Michael Ridpath - See No Evil

‘This is where we stayed,’ Benton said.

‘It’s a lovely spot,’ said Calder.

‘You can see it’s very discreet,’ Phyllis said. ‘And a lot of game passes along the stream bed.’ She pointed to the dry sand which was crisscrossed with animal and bird tracks of all kinds. ‘The killer fired his shots from over there.’ She pointed to the other bank. ‘Just behind that mopane tree.’ It was a distance of about sixty yards, no problem for a good shot.

Calder glanced at Benton. He was standing still, a faraway look in his eyes. Everyone was quiet, watching him.

He smiled grimly. ‘Sorry. Just that being here, it brings it back.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, I broke the bathroom window and climbed out the back. Here, I’ll show you.’

He strode rapidly round to the back of the cottage, his long legs leaving the others behind. The bathroom window was out of sight of the spot where the killer had stood. ‘Then I ran along the path, but I ducked to the right here.’ There was a turn-off where a narrower path headed into the trees. After twenty yards or so it passed a small shed. ‘And this is where I hid.’

‘Can we look inside?’ Calder asked Phyllis.

‘Certainly.’ She pulled out a key. ‘It’s locked now, but it wasn’t then. Let me show you.’

She switched on the light from a single electric bulb. The shed was small, about the size of a garage. It was full of old equipment: gardening tools, an axe, oil lamps, pieces of wood, a broken table, some cans of paraffin, and an insect screen for a window. ‘When I hid in here there was some metal roofing material over there,’ Benton said pointing to one wall. ‘I squeezed myself behind that.’

Cornelius looked up at the roof. There were beams running the length of the shed, about eight or nine feet off the ground. ‘And where did you hide the diary?’

‘Up there.’

The beams were old and unpainted. And lying lengthways on one of them Calder could see the edge of a brick.

‘Is that it?’ asked Calder.

‘I think so,’ said Benton. He looked around for something suitable to stand on, and found an old tea chest. It creaked under his weight as he climbed up on to it. He reached up, lifted the brick with one hand, and ran his fingers along the beam with the other. ‘It’s not there.’

‘Check further along,’ said Cornelius.

With help from the others, who cleared a path along the floor, Benton slid the tea chest under the beam the length of the building, and reached upwards. Nothing.

‘Are you sure no one has found a diary?’ Cornelius snapped at Phyllis, unable to keep the frustration out of his voice.

Phyllis shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Mr van Zyl,’ she replied primly. ‘I’m afraid your trip has been a waste of time.’

A wave of disappointment washed over Calder. Vague hope had somehow turned into near certainty that they would find the diary after such a long time, certainty that he now realized had always been groundless. He could see that Cornelius and Benton felt equally crushed. Only Zan seemed to take their failure with equanimity, but of course she had less at stake than they did.

‘Can we go back and see where the killer stood?’ Cornelius said.

‘All right,’ Phyllis said, and led them back to the cottage and down into the river bed. Phyllis was talking to Benton in murmured tones, no doubt commiserating with him for all those years ago. As they reached the far bank she paused. ‘It’s just by that mopane tree I showed you earlier,’ she said. ‘Benton wants to spend a couple of moments alone in the cottage. I’ll take him back there.’

Calder and Cornelius climbed the bank and pushed through the scrub to the tree. There was a good view of the cottage on the other side of the bank. They could see Benton and Phyllis inside. And Zan hurrying back across the stream bed towards them.

‘What’s Zan up to?’ Calder asked. ‘Do you think she’s scared?’ He did suddenly feel vulnerable out in the bush without the protection of the rifle, which Phyllis had taken with her.

‘Zan, scared?’ Cornelius said. ‘Never.’

The urgency with which Zan was moving worried Calder. He hurried after her, followed by Cornelius. They scrambled down the bank and back to the cottage. The door was open. They walked in together to see Phyllis and Benton standing side by side next to a bed, on which lay Phyllis’s open backpack. In Benton’s hand was a black notebook. They were both staring at something over Calder’s shoulder.

He turned round.

‘Get in!’ said Zan. She was standing in the corner of the room, holding Phyllis’s rifle, which she was pointing at Calder and Cornelius. She waved them over to where Phyllis and Benton were standing and kicked the door shut. ‘Now... very slowly, Benton... hand me the diary.’

August 26, 1988

God, it’s all getting out of control. I can’t trust anyone. No one!

Perhaps if I write it all down calmly it will seem clearer to me.

Zan’s flying to London today. In fact she’ll be taking off in six hours from now, thank God. I told her this morning that I would spend the day in Guguletu with Miriam Masote and a bunch of visitors from the American Council of Churches, but I’d be back late afternoon so I could take her to the airport. Well, I got a call from Miriam just before I left home that there had been some kind of riot in Guguletu last night and she had decided to postpone the visit till tomorrow. So I went into Stellenbosch to do a little shopping.

I was on my way back to the car from Oom Samie’s, walking along Church Street, when I spotted Zan at a table by the window of a coffee shop. I was crossing the road to say hi, when I saw who she was with. Three men. I recognized Daniel Havenga first, and I thought it was odd that she should be seeing him: I didn’t realize she knew him. Then I noticed that someone was holding her hand across the table, a big red-haired man in his mid-twenties, quite cute. So Zan does have a boyfriend after all, I thought, she’s kept that very quiet, I wonder who he is. Then I saw the third man: Andries Visser. None of this made any sense. I took an instant decision, turned around in the middle of the road and hurried off. I didn’t look back so I wasn’t sure whether they had seen me or not.

I drove back home trying to figure out what was going on. It didn’t add up at first. Havenga and a young woman by herself meant philandering. Havenga and Visser together meant Laagerbond. Why would someone like Zan, a fully paid-up radical opponent of apartheid, be talking to the Laagerbond, her bitter enemy?

Perhaps she was acting as some kind of agent for Cornelius? Yes, that made sense, I thought. I could imagine Cornelius trusting her and neither of them telling me about it. Yes that must be it.

I arrived back at Hondehoek, made myself a cup of coffee and took it out into the garden. It rained last night, but it was a bright clear morning. As I felt the gentle sunshine on my face I knew that wasn’t the right explanation, however much I wanted it to be.

The three men and Zan were not in the midst of a tense negotiating session. They were relaxed in each other’s company. Visser was smoking a cigarette, Havenga was chattering away and laughing, Zan was smiling too. They were conspiratorial. That was it, conspiratorial.

And what about the red-haired man? He was holding Zan’s hand in a familiar way, the way you would hold the hand of someone you knew for a long time, a long-standing girlfriend. Yet there was also something illicit about it. His eyes were on Zan. He was happy in her company, enjoying their brief time together. And he was with Visser and Havenga.

He looked intelligent, clean cut, a young professional.