The White Lioness (35 page)

Just what have we Afrikaners believed? he asked himself. Our dreams of an unchanging world? That the small concessions we made to the blacks would be sufficient? He was overcome by shame. For even if he was one of the new Afrikaners, one of those who did not regard de Klerk as a traitor, the years of passivity - on Judith's part and his own - had only contributed to the continuation of the Apartheid. He, too, had inside him the kingdom of death van Heerden had written of. The conspirators were counting on his passivity. His silent acceptance.

He sat down again in front of the screen. Van Heerden had done good work. The conclusions Scheepers was now able to draw, and which he would pass on to the President the very next day, were impossible to mistake.

Mandela was going to be murdered. During his last days van Heerden had worked frantically to find out where and when. He had not found the answer when he switched off his computer for the last time. But the indications were that it would be soon, during or on the occasion of a speech given by Mandela to a large gathering. Van Heerden had drawn up a list of locations and dates over the coming three months. Among them were Durban, Johannesburg, Soweto, Bloemfontein, Cape Town and East London, with dates attached. A professional killer was making preparations somewhere abroad. Van Heerden had managed to discover that a former KGB officer was hovering indistinctly in the assassin's background. There were many other things to be unravelled, including one crucial matter. Scheepers read again through the section where van Heerden analysed his way to the heart of the conspiracy. He spoke of a
Committee
, representatives of dominant groups among the Afrikaners. Van Heerden did not have all their names. The only ones he could identify for certain were Kleyn and Malan.

Scheepers was now convinced
The Chameleon
was Kleyn. He had not identified Malan's code name. Evidently, van Heerden judged this pair to be the main players. By concentrating on them, he hoped to be able to work out who the other members of the Committee were, and what they were plotting to achieve.

Coup d'etat
, van Heerden had written at the end of the last text, dated two days before he was killed. Followed by:
Civil war? Chaos?

There was one more note, made the same day, the Sunday before he went into the clinic.
Next week
, van Heerden wrote,
Take it further. Bezuidenhout 559
.

His message to me from the grave, Scheepers thought. That's what he was going to do. Now I have to do it instead. But what is it? Bezuidenhout is a suburb of Johannesburg, and the number must surely be part of the address of a house.

He noticed he was suddenly very tired and very worried by the responsibility he had been given. He switched off the computer and locked the filing cabinet. It was 9 p.m. already, and dark outside. Police sirens were wailing non-stop, like hyenas, keeping watch in the night.

Without really having decided to do so, he drove to the eastern suburbs, to Bezuidenhout. It did not take him long to find what he was looking for. Number 559 was a house bordering the park that gave Bezuidenhout its name. He switched off the engine and put out his lights. The house was white, in glazed brick. A light was on behind drawn curtains. There was a car in the drive, inside the security fence.

He was too traumatised and exhausted by the discoveries of the day to be sure of how he should now proceed. He thought first of all of the white lioness by the riverbank. How she came towards them. The wild beast is almost upon us, he thought. Then it dawned on him what was the most important thing. If Mandela died the consequences would be horrific. Everything they were trying to achieve, this brittle attempt to reach a settlement between blacks and whites, would be demolished. The dykes would be breached and the flood would rage over the whole country. And there were people who wanted this apocalyptic flood.

That was as far as his train of thought got. A man came out of the house and got into the car. At the same time one of the curtains was pulled back. A black woman, and behind her another one, younger. The older woman waved.

He could not see because it was dark. Even so, in the time it took for the security gates to swing open, in the floodlight over the gateway, he knew the man was Kleyn. He crouched down in his seat as the car passed. When he sat up again, the curtains were drawn tight.

He frowned. Two black women? Kleyn had come out of their house.
The Chameleon, Mother and Child
? He could not see the connection. But he had no reason to doubt van Heerden. If he had written that it was important, then it was so. Van Heerden had stumbled upon a secret, he thought. I must go down the same track.

The next day he called the President's office and asked for an appointment. The President could see him at 10 p.m. He spent the whole day writing his report. He was nervous as he sat waiting in the antechamber, having been welcomed by the same sombre security guard as before. This evening, however, he was not kept waiting. At exactly 10 p.m. the guard announced the President was ready to see him. Scheepers had the same impression as last time: President de Klerk was very tired. His eyes were dim and his face pale. The swollen bags under his eyes seemed to weigh him down.

As succinctly as possible he reported his findings. He said nothing, however, about the house in Bezuidenhout Park.

President de Klerk listened, his eyes half closed. For a moment, he thought the President had fallen asleep. Then de Klerk opened his eyes and looked straight at him.

"I often wonder how it is that I'm still alive," he said slowly. "Thousands of
Boere
regard me as a traitor. Even so, Mandela is this time the intended victim of an assassination attempt."

President de Klerk fell silent. Then he said, "There is something in your report that disturbs me. Let us assume that there are red herrings laid out in appropriate places. Let us imagine two parallel sets of circumstances. One is that it's me who is the intended victim. I'd like you to rethink your report with that in mind, Scheepers. I'd like you to consider also the possibility that these people intend to attack both my friend Mandela and myself. I'm not excluding the possibility that it really is Mandela these lunatics are after. I just want you to think critically about what you have uncovered. Van Heerden was murdered. That means there are eyes and ears everywhere. Experience has taught me that red herrings are an important part of intelligence work. Do you follow me?"

"Yes," Scheepers said.

"I'll be expecting your conclusions in the next two days. I can't give you any more time than that."

"I still believe van Heerden's notes strongly indicate that it's Mandela they intend to kill," Scheepers said.

"Believe?" de Klerk said. "I believe in God. But I don't
know
if he exists. Nor do I know if there is more than one."

Scheepers was dumbfounded by the response. But he understood what de Klerk meant. The President raised his hands, then let them drop on his desk. "A committee," he said, wearily, "of people and interests who mean to dismantle all we've achieved. Well, they will not be allowed to do that."

"Of course not," Scheepers said.

De Klerk was lost in thought once more. Scheepers waited. "Every day I expect some crazy fanatic to get to me," he said. "I think about what happened to my predecessor, President Verwoerd. Stabbed to death in Parliament. The same could happen to me. I am not frightened for myself. What does frighten me, though, is that there really isn't anybody who can take over after me." De Klerk looked at him, smiling slightly. "You are still young," he said. "But right now the future of this country is in the hands of two old men, Mandela and me. That's why it would be desirable for both of us to live a little bit longer."

"Shouldn't Mandela get an increased bodyguard?" Scheepers said.

"Mandela is a very special man," de Klerk said. "He's not fond of bodyguards. Outstanding men rarely are. Look at General de Gaulle. That's why everything will have to be handled with absolute discretion. I have of course arranged for his guard to be strengthened. He doesn't need to hear about it, though."

The audience was at an end.

"Two days," de Klerk said. "No more."

Scheepers got to his feet and bowed.

"One more thing: you must not for a minute forget what happened to van Heerden. Take good care."

It was not until he had left the government building that what the President said really sunk in. Unseen eyes were watching him as well. He broke into a cold sweat as he drove home, and his thoughts wandered once more to the lioness in the cold, clear moonlight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Kurt Wallander had always imagined death as black. Now, standing on the beach shrouded in fog, he realised that death was no respecter of colour. Here it was white. The fog enclosed him completely; he thought he could hear the lapping of waves, but it was the fog that dominated and strengthened his feeling of not knowing which way to turn.

When he had been higher up on the training ground, surrounded by invisible sheep, and it was all over, he did not have a single clear thought in his head. He knew Mabasha was dead, that he himself had killed a human being, and that Konovalenko had escaped again, swallowed up by the whiteness. Svedberg and Martinsson had emerged from the fog like two pale ghosts of themselves. He could see in their faces his own horror. He had felt simultaneously a desire to run away and never come back, but also to pursue the hunt for Konovalenko. Afterwards he recalled what happened in those few moments as something peripheral to him, something seen from a distance. It was a different Wallander standing there, waving his weapons, somebody who had temporarily possessed him. Only when he yelled at Martinsson and Svedberg to stay out of his way, then skidded and scrambled up the slope, finding himself alone in the fog, did it really begin to sink in. Mabasha was shot through the head, just like Louise Akerblom. The fat man had started back and flung his hands in the air. He was dead, and Wallander had shot him.

He yelled out, like a solitary human foghorn. There's no turning back, he told himself desperately. I'll vanish into this fog. When it lifts, I won't exist any more.

He tried to gather the last vestiges of reason he might still have left. Go back, he told himself. Go back to the dead men. Your colleagues are there. You can search for Konovalenko together.

Then he walked away. He could not go back. If he had one duty left, it was to find Konovalenko, kill him if that could not be avoided, but preferably catch him and hand him over to Bjork. Once that was done he could sleep. When he woke, the nightmare would be over. But that was not true. The nightmare would still be there. In shooting the fat man, he had done something he would never be able to shake off. So he might just as well go on hunting for Konovalenko. He had a vague feeling that he was already trying to find some way to atone for the killing of Rykoff.

Konovalenko was somewhere out there in the fog. Maybe close. Helplessly, Wallander fired a shot straight into the whiteness, as if trying to split the fog. He brushed aside the sweaty hair that was sticking to his forehead. Then he saw he was bleeding. He must have been cut when the window panes at Mariagatan were shattered. He saw too that his clothes were streaked with blood. It was dripping down onto the sand. He stood still, waiting for his breathing to calm. He could follow Konovalenko's tracks in the sand. He tucked the pistol into his belt. He held the shotgun cocked and ready, at hip level. It seemed to him from Konovalenko's footprints that he had been moving fast, probably running. He speeded up, following the traces like a dog. The thick fog gave him the impression he was standing still while the sand was moving. Just then, he noted that Konovalenko had stopped and turned around before going off in a different direction, back up to the cliff. Wallander realised that the tracks would disappear as they reached the grass. He scrambled up the slope and thought he must be at the eastern edge of the training ground. He stopped to listen. Far behind, he heard a siren fading into the distance. A sheep bleated, very close by. Silence. He followed the fence northwards. It was the only bearing he had. He half expected Konovalenko to loom out of the fog at any moment. Wallander tried to imagine being shot through the head. But he could not conjure up any feeling. The sole purpose of his life just now was to follow that fence along the perimeter of the training ground, nothing else. Konovalenko was there somewhere with his gun and Wallander was going to find him.

When Wallander reached the barbed wire fence that separated the training ground from the road to Sandhammaren, there was nothing to see but fog. He thought he could make out the dim shape of a horse on the other side, standing motionless, ears cocked. He wriggled under the bottom strand, got himself thoroughly wet in the dew in the grass, and then he stood in the middle of the road and urinated. In the distance he heard a car going by on the road to Kristianstad.

He started walking towards Kaseberga. Konovalenko had disappeared. He had got away again. Wallander was walking aimlessly, but walking was easier than standing still. He wished Baiba Liepa would walk out of the whiteness and embrace him. But there was nothing but him and the damp asphalt.

A bicycle leaned against an old milk pallet. It was unlocked, and it seemed to Wallander someone had left it there for him. He used the baggage rack for the shotgun and cycled off. As soon as possible he turned off the road onto the dirt roads criss-crossing the plain. Eventually he came to his father's house. There was only the single lamp outside the front door. He stood and listened. Then he hid the bicycle behind the shed. He tiptoed over the gravel. He found the spare keys hidden under a broken flowerpot on the outside stairs leading to the cellar. He unlocked the door to his father's studio. There was an inside room where he kept his paints and old canvases. He closed the door behind him and switched on the light. The brightness took him by surprise. It was as if he expected the fog to be here as well. He turned on the cold tap and tried to rinse the blood off his face. He did not recognise his reflection in the broken mirror. His eyes were staring, bloodshot, shifting. He heated water on the filthy electric hot plate and made some coffee. It was 4 a.m. His father generally got up at 5.30. He would have to be gone by then. What he needed right now was a hideaway. Various alternatives flashed through his mind, all of them impossible. In the end he drank his coffee, left the studio, crossed the courtyard, and carefully unlocked the door to the main house. He stood in the hall, and breathed in the acrid, old-mannish aroma. He listened. Not a sound. He went into the kitchen where the telephone was, closing the door behind him. To his surprise he remembered the number. With his hand on the receiver, he thought about what he was going to say.

Widen answered almost at once. Wallander could hear that he was already wide awake. Horsey people get up early, he thought.

"Sten? It's Kurt Wallander."

Once upon a time they had been very close friends. Wallander knew he hardly ever displayed a trace of surprise.

"I can hear that," he said. "Some things never change. And you're calling me at 4 a.m."

"I need your help."

Widen said nothing.

"On the road to Sandhammaren," Wallander said. "You'll have to come and get me. I need to hide in your house for a while. A few hours at least."

"Where are you?" Widen said. Then he started coughing. He's still smoking those cheroots, Wallander thought.

"I'll wait for you at the Kaseberga exit," he said. "What kind of car do you have?"

"An old Duett."

"How long will it take you?"

"If it's still thick fog, say 45 minutes. Possibly a little less."

"I'll be there. Thanks for your help."

He hung up and went back to the hall. Then he could not resist the temptation: he walked through the living room where the old television set was, and gently pulled aside the curtain to the spare bedroom. In the weak light from the lamp outside the front door, he could see Linda's hair and forehead, part of her nose. She was fast asleep.

Then he left the house and tidied up in the inside room of the studio, and put the keys back under the flowerpot. He cycled down to the main road and turned right. When he came to the Kaseberga exit he put the bicycle behind a telephone company hut and settled down to wait in the shadows. The fog was just as thick as before. A police car went by in the direction of Sandhammaren. Wallander thought he recognised Peters behind the wheel.

He had not seen Widen for more than a year. In the course of an investigation Wallander had called on him at his place near the ruined castle of Stjarnsund. He trained a number of trotting horses. He lived alone, probably drank too much, and had relationships with his stable girls. Once they had shared a common dream. Widen had a fine baritone voice and was going to become an opera singer, and Wallander was going to be his impresario. But the dream faded and their friendship dissolved.

Even so, he's perhaps the only real friend I've ever had, Wallander thought, as he waited in the fog. Not counting Rydberg. But that was something different. We would never have been as close if we hadn't both been policemen.

Forty minutes later the wine-red Duett came gliding through the fog. Wallander emerged from behind the hut and got into the car. Widen looked at his face, dirty, smeared with blood. But as usual he evidenced no surprise.

"I'll explain later," Wallander said.

"When it suits you," Widen said. He had an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and smelled of alcohol.

They passed the training ground. Wallander crouched down and made himself invisible. There were several police cars by the side of the road. Widen slowed down but did not stop. The road was clear, no roadblocks. He looked across at Wallander, who was still trying to hide, but he said nothing. They drove through Ystad, Skurup, then turned right to Stjarnsund. When they turned into the stable yard, a girl of about 17 stood yawning and smoking in front of the stalls.

"My face has been in the newspapers and on TV," Wallander said. "I'd rather be anonymous."

"Ulrika doesn't read papers," Widen said. "If she ever watches TV, it's just videos. I have another girl, Kristina. She won't say anything either."

They went into the untidy, chaotic house. It seemed to Wallander much as it had been the last time he was there. Widen asked him if he was hungry. Wallander nodded so he sat him down in the kitchen and made him some sandwiches and a cup of coffee. Widen occasionally went out into the next room. He came back each time with a fresh aroma of spirits.

"Thanks for coming for me," Wallander said.

Widen shrugged. "No problem," he said.

"I need a few hours' sleep. Then I'll tell you what's going on."

"The horses have to be looked after," Widen said. "I'll show you where you can sleep."

He got up and Wallander followed him. His exhaustion caught up with him. Widen showed him into a little room with a sofa.

"I doubt if I have any clean sheets. But you can have a pillow and a blanket."

"That's more than enough."

"You remember where the bathroom is?"

Wallander nodded. He took off his shoes. He could hear the sand crunching underfoot. He hung his jacket over a chair. Widen stood watching him in the doorway.

"How are things going?" Wallander said.

"I've started singing again," Widen said.

"You must tell me all about it."

Widen left the room, and Wallander heard a horse whinnying in the yard. The last thing he thought before falling asleep was that his friend was the same as ever. The same tousled hair, the same dry eczema on his neck. Nevertheless there was something different.

He was not sure where he was at first, when he woke up. He had a headache, and pain all over his body. He put his hand on his forehead and knew he had a temperature. He lay still under the blanket, which smelled of horse. When he went to check his watch, he discovered that he must have lost it during the night. The kitchen clock showed 11.30 a.m. He had slept for more than four hours. The fog was less dense but was still there. He poured himself a cup of coffee and opened various cabinets until he found some painkillers. The telephone rang. Wallander heard Widen come in and answer it. Something to do with hay. Then he came into the kitchen.

"Awake?" he said.

"I needed that sleep," Wallander said.

Then he told him what had happened. Widen listened in silence, expressionless. Wallander started with the disappearance of Louise Akerblom. He talked about the man he had killed.

"I just had to get away," he concluded. "I know, of course, my colleagues will be looking for me now. But I'll have to tell them a white lie. Say I passed out and lay behind a bush. But I'd be grateful if you could do one thing for me. Call my daughter and tell her I'm OK. And tell her she should stay where she is."

"Should I tell her where you are?"

"No. Not yet. But you've got to convince her." He gave him the number. But there was no answer.

"You'll have to keep on trying until you reach her," Wallander said.

One of the stable girls came into the kitchen, and introduced herself as Kristina.

"You can go and get a pizza," Widen said. "Buy a few newspapers too. There isn't a bite to eat in the house." He gave the girl some money. She drove off in the Duett.

"You said you started singing again," Wallander said.

Widen smiled for the first time. Wallander remembered that smile, but it was many years since he had last seen it.

"I've joined the church choir at Svedala," he said. "I sometimes sing solos at funerals. I realised I was missing it. But the horses don't like it if I sing in the stables."

"Do you need an impresario?" Wallander wondered. "It's hard to see how I can keep going as a policeman after all this."

"You killed in self-defence," Widen said. "I'd have done the same thing. Just thank your lucky stars you had a gun."