Michael Ridpath - See No Evil

It was addressed to A. Visser and F. Steenkamp from D. Havenga. As its title suggested, it was about Neels. And this is what it said — this is a paraphrasing rather than a translation, and from memory.

I believe that the time has come for the Laagerbond to approach Cornelius van Zyl. As I have been saying for a while he is becoming increasingly disillusioned with the ANC and the threat of a violent revolution. As we expected, the death of his brother has had a significant impact. For most of his adult life van Zyl has focused on what he perceives as the need to undermine the apartheid state without thinking through the consequences that this will have for the Afrikaner nation. Now he realizes what the future holds for his people if the ANC get their way. These doubts are beginning to affect his actions. In particular his decision to close the Cape Daily Mail has far-reaching political consequences that van Zyl is fully aware of despite his insistence that it is economically motivated.

Impala confirms this. She says that van Zyl’s disillusionment runs deep. His relationship with his wife has deteriorated to the point where they barely speak. She confirms my impression that van Zyl’s Afrikaner heritage is very important to him and that he feels he has neglected it over the last thirty years. He is not, and never will be, a supporter of apartheid, but he can be recruited as a supporter of the Afrikaner nation... (There was some other stuff about Impala but my Afrikaans wasn’t quite up to deciphering it.)

All this is confirmed by Eland.

Van Zyl is in a unique position. He is the only Afrikaner who has influence on the world’s media. He is a well-respected businessman and newspaper owner who has support in the United States as well as here. He is also a man of honor, and in the role we envisage for him in Operation Drommedaris I would prefer a man motivated by honor and history than one purely in it for the money.

As we have discussed before, there were many reasons why Muldergate was a disaster and very few, if any, apply now. But I firmly believe that Cornelius van Zyl is of a much higher caliber than any of the individuals that were backed then.

I think that’s the gist of it. There was some other stuff I couldn’t quite understand.

I leafed through the folder. A selection of press cuttings about Neels and then a single sheet of paper: a list of members, of this mysterious Laagerbond, presumably. I counted them; there were twenty-four. Daniel Havenga was there, and Andries Visser and a Frederick Steenkamp. I recognized some of the other names: generals and politicians, very senior politicians; another professor.

I didn’t know what the hell this Laagerbond was, but it had an extremely select membership. The list was dynamite. I couldn’t simply take it, because it would be missed. I considered briefly removing it and copying it down, but I thought it would be safer to sit in the car. That way, if the worst came to the worst and the meeting finished, I might have time to close up the briefcase and invent some story. So I rushed inside and grabbed a pen and this diary, and copied the names down in the back.

I had just about finished when Caroline interrupted me. I’m afraid I snapped at her, poor girl, and she ran off, but it scared me and I decided to put everything back in the briefcase, which I replaced under the raincoat on the back seat.

Then I set off up here and took the diary with me.

So what the hell is going on? Who are Impala and Eland and what is the Laagerbond? And why are they approaching Neels?

Calder hurried back to his sister’s house in Highgate to pick up his stuff. Anne had offered to give him a lift from there to Elstree Aerodrome. They climbed into Anne’s new luxurious black Mercedes 4×4 and set off on to the thoroughfares of north London.

Calder’s thoughts were fixed on the phone call he had received from Kim. He had been wrong not to take her suspicions seriously. Someone had tried to murder Todd and hadn’t cared that they might have killed him as well. He recalled those frantic couple of minutes when he had fought for control of the Yak and brought it down on to the sandbar. He remembered the explosion, Todd’s pale face, his head wound. They hadn’t been victims of bad luck or faulty workmanship, but of a cold-blooded killer. For the last few days he had experienced the intense relief of the survivor. The relief was turning to anger.

‘What’s wrong, Alex?’

Calder glanced at his sister and smiled. Anne was very small for such a big car. She had spiky black hair and was wearing a purple top and flower-patterned jeans. She and Calder had always been close, but since their mother’s death when he was fifteen and she twelve, they had become even closer. They looked after each other. ‘Oh, nothing. Just thinking about the flight back.’

‘Aren’t you nervous, getting into an aeroplane again after that dreadful crash?’

‘I was fine coming down from Norfolk,’ Calder said. ‘It won’t be a problem. It’s like riding a bicycle. You have to get back on.’

Anne looked at him doubtfully. ‘A bit worse than falling off a bicycle, don’t you think?’

Calder grinned. Although he had told her all about the Yak’s engine failure, he had no intention of telling her about the police’s discovery of sabotage. He knew from long experience that Anne would worry.

‘Heard anything from Father?’ he asked, to change the subject. Their father was a doctor in the town of Kelso in the Borders of Scotland.

‘Yeah. I phoned him last week. He sounded quite chirpy. They’re allowing him to stay on at the surgery for another year, part time. Apparently there’s a national shortage of GPs.’

‘That will keep him happy. The concept of Father in retirement worries me a little.’

‘Has he sent you any more cheques?’

‘I think so. I got an envelope in March in his handwriting. I returned it unopened.’

‘So you’ve no idea how much it was?’

‘No. Nor where he got the money from.’

Anne pulled out on to the A1 in front of an old lady in a small car. The old lady hooted. Anne ignored her. ‘I went up to Kelso with the kids three weeks ago. We had a nice weekend. Everything seemed OK.’

‘No sign he’d sold anything?’

‘Nothing I could see. I did look around. The furniture, the paintings, the silver: it was all still there as far as I could tell.’

‘And no copies of the Racing Post?’

‘Not lying around. I didn’t go through his drawers.’

‘No, of course not.’ Calder stared out of the window at the traffic.

‘How much was it?’ Anne asked. ‘That you bailed him out for?’

‘A lot.’ The year before Calder had discovered that his father had run up massive gambling debts. Calder had paid them off, £143,000 of them. But he had never told his sister the full amount. To discover that their father, an upright Calvinist who had always disapproved of his son’s speculative career in the City, gambled regularly on the horses had been quite a shock to both his children.

‘I’d be happy to pay my half,’ Anne said.

Calder smiled. ‘Thanks. But I’d rather that it was all forgotten. It’s not a debt that either you or he owes me.’

They drove on in silence.

‘How’s Sandy?’ Anne asked. ‘You haven’t mentioned her.’

‘Not good,’ Calder said. ‘We’ve only managed to see each other three or four times over the last year. When we do see each other, everything’s great, we get on really well. We had a wonderful week together in Italy last September. But it’s been impossible to pin her down.’

‘Because of her work?’

Calder nodded. ‘Yeah. It’s appalling the way these US law firms treat their staff. I mean, I went over to New York to see her last month, just for a long weekend. She wasn’t there when I arrived, she’d had to fly off to Dallas or somewhere. I only saw her for an hour before I got my own flight back on the Sunday night. I’m afraid I had a sense-of-humour failure. I said some pretty unpleasant things. We haven’t spoken since.’