Daddy Long Legs (19 page)

Kyle awoke with a hangover. A huge towering thing that sat screaming in his head. By now, his hangovers were tame little things, barely more than a mild nuisance. It was the only reward of the heavy drinker. But this morning’s hangover was different.

Although he had made repeated resolutions to stop drinking – or at the very
bloody
least – drink less, nothing had come of his drunken declarations and every day, like the day before, he found himself in the dingy environs of the celebrated Horse and Hound. The previous day was no different, although the Royal Hotel’s vaunted watering hole had seen a particularly large crowd on that day. The discovery of the mangled corpse of a murdered boy can do that to people. People like Kyle Devlin. Because unlike most of the people that had crowded the narrow confines of the Horse and Hound, Kyle had a very personal connection to the little dead boy. The same killer that had carelessly dumped little Kobus’s body under the water tower ... had also taken the life of his little brother all those years ago. For Kyle, the news of the boy’s corpse brought on a paroxysm of dread ... and guilt. And several double whiskies. Throughout a day that grew increasingly hazy, Kyle tried to fill his mind with the
bric-a-brac
of the alcoholic. Loose and pointless little thoughts and conjectures. Anything not to think of the dark phantom that clung to his past. But it was pointless. Try as he might, aided by booze and inane barroom conversations, he couldn’t stop thinking of that day when his brother had forever disappeared. He couldn’t forget about that day when his carelessness had caused Ryan to be swallowed up by the darkness of a twisted world. It was the careless though unintentional act of a young teenage boy racked by the demands of raging hormones. Nothing else. And yet, even now, the town of Hope couldn’t forget. And wouldn’t forgive. They still blamed him for what happened on that dark day. Buried under two decades and countless double whiskies, Kyle never allowed himself to forget. And barely allowed himself to forgive. He often thought it was his maniacal need to stay busy and focused that drove his successful career in advertising. Now, in the weeks since his career had stalled, he found it increasingly difficult to restrain his mind from brooding on that dark day, more than two decades in the past. Since that screaming headline of barely a week ago, it had become impossible. And now. With the discovery of the body. Kyle’s fragile state reached breaking point. An impossibly taut cable, about to snap under the weight of guilt and recrimination. Thank God for the ready supply of alcohol, Kyle thought to himself as he rolled out of bed. He was eager to begin another round of drinking. No. Alcohol didn’t solve any problems. And no. Throwing alcohol down his throat didn’t stop him remembering. But hell yes. It sure made the memories easier to handle. Removing all anxiety and dread that came with it.

A few minutes later Kyle was strolling down the street. He turned in at the OK Supermarket to buy a pack of Camels. At the cash registers he waited patiently as a trainee struggled with a customer’s debit card. Behind him someone dropped a box of Kellogg’s cereal. Despite his hangover Kyle stooped to pick up the box. He turned to the person in the queue behind him. ‘Here you –’

He was staring into the eyes of Odette.

Seconds passed like hours. The universe shrank to a molecule. And danced with vivid electricity in the space between them. Behind them an impatient mother with two nagging children pushed past them and plonked her groceries down on the check-out counter.

Odette spoke first. ‘Kyle.’

Like an idiot with a hangover, Kyle stammered a single word. ‘Nienaber.’ It had been the name she had spoken over a fuzzy telephone line, almost twenty years ago. Her married name.

‘What?’ She laughed a deep throaty laugh, throwing her head back, a plume of rich auburn hair spilling over her shoulder. She grabbed his hand and moved him aside as another impatient customer joined the queue behind them. ‘I can’t believe it’s you. Wow.’ She pulled him closer and hugged him hard, the box of cereal digging into his back.

‘Yes, I ...’

She released him and looked at him intently. ‘After all these years. Unbelievable.’ She beamed, revealing a row of even white teeth. ‘You’re looking good, Mr Devlin.’

‘Yes, well,’ Kyle continued, still stammering with shock, ‘you look erm ... good.’ He looked down at her gray knee-length skirt and matching high heels contrasted with black stockings wrapped around long and shapely legs. At the little white button-down blouse that curled provocatively around her waist and hugged two pert little breasts. ‘Amazing, in fact.’

She laughed again. ‘Hey, watch that big city mouth, young man.’ She looked at him with sparkling eyes, a suppressed smile dancing on full rouged lips. ‘Oh darnit, gimme another hug.’ She placed the box of cereal on a nearby shelf and embraced him again. This time Kyle hugged her back, delighting in the rich spicy aroma of her perfume. She stepped back. ‘By the way, how did you know my surname, stalker?’

Kyle looked at her, an idiot’s grin on his face. The hangover and the sudden shock of seeing her had clouded his mind. ‘Erm ... well ... Brendan Freely told me,’ he lied. ‘Yes, he told me.’

‘You,’ she said, wagging a playful finger at him. Then her smiled vanished. ‘Not that it matters. That’s all a thing of the past. We got divorced a few years back.’

‘Really?’ Kyle asked, pretending that he didn’t already know. ‘I’m sorry to hear.’

‘It’s nothing. These things happen.’ She smiled wanly. ‘It’s not as if –’ Her hand shot to her mouth. ‘Oh my God. Here I am feeling sorry for myself and meanwhile ...’ She touched his shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry. Believe me, Kyle I would have attended the funeral, but I wasn’t in town. It happened so suddenly.’

‘Oh yes,’ Kyle stammered, thinking that she had been talking about his brother this whole time. About his brother and the phantom from the past that had returned to haunt him. To haunt them all. ‘Thank you.’

‘Listen,’ she said, looking at her watch, ‘I’ve ... I’ve got to go. But ... are you going to be in town for a while?’

‘Yeah. Sure.’

‘I would really love to see you again. You know, talk about the good ole days, and all that.’ She dug into her purse and took out a small flip pad with a pencil attached. ‘Here, please take my cell number.’ She hurriedly scrawled a number, tore off a sheet and handed it to Kyle. ‘We don’t all have business cards like you big city slickers.’

Kyle absently shoved the paper into his Levi’s pocket, dazzled by her smile. ‘That’d be great.’

She stroked his cheek tenderly. ‘It was great seeing you. I mean it.’

‘Yeah. Same here.’

Throwing him one last smile, she grabbed the cereal box off the shelf and hurried to an open till. Kyle stood for a moment. Dazed. Completely forgetting why he was there. When she walked out the supermarket she cast a last glance at him over her shoulder. He waved meekly. He dug in his pocket and looked at the number she had scribbled. Like a love-struck teenager he stared at the three little X’s she had scratched beneath the cell number. In a deep and dusty part of his heart, so long beset by darkness, he felt a slow uncoiling. A gentle glow. A languid sunshine sparkling into life.

In a daze, he paid for the Camels and ambled towards the exit. Where he halted.

Something was happening in Hope.

Groups of people were standing around, chattering with excitement. Others were running down the street. At least two cars raced past in the same direction. Kyle stopped two youths running past him. ‘Hey, what’s happening?’

‘It’s Daddy Long Legs,’ the one said with wide excited eyes. ‘They caught him.’

It became known as the Pill Town Massacre. And it was a fitting metaphor for the circus that the town of Hope had become.

It wasn’t Daddy Long Legs. And they hadn’t “caught him”. Instead it was a local petty criminal and drug dealer by the name of Piet Venter. He was known locally as
Piet Pille
(Piet Pills).

Piet Pille
had been spotted trying to abduct a Coloured child. He was unsuccessful and fled in his car. A few locals, enflamed by alcohol and rage, had given chase. Somebody mentioned that they had seen child pornography in
Piet Pille
’s car. The group cornered him at his ramshackle smallholdings just north of Hope. Inside the dilapidated house
Piet Pille
took refuge, aided by his equally dilapidated father – and a huge arsenal of weapons. The media got hold of the story. Daddy Long Legs has been apprehended, they broadcast to an astonished world. Detective Dirk Engelman immediately saw the potential for career advancement. And promptly became the SAP spokesman, confirming the news headlines.
Yes. We’ve got the bastard.

Meanwhile, the small group of men outside
Piet Pille
’s residence steadily grew until it swelled into a huge mob of angry residents – chanting and baying for blood. Most of the mob were also armed.

The situation steadily worsened. Until the riot squad from Kimberley was called in. The entire Hope police force was also deployed, forming a cordon around the seething mob.

And then apocalypse descended upon the scene. Someone within the crowd fired a shot.
Piet Pille
and his father returned fire – with semi-automatic R4 rifles. The riot squad fired several tear gas canisters into the crowd. And a bad situation became infinitely worse.

A monstrous gunfight ensued. With the police stuck in the middle. The crowd stormed the house. And for some inexplicable reason a corner of the building burst into flames. When the mob eventually dispersed all that remained of the house was a smouldering shell. The final death toll was twenty-seven. Of that number nineteen were civilians. Ten had died of gunshot wounds; three from complications arising from gunshot wounds. Six people had died as a result of being crushed to death under the stampeding crowd. Two of those were teens.

The police lost six officers that day. Three died as a result of gunshot wounds. A further three were crushed underfoot when the mad mob stormed the Venter house. It was a disastrous loss for the police, especially since not a single cop had fired a shot that day.

And as for the Venters, junior and senior ... well, their charred corpses were hauled out of the smouldering frame a few hours after the massacre had taken place.

Within a week of the
massacre
, the local Northern Cape government set up a commission of enquiry. The South African government had a particular predilection for commissions, spending thousands of tax payer rands to apportion blame to people who were never truly punished and arriving at conclusions which were inescapably subjective ... and political.

Due to the ‘fog of war’ (or should that be the fog of blatant idiocy) no-one could afterwards, with any certainty, say how the whole incident started. Despite dozens of interviews, it was never determined who fired that fateful shot. After hours and hours of laborious sessions, the commission arrived at a conclusion that was only slightly more belated than it was obvious. That a single shot had indeed set off the conflagration. The protestors blamed the police. The police blamed the protestors. The Venters blamed nobody. They were both dead.

Nobody mourned the deaths of the Venters. Many upstanding citizens had suspected all along that
Piet Pille
was behind the kidnapping and murder of Kobus van Jaarsveld. And that he was indeed the vicious serial killer that everyone loathed and feared. None of these upstanding citizens, of course, took the time to consider that
Piet
Pille
was in his early teens at the time of the first Daddy Long Legs murders.

And as for the “kidnapping” incident in the commons? Well,
Piet Pille
wasn’t kidnapping anybody. He was merely, in his usual diplomatic manner, confronting some of the Coloured youths he had suspected of scratching his dilapidated old Datsun. (‘A scratch would probably add value to that piece of junk,’ one of the youthful wits noted.) All that the concerned citizens of Hope saw, however, was
Piet Pille
harassing (or kidnapping) the youth. They chased him to his Datsun and an ‘altercation’ ensued. It was at this stage that one of the upstanding citizens observed the child pornography (quote, unquote) in the backseat of his car. Well, that as they say on TV, son ... that was that. Piet’s goose was cooked. His fate was sealed. And about two hours later, South Africa added the Massacre at Pill Town to its list of disasters for that year.

The story was picked up by at least four international news agencies, including CNN, BBC World and SKY News. At least fourteen countries across the globe ran with the massacre as the evening’s lead story. The world’s attention was finally – and firmly – focused on Hope ... and the resurrected serial killer. In addition to the local news agencies and publications that crammed the little town, now agencies from across the world flocked to Hope.

Detective Dirk Engelman received a severe reprimand for his actions and a full disciplinary hearing was scheduled following the resolution of the Daddy Long Legs case. Although he had committed an ‘egregious act of foolishness’ he was not suspended from active duty. Due to the massive amount of man hours required on a serial killer investigation, the team simply couldn’t afford to lose a senior detective at this stage. Even detective John Joffe, the policeman who had fallen asleep during his surveillance shift, was re-instated.

Human held a press conference to try and save the situation. Afterwards Ndabane phoned him. To his surprise it wasn’t the massacre that was on Ndabane’s mind.

‘We need to get a black face up there, Wayne.’ Human remained quiet. ‘Wayne, we got
you
making press statements. And now we have that
mampara
Engelman. Everywhere we look, it’s just white faces. We have the world looking at us, my
broer
. This is supposed to be the New South Africa.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘This comes from the Minister, Wayne. From the top. My arms are tied. He wants to see a more ... ah ... representative investigation, you follow me, Wayne.’

‘More representative, yes sir.’

‘So, I’m sending you an assistant, Wayne. She’s a good girl, don’t worry, Wayne. She’s not a
mampara
.’ He paused. ‘Wayne?’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Wayne, use her. Use this girl. She’s good. She’s a beautiful girl, this one. Use her. Make people see her. She’s your assistant, Wayne.’

‘Yes, sir.’

And that was that.

Afterwards Human reviewed some of the “evidence” collected from
Piet Pille
’s car. Besides empty crisp packets, receipts and a half-empty packet of cigarettes, there were the porn magazines. Human opened the transparent evidence bag and took out one of the magazines. Across its cover was the legend, TEEN SLUTS. Human turned the magazine around and looked at bottom right corner of the back cover. There was the evidence that every reader of TEEN SLUTS surely dreaded to learn. In the right-hand corner was a little text box that had DISCLAIMER across the top. The text box contained the following: All performers over eighteen. Custodian of records, Peter A. Underneath was a shoot ID and a date. Human threw the mag onto his desk. So much for child pornography. God, what a disaster.

That night Human fell into a deep sleep. Just as well. He was going to need all this energy for the next day.