The First Rule Of Survival (22 page)

‘That he knew the Steinhauer family a long time ago. That he knew Marc Steinhauer. Why would he know him? His brother perhaps, but why Marc? Then he said that Marc was a kind, gentle man, not like the other two.’

‘So?’

‘We were only talking about the Steinhauers. He said “man” quite deliberately. If Marc Steinhauer is one, then who does he mean when he says the “other two”?’

De Vries suggests, ‘There’s a sister?’

‘I do not think he was referring to her. He was talking about the Steinhauer boys.’

‘I think you’re reading too much into his words. He wasn’t with it, Don.’

‘But just for a moment, he was. In and out, like the nurse said, but coherent for a minute.’

‘Unreliable testimony.’

‘Maybe, but he talked about three boys, and then only two. What does that mean? And then he said something about an old man – Hubert or Herbert – said that he did not like him.’

‘Jesus,’ Vaughn says. ‘Two days ago, we have no one, and now there are two Steinhauer brothers, this man Dyk, and “another”. This is sounding like a group of men. A paedophile ring working together.’

‘With Robert Ledham somewhere there as well.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Maybe it is beginning to break. Maybe Marc Steinhauer did something and now it is all going to unravel.’

De Vries says: ‘Speak to du Toit, find out if the department has anyone else who can help us on this.’ He sucks in air. ‘Or better still, don’t. Call the University, or one of the private hospitals. Find me someone who can tell us about these people.’ Don nods. ‘Nothing from the search teams?’

‘Nothing.’

Sergeant Ben Thambo shows them photographs of the olive farm, describes his search. The farm building is a huge barn conversion. The roof, once thatch or tiles, is now a curved corrugated-steel structure. One half of the barn contains equipment for curing the olives, the other a small production line for bottling the products.

‘There are four permanent staff who live in a pair of workers’ cottages, around the back here.’ Thambo indicates on the laptop screen where these are located. ‘They’re locals. Say they see Marc Steinhauer about once a fortnight. Sometimes he speaks to them, sometimes not.’

‘Anyone else?’ Don asks.

‘They see other cars, but they don’t know who and what they are. They said that people drive in thinking there is a shop, and when they find out that it is just a quiet working farm, they turn around and leave again.’ He looks up at de Vries. ‘In any case, sir, I think they are asleep most of the time. They don’t seem to do very much. The farm is very busy in April and May when the crops are harvested and the olive oil is pressed, and the farm buildings are busy for a couple of months after that, with local women coming in to bottle and pack the products. Most of the time, they seem to be there just to keep an eye on the place.’

‘Did you contact the architect?’ Don says.

‘Yes, sir. He found the plans for me, said that there was no cellar specified or designed or, as far as he knows, built. The workers certainly didn’t know of one. Scene of Crime took samples, but they say there’s nothing to suggest that it is anything more than a farm.’

De Vries says: ‘Did you search the whole property, all the land?’

‘It’s rolling countryside. We took both teams out to a peak, and we couldn’t see any sign of a dwelling. We asked the workers and they told us about a place in one corner: it’s where the workers change, shelter if there is rain. One team took the dogs, but there was nothing suspicious.’

‘How big is the property?’

‘According to the deeds, about a hundred hectares.’

‘All olives?’

‘No. I would say, maybe twenty hectares. The rest is just wild. There are some areas of gum trees, a couple of small dams.’

‘Ben?’ Don says. ‘Around the farm, is it crops? Wheat, mealies?’

‘I don’t know what,’ Thambo says. ‘But, yes, crops growing.’

Don nods.

‘The teams are still there?’ de Vries wants to know.

‘I left one there to show the new photographs you want, but I brought the other back to town with me.’

De Vries says nothing.

‘Did I do the right thing, sir?’

‘Yes,’ de Vries says absentmindedly. ‘You did.’

At 7 p.m., de Vries sits with Don February in his office. The squad room is quiet, and Vaughn drinks whisky out of a plastic beaker.

‘You need to get home after this, Don. You’ve been working hard.’

‘We all have.’

‘But you especially. Thambo was a good choice. He seems okay . . . How long will it take me to reach Steinhauer’s sister tomorrow?’

‘Her name is Caroline Montague. She lives outside Shelton village, just beyond Nieuwoudtville. I think it will take you three and a half hours, maybe four. That is why I told her eleven a.m.’

‘What does she sound like?’

‘Nervous, I think. She kept asking what it was about. I did not tell her.’

‘She’ll find out soon enough,’ de Vries says, lighting a cigarette by the open window, blowing the smoke out into the breezy evening. ‘What else?’

‘We are still working on any other Steinhauer relations. The family only moved to South Africa in 1976. The records are not complete, of course.’ Don looks down at his trusty pad. ‘There is no sign of Marc Steinhauer’s cellphone. He could have had it on him when he jumped into the water. If it fell out, it is gone. We will check tomorrow with the network, but we have had problems with them before.’

‘What kind of problems?’

‘They lose records sometimes; claim they do not exist.’

‘What a fucking country. Does nothing work?’

‘I found a psychologist from Vincent Pallotti Hospital. Leader in the field. I explained about Steinhauer, and she says that she has read somewhere about the Steinhauer name, but going back years. It could be the father.’

‘She?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you trust her?’

‘She has worked with the SAPS before, sir.’ Don tries to remain patient. ‘But only since 2009, so she cannot be connected to before. I stressed our time constraints. She promised to report as fully as possible in forty-eight hours. We can contact her if we need any questions answered before then.’

‘And she’s heard of a Steinhauer senior?’

‘She said she had read about a man called Steinhauer during research. She could not remember where.’

‘Something is moving now, Don. I don’t like that we’re no closer to Bobby Eames. I was thinking earlier, if this
is
a group, someone could be wherever they kept them, shutting it all down, killing Bobby Eames – if he’s not dead already.’

‘Perhaps the sister knows something about family properties?’

‘Maybe. What about Nicholas Steinhauer?’

‘Still nothing. Two officers in Pretoria traced a number for his secretary and spoke to her. He is in South America for two months. He is giving a lecture and promoting a book. She said she had not heard from him, and would not expect to. He is due back in three weeks.’

‘I wonder whether he’ll be on that plane?’

*   *   *

De Vries sleeps well for the first time in weeks. He wakes early; relishes the extra time it affords him. The South-Easter has dropped, clouds roll in slowly off the mountains, making the morning air cool and refreshing. He eats breakfast at the table in his big kitchen, enjoying the solitude, the peace. He feels quietly charged: breakthroughs after seven years of drought. He dismisses his calculation of the distance to the end, focuses on what must be done to take each step. Before this case, he has always reached the end.

He piles days of dirty crockery into the dishwasher, finds the tablets, sets the machine going. He collects his dirty clothes, stuffs them in a black plastic rubbish sack and throws it into the boot of his car. He checks the tank for petrol, spreads open a map on the passenger seat. He then drives to the parade of shops at the bottom of his road, cracks a smile at the elderly woman who takes his washing. Then he heads towards the tangle of roads which lead to the freeway, and out into the countryside.

After an hour, he stops at a garage, buys a pepper-steak pie and a can of cold Coke, and stands under a tree by a little dam next to the forecourt. In the surrounding trees, weaver birds dart in and out of their dangling basket-nests. He wonders whether they are feeding their chicks; wonders if, once they fledge, they give their offspring another thought. He calls Don February.

‘Get onto the Land Registry for the Riebeek Valley. Find out what land was for sale, what was bought in the last, say, ten years. Find out if the Steinhauer family, or the wife’s family, bought other land.’

‘Okay.’

‘And one more thing: any underground, or isolated structures which could be used as a hideaway. It’s a long shot, but try everything. We’re down to the wire.’ He snaps the cellphone shut, throws the foil pie tray in the refuse bin and gets back into his car, brushing the pastry crumbs off his suit trousers before swinging his legs inside. He checks the map, then his rearview mirror, sees his lips caked with pastry crumbs, wipes them off with the back of his arm, puts the car into reverse and sets off once more.

Once he has climbed to the top of the plateau, he turns off the freeway. Before him, the land opens up into a huge expanse of low rolling hills, sprawling fields animated by the shadows of the drifting clouds, massive, some white and bright, others dark and threatening. Like cities on the horizon, the hills loom up ahead of him, maybe 200 kilometres away. So much space, de Vries thinks; so much beauty. So much room for everybody in South Africa. He thinks of the squatter camps along the N2 freeway, one rusty corrugated-tin shack on top of the next; the heat, the wet, the cold, the noise . . . the crime.

Finally, he approaches Nieuwoudtville, the nearest country town to Caroline Montague’s address. He idles at a four-way stop at its centre and checks his route. Ten kilometres out of town, he turns down a narrow dirt track, rutted and meandering, skirting fields, until eventually he reaches a wooden gate. It is hotter here; he notices the cool of his air-conditioning as he re-enters the car after opening the gate. He starts slowly down the uneven track, taking care not to graze the underside of his car on the raised grassy centre. Finally, within a horseshoe of tall, distorted eucalyptus trees, he sees the homestead which he hopes is his destination.

John Marantz uses his cellphone to call a local number which links and encrypts a call to a hidden London number.

A voice says: ‘Please wait.’

Marantz continues walking up Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. At the top of the steep site, he comes to the Protea Gardens, which few visitors ever reach. He sits on a favourite bench down a narrow path lined with low flowering trees. In the branches, there are Sunbirds and White-eyes, hovering and chirping, dancing from bough to bough, the incessant hum of insect industry.

‘I didn’t expect a call so soon.’

‘It’s not what you think.’

‘What then?’

‘I want to help a friend,’ Marantz says. ‘A policeman, pertaining to a long inquiry here.’

‘What will you need?’

‘Nothing sensitive.’

‘Will it expose us?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll email you a contact – to be used sparingly. But if you continue like this, I might be tempted to think that you are, in some form, operating again. That would not be appropriate.’

‘It wouldn’t.’

Marantz hears a long, hollow silence.

‘You’re sure you won’t come home?’

Marantz says: ‘I’m not sure of anything.’

Caroline Montague stands in her doorway, timid in her greeting, suspicious of this man in his city car.

‘Let’s walk,’ she says.

‘Fine.’

She looks down at de Vries’ shoes. ‘Are you wearing those?’

Vaughn glances at his black leather shoes, already caked in dust, the bottom of his suit trousers orange.

‘I have boots in my car.’

De Vries struggles into a pair of denim jeans in the driver’s seat, lays his jacket on the back seat of his car, and puts on his boots. He keeps these items in his boot for crime scenes out of doors. Now he is pleased he has brought his own car.

‘This is official,’ he explains. ‘It’s not a day out for me.’

‘We can make it an official walk in the country then.’

Caroline Montague smiles at him, swings a small backpack over her shoulders and begins to lead him away from the house, out across the fields, towards a rocky outcrop in the distance. De Vries reflects that her backpack had been packed and ready; he wonders whether she has planned this walk, had never intended to invite him inside her house. He looks around, breathing deeply, sees sheep standing in line, seeking shade, each one with its head under the other’s tail. He wonders what the one at the front does.

‘They take it in turns,’ Caroline Montague says.

‘What?’

‘The sheep. The one in front will walk down the line and tuck in at the back. They take it in turns: all very democratic.’

De Vries laughs; she has read his thoughts.

‘You live here alone?’

‘No. I have a husband. He is a writer. He’s in Jo’burg just now, talking to publishers.’

‘Do you know why I’m here?’

‘Because history is catching up on me?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘After your officer called yesterday, I drove to the village. The café there has the Internet. I saw the press reports.’

‘Had no one informed you about your brother?’

She pauses. ‘I really meant about the boys being found dead. I looked you up, and that was the first article – how it harked back seven years. I did see about Marc, and it was a shock, but . . . I’m sorry for his family.’

‘Not for you?’

‘That’s what I mean about history.’ She picks up speed momentarily, crosses a stile and begins to walk across a field of grasses.

Vaughn catches her up again. She waits for him.

‘What do you know of my family’s history?’ she asks. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what to call you.’

‘My name is Vaughn, Vaughn de Vries. And we don’t know anything, I’m afraid.’

She offers her hand, and Vaughn shakes it.

‘Then I will tell you.’ She looks at him stumbling on the grassy mounds in the field. ‘Are you all right,Vaughn?’