Dead Before Dying

He had tried everything the previous night.

Mass mail distributor. Jeweler. Out-of-work carpenter. Fisherman. Hairdresser.

Forty years old, thirtysomething, fifty, forty, forty.

Success, so-so, failure, so-so, success.

Roving prick. Gay. Blue movie addict. Rapist. And he didn't know whether Nienaber had been faithful to his wife.

Oberholzer? Had she been involved? Really? She’d had a relationship with a married man. Had she earlier had a relationship with Nienaber? He made notes in his head while his arms pulled him through the water. Phone the hospital. Perhaps he could speak to Mrs. Nienaber this morning. Speak to Oberholzer’s boss. Where had she worked before? Phone that hairy Walter Schutte at Wallace Quickmail again. Had he heard the name Carina Oberholzer?

What would Dr. Hanna Nortier want to discuss this afternoon?

Dear Lord, he mustn’t bawl again.

He had to steer her away from Lara Joubert. He couldn't discuss it today and take her to the opera tomorrow.

She could open him up. He knew it. She could peel him like an orange and reach the juice. She was too clever for him.

Perhaps he shouldn't go. Perhaps he should phone and say the Mauser affair was getting too hot and he couldn't make it. He’d be there on the following Thursday as usual and were they still going to the opera?

He pulled himself effortlessly out of the water, unaware of his even breathing and the great distance he had swum while struggling with solutions. He dressed, drove to Kasselsvlei, avoiding newspaper posters that screamed IT’S BOER WAR III, SAYS UK PSYCHIC. And

Die Burger

’s SALON BARON’S LIFE CUT SHORT.

He saw them but his thoughts were too busy to take any notice.

Anne Boshoff said the murderer was out of control. And there was nothing he could do to stop it. When would he strike again?

Late afternoon. Late night. Early morning. Early morning. Early morning.

The after-hours murderer. What do you do during the day, you bastard? Or couldn't you forecast the movement of your victims during office hours?

He drove his usual route, as he did every morning, without thinking about it, unaware of the big breakthrough that was waiting in the attaché case.

“Sarge van Deventer says he put the Captain’s case in the safe,” said Mavis Petersen when he walked in.

He thanked her, asked her to fetch it, signed for it, and took it with him to his office. He put it down on the table, took out his Winstons, put them next to the case, went to the tearoom and fetched himself a large mug of (bitter) black coffee. Then he came back, sank down in his chair, lit a Winston, and drew in a deep lungful of smoke.

Lovely.

He swallowed the strong instant coffee, drew on the cigarette again . . .

GENUINE BUFFALO HIDE was written on the leather case.

He opened it. The pistol lay there, the safety catch on. He took out his notebook, wrote:

Antoinette Nienaber? Always carried the pistol? Knew Oberholzer? Ferreira? Wilson? Faithful?????

He put down the pen and the notebook, picked up the pistol and sniffed the barrel. Hadn't been fired in a long time, nor cleaned. Why carry the pistol, Oliver? He put the pistol aside, picked up the cigarette, drew on it again.

A black diary, reinforced with gold on the four corners of the covers. Diary and notebook. He paged to the date of the first murder. Nothing of importance. He paged on. January 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Appointments with people unknown to him.

Ollie’s birthday.

One of the sons. January 9, 10, 11.

Then Joubert saw the list.

Mac McDonald.

Incorrectly spelled.

Carina Oberholzer. Jacques Coetzee.

Space.

Hester Clarke.

Mat Joubert forgot about the Winston between his fingers. He read the list again. He got up and walked to the door.

“Nougat!” he yelled down the passage, an urgent bellow. “Snyman! Basie!” There was a new note in his voice. He shouted again, even more loudly.

* * *

He’s sick, Matthew. He’s out of control.

Anne Boshoff’s words were his driving force now. He was going to stop the bastard. He would see to it that Jacques Coetzee and Hester Clarke didn't become dossiers as well. He was a drowning man who had been tossed a lifebelt, a nomad in the desert who saw the oasis reflected in a mirage. He was a combat general— the war had begun in earnest.

The parade room was a hive of activity. Joubert sat against the wall. Next to him, O’Grady. They distributed the list of names. The reinforcements that arrived from other police stations joined the queue. Two to a team. The order was to find the right Coetzee and the right Clarke. The only lead was the set of names and photos of the Mauser victims. And Carina Oberholzer.

“There are fifty-four Coetzees in the fucking directory,” O’Grady had complained when they held a meeting in Joubert’s room and he had looked up from the directory.

“There are hundreds of Clarkes with an

e,

” Snyman had said.

“He made a spelling mistake with MacDonald,” Joubert had said. “We’ll have to tackle the Clarks without an

e

as well.”

“Another hundred,” Snyman had said despairingly.

“It doesn’t matter,” was Joubert’s reply. “This thing ends today.” With finality in his voice.

De Wit had come in. Joubert had informed him of the latest state of the investigation and asked for reinforcements. De Wit, unashamedly excited, had trotted off to his office to telephone the Brigadier and the General.

Louw was late, with the smell of old liquor on his breath and a satisfied expression in his eyes. Joubert had given him the task of questioning the deceased’s relatives about the new names. Then they went to the parade room to put the men available from Murder and Robbery on the trail of the J. Coetzees and H. Clarkes. But Joubert knew initials were meaningless. Jacques might well be a second name, the initial appearing after that of the first in the directory. But they had to start somewhere.

“Ask them to look at the photos. Read out the names to them. Watch them, because they may lie,” was the instruction given to each team. Nienaber had lied about MacDonald and Wallace, and now he was dead. Why had Nienaber lied? Why the pistol? Had he always carried the pistol?

Feverishly Snyman made copies of the list of names, goaded by the Captain’s tone of voice.

And now the detectives poured in— from Paarl and Fish Hoek, from Table View and Stellenbosch— some annoyed because they were busy with other important cases, some grateful for the change and the opportunity of working on the sensational Mauser murders.

“Phone the hospital. Ask them if we can speak to Nienaber’s wife yet,” Joubert told Gerrit Snyman, delivering the last pile of photostats.