Recipes for Love and Murder (12 page)

I took off my veldskoene and put both pairs of shoes next to a big flower pot. Jessie opened up the back door. She lifted up the crime-scene tape for me and I ducked under. We stood there in our socks, looking at each other. In the darkness I could see the white of Jessie's teeth as she smiled.

‘We did it, Tannie M,' she said. ‘We're in.'

A jackal called. A crazy, wild sound. In the dark shadows, I smiled back at Jessie; I was not afraid.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

‘Careful,' Jessie said. ‘Looks like broken glass. Let's close up, then we can turn on our torches.'

‘I didn't bring a torch,' I said.

Jessie closed the curtains while I did the shutters. Now it was really dark.

‘Here,' she said, turning on a torch, and handing me another. ‘It's a headtorch. Fit the strap over like this. And press this button, to make the light dimmer or brighter.'

She helped me fit it on and I looked around the big room. It was an old farmhouse, bigger than mine, but a similar style. Like in my house, the wall had been removed between the sitting room and kitchen. There was a wooden table and a small pantry in the kitchen part, and a fireplace against the wall in the sitting room.

‘Ouch,' said Jessie.

I thought she'd cut herself, but it was what she'd seen on the floor that hurt. It was a photograph of Martine, all young and glowing in her wedding dress, and Dirk, not quite as young as her, but looking like not such a bad guy after all. There were spears of glass around them, as they smiled up at us.

‘That's the photograph Anna told me about,' I said.

I shone onto another picture amongst the broken glass: two men in uniform.

‘It's Dirk,' I said. Young and without sideburns. ‘And his father, maybe.'

They were wearing the old South African army uniform. Dirk was grinning but the older guy had thin straight lips.

‘His pa looks like a mean bastard,' said Jessie.

My husband did his two years in that army. They didn't train them to be good men.

‘Look,' said Jessie, shining onto a dark brown smudge on the couch. ‘Blood.'

I nodded, trying not to feel the sadness, trying to think like an investigator. The couch was not far from the fireplace.

‘Yes,' I said. I shone on the floor next to the couch. In the pool of light was a tiny dark circle. ‘And a drop of blood there too.'

I stepped around the glass and went across to the kitchen and opened the fridge. Clean shelves. Lettuce. Ladismith cheese. Sauces. It was not very exciting, but it made me feel hungry. It was too soon for our sandwiches, though. We needed to do some work first.

‘You carry on here, I'll check out the rest of the house,' said Jessie.

I closed the fridge. Next to the stove was a spice rack, labelled in alphabetical order. The pantry had shelves of tins and jars and packets, also very tidy and labelled. Not alphabetically, but by group. Vegetables, Meat, Baking, Recipes. There was a small row of recipe books on a shelf, organised according to size. I saw she had a copy of
Cook and Enjoy.
I had the Afrikaans version,
Kook en Geniet.

I looked around the pantry and kitchen. There was fine black dust on one side of the sink and on the edges of the wooden kitchen table. The kind of dust the police used for fingerprinting. I took the torch from my head and shone it from this angle and that, then leaned down closely to examine the dust.

‘Nothing much in the bedrooms and bathroom,' said Jessie, coming into the lounge. ‘But Martine's got a study full of papers. She's totally organised. Bills, letters, documents, all neatly filed. I bet she was a good bookkeeper.'

‘Look at the table here, Jess. It's been wiped. Just this part, where the two chairs have been pulled back from the table.'

‘Ja?'

‘Only half the table. Wouldn't you wipe the whole table, if you were wiping it?'

‘No. I'd just wipe off the messy bit. You think it got messy in here?'

‘Uh uh,' I said, shaking my head. ‘The murderer wiped their prints off the poker. Which means they weren't wearing gloves and might have left prints in other places. Martine wasn't the kind of woman who would wipe only half the table. Look, there are still some little crumbs and dust in the middle there. She wouldn't have left it like that. Look at her spice rack.'

‘Whoa. Ja
.
Like her filing system. But maybe she was in a hurry. Or she's got a maid who's a bit slack.' She shone across the black dust on the table. ‘The police were looking for prints here.'

‘But they wouldn't find any because it was wiped. I think the murderer sat down at the table with her,' I said, touching the back of a chair.

‘And they drank tea together?'

‘No, the teapot is up on the shelf. High and dry. But there are two glasses washed up at the sink.'

‘So it might be someone she knows.' Jessie glanced at her watch. ‘Let me get back to those papers.'

While she was in the study, I opened all the kitchen drawers. I put the torch back on my head again because it freed up both my hands. Everything was very netjies in the drawers
.
Cutlery, dishcloths all neatly stored. Plastic shopping bags folded in little triangles like samosas.

I poked through the rubbish bin. There was a Spar packet crumpled up in there. Why wasn't it folded? Her arm, I remembered, she had a broken arm. Could you fold a packet properly with one hand? I tried it. It wasn't easy but I could do it. Even with a glove on.

I went back to the fridge and looked at the expiry date on the packet of lettuce. It was for today, Friday. Spar likes to keep their lettuce fresh, so this one was bought within the last few days.

‘How did you get here?' I asked the lettuce. ‘And when?' I turned the packet over in my hands. ‘Sunday and Monday, the Spar has no fresh lettuce. So you must have been bought on Tuesday or Wednesday. Did Martine buy you on Tuesday? The day she died. Her arm was broken, so I don't think she could drive. Did Dirk drive her or did he maybe shop himself?' I put the lettuce back on the shelf. ‘I don't know what it is about men and salad, but I've never heard of a man buying lettuce for himself. Did someone else shop for Martine?'

I closed the door of the fridge. I was sorry for the lettuce; it was looking wilted, and it's a sad thing to see good food going bad. But I had to move on.

At the sink was a dishcloth that I studied in the torchlight. It was white with blue checks. There was a faint reddish mark on one corner. I shone all around the sink. I spotted a small red drop of liquid, beside the tap. I dipped the tip of my gloved little finger into the liquid and then touched it to my tongue and closed my eyes.

I knew that sweet metallic taste.

‘Psssst! Jessie!'

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

‘You may be right, Tannie M,' said Jessie. ‘I can taste the iron.'

‘I know I'm right,' I said. ‘I grew up with a pomegranate tree in our garden.'

‘So they were eating pomegranates,' she said.

‘Or drinking pomegranate juice,' I said, pointing to the glasses.

We heard a light drumming on the tin roof of the stoep.

‘Rain!' said Jessie.

We went to the back door and turned off our torches and watched the rain fall in the darkness. Soft, cool rain. Jessie and I grinned at each other. At last. The ground sighed with relief as it fell. I took in a deep breath.

‘Ooh, that smell,' I said.

The first rain on the warm dry earth. Nothing like it. Then after the smell of the earth came the smell of the plants. It was like each plant gave something of itself to say thank you for the rain. All the smells mixed together to make a delicious air soup for us to breathe in.

‘Let's have a sandwich to celebrate,' I said.

She handed me the Tupperware from her pack and I gave us each a bacon-and-marmalade toast sandwich.

‘The lights are off in the cottage,' said Jessie. ‘We should have a talk to that guy sometime. Wow. Lekker sandwich, Tannie.'

‘I could make him some vetkoek,' I said.

‘With mince, maybe,' said Jessie.

‘Did you see any grocery slips, in Martine's papers?'

‘Ja,' she said.

‘I am looking for one with Tuesday's date on. I think someone shopped for her, and it could have been the murderer.'

I explained about the lettuce date, and the packet, and Martine's broken arm.

‘Let's go have a look,' said Jessie.

We brushed the crumbs off our surgical gloves and went into the study.

‘Look how organised this all is,' said Jessie. ‘Personal letters, bank statements, bills, papers about her son in that home. Grocery slips.' She shone her headtorch onto the papers as she sorted through them. ‘Here it is . . . Her most recent shop at the Spar was on Friday the fifth. I've looked in her purse, but there are no slips there.'

‘Looks like she didn't shop for herself on Tuesday then . . . '

‘Maybe Dirk, Anna, or someone else . . . You might be right, Tannie, it could've been the murderer. I wonder if the police have taken samples of that pomegranate juice. Did you find the bottle the juice was in?'

‘No,' I said.

I touched a file marked
Letters, personal.

‘Has she got any of our
Gazette
letters?' I asked.

‘Nothing here,' said Jessie. ‘But I wonder if she'd hide them somewhere. Away from her husband.'

‘So who are the letters from?'

‘A couple from a boring brother from Durbanville. But most of them from an interesting cousin. Old letters from her at a Texas address. Then the last few years she writes from New York.'

‘Ja?'

Jessie took out a smart cream envelope and a cheap brown one.

‘The cousin is Candy Webster, her apartment overlooks Central Park. Sounds like she's in the fashion business, travels all over, sends postcards to Martine from cool places. They seem quite close. Lots of hugs and kisses. The brother, David Brown, has written a letter whining about “Father”, and his lack of appreciation for everything David does.' Jessie lifted up a file marked
Jamie
. ‘These are the reports from the doctors and social workers in George about her son with cerebral palsy.'

The rain started hammering down, then there was a flash of lightning and a thunderclap. Really close and loud. I pulled the curtains back and peeped out the window.

‘Jessie, look!'

Through the branches of the gum tree we saw a big car on the top of the hill, creeping down the drive.

‘Oh, shit,' Jessie said, jumping up. ‘Torches off!'

‘I think it's turning around.'

We peered out the window, watching the car do a three-point turn. But instead of driving away, the car stopped and its lights went off. The rain went quiet for a moment, like it was holding its breath. Then there was a very big flash of lightning. In that moment we saw a white 4×4 bakkie, and in front of it, walking towards us, was a man.

He had a rain-hood over his head, a torch in one hand. And a gun in the other.

Rain hammered down on the roof, and the next crash of thunder sounded like the sky itself was shooting down at us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

‘Hemel en aarde,' I said.

‘Bliksem!' said Jessie.

But neither heaven nor earth nor lightning stopped the man walking towards us, his torchlight heading for the front of the house.

Jessie pulled out her pepper spray and went into the lounge, towards the front door.

‘He's got a gun,' I said.

‘We can't just run,' she said.

I took in a deep breath. I didn't want to be a rabbit in his lights, but I wasn't ready to fight him.

‘We need to know who it is,' she said.

‘Let's hide,' I said. The rain was quiet again and we could hear noises on the stoep. ‘In the pantry.'

We slid into the pantry in our socks. With our torches off, it was really dark. There was a big key on the outside of the pantry door. I managed to pull it out, but my hands couldn't get it into the keyhole on the inside.

We heard the front door open and I stepped back, bumping into Jessie. But we didn't make a sound. A line of light cut the lounge in two. The key was cold and still in my hand.

The beam swung slowly across the kitchen, the light sliding through the gap in our door and onto a can of baked beans on the shelf. I held my breath. We heard a rustling, like footsteps on plastic bags. The sound headed away from us. We peeked out. His torchlight was in the study. He was going to wish he had a headtorch if he was looking through papers. But I wasn't going to lend him mine.

‘Shall we call the police?' I whispered to Jessie.

‘They'll want to know what we're doing here. Maybe it's Dirk.'

‘Did look like his car. But I can't believe it; he's in hospital.'

‘There might be bandages under that raincoat. Those bloody loonies don't know when to lie down. Could it even be Anna?'

‘She walks a bit like a man,' I said.

I managed to get the key into the door, but it seemed silly to lock ourselves into the pantry.

‘Let's sneak out and get the car registration,' said Jessie.

We tiptoed to the front door, but as Jessie opened it, we saw the small glow of a moving cigarette. A shadow was coming out of the night, approaching the stoep.

We slipped back into the pantry. We left its door a little open, which gave us a view of a dark patch of the lounge wall. We stood very still and listened. The guy outside coughed and spat before stepping onto the stoep. He knocked on the front door.

‘Meneer?' he called.

It was the man we had heard earlier that night.

‘Meneer. It's me. Lawrence.'

His voice got louder; he must have opened the front door wide.

‘Sorry, Meneer, jammer, but the police asked me to watch out here. People mustn't come in the house, they said.'