Zulu (25 page)

Brian Epkeen hadn't even bothered to show up.

 

 

 

T
he Cape wine road was one of the loveliest routes in the country. The vineyards at the foot of the mountain, the architecture of the French and Dutch mansions, the wildness of the rock against the blue of the sky, the dense, pervasive vegetation, the restaurant menus—a paradise on earth, for those who could afford it.

For Sunday lunch, Brian and Ruby used to come to La Colombe, a gourmet restaurant owned by a French chef, where they would blow a week's money on one meal. They may have maintained their anti-establishment credentials in the few underground venues of a city condemned to the pastoral boredom of “separate development,” and lived from hand to mouth more often than they should have, but when the weekend came he and Ruby didn't make do with fish and chips—no, they deserved an à la carte lunch washed down with Chardonnay and Shiraz from the valley, come what may. They would spend hours drinking in the shade of the amorous cypresses, relaxing in the restaurant's pool talking about her famous record label, the indie groups she was going to produce to get up the nose of this regime of sexual retards, before working off their own frustrations in the bushes. The good old days. Those boozy Sunday lunches hadn't lasted. David had come along, and it had gotten harder to make ends meet—most of Brian's black clients couldn't pay for his services, and it was Ruby who provided for the household. Then there were the frayed nerves whenever the police or the intelligence services came down on him, making their lives hell with petty little bureaucratic or legal obstacles, not to mention all the times he'd been left beaten up in a ditch, the fear of a phone call announcing that this time he wasn't going to make it, his attempts to reassure her, her pathological mistrust, and then the day she had caught him in town with a black woman, in a position that left no room for misunderstanding.

The breeze stirred the ashes in the driver's compartment of the Mercedes. Brian turned off the sun-drenched road and drove between the vines.

Ruby had come back into his life just when everything seemed to be going wrong, and there had to be a reason for that. Unable to understand, Brian drove on through the countryside.

The Broschendal estate was two hundred years old, and was one of the most famous vineyards in the country—like all migrants, the French Huguenots had come here with their own expertise and the means to develop it. Brian drove past the fields of vines to the next property, a former farm that could be glimpsed at the end of the trail.

A chorus of cicadas greeted him in the sun-drenched yard. A bull mastiff with glistening jowls advanced toward him, baring its teeth. It was the property's guard dog, stocky, powerful, weighing more than a hundred and thirty pounds, and capable of knocking a man to the ground and pinning him there.

“So, big man, getting enough to eat?”

The dog was suspicious. It was right to be—Brian wasn't afraid of dogs.

The dentist's house stood on the side of a hill, a tastefully refurbished former farmhouse. Snapdragons, cosmos, azaleas, petunias—the garden that bordered the vineyard filled the air with fragrance from beyond the left wing of the building. Brian walked past the ceramic swimming pool, and found his ex-wife half-naked on a deckchair in the shade of a Belle Portugaise climbing rosebush.

“Hi, Ruby.”

Dozing behind her sunglasses, she had not heard him coming, and she gave a start. “What are you doing here?” she cried, as if her eyes were playing tricks on her.

“Obviously, I've come to see you.”

Ruby was wearing a yellow bikini and nothing else. She covered herself with a pareo, then glared at the bull mastiff trotting on the lawn.

“And you, asshole,” she said to the dog, “would it hurt you to do your job?”

The animal passed close to them, slavering, and swerved to avoid the gestapo chief who had it in her sights.

Brian put his hands in his pockets. “Has David had the results of his exam yet?”

“Since when have you taken an interest in your son?”

“Since I saw his girlfriend. Can we talk seriously?”

“What about?”

“Kate Montgomery, for instance.”

“Do you have a warrant to enter people's houses like this?” She held her pareo tight over her breasts, as if he stank.

“I need to fill in the details,” he said, trying to focus. “Kate didn't have any friends, I haven't been able to find out anything about her, and you were the last person to see her alive.”

“Why don't they send a real cop?” she said, with disarming frankness.

“Because I'm the craziest of them all.”

A mocking little smile played on Ruby's lips. At least he made her laugh.

“I don't think there's anything else I can tell you,” she said, softening.

“All the same, I'd like your help. Kate was high when she was killed. Did you know she used to do drugs?”

She sighed. “No. But you didn't need to be Sigmund Freud to see she wasn't quite right in the head.”

“Kate was into cutting. You know what that involves?”

“Cutting your skin and watching the blood flow to feel alive, yes. I never saw her do that, if that's what's on your mind, or organize orgies with the local butchers.”

“The killer butchered his victims. Maybe he promised to relieve her, or something like that.”

“I told you, I didn't know anything about her.”

“He knew when Kate would be driving along the coast road,” Brian went on. “He was waiting for her near her house to flag her down, pull a gun on her, whatever. It's also possible they'd arranged to meet, and she was lured into a trap. Either way, the murder was premeditated. That means the killer knew her schedule.”

“What difference does it make, now he's dead? The case is over, isn't it? They said so on the radio.”

“You're responsible for the schedules. One of the crew may have told Gulethu, and made sure Kate fell into the trap, just like the Nicole Wiese case.”

“I thought you'd questioned them?”

“I didn't get much from them,” he admitted. “But I checked out this death-metal band of yours, all this satanic bullshit, cutting the throats of chickens, crap like that. Is that just to impress teenagers, or are they really interested in the occult?”

“They're all vegetarians,” she said.

The tires of a car crunched in the yard, soon followed by the sound of a door opening and closing. A tall, long-haired, unshaven young man appeared at the other end of the garden, baggy jeans hanging down over his calves. David saw his parents by the pool, stopped for a moment in surprise, then came striding toward them.

“What's he doing here?” he asked his mother.

“I already asked him that,” she replied.

“How did your exam go?”

“Go back to your girlfriends.”

Brian sighed—what a family. “What's wrong with wanting to know?”

“Nobody asked you,” David retorted. “Ma, tell him to go.”

“Go,” she said.

Never far from tears, Brian almost felt like laughing. “Isn't Marjorie with you?” he asked.

“Yes, she's hiding in the vines taking photos of you to sell to porn magazines.”

“I love you, too, son.”

“Listen, Brian,” Ruby intervened. “I've told you everything I know about this business, in other words, nothing. Now, be good, and leave us alone.”

The tension rose a notch.

“Would it hurt you to talk to me differently?” Brian said, though clenched teeth.

At that moment, a slim man with graying hair appeared on the shady terrace. He saw Ruby's son with his unkempt hair, Ruby half naked under her pareo, an untidy-looking guy in fatigues, and the guard dog circling around them.

“What's going on? Who are you?”

“Hi, Ricky.”

“I haven't introduced you,” Ruby cut in, still in her deckchair. “Rick, this is Lieutenant Epkeen, David's father.”

Rick frowned. “I thought he was a traffic cop.”

Brian gave his ex-wife a look of fake surprise, and she blushed slightly. Apparently, he'd gotten a promotion.

“Not that it makes much difference,” she said.

She got up from the deckchair, pulling her pareo around her and lifting her five and a half feet with catlike suppleness. She had always been one hell of a cockteaser. Rick welcomed her into his arms in a protective gesture.

“What are you doing in my house?” he asked.

“Investigating a murder. Nothing to do with our private lives.”

“First I heard of it,” David said.

“Stay out of this, O.K.?”

“I'm sorry, but she's my mother.”

“I said shut up.”

“Don't talk to your son like that,” Rick intervened. “We're not at the police station here.”

“I don't have to take lessons from a specialist in molars,” Brian growled.

Rick van der Verskuizen wasn't going to let Brian scare him. “Get out of my house,” he hissed. “Get out of my house, or I'll lodge a complaint with your superiors for harassment.”

“Rick's right,” Ruby said, huddled by his side. “You're jealous of our happiness, that's all.”

“Yeah!” David said.

“Is that so?” Brian said, sharply. “And what's the price of your new happiness? What does a girl like you have to do to get all this?”

Ruby's expression changed abruptly.

Ricky took a step toward Brian. “Do you have a warrant to come and insult us in our own home?”

“Would you rather be summoned to headquarters? I've been looking through Kate Montgomery's papers. Seems she had several appointments at your clinic.”

“So what? I'm a dentist, I look after teeth.”

“Six appointments in a month. That must have been one hell of a toothache!”

“Kate Montgomery had an abscess,” Rick said. “I took her on as a priority case, to please Ruby. My patients are very demanding, I don't like to keep them waiting. Which is more than can be said for the police.”

Brian's gave a nasty smile. “I know Ruby by heart,” he said. “She hates men so much, she always chooses old skirt chasers.”

“You're repugnant,” Rick bellowed.

“Oh,
I'm
repugnant? Like tooth decay is really pretty.”

Ruby had had enough. She threw herself at Brian but he knew her moves by heart. He caught her by the elbow, twisted, and sent her sprawling. She slid over the ceramics, narrowly missed the edge of the diving board, and fell into the turquoise water of the pool. Rick rushed forward, yelling insults that Brian didn't hear. He grabbed the man by the collar of his silk shirt and, with all his strength, flung him in after her.

David, who had not moved, threw his father a dirty look.

“Well?” Brian yelled. “You want to take a dip, too?”

For a moment, David stood there speechless. He saw his mother in the pool, the pareo floating, Rick coming up spitting water, and his father on the terrace, his eyes shiny with tears.

“Fuck this,” the prodigal son said. “You're completely sick, you know that?”

Completely.

They were all starting to piss him off.

 

 *

 

There wasn't much mixing in the townships, where racism and xenophobia were as prevalent as they were anywhere else. The black population was concentrated in Khayelitsha, the coloreds in Manenberg. Maia had lived there for years, and had had her share of “boyfriends” to help her survive. Neuman had hesitated before phoning her—they hadn't spoken since breaking up—but she had immediately agreed to help him.

Gulethu, although a Zulu, had lived in Manenberg, and one of her companions in misfortune may have had dealings with him. And in the end, one of them had in fact agreed to testify for a small sum of money—Ntombi, a country girl now living in a hostel.

The absence of street lighting and the drug trafficking kept most people indoors. Neuman drove slowly, peering at the occasional figures that loomed up in front of the car headlights then vanished again.

“Are you sure you don't want a soda?”

Maia had bought two cans at the local spaza shop, thinking he'd be pleased.

“No. Thanks.”

She was wearing a new dress, and her talent for acting as if nothing had happened made him uncomfortable. They had been driving for half an hour around the cracked streets of Manenberg, the cortisone had knocked him out, he felt wary, irritable, impatient.

“So where is this hostel?”

“Next right, I think,” Maia replied. “There's an all-night drinks shop, from what Ntombi told me.”

Maia wanted to talk to him, to tell him it was okay about the other night, a neighbor had patched up the living-room wall, she'd do other paintings, better ones, she might even have found someone who'd sell them in the city for her. She'd stop relying on boyfriends as a way of making ends meet, if that was what bothered him. He could come more often, stay as long as he liked, they just had to carry on as they'd done before, his codes, his caresses, they just had to carry on as if he had never said anything to her.

Maia caressed the back of his neck. “Are you sure you're O.K.? You look very pale.”

A dog ran in front of the wheels of the car. Neuman turned right.

In spite of the prohibitive prices, the local hoboes were gathered outside the reinforced door of the drinks shop, asking through the grille for something that would freeze the smile on their lips. The hostel where Ntombi lived was a little farther on, a cinder-block building with a corrugated-iron roof. They parked the car outside the reinforced door.

Non-existent privacy, terrible hygiene, humiliating living conditions, TB, AIDS—the hostels were dangerous places, typical products of apartheid-era social planning. They housed migrant workers, unmarried people, ex-convicts, even the occasional poor family with no connections who'd latched onto the “owner” of a bed.