Closed Circle, page 32
Rosa was fetched by Irena when Yudel failed to come home on the Saturday night. She stayed for two months. Towards the end of the period she filed for divorce, but withdrew it the next day. After a two-hour lecture from Magda Jordaan she returned to Yudel on condition that he would never again become involved in political crimes. He has not met her condition and she has not left again.
After Wheelwright's resignation Brigadier De Beer called Yudel into his office and told him that as far as he was concerned Yudel was vindicated in every possible way, but if he drew even the slightest attention to himself during the six years before De Beer's retirement he would personally kick his arse all the way down the stairs and out of the building.
Yudel never doubted that Wheelwright and Varrevich had been involved in at least some of the crimes. He would have wagered anything he possessed on the proposition that a sperm sample taken from Wheelwright would have matched that found in the young activist. Freek acquired a sample of Wheelwright's handwriting and Yudel compared it, employing only his excellent memory as a reference, to the script on the newspaper pages in the Attic and believed they were the same, but this too was of no more than curiosity value.
Whether Baker had died by the same hand as the three comrades, and as for the killings of Fellows and Elizabeth Ngcube, the attempts on the lives of Bensch, and himself, or whether the man at the Lesotho border the night Ngcube had died, had been Wheelwright, Yudel turned away from it all to immerse himself in problems that offered a better prospect of solution.
In 1990, four years after Wheelwright's resignation and the year of Nelson Madela’s release from prison, a small, uncertain spot of light was shed on the matter when a judicial commission of inquiry into the death squads was brought into being. Before it began its work Brigadier Momberg sought and was granted early retirement. The evidence presented to the commission indicated that a branch of military intelligence might have been responsible for some of the killings and the security police for some others, but the majority of the cases remained in complete darkness with no evidence led and none available.
For a long time Yudel was made aware by newspaper reports of the activities of Gys Muller and his movement. Occasional casual remarks by fellow civil servants showed him that Muller was not without support. Every day, degree by gradual degree, the inevitability of majority rule grew. Many white South Africans felt that the new State President's government had gone soft and perhaps a strong man was the answer. Perhaps then the inevitable might no longer be inevitable. Yudel tried to close his mind to it, but there were times when for weeks he was haunted by the image of the Afrikaner Revival Movement's swastika. He could not rid himself of the fear that the single-minded self-assurance that was so much a part of Muller might eventually be the deciding factor. On more than one occasion he saw Wheelwright's unsmiling face in the background of press photographs at Muller's rallies. In all of them he was dressed in the uniform of the movement and never far from his leader's side.
Arnoldus Du Toit of Sandown Private Investigations had a brief respite from the anxiety that caused him to sleep with a loaded revolver under his pillow when Milan Varrevich was recruited for an armed adventure in a neighbouring state. Varrevich and the rest of the party were taken prisoner by the police of that country. In court he wept, begged for mercy and denounced the South African government as racists. While in prison he was visited by Maureen Baker who was still searching for her son's killer when she died of cancer in 1988. The diplomatic service arranged Varrevich's release less than a year after he was imprisoned and he returned to South Africa to take up an executive position in a private security company.
It was shortly after this that Yudel passed him crossing Church Square in the centre of Pretoria. He was wearing dark glasses, but the recognition was immediate and mutual. Yudel stopped and Varrevich slowed his stride, both involuntary reactions. Then the former security policeman averted his face and hurried on.
For some years the flask with the frozen semen remained at the bottom of Magda Jordaan's freezer, among the meat, fish and vegetables. Occasionally, when searching for something or rearranging its contents, she was tempted to throw it out, knowing that her husband would never be able to use it.
THE OCTOBER KILLINGS – the fourth Yudel Gordon Story
by Wessel Ebersohn
In a cross border safe house of the liberation movement seventeen dissidents, including fourteen-year-old Abigail Bukula and her parents, are hiding. The defence unit of nineteen-year-old conscripted rookie soldier, Leon Lourens is sent on a dawn raid to kill everyone in the house.
While Abigail is kneeling next to her dying father’s body the Captain orders Leon to finish her off. Leon refuses and points his rifle at his Captain instead saying “No, Captain, we’re soldiers not murderers.”
When the raid is over only seven people are still alive, including a wounded Abigail. They are taken to police holding cells closest to the border.
That night Abigail is brutally raped by Michael Bishop, the movement’s assassin, who was sent to rescue the survivors. In total silence he also strangles all the policemen on duty with his signature thin piano wire. In one night she is saved by a good man working for an evil cause and brutalised by an evil man, working for a good cause. One of her country’s many strange anomalies.
Although Abigail does not see Leon again she never forgot how he saved her, until one day, twenty years after the raid he reappears in her life and asks her to help save his own life.
He tells her that every year since the Twenty Second October raid one of the soldiers who took part in it has been murdered. Only two remain alive. Leon and Van Jaarsveld, the leader of the raiding party. Van Jaarsveld is in a high security jail. Leon knows he is next.
Abigail is determined to save his life and believes that Bishop is responsible for the killings.
She enlists the help of Yudel Gordon, a brilliant criminal psychologist working in the prisons department. Yudel is strange, eccentric but very effective. He agrees to help her, and the two of them together makes a formidable team. Their biggest challenge - they have only six days in which to find Bishop and save Leon.
Then Leon is abducted. The race is on to find Bishop, but also to find Leon before it’s too late.
The morning of the twenty second arrives now they have only hours left.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wessel Ebersohn is an internationally published author, whose works have been published and distributed in all English-speaking countries on both sides of the Atlantic, and has been translated into many European languages. In the 1980s two of his books were banned by the government of the time, but released on appeal. He was also the editor of Succeed magazine and Debate Journal. In 2013 he won a Pica award as business-to-business writer of the year. He lives with his wife on the edge of the South African bushveld.
Wessel Ebersohn’s work:
Yudel Gordon stories -
Book 1 – A Lonely Place to Die, 1977
Book 2 - Divide the Night, 1981
Book 3 - Closed Circle, 1990
Book 4 - The October Killings, 2009
Book 5 - Those Who Love Night, 2010
Book 6 - The Top Prisoner of C-Max, 2012
Book 7 - Deluge, 2022
Other Books -
The Centurion, 1980
Store up the Anger, 1980
The Otter and Mr Ogilivie, 1987
Klara's Visitors, 1988
In Touching Distance, 2004
The Classifier, 2011
If you want to be the first to know about Wessel’s new releases sign up for his newsletter at https://wesselebersohn.com/sign-up/.
Wessel Ebersohn, Closed Circle
