Murderous by David Hickson (best ereader for comics .txt) 📕

“We were not invited to the church this morning then?” I asked. “You two are in mufti? I would never have guessed.”

Neither Khanyi nor Fehrson thought that was funny. Fehrson sniffed and sipped at his whisky.

“Who is the school friend?” I asked.

“Name of Hendrik van Rensburg,” said Khanyi.

“Another Van Rensburg? A descendant of the prophet?”

“They like to claim so. But there are numerous Van Rensburgs around; open any phone book and you’ll see. Not as many as Van der Merwe, or Smith, but it’s a big family tree.”

“You have probably heard of his father,” said Fehrson. “What with your … videos that you do. Is that what we call them?” he glanced at Khanyi.

“Documentaries,” said Khanyi. Fehrson enjoyed expressing his contempt for the work I had engaged in since leaving his employ, and rarely missed an opportunity to do so, but Khanyi’s look dissuaded him from taking this one.

“Big chief of Media-Mark?” I said. Piet van Rensburg was a name known to most South Africans. Recent scandals about the collusion between Media-Mark and the government had brought his name to the attention of anyone who liked to monitor the murky cesspool of South African politics.

“Ex big chief,” said Khanyi. “He still owns the company, but the day-to-day running has been handed over.”

“No wonder it’s blown up. Mess with Piet van Rensburg and you’ll have the entire government falling over themselves to show support for him.”

“He is a powerful man,” admitted Khanyi. “Controls the media in this country. Control the media, and you control the people.”

There was another brief silence.

“You do not bite the hand that feeds you,” announced Fehrson, as if that was an idea he had just thought of.

“And to be clear,” I said, “you’re not asking yourselves whether the Van Rensburgs took offence at your fresh-faced, naive and under-trained employee snooping around, and had him killed?”

“No, no,” said Fehrson. “Not at all. That would be ludicrous.”

“But you’re not sending fresh recruits in to the White Africans. You’re going for the unconventional veterans now?”

Fehrson sipped his whisky and gave what I imagined he thought was a smile, intended to engender feelings of camaraderie. I cannot say it had the intended effect.

“We are not sending anyone in, young man. Pending the outcome of the investigation into the Department, we cannot do anything.”

“What is it you want me to do?”

“Yesterday afternoon Piet van Rensburg made a phone call,” said Fehrson. “To a number provided to the younger Van Rensburg by Dirk Fourie. A number allegedly for a certain Richard Mabele.”

“The arms dealer?”

“Indeed,” said Fehrson.

“Piet van Rensburg has been transporting animals to his game farm,” said Khanyi. “Dirk believed they were concealing weapons in the animal crates. Now it would seem they are looking for more weapons, in light of what happened yesterday.”

“But it was not Richard Mabele’s number?”

“It was one of ours,” said Khanyi. “You saw the writing on the wall. If what happened in that church yesterday was only the beginning, we are going to have a civil war on our hands before you can say ‘white supremacy’.”

“And I could stop that?”

“You met that policeman,” she said, “the nice one you encouraged to smoke. He needs to know about the younger Van Rensburg’s White African group.”

“More of a private army,” suggested Fehrson.

“We need something concrete. Some hard evidence that links the killings to the White Africans. If we could provide that, the nice policeman could do his duty.”

“You want me to find some evidence?”

“We are under investigation,” said Fehrson. “And you have a knack for doing things outside the constraints of the legal system.”

“I see.”

“We need to do something,” said Khanyi. “We cannot simply sit back and wait for this to happen again.”

“Khanyisile will leave you with her file,” said Fehrson. “Take a look at it. That is all. If anything occurs to you, let us know. If not, there will be no hard feelings. We are mindful of the threat painted on the wall of that church, but if there is nothing we can do in this situation, we will have to leave it to the official bodies.”

“The official bodies who have ordered the graffiti painted over before the journalists are allowed in?”

“The same,” said Fehrson. “And they might not be wrong. The fragile state of our nation is like tinder waiting for the spark. Sometimes a little whitewash is necessary.”

Khanyi closed her buff folder and slid it a full two inches along the table, as if she was about to perform a reluctant hand-over ceremony.

“Make sure you go through all of it,” said Khanyi, her hand still resting on the buff file.

It occurred to me that there might be something they weren’t telling me. Something that provided that extra glint in Fehrson’s eyes, the hint of nervousness in Khanyi’s voice.

Above the cotton wool bed of cloud the familiar flat-topped shape of Table Mountain was floating towards us. The constant hum of the engines dropped, and the Beechcraft started to sink.

“You might wanna check those belts again,” called the pilot. “Those clouds aren’t as friendly as they look.”

Fehrson and I sat in the cabin's gloom and I poured us both a final whisky as he watched Khanyi being escorted to the hangar under the umbrella of our chivalrous pilot.

“I told Khanyisile that you would not bite,” said Fehrson after a silent toast to nothing in particular. “But she insisted your recent windfall would make no difference.”

“My recent windfall?”

Fehrson held his glass up to the dribbling windows and tried looking at the outside world through it. It did not seem to improve his mood.

“Breytenbach has been complaining through official channels about those gold bars taken from his ranch.”

“Oh?”

“The ones that disappeared about the same time you visited him.”

“Official channels? I didn’t think that the law allowed him to store gold bars on his private property.”

“It seems he might have stretched the law a little.”

“He’s probably just trying to scam the insurance.”

“He has admitted that it is more than a few bars. Speculation puts it at millions of US