The Serpentine Road (35 page)

Six white school children walk down the street, each pair sharing a small, colourful umbrella. Behind them, a group of black workers in blue overalls amble, the girls under newspapers, the men letting the rain stain their boiler-suits a darker blue. As they pass De Vries’s house, one drops out of sight, doubles back, searches along the base of the perimeter hedge, which is backed by a tall fence. Within moments, the figure is gone from the street. A couple walk past, chatting and laughing, their dogs sniff the fence, lift legs to tell their peers that they have been here. Nobody sees anything.

The journey out of town is long and slow, delays in the rush hour traffic compounded by flooding on the freeway, a rock fall on De Waal Drive. In the deserted side streets of Bishopscourt, shallow waves of rainwater flow downhill, drops consolidate in the trees above and fall heavily on the roof of Thulani’s car. Water flows off the low grey slate walls lining the driveway to Bheka Bhekifa’s house, the car’s puny lights barely able to penetrate the damp gloom of what seems now like a mid-winter’s evening.

Bhekifa is standing as they enter the formal drawing room, his arms open in greeting. Thulani walks up to him, but there is no embrace.

‘I regret, sir, that our visit is one of official police business.’

The old man lowers his arms, his expression suspicious. He sits down, but does not invite them to do so.

‘What is it that you have to tell me?’

De Vries draws level with Thulani; they stand side by side.

‘You are aware of our investigation into the death of Miss Taryn Holt. Your son was a friend of hers, and was briefly involved in our investigation. Information about that part of our enquiry was leaked. You know an SAPS officer based in my offices, Sergeant Julius Mngomezulu?’

Bhekifa shrugs.

‘Why should I know this man?’

‘He has been observed visiting this house on three occasions in the last eight days.’

Bhekifa narrows his eyes.

‘The SAPS is monitoring my visitors? This is interesting . . .’

‘We believe that you are also in communication with a certain Major Mabena, in Pretoria . . .’

‘Mabena,’ Bhekifa interrupts, ‘is a liaison between those of us in government . . .’ He checks himself. ‘. . . Between the Police Ministry, Central government and its advisors on security matters.’

De Vries says: ‘Is that what you are?’

Thulani glances at him, returns to Bhekifa.

‘I think that you were aware that a unit from Pretoria was dispatched to Cape Town, headed by a man operating as Lieutenant Sam Nkosi. Acting on orders from Pretoria, he murdered Taryn Holt, implicated and murdered a man, Angus Lyle, and took prisoner Colonel De Vries.’

‘How would I know this?’

‘Because, sir, I believe it was at your instruction. We know that Sergeant Julius Mngomezulu was reporting confidential Western Cape Province SAPS matters to you, in direct contravention of his duty. This is not acceptable.’

De Vries sees Bhekifa’s feigned expression of innocence fade, sees a determination which he had never doubted replace it. His lips thin, his teeth appear.

‘Furthermore, we are aware of Lieutenant Nkosi’s involvement in the Marikana Mine incident, his failure to attend the enquiries and the steps undertaken to hide this. We will not tolerate such interference in the pursuit of justice by state-sponsored operatives.’

‘Enough.’ Bhekifa thumps the arm of his chair, sits forward. ‘You stand there in front me, next to this man . . .’ He waves his hand at De Vries. ‘Have you forgotten the decades of sacrifice we made to fight against men such as this? Do you think that we can allow the forces of evil to come together again to challenge us? If you think we can sit back and do nothing, then you are nothing but a traitor to all of us who have fought so hard.’

Thulani looks over to De Vries, who says: ‘Taryn Holt was about to finance your son’s political party in direct opposition to the ANC. We know you were aware of this. We also have Mngomezulu . . .’ he does not care how badly he says the man’s name ‘. . . on tape, revealing to
Cape Herald
journalists the connection between him and Taryn Holt. This is a man who acts on orders. He had come from you, and I believe that he acted on your orders.’

Bhekifa laughs, but De Vries continues.

‘You achieved both the removal of a dangerous financial backer for a growing opposition party and you attacked the credibility of your own son as a political force.’

‘You,’ Bhekifa says, ‘have no right to be in my house. You talk of state-sponsored operatives: you worked for the regime whose agents killed tens of thousands of my people in the name of state control. You think that because twenty-five years have passed, people like me forget what you did . . .’

‘We are not here to be lectured by you,’ Thulani says firmly. ‘We are here to inform you that this will not happen in Western Province again. Our reports are on file and they will remain safe.’

‘Where is Sergeant Ben Thwala?’

Thulani stares at De Vries.

‘Where is Sergeant Ben Thwala?’

‘Not now, Colonel.’

De Vries shouts at Bhekifa. ‘He’s one of your own, for fuck’s sake. Isn’t that what you keep telling everyone the fight was about? You have all your people save Nkosi, so order Thwala to be released.’

Bhekifa sits still, smiles.

‘You come here to threaten me, accuse me, and you expect my help? You people are the traitors we have fought all our lives.’

Thulani holds up his hand.

‘You call me a traitor? I uphold the law, which keeps South Africa a democracy and a free country. If you fight against that, you are the traitor.’

Bhekifa sits back, shakes his head, flits the air with his little hand.

‘You are like all the rest of them,’ he says bitterly. ‘The so-called educated, the young, the complacent. You think being in government is the end. You think the fight is over.’

‘That fight
is
over,’ Thulani says.

‘No . . . You have no idea. You see only a fraction of what exists, that is why you do not understand. The fight is not over. It never ends.’

He leans back in his chair. De Vries stares at him one last time, sees hubris and a mocking despair that others cannot see the world as he does.

‘Best never to meet your idols,’ John Marantz says.

De Vries laughs, opens a bottle, walks down into the living room. The rain pours down the tall windows in rivulets.

‘The donga at the bottom is crumbling,’ Marantz says. ‘My garage is leaking and the path into the woods below is half gone. So much for wishing for rain.’

‘How do you know Eric Basson?’

‘From small-talk to the matter in hand, in one seamless segue.’

De Vries sits on one of the leather sofas, places his bottle on the table, hands on kneecaps, and stares at him.

‘I told you,’ Marantz says. ‘I don’t. I met him once, asked for his help. That’s it.’

‘That isn’t the question. And you know it.’

‘Barristers always say: never ask a witness a question unless you already know the answer.’

‘You’re not a witness,’ De Vries says. ‘You’re the accused.’

‘I gathered that.’

‘Well?’

‘If you think you know the answer, why ask? If I lied to you a moment ago, what makes you think I’ll tell you the truth now?’

De Vries is too tired to fight again; he reads confirmation of his own theories in Marantz’s evasion.

‘Why fight all these years,’ Marantz says, ‘and then just do to you what you did to them?’

‘Because bullying always felt better than being bullied, didn’t it?’

‘Not in hindsight.’

De Vries says: ‘Mandela will be turning in his grave.’

Marantz smiles.

‘It’s funny how many white people say that.’

They both drink; Marantz opens his old marquetry box, slips a cigarette paper out, lays it flat on the table, begins to tear a narrow strip from one side. De Vries says quietly: ‘You catch a small piece in the newspaper, or online, about a man called Mitchell Smith?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m next.’

‘What?’

‘Whoever this is will kill all of us. That’s what they’ve decided.’

‘Nel?’

‘My instinct tells me not. If I’m stabbed tonight, then keep it in mind, but unless Nel is employing a very unique individual, it doesn’t feel right. Whoever it was hid in the eaves, waiting for hours, maybe days, then slipped down, killed him and hid there again, let the cops poke about, and still waited. Nel’s way would be to shoot them in the face.’

‘So, who?’

‘One of them. One of the family of the people we killed.’

‘
They
killed, Vaughn. They killed. Unless you’ve edited your role, you couldn’t have stopped it; you couldn’t have made it better. You are not responsible.’

‘Tell him. Tell the killer.’

Marantz lights the joint, inhales deeply.

‘Have some beer, stay in my guest room. At least for tonight. Flat roof, solid concrete. I’ll post Flynn outside your door.’

‘Maybe.’

He sleeps fitfully on the hard mattress in Marantz’s spare room. Each time he wakes, he thinks not of the threat against him, but of Ben Thwala, and the position he has put him in. Dispatching him to Pretoria at the precise moment he did was reckless and selfish. He prays to anyone who will hear him that Thwala is returned.

In the morning, he opens his door and finds Flynn lying outside, wagging his tail. He pats his head, walks into the kitchen and makes coffee, carries it back to his room. The dog is on the end of the bed, looking out of the window. De Vries gets back in, puts his feet either side of Flynn and drinks his coffee; he looks over his head at the Southern Suburbs, blurred and dank.

At 8 a.m., his phone bleeps. An SMS from a withheld number. He opens the message and reads the nine letters several times.

‘Nel is dead.’

‘You found out quick.’

‘Ears everywhere, Mike.’

‘Makes you wonder . . .’

Major Mike Arends speaks abruptly, more curious to know why De Vries had visited Kobus Nel than to tell him what he has found at the scene. Arends is tight with David Wertner – a racial partnership; he and De Vries have clashed within the department.

‘Stabbing, in his bed. A very sharp weapon, almost like a surgical instrument. The wounds seem deep. Doesn’t look as if Nel got a chance to defend himself.’

De Vries shudders.

Arends says: ‘What was security like when you were here?’

‘Heavy. Guards at the gate on the street into the courtyard and parking area, more at the cable car, another at the top. But they knew I was coming. I made an appointment.’

‘
Ja
. That’s what they told us. I get the feeling there are ex-cops, ex-military here – the white guys anyway. You got that impression?’

‘Yes.’

‘And now several of them have disappeared. So, maybe an inside job?’

‘Maybe . . .’

‘I would think . . .’

‘They may,’ De Vries says, ‘just have wanted to avoid a meeting with you. I suspect some of them may not be very sociable generally.’

‘What did you discuss with Nel?’

‘Better not say . . .’

‘Anything relevant to his death?’

‘No. Quite the contrary. Nel felt he was on the up.’

Arends squints at De Vries, knows that he is being excluded. He looks up at the grand house.

‘Solid alarm system on doors and windows. Whoever it was got past his security, beat the alarm, killed him and got out. Nothing taken, as far as we know, but Nel was into all kinds of shit, knee deep. Could be underworld connected.’

De Vries hesitates; he has already decided to maintain silence, even if he doesn’t truly know why.

‘Nel’s dirty a dozen different ways.’

He drives back to the suburbs, studying his surroundings with the eyes of a visitor who has never seen them before, or might never again. Nothing in his field of vision is clear: the precipitation blurs everything.

He views his house from the driveway, wonders if whoever it is has scoped it out, been waiting, watching for him; he knows deep down that they have. In his hallway, the air smells different. He bends to retrieve his mail, hears something and jolts upright, staggering back as he feels pain shoot down his neck. He rights himself, leans against the wall, rubs the back of his neck. He locks the front door, paces the downstairs rooms, then upstairs, considering hiding places, points of ingress. Finally, he descends the stairs, sets the alarm once more, gets back into his car.

He drives what is now grandly named the Cape-Namibia Route – the N7 highway up the West Coast of the country – for 150 kilometres, stopping once for petrol and a cold drink. When he reaches the country town of Citrusdal, he turns off the highway, drops down into the valley. The main street is busy with commerce and the exchange of information, as the mainly coloured rural community stands outside the one large supermarket, under the shelter of a wide corrugated iron roofed canopy, smoking and talking. He notices new mini-marts with Chinese names, wonders why they would come here to start their new lives. He read an article in the newspaper only weeks previously, officially dismissing as nothing more than another conspiracy theory, the stories that the Chinese government are sending these people out to South Africa, funding their start-up businesses, embedding them in every community throughout the country, so that when Chinese investment and industry begin to expand rapidly, as no one doubts they will, there are already established networks in place for the Chinese workers who follow. Change comes, he thinks, always in a way no one has anticipated.

He checks the directions Classon has provided, turns off the main street, past three blocks of simple housing and a high school, crosses onto a gravel track and begins to drive down into a lush valley of citrus farms, dams and streams, before turning towards the high hills, low mountains – the outer ranges of the mighty Cederberg.

After several kilometres, a missed turn and gingerly fording a fast-flowing swollen stream, he reaches the farmstead, continues past it for two more kilometres, and turns onto a disintegrating track towards Henrik du Toit’s country house.

Du Toit waits for him under his broad stoep, which surrounds three sides of the low building, and greets him with a hug that, for twenty-five years of police acquaintance, Vaughn has never previously experienced or witnessed.