The First Rule Of Survival (44 page)

Wertner reaches for his door handle, turns back.

‘It’s over, de Vries. You’ll step out of line again and this time you’ll leave your footprint, and then you’ll be gone. I will personally see to that.’

‘Leave some of us to do the job properly. Concentrate on your own people.’

Wertner stretches his neck forward and puts his face in de Vries’.

‘My own people? Get the fuck out of my way.’

De Vries braces him for a few seconds, and then he stands back. Wertner opens his car door, sits heavily in the cabin and slams the door shut. He starts the engine and lowers the driver’s side window.

‘Your people,’ he spits, ‘don’t run the show any more. You don’t get to make the rules and you don’t get to break them.’

‘That’s what this has always been about for you, isn’t it?’

‘It’s the future. You people don’t get that yet.’

‘What people, Wertner? White people?’ de Vries laughs. ‘You think black Africa is going to embrace you? You think you’ll have a place at the table? Whatever you think you’ve got, you’re going to lose it.’

Wertner sticks his hand out of his window and raises his middle finger.

‘Fuck off, de Vries.’

Wertner accelerates out of the space, turns hard left and heads towards the small rectangle of daylight at the far corner of the garage.

He wakes to a bright yellowish light, unnatural and sickly. Above him, slowly coming into focus, narrow white bars enclose him in a tiny cell. He tries to sit up, hits his head, closes his eyes, lies back down. It is cool here; his head is supported and he can breathe cold, fresh air. He struggles into consciousness again, aware that he is afraid, swivels aching eyes, suddenly realizes where he is. He wriggles out of the refrigerator, crawls away from it and turns back to see what he has done. He rests on all fours, his head down and heavy. Around him, scattered on the floor, are half-opened packets and sticky jars which occupied the bottom two shelves of his fridge. One metal shelf is balanced at an angle against the leg of the kitchen table. He has no recollection of this; how he cleared the space, lay on his back, rested his head on the bottom shelf, and fell asleep.

He helps himself into his tall-backed carving chair, feels consciousness slipping again, his right ear flat on the pile of paperwork which cajoles his attention on sight.

Now, he is in a dark tunnel, not walking towards a light, but floating in the blackness. The ability to hover weightlessly calms him, laugh-lines appear around his eyes and mouth; he feels content. And then a fear of the endless yet confining darkness begins to grow, the cold seeps inside his skin, his eyes ache; the ceiling seems lower, the passage narrower. There is no way out for him . . . except the shocking jolt of consciousness.

He sits for less than ten minutes in the plush waiting room of the Huguenot Chambers off Company Gardens in the centre of town. He looks at his scuffed shoes, runs his scalded hand tentatively over his raw scalp and spiky tufts of hair, imagines that the pristine secretary has never seen such a figure before.

Hopkins appears at the double doors to his office, relaxed, smiling.

‘You’ve caught me at a lucky moment, Colonel. Come into my office.’

De Vries rises, passes him, and enters the large book-lined room, red-carpeted, high-ceilinged, richly furnished.

‘You do all right,’ he tells Hopkins.

‘You might say, crime does pay.’ Hopkins chuckles at his own joke, gestures towards two small armchairs either side of a coffee table by the tall windows. De Vries sits and Hopkins follows him.

‘I do, however, only have a short amount of time.’

‘I am sure you have been told already,’ de Vries starts. ‘We have ended the investigation into the triple abduction and, since two of those implicated are dead and Johannes Dyk is not long from joining them, there will be no further arrests at this time.’

Hopkins looks at him, purses his lips. Says, ‘Indeed, I have been informed.’

‘Will you tell your client?’

‘Which one?’

‘Nicholas Steinhauer.’

Hopkins smiles. ‘I think that he has been confident, from the very beginning, that no charges would be brought against him.’

De Vries absorbs both Steinhauer’s and his lawyer’s self-assurance bitterly; their assumption that he would fail has been vindicated.

‘But,’ Hopkins continues, ‘I am sure that is not why you have come here. What can I do for you, Colonel?’

De Vries hesitates, wonders whether, here in his own space, Hopkins will prove impregnable, but he catches the feckless charm of the lawyer’s expression, and it resolves him.

‘You lied to me. I need to know why.’

‘Lied?’

‘To my inquiry. A serious matter.’

‘You will have to explain.’

‘I know who called you on the night before Marc Steinhauer’s death.’

Hopkins shrugs.

‘Was it a business arrangement?’

‘I have already stated to you the events of that evening.’

‘Julius Mngomezulu called you.’ De Vries watches Hopkins’ eyes narrow, his posture stiffen almost imperceptibly. ‘I know this and, if I need to, I can prove it. Marc Steinhauer never called you. I want to know why Mngomezulu did.’

Hopkins produces a pink handkerchief and dabs his lips. He adjusts his position, posits the question to de Vries as if he were conducting a cross-examination.

‘Did Mngomezulu tell you?’

‘I merely want to know whether this officer is disloyal or corrupt. I’m looking to you to help me. If you do, I might overlook the fact that you deliberately misled me in the middle of a complex murder case.’

‘If you try to do that,’ Hopkins counters, suddenly more confident, ‘your source will have to be beyond reproach.’

‘Tell me about Mngomezulu.’

Hopkins places his hands on his stomach, glances about the room. He snorts.

‘You won’t like what I have to say.’

‘Tell me.’

Hopkins reclines; he can offer what is wanted.

‘I didn’t ask him to call me; I certainly didn’t offer payment. I think he did it for his own personal reasons. One might speculate that it was because he wished to ensure justice, but that is not the case here. He did it because he doesn’t like you. Possibly for your manner, conceivably for your independence but, most all of all, I’m afraid to say, I think because of your colour.’

‘To what end?’

‘You must ask him that. To undermine you, certainly. Perhaps to create a rift within your team.’

De Vries nods absentmindedly.

‘How,’ Hopkins says casually, ‘will the matter be dealt with?’

‘I think,’ de Vries replies, trying to phrase his words as du Toit might, ‘that understanding your relationship to your colleagues is very important and that sometimes, to know things that people don’t know you know can provide . . . insurance.’

Hopkins smiles, sits forward, lowers his voice. ‘We may be on opposite sides on occasion, but on this perhaps we are together. Mr Mngomezulu is a strange and, I suspect, troubled young man, full of anger and blame. He is resentful and unforgiving and, I am afraid to say, there are plenty like him in the law, in business, everywhere. If you give these people too much power, they will turn it against us.’

De Vries moves his chair back a fraction, away from Hopkins, says, ‘There are people in my team I don’t like; I just get on with it.’

‘Too true,’ Hopkins says. ‘I have many a client I don’t care for, but one has a job to do.’

De Vries smiles at Hopkins, bends towards him so that they are both leaning in towards each other. Echoing Hopkins’ hushed tones, he murmurs: ‘Do you like Nicholas Steinhauer?’

Hopkins’ smile remains, but de Vries appreciates that, as the seconds pass, it falters, just a little. Hopkins affects a shrug.

‘He pays my bills.’

De Vries sits alone at home watching dusk overtaken by night, staring at his garden, the green pool with its intestinal hoses and jellyfish-like cleaner floating dead in its clammy calm and, behind high, faint, scudding clouds, almost a full moon. He thinks again through all the information he has accrued in the last weeks, checking and rechecking every word of testimony, each report filed. Always, the man Steinhauer is present. He sits just beyond his field of vision, perhaps somewhere in the corner of the dark yellowwood ceiling beams, almost like a judge on the bench. De Vries feels anger and frustration rise through his body like a cold sweat. It hits his groin and then his stomach, passes up his chest, making him fight for breath, until it reaches his head, when he finds himself panting out loud, fists clenched, teeth gritted, a paroxysm. Then, eyes bulging, he returns to the domesticated pastoral scene until his pulse steadies, muttering to himself to stay calm, his hand to his left pectoral.

He draws the curtains and turns up the light above the dining table and studies the papers, making notes and drinking. It is a table which held his family together for so many years. Another lawyer’s letter informs him that Suzanne de Vries wants him to keep this house, at least until the girls have decided where they want to live. She was, her lawyer informed him, earning so much, she could not see the need to force a sale. A gesture of kindness posited as a humiliation. He wonders whether this was her phraseology or just a cheap jibe from a hubristic legal mind.

He questions his every decision and still he cannot see a way to break Steinhauer. He invents and hypothesizes until he sees the moon cross behind Devil’s Peak. He has drunk steadily, but his mind seems on automatic: the self-criticism and frustration become self-perpetuating. He is still awake; still conscious of his surroundings, but he knows that he is not in control, his imaginings more bizarre and distorted as the night has deepened. He sees Nicholas Steinhauer standing over him, smiling pitifully at his travail. He wakes momentarily, seemingly halfway through a spoken sentence. His eyes flicker and, as he fades into unconsciousness once more, he hears himself tell his phantom to his face:

‘You will not walk away from me.’

Just after midnight, de Vries drives carefully up the sharp incline that takes him from Vineyard Street onto Vineyard Heights. The street-lights are out again and, still dazed, he knows that he should not be driving at all, but no Cape Town policeman will dare pull him over. For a few days, he is a hero to all but himself. Alone, he has talked himself hoarse, yet he has no answer, no insight as to how he might ease the pressure that contorts him from within. He is unfit for public consumption, his cheeks scarred, eye-sockets blue and scalp still swollen.

He parks under the tall blue gum opposite Marantz’s front wall and leans on the video entryphone. The front gate buzzes, clicks open and he pushes through, crunches across the gravel courtyard and opens the front door. He slams it behind him and begins to descend the steep wooden staircase. He hobbles down the main flight to the mezzanine level, looks down on Marantz’s big sitting room, sees the fire lit and the tall windows closed and curtained. It is not home, but it is a sanctuary.

‘So,’ he says as he shakes Marantz’s hand. ‘Is this early or late?’

‘I was just sitting up reading. Why?’

‘No poker?’

‘No . . . No stomach for the fight. Luck is a tireless enemy.’

De Vries chooses the position nearest the fire, sits heavily.

‘Drinking?’ Marantz asks.

‘Wine – better be wine.’

Marantz fetches a bottle of Merlot and a saucer of biltong, places them at de Vries’ elbow. For a few minutes, they sit silently, almost in meditation, listening to the fire crackle, the wind in the line of trees outside the windows.

Marantz looks up. ‘You saw the papers today?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll paraphrase; they like you. Admire how you saved the kid and killed the bad guy.’

De Vries sighs. ‘I don’t care, John.’

‘I know you don’t. I wouldn’t have told you if you did.’

De Vries empties his glass and refills it to the brim.

‘You read all the docket reports?’ he asks Marantz.

‘Yes. All of them. Several times.’

‘For fuck’s sake, tell me I missed something. Tell me we fucked up completely and there’s a simple way we can make it all come together.’

‘Look – if there’s no forensics, there’s no forensics.’

‘There’s nothing. Never has been.’

‘Unless you make some up.’

De Vries looks up at Marantz, searches his expression for irony, for evidence that he is joking; sees none.

‘There are nations,’ Marantz continues, ‘who build DNA databases, promise to destroy stuff after a few years, never to obtain it illegally, do the opposite, and there’s still never a match. It’s the way it is, especially with these people. You ask yourself: if you are going to cheat one way, why not cheat in another?’

‘Meaning . . . ?’

‘Steinhauer will walk. I guess if you can match hubris with ability, you’re pretty safe. And he has a sponsor somewhere, because just about everyone but you seems to be giving him a free ride.’

‘What do you mean, a sponsor?’

‘Someone powerful who watches out for him, perhaps? Influence can flow in both directions.’

De Vries murmurs, ‘There’s at least one leak; those above wanted to stop the inquiry.’

‘These people operate on a different plane from you and me. But we have one advantage: we know they’re there.’

De Vries frowns. ‘You always talk in riddles.’

Marantz meets de Vries’ eye. ‘I’m not the one being disingenuous, Vaughn. You’re not here for no reason. You want to know what to do, but you’d better understand something: if you’ve come here, to me, knowing me as you do, then you already know what you want.’

‘I don’t understand that sentence either.’

‘Re-check your motives: coming to me before you decide your reaction?’

De Vries drains his glass and tips the bottle again. Says, ‘I came for company.’

‘Get a cat.’

‘A sounding board.’

‘Sound off then.’

‘I’m drunk.’

‘No mitigation accepted,’ Marantz says. ‘I know what you want to do, and I agree. You just have to admit it to yourself and comprehend the consequences.’

‘And how,’ de Vries says bitterly, ‘do you know what I want to do?’