Dead Before Dying: A Novel Read online

  “Is that you, Mat?” he asked, his voice barely audible. Joubert wondered what demons were dancing in Griessel’s skull. He pitied him.

  Yvonne appeared in the door.

  “Dessert,” she said, the word an announcement.

  Her breasts and the dark love triangle of pubic hair were only too evident under the wisp of transparent nightgown. She was wearing high heels. In each hand she held a bowl of pudding. Her arms were stretched out, an invitation to the other dessert.

  She saw Griessel.

  Griessel saw her.

  “Mat?” Griessel repeated softly, and then his head fell on his chest in an alcoholic and sensory stupor. Joubert’s head swung back to Yvonne. His thoughts were formless and panicky.

  She looked down at the way she had exhibited herself, saw herself the way they saw her. Her mouth thinned.

  “Bonnie,” he said, but he knew it wasn’t going to work. She threw the bowl of pudding in her right hand at him. It hit his left shoulder, the smell of baked pudding and ice cream rising in his nostrils. It ran down his shirt and his bare chest. She swung round and walked down the passage, staggering on the high heels.

  “Bonnie.”

  “Fuck you!” she screamed and then a bedroom door slammed.

  13.

  Drew Wilson was driving home in his CitiGolf. The radio was tuned to a late-night talk show but he wasn’t listening to it. He was tired. There was a dull throbbing behind his eyes and his back was stiff and sore from the long hours of sitting.

  He didn’t mind the tiredness because it was so good to be busy again. Even if you weren’t working for yourself. It was good to be creative every day, to use your ingenuity and craftsmanship to mold the gold metal into something that would enchant a woman so that she, with true feminine charm, could persuade the man in her life to buy it for her.

  He fantasized about each one of his creations, about what kind of woman—or man sometimes—would wear it. With which outfit. To what occasion. Now and then, there were foreign tourists in the showroom but he tried to ignore them. They were never as beautiful or as stylish as in his dreams.

  He lived in the Bellville suburb of Boston in an old house with big rooms and high ceilings which he had restored. The driveway to the single garage was short but, as usual, he stopped to open the gate, got into the car again, and drove to the garage doors.

  When he put his hand on the car handle, someone, something, stood next to him in the dark.

  His head jerked and he saw the pistol.

  “Oh God.”

  Drew Wilson hadn’t read a newspaper during the past week. The long hours and the pressure at work simply hadn’t left time for that. He didn’t know about the death of James J. Wallace. But he saw the face behind the pistol.

  The physiology of shock is predictable. The brain signals orders to prepare for action, for fast, urgent activity. Adrenaline pumps into the bloodstream, the heart rate increases, blood vessels expand, lungs pump.

  He, however, could only remain seated behind the steering wheel because the muzzle of the strange gun was against his skull, just above his right eye. But his body was forced to react. So he trembled, his hands and his knees shook with fear.

  “I . . .” he said and a tear rolled slowly down his cheek to the black mustache on his upper lip.

  “I . . .”

  Then the bullet penetrated his skull, the heartbeat ceased, the blood vessels narrowed, and the lungs collapsed—the adrenaline wasted forever.

  Radio control woke Mat Joubert at 4:52. His voice was hoarse, his mouth dry. He searched clumsily for pencil and paper when the woman began speaking. She gave the facts in a neutral voice—the address, the sex, who had been notified.

  “Looks like more Chinese, Captain. One in the head, one in the chest,” she added in a conversational tone and said good-bye. He mumbled and put back the receiver.

  He had slept very little and the champagne and beer had turned his head into a mushy cement mixer. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. He groaned and thought about Benny Griessel in the living room. He thought about Yvonne Stoffberg and groaned more loudly.

  It hadn’t been his fault.

  How could he have foreseen that Griessel would arrive?

  He had followed her down the passage but she had banged the bedroom door in his face and locked it.

  “Yvonne, I didn’t know . . .”

  Her voice was shrill and hysterical. “My name’s Bonnie.”

  “I didn’t know he was coming here.”

  “Who opened the fucking door?”

  Good argument. There were noises behind the bedroom door—a banging and shuffling.

  “Someone knocked. I had to.”

  The door had opened. Her face appeared. Anger and hate had changed her mouth, narrowed her eyes. By now she was wearing a pink tracksuit.

  “You could’ve ignored it, you fucking stupid cop.” She’d banged and locked the door again.

  He’d sunk down on the floor next to the door. Now the drunkenness was a burden that prevented him from thinking of ways to convince her. But her final words had taken the starch out of him. He was still sitting there when she jerked the door open some time later. Her suitcase was in her hand. She stepped over him and stormed down the passage to the front door. There she hesitated for a moment, threw down the case, and walked back to him and said with the same thin mouth: “I’ll leave the key here tomorrow when I fetch my other stuff.” Then she left with her suitcase. He saw the firm bottom in the tight pink tracksuit pants disappearing around the front door and briefly wondered if she was wearing underwear. He’d remained sitting there, his mind dulled, liquor a sour taste in his mouth, only a vague yearning left between his legs.

  Sometime during the night he’d climbed into bed and now he felt old and tired. And in Boston a second man was lying with a shattered head and a smashed heart. He got up with a groan. First of all he had to look after the man in the living room.

  He wanted coffee but there was no time. He hastily brushed his teeth but it didn’t remove the foul taste in his mouth. He washed his face, dressed, and walked down the passage. In the dining room the remains of their meal lay cold and unappetizing. In passing he saw the cigarette stub that had smoldered in the plate. The disappointment of the evening’s fiasco swept over him again.

  Griessel was snoring on the living room couch. Joubert found the packet of Winstons on the small table and lit one. He’d go back to Special Milds a bit later. His mouth tasted of stale liquor. He shook Griessel’s shoulder lightly. The snoring stopped.

  “Mat,” Griessel said, surprised.

  “Come on, Benny, I’ve got to go.”

  Slowly Benny sat up, his head in his hands.

  “Another Tokarev murder. In Boston. But you’re not coming with me.”

  He pulled Griessel to his feet and marched him to the front door, then to the Sierra. They got in and drove off.

  “De Wit gave me an ultimatum, Mat.”

  Joubert said nothing.

  “I must leave the bottle or I’m out.”

  “And you gave him your answer.”

  They drove on in silence.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To the cells at the Edgemead station, Benny.”

  Griessel looked at him like a wounded animal.

  “You’ve got to stay dry now, Benny, until I can find help for you.”

  Griessel stared ahead of him. “De Wit warned you, too.”

  “Yes, Benny, he warned me as well.”

  Mrs. Shirley Venter was a tiny sparrow of a woman who constantly used her hands while she spoke very fast and in a high voice. “Shame, what a way to go. In any case, I get up at four o’clock every morning. I don’t have the luxury of a maid. Bob goes to work early during the week and it gives me time to make his breakfast and to feed the dogs and put the washing in the machine. I don’t believe in these automatic things. I have a twin-tub Defy, seventeen years old and not a thing wrong with it. In any case, I swit
ched on the kettle for coffee because Bob likes percolator coffee and it takes a while and then I saw a car with its lights on in front of Drew’s garage but you can see it’s difficult to see clearly through that window because Bob hasn’t trimmed the hedge for a long time.”

  She turned to her husband, a man in late middle age with heavy shoulders, thick lips, and a mouth slightly agape under an Adolf Hitler mustache.

  “Bob, you’ll have to trim the hedge, my darling.” Bob gave a low grumble and Joubert didn’t know whether it implied assent or not. They were standing in the kitchen among the unwashed dishes and the laundry surrounded by the smell of fried bacon. Joubert leaned against a kitchen cupboard, Basie Louw sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee.

  “In any case, then I saw the lights on the garage door but I went on making the coffee and put the percolator on the stove and put out the cups. Bob doesn’t get up until he’s had one cup in bed. And I put in the washing and then I looked out of the window again and the car’s lights were still shining on the garage. Then I thought, no, something’s wrong. So I went to tell Bob and he said I must leave the neighbors alone but I said Bob, everything’s not all right, a car doesn’t stand in front of a closed garage for ten minutes. So Bob went to have a look. I still said he must take a stick or something because one never knows but he just walked out. He still played prop forward for Parow until he was forty-three, didn’t you, darling?”

  Bob made a noise again.

  “And then he found him there and there was blood all over the place and Bob said he thinks the car was still idling until early this morning because that was why the lights were still so bright. And then he came to tell me and I let the Flying Squad know. One nought triple one. I keep the number next to the telephone since that 911 was on the TV. Shame, we were so shocked. What a way to go.”

  Her voice was a knife scraping Joubert’s frayed nerves. He looked longingly at Basie Louw’s coffee. Basie had arrived before he did. When evidently there had been something left in the percolator.

  “You didn’t hear the shots? Noises, voices, cars racing away?” He looked at Bob Venter in the hope that he would reply.

  “There are always cars here backfiring, not like the old times when it was a quiet decent suburb. But now Bob and I keep ourselves to ourselves, mind our own business. And we sleep well. Only the rich have time to lie awake at night,” the woman replied.

  Joubert accepted it as a negative response to his question. “Mr. Venter, did you notice nothing odd when you went out?”

  Bob Venter growled again and moved his head a few millimeters from side to side.

  “What do you know about the deceased?”

  It was as if Shirley Venter had been waiting for the question. “Drew Wilson was a lovely boy. And so artistic. You must see the inside of that house, it’s nicer than mine. And quiet. You never heard a sound from there. He always greeted me and smiled and worked so hard, especially lately . . .”

  “What did he do, Mrs. Venter?”

  “He makes those little bits of jewelry, you know. In any case, when he moved in here I took a tray over and when I came back I said to Bob what a nice boy . . .”

  “Do you know where he worked?”

  “Benjamin Goldberg’s in Adderley Street. It’s a very fancy place and the stuff is so expensive. I went there once when I was in town just to go and say hello to him but it was just highbrows and credit cards. In any case, when he moved in I took a tray over and came and told Bob that he was such a nice boy and you know, first impressions are what usually count because it was true. Quiet and friendly.”

  “Was he unmarried? Divorced?”

  “Unmarried. I always said Drew doesn’t need a wife. You just go and have a look inside. It’s nicer than my house.”

  Bob Venter growled something unintelligible.

  “Bob, you can’t say that,” she said. “Don’t take any notice of Bob. Drew was only arty. In any case . . .”

  “What did you say, Mr. Venter?”

  “Bob, drop that story.”

  The man growled again. Joubert watched his lips. He deciphered the words. “He was a queer,” said Bob.

  “Bob thinks anybody who hasn’t played rugby for thirty years is queer. He was just arty. He was given other talents. Don’t take any notice of Bob.”

  “He was a queer,” Bob said with finality and folded his thick arms across his chest.

  “He was just arty,” Shirley said and fished a tissue from inside the neckline of her dress.

  He went to fetch Griessel at the Edgemead police station. The constable who unlocked the door looked uncomfortable and turned his gaze away. Griessel walked out to the car in silence.

  Joubert drove. “How do I get you into the sanatorium that helped you before, Benny?”

  “Drop me at the front door.”

  “Will you go?”

  Griessel rubbed a dirty hand over the stubble on his face. His voice sounded tired. “Will it help, Mat? When I come out I’m dry, but they can do nothing about the . . . about the work.”

  Joubert said nothing. Griessel interpreted it incorrectly. “God, Mat, I dream in the night. I dream that it’s my children lying dead. And my wife. And me. With blood against the walls and AK shots through the head or guts spilling out onto the floor. They can’t take it away, Mat. I dream even when I’m sober. Even if I don’t drink a drop.”

  “De Wit forced me to see a psychologist.”

  Griessel sighed as if the burden had become too heavy.

  “Perhaps she can help you too, Benny. Take away the dreams.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “But we have to let you dry out first.”

  They drove in silence on the M5 to Muizenberg, where the sanatorium was situated. Joubert took out the Winstons, offered one to Griessel, and pressed in the Sierra’s lighter. They smoked in silence for a while.

  “A Tokarev again?”

  “Yes. Two shots. Two empty cartridges. But the thing has changed. Victim was possibly homosexual.”

  Griessel audibly expelled smoke. “Could make it easier.”

  “If it’s the same murderer. I’ve got a feeling about this thing, Benny.”

  “Copycat?”

  “Perhaps. And perhaps it’s the start of bigger things.”

  “A serial?”

  “I’ve got that feeling.”

  “Maybe,” said Benny Griessel. “Maybe.”

  Joubert explained about Griessel’s dreams. He said that his colleague was also willing to undergo psychological treatment.

  “But he’ll dry out first?”

  Joubert nodded. De Wit rubbed the mole and stared at the ceiling. Then he agreed.

  Joubert thanked him and reported the second Tokarev murder. De Wit listened without interrupting. Joubert told him about Drew Wilson’s neighbors, who suspected that he was homosexual. Wilson’s employer and colleagues had verified this.

  They had all sat or stood among the worktables of the goldsmiths—Benjamin Goldberg, three other men, and a woman. They were sincerely shocked. The woman cried. They couldn’t think who would’ve done a thing like that to Drew Wilson. Yes, he was gay, but he hadn’t had a relationship with another man for the past five or six years. He really tried, occasionally even taking out a woman. Why? Because Drew Wilson’s mother had threatened suicide.

  Joubert wiped the sweat off his upper lip.

  “Any drugs?” de Wit asked, assuming a hurt expression in advance.

  Joubert thought how odd it was that his concentration was always better after a heavy drinking session. Possibly because only then did the mind have the ability to concentrate on only one thing at a time. He took a deep breath and kept his voice calm and even: “I’m going through Wilson’s house with a team now, Colonel. We’ll look for drugs as well.”

  “But that’s not all.”

  He heard the barely concealed reproach in the other man’s voice. Overdone patience crept into his voice. “Colonel, I don’t know how matters stand at S
cotland Yard, but white murders in the Cape are few and far between. And six or seven times out of ten male homosexuals are involved. We’ll have to investigate that in depth.”

  De Wit’s smile broadened slightly. “I’m not sure that I understand you rightly. Wallace, you told me recently, played around with women, and now you tell me Wilson did the same thing with men. Are you telling me there are two different murderers?”

  Joubert’s mind searched for cross-references. De Wit’s smile was different from anything he’d ever encountered. It was the man’s way of handling conflict, his way of releasing tension. But it confused the person on the receiving end. Maybe it was meant to do just that.

  “No, Colonel, I don’t know. It could be a copycat. If a murder gets a lot of publicity . . .”

  “I’m aware of the phenomenon, Captain.” The smile.

  “But I think it’s too soon for that.”

  “Did the victims know one another?”

  “I’ll check on that.”

  “Very well, Captain.”

  Joubert rose halfway out of his chair. “Colonel . . .”

  De Wit waited.

  “There’s one other matter. The article in the Argus about the bank robber . . .”

  “I see your friends at public relations think highly of you, Captain.” De Wit leaned forward and added softly: “Keep it that way.”

  14.

  It was the first time that Detective Constable Gerrit Snyman had had to search a house without the knowledge of the owner. It made him feel uncomfortable, like an intruder.

  In Drew Wilson’s bedroom, at the bottom of the built-in closet next to a neat row of shoes, he found a thick photograph album with a brown cover. He knelt in front of the closet and opened it. Photographs were pasted in neat rows, each one with a caption—some witty, some nostalgic. The feeling of discomfort grew because here Drew Wilson was still alive in timeless moments of happiness, birthdays and awards, parental love, friendship. Detective Constable Gerrit Snyman didn’t consider the symbolism of the photo album for a single second, nor, for the same brief space of time, did it occur to him that everyone left only the happy moments for future generations and took the grief and the pain, the heartbreak and the failures, to their graves.