I fried bacon and made toast with my farm bread, then prepared bacon- and-marmalade sandwiches. I put them in a Tupperware for Jessie and me to eat later that night. Then I made an extra one, which I ate on the stoep, watching the fat underbellies of the clouds turn pink then blood-red. Then they were grey, and growing closer, bigger, darker. I knew I should be pleased, because they held rain somewhere in there, but they looked so black and heavy, and in their shapes I saw the faces of men with bad thoughts inside puffy foreheads and dark beards. My husband, Fanie, was dead and gone, but sometimes it felt like he was with me again, like a bad taste in my mouth. Suddenly I could see the expression on his face just before he would hit me. My forehead was sweating and my heart beating fast. It was like I was having a bad dream, but I was wide awake.
I was pleased to hear the sound of Jessie’s scooter heading my way. I rinsed my mouth, washed my face and put on my khaki veldskoene.
Jessie came into the kitchen carrying two helmets and a small backpack. She was wearing jeans and black boots and her jacket, as well as the usual pouches and stuff around her belt.
‘Are you sure there’s no one at Dirk’s house?’ I said.
‘We’ll soon find out.’
‘But the police are finished with the crime scene?’
‘Yes, they’ve taken photographs, dusted for prints and all that. They’re just leaving the crime-scene tape up a while. In case, you know.’
‘Are you sure? We don’t want to mess up their investigation.’
‘We won’t mess up anything,’ said Jessie. ‘We’ll only try and help. The more brains on this the better.’
‘I wonder if I should change,’ I said, looking at her black clothes and at my dress.
‘Ja, better you wear trousers. And dark clothes. We should go on my scooter,’ she said, ‘then we can hide it in the bushes.’
‘Me on the scooter? I can’t even ride a bicycle.’
‘I’ll be driving. You just sit there.’
‘Isn’t it dangerous?’
‘You’ll be fine. You got a jacket for the wind?’
So there I was, sitting on the red scooter behind Jessie. I’d changed into my brown veldskoene, navy-blue pants and a dark green raincoat. And I was wearing a helmet and Jessie’s backpack. The clouds were hanging above our heads; they were now so dark and heavy that the sky was struggling to hold them up.
‘Hold tight,’ she said. ‘But relax. If the bike leans when we turn a corner, go with it.’
I took a deep breath as she started the bike and we zoomed off.
I could feel the road under us. Bump bump bump. Like my heart beating. When we turned a corner, I thought the bike was going to fall over. But we were fine. The wind was rushing across my cheeks. I could feel the hum of the bike in my whole body. It did feel dangerous, but not a bad kind of danger. With Fanie, I was always so careful, trying to keep out of danger, I ended up scared of my own shadow.
We went up a slope towards Towerkop, and I could see the lights of the little town of Ladismith, and up there on the Elandsberg, Oom Stan se Liggie. Oom Stanley de Wet set up that little light high on the mountain about fifty years ago. A bicycle light and dynamo, charged by a waterfall. If there’s no water falling, there’s no light, and we know that our water’s running low. Three hundred times and more he climbed that mountain in his veldskoene to check on his light. Oom Stan died a couple of years ago, but his liggie is still there, shining into the darkness.
I took some courage from that little light. Then there was a flash of lightning that showed us the Langeberge, the mountains in the distance to the south.
A rabbit darted into the road, and Jessie wiggled, but we didn’t fall. She slowed down but the rabbit kept running back and forth across the road.
She stopped the bike and turned off the engine. But the rabbit still jumped back into the road instead of heading off.
‘Ag, stupid thing,’ she said.
‘It’s not stupid,’ I said. ‘Just scared.’
‘Scared of its own shadow,’ she said.
Because of the lights of the bike, when the rabbit ran towards the side of the road, its own giant shadow leapt out at it, frightening it back into the road. It was scared to stay in the road, because we were there, but it was just as scared to leave.
‘Turn off your lights,’ I said.
In the darkness the rabbit shot off into the bushes.
A yellow moon with fat cheeks pushed through a gap in the clouds and lit up the road for us, so we kept the lights off as we travelled up the dirt road towards the mountain.
Jessie stopped at a gate with a sign: Van Schalkwyk. Soetwater.
‘Let’s walk from here. Was that okay, Tannie M?’ Jessie asked, as I climbed off the scooter.
I pulled off my helmet, and smiled.
‘Ooh, ja, that was fun!’
She took her backpack from me and then pushed the bike behind some spekboom trees that grew thick at the side of the road. We went through the gate and walked along the dirt driveway that led down to the farm.
Below us was a dark farmhouse with the stoep light on, and at the bottom of the farm was a small cottage, its windows yellow with candlelight.
‘A farm worker and his wife live down there,’ she said.
We walked towards the main house in the valley. The moon was behind the clouds again, but bits of light leaked through and lit up the stony road. Amongst the dark shapes of some aloes ahead of us, I saw a pair of glinting eyes.
‘Haai!’ I said.
‘It’s just a jackal,’ said Jessie.
As we got closer, the jackal trotted away, its bushy tail trailing behind. We stopped in the black shadow of a giant eucalyptus tree behind the house.
‘Sh-sh-sh,’ said Jessie.
I held my breath. What was that sound? Footsteps. Heading this way.
My shoe got caught on a root, and I stumbled, cracking a twig.
The footsteps paused.
‘Hey!’ a man called.
His steps were getting closer. I hugged the trunk of the tree. It was big and wrinkled. Lightning flashed. There was a rustling in the bushes and the jackal darted across the veld.
‘Hah!’ said the man’s voice. He stood on the other side of the tree, and we heard the sound of a match striking and the inhalation of a cigarette. Jessie and I looked at each other, our eyes wide.
Thunder rumbled. The man strolled off. We heard him cough and spit as he walked around the house, then his footsteps getting further away.
When all was quiet, we peeked out. We could see the red glowing speck of a cigarette heading towards the distant cottage. By the soft light of his front doorway we saw the shape of his body, his stooped shoulders.
‘Sjoe,’ said Jessie, ‘let’s hope he stays there.’
She opened her backpack and took out a pair of surgical gloves for each of us.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘to get inside.’
We kept away from the stoep light, and tried the doors and windows at the back of the house.
‘Nope,’ said Jessie, testing the back door. A strip of that yellow-and-blue tape was stuck across it. She took out a card and tried to slide it down the side of the door, like they do in the movies. ‘No good. It’s bolted on the inside.’
‘Here,’ I said, ‘this sash window isn’t locked.’
Jessie helped me slide it open. Then she sat on the sill, took off her black boots and passed them to me before she climbed through.
‘Better not to leave prints,’ she said.
I took off my veldskoene and put both pairs of shoes next to a big flower pot. Jessie opened up the back door. She lifted up the crime-scene tape for me and I ducked under. We stood there in our socks, looking at each other. In the darkness I could see the white of Jessie’s teeth as she smiled.
‘We did it, Tannie M,’ she said. ‘We’re in.’
A jackal called. A crazy, wild sound. In the dark shadows, I smiled back at Jessie; I was not afraid.