Michael Ridpath - See No Evil

They left him there for a couple of hours in his own private hell. There was the physical pain and there was the memory, still very fresh, of watching Martha die. Then a new man came into the cell. He looked tougher and even meaner than the others. Benton had had enough. He was ready to confess to just about anything and everything. Then the man smiled. He ordered Benton to be lowered from the beam and his clothes were returned to him. Dressed, Benton sat opposite the man at a bare table.

‘Your name is Benton Davis?’ he said, leafing through his blue United States passport. Benton noticed that his wallet and his other possessions were in a clear plastic bag.

Benton nodded.

‘And you’re an investment banker?’

Benton nodded again.

‘How does that work?’ the policeman said, looking up with a thin smile. ‘I didn’t know apes could add up.’

Benton sat there, impassive. He could put up with insults all day as long as they didn’t hit him any more with that hosepipe.

‘You can go now,’ the man said, tossing the passport and the plastic bag to him. ‘We know you weren’t responsible for Martha van Zyl’s death. We apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused.’

‘The way you have treated me is outrageous—’

‘Let me stop you there, Mr Davis,’ said the man, leaning forward. ‘My name is Moolman. Colonel Moolman. The men who interrogated you here are amateurs. I’m a professional.’ Moolman smiled again. He had a thick neck, a pillar of muscle. Benton kept quiet.

‘We will never see each other again, provided you remember one thing. You were never here in this police station. You were never even at Kupugani. We’ll take you to Johannesburg and throw you in the street. You can tell everyone you were attacked and robbed.’ Moolman chuckled. ‘If we dump you in the right place, you may even be attacked and robbed for real.’ He leaned forward, his hard grey eyes looking directly into Benton’s. ‘Do you understand?’

Benton didn’t answer.

‘You see if you do mention any of this to anyone, I will find you and kill you. And believe me it will be a more painful death than you could possibly imagine. And don’t think that just because you live outside South Africa you will be safe. Our enemies come to unfortunate ends all over the world. Remember Olof Palme, the prime minister of Sweden, who was shot two years ago in Stockholm? If we can get him, we can get you.’

Benton had agreed to Moolman’s terms. He had never mentioned that awful day to anyone. And, given what had happened to Todd and then Alex Calder’s sister, he was glad. He hadn’t needed the message Moolman had left him at Bloomfield Weiss to be reminded of the ex-policeman’s existence. He knew he was out there somewhere.

Benton had never been back to South Africa. He wondered what the hell Cornelius wanted to see him about now. It had seemed odd that the old man had suddenly decided to fly down to Johannesburg. Perhaps he had uncovered a new source of equity that would allow Zyl News to support a higher bid for The Times. Cornelius had told Dower he didn’t have a secret fund stashed away somewhere, but perhaps he had lied. Benton remembered the mysterious Laagerbond that Martha had told him about just before she died. Whatever it was, Benton hoped it would strengthen the deal. He had cashed in all the chips he had to persuade the Underwriting Committee to back his pledge to Cornelius to raise the money. But his career was on the line. The deal was risky, possibly too risky even for the junk-bond market, and Benton knew that if Bloomfield Weiss couldn’t find buyers for most of the junk-bond issue, it would all be over for him. If Cornelius had access to even a hundred million pounds of equity investment, that would reduce the amount of debt that had to be raised and would make the deal a lot less risky.

At least Cornelius wanted to talk to Benton alone. No Dower. No flunkies. If the deal worked, Benton would take the credit. All the credit. For the first time in a long time he would earn himself a decent bonus.

And when you really got down to it, that was what it was all about.

The Intercontinental Hotel took up one of the towers that clustered around the indoor shopping complex that was the heart of Sandton. The dining room was quiet, early on a Sunday morning, all black, gold and mirrors. Calder and Cornelius ordered some orange juice and coffee while they waited.

Benton looked cool and confident as he strode into the room, well dressed as always, white shirt bright and unwrinkled, tie knotted just so, suit hanging perfectly from his tall frame, cufflinks flashing. He smiled when he saw Cornelius and held out his hand. Cornelius returned his smile. Then Benton saw Calder.

The surprise registered on his face, but only for a moment. ‘Alex? A pleasure as always. You do pop up at the most unlikely breakfast tables.’

‘Benton.’

‘OK,’ Benton said, taking a seat. ‘I’m not going to even try to pretend there’s nothing weird going on here.’

Cornelius was silent. The smile had left his face. He looked serious. Deadly serious. Benton flicked his glance from Cornelius to Calder and back again. It dawned on him. He knew Calder had been asking questions about Martha’s death. Now he realized Cornelius had some of the answers.

Benton’s shoulders slumped. No one said anything. Then Benton straightened. His eyes met Cornelius’s. ‘I guess this is the opportunity I’ve been hiding from for the last, whatever it is, eighteen years. I’m sorry, Cornelius. I’m truly sorry. What I did was wrong, and I regret it. It would have been wrong in any case, but given what happened to Martha...’ Benton shook his head. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You’re fokkol , Benton,’ Cornelius said levelly. The waiter, who had been hovering to take a breakfast order, backed off.

‘I can guess what that means,’ said Benton. ‘And you are probably right.’

Cornelius shook his head. ‘We are both fokkol. She suspected something was going on with Beatrice, didn’t she?’

Benton nodded.

‘I didn’t sleep with her, you know.’

Benton didn’t reply.

Cornelius looked around the dining room in exasperation, as if there were someone, somewhere, who could undo everything, who could absolve him of what he had done. ‘I can’t bear to think that she died hating me,’ he said.

‘She loved you,’ Benton said quietly. ‘She always loved you. That’s why she was so angry with you. In a twisted way, that’s why she went with me. I guess I knew that.’

Cornelius took a deep breath. ‘You were there at the time. When she died?’

Benton nodded.

‘What happened?’

Benton closed his eyes. He owed it to Cornelius to tell him. For nearly twenty years he had been carrying the guilt of his affair with Martha. Perhaps this was his chance to atone for what he had done. To hell with Moolman.

‘We were at Kupugani, in an isolated cottage a few hundred feet from the main camp. They wanted to keep us away from the other tourists; in those days a white woman and a black man together could cause all sorts of problems, even way out in the bush. It was the morning, we were just getting up. I was in the bathroom shaving. She was lying on her bed, writing in her diary. The bathroom door was open.’

He opened his eyes. A film of sweat had appeared on his forehead. He looked down at his hands. ‘There was a shot, and the window shattered. Martha screamed. I turned and looked. There was another shot.’ Benton swallowed. ‘She stopped screaming. She stopped screaming.’ He blinked at Cornelius. ‘She died instantly. I started to move toward her and then I dived for the ground as a third shot rang out. There was a lot of blood. The diary had fallen on to the rug at the foot of the bed. I grabbed it and slid along the floor back to the bathroom. I slammed the door shut, broke the window at the back of the cottage, climbed out and ran.’