With a shriek Joyce pitched forward on her face in the dust.
Blanchaille returned to his chair.
It was nearly midnight when Lynch arrived, slipping by the pickets at the gate with ease. Blanchaille embraced him, weeping a little. Lynch produced a flask and two glasses. ‘Brandy. Stop that flood or you’ll water the booze.’
‘I’m leaving,’ said Blanchaille.
‘Not a moment too soon,’ said Lynch. ‘You’ve heard about Ferreira? Well, now they want you.’ He took from his pocket a note typed on a sheet of cheap paper. He read out: ‘Tell B. to get going. They’re gunning for him.’
‘Who sent that?’
‘Van Vuuren.’
‘Why should Van Vuuren care? He works for the Regime.’
‘Don’t see him that way. He’s kept faith.’
Lynch wore a black coat and an old black beret. Blanchaille recognised the beret. He’d worn it when he’d taken his altar boys on a tour of the Air Force base near the school. The reasons for this odd Gallic touch had soon become clear.
On the windy airstrip, all those years before, he had made a speech: ‘Every lad should get a view of his country’s armaments. My beret is applicable since what we’re going to look at is the new French jet. The French have supported our Government for many years. The Air Force is very proud of their new plane. It’s a form of confidence building, they say. Between ourselves I suspect this display of weapons is similar to the impulse that makes some men expose themselves to little girls in public parks.’ They trailed round behind him inspecting the sleek fighter. ‘It is called a Mirage. Wonderfully appropriate,’ Lynch said. ‘It replaces the Sabre, which is obsolete. Not swords into ploughshares, you understand? But Sabres into Mirages…’
Blanchaille tried to remember how long it was since he’d last seen Lynch. Ten years? The black hair beneath the beret was peppered with grey and the face thinner, the chin more pointed, but for the rest he was the same, the beautifully flared nostrils, the prominent jug ears, the hard bright green eyes. ‘I live alone now, since Brother Zacharias died of the cheap wine,’ he said. ‘The university encroaches, it swallows up more and more ground each day and you know that Blashford has sold my entire parish to the university? He says the money will be used to establish a new seminary somewhere in the country for black priests. He was advised by his banker to sell my church. Our old church. Has it ever occurred to you, Theodore, that the banks are at the forefront of innovation here? Remember how the banks introduced the new scheme for appointing black managers in their township branches? There was a lot of opposition to it from the white managers but head office decreed and head office was looking further ahead than the people here. Well you know how a little later the Church discovered its mission to the townships, the Church reaffirmed its historic role in Africa, acting, once again, on instructions from head office. In this case, Rome. It is interesting to see from where the power flows. It would be fascinating to talk more of this, but we can’t. Ferreira is dead and you are suspected of being a connection in the case.’
‘Why me?’
‘He telephoned you. That’s enough.’
‘He was raving. He talked of the City of God.’
Lynch laughed and poured himself more brandy. ‘Not God. It was a bad line, Blanchie. You had a lot of interference. What he said was not God but gold!’
‘You’re well informed.’
‘I’ve heard the tapes, a friend of mine obliged.’
‘Who killed him?’
Lynch shook his head. ‘There are two possibilities which the police are following up. There was something painted in the room where he was found, scrawled low down on the wall. Three letters: ASK followed by what might have been part of a B, or perhaps the number 3. The obvious organisations spring to mind. The Azanian Strike Kommando No. 3, the hit squad, I believe connected with the Azanian Liberation Front. The choice of the word Kommando being a deliberate gibe, a taking in vain of the name of the mobile fighting unit venerated by the Boers.’
‘Well, it makes a kind of sense, I suppose. Tony was in the Government.’
‘Not exactly. He was a Civil Servant. And besides, if you’re going to assassinate someone why pick on an accountant?’
‘Well, who then?’
‘There is another lot, home based, with the same initials — the Afrika Straf Kaffir Brigade. Both are mysterious outfits — the Strike Kommando claims to have infiltrated the country to carry out executions of enemies of the people. The Straf Kaffir Brigade is a group of right-wing maniacs who claim to protect the white man’s way of life, motherhood and freedom — whether all of those, or you take your pick, I don’t know. Despite their name it is not actually blacks they’re after, it’s white men who they believe are destroying the soul of the Afrikaner. The Regime, needless to say, denies the existence of both groups. The Brigade has claimed responsibility for shooting up the houses of liberal lawyers, painting swastikas on the houses of selected targets like the local rabbi, which incensed him no end as it turned out he is a fervent supporter of the Regime. They go about generally making a nuisance of themselves.’
‘I remember seeing the name,’ Blanchaille said. ‘Didn’t they release syphilis-infected mice in several of these new casinos these entrepreneurs are opening in all the Bantu homelands, in the hopes of spreading the pox among white gamblers?’
‘The same. They are demented. But why should even a bunch of madmen who ostensibly at least support the Regime, assassinate one of its officials? Equally, why should the Azanian lot murder Ferreira? He was no big noise, no minister, no target. It seems to me that the question we ought to ask is not which of these groups carried out the killing but why they should bother to remove a remote financial official who spent his time locked away with the ledgers poring over the figures?’
Blanchaille knew the old priest had to some extent at least answered his own questions. He suspected, as anyone would who knew Ferreira, that the answer lay in those figures.
‘Do you believe in these organisations?’
‘Believe? Of course I do! Whether they exist or not is another question. But certainly I believe, just as I believe in the Kruger millions.’
‘And the city of gold?’
‘Naturally. It is a question of faith which I cling to with Augustinian ferocity. May God help you with your unbelief, poor Blanchie. Sadly I do not have time to explain my allusion.’ He walked to the window and beckoned Blanchaille. ‘Those lights over there — the flashing red and yellow neon, do you see? That’s the Airport Palace Hotel. Ask to see the manager when you arrive. He’ll handle things. Leave here as soon as you can.’
‘What, now?’
‘Certainly. The very instant your watchers settle down for the night.’
‘But I’m not ready — not right now, anyway.’
‘What? Not ready? Your sainted mother gave you your wonderful French passport. Your dead friend has supplied you with funds. Your bags are packed, I take it?’
Blanchaille nodded and pointed to the three tartan suitcases.
‘What more do you want?’
He thought hard. ‘I have no air ticket.’
Lynch tapped his nose and winked. ‘Faith, my son.’ He drained his brandy and rose. ‘It will be taken care of. Now I’m on my way.’
‘But you haven’t said yet who you think killed Ferreira. Straf Kaffir Brigade, or Azanian Strike Kommando?’
Lynch regarded him unblinkingly. What he said next made Blanchaille’s head spin: ‘Or both?’ he said.
Blanchaille went over to his chair, the same blue plastic garden chair on which he must have sat many a night and on which he was sitting when I first saw him in my dream.
‘I am as much in the dark as you are,’ Lynch said with a complete lack of sincerity. ‘Now I must go. I’m not long for this world.’