Just a Dead Man Read online

  JUST A DEAD MAN

  JUST A DEAD MAN

  Margaret von Klemperer

  First published by Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd in 2012

  10 Orange Street

  Sunnyside

  Auckland Park 2092

  South Africa

  +2711 628 3200

  www.jacana.co.za

  © Margaret von Klemperer, 2012

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-1-4314-0504-6

  Also available as an e-book

  d-PDF ISBN 978-1-4314-0505-3

  ePUB ISBN 978-1-4314-0506-0

  mobi file ISBN 978-1-4314-0507-7

  Cover design by publicide

  Cover image from Wikipedia, photographer Jugni

  Job No. 001780

  See a complete list of Jacana titles at www.jacana.co.za

  For Julian – a patient man

  Acknowledgements

  WITH THANKS TO THE Jacana team of Thabiso Mahlape and Sean Fraser who have smoothed the path to publication in an exemplary manner. And closer to home thanks are due to Julian who has lived with the process, to Judy who read and encouraged an early draft, and to Tiki who said: “Keep going”.

  For those interested in the loss of the troopship SS Mendi during the First World War, and later memorials to the sinking, there is an excellent website at www.allatsea.co.za.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  1

  LIFE WAS GOOD THAT SUNNY afternoon. My younger son, Mike, had flown off in the morning to spend his Easter holiday in Cape Town, dividing his time there between duty to his father and having some fun with his brother, and for once I had my world to myself. An hour or so after I got back from the airport, Mike had phoned to say he was with my ex and the trophy wife, who I had once heard Rory refer to as Ms Tits. I hadn’t reprimanded him: it wasn’t my business if she couldn’t command respect from her stepson and, as a description, it seemed to hit the mark.

  I was free to do what I wanted without having to fuss over Mike or worry about other people – and nothing could have been further from my mind than murder, danger, police or the pitfalls that await amateur detectives. First up, I planned to get on with some painting. Clipped to my easel was a photograph Mike and I had worked on one afternoon, showing my right hand holding a bitten apple, set against a soft, greyish background. Several apples had gone into the making of it before Mike the perfectionist was satisfied with the way the light fell on the tooth marks, that enough of the streaked green-and-red skin showed and that my wrist was visible, the pallor and shadow of tendons and veins contrasting with the other colours.

  I had been asked by a friend to work towards a joint exhibition, entitled Interiors. I had dithered in the beginning, unsure whether I could do it. But after years of being a working single mother, teaching art to high-school students who were, for the most part, simply going through the motions, the thought of doing something for myself had a compelling appeal, stronger than my fear of failure. Although Mike was still living at home, he was pretty independent. Maybe I could even revisit those old ambitions of making a career out of art?

  Vanessa had suggested I contribute six paintings. She would do eight, and Ben, a sculptor and her current lover, would produce an as yet undeclared number of small bronzes. So far I had completed three smallish oils of angled views inside cupboards, one showing a chipped enamel jug and bowl, another a pair of antique china teacups and the third, my Andy Warhol moment, a collection of tins of beans, tomatoes and soup. By then, I felt the cupboard idea was exhausted and I moved on to the apple.

  Now I was concentrating on the flesh of the apple, trying to get the right sheen on the bitten area, hinting at the tracks of teeth, the moisture on the surface. The light was good, and I was slipping into the state of complete concentration that only comes when things are going well when the doorbell rang.

  “Shit!” I put down the brush. I’ve never been one of those people who are able to ignore phones and bells, so carrying on regardless wasn’t an option. Muttering, I went to the entryphone.

  “Yes?” I made my voice as unwelcoming as I could, though once distorted by the machine, any nuance in my tone was most likely lost on whoever was outside.

  “Laura? It’s Daniel.”

  “Daniel! Come in.” I pushed the button to open the gate, and went to the door. I couldn’t say no to Daniel Moyo. He came into the porch carrying a backpack, but it was small and thin. Surely too thin if he was planning to ask for a bed? I felt a guilty moment of gratitude, but the gratitude outweighed the guilt. Much as I like Daniel, I really didn’t want him staying. Those days of solitude were too precious.

  I gave him a hug. “Well, this is a surprise. I thought you were in Joburg. Aren’t you going to have an exhibition there?”

  “I’m just down for a few days, staying with Verne and Chantal, and I wanted to see you, bounce a couple of ideas off you. But you’re painting – I’ve disturbed you. Hell, man, I’m sorry.”

  Daniel, fending off the attentions of my ancient Labrador with one hand, looked genuinely apologetic as he took in my painting clothes. He is a slight young man, very dark skinned, with little round glasses that give him an intellectual air. We had met and become friends when he was doing a master’s degree in the Fine Arts Department, and I was doing some part-time tutoring in the afternoons when my teaching was over.

  He is a softly spoken, talented Zimbabwean whose residence status when we met had been questionable; he was always on the verge of getting some kind of refugee permit, but it never quite seemed to happen, and he had been permanently short of money. Probably an illegal immigrant as well, though the details were fuzzy. At one stage he had stayed in my spare room for three months.

  He had paid no rent, and I had made sure he had at least a couple of proper meals with me and the boys each week. They had both been at school at the time, but while Daniel and Rory had got on well, the more artistic and introverted Mike had been surprisingly resentful, finding Dan’s presence an intrusion into our small family. His pointed remarks became hard to ignore and Daniel, sensitive to atmosphere, had found himself somewhere else to live and moved on. To my relief, we stayed friends and he was still a frequent visitor when he was in town, often staying, as now, with Verne Peterson, a Fine Arts lecturer. When xenophobic violence had gripped the country a couple of years before, Dan had returned from Johannesburg and taken refuge with the Petersons for a while. When he could, he sent money back to Zimbabwe to his mother and his widowed sister who was struggling to raise a child on her own.

  “What are you doing? Didn’t you say you had an exhibition coming up too?”

  “Yes, with Vanessa Govender. It’s going to be called Interiors, and I’m beginning to run out of ideas … I mean, how many interiors are there? And
I’m not sure whether what I’ve done so far is any good. I’ve lost the knack of judging my own work. Come and have a look.”

  We went through to my studio: a grand title for what had been the back veranda and which I had colonised. There was a sink, which was useful, and the light was good, although it was sticky hot in summer and achingly cold in winter. Still, it was my space, and I loved it. Somewhere creative and private where I could switch off from everything going on outside. Well, that was the theory, anyway.

  Daniel walked across to where the three cupboard paintings were stacked against the wall and looked at them, nodding to himself while I stood back, feeling ridiculously nervous. He then moved over to the easel. “Hey, I like that. You’ve got the flesh down really well.”

  “Thanks. But I still need to do a couple more, and I’m getting stuck.”

  “Why not do another one, with a black hand, some kind of tropical fruit and a much more vibrant background? A sort of companion piece: cold European apple versus hot African … whatever.”

  “Dan, that’s an idea. It definitely is. Won’t you model the hand? We’ll give you a guava or a mango, or something like that, and take a photograph.”

  “Sure, why not. There you are – one minute in your house and I’ve solved your problem. And Laura … it’s great. You’re doing good, girl.” He grinned and gave me a hug. Daniel is a tactile person, one of the few I don’t mind invading my personal space without invitation. Since my divorce I’ve withdrawn into myself, lost confidence with people both physically and in other ways. Trust comes harder than it used to.

  “And your exhibition? What’s that about?”

  “Complicated. It’s early days, but I’m thinking about exploring the idea of indigenous fighters in colonial wars. Maybe a series of prints, from Caesar to the SS Mendi. And not just showing the wars, but the aftermath somehow. Maybe some words as well. It’s going to be difficult, but it interests me. I’m doing some research while I’m down here.”

  I nodded. “There must be lots of examples. Isandhlwana, for one. You would know more than me, but surely there were instances in Zimbabwe. And the Mendi – didn’t the survivors get given nothing more than a bicycle?”

  “And an overcoat. But don’t you want to get on? Let me take Grumpy out for his walk while you work. The light’s good, and you’re nearly there. We can talk later.”

  Dan moved across to the row of old cast-iron coat hooks I had put up by the door. A tatty blue anorak smeared with paint, a couple of aprons, a sunhat and the dog’s lead hung on them. When he had stayed here, Daniel had tried to make himself useful and had regularly taken Grumpy out. My house is on a corner plot and the road outside the side-gate is a cul-de-sac. From the turning circle at the top, a path leads into the plantations with a choice of routes favoured by dog-walkers. My parents had been concerned about security when I had moved in, but there was a high fence round the garden, and so far, nothing had happened to me or anyone else.

  “Would you? Dan, you’re a star. This won’t take me much longer and then we can have tea and a proper chat.”

  Dan hitched on Grumpy’s lead and the dog, who regarded him as an old friend, headed off towards the gate. I picked up my brush and began to paint again.

  2

  BACK AT MY EASEL, I THOUGHT about Daniel. His arrival might have been an interruption but I was glad he had come. When he had moved out I worried that Mike’s animosity might have soured our friendship, but Daniel seemed to have taken it in his stride. Perhaps he could remember his own, not so distant, teenage days. And now he and Mike seemed to get along well enough when they saw each other.

  I hesitated over the painting, nervous of doing too much. It’s my besetting sin, the overwhelming of that first fine careless rapture. So I worked slowly, carefully highlighting the edge of the indentations in the apple’s flesh. That should do it. I stepped back and looked critically at what I had done. Maybe a little more to the background? It was a soft, dull grey, thinly painted, but perhaps that was right. Stop now, I told myself. Look again tomorrow. I was moving in towards the easel to add one last touch of cool, pale yellow to the apple skin when I started violently, almost stabbing the brush into the canvas. A voice, loud and shrill, was calling my name.

  It was Daniel. I dropped the brush and ran through the open door, across to the gate. What on earth …? Had something happened to Grumpy? There are snares set in the narrow game paths in the plantations, but Daniel had hardly been gone long enough to reach them and, anyway, Grumpy’s days of energetic exploration are over. But no. There was Daniel running as fast as he could down the road, with Grumpy trailing on the lead behind, looking indignant at the speed he was being expected to travel. It was hot, and Daniel’s face was glistening with sweat, eyes wide, as he reached me. He stopped at the gate, putting out his hand to steady himself as he tried to catch his breath.

  “Laura. There’s a body … up there … just beyond where the path goes off. Lying there.”

  “What? What do you mean ‘a body’? A dead body? Who?”

  “Of course a dead body! A man. I’ve no idea who he is. He’s just lying there. Grumpy saw him first, went over to him, growling. I thought … I went to look. He’s dead all right. There was blood … and …” Daniel’s voice trailed off and he swallowed. His face was grey under the coating of sweat. He dropped the dog lead and gripped the fence with both hands. “Oh Christ. I suppose … I suppose he must have been murdered. His head was bashed in.”

  I put my hand on his arm and physically dragged him in through the gate, nudging the dog into the garden with my knee. I spun the combination on the padlock with a shaking hand, locking out whatever was out there. Even as I did it, I recognised the futility of the gesture. I unclipped Grumpy’s lead and, still holding onto Daniel, probably for mutual support, headed back towards the house. We went in through the open studio door, which I shut and locked as well.

  “Are you okay, Dan? I’ll make some tea. Here – sit down.” I pushed him onto the old sofa, covered with a faded blue-and-purple throw, that stands under the wide window facing out over the garden and towards the plantations where … no, don’t think about that. I looked at Daniel, sitting with his head in his hands. I hope to God he’s not going to throw up, I thought. I’m not good at handling people being sick. I hate it in films, on television, but above all in reality.

  “Dan, I must phone the cops. You okay?”

  “The cops! Oh God, Laura. Must you?”

  “Well, of course I must. If there’s a … a body, a corpse, up there, then we’ve got to tell them. We can’t just ignore it. Surely you’ve got your permit or whatever? So there’s no problem.”

  “Yes, I have. But I still don’t want to have anything to do with the police.” He stopped. “Okay, okay. You’re right. We have to tell someone.” He paused again, but didn’t look up. “Unless you phone them and I just push off …” His voice tailed away as he sat looking at the strong hands gripped tightly together in his lap.

  “You found him, Dan. You’ll have to tell them.” Surely he wasn’t in some kind of trouble with the police? He would have to be here. I went to wall-phone by the door. There were paint smears on the handset, but having it there saved me from messing up the other phone in the living room when I was working. Some time in the past, when he was in an efficient man-of-the-house phase, Rory had put a list of what he thought were important contact numbers on the wall next to it, and I read off the number for the Flying Squad, just below the local pizza delivery. I was venturing into unknown territory here, but the Flying Squad were probably the people to call when you found a corpse.

  When someone answered, I began to explain that there was a body of a man in the plantations. I tried to describe the place, but I could hear my voice shaking as the person at the other end of the line, irritatingly calm, made me repeat my address and phone number twice and asked for the details.

  “I don’t know who it is! I haven’t seen it. A friend who’s here found it,” I said
, hating the sound of “it”. Whatever lay in the plantations, it was a person with an identity, not a thing. But what else could I say? “It looks as if he’s been murdered.”

  “Please, will both of you wait where you are. We will send a car as soon as possible,” said the voice. I put the phone back on the rest and went into the kitchen, aware of my trembling hands as I switched the kettle on. I was afraid, though I didn’t know why. Was it the body, which after all I hadn’t even seen? Or did I fear that something nasty was lurking out of sight, about to disrupt my humdrum but ultimately enjoyable existence?

  I made two mugs of tea, sugar in Daniel’s. Back in the studio he was sitting where I had left him, still looking down at his knees. At least he hadn’t been sick. I put the mugs down on the table beside him and rested my hand on his shoulder.

  “Okay, Dan? Here, drink this. The cops’ll be here in a minute and they’ll deal with it. You didn’t … it wasn’t someone you recognised, was it? I mean, it was just a stranger?”

  Dan sighed and at last looked up, making eye contact. “Thanks. No – I don’t know. I don’t suppose it was anyone I know. It was just a man, just a dead man. I didn’t really take a good look once I realised he was dead. But, God, it was horrible. Lying there, on his back, with blood on his head. He was quite neatly dressed. Not a vagrant.” Dan looked at me, almost accusingly. “I don’t need this kind of thing, Laura. Involvement with the police; a crime.”