The Last Hunt

Deon Meyer

• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780802156945
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: African Literature
• Index: Literature

A cold case reaches from Cape Town's shadowy past to bucolic Bordeaux, France, in this thriller by the Barry Award-winning author of Thirteen Hours.

When a cold case dossier lands on Captain Benny Griessel's desk, he and his partner Vaughn Cupido, fellow member of the Hawks elite police unit in South Africa, reluctantly set to work reviewing the evidence. Did ex-cop Johnson Johnson simply disappear on the world's most luxurious train line—or was he murdered? Two fellow travelers might have the answers Griessel and Cupido need, but they too seem to have disappeared, and the few clues that exist suggest a cover-up.

Meanwhile, Daniel Darret has settled into a new, quiet life in Bordeaux, far from his revolutionary past in South Africa. But now a man from that past has reappeared. And he wants to commission Daniel's unique skills one more time. As the two storylines come crashing together, Griessel and Cupido are left uncertain of the truth—and of their own future. A top-notch addition to the acclaimed Benny Griessel series, The Last Hunt makes a brave and powerful statement about the pervasive corruption that has stolen so much from Deon Meyer's native country.

"Superb…this may be the breakthrough book this author deserves."— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

PART I

1

August, Daniel Darret, Bordeaux

Daniel Darret’s peculiar relationship with Madame Lecompte began in violence. And so it would end.

He lay sleepless in the heat and humidity of August, his bedroom window wide open. But the place Camille Pelletan was like an oven, stuffy and oppressive. At half past midnight demons from his past hunted him awake. He pulled on shorts, T-shirt and his black Nikes, and took the three flights of stairs down. In the square the cat was perched on the roof of his neighbours’ grubby old Renault. The look they exchanged was of co-conspirators: we, the restless creatures of the night.

That blasted cat. Wackett. Irrationally named by the neighbours’ three-year-old, back then.

He took his regular walking route past La Flèche Saint-Michel. The basilica square, the market such a hive of activity by day, was deserted now. Across the railway track and the dual-carriage highway, to the edge of the water – he was in need of the cool breeze near the river. Then north, briskly along the left-bank promenade. The old city of Bordeaux brooded in deep night silence to his left, a slumbering animal.

At Colbert Park a solitary teenager rolled up and down, up and down, skateboarding; for a few minutes wheels on concrete walls and wooden platforms were the only sound. He wondered what kept the child awake at this time of night.

He crossed the Garonne via the new bridge, the engineering marvel, pont Jacques Chaban-Delmas, and on the right bank turned south. He could feel the breeze from the dark river cooling his face, just for a little while. His thoughts were on the day’s work ahead, his modest responsibilities while Monsieur and Madame Lefèvre spent their summer vacation in Arcachon. At first he was unaware of the tall woman in the shadows of the Park of the Angels, Le Parc aux Angéliques.

Only once she uttered a sound did his focus shift. It was then that he registered the fear in her voice as he saw her and the ghosts flitting among the trees. Immediately, instinctively, he swung in her direction.

There were five of them after her, hunting her. They were agile and lean and strong, one carrying a baseball bat. He heard them jeering, their excited cries like the baying of a pack of wild dogs. Two were close to catching her. They were so intent on her that they were oblivious to Daniel. One yelled, ‘Girafe!’ Daniel understood: the tall woman’s gait was awkward, like a giraffe’s. He heard the others crowing. The leading man gave a sudden spurt of speed and bent low, his hand smacking her ankle so that she collapsed silently, clumsily, onto the grass. The man grabbed her by the hair.

‘No!’ shouted Daniel. It was a reflex, involuntary, and in that instant he could see the immediate future, the consequence of what was about to happen. He knew it involved huge risk to himself. Now, here. And afterwards.

They looked round, saw him. One pulled a knife, the blade flashing in a pool of light from the streetlamps of the quai des Queyries. The wielder of the baseball bat had broad shoulders and muscular arms, tattooed with coiling black snakes. The weapons showed this was not a chance encounter. He remembered the media uproar and police frustration over the riverbank muggers who had been ambushing late-night, drunken party-goers recently.

They formed a crescent. Young men, barely in their twenties, full of confidence. He knew, at that age, the fierce, irrational drive of ego and peer pressure, and that they were going to attack him in unison now. He felt the burden of his age, the muscle memory his body had lost, about to be pitted against the imminent violence.

One bellowed a war cry. A primitive sound spurring them to action.

He felt the rush of adrenalin. He hit the one with the snake arms first, the biggest. His timing was poor, the blow without power or momentum. The knife-wielder stabbed at him, lightning-fast – he was too slow pulling back and the blade raked across his ribcage. A fist hit his throat, another his cheekbone, hard blows. He shuddered, staggered.

He was going to die there tonight.

Snake Arms raised the baseball bat, the others moving back to make room for the blow. Daniel stepped forward, desperate, hit him with a fist against the temple, hard and solid. The blow made a sick, hollow sound, like a watermelon hitting the ground. Snake Arms collapsed. Another picked up the bat. Daniel spun on the ball of his foot, reaching for the knife-wielder with his right hand – too slow: the blade sliced his palm, deep. He grabbed again, grasping the man’s wrist with his left hand, pulled him closer violently, smashing his right palm full on the nose, the momentum upward and forward. Knifeman staggered back onto the ground and sat, keening in pain. Daniel felt warmth, blood streaming from his palm and seeping down his side from the rib wound.

Two men jumped onto his back. He rushed backwards and violently smashed one into a tree trunk with his full weight behind it. He heard the man’s ribs crack, felt his arms loosen around his neck, but the other man hit him from behind, fist against his ear, another blow to his neck. The fifth man, bearded face twisted in hatred and rage, rushed at him with the baseball bat.

Daniel turned, trying to use the one on his back as a shield. It didn’t work. The bat hit him on the thick flesh of his right shoulder, bounced off and smacked painfully into his ear. Now blood streamed down his neck as well. Something came loose inside him, rage that stripped away the rust and resistance of years, the restraints and barriers so long and carefully kept in place. He gripped the bat tightly, twisted it out of the man’s hands, seeing the eyes of his attacker turn wild and scared at the speed and power of the move. Daniel hit his head with the bat and the man dropped to the ground. He banged the butt of the bat rearward, hitting the throat of the one on his back – the strangling arm around his neck released. He swivelled, the man shielding himself with a forearm. He swung the bat, breaking radius and ulna, a sharp, high shriek released into the night.

Footsteps behind him, and just in time he saw Knifeman, his face bloodied, eyes staring, the blade coming up from below. Daniel jumped backwards and struck out, one strong movement: the tip of the bat struck the knife hand, the weapon flew high and dropped into the grass. He stepped forward and jammed the bat into the man’s belly, spun around – but there was nobody left with any fight.

He had to get away. There would be consequences – some of the muggers were seriously injured.

He walked across to the woman. She was sitting on the ground, gazing at him. He realised she was older than he’d thought. Her face was strange in shape and expression, her unusual features now frozen with fear and fascination. ‘Come on,’ he said, offering his right hand to help her up, then saw blood dripping freely from it. He switched the baseball bat, gave her his left hand. He didn’t know if she would take it – he was a big black man with blood on his hands, head and clothes, in the night in the dark of the park.

She took the hand, and he pulled her to her feet. She stood, dazed.

‘We must get away,’ he said, with urgency.

She nodded. He took her arm and led her through the shadows to the lights of the rue de Sem. He looked back. The men weren’t following them. He tossed the baseball bat, high and hard, deep into the middle of the broad river.

At the pont de Pierre he told her, ‘Just keep walking,’ and pushed her gently, his hand behind her back. She nodded, continued to walk. He wanted to vault over the railing and take the steps down, so that he could rinse the blood off his face before he went home. But he saw her stop and turn back towards him.

‘Merci,’ she said softly.

2

August, Benny Griessel, Bellville

The professional life of a policeman or -woman revolves around the three-flap file that folds shut to just two centimetres wider and longer than an A4 page. The legendary docket. Not an aesthetically pleasing document, it is made of cheap, thin cardboard of a light-brown shade, often disparagingly compared to a smelly by-product of babies. The badge of the South African Police Service is printed on the front, at the top, and just below that, in the biggest, boldest letters in the entire document, CASE DOCKET • SAAKDOSSIER, the official complete title. Nevertheless, detectives, state prosecutors and judges invariably refer to it simply as the ‘docket’, regardless of which of the country’s eleven official languages they speak at home.

It has three flaps and six pages, each filled from edge to edge in black with words, sentences and abbreviations (in English and Afrikaans, a last remnant of civil-service bilingualism), as well as blocks and dotted lines that may seem intimidating and chaotic to the inexperienced or uneducated eye. But to those who use it daily, the docket is a masterpiece of efficiency. Over decades it has evolved and developed into a criminal case’s perfect guide and travelling companion – from that first visit to the crime scene, to the final guilty verdict. The six cardboard pages themselves contain crucial information, but they also serve as a surprisingly durable wrapper for the documents (often scores, sometimes hundreds) that a case accumulates in its lifetime. The docket is a warehouse and encyclopaedia, a bibliography, case Bible and thriller novel, all in one.

As long as you know how to read it, and provided it has been created and maintained by a diligent, knowledgeable police officer.

Just before eight, at the close of Tuesday-morning parade, Colonel Mbali Kaleni handed Captain Benny Griessel a docket. He and his colleague, Captain Vaughn Cupido, knew two important things about it at first glance:

1. It wasn’t their own docket being returned after Colonel Kaleni had reviewed it with her painstaking thoroughness: the first block at the top left corner indicated Beaufort West as the station of origin and the name of the first investigator was Sergeant A. Verwey.
2. It was a hot potato. They had glanced immediately at the middle of the front page, below Crime Code. On this file were the numbers that made every detective in South Africa’s heart beat a little faster: 31984. The justice system’s administrative code for murder.

‘I want you and Captain Cupido to focus on this case exclusively,’ said Colonel Kaleni, with emphasis on the last word. She was the commanding officer of the Serious and Violent Crimes Unit, in the Directorate for Priority Crimes Investigations – better known as the Hawks. Her first name meant ‘flower’ in her mother tongue, Zulu.

Griessel and Cupido knew in that instant that, for the foreseeable future, their professional lives would revolve around this particular docket. And they were not especially pleased. Plus it was an inherited case, which meant it came with deficiencies and various kinds of baggage, including inter-departmental politics and professional jealousy.

Moreover, the investigation was at least eight days old, according to the case number (written in the topmost middle block of the docket’s front page). And the Date and time of offence/incident (second large block on the docket’s front page, left) was nearly three weeks ago. The first seventy-two hours, the critical make-or-break period for any murder case, was long past.

It invoked a groan from Cupido, who said: ‘Why do we always get the cold-case dregs, Colonel? The runts of the litter?’

‘Because you are the best of the best, Captain,’ said Kaleni. She was so unhurried, methodical and obedient to regulations that she frequently drove the more free-spirited Cupido crazy. But she knew how to get the best out of her people. ‘And that is what the case needs. Because international tourism is involved, there seem to be jurisdictional grey areas, and local law enforcement has not been impressive. The provincial commissioner asked us to step in, and he specifically requested you and Benny. He says if anybody can solve this, you can.’

‘Damn straight, Colonel,’ said Cupido, blithely oblivious to her skilful manipulation.

‘Furthermore, the victim is a former member of the Service,’ said Kaleni. ‘It’s the Johnson Johnson docket.’

She waited for the penny to drop, but the two detectives, like most members of the Violent Crimes team, had been working night and day over the past month to solve the murders of city nightclub bouncers. They just stared at her.

‘The guy who disappeared from the fancy train,’ she said, as if they ought at least to know a...