Recipes for Love and Murder (35 page)

I stood still, my eyes wide, as he pointed his gun at me. My body and my mind were each going in their own directions. My knees were shaking, but my brain was pleased to have come to the end of the puzzle.

‘So, it is you,' my mouth said, speaking for my brain instead of my legs.

He stepped forward and pulled the papers from my hands.

‘You found them,' he said.

He pointed at me and then the door, with the gun.

‘Let's go,' he said.

My mind said,
Why go with him? If he's going to kill you, let him do it here.

His eyes were a cold pale blue, but his face was flushed red, his chocolate-milk moustache twisted into a sneer. He was a man who took pleasure from another's pain.

Don't argue, do what he says,
said my legs.
Walk.

But my feet were frozen to the floor.

‘You're looking for Jessie?' he said, his nostril rising up.

My heart made my feet move. I would go with him.

We walked a way up the road to where he had parked his Golf. The ground was still damp, and I stepped carefully, pressing my veldskoen tracks into the ground, leaving a story for Piet to read. Van Wyk kept his gun pointed at me as he drove. I could smell that strange spicy smell again.

‘You do anything stupid,' he said, ‘I shoot. Be a good girl and I'll take you to Jessie.'

He wiped his nose with the back of his gun-free hand and sniffed. That smell, it wasn't food. It was pepper – the smell of Jessie, fighting back.

‘She sprayed you, didn't she? With her pepper spray,' my mouth said.

‘The smell of skunks is much worse,' he said. ‘I'm a hunter.'

I held my hands flat on my lap so he couldn't see them shaking.
Am I meant to be impressed?
said my brain.
Look at that stupid little moustache. A schoolboy could do better.
I missed Kannemeyer.

I was glad my mouth stayed quiet about the moustache.

Van Wyk was driving us right out of town, towards Barrydale. He took a dirt road towards the Touwsberg. He slowed down as we drove through some muddy puddles. After a while there was a metal gate with a sign saying
Kraaifontein Nature Reserve
and he stopped.

‘Open it,' he said.

As I got out my legs were still wobbly, but my brain noticed broken branches of klapper bushes by the side of the road. The red flowers were trampled into the mud amongst the tracks of a big buck.
Probably eland,
said my brain,
they like to snap the branches with their horns.

As Van Wyk drove through the gates, a little mouse ran into the bushes.
Run
, said my legs. But even if my feet had believed in running, my brain knew I could not run faster than a bullet. We drove slowly along the bumpy road until we got to a small shelter where a white 4×4 bakkie was parked.

As we climbed into the big 4×4, I saw it had Firestone tyres, covered in mud. We drove towards the tall Touwsberg. There were fat grey clouds hanging in a bright blue sky. The kloofs were in purple shadow. Around us were low hills covered in stones and gwarrie trees and wild plum trees. We frightened a herd of zebra and they galloped up the hill. My heart galloped with them.
We are driving into the middle of nowhere
.
He's going to kill me.
But then my brain said:
You are still alive. And you are going to Jessie.

‘What happened with Jessie?' my mouth said.

‘She found out about the pomegranate juice. That bloody packer, Boetie, told her I took a bottle from the store room. He's her cousin or something, Marietjie says.'

The cousin who'd called in sick, I thought. Was he sick?

‘Marietjie's in on this, these murders?' I said.

‘Oh, no. She's just loyal, poor girl. Tells me things. I suspected the staff of petty thefts, so they accused me of stealing.'

‘Did Jessie come after you?'

There was a kudu in the road. The sun seemed to be shining through its big ears as it looked at us with wide black eyes.

Van Wyk didn't slow down. It leapt away, just in time, over a spiky bush. My mouth sucked in air. Van Wyk laughed.

‘I've only once got one like that,' he said. ‘Too messy. Damages the car. I prefer a bow and arrow.'

‘Jessie?' I said.

‘I followed her,' he said. ‘She was heading out, towards you. I got her on the dirt road to your house.'

‘Got her?' I said.

‘I knocked her down.'

‘You knocked her down?'

I was sounding like an echo, but I couldn't help myself. I needed to hear about Jessie.

‘Oh, she was okay, only out of it for a minute or two. Her leg was a bit damaged, though. A pity. I was hoping she'd be a runner.'

‘A runner?' I said.

My brain was irritated by my mouth's echo. Maybe Van Wyk was too. We didn't speak for a while. He pulled under a car port with a reed roof, next to a square house with a wide stoep. The walls were painted a dirty green.

He made me walk ahead of him, into a lounge with big leather couches and a cement screed floor covered in mats made from the skins of wild animals. On the walls were the stuffed heads of animals with long horns, staring at me with glassy eyes. Through a door I could see a kitchen with wide metal counters. He pushed aside a zebra skin with his foot. Underneath was a wooden trapdoor.

‘Open it,' he said.

My hands pulled on a brass handle and the square door lifted up. There were grey stairs leading down to a darkened door. He pulled a torch from his pocket and shone it down the stairs. The door was made of thick grey metal.

‘Down you go,' he said.

I shook my head. This time my body and brain agreed.

‘You don't want to see Jessie?' he said, aiming his gun at my heart.

I stepped towards the stairs and he gave that ugly smile again.

‘You people,' he said to himself.

He followed me down the stairs and unlocked the door with a big key. The door was thick and heavy but made no sound as it swung open. A wave of icy air came out, like we were opening a giant fridge.

There was a low humming sound, and a faint blue light along one edge of the room. I could not see properly. Van Wyk pushed me in, and I bumped into something big and icy.

The door slammed behind me, and I heard him walking up the steps again, and the
thud
as he closed the trapdoor.

My eyes shut and opened, hoping to adjust to the dim lighting. They could just make out the outline of a big shape, which seemed to be hanging from the ceiling, not touching the floor. But it was my nose that confirmed it for me. The smell of meat. Cold flesh hung just in front of my face. My throat squealed as my feet stepped back.

‘Jessie?' my small voice said.

Of course there was no reply. This was not a room for living things.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

As my eyes got used to the darkness, I could see the shape of the hanging flesh. Small and stout. I went a little closer. It was a buck. I breathed out. I was sorry for the buck, but glad it was not Jessie.

I touched its shoulder. The body was very cold, but not frozen. It was a little klipspringer. What kind of man would kill a klipspringer?

I hugged my arms around my body, glad for every gram of fat I had. As I moved around the giant fridge, I rubbed my hands together and blew on my fingers. In the dim light I saw six more hanging bodies. My tummy was in a knot, but I made myself check each one.

A young kudu, his horns just starting to curve.

A female eland.

Two steenbuck, a male and a female. I wondered if they were mates.

A baby zebra.

And a mama zebra, who looked pregnant to me.

I am no expert on hunting, but I know there are some rules, and this man didn't care about them. He was also killing animals in summer when the hunting season was in winter.

Under the kudu was a dark pool of blood. It looked a bit smudged and I leaned down to have a closer look. There was a handprint in the kudu's blood on the cement. Next to it were small dark initials:
J.M.
Jessie Mostert had been here. But where was she now?

My heart called:
Jessie. Where are you, Jessie
?

I could picture her face, smiling at me, like she was glad to see me. It made a warm ache in my cold chest. It kept me going as I searched the room. There was a big freezer against a wall, with a strip of blue light under it. I was not ready to look in there yet, so I studied the floor and walls for more messages from Jessie. Nothing.

I went to the freezer. It had a big padlock on the lid, but was not locked. I lifted the lid up. Inside, there was a light, and I could see plastic bags of meat. Mince, sausage, steaks. There was no packaging on it, but it looked a lot like the game meat I had bought from the Spar. There was no sign of Jessie.

I heard a loud rattling sound. It was my teeth, chattering. I felt nauseous. I closed the lid and folded my arms on it and leaned my head down.

I saw Jessie's face again, this time frowning at me.
Don't give up, Tannie M
, she was saying.

It gave me that warm feeling in my chest again and my feet started stamping, and my hands rubbed my arms.

‘I'm going to find Jessie,' I told the frozen meat.

I heard feet on the steps outside. When the door opened and a torch shone in my eyes, I walked straight towards it.

‘What have you done with her?' I said.

But I'm not sure if the words got right out of my mouth because I swallowed so hard when I saw the big knife in his hand.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

‘I need your help in the kitchen, Tannie Maria,' he said.

He and his knife were silhouetted in the doorway.

I took a step backwards and banged my head against a steenbuck.

He laughed, and said: ‘I am glad you are learning a little respect. But don't worry about this.' He waved the knife in the air. ‘It's just for chopping meat.' I could see a silver glint on the metal as well as dark stains of blood. ‘Come along, aren't you chilly down here?'

It wouldn't help Jessie if I died of cold, so I followed him up the stairs. The gun was strapped to his waist now. I knew from my days with Fanie that I was no fighter. I was just not quick or strong enough. I wished I had done some classes, or learned to use a weapon or something. I bet Jessie knew a thing or two. Maybe she had escaped. Maybe she was just fine.

He made me walk ahead into the kitchen. Along the big silver counters were all kinds of butcher's equipment, a mincer, a sausage-maker.

It was warmer upstairs, but my shivering got worse. I was shaking like a rattle.

‘What happened to Jessie?' I said, between the chattering of my teeth.

‘Maybe a bit of cooking will warm you up,' he said. ‘I haven't had a good meal since my wife left, and I know you are quite the little cook.'

On the stove was a big cast-iron frying pan and next to it was a wooden board with three fillets of meat. There was also a jar of beetroot and a bean salad from the Spar.

‘Now you go ahead and cook those steaks,' he said. ‘That meat is really fresh.'

I tried to turn on the gas stove but my hands weren't working properly. They were numb from the cold.

‘Let me help you,' he said, all Mr Polite, and he put down his knife and lit the stove.

I hated this man, this murderer, but I let him light the stove. I held my hands on either side of the pan. My fingers were blue. The warmth made them ache. But after a while they started working and I poured a little oil into the pan.

I was about to put in the meat, but then my hands stopped working again. This time it wasn't the cold. It was my heart.

I cannot cook with hate,
said my heart.
I just can't.

You cooked for Fanie,
my brain reminded me.
And you hated him.

No, I didn't,
my heart said.
I just didn't love him. And I did love to cook.

I stepped back from the stove.

‘I'm not going to cook for you,' I said.

‘You are going to cook for me,' he said, pulling out his gun.

‘Cooking is something you should do with love,' I said.

My whole body believed this as my mouth spoke, but my brain said:
Are you mad? He'll kill you!

I folded my arms and waited for the bullet.

But instead of shooting me, Van Wyk laughed. A cold dry laugh.

‘You people with your . . . love nonsense,' he said with that sneering smile. ‘It makes you so weak.'

I just stood there, my body still shivering from the cold, but my refusal hot in my belly.

‘If you cook for me,' he said, in an artificial-sweetener voice, ‘I'll tell you what happened to Jessie. I promise.'

Of course, his promise meant nothing, but if there was even a small chance of finding out something . . . I would cook, for the love of Jessie.

I lowered the steaks into the pan. The oil spat up at me, but my hands jumped aside. Van Wyk laughed again.

‘You see how strong your weakness makes me?' he said, putting his gun back on his belt. ‘You wouldn't even be in this mess if you didn't care. You cared about a stranger, one you hadn't even met. And look at the trouble it's got you into. It's unnatural, you know, quite unnatural.'

‘You are unnatural,' I said. ‘A sick man.'

I might be cooking for him, but I wasn't going to agree with him.

‘Not at all,' he said. ‘I'm the fittest of the fit. A predator. Looking out for myself.'

He took out a comb from his pocket, and combed his few hairs across his head.

‘Without care or love you are nothing, just a lonely man,' I said, turning the steak.

‘I like being alone. Though I do miss a good cook,' he said, putting his comb away. ‘And when I need, what is it you people call it?' His gaze jumped around as he spoke, his pupils moving like water beetles on a pool. ‘Closeness, intimacy, then . . . I hunt.'