Devil's Peak (18 page)

* * *

When she had calmed down she went to fetch Sonia. When she crossed the street holding her daughter’s hand, she saw the BMW on the other side, back window rolled down. He sat there watching, but not her. His eyes were on the girl and there was a strange expression on his face. It felt as if someone had their fist around her heart and were squeezing her to death.
The BMW pulled up alongside her when she was helping Sonia into her car.
“Now I know everything, conchita.” He looked at Sonia, looked at her child. If she had had a gun at that moment, she would have shot him in the face.

PART TWO
Benny

23.

G
riessel was never uncomfortable with the bosses, mainly because he could drink them under the table singly or as a group. Or outwork them. He maintained a higher case solution rate than any one of them had in their days as detectives, alcoholic or not. But tonight he was not at ease. They stood in the little sitting room outside the Intensive Care Unit of City Park Hospital, although there were chairs available: Senior Superintendents Esau Mtimkulu and Matt Joubert, first and second in command of SVC, Commissioner John Afrika, the provincial head of detection, and Griessel. Cupido and Keyter sat just out of hearing. Their ears were pricked but they could not hear anything. When a member lay in Intensive Care, the big guns spoke in muffled tones.
“Give me that Woolworths man’s number, Matt,” said Commissioner Afrika, a colored veteran who had come up through the ranks in Khayelitsha, the Flats and the old Murder and Robbery Units. “I hear they are running to the minister, but to hell with them. I’ll deal with him. That is the least of our problems . . .” Here it comes, thought Griessel. He should never have hit the bastard, he knew that; never in his life had he carried on like that before. If they were to throw out the case because he had lost control, if a fucking serial murderer were to walk because Benny Griessel was angry at the entire world . . .
“Benny,” said Commissioner Afrika, “you say it was the tackle that caused his face to be injured like that?”
“Yes, Commissioner.” He looked into the man’s eyes and they knew, all four of them in the circle, what was happening now. “There was this shop mannequin standing just in the wrong place. Reyneke’s face hit the face of the mannequin. That’s where the cuts came from.”
“He must have hit it fucking hard,” said Superintendent Mtimkulu.
“When I tackled him, I held his arms down because he had a firearm. So he couldn’t shield his face with his hands. That’s why he hit it so hard.”
“And then he confessed?”
“He lay there bleeding, and then he cried, ‘I can’t help it, I can’t help it,’ but with Cliffy wounded my attention was . . . er . . . divided. Only later under interrogation did I ask him what he meant. What it is that he can’t help.”
“And what did he say then?”
“At first he didn’t want to say anything. So . . . I asked Cupido and Keyter to leave, so that I could talk to him alone.”
“And then he confessed?”
“He confessed, Commissioner.”
“Will it stand up in court?”
“The whole sequence in the interrogation room is on video, Commissioner. I just asked to be alone with the suspect and, once they had left, I just looked at him. For a long time. Then I said: ‘I know you can’t help it. I understand.’ And then he began to talk.”
“Full confession.”
“Yes, Sup. All three of the women. Details that were not in the newspapers. We’ve got him, whoever he gets as his lawyer. And there’s a previous conviction. Rape. Four years ago in Montagu.”
“And the only witness of the mannequin incident is Cliffy Mketsu?”
“That’s right, Matt.”
All four looked across at the double doors that led to the ICU.
“Okay,” said the head of Investigation. “Good work, Benny. Really good work . . .”
The double doors opened. A doctor approached them; such a young man that he looked as if he should still be at university. There were bloodstains on his green theater overalls.
“He will be alright,” said the doctor.
“Are you sure?” asked Griessel.
The doctor nodded. “He was very, very lucky. The bullet missed nearly everything, but badly damaged the S4 area of his left lung. That is the tip of the upper lobe, anterior segment. There is a possibility that we will have to remove it, just a small piece, but we will decide once he has stabilized.”
We,
thought Griessel. Why did they always talk about
us,
as if they belonged to some secret organization?
“That’s good news,” said the commissioner without conviction.
“Oh, and we have a message for a Benny.”
“That’s me.”
“He says the guy fell badly against the cash register.”
All four stared at the doctor with great interest. “The cash register?” asked Griessel.
“Yes.”
“Do me a favor, Doc. Tell him it was the mannequin.”
“The mannequin.”
“Yes. Tell him the man fell against the mannequin and the mannequin fell on the cash register.”
“I will tell him.”
“Thanks, Doc,” said Griessel, and turned to the commissioner, who nodded and turned away.

* * *

He bought a Zinger burger and a can of Fanta Orange at KFC and took them home. He sat on his “sitting-room” floor eating without pleasure. It was the fatigue, the after-effects of adrenaline. Also, the things waiting in the back of his mind that he did not want to think about. So he concentrated on the food. The Zinger didn’t satisfy his hunger. He should have ordered chips, but he didn’t like KFC’s chips. The children ate them with gusto. The children even ate McDonald’s thin cardboard chips with pleasure, but he could not. Steers’s chips, yes. Steers’s big fat barbecue-seasoned chips. Steers’s burgers were also better than anything else. Decent food. But he didn’t know where the nearest Steers was and he wasn’t sure if they would still be open at this time. The Zinger was finished and he had sauce on his fingers.
He wanted to toss the plastic bag and empty carton container in the bin, but remembered he didn’t have a bin. He sighed. He would have to shower—he still had some of Reyneke’s and Cliffy’s blood on him.
You have six months, Benny—that is what we are giving you. Six months to choose between us and the booze.
Would you buy furniture for just six months? He couldn’t eat on the floor for six fucking months. Or come home to such a barren place. Surely he was entitled to a chair or two. A small television. But first, get out of these clothes and shower and then he could sit on his bed and make a list for tomorrow. Saturday. He was off this weekend.
Terrifying. Two whole days. Open. Perhaps he ought to go to the office and get his paperwork up to date.
He washed his hands under the kitchen tap, put the carton and the can and the used paper serviette into the red and white plastic packet and put it in a corner of the kitchen. He climbed the stairs while unbuttoning his shirt. Thank God they didn’t have to wear jacket and tie anymore. When he started with Murder and Robbery it was suits.
Where was Anna tonight?
The plastic shower curtain was torn in one corner and the water leaked onto the floor. It had a faded pattern of fish. He would have to get a bathmat as well. A new shower curtain too. He washed his hair and soaped his body. Rinsed off in the lovely hot, strong stream of water.
When he turned off the taps he heard his cell phone ringing. He grabbed the towel, rubbed it quickly over his head, took three strides to the bed and snatched it up.
“Griessel.”
“Are you sober, Benny?”
Anna.
“Yes.” He wanted to protest at her question, wanted to be angry, but he knew he had no right.
“Do you want to see the children?”
“Yes, I would very—”
“You can collect them on Sunday. For the day.”
“Okay, thank you. What about you? Can I also—”
“Let’s just keep to the children, for now. Ten o’clock? Ten to six?”
“That’s fine.”
“Goodbye, Benny.”
“Anna!”
She did not speak, but did not cut him off.
“Where were you this evening?”
“Where were you, Benny?”
“I was working. I caught a serial murderer. Cliffy Mketsu was shot in the lung. That’s where I was.” He had the moral high ground, a little heap, a molehill, but better than nothing. “Where were you?”
“Out.”
“Out?”
“Benny, I sat at home for five years while you were drunk or out and about. Either drunk or not at home. Don’t you think I deserve a Friday night out? Don’t you think I deserve to watch a movie, for the first time in five years?”
“Yes,” he said, “you deserve that.”
“Goodbye, Benny.”
Did you watch the movie alone? That’s what he wanted to ask, but the moral contours had shifted too quickly and he heard the connection go dead in his ear. He threw the towel to the floor and took a black pair of trousers from the cupboard to put on. He fetched pen and paper from his briefcase and sat down on the bed. He stared at the towel on the floor. Tomorrow morning it would still be lying there and it would be damp and smelly. He got up and hung the towel over the rail in the bathroom, went back to the bed and arranged the pillow so he could lean against it. He began his list.
Laundry.
There was a laundromat at the Gardens Center. First thing tomorrow.
Rubbish bin.
Iron.
Ironing board.
Fridge?
Could he manage without a fridge? What would he keep in it? Not milk—he drank his coffee black. On Sunday the children would be here and Carla loved her coffee; always had a mug in her hand when she did her homework. Would she be content with powdered milk? The fridge might be necessary, he would see.
Fridge?
Shower curtain.
Bath mat.
Chairs/sofa.
For the sitting room.
Bar stools.
For the breakfast nook.
How the hell was he going to support two households on a police salary? Had Anna thought of that? But he could already hear her answer: “You could support a drinking habit on a police salary, Benny. There was always money for drink.”
He would have to buy another coffee mug for the children’s visit. More plates and knives, forks and spoons. Cleaning stuff for dishes, dusty surfaces, the bathroom and the toilet.
He made fresh columns on the page, noted all the items, but he could not keep the other things in his head at bay.
Today he had made a discovery. He would have to tell Barkhuizen. This thing about being scared of death was not entirely true. Today, when he charged at Reyneke on the top level of Woolworths with the pistol pointed at him and the shot going off, the bullet that had hit Cliffy Mketsu because Reyneke could not shoot for toffee . . .
That is when he had discovered he was not afraid of dying. That is when he knew he wanted to die.

* * *

He woke early, just before five. His thoughts went to Anna. Did she go to the movies alone? But he didn’t want to play with those thoughts. Not this early, not today. He got up and dressed in trousers, shirt and trainers only, and went out without washing.
He chose a direction; three hundred meters up the street he saw the morning, felt the languor of the early summer, heard the birds and the unbelievable silence over the city. Colors and textures and light of crystal.
Table Mountain leaned towards him, the crest something between orange and gold, fissures and clefts were pitch-black shadows against the angle of the rising sun.
He went up Upper Orange Street, turned into the park and sat on the high wall of the reservoir to look out. To the left Lion’s Head became the curves of Signal Hill, and below a thousand city windows were a mosaic of the sun. The sea was deep blue beyond Robben Island, far off to Melkbos Strand. Left of Devil’s Peak lay the suburbs. A 747 came in over the Tyger Berg and its shadow flashed over him in an instant.
Fuck, he thought, when had he last seen this?
How could he have missed it?
On the other hand, he pulled a face; if you are sleeping off your hangover in the morning, you won’t see sunrise over the Cape. He must remember this, the unexpected advantage of teetotalism.
A wagtail came and perched near him, tail going up and down, dapper steps like a self-important station sergeant. “What?” he said to the bird. “Your wife left you too?” He received no reply. He sat until the bird flew up after some invisible insect, and then he rose and looked up at the mountain again and it gave him a strange pleasure. Only he was seeing it this morning, nobody else.
He walked back to the flat, showered and changed and drove to the hospital. Cliffy was resting, they told him. He was stable, in no danger. He asked them to tell him Benny had been there.
It was just before seven. He drove north with the N1, on a freeway still quiet—the Cape only got going by about ten o’clock on a Saturday. Down Brackenfell Boulevard and the familiar turnoffs to his house. He drove past the house only once, slowly. No sign of life. The lawn was cut, the postbox emptied, the garage door closed. A policeman’s inventory. He accelerated away because he did not want his thoughts to penetrate the front door.
He drank only coffee at a Wimpy in Panorama, because he had never been one for breakfast, and waited until the shops opened.
He found a two-seater couch and two armchairs at Mohammed “Love Lips” Faizal’s pawnshop in Maitland. The floral cover was slightly bleached. There were faint coffee stains on the arm of one chair. “This is too much, L.L.,” he said over the R600 price tag.
“For you, Sarge, five-fifty.”
Faizal had been in Pollsmoor for eighteen months for trafficking in stolen goods and he was reasonably certain three-quarters of the car radios had been brought in by the drug addicts of Observatory.
“Four hundred, L.L. Look at these stains.”
“One steam clean and it’s good as new, Sarge. Five hundred and I don’t make a cent.”
Faizal knew he was no longer a sergeant, but some things will never change. “Four-fifty.”
“Jissis, Sarge, I have a wife and kids.”
By chance he saw the bass guitar, just the head protruding from behind a steel cabinet of brand new tools.
“And that bass?”
“You into music, Sarge?”
“I have tickled the neck of a bass in my day.”
“Well bless my soul. It’s a Fender, Sarge, pawned by a wannabe rapper from Blackheath, but his ticket expires only next Friday. Comes with a new Dr. Bass times two-ten-b cabinet with a three-u built-in rack, two-two-fifty watt Eminence tens, and a LeSon tweeter.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“It’s a bloody big amp, Sarge. It’ll blow you away.”
“How much?”
“Are you serious, Sarge?”
“Maybe.”
“It’s a genuine pawn, Sarge. Clean.”
“I believe you, L.L. Relax.”
“Do you want to start a band now?” The suspicion was still there.
Griessel grinned. “And call it Violent Crimes?”
“So what then?”
“How much are you asking for the guitar and amp, L.L.?”
“Two thousand, for sure. If the wannabe doesn’t return the ticket.”
“Oh.” It was too much for him. He had no idea what these things cost. “Four-fifty for the sitting-room suite?”
Faizal sighed. “Four seventy-five and I’ll throw in free delivery and a six-piece coaster set with tasteful nudes depicted thereupon.”