Deon Meyer - Dead at Daybreak

“He’s lying.”

“Do you think it still exists?”

“It’s leverage, Hope. He would be stupid to destroy it.”

“Why would he say so?”

“I don’t know.” He looked at her. At the way she controlled her emotion. She’s strong , he thought. Stronger than he was. “Shall we drop it, Hope?”

“I want to get him, Van Heerden, with everything I’ve got, but I’m scared. Billy…your mother…”

“We don’t need a will. Those dollars belong to Wilna van As.”

“There was another caller as well, one of the ’seventy-six ones. He was scared that we would use his photo as well. He wants to meet us. He said he’d phone back. I told Marie – ”

“Bester and company tap our phone, Hope.”

“How?”

He laughed without humor. “Any way they like.”

“Did they hear everything? This morning?”

“They were in Hout Bay a few minutes after me.”

“What do we do now?”

“If he phones again, tell him…Jesus, it’s difficult…They’re probably tuned in to your cell phone as well.” He thought. “Tiny’s phone. If he phones again, tell him the line isn’t secure. Tell him to phone Tiny’s cell phone. I’ll get the number in a minute.”

“And if he’s already phoned? Spoken to Marie?”

“What will Marie tell him?”

“There was a crisis, I’m not available, and he must phone at two o’clock this afternoon.”

“He’ll phone again. He’s frightened.”

She nodded. She said she was going back – perhaps the other call would come in – and he went to fetch her cell phone and Tiny’s number and walked with her to her partner’s white BMW, and then they saw Bester Brits and his convoy of troops arriving and he felt the rage growing in him again but suppressed it.

Brits jumped off the truck, barked orders left and right, walked to the sergeant, ignored Van Heerden.

Then they heard the sirens, saw the blue lights.

The SAPS , he thought. The cavalry. Too late . But it pleased him. He would thwart Brits. In every possible way. Just wait until the media arrived.

♦

At first there were five juniors from Murder and Robbery and then, fifteen minutes later, O’Grady, Superintendent Leon Petersen, and Mat Joubert arrived in a white Opel Astra. “You’re going to spoil my wedding, Van Heerden.”

“You’ll thank me one day.”

Joubert looked at the damage, whistled through his teeth. “What happened?”

“Four of them attacked the house this morning.”

“Them?” asked Petersen.

“I only see three body bags,” said O’Grady.

“Who was in the house?” Joubert asked.

“My mother, two female guests, and a…a…security guy. He’s critical, in the Milnerton MediClinic. One of the attackers was still alive. The SANDF took him away as well.”

“And the women?”

“They’re safe. And very shocked.”

“One security man handled four armed attackers?”

“He shot one. A farmer’s wife from the Free State got two with a shotgun, and my mother hit the other one with a spade.”

They looked at him, waiting for him to say he was pulling their leg.

“I’m serious.”

“Jesus,” said O’Grady.

“That’s the general feeling,” said Van Heerden.

“And what are Brits and the SANDF doing here?”

“It’s a long story. Let’s talk in there.” He gestured to his house, away from it all and undamaged. They walked toward it.

“You were looking for me yesterday?” Van Heerden asked. “A message?”

Joubert had to think for a moment. “Oh, yes, I think I know how they found out about the will. I asked around. Someone phoned Murder and Robbery, said he was from the Brixton branch in Gauteng, made all the right noises, could they possibly help, and asked a lot of questions. Snyman, who took the call, is young. He swallowed the story and gave the information.”

“But it wasn’t Brixton.”

“No.”

They were at Van Heerden’s house, but Mat Joubert halted. “Wait.” He walked over to Bester Brits, alone with his men, a clique in camouflage.

“Brits, I don’t need you here. It’s a crime scene and your men are ruining all the forensics.”

Van Heerden hung back, filled with satisfaction.

“The hell they are, Joubert. It’s my jurisdiction.”

Joubert laughed. “You don’t have any.” He turned to Petersen. “Leon, get the uniforms from the Table View branch. And you might as well get Philadelphia and Melkbos and Milnerton’s people as well. Tell them we need crowd-and-riot control. Live ammunition.”

Petersen turned, walked to the Opel Astra. Van Heerden watched Brits. Extremely uncomfortable. He couldn’t afford to lose face in front of his troops. “Unless you want to talk, Brits. Share information,” he called.

Brits tore himself away from the clique, walked up to them, stood too close to Joubert.

“You can’t do it, rozzer.”

“ ‘Rozzer’?”

“Jeez, that’s old-fashioned,” said Nougat O’Grady. “Even pig would be more up-to-date.”

“What about flatfoot? ” Van Heerden offered.

“Go shit yourself.”

Mat Joubert laughed in his face.

“Uniforms on their way, Mat,” Petersen shouted from the Astra, very loudly. “In their serried ranks.”

Joubert and Brits stood virtually head-to-head like two elephant bulls, Joubert slightly shorter, the shoulders somewhat broader.

“Come and talk to us, Brits,” said Van Heerden. He wanted to add, Please , but stopped himself. He wanted information. Badly.

O’Grady: “Our cocks are longer than yours, Brits. Face it.”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“How many photos must I still publish, Brits?”

“I’ll gag the press.”

They laughed as one – Van Heerden, Joubert, O’Grady, and Petersen.

“Look there, Brits.” Van Heerden pointed over Brits’s shoulder.

The panel van of eTV turned in at the gate.

“Those men are hungry,” said Petersen.

“You’re surrounded,” said O’Grady.

“Custer’s last stand,” said Petersen.

“At Little Little Horn.”

Then the two detectives chuckled and Van Heerden recalled Brits’s and Steven Mzimkhulu’s mocking. What goes round comes round.

The inner turmoil in Brits ended. “Ten minutes,” he said. “That’s all you’re getting.”

“Thank God you’re not a lawyer. It would’ve cost us a fortune.”

♦

“We have eight members of First Reconnaissance Command who ran a supply route from South West to Angola, Brits.” He closed his eyes, trying to recall the names; his notebook was at Hope’s. “Schlebusch, Verster, De Beer, Manley, Venter, Janse van Rensburg, Vergottini, and Rupert de Jager.” He opened his eyes. Brits was pale, trying to hide the shock of the names, but his face betrayed him. “And then two officers appeared on De Jager’s parents’ farm and told them he had died in the service of his country, but more than twenty years later he lived again as Johannes Jacobus Smit with a false identity document and a safe full of American dollars dating from the previous decade. And he was shot with an M16 and I’m reasonably certain it was Schlebusch, the noncommissioned officer who led the group in ’seventy-six.”

He looked up. Brits evaded his eyes.

“You’re doing everything in your power to manipulate the investigation, to get it stopped. Which means that you know what happened in ’seventy-six and you want to suppress it at all costs. Which means it was bad, wet work or chemical warfare or some unholy operation.”

Brits snorted contemptuously.

“You can snort all you like, Brits, but your secret is going to come out. Now Schlebusch is also dead, after his picture appeared in the paper. But I have all the photographs, Brits, and I’m giving them to the newspapers and television and I’ll sit back and watch all hell break loose. And I’ll tell them about your efforts to undermine the investigation and see how you handle that.”