Last Train to Retreat Page 12

  Hennie Laubscher, GHD’s Marketing Director, a fleshy man in his forties with capillaries like micro roots in his face, spoke for his team: ‘Magnus, our thanks to you and BAT for all the hard work you’ve put into your pitch, and, I should add, the work you’ve done for GHD over the years.’ He stood up, everyone followed. ‘We’ll let you know in two days’ time.’ The agency team stared at him desperately trying to make out what he was thinking but his poker face gave nothing away. For the first time Zane realised what power men like Hennie Laubscher held over ad agencies, over BAT’s future, and Zane’s.

  It was Appleby who cut the brittle air. ‘Gentlemen, a drink or two before you go? And ladies, sorry!’

  Zane tensed. He’d have an apple juice, a clear and fizzy Appletiser that looked like a serious drink. But drinks could lead to dinner. He could be in for a heavy night – the boring one in the group trying to fit in with the boisterous. Appleby had said once that brand wanking always reared its self-satisfying head on such nights. Zane never got around to asking him what he meant – it sounded embarrassing.

  ‘No thanks, Magnus, Appleby, not tonight,’ Hennie answered for his team and made for the door. Jeez, was it a bad omen, Zane wondered, or simply the client not wanting to risk loose talk in the pub on BAT’s chances? It was all a new game to him.

  In the men’s room Zane and Appleby stood side by side at the urinal.

  ‘What do you think, Appleby?’ Zane stared at the white wall.

  ‘Bugger it! I told Justin to use high-finish ads but I was overruled by Magnus.’

  ‘At least the client could see how versatile the idea is,’ Zane said, ‘and that it’s got legs.’

  ‘If he has the imagination, old chap, if he can see beyond the kids’ drawings. There are clients and clients, you know.’

  ‘Advertising would be great if we didn’t have them at all, hey, Appleby?’ Zane teased him.

  They pulled up their zips in unison.

  •

  Zane was about to enter his block of flats when he sensed a presence behind him. He spun around. She stood on the pavement in the dusky light of evening just before the streetlights came on. He had not heard a sound and was taken aback by her sudden, ghostly appearance, in black sweater and jeans and Adidas sneakers, her face ill-defined below her mahogany fringe. He said nothing, waited.

  ‘I had to see you,’ she said, her neutral voice belying her words.

  He had dreaded the possibility of her coming back, known that her leaving couldn’t be the end of it. Two deeply troubled people whose paths had crossed, causing a death and then keeping it from the world could never hope to live apart in peace. That kind of thing happened only in books and movies. ‘Why are you here? I don’t even know your name,’ he said.

  ‘We killed someone, remember? Can we go upstairs?’ Her eyes were still bitter.

  ‘We shouldn’t be seen like this. Come.’ He strode towards the lift. The steel cage opened and shut its doors and hummed upwards. They stood like strangers watching the panel lights.

  ‘Your wound – how is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, it’s closed up and the swelling’s gone,’ she said, ‘the muscle’s stiff, that’s all.’ She had never thanked him.

  In the lounge he made no further effort at conversation. She looked around like a meerkat in a hideout sniffing to see that all was safe. ‘Things have happened,’ she said.

  ‘Oh?’ Insects crawled in his stomach. Were the police after her? ‘Why don’t you just leave me alone, huh? I’m not going to say a thing if that’s what you’re worried about, not because I care about you but because I don’t want trouble. Let’s get that straight. I got important things in my life and don’t need any of this.’ He’d come home fatigued after the agency pitch, uncertain about his future.

  ‘I got no one else to talk to, and things have happened.’

  ‘So you said. So tell me and then go.’

  She started telling him and suddenly he wanted to know more, like a patient who’d been given bad news about cancer, hoped for containment and was now told it was spreading.

  ‘So you think both of them may be dead, Gatiep and Curly? And they could’ve been members of a gang trading in drugs and humans? What happened to Curly?’

  ‘I got the feeling from Gatiep’s father, Sollie Baatjies, that they were members of a gang. But he didn’t say which one, maybe because he doesn’t want them to get into trouble … he doesn’t know Gatiep’s dead.’

  Zane’s mind raced. The men were from Lavender Hill and members of a gang. Could it be the Evangelicals? He dismissed the thought. Sollie said they worked in town but no single gang controlled the city. ‘Isn’t it time you tell me your name?’ he said.

  She hesitated, then: ‘It’s Lena, Lena Valentine. I work for SASSA, at The Centre.’

  ‘I can see you’re not wired for optimism,’ he said, quoting a favourite from Appleby.

  ‘Well, strange that Curly’s missing,’ she said, ‘both people on the train now gone. And both worked at a club or parlour in the city. You know what they’re used for.’ She looked at him with disgust as if he represented all men. ‘Sure I wanted Curly dead – he knows our faces and probably where we got off – but I messed up. Then he just disappeared. Now no one can find him. I tried his number … nothing.’ She told Zane about her brush with Curly at the disco club and her theory about the list of numbers in Gatiep’s mobile.

  ‘Maybe he’s hiding. You’re not exactly the friendly kind, you know.’ He was prodding her to find out more. She was unlike any woman he’d ever met: cold steel forgetful of its red-hot birth, yet vulnerable like a sapling in a storm; feline and slinky, yet viciously feral when cornered. ‘I’d also hide from you if I could,’ he said. A nasty thought occurred to him. ‘Have you come to get me too, because I know too much?’

  Her eyes went moist like the night at Wynberg station when she couldn’t walk. ‘I thought about it, yes, but I can’t,’ she said simply. ‘You’re too good.’

  ‘You know nothing! I can tell you a thing or two about Zane Hendricks!’

  ‘You saved me twice, once from them, the second time from infection.’

  ‘So why are you here?’ He ran a hand aimlessly over his close-cropped hair.

  ‘To be friends,’ she said awkwardly, ‘I’ve never had any.’

  Zane looked at her. It would be like being friends with a psycho. He’d seen them in movies and would rather have a thousand strangers as friends on Facebook.

  •

  ‘Spin Street sure is in a tizz,’ Appleby observed for the umpteenth time. At the agency, people mooched around at the coffee and tea machines, in the corridors and toilets, sat on their desks instead of at them. Smokers, like Appleby, went for frequent puffs in the square across the street where Onze Jan stood, the only composed figure around. Some, like Zane, tried to work and snack at the same time – chips, sweets, nuts, biltong – the constant chewing action calming their nerves. Magnus walked around muttering about how ‘piss-poor’ productivity was in the new South Africa. There had been talk about bigger year-end bonuses if BAT won the business, and with Christmas around the corner the possibility of not winning weighed on everyone. It would be Zane’s first bonus. He’d also been thinking about the girl’s visit. She was unpredictable, a loose cannon capable of sinking his bonus and his job.

  •

  In the afternoon of the following day, Magnus walked out of his office with the electrifying news: BAT had won the pitch, boosting agency billings as well as its reputation. It made everyone feel a little more secure in a business notorious for its insecurity. Magnus opened the bar and beamed, ‘Tonight’s on the house!’ Appleby was twice gobsmacked – at BAT actually winning the business (with rough scamps) and Magnus promptly sending for magnums of sparkling wine. It augured well for Christmas bonuses. Zane phoned Bernadette and told her the news. He thought of phoning his father but didn’t. Just what would Eddie say if he heard it was booze business that Zane was going to handle? No
, he’d tell his parents only once he had brought them across the line to a better life.

  Zane had three Appletisers and missed his second training session in a week.

  •

  When Zane cycled back from the dojo the next evening she was waiting for him on the corner of Court and Ebenezer. He recognised her quiet, slender figure even before he saw her face. Wordlessly they walked to the lift, the precedent having been established. She briefly stroked the bike as if remembering how it had helped her to get around in the flat. He’d never seen her showing any kind of affection and it made him wonder what her life had been like.

  As they entered the flat she said, ‘Did you see the paper?’

  ‘No, it’s been too hectic at work. Why?’

  ‘A body was found on Saturday at Miller’s Point … not rotting yet, a few days in the water at most. No ID but sounds like Curly – big man, dik neck, and wiry, curly hair.’

  As he wheeled his bike to the bedroom the insects in his stomach were on the move again. All week his emotions had been going crazy like an irregular heartbeat – up, down, up, down. He came back and sat down. ‘Without going to the morgue you can’t be sure, Lena. And going to the morgue is not a good idea because you’d raise suspicion’.

  She said slowly, ‘It’s him alright – they say there was a cut on his upper right arm.’

  It sounded like Curly. How bizarre, he thought – both of the men who had attacked them now dead. ‘Aren’t you glad you didn’t kill him after all, Lena?’

  ‘Yes, we should both be. It doesn’t look as if he’d been swimming because he was dressed in a T-shirt and tracksuit pants. The report says police are investigating. It says they reckon the cut on Curly wasn’t new.’

  Zane’s stomach played up again, the girl was bad for him.

  She seemed to sense it. ‘Okay, okay – so I’m not wired for optimism. The police don’t know Curly’s from Lavender Hill but I know. His body was found a long way from where he lived and I think there’s something fishy about it.’

  ‘You’re not only charming but witty as well. Maybe he was fishing?’

  ‘Well, then, where’s his car, and his things? You don’t just take a rod.’ She seemed consumed by the need to find out what had happened.

  Zane could contain himself no longer: ‘Lena, look, why you’re so interested in all this? Curly I can understand, but you want to know more – like the stuff about human trafficking and if the guys were involved. Are there things you’re not telling me?’

  ‘Get us some Horlicks and I’ll tell you about Sarai, the girl from Thailand … oh, the Horlicks is in the top shelf of the cupboard to the right of the stove.’

  The thought flashed through him, I’m the last one left who knows she’s killed Gatiep. Had Curly not drowned she would’ve killed him too. She’s a coldblooded geitjie that feels nothing, why would she treat me differently? She’s in my flat and she’s going to get me.

  ‘You shouldn’t just pitch up like this,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a friend …’ he stumbled over his words, ‘who sometimes stays over … you wouldn’t want my friend to get curious about you … us … would you?’ For someone in the communications business he wasn’t doing too well.

  ‘Ah, you mean one of your kinners, a girlfriend?’ Her face pulled in disgust. It changed to one of apprehension at the possibility of a third person sharing their terrible secret.

  He sidestepped the question. ‘Rather phone if you want to talk, okay? Now that we’re on first name terms it’s okay to swap numbers, nuh?’ For the first time with her he grinned.

  He held his cup of Horlicks with both hands. It was hot and comforting. As he sat back listening to the story of the girl from Thailand he became aware of a different kind of heat. It came from Lena’s look – intense, wrathful, with no hint of melting in her rich brown eyes. It was a look meant for all men, and he was a man wasn’t he?

  Eighteen

  Sollie Baatjies woke up one morning and decided he’d had enough of waiting for Gatiep. He had a quarter loaf of bread with syrup, three cups of tea from the same tea bag, and walked to Retreat station, T-shirt and jeans loose on his gaunt frame, weathered skin drawn tightly over his face like a mummy’s. He’d been putting it off for days and was now dreading what he might find.

  At Salt River station near the city he got off and walked to the mortuary. He explained to the first person he saw, a man walking briskly down a corridor dressed as if it was winter, why he had come. The man called another man wearing a pull-over under his white coat. The second man asked Sollie to wait and came back with papers clipped to a board. He led Sollie down a cold, grey passage with heavy doors every ten metres or so all the while consulting his clipboard. He stopped at one of the doors, put on a pair of gloves, and took Sollie inside. Sollie wanted to run out again. A sweet, ripe smell hit his nose – it made him want to kots – then the cold bit through his T-shirt. He stared at row upon row of cream-coloured shrouds stacked on frosty steel trays and started trembling. ‘Liewe God is my Gatiep hie onner die dooies?’ he cried out silently even as he knew God would not be giving him the answer.

  The man started unwrapping shrouds, one after the other. Sollie looked solemnly at the dead, shook his head each time. The man could have been checking carcasses in an abattoir. Sollie was beginning to feel faint. There was nowhere to sit. He gripped a steel rack and it was like touching a block of ice. As the shroud came off the sixth corpse Sollie suddenly looked into his son’s face – a passive, pale, putrid Gatiep, eyes closed, the cut in his chest stitched up thank the Lord.

  Sollie had prayed that Gatiep would be back, that he’d suddenly re-appear in the door of their house. But as the days drifted by, dread had taken over from hope. Now, three weeks later, with a certainty that only the mortuary could give him and the knowledge that no further harm could befall his son, Sollie knew what he had to do. He remembered the girl at SASSA helping him with his pension and asking if he’d been to the police. She just got her timing wrong – now was the time.

  •

  Bella Ontong was on night shift at the station, for twelve hours from 6 pm to 6 am. Tomorrow she’d do a similar shift and then thankfully get three days off before her two twelve-hour day shifts would start again. Night-time at the station, with her husband and two children asleep at home, was when Bella got her admin done provided all hell didn’t break loose with gangs fighting or people assaulting each other at home. She was in the charge office behind a computer studying the station’s performance against its monthly targets. The way things looked she didn’t have enough ‘A’ class arrests for drugs and possession of illegal firearms, and house and car break-ins were still too high. Her ‘B’ class arrests by contrast were good – for drunken driving, causing a disturbance, traffic violations. She sighed. If only it was the other way around. The radio near her crackled:

  ‘Ah, control, permission with Richmond Delta three two please.’

  ‘Go ahead. Keep it short.’

  ‘Thanks control. Richmond Delta three two it’s Richmond Delta.’

  ‘Three two make a turn for me there at 39 Horstley, East Lavender. Zero one four alpha. Housebreaking in progress, call when you break.’

  ‘One four alpha, 39 Horstley, we’re on our way.’

  It wasn’t far for the car to go. Bella carried on working. Then, five minutes later: ‘Control, Richmond Delta 32 breaking.’

  It never let up because crime did not heed time and the station served a hundred thousand people who lived a hard existence. The calm, steady flow of crackly voices provided a form of companionship to those at the station and reassurance to Bella that crime was being addressed.

  ‘Captain, could we talk please?’

  It was Philander. His blue eyes stood out in a part of the Cape where brown eyes were as plentiful as snoek in an autumn sea.

  ‘Hoesit, Quentin. This is a surprise,’ she said softly. He’d been on day shift and she’d missed him. ‘Bot at home?’ she teased him. With Bettie g
one Philander preferred the station to the boredom of home.

  ‘Nah, something happened you should know about,’ he said and walked towards one of the meeting rooms at the side of the charge office.

  As Bella followed his suited figure she wondered – as she always did – if her shapeless uniform was as unfeminine and arag to Philander as it was to her. Her boots made squashy sounds on the shiny floor. The standard issue Z88 9mm pistol bulged on her hip. She’d often felt the irony of carrying a weapon of destruction on a part of her body that had been instrumental in bearing her children. She’d carried them each for nine months and her gun for twenty years – empowered by nature to give life and by society to take it away. In terms of God’s plan it seemed all wrong but then she wondered if He ever realised that some people were so bad they were beyond help, beyond any kind of salvation. She had looked into some eyes and seen the evil but had never had to use her gun – she thanked Him for that – and prayed that she would make it to retirement without having to kill another human being.

  ‘A man called Sollie Baatjies came to the station today … lucky for me I was on duty,’ Philander said pulling out a seat for Bella. That was Philander, she thought, and loved him for it. As a man he was a general, not a mere warrant officer.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Remember the body on the train at Simonstown? Well, it came from right here – Baatjies checked the mortuary, it’s his son, Gatiep.’ Philander seemed energised. ‘Baatjies let on he was an Evangelical which is new to me, I didn’t know Gatiep. It appears Gatiep worked for them in the city.’

  ‘The case isn’t with us, Quentin,’ Bella said matter-of-factly. She understood him – since the murder of his wife, Bettie, Philander had had his sights on the Evangelicals but there was police protocol. ‘What are you going to do? Advise whoever is investigating the case?’