Deon Meyer (8 page)

“My superior . . . There’s a theory . . .” His mind sought desperately for euphemisms, looked for gentle synonyms for death. He wished Benny Griessel were there.

 

 

“In Taiwan organized crime uses the same methods . . . in their . . . work. I have to pursue the possibility.”

 

 

She looked at him and the wind blew her hair over her face. She wiped it away with a hand, folded her arms again. She waited.

 

 

“Your husband might have done business with them, perhaps indirectly . . . With the Chinese. Would you know?”

 

 

“No.”

 

 

“Mrs. Wallace, I know this is difficult. But if there could be some explanation . . .”

 

 

“Haven’t you found anything?” she asked, no reproach in her voice, as if she already knew the answer. Her hair blew over her face again but she let it be.

 

 

“Nothing,” he said and wondered whether she would ever find out about Lizzie van der Merwe and the other women with whom James J. had shared a night or two.

 

 

“It was a mistake,” she said. “An accident.” Her arms unfolded, a hand comforted his upper arm. “You’ll see. It has to be.” Then she folded the hand away again.

 

 

He walked back to the house with her, took his leave. He drove home and wondered why the number of trees in a suburb equaled the per capita income of the breadwinners living there.

 

 

It was past seven but the sun was still high above the horizon. Joggers were sweating in the traffic fumes at the side of the road. He lit a cigarette and wondered what he was going to do about his health. Perhaps he should exercise. Jogging was out. He hated jogging. He was too big to jog. Swimming maybe. It would be nice to swim again. Not competitively. Just for fun. Forgotten memories surfaced. The smell of the swimming pool’s changing rooms, the footbath with Dettol in it, the fatigue after hours of practice, the taste of chlorine in his mouth, the adrenaline when the starter’s pistol went off.

 

 

At home another letter had been pushed under his door.

 

 

Why don’t you reply?

 

 

The discomfort was back in his belly. By now he recognized it. There was a lane in Goodwood, behind the cinema on Voortrekker Road. They said that was where motorcycle riders did stuff. He was eight or nine. And every Saturday night he stared down the dark of the lane with a curiosity that threatened to consume him. Run, his mind told him. Run down it like the wind, just once. But the fear, the uncertainty about his own bravery, lay like a weight in his stomach. He had never risked the lane. He drove to Blouberg, bought chicken at Kentucky, and ate it in the car while he stared at the wind-flattened sea. Then he drove home to read his book.

 

 

Late in the evening the telephone rang. He put William Gibson on the table next to the armchair, answered. It was Cloete of public relations.

 

 

“Are you still working on the Yellow Peril or can I feed the newspapers something else tomorrow?”

 

 

 

8.

C
ape town— Up to now the police have been unable to establish any connection between the Tokarev murder and Chinese drug syndicates.

 

 

De Wit read the report in a soft voice, a thin smile on his face. He put down the newspaper and looked at Joubert.

 

 

“Must we differ about this case in public, Captain?”

 

 

“No, Colonel,” said Joubert and saw that the no smoking sign had been moved from the coffee table in the corner to de Wit’s desk next to the family photograph.

 

 

“Did you provide the information?” De Wit’s voice was conversational, almost jolly.

 

 

“Colonel,” said Joubert tiredly, “as investigating officer I reacted to a query from a colleague at public relations. It’s in line with the procedures and regulations of the service. I gave him the information in the light of the way I see the murder investigation at this stage. It’s my duty.”

 

 

“I see,” said de Wit and again smiled slightly. He picked up the newspaper and slid his eyes over the report. “You didn’t deliberately make a fool of your commanding officer?”

 

 

“No, Colonel.”

 

 

“We’ll never really know, Captain Joubert. But in the long run it probably won’t matter. Thank you for coming by.”

 

 

Joubert realized he was being excused. He stood up, uncomfortable, uncertain about the other man’s calmness, already aware that it meant something, predicted something.

 

 

“Thanks, Colonel,” Joubert mumbled at the door.

 

 

* * *

He was behind with his paperwork. He pulled the adjutants’ files toward him but found it difficult to concentrate. He lit a Winston and sucked the smoke deep into his lungs. He wondered whether he’d deliberately made a fool of his commanding officer.

 

 

And he thought about the cunning of his subconscious and knew that he was not entirely innocent, Your Worship.

 

 

Dragging footsteps moved down the passage. Griessel walked past, his head bowed. There was something in his carriage that disturbed Joubert.

 

 

“Benny?”

 

 

The footsteps returned. Griessel’s face appeared around the door. He was pale.

 

 

“Benny, is everything all right?”

 

 

“I’m okay, Captain.” The voice was remote.

 

 

“What’s the matter, Benny?”

 

 

“I’m okay, Captain.” Slightly more expression. “Probably something I ate.”

 

 

Or drank, Joubert thought but said nothing.

 

 

Griessel’s face disappeared. Joubert lit another cigarette. He forced himself to concentrate on the work in front of him. Dossiers about death. An elderly couple in Durbanville. An unknown black body next to the train tracks in Kuilsriver. A woman in Belhar murdered with a screwdriver by her drunken husband.

 

 

Then he heard someone clearing his throat. Bart de Wit stood in front of his desk. Joubert wondered how he managed to move like a cat over the tiled floor. He saw that de Wit wasn’t smiling. His face was serious.

 

 

“I’ve got news, Captain. Good news.”

 

 

* * *

Joubert ground the gears of the Sierra and drove jerkily through the afternoon traffic. He wished he could express the astonishment and indignation that clung to him like a too tight piece of clothing.

 

 

De Wit had told him he had to see the psychologist.

 

 

“Your file has been referred.”

 

 

The passive form. Too scared to say: I referred your file, Captain, because you are a loser. And I, Bart de Wit, don’t need losers. I want to get rid of you. And if I can’t do it with the medical report, I’ll do it in this way. Let’s dig around in your head, Captain. Let’s thrust a spoon into the stew of your head and stir it a little. Stand back, folks, because it might be dangerous. This man in front of you is slightly . . . off. Not all there. Mentally unbalanced. On the surface he looks normal. Somewhat overweight, somewhat untidy, but normal. But inside his head it’s something else, ladies and gentlemen. Inside that skull a few circuits have shorted.

 

 

“Your file has been referred. There are appointments available”— he’d checked the green file—“this afternoon at sixteen-thirty, tomorrow at oh nine hundred, fourteen hundred—”

 

 

“This afternoon,” Mat Joubert had said hurriedly.

 

 

De Wit had looked up from the file, somewhat surprised, appraisingly. “We’ll arrange it.”

 

 

And now he was on his way. Because somewhere in a gray office with a couch for his patients, a bespectacled psychologist had had insight into his file. Had begun setting up the scorecard of Freud or Jung or whomsoever. What have we here? The death of his wife? Minus twenty. Disciplinary hearing? Minus twenty. And the slump in his work. Minus forty. He could have done something about that. Grand total minus eighty. Bring him in.

 

 

“We’ll keep an eye on the situation, Captain. See whether the therapy helps.” A covert threat, concealed. But obviously de Wit’s trump card.

 

 

Perhaps it was a good thing. God knows, his head had been muddled. Had been? Could one really judge the state of one’s own mind? How normal was he at Macassar when he’d looked at the burnt remains of the three, could hear their voices in his ears? The high, shrill, primal scream that the spirit utters when it reluctantly has to leave the body, the volume intensified by the screaming of flesh in the agony of death by fire, every pain receptor swamped by the intense heat.

 

 

Was that normal?

 

 

Was it normal to wonder then, for the umpteenth time, whether you shouldn’t take the trouble to join the dead? Wasn’t it better to have control over the when and the how? Was it wrong to be afraid of that unexpected moment when the mind realized it had a nanosecond left in the world? Afraid. Terrified.

 

 

And now de Wit was holding a sword above his muddled head. Let the psychologist fix the circuitry or . . .

 

 

He stopped in front of a tower block on the Foreshore. Sixteenth floor. Dr. H. Nortier. That was all he knew. He took the elevator.

 

 

Joubert was pleased that there was no one else in the waiting room.

 

 

It was different from what he’d expected. There was a couch and two chairs, comfortable and attractive, covered in a pink-and- blue floral. In the center a coffee table held six magazines, the latest editions of
De Kat, Time, Car, Cosmopolitan, Sarie,
and
ADA
magazine. Against a white-painted door, which presumably led to the consulting room, there was a neat sign that read DR. NORTIER WILL WELCOME YOU SOON. PLEASE MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME AND ENJOY THE COFFEE. THANK YOU. The same sign was repeated in Afrikaans. There were watercolors on the other walls— one of cosmos, another of the fishermen’s cottages at Paternoster. In one corner there was a table with a coffee machine. Next to it stood porcelain coffee cups and saucers, teaspoons, a jar of powdered milk, and a bowl of sugar.

 

 

He poured himself a cup and the filter coffee smelled good. Was the man a psychiatrist? Psychologists were “mister,” not “doctor.” Was he so batty that he needed a psychiatrist?

 

 

He sat down on the couch, put the cup on the coffee table, and took out his Winstons. He looked for an ashtray. There were none in the room. Irritation overcame him. How was it possible for a psychologist not to have an ashtray in his waiting room? He returned the pack to his pocket.

 

 

He looked at
De Kat
’s cover. A man wearing makeup adorned it. The front page teaser read NATANIEL— THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK.

 

 

He wanted to smoke. He paged through the magazine. Nothing in it interested him. The woman on the cover of
Cosmopolitan
had big boobs and a big mouth. He picked up the magazine and flipped through it. He saw a headline. WHAT HE THINKS ABOUT AT WORK. He flattened the pages there but realized the doctor could open the door at any moment. He closed the magazine.

 

 

He was dying for a smoke. After all, cigarettes couldn’t harm the mind.

 

 

He took out the packet and put a cigarette between his lips. He took out the lighter and stood up. There must be a can somewhere he could use.

 

 

The white door opened. Joubert looked up. A woman came in. She was small. She smiled and put out her hand.

 

 

“Captain Joubert?”

 

 

He put out his hand. The lighter was still in it. He drew back his hand and shifted the lighter to his left hand. “That’s right,” he wanted to say but the cigarette was still in his mouth. He blushed, pulled his hand back, and removed the cigarette from his mouth, putting it into his left hand. He put out his hand again and shook hers.

 

 

“There’s no ashtray here,” he mumbled, blushing, and felt her hand, small and warm and dry.

 

 

She was still smiling. “It must be the cleaning service. Come in and smoke here,” she said and dropped his hand. She held the white door for him.

 

 

“No, please,” he said, indicating that she had to walk in first, self-conscious and uncomfortable after his meaningless remark about the ashtray.

 

 

“Thank you.” She went in and he closed the door behind them, aware of her long brown skirt, her white blouse buttoned up to the throat, her brown brooch, a wooden elephant pinned above one of the small breasts. He caught a hint of feminine odor, perfume or her own, noticed her grace, her fragility, and an odd beauty that he couldn’t identify as yet.

 

 

“Do sit down,” she said and walked around the white desk. A tall, slender vase with three pink carnations stood on it. And a white telephone, an A-4 notebook, a small penholder containing a few red and black pencils, a large glass ashtray, and a green file. He wondered whether it was his file. Behind her there was a white bookcase that almost filled the wall. It was full of books— paperbacks and hardcovers, a neat, colorful, cheerful panel of knowledge and enjoyment.

 

 

There was another door in the corner, next to the bookcase. Did the previous patient leave through it?

 

 

He sat down on one of the two chairs in front of the desk. They were television chairs, the adjustable kind, covered in black leather. He wondered whether he should’ve waited for her to sit down first. She smiled, her hands resting comfortably on the desk in front of her.

 

 

“I’ve never addressed anyone as ‘captain’ in consultation,” she said.

 

 

Her voice was very soft, as if she was speaking in the strictest confidence, but melodious. He wondered whether psychiatrists were taught to speak like that.