The October Killings Read online

  “I do have something, though.” He reached into a pocket of his suit, brought out a photograph and passed it to Abigail.

  It was a reproduction of an old color photograph. In the light from the car’s ceiling she saw that it was slightly out of focus and taken from behind. But the subject had turned his head, as if to see what was happening behind him, to give almost a profile view of himself. The face it revealed was an undistinguished one. The nose was small and featureless, the mouth also small and framed by thin, colorless lips. The face was almost unlined and the dusty-brown hair straight and cut short.

  Abigail stared transfixed at the photograph. It was not a face you would normally notice, but it was the one she would never be able to forget.

  Robert was driving again. “If another picture of him exists, the media do not have it,” he said. “I believe that’s the only one, and it’s possibly twenty years old.” He glanced at her. To his eyes, she seemed to have shrunk back into her seat.

  Abigail laid the picture down on the only place that seemed available, Robert’s left thigh. He put it back in his pocket. When she did speak it was in an attempt to break free of the subject that was again consuming her. It was also an attempt to show that she really was interested in matters that were important to him. “Your empowerment deal?” she asked. “Has anything else developed?”

  “No, no,” he said absently. “No. Bigger matters have got in the way of that, at least for the time being.”

  * * *

  Yudel Gordon sat behind his desk in his study. Without moving from the chair, he reached out and took a book from the bottom of a pile on one of his many cluttered bookcases.

  The state of his study, which both Rosa and the domestic worker were forbidden to enter, made it all the more surprising that Yudel invariably went straight to the book he needed. The book he now opened was a biography of the composer, Georg Frideric Handel. It was troubling to Yudel that he shared some aspect of his taste in music with this Michael Bishop, this killer that Abigail so feared.

  Yudel read a few pages, but the book was a lifeless thing. He put it back on the shelf. It was not this that fascinated Bishop. It was the music itself. Handel was about music, not the words in a biography.

  Abigail had heard from Bishop’s old comrade that Samson was his favorite. Yudel went in search of his own recording and found it on a shelf where he kept CDs, in a small lounge looking out on the garden. He loved to sit there, listening to music. He had to pass the door of the room where Rosa was watching television. She looked curiously at him, but in a way that seemed quite friendly. That’s something, he thought.

  He took the recording of Samson back to his study, where he had a small portable player. After closing the door so that the music would not interfere with Rosa’s program, he put the first disc into the player and sat down as the music began.

  Yudel closed his eyes to listen. As the overture started, a deep relaxation came over him. It was the effect that Handel usually had on him. Especially at times like this when his nervous system seemed stretched to the limit, the lovely flowing rhythms of the music worked their magic on his soul. To his senses the efforts of orchestra, chorus and soloists blended into a wonderful wholeness. Even Michael Bishop’s love for this music could not diminish the peace Yudel felt.

  The recording featured Yudel’s favorite singer, the American tenor Jan Peerce. Yudel had heard it many times before, and its effect had always been the same. As song followed song the sense of peace deepened. He slipped back in the chair, his legs stretched out in front of him.

  Time itself almost ceased as the music consumed every part of his consciousness. Then suddenly the warmth and relaxation were gone. Peerce was singing softly and melodiously, but the words forced themselves upon Yudel’s attention.

  … pains intense oppressed,

  That rob the soul itself of rest.

  Yudel reached out toward the player to replay the piece, but he hesitated for a long moment and the music continued. The melodious wholeness of the music was suddenly farther away and Bishop much closer. Then Peerce was singing again. The great tenor’s voice filled the room, rising and falling with Handel’s glorious music, but again the words that Handel had borrowed from Milton were shutting out everything else.

  Total eclipse! No sun, no moon,

  All dark amidst the blaze of noon!

  Sun, moon and stars are dark to me.

  Yudel switched off the music. In his desk pad he found the telephone number of the only classical music store of any consequence in the city. He recognized the voice that answered. “Gary,” he said. “Yudel Gordon here.”

  “Hi, Yudel, what are you looking for tonight?” The voice had the cheery note of a salesman with a regular customer. “I’ve got a great new recording of Gregorian chants, some monastery in Europe…”

  “Handel. How’s your trade in Handel going?”

  “Trade in Handel’s a bit slow. We’ve got a new CD with some bits and pieces you might like, kind of a highlights package, Carreras and others.”

  “What about the oratorios?”

  “Got nothing in stock at the moment.”

  “What I was wondering is—have you sold anything lately?”

  “No, but I’ll get you anything you want.”

  “But have you sold anything lately?”

  “No. I could’ve though, but I didn’t have what the guy wanted. He came in looking for Handel’s Samson. I doubt that more than five copies of Samson are sold every year in the whole country. I said I’d order it for him, but he wasn’t interested.” The salesman’s voice took on an enthusiastic note. “You looking for Samson? I’ll get it for you from the States. It’ll cost a bit.”

  “Listen, Gary, this man … do you know his name?”

  But Gary was still in sales mode. “Any particular recording?”

  “Listen to me, Gary. Do you know who this guy is?”

  “He was just a guy off the street, a little guy, about your size.”

  “And he wanted Samson?”

  “It looks like there’s a sudden interest in Samson. I better get a few copies. I’ll let you know when they come.”

  “Thanks,” Yudel said absently. “Appreciate it.”

  “This sometimes happens when there’s a live performance.”

  “Say that again,” Yudel said.

  “Tomorrow night. Jo’burg city hall.”

  “Samson?”

  “Samson. But it’s just local singers. You want something really good, I can get you the best.”

  “Did you mention this performance to your customer?”

  “Sure. I told him.”

  “Did he say he’d go?”

  “No, he didn’t say anything. But listen, Yudel, I got to go. A customer just came into the shop. I’ll phone you when I get those copies of Samson. I got to go see what the customer wants.”

  “So long,” Yudel said.

  After he hung up, Yudel went back to the recording. By the time the last notes of Samson had died, his attention was no longer with the music. He looked up Bukula in the telephone directory. There was only one and the initial was A. He dialed the number and a male voice answered. “Yes.” The single syllable was clipped still shorter.

  “Is that Mr. Bukula?” Yudel asked.

  “It’s Robert Mokoapi here,” Robert said. “If you’re looking for Abigail Bukula’s husband, you’re speaking to him.” Yudel was not accustomed to married people having different surnames. He thought about this for a moment. “Hello,” Robert was trying again. “Are you there?”

  “Yes,” Yudel assured him. “I’m here.”

  “What do you want, friend?” Despite the mode of address, the voice did not sound friendly.

  “I had hoped to speak to Abigail.”

  “She’s asleep. Do you know what time it is?”

  “No,” Yudel said truthfully. He glanced down at his watch to find that it was just after midnight. “Five past twelve,” he told Robert.

&n
bsp; “I wasn’t asking what the time is. Don’t you think it’s a bit late to be calling people?”

  Yudel considered the question. “Well, I suppose…”

  From the background Yudel heard Abigail’s sleepy voice, asking, “Who is it?”

  “Who is it?” Robert demanded.

  Yudel knew the answer to that one without thinking. “Yudel Gordon,” he said.

  A moment later Abigail was on the line. “Yudel? Has something happened?”

  “I think so. I think something has just happened. I think I may possibly have found your man.”

  After he told Abigail what he had found, that it was only a possibility and that she should not place too much hope in it, he hung up and got up slowly from his chair to go to the window.

  No sun, no moon—he remembered the words. All dark amidst the blaze of noon! Sun, moon and stars are dark to me.

  Did the words speak to Bishop in a way that only he could understand? Or perhaps he did not understand, but felt only the darkness in which he lived, the void where his soul should have been. All dark, Yudel thought. But if darkness was all Bishop had ever known, he would not recognize it as that. At some point there must have been light; some moment, perhaps some person, that was not part of the darkness of his present being.

  And tomorrow night’s performance of Samson? he wondered. Is it possible that he might be there? Could it be this easy after all this time? Or this hard?

  26

  Thursday, October 20

  Abigail and Yudel waited for twenty minutes in the office of the assistant to the deputy police commissioner for Gauteng before they were called in. Freek rose and smiled as they entered. He held Abigail’s offered hand in both of his for longer than necessary. “Miss Bukula,” he said. The way he said it, her name may have held a more profound meaning than any other word in any language, ever. There was a warmth in his eyes that Freek reserved for members of the opposite sex.

  “Forgive me for intruding,” Abigail said. She too was smiling warmly.

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Freek said.

  With Freek still holding her hand, as if it were a precious possession, Yudel looked from one to the other, wondering vaguely whether he could be getting in the way of something. He cleared his throat. “Ah, Yudel,” Freek said, as if noticing him for the first time. “Good morning.”

  Seated around the table in the meeting room that adjoined Freek’s office, it took all of an hour for Abigail, assisted by Yudel, to explain what had been happening and how they wanted him to help. When she was finished, he turned to Yudel. “Do you accept this thing about the twenty-second of October?”

  “It’s not a matter of accepting it. This is what has been happening.”

  “And a man in police uniform took this Lourens away?”

  “Yes,” Abigail said. “And we can find no official body that has done it … certainly not the police.”

  “And this Bishop?” Freek was talking to Yudel again. “I’ve never heard of him.”

  Yudel looked at Abigail.

  “Few people, even senior police officers, have heard of him,” she said.

  “And tonight he’s going to be at a concert in Johannesburg?”

  “Maybe,” Yudel said.

  “Maybe,” Freek said thoughtfully. “There are no guarantees here.”

  “How many times have you picked up criminals in their favorite haunts?” Yudel asked.

  “Once or twice. It happens.”

  “One or two hundred times is more like it. How many times have you found a fugitive watching a movie that features his favorite actor or at a sporting event where his team is playing?”

  “All right, Yudel. Not every day, but it does happen. I get the point.”

  “The real point is that there are hundreds of movie houses and sports fields, but I doubt that Handel’s Samson has had many performances on this continent. But tonight it is being performed, and this man, for whatever reason, has a special affinity for it.”

  Freek nodded thoughtfully. Then he turned suddenly to Abigail. “Let me explain something to you,” he said to her. “I am the highest-ranking white police officer in the country. I am the only survivor among the senior police officers from apartheid days. And I am only here because the present administration needs experienced officers and in the old days I refused to be transferred to the security branch. In fact, I refused to cooperate with them. To say that my position is insecure would be an understatement. But this is what I am—a policeman. All my life I have been one. I can do nothing else. I want to do nothing else. If I set off on some adventure to arrest a former hero of the liberation struggle without authority and without any real evidence to back me up, how long do you think I will last?”

  “If you don’t, Leon will die the day after tomorrow,” she said simply.

  “You believe this, Yudel?” Freek asked.

  “I believe that if he is in the hands of the man who has been doing these killings, he will certainly die on the twenty-second.”

  “The man? One man?”

  “This thing is a compulsion,” Yudel said. “Only individuals behave compulsively. And it was just one man who came to pick up Lourens. Any official body would have sent more than one.”

  Freek looked from one to the other. This was not something he wanted to hear, but everything in him, all his life, prevented him from turning away from it. “Is there a photograph of this man?”

  Abigail took the one, grainy, partly obscured picture from her bag and handed it to Freek. “This is not going to do much good.” He looked at Abigail.

  “Are you prepared to be there?”

  Looking at her, Freek could see that she would have preferred being almost anywhere else tonight. Her response was not immediate, but eventually she nodded. “Can Robert, my husband, come?”

  “He’s the newspaperman?”

  “I’ll tell him he’s coming for me, not the story.”

  “Okay. We’ll try to keep you hidden.”

  “I also want Yudel to come.”

  “Don’t worry about Yudel,” Freek said. “If we try to keep him away, he’ll just buy a ticket.”

  Yudel was looking from one to the other, listening to them discussing him.

  “Yudel has instinct,” Abigail said.

  Yudel nodded in agreement. It was always good to be appreciated.

  “I know he does,” Freek said, grinning briefly at him.

  “So you’ll do it?”

  Freek raised a hand that was clearly intended to stop her getting ahead of where he was prepared to go. “What I’ll do is interrupt the national commissioner, who is at this moment having a private meeting with associates. And he doesn’t like being interrupted when he’s busy with important matters. I’ll interrupt him and ask his permission. That’s as far as I’ll go.” He rose suddenly. “Let’s go back to my office.”

  Abigail and Yudel followed Freek to his office. “Will you let me know what he says?” Abigail asked.

  Freek was already dialing. “I’ll do better than that. You’re coming with me to see him.”

  “Is he in his office?” Abigail asked.

  “No, but I know where to find him.”

  * * *

  They drove in Yudel’s car, with Freek in the passenger seat next to him and Abigail in the back. Freek was right about where to find the commissioner. The club was outside the city, shielded from the road by a dense screen of trees and shrubs. The lawns and flowerbeds were beautifully kept, and the cars in the parking lot bore names like Mercedes, Lexus and Maserati. Few would have cost their owners less than half a million rands.

  The building itself was low and wide, glass-fronted across a reception and restaurant area. A few couples were seated at tables or on couches, drinking expensive spirits mixed with various soft drinks to limit the effect.

  The commissioner was at a table overlooking a pool filled with sparkling water, but empty of humans. Three of his companions were prominent white businessmen who
needed influence in the right government circles and were prepared to do what they had to, to get it. The fourth was a young black man, the only one wearing a suit and tie. He was taking notes.

  The commissioner looked only vaguely annoyed at the appearance of Freek, Abigail and Yudel. The young man, who since graduating in law had been the commissioner’s personal assistant, leaped to his feet and came to meet them. “If you’ll wait in the restaurant, the commissioner will join you shortly,” he told them.

  They went back into the building and found a table that looked out over the lawns. “The great do not like to be disturbed while they are deciding our fate,” Freek said, then added after a moment’s thought, “or should it be fates?”

  “Either will do,” Yudel said.

  “The complexities of the English language confuse me sometimes.”

  A waiter came unsmilingly toward them. “The car we came in gave us away,” Freek said. “He must have seen Yudel’s Toyota. If we’re going to frequent this place, you’ll have to buy a Mercedes, Yudel. If we’d come in a Mercedes or a Lexus, still better a Jaguar, he would have been smiling.”

  The waiter arrived at the table, still showing no pleasure at their presence. “Would you like something to drink?” he asked, his tone not hiding his lack of interest.

  “Yes,” Freek said. “We would like something to drink, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “No trouble at all, sir,” the waiter mumbled morosely.

  An hour after the drinks had arrived and their glasses had long since been emptied, the commissioner had still not come. “His boytjie said he was going to be here shortly,” Freek said.

  “He needs to come now,” Abigail said.

  “He’ll come,” Yudel said.

  “Freek needs to prepare,” Abigail said. “He needs to come now.”

  “Take it easy,” Yudel said.

  But Abigail felt that she was too close now to take it easy. “I’ll give him five minutes, then I’m going to get him.”

  “You stay put,” Freek said.

  “How can he treat us this way? I’m a senior government official too.” Her chest was heaving with indignation. “So is Freek,” she said to Yudel. “And you are an important consultant to the Department of Correctional Services. I come from a family with a history in the struggle. My parents died in the struggle. Who does he think he is?” Every argument she raised increased her indignation. She was on her feet now, the five minutes she was going to give him forgotten already.