Just a Dead Man by Margaret von Klemperer Page B

he spoke English. Good English?”
    â€œOh yes, perfectly good. But it was an African. And not a young voice either.”
    â€œI really think you should tell Inspector Pillay, Mr Ndzoyiya. I mean, that was a threat.”
    He looked at me politely, but I could tell he thought I was stating the obvious. “Of course it was. But … I just wondered if …” And he stopped again.
    I looked at him, trying to look encouraging, alert, sympathetic – whatever would make him go on.
    â€œDoes the name Thabo Mchunu mean anything to you?”
    It didn’t. Not a thing. It was one of those names I might have heard anywhere, but it rang no bells. “No, sorry. Who is he?”
    â€œHe’s based in Pretoria, I think. He’s a senior civil servant, and has something to do with National Heritage and Monuments, things like that.”
    Then I had a thought. The person Daniel had spoken to, whose name he hadn’t known and had been with Rhoda Josephs, had heritage connections. Could it be the same person? If so, he was the man who had put Daniel into contact with Phineas Ndzoyiya. It wasn’t much to go on, but I told Paul Ndzoyiya what Daniel had told me and asked Paul why he mentioned this Thabo Mchunu.
    â€œHe and my father had a quarrel – oh, some months ago. It was over how to remember the past. My father said it should be done accessibly, in ways kids will be exposed to at school. School setworks, historical outings, worksheets, things like that – basically, what he told Mr Moyo. This Mchunu insisted that proper memorials should be built, and what money was available should be spent on statues and so on. He said the white people had put things like that up. Now bigger and better ones should be put in their places.
    â€œMy father believed people wouldn’t notice them, or care much after the opening, the fanfare and the speeches. Then they would walk past without seeing. Just as you do with that great statue of Queen Victoria in the middle of town. How often does anyone look at it? How many young people here know why it’s there, or what it represents? Even if they are told, it goes in one ear and out the other. It’s boring for them. If there is to be money, my father said it should be spent on practical things.”
    â€œWhere did they meet? Your father and this Mchunu?”
    â€œIn Durban. Mchunu was there for some Historyteachers’ conference my father was attending. He comes from down here originally, I believe. And later he went down to our home village in Pondoland when there was a meeting about issues of concern to the community. Not just memorials. Roads, development, mining, things like that. There are a lot of problems in that area. He and my father argued there as well. That was after the conference, I think sometime in January.”
    I watched Paul Ndzoyiya. He looked like an honest man, whatever an honest man looks like. In fact, he looked like a worried man, and puzzled. But it still seemed bizarre to me that an argument over what was the best way to remember the past would lead to murder . I told Paul – he asked me to call him Paul – that I couldn’t see it as a motive.
    Paul shifted in his chair, recrossing his legs. His trainers looked well worn, unbranded and comfortable. “I would agree, except that I have been sorting out my father’s things, looking at his laptop, which he left at my house.” He was silent.
    Finally I said: “And?”
    â€œAnd I found correspondence. From Thabo Mchunu. Some of what he had written was very unpleasant. Rude. Threatening, even.”
    â€œBut why?”
    He sighed. “You have to understand, Laura. In Pondoland, in the rural area where we come from, my father’s family has influence and respect. If they, and particularly my father, were to oppose whatever schemes this Mchunu had, it might be hard for him to force them through. And from the