Deon Meyer - Dead at Daybreak

He shoved his hands into the dead man’s pockets – the fifth corpse today, he thought – revulsion against the bits of brain and bone and blood rising in his throat. He found nothing, looked round at the spartan flat, empty pizza boxes on the melamine kitchen counter, empty beer bottles on the coffee table, empty coffee mugs in the sink, two small boxes of ammunition on the floor, one open.

“I’ll choose my painting later, thank you.”

Mpayipheli walked to the bedroom while Van Heerden jerked open drawers and cupboards in the kitchen.

Nothing.

“Have a look at this,” Tiny called from a bedroom. He went through: R1 and R5 attack rifles leaning in a bunch in a corner, clothes strewn on the bed, two-way radios on the floor. Tiny stood in front of a cupboard, staring at an A4 sheet taped to the door, a printout from a dot-matrix printer.

Shift schedule:

00:00-06:00: Degenaar and Steenkamp

06:00-12:00: Schlebusch and Player

12:00-18:00: Weber and Potgieter

18:00-00:00: Goldman and Nixon

Sirens in front of the block. He knew the police procedure: they would come up the fire escape, two would cover the lift on the ground floor. He didn’t know how many uniforms there were by now, didn’t want to speak to the police now – this was no time to be caught up in the machine. He jerked the paper off the cupboard door. “Come on, got to go,” he said, and walked, Tiny following him, taking one last look at the body and the damage, out of the door. He pressed the call button for the lift, and the door opened immediately. They walked in, pressed P for the parking garage. As the door closed and the lift moved, he held his breath: it mustn’t stop on the ground floor.

“Your pistol,” Tiny said softly.

“What?”

“You can put it away now.”

He gave an embarrassed grin and looked at the lights above the door, GROUND FLOOR, which flashed once, the lift moving, PARKING GARAGE. His gaze fell on the handwritten note against a side panel of the lift.

Two-bedroom flat for rent in this building.

Call Maria at Southern Estate Agents,

283 Main Road.

When the door opened, he took the note down. They walked out. He looked at his watch: 14:17. Why didn’t Hope’s contact telephone? Why didn’t Hope phone?

♦

Sergeant Pienaar’s call was two minutes longer than the promised five. “The number is registered in the name of Orion Solutions, sir. The address is 78 Solan Street, in Gardens.”

“Solan?”

“I don’t pick ’em, Colonel, I just dig ’em out.”

“Thanks, Pine, you’re a star.”

“Pleasure, Colonel.”

Bester Brits put the pen down and rubbed his hands over his face with slow, rhythmic movements, softly, soothingly, comfortingly. Tired , he thought, so tired, so many years of searching .

Another dead end?

He would have a look.

Alone.

He walked out of the office. It was suddenly cold outside, the northwester tugging at his clothes, the fine rain, preceding the cold front, sifting down. He was hardly aware of it.

They wouldn’t be so arrogant.

Orion Solutions.

The hatred was all-encompassing.

♦

As usual there was no parking on Kloof Street, so she parked the BMW on a side street. She wanted to get Zatopek van Heerden on the cell phone but decided against it. First she must check to see whether the caller was here. She took her umbrella from behind the seat, handed it to O’Grady.

“Be a gentleman,” she said.

“No running?” He took the umbrella from her and got out.

“No running,” she said.

They walked from the corner to Café Paradiso, she and the fat detective under the umbrella, the rain gusting.

“He’s not expecting someone else with me,” she said.

“Tough shit,” said O’Grady. “It’s my case.”

“He might run when he sees you.”

“Then you’ll have to catch him. You’re the fast one in this little team.”

They walked up the stairs, the wooden tables outside empty, the light inside shining through the windows. He opened the door for her, shook out the umbrella. Her eyes searched the room, saw the man sitting alone at a table, cigarette in his hand, brown leather jacket, late thirties, gold-rimmed glasses, dark hair, black mustache. He looked up, saw her, his face tense, and he half rose, nervously stubbing out the cigarette as she walked up to the table.

“I’m Hope Beneke.” Extending her hand.

“Miller,” he said, and shook her hand. She felt the dampness of the sweat on his palm, saw the wedding ring on his finger. “Sit down.”

“This is Inspector O’Grady of Murder and Robbery,” she said.

He looked at Nougat, confused. “What’s he doing here?”

“It’s my case now. As a matter of fact, it’s always been my case.”

They sat down at the table. A waiter approached with menus.

“We don’t want anything,” said Miller. “We’re not staying long.”

“I’ll have one,” said O’Grady, and took a menu. “You can bring me a Diet Coke in the meanwhile. A big one.”

“Is Miller your real name?” Hope asked when the waiter had gone.

“No,” he said.

“Are you Venter? Or Vergottini?”

“I have a wife and children.”

“It says here they have a Mediterranean buffet,” said O’Grady from behind the menu.

“Are you going to publish my photo as well?”

“Not if you cooperate.”

He was visibly relieved. “I’ll tell you all I can, but then you’ll leave me alone?” A begging question, hopeful.

“That depends on your innocence, sir.”

“No one is innocent in this thing.”

“Why don’t you tell us about it?”

He looked at them, looked at the door, across the room, eyes never still. She saw the sweat glistening in the light of the restaurant, small, silver drops on his forehead.

“Hold your horses,” said Nougat O’Grady. “I want to have a look at the buffet before you start spilling the beans.” He hauled himself upright.

The sniper’s bullet that was meant for Miller punched through the window of the restaurant and plowed through the fat policeman’s body between the fourth and fifth ribs, nicked a corner of the right lung, went through the right ventricle of the heart, exited through the breastbone, and buried itself in a wooden beam above the bar in the center of the restaurant. There was no sound of a shot, only the window shattering and O’Grady being thrown across the table by the impact of the bullet, his considerable weight smashing the table under him. He fell to the floor in a welter of broken wood and blood but he was unaware of it all.

Miller was the first to react. He was up and running when the first screams erupted, not toward the front door but in the opposite direction, the kitchen. Hope sat transfixed, paralyzed. The breaking table had injured her knee, and O’Grady had fallen half across her. She looked at the policeman’s face, the staring eyes.

“God,” she said softly, looking confusedly at him, at Miller’s retreating back, at the window, hearing screaming tires outside. She half rose, saw a white panel van driving down Kloof Street, and her legs shook. She reached for her handbag, she had to stop Miller, the restaurant staff were hypnotized, bug-eyed, and Miller had disappeared. She ran after him, shoved her hand into her handbag, looking for the SW99, stumbled, her legs shaking, ran on.

♦

“We want to know who rents 612 Rhodes House,” Van Heerden said to Maria Nzululuwazi of Southern Estate Agents.

“You’re from the police,” she said knowledgeably.

“It’s a murder case,” said Tiny Mpayipheli.

“Hoo,” said Maria, looking Tiny up and down and shuddering. “Wouldn’t mind being chased by you.”