Death By Carbs (7 page)

THE WIDOW

 

 

Wednesday 12:54pm

 

 

Maureen's newest persona, Dolly, had surpassed all of her wildest dreams. In just twenty minutes, she'd received the most enthusiastic encouragement and had even inadvertently started a bit of an argument, thanks to that odd Be-Slim woman, who had either landed on the wrong page by accident, or had some kind of death wish.

Maureen was particularly thrilled with Dolly's success in light of the timing. She'd ummed and ahhed over whether to create a new persona at a time when all anyone on the Banting for Life page could talk about was the poor Prof's murder, but Maureen had ultimately decided to give it a bash and see how it turned out. She thought (and she was right) that it would provide people with a welcome distraction from their grief. People needed the release; they needed her.

The club members always liked the beginners. Maybe it was because each new individual who joined their ranks gave their cause legitimacy. And provided added proof that they'd made the right decision changing their lifestyles so drastically. As more fans joined, it made them feel less foolish about following what might just be a fad so religiously. The cultish nature of the group hadn't entirely bypassed Maureen.

Dolly would have some real challenges to face, Maureen thought, as she scribbled some notes. Perhaps Dolly should ask the members some questions about various foods, learning which lists they were on, and
she could throw in a hot topic, drop in the name of a contentious
product like aspartame or xylitol.

Maybe Dolly should also share some medical ailments, high blood pressure or aching joints, the club members loved to weigh in on that kind of thing. Maureen smiled at her own pun. But regardless of the ultimate outcome of Dolly's journey, Maureen and her Marvellous Tim Noakes ENDORSED Meal Plans would be right there by her side.

Maureen had a purpose for the first time in years. She wasn't just an aimless, bored, lonely housewife, an empty nester, or a widow anymore; now, for the first time in years, she was a woman of action, a businesswoman even.

 

THE HIJACKERS

 

 

Wednesday 1:03pm

 

 

‘So, where are we going now?' Thabo asked, steering their new old
car through the streets of Khayelitsha.

‘I need a beer,' Papsak said. ‘Let's go to Sista's shebeen.'

‘And what are we going to do with
him
while we're in a shebeen?' Thabo pointed at Uncle Mlungu, who was propped up in the back seat, his sunglassed head tilted against the window.

‘Can't he wait in the car?'

‘You don't think someone will notice a mlungu sleeping in the back seat of a skorokoro outside a shebeen in Khayelitsha, Papsak?'

‘It's not a skorokoro, it's a classic car.'

‘Plus Lefty said this guy is famous. I checked, and Lefty is right, he's a dieting guru. People everywhere know who he is. Every single day people lose hundreds of kilograms on this diet he came up with. You should try it, Papsak!' joked Thabo, prodding his comrade in the gut.

Papsak swatted Thabo's hand away, ‘How do you know all that stuff about him?'

‘I googled him on the internet,' Thabo said.

‘Ho
w?'

Thabo pulled the Samsung out of his pocket and held it up. His car seat was reclined as far back as it would go, and he was riding low, his elbow balanced on the open window, like he'd seen them do in R&B music videos.

‘Where did you get that phone?' Papsak asked.

‘It was in Uncle's pocket,' Thabo said. ‘Remember, you were smoking, you didn't want to check his pockets, so I did it and this is what I
found. Your loss! You see, smoking is bad for you!'

‘Hey, if you found it on Uncle, then it's half mine,' Papsak com-
plained.

‘What do you want me to do, cut it in half?' Thabo shouted.

‘No, but you must share it fifty-fifty with me.'

‘How are we going to do that?' Thabo asked.

‘I use it half the day, you use it the other half of the day,' Papsak
said.

‘We've got bigger problems right now than how to cut a phone in half. You heard Lefty, anyone can recognise Uncle Mlungu, and the cops will be looking everywhere for him. We need to get rid of him
fast.'

‘I don't know what to do! If you're so clever, why don't you google it on your new cell phone?' sulked Papsak, pointedly looking out the window.

The phone started to ring and both men leaned over to look at it.

‘Who is it?' Papsak asked.

‘How should I know? It's the same number that was ringing earlier,' Thabo shrugged.

‘What are you going to do?'

‘Just ignore it.'

After a few moments, the phone stopped ringing, and then came
the bleep of a new message. Neither man took any notice. They drove for a few minutes in silence, then Thabo asked: ‘Okay, so where are we going to dump Uncle?'

 

THE CO-AUTHORS

 

 

Wednesday 1:12pm

 

 

‘I'm glad you could come,' said Shaun as he closed the door. ‘How are you holding up?'

‘I think I'm in shock, I still can't believe it,' Marco said. ‘It was all over the radio on the way here.'

Marco walked through to Shaun's lounge, where Xolisa was sitting bolt upright in an armchair, a blanket wrapped around her. Marco bent and gave her a quick, awkward hug and a kiss on the top of her head.

Sounds of sobbing came from a laptop on the coffee table. ‘Hi Shireen, how are you holding up, cara?' Marco asked, waving at the woman in the Skype window.

Shireen had chestnut hair billowing around her face. She held clumps of tissues in her fingers, the nails painted the brightest red possible. At the sight of Marco, she buried her head in the tissues and howled even louder.

‘I just ca . . . ca . . . can't be . . . believe we'll ne . . . never see him again,' she hiccupped. It all feels . . . so . . . so final!'

‘Breathe love, breathe,' Marco said.

He took in the deep bags under Xolisa's eyes. Her face seemed even tenser than usual. He squeezed her shoulder gently, unsure how else to comfort her. They weren't usually a touchy-feely group. Shireen continued sobbing in the background, pulling tissue after tissue out of a box, like a magician with a never-ending handkerchief.

‘The press are already going batshit crazy, and this is only the beginning. My husband had to unplug our home phone. How's your phone?' Xolisa asked Marco.

‘Non-stop, I had to turn my cell off, and we had to take our home line off the hook too, all the calls were driving Chris nuts. I don't even know where they got our number from, it's not like it's listed. They've even been calling the restaurant. Soon they'll be camping out outside our homes.'

‘Can I get you guys a cup of coffee?' Shaun offered.

‘How about something a little stronger?' Xolisa said.

‘Jesus, Xolisa, it's the middle of the day,' Shaun objected.

‘Actually, I could also do with a drink,' Marco said. ‘Any more info?' He nodded towards the massive flat-screen TV mounted on the wall, the sound muted. The image on the screen was of a journalist speaking earnestly into a microphone as she stood on the pavement across the road from Noakes's house, which was under police guard and heavily cordoned off with tape.

There was a fresh barrage of wailing from Shireen. Shaun reached for the remote and unmuted the sound, and the journalist's voice spiked through the kind of surround sound only bachelors with no kids have.

‘. . . Noakes's domestic worker pressed the panic button at ten to three this morning after she discovered the body in the kitchen. Gloria Ngeju was returning to her employer's home after a trip to the Eastern Cape for an aunt's funeral. In a bizarre twist, police have been unable to
locate the whereabouts of the body, after the ambulance transporting the body to the mortuary was hijacked in Salt River. At this time it's uncertain whether the murder and the hijacking are related. In a media briefing with the police earlier today, Detective September, the lead detective in the case, made a brief statement to the press. . .'

The camera cut to footage of a policeman with a moustache and a boep, speaking into a microphone at a press briefing: ‘Until we are able to recover the body and perform an autopsy, the cause of death remains unknown. We are doing everything we can to track down the
hijackers and other persons of interest.' The detective added, ‘We are also trying urgently to reach Mrs Noakes, who appears to have gone missing.'

The camera cut jerkily back to the journalist outside the Noakes's home. ‘Police request that anyone with any information that might lead to the recovery of the body or capture of the hijackers please step forward to assist them in this matter. Likewise, if anyone has information on Mrs Noakes's whereabouts. . .'

‘Nothing new,' Shaun said, muting the television, so that Shireen's sobs were audible once again. Now she was wailing about Noakes's wife. ‘I ca . . . can't stand it if so . . . something's happened to her too, she's s . . . s . . . so amazing!'

‘Shireen, enough already,' snapped Shaun, ‘I can barely hear myself think.'

‘Don't shout at Shireen,' Marco shot back. ‘It's okay, cara, you cry as much as you need to.'

Shireen amped up her sobbing a few notches.

‘She's doing my head in!' Shaun leaned over and turned down the sound on the computer. Then he took three glasses and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label from the glass-fronted liquor cabinet. ‘I've been checking the internet, but nobody is saying anything new, just the same story repeating over and over, peppered with interviews
with friends, neighbours and people who knew him, and a whole bunch of crime experts offering random theories. My guess is there will be more of the same until some new information swoops in to take its place.'

Xolisa sighed loudly.

‘This is nuts,' Marco said, ‘I spoke to him just the other night.'

‘When?' Shaun asked, whipping his head around to look at Marco.

‘How did he seem?' Xolisa's voice was tense.

‘I don't know, I'd just come home from the gym. We spoke on the phone. He seemed . . . well, to be honest, he seemed normal. He was heading off to some event, I can't remember which one. I wish I'd paid more attention. He was the keynote speaker.'

‘Of course he was,' sniped Xolisa, and Marco intercepted Shaun shooting a glare at her.

‘I can't believe he's gone,' Marco said again.

‘Well we'd all better get out of denial fast, because this
has
happened, and a lot of people are going to be asking us questions, so we should probably get our stories straight,' Shaun said.

‘What do you mean, we should get our stories straight?' Marco
asked. ‘You keep saying that.'

He caught another loaded glance between Xolisa and Shaun as she took her drink from him, their hands brushing. He tried to make sense of it as Shaun handed him his own whisky.

‘Usually when someone's murdered, that person's spouse or lover is always the first suspect, and we're as much in bed with the guy as any-
one else,' Shaun said.

‘Oh God, what if it was his wife?' bawled Shireen. Everyone ignored her.

‘Shaun's right,' Xolisa said, ‘we do need to get our stories straight, and prepare for the worst.'

‘Each of us is going to have to be able to account for our whereabouts last night,' Shaun added. ‘Well, probably not you, Shireen, since you're in Joburg.'

‘It's the suddenness of the whole thing,' Shireen sobbed, pulling five more tissues out of the box and clasping them to her face.

‘Hang on, we don't even know for sure that it's murder yet, do we?' Marco said. ‘You heard the detective, they haven't confirmed cause of death. It seems like you're all jumping to massive conclusions here. What if he died of natural causes? It could have been a heart attack, or a stroke maybe, he's not that young anymore.'

‘For God's sake, I saw pictures of a bloodied face on Twitter!'
Shaun snarled.

‘So what? That's not conclusive proof that he was murdered, or that it wasn't a home invasion gone wrong. Unless you know something you're not telling us?' Marco prodded.

‘Wait, what are you getting at?' Shaun asked.

‘Just that you seem very convinced that he was murdered, Shaun. What do you know that we don't?'

‘Let me get this straight. Now you're accusing me of murdering the Prof?' Shaun snorted.

‘Like you said, it wouldn't hurt if we all had our stories straight. So where were
you
last night?' Marco asked.

‘I could ask you the same thing,' Shaun said.

‘I've got nothing to hide. After the restaurant closed, I was at home with Chris all night,' Marco snapped. ‘But you haven't answered my question. Where were you? What are you not telling us, Shaun?'

‘If you must know, Marco, we were together,' Shaun pointed at Xolisa, whose head was bowed.

‘What do you mean, you were together?' said Marco, surprised. Even Shireen stopped howling and looked up from her tissues.

‘It just so happens that we went to Tasha's at the Waterfront to
get a bite to eat.'

‘Alone?' Marco asked, glancing between the two of them. ‘Wait,
since when do you two go out for dinner together alone?'

‘And after dinner we came back here, and neither of us left the
house again until seven thirty this morning.' Shaun sounded almost proud.

‘You two . . . since when? Xoliswa, what about your husband? I . . . I. . .' Marco gaped and pointed, moving his finger between them, unable to find the words he needed to finish the sentence. ‘Hang on a minute.
Ha! I see what's going on here. . .' he trailed off.

‘What's that suppo
sed to mean?' Shaun asked.

‘This is all very convenient. On the very night something happens to the Prof, you two are suddenly an item, out of nowhere, providing each other with the perfect alibi.'

‘I don't like what you're insinuating.' Shaun stepped towards Marco, shoving him in the shoulder hard enough to propel the chef backwards.

‘Guys, guys, stop it,' Xolisa said, her voice shaking.

‘And I don't like what
you're
insinuating,' Marco said, pushing back at Shaun.

After that it was hard to tell who pushed who, or who had who by the collar: it all devolved quite quickly. Xolisa tried to pull the two men off each other as Shireen shrieked, and in the confusion of arms and fists and shouts, someone's elbow smashed into Xolisa's chin, and she went barrelling backwards and smashed down onto the glass coffee table, sending the laptop flying. The two men let go of each other and raced over to her. Xolisa took Shaun's hand and let him help her to her feet amid the broken shards of glass.

‘I think you'd better go,' Shaun spat at Marco.

‘I'm so sorry! Are you okay, Xolisa? God, there's glass everywhere! Yo
u're not bleeding or hurt?' Marco asked.

‘I'm fine,' Xolisa said. ‘He's right, you should probably go,' she added quietly.

‘What's going on? Guys? I can't see anything! What happened? Someone turn me round!' Shireen was still shrieking from the laptop, which had spun away from them and was facing a wall.

Marco dropped his head and made for the door. He caught a glimpse of himself in Shaun's hallway mirror. His shirt was torn and he was going to have a massive shiner in the morning, but those were the least of his problems.