The Boston Snowplough Read online

  The Boston Snowplough

  Sue Rabie

  Human & Rousseau

  To John Joseph Hayes

  and Ann Ida Meta

  Prologue

  ❄

  He shot the kneeling man in the head.

  It was a duty, a simple task performed with no trace of emotion or regret, but it still made a terrible mess.

  The shooter, a tall, dark-haired man in a long straight overcoat, stood over the body with the smoking nine-millimetre still pointed at the victim, the stink of cordite blending with the sweet metallic smell of blood.

  He looked down indifferently at his handiwork. The man had not given him what he wanted, so he had killed him.

  ‘Stupid bastard,’ his partner grunted, as the shooter slowly lowered the gun.

  The second man was not as neatly dressed. His blond hair was unkempt and straggled limply over the collar of the blue blanket jacket he wore.

  The jacket was cheap and nasty.

  It suited him.

  He stared down at the body, at the blood spattered across the white tiles and the patio door just beyond. ‘Stupid bastard,’ he said again.

  They were at the back of the house, the luxurious lounge with its cowhide sofas and chrome-and-glass tables testifying to the wealth of its former owner. Off the lounge was a partly enclosed patio which opened onto a pool area, hemmed in by terracotta tubs of bougainvilleas and immaculately landscaped lawns overlooking the city of Durban.

  ‘There’s a safe in the bedroom,’ the tall man said, slowly unscrewing the silencer from his weapon and tucking it and the gun away under his overcoat. ‘In the cupboard.’

  The man in the blanket jacket raised his eyebrows.

  ‘The key’s in the wife’s jewellery box,’ the tall man continued, turning to his partner and for the first time looking directly at him. ‘And hurry up, the police are probably already on their way.’

  ❄

  They took the N3 highway north. Their car was a nondescript silver BMW, carefully selected from a second-hand dealer and paid for in cash. There was only one special feature in the car, an illegal police-band radio.

  The tall man glanced constantly in the rear-view mirror as he drove, while the other man turned on the radio, listening for any news. He swore loudly when their description was announced.

  Two men in a silver BMW.

  Someone must have seen them.

  ‘What now?’ he asked the driver.

  ‘We find another way,’ the driver said.

  ‘But what about the cops? They’ll be all over the highway!’

  The driver shook his head. ‘We leave the car.’

  They left the highway at the Merrivale turn-off, the driver slowing considerably because of the dense mist that settled over the small town. The brightest lights along the main road were the fog-haloed yellow and red neons of a petrol station. The town itself was in darkness, most of the businesses closed for the night. They made for the local bus stop where several buses stood idling. There was an all-night video shop and a pizza takeaway beside the bus stop, and they left the BMW in an ally between two shops, watching from the darkness without comment as a police car drove past, its light flashing.

  The bus stop was a potholed lay-by with three kombis and two big passenger buses crowding its length. A dwindling line of people shuffled in the icy mist as they waited to board the vehicles.

  The two men chose a bus that promised Harrismith. It would get them at least halfway to their destination.

  ‘How much?’ the tall man asked the driver.

  The driver looked at the two white men with barely concealed surprise. ‘You want to come on this bus?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re in a hurry,’ the tall man said. ‘How much?’

  ‘Three hundred,’ the bus driver said brazenly. ‘Each.’

  The tall man smiled as he handed over the outrageously inflated fee.

  ‘We go the other route,’ the driver warned them. ‘Through Boston. There is snow on the highway past Howick and the police are turning the cars back.’

  The tall man shrugged. He didn’t mind taking the scenic route as long as they got where they wanted to go.

  ‘The bag must go in the bottom,’ the driver said.

  The tall man hesitated for a moment, then glanced up as another police car crawled past.

  He looked back at the bus driver and nodded. He wasn’t going to argue about where the bag went now, they had to keep moving.

  One

  ❄

  It had been snowing for a day, the blanket of white stretching from the Karkloof hills in the east to the small mountain kingdom of Lesotho in the west. The winter had been harsh and most of the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands had been affected. It was an unprecedented occurrence, the snow usually only capping the far-off peaks of the Drakensberg, which divided the lowlands from the highveld to the North.

  The experts said the snow wouldn’t last.

  The experts were wrong.

  Sure enough, snow continued to fall, but by nightfall the clouds lifted long enough to reveal a brilliant display of ice-coated mountains and snow-covered fields. It looked to be almost over. People resumed their journeys. The traffic department reopened the N3.

  And then the next cold front hit.

  The conditions that night were infinitely worse than the previous day. Winds came in from the south and the experts revised their forecast, predicting a further two days of bad weather with heavy snow.

  Most people were caught unprepared and those in Boston were no different. The village came to a standstill, the roads too slippery to negotiate, the shopkeepers closing up and hurrying home.

  David Roth looked out over the small community from where he stood, hunching his shoulders against the cold, at the edge of the tarmac apron of his petrol station. It was snowing harder now, and he struggled to make out the cash store looming darkly through the flakes. The farmers’ exchange also stood in silent shadow. Even the Police Station, which was situated just outside the village boundary, stood in darkness. In fact, the only shop that had stayed open in Boston was the tearoom, its neon signs beckoning those who hadn’t stocked up on the basics.

  David’s petrol station was the only other building with power. It stood almost opposite the tearoom, a workshop, office and a small convenience store sheltering in the lee of its covered forecourt, a scrapyard around the back.

  David looked across to the tearoom where two policemen had just emerged.

  Sergeant Du Plessis and his subordinate, Constable Potgieter.

  Damn it, David thought. He didn’t like Potgieter’s intimidating humour or his unconcealed racism. Nor did he appreciate the way he liked to show off his police-issue revolver by leaning his elbow nonchalantly on its handle like some kind of cowboy.

  In contrast, it was Du Plessis who was uncomfortable in David’s presence. He knew who David was and what he had done. Which was the reason David was prepared to do everything and anything Du Plessis asked of him. If burning firebreaks meant they were safe from the winter fires, then it was to David Du Plessis turned. If digging a new rubbish dump meant the smell of rotting waste wouldn’t be as bad in the summer, then Du Plessis called on David.

  David looked upon this unspoken arrangement as his penance, his atonement.

  Potgieter walked towards the petrol station with his arms wrapped across his chest and a pinched look on his face. He couldn’t have been very warm. He wore the regulation field dress of the South African Police Services – light-blue shirt and dark-blue trousers tucked into lace-up ankle boots. A bunny jacket embroidered with his name and police badge was all the warmth he was permitted.

  But there was another reason Potgieter looked unhappy.

  Old m
an Henderson’s John Deere had become bogged down on the edge of the village. The John Deere had seen better days, but if a tractor, even an old one, had failed to negotiate the snow-covered road, then no car was going to manage either.

  There were at least three cars outside the tearoom that had already tried and failed. One was Potgieter’s patrol car.

  Which was why David wasn’t looking forward to their visit.

  ‘Morning, David,’ Du Plessis growled, as both men trudged onto the forecourt.

  David nodded at them and waited for the bad news.

  ‘Will that thing start in this cold?’ Du Plessis asked, jerking his thumb at the old yellow Galion grader parked alongside David’s garage.

  It was a skeletal monstrosity, the huge blade suspended beneath it capable of flattening anything in its path.

  David understood why they had come. Today they wanted the grader for a different purpose, today it would become a snowplough.

  ‘It will start,’ was his only reply.

  ‘Good,’ Du Plessis clapped his hands together and rubbed vigorously to get them warm, ‘cause we’re in for some more of this bleddie weather and the roads need to be cleared.’

  Beside the sergeant, Constable Potgieter grinned. ‘It’s going to be a bad one,’ Potgieter said, leering at David as he leant his elbow on the butt of the revolver at his waist. ‘You’re gonna freeze your ass off.’

  Sergeant Du Plessis shot a sharp look in Potgieter’s direction. The constable stifled his smirk, but David knew the man relished the thought of his discomfort.

  ‘I need you to clear to the Edendale turn-off,’ Sergeant Du Plessis said as David went about unlocking the convenience store. ‘Craiglea is under three feet of snow and it’s coming down heavier every minute,’ he continued as he followed David to the counter, Potgieter leaning idly against the fridge. ‘You’d also better make sure the farmers out there are okay before you come back.’

  David nodded as he went behind the counter to unlock the till, then glanced up at the door as it was momentarily darkened.

  A huge man in blue overalls and a grey greatcoat was taking up most of the doorway. ‘Sanbonani, Nkosi,’ the man said.

  It was Phiwe M’Lozi, David’s assistant.

  Phiwe lived with his wife on the other side of the village. He walked to work each morning, as did David. Boston wasn’t very big, and the five hundred metres or so from the small cottage David rented on the outskirts of the village was normally a pleasant walk to start the day. But it hadn’t been this morning. He was surprised Phiwe had made it in at all, but also faintly relieved.

  ‘Sanibona, Phiwe,’ David replied. ‘Kunjani?’

  ‘Saphile.’ Phiwe grinned and glanced across at Potgieter.

  The wide grin that had lit up the small store faded slightly as he saw the constable.

  Phiwe looked away and greeted Du Plessis instead. ‘Sawubona, Baas.’

  Du Plessis nodded dismissively. ‘Peewee,’ he drawled in greeting.

  Phiwe turned away from the name. He didn’t like it. The Zulu switched on the store radio and began rolling the spare tyres out onto the forecourt, pointedly ignoring Potgieter.

  … snow continues to fall across the Drakensberg and northern areas of the escarpment. The Weather Bureau forecasts more falls over the weekend and into next week. Emergency services advise residents in affected areas to take all necessary precautions to remain off the roads until such time as more favourable conditions prevail …

  ‘Malan also wants you to clear the drive to the club,’ Du Plessis said, glancing at the radio as he spoke.

  … in other news, a spokesman for the SAPS stated that Mr Shaune Roberts was brutally murdered in his Chase Valley home. Mr Roberts leaves his wife of two years who is wanted for questioning …

  ‘If the bleddie storm gets too bad and the power goes out then the club is where everyone is going to head to keep warm,’ Du Plessis continued. ‘Besides your garage and May’s tearoom, Malan’s is the only place with a generator. I just hope it won’t be the last one …’

  David glanced up at him.

  ‘… because if Malan’s generator is the only one left,’ Du Plessis went on, ‘he’ll probably charge us for it.’

  David almost smiled at Du Plessis’s last comment. Jacob Malan did indeed have a sharp and sometimes ruthless business mind.

  ‘So, you ready to go?’ Du Plessis asked impatiently as David finished unlocking the till for Phiwe.

  David nodded and gave Phiwe the keys to the store, then started outside with Du Plessis and Potgieter close behind him.

  ❄

  David snapped his collar up to keep the cold from his neck. He walked to the grader parked beside the garage, his boots leaving deep imprints in the snow as he went. The grader hadn’t been used in months. It stood amongst a forlorn collection of decaying car wrecks that littered the scrapyard. He wondered how difficult it was going to be to get the grader started and then, if it started, how long it would keep going.

  David pulled on a pair of gloves as they made their way to the grader, thankful he had worn his thick corduroy coat.

  ‘Bleddie ugly thing,’ Du Plessis said as they came to a stop beside the vehicle.

  David agreed. The grader was ugly. It was also stubborn, but it complied in the end, partly due to David’s perseverance and partly due to the durability of the old engine that had somehow survived the years of neglect.

  ‘Keep me posted,’ Du Plessis yelled over the grader’s guttural cough, handing David a two-way radio handset. ‘Let me know if you have any trouble.’

  David nodded and slipped the handset into his jacket pocket as he climbed up into the dirty glassed-in cab.

  The engine protested as David ground the vehicle into gear and steered it out into the main road leading out of the village.

  The shrill whine from the grader’s fan belt quickly attracted the attention of those stranded across the road in the tearoom.

  David ignored most of them, tried to ignore May too.

  She stood in the front of her small shop, about to serve two customers who were sitting in the window seats.

  May Jordaan.

  She was like him in a way – quiet and reserved, seldom the first to talk and then never about herself. He knew May was well liked in the village. Apparently she was born in Boston, and had gone away to school and later to a university in Johannesburg. When her father had passed away and left her mother with the small tearoom May had returned, leaving behind a promising career to help look after the business. When her mother also passed away May had decided to stay, had decided for some reason not to pursue the career she had begun all those years ago.

  That was about the same time David had moved to Boston.

  Three years he had watched May.

  She looked up as he drove past. Her hair was up this time, just like Charlene use to wear hers, in a relooped ponytail with the wisps hanging thick and dark over her neck. Janey would have had the same hair. Janey would have worn her ponytail just like her Mom’s.

  He could picture his daughter’s face, her bright questioning blue eyes, her breathless bubbly laugh. She had had his dimples when she smiled, had had his square jaw with its stubborn jut and his wide frank eyes. But in spirit she had always been her mother’s child – already, at the age of five, wrapping her father around her finger as her mother had done seven years earlier.

  He thought about them constantly, was reminded about them whenever he saw May, but now Janey was gone and Charlene was lost to him forever.

  He looked away from the tearoom. May Jordaan was just another reminder of his past. David tried not to think of her as he manoeuvred around old man Henderson’s stranded tractor and drove out of the village.

  Two

  ❄

  As David left Boston behind it started snowing harder, and before long he was driving through a thick white tunnel, the single working headlight on the grader illuminating a flurry of dense flakes that closed in like a blan
ket as he went. There had already been a significant fall before he had started, the fields surrounding Boston itself under perhaps ten or twelve centimetres, but out here in the country where the land was flatter the mantle of white was thicker. He travelled on, the huge blade beneath the grader tilling banks of white into the ditches alongside the road. The bottom strands of wire on the fences on the left were already covered and the irrigation canal had banks of snow on its concrete edges so that it seemed it would soon be totally closed over if it got any worse.

  It did get worse. It was slow going, the distance further than he estimated and the roads difficult to follow, but he eventually came to the crossroads. It was well beyond the village, perhaps twenty kilometres along the road. David turned left towards Maswazini and Howick. The driveway to a farm owned by Mark and Anri Werner was also on the left, but the visibility had deteriorated so badly that the drive and the fields to either side were almost obscured.

  But he found her anyway, a bright red stripe catching his eye as he came up to the bend in the road.

  David looked again. Then he jammed his foot on the brake.

  The car was parked on the side of the road, snow piled on its roof and bonnet so that only a thin band of red along its side was still visible above the drift.

  David hauled the grader to a chugging halt just metres from the car.

  It was a low-slung classic sports car, fire-engine red with a white hardtop that blended perfectly with the snow. It was hardly suitable for travelling on gravel farm roads, definitely not suitable for snow, but despite this the engine was still running.

  David swore as he realised what was happening.

  He jumped from the still idling grader, scrambling through the knee-deep snow to the car.

  ‘Switch your engine off!’ he yelled. ‘You’ll suffocate!’

  But it was already too late.

  The girl had passed out in the driver’s seat, her head lolling back against the headrest.

  ‘Lady!’ he shouted through the snow-frosted glass. ‘Hey! Lady!’

  No response. He swore again as he realised he was locked out. She had sealed herself in, must have rolled up the windows against the cold when the car stalled in the deepening snow.