Murderous

by David Hickson

  “Circumstances?” said Khanyi, who had never seen the point of not rising to the bait.

  “Well,” said Andile, “the fact that Dirk Fourie was an employee of yours.”

  Ten

  Andile and I indulged in a cigarette on the open terrace on the seventh floor while Fehrson and Khanyi discussed his proposal. Fehrson had not denied employing Dirk Fourie, but we had gone over the spelling of the name a few times and he’d adopted the vague look of a man whose memory was failing him. When we returned, Fehrson’s memory was restored, and he delivered a powerful speech about the benefits of working together. We did a round robin of handshakes and we all smiled at each other.

  Andile had a question with which he wanted to kick off our new partnership – about the other instances of the graffiti on the wall. In the spirit of transparency, it became Khanyi’s turn for show-and-tell. Her buff coloured folders were not as fetching as Andile’s pink folder, but the contents were equally foul.

  “The symbol on the wall,” she announced, “was found at three separate farm killings in the ’90s.”

  She opened the folder and spread out the photographs she had shown me in the coffee shop of Minhoop the day after the massacre. There were typed pages that accompanied each one, and several copies of old newspaper clippings. “Names, addresses, everything is in here,” she said and slid the folder over to Andile. It was a casual move on her part, but none of us missed the significance of the short journey that the buff folder took across the table.

  “Those killers are surely long gone by now,” said Fehrson. “Or are you suggesting they took twenty-five years off, and have now returned for a few last killing sprees in their retirement?”

  “I am interested in the victims,” said Andile. “Which is why I asked Miss Gabuza for the details of the families that were killed.”

  Fehrson frowned with confusion until he remembered that Khanyi’s surname was Gabuza.

  “My interest is in those families,” said Andile, “and not the people who killed them.”

  “The dead families?” said Fehrson. “What good are they?”

  “I am interested to know whether there were any survivors.”

  “Survivors?” said Fehrson, as if the idea was preposterous. “What on earth would survivors have to do with it?”

  “Who would paint that slogan on the wall? Killers from twenty-five years ago? Someone who stumbled across it in a history book? Or a survivor who has a newspaper clipping, or personal memory of the symbol? Something they pull out occasionally and obsess over.”

  “You are one of the new breed of policeman, aren’t you?” said Fehrson with barely concealed horror. “Putting yourself in the killer’s mind, and all that nonsense.”

  “Perhaps I am,” said Andile, and he smiled grimly.

  “But a survivor who obsessed over a newspaper clipping would be white,” said Fehrson. “Why on earth would a white person walk into a church and kill thirty other white people?”

  Andile shrugged. “At this time I have only questions.”

  “It is perverse,” said Fehrson.

  “Killing thirty-three people in their place of worship is perverse whichever way you look at it,” said Andile.

  “There is one person who could be considered a survivor,” said Khanyi after another nasty silence. “Not a survivor as such, because they weren’t in the house at the time of the attack. But there is a connection that we have been looking into.”

  “A connection?” said Andile.

  “Piet van Rensburg. The farm he bought and is now turning into a game park was the site of one of those farm killings.”

  “I see,” said Andile.

  Khanyi glanced at Fehrson. His head moved a fraction, and she continued: “There is a deeper connection.”

  Khanyi took the folder back from Andile and found a page with a typed report. She handed it to him. “Look at the maiden name of the mother, the woman killed in the attack.”

  Andile frowned at the page. He looked back up at Khanyi and did not conceal his surprise.

  “Van Rensburg,” he said.

  “Older sister of Piet van Rensburg,” said Khanyi. “Estelle van Rensburg. She was ten years older than him. She was killed before Piet started his business. Before he was in the media spotlight.”

  “Are you saying Piet bought his sister’s farm?”

  Khanyi nodded. “Many years later.”

  “We need to take a closer look at Piet van Rensburg,” said Andile.

  “You are not going to suggest that Piet van Rensburg has been obsessing over a newspaper clipping about his sister’s death, which motivated him to kill everyone in a church where he was a revered leader?” said Fehrson. “It makes no sense.”

  “None of it does,” admitted Andile. “Which brings us to the other perplexing part of all this. Your employee, Dirk Fourie.”

  Fehrson shifted in his seat in preparation for further denials. Khanyi folded her arms to lessen the distraction provided by her fox fur. Nobody said anything.

  “Are you aware of a fight that took place between him and Hendrik van Rensburg on the farm?”

  “We are,” said Khanyi.

  “Nqobeni is refusing to talk about it. I need a fresh approach, I am hoping you could provide it.”

  “Why is it important?” asked Khanyi. “It was an intoxicated brawl; it happened weeks before the massacre.”

  “The morning after the fight, Nqobeni’s brother announced his pilgrimage and departed without performing the service. We need to know what happened that evening.”

  “Fourie’s report has little detail to add. He was concussed in the fight. Taken to the school sickbay.”

  “I would like you to speak with him,” said Andile.

  “Speak with who?”

  “Nqobeni.”

  Fehrson cleared his throat. “I regret,” he said. “We are not in a position to do that.”

  “I am aware of your suspension,” said Andile. “It will be a police matter. I will arrange it.”

  “Speak to him about what?” said Khanyi.

  “About your man Fourie, and what happened that night.”

  “Why don’t you speak to him about it?”

  “We have. I want you to try something different. No questions, make it a conversation.”

  “A conversation?” said Fehrson. “How will that help?”

  Andile turned to me.

  “I believe Freddy might have some experience in an approach called non-accusatory interrogation,” he said.

  Fehrson looked at me as if trying to remember why I was in the room with them.

  “It’s all the rage now,” said Andile. “It’s the way the Americans do things.”

  “And the British military,” I said. The only way that Andile could have known about my connection with the British military would have been if Khanyi had told him about it. I noticed that she looked down at her papers to avoid my eyes.

  Andile turned back to Fehrson. “I need to throw out Nqobeni’s confession before they lock him away and we all sit around waiting for act two. I am running out of options.”

  Fehrson looked at me, then at Khanyi, as if wondering if we had been planning an ambush.

  “Let us discuss this,” he said eventually. “Alone. We will see what we can do.”

  Andile gathered up his papers. Khanyi looked up and asked if she could help him find his way out of the building. He said she could. We stood up, smiled a little, performed the secret handshakes, and then Khanyi lured Andile down the stairs with her fox fur to escort him off the premises in the nicest way possible.

  Fehrson stood like Quasimodo at the big arched window, looking down at the common people as they scuttled about their business in Greenmarket Square as we waited for Khanyi to return.

  “It is still there,” said Fehrson, after several minutes of deep thought.

  “It is?” I said.

  “Too damn expensive,” said Fehrson. “Daylight robbery, that is what it is.” />
  “Ah,” I said. Greenmarket Square was occupied by an overcrowded collection of flea market stalls that moved in at dawn, then retreated at sunset so that the tourists could sip their martinis in peace on the terrace of the five-star hotel across from the Warehouse. I didn’t need to ask what was too expensive. Fehrson had an interest in old clocks that sometimes struck me as more of an obsession.

  “Perhaps they’ll bring the price down?” I suggested. “If no one’s buying it.”

  “Shouldn’t be standing out there in the sun,” said Fehrson. “It is Georgian, for goodness’ sake. You don’t leave a Georgian long-case exposed to the elements like that. I have got a mind to pay his outrageous figure as an act of conservation.”

  “Absolutely,” I said. We’d had this conversation in various guises before, and my role was not a speaking one. I was there to provide corroboration as Fehrson constructed his argument for making the purchase, a role his wife had fulfilled until their marriage had finally fallen apart several years ago. “You should save it,” I suggested.

  “Whatever is taking her so long?” He turned to me accusingly. Perhaps he had also noticed the frisson of tension between Khanyi and Andile, and didn’t like to think what might be happening in the marbled entrance foyer of the building.

  “The lift is particularly slow today,” I said.

  Fehrson looked at me with displeasure. “You have not explained why you are dressed like that,” he said.

  I knew I should have changed. But the photographer had been running late and by the time he had captured the optimistic dawn shots of Colonel Colchester and his business colleague Freddy Moss on their company yacht, I’d hardly had time to get into town to catch Khanyi. I removed the tie and undid the top button of my shirt.

  “Imposing a little order on my life,” I said.

  Fehrson grunted. He knew there was a nefarious reason behind everything I did, he just couldn’t prove it. His pale blue eyes searched me for a moment. Fehrson didn’t hold it against me that I had been discharged from the British army. And he never actually said anything about whether it had been an honourable discharge, but I knew he had seen the psychologists’ reports. And he often watched me in this way, as if trying to find visible signs of the damage.

  Khanyi’s return was heralded by a clatter of high heels on the steel stairs. She arrived at the top level like an actress arriving on stage.

  “That man has such a cheek,” she declared, and hesitated, slightly flushed and out of breath, as the spotlight operator tried to find her.

  “I never thought I would see the day,” said Fehrson, “that we would be getting into bed with the men in blue.”

  “Hardly getting into bed with them,” said Khanyi, her face still flushed. “Holding hands, maybe. We’ve agreed to work together. Exchange information. That’s all there is to it.”

  “We’ll send Gabriel in,” said Fehrson in response to that, and he turned back to the window and peered down to see how the Georgian long-case was faring.

  “Gabriel doesn’t work for us,” Khanyi reminded him. “In any case, what could Gabriel get out of him that the police haven’t?”

  “That man Q has not met Gabriel yet,” said Fehrson ominously. I opened my mouth to challenge that comment, but Fehrson continued. “You go along with him, Khanyisile. The two of you can do it together.”

  Khanyi sat down at the table, folded her legs away and looked at me, but spoke to Fehrson.

  “Do what together, Father?” Khanyi had a way of using the word ‘father’ that seemed inappropriate and mischievous. At times the coquettish Lolita, then the faithful Cordelia to Fehrson’s Lear. Or perhaps she only spoke like that when I was around because she could see that it irritated me.

  “Do?” said Fehrson, gazing out of the window. “You need to interrogate this Q monster. Find out what really happened to young Dirk. You heard the man – something happened that night that he is refusing to talk about.”

  He came back to the table and sat down. “Go in with Gabriel. Let him do the nasty stuff.”

  “Nasty stuff?” I said.

  Fehrson reached for a biscuit and turned it around in his hands as if it was the first time he had encountered anything like it.

  “Interrogation,” said Fehrson. “The kind of stuff you did for the British.”

  “It is hardly nasty stuff,” I said. “If anything, non-accusatory interrogation is the opposite of nasty.”

  Fehrson didn’t look convinced. He preferred to think that I did nasty things.

  “If you could spare us an hour out of your busy video production schedule, we would be most grateful, would we not, Khanyisile?”

  “I suppose we might as well get our money’s worth,” said Khanyi, reserving her gratitude for the moment.

  “Money?” said Fehrson, and he looked back to me with surprise. “We are not paying you again, are we, Ben?”

  “You are not,” I said. “Although remuneration was mentioned.”

  “Good, good,” he said, in approval of the first part of my reply. He studied the biscuit, as if looking to see whether there was any external evidence of what had rendered it so tasteless. “Ben can get things out of people in a way that few others can. Is that not so?”

  “I’m not sure that I can.”

  “It is what you did in the army. I know you like to put all that behind you now, but there is no denying you have skills in the area. How that police officer learnt of them is anybody’s guess.”

  He didn’t look at Khanyi, but his mouth clamped down and his cheeks tightened as if he was suddenly angry. But then the biscuit snapped in his fingers and I realised the grimace had been merely the effort of breaking last month’s biscuit in two.

  “You can take that look off your face now,” said Khanyi as the lift reluctantly lowered us towards the ground floor.

  “Which look would you prefer?”

  “Father’s a good man, and he’s done extraordinary things.”

  “I don’t deny it.”

  “He’s not getting too old. I can read your thoughts, Gabriel, they’re written all over your face.”

  The lift produced some worrying creaks and snapping sounds from above us. Khanyi looked up as if she might diagnose the problem.

  “I thought he was handing over to you,” I said.

  “He is.” Khanyi looked back down to me and eyed the cigarette I was holding in my mouth while I searched for the matches. She didn’t rise to the bait, though. I guess that gag had run its course. “It’s not the actor on the stage who’s in control,” she said, “it’s the director in the wings.”

  “Or sometimes the bloke with the sandbag in the rafters,” I suggested.

  “Father was right about you,” she said.

  “About my not being paid?”

  “About your lack of moral compass. Father thinks you’ve fallen into a life of crime. All this business of changing your phone number and stealing fake IDs for yourself. You could have had a stable and respectable job here and not be running away from the people you owe money to.”

  “But then you’d have nothing to lecture me about. Where would the fun be in that?”

  Khanyi gave a heavy sigh.

  “If the Van Rensburgs found some weapons,” I said, “and planned to bring them into the country, would you still be interested in finding their concrete bunker?”

  Khanyi tried using telepathy to get to the subtext of my question.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Just a thought. Dirk mentioned it in the file. I have reason to believe they are thinking of bringing more weapons in.”

  The lift stopped with a shudder a few inches above the ground floor. We waited for the doors to open, then stepped into the cool marble entrance foyer with the muscled security guards and humming X-ray machines.

  “We might be interested,” said Khanyi. “Although we would need to involve the police, given our current status.”

  “Fortunately, you’re getting into bed with the pol
ice now,” I said.

  Khanyi’s eyes narrowed.

  “Captain Dlamini is also a good man, Gabriel,” she said. “I know you think the way we do things down here is primitive. I can see the sense of superiority written all over your face. But he’s a good man, in a difficult situation. One day your conspiracy theories about all the good people around you will come back to haunt you when you find yourself all alone.”

  “And good men are so hard to find,” I said. “I don’t think your ‘Father’ likes the way he looks at you though.”

  Khanyi definitely turned a darker shade at that.

  “You’re a bastard, Gabriel, you really are. I’ll call you when we’ve set a time to see that man.”

  “I’ll polish my knuckledusters.”

  Khanyi watched me all the way out of the building to make sure they were rid of me.

  Eleven

  Roelof, right-hand man to Piet van Rensburg, phoned the next evening as I was watching the progress of the flashing blue lights of a police boat moving along the queue of cargo ships entering the harbour.

  “I saw the article in the Minhoop Times,” said Roelof.

  “Which article was that?”

  “You and Colonel Colchester on your yacht.”

  “Ah yes,” I said vaguely. A brief silence as I inhaled on my last cigarette for the day. “It’s a colleague’s yacht,” I added unnecessarily. “Dicky Mabele.”

  “Mister Van Rensburg would like to meet.” Roelof was not big on warm-up chatter.

  “I’m sure we could arrange that.” My voice held little enthusiasm.

  “You in Cape Town? They said the yacht was here.”

  “We are.”

  “So is Mr Van Rensburg.”

  “What a coincidence.”

  “We’re all here.”

  “Even better.”

  Roelof suggested an early start for the evening, and I held the phone away from my face while I sucked at the cigarette and pretended to consult the company diary. When I confirmed that the colonel and I could make ourselves available he told me about the Van Rensburg’s pied-à-terre in Cape Town: an address in Bantry Bay where a handful of the most expensive properties in the country cling to the rock face above the sea and provide giddying views across the Atlantic, while keeping the troubled African continent hidden from view.