Dead Before Dying

He started sawing. The sweat ran down his forehead. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and left a dirty mark on his face.

Over the sound of the saw he heard the commentator say: “Zeelie from the opposite side. He’s at the wicket now. And Loxton plays that one defensively back to the bowler . . .”

Zeelie, the great white hope as suspect. He had never asked Gail Ferreira whether her husband had known Zeelie. But he was reasonably certain what the answer would be.

Three inexplicable murders. With nothing in common. A family man, a gay, and a cripple. A promiscuous heterosexual, a conservative homosexual, and a blue movies addict. Married, unmarried, married. Businessman, goldsmith, unemployed.

There was no connection.

There was one connection— the bare fact that there was no connection.

A murderer who without any pattern, without rhyme or reason, in the late afternoon, early morning, or middle of the night, pulled the trigger and took a life. How did he choose his victims? Eeny, meeny, miny, mo . . . Or did he see someone in the street and follow him home because he didn't like his face or clothes?

It had happened before. Here. Overseas. It drove the media crazy because people wanted to read about it. It woke a primitive fear: death without reason, the most fearful of all fates. And the police were powerless because there was no pattern. The great crime prevention machine’s fuel was the observable pattern, like an established modus operandi or a comprehensible motive. Like sex. Or avarice. But if the observable pattern was missing, or its octane too low, the great machine came to a sighing halt. Its tank empty. It had trouble in restarting.

And if the driver was Captain Mat Joubert to boot . . .

All he needed was one small lead that didn't disappear like mist before the sun when you gave it a sharp look. Just one. A small one.

He picked up a plank to take to the spare room to fit it. Before he was out of the garage he heard Zeelie bowling Loxton for a duck.

22.

The news editor of the Weekend Argus paged through the Saturday edition. He was looking for follow-ups for the Sunday edition— news that hadn't had the last bit of blood squeezed out of it. So that he could assign reporters to do just that.

He paged from the back to the front, past the copy on page six under the small headline SEA POINT WOMAN DIES IN FALL.

He didn't read the details because he knew the contents. He had, after all, checked the new reporter’s work.

A 32-year-old Sea Point secretary, Ms. Carina Oberholzer, sustained fatal injuries when she fell from her thirteenth-story flat in Yates Road.

Ms. Oberholzer, an employee of Petrogas in Rondebosch, was alone in her flat at the time.

According to a police spokesman, foul play is not suspected. “We believe it was a tragic accident.”

The news editor turned to page two, where there were a few run-on stories about the Mauser murder. Tucked into the unattractive nonmodular page makeup, there was a half-column photo of Captain Mat Joubert.

And, as he told the crime reporter of the

Argus

sometime later, it rang a bell somewhere. He picked up the receiver next to him and dialed an internal number, waited until someone answered.

“Hi, Brenda. I need a file, pronto, please. M.A.T. Joubert. Captain, Murder and Robbery.” He thanked her and rang off. Eight minutes later the brown file landed on his desk. He shifted the telexes in front of him out of the way, opened the file, and quickly paged through the contents as if he was looking for something. Then he gave a sigh of relief and extracted a somewhat yellowing

Argus

report and read it.

He got up, the copy in his hand, and walked to the crime reporter’s desk in the general news office. “Did you know that this guy’s wife died in the line of duty?” he asked and handed over the evidence.

“No,” said Genevieve Cromwell, who despite her name was an unprepossessing, unattractive woman. She shifted her glasses.

“Could be a nice story. Human interest angle. Two years after, still pursuing justice, still wearing the tragedy, that sort of shit.”

Genevieve’s face brightened. “Yeah,” she said. “He might have a new girlfriend.”

“Don’t go starry-eyed on me,” the news editor said. “Let’s do something so comprehensive that there’s nothing left for the others. Talk to him, his boss, his friends, his neighbors. Hit the files, dig a little.”

“He’s a nice man, you know.”

“I'’ve never met him.”

“He’s a nice man. Sort of shy.”

“Get that fucking romantic look off your face, dear, and get going.”

“And handsome, too, in a big cuddly bear kind of way.”

“Jesus,” he said, shook his head in disgust, and walked back to his office. But Genevieve didn't hear her boss blaspheming. She stared at the ceiling, seeing nothing.

* * *

Joubert made his second little error when he was putting a screw through the metal strip into the wall.

When it still had a quarter way to go, the screw refused to budge. He decided to give the screw a little help with a few taps of the hammer. This was a wrong decision, because the hole he had drilled earlier simply wasn'’t deep enough.

When he tapped the screw with the hammer it broke, plastic anchor and all, together with a hefty piece of plaster.

Joubert, who wasn'’t in Gerbrand Vos’s league, said something that would’ve cheered his colleague’s heart. Emily, ironing in the kitchen, heard it. She smiled and put her hand in front of her mouth.

* * *

Cloete of public relations phoned just after a quarter past five on the Saturday afternoon.

Bart de Wit was playing chess with Bart Junior. But he didn't mind the invasion of his time because he was losing.

“Sorry to bother you at home, Colonel, but the

Argus

has just phoned me. They want to do a major story on Captain Joubert. Because he’s investigating the murders and the bank robberies. Interview with you, with members of his team, with him, his previous cases, the whole tutti.”

De Wit’s first thought was that the newspaper knew something.

It could happen. He thought. Reporters dug up information in impossible places. And now they were suspicious.

“No,” de Wit said.

“Colonel?”

“No. Under no circumstances. Over my dead body.”

Cloete’s heart sank. He waited for the colonel to offer some explanation. But Bart de Wit said nothing. Eventually Cloete said he would inform the

Argus

and said good-bye. Why had he ever accepted this post? It was impossible to keep every officer and every member of the press happy at the same time.

He sighed and phoned the reporter.

* * *

Joubert had all four screws secured to the wall.

He stood back and had a look. The hole where the plaster had fallen off the wall was unsightly. He saw that not all the strips were level. His eye, without the spirit level, had not been all that accurate.