On the desk there was a penholder in the shape of a pill. It advertised another kind of medicine. Joubert folded his arms and stared at it.
And those with lung cancer? the doctor continued. Have you seen what chemotherapy does to one, Captain? The cancer makes you thin and tired, the treatment makes your hair fall out. The living dead. They dont want to look into a mirror. Theyre emotional. Adult men weep when their children sit next to the hospital bed.
I dont have children, Joubert said softly.
The doctor took off his reading glasses. He sounded defeated. No, Captain, you dont have any children. But living a healthy life one does primarily for oneself. For your own mental and physical health. And for your employer. You owe it to your employer to be fit. Then youre alert and productive . . .
The reading glasses were replaced on his nose.
Im not going to prescribe something before we have the results of the blood test. But I must urge you to think about the smoking. And you must exercise. And your eating and drinking habits . . .
Joubert sighed.
I know its difficult, Captain. But weight is a dodgy issue. The longer you leave it, the harder it becomes to get rid of it.
Joubert nodded but he didn't meet the doctors eyes.
Im obliged to send a report of this examination to your employer. Unaccountably the doctor added: Im sorry.
The Police College in Pretoria took every group of student constables to the services museum in Pretorius Street in the old Compol building. In general the visits were never a great success. The students spoiled it, in a manner typical of their age, by vying with one another in friskiness and unsophisticated humor.
That was why Mat Joubert only started loving the museum when, years after his college days, he had to give evidence in a murder case in Pretoria. During the five days he had to wait before being called as a witness, boredom drove him there.
He moved from exhibition to exhibition, his imagination gripped. Because by then he had the experience and insight to know that every rusty murder weapon, every yellowed piece of documentary evidence, had cost some long-forgotten detective hours of sweat and labor. With eventual success.
Hed been there again the following day. And Adjutant Blackie Swart had noticed him. Blackie Swart, face deeply lined, a chain smoker with a voice that sounded like boots on gravel, was the factotum of the museum a post he had evidently acquired because he had worn the General down with his constant pleading.
He was fifteen when he joined the force, he told Joubert in his broom closet office in the cellar. Did horse patrol between Parys and Potchefstroom. Joubert was entertained for hours on end with anecdotes and police coffee, the brew that was made tolerable by a small shot of brandy.
Blackie Swarts life was on exhibit in the museum, especially in the glass cases below the sign THE HISTORY OF CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION.
I was part of it all, Matty, saw it happen. I first saw the museum when I came to fetch my twenty-five years from the General, here at headquarters. And I knew I wanted to come back one day. Then I took my pension at sixty with forty-five years of service and I went to Margate and for three months I watched my car rusting. Then I phoned the General. And now Im here every day.
Joubert and the old man chatted and smoked the day away. It wasn't a paternal relationship, a friendship rather, possibly because Blackie Swart was so wholly different from Jouberts father.
After the week in Pretoria they met sporadically. Both were bad telephone communicators but Joubert phoned occasionally, especially when he wanted advice about a case. Like now.
The doctor says I must stop smoking, Uncle Blackie, he said into the receiver, using the respectful Afrikaans way of addressing elders.
He heard the hoarse cackle of laughter at the other end. Theyve been telling me that for the past fifty years, Matty. And Im still hanging in there. Ill be sixty-eight in December.
I've got a funny murder here, Uncle Blackie. My OC says its the Chinese Mafia.
Is that
your
case?
Beeld
quoted de Wit this morning. I didn't understand it, but then . . . His voice became conspiratorial. I hear his black colleagues in the ANC called him Mpumlombini. De Wit, I mean. In the old days, in London.
What does it mean, Uncle?
Xhosa for Two Nose. The man evidently has a mole . . . Blackie Swart chuckled.
Joubert heard a cigarette being lit at the other end of the line. Then Blackie had a prolonged coughing attack.
Maybe I should also give up, Matty.
Joubert told him about James Wallace.
De Wit is right about the modus operandi, Matty. Chinese did it that way in London last year. But they have other ways as well. Fond of the crossbow. Dramatic stuff. Much more finesse than the American Mafia. But the Chinese arent only involved in drugs. Look at credit card fraud. Theyre heavily involved in that. Trading in forged documents. Passports, driving licenses. Wallace had a mailing service. Did they send out banks credit cards? He could easily have supplied the Chinese with the numbers.
His employees say he did no business with any Eastern companies.
Ask his wife. Perhaps they saw him at home.
He slept around, Uncle Blackie.
Could be, Matty. You know what I always say. There are two kinds of murder. The one where someone suddenly loses his temper and uses the first weapon at hand to hit or throw or shoot. And the other kind is the one which is planned. Head shot in a parking area sounds planned to me. And a man who sleeps around . . .
Joubert sighed.
Legwork, Matty. Thats the only way. Legwork.
He drove to Margaret Wallaces. He wondered how far she had traveled on her road of grief. Then, on the N1 between Bellville and the southern suburbs, he remembered his dream of the previous night for the first time.
He suddenly knew that for the past two years he had been someone in the process of drowning. He had struggled on the surface of his consciousness, too frightened to dive into the dark water. He could remember dreams that had come back to him during the safety of daylight. But hed kept them deeply submerged while he drifted on the surface. But now he could plunge his head below the waterline, keeping his eyes open, and look at his dream because Lara had been no part of it. Yvonne Stoffberg was there. How clearly hed seen her body.
Would he be able to?
If dreams became a reality and she stood in front of him, an open invitation. Could he do it? Would the tool of love, so dulled, be able to function? Or was its blade too blunt to prune the past, allowing new growth?
The uncertainty lay like a weight, low in his abdomen, gripped like fear. His neighbors eighteen-year-old daughter. Or was it seventeen? He forced his thoughts to the other characters in his dreams. What was Bart de Wit doing there? With the hole in his head. And Margaret Wallace? He was amazed by the mystery of his subconscious. Wondered why he hadn't dreamed of Lara. Wondered whether she would come back that night. The old monsters found their way into the pool of his thoughts. He sighed. And shot back to the safe surface.