Quicksand of Despair

By Frederic Roux

While Rian Schröder is investigating the murder of Gert and Anriëtte Schoeman, Deputy Minister Gugo Tsetsana and her lackey Inus Krynauw are murdered in her sea point apartment. The Minister of Police orders Rian to find the killer post-haste. Since right-wing Afrikaners stand accused of plotting to assassinate leaders of the ruling party during the party’s conference in December 2012, members of the ruling party fear this is a plot by right-wing Afrikaners to assassinate their leaders,.
Senior members of the ruling party warn Rian not to delve too deep into Gugo’s background. Why? When Rian discovers that Gugo was about to expose a scandal that could sink the party in the coming general election he has no option but to delve deeper. She claimed to have proof that the election for President and Vice President of the party in Bloemfontein in 2012 was rigged. Was she silenced by high-ranking members to prevent the scandal from becoming public knowledge?
The erstwhile freedom fighter Gugo Tsetsana better known as Papilio, Butterfly of Africa was trained in counter intelligence in Libya and Bulgaria. During the struggle she moved from one camp to another in southern Africa to ferret out traitors and spies of the hated apartheid regime within the organization, and she was the best. Nothing however gave her a bigger thrill than to torture suspected traitors and spies with a wire-cutter and most died a horrible death. Consequently there were many within the organization and beyond that hated and feared Gugo.
During his investigation Rian finds four plausible motives – suppression, revenge, justice and vengeance. First, Gugo threatened to expose the fact that the election of the President and Vice President of the party was rigged – hence suppression. Secondly, she tortured and murdered the brother of a chief, a member of the same tribe as the Minister of Police – revenge. A third clue points to Inus Kynauw’s family, a white Afrikaner family who were ostracized and lost everything when their son joined the struggle – justice. Finally, evidence comes to light that Gugo not so long ago took vengeance on a far-right Afrikaner and tortured and murdered him – vengeance.
Gugo was born in a squatter’s camp near Bloemhof, a town on the banks of the Vaal River in what was then the Western Transvaal, now North West Province, which is still is a hot-spot for right-wingers. Her mother Sbóngile worked seven days a week as a maid for Oloff and Erika Groenewoud, parents of the highly decorated Bernie (who fought in Angola to keep Communists and terrorists like Gugo at bay), Ena, Dolf and Anchen.
Erika and Inus’ mother Maryna were sisters and Inus met Gugo when he and his parents used to visit the Groenewoud family in Bloemhof. At the time nothing gave Bernie greater pleasure than to bully, chase and mistreat the snot-nosed black girl. Inus hated this display of cruelty which was what in due course induced him to join the struggle. After planting a bomb and with the security police hot on his heels he fled the country. Years later the Truth and Reconciliation Commission pardoned him. But his parents, Reuben and Maryna, brother Flip and sister Maretha, were the ones who suffered most for they were ostracized by the Afrikaner community in Stellenbosch, kicked out of church and school, and Professor Krynauw had to resign his post at the university. This once prominent Afrikaner family had to sell up and move, banned to live among poor Coloured people in Bellville.
Did South Africa’s new democracy in 1994 have the same meaning for Gugo and Inus as it did for Bernie, Ena, Dolf, Anchen, Flip and Maretha? Or did they sink so deep into the quicksand of despair that there could be only one solution – death?
A shoot-out in General Koos de la Rey driveway in the army camp in Potchesfstroom determines the outcome – most appropriate, for General Koos de la Rey was a hero of the 1899-1902 war and symbol of Afrikaner resistance agains

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frederic Roux
• Release date: Nov 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310554063

Book preview

‘Comrade, you have to disguise yourself like the enemy, just as the Papilio Dardanus does. But watch out, for if you are recognized the enemy will devour you,’ the instructor, Saso Ipekei, a Bulgarian, a veritable giant of a man, told her.

She had never heard anything like this and did not comprehend for she could not puzzle out what it meant. ‘What is this thing, the Papi … Papili …?’

‘Papilio Dardanus. It is a butterfly.’

Taken aback she did not respond immediately but then addressed him tetchily, ‘Comrade, you mock me.’

It happened quite often that the cadres from Africa thought their Comrades or instructors from East European countries mocked them. The average European whether from Western or Eastern Europe has a prodigious sense of humour and cannot understand why the black man from Africa does not have the same.

‘No my little soldier, this is an extraordinary butterfly.’ How could he explain that he was a highly qualified biologist but that there was no work for a biologist in a Communist country? In her eyes he was a soldier, because in a Communist state the soldier was the person people feared and looked up to. However, in order for him to live, this was a second option. On the other hand, he was good at training the soldiers from Africa, at teaching them the art of deception in ferreting out the enemy, also at hand-to-hand combat.

Frowning, for she could not see what a butterfly had to do with counter intelligence or catching spies, she scornfully asked, ‘What is so special about this butterfly?’

‘Comrade, you are going back to Africa, home of the Papilio Dardanus (not that he knew where she came from and as far as he was concerned Africa south of the Sahara was still darkest Africa). You are a good soldier my poppet, you are …’

‘I am not your poppet,’ she snapped. ‘What is this … poppet?’

‘It is a doll, a …!’ About to say it is a puppet, a marionette, he bit off his words when he saw the fury flashing in the black eyes and realized, not only would she not understand, she would most likely take this up the wrong way.

‘I am not a doll,’ she screamed at him, pushing out her small breasts. ‘I am a soldier.’

Gugo Tsetsana was perhaps small in stature but she was heavy in bottom and big in courage. Before I leave here I may have to kill this man she thought. She hated this white man who mocked her. She hated all whites, men in particular. But most of all she hated the apartheid regime, for the apartheid regime was men only, white men. There were no women in the Cabinet of the regime or any of the top structures of government. Since childhood white men had mocked her. Her mother was a servant, a house maid for a white family who lived in Bloemhof, a town on the banks of the Vaal River in the far Western Transvaal. Prior to becoming a province of the Union of South Africa in 1910 the Transvaal was one of the two Boer Republics. The region formerly known as Western Transvaal has to this day been a bastion for right-wing Afrikaners.

As a child Gugo had to accompany her mother when there was no one to look after her, which was frequent. Located north-east a distance outside town, the location was a long walk from the house where these white people lived opposite the stone church with the tall steeple. There were no tarred streets in this small town, and nothing that could be called a street in the location. In scorching sun, wind, dust, rain, thunderstorms, hail, and on mornings when the ground was white with frost and water pipes frozen solid, her mother had to trudge to work every day of the week. Departing from their meagre shack before sunrise and only returning after it was dark, as a toddler, to her it had always felt like they walked forever. This helped to toughen her, and taught her endurance and perseverance.

Now she had a degree from the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. Her mother would have been so proud of her.

‘You are a good soldier,’ Saso continued with his story, ‘but you are a woman. In Africa, where you are going, birds love the female of this species of butterfly. For them, she is a delicious snack. She knows she is attractive, the female Papilio Dardanus, and so in order to protect herself she disguises herself by assuming the simulacrum of distasteful butterflies. Once a bird has had a taste of such a butterfly it will not go after it again, which completes the deception. So, when you go back to Africa, Comrade, if you want to be good at counter intelligence this is what you too have to do. Deception. Disguise yourself as one of the enemy and when he least expects it cut him down from inside his defences. Inveigle the enemy, Comrade. Lure him to come and have a taste of you. Then Comrade, while he is distracted pondering how he could have been so mistaken to think you are delicious, and without him realizing what is happening, you put your knife into his gut.’

Years later, moving from one filthy camp to the next all over Southern Africa in countries that backed the liberation struggle, Gugo often thought back to those days. In order to do her job ferreting out traitors and spies of the hated apartheid regime within the organisation she invariably used deception. She made herself to appear as attractive and delicious as Papilio Dardanus really was the butterfly that the big Bulgarian, her mentor had described. After luring the enemy to come and taste and while he was distracted she would slit is throat. Not that she always let the traitor off that easily. Sometimes she let him suffer and die slowly. That too was necessary to scare off others. If he was black she made him suffer because he was a traitor to his birthright, the autochthonous of Africa. And if he was white she made him suffer because she despised whites.

The deception the big Bulgarian taught her had made her highly successful. Also the hand-to-hand combat that he taught her. ‘In hand-to-hand combat defence is secondary Comrade,’ the big Bulgarian had told her, ‘the objective is to kill. Nothing else matters.’

The results that she produced were so good that her Comrade leaders told her they could not have been happier. Only they, the party leaders knew the true identity of Gugo Tsetsana. And as she flitted from camp to camp her reputation grew and cadres throughout Africa learned to fear the Butterfly of Africa. So too spies of the regime who tried to infiltrate the organisation.

However, there was one man that she still needed to inveigle. A white man. The eldest son of the family her mother had slaved for, day in and day out. Bernie. Bernhard Groenewoud. His image, his very name was a boiling volcano of hate in her heart and the day she met him she knew that volcano would erupt. She would make him suffer for all the indignity that she had had to endure. This dream she carried in her heart wherever she went.

Day after day Bernie had mocked her, calling her a filthy snot-nosed k----r. With his catapult he pelted her with peas and marbles, slapped her, pulled her hair, chased her about in the yard, beat her with a stick, broke all her things, and threw many of it away – he just made her life hell. In those days she was terrified of this big bully, but no longer. Now she was a soldier and she feared no man, least of all a white man.

She would do this once the war is over, when the regime had capitulated and they had taken over the country. That day was not long in coming, this much she knew. Talks between some of her leaders and white men who unofficially represented the regime were already in progress. Not that she would have to wait for that glorious day. If the opportunity arose she would lure him into her trap. What’s more, she had the bait to do it with, his cousin Inus Krynauw.

Then, when she got hold of Bernie she would strip him naked and hang him up by his thumbs. She too would strip naked so that the white man could see she was no longer a black snot-nosed kid but a full-grown woman – that she had what all men desired – white men too. In Bulgaria she had seen an electrician stripping electrical wire with a wire-cutter and she had acquired one and carried it with her wherever she went. Using the wire-cutter she would cut off knuckle upon knuckle of the other eight fingers of the hands that had abused her. She would take her time about it, grinding through skin and bone, so that he could feel the pain as she resolutely ground each knuckle off. Then she would do the same with his toes. All ten of them. Thereafter she would castrate him, slowly tearing pieces of flesh off his penis and testicles with the wire-cutter until he had nothing remained of his manhood, for she had learnt one thing in life and that is that this was every man’s most prized possession. She would not gouge out his eyes. Goodness no, she wanted him to look at her while she was tearing pieces of flesh and bone off him. She would toi-toi around him, tantalizing him with her naked body while he screamed his head off knowing he was slowly bleeding to death.

She had done this to more than one traitor, agents of the hated regime, and she knew only too well what satisfaction it gave her.

Then finally she, Gugo Tsetsana, would have redemption, fulfilment of her dream.

Would she? Once quicksand claims a victim there can be no compensation.

***

Chapter 1

Colonel Jenna-Wade Knapton, Rian’s aide, kept a wary watch as Rian stared at the body of Anriëtte. His face was expressionless but she could imagine what was going through his mind. Rian only recently started going out with Anriëtte. When he turned up at the office at noon that morning, it was the happiest frame of mind that he had been in since Eva’s death. He and Anriëtte must have had an eventful weekend.

Now she lay with her body doubled up and a pool of blood around her head.

She was kneeling when she took that shot in the back of the head, Dr Eric Aggenbach forensic pathologist said, giving Rian a brief sidelong glance. You can see that from the way the body lies.

Rian responded with a grunt.

Do you think she knew the shooter? Jenna-Wade asked.

It is possible, Eric replied. On the other hand, she may have simply obeyed orders in the hope of sparing her father further agony … or of saving his life.

He was tortured but she wasn’t, Rian said.

There is nothing on her to indicate that she was tortured.

Was he tortured before or after … ugh … this?

I can’t tell. I’ll look into that.

Why are they in different rooms … he in the study and she in this bedroom?

Thoughtfully Eric looked round. I don’t know.

I see no marks on her wrists or ankles, Jenna-Wade said. It seems she was not tied up.

There are bruise marks on her upper arm … but only on one arm … it could be where someone gripped her.

To take her out of the study where they were torturing Gert and to bring her to this room, Rian said. This means she came willingly and knelt down praying this would bring an end to the torture. The rooms are far enough apart so that neither knew what was happening in the other room. Meanwhile they threatened to shoot her if he did not tell them what they wanted to know. But it does mean there were more than one.

You could be right.

When we parted company this morning she told me she was going to the office.

She is or was her father’s defence attorney, so she may have changed her mind and decided to come here to discuss the case with him, Jenna-Wade said.

She was going to the office, Rian responded stubbornly, check the telephone records, I want to know if he called her or if someone else called her.

I’ll get onto it as soon as I get back …, Jenna-Wade started but Rian interjected.

Call Debra. It is important to find out if she was lured here to put pressure on Gert. I want that information now.

Stepping aside to make the call on her smartphone Jenna-Wade kept an eye on Rian. He was not normally that brusque with her. Not once had he mentioned Anriëtte’s name, she noted, and her concern was that he may crack up. It was three weeks since he shot Eva. At the time she, Jenna-Wade, for that matter Rian too, was convinced that he was madly in love with Eva, but since it became evident that Eva had used her grandfather’s drugs to seduce Rian she was not so sure. Even so, what a terrible shock it must be to shoot and kill the woman that you think you love? As if that was not enough, in the meantime the divorce papers from his estranged wife Johanna who was now domiciled in Paris had also come through and this too perturbed him. He blamed himself for the failed marriage but everybody except Rian had been aware that Johanna was a loose woman. Nevertheless, it was now three weeks and he had still not been to see Colonel Helga Koopman the police psychologist for the compulsory evaluation sessions after a shooting. Anriëtte too had now been shot. Admittedly, Anriëtte had probably caught Rian on the rebound, since he felt responsible for the death of Eva, but the joyousness he radiated that morning was evidence that Anriëtte had somehow managed to get more than a foot into the door. Now no one would know how deep this arrow of sorrow went, or what damage it could cause in his mind.

When Rian walked out the others followed him back to the study, where this evening’s inspection had started. Gert was sitting on a chair with his arms and legs taped to the chair. His face was bloody. There were cigarette burns on his arms and in his face.

They did not have the equipment to carry out a nasty torture, Rian said.

Probably, Eric said.

Or they wanted no more than a confession.

Curiously the others looked at him.

Look carefully, Rian said pointing at Gert’s face, this man was beaten up but I think you may find some of the burn marks are post death.

You know, Eric exclaimed, ‘now that you mention it, the thought did cross my mind but it did not make sense. What gives you the idea that they wanted nothing more than a confession?"

Look at it this way, Rian said, "the laboratory and semen clinic on the farm has been closed down. Gert Schoeman’s role as family lawyer was that of financial manager, in fact, no more than that of a bookkeeper. He was not involved in what was taking place at the farm … the research that was going on to iron out defects in the drugs hypnosvacare and hypnosganglion that Achim had developed to control humans … the movement of women to and from Germany … the insemination of these women … or the semen in Eva’s laboratory at the university in Stellenbosch. I doubt if he even knew that Bader Mainhoff members occasionally spent time in hiding on the farm until matters had cooled down in Germany. We now have the books that he kept and we know how the operation was financed. The movement of the women was managed from Germany, not from here. Pregnant women returning to Germany probably acted as couriers carrying semen with them because we could find no trace of the movement of such semen. Equipment was supplied by Ahnenerbe clinics in Germany and seemed to have been delivered directly to the farm by courier. What don’t we know that they were concerned Gert may tell us?"

The names of the killers? Jenna-Wade suggested as she rejoined them.

That’s it! They wanted confirmation that he had not told us their names.

Do you think Anriëtte knew the names? Jenna-Wade asked.

Rian gave her a thoughtful glance. She would have told me.

Presumably.

She would.

Jenna-Wade did not respond or look at him.

Was death due to the shot in the back of the head? Rian asked directing the question at Eric.

Looks like it, but I’ll give you that answer as soon as I’ve completed the autopsy.

Rian looked round. Why was the study not thrashed?

Maybe he convinced them that there was nothing in writing.

We’ve been through the place. They knew that. What is it that they think we may have missed?

Could it be that they were making doubly sure, Jenna-Wade suggested.

No.

If that is the case, that we did miss something, the torture would have been much more brutal, Jenna-Wade said, wouldn’t it?

Only if they knew for certain that there was something else. They were fishing. But this makes me think we must give this house … and the house in Stilbaai West … another thorough going-over.

Do you want me to put someone onto it? Jenna-Wade asked. She was the coordinator for Rian’s team of detectives.

No. I want us to do it … tonight. In the meantime, make sure we have someone posted here at all times.

Closing the door after the horse has bolted, Eric dryly commented. Rian gave him a sharp glance. Ugh … can we move the bodies? Eric had given strict instructions that neither body was to be moved until Rian had studied the scenes. It was general knowledge that Rian firmly believed that a crime scene can tell you something of the attributes or features of the villain that is, if you look for it.

Yes. Rian turned and stomped out of the study.

***

Chapter 2

After the forensic teams had completed their work Rian, Jenna-Wade, Shuaib Fataar, Breyton Pietersen, Robbie Keating and Debra McKay spent hours searching through every nook and cranny of Gert’s house in the suburb of Newlands. They had been over the house before. Had they missed something? What were the killers after, was the question? Or was Jenna-Wade right? Had they merely checked whether Gert had given Rian their names?

At three in the morning they decided to go home. They had come up with nothing new.

Are you okay? Jenna-Wade asked Rian as they were leaving.

I’m fine, he replied.

However, later at his house in Plattekloof, a suburb of Cape Town at the foot of the Tygerberg Hills, sleep would not come. He made a pot of strong coffee and sat on the back stoep. Night was flecked with millions of speckles of light in the streets and buildings of the Peninsula down below and the City Bowl in the distance. Table Mountain, however, was covered under a blanket of night. Out in Table Bay dim lights of some ships that lay at anchor could be seen. A South Atlantic low pressure front was brushing past Cape Point, spilling waves of clouds over the Peninsula. Unless the front swung south it meant there was a possibility of rain.

But Rian saw nothing of this. Despair gripped him. Less than twenty-four hours ago he and Anriëtte had made love here in this very house. She had spent the night, Sunday night. It had been so good.

They had spent Sunday at his sister’s house. Letta had laid out a spread that would have made any top class caterer proud. From the day his wife Johanna left for France on a two-year contract Letta had maintained that she would not return. Consequently, Letta had done her utmost to get him hooked up. In the eight months before Johanna sued for divorce Letta must have introduced him to no less than six women. When she met Anriëtte, Letta embraced her like manna from heaven. This was not just a case of Letta being pleased that he was taking an interest in another woman and bringing her over to meet his family, the two women had taken to each other instantly.

Letta had known nothing of his intimate relationship with Eva Croucamp, the killer surgeon. That was one of the dark periods in his life. Consequently, even though Letta knew that he had shot and killed Eva, the whole world knew that, he never told Letta that Eva had seduced him with the drug hypnosganglion until he had become besotted with her.

On Sunday evening when Anriëtte and he arrived at his house they could not get into bed fast enough. It had been so good. So satisfying. Even yesterday morning, Monday, it had been so good that Anriëtte had called her secretary to tell her she was coming in late, and he had called his office. They had only left this house after eleven yesterday morning – ostensibly the two happiest people in all of the Western Cape.

Now she too was gone. Forever. Johanna. Eva. Anriëtte. Had someone cast a spell on him? Was he destined to bring misfortune to any woman who came into his life? Why? Why? Why?

***

Chapter 3

Tuesday morning Rian met with his team for a briefing session, to report back, exchange ideas and allocate tasks. It was a practice he believed in.

This was not the full team that he had two weeks ago. After wrapping up most of the work that flowed from the farm in Ceres, and reports written, some of the team had returned to their posts elsewhere. The two Capetonians who were chiefs of detectives in their stations, Brandon Fransman and Greg Jantjies, were back with their respective stations, Wynberg and Camp’s Bay. The Spanish-speaking Jose Rodriquez was back in Johannesburg and Paresh Govender had returned to Durban.

We’re a bit thin, Rian said slowly looking round at his team, Jenna-Wade, his aide, Shuaib Fataar from Johannesburg, Breyton Pietersen from Pretoria, Robbie Keating from Port Elizabeth, Debra McKay from Bloemfontein and Fidelia Mageman, the accountant, who was helping Rian to follow the money spoor. We were under the mistaken impression that closing down the operation at the farm, and with some of the people having fled to Germany, the case was wrapped up. The old story, never count your chickens before they’re hatched. Not everybody departed for Germany. There is still someone out there. When I met with Gert in Stilbaai he told me that there were two young Germans but I did not see them as a threat. Now we have to find those two. I have no doubt they murdered Gert to keep him from telling us who they are.

They could be out of the country by now, Debra said.

I don’t think so. I have a feeling that the operation has not been closed down. The farm may have been closed down but not the gathering of semen from suitable Aryan candidates. This business of impregnating young Aryan girls at the Ahnenerbe clinics in Germany with good Aryan semen is still going on. They need healthy Aryan semen and where better than here in South Africa.

So you think these two Germans are protecting this operation? Breyton asked.

Someone has to collect the semen from suitable candidates, someone has to handle it, courier it to Germany, and someone has to safeguard the operation. Much like the drug syndicates do.

With Eva no longer with us who do you think is still collecting semen? Jenna-Wade asked.

Karin.

Karin Esterhuyse?

Professor Georg van Coller’s daughter, yes.

Okay, Jenna-Wade said, is that where we start this search then? Do we bring her in?

Hang on, we must handle this with care. We do not want her killed too. If that happens we may lose the spoor completely.

And who is responsible for conveying the semen?

What about Ulrike, the business consultant?

Yes, she’s a possibility, Jenna-Wade said. During our visit, of all the Behrens family she was the most agitated and aggressive.

She was also the one who warned Karin that we were coming.

You’re right.

So how are you going to handle this? Shuaib asked.

We have to think this through carefully. Not that we have much time.

No, if the press get a sniff that the operation has not been closed down you’ll go from hero to zero overnight, Jenna-Wade said with a cynical smile.

It is not so much my reputation that I’m concerned about. I hate it when a wound is not cleared up properly because it will fester and soon the rot will set in again. This case is a good example of that. We closed down the farm and thought the sore was healed. Now we discover that it is in fact festering. Look at the rot that we’ve got on our hands. That begs the question, what other sores are going to pop up. Who and what are these two Germans, if it is them, protecting?

A master brain? Robbie mooted with a questioning glance around.

Exactly! Rian responded. Now who can that be? Andreas Behrens? Georg van Coller? Lood Esterhuysen? Or is it an unknown mysterious figure?

Of the three Lood probably travels to Europe the most, Jenna-Wade said. To sell his wines, she hastily added in response to one or two frowns. Under the pretext of promoting wine he can go anywhere in Europe.

Good point, Rian said. Anyone else?

You and Jenna-Wade should be the best judges of that, Debra said, since you interviewed them.

We did not meet Karin’s ex-husband Lood, Jenna-Wade said.

Let us recap, Rian said. "Walter, or should I say Achim Rolf Burgsmuller, fled Germany after the war. After a brief spell in Argentina dodging Jewish Nazi-hunters his brother-in-law who was a cabinet minister in this country gave him papers to settle in this country. Once settled on the farm here in the Ceres district he carried on with his life-long ambition to create a drug with which he could create human slaves. At the same time he established a clinic on the farm where Aryan German girls were impregnated with suitable semen from South African men in order to create an Aryan race. In fact, he developed two drugs. One creates what Walter called an empty mind. In other words, when given the drug orally or sprayed into the face … the skin and lungs absorbs the spray and it works almost instantly … you remember nothing that happened while you are under the influence thereof. This is how semen was collected from students at Stellenbosch University. The other drug turns you into a Zombie … while under the influence of the drug you are at the mercy of the enforcer and does whatever he orders you to do … but you do not have an empty mind and afterwards you remember everything that happened.

"We closed down the clinic and Walter’s laboratory on the farm. Most of the people who were active in the clinic and laboratory, and the young ladies, who were here to be impregnated, fled to Germany. In any case, with the exception of Rolf Croucamp they were all German nationals. Rolf was Eva’s son and she was impregnated by Walter, Eva’s grandfather. Whether this was done by artificial insemination or intercourse we will never know. Steff Croucamp, Eva’s uncle and Rolf’s only surviving relative is claiming paternal rights over the child. Steff who manages the Ahnenerbe clinics in Germany is a German citizen. I believe he is more interested in Rolf’s inheritance than in the boy himself to help cover the overheads of running the Ahnenerbe clinics where Aryan girls are being impregnated with Aryan semen. Rolf is out of our hands. Our Department of International Affairs and the German authorities can sort that one out.

Right, having closed down the farm we closed down the clinic in South Africa. We also closed down Walter’s laboratory where he carried on his research. Walter is dead, but has the operation been closed down? South Africa has some of the best specimens of Aryan men in the world. Just consider how many Afrikaner men are in top positions overseas. It is quite possible that Eva was not the only woman collecting semen from students. Karin could well be doing it. As PRO for the largest producer of wine in the country she organises the annual wine tasters’ festival in Stellenbosch. She also organises many functions or shows for the university. The company she works for encourages this for it is good publicity. In other words, she is in daily contact with students. Maybe I am doing her an injustice but we have to consider that seriously. Another person we must look at is Birke Behrens. She is a music lecturer at Cape Town University, also someone who is in daily contact with students. Her brother Dieter is a lecturer at Stellenbosch University and he too is in daily contact with students.

We have not spoken to him at all, Jenna-Wade said.

Exactly. We have not spoken to Dieter Behrens or Lodewicus Esterhuyse. Then someone has to handle the conveyance of the semen to the Ahnenerbe clinics in Germany. Gert is dead so the money trail that involved the farm has been eliminated, but if the operation is still active there has to be another money trail.

Business consultant could be a good cover for a money launderer, Fidelia said.

Ulrike Behrens, Jenna-Wade said.

If we’re looking for a master brain I say we need to look no further than the Behrens family, Debra said. Andreas who was a director of companies travelled all over the world. He frequently visited Europe. Only Dieter is married. What does his wife do? The eldest daughter is a business consultant. Who better than to handle a company’s finances. The son and youngest daughter are lecturers at different universities where they are in daily contact with students. Ulrike is a close friend of Karin Esterhuyse. Both live in and work in Stellenbosch. It is not a big town. There are probably more students than townsfolk. And being the same age they must have known Eva Croucamp well. I know you reported that they denied being a close friend of Eva, but was this not done deliberately so as not to create suspicion?

Was Anriëtte Schoeman not the same age as Eva, Ulrike, Birke and Karin? Robbie asked giving Rian a glance.

She was two years younger than Eva, nearer Birke’s age, Rian replied, younger than both Ulrike and Karin.

Who is the eldest, Ulrike or Karin?

Ulrike.

Isn’t it strange that none of these women ever married, Debra said. Karin is the exception.

She too is single, Robbie said.

Divorced.

Same difference. Five women who went to the same university, who spent holidays at the same seaside village, knew each other, who …

What are you trying to say Robbie? Jenna-Wade asked.

He shrugged. Rian asked for comment.

You make a good point Robbie, Rian said. It would be unusual for young women from four families, whose ages differ no more than six to ten years, not to have developed some relationship if they went to the same seaside village for two to three weeks every December holiday. Someone would say it is a coincidence that these women are not married but I don’t believe in coincidences. The exception could be Eva. She went to school in Ceres, but where did she go for the holidays? Parliament does not sit in December which means that Eva in all likelihood spent her holidays with Sarel and Inge, her grandparents. Did they have a house in Stilbaai when she was at school? Jenna-Wade, make a note that we must find out if they did.

After tasks were dealt out Rian and Debra left for Stilbaai. As they joined up with the N2 Freeway Rian gave Debra a quick glance. She was staring straight ahead. The last time he drove the three hundred and sixty kilometres to Stilbaai life was looking up – Anriëtte was with him and her attention was focussed on him, not on the road.

***

Chapter 4

Jenna-Wade was left with the unenviable task of establishing if Sarel Croucamp had a house in Stilbaai. Sarel died in 2002 at the age of eighty. What she was looking for was the twenty years between 1982 and 2002. The first ten years was when the girls were at an impressionable age, when, as Rian put it, the Law of Exposure could have come into play. Ulrike, Karin, Eva, Anriëtte and Birke. What could have influenced the five girls most? The threat of Communism that the government’s propaganda machine was spewing out through every means possible. Attacks by black terrorists, called freedom fighters by the supporting overseas liberals on the country, government buildings and churches. Hearing their parents who were all devout Christians deplore a bomb on a Christian church in Cape Town. Young men slightly older than most of them called up to fight in Angola to keep the Communists at bay, many coming back wounded or not at all. Whereas their parents would have talked about a war that nobody won, some young men would have tried to impress the young women with tales of heroic deeds. All this would have left an impression on their youthful minds ‒ the Law of Exposure at work. Sanctions imposed by the United Nations? Would this have had any impact on their minds? For teenagers? Highly unlikely.

The second ten years was the time when the teenagers reached the rebellious age, when what they learnt during the impressionable age reached a climax. What would have left the biggest impression? Probably boyfriends being sent to fight a war that the world claimed the terrorists and Communists won, not because they were better, on the contrary, but because this government had capitulated. How many young men that they knew had not been wounded or killed in Angola? What a waste?

So what option was left to the girls? Either they joined the terrorists (who were all black, whereas they were Aryans), the Communists, the far-right, or something more glamorous like a neo-Nazi organisation that was promoting the development of an Aryan nation. Obviously the latter, for they were Aryans – except for the dark-haired Anriëtte, who was white but not an Aryan in appearance.

Could these five women in fact be the master brain, Jenna-Wade wondered? Ulrike was the dominator, which would make her the natural leader. This was borne out by the fact that Ulrike had called Karin to warn her that Rian was going to accuse her and her father Georg van Coller of conspiring with Gert Schoeman to overthrow the government. Karin was the only one who had been married but why did she marry Lodewicus Esterhuyse? Only to divorce him again? And why was Anriëtte murdered? Because she had climbed into bed with Rian? Since it was Rian who shot and killed one of them – Eva – the Miriam of the Aryan Nation? Could that be it?

It took Jenna-Wade hours in the deeds office, but eventually she discovered that Sarel did indeed have a house in Stilbaai West and that it was sold in 2003, a year after he died. Eva would have visited her grandparents in Stilbaai during the holidays, not necessarily every December, which meant that Karin had lied when she told Rian she knew Eva but that they did not mix socially. Ulrike had refused to answer Rian’s question when he asked her if she knew Eva.

Jenna-Wade called Rian on his smartphone and told him that Sarel bought the house in 1985, when Eva was six years old, and that the house had been sold in 2003, a year after he died.

Who bought the house from the Croucamp estate?

Reinhardt Pepler.

A good German name.

What does he do?

"He’s a viticulturist and has a wine farm on the