Killer Country

by Mike Nicol

  She stared at her reflection in the plate glass window, the black void of the sea beyond. No lights on the water. No passing ships. With the wind, no night fishermen dangling hooks in the kelp holes.

  The figure in the glass stood still. A silhouette, slim. Relaxed in a man’s shirt worn loose over jeans. Barefoot on a white flokati. For five minutes she didn’t move. Emptied her mind until it was dark and quiet. From speakers embedded in the ceiling, Yo Yo Ma played the tangos of Piazzolla so softly they might have been in her head.

  The music brought her back. She turned abruptly into the room, strode across to the kitchen counter. Pulled the wine from the ice bucket, refilled her glass. With a serviette, wiped lipstick from the glass’s rim: a plum smear on the white linen. She raised the glass and drank, left a fresh imprint of her lower lip.

  Sheemina February sat down on a couch, swung up her legs, stretched along its length. So much better the Bantry Bay apartment to her town house. A place to be truly at home: her lair on the cliff. Hers and hers alone. Never had she invited anyone into it. Never would she.

  She reached for the envelope on the coffee table, drew out a document: a list of phone calls to and from the cellphone of Mace Bishop. Judge Telman Visser such splendid bait. Possibly it would be worth getting their transcripts. For the record. How wonderful that Mace Bishop was slowly being reeled back into her life. That already she had been his guardian angel.

  ‘You don’t know what you owe me, Mr Bishop,’ she said aloud.

  There were other lists. Lists of conversations held at Complete Security. Conversations between Mace Bishop and Pylon Buso. Summaries of each conversation gave her enough to know what was on the minds of the two men. A couple of summaries she highlighted. She’d need the transcripts.

  She set the lists aside, shook a batch of colour photographs from the envelope.

  Mace Bishop in his little red Noddy car, top down in Somerset Road. A wide grin on his face. Enjoying himself. Sheemina February couldn’t resist the grin, had to smile.

  Another of the security man leaving the gallery where he’d met Judge Telman Visser. The judge’s car in the background, the number plate clearly visible. The photograph caught Mace stepping onto the pavement: energetic, brisk, a hand adjusting his sunglasses. What she liked were his sandals. Robust. Hi-tech trail sandals. Very outdoor.

  The last pictures had been taken earlier that morning. Grainy but clear enough. Mace standing with his back to the photographer facing the blurred city. The gleam of the swimming pool in the foreground.

  Another of Mace at the edge of the pool in his Speedo. His swimmer’s physique. Strong arms, broad shoulders, the torso still narrowing to the waist but thicker than in the photograph she carried. The one she’d taken herself at the gym pool some years back.

  The problem with this photograph was his approaching wife.

  Sheemina February got up, searched through a drawer for scissors, snipped the woman out of the frame. She crumpled the discard into a wastebin.

  From the table took a box file of photographs and returned to the couch. She riffled through them, found others of Mace in a Speedo. Mace three years younger. A trimmer figure but weathering well.

  Among them a picture of Mace Bishop chained to a bolt in the wall took her fancy. Mace lying on a foam mattress, manacled at the ankle. The security man comatose, imprisoned in a cellar at her mercy. Until the careless Mikey Rheeder screwed it up.

  This time would be different, she reckoned.

  She lingered over the photographs of Mace. Good-looking guy. Vicious as a viper. But the type she went for. Like her late ex. Mo Siq. Especially when she had good reason and she had good reason.

  ‘I can’t wait to meet again,’ she said to his image. Rubbed her thumb over his face, leaving a smear. ‘On my terms. In my territory.’ Again the pain spiking her chest. She massaged below her breasts. The ache fading.

  Sheemina February put away the box file of photographs, stuck the list of transcripts into her briefcase. Yo Yo Ma came to an end, she changed him for the real thing, the accordion player. Wound up the sound, poured the remains of the wine into her glass. She stretched out again on the couch. Wondered how well Mace Bishop tangoed. Pictured an empty hall, the two of them dancing.

  40

  Mace swam, a slow crawl, his body working, his mind void. Swimming on automatic, the way he liked it. Time out of himself when no thoughts intruded. Not the present, not the past. Just the body Mace Bishop alone in the sea, the sea a green haze about him, bubbles streaming off his hands with every stroke, his eyes tracking across the sand floor. Swimming through dappled light.

  When he’d gone in he’d thought to do this more often, a sea swim. Not many around. Some early walkers on the beach but the sea to himself. Unlike the pool with people training, others clustered about the edges. Here he was alone. Alone in himself and in the water.

  He swam the bay between the mountains: Clovelly to Fish Hoek. Measured, easy. Breathed in below the arch of his left arm, let out his lungs in a pop and boil. In, out, the rhythm settled for a long haul. Going like this he could swim all day. His last thought before his mind became reptile, instinctive.

  An hour later Mace took a call on the beach, drying himself, pumped up that he’d gone the distance, even though the knife wounds smarted from the salt. He had the lungs, he had the muscle, he could do the Robben Island swim. Show Christa that her pa was still an iron man.

  ‘Judge,’ he said, ‘this is early.’

  Judge Telman Visser said something inaudible, then: ‘I need an answer, Mr Bishop, and I need it early.’

  Mace stared at the quiet sea, perfect after the days of wind, only a breeze feathering the surface. He wished he were back there swimming through the liquid light, not listening to the griping of Judge Visser. ‘Fair enough,’ he said, moving away from a gaggle of morning bathers towards the water’s edge.

  ‘And so?’ The judge staccato, demanding.

  ‘As it happens, matters have changed. I can do your farm this weekend.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear that. Good. Only thing, Mr Bishop, it’s not my farm. As I told you, it’s my father’s.’

  ‘Yours to inherit?’

  The judge said ‘ummm’, and Mace wondered at that.

  ‘Plan is,’ said Mace, ‘I’m driving up tomorrow with my daughter. Be there Saturday morning. Overnight Saturday, leaving Sunday.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Judge Visser. ‘Your daughter being there. After the threats we’ve had, it’s too dangerous. Farm attacks are random.’

  ‘It’ll be fine, judge.’ Mace glanced up at the mountainside, at people moving about on their decks: a woman going through tai chi positions full frontal to the hard sun.

  ‘You’re putting her at risk. I know what happened to her, that kidnapping, I’m surprised at your attitude.’

  ‘No risk,’ said Mace. ‘Someone’s going to attack, they’re not going to do it when there’s visitors around.’

  The judge didn’t answer, said eventually, ‘She’s your daughter, Mr Bishop. You know best.’

  ‘I do,’ said Mace, picking up on the criticism, still watching the methodical tai chi woman. Was she naked? ‘What happened to Christa before was thanks to someone in your profession. A lawyer. One Sheemina February. You ever come across her?’

  ‘I’ve heard of her,’ said Judge Visser.

  ‘A bitch,’ said Mace. ‘A manipulator.’

  ‘I know the type.’

  Mace left off his fascination with the tai chi woman, started back towards his towel and clothes. ‘She was into retribution. Personal stuff. This is a simple job. Having my daughter along for the ride’s no big deal.’

  ‘I’ve had my say, Mr Bishop.’ Mace heard the judge sigh. ‘You must do what you think best.’

  With that he told Mace he’d fax directions and a map, and the telephone number on the farm.

  Mace hung up wondering why Judge Visser had such an anti on his taking Christ
a. More tricky was going to be convincing Oumou to let their daughter take a day off school. He scanned the mountain homes for the tai chi woman, saw her standing motionless on one leg leaning forward, reckoned she had to be naked. The idea of it arousing.

  At home he played Oumou down the line, the two of them in her studio. Told her about the farm and the client and how he planned to drive there, make a long weekend of it. How it’d been decades since he’d been in the Karoo, and although it wasn’t desert as she knew it, wasn’t sand and dunes, it was almost desert, long plains of stone and shale and scrub and koppies. The sort of landscape you couldn’t imagine until you saw it. How he’d love for her to get a sense of it. And Christa. It being part of her country, after all, a place she wouldn’t be able to imagine by looking at the mountains of the peninsula, the forests and the vineyards. It would blow her mind. Be important for her to see it. So many kids grew up with no idea of what their country looked like. For example, Pumla. What did she know of where Pylon and Treasure were born? Of her own roots.

  ‘You should ask Christa, oui,’ said Oumou.

  ‘And you?’ said Mace. ‘I want you to see it.’ He unsheathed the short sword hanging in its scabbard on the wall. A dull metal blade. A leather handle with a red patina, inlaid beads, a brass decorative knob. A smooth cool feel in your hand. The blade well balanced.

  ‘Non,’ said Oumou, ‘it is impossible. I have too much to make.’

  Which Mace knew. He tested the blade against the palm of his hand. The sort of blade that could do a lot of damage. Probably in its time had done a lot of damage.

  ‘In ten days is the exhibition. How can I have a holiday?’

  Which Mace had supposed might be the case. He slid the sword back into the leather scabbard. An old sword. One of Oumou’s treasures.

  ‘That is why you should take Christa.’

  ‘And have her miss a day of school?’

  ‘Bah! What is one day for her. It would be good for her. For you both.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I can have a chance to do a lot of work in quiet and peace.’

  Mace came up behind her, slipped his hands under the bib of her dungarees to clasp her breasts, Oumou not for a moment taking her hands off the clay moulding on the wheel.

  ‘You don’t mind?’ he said, teasing her nipples, the image of the naked tai chi woman flashing behind his eyes.

  ‘Non. Of course not. For you and Christa all you do together is swim. How can you talk to her? You are together but you cannot say important things, no? Now you can sit in the car for a long time and talk about everything.’

  ‘Scary,’ said Mace, sliding a hand down into her crotch.

  ‘Not so scary.’ Oumou slowed the wheel. ‘But, oui, there is a lot for you to know about Christa. And that she wants to know about her papa.’

  Mace frowned, suddenly unsure if he’d engineered the trip with his daughter or if he’d fallen into some long-planned scheme of Oumou’s.

  ‘Why don’t you ask Christa?’ said Oumou. ‘Make it her day.’ She reached up and drew Mace down to her, leaving a smear of clay on his cheek. ‘You will have a good time.’ She pulled his hand out of her lap. ‘You want to do this now?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Mace.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Mace.

  Later, as he drove down Molteno into the breathless city, he wondered if sometimes Oumou didn’t know more about what was going on than he did. Even in his own mind.

  41

  Pylon met Henk and Olivia Smit in a reception lounge of the downtown offices of Smit & Desai Financial Advisors. While he waited stood looking at a view over the harbour, at the expensive apartments fringing the marina and the malls beyond. To the right a sight of the working harbour, an oil rig berthed there, swarming with maintenance crews.

  From here too he could see the curve of the bay disappearing up the west coast. Couldn’t see as far as the land he’d hoped to develop but almost. The sight brought a metal taste to his mouth. Not only because of Rudi Klett’s murder but because of Obed Chocho. Because Chocho was riding over everyone.

  Which was what he told Henk and Olivia Smit.

  ‘Wait,’ said Henk. ‘Hold it, okay. Before you start, I have to tell you we’re not about to reconsider. Your deal was good but Obed Chocho’s is better. Nothing personal about it. Just hard figures.’

  ‘You’re not listening to me,’ said Pylon. ‘I’m telling you Chocho’s hanging you out.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Stringing you. Dishing up what you want to hear. Come the time he’s going to cut you free without a tiny cent.’

  Henk interrupted him. ‘Oh, come on.’

  Olivia said, ‘Let him finish.’

  Pylon glanced from Henk to Olivia, their faces non-committal. ‘Why I’m here is to give you more information. Information which you should know before you go any further.’

  ‘We’ve put down our cards,’ said Henk. ‘You can’t tempt us.’

  Pylon smiled. ‘I’m not going to. We’ve pulled out. Had to pull out, I should say.’

  ‘Why?’ said Olivia. Where she sat on a leather couch beside her husband, she kept running her hands down her skirt, smoothing the creases. Such a delicate, fragile woman, Pylon thought, to be in finance.

  ‘Because our backer was shot.’

  Olivia stopped in mid-iron. Henk said, ‘Hell, man!’

  ‘Driving into the city on Monday night, he was assassinated. The best we can work it out the shooter came alongside and popped him where the road splits at the freeway. He died in hospital yesterday.’

  ‘Hell,’ Henk said again.

  ‘That’s horrible,’ said Olivia.

  ‘You’re sure it was an assassination?’ said Henk. ‘Not something random.’

  ‘We’ve discounted that.’

  ‘I can’t believe it. That’s pulp. That’s what happens in the movies and books.’

  ‘Real life, too,’ said Pylon. ‘I told you about Lindiwe Chocho.’

  ‘Not the way the papers reported it,’ said Olivia.

  ‘Course not,’ said Pylon. ‘Because they weren’t told. The papers don’t know everything. Didn’t know, for instance, that Popo Dlamini was passing on information to Obed Chocho about when our backer was flying in from Berlin. Unfortunately we didn’t know Popo Dlamini was doing this until too late.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Henk. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Olivia, putting a hand on her husband’s arm. ‘You’re telling us Mr Chocho had him killed, your backer?’

  ‘Let me put it this way,’ said Pylon. ‘From what I know of Obed Chocho, and I know a lot over a long time, then it’s not impossible. I’ve got no proof. Just circumstantial evidence and some inside information.’

  ‘So you’re telling us what?’ said Olivia.

  ‘To be careful,’ said Pylon. ‘Don’t go in with him. Sell at his price and walk away. Stay alive.’ Pylon stood up, stared at the young investment analysts. Doubt in Henk’s eyes; Olivia troubled, believing him. ‘A quick story to fill you in.’

  Olivia and Henk stood.

  ‘This happened in the camps. Twenty years ago. The bad one, Quattro, in Angola. You want to hear it?’ He waited for them to nod. ‘Okay. What happened at Quattro is people were brought there, people they thought were impimpis, betrayers. Some of those people died in that camp. Died because they were tortured to death. Raped. Beaten. Starved. Driven mad because they weren’t given water. They could see it there in a glass on the floor but they were tied up and couldn’t reach it. Or they could feel it dripping on their heads, smack, smack, smack. The lucky ones were shot. Gun to the head. Bam.’

  ‘Stop,’ said Olivia. ‘Stop.’ She had her hands on her face, covering her mouth.

  ‘For a year,’ said Pylon, ‘Obed Chocho was one of the commanders at Quattro.’

  Henk folded his arms tightly across his chest. ‘How d’you know that?’

  Pylon smiled, a wan smile
that hardly moved his lips. ‘I was there. I saw him.’

  ‘He killed people?’ Olivia had lowered her hands and now held them flat against one another as if in prayer.

  ‘You don’t have to take my word for it,’ said Pylon. ‘There’re records. But the president’s got the paperwork under lock and key. And, yes, that’s what I’m telling you.’

  Which was what he told Mace as they drove to the airport to pick up two clients flying in from London. Return business, husband and wife motivational speakers who’d done a surgical safari the previous year. Wanted a little peace of mind while in Cape Town. Nothing heavy, more a chauffeur with clout than a bald bouncer. Complete Security’s speciality. Five men, two women, all police services finishing school. Any one of them could’ve done the meet-and-greet, except with return business Mace and Pylon preferred to do the honours in person. Helped shine the image. So here they were on the highway in the big Merc pushing the clock.

  ‘But they’re not going to listen,’ said Pylon. ‘They’re not the type. Only thing now is how badly they’ll get burned.’

  ‘If not killed.’

  ‘A possibility. Except I don’t reckon Obed’ll go there. More likely to take their bucks and leave them steaming. What he’d call righteous returns.’

  As they took the exit to the airport, Mace said, ‘That’s where Rudi got done’ – pointed at the outgoing lanes – ‘still can’t get round it that I didn’t realise till we were on the highway. One maybe two kays away. Hey? How can it happen?’

  ‘It does,’ said Pylon. ‘After the Smits I took a drive to Obed Chocho’s place. Don’t ask why, okay. I don’t know. I just did. Two hours to kill I thought I’d go and sit there, see if anything was going on.’

  ‘Pylon Buso, private dick.’

  ‘Just listen alright.’

  Mace slowed on the approach to the arrivals building. ‘I’m going to park in a drop zone.’ He checked his watch. ‘They’re probably through already.’