The White Lioness (28 page)

That morning he waited on the street outside the apartment until at 8.30 a.m. a woman came out. He wished her a good morning and she recognised him.

"They left early this morning," she said.

"Both of them?"

"Both of them."

"Are they going to be away long?"

"She promised to call."

"She told you where they were going, no doubt?"

"They were going abroad on holiday. I didn't quite catch where."

She was trying to remember. Konovalenko waited. "France, I think it was," she said eventually. "I'm not sure, mind you."

Konovalenko thanked her kindly and walked on. He would send Rykoff to go over the apartment in due course.

As he needed time to think and was in no special hurry, he walked to Brommaplan where he could no doubt find a taxi. He didn't believe that they had gone abroad. The policeman from Ystad was the cold, calculating type. He had found out that someone had been asking the old lady questions. Someone who would certainly come back and ask some more questions. So he left a false trail, pointing to a holiday overseas. Probably he had taken his daughter with him back to Ystad. On the other hand, he might have chosen some other haven that would be quite impossible to trace.

A temporary setback, thought Konovalenko. I'll give him a start, and I'll catch him up later.

Of this he could be sure: the policeman from Ystad was worried. Why else take his daughter with him? Konovalenko smiled at the idea that they were thinking along the same lines, he and the provincial policeman called Wallander. He recalled something a KGB colonel said to his new recruits: a superior education, a long line of ancestors, even a high level of intelligence is no guarantee to becoming an outstanding chess player.

The chief objective now was to find the African, he thought. Finish off what he had failed to do in the disco and the cemetery. Kill him.

With a feeling of unease, he recalled the previous night's conversation. He had called South Africa at midnight and spoken with Kleyn on his emergency number. He had rehearsed with some care what he would say. There were no excuses that would explain Mabasha's being still at large, so he had lied. He said Mabasha had been killed. A hand grenade next to his petrol tank. When the rubber band holding back the firing pin had been eaten away, the car exploded and Mabasha had perished.

In spite of this report, Konovalenko sensed a measure of dissatisfaction in his employer. A crisis of confidence between himself and the South African intelligence service he could not afford. That could put his whole future at risk.

There was now no longer any time to spare. Mabasha had to be found and killed very soon.

The unfathomable dusk slowly set in, but Mabasha barely noticed it.

He was thinking about the man he was to kill. Kleyn would understand. He would allow him to retain his assignment. One of these days, he would have the South African President in his sights, and he would not hesitate.

He wondered if the President had any presentiment that his life was in the balance. Did white people have their own
sangomas
who came to them in their dreams? He concluded they must have. How otherwise could any man survive without being in contact with the spirit world that controlled our lives, that had power over life and death?

On this occasion the spirits had been kind to him. They had told him what it was he had to do.

Wallander woke soon after 6 a.m. For the first time since starting to track down Louise Akerblom's killer, he felt rested. He could hear his daughter snoring through the half-open door. He stood in the doorway, watching her. He was overwhelmed by intense joy, and it occurred to him that the purpose of life was quite simply to take care of one's children. Nothing else. He went to the bathroom, took a long shower, and decided to make an appointment with the police doctor. It must be possible to get some kind of help to lose weight and be physically fitter.

Most mornings he thought of the night - a year ago - when he woke up in a cold sweat, and assumed he was having a heart attack. The doctor who examined him said it was a warning that there was something completely wrong in his life. Now, a year on, he had to admit he had done nothing at all to change the way he lived. And to make matters worse, he had put on at least three kilos.

He drank coffee at the kitchen table. There was a thick fog over Ystad, but soon spring would really have arrived. He made up his mind to talk with Bjork this coming Monday about his holiday plans.

He left the apartment at a 7.15 a.m., after scribbling down his direct line number on a scrap of paper and leaving it on the kitchen table.

When he came out onto the street, the fog was so thick he could scarcely see his car only a short way down the street. Maybe he should leave it where it was, and walk to the station. Suddenly he thought he saw something move on the other side of the street. A lamppost seemed to sway. Then he saw there was a man standing there, enveloped by fog just like himself. It was Goli, returned to Skane.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Jan Kleyn did have one weakness, one pure secret. Her name was Miranda, and she was as black as a raven's shadow. She was his secret, the vital counterpoint in his life. Everyone who knew Kleyn would have thought it inconceivable. His colleagues in the intelligence service would have dismissed as preposterous fantasy the suggestion that they had anything at all in common.

They were the same age, and had been aware of each other since they were children. But they lived in two different worlds. Miranda's mother, Matilda, was a servant in Kleyn's parents' house on a hill outside Bloemfontein. She lived in one of a cluster of tin shacks where the Africans had their homes a few kilometres away. At first light, she would make her laborious way up the steep hill to the white house, where her first task of the day was to prepare and then serve the family breakfast. There were servants whose job was to take care of his brothers and sisters. Even so, he would often turn to Matilda. One day, when he was eleven, he began to wonder where she came from every morning, and where she went back to. He was not allowed to leave the walled-in garden on his own, but one day he followed her in secret when her day's work was done. It was the first time he had seen at close quarters the clutter of shacks where African families lived. He knew that the blacks lived in quite different conditions from his own. He was forever hearing from his parents how it was part of the natural order of things. Even so, he had never imagined their houses would be as awful as those he now saw.

But there was also something else that attracted his attention. Matilda was met by a girl of his own age, lanky and thin. Perhaps Matilda's daughter. He realised for the first time that Matilda had a family, a life apart from the work she did in his home. It was a discovery that affected him badly. He could feel himself getting angry. It was as if Matilda had deceived him.

Two years later she died. Miranda had never explained to him how it happened, just that something had eaten away her insides until all life left her. Her family had broken up. Miranda's father took two sons and a daughter with him to where he came from, the barren country far away on the Lesotho border. Miranda would grow up with one of Matilda's sisters. But Jan's mother, in a gesture of unexpected generosity, took Miranda under her wing. She was to live with the master gardener, who had a cottage in a remote corner of their grounds. Miranda would be trained to take on her mother's work. In that way, the spirit of Matilda would live on inside the white house. Jan's mother was a
Boer
. For her, keeping up traditions was a guarantee for the continuation of the family and Afrikaner society. Keeping the same family of domestic servants, generation after generation, helped to maintain a sense of permanence and stability.

Jan Kleyn and Miranda grew up near each other, but the distance between them was unchanged. Even though he could see she was very beautiful, there was in fact no such thing as black beauty. He heard young men his own age telling stories about Afrikaners travelling to neighbouring Mozambique in order to bed black women, but that just seemed to confirm the truth he had learned never to question. So he went on seeing Miranda without actually wanting to discover her. But she had started appearing in his dreams. The dreams sent his pulse racing when he recalled them the following day. Reality was transformed in his dreams. In them, not only did he recognise Miranda's beauty, he accepted it. In his dreams he was allowed to love her, and the girls of Afrikaner families he associated with normally faded in comparison with Matilda's daughter.

Their first real meeting took place when they were both 19. It was on a Sunday in January, when everyone else had gone to a family dinner in Kimberley. He stayed behind because he was still weak after a bout of malaria. He was sitting on the terrace, Miranda was the only servant in the house, and suddenly he stood up and went to her in the kitchen. He would often think he had never really left her after that. He had stayed in the kitchen. She had him in her power from that moment on. He would never be able to shake her off.

Two years later she got pregnant. He was studying at Rand University in Johannesburg. His love for Miranda was his passion and at the same time his horror. He was betraying his people and their traditions. He tried to break off contact with her many times, to escape from this forbidden relationship, but he could not. They would meet in secret, their moments together dominated by fear of being discovered. When she told him that she was pregnant, he beat her. The next moment it dawned on him that he would never be able to live without her, even if he could never live with her openly either. She gave up her position at the house. He arranged a job for her in Johannesburg. With the help of some English friends at the university, who had a different attitude towards affairs with black women, Kleyn bought a little house in eastern Johannesburg, in Bezuidenhout Park, and she lived there under the pretence of being a servant for an Englishman who spent most of his time on his farm in Southern Rhodesia. They could be together there, and there their daughter was born and, without any discussion being necessary, christened Matilda. They had no more children, and to the sorrow and sometimes even bitterness of his parents Kleyn never married. A
Boer
who did not form a family and have lots of children was a person who failed to live up to traditions. Kleyn became more and more of a mystery to his parents, and he would never be able to explain that he loved their servant Matilda's daughter, Miranda.

He lay in bed thinking about all this that Saturday morning of May 9. In the evening he would be visiting the house in Bezuidenhout Park. It was a routine he regarded as sacrosanct. Only something connected with his work for NIS could get in the way. That particular Saturday he knew his visit would be much delayed. He had an important meeting with Frans Malan which could not be postponed.

Kleyn had disciplined himself to get by on only a few hours of sleep, but that morning he allowed himself the luxury of sleeping late. He could hear faint noises from the kitchen where his servant, Moses, was making breakfast.

He thought about the telephone call he had received just after midnight. Konovalenko had given him the news he needed to hear. Victor Mabasha was dead. Not only did that mean a problem had been erased, it meant that the doubts he had been entertaining over the last few days about Konovalenko's ability had been put to rest.

He was to meet Malan in Hammanskraal at 10 a.m. It was time to decide when and where the assassination would take place. Mabasha's successor had been chosen. Kleyn was certain that once again he had made the right choice. Sikosi Tsiki would do what was required of him. The selection of Mabasha had not been an error of judgment. Kleyn knew there were invisible depths in everybody, even the most uncompromising of people. That was why he had arranged for Konovalenko to test the man he had chosen. Mabasha had been weighed in Konovalenko's scales and found wanting. Tsiki would undergo the same test.

At 8.30 a.m. he left the house. Smoke was hanging low over the shanty town alongside the highway. He tried to imagine Miranda and Matilda being forced to live there, among the tin shacks, the charcoal fires constantly making their eyes water, homeless dogs all about. Miranda had been lucky and escaped from the inferno of the slums. Her daughter Matilda had inherited her good fortune. They had no need to share the hopeless lives of their African brothers and sisters.

It seemed to Kleyn that his daughter had inherited her mother's beauty, but there was a difference. Matilda's skin was lighter than her mother's. When eventually she had a child with a white man, the process would continue. Sometime in the future, long after he had gone, his descendants would have children whose appearance would hardly betray the black blood in their genes.

Jan Kleyn liked driving and thinking about the future. He had never been able to understand those who claimed it was impossible to predict what it would be like. As far as he was concerned, it was being shaped at that very minute.

Malan was waiting on the veranda at Hammanskraal. They shook hands and went straight in to where the table with the green baize cloth was waiting for them.

"Mabasha is dead," Kleyn said when they had sat down.

A broad smile lit up Malan's face. "I have been wondering," he said.

"Konovalenko killed him yesterday," Kleyn said. "The Swedes have always been very good at making hand grenades."

"We have some of them here," Malan said. "It's hard to get hold of them, but our agents can generally get around the problems."

"That's about the only thing we have to thank the Rhodesians for," Kleyn said.

In the course of his training for the intelligence service, he had learned from an old officer how almost 30 years ago the Southern Rhodesians had cracked the sanctions. It had taught him that all politicians have dirty hands. Those vying for power set up and break rules according to the state of the game. Despite the sanctions imposed by every country in the world apart from Portugal, Taiwan, Israel and South Africa, Southern Rhodesia had never run short of the goods they needed to import. Nor had their exports suffered any serious downturn. American and Soviet politicians offered their services. The Americans, mainly senators from the South, considered it important to support the white minority government. Through an ingenious network of intermediaries, they had taken it upon themselves to lift the sanctions by back-door methods. The Russians needed Rhodesian minerals for their industries. Soon there was nothing left but a mirage of isolation. Nevertheless, all over the world politicians continued to condemn the white racist regime and extol the success of the sanctions.

Kleyn realised later that white South Africa also had many friends throughout the world, although the support they received was less conspicuous than what the blacks were getting.

"Who'll replace him?" Malan said.

"Sikosi Tsiki. He was number two on the list I made earlier. He's 28, born near East London. He's managed to get himself banned by both the ANC and Inkatha. In each case for disloyalty and theft. He has such hatred for both organisations, I'd call it fanatical."

"There's generally something about fanatics that can't be completely controlled. They have absolutely no fear of death, but they don't always stick to the plans."

Kleyn was irritated by Malan's magisterial tone. "I'm the one calling him fanatical," he said calmly. "That doesn't necessarily mean he'll live up to the description in practice. His cold-bloodedness is scarcely less intense than yours or mine."

Malan had, as usual, no reason to doubt him.

"I've talked to our friends on the Committee," Kleyn said. "I asked for a vote, since we were talking about picking a replacement. Nobody disagreed."

Malan could picture the Committee members round the oval-shaped walnut table slowly raising their hands one after another. There were never any secret votes. Decisions were always open, to make sure that members' loyalty never wavered. Apart from a shared determination to secure by any means the rights of Afrikaners and by extension those of all whites in South Africa, the members of the Committee had little or nothing to do with each other. The demagogue Terre Blanche was regarded with ill-concealed contempt by many of them, but his presence was a necessity. The chairman of the Two Oceans mining company, an elderly man whom no-one had ever seen laugh, was treated with the double-edged respect often inspired by extreme wealth. Judge Pelser, the Broederbond representative, was a man whose disdain for humankind was notorious, but he had great influence and was seldom contradicted. And finally there was General Stroesser, one of the air force high command, a man who was restless in the company of civil servants or mine owners.

They had voted to give Sikosi Tsiki the assignment. That meant he and Kleyn could proceed to implement their plans.

"Tsiki will leave here on the 12th," Kleyn said. "Konovalenko is ready to receive him. He'll fly to Copenhagen via Amsterdam on a Zambian passport, then go by ferry to Sweden."

Now it was Malan's turn. He took some black-and-white enlargements from his briefcase. He had taken the pictures himself and developed them in his darkroom at home. He had photographed the map at work.

"Friday, June 12," he began. "The local police think there'll be around 40,000 in the crowd. There are lots of reasons why this could be a suitable occasion for us to strike. To start with, there's a hill, Signal Hill, just south of the stadium. The distance from there to where the podium will be is about 700 metres. There are no buildings on the summit, but there is a serviceable access. Tsiki shouldn't have any problems getting there, or making his retreat. If necessary, he could lie low up there before making his way down later and mixing with the blacks who'll be milling around in the chaos that's bound to follow."

Kleyn studied the photographs, waiting for Malan to continue.

"My other argument," Malan said, "is that the assassination should take place in the heart of what we can call the English part of our country. Africans tend to react primitively. Their first reaction will be that somebody from Cape Town is responsible for the killing. Their rage will be directed at the locals. All those liberal-minded Englishmen who wish the blacks so well will be forced to face up to what is in store for them if ever the blacks come to power in our country. That will make it simpler to stir up a backlash."

Kleyn had been thinking along the same lines. He reflected briefly on what Malan had said. In his experience, every plan had some weakness.