Blood Rose (23 page)

‘Rugby-coaching at the school. He’d started teaching science too. He was a physicist. The army was good to ambitious Afrikaners born on the wrong side of the tracks. Teaching science was his way of saying sorry for what happened’ – she hesitated – ‘for what happened before.’

‘He see anyone from his army days?’

‘Not really. He was a loner. After Bishop Tutu’s thing, the dust settled and we didn’t see anyone much. I suppose they didn’t need each other any more, didn’t need to check up on who was going to say what. Sometimes his old army friends would come through, drink a bit, hunt a bit in season, but other than that the past just went away. We were quiet here. I liked it like that.’ She twisted the obsolete wedding ring on her left hand.

‘I’m sorry to bring up the past,’ said Clare.

Mrs Hofmeyr shook her head. ‘Where does it start? That’s what I never know about the past. Kobus was a soldier. The army was his life and 1994 was the end of it. Is that the beginning or the end of the past?’

‘That’s why you came to McGregor?’ Clare asked.

‘I don’t think my husband cared where he went. He just came here to wait until his heart stopped beating.’

‘Depression?’

Mrs Hofmeyr batted the word away with a dismissive hand. ‘Psychological labels. Human beings aren’t bottles of jam. Depressed, obsessive compulsive, paranoid. Giving it a name doesn’t make it feel any different.’

‘He came out of it?’ Clare guessed.

Mrs Hofmeyr looked up at her, surprised. ‘He did. Slowly. Despite himself. It helped that our daughter came to visit with her baby from Australia. The first time they had spoken in fifteen years, but not even he could fight with a baby. It was as if some knot inside him loosened, released the man I had married. I don’t know. He kept on worrying about the world, about terrorists and bombs, and about what could happen to his
skattebol
.’

‘What was he like, your husband?’ asked Clare.

Mrs Hofmeyr sighed as she cleared away the coffee cups. ‘If you want a sense of my husband, go and look at his den.’ She opened the kitchen door and gestured down the passageway. ‘I suppose you could say that is what his world shrunk to.’

Apart from the kitchen, the house was dim. The shutters were closed, the curtains drawn. It had the stillness of a museum. Clare opened a door off the passage. A masculine seclusion, free of ornaments. It was irresistible. She stepped inside. The desk was clean, the letter opener and pen standing in quartz holders. A perfect desert rose on an ugly little plinth held down a pile of till slips. Clare checked the dates. All from a few days before Hofmeyr was killed: bottle store, DIY, cigarettes and a paper from the café. Next to the desk was a hollowed-out elephant’s foot. A trophy hunt. Caprivi, Kaokoland, Angola. Clare wondered where the helicopters had hovered, machine-gun bullets studding into the fleeing animals below. She pictured the elephant cows herding their panic-stricken young towards the tree
line. One sinking to her knees as her calf nudged her with his forehead, then retreated and watched as the men, laughing, hopped down to hack off the cow’s foot as the last light in her wise eyes was extinguished. Then again, the murdered man could just as easily have bought it in a junk shop and brought it home for a laugh.

One wall was covered with photographs. Clare went to look at them. A 1960s wedding picture. Later, Mrs Hofmeyr in a halter-neck top, a baby in her arms. Then another baby, the first child now a thoughtful little boy bracketed around his mother’s slim legs. Another photo showed a sturdy young woman on a speedboat, a greying Major Hofmeyr grinned next to her.

‘My daughter,’ said Mrs Hofmeyr, coming to stand next to Clare. ‘She moved to Australia.’

‘They seem happy here,’ said Clare.

‘They were,’ Mrs Hofmeyr replied. ‘Eventually.’

Clare guessed that politics would have come between them. A father with a decorated career in the defence force of the apartheid years did not go down well in the new South Africa.

Mrs Hofmeyr trailed a finger across a picture of her husband saluting troops on a dusty parade ground. The undulating sweep of sand was unmistakable. Strange, though, to see the vast plain covered with tents. They seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon, a regatta of triangular khaki sails on a sea of sand.

‘Walvis Bay?’ asked Clare.

‘Where else? It looks so different now,’ said Mrs Hofmeyr.

‘How long were you there for?’

‘You want me to give you the hours and seconds? The heartbeats?’ Her bitterness flared, a naked flame. ‘We were there from 1989 to 1994. Five years, three months and eleven days. Before that at the weapons testing site in Vastrap in the Northern Cape. God knows what we were supposed to do there in the middle of
the Kalahari Desert. No people. No trees. Nothing but heat and dust and secrets. Not a place to go if you had a family.’

The large photograph hanging behind the door caught Clare’s attention. She stopped, arrested by the photograph of Major Hofmeyr. Lithe and brown, his eyes the blue of the sky above the dune rising in a majestic sweep behind him. Three soldiers, equally confident, were draped over a dusty Bedford. The man next to Hofmeyr, his swagger evident in his muscular, khaki-clad legs, had a hard face. The third one was as thin as a whip, his expression shadowed by his cap.

‘That was Kobus’s unit.’ Mrs Hofmeyr pointed to the date on the bottom. ‘It was taken when they were disbanding. This was the last picture of all of them before they returned.’

‘They came back then?’

‘Kobus and a couple of officers wrapped up the last things, then came back. The troops returned by truck and on the train.’

‘You know them? The others?’ Riedwaan asked.

Mrs Hofmeyr shook her head. ‘Kobus kept us separate, me and his life.’ She stood closer to the photograph. ‘I can’t remember their names.’ She pointed to the shadowed figure. ‘He came to the house sometimes near the end. He and Kobus would talk. He never said anything to me. This one’ – she pointed at the man next to Hofmeyr – ‘had such a young wife. She was a dancer before she married.’ She frowned at the tug of memory. ‘Maylene or Marlene was her name. Something unusual.’

Clare pictured a house on the edge of the dunes. A bracelet of bruises. ‘Not Darlene?’ she asked.

‘That was it: Darlene. Her husband stamped on her ankle at a party. He said she’d been flirting. She never danced again.’

Darlene walking down a dim, polished passage. The awkward gait. A surname jettisoned to mark the end of a marriage. ‘She’s still there,’ said Clare.

‘In Walvis Bay?’ Mrs Hofmeyr was appalled. ‘I suppose it was the only way she could escape her husband.’

‘You never went back?’ asked Riedwaan.

‘Never. Neither did my husband. There was nothing left for him there. Or the others. They all got sent home to garden and become security guards in the new South Africa.’ She stood transfixed by the picture as if it were a cobra weaving in front of her. ‘He said it was better to leave things in the past, where they belonged. Walvis Bay was the place where all his dreams died. Fool’s gold is what he called the past.’ Mrs Hofmeyr tapped the photograph of her husband standing in a typical soldier’s pose, unfiltered cigarette in his hand. ‘A fool,’ she said. ‘They were all fools.’

‘Did your husband keep any kind of record of his time there?’ asked Riedwaan.

‘Never. He kept everything in his head. Habit from working with classified stuff. He was proud of the fact that he remembered everything even though he wrote nothing down.’

They stood looking at the fading photographs. Deep within the house, a clock chimed ten.

‘There’s nothing else,’ said Mrs Hofmeyr, ‘is there?’

‘He never fought back.’ Clare broke the silence of the journey. They had travelled from McGregor to the outskirts of Cape Town without saying a word.

‘Hofmeyr?’ Riedwaan’s thoughts had been elsewhere.

‘There were no injuries. No defensive injuries. You think he wanted to die? Just gave up?’

‘It’s possible he felt certain he was going to die and decided just to go with it, without the ritual of begging and pleading and trying to run away,’ Riedwaan suggested. ‘Or he knew his killer and he’d reached the end of a road that only the two of them
knew about. The war in Namibia was a dirty one, and most of the dirt was brushed under the carpet.’

‘That’s not much help, is it?’ Clare played with the new puzzle pieces Mrs Hofmeyr had given her. ‘I guess we should talk to Darlene Ruyters again. Find out about her ex-husband.’ There were links, but no perfect fits. ‘She’s not very forthcoming, though. If she knows something, I doubt she’ll talk.’

‘Let’s go and talk to the investigating officer, if he’s sober enough.’

‘You know him?’

‘Eberard Februarie. Old connection,’ said Riedwaan, taking the Stellenbosch turn-off. ‘I probably owe him a drink anyway.’

The Stellenbosch police station was quiet when Clare and Riedwaan arrived. Clare waited in the car while Riedwaan went inside to extricate the officer who had worked on the Hofmeyr case.

‘Where’s Captain Februarie?’ he asked a bored-looking constable in the tea room. Talking to Eberard Februarie always cheered him up. No one had hit rock bottom at quite the same speed as the former narcotics unit captain.

‘Out.’ The woman ate another biscuit.

‘Out where, Constable?’ said Riedwaan, patiently.

‘Are you a cop?’ She looked him up and down.

‘I suppose you think I dress this badly for fun?’ said Riedwaan. The constable looked at him blankly. ‘Of course I’m a cop. Captain Faizal.’

‘Captain Februarie’s investigating a case.’

‘Which case?’

‘He didn’t write it on the board.’ It was true. Everybody else had a neatly printed note next to their names on the whiteboard. Everybody except Februarie, that is.

‘Can I have his cell number?’

‘Sure.’ The constable flipped through a grimy file. It was the wrong file. She found the right file. Found the right page. Found the number. Found a pencil. Found a piece of paper. Wrote it down. When she looked up to give it to Riedwaan, he was gone. She shrugged and went back to her tea.

Riedwaan and Clare were already three blocks away. The
chances of Februarie not being at the Royal Hotel on a Saturday morning were minimal. Riedwaan pushed open the saloon doors, letting Clare precede him. It was dim inside the bar. The smell of last night’s drinking hung on the air. There was only one cigarette going: Februarie’s. He was sitting in the corner, a Castle lager in front of him.

Riedwaan sat down on the stool next to him. ‘Breakfast?’ he asked.

‘Faizal, you fucker. What are you doing here?’

‘Come to see you. You’re looking good.’ It was not quite true. But Riedwaan had seen him look much worse at this time of day.

‘I’m cutting back, man. This is my first.’

‘Why don’t you just stop?’ asked Riedwaan.

‘Not good to rush things,’ said Februarie. ‘You can shock your system. That’s not healthy.’

‘This is Clare Hart,’ said Riedwaan, his hand on Clare’s elbow.

‘Hello,’ said Clare.

Februarie looked her over, taking in her slim figure, the determined set to her jaw. ‘The head-case doctor. I’ve heard about you,’ he grunted. ‘I didn’t know they only let you out under guard these days, Faizal.’

‘As charming as ever,’ Riedwaan retorted. He ordered a Coke for himself and a soda for Clare and waited for the barman to leave. ‘The constable said you were working on a case.’

‘Of course I’m working on a case. I’m always working on a case. Someone’s bicycle will be stolen any minute, then I’ll have another case. You?’

‘No, I’m working too.’

‘You’re lucky they left you in town, man. This exile story is terrible. It’ll kill you quicker than cigarettes.’

Riedwaan took the hint and offered him one. Februarie took two.

‘You want something, Faizal? Or is this just a social call?’

‘We wanted to ask you about a case.’

‘So, ask.’ Februarie inhaled deeply, then coughed.

‘You sound like you’re going to die, Februarie.’

‘I told you, it’s being out here in the countryside. It’s unhealthy.’

‘Tell us about that shooting in McGregor,’ said Clare.

‘The army major? Hofmeyr?’ Februarie asked. He shifted his eyes from Riedwaan to Clare. Sharp. Calculating. In spite of the drink. ‘Why you asking?’

‘I’m on a case in Namibia. Looks like a serial killer,’ said Clare. ‘But the bullet found in the head of one of the boys threw up a match with Hofmeyr.’

‘Shorty de Lange tell you that?’ Februarie guessed.

‘He did,’ said Riedwaan.

‘All I know is they pulled that case from me quicker than a virgin crosses her legs.’ Februarie drained his glass.

‘You think it was a gang hit?’ Clare asked.

‘Nah,’ said Februarie. ‘Andrew,’ he called the barman over. ‘Pour me another beer; you’re not pretty enough to be useful just standing around.’ He turned to Riedwaan again. ‘I thought it was something else. They tortured him first. It looked professional to me, not the usual mess a tik-head leaves. Whoever did it wanted something specific.’

‘Have you got any idea what?’ asked Riedwaan.

Februarie shrugged. ‘He was in the army. Old regime. Special ops. He probably knew stuff. They all did, those fuckers. The list of people who want them dead is longer than the list that wants them alive.’

‘What did he know?’

‘I’m speculating. The case was pulled, I told you. Some desk jockey said they were shifting it higher. Giving it priority.’

‘What happened?’

‘Don’t fuck with me, Faizal. You know what happens when that happens. The case dies.’

Februarie drank his beer. Riedwaan drank his Coke. Clare watched them.

‘There was one thing,’ Februarie said at last.

‘I thought there might be,’ said Riedwaan. ‘You follow it up?’

‘Of course I did.’ Februarie was affronted. ‘That’s when the case was kicked upstairs and I got stolen-bicycle duty.’

‘Sorry.’ Riedwaan put down enough money to cover the drinks. ‘What was it?’

‘They were army,’ Februarie continued. ‘The killers.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Clare.