Deon Meyer - Dead at Daybreak

“Mike?” Hope Beneke asked.

“Didn’t he tell you? Like in Tyson.”

“Forget it. Hope has already tried the crapping-from-on-high bit.”

“He even sounds like Tyson, don’t you think?” she said to Hope. Then she turned to Van Heerden. “I take it that an apology is out of the question?”

“A woman with insight. A first.”

Hope Beneke saw that he was back in the aggressive shell, the drawbridge raised. She wanted to weep.

“Didn’t think you were the type for whom sorry was an easy word. That’s why I like you so much. But you have two problems, Mike. And I’m the only one who can help you with both.”

He snorted deep in his throat.

“Number one – I believe that I’ll be able to convince the good doctor to drop his litigation plans. Not only will I remind him that it will entail very unwelcome publicity for both of us, which we don’t need as professional people. But as a last resort I can also remind him of the night he arrived on my doorstep raging drunk and without his wife’s knowledge, to tell me how much he wanted me. That should heal the physician, don’t you think?”

“Your second problem is that of publicity in a certain murder investigation. If you are still able to cast your mind that far back, Mike, you’ll remember that I’m the one who was approached for help. Two good reasons for loving Kara-An.”

He looked at her, appraisingly, surprised by the change in her from last night’s good hostess to this…phenomenon, totally in control. Why, he wondered, this sudden demonstration of power? He made calculations, adding the Kara-An of this morning to the last sight he’d had of her before he left the previous evening, the beautiful woman in the red dress, intensely stimulated by a fistfight, a shadow that passed quickly, fleetingly.

Premonitions of evil.

“Fuck you,” he said.

“Ha, predictable to the last. I didn’t expect you to fall on your knees, Mike. Your ego is too brittle for that. That’s why I’ve come to sow a little thought. Both the doctor and the media have a price. The story of your life, in writing, when this business of the will is over, in exchange for peace on the medical front. And front-page copy tomorrow morning.” She walked to the door, opened it. “I don’t suppose I have to remind you that time isn’t necessarily on your side.” She walked out. “Bye, Hope,” were the last words they heard before the door closed.

There was silence in the room, only the wind through the trees and the sound of Kara-An’s car driving off. Another BMW, he guessed. The younger woman’s universal cure for penis envy. The Mercedes would come later, at about fifty-five, when she no longer wanted to look young, just dignified. He looked at Hope Beneke. She had drawn up her legs and was hugging them, her face almost hidden. As if she knew it was all over.

It was.

Because if Kara-An Rousseau thought she could blackmail him, she was out of her mind.

The silence between them expanded. Eventually Hope got up. “Just do me one favor,” she said quietly.

He looked at her.

“Don’t bring the advance back again. Keep it.”

She walked to the door, opened it, and walked out without closing it behind her.

He felt his temper rising. Her whole attitude insinuated that the fuckup was his fault. As if Kara-An’s absurd demands were reasonable. The “curing” of the doctor had nothing to do with the Wilna van As issue. It was Kara-An who wanted to connect the two, who wanted to make the consequences of one dependent on the other. Which was so unreasonable that one didn’t need a law degree to work it out. It was like…

He felt the cold wind against his back, got up to close the door, saw Hope’s BMW moving down the gravel road, his mother riding up, reining in next to the car. Horse riding in this weather – it was going to rain in a minute, the clouds a blackish gray, the wind sharp. They were too far away; he couldn’t even hear their voices. What did they have to say to each other? The rear lights of the BMW went on, and Hope turned the car and followed his mother to the big house.

He slammed the door.

She must leave his mother alone. She mustn’t interfere.

What did they have to say to each other?

Fuck it. He had laundry to do.

♦

He was hanging up wet clothes in the bathroom when he heard the door open. He knew it was his mother.

“Where are you, Zet?”

“Here.”

She came in, still in her riding clothes, her nose and ears red with cold.

“You mustn’t ride in this weather, Ma.”

“You can’t hang up a shirt like that. Wait, let me do it.” She lifted the shirt off the shower rail. “Bring me a hanger.”

Obediently he walked to the bedroom to fetch a hanger.

“No wonder your clothes are in such a state. You must learn to look after them.”

“Ma, I’m thirty-eight…”

“One wouldn’t say so if one had been a doctor last night. Shift that basket nearer. I’m going to put this stuff in the tumble dryer.”

“Ma…”

“Zet, you’re a man. That’s why I overlook many things, but sooner or later you’ll have to buy decent stuff. You can’t do your laundry by hand for the rest of your life.”

He dragged the laundry basket toward her. She took the wet laundry from the bath, put it in the basket.

“But I’m not going to iron it.”

“No, Ma.”

“What did you do last night?”

“It sounds as if you already know.”

She didn’t reply, merely filled the basket with laundry.

“Pick up the basket and bring it home. I want to talk to you.” She turned and walked out. He knew that straight-backed walk. He hadn’t seen it for a long time.

He didn’t want to talk to her about these things.

“Fuck,” he said quietly, and picked up the basket.

A fine rain was falling. The wind suddenly dropped as he walked to the big house. The house his mother had built. After she had had the original one demolished because she didn’t want to live in such a monstrosity, a Spanish villa, South African-style. She watched the bulldozers do their work and later told him it had been one of her most pleasurable experiences in the past decade.

She could have bought a smallholding next to the Berg River somewhere between Paarl and Stellenbosch – she had the money – but she had chosen this one, on the flat stretch behind Blouberg, in the scrubland between the sea and the N7 “so that I can go to the mountains when I need them,” whatever that might mean. And had her house built, simple white lines, large windows, spacious rooms.

And the stables.

He had been surprised by the horses.

“I’ve always wanted to,” she said.

He lived there in one of the original buildings, perhaps an old tenant farmer’s house, that he had halfheartedly restored at her insistence when he didn’t go back to work.

He carried the basket into the kitchen, where she was waiting impatiently. He saw the tray next to the sink, empty coffee mugs, two of them, and rusks in a bowl. His mother and Hope Beneke.

Intimate.

She opened the door of the tumble dryer, loaded the machine.

“You know I’ve never said anything, Zatopek.”

“Ma?” The use of his full name wasn’t a good sign.

“For five years I’ve said nothing.” She straightened, stretched, her hands on her hips, pressed the buttons of the machine, pulled a chair away from the large stinkwood table, and sat down.

“Sit down, Zatopek.”

He gave a deep sigh and sat down at the table. The tumble dryer increased its speed and sang its monotonous tune in the room.

“I said nothing out of respect for you. As an adult. And because I don’t know everything. I don’t know what happened that evening with Nagel…”