Деон Мейер - Cobra

‘And what’s under the rearing snake?’ Arnold asked.

‘Are those letters?’The engraving was tiny.

‘Praise the Lord. The Hawks can read.’

‘We can bliksem you too,’ said Cupido. ‘What do the letters say?’

‘“N”, dot, “m”, dot,’ said Arnold.

‘So what does that mean? “Never mind”?’

‘Where do you dig that up?’

‘NM. Never mind. Don’t you understand texting language? I thought you were so clever?’

‘Sophisticated people don’t use texting abbreviations. Capital N, small letter m stands for “newton-metre”. If both were small letter it would stand for “nanometre”. But in both cases without the dot,’ said Arnold.

‘So what do the two capital letters with two dots stand for?’

‘I thought you were the detectives.’

‘Because you rocket scientists don’t know?’ said Cupido in triumph.

‘We can’t do all your work for you.’

‘Or, at least we can’t do all your work for you all the time.’

‘ Fokkof ,’ said Griessel. ‘We have to search the last room. Are you finished there?’

‘Haven’t even started.’

‘ Jissis ,’ said Cupido.

They went to interview Scarlett January, daughter of the murdered worker, Cyril.

Cupido sat beside her on the comfortable couch in the sitting room. He held her hand, his voice gentle and sympathetic. Griessel and Christel de Haan each sat in a chair.

‘I’m so sorry for your loss, little sister.’

The pretty, petite girl nodded through her tears.

‘If I could, I would not have bothered you. But we want to catch these evil people. They must pay for what they have done to your daddy.’

Another nod.

‘Are you OK to answer a few little questions?’

She sniffed, blew her nose, and said: ‘Yes, uncle.’

‘You are very brave, sistertjie , your daddy would be very proud of you. Did you work with him every day in the guesthouse?’

‘Yes.’

‘The night shift, nè ?’

Nod.

‘Did you see the Englishman?’

‘ Ja .’

‘What can you tell us about him?’

‘He was very friendly.’

‘Did he talk to you?’

‘ Ja .’

‘What did he say?’

‘My table looked nice. And the food was good.’

‘Is that all?’

‘And it’s so lovely here. On the farm. If he looks out the window. That’s all.’

‘OK, sistertjie , that’s very good. Now the bodyguards. Did you talk to them too?’

‘Not really.’

‘Were they nice to you?’

‘ Ja , uncle. But they didn’t talk much.’

‘Now, last night, what time did you leave there?’

The memory of the previous evening caused Scarlett’s shoulders to shake. It took her a time to say: ‘I don’t know.’

‘It’s OK, sistertjie . So more or less nine o’clock?’

Nod.

‘And everything was OK. There in the guesthouse?’

Nod.

‘The same as the other nights?’

‘ Ja .’

‘The bodyguards weren’t different?’

‘No, uncle.’

‘Can you tell us how you left? Did one of them walk with you?’

‘ Ja . The one they call B. J.’

‘OK, tell me nicely.’

‘I told B. J. I was finished. He went and unlocked the front door. He went out first and looked, and then he came back in and said everything is fine. Then I called Daddy, because he had to help me with the trolley down the steps. Then—’

‘What trolley?’

‘The trolley with the leftovers and the dishes.’

‘OK, and then?’

‘Then we went out, Daddy helped me down the steps, and I pushed it back to the restaurant.’

‘And then they locked up again?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s OK. And you didn’t see anything, while you were pushing it back to the restaurant?’

‘I just . . .’ And Scarlett January began to weep again. Christel de Haan stood up, gave her a couple of tissues and sat down again.

When she had regained some control, she said: ‘Uncle, I . . . I’m a bit shy, uncle . . .’

Cupido leaned closer and whispered in her ear. ‘So just tell me, I won’t tell a soul.’

She nodded, blew her nose, and turned her mouth to his ear.‘Daddy says I was born with the helm . . .’

‘OK.’

‘Because I get these gevoelentes ; premonitions.’

‘I understand.’

‘When I was walking there, I got this feeling, uncle.’

‘What sort of feeling, sistertjie ?’ he whispered, barely audible.

‘Evil, uncle. A terrible evil. Over there by the bougainvillea.’

6

Tyrone told his sister about her results. He sat on the only easy chair in Nadia’s one-bedroom flat – the one with the broken leg that he had found thrown out in front of a house in the Bo-Kaap. He had mended it. Not good workmanship, because he didn’t know much about woodwork. But it was sturdy, and it was comfortable.

‘So, I’m very proud of you,’ he said.

She sat at the big work table with her long black hair, and delicate, almost fragile beauty. He had swapped it for a stolen iPhone at the second-hand shop in Woodstock’s Albert Street.

‘Thanks, boetie .’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll have the money by the end of the month,’ he said. He took out his wallet. ‘Here’s the rent for the flat.’

‘No, I only need a thousand, I got lekker big tips.’

‘That’s what I want to talk about. Tips or not, you’re here to study.’

‘But I like the work, boetie .’

‘I understand, but nou’s dit crunch time.’

‘I can’t just sit and swot all day.’

‘So go for a walk. Or socialise a bit.’

‘No. We eat for free, at the end of the shift, it saves me good money. And where will you get more than five thousand rand by the end of the month?’

‘Big paint job in Rose Street, a whole block of flats. I’m one of the subcontractors for Donnie Fish. And it’s interiors too, so it can ma’ rain. And in any case, the Cape economy is booming again, tourism is up seventeen per cent. Ek sê jou , by December there will be enough for half of next year’s class fees as well. You just swot, so that you make the selection. I don’t want you wasting your time with waitressing.’

‘It’s not wasting time.’ She had that stubborn look around her mouth that he had known since they were little. ‘And I will make the selection.’

He knew he wasn’t going to convince her. ‘That’s what I want to hear.’

The four extra Hawks detectives arrived – Lieutenant Vusumuzi Ndabeni, small of stature, with a manicured goatee and wide-awake eyes; Lieutenant Cedric ‘Ulinda’ Radebe, the ex-boxer, whose nickname in Zulu meant ‘honey badger’; Captain Mooiwillem Liebenberg, the DPCI’s best-looking detective and most respected skirt-chaser; and Captain Frankie Fillander, the veteran with a long scar from his ear to his crown from a knife wound.

Standing on the lawn of the guesthouse, Griessel brought them up to date with the details. He had to concentrate, because the weariness was a burden growing steadily heavier. And he was increasingly self-conscious about his appearance, and the looks that he was getting from his colleagues. He asked Ndabeni and Fillander, the gentlest of the officers, to question the farm workers, and told Radebe and Liebenberg to talk to the bodyguards.

Then he and Cupido walked to the veranda to hear whether Forensics were finished yet. The wind blew suddenly chill again.

‘Global warming?’ said Cupido as he looked up at the dark clouds once more looming in the east. ‘Seems to me every winter is colder and wetter.’