The Monster's Daughter

by Michelle Pretorius

  “Are you listening?”

  “The decision was not yours to make.” Benjamin turned a contemptuous gaze back to Van Vuuren. He once feared this legend, the man who made problems go away. Now he was that man, the ghost they whispered about in government hallways.

  “Dammit.” Van Vuuren slammed his hand on the table. “I am in charge, which means you work for me, not the other way around. Kritzinger had close ties with certain leftist journalists. His death is going to put them on the defensive. And that is your fokop.”

  “We control the media. Why is this a problem?”

  Van Vuuren looked around the room before sliding a thick wad of paper across the table. “There’s a leak. One of the Broeders talked.”

  Benjamin unfolded the sheets. A list of names in alphabetical order, hometowns and occupations appeared on the pages. There must have been more than a thousand names.

  “It was found during a raid on a newspaper office. All Bond members.” Van Vuuren glanced across the room. “There’s rumors of a book in an English publisher’s safe. If they had any doubts about going ahead with it, your little stunt just gave them incentive.”

  Benjamin paged through the names until he got to his own. De Beer, B. – Pretoria. University lecturer. His other life, the cover for his real work. Or was it the other way around? He slid the sheets back to Van Vuuren. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? Those journalists disappear and that book hits newsstands all over the world.”

  “It will happen anyway. You were careless.” Benjamin looked at his watch again. He sidled out of the booth.

  “We’re not done here.”

  “This is pointless. I have work to do.” Benjamin put his hat on and left.

  Purple jacaranda blossoms, trampled and bruised, littered the streets of Pretoria after the early rainstorm. Benjamin breathed the damp air while he waited. A cream-colored Mercedes pulled up to the corner across the street a few minutes later. Right on time. A portly older man got out of the car and waved. A petite blond woman in a short skirt and high heels stepped out of a doorway, a coquettish smile on her full lips. The man opened the passenger-side door for her.

  Benjamin crossed the street, slipping gracefully between two cars, stopping the girl from getting into the Mercedes. “I need some company,” he said.

  “Beat it,” the man said indignantly. “The lady’s spoken for.”

  Benjamin focused on the girl. Eyes lighter than clouds looked up at him. She gave him the same smile she had lavished on her companion moments earlier. “Maybe later, okay, handsome?” Her eyes darted to the man. “Meet me back here in an hour,” she whispered.

  Benjamin crouched down. “I’ve been waiting long enough for you, Carien,” he said. The girl looked at him in surprise.

  “Get away.” The man grabbed Benjamin’s arm.

  Benjamin pushed him back with little effort. He surveyed the man’s disappearing neck, the burst veins on his nose, the thick bags under his eyes. Poor bastard couldn’t get a girl like this any other way than paying.

  “I need someone for the whole evening.” Benjamin smiled at the girl, offering his arm.

  She hesitated. “He’s a regular.”

  “I’ll give you twice the going rate and a little extra if things go well.”

  Carien looked at the other man. When he didn’t counter the offer she shrugged. “Sorry, Koos. Maybe tomorrow, hey?”

  Koos waved her away. “Plenty where you come from, girlie. You’re nothing special. Just remember, you’re losing a good customer here.” He plopped into the driver’s seat, and tires screeched as he sped off.

  “He’s wrong, you know, Carien.” Benjamin put his hand behind her neck, caressing it gently. “You’re quite special.”

  “You’re not going to cheat me, hey, mister?” She looked at him with sudden vulnerability and his pulse quickened, a promising pinprick under his skin, heat rising from his core. Dealing with Tessa’s man, he had walked away from the house as hollow as when he entered it. But this, now, the girl’s life pulsing beneath his fingertips … Every time he closed his hands around the neck of one of the others, he felt a connection to Tessa, a raw need, a spark igniting the quietly remembered feeling of purpose. Soon, nothing would keep them apart.

  9

  Thursday

  DECEMBER 16, 2010

  Knocking. A thin strip of light cracked the heavy hotel curtains. Alet rolled over on her back, her head thick. Details of the previous night slowly came into focus. Dinner. The waitress, and the wineglass. Mike kissing her. And then the hotel bar, where Mpho, the chatty bartender, had poured her a couple of stiff whiskeys while telling her about what he would do if he won the Lotto. Alet made a move to sit up and sank right back into the pillows.

  “Housekeeping!”

  Alet stumbled out of bed and felt around for her clothes. Another knock, more insistent this time. Leaving the security chain on, she cracked the door open. “Ja?”

  A housekeeper in a stiff pink uniform stood outside the door. “Sorry, Madam. Checkout was at eleven. Are you staying another night?”

  Alet looked back at the alarm clock on the nightstand. 11:40. Dammit. “No. Sorry, hey. I’ll be out in a minute, okay?” She turned her T-shirt right-side-out and smelled the pits, a faint odor of sweat and deodorant on the cloth. It’d have to do. She made a halfhearted attempt to tidy herself up, tying her hair in a ponytail and splashing water on her face. Her cell rang.

  “ ’Lo?” Alet pinched the phone between her ear and shoulder while kicking her shoes out from under the bed.

  “Constable Berg?”

  “Professor Koch?” Alet felt around in her bag for her toothbrush. “Can I call you back now-now? I’m in the middle of something here.”

  “We have to talk.” It wasn’t a request.

  “You have something for me?”

  “When can you be in Cape Town?”

  Alet checked the clock again. “Ten minutes, okay?”

  Alet’s mind was still reeling from what Koch had told her as she pulled up to Mathebe’s house later that evening. It was on the other side of Unie, a solid brick building half-hidden from the street by a fence and a couple of oak trees. A gravel path snaked through the small garden to the front door. She shifted the six-pack of Black Labels to her left hand and rang the doorbell. A light went on above her head, the ornate glass-and-metal lampshade casting spotted golden shadows over the stone inlay of the stoep.

  A woman with short, stylish hair answered the door. “Good evening?”

  Alet wondered if she had the right house. The fact that Mathebe didn’t live alone had never crossed her mind. “Hallo. I’m looking for Sergeant Mathebe? I work with him.”

  The woman smiled, the corners of her big brown eyes crinkling. “Johannes is in.” Alet was fascinated by the liquid brown sheen of her skin. Her face was open and welcoming, her cheeks round, almost plump, a theme repeated by the rest of her body, the bold floral print of her dress accentuating every curve. “I am Miriam Mathebe.” She looked at Alet with expectation.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Alet realized that she was staring. “I’m Alet Berg. Constable Berg.” She lifted the six-pack. “I brought this.”

  A brief crinkle crossed Miriam’s brow. She took the beer from Alet. “Thank you. Please, come in.”

  Alet followed Miriam through a small kitchen, the remnants of a recent dinner still lingering in chakalaka and samp pots. Miriam left the beer on the kitchen counter. The hallway was lined with family portraits, a wedding picture of a slender Miriam and a boyish-looking Mathebe, and a picture of Mathebe in uniform at his graduation ceremony, pride obvious in his smile. Alet had one that was almost identical.

  In the living room, a young boy and a prepubescent girl were watching television.

  “This is Baba’s friend from work,” Miriam said. “Constable Berg, this is Celiwe and Little Johannes.”

  The children greeted her politely. Little Johannes’s eyes wandered
back to the cartoons on the screen. He tugged at the bottom of his T-shirt revealing a bulging little-boy belly.

  “Time to get ready for bed now.” Miriam patted Little Johannes on the back and turned the television off. “Celiwe, I’ll be along to ask you about your history lesson in a moment.”

  The girl sighed. Her eyes had the same droop as Mathebe’s, her hair braided into neat cornrows. Miriam raised a warning eyebrow and Celiwe nodded, following Little Johannes out of the room.

  Miriam pulled the heavy living-room curtains aside to reveal an open glass door. “Johannes is in the back, Constable Berg.”

  Mathebe sat on a patio chair, coffee cup in hand. He looked up, a deep frown embedding itself when he saw Alet. She suddenly felt nervous.

  “Constable Berg. This is not expected.”

  “Ja. Sorry.” Alet had thought about calling, but there was the chance that he wouldn’t give her the time of day. Better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission, she thought.

  “Can I get you a refreshment before I put the children to bed, Constable Berg?”

  “A beer would be great, Miriam,” Alet said. “And call me Alet.”

  Mathebe gave his wife a questioning look.

  “Alet was kind enough to bring refreshments.”

  Alet smiled. “A peace offering.”

  “Please sit,” Mathebe said. He handed Miriam his empty coffee cup. “I am not sure why you are here, Constable,” he said as soon as Miriam disappeared into the house.

  “Well, I thought we could share a drink, maybe talk about the case.”

  “I do not believe it concerns you anymore.”

  “Look, Johannes, I know we don’t see eye to eye, but I need you to hear me out. Have one beer with me.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but Alet held her hand up. “One. That’s all I ask.”

  Mathebe studied her face for a moment before he nodded. “I will give you that.”

  Miriam appeared in the doorway with Alet’s beer and a fresh cup of coffee. “Please excuse me while I tend to the children.”

  “Of course. Thank you.”

  Alet twisted the cap off the beer bottle and took a sip. Mathebe stirred his coffee as methodically as he did everything else. He took a languid sip.

  “You don’t like beer?” Alet knew Mathebe was a stiff, but she thought she could get him to loosen up before she dropped this bomb on him. “Must be the only policeman in the history of the force.”

  “I prefer coffee.”

  “Oh.” Alet took two large sips from the bottle. “It’s been a week, you know. I mean, since we found her.”

  “Yes.”

  “I know I’m supposed to stay out of it. That I fucked up.”

  Mathebe pursed his lips and leaned back in his chair.

  “Fok, messed up. Sorry. I don’t mean to … What I wanted to say, is that I am sorry. About going behind your back and not respecting your investigation.”

  A light went on in one of the rooms of the house. Alet heard the muffled voice of Miriam quizzing Celiwe on her homework. She thought about the history exams she’d had to take in school, how the textbooks changed when the ANC came into power. A new history for the New South Africa. She wished that her own history could be changed that easily, her bad decisions erased with something as simple as a revised textbook.

  Mathebe studied her, his expression unchanged. “I received a call from Oudtshoorn. Sergeant Maree. He wanted to let you know that he found a case that matched your criteria. The coroner had concluded that the victim was strangled before she was set on fire.”

  “I’m sorry, Johannes, I—”

  “You have continued investigating the case, Constable Berg. You come to my house, apologizing for going behind my back, and yet you are still going behind my back.”

  “Please, just hear me out.”

  Mathebe sighed. “Your beer is almost finished.”

  “There is something very wrong, Johannes. I saw Professor Koch today. He ran DNA on the body. Trudie Pienaar wasn’t white.”

  There was a crack in Mathebe’s expression.

  “Not in the sense that I’m white or you’re black, or April is coloured.”

  “I don’t understand what you are trying to say, Constable. Was she Asian?”

  “No.” Alet sighed. “So, Trudie looked normal, right? But there’s something different about her genes or something.”

  Alet tried to remember exactly what Koch had told her that afternoon. They had met at the gardens near parliament. Koch led her to a secluded area, away from the tourists. His lisp was so bad that she could barely keep up with what he was saying. She had to ask him to repeat most of it, not understanding any of the scientific gibberish. Once he dumbed it down for her, her mind simply refused to believe that it was true. Koch explained that humans share 99 percent of their genetic makeup with chimpanzees, but that it was that 1 percent that made all the difference. Trudie’s 1 percent looked different from other people’s.

  “What exactly does that mean, Constable?” Mathebe was losing patience.

  “It means that she wasn’t just a different race. Apparently this gene thing meant that she was … a different species.” Alet paused, watching a look of incredulity form on Mathebe’s face. “I know,” she said. “I’m having trouble with it too.”

  “The victim was not human?” Mathebe’s coffee cup balanced at a precarious angle on his lap.

  “Koch said it would have been like the difference between us and Neanderthals. They looked like ugly-ass humans, but they weren’t human at all. Because some part of their genes was different.”

  Mathebe raised both eyebrows so high that they almost touched his hairline. “We do not have a case to solve, then. The SAPS does not investigate the death of random animals. Only livestock. Was Mrs. Pienaar part cow or sheep, Constable?

  Alet was taken aback. She wasn’t used to Mathebe being sarcastic. “Look, Johannes. I know this is hard to believe, but Koch is sure of the results.”

  “How did she get here? A spaceship, perhaps? Or did she one day decide to crawl out of a mud puddle?” Mathebe had a sneer on his lips.

  “Listen to me, please? I don’t know what this means yet, but I think that we are dealing with something bigger than just one murder. It’s not just that murder in Oudtshoorn that was similar to the Pienaar murder. I’ve managed to find thirteen other murders across the country. All of them with the same MO. And there might be more.”

  “Sergeant Maree said the murder in Oudtshoorn took place in 1958. Even if the killer was a teenager, he would be an old man by now.”

  Alet sank back in her chair. “There are murders earlier than that. As far back as the forties.” Mathebe gave her a questioning look. “I have a friend at the university in Cape Town who has been helping me find them,” she said.

  Mathebe’s nostrils flared. “Are you absolutely sure they are connected, Constable?”

  Alet nodded. “I wouldn’t waste your time.”

  “I have to speak to Captain Mynhardt.”

  “No, please, Johannes. He can’t know about any of this. Not yet.”

  “He will know as soon as he receives Professor Koch’s findings.”

  The faint call of a hyena sounded in the distance. Alet took a deep breath, considering the possibility of walking away. She got up from her chair. “Koch has agreed to keep that part out of it. His lab guy doesn’t even know. I think he wants to write some article or something on the discovery.”

  “So why would he tell you?”

  “I don’t know. He said something about needing access to the body so he could run more tests.”

  “This still does not explain why the captain has to be kept in the dark.”

  “Mynhardt knows my father.”

  “I am aware of this.”

  Of course he was. Alet shifted her gaze to the glowing white cross on the hill that overlooked Unie. “Eight of the thirteen murders I found were investigated by my father. They called them the Ange
l killings.” Alet was afraid of making eye contact with Mathebe, of seeing the judgment there. The hyena cried out again, closer this time. She crossed her arms. “There were no suspects. It was the only case in my dad’s career he didn’t solve.”

  “Your father is not infallible.”

  “There’s more.” Alet bit her lip. She had received a call from Theo that morning after her meeting with Koch, linking the two case files she’d given him with news reports and media coverage of other similar murders. Theo had to search for death certificates to confirm cause of death. “The case files went missing when my father transferred to Security Branch.”

  Mathebe shook his head slowly. “A lot of files went missing in those years.”

  “Those files were destroyed on purpose.”

  “Files were destroyed so that government-sanctioned assassins could get away with murder, Constable. Were your victims activists?”

  “They were all Afrikaner women, housewives, secretaries, prostitutes.”

  Mathebe narrowed his eyes. “Why are you really here, Constable Berg?”

  Alet steeled herself. “I have to know the truth.”

  “And if you find that your father has something to do with these murders, that he protected a killer in exchange for a promotion? What will you do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mathebe took a moment before he spoke again. “Do you know what the date is, Constable?”

  “What?”

  “It is the sixteenth of December. Geloftedag—the day of the pledge. When the Voortrekkers made a pledge to God that they would always commemorate the day if He helped them beat the Zulu at the battle of Bloedrivier, because the blood of the savages stained the river red. A pact made in blood. The Afrikaner and God against the savages of this land.”

  Alet frowned, uneasy with where this was heading. “Why the history lesson?”

  “When I was a boy, we would watch the baas and his neighbors walk to church on this day, to celebrate their victory, to thank God and honor their ancestors. After, they would go home and feast and throw their leftovers to the dogs. It was that same baas who paid in cheap brandy to keep the workers drunk and under his thumb while he grew even fatter than his father before him. And the lower he pushed those savages, the more they drank to escape despair. I do not drink alcohol, Constable Berg. I do not allow it in my house. When I left my mother’s house, I swore I would never be controlled by the baas or the bottle like my father and his father. That I would never come home in a drunken stupor and beat my wife and my children because that was the only power I had. I worked hard to become a policeman. Because I wanted the power to change things. Because I wanted to give power to the people who were not chosen by God.”