Glittering Gallows

Chapter 50

309 C Chapter 50 rom the morgue, Katherine drove aimlessly through the city’s CBD. She didn’t know where to go and how to face her husband without betraying the hatred and bitterness inside her. As she drove, she continued to see Moagi and Eurydice in bed. Throughout their marriage, twenty years now, she had found him passionately indulgent and uxoriously tender. As he doted on their daughters she hadn’t the slightest suspicion he was sexually predatory. The image of the two in bed harassed her. Like someone in a stupor, she drove northwards along Potgieter and turned into Struben St. Four robot-controlled traffic intersections later, she turned into Van Der Walt St and drove southwards. She was thinking. When she slipped from the coma five days ago at Eagle’s Nest Clinic, she had considered suicide and let Moagi know it. But he had told her easily that she wasn’t suicidal. This was before she met Dr Herbert O’Donovan and Dr Nancy Lefoka. Though what she now had in her possession, and had safely deposited with the Rhineland-Palatinate Oasis Bank, wasn’t in itself admissible at law, she knew beyond doubt that her husband was evil, and if she killed herself she would’ve surrendered lambs to a wolf. The findings by both the psychologist and the pathologist didn’t exonerate Moagi. Both doctors warned her against her husband. Dr Lefoka even proved by subtle elimination that the culprit injecting her between and under her toes was nobody but her husband. He was an enemy within. She was nothing to him but a blinded relegation, a wife for window-dressing purposes. He was seldom intimate with her. She had blamed it on the premiership and his ever expanding business empire. Now she clearly realised that it was impossible for him to pleasure her frequently and reasonably when he was expending himself on their daughters. For how long had he been cheating on her so painfully? Katherine had no F 310 idea. But Dr Lefoka had said the skin under her toes had discoloured, which could mean that the flesh had deadened over the years. Undoubtedly Eula, their youngest daughter, was a part of the conspiracy. Days before she saw Moagi and Eurydice in bed, Hicks the French poodle with merino-quality furs, had gone missing during the day. According to witnesses, Moagi and Eula were the last people who saw the dog. Maids and gardeners saw them riding out, the dog trailing them excitedly. But when they returned the priced poodle was missing. When she tried to inquire from them where the dog was, father and daughter exchanged conspiratorial glances and speculated that he wandered into the woods. Both suspected he was snatched by an eagle or beaten by a snake. Katherine assigned men on horseback to look for the pet. For over four days, they systematically combed the woods in the property, but returned empty-handed. No matter how much she tried to coerce and coax Eula into disclosing what had happened to the dog, the little girl wouldn’t look her in the eyes or change her statement. Katherine saw that her daughter was hiding something from her. The streets were grey and gloomy. The Jaguar XJ made two more right turns. She drove up Potgieter St again. To break the monotony of seeing the same buildings, she absentmindedly made a turn and found herself driving against traffic in a one-way street. A marked police patrol vehicle coming from the opposite directions turned on its warning lights and siren, and blocked her passage. Two policemen emerged from the patrol car and approached hers cautiously, their pistols drawn. A small curious crowd gathered. The policemen ordered her out of the car. Katherine spent the next ten minutes apologising for negligent driving and blaming it on stress and, pointing on the bandage on her brow, medical drugs. She lied that she wasn’t carrying a licence and gave them a false name and address. The policemen flatly refused a bribery offer of the money Dr Lefoka turned down. One of them said she looked familiar and wondered if she wasn’t an MP or a deputy minister. Katherine said she wasn’t a public figure. 311 After verifying that she was sober after ordering her to blow into a breathalyzer, they fined her for negligent driving and driving without a...