The Satanic Mechanic (17 page)

CHAPTER FORTY

When I got home, the message light was flashing on my phone. I knew it would be Henk, so I just called him.

‘Maria, where have you been?'

‘At my therapy group. Didn't I tell you I was going? It ran a bit late.'

‘Can I come round?'

‘I've got a piece of Pikkie's pumpkin pie for you.'

I whipped up some cream as I listened to the messages he had left. Three of them, each sounding more urgent than the next:

‘Maria. Please call me when you get in.'

‘I need to see you.'

‘Where are you?'

He arrived without Kosie, which was a message in itself.

There was a spark in his eyes. Was he angry? He leant forward to give me a quick kiss, then he put a yellow bag on the kitchen table. A Spar plastic bag.

I took a deep breath. ‘It was an interesting session,' I said. ‘I'd like to talk to you about it.'

‘I need your advice,' he said, taking three bottles of mustard from the plastic bag.

It was the fire of excitement in his eyes, not anger. But not the going-to-bed kind of excitement.

‘Mustard?' I said.

I looked at the bottles of Colman's, Dijon and Spar mustard on the table. Henk's moustache whiskers were twitching, like a dog on the scent of a hare.

‘This is to do with the Slimkat case, isn't it?' I said.

‘Do you think you can tell me which of these was used in the poison sauce?'

He arranged the bottles neatly, like a police line-up.

I said, ‘I didn't taste it, you know. I just smelt it on Slimkat's napkin.'

‘Ja, but you could tell it had garlic in it, and that the mustard used was different from that in the usual kudu sosatie sauce.'

‘What is this about?' I said.

I laid a piece of pumpkin pie with whipped cream on the table in front of him, but he didn't even look at it.

‘Open them,' he said. ‘Smell them. Tell me what you think.'

‘I made Pikkie's pumpkin pie,' I said. ‘It's nice cold, but I can heat it up if you like.'

‘Please, Maria,' he said.

‘How come you suddenly want my help with the case now?' I said. ‘What happened to me staying out of police business?'

‘I was worried for your safety, you know that. But it's not dangerous to smell mustard. And I trust you to stay out of danger.'

I thought of all the dangers I'd been through that very evening, but now was not the time to speak of them.

‘I just want your professional advice,' he said.

‘Okay,' I said, and sat down at the table. ‘You eat your pie.'

He picked up his fork but kept his eyes on me.

I opened the bottle of Dijon mustard and sniffed it. ‘This is the mustard they used in the Kudu Stall sauce.'

Henk nodded. ‘Ja, you are right, that's the one.'

‘How do you know? Did the Kudu Stall give you the recipe?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘They used Dijon mustard, and they didn't add garlic.'

I clicked my tongue. ‘They wouldn't give me the recipe.'

‘It's the ingredients of the poison sauce that I need your help with here.'

‘Will you give me the recipe for that honey sosatie sauce?'

‘Later, I'll give it to you later. But first let's see if you think one of these mustards was in the poison sauce.'

‘Have you got both recipes? The chilli one and the sweet one?'

Henk nodded and pointed to the next unopened jar.

I pointed to his uneaten pie, and he took a mouthful, together with a big blob of cream.

‘Sjoe,' he said, ‘this is a lekker pie. It reminds me of what my ouma used to make.' But he did not wipe a tear from his eye. He pointed again to the jar. ‘Open it.'

I took the lid off the jar of Colman's and sniffed. ‘You know I said that the poison sauce may've been made with Colman's mustard. But now that I smell this jar, I'm not so sure. It's almost right but not quite.'

‘Okay,' said Henk, pointing to the last bottle with his fork, ‘see what you think of this one.'

He watched me open and sniff the bottle of Spar mustard.

‘No, it wasn't this one,' I said.

‘Are you sure?' he said.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘It has a whole different flavour.' I dipped my fingertip in and tasted it. ‘Might be nice with pork sausages but not with kudu.'

Henk's fork clattered onto his plate. The spark had gone out of his eyes.

‘What's going on, Henk?'

‘I really thought we'd got something; I hoped that last one would be the one used in the poison sauce.'

‘Definitely not. I could swear to it, if I had to. But this isn't stuff you can use in court; it's just my opinion.'

‘I trust your opinion,' he said and sighed. ‘I suppose it doesn't matter if I tell you now . . . off the record, of course.'

‘Of course, ja.'

He put the lid back on the Spar mustard jar. ‘We found two sets of prints on the poison sauce bottle. One of them was Slimkat's, the other's unknown. The original yellow bottle with the Kudu Stall sauce had lots of prints on it, but most of them were smudged. But we ran some prints through the system and got lucky. We got a match: a petty criminal with a record of pickpocketing, that kind of stuff. Just the kind of guy whose services would be for hire.'

Henk pushed his plate aside and leant towards me.

‘We tracked him down to a township near Oudtshoorn today,' he
said. ‘At his girlfriend's house. In their kitchen was some fresh garlic and half a jar of mustard –
this
kind of Spar mustard.'

‘Did you check the sell-by date on the bottle?' I asked.

‘Ja. And compared them to the dates of the bottles on sale at the Spar. I think it was bought recently, a few days before the murder. When we asked the guy where he was on the night of the murder, he swears he was at home at his girlfriend's, making a braai in her backyard. His girlfriend agrees. But the fingerprints show he was lying.'

‘I suppose he had pork sausages in the fridge,' I said.

‘In the freezer. That's what he said the mustard was for. We've sent Slimkat's napkin off to test the ingredients. But in the meantime, I wanted to see what you thought.'

‘I could be wrong,' I said.

‘Ja,' he said.

But neither of us believed it.

‘I'm sorry Henk,' I said, getting up and resting my hands on his shoulders. ‘Maybe something will still come from this guy. He is lying.'

‘We found wallets in the house. One of them had been reported stolen at the KKNK. I guess he did some pickpocketing at the festival, and that's why he lied.'

‘Have you put a bit of pressure on him?' I stroked the back of Henk's neck as he finished his pie. ‘If he was working for someone else, he might give them up rather than get in trouble himself?'

‘Ja, the Oudtshoorn police will interrogate him again. I think he's too dumb to have pulled it off. But the girlfriend seems sharp. And then when I saw the mustard . . .'

‘Maybe he was just hired to do the swap. He's quick with his fingers. Maybe someone else made the sauce.'

‘Could be,' said Henk, putting his hand on mine. ‘But maybe he was just unlucky to be on the crime scene, amongst hundreds of others that night . . . You know, Slimkat's cousin, Ystervark, was right there the whole time. He also had the chance to cut those brakes. You don't have to be a mechanic to do that kind of job. He's an aggressive guy, but I don't know what his motive would be . . .'

I knew Henk had a point, but I didn't like to think Ystervark would kill his own cousin.

‘Would you like a beer,' I said, ‘or some coffee?'

Henk turned his chair and pulled me onto his lap.

‘You left Kosie at home,' I said.

‘He was asleep, and I was in a rush to get here.' He looked at the mustard jars and shook his head, then he touched my nose with his own. ‘And you? Was your meeting good?'

I nodded and he nuzzled my neck. Then he sat up straight and said, ‘You had something you wanted to talk to me about?'

I stroked the silver and chestnut hair above his ears and looked into his grey-blue eyes. Then I leant into him and let him hold me in his arms.

‘I . . .' My mouth went dry. ‘Some other time.'

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

When we were finished being close in the new ways we had found, I lay in Henk's arms on my bed, my head on his chest. There was a lone frog singing somewhere outside, and a band of crickets as backup. I breathed in Henk's cinnamon-honey smell, his warm body, his furry chest, copper and grey hair, his mouth that held that big smile, his strong arms around me. I stroked his forearms, feeling his muscles and his silky chestnut hair, and inhaled him as if I could make him a part of me for ever.

I felt our closeness, but I also felt the distance of the things unsaid between us. I knew that once I had spoken, we could not go back again. And if I did not speak, we could not go forward. I wanted to stay in this place, now, for ever.

Henk pressed me to him and held me tight. As he squeezed, I felt the weight of Fanie's body, the weight of forgiveness not given.

‘I'd better go,' said Henk. ‘Tomorrow night I'll bring Kosie. I'll come early, about six.'

My sleep was disturbed by nightmares. The same ones and new ones. I woke up in the early hours and swallowed an antidepressant. Then I took the last piece of pie out onto the stoep and ate it as I watched the yellow half-moon sinking down towards the hills in the west. The kudu appeared from behind the gwarrie tree and walked through the veld, across my garden, onto my stoep. It stood with me, and we watched the moon set.

I slept okay after that but got into work a little late.

Hattie was busy on the phone when I arrived. Jessie was at her computer with her coffee; she grinned and raised a mosbolletjie rusk to me in greeting.

Hattie was talking to one of the
Klein Karoo Gazette
freelance reporters, from Riversdale. I put on the kettle and looked at the letters on my desk.

‘Fine,' said Hattie, ‘if you want to cut it in half yourself and re-submit, you are welcome to do so, but we're working to a deadline here, so we need your piece in an hour.'

When she was finished on the phone, I told them about the masked people who had invaded my therapy group. I tried to make light of it so that Hattie wouldn't fuss too much.

‘Horned masks and sulphuric smoke?' she said. ‘Sounds like they were satanists. From the satanic mechanic's dark past. I hope you reported it to the police.'

‘Um, not yet,' I said.

I pushed aside their questions by sorting through my letters. So many people, with so many problems. One of the envelopes had that spidery handwriting I recognized; I would save that as a treat. I made coffee and opened a letter from a woman getting a painful divorce, but I did not feel up to responding to her. I sipped my coffee and chewed the rusk. We'd put the Mama Bolo letter and my response onto the website. And now I had a number of emails from other healers and herbalists. They weren't asking for my advice but offered to help with ‘every kind of love problem and any other suffering'. Was love always suffering? I wondered. The herbalists had remedies to make ‘big breasts, D-cup' and cure ‘slack vagina'.

‘“Do you need a magic mirror,”' I read out loud to Hattie and Jessie, ‘“for finding lost lovers, stray sheep and catching your enemy before he gets to you?”'

‘Hmm, could come in handy,' said Hattie.

‘And here we have the “one and only very most important help with love”.' I translated from the Afrikaans. ‘“Men, I can help you if you have small birds. I have muti to make your tools big and strong, and
give you the most powerful moves. In only ten minutes. Guaranteed. Money back if you do not get results you dreamt of.”'

Jessie laughed.

‘Honestly,' said Hattie, shaking her head. ‘By the way, Jessie, did you see there were some nice responses to your website article about the bunny? Even some emails offering a few hundred rand.'

‘Yes, thanks, Hattie. But it will costs tens of thousands to do what's needed there.'

‘Perhaps public opinion will pressurise the council or Nature Conservation?'

Jessie shrugged. ‘Their funds are already allocated.'

‘Well, at least we tried,' said Hattie.

I picked up the letter from the woman who was getting a divorce.

Dear Tannie Maria
,

I hope you can help me. My husband is soon to become my ex-husband. We should have been honest with each other years ago. But now it is too late. The lies grew like cancer and killed the love between us. He is a good man, and there was love, and we did have some very sweet times together. I am grateful for this. The pain is unbearable, but there is no going back now. I am not asking your advice for mending – the divorce is going through in one week. I would just like some ideas on the last meal to make for him. We still have affection for each other and have agreed to sit down together one last time
.

Should I make him one of his old favourites? Or should I have something new?

Yours sincerely
,

Woman soon to be alone

I made myself and Jessie fresh coffee while I thought about this. Then I wrote:

How about an old favourite main meal? Maybe something that can be served with a sweet and sour sauce. And a new pudding. Have you ever tried malva pudding served with yoghurt?

I gave her Tannie Ina Paarman's recipe for sweet and sour mustard sauce, which was delicious with raw or cooked vegetables. The malva pudding was one of my best family recipes. It came from my great aunt, Sandra. With the yoghurt, it was also sweet and sour. Tannie Sandra was a strong woman, whose husband died young. She managed a mielie farm and raised five children on her own during hard times.

An old recipe is like a spell. It holds spirit and memories as well as ingredients. I hoped that Tannie Sandra's recipe would give this woman the strength to face her own hard times.

As I wrote out the sweet and sour recipes for divorce, I wondered what I would make for Henk that night, and if it might be our last meal together. Would telling the truth end our relationship? Would burying the truth kill it slowly over time?