The October Killings (11 page)

“Ficksburg.” It was said heavily, as if from a deep sense of exasperation. “You know fuck-all, my little friend. Ask your black lady. She knows all about Ficksburg. She was there.”

Abigail could feel Yudel looking at her. “Abigail?” His voice was a whisper.

“She's not telling you everything, my Jewish friend. I'm the one who is telling you what you want to know. I can give you the name of every man and what year he died and I can give you the name of the man who killed them.” He laughed his humorless chuckle again. “But then, so can she.”

13

Yudel drove quickly through Pretoria's late-afternoon streets, using side roads to avoid the commuter traffic. He was silent, pointedly avoiding even looking at Abigail. She looked at his face only once, saw the disapproval there and fell silent herself.

Only when they arrived at his home, where her car was still parked in the driveway, did he speak. “How do you expect me to help you, if you hide what you know from me?”

Abigail was expecting something of the sort and was waiting for it. “I only asked you to get me in to see van Jaarsveld. You've done that and I'm thankful. I'll be going now.”

“Where are you going from here?”

“That's my business.” She already had a hand on the door handle.

“What did happen in Maseru? Who were the very special people he says he killed? And what's Ficksburg got to do with anything? And he thinks you know who is committing these murders. Do you?”

Abigail looked briefly at Yudel's angry face. Every impulse within her was urging her to go and go now. The meeting with van Jaarsveld had been almost beyond her ability to endure. Now she wanted only to flee it all. It was past and should have remained buried, but Leon Lourens had brought her back to Maseru and to van Jaarsveld and even Ficksburg. And this unusual man, what was he? Abigail looked again into his eyes and she knew what he was. He was an ally.

But he had served his purpose. “Thank you, Yudel,” she said. She pushed open the door and was out before he could object further. With the driveway gate closed, she had to wait in her car until he got out and stood looking at her, a strange man in a rumpled suit with a wild fuzz of poorly trimmed hair. For a long moment she thought he was going to come closer to try again to speak to her, but eventually he took a remote-control switch from one of his jacket pockets and, with an almost imperceptible movement, pressed the button that opened the gate.

*   *   *

It took Abigail just a few minutes to reach her office in the late-afternoon traffic. It was half past five, and only the twenty-four-hour security officers on the ground floor were still in the building. The staff had already left in the usual late-afternoon stampede to get out of government offices. Abigail waved her security card at them and entered the elevator.

*   *   *

When she entered her suite of offices, she was met by the one employee of the department who was still in the building. Johanna leaped to her feet as Abigail came into the room. The expression on her face was close to panic. “Oh, I'm so glad you're here. Those other men, we traced them all. They all died on the same day.”

“I know,” Abigail said.

“How?”

“I spoke to their leader this afternoon.”

“Van Jaarsveld?”

“Yes.”

“Oh God, Abby. What's been happening? I'm so afraid.”

“So am I.”

“And they all got strangled.”

“I know. And I've got the list of the others who were there.”

“Shall I try to check them tomorrow?”

Abigail considered the suggestion for only a moment. “No. I don't think so. I think we already know the answer.”

Johanna was looking down. “Your hands are shaking,” she said.

“No, they're not.” The response had been automatic, but now she also looked at her hands. “It doesn't matter,” she said.

“Mine too,” Johanna said.

“You go home now. Nobody's trying to kill you. Go home.”

“And you? Do they want to kill you?”

“No, of course not. Go home now.”

“Can I?”

“Take a sleeping pill tonight.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes, do it. Go home now.” As Johanna turned to leave, Abigail remembered the other matter. “Have you found Michael Bishop's contact details?”

“I found that we never had them. We sent the invitation to Luthuli House. They said they would try to forward it. Maybe he never got it.”

“Maybe not. All right, you go home.”

“Right now?”

“Immediately, and tomorrow get back onto the conference. One of us has to work on it.”

Seated at her desk, Abigail studied the list of names, and the dates and places each man had died. She ticked off the ones that Johanna had already tracked down. Of those that remained, one stood out among all the others. While the rest had all died inside South African borders, this one had been killed in London. And it had happened while she was there, during her university years. There had been a lot of talk in the exile community about the murder of a South African businessman. She remembered the talk and she remembered her father showing her the place where he died. That he had been part of the raiding party in Maseru was a complete surprise. No one had said anything like that at the time. Perhaps they had never known. Or perhaps only a few had known. She filed away his name in her memory. It was possible that someone from the movement might remember something about the manner of Michael Whitehead's death.

Johanna had written a pile of notes to Abigail. It appeared that during the day every new discovery had excited Johanna so much that she had to write it down. A new note was written for every new confirmation that one of the men on the list had died, every discovery of a date of death and every time the means of death was revealed. At the bottom of the pile were a number of death certificates which, at a glance, seemed to confirm everything Johanna said. There was also a note in which Johanna anticipated her instruction, reminding her that the conference was drawing closer and that she, Johanna, would devote the next day to it.

Abigail stuffed the pile of paper into her briefcase, along with her purse, her mobile phone and other assorted documents. On the way to the lift, the passages were as empty as before. The security guards were still maintaining their bored vigil in the lobby. Down in the parking garage, the bays were deserted except for the fleet of vehicles that belonged to the department. From the road, the traffic was still audible as Pretoria's workforce struggled to get home for the evening.

Even afterward, Abigail did not remember hearing any sound that might have warned her. The man's left arm had wrapped itself around her neck before she had the chance to react. At almost the same instant his right hand rose to her neck, pressing a knife against her jugular. An African voice whispered something in her ear in a language she did not understand.

Suddenly the cluster of crumpled papers in her bag seemed absurdly important to Abigail and she answered in English. “Listen, I'll give you money, but…”

Before she could finish she was pushed heavily from behind, stumbling then going down on hands and knees. Her head struck a concrete pillar just behind her right ear. It seemed to her that almost immediately she was scrambling to her feet. She tried to take a step forward, but had to reach for the pillar to steady herself. She went down on her hands and knees a second time. Her briefcase was gone and there was no sign of her assailant.

Abigail waited five minutes before starting the car engine. The day had been dense with enough incidents, without her causing an accident on the way home. Oh God, she asked herself, did they really want the contents of her briefcase that badly? And if they did, who were they? And the damned security guards, sitting in a cozy knot in the lobby, they seemed more interested in their own security than that of the building or their clients.

When she finally got home Robert was not yet there. There was a message from him on the apartment's phone, saying that he may be late, but he would pick up TV dinners on the way home, if she would wait for him.

She sat down in the chair in front of the French windows with the curtains open. The chair seemed to have become her favorite. Robert arrived an hour later with a plastic bag that contained the promised TV dinners and some cans of beer. His expression turned from good humor to alarm the moment he saw her. “Your clothes,” he said. “What happened?”

Abigail had not noticed the smear of old grease across her jacket and blouse that she had picked up from the floor of the parking garage. Her hands, too, were covered in dust. For the first time she touched the place where she had struck her head. When she withdrew them, the tips of her fingers were covered by partly congealed blood.

“What the hell happened?” Robert was saying.

“They took my briefcase.”

“Who did?”

“I don't know. This matter … the Leon Lourens matter. There were documents in it. I can replace them all, but … I don't know what they'll do next.”

“You sit down,” Robert said. “I'll pour you a drink.” It was Robert's cure for most crises.

Once she had her drink, he cleaned the graze on her head. Having him moving around her, tending her wound, plying her with drink, gave Abigail a feeling of real security for the first time since Leon Lourens had entered her office some eighty hours before.

When Robert was done he went to the telephone and lifted the receiver. “Are you calling the police?” Abigail asked.

“First I'm going to call your mobile. I presume it was in your briefcase?”

“Wait, Robert. I don't know who might be on the other end of the line.”

Robert was a man angered by the attack on his wife. “Let's hear what they have to say for themselves.”

“Shouldn't we wait?”

“For what?” Robert called the number.

From where she was sitting Abigail heard a male voice answer.

“Good evening.” Robert always sounded impeccably polite when his anger was raised. “My name is Robert Mokoape. You or someone you know attacked my wife this evening. I'd like to know who you are and why you acted in this way.”

Abigail heard the answering voice. She could not make out what was being said, but Robert's eyes widened in surprise, then the faintest trace of a smile formed round his mouth. “Hold on,” he told the voice on the other end of the line. “You'd better tell her.” He gestured to Abigail to come to the phone. “It's for you,” he said. Then he smiled. “It's all right.”

Abigail could barely believe what Robert was doing, but she came to the phone and took the receiver from him. “Yes?” To her own ears her voice was quivering.

The voice on the other end of the line was clearly the one that had whispered into her ear in the parking garage, but now it was an octave higher and had taken on a pleading tone. “Hi, comrade. I'm so sorry about tonight, but times are tough and a man's family has to eat.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Comrade, I found your ANC membership card in your bag. I'm so sorry. I didn't know you are a member of the party. I've taken your cellphone and the cash in your purse, but I left your briefcase with your credit cards and your documents with your building's security. I can see they might be important and I don't want to hurt the party. I'm so sorry I pushed you, sister. I hope you're not hurt badly.”

“No. I'm not hurt.”

“I'm happy. I'm very happy.”

And I'm happy, Abigail thought, that you are just an honest mugger and not some political crazy. After she hung up, she turned to Robert. Suddenly they were holding on to each other and laughing, tears running from their eyes, as if nothing had ever been funnier.

Abigail finished her drink, showered and ate Robert's TV dinner. He tucked her into bed. Inside a minute she was asleep. Robert poured himself another drink and drank it slowly before coming to bed himself. The matter of the mugger had been funny, but there was still the other matter. He was concerned about where it could be leading Abigail and what he could do—if anything—to protect her.

*   *   *

While Abigail slept, Yudel Gordon was awake. For a long time he lay still next to Rosa, not wanting to disturb her by getting up. He waited for her breathing to become deep and regular before slipping out of bed, scooping up his dressing gown and going to his study, where a notebook with a few jotted thoughts on the Abigail matter lay open among the clutter of his desk.

Yudel forbade all tidying in his study, and he rarely undertook it himself. As a result, papers, note scraps, unpaid accounts, even books disappeared under the growing, shifting sea of paper on his desk. Rosa referred to his desk as a pocket of immaturity in his makeup. It was a phrase that he had often used until she started applying it to him.

Like Abigail, he had not enjoyed the latter part of the day. During the liberation struggle he had on a number of occasions been exposed to the insufferable self-righteousness of those who had placed bombs in public places to kill randomly, or had burned to death people who may or may not have been informers for the system. And, on the other hand, he had also occasionally been exposed to those who told themselves that they were killing to protect their people from the murderous black hordes. Today's meeting with van Jaarsveld was a reminder of those days. As far as Yudel knew, this man was the last of the apartheid killers still to be telling anyone who would listen that they had been right all along. No doubt many were still telling themselves the same in private.

Yudel's inability to sleep resided in a single phrase, used by van Jaarsveld, and by Abigail's reaction to it. It had been lost in everything else that was said at this afternoon's meeting in C-Max, but now it came back and drove away every hope of restful unconsciousness.