The phone rang. I thought it might be Hattie with news of the meeting last night. But it was Jessie.
‘There’s a lawyer. At the hospital.’
‘Is the old man okay?’
‘He’s alive, but weak.’
‘Is Candy there?’
‘Ja, and the brother. She asked my mother and the police guard if they’d sign a document as witnesses, but they said no.’
‘I wonder if it’s his will,’ I said. ‘Can’t the police stop it?’
‘They’re doing nothing illegal,’ she said.
‘We’ll have to stop them ourselves,’ I said.
I parked my blue bakkie next to Jessie’s red scooter in the hospital car park. We shared the shade of the rubber tree. The day was hot already and the cicadas were singing their same tuneless note.
Jessie was pacing at the hospital entrance. She wore khaki pants and what looked like army boots, and was armed with a pen and paper. I had khaki veldskoene and a Tupperware with some grapes in it. We were ready for battle.
It felt good to have Jessie by my side again. We marched into the hospital together and met Sister Mostert, her uniform as white and fresh as always.
‘Hallo, Ma,’ said Jessie, giving her a soentjie on the cheek.
‘I’ll show you where they are,’ said Sister Mostert.
A woman police guard stood at the entrance to the ward.
Sister Mostert led us past her, saying: ‘Oupa Brown, you’ve got visitors.’
But three of them were blocking our way to Oupa.
Candy was in cream again, with her peach skin and her sunshine smile. The brother was still in his shiny suit, crumpled now, as if he’d slept in it. He frowned at us like there was a bad smell in the air, but all I could smell was disinfectant.
I could tell the lawyer by his briefcase and expensive haircut. He didn’t smile or frown, he just looked at us as if he was trying to guess our kilograms and centimetres. I think he was deciding if we could be useful to him.
‘Maria,’ said Candy, ‘Jessie. So glad you’ve popped by.’
‘How’s your uncle doing?’ I asked.
‘Much better, as you can see.’
But I couldn’t see because they were in my way. One on each side, and one at the foot of the bed. I opened my Tupperware and held out the grapes; I used them to wind my way past Candice towards the old man.
‘Some sweet grapes for Oupa,’ I said.
The brother twisted round and wrinkled his nose at me, and Jessie took the gap and ducked past him. We now stood on either side of the old man. He looked pale and old, and he seemed to hardly see us. But he reached out for the grapes. The police guard stepped forward and took them away. The old man squawked.
‘No,’ I said.
Those were the last I had of those nice black grapes.
‘Sorry, sir, ma’am,’ the policewoman said. ‘No food’s allowed from outside the hospital. For your own protection.’
‘Poison,’ the old man whispered to Jessie. ‘Someone tried to poison me.’
‘You’re just in time,’ said Candy, ‘to act as witnesses.’
The lawyer had a piece of paper on a clipboard that he held up.
‘We just need you to witness that Mr Peter Brown is, in actual fact, signing these documents.’
I opened my eyes wide, like this was all news to me. Jessie gave me a little wink.
‘Do you know what’s in this document, Mr Brown?’ asked Jessie.
‘Oh, man,’ said David, ‘we’ve been through this twice. Can we just get this over with?’
Jessie ignored him.
‘Mr Brown?’ she said.
‘It’s my will,’ said the old man. ‘Some changes.’
‘Have you read and understood the changes?’ she asked.
‘I can’t find my specs. But Candy explained them to me,’ he said.
‘We just need you as witnesses that he is signing,’ said the lawyer, putting the pen into the hand of the old man. ‘Other details are not relevant.’
The old man made a long wobbly signature like the trail of a snail that you sometimes find on the sink in the morning. Then the lawyer gave the pen to Jessie, and tapped the place on the page for her to sign.
‘Where?’ she said, looking at the page, even though he was already showing her where.
‘Just sign here,’ he said.
She dropped the pen.
‘Oops,’ she said.
The lawyer bent down to pick it up, but it somehow skidded across the room. Maybe someone bumped it with her foot. The air conditioner was making a humming noise now.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said David.
While David and the lawyer went after the pen, Jessie read through the page. She was like a reading machine. By the time the lawyer was back with the pen, she was passing the page across to me. The lawyer reached for it, but his arms weren’t long enough. I thought Candy might try grab it from me, but she didn’t.
The lawyer got on his cell phone and made a call to someone, telling them to get the hell over here to witness a document.
My reading was slow, and the language was all round-about, long lawyer-words, but I could see what it was saying.
‘My assistant is on her way,’ the lawyer said. ‘You can go.’
‘Hang on,’ I said.
When I’d finished reading I looked up at Jessie and we both nodded. I signed and then she did too.
‘Stop!’ a voice said.
It was Kannemeyer. I hadn’t heard him come in, and now he was at the foot of the bed looking down on us all. His moustache was quivering in the way that squirrel tails do when they are all worked up.
‘Candice Webster and David Brown. I need to you to come to the station for questioning. Now.’
‘My clients are not obliged to answer anything,’ said the lawyer.
Candy put a hand on her hip and cocked her head to one side.
‘Why, Detective Kannemeyer,’ she said. ‘Just the man I wanted to see.’
She gave him a smile, not her usual sweet smile, but a strange small one, as if she was in pain. He didn’t smile back.
‘Perhaps this can answer your questions for you,’ she said as she handed him the clipboard with the paper.
I watched him reading the changes to the will. He didn’t read as fast as Jessie, but he wasn’t as slow as me either.
What the new will said was that all of Martine’s share of her father’s trust was to go to the care of her son. Anything left over would go to the institution that looked after him. The money was watched over by a board of trustees which included staff from that home as well as Candice. She could not use the money for herself. There was also a paragraph that said that if the old man died in any ‘unnatural’ way, then his son David Brown would get nothing from the will.
When Kannemeyer had finished reading he looked up at Jessie and me, and then at Candy.
She avoided his gaze, and straightened the sheets on her uncle’s bed as she said: ‘Now you can get on with finding Martine’s murderer without wasting any more of your precious time on us.’
Then the doctor came in. He was a very black man in a white jacket. From Zimbabwe, maybe, with that black skin. His eyes and his teeth were white like his clothes, and they shone when he smiled.
‘Having a party here, are we?’ he said. ‘I hope there’s no ice cream. We got your test results, Mr Brown. The good news is your stomach cancer is still in remission. The bad news is you’re allergic to milk. And you’ve got a stomach ulcer probably caused by the allergy.’
‘Yes, yes, I know about the cancer . . . ’ said the old man.
‘You didn’t tell me,’ said David. ‘You said you were dying.’
‘But milk,’ the old man continued, ignoring David, ‘I’ve always drunk milk. It’s good for you.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said the doctor. ‘Although most doctors would agree with you, so they don’t even bother to test for lactose allergy. The truth is many people can’t digest lactose properly and in some this develops into a severe allergy. It may worsen with age, and certainly under stress. The chemo you had would probably have exacerbated the allergy. If you can get rid of that ulcer by cutting out lactose, your stomach cancer has a much better chance of staying in remission.’
‘So, he wasn’t poisoned then,’ said David, this time addressing the doctor.
‘No. Unless a milk tart can be considered poison.’
‘You see?’ said David. ‘You see? All these years, and this, this is the thanks I get.’
‘Now, David,’ said Candy, ‘nobody said you actually— ’
‘Rubbish!’ said David. ‘He’s said it. The will says it, for Christ’s sake. It’s insulting.’ Little bits of spit were coming out with his words. ‘After everything I’ve done.’
He marched out and Kannemeyer turned as if to follow him, but then rubbed his hand on his forehead and stayed with us.
‘He did give me that milk tart,’ said the old man.
I couldn’t stand by while an innocent was accused.
I wasn’t going to let anyone speak badly of Tannie Kuruman’s melktert.
‘They were very good melkterte,’ I said, ‘and a milk tart must have milk in it. There’s no getting around that.’