Dead Before Dying

But Ferdy Ferreira had been there. And later today she would phone the big policeman with the unseeing eyes and tell him.

Perhaps it would help.

* * *

He was already swimming just after six, knowing that it was going to be a long day, determined to make an early start. He counted the first two lengths and then became enmeshed in a search for solutions. What did he have to do today? Oliver Nienaber. Suspect number one. Gerrit Snyman was probably parked in front of the expensive house by now, ready for the first round of follow-the-hairdresser. The autopsy. Find out whether the pathologist had been able to establish the time of death. That might pin Nienaber down . . . despite Petersen’s blow. Talk to the previous victims’ relatives about MacDonald. Who had known him? Where? The bank robber. Ask Brigadier Brown whether people had been deployed in all Premier Bank’s branches by now.

Two more days before he would see Hanna Nortier again, he thought. Only two days.

He wanted to ask her out. Where to? “Drink in the canteen, Doc?”

Ha.

Dinner by candlelight in a good restaurant, one of those in Sea Point with the heavy curtains, perhaps one of the new ones in the Waterfront that everyone was talking about? No. Not for a first time— it would be too intimate, too much him and her.

Flick? Perhaps. What? “Seen

Rocky VII,

Doc?” Maybe one of those European numbers with the subtitles that showed in the southern suburbs? No. Too many bare breasts and blatant sex. She would get a wrong impression about him.

Joubert suddenly realized that he had subconsciously kept count and that he had completed eight lengths. And he wanted more.

He couldn't believe it. Eight lengths. How about that? Eight fucking lengths.

Who needed to give up smoking? He turned the way he’d been taught all those years ago, in one smooth movement, his feet kicking against the swimming pool wall. He slid through the water until his big body broke surface and his arms stretched and his head turned to inhale and he tilted his chest for the next stroke upward and the next. Left, right, left, breathe, right, left, right, breathe . . .

He swam another four lengths, rhythmically, easily, while his heart beat deep in his chest, a thrust. His satisfaction grew until he knew after the twelfth that it had been great and it was enough. He hauled himself effortlessly out of the pool and, dripping water, walked to the changing room. The long room was still empty at that time and the temptation was suddenly overwhelming. He bellowed:

“BAAA!”

One sound, explosive, an echo in the building. The shout that resounded in his ears was an embarrassment, but the feeling enfolded him like a cloak even when he got out of the car at the Hout Bay police station, passed the voices of the journalists, and walked up the stairs and through the big wooden door.

But it melted away when he saw the district commissioner, the chief of detectives, and de Wit.

They said good morning, the eyes of the three senior officers fixed hopefully on Joubert. His own revealed nothing. They walked to the ops rooms and closed the door.

Joubert told them everything— up to the point of Petersen’s blow. And he began to lie. “We had to let him go.”

“You had to let him go,” the district commissioner said without intonation, stunned.

“We thought about the reputation of the force, General, in these difficult times. Our image is at stake. Oliver Nienaber is a well-known personality. If we lock him up, we must have sufficient evidence. And we haven’t. One witness who saw him at the scene of the murder. The pathologist hasn’t even established whether MacDonald was murdered at more or less that time. We have no proof that Nienaber owns a Mauser. His story . . . It might well be true. But our image, General. If we charge the wrong man now . . .” Joubert stressed the image, knew that it was the one strong point in his argument.

“Ye-e-es,” the General said thoughtfully.

“But I have a team following Nienaber, General.”

“What do we tell the press?” the Brigadier asked. “After last night’s drama at the news conference they’re like hyenas who’ve smelled blood.

Die Burger

even says someone might well be charged today. Where do they get hold of such nonsense?”

Silence fell in the room.

“Don’t we have anything else, Captain?” the General asked but knew the answer.

“We have a great deal of follow-up work to do today, General. It might produce something.”

“We have to sound positive in front of the media. I’ll say we’ve had a breakthrough and are following up new leads now. That’s virtually the truth.”

“The medium,” said de Wit, making his first contribution. The others stared at him. “She’s arriving tonight. Madame Jocelyn Lowe.”

“We can’t be the ones to tell the press, Bart.” The Brigadier sounded irritated.

“I know, Brigadier. Nor will we. The Madame has a press agent. And the press agent said she was sending faxes to the local newspapers this morning. From London.” De Wit looked at his watch. “I promise you, our lack of success won’t be the main copy this afternoon.”

“I hope you’re right, Bart,” the General said. “Let’s go and speak to the vultures.”

While the General spoke to the media, Joubert stood to one side. He listened but his thoughts were still concentrated on the things that had to be done. Here and there he caught press questions: “When is an arrest going to be made?” “Is there a connection between the murders and the bank robberies?” The usual stuff. And then a new one. “General, have you heard that the so-called field marshal of the Army of the New Afrikaner Boer Republic said that the Mauser was a voice calling the Afrikaners to the service of their nation?”

“No,” said the General.

The reporter paged back in his notebook. “I quote: ‘The Mauser is the voice of our forefathers, the echo of their blood, spilt for freedom in two wars against overwhelming odds. It is a trumpet call for the uprising of the nation, a war cry from a forgotten era when Afrikaner pride was still pure and true.’ ”

The whole press group was silent. So was the General. Joubert looked at his shoes, which shone in the sharp sunlight.

“I’ll ask Captain Joubert to answer that,” said the General.

Joubert looked at the expectant faces, speechless for a moment. His panic grabbed at words, selected, discarded, chose others, until he started to speak, carefully. “We cannot summarily exclude any motive for the murders. To be frank, we investigated political motives from the start. But I have to tell you that there has been no reason up to now to believe that any political groups are directly or indirectly involved in this.”

“But you don’t discount it altogether?” asked a radio reporter, the microphone extended.

“We don’t discount

anything

at this stage.”

The group realized that the impromptu news conference was over and began dispersing. The television teams packed up their equipment, photographers unscrewed their flashlights. Joubert walked up the steps, back to the ops room. He had to get hold of the pathologist.