Michael Ridpath - See No Evil

‘Dirk, you know we have an opening for two new members now that Jan and Dawid have died.’ General Johannes Lessing had played a leading role in the invasion of Angola in 1987, and had just died at the age of eighty-one. Dawid Roux had held a senior position in the Foreign Ministry. Like many of the other Laagerbonders they had both been key members of the State Security Council, the body that coordinated South Africa’s counter-revolutionary activities throughout the 1980s. The Laagerbond was limited to a complement of twenty-four members; when one member died another had to be elected.

‘I thought Freddie Steenkamp had a candidate?’

‘He does, he does. Paul Strydom. He’s a sound man and well connected, and we are going to initiate him next week, but do you know anyone for the other position? Anyone more... forward-looking? Maybe someone in his thirties who’s heading for the top.’

Du Toit nodded. ‘I understand. I’ll see what I can do.’

Visser smiled. ‘Good. I am worried. I want to keep the Laagerbond intact so it can influence South Africa long into the future. If we succumb to funding lunatics like Eugene Terre’Blanche, with his pseudo swastikas and his stiff-arm salute, or any of those other nutcases who want to start a Third Boer War, we’ll be finished. Oh, the money will last a long time, but we’ll be exposed, discredited, maybe even destroyed. But if we can use our funds to promote those who will leave us alone and discredit those who will do us harm, then we will achieve something. The Afrikaner nation will live on in Africa, where it should be.’

‘But there’s no chance we’ll do anything as stupid as that again, is there?’ du Toit asked.

‘Not while I’m around,’ said Visser. ‘But much as I like Freddie, and admire his cunning, he does have an old-fashioned view of the world. He would like to see an Afrikaner country somewhere, be it a corner of the Free State, or Perth, or Argentina, some little patch of the southern hemisphere that we can fence off and declare white in perpetuity. But that’s not practical, it’s a dangerous dream. Don’t you think, Dirk?’

Du Toit nodded his agreement. ‘We might win a battle against the blacks, but in a war we’ll always lose: they outnumber us eight to one.’

‘We’ve done quite well so far,’ Visser said. ‘Twelve years on and they haven’t turned on us yet. But we have to be ever vigilant; use our funds to manipulate and influence. That’s why Drommedaris is so important. And this phase of the operation is the culmination of all I have been working for since I became chairman of the Laagerbond.’

‘Speaking of which,’ du Toit said, glancing at his watch, ‘I think it’s time to see a man about some money to buy a newspaper.’

‘Here, let me dry.’

‘Be my guest.’

Anne picked up a dish cloth and began working on the breakfast plates. It was Saturday morning, and she had arrived with her family late the night before. They had all had a leisurely breakfast and then William had driven the two children off to take them swimming in the pool at Hunstanton.

‘I didn’t know William was coming up,’ Calder said. ‘He’s very welcome, of course, but from your message it sounded as if it was just you and the kids.’

‘It was originally,’ Anne said. ‘William told me he would be working all this weekend. I was pretty pissed off and that’s when I decided to take the kids up here. You know how they love it and I needed to get away. But, to be fair to William, he got the message. He dumped all his work on his associate and said he’d come too. I couldn’t really say no.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t,’ Calder said. ‘Are you OK?’ His sister was looking tired. The lines in her thin face had deepened.

She sighed, and ran her hand through her short black spiky hair. ‘I don’t know. Not really, but then what do you expect when you’ve got two small kids and a husband who has to work all the hours God gives him? There are lots of other couples who are suffering just as badly. Or worse. If I were still working the whole thing would be a nightmare.’

‘Do you regret giving up?’

‘Yes, frankly. But there was no choice. Other women who are super organized might have managed it, but you know me. The family is in permanent chaos as it is. Which William doesn’t like.’

‘You must have been organized as a barrister.’

‘I suppose,’ Anne grinned. ‘Actually, not really. The clerk of chambers hated me. I was never in the right place at the right time.’ She rubbed away furiously at a coffee cup. ‘I dunno. We’ll be OK. I do appreciate him coming with us this weekend. As long as we’re able to make gestures to each other like that, we’ll make it.’

‘Heard anything from Father?’

‘I spoke to him on Thursday. And no, he didn’t say whether he had just come back from the horse races.’

‘Sorry. You know I’m worried.’

‘Yeah. But there’s nothing much we can do. He did talk about Mrs Palmer again.’

‘Mrs Palmer? Didn’t she teach at the high school?’

‘She still does. Her husband died a couple of years ago. It suddenly struck me he seems to mention her name rather a lot.’

‘You don’t think...’ Calder looked at his sister.

She smiled slyly and shrugged.

‘That would be weird,’ Calder said.

‘Seriously weird,’ Anne agreed. ‘But it’s just speculation. We’ll wait and see.’

‘Huh.’ It had never occurred to Calder that his father might remarry. It was nearly twenty years since his wife had died, and although he was constantly being invited to dinner parties as a spare man, he had never shown any indication that the matchmaking was having any effect. But why shouldn’t things change? He was a popular doctor in Kelso and his twinkling eye and reassuring smile were famous.

‘How’s Todd van Zyl doing?’ Anne asked.

‘Still in a coma, I’m afraid.’

‘Has his wife gone back to the States? I thought she was staying with you.’

‘She’s still here in Norfolk. She’s taken a room at the pub. That seemed to work better,’ Calder said.

‘I hope we didn’t kick her out?’

‘Oh, no. When she realized she was going to be here for a while, she decided she would prefer somewhere private.’

Calder was tempted to tell his sister about the mess with Kim and Sandy, but couldn’t bring himself to admit to what they had done. His sister was forgiving, but not that forgiving. He wasn’t that forgiving. If only it was as easy to hide what had happened from himself.

He had driven Kim to the car park at the hospital in silence, and transferred her stuff into the boot of her car. She had returned to the pub in the village, while he had waited for Donna.

The art teacher arrived eventually, in her own hired vehicle, and parked facing the hospital entrance. Calder had walked over to her car. He had asked her quietly but firmly to leave, to go back to the US. She had argued at first, then she had pleaded and then she had burst into tears, but he had been firm. He told her that Kim could insist that the hospital forbid her from seeing Todd. He took her phone number and promised her that he would call if there was any change in Todd’s circumstances one way or another. He found his own anger with her had subsided. How could he be angry with her after what he and Kim had done?

‘I can’t imagine what it would feel like if something like that happened to William,’ Anne went on. ‘It must be simply awful for her. Have you had any luck finding out what happened to the mother? The one who was killed all those years ago?’

‘Not yet,’ Calder said. ‘But we haven’t given up.’

‘I wish you would.’

‘What?’