Pale Horses

by Jassy Mackenzie

  Nobody entered or left the building. This evening, at least, the anonymous note-writer was otherwise occupied.

  David walked out of the door an hour later. His hair was tousled and he did indeed look miserable.

  Jade sent him a text. ‘Been watching door. Nobody went in or out. Meet me in Newtown?’

  Her phone buzzed in response almost immediately and her heart leaped.

  Then, looking down at the screen, she saw the message wasn’t from David. It was from a number she didn’t recognise.

  And it was obscure. The words ‘Pls don’t sms or call me’ followed by a meaningless string of numbers.

  Jade stared at the text for a full minute.

  34

  Over the hours, the landscape changed as Ntombi followed the N2 ever further southwest. Where were they headed and why? Her passenger clearly wasn’t about to tell her, and she wasn’t about to ask. He had pushed his seat back and appeared to be asleep, although she wasn’t sure that was the case. Perhaps, under those face-hugging shades, he was watching her.

  Surrounded by the flat, endless maize fields of the Free State, Bloemfontein came into view before them, sprawling below an empty sky, a dust-blanketed place of reds and greys and khakis that offered subdued relief from the endless golden-brown.

  To her dismay, they drove straight through Bloemfontein. Ntombi’s buttocks were numb from sitting in the same position for so long, and her hands felt as if they were welded to the wheel. Where were they going? Was he planning on going all the way to Cape Town, because already there were road signs and distance markers for the city. Slowly, imperceptibly, the car was eating up the kilometres, ticking the numbers down ten by ten, and as the hours went by distance signs for towns that had been hundreds of kilometres away grew closer until she thought of them as familiar, arrived, and then vanished as if they had never existed.

  An hour after they had passed the Gariep Dam, when they were heading towards Colesberg, the man sat up and took the GPS unit off the dashboard. He pressed some keys before directing her to turn off the main highway and head in the direction of Kimberley.

  Ntombi had never been to Kimberley, although she’d dreamed of taking Small Khumalo there one day. It was a place steeped in history; the most famous diamond-mining town in South Africa, where stones like the Star of South Africa had been unearthed. She’d imagined Khumalo’s wonder as they explored the museums together, walked the historic streets, and arrived at the famous Big Hole to peer, fascinated, down its steeply excavated sides and into its massive depths where today only stagnant, grey-green water could be seen.

  Thirty-eight, forty-two. Thirty-eight, forty-two.

  The phone number that the nursing sister from the hospital had given her was lodged in her mind. It was puzzling, frightening, and yet, try as she might, Ntombi couldn’t help but feel a surge of hope.

  If she contacted this woman, she might get her only chance to find out what had really happened to her husband, and to her community.

  Or perhaps – the thought sent chills through her body – it was a test to prove her loyalty towards her employer. Perhaps this was one of his people, and if she called her, then her employer would know she had disobeyed one of the conditions of her employment and she had made an unapproved phone call.

  But he would find out anyway. If this woman was genuine, she might not wait for Ntombi to call her. She might get her number from the hospital and phone Ntombi herself. Right now, in this car, with this man listening, such a call could have disastrous consequences.

  Panic flowed through her as she remembered Portia’s words from earlier that morning. The wealthy woman was so determined that she was an all-but unstoppable force. And now all her attention was focused on Ntombi’s situation. If she insisted on trying to get labour lawyers involved then Ntombi and Khumalo were as good as dead. That much she knew.

  And Portia would insist. She would simply not understand the seriousness of the situation. She lived in a different world; a far safer one, where her wealth and position insulated her from ever becoming a victim. She would never understand what it felt like to be vulnerable; without any protection; reliant on an employer who had made it very clear that anything except absolute loyalty would receive the harshest punishment.

  Either way, then, Ntombi was doomed.

  Mid-afternoon, much to her relief, because her bladder was just about bursting, her boss’s vile client told her to pull over at the next petrol station.

  This petrol station was very different from the Engen and Sasol garages they had passed on the main highway. Here, the station’s floor was unevenly tarred. There were only a couple of pumps under a corrugatedtin roof, and Ntombi knew that she would have to ask the way to the ladies’ toilet, since she could see no signs for one at all, nor any brightly lit advertisements for food franchises like Wimpy and Steers.

  When she set her feet on the dusty ground, Ntombi realised that they had left winter behind. The sun blasted down, its rays bouncing off the roof and heating the tarmac so it felt warm through her shoes.

  The stop lasted fifteen minutes and followed the same programme as the morning’s one. She stocked up on another batch of food, although this time her choices were limited to the small selection of flabby pies sweltering under a glass dome inside the tiny shop. The sandwich she had choked down earlier had been cold and tasteless. It still felt as if it was lying in her stomach like a rock. She couldn’t bring herself to eat anything else.

  In the toilet, which was located behind a struggling thorn tree at the back of the service station, Ntombi wondered whether she should risk calling the number that she now knew off by heart. She decided against it, which was just as well, because when she stepped outside again into the furnace of the afternoon, the man in the suit was waiting for her. He took her phone and scrolled though it, checking the recent call lists, before giving it back.

  The message was clear. Her communications were being closely monitored. She was no longer to be trusted; if indeed she ever had been.

  The landscape around her reflected her despair. Over the past few hours it had become drier and bleaker. The farmlands had given way to grey, rocky plains that stretched to a shimmering horizon, punctuated only by the occasional series of steep-sided, flat-topped hills on whose slopes nothing appeared to grow.

  Every so often there were pockets and patches of soil where grasses and small bushes had taken hold. Otherwise, Ntombi saw only the occasional thorn bush clawing its way out of the steely ground.

  The sun blazed mercilessly from an indigo sky.

  A board so sun-bleached that its letters were barely legible informed them that they were in the Central Karoo. As Ntombi drove past she saw the sign was peppered with holes, their edges ragged and rusty.

  The killer was checking the GPS carefully. He directed her off the main road and down a narrow minor road. Huge chunks of tarmac had broken off the sides and what remained was strewn with potholes. Eventually the tarmac stopped altogether, giving way to a seemingly endless, straight sand road.

  Only the power lines running alongside it and the occasional straggling barbed-wire fence gave any indication that there might be civilisation near here.

  It was five-thirty p.m. and the sun was setting in a blaze of reddish-gold when he ordered her to pull over and stop.

  She eased the car to a halt on the bumpy roadside, although she thought pulling over was a waste of time, since they’d passed not a single vehicle since joining it an hour ago. She put the car into ‘Park’ and turned off the engine. As the hissing of the air-con stopped, the silence screamed around them.

  They waited, with Ntombi growing ever more apprehensive as night came. No lights were visible; not even on the horizon. Their absence was all-encompassing and disorienting. Glancing out of the deeply tinted window, she realised that the only illumination came from the sky, where a cold blanket of stars was spread above the darkened earth.

  To try to ground herself, as a distraction from her surr
oundings, Ntombi started reciting recipes in her head. It was the same way she’d managed to pass those last, awful hours by Khumalo’s deathbed, holding his hand and listening to his cries as he fought the pain and slowly succumbed to the disease. It was a strange way to calm herself, but yet she found comfort in it. Now she went through the simple but tasty recipe for dombolo, or dumplings, which Nelson Mandela’s personal chef, Xoliswa Ndoyiya, had made for the former president on many occasions and which was one of his favourites, enjoyed with oxtail or lamb stew.

  Five cups of cake flour. A teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of sugar. Ten grams of instant dry yeast. Two and a half cups of lukewarm water and two tablespoons butter. Sieve the flour and salt together, combine with the sugar and yeast. Add the water gradually, mixing to form a soft dough. Knead until smooth and elastic, then cover the bowl and set aside in a warm place for an hour. Melt the butter in a pot. Roll the dough into balls the size of your palm …

  ‘Get going,’ her passenger demanded, his hard, foreign accent yanking her back to reality. The comforting rhythm of the recipe flew out of her mind as she started up the engine. A few hundred metres later they reached a junction with a narrower and more uneven road. Ntombi did as she was told and turned left and carried on driving slowly and carefully. In this low-slung car it would be all too easy for a stray rock or a concealed dip in the road to cause damage that could lead to a breakdown.

  And then, as they crested yet another shallow rise, she caught her breath as she finally saw lights ahead. Small but distinct. This wasn’t a town or even a hamlet. As they drew closer she saw they were looking at the lighted windows of an isolated farmhouse.

  She eased the car up the winding driveway and parked, as directed, a fair way from the house.

  ‘Wait here,’ the man ordered. He leaned over and pulled the keys from the ignition, making it impossible for her to do otherwise.

  He climbed out and, after reaching into the back of the car and taking out his gym bag, walked purposefully towards the house.

  The door opened, spilling out more light, and she saw the silhouette of a tall man in the doorway.

  Ntombi opened the door a crack. She thought she might be too far away to hear what they were saying, but the cooling air was clear and still and his voice carried further than she’d expected.

  ‘Where is she?’ the farmer asked.

  ‘In the car.’

  Ntombi clutched the door handle, terrified, but then shock gave way to dread as she realised they were not, in fact, talking about her.

  The killer was lying. There was nobody in the car but herself. She wanted to scream this fact aloud, shout the truth into the crackle-dryness of the night air.

  ‘Give me the goods and you can have Zelda. You can bring them to the car and fetch her back with you.’

  ‘You don’t get the goods until I’ve seen my sister, alive and well.’ The man’s words were uncompromising but his voice sounded shaky and scared and Ntombi guessed this was because he was trying to negotiate while knowing he was at a huge disadvantage.

  She wondered if Zelda was the unconscious woman that she had been forced to drive to a new location the day before. Most likely she was, but she was not here now. Ntombi didn’t even know whether she was still alive.

  ‘All right. You can see Zelda first.’

  Two sets of shoes scrunched over the sandy driveway as the men walked back towards the BMW. Ntombi cowered down in her seat, pulling the door closed again as quietly as she could and praying that she would not be harmed.

  They walked directly to the back of the car and then Ntombi heard a jingle as the killer tossed the keys to the farmer.

  ‘Here you are. She’s inside the boot.’

  As the farmer bent to open the lid, the other man acted, lightning fast. He must have opened his gym bag on the way to the house because Ntombi had to swallow down a scream as she heard the dull, sickening thud of metal on bone, followed by a much heavier thump as the other man folded to the ground.

  In an instant, the killer was on him. She heard muffled moans, and twisted round in her seat to watch in horror as he knelt on the farmer’s chest and trussed his hands with a length of wire. Then he dragged the farmer, who was shouting and swearing and struggling like a landed fish, back up the sandy driveway to the house.

  The farmhouse door closed and for a brief moment everything went quiet. And then the screams began.

  High-pitched and animal-like, they shattered the stillness of the night and Ntombi clenched her teeth as tears spilled from her eyes. More than once she opened the car door and placed her feet on the sandy ground, bracing herself to flee. Running into the night would allow her to escape this horror, as short-lived as that escape might be.

  Yet each time, paralysed by fear of the consequences, her body refused to obey. And with her door closed, the screams were at least a little fainter.

  Gradually they died away, becoming fainter still when she curled up against the seat and jammed her fingers into her ears, pressing so hard her eardrums began to burn.

  The wrench of the back passenger door opening jolted Ntombi from an uneasy sleep. She couldn’t believe that she had managed to close her eyes and escape this place for a while, but now reality was back again.

  The man heaved the gym bag onto the back seat and tossed her the car keys. He slammed the door and strode away again, heading back to the farmhouse.

  The night was eerily silent. All she could hear was the rapid sound of her own breathing. But her sensitive nose picked up the taint of fresh blood close by.

  Cloying and metallic, the raw-liver smell was emanating from the black bag that the man had so carelessly thrown inside. Ntombi fumbled for the window buzzer and stuck her head out into the night, taking in great gasps of the dry air. She noticed that there was now a light wind, blowing from the direction of the farmhouse, and it brought with it the smell of old blood and decaying flesh. She closed the window hastily and resolved not to breathe through her nose.

  And then the man appeared in the doorway again and this time she could see that he was carrying something large and heavy on his back.

  Not the farmer, she prayed. Please, oh please God, let him not be strapped into the back seat of the car. The thought of travelling those endless miles home with a bleeding victim or, worse still, a corpse, made Ntombi want to retch.

  But as the man drew closer she saw that it was not a body he had slung over his shoulder. It was a large sack whose shape, size and appearance was all too familiar and all too terrible.

  ‘Get out and come over here,’ he ordered her, his breath coming in gasps as he braced himself against the dead weight he carried.

  ‘Open the boot.’

  She complied, and he heaved the object down into the empty space. It landed with a thud, sending up a puff of dust and causing the big vehicle to bounce on its springs.

  She stared down at it wide-eyed, and for a moment felt the world spinning around her. Finally understanding what her employer had done. Finally aware of what her role in all of this was. Not just to play the role of a wealthy man’s wife and help this killer get through roadblocks more easily. Oh, no. That was not the only reason they had forced her to accompany him.

  No, oh no. Not this.

  From his pocket he produced a small, sharp knife. At first she thought the blade was tainted with rust but then she realised what must have caused the discolouration.

  He parted the tight weave of the sack carefully with the knife, exposing some of the contents which were clearly visible in the bright spotlight that shone from the lid of the open boot.

  ‘Well?’ he snapped at her. ‘Are these what you told your boss about?’

  Koenraad Meintjies had known pain before, but never like this.

  At his father’s hands he’d suffered many times, often while protecting his younger sisters. The brutal punishment that man had dealt out had drawn blood frequently. Broken bones more than once. Snapped fingers, cracked ribs, loosened teeth. All
in the name of the Lord, whose vengeance he was supposedly channelling as he wielded his heavy buckled belt, the wooden staff he used to pound the floor during sermons, or his bare, meaty fists.

  Koenraad had soon become accustomed to hearing his father’s voice rising and falling ever more breathlessly in a series of chants as he worked himself into an ecstasy of rage. Just like when he gave his sermons, only at home the violence that constantly simmered inside him boiled over into brutal deeds.

  ‘And then I saw the horses in the vision …’ The shaft of the wooden pole would be used to give him a glancing blow on the head … ‘And out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone …’ Another merciless blow, followed by more breathless exhortations. ‘… And the rest of the men who were not killed by these plagues yet repented not… Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornications, nor of their thefts …’

  When a younger boy, he had done his best to duck, dodge, roll with the blows, until he grew too tired or one of them found a vulnerable target.

  Now, bloodied and butchered, all he could do was slump against the tight wire bonds that held him to the wooden chair and listen to his own cries, soft and strange, a faint mewling. As helpless and weak as a newborn kitten.

  His eyes had been taken one by one. All he could see now was darkness; his last sight had been the implacable face of his tormentor.

  Eventually he had given up the information he was withholding. He had told the man the location of the goods he had come to collect. But then the punishment had not stopped, and he had broken. Cried and begged and yammered and howled. He would have done anything to put an end to the pain.

  They had tortured prisoners when he was in the army. Those who had been left too badly broken had been given the merciful gift of death after they had confessed what they knew. But now the man who had inflicted this pain was gone and the house was quiet and he was left with only the screaming spectres of his agony.