I woke up with the birds the next morning and after breakfast I drove into town. I opened the windows of my little bakkie and breathed in the fresh air. It was nice and cool for a change. The sky was extra clean after the rain and you could see far across the hills to the blue folds of the Langeberge. The veld was washed and green.
At the Gazette office, Jessie was at her desk. She was hanging one shoe from the tips of her toes, and smiling to herself. When she saw me her smile got even bigger. Her eyes had a sparkle in them like they had also been washed by the rain. Over her tank top she was wearing a short-sleeved cotton shirt. A faded brown colour.
‘Tannie M,’ she said, ‘Hattie’s just gone to the bank. I told her all about last night.’
‘Was she cross?’
‘Uh-uh. More worried, I think.’
‘You’re not looking worried,’ I said.
She didn’t answer but her hand went onto her shoulder and stroked her gecko tattoo. The shirt was too big for her; it was a man’s shirt. She cleared her throat, and started typing on her computer. I patted the letters on my desk.
‘I’ll get busy with these until Hattie gets back,’ I said.
I prepared a cup of coffee and a beskuit for each of us, then I settled down to work. I finished typing the letter and meatballs recipe for Marco with the blue plates, and then I looked through my new pile of letters. I recognised a brown envelope, although this time there was no smudge of mechanic’s grease on it.
I dipped my beskuit into my coffee, and had a bite before I opened the letter from Karel.
Thank you, Tannie Maria,
I did it! I sent that SMS. I had to buy myself a cell phone. But they are selling them at PEP for R140. So I bought two. One for Lucia. I got my friend to give the phone to her and we sent 15 SMSs back and forth before I even saw her. We went to the Movie Club and watched As It Is In Heaven. I enjoyed it though I didn’t really understand it. When the movie got sad, she started shaking like an engine that needed tuning. I put my arm around her and at first she shuddered like her starter motor was faulty, but soon she was purring along nicely. When she stopped crying I kept my arm around her.
Afterwards we went out for a burger and salad and I said almost nothing and she ate a few of my chips off my plate and we held hands under the table.
We didn’t kiss goodbye, but she gave me a smile that made my heart vroom like a V8 engine. When she got home she SMS’d me and we stayed up late that night sending messages to each other. And I also wanted to thank you about the egg. I know what you mean, because if you pour cold water into the radiator when the engine is hot you can crack the engine casing. I am wondering if there is something else easy that I can make, now that I know how to do the egg.
Dear Karel, I wrote.
Well done! Now you could make a Welsh rarebit. Which is not as fancy as it sounds. It’s just a cheese sauce, really. It is delicious when you pour it over a sliced boiled egg on toast.
Parmalat has a special on matured Gouda at the moment, which will be very nice for this sauce.
I gave him the recipe my father used to love. The one made with beer and mustard. We heard Hattie arriving. When she parked she revved her car like a Harley-Davidson. We listened for the bump but she didn’t hit anything this time.
She stood in the doorway of the office, looking at me with her mouth all tight.
‘You two!’ she said at last. ‘Honestly. You’re lucky to be alive.’
She came and gave me a hug.
‘Okay,’ said Jessie, ‘let’s write up what we know.’
There was a big whiteboard that we sometimes used for lists and plans. Jessie wiped the whole thing clean with a cloth. Hattie’s mouth opened and closed a few times but she didn’t stop her. Jessie wrote Crimes and Clues as headings. Under Crimes she wrote Murder of Martine, and Murder of Lawrence.
‘Here,’ I said, giving Jessie my list from the night before. ‘Some questions we need answers for, and people we could interview.’
She wrote a heading: Questions and then another: People
I turned on the kettle.
‘Hold your horses, girls,’ said Hattie. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Tea?’ I asked Hattie.
Jessie was writing up my list onto the whiteboard.
‘It’s all become far too dangerous,’ said Hattie.
‘Since when do journalists run from danger?’ said Jessie.
‘Two murders! This really is a police matter,’ said Hattie.
‘We could help the police,’ I said. ‘We should cooperate with each other.’
‘Fiddlesticks,’ said Hattie. ‘Jessie told me they weren’t interested. The detective was quite rude.’
‘Well, yes, he was,’ I said. ‘But I suppose we shouldn’t have been there.’
‘You defending him now?’ said Jessie with a wink.
‘He was worried, about me – about us,’ I said. ‘He said we could’ve been killed.’
‘And jolly right he was. Enough of this silly nonsense, ladies. The police will give the Gazette their reports when they are good and ready.’
‘I have got some reports from the police,’ said Jessie, ‘sort of.’
She was swinging her sandal on her toe again.
‘Is this from Reghardt?’ said Hattie. ‘What is going on with the two of you, Jessie? Enough to give up police secrets?’
‘Not on purpose, really. But he does talk on the phone, and even when he’s outside, if I stand at the bathroom window . . . ’
‘Goodness, Jessie!’
‘Oh, Hattie. It’s my job to find out things. Remember, Maria, I told you last night about the tyre tracks of the 4×4 that Piet was looking at.’
‘Ja,’ I said, passing her her coffee.
‘Well, I heard Reghardt talking to the LCRC about them. Early this morning.’
‘That’s the Oudtshoorn people who come and do forensic tests,’ I explained to Hattie.
‘They were Firestone tyres, which you find on a lot of 4×4s,’ continued Jessie. ‘But tyres wear differently. Like every animal has its own track, depending on how it walks. If you are a really good tracker, like Piet is, you can see the differences.’
‘So . . . ’ said Hattie.
Jessie took a sip of her coffee.
‘Piet thought that last night’s car tracks were exactly the same as the ones he saw after Martine’s murder,’ said Jessie. ‘The LCRC will be taking tyre impressions to be sure.’
‘Gosh. Does this mean Anna and Dirk are both off the hook because they were in hospital?’ Hattie asked.
Jessie wrote a heading: Suspects. Under it she wrote: Dirk? Anna?
‘Maybe they escaped . . . ’ I said.
‘No, my ma said they were there the whole night. Sedated. No ways either of them could drive a car with their injuries anyway. And Anna’s in a plaster cast – she can’t walk.’
‘So it couldn’t have been them,’ said Hattie.
‘Not last night, no. It may take a while to get the results back from the LCRC because tyre tracks have got to be sent to the Cape Town lab and there’s often a long waiting list. The fingerprints they do themselves, so it’s quicker. I called LCRC this morning just to get a sense of police procedure, nothing to do with the case, of course. But in the meanwhile, the police trust Piet and they’re going to look for other suspects. If they catch the guy who killed Lawrence, the tyre tracks would link him to Martine.’
‘Hmm,’ said Hattie, ‘sounds like the police know what they are doing.’
‘But there are lots of things the police aren’t looking at,’ I said. ‘And we can’t just sit on our hands and watch.’
‘Yes,’ said Jessie, adding To Do to the headings on the whiteboard. ‘And there are some clues that they missed.’
‘They sometimes don’t pay attention to small but important things,’ I said, ‘like food.’
‘What’s all this about lettuce and pomegranate?’ asked Hattie, pointing to what Jessie had written under Clues on the whiteboard. ‘Jessie spoke to me about it earlier, but I don’t get it.’
‘The Spar doesn’t have fresh lettuce on a Monday,’ I explained, ‘so the sell-by date on the lettuce tells me it was bought on Tuesday, the day of the murder. The unfolded plastic bag, the missing slip, her broken arm – it all makes me think someone else shopped for her. And, who knows, it might have been the murderer. Pomegranates are not in season yet, so I’m thinking he bought her pomegranate juice. This might have been what they drank together. Maybe he put a sleeping drug in her drink.’
I wished I could’ve explained things so nicely to Kannemeyer last night.
‘Piet was unscrewing the sink at Martine’s house,’ said Jessie, ‘so maybe they’ll find some juice to send off for testing.’
‘Hmm,’ said Hattie. ‘It could’ve been her husband, shopping for her.’
‘Ja, Mr Nice Guy,’ said Jessie. ‘I’ll speak to my friend Sanna, who works at the Agri with Dirk. Martine died sometime in the morning and they usually only take off at lunchtime.’
Jessie added Sanna’s name up on the whiteboard, under People.
‘You think he might’ve left early, to shop, and knock off his wife?’ said Hattie.
‘Who do you think we should interview first, Harriet?’ said Jessie.
Hattie studied our notes on the whiteboard.
‘I’d say start with the woman who showed up last night, calling for the dead man.’
‘I found out her name. It’s Grace,’ said Jessie, writing it on the board. ‘I’m not sure of her surname. She’s a domestic worker at the Van Schalkwyks’.’
‘And of course you should talk to Dirk and Anna. And your friend at the Agri. Maybe the people Martine worked with too . . . I don’t see any of their names up there. And what about the people who look after her boy with cerebral palsy? Any other friends, family, religious contacts? Look into her past a bit, see if anyone pops up there.’
‘That’s quite a list,’ said Jessie, scribbling Hattie’s ideas onto the whiteboard.
‘If you are going to investigate, you might as well do it properly, for heaven’s sake.’
Jessie had a sip of her coffee and winked at me.
‘Some of these people might not talk to us just like that,’ I said. ‘They might need some convincing.’
‘Ja,’ said Jessie, ‘I think that vetkoek idea of yours was good. With curry mince.’
‘Mmm,’ said Hattie, because even English people who don’t eat properly know how convincing a vetkoek with mince can be. ‘Okay, you two, find out what you can. But be jolly careful. And any articles, you run by me before posting.’ She looked at Jessie. ‘And don’t let the other Gazette work fall behind.’
‘I’m finishing off my stories right now,’ Jessie said, turning back to her computer. ‘The article on the Philipstown Quilting Festival and Car Wire Derby is almost done, and I’m going to the Ladismith school fête this afternoon.’ She grinned. ‘Looking forward to it.’
‘I’ll take these home,’ I said, picking up the rest of my letters. ‘I need to pick some things up at the Spar and then get cooking.’
‘Can you fetch me here at five, Tannie M?’ Jessie asked. ‘And we’ll go straight to Lawrence’s woman, Grace. My scooter’s still on their farm.’
‘Sure,’ I said.
‘Then we can go on to Dirk and Anna at the hospital. You’ll make vetkoek for them too? And maybe a couple of extra ones . . . ’ she said.
‘Of course.’
I was at the door already. I had a lot of cooking to do. Starting with that Welsh rarebit.