The Satanic Mechanic

by Sally Andrew

  When I got to Fatima, she shook her head. ‘Please. My religion. You can search, but you mustn’t touch. It is not . . . clean. We can go somewhere, I will take off my dress, and you can see I am hiding nothing. But you must not touch me, please.’

  I looked at Henk.

  He shook his head and said, ‘You can’t go anywhere. But we’ll all turn our backs.’

  So they did. And Fatima took off her scarf. Her hair was in thick braids, with a big woven bun at the back of her neck. She lifted her long dress right up, showing me a short frilly petticoat. She might have been hiding all sorts of things under there. But the look in her eyes was so pleading that I did not have the heart to say anything. She was blushing; I would also blush if someone made me strip like that, even if my legs weren’t as hairy as hers. I felt sure that it was her body she was hiding and not a weapon.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, when she was respectable again.

  ‘Now her,’ Henk said.

  But Ousies was still busy singing, and I did not want to interrupt, so I said, ‘In a minute.’

  Henk frowned but he did not insist. He carefully removed the gun from inside Tata’s jacket and put it in a plastic bag.

  Ousies had finished the story of Tata Radebe’s life and was singing another tune now. Her head was back and her throat was open, and it sounded like her voice was being taken away by a dry wind. Her one hand was on Tata’s forehead and the other flapped up into the air like an escaping bird. She was staring up into the sky, like Tata had done when he watched that mantis fly up and up.

  I looked at the moon, and Ousies’s voice gave me goosebumps that ran down my arms and legs. She was guiding the man’s soul away from his finished body, up to the stars. She made soft joyful sounds, like a young jackal that’s found its family after being alone a long time. Coming home.

  Ousies clapped her hands and blew onto them. Then she stood up and raised her arms for me to search her. She carried on humming quietly.

  Her body was bony, and her clothes were thin. She was hiding nothing. Her skin trembled, but I don’t think it was fear; it was the song vibrating through her.

  When I was done, Ousies squatted back down on the ground. As she folded in half, a long cry squeezed from her. Her voice no longer held the wind and the stars but the grief of a woman mourning the death of a man. A good man who had been killed.

  All this time, her song had been holding my heart and had made it warm and soft like freshly baked bread. Now she gently tore it open.

  But only I could hear myself crying, because the vans with their sirens were arriving now, and they buried every other sound.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Ousies gave me a napkin, and I wiped my eyes and blew my nose. Tears must not blind me to finding a murderer. It seemed like a whole army of people arrived, but Henk kept them away from the fire area until Piet and the photographer had covered the ground. The photographer was a small square man with hair like short dried grass.

  Piet moved like a honey badger, hunting; he glanced at us but focused on the tracks. He studied the ground all around our feet and Tata’s feet, and moved in widening circles until he had finished with the ring of sand inside the panel-van laager. He showed the photographer where to take pictures. The flashing of a camera added to the brightness of the panel-van headlights. The moon hardly stood a chance.

  A round, red-faced man arrived wearing a white doctor’s jacket and thin surgical gloves. Henk led him to Tata. The doctor was so round he found it hard to bend down, but he rolled forward and used his fingers and his stethoscope to study Tata. He took off the bloody napkin and looked at the wound. The photographer clicked away.

  Reghardt had also arrived, with what looked like a metal detector. Following a nod from Henk, he started with Dirk, running the machine close to his body. Then he moved on to Ricus. Then Lemoni, then Ousies.

  Ousies said that she needed to wash her hands, but Henk said she must wait.

  ‘My husband will be worrying about me,’ said Fatima in her soft voice. ‘My phone is in the car.’

  ‘You can phone in a minute,’ said Henk.

  As he turned his back on Ousies, she blew on her hands and rubbed them together.

  ‘Hello, Tannie Maria. Sorry,’ said Reghardt as he reached me. He held the machine a polite distance from my body and moved it from my feet to the top of my head.

  When he got to Fatima, she held up her hand and said, ‘Please. My religion . . .’

  ‘Sorry, Tannie,’ he said.

  ‘It doesn’t touch you, Fatima,’ I said. ‘Can you hold it a tiny bit further away, Reghardt?’

  Fatima’s face went pink, but she allowed it. When it reached her headscarf, the machine started beeping.

  It brought Henk and another policeman, Vorster, to her side. Vorster had a brown baby-face and soft black curls.

  ‘Have you got anything metal in there, Tannie?’ said Reghardt.

  She reached up towards her head. ‘Wait,’ said Henk. ‘Don’t move. What is it? Where is it?’

  ‘In my hair,’ she said. ‘At the back.’

  Henk put his hand under her scarf and removed the claw-knife from her bun. It had a curved blade and a wooden handle.

  ‘I asked you for weapons,’ he said.

  ‘I thought you meant guns,’ she said.

  ‘Why are you carrying this?’

  ‘I always carry it. For protection.’

  I avoided looking at Henk. I should have found this knife earlier. I remembered it from the satanists’ visit.

  ‘You can all sit down now,’ said Henk, ‘but keep your hands on your lap, palms facing up.’

  Lemoni grabbed her bag and put it on her lap as she sat down.

  ‘My husband gets very worried,’ said Fatima.

  ‘This won’t take long,’ said Henk. ‘Reghardt.’

  Reghardt opened a box and took out a rectangle of paper. He peeled a white sheet off it and handed a sticky transparent rectangle to Henk.

  ‘Hold your left hand out flat,’ said Henk to Fatima.

  When she did not respond, he lifted her left hand, holding it face up. Then he pressed the sticky stuff onto the fingers and palm. He smoothed this down and then peeled it off and handed it to Reghardt. Reghardt gave him a fresh piece, which Henk used on Fatima’s right hand. Reghardt put the used tape into Ziploc bags with labels. He wrote ‘Fatima L’ and ‘Fatima R’ on the labels.

  ‘Can I go get my phone now?’ said Fatima.

  ‘Piet will go with you,’ said Henk, as he moved on to Lemoni.

  ‘Careful of my nail varnish,’ she said. She lowered her voice and leant towards him, like they were sharing a secret. ‘Is this a new way to take fingerprints?’

  Her leaning forward made Dirk sit up straighter, but Henk was not distracted from his job. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That we will do at the station.’

  ‘At the station?’ she said. ‘Am I spending the whole night with you?’

  ‘We’ll need statements from each of you.’

  Tata Radebe’s body was being loaded onto a stretcher, and Henk stepped away from Lemoni to talk to the doctor.

  ‘What can you tell me?’ asked Henk.

  ‘He was shot. Died instantly.’

  ‘Ja, ja. But what kind of gun?’

  ‘I need to get in there to remove the bullet. But it’s not a big wound. Don’t quote me, but it could have been a .22.’

  ‘Get me that report as soon as you can. Please, Doctor.’

  He moved on to Dirk.

  ‘I know what this is,’ said Dirk. ‘It’s that test for if you have shot a gun. You’ll see I didn’t shoot the old man.’

  ‘You haven’t been accused of shooting him.’

  ‘Then what’s with the fokken anything-you-say-can-be-used-against-you shit?’

  ‘Because it can. And it might do you good to think before you speak.’

  ‘Fok,’ said Dirk. ‘Hang on. I heard the doctor. A .22 he said. You can see my gun doesn’t have .22 bullets. It’
s a 9mm Z-88. Like you guys use. A 9mm, not a .22. Fok. You know who uses .22 pellets? Those fokken satanists! They had a .22 air rifle.’

  ‘The air rifle is pellets, .22 pellets.’

  ‘And a pellet can’t kill?’ asked Lemoni.

  Henk shook his head but made a hand signal to Piet, who was at his side in two seconds, and said, ‘Catch the doctor, ask him if this could have been a pellet wound.’

  Piet was back in a minute and said, ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Those fokken satanists,’ said Dirk. ‘I bet they’ve got some real weapons too.’

  Henk did the sticky-paper thing on Ousies’s hands. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Ousies.’

  I reckon he got some sand and ash from her hands along with whatever else he was looking for. Reghardt bagged and labelled the papers. Then they moved on to Ricus.

  ‘You do know the identities of the people who came here,’ said Henk.

  Ricus nodded and said, ‘One of them was my ex-girlfriend.’

  When they got to Johannes, he showed them his hands, black with grease. ‘Sorry, man,’ he said, wiping them on the pants of his overalls.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Henk. He took samples from Johannes’s hands and also from the places where Johannes had wiped his pants.

  ‘You weren’t standing at the fire,’ said Henk. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘There, by the red Mini.’

  ‘Did you see what happened?’

  ‘No, but I maybe heard something . . .’

  ‘We’ll take your full statement shortly. In private. Reghardt, bag that spanner and make a note to check it for residue.’

  Henk was gentle when he took my hands and laid the sticky stuff on them, but I could feel the tension in his fingers.

  He looked into my eyes for a moment, and I saw some anger there; I didn’t know if it was at the murderer or me. And then there was a sadness. At Tata’s death, I suppose. But what was strongest in his face was determination. His lips were pressed tightly together. This one was not going to get away.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  ‘We need full names and ID numbers written on each of those bags,’ Henk told Reghardt. ‘Check ID books or driver’s licences.’

  He said to the rest of us, ‘It is a serious criminal offence to give a false name or ID. Those who don’t have ID documents here are going to have to bring them in to the police station tomorrow.’

  Lemoni scratched in her bag and handed over her driver’s licence.

  ‘Stella Cooke,’ Reghardt said, writing it down.

  ‘An “e” on the end of Cook,’ Lemoni said.

  I looked at Ricus, but he didn’t seem surprised. Maybe everyone in the group used false names.

  Dirk said, ‘Dirk van Schalkwyk. I don’t have my ID book, but you guys all know who I am, man.’

  ‘ID number?’ asked Reghardt.

  Dirk told him.

  Reghardt moved on to Fatima, who said, ‘Fatima Mahdi Abuubaker. I don’t have ID with me.’ She gave her passport number.

  Mielie came rushing into the circle of panel vans. She spotted Kosie under the Defender panel van, crouched flat, and gave a soft low bark that sounded like, ‘There you are, I’ve been looking all over for you. Come to bed.’

  ‘Ag,’ said Henk. ‘I’d better put Kosie in the car.’

  He signalled to Piet in that secret language of theirs, and they went together to the black panel van.

  It took some calling, poking and bleating, but they managed to get Kosie out. Henk held the little sheep under his arm. Mielie jumped up and down, barking. When Henk ignored her, she nipped at his heels.

  ‘Hey,’ said Henk. ‘Voetsek.’

  ‘She’s saying that’s not your sheep,’ said Ricus.

  The lamb wriggled but didn’t escape Henk’s grip. ‘Baaahaa,’ it said.

  ‘Baaaah,’ said Ricus. ‘She’s right, that’s not Kosie.’

  Henk looked down at the sheep in his arms.

  ‘Look at the horns,’ said Ricus. ‘They are a different size and shape.’

  Henk sighed and put the lamb down. Mielie poked it with her nose, and they trotted off together towards the kraal.

  There was the sound of a car driving fast then stopping. Door slamming. Footsteps moving towards us.

  A tall thin man came rushing into the circle and looked around, blinking in the panel-van lights. Then he saw Fatima and rushed over to her. Her husband, I guessed; the one who was once a pirate. He knelt beside her and took her hands in his, speaking in a language I didn’t understand. But I could hear the concern in his voice. And the distress in hers. His fingers were long and slender, and his skin was darker than hers. He had a graceful way of moving and of holding still. She told him a story, gesturing with her head and one hand. The other hand he kept clasped between his own. He glanced at us all with distrust, as if we were the cause of her unhappiness. His gaze fell on me, and she said something. Even though he was kneeling on the ground, he managed to look down his nose at me; I think she was telling him how I’d searched her. I blushed and looked away. At the fireplace, Piet was sifting through coals and ashes. I saw some black shrivelled napkins. He picked up the corner of an unburnt napkin and put it in a bag. Then I saw it wasn’t a napkin; it was a handkerchief.

  Vorster walked around with the metal detector; he searched around the fire, and then the whole sandy circle. When he got close to the panel vans and all their parts lying around, the machine beeped like crazy.

  ‘If it was a .22, it’s probably a revolver or a rifle we’re looking for,’ said Henk. ‘But watch out for pistol casings too.’

  Piet joined Vorster, and they searched amongst the car parts.

  Johannes said, ‘Ag, sorry it’s a mess. We put the old car parts there to keep the snakes and scorpions out.’

  Lemoni said, ‘Huh,’ and I remembered the snake that got in.

  Johannes went over to help the police, but Vorster said, ‘It’s better we do it.’

  The thin graceful man went over to Henk. ‘I am Ahmed Mohammed,’ he said. ‘We are going home now. My wife is tired.’

  ‘Nobody is going until I have their statements,’ said Henk.

  ‘Can we not come to the police station in the morning?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what. I’ll just do short interviews with you all tonight. They won’t take long. Tomorrow you can come to the station and do the written statement. And longer interviews if we need them.’

  The man glanced at his wife, and Fatima looked away.

  ‘Could you please do my wife first?’ His words were polite, but there was an angry look in his eye. ‘She needs to rest.’

  I was relieved when Henk nodded agreement.

  ‘Ricus,’ he said. ‘Can we use a room in your house?’

  ‘If you don’t mind snakes,’ said Ricus.

  Fatima’s husband looked at her with wide eyes, but she said quietly, ‘I am not afraid of snakes.’

  I heard what I thought was a big flying insect, then I recognised the sound of a scooter. There was a single light that came to a stop, and then Jessie herself arrived, carrying her helmet and walking straight to me.

  ‘Tannie Maria,’ she said, ‘are you all right?’

  ‘Jessie.’ I stood up and we hugged.

  ‘What’re you doing here?’ said Henk. ‘We don’t want press on the crime scene.’

  ‘I won’t report on anything. Yet. I’ve just come to see my friend. I heard that . . . something had happened.’

  Henk looked at Reghardt and frowned.

  ‘I didn’t tell her the whole story,’ Reghardt said. ‘But I was with her when you called.’

  ‘I was worried. There was no reply at your house,’ said Jessie to me. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Oh, Jessie. Tata Radebe was shot. Dead.’

  ‘Who? How?’

  ‘We don’t know. Yet.’

  ‘What about . . .?’ she looked at Detective Kannemeyer.

  He didn’t respond, so she looked
at me.

  ‘He wasn’t here,’ I said. ‘He was . . . on the outside. Near the kraal.’

  Henk still didn’t speak, but the anger was loud in his face.

  Then he said to us all, ‘Do not talk to each other about what happened. I’d like to get your own memory, without the influence of other people.’

  ‘Fok,’ said Dirk, shaking his head.

  ‘I’ll organise tea,’ said Ricus. ‘And beskuit.’

  Reghardt was still busy writing on the Ziploc bags. He was talking now to Ousies, asking for her full names as on her identity document.

  ‘Geraldine Klappers,’ Ousies said.

  Jessie nudged me and opened her eyes wide, and I remembered. Geraldine. The woman the Oudtshoorn police were looking for in connection with Slimkat’s death.

  Reghardt didn’t blink. Maybe he didn’t know the details of the Oudtshoorn case. I looked around to see if Henk had heard. But Ricus was already leading him away, past Vorster, who was still searching amongst the car parts. They were heading towards the house with Fatima and her husband.

  When Reghardt had finished taking her details, Ousies Geraldine Klappers went to the tap and washed her face and hands. She flapped her hands hard, like she was shaking off more than water. She filled the black kettle and put it on the fire.

  ‘Warrant Officer Snyman,’ said Vorster to Reghardt. ‘I found this.’ He was holding up a knife.

  ‘Hey, that’s mine,’ said Jessie.

  Ousies stepped out of the ring of light and disappeared into the darkness of the veld.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Reghardt put the knife in a bag as he asked Jessie, ‘Are you sure it’s yours? How did it get here?’

  ‘I, um, gave it to Ystervark. Slimkat’s cousin. It looks like mine . . . but it hasn’t got my name on or anything. It could be someone else’s.’

  ‘Do you recognise it?’ Reghardt asked Johannes.

  Johannes shook his head.

  ‘Do you know Ystervark or Slimkat?’ asked Reghardt.

  Again Johannes shook his head.

  Ricus arrived with a tray of coffee and rusks. As we took the hot drinks, he asked each of us if we were okay. Lemoni’s hands were shaking as she held her cup, and he sat by her side a while. Then he added some wood to the fire and spoke to Jessie about her cousin Boetie, who had brought Ricus that injured snake.