The Monster's Daughter (23 page)

Jooste waited at the hotel bar, a brandy in front of him. He looked at ease in these surroundings, as if the smoky haze were an extension of himself, a stench that infiltrated the cracks and crevices of the room, clinging to every person there who, in turn, carried it out with them into the world.

“So you've changed your mind,” Jooste said as Benjamin sat down on the stool next to him. The bartender poured another brandy without asking and placed it in front of Benjamin.

Jooste nodded at a man walking by. He turned his attention back to Benjamin. “Well?”

Benjamin took a sip of his brandy, swallowing caution with the burning liquid. “I need things,” he said when he emerged from the numbness.

“What are we talking about?”

“All the journals.”

“
Ja?
”

Benjamin didn't take his eyes off his glass. “I want to join the Broederbond.”

Jooste paled slightly. “What do you know about the Bond, boy?”

“That being a member opens those doors you talked about. Gets you access to work, an education, information.” Benjamin had frantically searched for Tessa for days, not sleeping, barely eating. He had even gone to the
location
to try to find the black she had been with. She had simply disappeared. Members of the Broederbond had connections, reach, a network of eyes that stretched across the country. They could find her for him.

“We are a cultural organization, no more. I don't know what you think—”

“I know what you are, Mr. Jooste. Cultural organizations don't need to operate in secret.”

“The Bond is an organization of leaders. We've united the Afrikaners, raised them up economically, spiritually, politically. To do that, we need to operate without scrutiny.” Jooste gave Benjamin a calculating look. “What could you possibly offer us? You're nobody.”

Barely contained anger tickled Benjamin's extremities. He clenched his jaw, keeping his voice low. “You and the
Broeders
plan to make the Afrikaners a superior race.”

“I never said—”

“You want to play God, Mr. Jooste? You'll need His monster. That makes me somebody.”

Jooste eyed Benjamin, his drink poised in the air. “The girl—”

“She's gone.”

Jooste narrowed his eyes, the thin flesh folding over shallow veins. “What do you mean?”

“You might be her father, Mr. Jooste, but know this, she belongs to
me. If you go near her, I will kill you.” As Benjamin said this, he knew he meant every word.

“I'm not scared of idle threats,
ja
.” Jooste took his hat off the counter. He downed the rest of his drink. “You have no idea who you're dealing with, boy.”

“Do we have a deal?”

Jooste hovered for a moment, a tug of war between desires in his expression. “I may have underestimated you,” he said at last. “You have more backbone than Frank said you did.” He asked the bartender for a pen and scribbled an address on a piece of paper. “Be here in the morning.”

“Be strong!” Benjamin called after him, mocking the Broederbond motto. Jooste didn't look back. Benjamin emptied his brandy and ordered another on the old man's tab.

Professor Koch's large desk loomed in front of Alet. Behind it, a wall of books lined the windowless office, arranged alphabetically. Everything about the room indicated a careful, methodical mind, but Koch was not at all what Alet had expected while talking to him on the phone. She had envisioned a man not unlike her father, stern and studious. In real life, Koch reminded her of a rubber ball with too much bounce, short and round and always fidgeting, a lisp sidling into his speech when he got excited. He had a full head of gray hair, a scraggly goatee, and porcine eyes obscured by heavy glasses, the frames at least ten years out of date.

Koch squinted over the rim of the case file. “I need to examine the body.”

Alet shifted, uncomfortable in the straight-backed wooden chair. “I have to check with my captain about a transfer.”

“Never mind that.” Koch waved his hand, his short fat fingers blurring together. “I'm not new at dealing with the police. It'll take a month of paperwork. By that time, the evidence will have been compromised by some nincompoop who thinks he knows what he's doing. I'll come to you.” He jumped out of his seat as if he was ready to start the journey right away.

Alet suddenly felt sorry for Dr. Oosthuizen. “As I explained on the phone, Professor, we don't really have a budget to pay your consultation fee. I was hoping that—”

“I suspected as much. Don't worry. The university administration smiles on my cooperation with the SAPS. Helps with fund-raising.”
Koch curled the corners of his mouth in distaste. “Justifies their existence, come review time.”

Koch dialed a three-digit extension on his office phone. “Mike? Could you pick up some samples? This has priority.” He put the phone down and lifted Oosthuizen's preliminary autopsy report to his face again.

“Thanks for agreeing to this, Professor.”

“Well, you did drop Adriaan Berg's name.” There was a note of hostility in Koch's voice. “And since you brought your father into the conversation, I don't mind telling you that I am not one of his lackeys.”

“I didn't think—”

Koch held up his hand to silence her. “Under normal circumstances I would have put the phone down, but you had the good sense to identify your purpose first. I will give this case my full attention, but any sign of Adriaan Berg getting involved and I will leave you to your own devices. Understand?”

“I understand.” Alet tried to hide her nervousness with a smile. It had taken a few phone calls, but she had tracked Professor Koch down at the University of Cape Town. Convincing Mynhardt that they should bring an outsider in on the case was a lot harder. He only relented when she hinted that it might have been her father's idea, playing up the high-profile cases her dad and Koch had solved together. If this led nowhere, she would be on traffic duty for the rest of her life.

There was a knock at the door. A slender man in his mid-thirties stepped into the room. Sandy hair encroached on his shirt collar. He had a full beard, neatly trimmed, masking sculpted features, his eyes framed by thick black-rimmed glasses.

“Constable Berg, this is my colleague, Mike Engelman. Mike, this is Constable Berg from Unie Police.”

Mike's gaze lingered momentarily on Alet's bruised face before he extended his hand. His grip was firm, his hands not as soft as one would expect from a typical academic. “Nice to meet you, Constable.”

“You too, Mr. Engelman.”

“Actually it's Dr. Engelman,” Koch interrupted.

“Call me Mike.”

“Alet.”

“Mike has done some very interesting research on DNA mutations
in viruses. Maybe you've read about it?” Koch looked at her expectantly.

Alet smiled apologetically.

“Unie Police requested a homicide consult.” Koch spoke to Mike as if Alet had disappeared from the room. “I'm on my way there to do the autopsy.”

“Do you need me to come along?”

“No need to disrupt both our lives. One would hope the local coroner is able to assist. Would you mind running DNA on these, though? Seems we're the only two people in this department interested in working in December.” He picked up the evidence bags Alet had brought. Alet had included cigarette butts she'd found at the war lookout as well as the blood scraping and samples of the victim's tissue for comparison.

“And there I hoped I would be let out of my cage.” Mike smiled at Alet, a dimple forming in his right cheek.

“Tell your coroner to have the body ready, Constable Berg,” Koch said. “I'll be there by six.”

“Why don't you wait till morning, Nico? Perhaps Alet would like some lunch. She could fill us in on the case?”

“No need to talk about it.” Koch's irritation was clear. “Evidence speaks for itself. The less I know, the better.” He dipped frantically into supply closets, cramming instruments into a steel case. “Case details are not our concern.”

Mike opened the office door. “I'll walk you out, Alet. This place is a maze.” Most men were nervous around her when she was in uniform, but Mike spoke to her with relaxed charm as he guided her through the building's corridors. “So how about lunch?” They had come to the building's main entrance. “There's a nice curry place around the corner.”

“I have another appointment. Sorry.” Alet was surprised that she meant it. Mike had asked pointed, interesting questions about the case, and it felt good to be able to talk about it with someone who knew what he was doing. It also felt good to be taken seriously.

“Maybe some other time, then?”

“Ja.”
Alet returned his smile.

“This is my cell.” Mike scribbled his number on a card. “In case you have questions.”

“
Dankie
.” Alet took the card from him, wondering if this could be more than an offer for lunch. Mike extended his hand formally, and she pushed the thought out of her mind. She was here to solve a crime.

She was greeted by the misty Cape morning as she exited the building. Roman pillars and gables adorned every building on the beautiful old campus, a reminder of the colonial Dutch who had settled here in the 1600s. Alet made her way to the university's main entrance, down a long stone staircase that led to the street. A man sat on the bottom step, leaning against the ivy-covered walls, his blue dress shirt tight over his broad back and muscled arms. Fine water droplets from the morning drizzle clung to his black buzz cut. Alet almost reached out to brush them off, but stopped herself. The last time she'd seen Theo van Niekerk, they were both standing in front of a police disciplinary committee, Theo relaying the facts of their affair with a deadpan expression, admitting guilt without argument. She had felt betrayed, and she'd left Johannesburg without speaking to him again. She'd heard from mutual friends that Theo had taken a position at the University of Cape Town's criminology department.

Theo turned, his face breaking into a smile when he saw her. “Alet.” She knew there would be a crease in his dress pants, ironed in with military precision, even before he got up. Theo kissed her on the cheek, his hands on her shoulders in an easy gesture.

“Thanks for meeting me, Theo.”

“No worries. I'm just up the block a bit.” Theo gestured at the campus behind them, which was sheltered by the back side of Table Mountain, its peak obscured by thick clouds. Once, when she was little, Alet and her father had taken the cable-car ride up on a day like this. Everything around her had been white, the world simply disappearing. At the top, Adriaan had let go of her hand. He had taken a few steps away from her, and the white swallowed him up completely. Alet remembered crying hysterically because she could not find him. Adriaan stepped out of the mist as easily as he had disappeared. He picked her up and pressed his lips close to her ears. “Don't you know that nobody can see you here?” he smiled. Alet had trouble understanding why this had made him happy.

Alet stepped out of Theo's embrace. “You look good.” There was
a relaxed air about him that Alet had never seen before, settling in his dark almond-shaped eyes and smoothing out his brow.

Theo patted his stomach. “A little more padding, I think. But look at you! What's with the …” He gestured at her bruises.

“Slammed my face into a suspect's shoe a few times. I'm thinking of starting a trend.”

Theo laughed. “You always look beautiful.” The remark hung awkwardly between them.

“I hear there's a good curry place nearby,” Alet said, choosing to ignore the comment.

“You heard right. Aggie's Kitchen has the best fish curry this side of the mountain. Shall we?”

Like an old habit, a memory of lazy evenings, Alet fell in step with Theo. He had been in the middle of a nasty divorce and custody battle when she started STF training. They both knew what would happen if anyone found out about them, so they tucked their relationship into weekends and secret nights, playing the role of instructor and student during the daytime. It had been exciting, skulking around in the shadows of the forbidden. Alet often wondered what would have happened if they hadn't been caught.

Aggie's Kitchen was a bright little hole-in-the wall with yellow tablecloths and plastic chairs. Theo ordered for them, rattling off more dishes than Alet thought they could finish.

“So … to what do I owe this pleasure?” Theo laced his fingers together, resting his chin on his hands.

“I was in the area. I thought we could catch up.”

“Don't get me wrong, it's good to see you, but months of silence and then a call out of the blue?”

“Before … it was all …” Alet searched for the right words. “Too much.”

“
Ja
.” Theo looked away.

“So, you're teaching, huh?”

Theo leaned back. “At least nobody gets killed if something goes wrong, hey.”

Alet nodded. She felt guilty. Theo had loved his work in STF. At least she'd gotten to stay on the police force, even if it was in the middle of nowhere.

“How about you? Must be quite a change of pace over there in Unie. Lowest crime in the Western Cape, according to statistics.”

“You looked it up?”

“Research is most of what I do these days.” Theo cracked his interlaced fingers. “I'm connected, you might say.”

Alet laughed. “It's not that bad. I'm investigating a murder at the moment. That's why I'm in Cape Town. We're collaborating with Professor Koch on forensics. Do you know him?”

“Only by reputation.”

“He really doesn't like my dad.”

Theo shrugged. “It's Adriaan Berg, what do you expect?”