Recipes for Love and Murder (37 page)

‘It's funny they are still so cold,' I said. ‘So did you find Boetie?'

‘Ja
.
He had gone to Suurbraak to get gerook with his friends. He was still stoned but we sobered him up and the story came out. He bunked work today because he was scared he'd pissed off his boss.'

‘I'm glad he was okay. Boetie. I thought maybe Van Wyk had got to him . . . '

‘He'd told Jessie that Van Wyk had taken a bottle of pomegranate juice.'

‘Ja,' I said, ‘Van Wyk told me. Marietjie overheard them and ran to her boss.'

Kannemeyer carried on: ‘Boetie doesn't know why Jessie got so excited about it, and rushed off like that. He realised Marietjie had overheard them and saw Marietjie going into Van Wyk's office straight after Jessie left. He left work fast and hitched a ride to Suurbraak.'

‘Did you talk to Marietjie?'

‘She said Van Wyk is allowed to take from his own shop. It's not stealing. Then she started crying and wouldn't say any more. We searched his house in town and then his game farm. Thank God we got there in time. Before he . . . ' Kannemeyer was gripping the steering wheel tightly. His arms had that same soft chestnut hair on them. ‘If you . . . '

He looked at me, and I saw that sadness in his eyes. I wanted to reach out and put my hand on his. But I didn't.

His eyes were on the road now, as he turned the wheel, taking the turn-off towards my house.

‘Sergeant Vorster's gone to join the search,' said Kannemeyer, as we parked in my driveway.

‘That's where you should be,' I said. ‘Where I should be.'

‘Ja, ja, I'm going back. Let's just get you warm and dry. Harriet will be here soon.'

My hands were still shaking and I struggled to open the van door. He came around and helped me out, keeping that kudu skin wrapped around me.

He took me into my house and went straight to the bathroom and started the water running. Then he found the Klipdrift brandy, poured a small shot and stirred in a spoon of sugar. I enjoyed watching him moving around, without his shirt. I tried not to stare at the shape of his broad chest, and its layer of chestnut fur, and the soft hair that ran down past his belly button to the top of his pants. When he turned away I could look at the muscles moving under the brown skin on his back. He gave me the glass of sweet brandy. With the shivering and all, I spilled some, but a mouthful got down my throat and made a warm line to my belly.

He called me when the bath was ready, and I put my fingertips in the water.

‘Eina,' I said. ‘It's hot.'

He leaned down and put his elbow in.

‘No,' he said, ‘it just feels hot because you're so cold. But I'll cool it down and you can add hot when you're in.'

He added cold water then he took the kudu skin off me. He did not take his shirt back.

‘I'll be just outside,' he said. ‘If you need me.'

He left and closed the bathroom door. I took his shirt from my shoulders and held it to my face and breathed in his smell. Then I put the shirt on the laundry basket and tried to undo the buttons on my pale blue dress, but my hands just couldn't get it right. I tried to lift the dress over my head but that was worse, so I pulled it down again.

‘Maria,' he said. He was still outside the door. ‘Are you doing okay?'

‘My buttons,' I said.

‘Do you need help?' he said.

I nodded.

‘Can I come in?'

I nodded again. It was hard for me to ask out loud for that kind of help.

‘Maria?'

He knocked and came in.

‘I can't undo my buttons,' I said.

My dress was still damp and it clung to my breasts. He took a step towards me. I could smell his breath. It was like cinnamon bark and honey. My breasts were moving up and down with my breathing, though I was asking them to stay still.

‘Maybe we should wait for Hattie,' I said.

He took my cold hands between his warm palms. For a moment they stopped shivering. He looked into my eyes.

‘I don't think we should wait,' he said.

He let go of my hands and undid my top button.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

He carried on looking into my eyes as he undid my buttons. His fingers were trembling a bit. I held my breath, to keep my breasts still, but then I started to run out of air, so I had to suck some in. His fingertips brushed against me, his hand looking for the next button.

I could feel the heat from his body, waves of it moving from him to me. When he had undone the buttons all the way down to my thighs he slipped the dress off my shoulders. I was glad I had my nice underwear on. White cotton.

He stood in front of me – his body so close that I was tickled by his chest hairs – and reached his arms around me to undo my bra. He took the straps off my shoulders, and the bra dropped to the floor. Then his body heat pulled me in, and I was pressing myself into his chest.

His hand held the back of my head, gently, like I might break. I heard the sound of a car arriving. He stepped back, and my arms moved to cover my breasts. But then I realised that I might've died today, without any man seeing me naked, so I let my hands drop.

He looked at me standing there in only my panties and my muddy veldskoene, and he smiled. That wide white smile that made my heart somersault.

‘Lovely,' he said.

He grabbed his shirt and left the room, closing the door. I finished getting undressed and climbed into the bath and lay back in the warm water. The ice inside of me was slowly melting.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

‘You all right in there, Maria, darling?' said Hattie through the bathroom door.

‘Hats! I'm fine, my skat.'

‘I'm just making us a spot of tea,' she said. ‘The detective said I must tell you to add more hot water.'

I heard the sound of a car driving off as I ran the hot tap. My shivering stopped, and the warmth filled my whole body.

I got dressed in trousers and a shirt, and put on fresh socks with my veldskoene and went out to the stoep. Hattie jumped up and gave me the biggest hug.

‘Oh, Maria. Tannie Maria!' she said.

For a skinny lady, she was a good hugger. On the stoep table was a tray with cups and a pot of tea in a tea cosy, and an open tin of beskuit. I poured for us, as if this was an ordinary Friday afternoon visit. The chickens came calling and I threw them a handful of mielies.

‘I have been out of my mind with worry,' Hattie said.

I told her my story, the bits she didn't know, and we drank tea and ate beskuit.

‘Thank goodness that dreadful man is dead,' she said.

‘Thanks to you, Hats. Without your ideas about Boetie, they wouldn't have got to me in time . . . '

‘Oh, pish posh,' she said, flapping her hand as if chasing a fly away. ‘We all did what we could. I can't tell you how happy I am that you are alive.'

But she did not look happy. Her face was pale and pinched. There was a big emptiness in the chair where Jessie wasn't sitting. We sat looking at the afternoon sun melting away the last of the storm clouds, but the silence got too loud.

‘We can't just sit here,' I said. ‘Let's go and help find her.'

‘Are you sure, Tannie M? Don't you need to rest?'

‘Can you rest?' I said, standing up.

She sighed, and stood up too. I grabbed the tin of rusks and a jacket and a torch, and we headed for her car. The Toyota Etios was squashed between a thorn bush and a eucalyptus tree.

‘Why don't I drive?' I said.

‘Don't be ridiculous, Maria, after all you've been through.'

‘We could go past Dirk's and fetch my bakkie.'

‘Let's get it later,' she said. ‘When your nerves have settled.'

‘You're right. The sooner we get there . . . '

Apart from giving her directions, we did not talk on the road because I was holding my breath most of the time. Her driving was even more terrible than usual – maybe it just felt worse because of my shaken nerves or all those puddles and bumps on the dirt roads.

The tin of beskuit rattled on the back seat. I put them on my lap, so that they did not all turn to crumbs. But I did not ask Hattie to slow down, because I wanted to get there as fast as we could. Luckily we did not kill ourselves or any wild animals on the way. I think the animals heard her coming and ran over the hill.

‘Goodness gracious,' said Hattie as she bumped the Etios into a Combi parked outside Van Wyk's house. ‘What a circus.'

‘Looks like half the town has pitched up,' I said.

The circus was overflowing off the green stoep, into the driveway. We could see: a flock of Jessie's relatives; a line of nurses from the hospital, Jessie's mum standing very still amongst them in her white nurse's outfit, hugging her arms around herself; a troupe of Seventh-day Adventists; and the clowns – Dirk, Anna and John – in their bandages and wheelchair.

Police in uniforms were herding the people into small groups. On the stoep, Kannemeyer pointed to a map that was stuck up on the wall. His shirt was back on; it was very wrinkled.

He said: ‘Only go to the areas that your policeman leads you to.' He frowned and shook his head when he saw me, but carried on talking. ‘We don't want to mess up the tracks in the areas that Constable Witbooi is still studying. No running off.'

‘But that guy's running all over like a mad thing,' said Anna, pointing out across the veld at someone moving like a jackal, zigzagging across the slope of a hill.

‘That's Warrant Officer Reghardt Snyman. He's working with Constable Witbooi. Listen, we don't have time for messing about. You do what we say, or you leave. Understood?'

There was a nodding of some heads. Anna took a silver hipflask from her side and had a sip then rested the flask on her plaster cast.

‘Right. Now listen closely. Group One, you come with me. I'll give you directions when we get there.'

As he was talking, a red sports car came racing up the road and skidded to a halt, spitting gravel.

‘Group Two, you are with Sergeant Vorster,' said Kannemeyer. ‘You'll be following him, walking three metres apart. Group Two, are you listening?'

But he realised he'd lost their attention; he shook his head and allowed a break as the people watched Candy's arrival.

Her legs seemed to have got even longer, and they came out of the car with a pair of midnight-blue heels. Her short dress was sky blue and her gold hair loose and soft on her shoulders. Even on that bumpy ground, she moved like a catwalk model as she walked towards us.

She saw Kannemeyer but ignored him and looked at me.

‘Tannie Maria,' she said, as if I was the one running the show, ‘I came as soon as I heard. Is there anything I can do?'

‘Come here,' I said, because Hattie and I had been herded into Group One. ‘And listen to what the detective is saying.'

Candy pursed her pink lips and came and stood by me. She smelled of lemon blossom.

‘Right,' said Kannemeyer, pointing to a section on the map. ‘Group Two will drive with Sergeant Vorster to the south side.'

There were four groups, each to cover different areas. Three of them headed off, with their own police leaders. Group One stayed on the stoep, waiting for Kannemeyer.

‘Pretorius. You're not going to get across the veld in that thing,' Kannemeyer said to Anna, who was rolling along after Group Two.

‘I've got binoculars,' she said, pulling them out of a pocket of the wheelchair, and waving them at him.

‘Best you stay here.' He turned to the hobbling, bandaged Dirk and John. ‘All three of you.'

‘Ag, bloody hell,' Dirk grumbled into his beard.

‘Warrant Officer Smit needs back-up here, at base camp.'

Smit's eyebrows shot up.

‘The ambulance will be here now-now,' said Kannemeyer to the warrant officer. ‘To pick up Van Wyk.'

‘What?' said Anna.

‘He's still here?' said John.

‘I'll kill him,' said Dirk.

‘He's dead,' said Kannemeyer.

‘I don't care,' said Dirk. ‘Where is he?

‘I hear the ambulance now,' said Kannemeyer.

There was a siren wailing across the hills.

He mouthed
Sorry
to Warrant Officer Smit. Then he led Group One away.

‘We are going to catch up with Constable Piet Witbooi,' he told us.

There were ten in our group and those of us who didn't fit into Kannemeyer's van climbed into Hattie's car. In the front sat a skinny young man with red eyes and a woollen cap pulled down over his ears. He smelled of some sweet herb. Basil?

Georgie, the Seventh-day Adventist, and Candy sat in the back with me. On my lap I held the tin of broken rusks.

‘We are praying for her,' said Georgie, patting my knee.

Hattie banged the Combi again as she reversed out.

‘Oooh wooo,' said Georgie in a high-pitched tone, and began praying in a sing-song rhythm.

‘How do you do?' said Hattie to the young man. ‘I am Harriet Christie.'

‘Uh huh,' said the man.

‘And you are?'

‘Boetie,' he mumbled.

‘Ah, the notorious Boetie Mostert,' she said, shooting down the dirt road to catch up with Kannemeyer's van.

‘You've got that glow, sugar,' Candy said to me, gripping onto the seat in front of her. ‘What happened?'

I thought of Kannemeyer in the bathroom and my face went hot.

‘Jessie might have got away,' I said. ‘Sprayed him with pepper spray.'

‘You're blushing. I hope so. She's a wild one, Jessie.' She looked down at my muddy veldskoene. ‘I've got just the shoes for you. I'll send you a pair.'

Hattie was weaving all over the dirt road, avoiding puddles, and hitting rocks.

The more the bumps, the faster Georgie prayed, and the higher the notes on her
Oooh wooo
s: ‘Lord, oh Lord, oooh wooo, oh Lordy, as we move through the valley of death, keep us all safe. Ooooh woooooo.'