Dead Before Dying

Susan looked for the smile that would show he was joking. It didn't arrive.

“You’re serious.”

“Indeed, sweetheart.”

“Good God.”

“No, sweetheart, nice large notes.”

Susan’s hands started shaking. She remembered her training.

The alarm bell is on the floor. Press it.

Her legs were jelly. Mechanically her hands took out the canvas bag. She opened the money drawer, started transferring the notes.

Press it.

“Your perfume is delicious. What’s it called?” he asked in his beautiful voice.

“Royal Secret,” she said and blushed, despite the circumstances. She had no more fifties. She gave him the bag.

Press it.

“You’re a star. Thank you. Tell your husband to look after you. Someone might steal you.” He gave a broad smile, took the bag, and walked out. When he went through the glass door Susan Ploos van Amstel pressed the button with her toe.

* * *

“It could be a wig, but we’ll get an Identikit together,” Mat said to the three reporters. He was investigating the Premier robbery because his manpower was deployed in the Upper Cape, where a bag person had set a friend alight in a haze of methylated spirits; in Brackenfell, the scene of a shotgun robbery in a fish shop; and in Mitchells Plain, where a thirteen-year-old girl had been raped by fourteen gang members.

“Only seven thousand rand. Has to be an amateur,” said the reporter from the

Cape Argus

and sucked her ballpoint pen. Joubert said nothing. Better that way when handling the media. He looked through the glass door of the manager’s office, where Susan Ploos van Amstel was telling her story to even more clients.

“The Sweetheart Robber. Could become a nice story. Think he’ll try again, Captain?” the man from

Die Burger

asked. Joubert shrugged.

Then there were no more questions. The reporters excused themselves. Joubert said good-bye and sat down again. The Identikit people were on their way.

* * *

He drove the service vehicle, a white Sierra, because he was on standby. On the way home he stopped at the secondhand-book shop in Koeberg Road. Billy Wolfaardt stood in the doorway.

“Hi, Captain. How’s the murder business?”

“Still the same, Billy.”

“Two Ben Bovas have come in. But I think you’ve got them.”

Joubert walked to the science fiction section.

“And a new William Gibson.”

Joubert ran his finger down the spines of the books. Billy Wolfaardt turned and walked to the cash register at the door. He knew the captain wasn'’t a great talker.

Joubert looked at the Bovas, put them back on the shelf, took the Gibson, paid for it. He said good-bye and drove off. On the way home he bought Kentucky chicken.

An envelope had been pushed under his door. He carried it to the kitchen with the paperback and the chicken.

The envelope had a drawing of flowers in pale pastel colors. He put down the rest of the stuff, took a knife out of a drawer, and slit open the envelope. It contained a single sheet of paper with the same floral pattern, folded in half. It had a sweet smell, familiar. A perfume. He opened it. The handwriting was feminine and impressive, looped. He read:

The hot embrace

Of my deep desire

Ignites the flame

Of your hottest fire

Taste me, touch me, take me

Impale me like a butterfly

My lovely love, oh can’t you see

To love me is to make me die.

It was unsigned. The perfume was the signature. He recognized it.

Joubert sat down at the kitchen table. Why was she fucking with him? He didn't need another night like the last two.

He read it again. The unsubtle verses created visions in his head— Yvonne Stoffberg, her young body naked, underneath him, sweat gleaming on the full, round breasts . . .

He threw the poem and the envelope in the wastebasket and, muttering, walked to his room. Not another night like that. He wouldn't be able to cope. He threw his tie onto the bed, went to fetch the paperback, and took it to the living room.

He had difficulty in concentrating. After seven jerky pages he fetched the verses out of the wastebasket and read them again, annoyed with his lack of discipline.

Should he telephone her? Just to say thank you.

No.

Her pa might answer, and he didn't want to start anything.

Just to say thank you.

He’d thought the urge had died. The same time two days ago he still believed the urge was dead.

The phone rang. Joubert started, got up and walked to the bedroom.

“Joubert.”

“Radio control, Captain. Shooting incident at the Holiday Inn in Newlands. Deceased is a white man.”

“I’m on my way.”

5.

The other colleague who hadn't given up on Mat Joubert was Detective Sergeant Benny Griessel. Because, despite all his cynicism, Griessel drank like a fish. And completely understood Joubert’s withdrawal. He believed that something had to give in the life of a Murder and Robbery detective, where death was your constant companion, the source of your bread and butter.

For a little more than a year, Griessel had watched Joubert sinking deeper and deeper into the quicksand of depression and self-pity— and not necessarily being able to pull out of it. And said to himself: Rather that than the bottle. Because Benny Griessel knew the bottle. It allowed you to forget the shadow of death. But it sent your wife and two kids fleeing headlong, away from the abusive, battering drunk who made their lives hell on a Saturday night. And later, many other evenings of the week as well.

No, Mat Joubert had a better deal going.

Griessel was the first to reach the scene. He was of medium height with a Slav face, a broken nose, and black hair worn rather long. He wore a creased blue suit.

Joubert pushed his way through the crowd of curious onlookers, bent under the yellow plastic band with which the uniformed men had cordoned off the scene, and walked to Griessel, who was standing over to one side talking to a young blond man. The uniforms had thrown a blanket over the body. It lay shapelessly in the shadow of a steel-blue BMW.

“Captain,” Griessel greeted him. “Mr. Merryck here found the body and called the station. From hotel reception.” Joubert smelled the liquor on Griessel’s breath. He looked at Merryck, saw the gold-framed glasses, the sparse mustache. A fleck of vomit still clung to his chin. The body couldn't be a pretty sight.

“Mr. Merryck is a hotel guest. He parked over there and was on his way to the entrance when he saw the body.”