Recipes for Love and Murder. Sally Andrew

cake. The rest I had eaten the night before while I was not thinking about what Anna had said about love. I made some coffee and went and sat on the stoep to watch the day arrive. It happens all of a sudden in the Karoo. One minute the light is soft and full of the night’s shadows, and then the sun is blasting everything awake. The Rooiberg changes from red to orange to ochre yellow before you can finish a cup of coffee.

      The birds and insects were calling and flying about: the drongos eating the purple berries on the gwarrie trees in the veld; the bokmakieries hopping in the branches of the sweet-thorn trees.

      All five of my chickens came to say hello, their wattles and combs wobbling and their rust-brown feathers trembling as they ran towards me. I reached into the bucket of crushed mielies that I kept on the stoep and threw them a handful of corn.

      I drank my coffee and searched the sky for rain clouds, but there were none. I was wearing my thin blue cotton dress, and had bare feet, but I was already hot.

      I packed a fresh tin of muesli rusks for the Gazette office. I looked at the cake on the table. It was the last slice of what may have been the best chocolate cake I had ever made. It was quite a responsibility.

      I could not eat it myself. Not just because of the indigestion. That would pass. It always did. I felt I needed to put it to good use.

      ‘I am wondering how you could help with the case,’ I said to the cake. ‘The other slices did a good job at the police station yesterday. Poor Anna, I hope she gets out soon. I am sure prison food is terrible.’ I sat down at the table. ‘But someone is going to have to eat it.’

      My stomach was feeling a bit better after the Rennies so I got up to boil myself an egg. Just one. I sat and ate it at the kitchen table with bread and apricot jam.

      ‘I think it is that husband, Dirk, who should be eating jail food,’ I said to my egg as I knocked the top off with a teaspoon. ‘I think we should go and have a chat to him.’

      When I had finished, I said to the slice of cake in front of me: ‘But I need to be prepared. You can’t just walk up to a murderer unprepared.’

      I tidied my breakfast away and made two big roast lamb sandwiches with farm bread. One for Dirk and one for me. With mustard and gherkins and lettuce. I cut them each in half and put them in a Tupperware. The cake slice glistened in its chocolate rum icing. I wrapped it up in wax paper and popped it into the Tupperware too.

      The Tupperware and the tin of rusks came with me to the Gazette. I parked in the shade of the jacaranda. The phone was ringing as I stepped into the office and Hattie waved hello to me as she answered. There was no sign of Jessie.

      ‘Harriet Christie,’ Hattie said. ‘Yes, Mr Marius . . . Certainly, Mr Mar— ’

      On my desk was a thick cream envelope with my name and address written in beautiful handwriting. The postmark was Barrydale.

      ‘We are doing our best, Mr Marius,’ said Hattie.

      Mr Marius was a Gazette sponsor. Real estate. Hattie pulled a face at me, pointing her finger at her tongue to show he made her feel sick. I was glad I didn’t have her job. I tuned out her voice as I sat down and read my letter:

       Tannie Maria, I like your style. You are one plucky lady.

       I am an interior decorator who left Cape Town to retire – sort of – in one of these quaint little Karoo towns. Mostly it’s divine, but some days the small minds of these folk just makes me want me to tear my hair out by the roots and scream for mercy. But let me not digress. It is my boyfriend’s birthday later this month, and I thought I would make him a special meal. I have bought a set of pale turquoise ceramic crockery for the occasion; handmade plates that are just exquisite. He is a growing lad and he loves his meat and carbs, but I think the occasion and the plates call for something more than pap en wors. Any ideas? Something with the right flavours and colours to go on these plates. Something special and feisty – like my boyfriend. Something with balls.

       Marco

      I closed my eyes, and I could imagine those lovely turquoise-blue plates. What I saw on them was frikkadelle, tamatiesmoor and yellow mieliepap. Ja, those spicy meatballs, together with that chunky tomato sauce, and polenta would be very nice on that blue plate. And maybe a side plate with big chunks of bright roasted vegetables, like beetroot and butternut and yellow pepper. And feta. Oh, it looked beautiful . . .

      ‘Hey, Tannie M.’ Jessie’s voice dissolved the picture. ‘Who you dreaming of?’

      ‘Jessie,’ I said. ‘You gave me a fright. I was thinking of meatballs.’

      ‘How did it go at the jail yesterday?’ Hattie asked as she put down the phone.

      ‘Did they enjoy your cake?’ said Jessie.

      ‘Oh, yes,’ I said, getting up and filling the kettle. ‘Coffee and tea?’

      ‘Ja,’ said Jessie.

      ‘Please,’ said Hattie.

      ‘I don’t suppose there’s any more of that cake?’ said Jessie, eying the Tupperware on my desk.

      ‘There’s one piece left,’ I said. ‘But I’ve got plans for it. I brought you some muesli buttermilk beskuit.’

      I told them about my meetings with Kannemeyer and Anna.

      ‘Does sound like someone wiped off their prints before Anna picked up the poker,’ said Jessie, taking her coffee and a rusk.

      ‘And it simply doesn’t make sense for Dirk to wipe his own poker, you’d expect to find his prints on it,’ said Hattie, accepting her tea and ignoring the beskuit.

      ‘Ja, but he is a bloody idiot,’ said Jessie, ‘so he might do such a thing.’

      ‘I think we must talk to him,’ I said.

      ‘But would he talk to us?’ said Hattie. ‘I gather he’s not a friendly chap.’

      ‘I have a piece of that chocolate cake,’ I said, ‘and a lamb sandwich. With mustard and gherkins. That could make him talk.’

      ‘I don’t think we should be giving that bastard cake and lamb,’ Jessie said. ‘He deserves a sharp kick in the balls.’

      ‘The man has a gun, you know,’ said Hattie. ‘But I agree he’s more likely to talk to a tannie with food than a pair of Gazette investigators.’

      ‘Okay,’ said Jessie. ‘You can try going in with the food and I’ll wait outside. If you shout, I’ll come running with that kick. And a pepper spray.’

      I could’ve used Jessie in my days with my husband. I gave her another beskuit.

      ‘Dirk’s staying at the Dwarsrivier Bed & Breakfast,’ said Jessie. ‘I saw his car outside and I spoke to Tannie Sarie, who cleans at the B&B. He’s booked in for a couple of days.’

      ‘Why’d he move out?’ I asked.

      ‘It’s a crime scene. The forensic team from Oudtshoorn was here – the LCRC. They’ve put that yellow tape all over the place.’

      ‘Goodness, Jess. How do you know all this?’ asked Hattie. ‘Are you seeing Reghardt then? Does he tell you these things?’

      ‘Not exactly,’ said Jessie, twirling her ponytail around her finger. ‘We have seen a bit of each other, though, and I did overhear him talking on the phone, and then I just happened to drive by the Van Schalkwyk farm. Came straight back when I saw the LCRC vehicles.’

      Hattie shook her head.

      ‘I think we should visit the crime scene ourselves,’ Jessie said. ‘Soon. Before Dirk goes home. The LCRC will be finished there today and the police guard will be removed.’

      ‘Oh, golly, Jess, I don’t want you getting into trouble,’ said Hattie.

      ‘Anna’s