The Monster's Daughter (66 page)

Adriaan nodded slowly. “Tokkie told me he saw one of the old
askaris
in the drunk tank. Jakob was a rubbish. Good for nothing. That
boytjie
should have been taken care of years ago. I almost had him that night, but he got away.”

Alet felt a pang when she thought of what Jakob had endured. “Who gave you the right to play God over people's lives like that?”

Adriaan's neck stiffened. “You have no idea what I have had to do to keep this country safe, Alet.” He pointed a finger at her. “To keep you safe.”

Alet winced at the arrogant conviction of his words. “And Professor Koch too?”

Adriaan shook his head. “I had nothing to do with that.”

“You don't expect me to—”

“He was always a terrible driver, easily distracted. Nico would never have testified. We had an understanding. He'd be in it just as deep as I was if he talked. When I heard about the crash, I had to make sure that he left nothing behind. I sent someone.”

“The man who attacked me.”

“You were supposed to stay away, Alet. I made that clear. This whole mess. You ended up in the middle of it. If you only bloody well listened.”

“How did you know about Tessa, Adriaan?” Benjamin's tone was strangely calm. It made Alet nervous.

“You led me to her, De Beer. That day in Triomf. Thanks to you, I had an alias and I had a picture. Never would have put the two together myself. Tokkie Mynhardt did the rest when he posted those photos of the march. Quite a coincidence, I thought, Jakob being in the same town as your girlfriend. So I dug around. Found out who his father was, who she was.”

“I told you years ago to walk away or else.” Benjamin pressed the gun to Alet's temple. “Unlike you, I keep my promises.”

Adriaan held his hands up. “Wait. It's me you really want. Leave her out of it.”

“Tessa was everything to me. I want to see the look in your eyes when I destroy the thing most precious to you.”

Adriaan pointed his gun at Benjamin. “I will kill you first before I let that happen.”

“Really think you can make the shot, Adriaan?” Benjamin let go of Alet and raised the gun without warning, the shot deafening next to her ear. She pushed away from him without thinking, running toward the ruin. Her father was on the ground, a bloodstain spreading on his abdomen, the Makarov still in his hand. He squeezed a round off past her. Alet dove to the ground as Benjamin returned fire, wondering why she wasn't dead. Her dad fell back, his face pale. Alet grabbed the Makarov from his hand and fired blindly in Benjamin's direction. The barrage was met with silence. She scanned the clearing. He wasn't there.

“Stay with me,
Pa
.” Alet wrapped her arms around Adriaan and dragged him behind the walls of the ruin, his blood warm on her.

“Alet, I …” Adriaan's head lolled. She lowered him against the wall and looked back through the doorway.

Benjamin was out of his hiding place, coming toward them. Alet braced herself against the wall, the Makarov shaking in her left hand.
Get it together, Berg
. She stepped into the doorway and raised the gun. A simple click filled the silence.

“I'm not stupid, Alet. I counted rounds.” Benjamin was in front of her, his paleness unreal against the gritty backdrop of the ruin.

No. This is not how this ends
. Alet lashed out, the Makarov's butt making contact with his face. Something cracked. Benjamin's hands were on her throat before she had the chance to enjoy the small victory of breaking his nose.

“It's over now,” Benjamin said. He pushed her down next to her father. Adriaan made an ineffectual move toward Benjamin. Benjamin kicked him away like a dog. Adriaan stayed down.

Benjamin raised the gun to Alet's head. “Hold on, Adriaan. Don't be in such a hurry to leave us. I want you to see this before you go.”

Sound ricocheted, a deafening confusion. Benjamin's pale eyes locked with Alet's, his mouth slightly open. His body crumpled, a marionette without strings, blood spurting onto her from a wound in his neck. Behind him, in the doorway, stood Mathebe, his uniform
disheveled, his tie missing, sweat streaming down his face. For a moment they just looked at each other. Alet put her hand in front of her mouth, hysteria suddenly taking over.

Mathebe got down on the floor next to her and held her to him, patting her back rhythmically as if she was a baby. “It is all right, Constable,” he repeated in a hushed voice. “It is all over now.”

“You should be in bed, Constable.” Mathebe stood stiffly in the doorway of Alet's hospital room, clutching a plastic shopping bag.

“You should be with your family, Sergeant.” Alet sat back down on her bed, dizzy from the effort of standing up. “Besides, I'm really sick of peeing in a pan.” She reached for the remote of the small TV in her room and switched off the latest episode of
Generations
. With only the basic stations available, she had become fascinated by the soap opera over the past couple of days. The actors flipped constantly between Afrikaans, English, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, Zulu, and a few other languages she couldn't identify. It had a curious effect on her. The black people in the country had had to be multilingual for a long time, transcending barriers out of necessity. It had carried over, even though the born-free generation didn't need to do it to survive anymore. Perhaps that was the way forward for everybody living in this country now, no matter their skin color. They were supposed to be the rainbow nation; perhaps they should all adopt a rainbow tongue. Alet thought about learning Xhosa, like Mathebe, so they could shoot the breeze on patrol. Perhaps in his mother tongue he'd have a sense of humor.

“Christmas pudding.” Mathebe held the plastic bag out to her. “Miriam made it.”

“Got a spoon?”

Mathebe produced one from the bag, along with a container filled with baked pudding covered in thick custard.

“Tell Miriam I owe her big-time.” Alet negotiated the spoon with
her left hand. “All I've been getting here are snotty eggs and sandpaper toast. The gunshot didn't get me, but starvation just might.”

“How do you feel, Constable?”

“Doctor says I could be out of here by Monday. The shoulder is buggered, but maybe with some physical therapy, who knows, hey?” Alet hoped the cheery front she put on would belie the fact that she didn't believe a word of it. She had trouble moving her right arm. Holding and firing a gun anytime in the near future wasn't going to happen, which meant she'd be stuck behind the service desk.

“I would have brought flowers.” Mathebe motioned to the single small bouquet on the nightstand. It was from Theo, delivered with a courteously short visit.

“Flowers die. It's depressing.” Alet couldn't hide the embarrassment in her voice. “Food is definitely better.”

Mathebe shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Your father—”

“
Ja
, I know. The nurse told me he's in the ICU.”

“Would you like to see him? I could go with you.”

Alet shook her head. “He's unconscious. Wouldn't matter anyway.” She had thought about it almost constantly, lying awake in that hospital bed between doses of pain meds. Someone more educated in these things might have called it avoidance, but Alet knew the word well enough. What she felt was an all-encompassing shame.

“You solved the case, Constable.” Mathebe dropped his gaze, his discomfort clear.

“We solved it.” Alet smiled at him. “Hey, any news from the Hawks?”

“The captain and Sergeant Strijdom have been suspended, pending the outcome of the investigation.”

“They believed you?”

“I offered them proof, which is better.” Mathebe cracked a smile. “Dr. Oosthuizen admitted that he drugged Miss Pienaar under pressure from the captain, as you suspected.”

“Bastard.”

“The captain wanted to make sure that Mr. Mens could never talk about his death-squad activities.”

“So he finished my father's kill. Made it look like Tilly ran him over. Two flies with one shot and he's in the old man's good graces to boot.”

Mathebe nodded. “Miss Pienaar has been cleared, although she is still under investigation for human trafficking. Perhaps with her cooperation, she might receive a lenient sentence.”

“What about Skosana?”

“His body was discovered on the Terblanche farm, along with one of his men.”

“Benjamin?”

“Yes. He had been following you. Mrs. Frieda Berg stated that he called the house the night before, left a message that your father had to meet him at the place where Mrs. Pienaar had died. He had set his plan in motion and Skosana and his gang were in the way.”

“Did Jana …?” Alet felt bad for not asking sooner.

“Mrs. Terblanche gave birth to a son. But she and Mr. Terblanche will both stand trial if the case makes it to court.”

“
Ja
. If.” Alet knew better than to get her hopes up. The complexity of what had happened suddenly hit home. She put her pudding down, her appetite gone. “My dad knew about Benjamin, all these years, you know.”

“Colonel Berg did try to stop him. It would appear that he gave up the Angel Killer case because Mr. De Beer had threatened your life.”

“Father of the Year.”

“Colonel Berg's prints matched the partial in Mrs. Pienaar's house. I believe he went back to see if he could find something on the whereabouts of Mr. De Beer. He did not realize that Mrs. Pienaar didn't know.”

“Trudie died for nothing.” A burning sensation flared behind Alet's eyes. Benjamin might have been a killer, but Alet's father, the man she had idolized all her life, was the real monster. “I don't understand how all of this happened, Johannes.”

“Sometimes when things like these are allowed to fester for a long time, Constable, they cannot help but rise to the surface. If your father did not send you to Unie, to his old contact, he would not have noticed Mrs. Pienaar in those photographs. If he had not killed her on the Terblanche farm, we would not have uncovered what Mr. Wexler had involved the town in.”

“My dad thought he was hiding me away. Instead he put me in a snake pit.”

“He misjudged you. He did not think that you would go to his old colleague Professor Koch and to Mr. van Niekerk when you could not find the resources to do the job well here.” Mathebe looked almost proud of her. “He did not know you very well.”

The dam broke, silent tears tracing a path down Alet's cheeks. “Thank you, Johannes. For saving my life.”

Mathebe put his hands on hers. “We are partners.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Mr. Terblanche called me. You were gone by the time I got to the house. There was a dead man in the kitchen, and no note to explain.” Mathebe lifted a brow in disapproval. “The fire took everybody's attention, but I noticed your father among the farmers and volunteers. It was strange to me that he was there. I saw him break away from the group. That is when I lost him, but him being on that mountain made me wonder. I went to the place where Mrs. Pienaar was found. It was only a guess. If I had been wrong …” He shook his head.

Alet took a deep breath. “Johannes, I want you to know that I will honor my promise. I asked Theo to hand over everything we found on my dad. He will be prosecuted if he pulls through.”

Mathebe closed his eyes. “You have fought to give Mrs. Pienaar justice, Constable Berg. For that, you will always have my respect.”

Alet tried to hold on to that moment in the months that followed, stuck on desk duty, mandatory psychiatric counseling, and physical therapy twice a week. She only saw Adriaan again at his trial, his testimony stoic, detached, denying horrors that had had her sobbing into the late hours. He never made eye contact as she took the stand to testify against him, his gaze focused in the distance, a self-righteous set to his jaw.

Alet saw her face plastered on the front page of every newspaper in the country, her life dissected by a media frenzy fiercer than a shark attack. She'd become known as the monster's daughter. Some postulated that she betrayed her own blood to get ahead. A publisher approached her with a book deal if she would “tell all,” calling her a hero. Alet stopped answering her phone after that.

Booking on her shift one afternoon, Alet noticed that the door to
the evidence room had been left open. As she reached for the handle to lock it, she saw April among the shelves, his back to her. She was about to crack a joke, tell him to go home to his new wife, when she realized that he was putting drug evidence into his backpack. Alet walked away without a word, tired of kicking against the stream, so tired, willing to give over, to maybe just once not be at the center of the storm but instead to strive for harmony, even though it meant that she would be betraying everything she had fought for. There was a moment of decision, when anger fell away and no good reason to stay on the force remained, and Alet hesitated too long.

Alet quit the police and moved to Cape Town, where she took a position at a private security firm, doing shifts as a first responder to emergency calls from those who could pay for their safety. The industry was booming, the pay good enough. Once in a while, when the fog lay like a blanket over Table Mountain, she would call in sick and take the cable car to the top, despite the ticket-seller's warnings of poor visibility. She'd wander around in the dense whiteness, the world simply disappearing in a soft haze as the ghosts of the past walked with her. Tessa. Benjamin. Jakob. It was hard to imagine that death could have brought them peace. In time, she knew, people would forget who they were, and who she was. They would even forget about her father and the things done by men like him, as they had forgotten the struggle for their freedom. But Alet knew she would never have that luxury.