Dead Before Dying

“Her?”

“The one with the gun, Your Honor.”

“And then?”

“And she waited in the shadow and then the deceased came, God rest his soul, and he saw her and he got a fright and he put up his hand, Your Honor. But she shot him and he dropped like a stone.”

“And then?”

“Then it was all over, Your Honor.”

“Where did the murderer go then?”

“No, then she jus’ disappeared.”

“A woman? Do you mean to tell me it was a woman?”

“Not jus’ an ordinary woman, Your Honor.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was the angel of death, Your Honor.”

Silence reigned in the office.

“’Cause why I’m looking for police protection, Your Honor. Because now she’s coming to fetch me.”

“What did she look like?” Joubert asked but his voice betrayed his disappointment.

“This long, black cloak, like Batman. And black boots and black hair. The angel of death. She came to me last night and she called me, like this, with her finger. Your Honor, I know my rights in the new South Africa. I want police protection.”

Each and every cop knew the visions induced by Blue Train, not from firsthand experience but from countless previous witnesses and accused. Despite the signs, they had remained hopeful up to now.

“Bastard!” said Donaldson and went straight for Hercules Jantjies. Joubert stopped the station commander in the nick of time.

* * *

Early on Sunday morning Lieutenant Leon Petersen phoned. “I think I have the fuckers who raped the girl, Captain. In Mitchell’s Plain. But it’s a gang thing. Fourteen of them. And they’re not talking.”

Joubert drove there to help with the interrogation, compare alibis. Hours of listening to lies, sparring with teenage bravado and blatant provocation. But at 17:22 Lieutenant Petersen’s patience eventually ran out. In interrogation room number two of the Mitchells Plain station he lost his temper and hit the youngest gang member on the nose and eye with his clenched fist. Blood spurted onto the table.

The brown child started sobbing. “My ma’s going to kill me, my ma’s going to kill me,” he wept and began an admission that slowly bubbled up like a pot boiling over. In the corner Constable Gerrit Snyman sat with his notebook, scribbling as fast as he could.

10.

Twenty-three fucking kilograms, Mat. He’s got rocks in his head. Do you know what he said to me? I'’ve got six months for every five kilos. He’s fucking crazy.” Captain Gerbrand Vos’s red cheeks were scarlet with indignation. Joubert merely shook his head sympathetically. He was still waiting for his physical health session with de Wit.

“Jesus, Mat, I'’ve always been heavy. It’s part of me. How can a skeleton be a cop? Can you imagine it? In any case, fuck de Wit. He can’t enforce it.”

Joubert smiled. “He can, Gerry.”

“No way.”

“Police regulations. OC must see to it that all his people are fit and well at all times, and ready for action. Black on white. You can check it.”

Vos was quiet for a moment. “We’re Murder and Robbery, Mat, not a bunch of constables in a show-off unit. How fit must one be? I won’t be able to run the Comrades Ultramarathon, but hell . . .”

Joubert remembered his swimming session of a few hours ago. It was no better than Saturday’s: the stitch in his side after fifty meters of slow freestyle, the cigarette tar in his lungs which seemed to catch fire. After a hundred meters he’d clung to the side again, gasping for breath. He said nothing.

“Twenty-three fucking kilograms. I’ll have to have my lips sewn together.”

* * *

He shuffled through the door of Premier Bank’s branch in the Heerengracht. Slow, deliberate steps, the walking stick tightly grasped in the left hand, the eyes fixed in deep concentration a meter beyond his feet. The wrinkles around his eyes and mouth were multiple, the contours of age.

He moved to the counter where the forms were kept, put his hand into an inner pocket, and slowly and patiently took out a spectacle case. His hands trembled slightly when he opened the flap and unfolded a pair of black-framed reading glasses. He perched them on his nose. The hand went slowly back to the pocket and extracted a fountain pen.

He unscrewed the top, reached out a careful hand and picked up a withdrawal slip. With an uncertain hand he wrote letters and figures in the columns on the white paper with its mauve strip at the top.

When he’d finished, the fountain pen’s top was replaced and carefully returned to the inner pocket. The glasses were folded, put into the case, the trembling hand returning it to the pocket. The right hand took the slip, the left hand the walking stick. He began the weary walk to the cashier.

The Heerengracht branch of Premier Bank was not its largest. But to compete with all the other banks in the immediate vicinity, this branch was a flawless example of Premier’s corporate identity: mauve carpets, wooden furniture painted pale gray, white walls decorated with advertising posters.

Joyce Odendaal’s uniform was equally correct— a mauve jacket and skirt (trousers in winter), a white blouse with a frilled collar, and a silver brooch that represented the logo— a sans serif PB. Joyce was twenty-two, attractive, and the cashier of the month.

She saw the old man’s jerky walk, the brown suit from another era, the gold watch chain that stretched from the vest to the trouser pocket, the tie that the rheumatic hands hadn't been able to knot properly.

She sighed. She didn't like old people. They were deaf and stubborn and checked each transaction as if it was the bank’s intention to cheat them. And they often made an unnecessary fuss about the smallest little mistake.

Nevertheless her “Good morning, sir” was friendly and she smiled. There was a slight gap between Joyce’s front teeth. She saw the food stains on the tie and vest and was grateful that she wouldn't have to watch him eating.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” he said, and she thought that the voice sounded youthful. And the blue eyes set among the wrinkles also looked young.

“What can we do for you this morning?”

“A girl like you can help a man like me with many things,” he said in his youthful voice. “But let’s concentrate on what’s possible right now.”

Joyce Odendaal’s smile didn't waver for a second, because she had no idea what he was talking about.

“Get one of those large money bags and fill it with fifty-rand notes. I'’ve got a big old revolver under my jacket which I don’t want to use. You have such an attractive branch here.”

He opened his jacket to show her the weapon.

“Sir?” said Joyce, the smile uncertain.

“Come on, sweetheart, keep your foot off the alarm and let’s get on with it. This old man is in a hurry.” He smiled. Joyce’s right hand moved slowly toward her face. A forefinger slowly rubbed the skin under her nose, her mouth by now agape. Then her hand started shaking. She lowered it again. The alarm button was four centimeters from her foot.

“What perfume do you use?” the elderly man asked in a calm, interested voice.