Dead Before Dying

“You’re a star, Benny,” Joubert said.

“I know. Because that’s not all.”

They were all attention.

“He’s got a grudge against Premier. Why rob just them? I don’t mean the last one. That doesn’t count because he’s got cold feet now. I’m speaking about the previous ones. Clever guy like him wouldn't concentrate on the branches of only one bank. No, no, there must be a reason, because he must know there’ll be hell to pay if he focuses on only one. You don’t have to be an Einstein to know that the cops are going to lay traps for you, unless you screw around a little more. He hits Premier because he’s got a grudge.”

“You’re simply guessing,” the Brigadier said.

“I know, Brigadier. It’s a theory. But you must admit it has merit.”

“Whole fuckin’ country has a grudge against banks,” Vos said.

“Also true,” Griessel hit back. “But how many professional makeup artists can there be in the Cape?”

They considered the truth of this statement in silence.

“You’re going to look for makeup artists,” de Wit said and grimaced.

“One after another, Colonel. To be honest I'’ve already begun telephoning. And they tell me I must start with the Arts Council. And then the film studios. There are about twelve or thirteen of those. They said he might be freelance as well, but in this profession everyone knows everyone else.”

“Well done,” said the Brigadier.

“So I’ll ask to be excused, if I may. With my team.”

“With pleasure, Sergeant.”

Griessel walked out ahead of them and Joubert noticed the squared shoulders.

It’s all I can do.

“Captain?”

All eyes were fixed on Joubert.

Joubert straightened the brown files in front of him, picked up the notebook and started paging. He cleared his throat.

“I think we’re making headway,” he said, not sure whether he believed it himself.

“There is new information but we’re not quite sure how it all fits together.” He found his latest notes, hurriedly made just before the impromptu conference.

“But let me start at the beginning. Four of the victims have been connected in sets of two. James Wallace obviously knew Ferreira. Wallace’s wife says she’s certain Ferreira came to see her husband at home one evening, but Ferreira’s wife says she knows nothing about it. We don’t know why he went there. Then we’re sure that MacDonald knew Nienaber. Nienaber admitted that he was at the murder scene but . . .”

“Why do I only hear about this now?” the Brigadier demanded.

Petersen sank lower in his chair. De Wit’s mouth opened and closed. “I . . .”

“Nienaber had his attorney at the interrogation, Brigadier. We had to work according to the book. And there was simply too little evidence. He was well known, an influential man . . .” Hopelessly Joubert tried to shore up his position.

“You should’ve informed me.”

“We should’ve, Brigadier. It was my fault. But we wanted to keep a low profile because we put a tail on him. We thought he was a suspect in the case. We wanted to see whether we could find a connection between him and the others. But because the relatives of the others couldn't confirm anything . . .”

“You should’ve told me . . .”

“You said there was new information,” de Wit said hopefully.

Joubert threw him a grateful look. “That’s right, Colonel. By chance we saw in Nienaber’s telephone book that he had underlined a few names. MacDonald’s. And a Miss Carina Oberholzer’s . . . She fell out of her window on the thirteenth floor of an apartment building in Sea Point on Friday evening. Pathologist says there were no other injuries or bullet wounds. Sea Point’s detectives say that there were no signs of a struggle. But I can’t believe that it was coincidence. On Friday the Ferreira murder happened. On Monday it was MacDonald, where Nienaber also happened to be. The timing . . . Her boss— she was a secretary at Petrogas— says she was bright and cheerful on Friday as she always was. Her friend has a restaurant on the waterfront. He said he’d spoken to her on the telephone that afternoon and she had said she would come and lend a hand during the rush hour around nine o’clock. Later on he became worried and tried to telephone her, after ten sometime, and there was no reply. He could only go and look for her when he closed but by then she was dead.”

“So he has an alibi,” Vos said.

“Yes,” said Joubert. “And he needed one. Carina Oberholzer was his sly. The bastard is married. And he says Oberholzer knew it.”

* * *

Detective Sergeant Carl van Deventer owed his promotion to Murder and Robbery to having become the best burglary detective in Cape Town’s police station.

He could, just before he left the city’s station, say whether a burglar was a professional or an amateur simply by looking at the marks, or lack of them, on the locks of a house or flat’s front door.

Like a fortuneteller reading tea leaves, so van Deventer could look at the crime scene of a burglary and sometimes rattle off the name and the criminal history of the offender by the manner in which the drawers had been opened, the way the cigarette butts of the burglar had been placed in an ashtray.

He had achieved his expertise through a deep-seated interest, hard work, and study— not only for the official police exams but also at the University of the Street. By questioning those charged, by asking them kindly but urgently to tell him how they had disarmed the alarm, how they had manipulated the mechanism of a lock.

And through the years he had built up a set of burglar’s tools that had made him a legend.

If you worked at Murder and Robbery and the children flushed the house keys down the toilet in a friend’s house, you didn't phone a locksmith— you sent for Carl van Deventer. If you wanted to sidestep the law of criminal procedure in a small way by searching a suspect’s house or office without the necessary documents (or keys), you telephoned van Deventer.

If you had a locked attaché case and the combination had accompanied Oliver Nienaber to eternity, you asked van Deventer to bring his little screwdrivers.

Van Deventer was investigating a satanic murder in Durbanville when Detective Constable Snyman phoned him with the request.

“Leave it on my desk. I’ll be there this afternoon,” van Deventer had said.

True to his word he set to work immediately when he got back to the office. He took his little black leather bag out of his jacket’s inner pocket, chose the right implement, wiggled a bit here, pressed a little there, and the two locks of the attaché case snapped open, exactly forty-four seconds after he had taken the tool out of the bag.

Van Deventer’s reward for his work was that he was allowed to see the contents of the case. He lifted the lid, saw the Star 9 mm, and knew he mustn’t fiddle with the contents because it could be the murder weapon. You didn't screw around with a murder weapon unless you were looking for early retirement.

He phoned Snyman but there was no reply. He phoned Mat Joubert but he wasn'’t in his office, either. Van Deventer did what the book told him he had to do with a potential murder weapon. He walked to Mavis Petersen at Murder & Robbery’s reception desk, signed in the case at the door, walked to the safe, and locked it away. Then he asked Mavis to tell Snyman or Joubert that it was open and ready for their attention.