See No Evil

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘Matters which have nothing to do with you,’ Cornelius said.

  ‘I told the police about it as well,’ said Kim. ‘Not the first time I spoke to them, but once I’d thought it through I realized I had to. Alex is right. Todd could easily have been murdered; we have to tell them everything and trust them to work out what is and isn’t relevant.’

  Cornelius glared at his daughter-in-law. She shrugged and smiled a small sad smile.

  Cornelius’s stare softened. ‘I’m sorry, Kim. I’m worried sick about Todd, we all are, and I didn’t appreciate answering a barrage of intrusive questions from that policewoman. You know how concerned I am about the family’s privacy. But it must be hardest on you.’

  Kim smiled weakly. ‘Alex has been quite a support to me over the last few days.’

  Cornelius turned to Calder. ‘Thank you for all you are doing,’ he said grudgingly. ‘I’m sure Todd would appreciate it.’

  Caroline, who had said very little, was sitting next to Kim. She moved her hand over to touch her sister-in-law’s. Kim grasped it, squeezing so hard that the knuckles went white. She had been doing well, but Caroline’s sudden gesture of sympathy seemed to pierce her defences. A tear ran down her cheek as she turned towards Caroline and mouthed, ‘Thank you.’

  Caroline was a few years younger than Todd. She was thin, with Todd’s even features but not his easy self-assurance. She was well dressed in cream trousers and a silk top, but apart from some discreet but expensive earrings, there was no indication that she was married to a billionaire. She had left her nine-month-old daughter at home, and was intending to stay in England for only a couple of days before going back to her. But she had wanted to see Todd and hold his hand, even if Todd couldn’t see her.

  There was silence as we all stared at Kim with varying degrees of sympathy. The waiter seized his moment and took everyone’s order. Kim was a tough woman; she visibly pulled herself together. ‘I saw your bid for The Times in the papers,’ she said to Cornelius. ‘The columnist seemed to think you’ll get it. That must be very exciting.’

  Cornelius paused for a moment, but decided to respect Kim’s wish to change the subject back to safer ground. ‘There’s a long way to go yet,’ he said. ‘Evelyn Gill is a formidable opponent, it would never do to underestimate him. But it would be very exciting to own The Times. I just hope Todd can share in the triumph. I never understood why he walked away from the newspaper business.’

  ‘Different people are suited to different things, Pa,’ Edwin said.

  Cornelius was taking no notice of his son, and instead was looking intently at Kim.

  ‘Edwin’s right,’ said Kim. ‘Todd is his own man.’ She smiled at Cornelius. ‘In that I suspect he is like his father. And there’s nothing you or I can do to change that.’

  ‘I guess not,’ said Cornelius, his disappointment showing.

  ‘I suppose this is your biggest deal since the Herald,’ Kim said. ‘When was that – 1988?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Cornelius smiled. ‘That was the deal that transformed Zyl News from a South African company to an international media group. If we can get The Times it will complete the process, give us a real flagship title to be proud of.’

  ‘That must have been a difficult time,’ Kim said. ‘From what I understand you nearly went under then.’

  Cornelius looked at her sharply. ‘Did Todd tell you that?’

  Kim didn’t answer, managing to look coy as though embarrassed by her husband’s indiscretion. Calder was impressed at the way she was probing Cornelius.

  ‘There’s no point in denying it now, although I don’t think the outside world has ever realized just how close we were to bankruptcy. It was the old junk-bond story. We needed to do ever-bigger deals to raise the finance to pay off the debt on the old deals. When the stock market crashed in October ’87, the merry-go-round came to an abrupt halt and a lot of guys went flying off the sides. We would have gone too if we hadn’t closed the Herald deal. Since then we’ve been much more careful.’

  ‘You don’t have any South African papers left in the Zyl News group,’ Kim said. ‘I’ve often wondered why that is. I mean, I know you had to sell them in the 1980s to satisfy US investors, but surely there would be no problem in buying one or two now?’

  ‘It’s a small fragmented market and it’s very competitive,’ Edwin answered.

  His father ignored him. ‘I’ve left South Africa behind me,’ he said. ‘I have a US passport, an American wife and I split my time between here and there. But not South Africa.’ He glanced at Kim. ‘I hope to God that you never have to learn this, but when your spouse dies, you reassess things. You begin to realize what’s important to you. In my case it was my family,’ he smiled at Caroline and Edwin. ‘Not my country.’

  Kim struggled to keep a brave face at the reference to Todd’s situation. But Calder could see she was determined to find out more. ‘Did you consider leaving before Martha died?’

  ‘Yes, yes I did. As you know I was a consistent opponent of apartheid from when I bought my first newspapers in 1962. But during the eighties I became worried about what would happen when the regime did fall. The police were becoming ever more brutal, as were the ANC and the others. There were riots, my brother was blown up by a landmine, and then Martha …’ He sighed. ‘Then they got Martha. If I had only insisted we get out a few months earlier.’

  ‘So you have no regrets about leaving?’

  ‘No, none,’ Cornelius’s voice was firm. He paused, considering what to say next. ‘I am an Afrikaner. Rather, I was an Afrikaner. In the couple of years before Martha died that was becoming more and more important to me. During most of my adulthood I had denied my heritage. I criticized apartheid, I knew it was wrong, I passionately disagreed with the National Party and their loathsome ideas, I married an English-speaking South African, and then, God forbid, an American. My brothers and sisters believed I had betrayed my heritage, but I was happy to deny it. Until I saw the end coming.’

  He sipped his wine, checking round the table to see if his audience were following him. They were.

  ‘I became convinced that once apartheid fell and a black majority government came to power the Afrikaner people would disappear. As the architects of apartheid, they would be destroyed, either immediately, or slowly over the decades. Take away apartheid, and there’s much about Afrikanerdom that seems worth preserving. There’s the language. And there’s the history. Afrikaners have been in Africa for three hundred years: we are African, we can’t go back to the Netherlands, or anywhere else for that matter. We suffered tremendous hardships to establish our way of life, the Great Trek from the Cape to the Transvaal, the battles against the Zulus and against the British. My ancestors suffered in the Boer War – my mother was born in the Bloemfontein concentration camp and my grandmother died there – and afterwards we were treated like second-class citizens. When my father was a boy if you were caught speaking Afrikaans at school you were told to stand in a corner and wear a dunce’s cap. Literally, a cap with a big “D” on it.

  ‘My father was a good man. You know he founded an Afrikaans newspaper, the Oudtshoorn Rekord? Well, the paper supported South Africa joining Britain in the Second World War and it opposed the National Party when they came to power in 1948 and brought in apartheid. Believe me, those positions weren’t popular with all his readers. But he also believed passionately in education. The only way the Afrikaner would ever be the equal of the Briton was if he received an equal education. He encouraged me to get into Stellenbosch and then into Oxford. And what did I do with all that education? Did I do my bit to help him and his kind? No, I turned my back on them.

  ‘I felt guilty about all this. It seems to be the destiny of the white South African to feel guilt in one form or other and that was mine. And then Martha was murdered …’

  Cornelius hesitated. There was silence around the table. ‘She was a truly wonderful woman and we had a great time together. I guess you all know that there w
ere some strains in our marriage for a few months before she died. Strains I’ve always regretted. When she died everything changed. I didn’t care who my ancestors were, what language they spoke, or how many of them had died slaughtering the Zulus at Blood River. I knew I had to get my family out of there as quickly as possible. And I did. We sold Hondehoek, sold or closed the papers, and started afresh in America and England. Caroline and Edwin are married to Americans, Todd married Kim. My grandchildren will have new countries. South Africa is in the past for all of us.’

  ‘Except for Zan,’ Edwin said.

  Cornelius let slip a hint of mild irritation. ‘Except for Zan. But that’s her choice.’

  ‘Do you really think Martha was killed by ANC guerrillas?’ Kim asked.

  Cornelius looked at her. ‘Probably.’ He held his hand up to stall Kim’s next question. ‘I know we can’t be sure. Perhaps it was poachers. There could have been a cover-up. Perhaps the security police killed her for some twisted reason known only to themselves. Or someone else. Frankly, I don’t want to know. Martha’s mother suggested that we raise her death with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but that’s the last thing I wanted. Having to listen to the sordid details of how some twisted thug, be he white or black, took it into his head to murder Martha. And it wouldn’t just be me listening, it would be the commissioners, and the press and the public. It would follow me in every newspaper article written about me from now onwards. Follow all of us: Edwin, Caroline, Todd, even you. Really, I’m glad I let it drop.’

  ‘Todd isn’t.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Alex has been helping me try to find out what really happened.’

  ‘Have you?’ Cornelius shot Calder a warning glance.

  ‘I asked him to,’ Kim said. ‘For example, what happened to the diary?’

  ‘You mean the one that Martha mentioned in her letter to her mother?’ Cornelius said. ‘The one I wasn’t supposed to read?’

  ‘Yes. That one.’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I didn’t even know she was keeping one.’

  ‘I did,’ Caroline said.

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yes. Remember I was only twelve, and I was around the house much more than you, Dad. I caught her a couple of times writing in a black book. A really neat black book, kind of small and mysterious. She looked embarrassed each time, she tried to hide what she was doing. She told me once it was private and I should never read it.’

  ‘Did you?’ asked Edwin.

  ‘No,’ said Caroline. ‘Although I was tempted to search for it, I never did.’

  ‘So you never saw her put it into the bottom drawer of her desk?’

  ‘No.’ Caroline hesitated, looking around the table. She appeared shy, but determined to say what she had to say. She was the only one of the van Zyls to have picked up a completely American accent, which made her seem a little bit of an outsider. The others kept quiet, waiting. ‘I saw her once doing something that I knew was wrong.’ She paused again. Cornelius’s brows were furrowed in disapproval, Kim was hanging on every word and so was Calder. Caroline decided to plough on. ‘She was sitting in a car outside our house, copying something down into the diary. It was from a sheaf of papers which were lying on top of a briefcase.’

  ‘Whose briefcase?’ Kim asked.

  Caroline glanced at her father, who was glaring at her. ‘He was a man with a beard and sticking-out ears; I think he was a friend of yours and Mom’s. He came to Hondehoek with another man to see you. A stranger, I’d never seen him before. Do you remember? It was only a week or so before Mom died.’

  ‘I’ve no idea who that could be,’ said Cornelius.

  ‘When Mom saw me she was really angry,’ Caroline said, ‘but she was scared at the same time. Almost manic. She told me to forget what I had seen and never tell anyone.’

  ‘But now you have,’ said Cornelius.

  ‘She was my mother too,’ said Caroline. ‘I want to know what really happened.’

  ‘I wonder where the diary is now,’ said Kim.

  ‘It never turned up at Hondehoek,’ said Cornelius. ‘I’m sure of that.’

  ‘Could it have been found at the game reserve where she was murdered?’ Calder asked.

  ‘If it was, I didn’t hear about it.’

  ‘But if the police found it they wouldn’t necessarily have told you,’ Calder said.

  ‘They should have.’

  ‘Unless they were covering something up,’ Kim said.

  ‘In which case we have no chance of uncovering it now.’ Cornelius spoke this last statement with an air of finality.

  ‘I’m going to try,’ said Kim. ‘For Todd’s sake as much as my own. And Alex will help me.’

  Cornelius glared at Calder and then at Kim. ‘I said, there’s no point. Drop it. Do I make myself clear?’

  Kim glanced at Calder. ‘Perfectly,’ she said mildly, with a conciliatory smile. ‘Could you pour me some more water, Edwin?’

  Calder guided the Maserati through the dark Norfolk lanes back towards Hanham Staithe.

  ‘You did an expert job of pumping Cornelius,’ he said.

  ‘It was like he wanted to talk. At least about why he left South Africa.’

  ‘But not about Martha’s death. It’s as if he’d rather not know what happened to her.’

  ‘See no evil,’ Kim said. ‘But that’s tough. He may be a powerful man, but he doesn’t have a right to decide what Todd should or shouldn’t know about his mother. Or Caroline for that matter.’

  ‘I liked her,’ Calder said.

  ‘Yeah. She’s a nice woman. She’s quite like Todd but not so self-centred.’ She glanced quickly at Calder. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. I didn’t mean to say that at all.’

  They drove on in an uncomfortable silence for a minute or so.

  ‘Do you think Cornelius is genuine?’ Calder said.

  ‘You mean, is he hiding something?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Kim considered the question. ‘I don’t know. That’s the infuriating thing. Obviously he’s still upset about that period in his life, I’m sure that’s genuine. But I don’t believe he’s told us why, or at least not all of the reason why. You will help me, won’t you, Alex? Find out what’s going on. What he’s hiding.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Calder. ‘I don’t like people destroying lovely old aeroplanes like that Yak. Especially when I’m flying them.’

  When they got back to Calder’s cottage, Kim went straight upstairs to bed. The emotional strain of the previous few days had worn her out. Calder had not drunk much at dinner because he was driving, but now he was home he poured himself a stiff malt whisky from the decanter his father had given him as a twenty-first birthday present. He sat down in an armchair and put on some music, with the volume turned well down. Tom Waits.

  He reflected on his answer to Kim’s request for help. It was true that he and Todd had almost been killed, and for that very reason the prudent thing to do would be to back off and demonstrate that he was no threat to anybody. He knew that was what his sister would want him to do. But backing down wasn’t in his nature. There was clearly something fishy about Martha van Zyl’s death. Todd and Kim were asking difficult questions bravely and they needed his help, now more than ever. It would be wrong, cowardly, to walk away from them. Besides, he was confident he could look after himself.

  He was impressed by Kim. Those qualities that he had admired in her when she was a student had matured. She had stood up well to Cornelius, and had pumped him skilfully, despite her own fragile emotional state. She was determined to see through what her husband had started. She clearly loved Todd very much, although there was that comment in the car about him being self-centred. And she was obviously unhappy playing second fiddle to him in small-town New Hampshire. She looked better too; her bony frame had grown into the fullness of womanhood. And that smile. He had always thought that her you-are-the-most-important-person-in-the-world smile had been freely bestowed on e
veryone, but now she seemed to be keeping it for him. Her new smile, the smile she showed the van Zyl family, was more restrained, more mature, still friendly but with a hint of reserve. He represented the certainty of the past in the uncertain present. It was clear that she trusted him completely, and that she needed him. He liked that.

  He remembered the night he had crashed the college ball so many years ago, scaling walls and climbing over roofs. Kim’s concern for his safety had been written all over her face, much to the annoyance of her escort who had after all paid for her ticket. Much later, after dawn, after the ball was over and the man, whoever he was – Calder couldn’t remember his name – had retired to his own college, Kim and Calder had walked along the river towards Grantchester. It was a still, peaceful morning, swans gliding silently in the water, mist hovering a few feet above the fields. Kim was wearing a simple green dress that made her look delectable. It was cold, so Calder had placed his dinner jacket bought that week at Oxfam over her shoulders, and shivered in his shirtsleeves. They were both drunk, they were both tired. Magic seemed to hang in the morning air with the mist.

  He wanted to kiss her. It was one of those brief periods when Kim was without a boyfriend: the man who had taken her to the ball was never really in with a chance. He wanted to kiss her desperately, but he hadn’t. Just in case she had pulled away from him. Or perhaps what scared him more was that she wouldn’t pull away, that he would become another one of her boyfriends, here today, gone tomorrow.

  So he hadn’t kissed her. They had remained friends. And he had always wondered what might have happened.

  He glanced up at the ceiling: she was sleeping in the bedroom directly above where he was sitting. He banished the thought before it had been fully formed, with a flash of shame. Her husband was in hospital in a coma, for God’s sake! He gulped his whisky.

  His thoughts turned to Sandy. They had met the year before. She was a close friend of Jennifer Tan and had helped him find out who had killed her. A relationship of sorts had blossomed between them. She was a tall, slim woman with short blonde hair and tiny freckles on the end of her nose. She had worked as an associate at a major New York law firm on secondment to their London office. After she was transferred back to New York she and Calder had made sporadic attempts to stay in touch. When they were together, everything was fantastic. They had spent an idyllic week the previous September driving around Tuscany, wandering from hill town to tiny village, totally relaxed in each other’s company. They had carried on a week-long conversation, rambling over everything and nothing. Afterwards, Calder had flown over to New York to snatch a day or two with her, but she was always preoccupied with work, an urgent deadline, documents that had to be on the client’s desk by Monday morning. She had visited London and Norfolk on a similar two-day basis. Plans to spend Christmas together had fallen through. She was entitled to only two weeks’ vacation a year, and many of her colleagues didn’t even take that. It was hard for Calder, too, to get away at weekends: that was prime flying time, and the flying school needed all the instructors it could get. Then in April when he had finally managed to escape for three days to New York, it had all ended in disaster. The relationship wasn’t going to work.