The Satanic Mechanic

by Sally Andrew

  ‘Jessie,’ said Hattie. ‘Language.’

  ‘Sorry, Hattie, but there are no nice words for people like that. They crossed over illegally into neighbouring countries to kill anyone who supported the ANC. Back in the day when the ANC was fighting for the oppressed and not for the black elite.’

  Jessie was too young to have been around for all of that, but she knew a lot about South African history. She’d done that journalism course in Grahamstown.

  ‘Tata Radebe,’ I said. ‘The man who was shot. I think he might’ve been in the ANC underground. He’d been tortured.’

  ‘There! You see,’ said Jessie. ‘Tortured by someone like Dirk. They are old enemies. Dirk killed him.’

  ‘Heavens,’ said Hattie. ‘That war is long over.’

  ‘For some people it’s never over,’ said Jessie. ‘Those white boys were trained to hate the terrorists for ever.’

  ‘It seems so unlikely,’ said Hattie. ‘Old animosity suddenly flaring up like that.’

  ‘Maybe Tata knew something from the past about Dirk,’ I said. ‘Something that Dirk would rather keep hidden.’

  ‘Whatever,’ said Jessie. ‘The point is, he’s a bastard. A dangerous bastard who should be locked away. Hopefully he will be soon. If one of his police buddies doesn’t happen to “lose” the gun-residue test . . .’

  ‘Well, let’s wait for the facts, shall we?’ said Hattie. ‘Remember facts? Those things journalists so value.’

  ‘Oh, Hattie, I’m not going to write any of this. I’m just giving my opinion. Journalists are allowed to have opinions.’

  The office phone rang. It was Henk. ‘We need your written statement about last night,’ he said. ‘Warrant Officer Smit will take it from you. But come talk to me first. I’ve got some information and I’d like to hear what you think.’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ I said.

  I put down the phone and said to Jessie and Hattie, ‘Detective Kannemeyer wants my opinion about some facts.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  I parked under a rubber tree; Piet met me and led me inside to Henk’s office and then disappeared. Henk was behind his big teak desk, on the phone. There were some new wooden shelves and metal filing cabinets in his office. His moustache tips were neatly waxed, and his white cotton shirt was freshly ironed. I sat down on a comfortable leather and wood chair. The sun shone in through the branches of a thorn tree outside his window.

  I looked for the photograph of him and his wife smiling at each other. It wasn’t on his desk. But then I saw it up on a shelf alongside some files and papers, turned towards him. I thought about baking a cake. But what kind? Henk was still on the phone, writing on a notepad in front of him.

  ‘Ja. Ja, right. Thank you,’ Henk said. ‘Okay, but as soon as you have them . . . Thanks. Bye.’

  ‘Maria,’ he said. His eyes were friendly, but he wasn’t smiling. ‘How are you?’

  I nodded. I glanced up at the wedding picture, and Henk followed my gaze then looked back at me.

  ‘I’m sorry I was a bit short with you last night,’ he said. ‘I was upset you didn’t tell me sooner about Geraldine. We might have caught her.’

  ‘You haven’t found her yet?’

  He shook his head. ‘This is a difficult case for me. Not just because of your involvement. But because a man died on my watch. Again.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault. As much as I’d like to leave you out of it, you’re in the middle of this one.’

  ‘How can I help?’

  ‘We suspect Ricus knows where Geraldine is, but he’s saying nothing,’ said Henk. ‘Geraldine comes from Kuruman, near Hotazel where Ricus used to live. Do you know what their connection is? Were they both mixed up in the satanist church?’

  ‘I don’t think so. She’s a healer.’

  ‘What did those masked people want? That night they came to the group? One of them was Ricus’s girlfriend?’

  ‘Maybe it’s better you ask him.’

  ‘Right now I am asking you.’

  I looked down at my hands then up again.

  ‘Maria, this is a murder investigation,’ he said. ‘One that I intend to solve. Are you going to help or make it difficult for me?’

  ‘I’m sorry. You’re right.’ I took a deep breath. ‘She’s his ex-girlfriend. Her first name is Elmari. She wanted a black stone heart that he was wearing around his neck.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Henk. ‘The Order of the Black Heart is the name of the satanist church in Hotazel.’

  ‘She called it an amulet. It sounded like he’d given it to her and then taken it when he’d left. The other night he gave her the stone back again; he’d coated it with gold.’

  ‘Why won’t he lay charges against her?’

  ‘Some people are loyal to their girlfriends. Their ex-girlfriends.’ I didn’t look at the picture of Henk’s wife as I spoke. ‘He loved her, once.’

  A bird landed in the tree outside. I saw a flash of cinnamon and blue amongst the branches.

  ‘She might still be upset with Ricus,’ said Henk. ‘And did the other visitors have issues with him?’

  ‘It seemed they were just there to help Elmari get the stone. But maybe they had their own problems with Ricus.’

  ‘Might they shoot at people in his group to pay him back?’

  ‘I doubt it. Elmari got what she wanted. Did you find them and their red car?’

  ‘Not yet. But we will.’

  ‘And have you had answers yet, from the gunpowder tests?’

  ‘Ja. Yours came out clear.’

  ‘You wouldn’t think I . . .’

  ‘Of course I don’t think you’d kill anyone. But you needed to be in the clear before I could speak to you.’

  ‘And Dirk – have you had his results?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I don’t know how much to share with you.’ He twirled the tip of his moustache with a finger.

  ‘Henk,’ I said, sitting up very straight. ‘If you want my help, then you need to give me the facts.’

  ‘Dirk didn’t do it.’

  I let out a sigh and relaxed into my chair. I don’t know why I felt so relieved. Jessie was right: he was a bastard. But he was a bastard I quite liked.

  ‘His test shows no residue,’ said Henk. ‘And the bullet’s not from his gun.’

  ‘And Ousies? And Ricus?’

  ‘None of the people tested had residue on their hands.’

  ‘Phew.’ The bird outside started singing. Coocoo kurukutu-coo. It was a laughing dove.

  ‘Including Johannes?’ I asked.

  ‘Also clear. But he may have had time to scrub his hands or remove gloves.’

  ‘Oh . . . Have you spoken to Ystervark? Asked him about that knife?’

  ‘His Oudtshoorn family say he’s up at the Kuruman Reserve. The police up north will track him down. See if he has an alibi.’

  Henk leant forward onto his wooden desk. ‘You are sure no one around the fire had gloves?’

  ‘I didn’t see any.’

  ‘And no one left the fire before I got there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It must have been someone from outside. Maybe with the help of someone on the inside. But no one in your circle fired a gun. Tell me, this thing Ousies did with the smoke. She did that at the end of every session?’

  ‘Yes. I told you about it last night; it’s a cleansing thing. She sings when she does it. It was quite . . . magical.’

  ‘She sang. Loudly?’

  ‘Not loud. It was kind of like the wind.’

  ‘But it got your attention. Enough to distract you from other sounds?’

  ‘I don’t know. I could still hear the sound of Johannes working on his panel van.’

  ‘So he was also making a noise?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it a noise; he was just busy. You spoke about the bullet. You said it wasn’t Dirk’s?’

  ‘No. It was a .22.’

&nb
sp; ‘So it was the same as the satanist’s gun?’

  ‘No. That was an airgun with .22 pellets. In Tata Radebe’s heart was a .22 bullet. Probably from a rifle. We haven’t found the weapon. Yet. It would’ve been hard to hide a gun so quickly, but we’ll keep looking. My men are there again this morning. But it’s most likely gone with the shooter.’

  ‘And the tracks? Vorster saw tracks of someone running away?’

  Henk fiddled with his notepad. ‘Those were my tracks,’ he said, then looked up. ‘Piet reckons someone could have moved carefully across the stony ground all the way to the dirt road or the tar road. The ground is rough with sheep hooves. There are some tracks that could be from shoes, and places where the fence might’ve been climbed over. Nothing conclusive.’

  ‘I am so glad.’

  ‘We haven’t caught them yet.’

  ‘Sorry, you’re right. Just glad that it was none of the people in the group. They . . . we matter to each other, you know. We help each other . . .’

  ‘There will be no more meetings. For a while, anyway.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I have spoken to Ricus. It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘He agrees. Of course when the case is solved, if you really want to . . .’

  ‘Yes. I do.’

  ‘I am sure we’ll find them soon,’ he said, sounding too sure.

  The laughing dove called again.

  ‘You still have that picture, of your wife,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  I gave my statement to Warrant Officer Smit at the main desk. He wrote it up, and I signed it. On the way back from the police station, I drove past a sign at the Spar, advertising half-price coffee cakes. I parked a couple of jacaranda trees away from Hattie’s car and took a diet tablet.

  I walked along the pavement, stepping on the shadows of the tree branches and on leaves that had fallen. The shadows and fallen leaves were part of the tree but not part of the tree. Maybe in a way that an ex-wife or an ex-husband can be part of your life even if they aren’t there any more. I could hardly say that Fanie was no longer part of my life. I didn’t keep photographs of him, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t see him or feel him.

  And Henk loved his wife. She was a good woman. She was not a wife-beater or a satanist or a murderer. There was no reason I should mind that he still kept a picture of her in his office. None at all. A pear cake with cream-cheese icing came to mind. That might do the trick.

  Jessie jumped up and put on the kettle when I came in.

  ‘And so?’ she said.

  ‘Do tell,’ said Hattie.

  ‘The gunpowder tests show that none of us did it.’

  ‘What?’ said Jessie.

  ‘And the bullet wasn’t from Dirk’s gun.’

  Jessie sat down heavily on her chair. ‘But who else?’

  ‘Maybe those masked visitors. With some inside help. It sounds like the police still suspect Ousies and Johannes.’

  ‘Have they found those satanists yet?’ asked Jessie. She got up to make us coffee.

  ‘They’re looking for them. Their car is red with flames; if they’re in town, they won’t be hard to find.’

  ‘They’re from Hotazel . . .’ said Jessie. ‘Slimkat’s reserve isn’t far from there, on the Kuruman River.’

  ‘And Ricus and Ousies met in Hotazel,’ I added.

  ‘It is all rather a coincidence,’ said Hattie.

  ‘I can’t believe Ousies is involved,’ said Jessie.

  ‘Jessie, you never believe the underdogs can be baddies,’ said Hattie.

  ‘Ag, Hattie. They are good people who have had a hard time.’

  ‘Which may well be a motive for committing a crime. Even if the crime is justified, it’s still a crime.’

  ‘I wonder if those people from Hotazel have got something against the Bushmen,’ said Jessie.

  ‘But why would they kill that old man, Tata Radebe?’ Hattie said.

  ‘Kannemeyer wonders if the ex-girlfriend and her friends are upset with Ricus. If they might have attacked the group to get back at him.’

  ‘Maybe they are just bonkers,’ said Hattie. ‘They might have all sorts of batty reasons to kill someone.’

  ‘In gangs, killing someone is sometimes an initiation rite for a new member,’ said Jessie. She handed me a cup of coffee and a mosbolletjie rusk.

  ‘Although you’d think satanists would have their own barmy tricks,’ said Hattie. ‘Like eating a black mamba live.’

  Jessie laughed, but my mind was on the image of a black mamba: not one that was being eaten, but one that was moving amongst us, as a human. It gave me the shivers. I tried to shake the feeling off with a sip of coffee and a bite of my rusk. Jessie made a good cup of coffee.

  We pulled ourselves away from the murder story and got on with some Gazette work. I had a pile of letters as usual. I recognised one of them but decided to save it as a treat until later. I read a letter from a woman who was in love with a married man. The man had a wife who ‘didn’t understand him’. The woman wanted recipes to make the man leave his wife. But I told her to let him go. I gave her my great aunt’s malva pudding recipe to comfort her and help her be strong on her own. And a slow, complex recipe for a Dutch fruit cake. I hoped this would keep her mind off her problems and keep her busy in her own home.

  The other tricky letter was from a girl who was in love with her teacher and wanted to bake him some cookies. I knew it’d do no good to tell her to give up her crush. She would see him every day. But I gave her what I told her was a ‘sophisticated’ recipe for cookies. They looked good but were in fact quite tasteless – so boring that they could’ve been on my diet sheet. The teacher wouldn’t like them at all.

  I felt bad, not giving the woman and the girl the recipes they asked for. But sometimes what you want and what you need are not the same thing. And I wasn’t willing to give them recipes that could make a man do the wrong thing. The man might do the wrong thing anyway, but I didn’t want to help him do it.

  I was happy when I opened a third letter from a man who wanted to make a special meal for his girlfriend on her birthday, and I gave him some easy and delicious ideas.

  Another letter was from a man who was still in love with his ex-wife. Now that she was gone, he seemed to think she was just perfect in every way. He wanted some perfect meals, like the ones she used to make. I did not answer that letter, because I was suddenly getting some excellent ideas for a pear cake recipe. I would make it with honey and hazelnuts, and a ginger cream-cheese icing.

  To celebrate my great invention, I opened the letter I’d recognised – the one from my friend, the Scottish lady.

  Tannie Maria,

  I am very happy. Not just because I got your fine meat recipes, but because he said yes! It’s not as simple as it seems, and to tell you the truth I wasn’t all that happy to begin with. But over the years, I’ve learnt to be realistic, and grateful for big mercies.

  Remember I said there were some issues he needed to sort out? Well, he brought them to meet me. He has a young woman and a son!

  The woman is very shy and bonny. The little boy loves my shortbread and speaks good English. He translates for his mother, who speaks French and an African language that I don’t understand. They all three of them have lovely smiles. Like I said when I was waxing lyrical, my big lad’s smile reminds me of the moon. His is like the almost-full moon, the lass’s is a crescent, and the little boy’s is like the half-moon. How could I say no?

  Well, the long and the short of it is they will all be moving in to my cottage this weekend! I know his culture is different from mine, and I admit this did take me by surprise. However, I’m not totally ignorant of African customs. After all, I could do with some more help around the house these days. (Did I mention my health took a turn for the worse?)

  I would appreciate a family dinner recipe – for the woman to make when they arrive. Something welcoming bu
t simple (I am not yet sure how good a cook she is).

  I will also ask the lass to make your Van der Hum recipe. (I know you’ll have a good one up your sleeve, and will send it soon if you haven’t already.) Oh, Tannie Maria, I feel like we are old friends. Thank you for your kind ear.

  With many fond regards

  Gay Lassie

  I put down the letter from the happy lass. Then I typed up a simple and delicious recipe for her and her new family. A stew with potatoes, onions, green beans, nutmeg, white pepper and black pepper. You can also use cabbage or spinach. I call it a saamgooibredie. A throw-together stew, where you put all sorts of different ingredients together in a pot, cook it with love, and it just works out . . .

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  The phone rang. Hattie answered it then handed it to me.

  ‘It’s your detective,’ she said.

  ‘Maria,’ my detective said.

  ‘Did you catch them?’ I asked.

  ‘The people from Hotazel? Yes. We have them. But that wasn’t why I was phoning. In your written statement, you didn’t mention that Ousies made that smoke after every session. And that Johannes was making a noise under the panel van.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t think it important.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘What do they say, the people from Hotazel?’

  ‘They admit they were in town but claim they have an alibi for last night. They say they spent some hours after sunset with a respectable woman in her home. They were there at 8.30 p.m. – the time of the murder.’

  ‘You don’t believe them?’

  ‘The respectable woman won’t talk to us.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘A religious lady. She won’t deny or confirm it and gets very upset when we ask questions.’

  ‘Is it the NGK dominee’s wife? Was she trying to convert them?’

  With so many churches in Ladismith, and not a lot of residents, people spend much of their time trying to convert each other. The NGK dominee’s wife was the most famous for her efforts.

  ‘No.’ He paused, and I could hear Jessie typing on her computer and the rough caw of a crow outside. ‘She’s someone you know. That Seventh-day Adventist priestess.’