His wife was in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee with a big, square man with a thick neck, a moustache and close-cropped hair.
‘Kobus! Good to see you,’ Visser said in Afrikaans with a thin smile. ‘Why don’t you bring that through to my study? We need to talk.’
Colonel Kobus Moolman sat stiffly in the chair next to Visser’s desk and sipped his coffee. He was now in his early sixties but he still looked hard. Rock hard. His reputation in the security police had as much to do with his cunning as his ruthlessness. He had served his country in South West Africa, and had been a senior member of the notorious death squad that had tortured and killed dozens if not hundreds of people at Vlakplaas. Visser had had serious doubts when Freddie Steenkamp had suggested him for the Laagerbond, but Freddie had been right. There were times when the bond needed a man like Moolman.
Once away from his wife, Visser’s smile disappeared. ‘What went wrong?’ he said.
‘I must be getting rusty,’ Moolman answered. ‘It was a simple question of not enough explosive. It must have been a stronger aeroplane than I gave it credit for. But the guy’s in a coma, isn’t he? He’s stopped asking questions.’
‘He could snap out of it at any time.’
‘Do you want me to finish him off?’ Moolman asked.
‘In the hospital?’
‘It would be tricky, but if it was necessary...’
Visser stared out of the window, over the veld towards the ravine where the Elands River, almost dry now, wound its way towards the Limpopo and the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres away. His chest was wracked by a cough, and he felt a pain in his shoulder. The cough was getting worse, he really ought to see a doctor about it. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not while he’s still unconscious. It might just stir up more trouble. The British police know it wasn’t an accident and they have started an investigation. I hope they won’t turn up anything. But I would like you to fly back to London to be on hand in case we need you.’
Moolman nodded. The truth was he much preferred operating on his home turf, even if these days the number of old friends in authority he could rely upon to provide him with assistance was dwindling. But he prided himself on his abilities, he had always been a loyal member of the Laagerbond and he was not about to let them down now.
‘Very well, Andries. You can count on me.’
10
July 18, 1988
I had lunch with George today in Greenmarket Square. It was raining. On the way I saw a copy of the Financial Times on a newsstand: the front-page story was blacked out. This country is pathetic.
George is really down about the Mail closing. He has been trying to find a buyer without any luck, its losses are just too big. I suggested he approach Graham Pelling to see if he will take the Mail along with the other newspapers. George said he will try, but he doesn’t hold out much hope.
I asked George about Muldergate. It’s ten years since it happened and I’m a bit fuzzy about the details. The Mail was one of the papers that broke the scandal, and George remembered it well. I asked him whether he has heard of the Laagerbond. He hasn’t. He was clearly curious about my questions, and I promised I would tell him more when I could. But not yet. Not until I’ve figured out what’s going on with Neels.
July 20
I am crying as I write this. I have just had a huge fight with Neels. It wasn’t about his woman, I chickened out of talking to him about that. It was about the Laagerbond.
All I did was ask him who they were and he exploded. He demanded to know how I had found out about them. When I told him I had looked in Daniel’s briefcase he was furious. He said I was the lowest of the low, I was scum for spying on him. He said I had no right to pry into his business, he said I wouldn’t understand it anyway, he said I had betrayed him, and I had been disloyal. I fell apart. I burst into tears and ran out of the room into the bedroom.
It’s all so wrong, he’s the one whose being disloyal, he’s carrying on an affair, he’s dealing with these weirdo Boers.
For the first time in our marriage I couldn’t stand up to him, I ran away.
He actually called me “scum.” His own wife. I can’t forgive him for that. Never.
July 21
Neels slept in Todd’s room last night. He got up early to go to work, I heard him. At least he didn’t sneak off in the middle of the night.
Zan and Caroline were very quiet at breakfast. They must have heard the shouting and the tears last night. Poor Caroline! It’s her second day back at school and it’s obvious she’s pleased to be out of the house.
July 22
Spoke to Todd on the phone this evening. I suggested that he come out here for a week at the end of his summer vacation and bring Francesca with him. He seemed to like the idea, but he said he’d have to check with her. I hope he does come.
Neels is working so hard on the Herald deal I scarcely see him. Thank God. He’s going to London tomorrow and then Philadelphia. He says he might be away for three weeks. My feelings toward him are so confused. I’m angry, so angry, about the way he treats me these days and about what he’s done with the Mail. And I’m still sure he’s got another woman hidden away somewhere. I haven’t seen any more signs of it, but I just know it.
But I’m also afraid. The violence that I have always known exists in this country seems to be closing in on me, stealing into my own family. First there was Hennie, then the SACP list, then there are these Laagerbond people. Men that high up in the Afrikaner establishment can only be dangerous. And then there’s Neels. He hasn’t threatened me again directly, but he always looks angry, as if he’s about to explode at any second. I fear that he has changed, but more than that I fear that it is this creeping, all-pervasive violence that is changing him.
July 23
I drove into Cape Town to have lunch with Libby Wiseman. She lives in Tamboerskloof in a blue-painted little house on the slopes of Signal Hill opposite Table Mountain. She lectures in English literature at the University of Cape Town, and her husband Dennis is an attorney who specializes in political prisoners. He does a good job too. Although he fails to keep most of them out of jail, he inflicts maximum embarrassment on the authorities every time, which is what his clients really want. It’s Saturday and Dennis was out playing golf. Libby suggested we go to a restaurant in the Bo-Kaap.
We walked down the hill and then along toward Bo-Kaap. I love the area with its steep cobbled streets, its rows of old brightly painted houses, car-repair shops, mosques with dainty cream-colored minarets, and the smells of Africa mixing with the Orient. It’s segregated: only coloreds live there. “Colored” is a typical South African euphemism: it means people of mixed ancestry, people who don’t fit into neat racial categories. Bo-Kaap is a wonderful celebration of what that word can represent: the genes of Malays, Indians, Europeans, slaves from Guinea and the East Indies, even the original Hottentot inhabitants of the Cape are all jumbled together in a melange of brown skin, high cheekbones and broad smiles. And the food is delicious.
Libby led me to an orange-and-yellow restaurant on the corner of Wale Street with a terrific view of the city and Table Mountain opposite. The morning fog had disappeared and the sun was out, illuminating the gray crenelated battlements of the mountain in a soft winter glow. We exchanged gossip about the other members of the Guguletu Project Committee and she told me a story about one of her first-year students who has somehow gotten George Eliot and Charles Dickens confused and is convinced that Dickens was a woman.