Dead Before Dying

“Oh,” the man said.

“I can’t believe that I heard nothing,” Snyman said.

Joubert looked at Petersen. “You were right, Leon. Nienaber was lying.”

“But now we’ll never know what the truth was, Captain.”

“We’ll find out.”

“Where are the photographers? I want to turn him over and see if he got one in the cock as well,” said O’Grady.

“You also think it was the Mauser?” Louw asked.

“Another Mauser?” Pagel, the pathologist, asked breathlessly from the staircase.

“We think so.”

Snyman’s hip radio crackled. “Captain Mat Joubert, Captain Mat Joubert, please phone Dr. Boshoff at the University of Stellenbosch. Captain Mat Joubert . . .”

“Is there a phone anywhere here?” he asked.

“In Nienaber’s office, there, around the corner, Captain.”

He walked down the passage. Anne Boshoff— what did she want? He dug in his inside pocket, looking for his notebook with her telephone number.

Nienaber’s office was luxurious— a big reception area with expensive furniture in pastel colors, a carpet with a thick pile, paintings against the one wall. Nienaber’s newspaper advertisement had been enlarged and framed and hung under the big logo of his firm’s name.

The end of an era, Joubert thought. The Great Predator wasn'’t scared off by success, didn't allow himself to be sidetracked by egotism and vanity.

He found a telephone on the reception desk, paged in his notebook until he located Anne Boshoff’s number, and dialed.

She replied by stating her name.

“This is Mat Joubert.”

“Matthew! How lovely to hear your voice. But you still sound old. Are you living yet, Matthew? When are you coming to see me?”

“I got a message . . .”

“And called back so quickly. Efficiency in the civil service always makes me feel so secure. It’s about the psychic, Matthew. Madame Jocelyn Lowe. I do hope you’re not the ‘old friend’?”

“The ‘old friend’?”

“Don’t you read the papers?”

“I’m busy with a murder investigation, Dr. Boshoff.”

“Anne.”

“Your adopted, middle-class homosexual struck again this morning, Anne.” He stressed her name, somewhat irritated, but she didn't react.

She whistled. “He’s speeding up.”

“Speeding up?”

“Do you know that most of the time you repeat what I'’ve just said? Yes, he’s speeding up. It’s only three days since MacDonald, Matthew. The time span between murders is getting shorter and shorter. Let me see . . .” Joubert heard the rustle of paper. “A week between the first and the second— if you count the day of the first murder as day one. Then three days until the third. Another three days, then MacDonald on Monday. And only two days up to today. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.”

“That’s true.”

“He’s sick, Matthew. Very sick. He’s getting out of control. He needs help. This changes my analysis. I’ll have to go back to the books. Tell me, was the victim gay again?”

“It’s Oliver Nienaber.”

“The hairdresser king?”

“The very same.”

She whistled again. “He wasn'’t gay, Matthew.”

“He wasn'’t gay. But how do you know?”

“I know men, Matthew. And that one wasn'’t gay. You could see it.”

“I have to go.”

“I want to know about the psychic first. She says in the

Times

 . . .” The sound of paper again. “ ‘Let’s just say I came to help an old friend. Someone involved in the investigation.’ Is that you?”

“No.”

“I’m so pleased. Be careful of those creatures, Matthew. They lie like troopers. Martin Reiser, of California, did scientific research on them. And you must know what he says: ‘The bottom line is that they all did very, very poorly . . .’ ”

Gerrit Snyman appeared in the door, in an obvious hurry.

“I really have to go,” Joubert said. “But I appreciate . . .”

“Don’t let it be words only, Matthew,” Anne Boshoff said and put the phone down.

* * *

They rolled Nienaber over. There was a splash of blood on his chest, a neat hole through the designer tie.

“No, the family jewels were spared,” said O’Grady, sounding disappointed and biting off another piece of nougat.

“But it’s definitely the Mauser. It isn’t over yet.”

“Yup, it ain’t over till the fat lady sings, as they say at the opera.”

And then Joubert suddenly knew where he would take Hanna Nortier when he asked her out.

“The attaché case is locked, Captain,” Snyman said from the floor.

“Let forensics check it for fingerprints and then take it to the office. Van Deventer can use his little screwdrivers on it.”

“He’ll love that,” said O’Grady.

“Gerrit, we’re going to Nienaber’s wife. Let me know if anything crops up.”

“Very well, Captain.”

* * *

Joubert took the stairs, followed by O’Grady, Petersen, and Louw. There was a lightness in his step. Because he knew where he could take Hanna Nortier.

33.

THE BANK ROBBER liked the names the media had given him. Don Chameleon in the English-language press, Sweetheart Robber in Die Burger. But now he was unhappy. They thought he was the Mauser murderer. And an innocent man lay in the Panorama Clinic, shot through the shoulder because a constable had thought it was the Sweetheart robber.

He hadn't wanted violence or anything approaching killing. He hadn't wanted all the publicity. All he wanted . . . but it didn't matter any longer. All he wanted now was to rectify the matter.

That was why he was going to rob a different bank that morning. Premier Bank’s branches were getting too hot. Why had that constable been at hand in the Tygerberg branch? Were they setting traps for him? That big captain who had been on television. He looked somewhat absentminded but he wasn'’t a captain for no reason.

Don Chameleon wouldn't allow himself to be caught. He would only rectify the matter. And then wait until the whole thing subsided.

He was a businessman this morning, a bearded, mustached businessman in a black wig, dressed in a charcoal gray, tailor-made suit with a white shirt and a blue-and-orange tie. He walked through the doors of BANKSA’s branch in Somerset West, the furthest he could get from his other working areas. He walked straight to the teller, a short, middle-aged woman, and took a white envelope out of his pocket.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” he said succinctly.

“Good morning, sir.” The woman smiled at him. “Words like that can get you into trouble,” she said calmly and unsuspectingly.

“How so?”

“The man who robs Premier Bank. Can I help you?”

“What do you think of the robber?”