Murderous

by David Hickson

  “Now they want to call it a war,” said Aldo, and his lips pushed out from beneath his nose to show his displeasure. “One lunatic with a gun and it’s a war! What craziness is this?” Aldo’s ruddy complexion darkened behind the white stubble which covered his jaw. “I’ve seen war, and this is not war,” he proclaimed.

  I knew it wasn’t entirely true that he had seen war, but nodded in sympathy. Aldo had been born a decade after the Second World War, but he had spent many hours standing beside my table with a bottle of Verdicchio in his hand as he told me all about the privations of his childhood life in postwar Italy, which was how he had ‘seen war’. Recently the presence of Robyn had encouraged him further, and the stories had become more detailed and numerous. Eventually he had graduated to sitting at the table with us, which had been Robyn’s influence. It was the effect she had on all men. And presumably it was her absence tonight that had him standing by the table again, giving me anxious glances and trying not to ask where Robyn was.

  “Genocide?” he said with greater scorn. “More craziness. We must all run away because our skins are not a dark shade of brown? What nonsense is this?”

  Indeed, the less sober of the papers were flashing a ‘White Genocide?’ headline. The only restraint they showed was in the question mark.

  “It’s nothing but media madness,” I agreed. “What journalists write when they don’t have any facts.”

  “Of course, you know all about journalists.” Aldo shook his head and made a ‘tsk’ sound with his tongue. The reason I knew about journalists was Sandy, Robyn’s predecessor, who had sat at this same table with me in a previous life. Aldo had liked her and had been as surprised as us all when I admitted to him one day that she had disappeared. She hadn’t left, with her suitcase packed as Robyn did. Not stormed out after an ugly scene, nor drifted away from a lack of interest. No. Sandy simply disappeared. Aldo gave a Mediterranean shrug now as if he was remembering this detail, and he patted me on the shoulder. Then he topped my glass up again and went to put the bottle into the fridge.

  Khanyi’s buff folder turned out to contain a lot more than disturbing photographs of graffiti and brutal scenes of murder. There were pages of background to Dirk’s operation. Starting with the ‘discard’ from the upper levels of state security, the levels above Fehrson and his insignificant department. An unsubstantiated report of a right-wing extremist group: White extremists who called themselves the ‘White Africans’ were stockpiling weapons and planning to defend their land with their lives, should the government choose to redistribute that land to the greater populace, which was something that they had already started doing with questionable success in other parts of the country. The discarded report was nothing more than a rumour, a man who had overheard – and potentially completely misunderstood – a conversation in a bar. The one detail the eavesdropper had been certain of was that the farm where this stockpile of weapons might or might not be was the Van Rensburg farm.

  And that is where Dirk put up his hand and said how lucky it was that he had known Piet van Rensburg’s son at school. They had not been bosom buddies, but Dirk was sure he could win himself an invite to the farm. And that was the plan as far as I could tell. Reading it now, I wondered how Fehrson had survived so many years in the security business. An over-enthusiastic youngster is sent off with a pat on the back and a ‘let us know how it goes’. And scant chance of rekindling a friendship with the son of a multi-millionaire whose farm had been mentioned in the same breath as militant extremists. Other documents in Khanyi’s buff folder told of the background to the Van Rensburgs and their farm. The story of how a young, ambitious Afrikaner with some family money had recognised a need of the smallest, but wealthiest sector of the population at the southern tip of Africa: the need to escape their isolation through entertainment from the First World. Media-Mark had started as an exclusive pay-TV service, and South Africa’s first media mogul was created. As the company grew, astute advisers had pointed out that a business was more likely to survive in Africa if it embraced a larger percentage of the population. Media-Mark had set out to achieve this, armed with the enthusiasm of unlimited wealth and the desire to overcome a dubious background.

  The crowning glory of Media-Mark’s transition from elitist pariah to ‘company of the people’ was when they climbed into bed with the populist government and started broadcasting thinly disguised propaganda. As part of this move Van Rensburg named his successor: a man with none of the stains of an apartheid background, a man who was a survivor of the apartheid regime, a man who was not Afrikaans, and not of European descent.

  Piet van Rensburg, a man who rose early and achieved much, now turned his attention to another venture: game farming. He had bought himself an extensive sheep farm many years before. The original owners had been murdered on that farm in the months leading up to the first democratic elections in 1994.

  Khanyi had made notes in the margins in her neat square letters. The farm had sold for less than half of its estimated value. The manner of the previous owners’ demise had proved quite the deterrent to potential buyers. But Media-Mark had by then established itself as a prime provider of entertainment to the elite of the country, and the rewards were being reaped. Piet van Rensburg was not deterred by the murders.

  Khanyi had included photographs of the previous owners, as they were found after their lives were taken. And on the wall beyond them was the triangular sketch of a hyena.

  Van Rensburg had set about changing the nature of the farm, returning the land to its natural state. The sheep were loaded into trucks, sold to neighbouring farmers, and replaced with animals higher in the value chain. Animals were brought in from further north, animals whose worth was not in their meat or fluffy coats, but in their sheer presence: giraffe, zebra, buffalo.

  It was rumoured that Van Rensburg was aiming for the Big Five. Minor details such as the unsuitability of the terrain to some species was not something that bothered him. Money had fixed many obstacles in his life, and he seemed confident that money would fix this one. Perhaps not in favour of the animals, but in favour of the officials who would need to provide the bits of paper that would pave the way.

  Over the years a luxury lodge was built alongside the Duiwenshok River, and then a luxury tented camp on the higher ground of the plateau above Duiwel Ridge, and finally an ultra-luxury lodge around Lookout’s Peak. Further animals were brought in as the Van Rensburg private game farm stepped up the food chain with animals that liked to eat the animals they already had. A few big cats, and then the scavengers to clean the carcasses after the feast.

  But then came the unfortunate scandal of the American huntress who had killed the alpha male of the pride of lions and shared a photograph on social media. The Van Rensburg’s licence was suspended, and the carnivores were removed. Hendrik van Rensburg, Piet’s only child, a notorious playboy and womaniser, was blamed. Hendrik had a weakness for pretty blonde women, and the huntress had been both pretty and blonde. Hendrik apologised, but the damage was done. Magazines were filled with the suntanned, blond and beefy Hendrik showing his muscles, looking contrite and making the most of the opportunity for attention. The Van Rensburg game farm, dream of the self-made millionaire, was put on hold. Because who wants to visit a game farm where the animals all stand around eating grass?

  The story of Dirk’s suicidal mission resumed. The contrived ‘bumping into’ Hendrik, whose response had been interpreted as not entirely hostile. The ‘let’s meet for a drink’ which on two occasions saw Dirk jilted at the bar, but which was finally consummated: a beer for Hendrik, lime-and-soda for Dirk and a bowl of peanuts to share, before Hendrik had to leave for another more compelling engagement. Subtext provided by Khanyi: Hendrik’s womanising relegated meetings with Dirk to lowest priority for Hendrik. Dirk was more likely to make progress if he had something that Hendrik wanted. And so the Department supplied Dirk, an only child, with a sister. A younger, attractive sister, straight from the casting agency. Hendrik f
ell for the honeytrap, and the next chance encounter was more successful. Hendrik boasted openly about his position of power in a group who were looking after the future of ‘people like us’. He even mentioned the guns he had collected and suggested that Dirk’s sister might like to see his guns. An invitation was made to his family farm where a friend’s wedding was to be celebrated over an extended five-day weekend. A big marquee event, the champagne would flow and there would be plenty of opportunity to go on game drives, even a private drive for Dirk’s lovely sister if she was open to the idea of being driven alone through the bush by the only son of the country’s wealthiest media mogul. She was open to that idea, and nobody mentioned the underwear model who had recently received an enormous diamond from Hendrik. There was room in Hendrik’s life for more than one pretty, blonde girl.

  But when the weekend arrived, Dirk travelled on his own to the game farm. He was armed with excuses from his lovely sister, who had been paid what was due to her and told to stand by in case the honeytrap needed a bit more honey.

  Dirk, on his own, was not offered the private game drive. He was not as attractive as his new sister, and Hendrik did not go both ways. But Dirk did manage to show Hendrik some family snaps of the sister on a beach in a bikini, and played Hendrik a recorded message in which she explained how disappointed she was to have fallen ill, and how much she was looking forward to seeing Hendrik on the next occasion.

  Dirk did some extensive game driving with groups of wedding guests who tolerated his awkward solitude. But he saw nothing that looked like a stockpile of weapons, or a secret military base. That would come later.

  Dirk’s reports were like the detailed and depressing diary of an outcast. He described his efforts to be included, and his donkey laugh and enthusiastic hangdog face came back to me as an admonition for failing to persuade him that life in the field was not all he held it to be. He described in candid detail the confusion after his arrival at the farm without his lovely sister, and the change of room allocations so that he was dropped from ultra-luxury to mere luxury, and finally how he ended up spending a night in the sickbay of the school at the Village of Future Hope or Toekomstige Hoop, an Afrikaans title that was surely an ironic reference to the nearby town of Minhoop. That final downgrade had occurred later in the weekend after an altercation between Dirk and his buddy Hendrik, an altercation that followed Dirk’s crowning moment in his short-lived field agent career. Shortly after Dirk had seen with his own eyes and touched with his own hands the sought-after stash of weapons.

  Dirk’s triumph occurred on the back of Hendrik’s over-indulgence. As the weekend festivities gained momentum, Hendrik’s consumption of alcohol reached a point at which the line between little-known, long-forgotten classmate and trusted comrade-in-arms became blurred. Dirk found himself swept up in one of Hendrik’s notorious nights out, and the two of them headed out from the luxury lodge for the ‘Hopeful Village’ to find Hendrik some young, dark-skinned female companions upon whom he could unleash some of his abundant sexual frustration – Dirk suggested that the underwear model with the diamond ring occasionally withheld her favours. En route to the village, as Hendrik extolled the virtues of the females to be found there, Hendrik stopped to collect something that would encourage the females to accept his proposal of a night of unbridled passion. That something turned out to be an AK-47, which Hendrik assured Dirk was the best way to convince young females to do pretty much anything. And so Hendrik had accidentally shown Dirk what the budding field agent described in his report as ‘a disappointing wagon-load of guns’. Hendrik boasted there were many more weapons stored in a concrete bunker. Dirk said how much he would like to see the concrete bunker, but Hendrik did not seem inclined to show it to him. Hendrik complained that getting weapons was becoming harder by the day, and Dirk offered a scribbled phone number for the notorious arms dealer Richard Mabele, whom he claimed was an associate of a distant cousin. Hendrik accepted the number, but still made no promises about showing Dirk the concrete bunker.

  Having secured the best-known pacifier of young, dark-skinned females, the evening took an unfortunate turn. The details that Dirk provided became a little hazy. Hendrik lost control of the vehicle as they entered the village, and one of the young females was injured when he struggled to find the brake pedal. The pacifying AK-47 was fired a few times, but it did not seem to have a pacifying effect. At this point Dirk, a teetotaller and now substantially out of his depth, intervened before someone was badly hurt. Unfortunately, but true to form, it was Dirk who was badly hurt. He remembered Hendrik not taking kindly to his intervention. He remembered Hendrik using force to express this, and he also remembered regaining consciousness with a splitting headache and some memory loss in a sickbay of the Village of Future Hope school.

  Hendrik’s absence when Dirk awoke was blamed on the excessive alcohol consumption by Hendrik, who had fled back to the luxury camp. Dirk was encouraged to spend the night in the sickbay by the school nurse, and as there was no way of getting back to the luxury side of the property until the next morning, Dirk had little choice.

  Khanyi had added a note that they had sent him for X-rays on the Department’s insistence and that he had spent a night under observation in hospital. He had a nasty bruise on the side of his head, and showed signs of mild concussion, but no bones were broken; Dirk accepted that things occasionally got a little rough in the field.

  The Village of Future Hope was described in an attached press release, together with a glossy colour brochure, provided by the ever-efficient Khanyi as a postscript to Dirk’s regrettable foray. In the press release, Piet van Rensburg explained that the imbalances of the past were being redressed in the Village of Future Hope. It was a grass-roots educational centre where young, previously disadvantaged people would be provided with the education that had been denied them in the past. An education that included vocational training, and sped up the development of young people in the region to produce well-balanced members of the future, hopeful generation. It was the rhetoric that had abounded after the political changes in the 1990s and early 2000s – before cynicism crept in. But according to further notes from Khanyi, the Village of Future Hope had lived up to at least some of its promise, in the form of several alumni who had progressed to further educational institutions and had assumed leading roles in their community.

  Dirk returned from his first field experience with a bruise, concussion, memory loss, and a vague idea that Hendrik van Rensburg had indeed stashed a collection of weapons on his father’s farm.

  The weekend had one positive outcome. Hendrik, suffering from a nasty hangover, or perhaps feeling emotionally bruised, had placed his large hand on Dirk’s shoulder and suggested that he would like to see Dirk’s sister again. Dirk had optimistically interpreted this as an apology for the previous night’s altercation, although Hendrik made no mention of that.

  Dirk had concluded that Hendrik was volatile, possibly a dangerous person to be around. But on a bigger scale, he was inclined to think that Hendrik was a harmless fool.

  I wondered how accurate that interpretation was, but pushed the report aside when Aldo brought the risotto al mare, and I made sure that none of the photographs of dead people were visible to him as he topped up my Verdicchio and bemoaned the sad state of the country.

  Dirk’s story devolved into an awkward recounting of his pathetic efforts to rekindle a friendship with Hendrik over the final two weeks of his life. He showed progress when the fake sister received Hendrik’s calls, but that lasted only three days, until a leading swimwear company adopted her as the ‘face’ of their products, or as Hendrik would have it, the ‘body’ of their products. The sister was paid a good deal more to be filmed in the swimwear than the Department paid her to pretend to be Dirk’s sister, and so the honeytrap dried up. Dirk had previously invented a reason to find himself in the little town of Minhoop on occasional Sunday mornings, where he had smiled and waved at Hendrik, who attended the Sunday morning service with his
father. According to Dirk, Hendrik and his father never missed a service. They would make the twenty-minute hop in their Cessna aeroplane from the game farm, and they had seats in the front row of the church. Piet van Rensburg was asked to read passages from the Bible on special occasions, and when the church needed new hymnals the Van Rensburg family provided them. Which was why their absence on the day of the massacre was unusual. Hendrik would sometimes travel into Minhoop on a Saturday for an evening of debauchery with a few friends. Dirk interpreted a casual comment as an invitation to such an evening. But Hendrik had not arrived, and Dirk had spent the last evening of his life drinking mineral water alone in a room of the local bed-and-breakfast.

  Why had Hendrik not been in the church the next morning? And why had Piet van Rensburg not flown them there in the Cessna? Why had they not been seated in the front row on the one Sunday that unknown assailants had walked in through the teak doors with automatic weapons and a collection of extra magazines?

  It was only when I had finished the lamb cooked over coals, and Aldo had opened another bottle and allowed himself a little from the spare glass that he kept on my table for such occasions, that I understood why Khanyi had insisted that I go through the entire file. Because it was not to discover these questions that Khanyi had wanted me to read the file through to the end. It was more personal than that. The final two pages in the folder were print-outs of phone records. At the top of the page, in a large font highlighted in bright pink, was the phone number. It was a number that I recognised, a number that had occupied a prime position in my list of speed dial numbers.

  It was Sandy’s number. Sandy, the journalist I had met during my brief stint with Fehrson’s Department, when I had tried to hold down a job following the shattering of my military career. Sandy, the woman who picked up the broken pieces of my life and helped me to put them together again, and seemed to understand why I failed to keep my head above water after seeing Brian step onto a land mine, and then step off it. Sandy, the woman who persuaded me to make something of my love of the expressive power of images, who persuaded me to put down my gun and pick up a camera, as my old captain, a man called Chandler, liked to describe it. The woman who helped me to find a new life.