Vortex

So far she’d come up with nothing of any real use. The date of Erik

Muller’s birth, for instance. Something readily obtainable from public records. The fact that he was an only child. Unusual in an Afrikaner farm family, but not unheard of. Or the discovery that Muller’s father had died in a car wreck when Erik was seven. Again, nothing strange there.

Back in the early fifties the northern Transvaal’s roads had been rudimentary at best and accidents were common. At least the military expansion of recent decades had changed that. Now a web of multi lane superhighways crisscrossed the high veld, more superhighways than the rural towns and villages in the region needed. Some cynics suggested they were intended as alternate airstrips for jet fighters in case of war.

Some cynics were probably right.

Emily shook her head in exasperation. Her brain was wandering too far afield. Muller. Erik Muller. He was her target, her mission. She pushed the last yellowing scrap of newspaper aside and leaned backward, straining against the uncomfortable, straight-backed wooden chair.

“Miss van der Heijden?”

She opened her eyes.

Miss Cooke stood in front of her worktable, another pile of clippings clutched in eager hands. The librarian had proved an avid, enthusiastic helper. And one who seemed to possess an infallible, inexhaustible memory.

“I thought you might want to have a look through these. As background material for your project. ” Miss Cooke spread the handful of articles out across the table.

“None of them mentions the Muller boy by name. But they all deal with events in the same town and from around the time he and his mother were still living there. ” Her thin lips pursed in disapproval.

“There seem to have been some most unusual goings-on in that little place.”

Intrigued, Emily sat forward.

“Unusual, Miss Cooke? In what way?”

“See for yourself, Miss van der Heijden.” The librarian tapped the first clipping with a delicate, wrinkled finger.

Emily scanned the story quickly, reading only for the essentials. The details could come later. The minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in

Muller’s hometown had been defrocked for a series of what were referred to only as “shocking misbehaviors.” No specifics were provided.

And that meant the minister’s “misbehaviors” must have involved some kind of sexual misconduct. She felt the beginnings of a smile. Nothing made an old-style Afrikaner retreat into embarrassed silence and sanctimonious circumlocution faster than the barest hint of sex. Especially when it was a member of the clergy who’d gotten tangled up between the sheets.

She checked the month and year. Muller would have been about eleven.. Not much connection there. Still, the experience of seeing his family’s minister, the dominie, drummed out of the church must have made some impression on him.

She jotted a rough note to herself and moved on to the next item.

A murder! Now that was more interesting. A young black boy, Gabriel

Tswane, had been found dead in a field just outside Muller’s hometown.

Again, the details were sketchy, but Emily’s reading between the lines left her fairly convinced that the young man had been beaten to death.

The unbylined reporter hadn’t bothered to hide his own belief that Tswane had been murdered by “black bandits and cattle thieves,” but had also been forced to admit that the “police still had the case under investigation.”

Emily noticed the date. October 22. Less than two weeks after the dominie’s downfall. Was there a connection? If so, what kind of a connection?

She felt her temples pounding again and slid the article on top of her burgeoning pile for further study. Thirty-year-old mysteries and clerical misdeeds might make interesting reading, but they weren’t moving her any closer to uncovering information about Muller’s role-if any-in the Blue

Train massacre.

“Were the articles of any use, Miss van der Heijden?”

Emily looked up into the librarian’s anxious eyes and smiled.

“They were very helpful, Miss Cooke. Very much so.” She glanced at her watch.

“But perhaps we’d best move on to Meneer Muller’s early days in the security services. Have you been able to-” She stopped suddenly.

The thick stack of file folders the librarian plopped onto her desk answered her still-unasked question. Emily stifled a groan, converting it with tremendous difficulty into a simple, quiet sigh.

Who’d ever said a journalist’s life was glamorous?

SEPTEMBER 24-JOHANNESBURG

Shelby’s Olde English Pub wasn’t very old and it certainly wasn’t very

English. Its chrome fittings and hard plastic tables reminded Ian more of a slapdash, drink-on-the-run airport bar back in the States. But at least

Shelby’s had all the elements so essential to a private, conspiratorial meeting: it was dimly lit, smoke filled, noisy, and crowded.