‘You know what the Cape is like in the holidays. Full of Gautengers and foreigners. I haven’t been to the Lowveld for a long time.’
‘What time are you coming?’
‘We’ll be there by lunchtime. I’m bringing your Christmas present. I hope it’s what you wanted.’
‘Thanks.’
‘It’s the least I can do.’
Strange thing to say, I thought.
‘She’s stable enough to do the scans this afternoon,’ Eleanor Taljaard said when I was back at the intensive care unit by two o’clock. ‘You’re on duty until four.’
I sat down. Emma was still pale and wan under the sheets.
‘Hello, Emma.’
They had replaced the bag of fluid dripping into her vein. It hung fat and transparent above her bed.
‘I went for lunch. Chicken schnitzel. It wasn’t Mohlolobe’s standard. Then I phoned Jeanette Louw. They’ll be here tomorrow, she and two bodyguards. They will look after you here, Emma. Until I’ve finished.’
Finished. Finished what? I hadn’t the faintest idea where to begin. Sitting here beside a woman I barely knew, with the urge to smash someone’s head in, and I had no idea how I was going to do it.
I wanted to go and lie on my bed, shut my eyes and think about where Emma and I had been, about every little thing that had happened. I hadn’t believed her when I should have. Not listened, not looked, nor paid attention. Now there were things in my head, things that didn’t quite make sense, but I couldn’t get a grip on them. Like soap in the bath, they slipped out of my grasp when I closed my hand on them. I must think. The whole thing just didn’t make sense. Not enough to kill Emma le Roux. What had she done to cause that? What evil had she interfered in?
Gloves? In summer? In the Lowveld? Gloves and balaclavas, but the sniper had not worn them.
In Cape Town there had been three, but all three were covered then. Had they also worn gloves? Understandable, since they didn’t want to leave fingerprints. But in the veld?
Why only yesterday? Why had they waited? Did they have to come up from the Cape first?
I tried to arrange the events in sequence. Emma said the news report about Cobie de Villiers had been two days before they attacked her in the Cape. Three days before Christmas. The twenty-second. Saturday, 22 December.
Two days. Why the delay between the call to Phatudi and the attack in the Cape? What did it mean?
We had arrived here on 26 December. One, two, three, four days before the ambush.
Did it mean anything?
I must talk to Emma. I couldn’t just sit here and think. She must hear my voice.
Where was I last? Jeanette. On her way.
‘Jeanette …’ I said.
‘I had been in Loxton for two months when the phone rang. It was Jeanette Louw asking if I was looking for work.
‘I hadn’t much in the bank. I had sold the flat in Seapoint for a big profit, but my legal fees and buying the AI Qaeda house ate up most of it. So I asked, “What kind of work?” and she explained.
‘I asked her how she knew about me and she said, “There are one or two of your old colleagues who speak well of you.”
‘“I’ve just come out of jail.”
‘“I don’t want to marry you, I want to offer you a job.” Then she explained how it worked, how much she paid and, “You should know, I’m a lesbian and I don’t take shit from anyone. When I call, you come. Immediately. If you get up to shit, I’ll fire your butt. Immediately. But I never drop my people. Are you interested?”
‘So I accepted, because I looked around my house and I knew how much needed to be done. I hadn’t even begun to break down and rebuild. The place was empty. I had a bed and a table in the kitchen with two chairs. I bought the table in Victoria West at an auction and I got the two chairs from Antjie Barnard as a present.
‘Antjie. Now there’s a character. I called her “Tannie”, “Aunt”, showing respect for one’s elders, and she threatened to hit me with her walking stick.
‘That’s another story. Antjie Barnard came knocking on my door in Loxton, four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. She was wearing big walking boots and a wide-brimmed hat. She said, “I’m Antjie Barnard and I want to know who you are.” She was sixty-seven then and you could see she was a lovely woman, beautiful perhaps when she was young, green eyes of an unusual shade, like the sea at the South Pole. She put out her hand and I shook it and said, “Lemmer. Pleased to meet you, Tannie.”
‘“Tannie? Tannie? Am I married to your uncle?” The walking stick lifted ready to beat me. “My name is Antjie.”
‘“Antjie.”
‘“That’s right. What do I call you?”’
“Lemmer.”
‘“Right then, Lemmer, stand aside so I can come in. You have coffee, I expect.”
‘I told her, “I don’t have chairs.”
‘“Then we will sit on the floor.”
‘And we did, coffee mugs in hand. She pulled out a packet of long cigarettes, offered one to me and asked, “What is a man like you doing in Loxton?”
‘“Not for me, I don’t smoke.”
‘“I hope to God you drink,” she said, and lit one for herself with a slender electronic lighter.’
‘“Not really.”
“Not really?”
‘“Actually, I don’t drink at all.”
‘“Sex?”
‘“I like sex.”
‘“Thank God. A person must have a sin. Not bad sins, Lemmer. Good sins. Otherwise you don’t live. Life is too short.”’
“What are the good sins?”
‘“Gossip. Eating. Smoking. Drinking. Sex. What do I do with this ash?”
‘I fetched her a saucer. When I came back she asked, “Was it a good sin that brought you to Loxton?”’
“No.”
‘“Was there a woman involved? Children?”’
“No.”
‘“Then it doesn’t matter. We all have our secrets and that’s fine.”
‘I wondered what her secret was.
‘Two weeks later she came knocking again, this time late on a Tuesday. “Bring your pick-up, I’ve got some chairs for your table.” We drove to her house, a perfectly restored Victorian Karoo house with white walls and a green roof. The furniture inside was tastefully antique. Down the passage was a row of black-and-white photographs of Antjie Barnard and her life. I looked at them and she said, “I was a cellist.” An understatement, because the images in frames told a story of an international career.
‘The same afternoon we initiated the chairs in my kitchen over coffee – and a cigarette for her.
‘“And this ashtray, Lemmer? Have you taken up smoking?”’
“No.”
‘“You bought it for me.”’
“I did.”
‘“That’s my trouble.”’
“What?”
‘“Men. They can’t leave me alone.”
‘I laughed. Then I saw she was serious.
‘She looked at me with those clear, piercing eyes and said, “Can you keep a secret, Lemmer?”’
‘“I can.”
