Deon Meyer - Dead at Daybreak

♦

Joan van Heerden saw two men with guns coming round the corner of her house on their way to the back door, no shots now after the terrifying noise. Her heart beating in her throat, she slid back behind the corner of the stables to get out of their field of vision, her eyes looking for a weapon. She saw a spade leaning against the wall, took it in both hands, peered cautiously round the corner. They were at the back door. She put the spade down, pulled off her boots, took the spade again, looked again. They had disappeared into the kitchen. She ran from shrub to shrub, her footfall light on the sandy soil.

♦

Wilna van As heard the silence and lifted her head from where she was lying on the floor next to the bed, her hands, her whole body shaking. What was going on? Was it over now? She got up slowly, as if her legs had no strength, heard a groan. It was Billy September. They needed her help inside. She opened the bedroom door, saw the passage ahead of her was empty. “Billy,” she called softly. No reply. She moved down the passage slowly. “Billy,” slightly louder, the end of the passage, a hand over her mouth, someone grabbing her roughly from behind: “Billy is dead, bitch.” She smelled the man’s sweat, and terror paralyzed her.

♦

Hope Beneke grabbed the telephone before it could complete a single ring. “Hallo.”

“Hallo, Hope.” Intimate, at ease.

“Hallo.”

“You don’t know me, but I know you.”

“Who’s that?”

“You’re not getting very far with Rutherford’s London , Hope, only sixteen pages in the past three days.”

“Who are you?”

“And what was last night like with Zatopek van Heerden, Hope?”

“I’m not having this conversation.”

“Yes, you are, Hope, because I have a very important message for you.”

“What message?”

“I’m getting to it.” So calm. “First want to share something else with you, Hope. About Kara-An Rousseau. Who kept your place warm in his house on Monday night.”

No words in her head.

“Thought that would leave you speechless, but I reckoned it was time for you to know. The real reason why I phoned, Hope, is about Joan. By this time she should be in great pain.”

♦

Carolina de Jager lay behind the couch, the Remington on the floor in front of her. She heard the voice, looked up, saw two of them with Wilna van As.

“You’re not Joan van Heerden,” the dark one said, and looked at her, his firearm aimed at her.

“Where is she?” the other one in the camouflage pants asked, and shoved Wilna van As away from him, so that she fell on her knees on the living-room carpet.

“I don’t know,” said Carolina de Jager, and she slowly raised the Remington behind the couch.

“You’re lying,” said the dark one, coming closer.

Clattering noise outside, getting louder and louder. Aircraft? The two men looked at each other.

“Here I am,” said Joan van Heerden, hitting Camouflage Pants with the spade, the noise outside even louder, the dark one spinning round, taking aim at Joan, Carolina swinging up the Remington, firing without aiming, a thunderclap. He fell, and the noise was suddenly identifiable, helicopter, deafening over the roof of the house.

♦

The helicopter wasn’t there when Van Heerden and Mpayipheli turned in at the gate in the Mercedes, soldiers in front of the house, army brown body bag in the garden. He saw the damage, the broken windows, the front door hanging on one hinge, the pockmarks against the wall, ran in. “Ma!” Two more body bags on the floor, cold filled him. “Ma!” The damage was bad, a great pool of blood in the entrance hall, blood spattered against the walls.

She came out of the kitchen, her eyes swollen and red, and he embraced her and she said, “They shot Billy September, Zet,” and cried.

He held her tightly, overwhelmed with relief. “I’m sorry, Ma.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

He wasn’t so sure, but he left it at that.

“Come, they need us,” said his mother.

The other two women were in the kitchen, Wilna van As at the kitchen table, Carolina de Jager at the counter, busy with mugs and sugar and tea and milk, their faces pale and set.

“Who…” he asked, and pointed to the living room.

“Them,” his mother said. “Billy has gone to hospital in the helicopter but…” She shook her head.

“Is he still alive, Ma?”

“He was alive when they put him in the helicopter.”

He counted the body bags. “There were four?”

“Your mother hit one with a spade. He’s also in the helicopter.” Carolina de Jager didn’t look up from her busy hands, her voice a monotone.

“Carolina shot two,” said Joan van Heerden.

“Lord,” he said.

“The Lord was on our side today,” said Carolina de Jager.

“Amen,” said Tiny Mpayipheli behind him, and then Carolina cried, for the first time.

♦

In the calm before the storm, before Hope came in her partner’s car, before Bester and his troops arrived, before the police, with Mat Joubert in command, turned up, before the media and their squadrons streamed in at the gate, before the glaziers could start their repairs, before Orlando Arendse and his retinue, before Kara-An, he walked to one of the two body bags outside and pulled down the zip.

“What are you doing?” asked the soldier with the pack radio, sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve.

“Identification,” he said.

“The colonel said hands off.”

“Fuck the colonel.” The face in the body bag was that of a stranger, no similarity to Rupert de Jager’s photographs of twenty years ago. He slid his hand quickly over the jacket, looking for a wallet.

“That’s enough,” said the radio man.

He got up, walked to the other body bag, unzipped it, the soldier watching him. He tried to turn his back on the man, the pale face in the bag unknown, quick hands in the jacket, nothing. He got up, walked to the one in the living room, not wanting the sergeant to follow him, bent over the body, opened fast, found a bulge in the clothing, pushed in his hand, wallet, took it out. He heard footsteps, looked at the face but didn’t recognize it, zipped the bag, stood with his back to the door. When he looked round, the sergeant was there, suspicious.

“I don’t know them.”

“Samson, Moroka, come and fetch this one, put him with the others.”

Van Heerden went to the kitchen, transferred the wallet to his own pocket.

He borrowed Mpayipheli’s cell phone and phoned Murder and Robbery, looking for O’Grady, because he wanted them here. Then he phoned the newspapers one by one and the radio stations and the television. He didn’t trust Bester Brits, wanted nonmilitary involvement, everything open and aboveboard, transparent.

Hope arrived first, fear in her eyes, wanting to know what had happened, the mark on her cheek bright. She pulled him aside, told him about the second call, but didn’t tell him everything.

“He watched us, Van Heerden, every move we made. They were in my house, they know what book I’m reading and how fast I read.”

He merely nodded.

“He had a message for us. Your mother…the attack…he said they’d warned you, Schlebusch had warned you.”

“Schlebusch is dead.”

“Dead?”

“They shot him. This morning. Bester said it’s because I put the photo in the paper, because Schlebusch became a high risk. I think it’s only part of the story.”

“He said he found the will in the safe.”

“Who?”

“The man who phoned this morning. He said he would’ve given it to us but then we went to the newspapers. So he burned it yesterday. He said there was nothing left and we can drop the whole thing now.”