Birdseye Page 22

  Detective Ace grimaced. He looked at each of us in turn. ‘Should I continue?’ he asked. Orville’s face was set hard into an expression of terrible concentration. I was scared. If he so much as blinked, it would crumple into ruins and he would never look like Orville again. Annie’s head was in her hands. I don’t know what I looked like. All I could feel was my mind clenched tight, letting in small drips of information, refusing to put them all together.

  Annie nodded and I did too.

  ‘He wasn’t very popular in prison at first. Ja well, you can see why. But he was quiet. Kept to himself, didn’t cause any trouble. Was willing to help other inmates with their financial problems. The model prisoner, you might say. But about a year ago, he changes. He asks for extra paper, spends hours working with figures. Keeps saying it’s important, very important that things balance. “The numbers must stack up,” he says to the social worker who’s called in to see him. “The numbers aren’t stacking up.” He becomes angry. Not violent, but very agitated. He says he can’t let this happen, but he won’t say what “this” is. The only other thing he says is that nothing must “disturb the numbers”.

  ‘Now this all ties in with what we know about him,’ said Detective Ace. ‘He’s an accountant, we know that, so numbers are an important part of his life. He keeps meticulous records of everything he does. Everything he did. Better I don’t go into any details. This obsession with numbers seems to be his prime motivator.’

  Detective Ace reached inside his pocket and pulled out a shiny piece of paper. ‘I have this,’ he said. ‘De Kok sent it through to me straight after Stone confessed. It’s what he actually said about the boys. Not too much, but it does fill in parts of the puzzle. Should I read it?’

  Orville lowered his heavy head. Annie’s fingers whitened on his hand.

  ‘All right.’ Detective Ace smoothed out the paper. ‘Perhaps a cup of tea first,’ he nodded at Constable Radebe, ‘or a drink?’

  He was preparing us, giving us breathing space, but I wanted it all out. I didn’t want time to think in between.

  ‘After we’ve heard everything,’ I said. ‘Mom? Dad?’ Orville nodded again and Detective Ace cleared his throat.

  ‘My system must not be thrown out of balance,’ he read. ‘Not with the Little boys. I don’t want to speak about them, but I have been forced to. I have tried to hold them back. My small secrets, my aberrations. But they have to be added in. No one may take them away from me, no one may claim any part in the equation. There can be no misapprehensions.

  ‘They were never entered into my ledger. They do not belong there. They are special. Apart. I stepped beyond the lines for them. It was so hard to return to the rules, but I forced myself to.

  ‘They disrupted my pattern. A perfect opportunity, at a poor moment.

  ‘I have an excuse. I was sent to Cape Town on business. Only a few days, they said, and that should have been fine. A few days would not disturb my routine. And then—’

  Detective Ace looked up from his reading. ‘It says here that, at this point in the interview, he becomes extremely upset. Finds it hard to speak. Is ready to continue after a ten-minute break and a drink of water.’ He pushed his glasses up on his nose, looked at us all briefly and continued reading aloud.

  ‘The job becomes complicated. I have to stay longer – my routine, my ledger, all muddled. Walking clears my head. I count steps. Each distance a number of steps. So long to climb a mountain. So long to climb down again. I walk, and I continue another day. And then another.

  ‘One more week at the Harbiton branch, they tell me. Day after day, I climb the mountains. That weekend I pack my rucksack, for a long hike. I’ve seen a cave, want to look closer. I map my route. Work out the fastest way up. One step after another, that’s what I need. I hold everything in place until I can get home, put everything in order.

  ‘It’s not long before I’m at the entrance to the cave. I’m sitting on a rock, taking a sip of water when I look down and see them. Two children. They get closer and I see how alike they are. Such symmetry. Chance has thrown them my way, sent me this perfect, illicit gift.

  ‘We talk.

  ‘Hello, I say. Lovely day. They look at each other quickly. Well-trained children, they know they shouldn’t speak to strangers. But out here, up on the mountain, it’s different. People greet each other, smile, chat about the weather, the condition of the trails.

  ‘The one child is nervous; he checks his watch, tells his brother they must be going. The other is more confident. They are not allowed to climb the mountain alone, he tells me. No one knows they are here.

  ‘No one except me.

  ‘It’s not like they are doing anything really wrong, the cautious one says. They’re not going to the top where the path is steep and dangerous. They’re just going to explore a little higher up and then they’ll head back.

  ‘After all, his brother interrupts, they are ten years old. He checks the large watch on his wrist. A few more minutes, and then back to the harbour to get their bikes. Maybe even have time to fish.

  ‘I smile. Maybe when you’re old enough you can join the Mountain Club, I say. So many great climbs in South Africa. Pity we don’t have longer, I could tell you about them.

  ‘My mind is cramming up, filling with possibilities, and it’s hard to keep my voice calm.

  ‘But just quickly, before you go, I say, guess what I’ve just found. A secret cave. Right here. Have a quick look, I say. It won’t take long.

  ‘I step back. Let them crawl through the entrance ahead of me.

  ‘And then, I follow them in.’

  Detective Uys stopped. He cleared his throat, looked at us, questioningly.

  Nobody moved.

  ‘There’s not much more,’ he said, continuing to read: ‘I know I am wrong to deviate from my routine, but it feels right. Because of the numbers, you see. 2, 10, 20. The numbers stack up.

  ‘The news of their disappearance is in all the Cape Town papers. It even travels to Johannesburg, but by that time I am gone. My work in Harbiton is done.

  ‘I keep them a secret. For years and years. My secret. My two. They are mine.’

  Detective Ace kept his voice flat and emotionless as he read, but the frenzy behind the words was there, struggling to be shouted aloud, because that’s how I imagined Dirk Stone: a huge man, legs like tree stumps, made to swing up a mountain, now pacing a small room, yelling out his frustration to thin, handsome Captain de Kok.

  ‘And then I learn, someone wants to tamper with my total. There have been misapprehensions. This is a matter of grave concern. I can’t sleep. I count, and each night these two whisper in my ear. They tell me to tell the truth. Two voices whisper. Every night. All through the day. And now they are slipping away from me. They have to be reclaimed. They are mine. They belong to me. Only me.’

  Detective Ace stopped. ‘There’s a note here from De Kok,’ he said.

  A handwritten scrawl at the bottom of the page:

  Marius

  That’s all he would say. The ou’s obviously mal, but he’s clever. He’s got all sorts of sums, complicated, columns of numbers. I can’t understand it, but I reckon the shrinks will be lining up to talk to him. And the reporters. He’s been allowed a few interviews before this, but now they’ll all want his story.

  ‘Pity,’ Detective Ace said. ‘Half the pleasure these okes get is from having the world see how brilliant they’ve been, outwitting the police, getting bolder and bolder. Dirk Stone’s had too much written about him already. It’s a feeding frenzy with these reporters. They shouldn’t let him see the light of day, let alone talk to anyone. Throw the sick fuck in a cell and lose the key.’

  His face went a deep red. ‘I’m sorry Ann, Orville,’ he said. ‘Sorry, Miss Bird.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Orville. ‘Don’t say sorry.’

  Annie loosened her grip on Orville’s hand and raised her head. ‘Thank you, Marius,’ she said. ‘That can’t have been easy.’

&nb
sp; Orville got to his feet. He shook his head as if whatever horror was in there could be dislodged by rapid movement. But I knew it would never be budged. Dirk Stone was settling in, taking up residence in our lives and the truth of what he had done was taking hold.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Orville said. ‘The mountain? In a cave?’

  ‘Yes.’ Detective Ace nodded soberly.

  ‘We searched,’ Orville said. ‘Over and over. We walked the mountain. The police … You had dogs for God’s sake.’

  ‘We did. But they couldn’t smell the boys. There was a small rockslide, under the overhang, at the entrance to the cave, and he built a fire in front of it. Doused the whole area with paraffin. Small fire, like the bergies often make up on the mountains. They were so close, all the time we were looking, but we didn’t stand a chance of finding them.’

  There was a muffled sound. Orville had crumpled, folded at the middle, the wind knocked out of him. Annie made to stand, and he pushed her down gently.

  ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. I’m all right.’

  But he wasn’t. None of us were. I couldn’t bear to look at Orville any longer, or to let my eyes shift to Annie’s face. Even Detective Ace was hard to look at. He had spent so much time on the case, and now this bleak ending.

  ‘I should have taken them.’ Orville broke the silence. ‘Up the mountain. I kept promising, kept putting them off. Oh God, Annie. Bird. It’s my fault. If I’d taken them—’

  ‘Bullshit.’ This time Detective Ace didn’t apologise. He just said it again. ‘That’s bullshit, Orville. Don’t torment yourself. Don’t start thinking about what you should have done, could have done. Your little ous wanted to explore that mountain. On their own. Not with their pa. You heard what they said. They were big boys. Ten. Too old for little kids’ rules. You hear me?’

  Orville raised his head and nodded slowly. ‘It’s just—’

  ‘Remember what I said to you that first night?’ Detective Ace’s voice was urgent now. ‘Boys will be boys. We say it over and over, and it’s true. It’s what we love about them, but it’s also what gets them into trouble. Every time.’

  ‘Marius is right, darling. Listen to him. He’s right.’ Annie had Orville’s hand in her lap now, and she was stoking it, over and over, as if her words could be rubbed into his skin. ‘You have to listen, Orville. It was bad luck. That’s all.’

  I looked at Constable Radebe. She was watching all of us, her eyes flitting from face to face, gauging our reactions to the news, recording, filing, analysing. She’d make a good investigator, I remember thinking. She wouldn’t get sidetracked by the small stuff. Her face gave nothing away, and I wondered what horrors she had experienced in her life.

  I thought of other faces. Small faces. The victims of Dirk Stone. I couldn’t move. The thought of all those children held me still, unable to look any deeper into the horror.

  And then, into the shock, the icy stillness, came the hard ring of Ma Bess’s bell.

  Constable Radebe glanced into the hall. ‘Should I …?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s okay. I’ll go.’

  The bell pealed again, insistent, demanding.

  4

  I ran up the stairs, letting my feet pound hard, letting the old bitch know I was on my way. She had no right to be interrupting us. For once in her life, couldn’t she just wait until we were ready to deal with her? We had enough to worry about.

  Just as I was about to open her door, I stopped. Ten years ago I had come up these stairs to this door to let her know that my brothers were missing. Now, here I was again, telling her about Oz and Ollie, only this time I was telling her that they had come back. My brothers had been found.

  I flung open her door. Without knocking.

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘What do you want?’

  Ma Bess didn’t reprimand me for my tone of voice. Instead she turned away from the window and wheeled her chair towards me.

  ‘The noise,’ she said. ‘The hullaballoo.’ She waved her hand towards the window and I could see that it was shaking. Not for the first time, I wished I could feel some pity for her. Age was taking its toll on Ma Bess. And it wasn’t being kind.

  ‘What’s it all about, girl?’

  I looked at her coldly. My heart clenched around its secrets. Oz and Ollie’s faces came into view for the first time since I’d seen Detective Ace. Why should I tell her what was happening? Why should I be afraid of a wizened old woman sitting in a wheelchair? That’s all she was. I built a wall of bravado, quick and fast.

  ‘Well?’ she snapped. ‘Out with it. What’s all the fuss?’

  ‘It’s Oscar and Oliver,’ I said baldly. ‘They’ve been found.’

  ‘Your brothers have come back?’ She jerked back in her chair.

  ‘No, no,’ I said impatiently. ‘That’s not it at all. They found their bodies.’

  Saying the words still didn’t make it feel real to me.

  ‘Their bodies, you say?’

  ‘Yes, in a cave on the mountain.’

  ‘A cave?’ She raised a shaking hand to her chest.

  I was tempted to tell her not to repeat everything I said, but bravado only goes so far.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A cave on our mountain.’

  ‘Who found them?’

  I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t tell her about Dirk Stone and his sick dark secrets. Let her read it in the newspapers like everyone else. Stick her head out the window and ask the reporters. All I could think of was my brothers, so close to us all this time. If they’d been able to shout, we might even have heard them.

  I turned on my heel and left the room without asking permission.

  5

  The days that followed were a jumble and a blur. I wrote to the boys, spoke to them, mumbled to them in my dreams. Thoughts of a monster called Dirk Stone filled my head, and I couldn’t force him out.

  I can’t let go and stop thinking about your death and Dirk Stone’s life, I told Ollie and Oz. I feel that I have to find every scrap of information I can about him, about the children he abducted. I could have been one of them, you know, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fate could have pushed a few buttons, and I’d have been the one who strayed into his path. But he didn’t get me, he got you. What did he look like, I keep wondering. How did he get you to trust him so easily? And what did he do to you?

  Detective Ace could only tell us what he knew. About Dirk Stone and his bizarre obsession with numbers. I have to do the rest.

  Detective Ace’s news brought death back among us, only now it had taken shape and form, and its devil breath touched us. Dirk Stone. The Freezer Killer.

  The moment Detective Ace told us the news, Angela, Anthea and Alice left their lives and gathered around Annie and Orville, slipping back into their old selves, the shocked and scared girls who had once had to absorb the reality of their brothers’ disappearance.

  Angela’s second baby was due soon, and my sister looked tired and uncomfortable, the glow of impending motherhood extinguished by Detective Ace’s news. Alice arrived with a bulging briefcase and a bag full of books. She had an important paper to prepare, and beyond the odd awkward embrace with Annie and Orville, we only saw her at mealtimes. Anthea was the same as ever, quick to state her opinions, equally quick to squash anything I said under her spiky heel. But at least she’d left her latest lover to come home. It was good to feel us all gathered in one space, forming a family shield against Dirk Stone. But, as I soon learned, the shield was there to prevent him – or anything to do with him – from ever entering our lives again.

  A few nights after Detective Ace’s visit, I tried to talk about the cave where Oz and Ollie had been found. At dinner, when Thelma brought in the lemon meringue pie, I picked up my fork and slid it into the fluffy topping.

  ‘What I can’t stop thinking about,’ I said, ‘is exactly how long he kept them there. I mean, I know he said he left Harbiton, but when exactly? If we’d known they were right th
ere, maybe there’d have been a chance, before he …’ I looked up expectantly. Surely we all had an opinion on this? But all I saw were expressions of distaste, as if the thought of evil had taken all the sweetness from the pudding, and left only the lemon.

  ‘We don’t need any more details, Bird.’ Angela’s hand circled the huge bulge of her stomach. ‘It’s enough for now.’

  But she wasn’t going to shush me into silence. ‘It might be enough for you, but I need to know more about it, about him, and don’t,’ I shot a burning glance at Angela, ‘just don’t tell me to let it go, or that they’re in a better place. How can we even think that? They were found in the worst place anyone could be. Alone, with no one to hear them, or help them, or save them. Doesn’t that bother you? Don’t you want to find out more?’ I directed this last at Annie and Orville.

  ‘Not now, Bird,’ Orville said, and his hand tightened on Annie’s.

  ‘Not ever,’ said Anthea dismissively. ‘The man’s a cold-blooded killer, what more do you want to know?’

  I pushed my chair back from the table.

  ‘Bird,’ said Annie, her washed-out voice on autopilot, ‘have you asked to be excused?’

  ‘No!’ I yelled, finally exploding. ‘I have not asked for permission to be excused. Sorry about that, Mom. Sorry, Dad. Sorry I’m such a nuisance, getting in the way of letting Oz and Ollie fade away. Because that’s what you all want,’ I spat the words, ‘to let them go without any more hassle. Don’t talk about them alive because the memories are too painful. Don’t talk about them dying because the thought is just too hard. Let them slip out of our lives, and we’ll mention them at funerals and weddings, when it would have been nice to have them around. Keep it polite and civilised and pretend this never happened and that Dirk Stone doesn’t exist and let’s not allow ourselves to think about what it might have been like for them because – Oh my God! – we might all get upset all over again. But what about them? What if they can’t let go unless we know what happened to them? What about that? What the fuck about that?’

  I flew from the room, ignoring Orville telling me to come back, and Anthea’s surprised laugh and Angela saying I just needed time and that no one should worry.