Dead at Daybreak

∨ Dead at Daybreak ∧

7

Van Heerden wasn’t the kind of man she had expected. Kemp had said he was an ex-policeman. “What can I tell you? A bit…different? But he’s damn good with investigations. Just be firm with him.”

Heaven knew, she needed “good with investigations.”

She hadn’t known what to expect. Different? Perhaps an earring and a ponytail? Not the…tension. The way he had spoken to Wilna van As. Tension wasn’t the right word. He was difficult to handle. Like an explosive.

They had decided on two thousand rand per week. In advance. She would have to pay it out of her own pocket at first if Van Heerden found nothing. Too much money. Even if Wilna van As paid it in installments later. Money the firm couldn’t afford. She would have to phone Kemp. She reached out for the telephone.

He stood in her doorway.

“I’ll have to speak to Van As again.” His lean body and his black eye and his fuck-you attitude, a brown envelope in his hand, leaning against the door frame. She realized that she had been startled and that he had seen it, her hand stretched toward the telephone. Her aversion to the man was small, but germinating, like a seed.

“We’ll have to discuss that,” she said. “And perhaps you should consider knocking before you come in.”

“Why do we have to discuss it?” He sat down in the chair opposite her again, this time leaning forward, his body language antagonistic.

She took a deep breath, forced patience into her voice, and firmness. “Wilna van As, purely as a human being, can justifiably expect our compassion and respect. Added to that she was exposed to more trauma in the past nine months than most of us experience in a lifetime. Despite the little time at our disposal, I found your attitude toward her this morning upsetting and unacceptable.”

He sat in the chair, his eyes on the brown envelope that he tapped rhythmically against his thumbnail.

“I see you’re only two women.”

“What?”

“The firm. Female attorneys.” He looked up, gestured vaguely at the offices around them.

“Yes.” She understood neither the drift nor the relevance.

“Why?” he asked.

“I can’t see what that has to do with your insensitivity.”

“I’m getting to it, Hope. Are you deliberately a women-only firm?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because the legal system is a man’s world. And out there are thousands of women who have the right to be treated with sympathy and insight when they are prosecuted or want a divorce. Or are looking for wills.”

“You’re an idealist,” he said.

“You’re not.” A statement.

“And that is the difference between us, Hope. You think your women’s groups, your all-female practice, and a regular contribution to the street children’s fund and the mission washes your heart as white as snow. You think you and other people are inherently good when you get into your expensive BMWs to go to the Health and Racquet Club and you’re so fucking pleased with yourself and your world. Because everyone is basically good. But let me tell you, we’re bad. You, me, the whole lot of us.”

He opened the envelope, took out two postcard-size photographs. He shot them across the desk.

“Have you seen these? The late Johannes Jacobus Smit. Tied to his own kitchen chair. Does that fill you with understanding and sympathy and insight? Or whatever other politically correct words you want to dish out. Someone did that to him. Tied him down with wire and burned him with a blowtorch until he wished they would shoot him. Someone. People. And your untouchable angel, Wilna van As, is in the middle of this mess. Fat Inspector Tony O’Grady of Murder and Robbery thinks she was a part of it because a whole lot of small things don’t add up. And when it comes to murder, statistics are on his side. It’s usually the husband, the wife, the mistress, or the lover. Maybe he’s right and maybe he’s wrong. But if he’s right, what happens to your idealism?”

She looked up from the photos. Pale. “And you’re going to burst my bubble…”

“Have you ever met a murderer, Hope?”

“You’ve made your point.”

“Or a child rapist. We…” And then he hesitated for a single heartbeat before he continued, spoke through it, somewhat surprised at himself. “I…I caught a rapist whose victims were children. A gentle, cuddly old man of fifty-nine who looked as if he was a stand-in for Santa Claus. Who lured seventeen little girls between the ages of four and nine into his car with Wilson’s toffees and up on Constantiaberg – ”

“You’ve made your point,” she said softly.

He sank back in his chair.

“Then let me do my fucking work.”

♦

The northwest wind blew the dark outside against the windows of the house, and inside Wilna van As was talking, looking for Jan Smit with words, her hands with the fingers entwined in her lap never wholly still. “I don’t know. I don’t know whether I knew him. I don’t know whether it was possible to know him. But I didn’t mind. I loved him. He was…It was as if he had a wound, as if he had a…Sometimes I would lie next to him at night and think he was like a dog who had been beaten, too often, too brutally. I thought many things. I thought perhaps there was a wife and children somewhere. Because when I was pregnant, he looked so scared. I thought he had a wife and child who had left him. Or perhaps he was an orphan. Perhaps it was something else, but somewhere someone had hurt him so badly that he could never reveal it to anyone else. That much I knew and I never asked him about it. I know nothing about him. I don’t know where he grew up and I don’t know what happened to his father and his mother and I don’t know how he started the business. But I know he loved me in his way. He was kind and good to me and sometimes we laughed together, not often, but now and then, about people. I knew he couldn’t bear pretentious people. And those who flaunted their money. I think he probably went through hard times. He looked after his money so neatly, so carefully. I think he was scared of people. Or shy, perhaps…There were no friends. It was just us. It was all we needed.”

Only the wind and the rain against the window. She looked up, looked at Hope Beneke. “There were so many times that I wanted to ask. That I wanted to say he could tell me, that I would always love him, it didn’t matter how deep the pain was. There were times that I wanted to ask because I was so dreadfully curious, because I wanted to know him. I think it was because I wanted to place him, because we do that with everybody, place them in a space in our heads so that we know what we can say to them the next time we meet, or what to give them. It makes life a little easier.

“But I didn’t ask. Because if I had asked, I might have lost him.”

She looked at Van Heerden. “I had nothing. I sometimes wondered whether his father also drank and his mother was also divorced and perhaps he also came from the wrong side of the tracks. Like me. But we had each other and we needed nothing else. That’s why I didn’t ask. Not even when I fell pregnant and he said that we would have to do something because children didn’t deserve the wickedness of this life and that we couldn’t protect them. I didn’t ask then because I knew he had been beaten. Like a dog. Too often. I simply went and had an abortion. And I went so that they could fix me so I could never get pregnant again.

“Because I knew we only needed each other.”

And then she wiped the drop from the point of her nose and looked down at her hands and he didn’t know what to say and knew he couldn’t ask his other questions.

The house was a tomb now.

“I think we must go,” the attorney said eventually, and stood up. She walked to Van As and laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

They ran across the street together through the rain to their cars. When she pushed the key into her BMW’s door, Van Heerden stood next to her. “If we don’t find the will, she gets nothing?”

“Nothing,” said Hope Beneke.

He merely nodded. And then walked to the Toyota as the water sifted over him.

♦

While the onions, peppercorns, and cloves were boiling, he telephoned.

“I’m cooking,” he said when she replied.

“What time?” she asked, and he didn’t want to hear the surprise in her voice. He looked at his watch.

“Ten.”

“Fine,” she replied.

He put the phone down. She would be pleased, he knew. She would make assumptions, but she wouldn’t ask any questions.

He walked back to the gas stove in the kitchen – the only room in the small house that showed no signs of dilapidation and want. He saw that the water had boiled away. He poured a few sticks of cinnamon into the palm of his hand, added them to the ingredients in the silver saucepan. He added olive oil, measuring with his eye, turned the flame down. The onions had to brown slowly. He pulled the chopping board toward him, cut the lamb shanks into smaller pieces, eventually transferred them to the saucepan. He grated the fresh ginger, added it to the stew, along with two cardamom pods. Stirred the mixture, turned the flame even lower. Looked at his watch, put the lid on the pot.

He laid the table with the white tablecloth, the cutlery, salt, black-pepper grinder, the candleholder with white candles. He couldn’t remember when last he had lit them.

Back to the work space. He opened two tins of Italian tomatoes. He always preferred them to freshly cooked ones. He chopped the tomatoes, took a small green chili out of the fridge, rinsed it under the tap, sliced it fine, added it to the tomatoes. He peeled the potatoes, put them in a bowl, opened the hot-water tap, filled the sink, poured in washing liquid, rinsed the knife and the cutting board. Uncorked the bottle of red wine.

There was something in that safe. That someone knew about.

In a separate pot, small carrots in a tablespoon of orange juice, small spoonful of brown sugar. A little grated orange peel. Bit of butter later on.

That was all that made sense. Because nothing else was missing from the house: no cupboards ransacked, no beds overturned, no television set taken.

Jan Smit. The lone wolf with the mistress. The man without a history, without friends.

He looked at his watch. The meat had been in for thirty minutes. He lifted the lid, scraped the tomato and chili pulp into the saucepan, replaced the lid. He switched on the kettle, put basmati rice in another saucepan, waited until the water boiled, added it to the rice, lit the flame, put the saucepan on the stove, checked the time.

He made sure that the front door was unlocked, lit the candles. She would be here soon.

Jan Smit.

Where the fuck did you start?

Orange juice had boiled away. Added a tablespoon of butter.

He walked to the bedroom, took his notebook out of his jacket pocket, sat on the threadbare armchair in the too-small living room, looked at the notes he had made when he had borrowed the dossier from O’Grady that afternoon.

Fuck-all.

Nothing. He stared at the identity number. 561123 5127 001. On November 23, 1956, Jan Smit’s life had begun. Where?

The door opened. She came in on a gust of wind and with a dripping umbrella. She saw him and smiled, collapsed the umbrella, and put it down at the door. She had tied a scarf around her hair. She took off her raincoat. He got up, took it from her, threw it over the arm of a chair.

“Nice smell,” she said. “The chair will be wet.” She moved the raincoat to the small coffee table.

He nodded.

“Tomato stew,” he said, walked to the kitchen and fetched the red wine, poured two glasses, handed her one. She pulled a chair away from the table and sat down.

“You’re working again,” she said.

He nodded.

She sipped at the wine, put the glass down, untied the scarf, took it off, shook her hair.

He walked to the kitchen, opened the pot of stew, added the potatoes, some freshly ground black pepper, a teaspoon of sugar, a pinch of salt, tasted, added more sugar. Killed the flame under the carrots. He walked back to the table, sat opposite her.

“It’s an impossible task,” he said. “I’m looking for a will.”

“Sam Spade,” she said, and her eyes laughed.

He snorted without anger.

“I’m so pleased,” she said. “It’s been so long…”

“Don’t,” he said softly.

She looked at him with overwhelming compassion. “Tell me,” she said, and leaned back in the chair. “About the will.” The light of the candles glimmered dark red in the glass of wine when she picked it up.

♦

Hope Beneke lit thirteen candles in her bathroom without counting them. The candles were multicolored – green and blue and white and yellow. One was scented, and they were all short and stubby. She liked candlelight and it made the small white-tiled bathroom in the townhouse in Milnerton Ridge more bearable.

Her temporary house with its two bedrooms and its open-plan kitchen and white melamine cupboards. Her temporary investment. Until the firm started making good money. Until she could buy something that looked out over the sea, a white house with a green roof and a wooden deck and a view over the Atlantic Ocean and its sunsets, a house with a big kitchen – for entertaining friends – and oak cupboards and a bookcase that filled an entire wall of the living room.

She poured in bath oil, swished the water around with her hands as she bent over the bath, her small breasts moving with her shoulder muscles.

Her house by the sea would have a huge bath for soaking in.

She closed the taps and slowly climbed into the warm water, listened for a moment, wondering if she could hear the rain outside so that the steam and the warmth and the comfort of bathing could be emphasized. She dried her hands on the white towel, picked up the book lying on the lavatory lid. London. Edward Rutherford. Thick and wonderful. She opened it at her Library Week bookmark.

Women’s groups. The Health and Racquet Club. He couldn’t be much of a detective if he had categorized her so glibly and so incorrectly.

In any case, she wasn’t a workout person.

She was a jogger.

If we don’t find the will, she gets nothing? As if he hadn’t heard it in her office, that first time. As if Wilna van As had eventually penetrated his mind that evening.

We’re all bad…

Strange man.

She focused on the book.

♦

“That was wonderful,” she said, and neatly placed her knife and fork on the plate. He merely nodded. The meat hadn’t been tender enough for his taste. He was out of practice.

“Were you in a fight again?” It was the first time she had mentioned his eye.

“Yes.”

“Oh, dear,” she said. “Why?”

He shrugged, divided the last of the red wine between the two glasses.

“How much was the advance she gave you?”

“Two thousand.”

“You must buy some clothes.”

He nodded, took a gulp of wine.

“New shoes as well.”

He saw the gentleness in her eyes, the caring, the worry. “Yes,” he said.

“And you must get out more.”

“Where to?”

“With someone. Take someone out. There are so many attractive young – ”

“No,” he said.

“What’s her name?”

“Whose?”

“The attorney.”

“Hope Beneke.”

“Is she pretty?”

“What does that matter?”

“I just wondered.” She put her empty glass down and slowly stood up. “I must get home.”

He pushed his chair back, stretched out an arm for her raincoat, held it for her, picked up her umbrella.

“Thank you, Zet.”

“It was a pleasure.”

“Good night.”

He opened the door for her.

“Night, Ma.”