“Sheesh,” she said when he was done. He saw her dragging her fingers through her short hair.
“Someone knew,” he said. “Everything points to the fact that someone knew. Someone with an M16 and a blowtorch arrived with premeditated intent. It’s hardly standard issue when you’re robbing a house. At the very least they had had to know that Jan Smit had a fortune in some form or other and that it would take a certain amount of persuasion to get it from him. Someone who knew him in his previous life.”
She nodded.
A wind-driven gust of rain thudded against the window.
“That means Jan Smit knew where to get a forged ID. It means he knew how to get rid of hot dollars. That means he built the safe to hide something, not for security. That means Van As never really knew him. Or she’s lying, but I don’t think so.”
He leaned back against a kitchen cupboard, folded his arms in front of him.
“You’re very good,” she said.
He tightened his arms. “It’s a theory.”
“It’s a good theory,” she said.
He shrugged. “It’s all we’ve got.”
“And tomorrow?”
He hadn’t really thought about tomorrow. “I don’t know. The dollars are the key. I want to find out who controlled the black market in currency in 1983. And who were the major drug dealers. But maybe it’s something completely different. He may have stolen the money in America. Or it could’ve been an arms transaction. Who knows, in this fucking country of ours.”
He wondered whether she would react to his language again. She must leave now, he thought. He wasn’t going to offer her coffee.
“I’ll dig. There are a few places. A few people…”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“You’ll have to decide what you’re going to tell Van As.”
She got up slowly, as if she was tired. “I don’t think we’ll tell her anything.”
“It’s your choice.”
“There are too many uncertainties. We can speak to her when we have more.”
She picked up her attaché case. “I have to go.”
He unfolded his arms. “I’ll phone you if I find something.” Just please don’t come to my house again. But he didn’t say it.
“You have my cell phone number?”
“No,” he said.
She opened her case again, took out a card, handed it to him. Then she turned and walked to the door. He noticed that she had a pretty, rounded bottom beneath the skirt.
“I don’t have an umbrella.” A statement, almost aggressive.
She stood at the door and smiled at him. “Is that Domingo?”
“What?”
“The music.”
“No.”
“I thought it was the sound track from the movie. You know, Zeffirelli’s – ”
“No.”
“Who is it?”
She had to leave. He didn’t want to discuss music with her.
“Pavarotti and Sutherland.”
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“It’s the best.” Biting his tongue. It’s none of her business.
She was quiet for a moment. Then she looked at him, frowning. “You’re an odd man, Van Heerden.”
“I’m trash,” he said quickly. “Ask Kemp.” And opened the door for her. “You have to go now.”
“You did good work,” she said, and turned her head sideways against the rain and ran down the stairs. He heard her laugh, one quick sound, and then the BMW’s roof light came on when she opened the door and got in, waved to him. The door slammed and the light went off. He closed the front door.
He walked to the CD player and switched off the music. She knew fuck-all about music. Domingo. Indeed.
He would have to phone her in the morning. Tell her he would come to her office every day, just before she went home, for a complete report.
She mustn’t come here again.
Or he would write a report every evening and take it to her.
The telephone rang.
“Van Heerden.”
“Good evening,” a woman’s voice said. “My name is Kara-An Rousseau. I don’t know whether you remember me.”
♦
Hope Beneke drove home slowly on the N7, the windshield wipers at full speed. This afternoon she had wanted to murder him; this evening she had wanted to hug him. She bit her lip and hunched over the steering wheel, trying to see through the rain. Now she understood. His baggage wasn’t anger. It was pain. And guilt.
Now she could distance herself. By understanding.
That’s all.
That’s it.
∨ Dead at Daybreak ∧
DAY 5
SATURDAY, JULY 8
∨ Dead at Daybreak ∧
14
The house was full of books. And often filled with writers and poets and readers, arguments and animated conversations – late one Saturday night two women almost came to blows over Etienne Leroux’s Seven Days at the Silbersteins. A reading and a discussion of the work of Van Wyk Louw lasted through the night until after lunch on the Sunday.
And into this circle of literary luminaries I brought Louis L’Amour.
I hadn’t been an early reader. There were, I thought, far more interesting things to do. As my mother allowed me more freedom, there were the usual school activities and the more informal boys’ play (how many gangs we formed!), fishing in the Vaal River (with Uncle Shorty de Jager, live crickets, without a weight), the investigation of the east shaft’s collapsed mine dumps, the eternal building and rebuilding of Schalk Wagenaar’s tree house.
Then, the discovery of photo-stories. Günther Krause read Mark Condor. Takuza. Captain Devil. With his parents’ permission. (His mother read Barbara Cartland and others of her sort, and his father wasn’t home very often.) On Saturday mornings we went to Don’s Book Exchange for a new supply for Günther and his mother and then we went to his house to read them avidly. Until tenth grade, when I almost uninterestedly picked up a L’Amour in Don’s, looked at the fiery green eyes of the hero on the cover, and lazily, unsuspectingly, read the first two paragraphs and met Logan Sackett.
My mother gave me a few rand for pocket money every month. The book cost forty cents. I bought it. And for the following three years I couldn’t get enough.
My mother made no objection. Perhaps she hoped it would lead to the reading of other, more substantial stuff. She didn’t know it would lead to my first confrontation with the law.
It wasn’t L’Amour’s fault.
One holiday morning my mother dropped me and Günther and another school friend in Klerksdorp early for the movies. The CNA on the main road was on two levels, toys and stationery downstairs, and upstairs, the books. I had been in the CNA before but that day I discovered a new world of Louis L’Amours, new, unread books with white paper – not the faded, faintly yellowed secondhand copies of the book exchange. Books that smelled fresh.
I can’t remember how much money I had in my pocket. But it wasn’t enough. Too little for a movie and a milk shake and a L’Amour. Certainly enough for a book but then I wouldn’t be able to accompany Günther to the movies. Enough for a movie and a milk shake but then I wouldn’t be able to make use of this newfound abundance. And in a moment of feverish desire I made my decision: taking a book wasn’t stealing.