black people, they say the whites are hiding this Cobie de Villiers. They say the whites, they care only for the animals. These men who died, they have families. These families are very angry. The animals are wild animals. They belong to the people. They are not the animals of the whites.’
‘I understand …’
‘So when you go and ask questions, you will just make trouble.’
‘Inspector, I give you my word that I will not make trouble. I am not here about the killings. I am truly sorry for the families of those men. I have lost my whole family too. I just need to talk to the people who worked with this man. I will show them the photograph, and if they say it isn’t the person I am looking for, I will go home, and I will never bother you again.’
He scowled at her. It was an intense look, as if he could turn her from her course by willpower. Emma looked back at him with ingenuous sincerity.
Phatudi gave in first. He sighed deeply, pulled the file towards him, flipped it open and took out a photograph that he shoved angrily across to the one Emma had brought. The two pictures lay neatly side by side.
Emma leaned over to study the photographs. The inspector watched her. I sweated and studied the poster on the wall. It advised people not to commit crime.
They sat like that for a minute or two, the tiny Emma and the rock of a detective, in dead silence.
‘It is Jacobus,’ said Emma, but to herself.
Phatudi sighed.
Emma picked up both photos and held them out to me. ‘What do you think, Lemmer?’
Me?
The photo of Jacobus le Roux was in black and white, a young soldier in a bush hat smiling at the camera. The same high cheekbones as Emma, the same slightly prominent eye teeth. There was an intensity, an urgency, he wanted to get the photo session over with because there was a world out there waiting. An easy self- confidence, liking the camera and what it was capturing. My father is rich and life awaits me like a ripe pomegranate.
In Phatudi’s photo Cobie de Villiers was in colour, but colourless – an enlargement of what could only be an identity-book photograph. De Villiers seemed weary of life. No smile, just an expressionless face and dull eyes, a forty-year-old man without prospects. The only possible similarity was in the cheekbones, but it was vague, necessitating a leap of faith, or hope.
Emma looked at him in surprise. ‘And all the time we’ve been speaking English,’ she said.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I speak sePedi, Tshivenda and isiZulu too. You came in here speaking English.’
Emma put the photos down on the table, turned around so that Phatudi could view them. ‘Look at the eyes, Inspector. And the shape of the face. Take this one and add twenty years. It is Jacobus … it could possibly be Jacobus.’
He shook his head. ‘What kind of word is “possibly”? Do you know what my job is, Mrs Le Roux? I have to make a case against this man.’ He tapped the picture of the hapless Cobie de Villiers. ‘I have to find him and I have to take him to court and my case must prove that he is guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Reasonable doubt. Those judges, they shout at you. They will shout at me if I talk about possibly. Do you understand that?’
‘I understand that. But I don’t want to take anyone to court.’
He scooped up his photo and put it back.
‘Is there anything else?’
‘Inspector, what happened to the people that were killed?’
The scowl deepened. ‘No, Mrs Le Roux, that is
In the BMW Emma studied the map with great concentration. I aimed the air conditioner’s cold blast at my forehead. A great relief. Emma glanced up. ‘Can we stop at a garage? I want to find out where the Mogale rehabilitation centre is.’
I pulled away. ‘Right, Mrs Le Roux.’ I echoed Phatudi’s address without thinking and she laughed in astonishing clear musical notes.
‘The inspector is an interesting man,’ she said. When her laughter had subsided, as an afterthought, she added, ‘You are too.’
Categorised with the detective. I wasn’t sure that it was fair, but I wasn’t going to react.
‘Look, there’s an Engen filling station, let’s ask there …’
I put on the indicator and turned off.
10
The centre lay against the lower slopes of the Mariepskop. The mountain, with its forbidding mass of red rock cliffs, was a powerful figure of authority guarding the plains.
Mogale Rehabilitation Centre was displayed in fancy green lettering together with a logo of a raptor’s head and an invitation to enter. Plus a programme:
TIMES OF OUR REHAB TOURS
Mondays to Saturdays:
* 1st Tour starts at 09h30 *2nd Tour starts at 15h00
‘We’re just in time,’ said Emma as she got out to open the gate.
I drove through. Beyond the gate was another notice.
The centre was spread out – cages, gardens, lawns and covered parking for vehicles.
‘We’re about to start the tour,’ he said, but not in any unfriendly way. He was a head taller than me, with broad shoulders and an athletic self-confidence. Emma’s type.
He led us to a thatched building that was a lecture hall. Several rows of tiered wooden benches descended towards a stage. The audience was already seated, people great and small, with cameras slung around necks and cool drink cans in hand. There was a wilderness scene painted on the wall behind the stage: raptors and vultures in the sky, a leopard, hyenas and buck in the long grass between the thorn trees. The young man positioned himself centre stage. ‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Mogale Rehabilitation Centre. My name is Donnie Branca, and I’ll be your guide this morning.’
He looked at us and said, ‘Vultures.’ For an uneasy moment, I thought he was referring to his audience.
‘They’re not cuddly, they’re not cute. As a matter of fact, we think of them as disgusting beasts – squabbling and squawking at a stinking carcass, fighting over decomposing meat. Carrion eaters with beady little eyes, scrawny necks and hooked beaks, often covered in blood and gore and guts up to their eyeballs. Pretty revolting. So most people don’t care much for vultures. Well, let me tell you, here at Mogale, we not only care for them, but we love them. With a passion.’
There was something about the tone and manner of Donnie Branca’s words that was vaguely familiar. He spoke smoothly and easily, with conviction and zeal.
He said vultures were the big game of the feathered kingdom, an indispensable link between mammals and birds in the broad spectrum of nature. They were an ecological necessity, the cleaners of the veld capable of consuming rotting carcasses from head to tail before diseases could incubate that would create havoc up and down the food chain. Vultures were part of the balance, he said, a perfect, delicate balance that had determined the cycle of life in Africa for a hundred thousand years.
