?It wasn?t the police who killed Enver Davids,? she said without introduction.
?To whom am I speaking??
?It doesn?t matter.?
?And how do you know this, madam??
She had been expecting the question. But she could not say or they would get her. They would track her down if she gave too much information.
?You might say I have first-hand knowledge.?
?Are you saying you were involved in this killing, madam??
?All I want to say is that it wasn?t the police. Definitely not.?
?Are you a member of Pagad??
?No, I?m not. It wasn?t a group. It was one person.?
?Are you that person??
?I am going to put the phone down now.?
?Wait, please. How can I believe you, madam? How do I know you are not a crank??
She thought for a moment. Then she said: ?It was a spear that killed him. An assegai. You can go and check that.?
She put the phone down.
That is how the Artemis story began.
Joubert and his English wife came to visit him that evening. All he could see was the way they kept touching each other, the big senior superintendent and his red-headed wife with the gentle eyes. Married four years and still touching like a honeymoon couple.
Joubert told him about the allegation that the unit was responsible for Davids? death. Margaret Joubert brought him magazines. They talked about everything but his problem. When they left Joubert gripped his shoulder with a big hand and said, ?Hang in there, Benny.? After they had gone he wondered how long it had been since he and Anna had touched each other. Like that.
He could not recall.
Fuck, when last had they had sex? When last did he even want to? Sometimes, in the semi-drunken state of his day, something would prompt him to think about it, but by the time he got home the alcohol would long since have melted the lead in his pencil.
And what of Anna? Did she feel the need? She didn?t drink. She had been keen in the days before he began drinking seriously. Always game when he was, sometimes twice a week, folding her delicate fingers around his erection and playing their ritual game that had begun spontaneously and they had never dropped. ?Where did you get this thing, Benny??
?Sale at Checkers, so I took four.?
Or: ?I traded with a Jew for nine inches of boere sausages. Don?t be afraid, he?s bald.? He would think of something new every time and even when he was less ingenious and more banal she would laugh. Every time. Their sex was always joyous, cheerful, until her orgasm made her serious. Afterwards they would hold each other and she would say, ?I love you, Benny.?
Pissed away, systematically, like everything.
He yearned. Where were the days, Lord, could he ever get them back? He wondered what she did when the desire was on her? What had she done the past two or three years? Did she see to herself? Or was there . . . ?
Panic. What if there was someone? Jissis, he would fucking shoot him. Nobody touched his Anna.
He looked at his hands, clenched fists, white knuckles. Slowly, slowly, the doctor had said he would make emotional leaps, anxiety . . . He must slow down.
He unclenched his fists and drew the magazines closer.
Margaret Joubert had brought him men?s magazines but cars were not his scene. Nor was
There was a sketch of a futuristic airplane on the cover. The cover story read,
?Who cares,? he said.
His scene was drinking, but they don?t publish magazines for that.
He switched off the light. It would be a long night.
The woman at the Internet cafe in Long Street had a row of earrings all down the edge of her ear and a shiny object through her nostril. Thobela thought she would have been prettier without it.
?I don?t know how to use these things,? he said.
?It?s twenty rand an hour,? she said, as if that would disqualify him straight away.
?I need someone to teach me,? he said patiently, refreshed after his afternoon nap.
?What do you want to do??
?I heard you can read newspapers. And see what they wrote last year too.?
