The door of the charge office opened. A young uniformed officer stepped aside as Flippie limped out. He had a nasty gash on his forehead, which would probably be the only visible sign of the police’s interrogation methods. Many men had told their stories to Dean. Of electrodes attached to their genitals, of being drowned and revived, their burned fingertips a testament to what they had been through. Tessa reached out to Flippie, but Dean held her back, his eyes dashing to the uniformed men scrutinizing them.
“Can we go?” There was an urgency in Flippie’s voice, his eyes darting back to the officer at the door. Tessa and Dean flanked Flippie as they walked into the bright summer day. Flippie sat rigid in the backseat of the car, staring out the window, his hands clasped in his lap.
“You’re safe now, Flippie.” Tessa turned in her seat, touching his knee. Flippie looked blankly at her for a moment before turning his head away again.
“Give Phillip a little time to catch his breath, Lilly,” Dean said quietly.
“I’m sorry.” Tessa had arrived in Johannesburg with only the clothes on her back, not sure if Flippie would even want to see her. He didn’t hesitate when she asked him for help. He sold the Chevy, helped her with new identity documents, a new life. They had become closer than when they were children. But she knew that something irreparable had happened in that police station, driving a wedge between them. Between him and the rest of the world.
Prudence came running as soon as they pulled up to Dean’s house, carrying little Jacob in her arms. Flippie looked at the two of them as if they were a mirage that would slip away if he blinked. He stepped forward and wiped the tears off Prudence’s face.
“It’s good to have you back, my friend,” Dean said, putting his hand on Flippie’s shoulder.
“They broke me, Dean,” Flippie said quietly. He grasped Prudence’s hand, his head low. Prudence looked pleadingly at Tessa. Tessa touched her arm.
Flippie looked strangely at her. “You’re wearing a ring.” It sounded like an accusation.
“We have some good news,” Tessa said.
“Yes.” Dean looked uncomfortable. “I know this is sudden, but Lilly has done me the honor of consenting to be my wife.”
Flippie shot Tessa a recriminating look. “Congratulations,” he said to Dean, forcing a smile.
After lunch, Tessa found Flippie alone in the living room, his face silent and vague.
“I made Malva pudding,” Tessa said. “Your favorite.”
Flippie turned toward her in slow motion. “Does he know about you?”
Tessa tensed up. She shook her head.
“Don’t you think you should tell him?”
Tessa looked back at the kitchen where Dean was doing dishes. She sank onto the sofa next to Flippie, talking in hushed tones. “He doesn’t even know my real name.”
Flippie stared at his hands, slender fingers laced tightly into each other. “He doesn’t deserve you lying to him.”
Tessa felt something desperate well up in her. “We’re happy. Can’t that be enough?”
“He’ll find out eventually, Tessa. What do you think is going to happen then?”
“He loves me.”
Flippie shook his head. “What about children? What if they’re like you? Do you even remember what our life was like? Do you want your children to be treated like that too? Life is hard enough without that to deal with.”
“They could be like Dean.”
“What happens, then? You’ll see your children grow old and die.” Flippie sank back, the small bit of fight suddenly out of him.
“I want what you have, Flippie.” Tessa realized how much she resented Flippie for being normal. She swallowed back her anger. “Everybody has a right to happiness, to family. Why not me?”
Flippie looked at her, his features cracked by bitterness. “I sometimes wish Jacob had never been born.”
His words were like a punch in the stomach. “You don’t mean that,” Tessa said.
“I love Prudence. I love my son, God knows, but if I think of what lies ahead, that he might one day be thrown into a van and be at the mercy of this government … it’s too much to bear, Tessa.” Flippie broke down, his thin body melting, his shoulders shaking, his face wet against her dress. “I soiled myself, Tessa. In front of them. Like a baby. I was so scared. I told them everything. I betrayed everyone, all I stood for.”
“I promise you, Flippie, I’ll always be there for Jacob. I’ll protect him like he’s my own, no matter what.” Tessa looked up. Dean stood in the doorway, a look of concern on his face. She pushed her doubts aside. They would be all right. They just had to be. Life couldn’t be worth living if it only held misery.
8
Wednesday
DECEMBER 15, 2010
The sound of someone knocking sent Alet’s heart racing. She lay sprawled on Tilly’s couch, an uncomfortable crick in her neck. She opened her eyes as another salvo of knocks hammered the window.
“Tilly?” No answer. Alet tried to untangle herself from the decorative pillows, stumbling off the couch to open the door.
Maria stood on the doorstep, tray in hand. “Môre. Breakfast?”
“For Mies Tilly?”
“No, for you. Mies Tilly, she told me to bring it.”
“She’s not here?”
“She left early.”
Alet took the tray from Maria and set it down on the coffee table. She found her cell on the floor and tried calling Tilly, but almost instantaneously, a phone rang in the bedroom. “Dammit.” She sank back onto the couch, checking for voice mails. There was a message from Theo. Alet slurped down coffee as she listened.
Tilly’s car was parked on the curb in front of Trudie’s house, the front door open. A must-and-mothball smell permeated the house. The disorder on the dining-room table and china on the floor seemed offensive, and the kitchen was even worse off. Drawers sprawled open. The entire contents of the pantry were on the kitchen table, every container open, some of the food spilling out. A massacre of clothes was strewn over the floor in Trudie’s bedroom, open shoe and hatboxes piled on the bed, their lids flung haphazardly across the room.
Alet found Tilly in a rocking chair on the closed-in stoep between potted houseplants and piles of old magazines. Her legs were pulled to her chest as she rocked the chair with a bobbing of her head. The air on the stoep hung stale and dead.
“Tilly? You all right?”
Tilly didn’t look up. “He made a mess,” she said simply.
“What’s that?”
“Your Sergeant Mathebe.”
“I don’t think he—”
“I have to clean it all up now.” Tilly spat the words. “What was he looking for?”
“It’s a murder investigation, Till.”
Tilly’s lips trembled. She cupped her hand over her mouth and bowed her head. Chestnut curls fell forward, obscuring her face. Alet felt helpless. She sat down on the weathered wicker chair opposite Tilly, her hands sandwiched between her thighs. Sunlight inched around the corner of the house and fell through the window, warming her back. Outside, the thermometer was already climbing above the 40°C mark, the heat forcing every living thing into submission.
Alet noticed a framed photograph on the windowsill. Tilly followed her gaze.
“It’s me and Ma.”
Alet picked up the frame, studying Trudie holding toddler Tilly in the house’s front yard. Tilly wore a yellow jumper, her wispy hair adorned with a matching yellow bow. Trudie looked young and radiant in the early-morning light, her hair, the same chestnut as Tilly’s, tied in a loose knot on her head. Alet had rarely seen Trudie without her dark glasses. She put the frame down. “Do you have any of these with your dad?”
Tilly shook her head. “He died before I was born.”
“How?”
“Accident. Ma never really talked about it.” Tears glossed Tilly’s eyes. “I should have been here for her, asked her about all these things. Instead I—”
Alet lea
ned across and put her hand on Tilly’s, not sure what to say.
“Most of the people who will come to the funeral will offer condolences and talk about how good she was, and they’ll be relieved that they don’t have to deal with her anymore.” Tilly’s voice faltered. “She was mean and reclusive, but she didn’t deserve to die like that.”
“Nobody does.”
“Please, Alet. Find who did this to her and make them pay.” Tilly’s small hands clutched Alet’s desperately. “You have to promise me.”
St. George’s Mall in Cape Town teemed with tourists, their bags filled with cheap African curios. The cobblestone walkway was bordered by stores, restaurants and outdoor stands that sold cheap jewelry, beads and batik work in bright colors. Puddles and wet paving stones bore witness to an earlier rainfall, the air fresh, clean.
Alet sat down at a table outside a small coffee shop. A waitress in a green-and-white uniform placed a cup of strong black coffee in front of her. Alet was early. Theo had been cryptic when he called, said he had found something he didn’t want to discuss over the phone.
A young woman weaved unsteadily between tables, begging for money. Her hair was matted, a dirty red-and-white shopping bag hanging from her left arm. Alet watched as she made her way down the lane, sometimes successfully, but mostly ignored or shooed away.
“Hi.” Theo sat down opposite Alet. His top button was undone, his tie loosened.
“Can I get you a coffee?”
“I can’t stay long.”
“Okay, espresso, then.” Alet signaled the waitress and ordered. “Did you manage to find anything on Trudie Pienaar?” she asked, turning her attention back to Theo.
“I ran her ID. Nothing showed up in the database.”
“She’s clean?”
“No. She doesn’t exist. No registered date of birth, no passport, nothing.”
“Shit. How’s that possible?”
“Fake identity? Happens all the time. All you need is a few thousand rand and the right contacts.”
“Dammit.”
“But that’s not why I asked to see you, Alet.” Theo leaned forward, his elbow on the table.
“Okay. What, then?”
“After I saw you the other day, I got to thinking. About us and what happened.”
“If that’s what you want to talk about, we better move this to a bar.”
“No. Listen. After the other day, I didn’t want to help you. I was mad. I started thinking about your dad and how he told me to stay away from you, like I was trash. And you just disappearing on me …”
Alet clenched her fist. She had wanted to apologize to Theo for her behavior the other day, make things right, but he was making her feel defensive.
“Maybe I wanted to get back at you,” Theo said after a moment. “Or at him, I don’t know. I thought, what the hell, and pulled everything I could find on him and Koch.”
“And?”
“Well, for one thing, there were huge holes in the information. All files were supposed to become public record when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission held its hearings.”
“Amnesty in exchange for confessing your sins. Everybody hugged and made up and now we’re one big happy family. So?”
“You know your dad never testified?”
Alet shrugged. “Perhaps he had nothing to confess.”
“Anyway, he totally fell off the grid in places. One day he worked at Brixton Murder and Robbery, his name in the papers, and the next …” Theo leaned back in his chair. “I spoke to someone I know who was in the force around that time.”
“Who?”
“Doesn’t matter. I trust him.” Theo’s easy manner was gone, his features strained. “He used to be part of an investigative team. Cleaning up the mess, as it were. He said they raided an office in a building in Pretoria. Found rows and rows of filing cabinets and computers. They didn’t know what they had at first, but they were ordered to back down by your dad. Most of the files had disappeared by the time they got a court order to go back.”
“Whose office?”
“The Afrikaner Broederbond.”
“What? All that cloak-and-dagger, secret-handshake, old-white-men-needing-an-excuse-for-a-drinking-club kak?”
“You’re thinking of the Freemasons.”
“Same thing. Besides, wasn’t the Broederbond outed in the seventies?”
Theo shook his head. “The Broederbond controlled everything that happened in this country. Every president from 1948 to 1994 was a member, every minister, every covert-operations chief. You didn’t take a shit without the Bond clearing you to do so.”
“What’s this got to do with my dad?”
“Adriaan Christoffel Berg. Member number 16791.”
“So he used to be an old-boy. Are you really surprised?” Alet was aware of the prickliness in her voice.
“Ever heard of the Civil Cooperation Bureau? The Security Branch?” Theo lowered his voice. “Vlakplaas ring a bell? They all have Bond ties. Your dad was a detective at Brixton. It was rife with CCB recruits.”
Alet took a sip of her coffee to break eye contact with Theo. The Security Branch did the dirty work during Apartheid. One unit used a farm outside Pretoria, Vlakplaas, to interrogate so-called ANC terrorists and sympathizers, making sure that the black/white divide remained a chasm, by any means necessary. Assassination was one of the means. And the CCB was a secret government-sanctioned death squad. No wonder files went missing. Everyone was trying to cover their asses when Apartheid came to an end. There are some things that can’t be forgiven.
“My dad’s retiring next year, Theo. No way he would have been allowed to stay on till now if he was part of all of that.”
“Your dad has powerful friends.” Theo’s mouth extended into a bitter smile.
“Can you prove any of this? Or do you only have your friend’s word?”
Theo pursed his lips. “I’ll find the evidence.”
“Fine.” Alet turned to look at the passers-by, trying not to let her face betray the whirlwind of emotion she was experiencing. “How does Koch fit into this?”
“They definitely worked together while your dad was at Brixton. There are many news articles. Koch helped crack a few big cases. That’s all I could find.”
Stores were closing their doors for the day, the crowds drawn away from St. George’s Mall by the growing blare of pop music from a Malay street festival on the next block. Alet felt the damp cold of the approaching evening creep between the buildings. The waitress brought Theo’s espresso and the bill. Theo reached for his wallet, but Alet held her hand out. “On me.”
Theo lifted the espresso cup, which looked ridiculous in his big hands. “Thanks.” He swallowed the coffee and leaned over to kiss Alet on the cheek. “I’ll call if I find anything more.”
“Wait.” Alet reached in her bag and handed Theo the two women’s files she’d found in Oudtshoorn. “I figured I can dig around in dusty archives for the rest of my life or ask you for a favor while I still have my youth and sparkling personality.”
Theo raised an eyebrow. “What’s this?” He opened the top file.
“Trudie’s murder wasn’t this guy’s first, I’m sure of that. He was way too good. I’m trying to find more unsolved cases with the same MO.”
“These are ancient.”
“I know, it’s a long shot. Humor me.”
Alet walked three blocks to her hotel at the top end of the Mall. Her room was old but clean, the dead bolt on the door loose from having been ripped out and replaced a few times. She ran a shower, studying her face in the bathroom mirror when she got out. The deep black and purple bruises had blended into greens with yellow edges around her eye. It looked even worse than before, if that was possible.
Alet sat down on the bed with her laptop and googled “Security Branch.” Articles on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission filled the screen. The term “atrocities” kept popping up in articles along with “strong-armed
,” and “disappeared.”
Her thoughts wandered. Was Theo right? Had her father been torturing people for the government at the same time as he was taking her to the fair and buying her pearl earrings for her birthday? Had he helped cause all of these deaths? Alet closed her laptop. She suddenly couldn’t handle the thought of spending the evening alone in the room. She found the piece of paper with Mike Engelman’s number tucked away in her wallet. He answered on the third ring.
“Mike? Hi … it’s Alet Berg.” There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Constable Berg from Unie.”
“Hi, Alet.” Mike’s voice was deep, sonorous, as if he had been expecting her call all along.
“I wanted to see if you have any matches with the DNA yet.”
“Nico said he’d give you a call.”
“I see. Thanks.” Alet held her breath, convinced Mike had already hung up, a part of her hoping that he had. A sound on the other end of the line betrayed his presence. She took the plunge. “Hey, so, I’m in town. I was wondering, does that offer for lunch still stand? I mean, it would be dinner, of course. Thing is, I’m here alone and I don’t know the area and, well, I’m hungry, and drinking alone in your hotel room is sort of sad.”
Mike laughed and she relaxed. “Where are you staying?”
“Off St. George’s Mall.”
“I could meet you at seven if traffic is light.”
“Ja. Great, hey. Thanks.”
Alet’s hair was still half-wet. She combed it out and twisted it into a bun at the nape of her neck, securing it with a clip. She only had one change of clothes with her, her fallback outfit of jeans and a black T-shirt. Makeup would do nothing to conceal the bruises on her face, but a little lipstick couldn’t hurt.
Alet took a seat at the hotel bar and ordered a whiskey. She entertained herself by watching the hotel guests gorge themselves at the buffet in the adjacent restaurant, crowding around roasted beef on a spit, carved in thin slices by a chef in a cylindrical white paper hat. Japanese, she guessed at the crowd of black-haired Asians. The sounds of Indian accents from other guests were much more definitive, all faces that would not have been here together twenty years ago. Especially not as tourists.
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