Outside lights too. Then there’s smoke and the smell…and we follow it to the back–’ She shoved the tissue against her mouth.
Had they seen anything else unusual? Schalk asked, thinking, apart from the master smouldering. They hadn’t. Where was Mrs Pieterse? Away.
‘Where?’ They shrugged at each other. No idea.
Joepie added. ‘Is she away a lot? Does she stay out all night?’
Valentine flashed a few mismatched teeth, aimed his answer at Schalk, the witbaas. ‘Sometimes. Then she comes back and makes her pictures.’
‘Got a cell number?’ Schalk was losing patience. He tried it, left a message.
Joepie again. ‘How long have you worked here?’
‘Since the master was small,’ said Florence. ‘First we worked for the oubaas, Baas Manus, the master’s uncle. The young master, master Piet, came often to visit. Baas Manus, he passed last year. Now Master Piet came, he’s gone also, who will look after us?’ She started to cry, noiselessly.
‘What was in the drawer next to Mr Pieterse’s bed?’
Florence sensed trouble. She wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand, said with some dread, ‘His gun? His gun’s there?’
‘Not now.’
She leaned forward, heavy breasts resting on the table. ‘We didn’t touch it. True’s god, I don’t know any gun.’
‘The madam’s cupboard is open also, and it looks like things have been taken.’
‘I’m telling you, we don’t know. If something’s not there, it’s got nothing to do with us. You can’t make out it’s us just because we work here. You ask Rina, ask my daughter, she’ll tell you where we were last night. You people, you think you can treat us like kaffirs, well, we did nothing. I’m telling you, nothing.’
Valentine put a hand on her arm. ‘Baas,’ he said.
Joepie asked him, ‘Who are the other servants?’
‘There’s Belinda who works inside here with us. The rest, they work on the farm.’ Valentine thought. ‘What must we do now?’
Schalk said, ‘Don’t touch anything in any of the rooms. Nothing. Don’t clean anything. Some people will come look through the house. They’ll take your fingerprints. Understand?’
They did, he could tell from the way they sat, waiting for whatever was about to descend.
Joepie followed Schalk into the study. It was dominated by a desk, a long slab of yellowwood fronting a high-backed black leather armchair. No computer, though cables showed where a laptop had been. On the wall opposite hung a flat TV, flanked by framed photographs. A young Pieterse, uniformed, receiving a medal. Then Pieterse, older, in combat camouflage with a group of serious soldiers. A second photo of the soldiers, this time holding rifles and standing in a semicircle behind three cross-legged black soldiers, also in camouflage. This photo was labelled Tshanene.
The last image, Pieterse on a boat with another man, both in baseball caps, both grinning into the sun and holding each end of a huge tuna. Schalk went up close.
‘Look at this,’ he said, ‘Brian de Jager.’
‘He still alive? I haven’t heard about him since the Commission.’
‘He and Pieterse went into business together. Overseas, America, some sort of security operation. Venter told me.’ Schalk dumped himself in the office chair, stretched out his long legs, arched his back. Thought about smoking. ‘This is going to be one big fucking mess. When Pieterse and De Jager got amnesty there were protests in London, New York, all over. The whole world knows about them; and now Pieterse gets himself necklaced. They’ll say it was payback.’
Joepie perched a well-dressed buttock on the desk. ‘And now necklaces have jumped the colour bar, they’ll be shitting themselves. We’ll have every single whitey in the country on our case. If it was apartheid payback, why wait so long? Maybe the people on the farm, they had enough of him. Happens all the time.’
Schalk shook his head. ‘Nope. Doesn’t feel like a farm murder to me. Why does he make sure he’s alone? Why lock up the dogs? Who was he waiting for?’
‘You tell me, you knew him. You were his blue-eyed boy.’
‘Bullshit! He only noticed me because of the rugby. He was Special Branch then, we saw what they did, they were bad bastards. We were just ordinary cops trying to do our jobs. You know that, you were there. And then he got me suspended, remember.’
‘Ja,’ said Joepie, ‘and when we find out who killed him, I’m gonna give them a medal.’
Schalk snapped on gloves, opened drawers. A chequebook – who wrote cheques anymore? Manila folders, some bits and pieces, everything in its place. He remembered the rigid tidiness of Pieterse’s office in Caledon Square. He could see Pieterse now, not so tall but full in the chest like a bulldog, walking wide-legged down the middle of a passage, forcing everyone else close to the wall.
The folders from Pieterse’s drawers were marked Current, Miri, Global Sec, Languedoc. That was the farm. Schalk flicked through. Working papers. Nothing jumped out. A list of staff with one name crossed through, Franz Huisman. That was all.
Joepie studied his fingernails. ‘If Pieterse was waiting for someone,’ he said, ‘and they killed him, why the robbery? Where’s the laptop? Where’s the gun? What else is missing?’
‘Buggered if I know.’ Schalk took out his phone, pressed redial. This time a woman answered.
‘Yes?’
‘This is Police Captain Schalk Lourens…’
‘I was just going to call you. I have a message to contact you?’ Soft accent, American.
‘Mrs Pieterse.’
‘Yes?’
‘Mrs Pieterse, there’s bad news. Your husband…something happened.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘Yes, he’s dead.’
She took an audible breath and then there was silence, broken by a voice in the background, male. ‘Hang on,’ she said, her voice muffled, ‘just hang on. Wait.’ Then she came back. ‘What happened?’
‘He was killed. On the farm.’
‘Oh, Jesus.’
After a while Schalk said, ‘Mrs Pieterse?’
‘Are you sure? How?’
In Schalk’s experience it was best to be as clear as possible. ‘Murdered. I’m sorry.’
‘Oh god, Oh god, oh, how terrible, awful…’ her voice trailed off.
He was grateful she
