Read Daddy Long Legs Online

Authors: Vernon W. Baumann

Daddy Long Legs (10 page)

BOOK: Daddy Long Legs
7.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
One

 

Into the winter sun of a Hope afternoon the children ran. Across the stained concrete of the filling station. While attendants shouted at them. Across the snaking street. While the bored and unemployed stared at them. Onto the patchy commons. The children ran.

Here, where the meandering main street of Hope took a sharp cut to the south-west, where the town’s most prominent guesthouse sat atop a promontory overlooking the commons, the pavements were thronged with people. One would think this unusual for an early afternoon, in the middle of the week. So many people on the streets. But for Hope, with its soaring unemployment, this was just another day in the barren winter sun.

Talking and shouting. Laughing and jeering. The crowds were almost exclusively Coloured. Moving with practised aimlessness. Loitering with intent.

Despite the obvious lack of gainful employment, there was a jovial quality

(
from a shadow he watched
)

to the crowds that ebbed and flowed along this nexus in the little Northern Cape town. Groups gathered. Dissipated. Then gathered again. Forming around this titbit of gossip. Gathering around that joke. Laughing, gesticulating

(
from a shadow he watched
)

pairs would shout at each other from across the street. Engaging in loud and boisterous conversation for all the world to hear. By the entrance to the co-op, an old man was leaning drunkenly against the stained white wall. While further up the street, another was tracing a boozy inebriated zigzag across the street. If it hadn’t been for the sparse and lethargic vehicle traffic of Hope, his inebriated adventures might very well have been construed as dangerous. But on this day, at its worst, it was simply mildly annoying.

So then. Through all of this. The groups of children ran. Laughing. Screaming. Bursting. With a nascent energy that would only later be tapped and drained by life. For now. They were happy. Ignorant.

And blissful.

Unaware.

That he was watching. From the shadow. Of a phone booth.

Watching. From the dark. Shadow.

He stepped out of the booth.

A cloud moved in front of the sun. So suddenly. That many looked up. Moments before, it had been a cloudless winter sky. But now. A dark jagged cloud obscured the light. A dark hand moved across the heart of Hope.

Some of the children stopped. And stared, with shaded eyes, at the sky. Marvelling at the sudden transition to darkness. One of the boys held out stiff arms and stumbled forward mechanically, pretending to be a zombie.
Ooooooooh.
The girls giggled with hands in front of their mouths.
Oooooooooooohhhhh!!
He turned and doing a twisted zombie leer, reached for one of the girls. They all ran screaming.

Now
this
was a good crowd.

Too late.

Too late. He saw the tall white man standing next to him. And crashed bodily into his legs.

He felt a cold hard grip fasten around his stick-like arm. And another colder one clamp around his heart. Suddenly all the mirth was gone. The girls stopped and stared. The little boy swallowed hard. Then looked up. Into the smiling face of the tall white man. The smiling face with the strange dark eyes. The unsmiling dark eyes.


Jy moet kyk waar jy loop.

You must watch where you’re going.

‘You could get hurt.’

It was meant to be a friendly admonition. But the little boy nodded with an awkward jerk. Terrified. Staring with horror at the eyes that pinned him to the pavement. The long. Dark. Eyes.

The little boy was so transfixed that he didn’t even realise the man had released him. Only when a friend nudged him did he wake from his nightmarish reverie. And then they ran. This time without mirth or laughter. All the way to butcher, way at the top of the street. And never once did they look back.

The man stood for a moment longer. Staring at the empty pavement where the little boy had been standing a few seconds before. Then raising a slow head, he began walking.

He didn’t look left. He didn’t look right. He just walked.

A cold wind stirred. And blew barren and gnarled leaves across the black street.

He walked. Amongst people he hadn’t seen for such a long time. Down a road he hadn’t walked in so many years.

Yes. It felt good.

Admittedly. It felt very good.

To be back. Where he belonged.

As he scanned the faces. He wondered if anyone would recognise him.

Could they possibly? After all these years?

He didn’t think so.

So much had happened. So very
very
much had happened. It just didn’t seem possible.

Some of the groups gathered on the sidewalks, looked up at the gangly white man. Others didn’t notice him at all. Some waved a friendly hello. While others just stared.

He didn’t look at anyone. Didn’t respond to anyone. He simply continued walking. Taking long insect-like strides over the dirty sidewalk with its spidery cracks. Neither looking left. Nor looking right. Yet feeling himself at the centre of a vast radar, that extended all around him, like an invisible web. Sensing everything. And everyone.

He walked amongst them. A silent. Proficient. Killer.

He walked amongst them. And no-one knew him.

But how could they?

How could they know all the things that had happened to him since he had last been here?

How could they know the ways in which his darkness had grown?

At a stop street, a young mother and her son paused next to him while she fidgeted in her purse. In front of them the street writhed and twisted in slow agony. The boy looked up at him. Staring. Slowly he turned and looked at the innocence that radiated from the child’s face. The boy smiled up at him. He reached out. And softly. Languidly. Stroked the boy’s head.

No. They didn’t know.

But soon. Soon they would.

Soon. Everybody would understand why he had been away for so long.

Soon. Everybody would understand the true nature of his transformation.

He bent down and squeezed the child’s shoulder. And nodded.

Smiling.

Soon.

He crossed the road. And almost got run over by an unmarked police car.

Soon.

 

 

Two

 

The sun-baked tar road sizzled and danced in the heat. On its broken and dusty shoulders, Coloured children walked barefoot. The horizon, broken by gnawed ridges, shimmered in the hazy distance. This is life on the edge of the Karoo. Arid. Hot. Desolate. Satan’s Microwave. Industries are few. Prospects even fewer. This is where alcoholism reigns supreme. Not far from Hope, is a little town that is famous for having the highest prevalence of Alcohol Foetal Syndrome in South Africa. About a hundred clicks to the south, the town where separate cases of baby rape made South Africa famous for all the wrong reasons. And officially established the country as the
baby rape
capitol of the world. Being secondary only to South Africa’s reputation as the murder and rape capitol of the world.

As the white Toyota Corolla rolled across the sizzling and hissing tar of the
N12,
Hollywood was the furthest thing from Detective Wayne Human’s mind. It was a hot day. Hotter than he had, possibly, ever known. In the urban sprawl of Johannesburg temperatures never reached these fetid highs. But it was the peculiar dry quality of the heat in these semi-arid parts that really riled Human. And if that wasn’t enough, the air conditioner had long since ceased to function. Turning the ’99 Corolla into a mobile microwave. Opening windows did little to help. It merely turned a mobile microwave into a mobile convection oven.
God, it was going to be a long few weeks.

As his short-sleeve collar shirt whipped in the wind, Human turned the little known facts of his newest case over in his mind. The call that had awoken him on the couch, less than twenty four hours ago, had come straight from Curry Govinda, the divisional commissioner of detectives. If he hadn’t been so groggy with sleep Human would have marvelled at the fact that Govinda bothered to phone him directly. It almost never happened. It should have been the first clue that this would turn out to be a case like no other. If he needed any further proof, a few minutes later he received a call that made him almost stand to attention in the littered confines of his lounge. It had been Joe Ndabane, the Director for Priority Crime Investigation. Except for his meeting with the National Police Commissioner during the seminal Moffat case, Human had never communicated with a more senior police officer. ‘Wayne, my
broer,
are you awake?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Human had managed, stammering, completely taken aback that the senior official was on the other end of the line. ‘Eish, my
boykie,
we need you down in the Northern Cape. Did Govinda give you the details?’ Human answered that Govinda had supplied him with the basics. ‘Good.’ Ndabane paused. ‘Wayne.’ Ndabane had a terse manner of speaking. Like someone suffering from emphysema. Keeping his words brief and staccato-like. As if trying to conserve oxygen.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘We need you to catch this fucker.’ There again, the strange and innocuous white man’s swear words in the mouth of an African that Human always found so disconcerting. ‘He’s making us look like a bunch of
mamparras
.’ Human smiled to himself. He was already starting to like Ndabane. ‘Wayne?’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘I don’t like looking like a
mamparra
.’

‘I understand, sir. I am going to try my best.’

‘I don’t want you to try your best. I want better than that.’

‘Yes, sir. You have my word.’

‘Good. My office will contact you later to make arrangements. I told Govinda to clear your roster. This is top priority, Wayne. If that
chara
interferes with anything you let me know.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Human said with hesitation, hoping he would never have to do anything of the sort.

‘Wayne. These politicians are breathing on my neck. We have to make this work. Else heads are gonna fall. You hear me,
boykie
?

‘Yes, sir.’ Human was only too aware of the recent internecine conflict within the ANC. There was always political fallout. Always the inevitable casualties. Apprehending the killer was a matter of the utmost importance. Oh hell yeah. But it wasn’t just about justice. It was about the continued survival of the current police administration. The stakes were high. Immeasurably high. All eyes would be on the investigation. And its outcome, whatever it may be, would determine the futures of dozens of people. Human grimaced as he listened to Ndabane. It was a pain in the arse. Nothing new. But a pain in the arse nonetheless. ‘I understand, sir.’ It was the reality of life in the new South Africa. And a reality he understood only too well. Not being a man swayed by personal gain, Human couldn’t help but be amazed at the implications of a successful investigation. This could change everything. Or so he thought. About an hour later he received the first nugget of bad news.

Due to political wrangling and bad blood between the Gauteng and Northern Cape components of the National Executive Committee (the highest organ of the ANC), detective Wayne Human ‘would probably encounter more than a bit of
bad blood
down in Hope’. The annual ANC conference was coming up and while the Gauteng branch supported the incumbent, the Northern Cape division supported the vice-president. Human was warned about these subtle realities and to expect some resistance. In addition, many senior policemen and politicians from the Northern Cape resented the intrusion of a Gauteng detective. Oh man. Politics.

Now, as Human motored along the shimmering highway, he recalled the words that had made his spirits sink. He had been born in the big city. Had lived and worked in the big city. But he had had more than enough experience of small towns to realise that the ‘subtle realities’ of the political situation had made his task infinitely more difficult. He was the outsider ... and he would be treated as such. The intruder from the big bad city. Come to show dem here country bumpkins how to take fingerprints and catch dem baddies.
Oh God.
Human slammed the steering wheel as he envisioned the difficult struggle that lay ahead. As the Johannesburg detective sped towards a little town called Hope, he could have no idea how difficult the struggle ahead would truly be.

If his position wasn’t bad enough, political manoeuvrings ensured that he would travel to Hope alone, without his long-time partner, Saintes van Wyk. Human wondered exactly who the hell Ndabane had managed to piss off so comprehensively. Without his partner, Human felt like Daniel in the lion den. It wasn’t just his investigative abilities he would miss. Van Wyk was a welcome social go-between between the hapless Human and the hordes of humanity that so often reduced him to a stuttering nervous mess. He would sorely miss his partner’s easy, disarming manner. Could this whole thing get any worse? Goddamn!

He rounded a bend in the road, curving around a flat-topped hill, and saw a lush and verdant field to his right. A spread-out farm. Sprouting an unknown crop. The lush greenery was in stark contrast to the surrounding demure brown of the arid landscape. Up ahead a signboard indicated that Hope lay ten kilometres thither. He slowed the car. Instead of feeling relief that his journey had come to an end, Human felt a cloudy disquiet. Somewhere up ahead, a ruthless killer stalked the youth of this bucolic little hamlet. Somewhere up ahead, a twisted psychopath had managed to elude the authorities for more than twenty years. It was the way he always felt when he was in the presence of true evil. And there was no doubt that the sick bastard known as Daddy Long Legs was very evil indeed.

After his conversations with his superiors, Human had done a quick cursory search to familiarise himself with the Hope killer. He hated the popular moniker Daddy Long Legs. In his mind, it was vulgar and lurid. And afforded the sick murderer more respect than he deserved.

Human was, of course, relatively well acquainted with the killer. Everyone in South Africa was, especially above a certain age. Daddy Long Legs was probably South Africa’s greatest unsolved mystery. Right up there with the location of the paedophile Gert van Rooyen’s buried victims. Like Jack the Ripper, the killer had engendered a lasting legacy in the popular media. And like Jack himself, every now and then, a new author would come forward with irrefutable proof of Daddy’s identity, citing this or that new item of evidence for the sensational claim. At least two people’s reputations had been irrevocably damaged. At least three law suits had been successfully filed. Oh yes, just like everyone else, Human knew Daddy Long Legs well. Wikipedia featured an extensive entry on the killer. And at least three other dedicated websites offered a surprising amount of information on Human’s target. In the assumption that the case would never be solved, many of those originally involved with the case had since offered up information that was never intended for public consumption.

Up ahead, another sign indicated the entrance to Hope. To the left, a sprawling township rose from the dusty soil. As Human turned left into Hope’s main road he wondered what the media would make of the serial killer’s sudden resurgence. As it turned out, he wouldn’t have to wait long to find out.

Human steered the sedan along the snaking road, trying to assess the challenges that lay ahead. The obscene amount of information out there was going to make his job considerably more difficult. Not easier. There was a damn good reason why the police withheld information from the public. Human only hoped that at least a part of the police files had remained confidential. Although Human would never admit it to himself, there was a great deal about this case that bothered him deeply. As if there was something – or someone? – operating at some hidden level. Determining outcomes. Manipulating events. There was something intrinsically wrong about this case. He felt it on some primordial level. This was going to be a case like no other, Human thought to himself, once again displaying a remarkable talent for clairvoyance.

The only thing his superiors had told him was that two days before a little boy called Kobus van Jaarsveld had disappeared en route from his school to his house. And that the same day a call had been made to the
Hope Gazette
, delivering a nursery rhyme with a decidedly sick bend. Human had not yet seen the rhyme or been able to review any of the evidence. That would happen the moment he had settled in.

The Johannesburg detective released his foot from the accelerator, bringing the car to a crawl. The outskirts of Hope conformed to the dozens of other small towns Human had experienced in his life. The edges of the town were reserved for mostly ‘industrial’ type buildings. Warehouses, storehouses, large co-operative type ventures. Here, as in most of the Northern Cape, the main industry was farming. And most businesses were farming-related businesses. Dotted amongst the various commercial buildings were also structures belonging to government departments like Water Affairs or Agriculture. Human drove slowly, carefully studying everything he saw. Groups of Coloured residents stared at him intently. In a town this size, it was easy to spot outsiders.

Human noticed a signboard. It said Wide Road. From the map he had studied earlier he knew that this was Hope’s main street. He drove slowly. And marvelled at the claustrophobic geography of these small towns with their single main roads. The cloying closeness of town limits that can be breached with a two minute drive. And then add to that the dismal economic prospects of a community as small as this. That the economic prospects were dismal indeed were evidenced quite clearly by the amount of people loitering in the streets. Watching the groups of people through his dusty windshield, Human felt his disquiet grow as he contemplated life in a place as flat and narrow as Hope.

Up ahead, Wide Road curved languidly to the left. Here, as in many South African towns, was a strange mix of commercial buildings like Banks and shops existing right next door to residential properties. The road dipped and sloped gently towards the centre of town. Human cruised slowly downhill. In this part of town the building density was only slightly higher than on the outskirts. He looked around carefully. Always intrigued by how different life was in the small parochial areas of South Africa. Human looked around at –

And braked hard.  The car coming to a screeching halt.

He had almost hit a pedestrian. A tall white man. Conspicuous for being one of the few white people visible in the dusty street. Human was about to lean out the window of the Corolla to apologise when he paused. The man had hardly acknowledged him. In fact, he had not even looked at the car that had almost flattened him. Neither looking left nor right, the strange, tall man simply continued walking. Completely unfazed by his narrow escape. Human stared after the man, wondering if this was a town inhabited by madmen.

 

 

BOOK: Daddy Long Legs
7.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Secret of the Wolf by Cynthia Garner
Gossamurmur by Anne Waldman
The Burglar on the Prowl by Lawrence Block
Finding My Highlander by Aleigha Siron
Bitch Factor by Chris Rogers
Chasing Forever by Pamela Ann
SirenSong by Roberta Gellis
Night Sky by Jolene Perry
Graham's Fiance by Elizabeth Nelson
Blood Slave by Travis Luedke