Читать книгу Blue Sunday - Irma Venter - Страница 18

Thursday, 8 February, 19:33

Weak light from the streetlamp filters thinly through the curtains in Willem’s bedroom. I sit down on his bed. There’s a photo on the back of the door of the winning 1995 Springbok Rugby World Cup team, hidden behind his dressing gown. On the wall, there’s a Fast & Furious poster and a photo of some or other blonde film star I don’t know. She’s in a bikini, with her backside pushed out and her index finger in her mouth as though she is six and hungry.

The boy will soon learn that no woman actually ever stands like that. And if she does, she’s going to ride you hard, and not in the way you want her to.

Everything feels right in Willem’s room, like things are as they should be. And yet, also not quite. It’s almost too typical of a well-off, first-year student who just last year was driving around in his father’s BMW and playing rugby for the Tuks first team, with the Blue Bulls poised to tap him to open for their Curry Cup side.

Talented family.

What if their secrets are as big as their talents?

I gauge the light falling through the thin curtains. In the glow of the streetlamps you can see the outline of almost everything in this room without switching on the light.

I stand in the doorway, survey the bed that looks as though someone is sleeping in it. Yep, no need to come in and check whether Willem’s in bed.

But why sneak out when you’re twenty? Alex Derksen makes a good point.

I open Willem’s cupboard. Dirty training clothes lie in a pile on top of an untidy zigzag of shoes. I unfold the shirt. It smells of old sweat and too much aftershave, as though Willem went to meet someone after practice but didn’t have time to shower. Somewhere in the bundle of clothes there’s also the vague smell of a sweet, heavy perfume.

Underneath the clothes is a pair of running shoes with a stray jacaranda blossom stuck in one of the soles. Apparently, Willem went for a run after every gym session. That’s what his friends say. A good ten, fifteen kilometres at a time.

As far as Sydney could establish, Willem went to gym on the Sunday morning before the break-in. On his way to Planet Fitness, he dropped Cath at the dance studio where she goes for ballet lessons. She had the key and went to practise on her own. Evidently, she did this often. After gym, Willem went for a beer with his friends while he waited for her to finish.

I close the cupboard. Sit down at the desk. Nothing funny here either. Textbooks for accounting, economics and business management, pens, notebooks.

Where did you go that night, Willem? Did you and your father have words? You failed a subject. Lafras wouldn’t have been happy about that, especially in his current financial position, because he was the one paying for your studies.

No, I realise, that fight would have happened long before, when the exam results came out, not on Christmas Eve.

Willem’s laptop and iPad didn’t yield much. His e-mails are more or less innocent. He was much more active on social media, apparently, and these accounts haven’t shown any activity since his disappearance. There are, however, links to porn videos in his history. Which probably explains why only two days’ history reflected on his computer: he wiped it regularly, but didn’t get around to it the last time he used the computer.

The single pornographic video he downloaded was hidden in a folder with the name Accounting 101, under Asset Management. I’ve watched it, as well as the videos in the web links. Some are pretty violent, but luckily they’re in the minority. The videos aren’t a surprise. Many men watch pornography. Some women, too.

I look up at the ceiling. I didn’t lie to Alex about the cameras, but I wasn’t entirely honest either. The one in Willem’s room is a useless piece of plastic, just like the rest in the house. Only the one in Cath’s room is real. The company that did the installation says the images were recorded in 24-hour loops and sent to Katerien’s phone and computer.

According to Sydney’s notes, Willem and Cath’s friends say the cameras appeared last year. They were ostensibly part of a new alarm system their parents had installed. Willem’s buddies say he knew this was false. Cath was very upset about the camera in her room, even though her mother lied and said they only worked when the family was away and the alarm was on.

I get up and walk to the window, push the curtains aside. Willem’s room looks out onto the garage roof. It’s about two metres below the window and quite an easy jump, especially if you’re a tall man. This is how Sydney reckons Willem slipped out.

I agree. Willem jumps onto the roof, walks to the carport where his BMW is parked, slides down the steel upright, and goes out the side gate. Comes back later, but is then forced to flee.

Pity I can’t talk to Sydney. His head is somewhere else, his thoughts in a place his wife can only just reach on a good day.

The other information I kept from Alex was that we’re pretty sure about when the break-in happened. Lafras’s watch broke during the attack and stopped at 12.53. Which means Willem was back home at the time of the attack or shortly after it, and that he drove away without phoning the ambulance or the police.

This makes him look very guilty.

I push the window open, listen to the sounds of people settling in for the evening. Televisions, people walking their dogs. Far off, the hollow thuds of electronic shots being fired in a computer game, then fading again.

Are we even right about how Willem slipped out that night?

I turn away from the window and take a penlight out of my sports bag on the bed. Take off my shoes and swing one leg over the windowsill. How would I do this if I were Willem? If I were the super-fit first-team lock who wanted to sneak away quietly?

I swing both legs out of the window. Where can I get a foothold? Do I stand on the windowsill and jump?

Wait … there’s a narrow ledge on the wall I can put my foot on.

I climb back into the room and climb out again, this time with my backside to the street. I drop one foot and feel around until I find the ledge. I look down, let go and land loudly on the reddish-brown roof tiles.

Someone as tall as Willem would likely be able to do it more quietly. I turn around and walk towards the carport.

Whoa!

My feet slip out from under me and I slide down the pitched roof until I’m against the house’s wall. I stay there, back where I was, under Willem’s bedroom. My left side is definitely going to be bruised tomorrow.

I take a deep breath and turn onto my back. Wonder for a moment about the view to the left. Enormous plane trees obscure the neighbours’ view of the Van Zyl house, and pruned thorn hedges protect their boundary wall effectively against any mischief the Van Zyls might bring.

The neighbours wouldn’t have seen Willem slipping out. But Cath would have; her bedroom window is right next to Willem’s.

Maybe she knew what her brother was doing. Maybe he slipped out often.

What if Lafras and Katerien were the kind of parents who micro-managed their children’s lives? What if it made Willem furious? Don’t the cameras reveal that something in this house wasn’t quite right?

And what if Cath slipped out with Willem sometimes? Or did she just keep quiet, as brothers and sisters sometimes do? Everyone says the two of them were good friends in spite of their age difference.

No, AJ, I scold myself. Forget other nights. Focus on what happened on that Sunday night.

I look up at the handful of stars shimmering in the evening sky. Okay. It’s the night of 24 December. I am Willem. It’s just before one am. I walk in through the gates at the Stables. I hope the worst is over. That my family is dead. That I can sit here and cry crocodile tears about the break-in and how I wasn’t here to stop it. If I’m lucky, the life insurance pays out quickly.

But things don’t work out as expected. My father fights like a madman. The men take what they can. They don’t want to wait for the money from the life insurance. They are injured and scared and they don’t trust me. They lie in wait for me to get rid of me. I have to flee.

I turn onto my stomach, get up and limp towards the carport again, searching in the dark. When I reach the end of the tiles, I climb carefully onto the corrugated-iron roof. I lie flat, penlight in my mouth. Swing one leg over, my foot blindly feeling for the steel upright.

The torch swings back and forth as I try to find a foothold.

Hang on …

I pull my leg back with difficulty and stand up. The light just caught something … There, deep in the gutter. What is that?

I look into the dark mouth of the downpipe. Just leaves and sticks. Probably my imagin—

No.

It’s a … phone? I swear it’s a phone.