Roadkill, page 4
“Is it out?”
“Ja. You know what else?”
“What?”
“I’m glad I chose you instead of Russel Stevens.”
“Me too.”
Aldridge walked over to the caravan, determined not to let this latest get him down. After all, wasn’t it the definition of adventure? Expecting the unexpected, facing a challenge head-on? Like the American guy said at the company bosberaad: the only thing standing between you and achieving the impossible is attitude. Spelt with a capital A, gentlemen. With the right Attitude, one could achieve anything. South Africans knew it more than any nation on earth. There was a reason for the saying, ’n boer maak—
A dusty running shoe in front of the caravan door had caught his eye. One of those Nikey numbers stacked on the stands outside Pep. Was it only in South Africa one came across lonely shoes in the middle of nowhere? Someone could write a book on the subject; it would sell like hotcakes. He stepped in for a closer look. Strange. It was the real deal – a Nike Pegasus. Besides the dust, it looked practically new. No ways it could have fallen off a bakkie carrying farm labourers. Aldridge dropped down and peered under the Jurgens – no harm checking. A moment later he stumbled backwards.
“Babe, what’s wrong? Has something stung you?”
Unable to mouth coherent speech, Aldridge pointed at the underside of the caravan.
Balancing the Crème Sodas on the ground, Tarryn walked over to where he was pointing, and bent down for a first-hand look. “What, is it the—”
She blinked. Then blinked again. It couldn’t be. But it was. A human being. A human being wrapped around the tow bar. Gazing up at her with a bewildered expression. Dressed in a vest and jogging shorts. The foot nearest to her was wearing a Nike running shoe. The other foot was wearing a black sock with a hole in the big toe. The man was dead. Deader than a dodo.
9
“Steven, just think straight for one minute. We can’t leave him here. Imagine what it’s going to look like … First you get stopped for speeding. A few minutes later you drive over someone. They’ll say it’s a hit and run. You … We won’t have a leg to stand on. They’ll throw away the key. They’ll … Oh my God, what are we going to do?” Tarryn Aldridge sucked in deep for air. Bit down hard on her lip.
Her husband of twelve and a half years could barely manage a whisper. “I wasn’t speeding. You saw how the sun was in my eyes. I didn’t see him. I swear on the Bible I didn’t see him.”
Tarryn gazed into the morning vista of brown koppies. Her moment of panic had come and gone; she now felt strangely calm – like watching a movie of herself from high above. Curled up against the tree, Steve reminded her of an abandoned orphan creature from Animal Planet. It was an odd sensation seeing him like that.
Someone had to take control. She walked over to the tree. Her tone was now slow and measured. “Look me in the eyes, babes. Think how this is going to look in a court of law. It’ll make no difference if you were speeding or not, because it’s their word against ours. Who do you think the judge will believe? Us or that cop?” Taking her husband by the shoulders, she shook him gently. “Are you listening to me? We have to decide what we’re going to do, and we have to decide now.”
“This is all a nightmare. Please tell me this is a nightmare.” The long slow moan that followed was more animal than human. And it scared her.
Softly-softly clearly wasn’t working – he was too far gone. Tarryn couldn’t afford to be dragged down with him. She released his grip on her leg and pushed him away.
“What will they give you for hit and run? Twenty years? Thirty? Life? Think about it – you’ll be an old man before they let you out of jail. But hey, you’re right, let’s sit here and wait for Officer Psycho. I bet he’s packing up this very minute and coming back for lunch at the Wimpy.” Her words were stinging and barbed and more effective than a swarm of angry bees.
Aldridge jolted upright, his eyes staring and wild. A trail of crystallised spit ran down his chin. “What do you want us to do?”
“That’s better.” Tarryn’s mind was working fast; she had already played out the options. There weren’t many. “We have to move him. If we don’t, they’ll trace him back to us. They have our details and our tracks are all over the place. We might as well leave a note for them. You understand what I am saying?”
Aldridge nodded weakly. “Like move him where?”
“I’m thinking … We can’t dump him in the veld; they’ll find him in no time. We have to find someplace else, far away as possible from here, so they can’t make the connection.”
A wave of fresh horror washed over Aldridge’s face. “You mean he has to come with us in the car?”
“Unless you want to call a taxi. Why, have you got any other bright-spark ideas?”
“But—”
“Thought so. He can flippin’ go in the caravan if it will make you feel better—” Tarryn brought a finger to her lips. “What’s that noise?”
“What? What can you hear?”
“Shit, I think a car’s coming.”
The words were barely out her mouth when a white vehicle – a white police van, to be precise – floated into view. Bearing down on them, its engine whining under the strain, time and space hung suspended. The van hurtled past. Steve and Tarryn Aldridge stared at each other in wide-eyed terror. Even at speed, there was no mistaking the driver.
“We’ve got to get out of here, babes!”
This time around her husband required little encouragement. In fact, he appeared positively revived by the latest brush with the law. He stepped past Tarryn and pulled open the caravan door. “Let’s do it!”
“Where you going?”
“To fetch the groundsheet.”
Swallowing hard, Tarryn Aldridge approached the twisted heap wrapped around the tow bar. It seemed so small and frail. More jogging short and vest than flesh and bone.
“I don’t know how you can look,” croaked Aldridge.
Tarryn reached down and tentatively took hold of a skinny ankle. The skin was cold – sort of Checkers-fresh-chicken cold. She pulled on the ankle. It pulled back. She pulled harder. It wouldn’t budge.
“You need to help me here. He’s stuck.”
“What must I do?”
“Grab the other leg.”
Aldridge crouched down beside her. Trying not to look, he groped underneath the caravan for the other ankle – the one with the shoe.
“You ready?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Not now, Steve. Okay, on the count of three. One … two … three!”
“He’s not moving.”
“Let’s try again. But pull harder this time. One, two, three, pull!”
Tarryn gave it all she had. At first, nothing happened. But then, the sound of tearing polyester and a dull thud as the body dropped to the ground.
“Let’s get him into the veld, behind the tree.”
Clutching an ankle apiece, they dragged the corpse across the open, and into the grass.
“You can let go now, Steve.”
The man lay spread-eagled on his back, his face gazing into the cloudless sky. His right arm lay loosely at his side, his left twisted and broken behind his back. The shorts were blue polycotton. The Zeerust Half-Marathon vest was shredded. He was covered in brown dust. There wasn’t much blood, but this didn’t make him any less awful. His lip was curled back. His front teeth were smashed to smithereens. Tarryn stared down at him, transfixed by the odd little details. She couldn’t make out if he was white or coloured – come to think of it, she wasn’t even sure they had coloureds in this part of the country. His eyes were misty green. He looked about Steve’s age – forty, forty-five-ish. He looked confused. Which was understandable.
“The groundsheet, Steve.”
Aldridge unwrapped the blue groundsheet and spread it open next to the body.
“I can’t believe this is happening—”
“Please, sweetie, this isn’t the time. I’ll take the top, you do the legs, and we’ll roll him onto it. You ready?”
“No, but let’s do it.”
They flipped the body over, facedown.
“Again.”
The body now lay on the edge of the groundsheet, face up. Taking hold of the corners, they proceeded to roll the sheet with the body. For some odd reason it reminded Tarryn of the time she made chicken wraps for Steve’s mom and dad.
“We’re almost there! You lead the way.” They lifted the blue vinyl shroud and walked it slowly to the caravan. “Okay, one, two, lift.” Aldridge heaved the head of the bundle into the caravan, climbed in, and dragged it across the linoleum. “All the way to the back … Okay, that’s fine … You better cover him with the duvet.”
Keeping guard at the caravan window, Tarryn stretched her back; this was more of a workout than Curves. She watched her husband drape the new Mr Price duvet over the blue package. It was like watching a clumsy robot at work.
“Enough faffing, Steve. It’s fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Please, can we just get the heck out of here now!”
10
Hot and cranky, Truter headed back to the station. The half-pack of Grandpas he’d tossed back over the course of the morning had long since thrown in the towel; his hangover had returned in great swathes of sweeping cranial pain. It was now all too obvious he should have stayed in bed and called in sick, and gifted Delport the favour of experiencing the burden of responsibility first-hand.
The morning had been a total write-off. After Fortuner boy, zilch, not a stitch of action. Nothing but taxi after taxi heading up to Limpopo. If he’d known things were going to be deader than Boksburg State Mortuary, he wouldn’t have let Fortuner boy off so lightly. What was he thinking? On reflection, he wouldn’t have said no to that wife of his. Blonde chicks did it for him; it didn’t matter the blonde came straight out a bottle. If he could rewind the tape and start over, he would play it differently next time. He wouldn’t even bother with Fortuner boy. He would start on the passenger side, invite her out of the car, do a full body check for concealed weapons. He would take it nice and slow, no rough stuff; she would love it and be begging for more of the same. Why decent-looking women went for slapgatte like Fortuner boy was beyond understanding. It could only be the money and fancy caravan holidays. Gold diggers, the lot of them. Sharon all over again. Divorce was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Good riddance to bad rubbish was all he had to say on the subject.
The raw memory of Sharon had Truter scratching in the cubbyhole for his Grandpas. The box came up empty. He crushed it in his fist, screwed down the window and tossed it to the wind.
The van screamed into the station yard and came to a skidding halt next to Delport’s white Corsa. Truter waited for the dust cloud to pass, before lifting himself out, slamming the door and lumbering up the concrete steps.
“Fokken hot or what out there!” He slapped the counter. “What’s up, Poortjie?”
Constable Delport winced. He lifted his head from behind the mountain of brown case folders.
“Afternoon, Sergeant. Sorry, I mean, morning.”
“Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Hell, Delport, what’s making you so deurmekaar there?”
“Just sorting through some dockets, sir.”
Adrian Delport was a bony bird of a man, cursed with red hair, glasses, and a pale complexion – a combination ill-suited both to Africa and the South African Police Services. Truter had formally drawn attention to this plain fact in his letter to Pretoria, requesting Delport’s transfer back to where he had come from – Ladysmith or some other lady-boy sounding place. As the letter explained, it was clear as day his deputy’s appearance undermined public morale. Following the chain of logic, this in turn undermined his own morale, which in turn undermined the morale of the South African Police Services. Which wasn’t a good thing, since morale was already at an all-time low. Three months on, Truter was still awaiting a reply, which proved that Pretoria didn’t care a pimply arse about what was happening on the ground. Next time, he wouldn’t bother.
Although Truter had written off Delport as a crime-fighting machine, even an idiot could see what the man lacked in physical presence he made up in administrative diligence. In fact, Truter had slowly come to realise Delport’s physical deficiencies suited him just fine, because the only thing he hated more than money-grabbing cockteasers, Pretoria fat cats, and meddling ex-brothers-in-law, was petty admin. Truter had zero tolerance for it. Admin was an insult to his intelligence and his true calling. God had put him on this earth to serve his country, to get his hands dirty, to fight crime on the streets head-on. God did not put him on earth to fill in multi-coloured forms. His unspoken arrangement with Delport therefore suited him just fine. He got to fight crime and Pretoria got their forms.
Truter walked casually around the counter and flicked the back of Delport’s head. “So, what’s so interesting in those folders?
Delport adjusted his glasses. “Just the usual stuff, sir.”
“Just the usual stuff, what? Who’s been getting up to kak in my absence?”
Delport had distilled the open dockets into a one-page summary. Bracing for the inevitable, he started at the top.
“One. Attempted break-in at 24 Florence Road. The next-door neighbour says she allegedly saw the Witbooi brothers loitering there early this morning—”
“Allegedly my foot. Of course it’s them.” Truter made a mental note. Little donders. Even if they denied it, he would sort out the Witbooi twins good and proper. This was one policing principle he shared with Delport: prevention was better than cure. “Next?”
“Two. Report of drunk and disorderly behaviour outside Manie’s Off-sales. Mr Floris wants us to charge the culprits, but he doesn’t want them to know it’s him. I said he will have to—”
Truter sunk his fist into the counter, causing Delport to drop his pen. “I swear, next time I see that dronkie Hans Gariep and his kakke hanging around the pavement asking for money and matches, I’m going to snap their skinny necks and let them cook in the van for a day. That will teach them about the dangers of drunk and disorderly.” Truter’s migraine was fast subsiding in anticipation of the physical pleasures that lay ahead. “What else is on that paper of yours?”
“Just some township stuff.” Delport rattled quickly through the list, aware his boss didn’t have time for what went on in the township. “Shebeen stabbing, theft of a Mazda 323, shack fire, two reports of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm—”
“Okay, okay, Delport, I get the picture,” said Truter, disappointed there was nothing juicier on the table. “Is that it?”
There was of course the growing mountain of open dockets that Delport would have to mention at some point, but this wasn’t the time to bring up the war. “There’s the missing person’s—”
“Ja, ja, I know about that one. Or have you already forgotten?”
“No, sir. It’s just that the wife phoned again twice to say he didn’t take his diabetes medication before he left, and now she’s seriously worried he will—”
“Delport, do you see two of me standing here? No, you don’t. I will get to it, when I get to it, you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” Delport held up a fax. “This came in from Pretoria. I think there’s meant to be two pages, but we’ve run out of fax paper.”
Truter reached over the desk and snatched the fax out his hand.
“What the hell do they want this time? To all station commanders …” He read through the contents, mouthing the words. “Stuff them, Delport. If they want this information, they must get off their lui arses and come dig it up for themselves. I bet you half these stats are already sitting in their files.”
“It looks like the Department needs more detail on the mortuary stats. It could have to do with an investigation that’s going on,” Delport ventured tentatively. “Or maybe they just want to feed it into the national database.”
“I don’t care if they want to feed it into their ringsters, Delport. We don’t have time or manpower to do their dirty work for them. Don’t they know I have a missing person’s case and all this other stuff to attend to? If Pretoria wants my stats, they must come here and ask me personally. Bugger that!”
Considering the matter closed, Truter rolled the fax into a ball and dropped it on Delport’s desk. According to the SAPS handbook, this amounted to subordination, but Truter knew that Delport wasn’t about to voice an opinion. The man was ardently respectful of rank. Truter also respected rank – as long as it was below him. Anything higher, he didn’t care a toss about.
11
Jakkals Venter swirled the single malt back and forth, savouring more the idea than the taste of burnt Briketts. He swallowed. Shuddered. Red Heart and Coke won hands down, but it was the thought that counted. How many daughters would cough up five hundred bucks for a bottle of whisky for their old man? Zero.
Jakkals contemplated his middle-ageing legs – the hair was something else. Same went for the knotty tangle of varicose veins. He yawned. Days didn’t get more perfect than this. Any other man would consider himself blessed, spending his birthday at home with family and all.
“How’s the whisky, Pa?” Melanie shouted from the pool. “Jissus, not so tight, Ryan. You’re choking me!”
What was it about that little shit? Forever hanging on to Melanie, like some orphan monkey clinging to a game ranger. Enough to drive one nuts. He didn’t buy Melanie’s “just a growth phase” talk. Psycho speak for “fokken irritating”. Not that he was going to start telling his daughter how to raise her kids, but in the old days a solid slap would have sorted Ryan out one time.
“Smooth as velvet, sweetie.” To prove it, Jakkals lifted the glass and downed the dregs. His molars crunched into an ice block. Five hundred bucks was a rip-off for the stuff. “Thanks again, hey.”
