Pale Horses (25 page)

The man heaved the gym bag onto the back seat and tossed her the car keys. He slammed the door and strode away again, heading back to the farmhouse.

The night was eerily silent. All she could hear was the rapid sound of her own breathing. But her sensitive nose picked up the taint of fresh blood close by.

Cloying and metallic, the raw-liver smell was emanating from the black bag that the man had so carelessly thrown inside. Ntombi fumbled for the window buzzer and stuck her head out into the night, taking in great gasps of the dry air. She noticed that there was now a light wind, blowing from the direction of the farmhouse, and it brought with it the smell of old blood and decaying flesh. She closed the window hastily and resolved not to breathe through her nose.

And then the man appeared in the doorway again and this time she could see that he was carrying something large and heavy on his back.

Not the farmer, she prayed. Please, oh please God, let him not be strapped into the back seat of the car. The thought of travelling those endless miles home with a bleeding victim or, worse still, a corpse, made Ntombi want to retch.

But as the man drew closer she saw that it was not a body he had slung over his shoulder. It was a large sack whose shape, size and appearance was all too familiar and all too terrible.

‘Get out and come over here,’ he ordered her, his breath coming in gasps as he braced himself against the dead weight he carried.

‘Open the boot.’

She complied, and he heaved the object down into the empty space. It landed with a thud, sending up a puff of dust and causing the big vehicle to bounce on its springs.

She stared down at it wide-eyed, and for a moment felt the world spinning around her. Finally understanding what her employer had done. Finally aware of what her role in all of this was. Not just to play the role of a wealthy man’s wife and help this killer get through roadblocks more easily. Oh, no. That was not the only reason they had forced her to accompany him.

No, oh no. Not this.

From his pocket he produced a small, sharp knife. At first she thought the blade was tainted with rust but then she realised what must have caused the discolouration.

He parted the tight weave of the sack carefully with the knife, exposing some of the contents which were clearly visible in the bright spotlight that shone from the lid of the open boot.

‘Well?’ he snapped at her. ‘Are these what you told your boss about?’

Koenraad Meintjies had known pain before, but never like this.

At his father’s hands he’d suffered many times, often while protecting his younger sisters. The brutal punishment that man had dealt out had drawn blood frequently. Broken bones more than once. Snapped fingers, cracked ribs, loosened teeth. All in the name of the Lord, whose vengeance he was supposedly channelling as he wielded his heavy buckled belt, the wooden staff he used to pound the floor during sermons, or his bare, meaty fists.

Koenraad had soon become accustomed to hearing his father’s voice rising and falling ever more breathlessly in a series of chants as he worked himself into an ecstasy of rage. Just like when he gave his sermons, only at home the violence that constantly simmered inside him boiled over into brutal deeds.

‘And then I saw the horses in the vision …’ The shaft of the wooden pole would be used to give him a glancing blow on the head … ‘And out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone …’ Another merciless blow, followed by more breathless exhortations. ‘… And the rest of the men who were not killed by these plagues yet repented not… Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornications, nor of their thefts …’

When a younger boy, he had done his best to duck, dodge, roll with the blows, until he grew too tired or one of them found a vulnerable target.

Now, bloodied and butchered, all he could do was slump against the tight wire bonds that held him to the wooden chair and listen to his own cries, soft and strange, a faint mewling. As helpless and weak as a newborn kitten.

His eyes had been taken one by one. All he could see now was darkness; his last sight had been the implacable face of his tormentor.

Eventually he had given up the information he was withholding. He had told the man the location of the goods he had come to collect. But then the punishment had not stopped, and he had broken. Cried and begged and yammered and howled. He would have done anything to put an end to the pain.

They had tortured prisoners when he was in the army. Those who had been left too badly broken had been given the merciful gift of death after they had confessed what they knew. But now the man who had inflicted this pain was gone and the house was quiet and he was left with only the screaming spectres of his agony.

Zelda.

He had been betrayed, and now, after he had been unable to protect Sonet from her fate, he had failed Zelda too.

Let her not die the same way, he prayed. Let him spare her or, if not, let her end be quick at least. But please not this … not this. I cannot stand it. Please God, let it end.

And, as if in answer to his prayers, he suddenly saw a clear image, although with his ruined eyes he had no idea how.

Two grey Arabian mares had lived in the veld near their farmhouse, roaming the dry ground and picking at the sparse grasses. They were skinny and rough-coated, but they were wild and proud, and over the years Zelda had tamed the broodmare and her daughter so that they had no fear of humans and would come when she called, arching their necks as they approached and stretching their soft muzzles forward in curious greeting.

Zelda had named them too. The mare was Shazeer and her daughter Serenade.

And now, there were Shazeer and Serenade, just as he remembered them, galloping towards him with a drumming of hooves. He gasped as he saw their beauty, nostrils flared, pale coats shimmering, manes and tails streaming out behind them like water as they ran. Their legs flashed forward in perfect rhythm, every stride strong and sure and true.

This time they did not stop to greet him but galloped past, ears pricked and heads high, and he was swept up with them and carried
along, his pain forgotten, laughing in sheer joy at the exhilaration of speed, at the freedom he had suddenly found.

In the farmhouse kitchen where the overhead light still burned, the wooden chair tipped slowly sideways and then toppled to the ground, taking Koenraad’s lifeless body with it.

Ntombi had not driven very far from the farmhouse when she was once again ordered to stop the car.

Immersed in her own frantic thoughts, she barely noticed her passenger had spoken, and he had to repeat his request again, this time in a sharper voice.

‘Pull over.’

When she stopped, he lifted the gym bag and its bloody contents out of the back seat and strode away into the night.

Ntombi buried her face in her hands.

How could she not have seen this coming? All the questions her employer had asked … the interest he had shown in her predicament … and then the arrival of this man and the start of her nightmare.

He had been following up all along on what she’d originally asked him to. But he hadn’t been doing it for her. Like the farmer, she too had been betrayed. He had used the information against her and now the consequences would be more terrible than she could ever have imagined.

‘How many people will die?’ she breathed.

Then, with a jolt, she remembered the phone number she had been given that morning.

This might be her only chance. How to do it? And how much time did she have?

She fumbled around in her bag for her cellphone and keyed in the number with shaking fingers. She wasn’t going to risk a call. She could not. But on this basic model, although there was a record of calls made and received, there was no record of SMS messages sent. It would be her only way.

‘Pls don’t sms or call me,’ she typed. What next? The location of the farmhouse. She had very little idea where it was, but the man had left the GPS on the seat. She turned it towards her and keyed in the coordinates she saw there now.

Now what?

How could she condense into just a few short words, sent to a stranger, the catastrophic consequences of what she feared was going to happen?

And then she realised she wasn’t going to have the chance, because she could hear the sandy crunch of footsteps. Before she could have second thoughts, she stabbed ‘Send’ and dropped her phone back in her bag as if it were red hot.

He wrenched open the passenger door and sat down heavily. He no longer had the bag with him. He must have disposed of it somewhere out there in the darkness.

She waited, heart thudding, expecting at any moment to hear the trill of her cellphone or the beep of an incoming message responding to what she had sent. But everything remained quiet.

‘Drive back to Johannesburg,’ he ordered her impatiently.

Sick with fear that the woman she had so recklessly contacted would call or message her back, despite her request to the contrary, Ntombi wordlessly complied.

‘Pls don’t sms or call me.’ Jade considered what the words might mean as she listened to the phone ring and ring and ring.

Eventually her call was answered.

‘Jadey.’ David sounded tired and stressed and as if his sense of humour had been rerouted to a foreign country where it was battling to get through Customs.

‘You didn’t respond to my message.’

‘Sorry. Only saw it now. I’m driving past Newtown as we speak. I’ll meet you at Sophiatown restaurant.’

Even over the phone Jade could hear the squeal of brakes and blaring of hooters that typically accompanied David’s split-second driving decisions.

Ten minutes later she was back in Newtown and walking between the flaming oil drums that lit the outside seating area and into the restaurant. Black-and-white décor, oversized images of jazz musicians on the walls, plain wooden tables. David had two glasses of red wine already waiting. Jade sat down opposite him.

‘I’m sorry. I watched the gym but nobody went in.’

‘No notes for me today,’ he said.

‘It would’ve helped if you’d told me you were going.’

They clinked glasses. The house wine tasted rough and sour. A reflection of her mood? Perhaps.

‘I thought you had enough on your plate. In any case, you seem to have your own methods of finding out.’

Was that a smile trying to breach the grim battlements of his face? Jade wasn’t sure.

‘This time, yes. But unfortunately, surveillance being what it is, one stakeout doesn’t usually pinpoint a suspect. Next time give me some warning.’

‘I will,’ he said, but again she had no idea whether he meant it.

‘I’ve got something curious to show you,’ she said as she took her cellphone out of her pocket.

‘Look at this,’ she said, handing him the instrument.

David read the message.

‘Odd. Know who it’s from?’

‘No idea.’

‘Tried calling it?’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

‘Because the sender asked me not to.’

‘And you think they might have a good reason?’

‘Good enough for me not to want to risk compromising them.’

‘Still, if the sender doesn’t want you to respond, then what’s the point of sending the damn message in the first place?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to work out.’

‘The message itself is clear enough. What the hell is that jumble of
numbers after it, though? Three-two-two-three-four-zero-comma-two-zero-three-nine-four-two. Hmmm. Not a phone number.’

‘It’s information, of a sort. It must be. Date, time, place …’

‘Two sets of numbers. The comma separates them.’

They fell silent for a moment, listening to the background strains of the plaintive saxophone.

‘You got any guesses who it’s from?’

‘I’ve got one guess.’

‘You want to tell me?’

‘Not yet. I need some information on the investigation, though.’

David sighed.

‘I spoke to the detective in charge today. Captain Nxumalo, who’s working under Moloi.’

‘Has he sent a team out to interview Sonet’s ex-husband yet?’

‘Yes. He went there personally today, with one of his constables.’ ‘What did Van Schalkwyk say?’

‘He’s been taken into custody pending further questioning.’

Jade sat up straighter. ‘Really? Did that decision have anything to do with his leaflets about the Boere Krisis Kommando?’

‘No. It was because when Nxumalo asked Van Schalkwyk if he’d ever participated in vigilante action or was a member of any vigilante groups, he lost it. Started getting violent and tried to punch him. So, with some difficulty, Nxumalo and his constable subdued him and he’s now in a holding cell at Bronkhorstspruit police station, awaiting further questioning.’

‘Will you let me know what happens?’

‘If I can, Jadey. And don’t make faces like that. This isn’t red tape. I know what you’re going to say. This is just following due process. And you do know that I’m going to be obliged to tell Nxumalo about this message you’ve received. It may be pivotal to the investigation.’

‘I understand,’ Jade said. ‘But I can’t let you give the team this phone number, David. I can’t risk passing on the number of someone who expressly asked me not to call them back. Not even to the police. What if someone in Nxumalo’s team dials it? You know how these things happen.’

‘It can only be helpful to Nxumalo, and he’ll treat it confidentially if I ask him to. He’s a good guy. He’s only been recently promoted to
captain and he’s inherited a total screw-up of a backlog thanks to the previous captain’s incompetence.’

‘Sounds a lot like your situation when you were promoted to superintendent.’

‘Very similar. You helped me out. Do a favour for a friend and help him too.’

‘I’ll give it some thought.’

‘Well, think quickly. My wine’s nearly finished. And in the meantime it would be helpful if you could summarise for me everything you know so far about this case.’ David’s face was serious.

Jade counted off the points on her fingers as she spoke.

‘On the fifteenth of this month, Victor Theron and his base-jumping partner Sonet Meintjies entered the Sandton View skyscraper illegally and climbed onto the roof in order to jump off it. According to Victor, he jumped first and Sonet fell to her death a few minutes later. Right?’