Deon Meyer - Dead at Daybreak

Or was it the famous Nagel instinct, the extra sense that, despite all his shallowness, he was blessed with?

Was it Jung who said that there was no coincidence? Had Nagel sent me purposely or subconsciously-consciously to Nonnie that first day? I even considered that possibility, but the psychological byways formed a maze of speculation in which I quickly became trapped.

To my deep shame I must admit that his words, his throwing down of the gauntlet as it were, gave an extra element of excitement and adrenaline to our secret relationship. It was a factor that bound us more closely in our deceit, tightened the bonds of our love. In our stolen moments, in her house, in Nagel’s bed, when we lay in each other’s arms, we would speculate conspiratorially about his suspicions, we would discuss our behavior, looking for moments in which we might possibly have betrayed ourselves – and each time we came to the conclusion that he had no reason to suspect.

The time we could spend together was so heartbreakingly limited: sometimes an hour or two in a day, when the slow-moving judicial system held him captive as a witness in a court case; when he made himself comfortable on a barstool for an evening’s “serious drinking”; and the oh-so-rare, sweet days and nights when he had to leave the Cape to stretch the long arm of the law into the countryside.

In those months Nonnie Nagel became my whole life. I thought about her from the moment I opened my eyes in the morning until, with painful longing, I eventually went to sleep at night. My love for her was all-encompassing, all-prevailing, a virus, a fever, a refuge.

My love for her was right, just, good. Nagel had rejected her, and I had discovered her, embraced and cherished her, made her my own. My love for her was pure, beautiful, gentle. Therefore it was right, despite the terrible daily deceit. I rationalized it for myself, every hour of every day, told her he had had choices, had made his decisions. Together we elevated our relationship to a crusade of love and justice.

Why didn’t she just leave him?

I asked her that once and she simply looked at me with those beautiful, gentle eyes and made a gesture of infinite helplessness and I came to my own conclusions. I suspected she was, like many abused women, the victim of a destructive relationship in which one word of praise was the dependency-inducing lifeline in a stormy sea of criticism. I suspected that she didn’t think she could stand on her own any longer, that she didn’t believe she was capable of a life without him.

I didn’t ask again, knew I would have to take the lead.

But perhaps it was also the very nature of our relationship that allowed so little time for discussion of the future, perhaps it was because we wanted to be sure, or perhaps we didn’t want to dilute the excitement of the forbidden so soon. We never really spoke about the way in which she should leave her marriage.

And one afternoon (he was in court again), when we had let the sweat of lovemaking dry on our bodies, I uttered the words that would change so much.

What I should have said was, Nonnie, I love you. Marry me .

What I did say had the same tenor, was the product of my feeling of guilt, my fear, my focus.

“How do we get rid of Nagel?” I asked, without thinking too deeply, without measuring the meaning of my words.

∨ Dead at Daybreak ∧

51

Bart de Wit and Mat Joubert had Tony O’Grady on the carpet.

“Van Heerden made something of this case with nothing – no forensics, no team of detectives, no squad of uniforms, nothing. Now’s the time for you, Anthony O’Grady, to move your ass, because the SANDF is laughing at us and the media are laughing at us and the district commissioner screams over the telephone and the provincial minister of justice phoned to say you’ve got to move it, it can’t carry on like this. You’re in charge now. Tell us what you need. Make things happen.”

And now he was standing in front of an impressive matron of the Milnerton MediClinic and his meaty face blushed a dark red and his lumpish body shook with rage and his mouth was struggling to choke back words that shouldn’t be used in front of a woman.

“He’s gone? ” he managed eventually.

“Yes, sir, he’s gone. The military people took him away against the wishes of the entire medical team.” Her voice was calm and soothing; she saw O’Grady’s red face and shaking torso and wondered whether he was going to have a heart attack in her office.

“Ffffff…” he said, and controlled himself with superhuman effort.

“Just about ten minutes ago. Not even in an ambulance.”

“Did they say where they were taking him?”

“Into custody. When I objected, they said they had medical treatment available for him.”

The curses were poised on his tongue but he bit them back.

“What was his condition?”

“He was stable but we were about to run tests on him. A blow like that to the head, there could be major brain damage.”

“Was he conscious?”

“Delirious, I would say.”

“Coherent?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who took him?”

“A Colonel Brits.”

The frustration, the impotent rage, washed through O’Grady’s big body. “The bastard,” he said, and then he could no longer hold the obscenities back. “The motherfucking, absolute, total, complete cunt of a bastard,” he said, and deflated like a big balloon.

“Feeling better now?” asked the matron. But O’Grady didn’t hear her. He was on his way down the passage, cell phone in his hand. He was going to speak to that dolly-bird attorney, but first he would phone Mat Joubert. Joubert must phone Bart de Wit. Bart de Wit must phone the commissioner and the commissioner could phone whomever he wanted, but Bester Brits was going to get fucked before the day was out.

He was wrong.

♦

The man whose skull had been cracked by a spade was sitting on a wooden Defence Force chair, in a prefab building in a forgotten area in a Port Jackson thicket on the far edge of the Ysterplaat Air Force Base. He wasn’t tied down or shackled. Bester Brits, standing in front of him, was in complete control: there was no need for restraints.

Outside there were four soldiers with R5 rifles, and in any case, Spadehead wasn’t in great shape. His head was lolling, the eyes rolled up every few seconds, his breathing was fast and uneven.

“Does it hurt?” Bester Brits asked, and slapped Spadehead on the purplish red head wound.

The sound that came through the swollen lips was just decipherable as “Yes.”

“What’s your name?”

No reply. Brits lifted his hand again, poised threateningly.

A sound.

“What?”

“Ghaarie.”

“Gary?”

Nod, head rolling.

“Who sent you, Gary, to the house to attack the women?”

Sound.

“What?”

“Please.” Hands lifted to protect the wound.

Brits swept the hands aside, slapped again. “Please? Please what?”

“My head.”

“I know it’s your fucking head, you moron, and I’ll keep on hitting it until you talk, do you understand? The faster you talk, the faster – ”

Sound.

“What?”

“Oh-ri-un.”

“Orion?”

“Yes.”

Brits hit him again with the frustration of more than twenty years, all the hatred, the rancor in him that opened like an old, stinking sore. “I know it was Operation Orion, motherfuck.” The words unlocking memories.

Gary moaning, “No, no, no.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“O-ri-unShh…” The word slurred in the saliva that ran from a corner of his mouth.

“What?”

No reply. Gary’s eyes were closed, the head flopping.