by Deon Meyer
“She is only considering the interests of her company. I say we talk to the press.”
“That’s blackmail,” said Kleyn, losing confidence.
“It’s unnecessary,” said Cliffy. “I am sure we can come to some arrangement, Mrs. Kleyn.”
“We will have to,” said January, the manager of the Waterfront branch.
“Did I say Mrs.? Oh, I am sorry,” said Cliffy.
“We can’t afford that kind of publicity,” said January.
“It’s strength of habit,” said Cliffy.
“I will not be blackmailed,” said Kleyn.
“Of course not, Ms. Kleyn.”
“I’m going,” said Griessel, standing up.
“Could I say something?” asked Sergeant Marais in a gentle voice.
“Naturally, Ms. Marais,” said Cliffy jovially.
“You are afraid something might happen to customers in the shop?” she asked Kleyn.
“Of course I am. Can you imagine what that publicity would mean?”
“I can,” said Marais. “But there is a way to remove the risk altogether.”
“Oh?” said Kleyn.
Griessel sat down again.
“All we want to do is to get the suspect to make contact with me. We hope he will initiate a conversation and get himself invited to a woman’s home. We can’t confront him in the shop or try to arrest him: there are no grounds. So really there is no risk of a confrontation.”
“I don’t know . . .” said Kleyn, and looked dubiously at her long red fingernails.
“Would it help if I was the only policeman in the supermarket?”
“Steady on, Sergeant,” said Griessel.
“Inspector, I will be carrying a radio and we know the supermarket is a safe environment. You can be outside, all over.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” said Cliffy.
“I don’t see why we should change good police procedure just because the Gestapo don’t like it,” said Griessel and got to his feet again.
Kleyn sucked in her breath sharply, as if to react, but he didn’t give her the chance. “I’m leaving. If you want to sell out, do it without me.”
“I like your proposals,” said Kleyn to André Marais quickly, so that Griessel could hear it before he was out the door.
Thobela was standing at the reception desk of the Waterfront City Lodge when the Argus arrived. The deliveryman dropped the bundle of newspapers beside him on the wooden counter with a dull thump. The headline was right under his nose, but he was still filling in the registration card and his attention was not on the big letters:
VIGILANTE KILLER TARGETS “CHILD MOLESTERS”
His pen stalled over the paper. What was written there — what did they know? The clerk behind the desk was busy at the keyboard of the computer. He forced himself to finish writing and hand the card over. The clerk gave him the room’s electronic card key and explained to him how to find it.
“May I take a newspaper?”
“Of course, I’ll just charge it to your account.”
He took a paper, and his bag, and headed for the stairs. He read.
One day before crèche owner Colin Pretorius (34) was to receive judgment on several charges of rape and molestation, he apparently became the second victim of what could be an assegai-wielding vigilante killer bent on avenging crimes against children.
He realized he was standing still and his heart was bumping hard in his chest. He glanced up, took the stairs to the first floor and waited until he was there before reading more.
The investigating officer, Inspector Bushy Bezuidenhout of the Serious and Violent Crimes Unit (SVC), did not rule out the possibility that the bladed weapon was the same one used in the Enver Davids stabbing three days ago.
In an exclusive report, following an anonymous phone call to our offices, The Argus yesterday revealed that the “bladed weapon” was an assegai . . .
How much did they know? His eyes searched the columns.
Inspector Bezuidenhout admitted that the police had no suspects at this time. Asked whether the killer might be a woman, he said that he could not comment on the possibility (see page 16: The Artemis Factor).
He opened his room door, put the bag on the floor and spread the newspaper open on the bed. He turned to page 16.
Greek mythology had its female protector of children, a ruthless huntress of the gods called Artemis, who could punish injustice with ferocious and deadly accuracy — and silver arrows. But just how likely is a female avenger of crimes against children?
“It is possible that this vigilante is a woman,” says criminologist Dr. Rita Payne. “We are ruthless when it comes to protecting our kids, and there are several appropriate case studies of mothers committing serious crimes, even murder, to avenge acts against their children.”
But there is one reason why the suspected modern-day Artemis might not be female: “An assegai isn’t a likely weapon for a woman. In instances where women did use a blade to stab or cut a victim, it was a weapon of opportunity, not premeditation,” Dr. Payne said.
However, this does not completely rule out a female vigilante . . .
He felt uncomfortable about this publicity. He pushed the newspaper to one side and got up to open the curtain. He had a view over the canal and the access road to the Waterfront. He stood and stared at the incessant stream of cars and pedestrians and wondered what was bothering him, what was the cause of this new tension. The fact that the police were investigating as if he were a common criminal? He had known that would happen, he had no illusions about that. Was it because the paper made it all sound so shallow? What did it matter if it was a woman or a man? Why not focus on the root of the matter?
Somebody was doing something. Someone was fighting back.
“Artemis.”
He spat out the word, but it left an unpleasant aftertaste.
Since she had told him about Sonia, the minister seemed to have grown weary. His thinning hair lay flatter on his scalp, smoothed by the big hand that touched it every now and then. His beard began to shadow his jaw in the light of the desk lamp, the light blue shirt was rumpled and the rolled-up sleeves hung down unevenly. His eyes were still on her with the same focus, the same undivided attention, but touched now with something else. She thought she saw a suspicion there, a premonition of tragedy.
“You were very convincing today, Benny,” said Cliffy Mketsu as they followed André Marais to the car.
“She pisses me off, that fucking Ms.,” he said, and he saw Sergeant Marais’s back stiffen ahead of him.
“Now you think I have a thing against women, Sergeant,” he said. He knew what was wrong with him. He knew he was walking on the edge. Jissis, the pills were doing fuck-all — he wanted a drink, his entire body was a parched throat.
“No, Inspector,” said Marais with a meekness that irritated.
“Because you would be wrong. I only have a thing about women like her.” He said in a falsetto voice: “It’s a modern form of address which probably hasn’t yet penetrated the police. Why must they always have something to say about the fucking police? Why?”
Two colored men came walking towards them down the pavement. They looked at Griessel.
“Benny . . .” said Cliffy, laying a hand on his arm.
“Okay,” said Griessel, and took the keys out of his jacket pocket when they reached the police car. He unlocked it, got in and stretched across to unlock the other doors. Mketsu and Marais got in. He put the key in the ignition.
“What does she want to be a Ms. for? What for? What is wrong with Mrs.? Or Miss. It was good enough for six thousand years and now she wants to be a fucking Ms.”
“Benny.”
“What for, Cliffy?” He couldn’t do this. He had to have a drink. He felt for the slip of paper in his pocket, not sure where he had put it.
“I don’t know, Benny,” said Cliffy. “Let’s go.”
“Just wait a minute,” he said.
“If I w
as her, I would also want to be Ms.,” said André Marais quietly from the back seat.
He found the paper, unclipped his seat belt and said: “Excuse me,” and got out of the car. He read the number on the paper and phoned it on his cell phone.
“Barkhuizen,” said the voice on the other side.
He walked down the pavement away from the car. “Doc, those pills of yours are not doing a damn thing for me. I can’t go on. I can’t do my work. I am a complete bastard. I want to hit everyone. I can’t go on like this, Doc, I’m going to buy myself a fucking liter of brandy and I’m going to drink it, Doc, you hear?”
“I hear you, Benny.”
“Right, Doc, I just wanted to tell you.”
“Thank you, Benny.”
“Thank you, Benny?”
“It’s your choice. But just do me one favor, before you pour the first one.”
“What’s that, Doc?”
“Phone your wife. And your children. Tell them the same story.”
20.
She sat looking at Sonia. The child lay on the big bed, one hand folded under her, the other a little dumpling next to her open mouth. Her hair was fine and glossy in the late-afternoon sun shining through the window. She sat very still and stared at her child. She was not looking for features that reminded her of Viljoen, she was not reveling in the perfection of her limbs.
Her child’s body. Unmarked. Untouched. Holy, stainless, clean.
She would teach her that her body was wonderful. That she was beautiful. That she was allowed to be beautiful. She could be attractive and desirable — it was not a sin, nor a curse, it was a blessing. Something she could enjoy and be proud of. She would teach Sonia that she could put on make-up and pretty clothes and walk down the street and draw the attention of men and that was fine. Natural. That they would storm her battlements like soldiers in endless lines of war. But she had a weapon to ensure that only the one she chose would conquer her — love for herself.
That was the gift she would give to her daughter.
She got up and fetched the new knife that she had bought from @Home. She took it to the bathroom and locked the door behind her. She stood in front of the mirror and lightly and slowly drew the blade over her face, from her brow to her chin.
How she longed to press the blade in. How she longed to cleave the skin and feel the burn.
She took off her T-shirt, unsnapped the bra behind her back and let it fall to the floor. She held the knifepoint against her breast. She drew a circle around her nipple. In her mind’s eyes she saw the blade flash as she carved long stripes across her breast. She saw the marks criss-crossed.
Just another two years.
She sat on the rim of the bath and swung her feet over. She placed her left foot on her right knee. She held the knife next to the cushion beside her big toe. She cut, fast and deep, right down to her heel.
When she felt the sudden pain and saw the blood collecting in the bottom of the bath, she thought: You are sick, Christine. You are sick, sick, sick.
“In the beginning Carlos was quite refreshing. Different. With me. I think it is more okay in Colombia to visit a sex worker than it is here. He never had that attitude of ‘what if someone saw me’ like most of my clients. He was a small, wiry man without an ounce of fat on him. He was always laughing. Always glad to see me. He said I was the most beautiful conchita in the world. ‘You are Carlos’s blonde bombshell.’ He talked about himself like that. He never said ‘I.’ ‘Carlos wants to clone you, and export you to Colombia. You are very beautiful to Carlos.’
“He had nice hands, that’s one of the things I remember about him. Delicate hands like a woman’s. He made a lot of noise when we had sex, sounds and Spanish words. He shouted so loud once that someone knocked on the door and asked if everything was okay.
“The first time he gave me extra money, two hundred rand. ‘Because you are the best.’ A few days later he phoned again. ‘You remember Carlos? Well, now he cannot live without you.’
“He made me laugh, at first. When he came to my place in the Gardens Center. Before I started going to him, before I knew what he did. Before he became jealous.”
Before Carlos she wrote the letter.
You were a good mother. Pa was the one who messed up. And me. That is why I am leaving Sonia with you. She wanted to add something, words to say that her mother deserved a second chance with a daughter, but every time she scratched out the lines, crumpled up the paper and started over.
Late at night she would sit on the rim of the bath and stroke the knife over her wrists. Between one and three, alone, Sonia asleep in her cheerful bedroom with the seagulls on the ceiling and Mickey Mouse on the wall. She knew she could not let the knife cut in, because she could not abandon her child like that. She would have to make another plan with more limited damage.
She wondered how much blood could flow in the bath.
How great would the relief be when all the bad was out?
Carlos Sangrenegra, with his Spanish accent and his odd English, his tight jeans and the mustache that he cultivated with such care. The little gold crucifix on a fine chain around his neck, the one thing he kept on in bed, although they weren’t actually in the bed much. “Doggie, conchita, Carlos likes doggie.” He would stand with feet planted wide apart on the floor; she would be bent over the edge of the bed. From the start he was different. He was like a child. Everything excited him. Her breasts, her hair color, her eyes, her body, her shaven pubic hair.
He would come in and undress, ready and erect, and he wouldn’t want to chat first. He was never uncomfortable.
“Don’t you want to talk first?”
“Carlos does not pay five hundred rand for talking. That he can get free anywhere.”
She liked him, those first few times, perhaps because he enjoyed her so intensely, and was so verbal about it. Also, he brought flowers, sometimes a small gift, and left a little extra when he went. It was her perception that it was a South-American custom, this generosity, since she had never had a Latin-American client before. Germans and Englishmen, Irishmen (usually drunk), Americans, Hollanders (always found something to complain about) and Scandinavians (possibly the best lovers overall). But Carlos was a first. A Colombian.
That origin meant nothing to her, just a vaguely remembered orange patch on a school atlas.
“What do you do?” After his theatrical orgasm, he was lying with his head between her breasts.
“What does Carlos do? You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Everybody knows what Carlos do.”
“Oh.”
“Carlos is a professional lover. World heavyweight love champion. Every fuck is a knockout. You should know that, conchita.”
She could only laugh.
He showered and dressed and took extra notes from his wallet and put them on the bedside cupboard saying: “Carlos gives you a little extra.” In that rising tone, as if it were a question, but she was used to that. Then he put his hand back in his jeans pocket and said: “You don’t know what Carlos does?”
“No.”
“You don’t know what the number one export of Colombia is?”
“No.”
“Ah, conchita, you are so innocent,” he said, and he brought out a little transparent plastic packet in his hand, filled with fine white powder. “Do you know what this is?”
She made a gesture with her hand to show she was guessing. “Cocaine?”
“Yes, it is cocaine, of course it is cocaine. Colombia is the biggest cocaine producer in the world, conchita.”
“Oh!”
“You want?” He held the packet up towards her.
“No, thanks.”
That made him laugh uproariously. “You don’t want A-grade, super special number one uncut Colombian snow?”
“I don’t take drugs,” she said, a bit embarrassed, as if it were an insult to his national pride.
Suddenly he was serious. “Yes, Carlos’s conchita is clea
n.”
She ascribed the early signs to his Latin blood, just another characteristic that was refreshingly different.
He would ring and say: “Carlos is coming over.”
“Now?”
“Of course now. Carlos misses his conchita.”
“I miss you, too, but I can only see you at three o’clock.”
“Tree o’clock?”
“I have other clients too, you know.”
He said a word in Spanish, two cutting syllables.
“Carlo-o-o-o-s,” she stretched it out soothingly.
“How much they paying you?”
“The same.”
“They bring you flowers?”
“No, Carlos . . .”
“They give you extra?”
“No.”
“So why see them?”
“I have to make a living.”
He was silent until she said his name.
“Carlos will come tomorrow. Carlos wants to be first, you unnerstand? First love of the day.”
“He phoned one day and he said he was going to send someone to pick me up. These two guys that I didn’t know came in a big BMW, one of those with a road map on a television up front, and they took me to Camps Bay. We got out, but you couldn’t see the house, it was up on the slope. You go up in a lift. Everything is glass and the view is out of this world, but there wasn’t really furniture in it. Carlos said he had just bought it and I must help him, as he wasn’t very good with decorating and stuff.
“Maybe that was the night I clicked for the first time. I had been there for half an hour when I looked at my watch, but Carlos was angry and said: ‘Don’t look at your watch.’
“When I wanted to protest, he said: ‘Carlos will take care of you, hokay?’
“We ate on the balcony, on a blanket, and Carlos chatted as if we were boyfriend and girlfriend. The other two who fetched me were around somewhere, and he told me they were bodyguards and there was nothing to be scared of.
“Then he asked me: ‘How much do you get in a month, conchita?’ I didn’t like to say. Lots of them ask, but I never say — it’s not their business. So I told him: ‘That’s private.’
“Then he came out with it. ‘Carlos do not want his girlfriend to see other guys. But he knows you must make a living, so he will pay what you make. More. Double.’
