He would have to put up bookcases, he thought, and stood in the doorway for a moment, staring, contemplating. He was aware of an urge to set the books in order, to arrange them according to authors, each one neatly in its allotted space.
He walked into the room, went down on his knees next to the pile and picked up the top one.
21.
Dr. Hanna Nortier lay on a sofa. He sat next to her on a chair. He stroked her colorless hair with soft, mechanical movements. His heart was filled with love and pity for her. He spoke to her. He emptied his heart. The tears poured down his cheeks. His hand shifted to her breast, small and soft as a bird, his fingers kneaded the tissue carefully under the material. He looked at her. He saw that she was pale. He realized that she was dead. But why was he hearing shrill sounds emanating from her? The alarm. He opened his eyes. The green figures of the instrument said 6:30.
He got up immediately and drove to the swimming pool. He swam seven purposeful lengths before he needed to rest. When he felt better he did two more lengths, slowly.
Joubert bought a newspaper when he stopped for a packet of Special Milds mainly because of the front-page headlines. TELLER LIVES IN FEAR OF MAUSER the biggest one read. And a smaller subheading: IS SWEETHEART ROBBER THE SERIAL KILLER?
He read the reports in the car in front of the café. The main news was the bank robbers reference made to Rosa Wasserman, but there were also other, smaller reports about the crimes. In one the reporter, using dates, tried to trace a connection between the murders and the bank robberies. In another he quoted a Dr. A. L. Boshoff, well-known Cape criminologist and lecturer in criminology at the University of Stellenbosch, on the psyche of the serial killer.
Joubert finished reading and folded the newspaper. His mouth thinned. He had never worked on a case that had engendered so much ongoing publicity. There had been the kidnapping of a deputy ministers child in 89. The case was solved within hours but the press had had a two-day orgy. And the axe murderer of Mitchells Plain in 86. The newspapers wrote for weeks. But chiefly on the inside pages because the victims were not white.
He switched on the engine and drove to Bellville, to the big hardware shop on Durban Road.
Why did he find the reporters copy about the dates and the similarities between the crimes so unacceptable? Was it simply a premonition, an opinion honed by experience?
No. It was the differences that the reporter had ignored. The bank robber was an exhibitionist. He played for the audience with his dramatic disguises and showy dialogue, the pet name and the questions about perfume. The bank robber was a coward who kept his gun hidden under his coat and relied on the fear of women.
The Mauser murderer was cool and clinical.
It couldn't be the same man.
Or could it?
He was annoyed by his own indecisiveness. Fighting crime is like playing golf, Matty, Blackie Swart had said once. Just as soon as you think youve got it made, it sideswipes you again.
He had made a casual drawing for his bookcase the previous evening. He explained briefly to the salesman what he was looking for. The salesman was enthusiastic. He showed Joubert the various kinds of do-it-yourself bookcase kits on the market. Some sets were packed in such a way that the buyer could assemble it in five minutes without drilling a single hole, sawing one plank, or hammering in one nail.
Joubert wanted to do more with his hands. He had developed a certain dedication to the task since the previous evening. He wanted to smell sawdust and use the electric drill that had been gathering dust in the garage for almost three years. He wanted to sweat and measure and fit and make pencil marks on the wall and on the wood.
He and the salesman decided on a more primitive design. Long metal strips had to be screwed to the wall vertically. Metal struts hooked horizontally onto the strips. The wooden shelves, which Joubert would have to measure and saw, rested on the supports.
He bought bits for the drill and screws and plastic anchors to help the screws hold in the plastered walls. Sandpaper, varnish, paintbrushes, a new tape measure, and a three-point plug completed his purchases because he couldn't remember whether the electric drill still had a plug.
He paid by check and did a quick sum in his head to see how much hed saved by not buying one of the luxury do-it-yourself models. Two black men helped him carry the stuff to his car. He tipped them five rand each. Some of the planks and the metal strips were too long for the interior of the car or the trunk. He let them stick out the window.
He drove to the Bellville Market to replenish his stock of fruit and vegetables and ate an apple as he drove home.
When he arrived Emily was already doing the laundry. He went to say hello to her, and asked after her children in the Transkei and her husband in Soweto. He told her the spare bedroom would soon be a very tidy room. She shook her head in disbelief.
His enthusiasm for the task was great. He opened the garage door and chose the tools. Everything, except a few screwdrivers and the lawnmower, was covered in a thick layer of dust.
Some of the tools had belonged to his father. His father, who had used them hastily but with precision and impatience. No, they must teach you at school how to use these things. Here youll just get hurt. And your mother will be cross with me.
Joubert walked to the second bedroom again to use his new tape measure. He made a new sketch on paper. He fetched another apple in the kitchen and went to fetch the drill and the metal strips. The electric drill had no plug. He put on the new one with a feeling of deep satisfaction. He measured where the holes for the screws had to be made. Then it occurred to him that he needed a spirit level.
No, he wasn't going to drive out again. He would measure carefully, using the corner of the room as a guideline. He started working.
When he had drilled all the holes, he fetched the portable radio out of Laras nightstand. There were always new batteries in her drawer. He looked. They were still there. He slotted them into the radio and switched it on. He turned the tuner past a few music stations until he found RSG, the Afrikaans station. Two men were delivering a cricket commentary. He carried the radio to the garage because he had to do the sawing.
The radio played a cut of pumping concertina, the rhythms of
boeremusiek.
It recalled memories. His father never listened to cricket. But in the time before television he listened to rugby commentaries on a Saturday afternoon. And swore at the commentators and the players and the referee when Western Province lost. After the game, before they switched to other stadiums for summaries, there was always a snatch of boeremusiek or a band. That was the signal for his father to go and have his Saturday-evening drink in the bar of the Royal. And Joubert had to lay the fire because on Saturday evenings they had a barbecue. Sometimes he had to keep feeding the fire with rooikrans logs until late at night because his father allowed no one else to barbecue the meat. Its a mans job.
At the start he had enjoyed fetching his father in the bar. He had liked the warmth of the place, the camaraderie, the good-natured friendship, the respect the people there had for his father.