Devil's Peak (24 page)

* * *

By eleven the assegai task team were still waiting for computers and extra telephone lines, but Griessel couldn’t wait any longer. He called the team together and began to allocate work. The most senior officer of the Domestic Violence Unit was a colored woman, Captain Helena Louw. He made her group leader of research into previous cases where minors were the victims. He gave Bezuidenhout five uniformed men to help with the reinvestigation of the first two assegai victims. He took Cupido aside and spoke to him seriously and at length about his responsibility to investigate the assegai background. “Even if you have to fly to Durban, Vaughn, but I want to know where it comes from. Make yourself the greatest expert on assegais in the history of mankind. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“Well then. Get going.” Then he raised his voice so that everyone could hear him. “I will move between teams and check out a lot of the stuff myself. My cell phone number is up on the board. Anything, day or night. Call me.”
He walked out, down the stairs. He heard steps behind him, knew who it was.
Keyter stopped him just outside the main entrance.
“Benny . . .”
Griessel stood.
“What about me, Benny?”
“What about you, Jamie?”
“I haven’t got a group.”
“How do you mean?”
“You haven’t given me anything to do.”
“But that’s not necessary. You already are the unofficial media liaison officer, Jaaa-mie.”
“Uh . . . I don’t get it.”
“You know what I mean, you little shit. You talked to the papers behind my back. That means I can’t trust you, Jaaa-mie. If you have a problem with me, talk to the sup. Tell him why I haven’t given you anything to do.”
“It’s this chick at the
Burger,
Benny. I’ve known her since the car syndicate case. She phones me non-stop, Benny. The whole day. You don’t know what it’s like . . .”
“Don’t tell me I don’t know what it’s like. How long have I been a policeman?”
“No, what I mean . . .”
“I don’t give a fuck what you mean, Jaaa-mie. You only drop me once.” He turned on his heel and strode to his car. He thought about self-control. He could not afford to hit a colleague.

* * *

He drove through Durbanville and out along the Fisantekraal road. He could never understand why this piece of the Cape was so ugly and without vineyards. Rooikrans bushes and Port Jackson trees and advertising hoardings for new housing developments. How the hell would the Cape handle all the new people? The road system was already overloaded—nowadays it was rush hour from morning till night.
He turned right on the R312, crossed the railway bridge and stopped on the gravel road that turned off to the left. There was a small hand-painted sign that read
High Grove Riding School. 4 km.
Assegai man would have seen it in the dark and begun to look for a place to leave his car. How far was he prepared to walk?
He drove slowly, trying to imagine what a person would see in the night. Not much. There were no lights nearby. Plenty of cover, the rooikrans grew in dense, ugly thickets. He stopped awhile, took out his cell phone and rang Keyter.
“Detective Sergeant Jamie Keyter, Serious and Violent Crimes Unit.”
“What’s with all that, Jamie?”
“Er . . . hello, Benny,” in a cautious tone. “It’s just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“Oh . . . um . . . you know . . .”
He didn’t, but he left it at that. “Do you want to help, Jamie?”
“I do, Benny.” Keen.
“Phone the weather office at the airport. I want to know what the phase of the moon was on Friday night. Whether it was overcast or not. That night, specifically, let’s say between twelve and four.”
“The phase of the moon?”
“Yes, Jamie. Full moon, half moon, understand?”
“Okay, okay, I get it, Benny. I’ll call you just now.”
“Thanks, Jamie.”
Roads turned off to other smallholdings with ridiculous names.
Eagle’s Nest.
But an eagle wouldn’t be seen dead here.
Sussex Heights
but it was flat.
Schoongesicht.
More like a dirty view.
The Lucky Horseshoe Ranch.
And then
High Grove Riding School.
If it were him, he would have driven past the turnoff. Gone quite a bit further on, perhaps, to check out the area. Then turned around.
He did exactly that. Nearly a kilometer beyond High Grove the road ended at a gate. He stopped twenty meters in front of the gate and got out. The southeaster blew his hair up in the air. There was an old gravel pit beyond the gate, desolate, obviously long out of use. The gate was locked.
If it were him, he would have parked here. You wouldn’t want to turn into the High Grove driveway. Not if you had never been there before. You wouldn’t know what to expect, or who would see you.
His phone rang.
“Griessel.”
“It’s Jamie, Benny. The guy at the weather office said it was half moon, Benny, and zero per cent cloudy.”
“Zero per cent.”
“That’s right.”
“Thank you, Jamie.”
“Is there anything else I can do, Benny?” Sucking up.
“Just stand by, Jamie. Just stand by.”
A clear night, light of a half moon. Enough to see by. Enough to keep your headlights switched off. He would have parked here. Somewhere around here, since this section of road would have no traffic, a dead end. The road up to the gate was too hard to show tracks. But he would have to have turned around if he came this far. Griessel began to walk down the boundary fence on the High Grove side of the road, searching for tracks on the sandy verge. Where would he have parked? Perhaps over there, where the rooikrans bushes leaned far over the fence. Bleached white grass tufts and sandy soil beside the fence.
Then he spotted the tracks, two vague rows of tire marks. And in one spot the unmistakable hollow where a tire had stood still for a while.
Got you, you bastard!
He walked with care, building the picture in his mind. Assegai man had driven to the gravel-pit gate and turned around. Then the car would be facing in the direction of the High Grove turnoff. He would see the rooikrans thicket in the moonlight even with his lights turned off. He left the road about here and pulled up close to the fence. Opened the door and put a foot on the ground. Griessel searched for the footprint.
Nothing. Too much grass.
He squatted on his haunches. Only one cigarette butt, that was all he needed. A little trace of saliva for DNA testing. But there was nothing to find, only a fat black insect that scurried through the faded grass.
Still squatting, he phoned Keyter.
“I have another job for you.”

30.

H
e knew it would be an hour or two before Forensics turned up. He wanted to determine assegai man’s route to the house. Had he climbed through the fence, here, without knowing where the homestead was? Possible, but unlikely. Along the road would be better. He could see headlights coming from far off and have enough time to duck into the shadows.
Griessel walked slowly along the road. The wind blew from diagonally in front. The sun shone on his back, his shoes crunched on the gravel. He scanned the ground for footprints. He became aware of a pleasurable feeling. Just him here. On the trail of the murderer. Alone. He never had been a team player. He had done his best detection work on his own.
Now he was a task team leader.
Joubert was hiding Benny’s alcoholism from the Area and Provincial Commissioners. Maybe he was lying about that because, despite the recent appointments of the top structures, the Force was like a small village. Everyone knew everything about everybody.
But why? Did Joubert feel sorry for Anna? Or was it loyalty to an old colleague who had come through the wars with him? The last two old soldiers, who had survived the antics of the old regime and affirmative action of the new era. Who had survived without becoming entangled in politics or monkey business.
No. It was because there was no one else. This morning he had sat and watched them. There were good people, enthusiastic young detectives, clever ones and hard workers and those with ambition, but they didn’t have the experience. They didn’t have twenty years of hard-grind policing behind them. Task team leader because he was a drunk-but-standing veteran.
But it was neither here nor there. He had better make it work, because it was all he had.
Last stand at the High Grove corral.
He walked as far as the smallholding’s driveway. No footprints. He turned up the drive, the wind now at his back. He knew the house was four hundred meters north. The question was, how long was it before the dogs had heard assegai man in the quiet of the night? He would have stopped, moved off the road and into hiding, at a place where he could overlook the yard.
The stables were ahead, on his left. A colored man was busy with a pitchfork. The man didn’t notice him. He kept on walking and could see the house now, two hundred meters further on. The place where Laurens had fallen.
The dogs began to bark.
He stopped. The workman looked up.
“Afternoon, sir,” said the man warily.
“Good afternoon.”
“Can I help you, sir?”
“I’m from the police,” he said.
“Oh.”
“I just want to look around.”
“Okay, sir.”
The garden began here, shrubs and bushes in old overgrown beds. He would have jumped in behind the shrubbery when the dogs started barking in the night. Then made his way through the plants till he was closer to the house. Plenty of camouflage. He followed the imaginary route searching for tracks. He estimated the distance and built a picture. You could survey the whole yard from behind the garden plants. You could watch a woman in her nightclothes, with a firearm in her hand. You could see the dogs that barked nervously in the darkness. Now you were close to the house, close to her. You ignore her shouts. “Who’s there?” Or perhaps a more threatening, “Come out or I’ll shoot!” You wait until her back is turned and then you rush out of the shadows. Grab the firearm. Raise the assegai. The dog bites at your trousers. You kick.
Something like that.
He looked for footprints in the flowerbed.
Nothing.
How likely was that? Or was the fucker cool and calm enough to wipe them out?
The laborer was still standing and watching.
“What is your name?”
“Willem, sir.”
He walked over to the man and put out his hand. “I’m Benny Griessel.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir.”
“Bad business this, Willem.”
“A very bad business, sir.”
“First the child and then Miss Laurens.”
“Ai, sir, what will happen to us?”
“What do you mean, Willem?”
“It was Miss Laurens’s place. Now it will be sold.”
“Maybe the new owners will be good people.”
“Maybe, sir.”
“Because I hear Laurens could be quite difficult.”
“Sir, she wasn’t so difficult. She was good to us.”
“Oh.”
“The people around here pay minimum wage, but Miss Laurens paid us a thousand clean and we didn’t have to pay for the house.”
“I believe she drank, Willem.”
“Hai, sir! That’s not true.”
“And had a terrible temper . . .”
“No, sir . . .”
“No?”
“She was just strict.”
“Never got angry?”
Willem shook his head and glanced at the house. Elise Bothma stood there in her dressing gown just outside the homestead door.

* * *

It was late afternoon by the time he got back to the SVC building. He found Matt Joubert in his office with a stack of files in front of him.
“Do you have ten minutes, boss?”
“As much time as you need.”
“We have a possible tire print of the assegai man’s car.”
“From the smallholding?”
“Just outside, along the fence. Forensics have made a plaster mold. They will let us know. If you could hurry things up, I would be glad.”
“I’ll give Ferreira a ring.”
“Matt, the Bothma child . . .”
“I hear you have a problem with it.”
“You hear?”
“Tim was here, just after lunch. Upset. He says you’re a racist.”
“Fuck.”
“Relax, Benny. I talked to him. What’s the problem?”
“It wasn’t Laurens, Sup.”
“Why do you say that?”
“When we questioned Bothma on Saturday . . . There was something—I knew she was lying about something. I thought at first it was about Laurens’s death. But then I got to thinking. Keyter questioned the laborers. This morning I went myself. And I don’t think it was Laurens.”
“You think it was Bothma?”
“Yes.”
“And Laurens took the blame to protect her? Hell, Benny . . .”
“I know. But it happens.”
“Do you have proof?”
“I know Bothma is the one with the temper.”
“That’s all?”
“Matt, I know it’s too thin for the courts . . .”
“Benny, Laurens made a statement. She admitted guilt. Her fingerprints are on the billiard cue. And she’s dead. We don’t have a snowball’s chance.”
“Give me an hour with Bothma . . .”
Joubert sat back in his chair and tapped a ballpoint pen on the folder in front of him. “No, Benny. It’s Tim’s case. The best I can do is ask him to look at it carefully again. You have the assegai case.”
“It’s the same thing. If Laurens was innocent, it means the vigilante punished the wrong one. It changes everything.”
“How so?”
Griessel waved his arm. “The whole fucking world out there is on his side—the guy who reinstated the death penalty. The noble knight who is doing the pathetic police force’s work. Even Bushy says we should leave him; let him get on with it . . . Say there is a witness somewhere. Someone who saw him. Or knows something. He could have a wife or a girlfriend, people who support him because they think he is doing the right thing.”
Joubert tapped his pen again. “I hear what you’re saying.”
“I hate that expression.”
“Benny, let me talk to Tim. That’s the best I can do. But they will kill us in court.”
“We don’t need the court. Not yet, in any case. All I want is for the media to know we suspect Bothma. And that Laurens might have been innocent.”
“I’ll talk to Tim.”
“Thanks, Matt.” He turned to go.
“Margaret and I want to ask you to dinner,” said Joubert before he reached the door.
He stopped. “Tonight?”
“Yes. Or tomorrow, if that suits you. She’ll be cooking anyway.”
He realized that he had only had a tearoom sandwich since that morning. “That would be . . .” But he envisioned himself at Joubert’s family table surrounded by Matt’s wife and children. He, alone. “I . . . I can’t, Matt.”
“I know things are crazy here.”
“It’s not that.” He sat down on the chair opposite the commanding officer. “It’s just . . . I miss my family.”
“I understand.”
He suddenly needed to talk about it. “The children . . . I had them yesterday.” He felt the emotion well up. He didn’t want that now. He raised a hand to his eyes and dropped his head. He didn’t want Joubert to see him like this.
“Benny . . .” He could hear the awkwardness.
“No, Matt, it’s just . . . shit, I fucked up so much.”
“I understand, Benny.” Joubert got to his feet and came around the desk.
“No, fuck. Jissis. I mean . . . I don’t know them, Matt.”
There was nothing Joubert could say, just put a hand on Griessel’s shoulder.
“It’s like I was away for fucking ten years. Jissis, Matt, and they are good children. Lovely.” He dragged a sleeve under his nose and sniffed. Joubert patted his shoulder rhythmically.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bloody cry.”
“It’s okay, Benny.”
“It’s the withdrawal. Fucking emotional.”
“I’m proud of you. It’s already, what, a week?”
“Nine days. That’s fuck-all. What’s that against ten years of damage?”
“It’s going to be okay, Benny.”
“No, Matt. I don’t know if it will ever be okay.”