Recipes for Love and Murder (36 page)

He dished the bean and beetroot salads onto two plates. I added a fried steak to each serving. I left the third, thickest one in the pan, to keep warm.

‘Have you killed lots of people?' I said, like I was asking if he wanted tomato sauce.

‘Oh, it's a brand-new sport for me,' he said. ‘I used to hunt only animals. Didn't realise that people could be so . . . satisfying.'

He laid the plates on the counter with knives and forks, and started to eat, standing up.

Your body needs fuel,
my brain told me,
to get warm.

I pulled up a chair and made myself eat.

‘But the chase,' he said, ‘is so important. Killing –
bang bang
, you're dead – has its pleasure, but it's just not the same.' He cut into the meat. ‘Of course, I try for a clean shot but when an animal is wounded, and I have to track it down, then the hunt is even better.' He chewed. ‘I always find it, you know. Usually it's dead, but sometimes it's weak, and waiting for me to put it out of its misery. And I do.'

He smiled. His eyes were empty as ice. As he ate his fillet, a bit of blood leaked out the corner of his mouth.

‘Hmm. You are not a bad cook,' he said. ‘Not bad at all.'

I don't overcook a steak. The meat was tender and rich. I didn't recognise the flavour, but my taste buds were cold and confused. I hoped I wasn't eating a klipspringer or something. I left the fillet and ate some of the salads. They tasted like shop food but I made myself swallow the beetroot and beans.

‘What happened with Jessie?' I said.

‘The bow and arrow. Great weapon, that. Very accurate if you're a good marksman. And silent. Don't know what's hit them. No adrenaline, so the meat tastes nicer. No noisy shots to give you away if you happen to hunt out of season.'

‘Jessie,' I said. ‘You promised to tell me about her.'

‘But I am.'

I pushed my plate aside. The knot in my tummy wouldn't let any more food in.

‘You shot Jessie with an arrow?'

‘She had that sore leg, which would make the chase boring. So I decided to let her take her scooter. I drained most of the petrol out.' He ate a mouthful of beans. ‘Didn't tell her that, of course, so when I caught up with her, she was frantically trying to get it started. Didn't see me coming.'

‘You hit her?'

‘Oh, I never miss.'

‘Where is she?'

‘Not far,' he said, as he picked up his last forkful of steak. He waved it slowly in the air. ‘Very close, I'm sure, very close.'

I looked at the meat on his fork and on my plate. I wanted to throw up.

‘I'll have that last fillet, Tannie Maria. Unless you want it, of course. I see you haven't finished yours?'

He popped his piece of steak into his mouth.

I went to the stove and picked up the handle of that heavy pan in two hands. As I got to the counter, I swung it at him. He swerved but I still hit him hard. I'm not sure if I got him on the head or neck. He fell onto the floor and I didn't wait to see if he got up. I moved, as fast as I could, out of the kitchen, across the dead animal skins in the lounge and out the front door. I headed down towards a line of trees. My breath was jumping in and out of my throat. I looked behind me and saw my footprints clearly in the damp sand.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

A woodpecker was hammering on a tree by the river bed. It sounded like my heart.
Thud-thud-thud
. I was not made for running, but my legs were doing the best they could. They just kept moving, one in front of the other, taking me away from that man. Away from that last steak that had fallen on the floor when I panned him.

The clouds had grown thick and dark, and I heard a rumbling.

Rain,
I prayed,
fall down. Fall down on me. Hide my tracks. Keep Jessie safe.

My tummy groaned. I hoped it was not a piece of Jessie that was groaning at me. You should never exercise straight after a meal. But my legs kept on going, taking me down to the cover of the trees.

When I was almost there, there was a crack and I jumped. My heart fluttered like a woodpecker's wings. But I had not been shot. It was lightning.

Then I felt it. The rain. It fell hard, streaming down my face.

Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

I walked into the cover of the trees that lined the river bed. The wind roared through the leaves and shook the branches. I was hidden from the house, and I leaned against a camphor tree to catch my breath. My hands and teeth were shaking. I rubbed my arms with my hands.

Well done, Tannie Maria,
my brain said.
You are still alive
.
Maybe Jessie is too.

My tummy and the thunder rumbled together. My legs got me moving again. I walked down the narrow river bed, and the rain washed my tracks behind me. I headed south, in the direction of the gate, I hoped.

A rabbit shot out from beneath a big wolf-thorn bush. It raced towards me and I stood still so I wouldn't frighten it. It swerved around me and headed up the river bed.

Then I saw what had given that a rabbit such a fright.

About ten metres ahead of me, he stepped out from beneath a thorn tree that was covered with yellow devil's tresses. His hair was all mussed and his moustache was twisted in that sneer. The bow and arrow hung by his side.

Van Wyk shouted at me. It was hard to hear him over the storm, but he shouted again:

‘Run, Tannie, run!'

My body shook with fear, but I did not believe in running. And I especially didn't believe in running as a favour for a murderer who wants a moving target.

He stepped over a slime-bush and shooed me with his hand. But I stood facing him, the rain running down my hair, my clothes sopping wet. He shook his head, and lifted his bow and arrow, waving them at me.

When I didn't move, he walked backwards, further away. Ten metres was too easy for him. When he'd doubled the distance, he raised his bow again, put in the arrow, and pulled the string back.

In that tiny moment as his arm set the arrow free, my brain and body and heart all worked together and a strange thing happened. It is hard to describe but I can only try.

The cold and the fear had been shaking me like a leaf, but as he pulled his arm back, I was dead still.

There was no time, but there was all the time in the world. I could see a raindrop falling.

As he released the arrow, I did not run.

I flew.

I flew up and away, to the side.

I thought I was dead, but I was alive. I flew like a phoenix.

And the thing that made me fly was a fire of love that I felt in my heart. This is what made me stronger than Van Wyk. What made me powerful, and him nothing.

Love. I felt my love for my life. My love for Jessie, and Hats, and my chickens. And Kannemeyer.

It lifted me up. Gave me wings.

I flew up to the side and down again. My landing was not so gentle. I crashed down onto the ground.
Thud
. But I did not feel any pain. A part of me was still flying.

Then Van Wyk was standing above me, his lips pulled back, his teeth small and mean.

‘You do make this interesting,' he said. There were drops of rain on his feeble moustache. ‘Sorry to cut it short, but I have another hunt to get to.'

The rain was less now. It fell down softly onto me. He put an arrow into his bow and pulled it back and pointed it at me. He aimed at my heart.

‘I wonder if the arrow will go right through you at this range?' he said. ‘You are quite . . . dense.'

I closed my eyes so I would not have to see his ugly smile. I imagined Jessie and Hattie drinking tea and eating rusks. And I saw Kannemeyer, with his thick moustache and that handsome smile of his.

I was not afraid.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

I heard a loud
crack
. Followed by a
thud
. Did the arrow make that noise as it cracked my heart?

But I still felt no pain. Maybe it was a crack of lightning? I opened my eyes. I saw no arrow sticking into me, but I did see the face I had been imagining. The one with the chestnut moustache. So I knew I was dead.

‘Maria,' he said, kneeling down beside me, ‘are you all right?'

He put his hand on my forehead. The rain had stopped now but my face was still wet. I pushed myself up so I was sitting. I wasn't dead. I was shivering like crazy.

‘I'm cold,' I said.

My teeth were chattering so hard, I don't know if he could hear me, but he got the idea. He unbuttoned his shirt and took it off and wrapped it around my shoulders.

‘Get something warm,' he said to Piet, who then ran off, up towards the house.

Van Wyk was lying on the ground in the river bed. Dead still. With a red stain spreading across his shirt.

‘You shot him,' I said.

Kannemeyer helped me to stand up. His chest had that chestnut hair on it. He pulled me in, wrapped his arms around me. It reminded me of that time he had held Anna when she was fighting. I didn't fight. He was warm, like freshly baked bread. My skin drank up his body heat, but I couldn't stop shivering.

‘We've got to get you warm,' he said.

He put one arm around me and helped me up the river bank. I turned to look back at Van Wyk.

‘He put me in a big fridge,' I said. I was still shivering, but if I kept my mouth a bit open, my teeth did not bang together. ‘Jessie. I think he shot Jessie. With a bow and arrow. When she was on her scooter. He said . . . '

We walked towards the house and Reghardt and Piet came running down to us. Piet had a big kudu skin that Kannemeyer wrapped around me.

‘Is Jessie here? Have you seen her?' asked Reghardt.

His dark eyes were wet and his face was pale.

‘No. But I . . . ' My tummy growled and I felt nauseous.

‘What?' said Reghardt.

‘She was here. I saw her handprint in blood, and her initials on the floor. The fridge is full of dead animals. Hanging.'

‘Where? What are you talking about?' said Reghardt.

‘Under the zebra skin. There's a trapdoor. Stairs down to a big fridge.'

Reghardt started to head up to the house.

‘It's locked,' I said.

‘Check Van Wyk for keys,' said Kannemeyer to Reghardt, who then ran down to the river bed.

‘There was a fight,' said Piet. ‘With a pan. You hit him?'

I nodded.

‘He made me cook some fillet steaks, then he said . . . He said . . . He made it sound like the meat was Jessie. That we were eating her. There's a steak on the kitchen floor. And on my plate.'

Piet shot up to the house.

‘We must get you in a hot bath,' Kannemeyer said, as we got close to the stoep.

My belly twisted and groaned just looking at the house.

‘I'm not going back in there,' I said.

Reghardt brought me a bunch of keys and I pointed out the long one for the freezer door. Detective Kannemeyer barked a list of instructions at Piet and Reghardt. Reinforcements, searches, ambulance.

‘I'll be back now-now,' he called over his shoulder as he led me to the police van. ‘Warrant Officer Snyman, phone Harriet Christie and tell her to head over to Tannie Maria's house. Konstabel Witbooi, find those scooter tracks.'

The van was parked at an odd angle next to the car port that made reed-striped shadows on Van Wyk's 4×4. Kannemeyer helped me into his van and tucked the skin around me. He didn't ask for his shirt back.

Just as we were driving off, Piet came running up to us.

‘The steaks,' he said. ‘I know that meat. It's aardvark.'

My belly stopped groaning and went soft with relief.

CHAPTER EIGHTY

‘Tell me what happened, Maria,' said Kannemeyer.

We were bumping across the dirt road, the heater turned on full blast. The outside of my skin was warming up but the cold was deep in my bones.

I gave him my story, right from the beginning.

‘I woke up this morning thinking about the study at Dirk's house,' I said.

I told him my thoughts about the papers and my visit to the Spar, and my brainwave about the recipe books. I did not care if Kannemeyer got cross with me for doing stupid things. What mattered was finding Jessie. Dead or alive.

He didn't get cross, he just listened, and asked me questions here or there. His chest was still bare and he smelled like earth and rain and nutmeg.

We stopped at the gate to the nature reserve and he said: ‘Look at that steenbokkie.'

The little steenbuck was lying in the shade of a gwarrie tree, its big ears pricked up. When Kannemeyer got out of the car to open the gate, it darted away across the veld.

We drove through the puddles on the dirt road and back onto the tarmac. I told Kannemeyer about the smell of pepper and Van Wyk's feeble moustache and the dead animals and what I said to the murderer about love. And when it got to the end of my story, I even told him how I flew. But I didn't tell him that it was the fire of love in my heart that made me fly like a phoenix. Or that when I thought of him and his chestnut moustache I was not afraid.

Instead I asked him: ‘How did you find me?'

‘I suppose we found you because of Boetie,' he said. ‘And Harriet. She was looking at the notes on your whiteboard, and she remembered Jessie wanted to talk to her cousin at the Spar. You were also taking a bit long to come from the Spar, so she drove across there. But there was no sign of you, or Boetie.'

He ran his hand across his chest. The sun was peeping through the clouds now, and the light showed up the red and silver in his chest hair.

‘She was worried about you,' he said, ‘and came across to the police station. We had Marius there, driving his Firestones across the sand. Piet said his tracks were okay, but we were about to go and search his house anyway. Harriet convinced us that we must first find Boetie. She got me worried about you.'

He glanced at me and I looked down at my hands. They were still shaking.