Recipes for Love and Murder (34 page)

‘Maria,' she said. ‘Oh, heavens! I was about to call you. The police have just left.'

My heart beat in my throat.

‘Is Jessie . . . ?'

‘Her boots, they were on the doorstep when I arrived. Destroyed. Burnt.'

‘Burnt?'

‘Constable Piet thinks they were fried. They're all black and oily.'

I could not find words. The rain was falling softly now.

‘Piet reckons the boots were left here in the early hours of the morning,' said Hattie. ‘They were sheltered by the eave, so they didn't get too wet and he could read some signs, don't ask me how.'

‘No sign of Jessie or her scooter?'

‘No. They're still searching. I promised Kannemeyer I'd call you.'

‘We've got to find her.'

‘Poor Reghardt's a wreck. Before now there was a tiny chance of another explanation . . . I'd even hoped she was off investigating something. You know what a bloodhound she is when she gets on a trail. But now with the boots . . . '

‘I'll come in to the office now, Hats. I'm just going to stop at the Spar on the way. I'll explain when I see you.'

I called Kannemeyer but he wasn't answering his cell so I left a message. I told him I'd heard about the boots, and my thoughts about the messy papers in Martine's office. And that I was going to stop in at the Spar on my way to the
Gazette
.

‘Wait,' said Vorster, as I headed out. ‘Where are you going?'

‘I'm going to work,' I said.
‘
You can go and look for Jessie.'

Vorster nodded, but he stayed sitting. He wasn't taking orders from me. I walked carefully along the walkway, trying not to step in the streams and puddles.

The travelling tin of rusks rattled beside me as I drove. The veld and farms looked blurry in the soft rain.

‘I'm going to find Jessie,' I told the rusks.

By the time I got to the Spar, the rain had stopped. I knocked on the office door. But there was no answer. I peered through the mirror strips, and saw no one inside, but knocked again anyway. A young man came up to me.

‘Can I help you, Mevrou?'

He had a pale white face with skin pulled tight over his bones, and a neat short-sleeved shirt with green stripes.

‘Is the manager here?'

‘He's coming in a bit later today, ma'am,' said skull-face politely. ‘I am the floor manager. Can I help you?'

‘I need to look through Mrs van Schalkwyk's papers in the office. It's important.'

‘I'm afraid Mr van Wyk will need to let you in for that.'

‘Don't you have keys? It's really important. Life or death.'

‘You'll need his permission, ma'am.'

‘Can you call him?'

The young man frowned at me and walked away. He spoke on his cell phone then came back to me.

‘He's on his way, ma'am. He won't be long.'

I walked up and down the aisles of the shop, hoping it would calm me down. The sight of all that food usually does. But today it didn't help. I went back to that floor manager with the bony face.

‘Did you see Jessie here yesterday after six o'clock?'

‘Jessie?' he said.

‘Pretty girl, reporter, works at the
Gazette
.'

He shook his head, and said, ‘Sorry, don't know her.'

‘Her cousin works here. What's his name? Boetie. Can I speak to him?'

‘Sorry, ma'am, Boetie called in sick today.'

I walked past the cold meats and the butter and yogurts. Rooibosflavoured yogurt. That was a new one. I spotted Marietjie at a till.

‘Marietjie, did you see Jessie last night?'

‘Hello, Mr van Wyk,' said Marietjie, looking past me.

‘Mr van Wyk,' I said. ‘I'm glad you are here.'

Mr van Wyk was blowing his nose. His eyes were red and puffy. His hair was smoothed across his head, but it had been done badly and a bald patch was showing.

‘Excuse me,' he said. ‘A cold. Nothing serious.'

It looked pretty bad to me, but I wasn't going to let some germs slow me down.

‘Did you see her, Marietjie?' I asked. ‘Yesterday after six?'

Marietjie shook her head and opened her till, started sorting through the change. Mr Van Wyk coughed.

‘How can I help you?' he said.

‘Can we go to your office?' I said.

As he led the way, he smoothed the hair on his head sideways, trying to get it in place. His shirt was creased, like he had no one to iron for him.

‘I need to look through Martine van Schalkwyk's papers,' I said.

He didn't invite me to sit. He wiped his chocolate-milk moustache, but it didn't go away.

‘What are you looking for?' he asked.

‘Um, I'm not sure,' I said. ‘I'll know when I find it.'

‘The police have already been through her papers,' he said.

I sat down at Martine's tidy desk.

‘Would you mind if I looked through them again?' I said.

‘I don't really see how it's any of your business . . . ' he said.

He was standing, his arms folded, looking down at me.

‘It's part of the
Klein Karoo Gazette
investigation into Martine's murder,' I said. ‘I'm Maria van Harten, a reporter and a friend of Martine's.'

‘Look,' he said, ‘I don't think you should be sticking your nose into police business, but of course I want Martine's murderer to be caught. So I'll let you look through her papers. I'll even help you.'

He pulled a chair up next to mine and we started going through Martine's desk drawer and her trays, labelled
In
and
Out
. I didn't really want his help, but I was glad he wasn't stopping me. There was a big pile of books on her desks. They were full of columns with numbers.

‘Don't you people do your maths on computers these days?' I said.

‘Sure,' he said, ‘but the auditor needs hard copies as well. There's her computer.' It was a little white laptop. ‘You want to look at it? The police took a copy of the hard drive.'

‘Another time,' I said.

If the murderer had been searching through her papers, then it was paper I needed to look for. I opened a book titled
Ladismith.
It was full of columns and codes with numbers and ticks. I didn't really understand it, and I think Van Wyk could see that.

‘She kept records of sales,' he said. ‘She also noted all the stock coming in and out. These codes refer to items of stock.'

He leaned forward to point them out. He smelled funny. Like spices gone wrong. Too much pepper. I wondered if his wife cooked for him. Marietjie had mentioned a wife.

‘Does your wife like to cook?' I asked.

He sneezed.

‘She's gone away,' he said. ‘Staying with her sister in Durban. I'm looking out for myself.'

He should use a recipe book, I thought.

I paged through the book, while he blew his nose. There was another book with
Regional
written on it.

‘What's this about?' I asked.

‘She kept a summary of the sales and expenses of all the Spars in this region. I'm the regional manager, you know. The bookkeepers in the other branches email through their information, and she puts it all together.'

I nodded. I picked up a really fat book called
Salaries
, which seemed to cover the salaries of all the workers in all the regions, their UIF and pension and all. The workers didn't get paid very much.

There were too many books and too many pages. I was looking for a loose leaf of paper. Something that she might have been hiding. I didn't have time to look through each page, so I turned the books on their sides, shaking them. But nothing fell out.

‘Have you looked through the papers at her house?' Van Wyk asked me.

He was also shaking the books now.

‘Yes,' I said.

‘Nothing useful?'

I shook my head.

‘What kind of paper do you want?' he said. ‘Any idea at all?'

‘Well, it might be something to do with money,' I said. ‘Maybe a sale.'

I was thinking of that cash deposit.

I shook out the other books on a shelf above her desk. Two were about accounting and another was a novel. We skimmed through all the loose papers in her desk drawer and her trays. I scratched in the back of her drawer and I came across an electricity bill and a shopping list. On it was written
Lamb knuckles
, and it made me think of that mutton curry recipe I'd sent her.

Then I had a thought. It hit me like a hand on my forehead and I had to clamp my mouth shut so I didn't cry out. How could I have been so stupid?

‘Thanks for your help, Mr van Wyk,' I said. ‘May I use your phone?'

‘What is it?' said Van Wyk.

‘Oh, nothing,' I said. ‘I just need to get going.'

I looked up a number in the phone book and dialled and asked for Dirk van Schalkwyk.

‘He's in a meeting right now, can I get him to call you back?' said the lady at the AgriMark.

‘No, don't worry,' I said.

I was sure Dirk wouldn't mind if I just popped in at his house.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

I parked under the big gum tree at Dirk's place. The house looked very quiet.

‘Maybe I shouldn't have come here now,' I said to the rusks. ‘But I've got to find Jessie.' I opened the bakkie door. ‘I won't be long.'

The sun had turned the clouds to steam and they were evaporating into the big blue sky. The ground was still cool and damp from the rain. I went around to the stoep and knocked on the front door. While I waited for no one to come, I wiped the mud off my feet on the doormat.

I tried the door; it was unlocked, and I went in.

‘Dirk?' I called.

I knew he was at work, but it just seemed polite. The silence was like a heavy thing in that house, sitting quietly, waiting to jump. There was a pile of unwashed dishes at the kitchen sink.

I went straight for what I had come for. The recipe books. Martine's shopping list with ingredients for my recipe had made me think: I'd remembered the books I had seen on her pantry shelf. A recipe book is just the private place I would keep something important.

I put her four recipe books on the kitchen table, and opened them one at a time, carefully shaking them out. The first one,
Cook with Ina Paarman,
had a loose page with a handwritten recipe for butternut cheesecake in it. The second and third books,
Karoo Kitchen
and
A Celebration of South African Food,
were empty. The fourth and biggest book was
Cook and Enjoy
. I shook it and a page fluttered out: my reply to her in the
Gazette
, with the lamb curry recipe. It was there in her recipe book, just like I kept her letter to me in my Afrikaans version of the same book:
Kook en Geniet
. It was a spooky feeling. Like our recipe books could talk to each other after she was dead.

And then I found them, in the middle of
Cook and Enjoy
. Two pages: one full of figures; another with Martine's tidy handwriting. I sat down with the papers in front of me. A fly buzzed against a window. There was the sound of a car, and I thought for a moment Dirk might be coming home. I stood up to put the books away, but the car sound did not get any closer. It must be going somewhere else.

I sat down again. I recognised the one page. It was like the bookkeeping pages I'd seen at the Spar. It had a heading –
Regional Pensions
– and lists of numbers and codes that were hard to make sense of. So I read the other page first.

Dear Mr van Wyk,
she'd written.

The pension records you have been passing on to me for the last three years are a lie.

She'd crossed out
a lie
and had written
incorrect.

I found one correct report in your desk, which alerted me to what you have been doing.

Then there were a few columns of numbers, then her writing again:
According to my calculations you have stolen at least R900,000.

There were more corrections. This must have been her draft letter and she would have given him her final version. She wrote:

I will not report you. But I would like 33% of the money you have stolen. R40,000 now and R260,000 by the end of the month.

You are to stop skimming from the funds within the next three months. The current level of loss would at present be covered by Old Mutual
,
who underwrites the pension plan. However, if you continue to do this, Spar will not be able to make the pension payouts that are due in the years to come, and the workers will suffer.

I will destroy my evidence of your crime only when you have paid me in full.

I read it through twice. Her ‘evidence' must be that bookkeeping page about regional pensions. It was strange that she was taking part in the stealing but at the same time trying to make sure that the workers would not suffer. Maybe even amongst thieves there are different types of wrongdoing.

But it wasn't the time to be chasing morals around in my head. These papers showed that Van Wyk had a big motive to kill Martine. He would probably also know about her love of pomegranate juice, and could have brought it to her, along with some other shopping from the Spar.

I thought I heard a sound. But I told myself I was just jumpy. I should not have come here on my own. I heard the sound again – something crunching? I got up to go and use the phone in the study. My heart was beating a bit too fast. I picked up the phone. It was dead.

I went back to the kitchen and put the books on the pantry shelf. I picked up the two pieces of paper to take away with me. But before I could get to the front door, it opened.

Cornelius van Wyk stood there. His side-swept hair was in a mess, so his big bald patch gleamed like a china bowl. In his hand he was holding a gun. Aimed right at me.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE