Murder, love, and poaching: Tannie Maria returns in Wild Things Never Die

In Tannie Maria’s latest adventure, she goes undercover at a luxury game lodge on a mission to save the vetplantjies. But then, murder strikes, bringing in a cast of colourful suspects, including a barefoot artist, a botanist cowboy and a singing gardener. Here’s the first chapter of the book.

***

The crickets were singing and an owl hooted in the distance. Hoo-hooooo. But instead of enjoying these sweet Karoo sounds, I was fighting with a stupid kitchen scale. I added another spoonful of flour to the bowl I was weighing, and tapped the small digital scale that sat on my Oregon-wood table.

It flashed nonsense numbers again. ‘Ag, no,’ I said. ‘Don’t be like that. Please.’

‘Bokkie,’ said Henk, his voice heavy with sleep. ‘It’s midnight.’

I smiled at him. He called me bokkie, his little buck, even when he was grumpy. Henk stood in front of me in his navy boxer shorts. It was a cool autumn night, but he is a big strong man, and the cold doesn’t like to bother him.

‘I want to bake sourdough bread tomorrow,’ I said. ‘But I forgot to make the whatsit, the leaven.’

On the table next to the scale were all the things I needed for the leaven: my sourdough starter, a glass jar, a bag of stoneground flour, a jug of spring water and a wooden spoon.

Henk ran a hand through his short brown hair, then asked, ‘Bokkie ... Did you have another one of those night terrors?’

‘I shouldn’t have accepted this starter,’ I said. ‘It’s such a ... commitment. My last starter died.’

Henk stood behind me and stroked my back, my pink cotton nightie. I softened as I leaned into him, his large strong body, his warm hands.

He said, ‘Maybe it’s time you went for counselling or something?’

‘I felt terrible when it died. It’d been handed down for generations.’ I pulled away from Henk to get the measuring cup from a drawer, and added 100 millilitres of water to the glass jar.

‘You could talk to Ricus,’ said Henk.

I looked down at all the pages of notes Jessie had given me. I’d told her I wanted to learn more about making sourdough bread, and she’d printed 30 pages from Oom Google. You can ask Uncle Google anything, but his answers can be very long.

I added a spoon of starter to the jar, then dried the measuring cup and dipped it into the flour. ‘I should be weighing this,’ I said. ‘But my scale’s not working.’

‘I’ve got an early meeting tomorrow,’ said Henk. He was a detective lieutenant with the Ladismith police.

‘With water, 100 millilitres is 100 grams, but it’s not the same with flour.’

Henk got some batteries from the kitchen drawer, and opened the bottom of the digital scale. I watched his muscled chest as he worked. Were the silver hairs overtaking the copper? No, it was just the light. His chestnut moustache had no silver in it, but it wasn’t looking as tidy as usual. Midnight can do that to a moustache. My own tangle of red-brown hair was even messier, but I’m used to untidy.

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‘With cakes I know exactly what I’m doing,’ I said. ‘Perfect every time. But sourdough, I can never be sure. It has a life of its own, I can’t control it ... Ah, thank you.’

The scale was working now. I weighed the flour and added exactly 100 grams to the jar.

‘Bokkie ...’ Henk said.

‘I’m fine, Henk.’ I stirred the starter, flour and water with the wooden spoon. ‘I’ll mark the level, this time. Where’s my Koki?’

‘Maria, you were buried alive. In a grave. And there’s the PTSD from your last marriage. I spoke to a counsellor at work. She said you should go for counselling.’

‘Henk.’ I tapped the spoon on the edge of the jar. ‘Thank you. But you agreed you wouldn’t tell me what to do.’

‘I care about you, Maria. I’m your ... fiancé.’

‘Fiancé,’ I said, flipping through my notes. ‘Sounds funny, y’know, like a French sauce. Would you like some fiancé with your steak?’

Henk tugged on one end of his chestnut moustache. He wasn’t finding it funny.

I got a Koki from a kitchen drawer and made a black line on the jar to mark the level of the leaven. ‘Could you maybe double in height?’ I asked. ‘Overnight. It’s not that cold; it shouldn’t be difficult.’

‘I’m going back to sleep,’ said Henk. ‘Remember to turn out the lights.’

‘Sleep tight, Henk ... Sorry.’

I was sorry about the sourdough, because I didn’t understand it properly. Sorry I was disturbing Henk. And sorry that I would not turn out the lights. The darkness, the pure Karoo darkness that used to wrap me and rock me in its quiet softness, had recently become a cold black hole that I tiptoed around. A pit that I was scared of falling into.

As I finished cleaning up, I heard one of my hens clucking. Not a happy sleepy clucking, or a morning wake-up kik-kik-kik, but a frightened call. I opened the kitchen door, which is also my front door, and looked out onto the dark stoep. Beyond the veranda was the black veld. Just looking at the night made my heart run fast, like a hamster on a wheel. Not long ago, I would’ve strolled down the side of my house in the starlight to check on my chickens. But now a knot tightened in my belly and my breath became hard to find. I closed the door before the darkness could sneak into the house and leaned my back against the door, breathing in to the count of four, out to the count of five. Just like Ricus had taught us in the PTSD group. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Even the words made me feel stressed. Trauma. Disorder. I’d thought I was over that whole blooming story.

Four in. Five out. Four in. Five out. Breathing into the lower belly. Letting go as I breathed out. My heart slowed, and my tummy relaxed a little.

As I headed for the bedroom, the clucking started again. Just one hen. If there was a jackal, a rooikat or a leopard, all the chickens would be calling. I stroked Henk on his shoulder.

‘Hmmmm,’ he said.

‘Sorry to wake you,’ I said. ‘It’s Henrietta ... she’s having nightmares again.’

‘She’s a chicken.’

‘Could you maybe come outside with me?’

‘Chickens don’t have nightmares.’

‘Ag, shame. I think she dreams about that jackal. The one that bit her, broke her leg.’

‘Hens don’t dream.’

‘The jackal killed her friend.’

‘You want me to sing her a lullaby?’

‘Ja, that’s a good idea,’ I said, as I pulled on my pale-blue dressing gown and sheepskin slippers.

‘I was joking,’ he said.

I stood by the bed. He sighed and sat up, pulled on his boxer shorts.

Henrietta clucked when she saw me. Henk was shining his torch as I went into the hok, picked her up and tucked her under my arm.

‘You used to sing to your lamb,’ I said. ‘Kosie.’

‘That was different; he was just a little lammetjie.’

‘Have you got a song other than “Lamtietie, damtietie”? It doesn’t feel right to sing a hen a lamb song.’

‘I am not singing to a chicken.’

‘I’m bringing her inside.’

Henk shook his head and turned away. ‘I must get some sleep.’

I quickly closed the coop door and hurried along the path to keep up with him and his torch. I felt the darkness on my heels.

Henk went back to bed, while I made myself a hot chocolate with milk, cinnamon, honey and a pinch of salt, and sat down on the couch with Henrietta.

I couldn’t think of any chicken songs, so I just hummed to her as I stroked her white and rust-red feathers with one hand, my chocolate milk in the other, and tried to relax. I looked around my lounge, dining room, kitchen, which are all one big room. I’m a lucky woman, I thought, with a nice house. Thick mud walls. Big stoep with a beautiful view. Not that I could see it right now. But I knew that my garden, the veld and the Rooiberg, Langeberge and Swartberge were all outside, resting peacefully in the night. They weren’t afraid of the dark. Honestly, I don’t know what had come over me, at the age of fifty-something, having the fears of a child. Like when my dad used to sit with me at night.

I could hear the low rumble of Henk’s snoring as I took Henrietta with me to the bedroom. I settled her in the cupboard, on a shelf with my jerseys, and continued humming to her as I climbed into bed. I could see her and she could see me by the bathroom light I left on.

Henk lay on his back, one arm stretched out across my pillow. I gently rested my head on his chest, and his arm wrapped around my shoulder, pulling me to him. As if I was a small light thing.

Which I’m not. I may be short, but I’m round and full. Henk is just a lot bigger than me and even in his sleep he’s a strong man. He held me as he slept, as if his arms could protect me from everything and anything. I let myself believe this was true. DM

Wild Things Never Die is published by Penguin Random House. Sally Andrew is the best-selling author of the award-winning Tannie Maria mystery novels, published in 15 languages, with a TV series broadcast in over 100 countries. Sally lives with her artist partner in a mud-brick house on a nature reserve in the Klein Karoo.

Sally Andrew’s book launches:

• 7 May 5.30pm, Exclusive Books Cavendish with Pippa Hudson
• 12 May 6.30pm, Die Bordinghuis, Wellington with Lorraine Khune, RSVP 0662892212
• 19 May 6pm, The Book Keeper, Pretoria with Lorraine Sithole. RSVP info@thebookkeepershop.co.za
• 20 May 5.30pm, Love Books, Gauteng with Michelle Constant. RSVP kate@lovebooks.co.za
• 6 – 1O June, Bargain Books along the Garden Route
• 18 June 5.30pm, Kirstenbosch with Don Pinnock