The White Lioness Read online

Georg Scheepers sat there worrying if he had done something to invoke censure. Wervey was well known for his ruthless criticism of his assistants, if he considered it justified.

  But the conversation turned out to be completely unlike what he expected. Wervey had left his desk and sat down in an easy chair beside him.

  “Late last night a man was murdered in his hospital bed at a private clinic in Hillbrow,” he began. “His name was Pieter van Heerden, and he worked for BOSS. The homicide squad think everything points to robbery with violence. His wallet is missing. Nobody saw anybody enter the room, nobody saw the murderer leave. It looks like whoever did it was alone, and there is evidence to suggest he pretended to be a messenger from a laboratory used by Brenthurst. As none of the night nurses heard anything, the murderer must have used a gun with a silencer. It looks very much as though the police theory about robbery being the motive is correct. On the other hand, we must also bear in mind that van Heerden worked for the intelligence service.”

  Wervey raised his eyebrows, and Georg Scheepers knew he was waiting for a reaction.

  “That sounds reasonable,” said Scheepers. “There should be an investigation to see if it was in fact an opportunist robbery.”

  “There’s another aspect which complicates matters,” Wervey went on. “What I’m about to say is extremely confidential. You must be absolutely clear about that.”

  “I understand,” said Scheepers.

  “Van Heerden was responsible for keeping President de Klerk informed about secret intelligence activities outside the usual channels,” said Wervey. “In other words, he was in an extremely sensitive post.”

  Wervey fell silent. Scheepers waited tensely for him to continue.

  “President de Klerk called me a few hours ago,” he said. “He wanted me to select one of my prosecutors to keep him specially informed about the police investigation. He seems convinced the motive for the murder had something to do with van Heerden’s intelligence work. Although he has no proof, he rejects outright any suggestion that this was a routine robbery.”

  Wervey looked at Scheepers.

  “We cannot know exactly what van Heerden was keeping the president informed about,” he said pensively.

  Georg Scheepers nodded. He understood.

  “I have picked you as the man to keep President de Klerk informed,” he said. “From now on you will drop all other matters and concentrate exclusively on the investigation into the circumstances surrounding van Heerden’s death. Is that understood?”

  Georg Scheepers nodded. He was still trying to grasp the full implications of what Wervey had just said.

  “You will be summoned regularly to the president,” he said. “You will keep no minutes of those meetings, only a few brief notes that you will later burn. You will speak only with the president and me. If anybody in your section wonders what you’re doing, the official explanation is that I’ve asked you to look into the recruitment requirements regarding prosecutors over the next ten-year period. Is that clear?”

  “Yes,” said Georg Scheepers.

  Wervey stood up, took a plastic wallet from his desk, and handed it to Scheepers.

  “Here is what little investigative material the police have so far,” he said. “Van Heerden has been dead for only twelve hours. The hunt for the assassin is being led by an inspector called Borstlap. I suggest you go to Brenthurst Clinic and speak with him.”

  That concluded the business.

  “Do a good job,” said Wervey. “I’ve chosen you because you have proved to be a good prosecutor. I don’t like to be disappointed.”

  Georg Scheepers went back to his office and tried to come to terms with what was actually required of him. Then he thought he should buy himself a new suit. None of the clothes he possessed would be suitable for meeting the president.

  Now he was in the dimly lit antechamber, wearing a dark blue suit that had been very expensive. His wife wondered why he had bought it. He said he was to take part in an inquiry chaired by the Minister of Justice. She accepted this explanation without any further questions.

  It was twenty minutes to one before the discreet security guard opened the door and told him the president was now ready to receive him. Georg Scheepers jumped up from his chair, aware of how nervous he felt. He followed the guard who marched up to a high double door, knocked, and opened it for him.

  Sitting at a desk, illuminated by a single lamp, was the balding man he was destined to meet. Scheepers remained standing hesitantly in the doorway until the man at the desk beckoned him to approach and gestured towards a visitor’s chair.

  President de Klerk looked weary. Georg Scheepers noticed he had large bags under his eyes.

  The president came straight to the point. His voice had a note of impatience about it, as if he was always having to talk with people who did not understand anything.

  “I am convinced the death of Pieter van Heerden had nothing to do with robbery,” said de Klerk. “It’s your job to insure the police investigators are properly aware of the fact that it’s his intelligence work that lies behind the murder. I want all his computer files investigated, all his index files and documents, everything he’s worked on over the last year. Is that understood?”

  “Yes,” said Georg Scheepers.

  De Klerk leaned forward so that the desk lamp lit up his face and gave it an almost ghost-like appearance.

  “Van Heerden told me he suspected there was a conspiracy afoot that was a serious threat to South Africa as a whole,” he said. “A plot that could result in complete chaos. His death must be seen in this context. Nothing else.”

  Georg Scheepers nodded.

  “You don’t need to know any more than that,” said de Klerk, leaning back in his chair again. “Chief Prosecutor Wervey selected you to keep me informed because he considers you to be completely reliable and loyal to the government authorities. But I want to stress the confidential nature of this assignment. Revealing what I have just told you would be high treason. As you are a prosecutor, I don’t need to tell you what the punishment is for that particular crime.”

  “Of course not,” said Georg Scheepers, shifting uncomfortably on his chair.

  “You will report directly to me whenever you have anything to say,” de Klerk went on. “Talk to one of my secretaries, and they will make an appointment. Thank you for coming.”

  The audience was over. De Klerk turned back to his papers.

  Georg Scheepers stood up, bowed, and walked over the thick carpet back to the double doors.

  The security guard accompanied him down the stairs. An armed guard escorted him as far as the parking lot, where he had left his car. His hands were sweaty as he slid behind the wheel.

  A conspiracy, he thought. A plot? Which could threaten the whole country and lead to chaos? Aren’t we there already? Can things get any more chaotic than they already are?

  He left the question unanswered and started the engine. Then he opened the glove pocket, where he kept a pistol. He loaded a magazine, released the safety catch, and placed it on the seat beside him.

  Georg Scheepers did not like driving at night. It was too unsafe, too dangerous. Armed robbery and assault took place all the time, and the level of brutality was getting worse.

  Then he drove home through the South African night. Pretoria was asleep.

  He had a lot to think about.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Days and nights had merged to form a vague whole from which he was no longer able to pick out the parts. Victor Mabasha did not know how long it was since he left the dead body of Konovalenko behind in the remote house set in muddy fields. The man who had suddenly come back to life and shot at him in the disco filled with tear gas. That was a shock for him. He was convinced he had killed Konovalenko with the bottle. But despite the smarting in his eyes, he had seen Konovalenko through the clouds of smoke. Victor Mabasha escaped from the premises via a back staircase full of screaming, kicking people in a panic, trying to flee the smo
ke. For a brief moment, he thought he was back in South Africa, where tear gas attacks on black townships were not uncommon. But he was in Stockholm and Konovalenko had risen from the dead and was now chasing him in order to kill him.

  He had reached town at dawn and spent hours driving around the streets, not knowing what to do. He was very tired, so weary he did not really dare trust his own judgment. That made him scared. Before, he had always felt that his judgment, his ability to think himself out of difficult situations with a clear head, was his ultimate life insurance. He wondered whether to take a room in a hotel somewhere. But he had no passport, no documents at all to establish his identity. He was a nobody among all these people, an armed man without a name, that was all.

  The pain in his hand kept returning at irregular intervals. Soon he would have to see a doctor. The black blood had seeped through the bandages, and he could not afford to succumb to infections and fever. That would make him completely defenseless. But the bloody stump hardly affected him. His finger might never have existed. In his thoughts he had transformed it into a dream. He was born without an index finger on his left hand.

  He slept in a cemetery in a sleeping bag he bought. He was cold in spite of it. In his dreams he was pursued by the singing hounds. As he lay awake watching the stars, he thought how he might never return to his homeland. The dry, red, swirling soil would never again be touched by the soles of his feet. The thought filled him with sudden sorrow, so intense he could not remember feeling anything like it since the death of his father. It also occurred to him that in South Africa, a country founded upon an all-embracing lie, there was seldom room for simple untruths. He thought about the lie that formed the very backbone of his own life.

  The nights he spent in the cemetery were filled with the songoma’s words. It was also during these nights, surrounded by nothing but the unknown dead, white people he had never met and would never meet until he entered the underworld, the world of spirits, that he remembered his childhood. He saw his father’s face, his smile, and heard his voice. It also occurred to him that the spirit world might be divided, just like South Africa. Perhaps even the underworld consisted of a black and a white world? He was filled with sorrow as he imagined the spirits of his forefathers being forced to live in smoky, slummy townships. He tried to get his songoma to tell him how it was. But all he got was the singing hounds, and their howls he was unable to interpret.

  At dawn the second day he left the cemetery after hiding his sleeping bag in a tomb where he had managed to pry open an air vent. A few hours later he stole another car. It all happened very quickly: an opportunity arose, and he grasped it without hesitation. Once again his judgment was beginning to assist him. He had turned a corner onto a street where he saw a man leave his car with the engine running and disappear into a doorway. There was nobody around. He recognized the make, a Ford; he had driven lots of them before. He sat behind the wheel, threw a briefcase the man had left behind onto the street, and drove off. He eventually managed to find his way out of town and had searched for a lake where he could be alone with his thoughts.

  He could not find a lake, but he came upon the seashore. Or rather, he thought it had to be the seashore. He did not know which sea it was or what it was called, but when he tasted the water it was salty. Not as salty as he was used to, from the beaches at Durban and Port Elizabeth. But there could hardly be salt lakes in this country? He clambered over a few rocks, and imagined he was gazing into infinity through a narrow gap between two islands in the archipelago. There was a chill in the air and he felt cold. Even so, he remained standing on a rock as far out as he could get, thinking that this was where his life had taken him. A very long way. But what would the future look like?

  Just as he used to do in his childhood, he squatted down and made a spiral-shaped labyrinth from pebbles that had broken loose from the rock. At the same time he tried to delve so deeply into himself that he could hear the voice of his songoma. But he couldn’t get that far. The noise of the sea was too strong and his own concentration too weak. The stones he had arranged to form a labyrinth did not help. He just felt scared. If he could not talk to the spirits, he would grow so weak he might even die. He would no longer have any resistance to illnesses, his thoughts would desert him, and his body would become a mere shell that cracked the moment it was touched.

  Feeling uneasy, he tore himself away from the sea and returned to his car. He tried to concentrate on the most important things. How was it possible for Konovalenko to trace him so easily to the disco recommended by some Africans from Uganda he started talking to in a burger bar?

  That was the first question.

  The second was how he could get out of this country and return to South Africa.

  He realized he would be forced to do what he wanted to do least of all. Find Konovalenko. That would be very difficult. Konovalenko would be as hard to track down as an individual spriengboek in the endless African bush. But somehow or other he would have to entice Konovalenko. He was the one with a passport, he was the one who could be forced to help him get away from this country. He did not think he could see any alternative.

  He still hoped he would not need to kill anybody, apart from Konovalenko.

  That evening he went back to the disco. There were not many people there, and he sat in a corner, drinking beer. When he went to the bar with his empty glass for another beer, the bald man spoke to him. At first Victor Mabasha did not understand what he was saying. Then he realized that two different people had been there the day before, looking for him. He could tell from the description that one of them was Konovalenko. But what about the other one? The man behind the bar said he was a cop. A cop with an accent that showed he came from the southern part of the country.

  “What did he want?” wondered Victor Mabasha.

  The bald man nodded at his filthy bandage.

  “He was looking for a black man missing a finger,” he said.

  He drank no more beer, but left the disco without more ado. Konovalenko might come back. He was still not prepared to face him, even though his gun was at the ready, tucked into his belt.

  When he came out onto the street, he knew right away what he was going to do. This cop would help him find Konovalenko.

  Somewhere or other there was an investigation going on into the disappearance of a woman. Maybe they had found her body already, wherever Konovalenko had hidden it. But if they had managed to find out about him, they might know about Konovalenko as well?

  I left a clue, he thought. A finger. Maybe Konovalenko also left something behind?

  He spent the rest of the evening hovering in the shadows outside the disco. But neither Konovalenko nor the cop showed up. The bald man had given him a description of the cop. It occurred to Victor Mabasha that a white man in his forties was not going to be a regular customer at the disco.

  Late that night he went back to the tomb in the cemetery. The next day he stole another car, and that evening he hovered once more in the shadows outside the disco.

  At exactly nine o’clock, a cab came to a halt at the entrance. Victor was in the front seat of his car. He sank down so that his head was level with the steering wheel. The cop got out of the taxi and disappeared into the underworld. As soon as he had vanished, Victor drove up to the entrance and got out. He withdrew to the darkest shadows, and waited. His pistol was in his jacket pocket, within easy reach.

  The man who emerged a quarter of an hour later and looked around vaguely or possibly lost in thought was not on his guard. He gave the impression of being completely harmless, a solitary, unprotected nocturnal prowler. Victor Mabasha drew his pistol, took a few swift strides, and pressed the gun against the underside of the man’s chin.

  “Not a move,” he said in English. “Not a single move.”

  The man gave a start. But he understood English. He did not move.

  “Go to the car,” said Victor Mabasha. “Open the door and get into the passenger seat.”

  The man
did as he was told. He was evidently very scared.

  Victor quickly ducked into the car and punched him on the chin. Hard enough to knock him out, but not hard enough to break his jaw. Victor Mabasha knew his strength when he was in control of the situation. Something that did not apply that catastrophic last evening with Konovalenko.

  He went through the cop’s pockets. Oddly enough, no gun. Victor Mabasha was even more convinced he was in a very strange country, with unarmed cops. Then he bound the man’s arms to his chest and taped over his mouth. A narrow trickle of blood was seeping from the side of his mouth. It was never possible to avoid injuring somebody altogether. The man had presumably bitten his own tongue.

  During the three hours available to Victor Mabasha that afternoon, he had memorized the route he intended to take. He knew exactly where he was going and had no desire to risk a wrong turn. When he stopped at the first red light, he took out the man’s wallet and saw he was called Kurt Wallander, forty years old.

  The lights changed, and he moved on. He kept a close eye on the rear mirror the whole time.

  After the second red light he started to think he had a car on his tail. Could the cop have had a backup? If so, there would soon be problems. When he came to a multi-lane highway, he stepped on the gas. He suddenly felt he could have been imagining things. Maybe they were on their own after all?

  The man in the passenger seat started groaning and moving. Victor Mabasha could see he must have hit him precisely as hard as he had intended.

  He turned into the cemetery and came to a halt in the shadow of a green building containing a shop that sold flowers and wreaths during the day. Now it was closed and in darkness. He turned off his lights and watched the cars taking the slip road. None of them seemed to be slowing down.

  He waited another ten minutes. But nothing happened, apart from the policeman coming to.