LITMIR.BIZ

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ostrich egg and tomato chutney. I sniffed the food before popping it into my mouth. I couldn’t taste or smell garlic, and the chutney was the only sauce they had on offer. The bread and eggs were delicious, and the tomato chutney was almost as good as the one I made myself. The red-faced lady had dished it up for me; no self-service here.

      ‘Why did you want breakfast here?’ asked Henk, shaking a lot of salt and a little pepper onto his egg.

      ‘I heard it was good,’ I said.

      He sighed and ate his food. He was obviously hungry.

      ‘I heard Slimkat had his breakfasts here,’ I said, after I’d eaten a little. The rusks worked better than the diet pills, I thought, to reduce the hunger. ‘There’s no garlic in this food. I smelt garlic on Slimkat’s breath and on his napkin. It must have come from the Kudu Stall.’

      ‘Why did you notice the garlic?’

      ‘I always notice food,’ I said. ‘And I had to lean close to Slimkat to hear him.’

      Henk was cleaning his plate with the last of his griddle bread.

      ‘When Slimkat collapsed, he was looking at me and Jessie,’ I said. ‘Like he had something to tell us. He’d told Jessie about the attempt on his life, and he’d told me about his last meal: kudu sosaties with honey-mustard sauce.’

      ‘Piet said you thought the smell on Slimkat’s napkin was the same as the squeeze bottle he found under the table.’

      ‘Ja,’ I said. ‘But I can’t be a hundred per cent sure; I smelt it, not tasted it. Can’t you get that tested at a lab? To check if they were the same? And to see if there was poison in the garlic sauce?’

      ‘We are,’ he said. ‘But it takes time . . . I may be back in Ladismith by then.’

      ‘But the Oudtshoorn police will carry on the investigation, won’t they?’

      ‘Ja, I’m sure. But this man died on my watch. I want to catch who did it.’

      ‘He was a good man,’ I said.

      Henk wiped his mouth and chestnut moustache with his napkin. ‘Do you reckon that the garlic sauce was meant to be an imitation of a Kudu Stall sauce?’

      ‘Definitely,’ I said. I pushed my half-eaten breakfast over to him, and he started in on it but kept his gaze on me as I spoke. ‘I could smell honey and mustard in it too. But it was a different kind of mustard. It might have been Colman’s. I think the Kudu Stall used Dijon mustard. But what I wanted to tell you was that earlier in the day, I went to ask at the Kudu Stall if they would give me the recipe. The girl there said that another woman had also asked for the recipe. And I wondered if the murderer tried to get it, so they could make their own sauce – but with poison.’

      ‘Seems like quite a risk for that woman to take; someone could recognise her,’ said Henk.

      ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but there’s so much going on at the festival, and maybe lots of tannies asking for recipes. It would also be risky if Slimkat started eating the kudu and then stopped because the sauce was no good.’

      ‘I wonder why he didn’t stop eating, if he could taste it was different?’

      ‘Maybe it wasn’t very different, and it probably still tasted nice. It smelt nice enough. Not as good as the original, but nice. I also think Slimkat’s big love was for the kudu. The sauce was not as important to him.’

      ‘Thank you, Maria. You have been very helpful.’ He reached under the table and held my hand. ‘I’m sorry you got mixed up in this, but I’m glad you are safe.’ His hands were big and warm. ‘You know I find it hard when you’re in danger.’

      ‘Ja,’ I said. ‘But I’m fine.’

      ‘How have you been?’

      He was stroking the palm of my hand now, and it made warm lines rush down my arms and legs.

      ‘Okay,’ I said, giving his fingers a squeeze. ‘Hattie wants me to see a doctor here in Oudtshoorn. To help with the sleeping. The not sleeping.’

      ‘That’s not a bad idea . . . Maria, I hope you are heading back to Ladismith now that this . . . death has happened.’

      ‘Well, actually the Gazette is doing a story on it, and I was going to stick around and help Jessie—’

      ‘No,’ he said loudly. Too loudly, his hand holding mine too tightly. ‘You must go back.’

      I pulled my hand away.

      ‘I don’t like to be bullied,’ I said, and looked away from him, so he couldn’t see the memory of Fanie in my eyes.

      ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean . . . But you promised me that you’d stick to recipes. You’d stay out of murder cases. It’s not your case to investigate. It’s not even my case. I am only helping out.’

      ‘I’m helping out too,’ I said, thinking of Slimkat’s eyes and still not looking at Henk.

      ‘Yes, and you’ve been a help. A big help. What you’ve told me. But there’s a murderer around, and sticking your nose in puts you at risk.’

      I didn’t reply. It was my nose that had been most helpful so far.

      He reached for my hands, which were pulled up against me, hiding on my lap, but his arms were long and he found my hands and held them both in his, and tugged on them till I looked at him. His eyes were big and grey-blue and full of an expression that was nothing like what I’d ever seen in Fanie’s eyes.

      ‘I love you, Maria,’ Henk said.

      I coughed and choked like I had just swallowed a big bug. Henk got up and came and patted my back.

      ‘Are you all right?’

      I nodded, but I couldn’t speak.

      ‘Please, Maria, for our sake,’ he said, squatting down beside me, holding my shoulders in his hands and looking into my eyes with that same expression of his. ‘Forget about this case. Go home.’

      ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Okay.’

      CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      I had both Henk and Hattie telling me what to do. I don’t like to be pushed around, but I was tired and lost, and they seemed to know the way. Before I left Oudtshoorn, I went to the doctor.

      Doctor Walters had short white hair and kind blue eyes. His office was small and cosy, and he sat behind a leather-topped wooden desk. Against the wall were bookshelves, packed with fat books.

      ‘How can I help you, Mrs van Harten?’

      ‘My boyfriend thinks I need help after I was kidnapped by a murderer last year. My friend thinks I need sleeping tablets. The FAMSA counsellor says I am obsessed with food and must go on a diet.’

      ‘And what do you think?’

      ‘My problems are bigger than that . . .’

      He waited for me to explain.

      I said, ‘I have nightmares, and I wake up shaking. And I remember things . . . Well, it’s more like they are happening right now.’

      ‘Things about the kidnapping?’

      ‘No . . . Bad things that happened with my husband. He is dead now.’

      ‘When did he die?’

      I swallowed. ‘A few years ago. But the problem is getting worse lately. Since . . . since I’ve had a boyfriend. It’s made it worse somehow.’

      ‘Hmm,’ said the doctor. ‘Did you have a traumatic experience in the past?’

      I looked at the paperweight on his desk. It was a glass cat with wide staring eyes that could see right though me, like I could see through it.

      ‘Were

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