stared down the dark of the lane with a curiosity that threatened to consume him. Run, his mind told him. Run down it like the wind, just once. But the fear, the uncertainty about his own bravery, lay like a weight in his stomach. He had never risked the lane. He drove to Blouberg, bought chicken at Kentucky, and ate it in the car while he stared at the wind-flattened sea. Then he drove home to read his book.

Late in the evening the telephone rang. He put William Gibson on the table next to the armchair, answered. It was Cloete of public relations.

“Are you still working on the Yellow Peril or can I feed the newspapers something else tomorrow?”

8.

Cape town— Up to now the police have been unable to establish any connection between the Tokarev murder and Chinese drug syndicates.

De Wit read the report in a soft voice, a thin smile on his face. He put down the newspaper and looked at Joubert.

“Must we differ about this case in public, Captain?”

“No, Colonel,” said Joubert and saw that the no smoking sign had been moved from the coffee table in the corner to de Wit’s desk next to the family photograph.

“Did you provide the information?” De Wit’s voice was conversational, almost jolly.

“Colonel,” said Joubert tiredly, “as investigating officer I reacted to a query from a colleague at public relations. It’s in line with the procedures and regulations of the service. I gave him the information in the light of the way I see the murder investigation at this stage. It’s my duty.”

“I see,” said de Wit and again smiled slightly. He picked up the newspaper and slid his eyes over the report. “You didn't deliberately make a fool of your commanding officer?”

“No, Colonel.”

“We’ll never really know, Captain Joubert. But in the long run it probably won’t matter. Thank you for coming by.”

Joubert realized he was being excused. He stood up, uncomfortable, uncertain about the other man’s calmness, already aware that it meant something, predicted something.

“Thanks, Colonel,” Joubert mumbled at the door.

He was behind with his paperwork. He pulled the adjutants’ files toward him but found it difficult to concentrate. He lit a Winston and sucked the smoke deep into his lungs. He wondered whether he’d deliberately made a fool of his commanding officer.

And he thought about the cunning of his subconscious and knew that he was not entirely innocent, Your Worship.

Dragging footsteps moved down the passage. Griessel walked past, his head bowed. There was something in his carriage that disturbed Joubert.

“Benny?”

The footsteps returned. Griessel’s face appeared around the door. He was pale.

“Benny, is everything all right?”

“I’m okay, Captain.” The voice was remote.

“What’s the matter, Benny?”

“I’m okay, Captain.” Slightly more expression. “Probably something I ate.”

Or drank, Joubert thought but said nothing.

Griessel’s face disappeared. Joubert lit another cigarette. He forced himself to concentrate on the work in front of him. Dossiers about death. An elderly couple in Durbanville. An unknown black body next to the train tracks in Kuilsriver. A woman in Belhar murdered with a screwdriver by her drunken husband.

Then he heard someone clearing his throat. Bart de Wit stood in front of his desk. Joubert wondered how he managed to move like a cat over the tiled floor. He saw that de Wit wasn'’t smiling. His face was serious.

“I'’ve got news, Captain. Good news.”

Joubert ground the gears of the Sierra and drove jerkily through the afternoon traffic. He wished he could express the astonishment and indignation that clung to him like a too tight piece of clothing.

De Wit had told him he had to see the psychologist.

“Your file has been referred.”

The passive form. Too scared to say: I referred your file, Captain, because you are a loser. And I, Bart de Wit, don’t need losers. I want to get rid of you. And if I can’t do it with the medical report, I’ll do it in this way. Let’s dig around in your head, Captain. Let’s thrust a spoon into the stew of your head and stir it a little. Stand back, folks, because it might be dangerous. This man in front of you is slightly . . . off. Not all there. Mentally unbalanced. On the surface he looks normal. Somewhat overweight, somewhat untidy, but normal. But inside his head it’s something else, ladies and gentlemen. Inside that skull a few circuits have shorted.

“Your file has been referred. There are appointments available”— he’d checked the green file—“this afternoon at sixteen-thirty, tomorrow at oh nine hundred, fourteen hundred—”

“This afternoon,” Mat Joubert had said hurriedly.

De Wit had looked up from the file, somewhat surprised, appraisingly. “We’ll arrange it.”

And now he was on his way. Because somewhere in a gray office with a couch for his patients, a bespectacled psychologist had had insight into his file. Had begun setting up the scorecard of Freud or Jung or whomsoever. What have we here? The death of his wife? Minus twenty. Disciplinary hearing? Minus twenty. And the slump in his work. Minus forty. He could have done something about that. Grand total minus eighty. Bring him in.

“We’ll keep an eye on the situation, Captain. See whether the therapy helps.” A covert threat, concealed. But obviously de Wit’s trump card.

Perhaps it was a good thing. God knows, his head had been muddled. Had been? Could one really judge the state of one’s own mind? How normal was he at Macassar when he’d looked at the burnt remains of the three, could hear their voices in his ears? The high, shrill, primal scream that the spirit utters when it reluctantly has to leave the body, the volume intensified by the screaming of flesh in the agony of death by fire, every pain receptor swamped by the intense heat.

Was that normal?

Was it normal to wonder then, for the umpteenth time, whether you shouldn't take the trouble to join the dead? wasn'’t it better to have control over the when and the how? Was it wrong to be afraid of that unexpected moment when the mind realized it had a nanosecond left in the world? Afraid. Terrified.

And now de Wit was holding a sword above his muddled head. Let the psychologist fix the circuitry or . . .

He stopped in front of a tower block on the Foreshore. Sixteenth floor. Dr. H. Nortier. That was all he knew. He took the elevator.

Joubert was pleased that there was no one else in the waiting room.

It was different from what he’d expected. There was a couch and two chairs, comfortable and attractive, covered in a pink-and- blue floral. In the center a coffee table held six magazines, the latest editions of

De Kat, Time, Car, Cosmopolitan, Sarie,

and

ADA

magazine. Against a white-painted door, which presumably led to the consulting room, there was a neat sign that read DR. NORTIER WILL WELCOME YOU SOON. PLEASE MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME AND ENJOY THE COFFEE. THANK YOU. The same sign was repeated in Afrikaans. There were watercolors on the other walls— one of cosmos, another of the fishermen’s cottages at Paternoster. In one corner there was a table with a coffee machine. Next to it stood porcelain coffee cups and saucers, teaspoons, a jar of powdered milk, and a bowl of sugar.

He poured himself a cup and the filter coffee smelled good. Was the man a psychiatrist? Psychologists were “mister,” not “doctor.” Was he so batty that he needed a psychiatrist?

He sat down on the couch, put the cup on the coffee table, and took out his Winstons. He looked for an ashtray. There were none in the room. Irritation overcame him. How was it possible for a psychologist not to have an ashtray in his waiting room? He returned the pack to his pocket.

He looked at

De Kat

’s cover. A man wearing makeup adorned it. The front page teaser read NATANIEL— THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK.

He wanted to smoke. He paged through the magazine. Nothing in it interested him. The woman on the cover of

Cosmopolitan

had big boobs and a big mouth. He picked up the magazine and flipped through it. He saw a headline. WHAT HE THINKS ABOUT AT WORK. He flattened the pages there but realized the doctor could open the door at any moment. He closed the magazine.

He was dying for a smoke. After all, cigarettes couldn't harm the mind.

He took out the packet and put a cigarette between his lips. He took out the lighter and stood up. There must be a can somewhere he could use.

The white door opened. Joubert looked up. A woman came in. She was small. She smiled and put out her hand.

“Captain Joubert?”

He put out his hand. The lighter was still in it. He drew back his hand and shifted the lighter to his left hand. “That’s right,” he wanted to say but the cigarette was still in his mouth. He blushed, pulled his hand back, and removed the cigarette from his mouth, putting it into his left hand. He put out his hand again and shook hers.

“There’s no ashtray here,” he mumbled, blushing, and felt her hand, small and warm and dry.

She was still smiling. “It must be the cleaning service. Come in and smoke here,” she said and dropped his hand. She held the white door for him.

“No, please,” he said, indicating that she had to walk in first, self-conscious and uncomfortable after his meaningless remark about the ashtray.

“Thank you.” She went in and he closed the door behind them, aware of her long brown skirt, her white blouse buttoned up to the throat, her brown brooch, a wooden elephant pinned above one of the small breasts. He caught a hint of feminine odor, perfume or her own, noticed her grace, her fragility, and an odd beauty that he couldn't identify as yet.

“Do sit down,” she said and walked around the white desk. A tall, slender vase with three pink carnations stood on it. And a white telephone, an A-4 notebook, a small penholder containing a few red and black pencils, a large glass ashtray, and a green file. He wondered whether it was his file. Behind her there was a white bookcase that almost filled the wall. It was full of books— paperbacks and hardcovers, a neat, colorful, cheerful panel of knowledge and enjoyment.

There was another door in the corner, next to the bookcase. Did the previous patient leave through it?

He sat down on one of the two chairs in front of the desk. They were television chairs, the adjustable kind, covered in black leather. He wondered whether he should’ve waited for her to sit down first. She smiled, her hands resting comfortably on the desk in front of her.

“I'’ve never addressed anyone as ‘captain’ in consultation,” she said.

Her voice was very soft, as if she was speaking in the strictest confidence, but melodious. He wondered whether psychiatrists were taught to speak like that.

“I’m called Mat.”

“Because of your initials?”

“Yes,” he said, relieved.

“My name is Hanna. I’d be pleased if you called me that.”

“Are you a psychiatrist?” he asked nervously, impulsively.

She shook her head. Her hair was an almost colorless brown, tied back in a braid. The braid was visible with every movement of her head.

“An ordinary psychologist.”

“But you’re a doctor?”

She tilted her head, as if she was slightly uncomfortable. “I have a doctorate in psychology.”

He digested this information.

“May I smoke?”

“Of course.”

He lit the cigarette. It had bent when he’d clutched it in his hand earlier and it drooped sadly between his fingers. He sucked in the smoke and unnecessarily tapped the ash into the ashtray. He kept his eyes on the cigarette, on the ashtray.

“This is only the second week that I'’ve been working with the police,” she said. “I'’ve already seen a few people. Some were unhappy because they had to come. I do understand that. It’s not pleasant to be forced into something.”

She waited for a reaction, got nothing.

“Psychological consultation doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you. Just that you need someone to talk to. Someone between work and home.”

Again she waited. Joubert kept his eyes away from her. Why did it sound like excuses to him? Why did it have to be a woman? It had caught him unaware.

“Your work creates a lot of stress. Every policeman should talk to a psychologist on a regular basis.”

“Was I referred because there’s nothing wrong with me?”

“No.”

“Who decided that I had to come?”

“I did.”

He looked at her. Her arms were relaxed, only her hands occasionally made small gestures to punctuate her words. And her voice. He glanced quickly at her face. He saw the line of her jaw, straight and delicate as if it was fragile. He looked away again. She didn't look guilty. Only calm and patient.

“And my OC?”

“OC?”

“My commanding officer.”

“I get a whole pile of files every day from officers who think their men should talk to me. And only I recommend who should come.”

But it was still de Wit who had done the preliminary work. Filled in the forms. Written the motivation.

He became aware of the intensity of her gaze. He stubbed out the cigarette. He folded his arms and looked at her. Her face was serious.

Even more quietly than before she said: “It’s not unnatural to be unhappy about it.”

“Why did you choose me?”

“Why do you think?”

She’s clever, he thought. Too clever for me.

He knew he wasn'’t mad. Or was that precisely what the crazies said? He was there because he was just a little crazy. The Great Predator was on his trail. And that sometimes made him . . .

“Because of my record,” he said resignedly.

She looked at him, a sympathetic half smile on her mouth. Her mouth was small. He saw that she wore no makeup. Her lower lip was a juicy morsel, a natural pale pink.

When she said nothing, he added: “It’s probably necessary.”

“Why do you think it’s necessary?” Almost whispering. Only the musicality of her voice made it audible.

Was this the way she worked? You came in, sat down and lanced your own abscess, releasing the pus in front of the good doctor, and she disinfected the wound and bandaged it. Where did he have to start? Did she want to know about his childhood? Did she think he’d never heard of Freud? Or should he start with Lara? Or end with Lara? Or with death? What about Yvonne Stoffberg? Do you want to hear the one about the detective and the neighbor’s daughter, Doctor? Screamingly funny story . . . Because the detective wants to but doesn’t know whether he can.

“Because my work is suffering.” A gutless reply. He knew it. And knew that she also knew it.

She was quiet for a long time. “Your accent. I’m from Gauteng. It still sounds strange. Did you grow up here?”

He looked down, at his brown shoes, which needed polish. He nodded. “Goodwood.”

“Brothers and sisters?”

wasn'’t that in his file as well? “An older sister.”

“Is she still in the Cape?”

“No. Secunda.”

Now he looked at her when he spoke. He saw the broad forehead, the big brown eyes, set wide apart, the heavy eyebrows.

“Do you resemble each other?”

“No . . .” He knew he had to say something more. He knew his replies were too brief.

“She . . . looks like my father.”

“And you?”

“Like my mother.” He was shy, uncomfortable. What he wanted to say sounded so commonplace. But he said it: “Actually I take after my mother’s family. Her father, my grandfather, was evidently also big.”

He took a deep breath. “And clumsy.” He was annoyed because he’d added the last two words. Like a criminal deliberately leaving clues.

“Do you regard yourself as clumsy?” She said it automatically, a reflex, and in an odd way it made him feel better. At least she wasn'’t in complete control.

“I am.”

“Why do you say that?” More slowly, thoughtful now.

“I always was.” His eyes wandered over the bookshelves but he saw nothing. “Since I can remember.” The memories dammed up against the dike. He took out a finger to let a few drops through. “In junior school . . . I always came last in track events . . .” He was unaware of his wry smile. “It worried me. Not in high school, though.”

“Why did it worry you?”

“My father . . . I wanted to be like him.” He pushed the finger back. The leak was sealed again.

She hesitated for a moment. “Are your parents still living?”

“No.”

She waited.

“My father died three years ago. Of a heart attack. My mother a year later. He was sixty-one. She was fifty-nine.” He didn't want to remember.

“What did your father do?”

“Policeman. For seventeen years he was the commanding officer of the Goodwood station.” Joubert could hear the wheels spinning in her head. His father was a policeman. He was a policeman. That meant whatever it meant. But she would be making a mistake.

“I didn't become a cop because my father was one.”

“Oh?”

She was so clever. She had caught him out. But not again. He said nothing. He dug his hand into his jacket pocket looking for his cigarettes. No, it was too soon. He took his hand out, folded his arms across his chest again.

“Was he a good policeman?”

Why this obsession with his father?

“I don’t know. Yes. He was of another era. His people— the uniforms, white and brown— were fond of him.”

He hadn't even discussed his father with Lara.

“But I think they were scared of him.”

He had never spoken about his father to Blackie Swart. Or to his mother or his sister. Did he want to talk about him with anyone?

“He had a racial slur for every hue, for every racial classification in the crazy country. The Malay people were not coloreds to him. He called them hotnots. To their faces. His hotnots. ‘Come along, my hotnot.’ And Xhosas and Zulus were not blacks. They were kaffers. Never ‘my kaffers.’ Always ‘bloody kaffers.’ In his time there were no black constables, only black criminals. More and more as they moved in from the Eastern Cape looking for work. He hated them.”

He saw himself in the black armchair, the big man with the folded arms, bowed head, and somewhat untidy hair, the brown jacket and trousers, the unpolished brown shoes, the tie. He heard himself speaking. As if he stood outside his body. Talk, Mat Joubert, talk. That’s what she wants. Give her the skeletons. Let her dissect the remains of your life with her learning. Bleed out the filth.

“I also did at first, because he did. Before I started to read and had friends whose parents had different views. And then I simply . . . despised my father, his narrow, simplistic point of view, his useless hate. It was part of a . . . process.”

For a moment it was quiet in the dungeons of his mind.

The pain pressed down on his shoulders. He was at his father’s grave and he knew he’d hated the man. And no one knew it. But his father had suspected it.

“I hated him . . . Doctor.” He deliberately added her title, creating a distance. She wanted to know. She wanted to hear what specters were wandering about in his head. He would tell her. He would fucking tell her. Before her techniques and her voice and her greater knowledge winkled it out of him . . . “I hated him because he was what I could never be. And because he resented it and threw it back in my face. He was so strong and . . . fleet-footed. On a Friday evening he would make the brown constables line up in the street behind the station. ‘Come, my hotnots, the one who reaches the lamppost before I do can go fuck this weekend.’ He was in his fifties and he always beat them. And I was slow. He said I was merely lazy. He said I must play rugby because that would make a man of me. I started swimming. I swam as if my life depended on it. In the water I wasn'’t big and clumsy and ugly. He said swimming was for girls. ‘Girls swim. Men play rugby. It gives you balls.’ He didn't smoke. He said it affected your wind. I started smoking. He didn't read because life was the only book one needed. Reading was for girls. I started reading. He was abusive. To my mother, my sister. I spoke softly to them. He said ‘hotnot’ and ‘kaffer’ and ‘coolie.’ I addressed them all as ‘mister.’ And then he went and died on me.”

Emotions expanded from the inside, in his chest. His body shook, independently, so that his elbows landed on his knees, his head between his hands. He wondered how she, when he . . .

Suddenly he wanted to tell her about death. The longing to do so spread through him like a fever. He could taste it, the relief. Speak about it, Mat Joubert, and you’ll be free . . .

He straightened and put his hand in his pocket. He took out the cigarettes. His hands were shaking. He lit one. He knew she would say something to break the silence. It was her job.

“Why did you choose the same career?”

“The detectives were separate from the uniforms at Goodwood. There was a Lieutenant Coombes. He wore a hat, a black hat. And he spoke softly. To everyone. And smoked Mills out of a tin. And always wore a vest and drove a Ford Fairlane. Everyone knew about Coombes. He was mentioned in the newspapers several times, murders he’d solved. We lived next to the station. I was on the stoop, reading, when he came past from the detectives’ office on Voortrekker Road, probably on his way to see my father. He stopped at our gate and looked at me. Out of the blue he said, ‘You must become a detective.’ I asked him why. ‘We need clever people in the force.’ Then he left. He never spoke to me again. I don’t even know what became of him.”

Joubert killed the cigarette. It was half-smoked.

“My father said no child of his would ever work for the force. Coombes told me to become a detective. He was everything I wanted my father to be.”

Tell her she’s looking in the wrong place. This track leads nowhere. It wasn'’t his father who’d fucked him up. It was death. The death of Lara Joubert.

“Do you enjoy your work?”

Now you’re getting warm, Doctor.

“It’s a job. Sometimes it’s pleasant, sometimes not.”

“When is it pleasant?”

When death is clothed in dignity, Doctor. Or when it’s completely absent.

“Success is pleasant.”

“When is it unpleasant?”

Ding! You’ve just hit the jackpot, Doctor. But she wouldn't get the prize today.

“When they get away.”

Did she realize that he was hedging? That he was concealing, that he was too frightened now to open the sluice gates because he’d forgotten how much water had been dammed up behind them?

“How do you relax?”

“I read.” She waited. “Science fiction, mostly.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“You live alone?”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t been here long,” she said and he noticed her nose— long and slightly pointed. It seemed as if the elements of her face didn't belong together, but they formed a beautiful whole that began to fascinate him. Was it her fragility as well? He liked looking at her. And it gave him satisfaction that he found her attractive. Because she didn't know it. That was his advantage. “And there are many things I still want to arrange. But one thing that is taking shape already is a social group— if one can call it that. Some of the people who consult me . . .”

“No thank you, Doctor.”

“Why not?”

It could hardly be difficult to get a doctorate in psychology. All you had to know was how to turn all remarks into questions. Especially questions that started with

why.

“I see enough crazy policemen at work.”

“They’re not . . .” Then she smiled, slowly. “They’re not crazy and not all of them are men and not all of them are in the service.”

He didn't react. Because he’d seen her face before she smiled. You, Doctor, are human like the rest of us.

“I’ll let you know about our activities. Then you can decide. But only come along if you want to.”

Ask her whether she is part of this “social group.” And a part of his head was amazed at his interest. For more than two years sexual urges had only come to him in vaguely remembered dreams in which he had uncomfortable intercourse with faceless women. And the real, living women who came his way were no more than sources of information that allowed him to do his work and go home to shelter between the pages of a book.

And now he had . . . an interest in Doctor Hanna. Well, well, well, Mat Joubert. The small, frail woman with the elusive beauty woke the man in you, the protective urge, the urge to possess.

“I’ll think about it.”

9.

On his way home he drove past the municipal swimming pool. The supervisor was a black man. “You can come and swim in the morning, sir. With the business club. In summer I’m here by half past five.”

“The business club?”

“Businessmen. Last year they asked the council whether they could swim early in the morning, before work. Work too hard the rest of the day. Then the council says okay and gives the early birds a name. Business club. From five-thirty on weekdays, from six-thirty on Saturdays, and the seventh is a day of rest. Ninety rand a season, September to May. You can pay at the cashier, sir. The lockers are twenty rand extra.”

He fetched his checkbook from the car and paid. Then he walked to the swimming pool. He stared at the blue water, unaware of the shouting, splashing mass of kids. He smelled the smells and remembered. Then he turned away. At the door he threw the red pack of Winstons into a trash can.

He stopped at the café. The owner knew him and took Winstons off the shelf.

“No,” Joubert said. “Benson & Hedges. Special Mild.”

At home no envelope had been pushed under the door. He fried himself three eggs. The yolks broke and ran. He ate them on toast. Then he sat down in the living room with the William Gibson and finished the book.

Before going to bed he dug his swimming trunks out of a cupboard. He rolled them up in a towel and put it on the chair at the door.

In the past few years he had come to hate weekends.

Saturdays weren’t so bad because then Mrs. Emily Nofomela, his Xhosa cleaning lady, came in and the sounds of the washing machine, clattering dishes, and vacuum cleaner replaced the deathly silence of the house.

To be on duty also helped because it kept the boredom and the aimlessness of the weekend at bay.

When the alarm went off at a quarter past six, he got up purposefully, without realizing that it was a milestone.

He was the only member of the business club who was utilizing the Saturday morning. The changing rooms were quiet and empty and he could hear the big pump of the swimming pool outside. He pulled on his Speedo and realized it had become too small. He would have to buy a new one that morning. He walked out to the pool through the footbath and the smells and sounds released memories, fragments from his youth, and it felt good to be back again.

The water stretched smoothly ahead of him. He dived in and started swimming, freestyle. It took exactly thirty meters to exhaust him.

An older, more experienced policeman would have bundled Hercules Jantjies out the front door of the station, more like than not assisted by a hefty kick in the backside.

The problem was that vagrants often came in on a Saturday morning to complain about the joys and sorrows of their co-oppressed after the drunken bouts of the Friday evening. And if you had worked at the Newlands charge office for long enough, you eventually came to the conclusion that the best solution was to get rid of the appalling smell and the verbal assault on your ears, which generally made no sense.

But the white constable’s uniform was crisp and new, his enthusiasm still fueled by the college lecturer who had said that the police served everyone in South Africa.

He forced himself not to move away instinctively from the odor of an unwashed body and recycled methylated spirits and looked straight at Hercules Jantjies— at the small, brown eyes that skittered all over the place, the bluish red of the skin, which showed millions of tiny cracks inflicted by life, the toothless mouth, the stubble of beard.

“Can I help you?”

Hercules Jantjies stuck out his hand from under the worn, faded jacket. It held a piece of newspaper. He put it down on the table and smoothed it with a dirty hand. The constable saw that it was a front page of the

Cape Times,

a few days old. The headline read MAFIA KILLING? in large letters. Hercules Jantjies pressed a forefinger on the letters.

“Your Honor, I came about this thing.”

The constable didn't grasp the import. “Yes?”

“I want to give evidence, Your Honor.”

“Yes?”

“’Cause why, I was there.”

“When it happened?”

“Just so, Your Honor, just so. An eyewitness report. But I want police protection.”

He hung on to the side of the swimming pool. He was breathing heavily and his lungs were burning. A deep fatigue invaded his limbs and his heart was a rapidly pulsing worry in his chest. He had completed two lengths. He heard a voice and lifted his head, his mouth still open to gulp in air more quickly.

“Sir, inside there’s a beeper which is beeping terribly.” It was the supervisor. He looked worried.

“I’m coming,” said Joubert and pressed his hands down on the edge to haul himself out of the water. He came halfway and then lay there, half in and half out of the water, too tired to make another effort.

“Are you awright, sir?”

“I don’t know,” said Joubert, surprised at the deterioration of his body. “I honestly don’t know.”

Hercules Jantjies had the total attention of the three senior policemen in the office of the Newlands commanding officer, Adjutant Radie Donaldson. Joubert and Donaldson sat against the one wall on old brown wooden chairs, Benny Griessel leaned against the wall. Jantjies was a reeking island against the other wall.

Donaldson still belonged to the old school of crime fighters who tackled all potential breakers of the law without kid gloves, irrespective of race, color, or political persuasion. That’s why he directed a warning finger at Hercules Jantjies and said: “If you’re talking shit, you’re dead.” Then, more suspiciously: “Are you drunk?”

“Your Honor, Your Honor,” Jantjies said nervously, as though the moment had become greater than he’d anticipated.

“These men are from Murder and Robbery. They’ll cut your balls off if you talk shit. Understand me?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

His brown eyes glanced at the three policemen, his head slightly bowed. “I saw the whole thing, Your Honor. But I want police protection.”

“If you’re not careful you’ll get police brutality,” Donaldson said.

“I was lying in the bushes, Your Honor, between the parking and Main Road.”

“Were you pissed?”

“No, just tired, Your Honor.”

“And then?”

“Then I saw her appear, Your Honor.”

“Her?”

“The one with the gun, Your Honor.”

“And then?”

“And she waited in the shadow and then the deceased came, God rest his soul, and he saw her and he got a fright and he put up his hand, Your Honor. But she shot him and he dropped like a stone.”

“And then?”

“Then it was all over, Your Honor.”

“Where did the murderer go then?”

“No, then she jus’ disappeared.”

“A woman? Do you mean to tell me it was a woman?”

“Not jus’ an ordinary woman, Your Honor.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was the angel of death, Your Honor.”

Silence reigned in the office.

“’Cause why I’m looking for police protection, Your Honor. Because now she’s coming to fetch me.”

“What did she look like?” Joubert asked but his voice betrayed his disappointment.

“This long, black cloak, like Batman. And black boots and black hair. The angel of death. She came to me last night and she called me, like this, with her finger. Your Honor, I know my rights in the new South Africa. I want police protection.”

Each and every cop knew the visions induced by Blue Train, not from firsthand experience but from countless previous witnesses and accused. Despite the signs, they had remained hopeful up to now.

“Bastard!” said Donaldson and went straight for Hercules Jantjies. Joubert stopped the station commander in the nick of time.

Early on Sunday morning Lieutenant Leon Petersen phoned. “I think I have the fuckers who raped the girl, Captain. In Mitchell’s Plain. But it’s a gang thing. Fourteen of them. And they’re not talking.”

Joubert drove there to help with the interrogation, compare alibis. Hours of listening to lies, sparring with teenage bravado and blatant provocation. But at 17:22 Lieutenant Petersen’s patience eventually ran out. In interrogation room number two of the Mitchells Plain station he lost his temper and hit the youngest gang member on the nose and eye with his clenched fist. Blood spurted onto the table.

The brown child started sobbing. “My ma’s going to kill me, my ma’s going to kill me,” he wept and began an admission that slowly bubbled up like a pot boiling over. In the corner Constable Gerrit Snyman sat with his notebook, scribbling as fast as he could.

10.

Twenty-three fucking kilograms, Mat. He’s got rocks in his head. Do you know what he said to me? I'’ve got six months for every five kilos. He’s fucking crazy.” Captain Gerbrand Vos’s red cheeks were scarlet with indignation. Joubert merely shook his head sympathetically. He was still waiting for his physical health session with de Wit.

“Jesus, Mat, I'’ve always been heavy. It’s part of me. How can a skeleton be a cop? Can you imagine it? In any case, fuck de Wit. He can’t enforce it.”

Joubert smiled. “He can, Gerry.”

“No way.”

“Police regulations. OC must see to it that all his people are fit and well at all times, and ready for action. Black on white. You can check it.”

Vos was quiet for a moment. “We’re Murder and Robbery, Mat, not a bunch of constables in a show-off unit. How fit must one be? I won’t be able to run the Comrades Ultramarathon, but hell . . .”

Joubert remembered his swimming session of a few hours ago. It was no better than Saturday’s: the stitch in his side after fifty meters of slow freestyle, the cigarette tar in his lungs which seemed to catch fire. After a hundred meters he’d clung to the side again, gasping for breath. He said nothing.

“Twenty-three fucking kilograms. I’ll have to have my lips sewn together.”

He shuffled through the door of Premier Bank’s branch in the Heerengracht. Slow, deliberate steps, the walking stick tightly grasped in the left hand, the eyes fixed in deep concentration a meter beyond his feet. The wrinkles around his eyes and mouth were multiple, the contours of age.

He moved to the counter where the forms were kept, put his hand into an inner pocket, and slowly and patiently took out a spectacle case. His hands trembled slightly when he opened the flap and unfolded a pair of black-framed reading glasses. He perched them on his nose. The hand went slowly back to the pocket and extracted a fountain pen.

He unscrewed the top, reached out a careful hand and picked up a withdrawal slip. With an uncertain hand he wrote letters and figures in the columns on the white paper with its mauve strip at the top.

When he’d finished, the fountain pen’s top was replaced and carefully returned to the inner pocket. The glasses were folded, put into the case, the trembling hand returning it to the pocket. The right hand took the slip, the left hand the walking stick. He began the weary walk to the cashier.

The Heerengracht branch of Premier Bank was not its largest. But to compete with all the other banks in the immediate vicinity, this branch was a flawless example of Premier’s corporate identity: mauve carpets, wooden furniture painted pale gray, white walls decorated with advertising posters.

Joyce Odendaal’s uniform was equally correct— a mauve jacket and skirt (trousers in winter), a white blouse with a frilled collar, and a silver brooch that represented the logo— a sans serif PB. Joyce was twenty-two, attractive, and the cashier of the month.

She saw the old man’s jerky walk, the brown suit from another era, the gold watch chain that stretched from the vest to the trouser pocket, the tie that the rheumatic hands hadn't been able to knot properly.

She sighed. She didn't like old people. They were deaf and stubborn and checked each transaction as if it was the bank’s intention to cheat them. And they often made an unnecessary fuss about the smallest little mistake.

Nevertheless her “Good morning, sir” was friendly and she smiled. There was a slight gap between Joyce’s front teeth. She saw the food stains on the tie and vest and was grateful that she wouldn't have to watch him eating.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” he said, and she thought that the voice sounded youthful. And the blue eyes set among the wrinkles also looked young.

“What can we do for you this morning?”

“A girl like you can help a man like me with many things,” he said in his youthful voice. “But let’s concentrate on what’s possible right now.”

Joyce Odendaal’s smile didn't waver for a second, because she had no idea what he was talking about.

“Get one of those large money bags and fill it with fifty-rand notes. I'’ve got a big old revolver under my jacket which I don’t want to use. You have such an attractive branch here.”

He opened his jacket to show her the weapon.

“Sir?” said Joyce, the smile uncertain.

“Come on, sweetheart, keep your foot off the alarm and let’s get on with it. This old man is in a hurry.” He smiled. Joyce’s right hand moved slowly toward her face. A forefinger slowly rubbed the skin under her nose, her mouth by now agape. Then her hand started shaking. She lowered it again. The alarm button was four centimeters from her foot.

“What perfume do you use?” the elderly man asked in a calm, interested voice.

“You’re the Fire,” she said without thinking and took a money bag. She opened her cash drawer and began taking out notes.

Joubert came back from the bank robbery and had to run to pick up the telephone in his office.

“Hold on for Dr. Perold, please.”

He waited.

“Captain?”

“Doctor?”

“I don’t have good news, Captain.”

Joubert’s stomach muscles contracted. He wondered whether the doctor was staring at the telephone now with eyes narrowed over his reading glasses. Joubert waited.

“Your cholesterol, Captain. I sent the report to your commanding officer but I want to speak to you as well.”

“Yes.”

“It’s high, Captain. Very high.”

“Is that bad?”

The doctor made a curious sound at the other end. “That’s an acceptable description of your condition, Captain. Combined with the smoking, the excessive weight, and the family history, yes, I would describe it as bad.”

Should he tell the doctor that he had begun swimming on Saturday mornings?

“We must put you on medication. And a diet. Immediately.”

Joubert sighed. “What must I do?”

He bought a collection of short stories,

The 1990 Hugo Award Winners,

and a novel by Spider Robinson, strongly recommended by Willy. Children were playing cricket in the street in front of his house. He had to wait until they moved the cardboard box that served as wickets before he could get into his driveway.

The morning’s swim had given him an appetite. There was a lonely tin of baked beans in tomato sauce in a corner of the cupboard. He wondered whether it was bad for cholesterol. Tomorrow the dietitian would be able to tell him. He took a Castle from the fridge. He had read somewhere that beer was full of healthy vitamins and minerals. He unscrewed the top, took the plastic holder with the cholesterol pills out of his jacket pocket, put a pill on his tongue, and swallowed it with a swig of beer. The beer was cold and made him shudder slightly. He walked to the living room. He sat down and lit a Special Mild. The cigarette didn't satisfy him. Maybe he should go back to Winstons, only smoke less. Or did smoke also have an effect on cholesterol? He dragged deeply at the cigarette but it made no difference. He opened the paperback at the first story, by Isaac Asimov.

There was a knock at the front door.

Joubert put the beer behind his chair and got up. He opened the front door.

Jerry Stoffberg stood on the stoop. And behind him Yvonne hovered.

“Evening, Mat.” Stoffberg wasn'’t as cheerful as usual.

Joubert knew why Stoffberg was there and he felt pressure building in his chest and for a moment wondered whether this was the first sign of a heart attack.

“Hello, Stoffs,” he said, his voice strained.

“May we come in, Mat?”

“Of course.” Joubert held the door for them. He noticed that the girl wouldn't meet his eyes and he knew what he had to say to Stoffberg. Nothing had happened. Stoffberg had to realize that. Up to that moment nothing had happened— yet.

They walked to the living room in silence. Joubert’s cigarette was still smoking in the ashtray.

“Do sit down,” he said but Stoffberg was already seated on the couch. His daughter sat down next to him as if she needed support. Joubert swallowed. The pressure in his chest increased.

“Mat, I’m sorry to bother you but an unfortunate thing has happened in our family.”

“Nothing happened,” said Joubert apprehensively and heavily swallowed the excess saliva in his mouth.

“Sorry?” Stoffberg obviously didn't understand. Joubert saw Yvonne frowning angrily at him.

“My sister’s brother-in-law died last night. In Benoni. Heart attack. At thirty-eight. In the prime of life. Tragic.” He looked at Joubert’s cigarette in the ashtray. “He also smoked heavily, you know.”

A light went on for Joubert. For the first time he understood Stoffberg’s present attitude. It was the man’s professional face. The undertaker on duty. The pressure in Joubert’s chest disappeared.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Yvonne’s frown vanished.

“They want me to bury him, Mat.” Stoffberg was quiet for a moment. Joubert didn't know what to say. “It’s a great honor for me. Not a pleasant task. But an honor. The funeral is Wednesday. But we have a problem. I need your help, Mat.”

“I’ll do anything I can, Jerry,” he said feelingly.

“You see, Bonnie starts at the Technikon on Wednesday.” Stoffberg put his arm around his daughter and looked proudly at her. His voice lost some of its gravity. “Ja, Mat, pa’s baby has grown up. She’s going to study public relations.” Yvonne Stoffberg turned her face into her father’s shoulder like a little girl and smiled sweetly at Joubert.

Stoffberg’s voice regained its professionalism. “She can’t go with us, Mat. And all her friends are still on holiday. I can probably ask Mrs. Pretorius on the corner if she can stay with her, but that redheaded son of hers . . .”

Stoffberg pressed the palms of his hands together in a pleading gesture. “Then Bonnie suggested we come over and ask you whether she can stay here, Mat.”

He didn't realize immediately what Stoffberg was saying because he was considering the irony of Stoffberg’s apprehension about the redheaded boy. Stoffberg interpreted the silence as hesitation.

“You’re the only one we can trust, Mat. After all, you’re a policeman. And it’s only for a week. Bonnie said she could cook for you and keep house. And stay out of your way. It’s only in the evenings, really. During the day she’ll be at home. I’d really appreciate it, Mat.”

“Hell, Jerry . . .”

“Tell Uncle Mat you won’t be in his way, Bonnie.”

She said nothing. She merely smiled sweetly.

Joubert knew what his reply was going to be. But he fought for his integrity.

“I often work at night, Jerry . . .”

Stoffberg nodded in grave agreement. “I understand, Mat. But she’s quite grown up, after all.”

Joubert could think of no other excuse. “When are you leaving, Jerry? I’ll have to give her a key.”

“Tomorrow morning.” Yvonne Stoffberg spoke for the first time, her eyes chastely fixed on the carpet.

He gave her a brief glance, saw her looking up quickly and smiling at him. He looked back at Jerry Stoffberg but avoided the man’s eyes.

11.

The water was as smooth as glass. Again he was the only member of the business club swimming that morning. He dived in and began with a breaststroke, slowly. He was looking for his rhythm. He didn't know whether he would ever find that old rhythm again. It was too many Winstons and Castles ago. A lifetime.

He tired more easily than on the previous two occasions. At least he had an excuse, he thought. A night of tossing and turning. Of wrestling with his conscience, caught between desire and a heavy feeling of guilt.

With his head on the pillow he could hear the beat of his heart. An increased rate. He had risen sometime after one and fetched the poem in the spare bedroom, under the William Gibson on a pile of paperbacks.

Taste me, touch me, take me . . .

He had to lie on his back and concentrate on other things. His work. De Wit. What was de Wit’s agenda? Eventually sleep had overtaken him.

But he felt the tiredness in the morning. After two lengths of breaststroke he was finished.

De Wit came to Joubert’s office, a green file in his hand. Joubert was on the phone to Pretoria.

De Wit knocked on the doorpost and waited outside. Joubert wondered why he didn't come in but finished his call. Then de Wit walked in. He had a smile on his face again. Uncomfortable, Joubert stood up.

“Sit down, Captain. I don’t want to keep you from your work. Is Pretoria giving you problems?”

“No, Colonel. I . . . They haven’t sent the ballistics report yet. About the Tokarev. I was chasing them.”

“May I sit down?”

“Of course, Colonel.” Why didn't he simply sit down?

“I want to discuss your physical health today, Captain.” Joubert understood the smile. It was one of triumph, he realized.

De Wit opened the green file. “I'’ve received your medical report.” He looked Joubert in the eye. “Captain, there are matters here you have to solve for yourself. I have no right to speak to you about your high cholesterol or your smoking habits. But I have the right to discuss your fitness. This report states that you’re fifteen kilograms overweight. You don’t have as many problems as some of your colleagues but it’s still fifteen kilos too many. And the doctor considers you to be seriously unfit.”

De Wit closed the green file.

“I don’t want to be unreasonable. The doctor says five kilograms every six months is not unreasonable. Shall we give you until this time next year, Captain? To monitor the progress? What do you think?”

Joubert was annoyed by the man’s superior tone of voice, by his attitude of feigned friendliness. “We can make it six months, Colonel.”

Because de Wit didn't know he had started swimming again. Joubert experienced a feeling of purpose. The long muscles of his legs and arms were pleasantly tired after the morning’s swim. He knew he could keep it up. He would rub old Two Nose’s face in it.

“We can make it six months. Definitely.”

De Wit was still wearing the small smile, almost a grimace. “It’s your choice, Captain. I’m impressed by your determination. We’ll make a note of it.”

He opened the green file again.

The day took on its usual shape. He drove out to Crossroads. The mutilated body of a baby. Ritual murder. The radio on his hip scratched and buzzed and called him to Simons Town. The owner of a shop selling military artifacts had been shot with an AK. The splashes of blood and brains looked depressingly apt on an American army steel helmet, a Japanese officer’s sword, and a captain’s cap from a sunken U-boat.

In the afternoon he was five minutes late for his appointment with the dietitian. He stopped in the parking area of the clinic. The woman was waiting for him.

She wasn'’t pretty but she was thin. Her fair hair curled about her head but her nose was crooked, her mouth small and humorless.

She shook her head in disbelief when Joubert told her about his eating habits. She used flash cards and posters to explain about fatty acids— saturated and unsaturated— about fiber and bran, animal fats and vegetable fats, calories, vitamins, minerals, and balance.

He shook his head and said that he lived alone. His stomach contracted when he thought about Yvonne Stoffberg, who would be waiting in his house that evening, but he told the dietitian that he couldn't cook, that he didn't have the time to maintain a healthy diet.

She asked him whether he had the time for a heart attack. She asked whether he realized what his cholesterol count meant. She asked how much time it would take to stop at a vegetable market, to put some fruit in his attaché case every morning.

Detectives don’t carry attaché cases, he wanted to say but didn't. He admitted that it wouldn't be difficult.

And sandwiches? she asked. How much time did it take to wrap a whole wheat sandwich in foil for the following day? And to swallow a plate of bran with skim milk in the morning? And to buy artificial sweeteners for all the tea and coffee in the office? How much time could it take?

Not much, he admitted.

Well then, she said, we can start working. She took out a form that read THE DIET OF . . .

Her pen poised above the open space, she was the epitome of efficiency. “First name?”

Joubert sighed. “Mat.”

“What?”

The entrance hall of the Bellville South Murder and Robbery Squad had an area where visitors could wait. The walls were bare, the floor was covered with cold gray tiles, and the chairs were civil-service issue, made to last and not necessarily for comfort.

Those who waited there were the family, friends, and relatives of murder or robbery suspects. So why offer such people comfort and amusement in a waiting area? After all, they were probably blood relatives of suspected criminals. This might well have been the thinking of the architects and administrators when the plans were being discussed.

But Mrs. Mavis Petersen didn't agree. The entrance hall was part of her kingdom, adjacent to the reception desk where she held sway. She was a Malay woman, slender and attractive and a beautiful shade of light brown. And she knew the pain of a criminal’s nearest and dearest. That’s why there were flowers on the reception desk of the Murder and Robbery building every day of the week. And a smile on her face.

But not now.

“Sergeant Griessel is missing,” she said when Joubert came in and walked to the steel gate that gave access to the rest of the building.

“Missing?”

“He didn't come in this morning, Captain. We phoned but there was no reply. I sent two constables from the station in the van, but his house is locked.”

“His wife?”

“She says she hasn’t seen him for weeks. And if we find him we might as well ask him where the alimony checks are.”

Joubert thought it over, his fingers drumming on the desk.

Mavis’s voice was suddenly low, disapproving. “The Colonel says we don’t have to look for him. He says it’s Adjutant Griessels’s way of answering him.”

Joubert said nothing.

“He’s very different to Colonel Theal, hey, Captain?” Her words were an invitation to form an alliance.

“Very different, Mavis. Are there any messages for me?”

“Nothing, Captain.”

“I’m going to try the Outspan. That’s where we found him the previous time. And then I’m going home. Tell radio I want to know immediately if they hear anything about Benny.”

“Very well, Captain.”

Joubert walked out.

“Such authority,” Mavis said with raised eyebrows to the empty entrance hall.

The Outspan Hotel was on Voortrekker Road between Bellville and Stikland, a hotel that had acquired its one star under another management.

Joubert showed his plastic identity card and asked for the register. Only two rooms were occupied, neither by a Griessel. He walked to the bar, a dark room with a low ceiling and somberly paneled in wood.

The first early evening clients were already leaning against the long bar counter, singly, uncomfortable, uncamouflaged by the anonymity conferred by numbers.

The smell rose in Joubert’s nostrils. Liquor and tobacco, wood and people, cleaning materials and furniture polish— decades of it. It reached a tentacle deep into his memory and brought forgotten images to the surface: He, aged nine, ten, eleven, was sent to call his father. Ten o’clock at night. The bar was filled with people and smoke and heat and voices. His father sat in a corner surrounded by faces. His father was arm wrestling against a big man with a red face. His pa was playing with the guy.

“Ahhh, my son’s here. Sorry, Henry, I can’t look bad in front of him.” And his father pushed the man’s arm down flat on the wooden table. The faces laughed amiably, full of admiration for the strong man, the keeper of law and order in Goodwood.

“Come on, Mat, let me teach you.” He sat down opposite his father, shy and proud.

Their hands clasped. His father acted, pretended that his son could easily beat him.

Again the onlookers laughed loudly.

“One day he’ll really beat you, Joop.”

“Not if he jacks off too much.”

Joubert sat down at the Outspan’s bar counter and remembered how he’d blushed, how embarrassment had overcome him. Did he have to tell Dr. Hanna Nortier about that as well? Would it help?

Reluctantly the barman got up.

“Castle, please.”

The man served him with the smooth expertise acquired over years of experience.

“Three rand.”

“I’m looking for Benny Griessel.”

The barman took his money.

“Who’re you?”

“Colleague.”

“Where’s your paper?”

Joubert showed the card again.

“He was here last night. Couldn't go home. I put him in the tank. I went to have a look after lunch and he’d gone.”

“Where does he usually go from here?”

“How should I know?”

Joubert poured his beer into the glass. The barman interpreted this as a signal and returned to his chair in the corner.

The beer tasted good, round and full. He wondered whether it had something to do with the surroundings. He lit a Special Mild. Would he ever get used to the mildness?

He knew he was hiding.

He smiled into the glass in his hand at the admission: he was looking for Benny in the bar— and he was looking for courage in the beer. Because there was a young body at home and he no longer knew whether he was capable.

He lifted the glass and emptied it. He put it down hard on the counter to attract the barman’s attention.

“Another one?” Without enthusiasm.

“Just one. Then I have to go.”

12.

He used his elbow to push open the door because he was carrying two large shopping bags— apples, pears, peaches, apricots, All-Bran, oatmeal, skinless chicken, fat-free beef, skim milk, hake fillets, lowfat yogurt, tins of tuna, dried fruit.

He could smell that she was there.

His house was filled with the heavy odor of roasting lamb. And other smells. Green beans? Garlic? And a baked pudding?

He heard the music.

“Hello?”

Her voice came from the kitchen. “Here.”

He walked down the passage. She came out of the kitchen. She had a spoon in her hand. He saw the miniskirt, the lithe, beautiful legs, the high-heeled shoes. The other hand was on her hip, the hip angled. Her breasts were barely covered. Her stomach was bare and firm, pale flesh in the light of the late afternoon. Her hair had been brushed until it shone, her face was heavily made up.

Femme fatale of the kitchen. He recognized it in a flash as the theatrical flight of fancy of an eighteen-year-old. His embarrassment mingled with the knowledge that it was all for him. He could feel the beat of his heart.

“Hi,” she said, the voice of a hundred Hollywood heroines.

“I didn't . . . know that you . . . cook . . .” He lifted the bags in his hands.

“There are lots of things about me that you don’t know, Mat.”

He simply stood there, a stranger in his own home.

“Come.” She disappeared into the kitchen. He followed her. The taste of the night was in his mouth.

Her portable radio and cassette player stood on the windowsill. It was tuned to a local music station. She stood at the kitchen table. “You’re in the newspaper.”

He put the bags down on the table and looked at the

Argus

lying there.

“You’re famous.”

He couldn't look at her. He picked up the newspaper. Lower down on the front page there was a headline DON CHAMELEON STRIKES AGAIN. He read:

As a blond, middle-aged playboy, he escaped with R7,000 from Premier Bank’s Bellville branch less than a week ago. Yesterday he was a little old man walking away with R15,000 from their offices in the Heerengracht.

But police have little doubt that it was the same man, because of curious similarities— the Chameleon was the epitome of charm, calling the tellers “sweetheart” and asking them what perfume they wore.

According to police spokesman Lieut. John Cloete, one of the only clues they have so far is video footage of the second robbery, taken by a hidden bank camera.

“But it is obvious that the perpetrator is heavily disguised. There is little chance that anyone will be able to identify him from the video.”

Lieut. Cloete said one of the Peninsula’s top detectives, Murder and Robbery Squad captain Matt Joubert, had personally taken charge of the case.

Joubert stopped reading, replaced the paper on the table, and sighed. He would have to phone Cloete.

One of the Peninsula’s top detectives . . .

How would they know? Couldn't even spell his name correctly. And de Wit wouldn't like it at all.

Yvonne had poured him a Castle while he was reading. She handed it to him, her slender hands and scarlet nails etched against the amber fluid.

“You’re one behind.”

“Thanks.” He still avoided looking at her. He took the beer.

“I’m going to spoil you.” Suddenly she was next to him, against him. Her hands slid under his jacket, pulled him closer. She raised her face, offered her mouth.

“Say thank you,” she said. He kissed her. His one hand held the beer, the other touched the bare part of her back, and he tightened his hold. She flowed against him like quicksilver. Her mouth tasted of beer and spices and he was astonished by the heat of her tongue. Her hands were behind his back, pulling up his shirt and sliding under the material to stroke his skin. Joubert was desperate to feel his hardness against her. He pushed the lower part of his body forward. She felt it and rubbed her stomach against him. His mind was in a whirl, his heart an elevator— on its way up. But down there, where it mattered, was nothing.

“The food,” she said and fluttered her tongue over his lips. “It’ll burn.” She dug her pelvis hard into him, a serious promise. Her hands tucked his shirt in again, her body flowed away. She was slightly breathless.

He remained at the table, deserted and uncomfortable.

“I’m going to surprise you. But it’s all a big secret. You must wait in the living room. That’s why I brought the newspaper.” Her voice had lost some of the theatrical intonation, held a measure of uncertainty now. She stretched out an arm to the windowsill and he saw her picking up a packet of cigarettes. She opened it and offered him one. Winstons. He hesitated for a moment, then took one. She extracted another one with her long red nails and put it in her mouth. Her lipstick was smudged.

He dug into his pocket, found the lighter, lit her cigarette and then his own. She deftly took a deep drag, blew a thin jet of smoke toward the ceiling, came to him, and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Into the living room with you.” Her voice had deepened again and the self-confidence had returned.

He smiled awkwardly, took the newspaper and the beer, and walked to the living room. He opened the newspaper, swallowed a mouthful of beer, and dragged strongly on the Winston. It filled him with a deep satisfaction.

He hadn't known that she smoked. For some reason or another it made her even more exciting.

He stared at the newspaper. He felt her skin under his hand. Dear God, that youthfulness. Firm, firm, firm. He could feel the long muscles move when her hands were busy behind his back. And her pelvis rubbing against him.

He forced himself to read. He heard her pottering about. She sang along with a rock number. Later she brought him another beer. “You mustn’t fall behind.” He assumed she was also drinking in the kitchen. “I'’ve almost done. When I call you must come.”

More activity in the kitchen, then a long stretch of quiet.

“Mat.”

“Yes.”

“Switch off the light. Then come here.”

He swallowed the last of his beer, folded the newspaper. He switched off the living room light. There was a soft glow in the dining room. He walked down the passage and entered the room.

Candles in two tall holders lit the table. There was a vase with flowers, two slender crystal glasses that reflected the candlelight, gleaming silver on the table, a silver ice bucket from which the neck of a bottle protruded.

She sat at the other end of the table. Her hair was piled high on her head. Large gold hoops dangled from her ears. Her scarlet mouth wore a small smile. Her slender neck, her shoulders, her arms, and most of her breasts glowed rosily in the circle of light. The black dress glistened and clung. She rose with grace. He saw that her dress hung down to her ankles. She wore two thin gold bangles around her wrist. She walked to a chair at the top of the table and pulled it back. Her hip angled. A leg, the color of ivory, slid out of the black.

“Please sit down, Mat.” She and the table were a picture out of a women’s magazine. It took his breath away.

“It . . . You look beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

He walked slowly to the chair. Had the beer caused the light-headedness? Before he could sit down she helped him take off his jacket.

“You can open the champagne.” She leaned back, pressed a button on her cassette player. Soft music filled the room.

He reached for the bottle, pulled off the foil, unwound the wire, and wiggled the cork.

“You’ve got big hands. Strong.”

The cork shot out. He poured sparkling wine into her glass. His hand shook and the foam overflowed the rim, spilling onto the white tablecloth.

“Sorry.” She giggled.

“To our first evening, Mat.” The glasses sang a high note as they touched. They drank.

“There’s more champagne in the fridge. Have some more.” She emptied her glass and held it out to him to be refilled. He obeyed. They drank again. She dished up. Leg of lamb, rice, a rich brown gravy, baked potatoes, green beans with mushrooms and cream, cauliflower with cheese.

“It looks . . . I didn't know you liked to cook.”

“Ag, it’s just from a recipe book. I hope you like everything.”

“Everything,” he said. Tonight would be a farewell to all the wrong kinds of food. Tomorrow he’d speak to Yvonne about his diet.

“What did you think of my poem?”

“I . . . liked it very much.”

“Mr. Venter said I should do more writing. He was my English teacher last year. I showed him all my poems.”

“This one as well?”

“No, silly, of course not. Pour me some more champagne.”

They ate. Silence.

Then: “I'’ve been in love with you for more than a year, Mat.”

He swallowed some champagne.

“But I want you to know it’s not because of being sorry about your wife.”

He took another swallow.

“There were a few guys in my class who were interested. Ginger Pretorius already has a job . . . His bike is very sexy and all that, but he’s so adolescent.”

She looked at him, unfocused. “Didn't you suspect? Every time my parents invited you, I was there as well. I felt as if you didn't see me. I had to do something. Didn't you see?”

“No.”

“They say the time is over for women to simply sit around waiting. If I hadn't done something, we would still have been secretly in love. Are you pleased that I did something?”

“Yes.” There was a befogged window between Mat Joubert and reality.

“Tell me how you felt, that evening. Was I too aggressive? They say some men like it. Did you like it, Mat, hey, did you?”

“Yes.” He looked at her, at the teeth so white in the candlelight, at her red lips, at the deep valley between her breasts where the black dress had shifted.

“For me it was a fucking rave.” She looked at him, saw his eyes on her breasts. “Does it bother you if I swear, Mat?”

“No.”

“Do you like it?”

He listened to a single beat of his heart.

“Yes.”

She pushed her plate away, leaned toward him. The top of the black dress unfolded like a petal. He could see the pink circle of one of her nipples.

“What else would you like, Mat?”

He slid his eyes away from the nipple, over her creamy neck up to her mouth, now half open. Her teeth shone. He wanted to tell her what he would like. His courage failed him. He swallowed more champagne, also pushed his plate away.

“A Winston.” He smiled ruefully.

She smiled back as if she’d heard the words but hadn't caught their meaning. She leaned over and found the packet behind the radio. He lit cigarettes for both of them. She blew the smoke at the candles, which flickered. He saw the nipple was now completely bare. Was she aware of it?

“Do you remember that I said everything was going to be a surprise?” He heard the faint slurring of some of her words and realized that she was drunk. For some reason or other this made his stomach muscles contract.

“Yes.” You’re not completely sober either, Mat Joubert.

“Well, this evening you’re getting the first course after the main course, Mat Joubert.” She got up slowly and moved toward him. She sank down on his lap, her hands around his neck, the cigarette burning between her fingers. He put his cigarette in the plate on the table and placed the palms of his hands against her back, searching for the firm muscles of youth.

She kissed him in slow motion. Her mouth and tongue slid slowly over and into his mouth, like honey. His hand moved inch by inch toward her breast. His thumb and forefinger searched for the nipple. He felt it harden. He pressed his palm more strongly against the fullness. It was softer than he had expected.

She groaned. Her hand dropped, pressed against his abdomen, moved up, unloosened his tie, unbuttoned his shirt. Her tongue licked a line of fire across his chest, her teeth danced across his nipple. Suddenly he had an overwhelming need. He forced her throat back and dropped his lips to her breast. He sucked it into his mouth until it filled him from tongue to palate, the skin smooth and supple. He teased her with his tongue and she grew again, moaned, her hand between his legs again. He pushed his own hand to her leg, felt the strength of her muscles and visualized the pleasure that was waiting. He sighed shudderingly and moved his hand slowly to the center of his interest. Her legs opened, her mouth on his again. He expected panties there but found none, only wetness. His fingers slid inside. She groaned and sucked his tongue.

And suddenly he was ready, a machine rescued from rust. The swelling in his groin changed to a rock-hard erection, a fiery soldier on parade.

She pulled his hand away from her heat. “This,” she said, and the hoarseness was real, “is dessert.” She gave him a quick kiss and moved to her own chair with difficulty. She held her glass for more champagne. Her hair had come loose. She dragged deeply on the cigarette.

“I'’ve never met anyone like you, Mat.” Her breast was still bare. And he speculated about her experience, the fact that this wasn'’t her first time. About the fact that she excited him. About the fact that he was a vehicle for the achievement of a fantasy. But he didn't want to speculate any longer. His heart leaped at the pressure in his trousers. The bottle was empty. He got up, walked unsteadily to the kitchen, and fetched another one. When he came back she was still sitting in the same position, elbows on the table, cigarette between her fingers, the nipple almost touching the tablecloth. He poured for them both.

“Were you shocked because I wasn'’t wearing anything? Down there?”

“No.”

“I had nothing on below the mini this afternoon. It made me so randy . . .”

She took a last puff of her cigarette, killed it. “Does it make you randy too?” Her hand dropped to her breast. Her fingers quietly stroked the nipple.

“No one has ever made me so randy in my life,” he said and knew that just for that moment it was true.

She put her hand on his and suddenly said softly: “I’m so pleased.”

She remembered: “You must take the candles to the living room. That’s where you’re getting your dessert.” She put Joubert’s finger in her mouth, sucked it gently. “Two kinds,” she said and smiled seductively, but the alcohol undermined the effectiveness. He didn't notice it.

He sat.

“Get up. I’ll come in a second.” There was a momentary silence, then she giggled at the play on words. “Take the champagne, too.”

He got up.

“First fill my glass.” He obeyed, then took his own glass, the bottle of champagne, and the packet of Winstons to the living room. When he came back for the candlesticks, she wasn'’t there. He carried the candles and saw that his shirt was unbuttoned down to his navel. He sat down on the carpet. He was filled with satisfaction, anticipation. In his imagination his finger slid into her again.

He heard someone knocking at the front door.

He couldn't believe it. The knock came again, more softly. A feeling of unreality came over him, as if it was all part of a strange dream. He got up, uncertainly, and unlocked the front door, turned the handle, opened it.

Benny Griessel was leaning against the wall, chin on his breast, his clothes crumpled, his hair wildly untidy.

“Mat?” The voice was barely audible. “I have to . . . talk.”

Griessel stumbled forward. For a moment Joubert wanted to stop him, but then he opened the door wider so that the man could come in.

“Benny, this is a bad time.”

“Must talk.”

Griessel staggered to the living room, a road he knew. Joubert closed the door. His head struggled to find a solution. Quickly he walked to Griessel, turned him around, put his hands on his shoulders.

“Benny, listen to me.” He whispered, shook the shoulders.

“I want to die, Mat.”

“Benny.”

“Rather die.”

“Jesus, Benny, you’re as pissed as a newt.”

Griessel started crying.

Joubert stared ahead, his hands still on the man’s shoulders with not the vaguest idea of what to do. The sobs tore through the body of the figure in front of him. Joubert turned Griessel around, walked to the living room. He’d make the man sit down, then warn Yvonne. He helped Griessel as far as the couch. The sobs stopped when Griessel saw the candlelight. He looked at Joubert, frowned in an effort to understand.

“Is that you, Mat?” he asked, his voice barely audible. Joubert wondered what demons were dancing in Griessel’s skull. He pitied him.

Yvonne appeared in the door.

“Dessert,” she said, the word an announcement.

Her breasts and the dark love triangle of pubic hair were only too evident under the wisp of transparent nightgown. She was wearing high heels. In each hand she held a bowl of pudding. Her arms were stretched out, an invitation to the other dessert.

She saw Griessel.

Griessel saw her.

“Mat?” Griessel repeated softly, and then his head fell on his chest in an alcoholic and sensory stupor. Joubert’s head swung back to Yvonne. His thoughts were formless and panicky.

She looked down at the way she had exhibited herself, saw herself the way they saw her. Her mouth thinned.

“Bonnie,” he said, but he knew it wasn'’t going to work. She threw the bowl of pudding in her right hand at him. It hit his left shoulder, the smell of baked pudding and ice cream rising in his nostrils. It ran down his shirt and his bare chest. She swung round and walked down the passage, staggering on the high heels.

“Bonnie.”

“Fuck you!” she screamed and then a bedroom door slammed.

13.

Drew Wilson was driving home in his CitiGolf. The radio was tuned to a late-night talk show but he wasn'’t listening to it. He was tired. There was a dull throbbing behind his eyes and his back was stiff and sore from the long hours of sitting.

He didn't mind the tiredness because it was so good to be busy again. Even if you weren’t working for yourself. It was good to be creative every day, to use your ingenuity and craftsmanship to mold the gold metal into something that would enchant a woman so that she, with true feminine charm, could persuade the man in her life to buy it for her.

He fantasized about each one of his creations, about what kind of woman— or man sometimes— would wear it. With which outfit. To what occasion. Now and then, there were foreign tourists in the showroom but he tried to ignore them. They were never as beautiful or as stylish as in his dreams.

He lived in the Bellville suburb of Boston in an old house with big rooms and high ceilings which he had restored. The driveway to the single garage was short but, as usual, he stopped to open the gate, got into the car again, and drove to the garage doors.

When he put his hand on the car handle, someone, something, stood next to him in the dark.

His head jerked and he saw the pistol.

“Oh God.”

Drew Wilson hadn't read a newspaper during the past week. The long hours and the pressure at work simply hadn't left time for that. He didn't know about the death of James J. Wallace. But he saw the face behind the pistol.

The physiology of shock is predictable. The brain signals orders to prepare for action, for fast, urgent activity. Adrenaline pumps into the bloodstream, the heart rate increases, blood vessels expand, lungs pump.

He, however, could only remain seated behind the steering wheel because the muzzle of the strange gun was against his skull, just above his right eye. But his body was forced to react. So he trembled, his hands and his knees shook with fear.

“I . . .” he said and a tear rolled slowly down his cheek to the black mustache on his upper lip.

“I . . .”

Then the bullet penetrated his skull, the heartbeat ceased, the blood vessels narrowed, and the lungs collapsed— the adrenaline wasted forever.

Radio control woke Mat Joubert at 4:52. His voice was hoarse, his mouth dry. He searched clumsily for pencil and paper when the woman began speaking. She gave the facts in a neutral voice— the address, the sex, who had been notified.

“Looks like more Chinese, Captain. One in the head, one in the chest,” she added in a conversational tone and said good-bye. He mumbled and put back the receiver.

He had slept very little and the champagne and beer had turned his head into a mushy cement mixer. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. He groaned and thought about Benny Griessel in the living room. He thought about Yvonne Stoffberg and groaned more loudly.

It hadn't been his fault.

How could he have foreseen that Griessel would arrive?

He had followed her down the passage but she had banged the bedroom door in his face and locked it.

“Yvonne, I didn't know . . .”

Her voice was shrill and hysterical. “My name’s Bonnie.”

“I didn't know he was coming here.”

“Who opened the fucking door?”

Good argument. There were noises behind the bedroom door— a banging and shuffling.

“Someone knocked. I had to.”

The door had opened. Her face appeared. Anger and hate had changed her mouth, narrowed her eyes. By now she was wearing a pink tracksuit.

“You could’ve ignored it, you fucking stupid cop.” She’d banged and locked the door again.

He’d sunk down on the floor next to the door. Now the drunkenness was a burden that prevented him from thinking of ways to convince her. But her final words had taken the starch out of him. He was still sitting there when she jerked the door open some time later. Her suitcase was in her hand. She stepped over him and stormed down the passage to the front door. There she hesitated for a moment, threw down the case, and walked back to him and said with the same thin mouth: “I’ll leave the key here tomorrow when I fetch my other stuff.” Then she left with her suitcase. He saw the firm bottom in the tight pink tracksuit pants disappearing around the front door and briefly wondered if she was wearing underwear. He’d remained sitting there, his mind dulled, liquor a sour taste in his mouth, only a vague yearning left between his legs.

Sometime during the night he’d climbed into bed and now he felt old and tired. And in Boston a second man was lying with a shattered head and a smashed heart. He got up with a groan. First of all he had to look after the man in the living room.

He wanted coffee but there was no time. He hastily brushed his teeth but it didn't remove the foul taste in his mouth. He washed his face, dressed, and walked down the passage. In the dining room the remains of their meal lay cold and unappetizing. In passing he saw the cigarette stub that had smoldered in the plate. The disappointment of the evening’s fiasco swept over him again.

Griessel was snoring on the living room couch. Joubert found the packet of Winstons on the small table and lit one. He’d go back to Special Milds a bit later. His mouth tasted of stale liquor. He shook Griessel’s shoulder lightly. The snoring stopped.

“Mat,” Griessel said, surprised.

“Come on, Benny, I'’ve got to go.”

Slowly Benny sat up, his head in his hands.

“Another Tokarev murder. In Boston. But you’re not coming with me.”

He pulled Griessel to his feet and marched him to the front door, then to the Sierra. They got in and drove off.

“De Wit gave me an ultimatum, Mat.”

Joubert said nothing.

“I must leave the bottle or I’m out.”

“And you gave him your answer.”

They drove on in silence.

“Where are you taking me?”

“To the cells at the Edgemead station, Benny.”

Griessel looked at him like a wounded animal.

“You’ve got to stay dry now, Benny, until I can find help for you.”

Griessel stared ahead of him. “De Wit warned you, too.”

“Yes, Benny, he warned me as well.”

Mrs. Shirley Venter was a tiny sparrow of a woman who constantly used her hands while she spoke very fast and in a high voice. “Shame, what a way to go. In any case, I get up at four o’clock every morning. I don’t have the luxury of a maid. Bob goes to work early during the week and it gives me time to make his breakfast and to feed the dogs and put the washing in the machine. I don’t believe in these automatic things. I have a twin-tub Defy, seventeen years old and not a thing wrong with it. In any case, I switched on the kettle for coffee because Bob likes percolator coffee and it takes a while and then I saw a car with its lights on in front of Drew’s garage but you can see it’s difficult to see clearly through that window because Bob hasn’t trimmed the hedge for a long time.”

She turned to her husband, a man in late middle age with heavy shoulders, thick lips, and a mouth slightly agape under an Adolf Hitler mustache.

“Bob, you’ll have to trim the hedge, my darling.” Bob gave a low grumble and Joubert didn't know whether it implied assent or not. They were standing in the kitchen among the unwashed dishes and the laundry surrounded by the smell of fried bacon. Joubert leaned against a kitchen cupboard, Basie Louw sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee.

“In any case, then I saw the lights on the garage door but I went on making the coffee and put the percolator on the stove and put out the cups. Bob doesn’t get up until he’s had one cup in bed. And I put in the washing and then I looked out of the window again and the car’s lights were still shining on the garage. Then I thought, no, something’s wrong. So I went to tell Bob and he said I must leave the neighbors alone but I said Bob, everything’s not all right, a car doesn’t stand in front of a closed garage for ten minutes. So Bob went to have a look. I still said he must take a stick or something because one never knows but he just walked out. He still played prop forward for Parow until he was forty-three, didn't you, darling?”

Bob made a noise again.

“And then he found him there and there was blood all over the place and Bob said he thinks the car was still idling until early this morning because that was why the lights were still so bright. And then he came to tell me and I let the Flying Squad know. One nought triple one. I keep the number next to the telephone since that

911

was on the TV. Shame, we were so shocked. What a way to go.”

Her voice was a knife scraping Joubert’s frayed nerves. He looked longingly at Basie Louw’s coffee. Basie had arrived before he did. When evidently there had been something left in the percolator.

“You didn't hear the shots? Noises, voices, cars racing away?” He looked at Bob Venter in the hope that he would reply.

“There are always cars here backfiring, not like the old times when it was a quiet decent suburb. But now Bob and I keep ourselves to ourselves, mind our own business. And we sleep well. Only the rich have time to lie awake at night,” the woman replied.

Joubert accepted it as a negative response to his question. “Mr. Venter, did you notice nothing odd when you went out?”

Bob Venter growled again and moved his head a few millimeters from side to side.

“What do you know about the deceased?”

It was as if Shirley Venter had been waiting for the question. “Drew Wilson was a lovely boy. And so artistic. You must see the inside of that house, it’s nicer than mine. And quiet. You never heard a sound from there. He always greeted me and smiled and worked so hard, especially lately . . .”

“What did he do, Mrs. Venter?”

“He makes those little bits of jewelry, you know. In any case, when he moved in here I took a tray over and when I came back I said to Bob what a nice boy . . .”

“Do you know where he worked?”

“Benjamin Goldberg’s in Adderley Street. It’s a very fancy place and the stuff is so expensive. I went there once when I was in town just to go and say hello to him but it was just highbrows and credit cards. In any case, when he moved in I took a tray over and came and told Bob that he was such a nice boy and you know, first impressions are what usually count because it was true. Quiet and friendly.”

“Was he unmarried? Divorced?”

“Unmarried. I always said Drew doesn’t need a wife. You just go and have a look inside. It’s nicer than my house.”

Bob Venter growled something unintelligible.

“Bob, you can’t say that,” she said. “Don’t take any notice of Bob. Drew was only arty. In any case . . .”

“What did you say, Mr. Venter?”

“Bob, drop that story.”

The man growled again. Joubert watched his lips. He deciphered the words. “He was a queer,” said Bob.

“Bob thinks anybody who hasn’t played rugby for thirty years is queer. He was just arty. He was given other talents. Don’t take any notice of Bob.”

“He was a queer,” Bob said with finality and folded his thick arms across his chest.

“He was just arty,” Shirley said and fished a tissue from inside the neckline of her dress.

He went to fetch Griessel at the Edgemead police station. The constable who unlocked the door looked uncomfortable and turned his gaze away. Griessel walked out to the car in silence.

Joubert drove. “How do I get you into the sanatorium that helped you before, Benny?”

“Drop me at the front door.”

“Will you go?”

Griessel rubbed a dirty hand over the stubble on his face. His voice sounded tired. “Will it help, Mat? When I come out I’m dry, but they can do nothing about the . . . about the work.”

Joubert said nothing. Griessel interpreted it incorrectly. “God, Mat, I dream in the night. I dream that it’s my children lying dead. And my wife. And me. With blood against the walls and AK shots through the head or guts spilling out onto the floor. They can’t take it away, Mat. I dream even when I’m sober. Even if I don’t drink a drop.”

“De Wit forced me to see a psychologist.”

Griessel sighed as if the burden had become too heavy.

“Perhaps she can help you too, Benny. Take away the dreams.”

“Perhaps.”

“But we have to let you dry out first.”

They drove in silence on the M5 to Muizenberg, where the sanatorium was situated. Joubert took out the Winstons, offered one to Griessel, and pressed in the Sierra’s lighter. They smoked in silence for a while.

“A Tokarev again?”

“Yes. Two shots. Two empty cartridges. But the thing has changed. Victim was possibly homosexual.”

Griessel audibly expelled smoke. “Could make it easier.”

“If it’s the same murderer. I'’ve got a feeling about this thing, Benny.”

“Copycat?”

“Perhaps. And perhaps it’s the start of bigger things.”

“A serial?”

“I'’ve got that feeling.”

“Maybe,” said Benny Griessel. “Maybe.”

Joubert explained about Griessel’s dreams. He said that his colleague was also willing to undergo psychological treatment.

“But he’ll dry out first?”

Joubert nodded. De Wit rubbed the mole and stared at the ceiling. Then he agreed.

Joubert thanked him and reported the second Tokarev murder. De Wit listened without interrupting. Joubert told him about Drew Wilson’s neighbors, who suspected that he was homosexual. Wilson’s employer and colleagues had verified this.

They had all sat or stood among the worktables of the goldsmiths— Benjamin Goldberg, three other men, and a woman. They were sincerely shocked. The woman cried. They couldn't think who would’ve done a thing like that to Drew Wilson. Yes, he was gay, but he hadn't had a relationship with another man for the past five or six years. He really tried, occasionally even taking out a woman. Why? Because Drew Wilson’s mother had threatened suicide.

Joubert wiped the sweat off his upper lip.

“Any drugs?” de Wit asked, assuming a hurt expression in advance.

Joubert thought how odd it was that his concentration was always better after a heavy drinking session. Possibly because only then did the mind have the ability to concentrate on only one thing at a time. He took a deep breath and kept his voice calm and even: “I’m going through Wilson’s house with a team now, Colonel. We’ll look for drugs as well.”

“But that’s not all.”

He heard the barely concealed reproach in the other man’s voice. Overdone patience crept into his voice. “Colonel, I don’t know how matters stand at Scotland Yard, but white murders in the Cape are few and far between. And six or seven times out of ten male homosexuals are involved. We’ll have to investigate that in depth.”

De Wit’s smile broadened slightly. “I’m not sure that I understand you rightly. Wallace, you told me recently, played around with women, and now you tell me Wilson did the same thing with men. Are you telling me there are two different murderers?”

Joubert’s mind searched for cross-references. De Wit’s smile was different from anything he’d ever encountered. It was the man’s way of handling conflict, his way of releasing tension. But it confused the person on the receiving end. Maybe it was meant to do just that.

“No, Colonel, I don’t know. It could be a copycat. If a murder gets a lot of publicity . . .”

“I’m aware of the phenomenon, Captain.” The smile.

“But I think it’s too soon for that.”

“Did the victims know one another?”

“I’ll check on that.”

“Very well, Captain.”

Joubert rose halfway out of his chair. “Colonel . . .”

De Wit waited.

“There’s one other matter. The article in the

Argus

about the bank robber . . .”

“I see your friends at public relations think highly of you, Captain.” De Wit leaned forward and added softly: “Keep it that way.”

14.

It was the first time that Detective Constable Gerrit Snyman had had to search a house without the knowledge of the owner. It made him feel uncomfortable, like an intruder.

In Drew Wilson’s bedroom, at the bottom of the built-in closet next to a neat row of shoes, he found a thick photograph album with a brown cover. He knelt in front of the closet and opened it. Photographs were pasted in neat rows, each one with a caption— some witty, some nostalgic. The feeling of discomfort grew because here Drew Wilson was still alive in timeless moments of happiness, birthdays and awards, parental love, friendship. Detective Constable Gerrit Snyman didn't consider the symbolism of the photo album for a single second, nor, for the same brief space of time, did it occur to him that everyone left only the happy moments for future generations and took the grief and the pain, the heartbreak and the failures, to their graves.

This was because the life of Drew Wilson as illustrated by the photographs changed in a way that upset the young policeman. Then he recognized someone in a photo and an involuntary whistle escaped him. He got up in one smooth movement and hurried to where Captain Mat Joubert was going through a chest of drawers in another room.

“Captain, I think I might have something here,” Snyman said modestly. But his face betrayed his shock and excitement.

Joubert looked at the pictures. “Isn’t that . . .” and he tapped a finger on a photo.

“It is, Captain, it is,” Snyman said enthusiastically.

“Shit,” Joubert said. Snyman nodded as if he agreed.

“Well done,” said Joubert. He tapped Snyman on the shoulder with a clenched fist.

Snyman saw the shine in Joubert’s eyes and smiled because he saw it as his reward.

“We must cover all the bases,” Joubert said thoughtfully. “But first of all you must fetch him.”

Mat Joubert knew it was impossible to be sure from the start whether a suspect was lying. Some wore the signs of guilt like beacons on their faces, others could hide it with the greatest of ease.