Recipes for Love and Murder (25 page)

‘Reghardt?'

She nodded.

‘It's important, Candy, that you tell me the truth,' I said. ‘It will really help our investigation.'

‘Truly, that's what happened. I wasn't so pickled that I can't remember. We made a bit of a racket getting in and the owner got up.'

‘So Reghardt went home with you?'

Candice laughed.

‘Oh, no! He just helped me to my room. I wasn't walking so well. The owner, Mr Wessels, stood frowning at us and let Reghardt out himself.'

‘So nothing happened between you and Reghardt?'

‘Hell, no,' she said. ‘He's a sweet little guy, but not my type. And I'm not his. He's got a girlfriend.'

‘He told you that?'

‘Yeah, he seemed real proud of her. Didn't tell me her name.'

‘It's Jessie,' I said.

‘Oh, hell damn,' said Candice, ‘does she think . . . ?'

I nodded. Candice sat down and Hattie handed her a cup of tea.

‘The poor thing,' Candy said.

‘Could you give me that number, Hats?' I said.

Reghardt answered on the first ring.

‘Jessie?' he said.

‘It's Tannie Maria,' I said. ‘I got a letter from a young man. I'd like to help him. I was thinking maybe you could give me some advice about what to say . . . '

Reghardt was quiet.

‘His girlfriend is ignoring him because she thinks he spent the night with another woman,' I said.

‘But why would she think that?'

‘Because she heard about him leaving a bar with his arm around another woman.'

‘What?'

‘One who was beautiful and drunk.'

‘Oh, that. She was too drunk to drive.'

‘Ja.'

‘So I, I mean he, took her home.'

‘Ja, and . . . ?'

‘And? And nothing. Oh, no – she thinks— Ag, nee.'

‘She's really upset. The man is someone special to her.'

‘He is?'

‘I don't think he should give up on her.'

‘You don't?'

‘What should I tell him to do?'

‘Maybe he can ask her friends to tell her the truth. Do you think they'd do that, Tannie?'

‘If she's feeling really hurt, she might be ignoring her friends too. I think he must write her a letter telling her what happened and how he feels about her. And then he must go round to her himself. If she won't see him, he can leave the letter.'

‘Ja, that's good advice, Tannie. You should tell him that.'

‘It won't do any harm to give her some koeksisters. She really likes koeksisters.'

Just as I put the phone down it rang again and I picked up. It was Sister Mostert from the hospital.

‘They've gone,' she told me. ‘Anna and Dirk. Just now they were eating breakfast and, next thing, they've disappeared.'

‘What about the police guards?'

‘You won't believe this, but they made friends with each other. Dirk and Anna. Stopped fighting. So the police went.'

‘And Dirk and Anna weren't discharged?'

‘No. And another thing. An ambulance, it's been stolen.'

‘You think they took it?'

‘Who would drive? Her leg is in a plaster cast. His arm is in a sling . . . I can't understand it. I phoned the police. But I also thought I should tell you.'

‘What is it?' asked Candice as I hung up.

‘It's Dirk and Anna. Disappeared. And so has an ambulance.'

‘In their condition . . . ' said Hattie.

‘They've got one good pair of arms and legs between them,' I said. ‘If they worked together, they'd be a whole person. But could they steal an ambulance?'

Hattie laughed.

‘Honestly. Those two, working together?' she said.

‘Sister Mostert says they made up. They're friends now.'

‘Where would they go?' said Candice.

‘Looking for revenge,' I said. ‘And I think it's my fault. They listened to me for a change . . . Candice, can we take your car? It's faster. Let's go to John's farm.'

‘You think they blame him for Martine's murder?' said Hattie.

I nodded and asked Candy: ‘Have you got a cell phone?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Hattie, we'll call you when we get there, but phone the police in the meanwhile. Tell Kannemeyer the story and ask him to send a van out to John's.'

The top was up, so we didn't have that wild wind, but the car was going fast. Very fast. But it was okay – Candy was a good driver. As we shot out of town, I looked at the yellow and purple flowers that were coming up all over the veld. Candy saw them too.

‘Beautiful,' she said.

‘It's the rain,' I said. ‘They come out after the rain.'

‘Beautiful,' she said again.

‘Are you just born with beauty?' I asked, looking at her smooth peach skin and golden hair. ‘Or can it grow on you like flowers? How do
you
do it?'

She smiled.

‘Beauty is my career.'

‘I couldn't wear your kind of clothes,' I said.

‘No. You'd have to find the right clothes for you. That show off your best bits.'

‘Hah. I've got no best bits.'

‘Nonsense. Your face, your hips and breasts are in a perfect ratio. Excellent curves. And your hands and ankles are real cute. I know just the style for you. If you like I'll get my shop to send up something. What are you, a thirty-eight? And shoes. Four?'

I nodded and looked down at my brown dress and khaki veldskoene. They were very practical, but even I could tell they weren't the best style for me. My dress size used to be thirty-four, before I married, then a thirty-six, and now it's thirty-eight.

‘I can't wear those fancy New York clothes,' I said.

‘It's on the house.'

‘It won't help . . . '

‘Oh, rubbish. You're lovely. And you've got good skin, even though it's so hot and dry here. What do you use?'

‘Olive oil.'

‘And as we get older we've got to watch the exercise and diet a bit more.'

‘Is that your secret?'

‘Secret? I've got no secrets.'

We were passing a grove of bright green spekboom trees.

‘I guess there is one secret I've learned,' she said. ‘Clothes, skin, makeup, can all help. But if a woman thinks she looks good, she glows with her own special beauty.'

‘Ja, maybe, but even if she's thinking and glowing and all, will a man see her beauty?'

‘Men aren't as dumb as they seem, Maria.'

‘Look,' I said, ‘a bokkie.'

‘What?'

‘A little buck, there, in the shadow of the spekboom. By those big rocks. A steenbokkie.'

But she couldn't see it. It's easy to see bright flowers, but you need the right kind of eyes to see a brown animal in the shade.

Maybe I would find a man with the right kind of eyes.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

‘There's the sign,' I said. ‘
Wild Things Organic Farm
.'

Candice swerved onto the dust road. A mongoose dived into the bushes. We headed up towards the farmhouse that was on the foothills of the Swartberge. The veld looked green and healthy here. There was long grass and flowers growing between the bushes and trees. A line of sweet thorn and other trees ran down from a kloof, so there was probably a river bed. There were also those old gwarries and spekboom trees all over the veld.

‘Slow down a second,' I said to Candy.

We were passing a grove of trees, with a strange fence around it.

‘Pomegranate trees,' I said. ‘But the fruit is small and green.'

‘Looks like an electric fence,' said Candy. ‘Attached to solar panels.'

She was right – there were two panels at the bottom of the field, catching the sun.

‘What's that barking sound?' she said.

‘Baboons,' I said, hoping it wasn't Dirk and Anna we were hearing.

But it was baboons. As we turned a bend in the road, we saw them running out of a greenhouse. They were galloping out, their arms full of stuff, like rude customers at a summer sale. One baboon was sitting on the glass roof eating a bunch of black grapes.

Ahead of us was the farmhouse.

‘There's the ambulance,' said Candice.

‘Your phone?' I said.

We parked next to the ambulance. Candy handed me her phone and I called Hattie.

‘The ambulance is here,' I said.

‘Goodness! Is everything all right?'

‘I don't know yet. We're going in now. Are the police coming?'

‘Finally got through to Kannemeyer. He's leaving now. I'll call him again to confirm that the ambulance is there. Maria, please do be careful.' Candy and I got out and walked to a wheelchair that lay on its side at the foot of the stoep stairs. It looked like Anna's wheelchair. But where was she?

The stoep was big and wide, with a corrugated-iron roof and wrought-iron broekie-lace around the edges. One of those really old farmhouses. It had been nicely whitewashed but there were some dusty cracks where the thick mud-brick walls needed repairs. A skinny woman in blue dungarees was standing on the stoep, looking in through the doorway.

‘Just leave him alone!' she shouted.

Candice trotted past her, and I followed.

‘Careful,' she said to us, ‘they're mad.'

‘Stay away!' called Anna, as we walked inside. ‘Or we'll kill him.'

‘Anna,' I said.

‘Dirk,' said Candice, her hands on her hips.

Anna and Dirk looked up at us as if they were two dogs that we had caught up to no good. But they did not let go of their prey. John was lying face down, with Dirk sitting on his back, pinning him to the floor. Dirk's eyes were wild, and his arms were still in a sling and a bandage, but he had a good grip on John with his legs. His hairy bum peeped out from the gap in the green hospital gown. Anna was sitting beside John on the floor, her gown neatly closed. The leg with the bandage was tucked under her and the plaster-cast leg stuck out straight in front. With one hand she was pressing a long metal pipe across the side of John's neck and in her other was a big syringe jabbed just beneath his ear.

The metal looked like the stand that supported a hospital drip. Anna's cheeks were pink and her hair was wild. Wild Things Organic Farm, I thought.

‘What are you doing, Anna?' I asked.

‘Eep,' said John.

Anna sniffed, and tightened her grip on the pole and the syringe.

‘It's got air in it,' said the woman at the door. ‘She said she'd inject it into his bloodstream and kill him if I came inside or phoned the police.'

Candice pulled up two chairs and we sat down. The woman stepped inside. She found a third chair and the three of us sat in a line, facing them in our front-row seats.

‘Are they escaped lunatics?' the woman asked us.

Candice nodded. I shook my head.

‘We know he did it,' said Anna. ‘He just won't talk.'

‘Did what?' said dungaree girl.

‘Killed Tienie,' said Anna.

‘Slept with my wife,' said Dirk at the same time.

‘What's going on, John?' said Dungarees.

‘Elp,' John squeaked.

‘These three people were in love with the same woman,' said Candice. ‘Martine. She was murdered. The two of them are blaming John.'

‘Lawrence saw your car that day,' said Dirk. ‘That's why you killed him.'

‘Martine?' said Dungarees. ‘That woman in the photos? You were still seeing her?'

John wheezed.

‘I found photos of this woman,' she told the two of us in the front row, ‘that he kept in a book by his bed. After we'd been together for a year!' She turned back to John. ‘You promised me you'd never see her again.'

John's tongue was sticking out between his lips.

‘Did you see her again, John?' asked Dungarees.

John looked like he was trying to shake his head, but he was not in the right position for it.

‘Anna,' I said, ‘how is he going to talk if you keep squashing his neck like that?'

Anna released her grip on the pole, but kept the syringe in place. John sucked some air in.

‘Help,' he said.

Dungarees folded her arms.

‘Did you?'

‘I did nothing wrong,' said John.

‘You called out her name, John. At just the wrong time. I pretended I didn't notice. Martine, you said, when you should have been calling Didi. My name. Didi.'

‘Did you visit Martine?' I asked.

John sniffled. Anna pressed the pipe down again, and he made a noise like a choking chicken. She released the pressure.

‘Please don't kill me,' he said.

‘The truth, John,' said Didi Dungarees.

‘I did go see her. Not because I loved her. But because of the fracking.'

‘I knew it!' said Dirk.

He bounced his weight on John's back and I thought I heard something crack.

‘No!' John said. ‘Not that. Hydraulic fracking. The mining companies are doing it to look for gas. They are buying up farms and I think Marius is working for them. For Shaft. He wanted to buy your land, and I was telling Martine that she mustn't sell. Fracking will destroy the Klein Karoo.'

‘Ja, it's very bad, fracking,' I said. ‘You'll see Jessie's article in tomorrow's
Gazette
.'

‘So you still love her,' said Didi.

‘No. I love you, Didi. She was in my past. Help me here.'

‘Did you ever take her pomegranate juice?' I asked.

‘No,' he said. ‘No.'

‘Do you have pomegranate juice?' I asked Didi.

‘It's not the season,' said Didi. ‘They ripen in March.'

‘Nothing frozen?' I asked.

She shook her head.

‘What about in that greenhouse, where you make things ripe early?'

Didi looked at John.

‘You have got a pomegranate tree in there, John, haven't you? Are they ripe?'