Killer Country

by Mike Nicol

‘The traffic cop shines his torch in the back, checks out Ravi, sees bloodstains on the headrest from the hijacking.

  ‘Before he can do anything there’s knocking from the boot and a voice calls out, “Please tell me, buti, are we over the border yet?”

  ‘Now the cop’s got this frown on his dial. “My brother,” he says to Sipho, “seems we’ve got a little problem here.”

  ‘Sipho says, “I can explain.”

  ‘“For sure,” says the traffic cop. He puts out his hand, palm up. “This is a good explanation.”

  ‘Sipho says, “How much?” starts counting the notes into the cop’s hand. When he gets to five thou, the cop says, “Is that all?”’

  Pylon waited.

  Mace said, ‘Ja, okay.’

  ‘State of the nation,’ said Pylon. ‘Geddit?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Pylon covered the dish of sausages with foil. ‘What’s with you and Pumla you can’t see the joke?’

  Spitz followed a path away from the boulders that looped through a stand of Port Jacksons down to the street where he’d left his car. A well trodden path. Surprising thing was not meeting anyone. This time of day, he supposed, the scavengers were out scavenging.

  The street was empty, too. Except he could hear voices from behind the garden walls. People laughing. Settling down to lunch. The shrieks of children playing. The walls high and electrified, tall trees hiding the houses. It was better this way.

  He slipped into the Golf, sat looking down on the city: the green block of the park. Wondered why he’d never taken a walk through it. What he’d liked about Europe’s cities were the parks. The people in them: sitting on benches, reading, talking. On the grass white girls, so white you could see through their skin to the veins, faces up to the sun like they were worshipping.

  All this time in the city he’d never been in the park. Not been up the mountain either. But he had no urge for that. Or to a beach. Not his scene either.

  He ate a salami roll bought at a German deli, drank off a bottle of sparkling water. Smoked a menthol.

  From under the seat took out the pistol, from the glove compartment, the silencer. Screwed it to the nose. Checked the clip was fully loaded, buried the gun in a deep pocket. The problem with a can it made the barrel so long, awkward to conceal in a windbreaker.

  He brought out the razor, opened it, ran his thumb lightly along the blade. Sharp enough to shave with. As men had, maybe a century ago, looking at the pearl inlay. Wondered where Sheemina February had bought it. And why? Why it was important to her for this job. A woman with strange ideas, even offering him an interesting prospect. Something to look into. He folded the blade into the handle, slipped the razor into his pants pocket. Thinking about it Sheemina February was everywhere. The things she knew.

  She’d said to him, ‘Getting in is easy. The house below has a path up the side. All overgrown. When you’re on it nobody can see you. Maybe once it was a public path to the mountain, now not even bergies know it’s there. On the street there’s a gate, more like a door. It’s not locked. Just walk in, climb the steps, push through the hedge plants when you reach the house. There you are.’

  ‘How do you know about this pathway?’ he’d asked.

  She’d taken off her shades, stared at him with her ice-blue eyes. ‘Because I do, Spitz. Because these are the sorts of things I know.’

  Spitz fired the engine, drove slowly down to the street with the door onto the mountain. He positioned the Golf for an easy exit. Left the driver’s side unlocked.

  The garden door had swollen in the rain but gave at his tugging. He stepped through, pulled it closed, paused. The afternoon did not pause with him. No hush to the insects and the birds. No dogs suddenly barking. Spitz started up the steps. The path was cool and shaded, smelt of damp. Of rotting vegetation.

  He stopped twice on the climb to keep his breathing easy, his pulse down. Still the autumn heat dampened his armpits. When he came level with the top house he forced a way through the shrubbery into an arbour covered by vines, and waited. A short terrace separated him from the sliding door that Sheemina February said was the entrance to the studio. On the terrace he’d be visible to anyone glancing out of a window above.

  Spitz moved quickly across the terrace. Inserted the key, turned once, twice. Gently eased back the door.

  They ate in the shade beside the pool. Mace at one end of the table, Pylon the other. Oumou and Treasure side by side opposite Christa and Pumla. On the table dishes of meat, salad, putu pap with a tomato and onion sauce. Chunks torn off Oumou’s homebaked French loaves.

  TREASURE: They should cut off his balls.

  Helped herself to salad.

  PUMLA: Ma!

  TREASURE: I can use words like that. You can’t. What I don’t understand is why a bunch of men don’t track him down.

  PYLON: Exactly what Mace wanted to do.

  OUMOU: Non!

  MACE: Sometimes the cops can’t do it. Not enough manpower. This maniac runs around on the mountain doing what he wants to. How many’s he raped? One, that sixteen-year-old. Two that tourist. The young mother. He’s going to do it again.

  OUMOU: This is breaking the law. To be a vigilante.

  MACE: Sure but what good’s the law? It’s not working. If it doesn’t protect.

  Cat2 leapt onto the table. Christa gently lifted her off.

  CHRISTA: We’ve got a democracy.

  MACE: A sort of democracy.

  TREASURE: What’s democracy got us, sisi? Unemployment. Still no houses. AIDS. Orphans.

  CHRISTA: In history we learnt it’s better than we had.

  TREASURE: Some people wouldn’t know the difference.

  Oumou glanced at Mace.

  OUMOU: You are not going to do this?

  Mace licked his fingers, wiped them on a paper serviette.

  MACE: I went up there. If I’d come across the guy I don’t know what I’d have done.

  CHRISTA: I told you Maman.

  MACE: Told you Maman, what?

  CHRISTA: You make us worried.

  OUMOU: Because sometimes you do strange things…

  PYLON: No kidding.

  He grinned at Oumou. Ignoring the knife Treasure pointed at him.

  OUMOU: Sometimes you think you have the only way.

  TREASURE: I wouldn’t say anything, Mr Buso.

  PUMLA: Ma!

  OUMOU: Non. Enough. Enough. No more mountain maniac. We can enjoy this lunchtime.

  Pylon finished his beer, patted his stomach.

  PYLON: It’s hell in Africa.

  MACE: I’ve got to tell you something. Something I didn’t know until last night.

  He put his hand on Oumou’s arm.

  OUMOU: What? What’s this?’

  She looked at him.

  OUMOU: Non, ma puce, please.

  CHRISTA: Tell them, Papa. Maman, it’s the best news.

  Mace stood to top up Oumou’s and Treasure’s wine glasses.

  MACE: We need to toast her.

  He fetched two beers from the cooler box, flipped off the caps. Handed one to Pylon.

  CHRISTA: And us?

  Mace looked at Treasure, got the nod from her.

  MACE: A small one.

  He splashed wine in their glasses.

  MACE: Last night, Oumou showed me this email she got. From the Master Potters Association. She’s won their platinum award.

  Treasure, Pylon, the two girls all over Oumou with congrats.

  MACE: I haven’t finished. There’s a whole story with it. Stuff you wouldn’t believe they say about her.

  PYLON: So where is it?

  MACE: Coming up.

  OUMOU: It is a small thing.

  Pylon and Treasure protested.

  PUMLA: Please, Oumou. We want to read it.

  MACE: I’ll get the email.

  Oumou caught at his clothing to stop him.

  OUMOU: No. You do not know where it is.

  She stood, moved towards the house.

>   OUMOU: Wait one moment. I will get it, yes.

  Spitz heard footsteps. Reckoned it had to be from the upper storey going down one. Someone possibly barefoot. Light on their feet. Either the child or the mother.

  Where he’d been sitting, tucked in a corner behind the spiral staircase, he was out of sight of anyone appearing at the sliding door or descending the stairs. He’d sat there an hour, slightly more, the iPod playing softly in his lap. Killer country songs. Loud enough to soothe him, not so loud he couldn’t hear movement in the house.

  It occurred to him he could sit there a long time before they finished lunch.

  ‘Late Saturday afternoon she’s always in the studio,’ Sheemina February had said. ‘Alone. It’s her private space. That’d be the ideal time, Spitz.’

  A nice private space. Along one wall racks of paints, glazes, brushes. Along another racks of pots, cups, bowls, plates. Her wheel in the centre. A bin of damp clay. A bin of broken shards. A desk smothered with magazines and paper, a landline phone perched on a stack of books. Drawings by the girl tacked here and there round the studio. Also desert photographs. One from the air of a small town, looked like it was made of mud. Sudden green patches among the brown of the houses. The floor of the studio, like the desert, brown, studded with lumps of dry clay.

  The footsteps softer, crossing the floor. A door opened and closed.

  This was too early. Maybe the girl getting something from her bedroom. Spitz checked the time: 2:30, they couldn’t have finished lunch yet.

  The footsteps were above him. He put aside the iPod. Opened the blade. Stood, moved back into the corner.

  He saw her feet on the stairs. Long toes. Soft uncalloused heels. The stretch of the skin and muscles. A woman sure on her feet. A fine silver chain round her left ankle. Her dress swishing below her calves, an embroidered pattern round the hem.

  She came down the stairs, stood with her back to him, sifting through papers on the desk. Spitz took two quick paces, grabbed her from behind, yanked her against him. His left arm wrapped around her neck, his right arm slashed the razor across her chest.

  He bent her backwards. Cut at her stomach. Once, twice. The blade going in.

  The woman struggled, her teeth in his arm. He pushed her away. Blood on his clothing, the razor sticky in his grip. He went at her again where she crawled across the floor. Drew the blade down her neck.

  She screamed.

  Oumou felt the sear of the cut across her chest. The slices of hot pain in her stomach.

  As it had been before. The two men stabbing at her belly, leaving her bleeding on the sand. Going away laughing.

  She struck out, the blade slicing her hands. Bit down deeply, and she was free of his grip, on her knees on the floor. The blood leaking from her, her hands stained.

  She could hear his panting.

  Began crawling round the desk, forcing herself against the pain.

  She felt his hand grip her hair, her head jerked back, the blade sliding into her shoulder.

  A redness crossed her eyes. Her arms buckled. She gasped as the man tugged at the razor, twisting to pull it free.

  She screamed. A howl, long and angry and filled with the sadness of desert nights. A cry of solitude.

  Again she was free, crawling away, slowly clawing herself upright against the desk until she stood and faced him. Saw in his eyes the matt gaze she had seen in the eyes of other killers.

  He stared at her unmoving.

  Her hand slid down the leg of the desk for the sword that hung there in its scabbard. She drew it, the blade coming out smoothly.

  She kept her eyes on him. Started forward step by step. Saw the man unzip his jacket, saw the black grip of the gun.

  They all heard the scream. Christa stopping in mid-sentence. Pumla frowning. Treasure saying, ‘What’s that?’ Mace and Pylon on their feet.

  Hesitating. Glancing at one another. The charge going through Mace like ice in the veins.

  ‘Guns,’ said Pylon.

  Mace shaking his head. Shouting: ‘No time.’ Heading indoors, Pylon leaping down the terraced garden.

  Mace took the first flight in three bounds. Called out, ‘Oumou, Oumou.’

  Heard no response above his own noise across the wooden floor to the spiral staircase. Shouting for her again.

  He took the stairs carefully, aware of the silence in the studio. Slowing down, ready to act.

  He saw the blood first. The smear of it across the floor. Then Oumou’s feet and her prone body, the barber’s razor in her back, her dress soaked red, the blade slashes across her hands, arms.

  The body of Spitz-the-Trigger against the wall, the sword through his stomach, buried almost to the leather handle. The hitman bleeding out, his eyes flickering.

  Mace bent over his wife, whispered her name.

  76

  Mace Bishop on the mountain sat with his back to a rock, gazing south. He could see the blue of False Bay and the blue of the Atlantic. Above a sky without cloud that fell to the cold horizon. In his hand the blue iPod, in his ears the murder music of Tindersticks. His chest was tight. His hands trembled. His daughter stood off a distance.

  Mace looked at her. The slim size of her drawn in against the cold. Her hands in her pockets. Her hoodie up. Had they spoken at all? He’d hugged her. Cooked her food. Watched her push the plate away untouched. Come upon her reading in the small hours. Fallen asleep on her bed. Woken in the first light with her gone and called her name and found her in the studio. Sobbing. The two of them dead souls in the house, wandering the rooms. This loss that hurt, more painful than any wound.

  These days without her.

  The constant replay of those final moments.

  ‘It is in the music,’ Spitz had said. His last words.

  What? Mace had screamed. What? Kneeling beside the hitman, shaking him.

  Spitz had smiled, blood leaking from his lips. Said something that Mace couldn’t catch, the words gurgling in the man’s throat.

  Mace leaned closer. Shouted at him again.

  Spitz offered his iPod on a reddened hand. Repeated the words.

  Mace said, ‘Who hired you? Bloody tell me. Sheemina February? Tell me. For Chrissakes, you’re dying. Tell me.’

  Spitz said what sounded to Mace like ‘It is in the music’.

  Mace lost it. ‘Who? For fucks sakes who?’ Hammered the sword in deeper with his fist.

  Spitz jerked. The last move he made.

  Sheemina February.

  Mace’d stood up, gone to his wife. Drawn her against his chest.

  Now he called to Christa.

  ‘We’ve got to go, C.’

  Stood up. Watched her turn towards him, the dark shades that were her eyes. They walked back to the cable station, father and daughter.

  Groups of tourists huddled against the winter wind at the lookout decks, pointing down at the city, out at the island, admiring the view. People struck by the beauty of the place. Taking photographs beneath the signs. Eleven thousand kilometres to London. Fifteen thousand to Tokyo. Seven to Buenos Aires. Happy people despite the wind chill.

  What did they see as they approached, he wondered. A man and a young girl. His hands thrust into his jacket pockets, a man in a beanie and dark glasses. The girl with long silver earrings, her hands not touching the man beside her. Both plugged into their music on a fine winter day after rain.

  Mace pulled the plugs from his ears, said, ‘Christa.’ But left it there. She half turned, reached out her hand for his.

  He’d crouched beside Oumou. Stroked her hair. Held her hand. He’d heard Christa screaming. Seen his daughter hurl herself onto her mother. He’d held them both.

  Afterwards, long afterwards, he’d swum, lap on lap through the cold dark water until his thoughts disappeared. Swimming until he could no longer. Until his body was as cold as his hurt. When he stopped, the pain came in fast. He’d gripped the edge of the pool, floated there, looking at the lighted rooms of his house. The empty lighted rooms. Chr
ista standing backlit at the sliding doors. Watching him.

  Near the cable station Mace and Christa heard singing, children’s voices. A school choir. The lilting stabbed a pain across his chest. He turned away from the singers, to stop the cold wind watering his eyes.

  Christa said, ‘Papa,’ – let go his hand. She had a camera, was backing away to take his picture.

  There was no choice. He would do what he had to.

  ‘If you like I will photograph you both together,’ said a woman. Her voice accented. German.

  Mace turned round. A woman in her fifties, blowing on her hands. Her cheeks flushed.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mace. Called Christa back.

  ‘Is she your daughter?’ asked the woman.

  Mace said, yes.

  ‘So lovely. You will stand together, ja.’

  Father and daughter, bereft, in mourning, yet easy now arranging themselves.

  ‘That is wonderful,’ said the woman, looking at the image on the screen. ‘See.’

  She handed the camera to Christa.

  ‘For your memories. Auf Wiedersehen.’ The woman, excusing herself, heading off quickly. ‘I must get the next cable car downwards.’

  The departure siren sounded. They watched the woman board just in time.

  ‘Who’s she?’ asked Christa.

  ‘Some tourist,’ said Mace. ‘Let’s see it, the picture.’

  He looked at the photograph: the two of them locked tight. Christa pulled in against his chest. Both her arms around him. A smile on his lips, and hers. Could anyone tell his wife had been murdered? Could anyone say her mother was dead? The lies photographs told.

  ‘I like it,’ said Christa. ‘We look okay.’

  That was the point, Mace thought, they did. Where was the anger? The pain? The grief? He looked closer at their faces, the glint on Christa’s teeth. The smile not in their eyes. Then took in the background: above, a sky of wide and dying crimson. Behind them a terrace and parapet wall. Standing at the wall, a woman in a long coat. A woman with a black glove. Sheemina February.

  THE PLAYLIST