Deon Meyer is the bestselling crime writer in South Africa. This translation occasionally uses colloquial phrases from his original Afrikaans. A glossary of terms can be found at the end of this book.
Also by Deon Meyer
Dead Before Dying
Dead at Daybreak
Heart of the Hunter
Devil’s Peak
Blood Safari
Thirteen Hours
Trackers
7 Days
Cobra
Icarus
www.hodder.co.uk
First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Originally published in Afrikaans in 2016 as Koors by Human & Rousseau
1
Copyright © Deon Meyer 2017
English translation copyright © K. L. Seegers 2017
The right of Deon Meyer to be identified as the Author of the
Work has been asserted by him in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that
in which it is published and without a similar condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN 978 1 473 61441 3
Ebook ISBN 978 1 473 61443 7
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.hodder.co.uk
The initial mystery that attends each journey is: how did the traveller reach his starting point in the first place?
— Louise Bogan
Memories of mortification persist for decades . . .
— Oliver Burkeman, Help
Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self.
— W.H. Auden
Autobiography is usually honest but it is never truthful.
— Robert A. Heinlein, Friday
Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honour.
— Raymond Chandler
Contents
Map
Chapter 1
The Year of the Dog
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
The Year of the Crow
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
The Year of the Jackal
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
The Year of the Pig
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
The Year of the Lion
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Glossary
Chapter 1
I want to tell you about my father’s murder.
I want to tell you who killed him, and why. This is the story of my life. And the story of your life and your world too, as you will see.
I have waited for a long time to write about this: I believe one needs wisdom and insight for such a task. I think one has first to get the anger – in fact, all the emotions – under control.
I am forty-seven years old today. The age my father was when he died, in the Year of the Lion. Perhaps that offers enough distance from the events of the time, though I don’t know if I will ever develop the necessary wisdom and insight, but I worry that I will begin to forget many of the crucial events, experiences, people. I can’t postpone this any longer.
So, here it is. My memoir, my murder story. And my exposé, so everyone will know the truth.
The Year of the Dog
Chapter 2
20 March
The moments we remember most clearly are those of fear, loss and humiliation.
It was 20 March in the Year of the Dog. I was thirteen years old.
The day passed just as the previous day had done, and the one before that, to the dull drone of the big Volvo FH12 diesel engine, and the muffled rumbling of sixteen wheels on the long, enclosed trailer behind it. Outside, a predictable, forgettable landscape slid by. I recall the artificial coolness of the air conditioner in the cab of the ‘horse’. The truck still had that fresh, new smell. A school textbook lay open on my lap, but my thoughts were wandering.
My father slowed the truck. I looked up, and out. I read the white lettering against the black background of the road sign: WELCOME TO KOFFIEFONTEIN!
‘Koffiefontein,’ I repeated out loud, charmed by the name and the image it evoked in my childlike imagination – a warm, aromatic fountain of simmering, dark coffee.
We drove slowly into town. In the near dusk of the late afternoon it seemed ghostly, bereft of life, like all the others. Weeds on the pavements, lawns thickly overgrown behind their fences. On the horizon, far behind the squat buildings of the wide main street, lightning criss-crossed in spectacular displays on a backdrop of fantastical cloud formations. The entire western rim was blooded a strange, disturbing crimson.
My father pointed. ‘Cu-mu-lo-nim-bus,’ he said, each syllable measured. ‘That’s what you call those clouds. It comes from the Latin. Cumulus means “pile”. And nimbus is “rain”. That’s what gives us thunderstorms.’
‘Cu-mu-lo-nim-bus.’ I had a go at the word.
He nodded, deftly turned the big truck in at the filling station, and parked. He flipped the switch he had installed himself, to turn on the lights down the side of the long, enclosed trailer. Instantly the fuel pumps cast long shadows, like human figures. The engine off, we climbed down.
We were so used to our surroundings being safe.
The late summer heat beat up from the tarred forecourt, insect shrilling filled the air. And another sound, a deeper carpet of noise.
‘What’s that noise, Papa?’
‘Frogs. The Riet River is just over there.’
We walked back along the side of the trailer. It was white, with three big green letters that looked as though they had been blown askew in a gale: RFA. They were spelled out on the back of the trailer – Road Freight Africa. We’d found it at a truck stop just outside Potchefstroom, with the Volvo horse attached, nearly brand new, full tank and all. Now we walked, father and son, side by side. His hair was long, blond and unkempt; mine was just as wild, but brown. I was thirteen, in that no-man’s-land between boy and teenager, and for the moment comfortable there.
A bat swooped low over my head, through the pool of light.
‘How does a bat catch its prey?’ my father asked.
‘With echoes.’
‘What kind of animal is a bat?’
‘A mammal, not a bird.’
He ruffled my hair affectionately. ‘Good.’
I liked his approval.
We began to go through the familiar ritual we had performed at least once a day for weeks on end now: my father carried the small Honda generator and electric pump to the fuel station’s refilling manhole covers in their colour-coded rows. Then he fetched the big adjustable spanner to lift up the black manhole cover. My job was to roll out the long garden hose. It was connected to the electric pump, and I had to push the other end into the mouth of the Volvo’s diesel tank, and hold it there.
Refuelling in a world without electricity, or traffic.
I played my part, and stood there feeling bored, reading the letters on the white wall of the fuel station. Myburgh Electric. Myburgh Tyres. I thought I must ask my father about that, because I knew that ‘burg’ meant ‘a fort’ – he’d explained that to me when we drove through places like Trompsburg and Reddersburg – but this was an unusual spelling, and not the name of this town.
Suddenly the hum of insects ceased.
Something drew my attention, behind my father, down the street. I called to him, in surprise at the unexpected sign of life, and a bit frightened by the furtive nature of the movement. My father hunkered down, pushing the pump pipe into the hole. He looked up at me, following the direction of my gaze, and saw the spectres in the deepening dusk.
‘Get inside,’ he shouted. He stood up, holding the heavy wrench, and ran towards the cab.
I was frozen. The shame of it would eat at me for months, that inexplicable stupidity. I stood motionless, my eyes fixed on the shifting shadows as they coalesced into solid shapes.
Dogs. Supple, quick.
‘Nico,’ my father shouted, with a terrible urgency. He stopped in his tracks, to try to fend the determined dogs away from his child.
The desperation in my father’s voice sent a shockwave through my body, releasing my fear. And shooting the first dart of self-recrimination. I sobbed, and ran along the length of the trailer. Through the mist of tears I saw the first dog float into the pool of light, leap at my father’s throat, jaws agape, long sharp fangs bared. The big spanner swung, a fleeting shadow of that motion. I heard the dull thud as it hit the creature’s head, its curtailed yelp. At the step of the truck, I grabbed the silver railing, panic propelling me up into the cab. A dog lunged at me, as I dragged the door shut. The beast leapt up, high, almost to the open window, claws scrabbling on the metal door, yellow fangs gleaming in the light of the lorry. I screamed. The dog fell back. My father was down there. Five, six curs, creeping, crouching, circling him. And more darting into the pool of light, lean, relentless.
After that, everything happened so fast, yet it was also as if time stood still. I remember the finest detail. The despair on my father’s face when the dogs cut him off from the truck, just three metres away. The whirring sound as he swung and swung the massive adjustable wrench. The electrically charged air, the smell of ozone, the stink of the dogs. They dodged backwards to evade the momentum of the deadly spanner, always too agile, just out of reach. But they stayed between him and the truck door, snarling, snapping.
‘Get the pistol, Nico. Shoot.’ Not an order. A terrified plea, as if in that moment my father saw his death and its consequences: his son, lone survivor, stranded, doomed.
His face contorted in agony as a dog attacked him from behind, sinking its fangs deep into his shoulder. That shook me from my trance. I reached for the Beretta in the compartment on the wide instrument panel, struggling to press the safety catch off with my thumb, as my father had taught me, over and over. Another dog bit into his defending arm, and hung there. Now I had both hands on the weapon. Two fingers to pull the trigger’s first, stiff double action, the shot into the air, wildly, the blast deafening in the interior of the cab, so that my ears rang, all sound muted. Cordite stung my nostrils. The animals froze for a second. My father hit out with the wrench and the dog on his arm sank down. He took a step towards the door. The pack moved, and sprang. I aimed at the flank of one. Fired. The dog fell sideways. I fired again and again. The animals made high, barely audible yelps of pain, and the others began to drop back, for the first time.
Now my father was at the door, he pulled it open, jumped in, a dog hanging on his leg as he lashed out at it. It fell. With blood on his arms, blood down his back, he shoved me off the passenger seat, and slammed the door shut.
I saw my father’s face, the loathing, determination, fear, revulsion, rage. I felt him grab the pistol from my hands. He ejected the magazine, pushed in a fresh one. He held the pistol out of the window and fired again and again and again. Each shot was merely a dull report in my ringing ears, the cartridges scattered silently against the windscreen, the instrument panel, the steering wheel, and dropped to the floor beside me, everywhere. I looked up at my father’s tattered shirt, and the deep wounds in his back, the same crimson as the clouds.
The pistol emptied, still Pa kept pulling the trigger. Smoke filled the cab.
It was 20 March in the Year of the Dog.
Eleven months after the Fever.
My father slumped forward, with the pistol on his lap. He sat as still as death. I could not see if his eyes were closed.
Gradually the sounds outside returned, washing over us in gentle waves.
The frogs, the early evening crickets. Far in the west, the blood-red horizon dimmed to black, and still he sat.
Someone sobbed quietly. It took a while for me to realise: it was me. I didn’t want to let this happen now, it felt inappropriate. Ungrateful, in a way. But I had no control over it; the sobs came harder, more urgently. At last my fath
er reacted, turned to me, put the pistol down on the dashboard, wrapped his arms around me. My whole body began to shake, my heart hammering in my ears. I smelled the blood and sweat on my father and I clung to him.
My ear to his chest, I heard his heart beating incredibly fast.
‘There, there,’ he said. I didn’t hear the words, just felt the vibrations. There. There, there, there.
He held me tighter, till gradually I calmed down.
‘You’re my hero, Nico,’ he said. ‘You did well, you hear?’
At last I got the word out, the word that had stuck inside, for so long. ‘Mamma.’
And when it reached my ears, the mortification burned through me.
‘Oh, God,’ said my father, and hugged me tighter. Then he turned off the lights down the side of the truck.
My father’s name is Willem Storm.
In the light of a hissing gas lamp I cleaned the wounds on his back. My hands trembled. The antiseptic must have burned like fire in the long red gashes in his skin, but he didn’t make a sound, didn’t say a word. It scared me, strengthened my fear that I had failed him.
Later he opened two tins of Enterprise Spaghetti and Meatballs. We ate in silence. I stared at the blue and red tin, and wondered what was wrong with PORK. Because there was a yellow star on the tin, with fat red letters that said: NO PORK.
‘I didn’t think that would happen so fast,’ said my father at last.
‘What, Papa?’
‘The dogs,’ he said, and made a vague gesture with the spoon in his hand.
And then he went silent again.
Chapter 3
21 March
In the morning Pa dragged the dog carcasses to the back of the filling station, and set them on fire.
We refuelled the lorry. Pa was quiet. Nothing felt right. The fear was like a shadow creeping along behind me.
We drove off, without breakfast. Pa said, ‘We’re going to eat at a special place.’ He tried to make it sound like an occasion, but I was old enough to hear that his cheerfulness was forced. His wounds must have been very painful. ‘Okay, Pa,’ I said eagerly, as though I shared his excitement.