explosion of colourful lines, branching off from clusters of dates and place names.
‘What is this?’ asked Clare. ‘A family tree?’
‘It is, in a way,’ said De Lange. ‘Although a tree of death would be a better way of describing it. I told you I’ve been working on the gang wars. I started mapping them to see if I could link specific firearms to different crime scenes. This one was done during an upsurge of fighting about drug turf and taxi routes. I fed your bullets from Walvis Bay into our computer system, and, bang, this is what came up.’ He pointed to a small gold star on a branch that ended in a cul-de-sac.
‘All on its own?’ Clare leaned in to decipher De Lange’s writing. ‘In McGregor? Who was it?’
‘I don’t usually ask,’ said De Lange. ‘If I start with a name, then next thing I’ve got a wife and kids crying and then objectivity is in its moer.’ He pushed the docket towards Clare. ‘I pulled this for you, though. Ex-army. A Major Hofmeyr found in a vineyard off the main road into McGregor a few years ago. His car was left at the farm entrance, and two little girls found him at midday. He’d been dead for a few hours already. According to the pathologist he was shot at about seven in the morning.’
Clare paged through the thin report. There wasn’t much to go on. Major Hofmeyr was survived by his wife and daughter, but there were very few details for such a gruesome killing. ‘No evidence?’ Clare looked up at De Lange.
‘No tracks, no witnesses. Nothing.’
‘Nothing except a bullet embedded in the tree where Hofmeyr’s body was found,’ Riedwaan pointed out.
‘The police speculated a gang killing, maybe an initiation,’ said De Lange. ‘He was tortured. His skin was carved up, all over. It hung in ribbons, looked like broekie lace.’
Clare turned to the crime-scene photographs. A man’s body was slumped against the tree, blood and flies crusting the shattered forehead and lacerated chest. ‘Hofmeyr must’ve welcomed the final shot when it came,’ she said, looking at the skin hanging from his fit soldier’s body.
‘Could’ve been a hired gun,’ Riedwaan said to De Lange. ‘What does it cost now, a weekend special on the Flats? Fifty bucks to hire, ammo thrown in?’
‘Pretty much,’ said De Lange. ‘But how did it get to Walvis Bay?’
‘A gun like that could easily make its way up the West Coast,’ said Riedwaan. ‘The border is as porous as a sieve, so it could be in Walvis Bay in a couple of days.’
‘I’ve thought of it,’ said De Lange. ‘But I’ve never seen this before or since. It bothered me, this one. That’s why I kept a copy of the docket.’
‘What bothered you?’ asked Clare.
‘Same thing that bothered Februarie, the officer who investigated the case. The ammunition,’ said De Lange. ‘Full metal jacket. That’s professional. It’s what the security industry uses, the military. Not drug lowlife.’
‘We’ll check it out tomorrow,’ said Clare. ‘Talk to his wife. Is she still in McGregor?’
De Lange nodded. It seemed he knew more about surviving relatives than he cared to admit. ‘Keep those then,’ he said, pouring himself another whisky. ‘You go ahead. I’ve got some things to finish.’
It was nearly one o’clock before Clare and Riedwaan were back on the empty highway. ‘Does he ever go home?’ Clare asked.
‘No,’ Riedwaan replied. ‘He’s looking for the gun that killed her.’
The whole force knew that the murder of De Lange’s wife had nearly killed him too. She’d been shot in a botched hijacking over a year ago. ‘He’s convinced that once he gets
‘Which works for us,’ said Clare, looking out at the cityscape. Compared to the desert sky the few visible stars were faint, eclipsed by the carpet of streetlights and the flashing neon signs.
‘We’ll see.’ Riedwaan parked in front of Clare’s apartment.
His hand on the back of her neck stopped her from opening the car door. He turned to look at her, his face faceted by the orange glow of the street lamp. He brushed his thumb across her full bottom lip, silencing her protest.
‘I missed you,’ he said, moving his hand down her neck, seeking out the hollow at the base of her throat, down further, his hands on her breasts, knowing, peaking her nipples beneath his palms. Clare closed her eyes. Riedwaan’s skin was warm against hers as he kissed eyes, ears, mouth, tunnelling desire through her. She put her hands on his chest, felt his breath coming sharper, faster. Gathering what was left of her will, she pushed him away.
‘I can’t do this.’ Clare yanked the door open and got out. She stood on the pavement, her arms folded across her chest. Riedwaan looked straight ahead at the Atlantic hurling itself at the rocks.
‘You’re coming to McGregor tomorrow?’ she asked. She was starting to shiver.
‘I’ll pick you up at six.’ Riedwaan started the car. Still Clare stood on the pavement. ‘Go in,’ he said. ‘I can’t leave till you’re inside.’
‘I…’ Clare started.
‘You what?’
‘I… I’ll see you later.’ She disappeared up the staircase.
When her bedroom light came on, Riedwaan drove home. He let himself in to his empty house and sat down in his only chair. He couldn’t decide which maudlin cliche suited him better: Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits. So he sat and smoked until the dawn call to prayer crackled from the mosque down the road.
thirty-three
Clare was ready and waiting when Riedwaan fetched her at five-thirty. Dressed in a black poloneck, black trousers, her hair tamed, lipstick in place, she had the carapace of her professional self firmly back in place.
Riedwaan took the N1 through the dilapidated fringes of Cape Town towards the forbidding mountains that were the gateway to the interior. McGregor was eighty kilometres beyond them. The sun was up, stirring the hamlet awake, when they reached it. Smoke wisped from the crowded houses on the eastern edge of town. Higher up the hill, larger houses were spread out around a sturdy white church. A few children in sports uniforms were chattering their way to school along the main road.
‘Voortrekker Road.’ Riedwaan read the sign in disbelief. ‘This is like a movie set. No burglar bars. No armed response. How do they sleep?’
‘I’m with you. You’ll survive,’ said Clare. ‘Lie your urban hackles down.’
‘I don’t like it.’ Riedwaan tapped his fingers as he waited for an old lady to coax her moth-eaten terrier across the road. ‘It’s like the whole place is waiting for something to happen.’
‘Something did happen. Why else would we be here?’
‘Connecting things will be tricky,’ said Riedwaan. ‘If there is a connection.’
‘It’s worth a shot, so to speak,’ said Clare. ‘Mill Street. Turn here.’
Goedgevonden was the last house. A low, dry-packed wall kept the flinty Karoo scrub out of the lush garden. They hadn’t called. Clare and Riedwaan preferred to see people without warning, before the battlements of the self could be checked for a breach.
‘That’s a welcome mat, not a dog,’ said Riedwaan, ringing the bicycle bell on the gate as a German Shepherd ambled over to the gate and whined. A woman straightened up from her rose bed behind the wall.
‘Mrs Hofmeyr?’ asked Riedwaan.
The woman who approached, secateurs glinting in her hand, was maybe fifty-five, her iron-grey bun severe. She looked at Clare, took Riedwaan in.
‘Can I help you?’
The dog was at its mistress’s side with a single click of her fingers, its eyes wary. Not such a doormat after all.
‘I’m Riedwaan Faizal, SAPS special investigations. This is Dr Clare Hart. It’s about your husband Captain Hofmeyr.’
Mrs Hofmeyr squinted into the sun. ‘Have you got new evidence?’ she asked.
