Michael Ridpath - See No Evil

‘Do you think your father was wrong to leave South Africa?’

Zan glanced at him. ‘Yes. Yes, I do. He always used to make such a big deal about how important the country was to him, and then he changed his mind. I know that bugged Martha too.’ She sighed. ‘I’m afraid I’ve lost touch with the rest of my family since she died. They say that something like that either pulls a family together or forces it apart. I guess in my case it forced me away. I still talk to Edwin every now and then, and I saw Todd and Kim when they visited here just after they were married, but not my father.’

‘Who do you think killed Martha?’ Calder asked.

‘You mean do I think my father killed her?’ Zan looked at Calder sharply, her blue eyes, Cornelius’s eyes, piercing.

Calder held her gaze and shrugged.

She relaxed a touch. ‘It’s a question I have asked myself many times over the years. The police story was that it was ANC guerrillas. Obviously you couldn’t trust anything the police said in those days, but it is possible, I suppose. The guerrillas would cross the Kruger Park and then the game reserves on its western edge, like Kupugani, before losing themselves in the towns and villages on the other side. Normally they wouldn’t make trouble on the way; the whole idea was to infiltrate the country quietly. I asked around when I was in Mozambique the following year, but no one knew anything about Martha’s murder. It could have been poachers: there were quite a few of those about then. Todd seems to think it was a cover story. Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps the security police killed her. Or, well—’ She hesitated ‘— perhaps it was my father. That’s what you’ve come here to find out, isn’t it?’

Calder nodded. ‘I’m trying to keep an open mind. Someone tried to kill Todd and me, and someone maimed my sister—’

‘I heard about that,’ Zan said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Calder smiled quickly. ‘Someone is trying to prevent Todd or me finding out what happened to Martha. And yes, your father is a possibility.’

Zan frowned. ‘He and I haven’t got along for a long time, but even so it’s difficult to think of him actually killing her. Or Todd, for that matter.’

‘You were living with them when she was murdered. I understand that their marriage was going through a rocky period?’

‘That’s right, I stayed at Hondehoek for part of that winter, although I had just left for London a couple of days before Martha was murdered. But to answer your question, yes, the atmosphere in the house was terrible. Some of it was to do with Pa’s decision to close down the Cape Daily Mail. Martha really didn’t like that idea. But there was more to it than that. My guess is that one or other of them was having an affair.’

‘Really? Which one?’

‘I don’t know,’ Zan said. ‘At the time I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to get on with them both. You see I’d grown away from them when I was at university. My politics had become pretty radical, much more radical than theirs, and I suppose I was rebelling. But then my uncle was killed, I knew my relationship with my mother was irreparable, and they were the only family I had. I was worried for their safety if the revolution came and it was violent. I wanted to build bridges.’ She paused, bit her lip and looked away from Calder towards the mountain. When she turned back she was blinking. ‘I think I succeeded. I was very fond of Martha. She was a wonderful stepmother to me when I was a kid, more of a mother than my real mother — much more, and I pushed her away when I was a teenager. I’m so glad we spent that winter together before she died.’

‘I’m sorry to bring this all back,’ Calder said softly.

‘No, that’s all right,’ Zan said. ‘Someone has to. My father won’t. Todd tried and look what happened to him.’

‘Was there anyone else who could have had a reason to kill Martha? Anyone who hated her?’

‘My mother hated her,’ Zan said. ‘Understandably, really. She never forgave her for stealing her husband. And she was angry that Pa kept the newspaper business after they got divorced. Her father had staked him the money to buy it.’ Zan saw Calder struggling to ask his next question tactfully, and put him out of his misery. ‘But I really doubt she did it. If Martha had been found hit over the head with a gin bottle, maybe, but Mom was drunk most of the time. She certainly wouldn’t have been capable of killing her herself, and I doubt she was organized enough to arrange it. She’s dead now, anyway, so you can’t ask her.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Zan shook her head. ‘I’m glad in a way. She was getting worse and worse.’ She ran her hand quickly through her short blonde hair as if trying to brush the memory of her mother away. ‘But to go back to your original question, perhaps it was the security police. Although Martha was always against the apartheid regime, she never did anything political about it. I think she didn’t want to embarrass Pa. But towards the end she asked me a couple of times whether she could join me on a protest march. She went to a huge funeral for our maid’s son, which at that time was a political statement. And she was a good friend of Libby Wiseman.’

‘Libby Wiseman?’

‘They were on the board of a charity together, a literacy project in Guguletu. Libby Wiseman was a lecturer at the University of Cape Town and quite a radical. She was probably a member of the Communist Party at that time, she certainly was a member of the Party later on. She became a junior minister in the first post-apartheid government. Martha might have done some things with her, things that the security police disapproved of. In fact I remember a couple of policemen came round to warn her to be careful who she spoke to.’

‘Do you know where I could find Libby Wiseman now?’

‘No idea,’ Zan said. ‘But she was relatively well known a few years ago. It should be possible to track her down.’

‘Did you ever get in trouble with the security police yourself?’ Calder asked.

Zan smiled. ‘A few nights in jail when I was a student in Jo’burg. But I didn’t get involved in anything heavy until I went to London.’

‘And Mozambique?’

‘And Mozambique.’

Calder wondered what doing something ‘heavy’ in Mozambique entailed. Zan looked as if she could handle herself, even now. ‘Do you still swim?’

‘Yes, I do. What made you ask that?’

‘Someone told me you used to be an Olympic-class swimmer. And you look in good condition.’

‘I swim. I run. I do the triathlon. In fact I’m training for the Comrades Marathon in Durban in a couple of weeks. Eighty-nine k’s.’

‘Jesus! And you run all that way?’

Zan smiled. ‘Oh, yes. I’m getting older, but I’m not slowing much, especially over long distances.’

Calder, who usually prided himself on his physical fitness, felt like a slug as he mopped up the last of the springbok gravy. The waitress took away their empty plates and brought some coffee. The sun shone brightly on the multitude thronging the wharves. The darkness of apartheid seemed a long way off, although Calder still couldn’t see many black faces in the crowd.

‘No one seems to know why Martha chose to go to Kupugani that weekend,’ he said.

‘You’re right, it is a bit of a mystery. I remember her telling me she was going. She said she just wanted to get away. We used to stay at a game reserve as a family when I was a kid, a place called Mala Mala. It’s quite upscale, quite famous, I know Martha enjoyed going there. But I’d never even heard of Kupugani before. Perhaps a friend recommended it.’

‘Just another one of those things that doesn’t quite make sense,’ Calder said. ‘I know Todd asked you this, but did you ever see Martha writing anything in a diary?’