by L. A. Larkin
Samuel smirks. Clearly, not so grieving. He’d lay money on Funani taking Ximba’s role as the syndicate’s banker. He leans forward, the steering wheel pressing into his chest, as Wolfe straddles the motorcycle. She handles the bike’s size and weight well. There’s something feline about the suppleness of her limbs and the smoothness of her movements. He smiles. She’s not like any journalist he’s dealt with before.
29
Wolfe takes one more look through the motel room’s only window, pulls the faded orange curtain back into position, then connects to Butcher Investigations through Skype. Butcher greets her. Ponnappa is in the background, seated at her monitor.
‘Found some interesting stuff on Ximba’s computer,’ Ponnappa says. ‘I’ve copied the good bits. Give me a sec and I’ll be with you.’
In the meantime, Wolfe updates Butcher on Ximba’s sudden death and what she saw and heard at Terry Blunt’s warehouse.
‘Done a background check on Blunt,’ says Butcher. ‘Born in Zimbabwe. Military for three years. Then a farmer. Grew sugar cane, so he knows the industry. But here’s where it gets interesting. In 2000 Blunt was accused of smuggling elephant tusks inside containers of sugar cane. Never stood trial. He fled to South Africa, claiming his farm had been seized and his life threatened under Mugabe’s ethnic cleansing. He was given asylum.’
‘So, he has a connection to poaching?’
‘Yes. There’s more. A cold case involving a sugar cane farmer. Blunt’s KwaZulu Natal Co-op wanted to buy him out. But the farmer didn’t want to sell. Anyway, the guy turns up dead. Blunt was questioned, but no one was ever prosecuted.’
‘I’m getting a bad feeling about him.’
‘Agree. We’ll see what we can do to track his business activities. Imports and exports. This could be how they move illegal goods around,’ says Butcher.
Ponnappa walks her wheeled chair over to Butcher’s monitor and waves at Wolfe. ‘This is what I’ve got so far on the headmaster. First up, his online banking shows he’s been moving money to and from ZIB Trading for at least twelve months. But following the money trail is tough. It’ll take time.’
‘Great work,’ Wolfe says. ‘I’d love to know where all this money is going.’
‘There’s more,’ Ponnappa says. ‘Owethu was right about Ximba. He was one sick puppy. Liked to visit snuff sites. Really horrible stuff. Most of his emails are mundane, but there’s one that’s got an encrypted file attached and the subject is: You’ll enjoy this.’
‘Can you open it?’ Wolfe asks.
‘Almost there. I’ll ping you a message when it’s done.’
Wolfe’s burner phone vibrates. ‘Give me a moment,’ she says, and steps out of the webcam’s view.
‘Olivia are you alone?’ Yushkov asks.
Wolfe eyes her laptop screen. Sees Butcher waiting patiently. ‘No.’
‘Can you be alone?’
‘Yes.’
Wolfe calls out. ‘I’ve got to take this. Give me two ticks.’
Putting on her baseball cap and sunglasses, she looks through the door’s spyhole, sees nobody, and unlocks it. Outside the room, the air is heavy with diesel exhaust. She goes to the far end of the walkway and sits on the top step.
‘We can talk now.’
‘There is a place we can meet. Tonight,’ Yushkov says.
‘Tonight? But… You’re in Johannesburg?’
‘I will be.’
‘For how long?’
‘One night.’
‘Really? Just one?’
‘I must be somewhere tomorrow.’
That evasiveness again. Is this to protect her, or is he keeping something from her?
He continues, ‘Olivia, I am sorry it must be like this.’
‘Give me the address,’ Wolfe says. Her heart beats as if she’s just done a workout.
‘Do not put it in your phone or write it down.’ He tells her. She repeats it back to him.
‘I’ll be there from midnight until dawn,’ he says.
‘Why can’t you stay longer?’
‘I have commitments.’
‘What kind of commitments?’
‘Work. Listen to me, Olivia. You must be certain you are not followed.’
‘I am always careful.’
‘Be extra careful.’
‘Are you being watched?’
‘No. You are.’
Her stomach feels as if it’s flipped over. ‘Who by?’
‘A professional. That’s all I know. I will try to find out.’
It’s a good job Wolfe is sitting down. People have threatened her before, but a professional killer is something else altogether. However, what’s freaking her out the most is that Yushkov knows about it. How?
Before she can say another word, he is gone.
30
Wolfe slips back into the motel room and sits in front of her webcam, just as Ponnappa, thousands of miles away in London and clearly visible through their Skype video connection, punches the air. ‘Ha! You can’t shut me out!’ she shouts at the screen.
‘You’re in?’ Wolfe asks.
‘I’m in!’
‘Liv?’ says Butcher, leaning forward to scrutinise her face. ‘You look very pale. Is everything all right?’
Wolfe waves away his concern. He would be profoundly disappointed if he knew she had contacted Yushkov. And if he even suspected there was an assassin watching her, he would be on the next plane to Johannesburg. The last thing she wants to do is place him in danger.
‘Jet-lagged, that’s all,’ she says.
Butcher raises a disbelieving eyebrow, but lets it pass.
Wolfe continues. ‘What have you got?’
‘Let’s see,’ says Ponnappa, opening the folder.
Inside are numbered photographs. They appear as thumbnails, too small to see the full detail but big enough to know there’s a lot of blood.
Ponnappa clicks on the first photo.
Amateur shot. Probably taken on a phone using a flash. Heavily vignetted, the edges of the image are too dark, while the centre is over-exposed. There’s a lot of red that glistens like silk. Amongst the red, a closeup of a face, taken in side profile. African origin. Young, not much older than Owethu. It takes a second or two for Wolfe to realise there is something missing. Where the victim’s nose had been, there is only severed cartilage and bone.
‘What the fu… That’s barbaric. Why would anyone do that?’ says Ponnappa.
‘I have no idea,’ Wolfe’s voice is thin, her stomach churning. She can’t quite believe what she’s seeing.
‘The blade would have been very sharp and strong,’ says Butcher. ‘Maybe a sword or machete?’
Ponnappa covers her mouth. ‘Please tell me he was dead when they did this.’
‘God, I hope so,’ says Wolfe.
Her stomach heaves as the second photo opens. The same victim. A man. A full body shot. What remains of him. He’s lying on cracked concrete, limbs splayed. His ears have been cut off, then neatly placed on the ground either side of his head. His right hand has been severed, just above the wrist, and shoved into his mouth.
This is too much for Ponnappa who springs from her chair, gagging. A door bangs as she leaves the office.
‘He’s showing off,’ says Butcher, ‘hence the subject line, You’ll enjoy this.’
‘It also tells us the murderer is connected to Ximba and that Ximba liked to see people being hacked to death. And to think he was a school teacher. Jeez.’
‘I hate to say it,’ Butcher says, ‘but I think the victim was alive through this torture.’
Wolfe swallows back the bile creeping up her throat. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘If he was dead, there wouldn’t be anywhere near this much blood.’
‘Dear God.’
31
There are twelve photos in the encrypted file. The first two images had Ponnappa running to the bathroom. Wolfe, too, can barely hold on to the contents of her stomach. She is shaking, her sk
in cold and clammy. She’s seen death before. But she’s never seen a body so mutilated. Body parts deliberately severed. The third photo of the young man she suspects is Somali is a graphic close-up of his open jaw from which his severed hand is protruding.
‘It’s like the sicko is having fun. Mocking his victim,’ Wolfe says to Butcher who is at the other end of the Skype video call.
‘I’ve seen some terrible things in my time,’ says Butcher, seated in his office in London, ‘but this has to be one of the worst. A sadistic psychopath. I suspect the other images are not going to be pleasant. Do you want to continue? Probably best not to wait for Jwala.’
‘I’m ready,’ Wolfe replies.
The fourth photo is of a Caucasian woman. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Maybe mid-twenties.
‘Another victim,’ Wolfe says.
The woman is vertical, wrists bound with plastic ties, one end of a meat hook supports her bindings and the other end hangs over a horizontal ceiling rail, forcing the victim’s arms straight up.
‘What’s that in the background?’ Wolfe asks.
‘Cattle carcasses,’ says Butcher. ‘Looks like a meat locker or slaughterhouse.’
The woman’s face is a blur of movement, her mouth open.
‘She was alive,’ breathes Wolfe, barely able to speak.
Butcher runs a finger over dry lips and nods.
In the fifth photo, her nose has been sliced off, leaving a gory, gaping hole. Both ears have gone too. There is the briefest of moments when Wolfe has a vain hope the torturer stopped there. But when Butcher opens the sixth photo, Wolfe cannot stop a sob escaping her mouth, or the tears that sting her eyes.
The woman’s belly is sliced open from top to bottom, her intestines trailing to the ground. And more.
‘No, no, no, please tell me that’s not… not a foetus.’
Butcher doesn’t answer. There’s no need. At the woman’s feet lies an unborn child.
‘I am going to find you,’ says Wolfe. ‘You sick fuck.’
She wants to punch something. Anything. She’s up and pounding her fists into the mattress. What monster could rip an unborn child from a mother’s womb and watch it die?
Even the hardened ex-detective has turned away. There’s a wailing sound behind him. Ponnappa has both hands over her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks.
‘Can you cope with more?’ Butcher asks.
Wolfe knows these barbaric images will be gouged into her memory for always. ‘Yes.’
The next three shots are of a platinum blond man, a little older, perhaps in his thirties. His nose and ears are cut away like the previous victims, but this time the ears rest on his eyes and the nose protrudes from his mouth. He’s lying on rotting wooden planks.
‘Different location, different sex and age. The only thing they all have in common is the removal of the nose and ears,’ says Butcher.
Images ten, eleven and twelve are of a Caucasian man in his late sixties or early seventies, weathered skin, bound around the chest by thick rope to the trunk of a tree, his mouth gagged. The ground is sandy. His nose and ears have been cut away but are not in any of the pictures. Instead, two of his fingers have been shoved into what were once his nasal cavity and maxillary sinus.
Butcher and Wolfe stay silent for a while. So overpowered with emotion, she can’t think. She takes some deep breaths.
‘A male killer?’ Wolfe asks.
‘I think so,’ says Butcher. ‘Women are more prone to commit crimes of passion, to kill in the moment. These murders are planned and meticulously executed. He’d study his victims. Watch them. Plan where he’s going to take them. Three of the victims are male. He’d need the strength to immobilise them and possibly drag them to where he tortures them. And don’t underestimate the strength it takes to hack through bone. So, yes, the killer’s a man. He’s probably killed before. Knows what he’s doing. Likes to brag. And the arrangements he makes with the body parts, they’ve got to mean something to him. I’m sure there is a pattern here. We just can’t see it yet.’
32
It’s as if Butcher has been switched to mute. She sees his lips moving, but the last words she hears are He’d study his victims. Watch them.
Wolfe’s eyes dart from the door to the window. She moves the curtain a fraction. Peers out. No sign of Blunt’s Prado, or anyone suspicious in the motel car park.
‘Where did you go?’ asks Butcher. She’s out of the webcam’s range. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I think someone’s watching me,’ Wolfe says, not taking her eyes off the street.
One car has arrived in the car park since she last looked. A blue Suzuki Celerio with a child’s seat in the back.
‘Who?’ Butcher asks.
‘Don’t know.’
The setting sun rests just above the rooftops and shines directly into her eye. She squints. It’s hard to see detail. A white utility truck, known locally as a bakkie, pulls out of a second-hand car sales yard. She watches it drive away, then sits back on the bed so Butcher can see her through the webcam again. ‘Maybe he turned on Ximba. Killed him. And now he’s after me.’
‘What makes you think that?’ asks Butcher, his voice a pitch higher.
‘A tip-off.’
‘From who?’ asks Butcher.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Of course it bloody matters!’ snaps Butcher. ‘It’s your life we’re talking about.’
Wolfe is taken aback. Butcher is normally preternaturally calm. That’s one reason why he excelled as a detective. However much pressure he was under, however abhorrent the crime, he rarely let it affect him.
‘A source.’
‘We’ve always been frank with one another, Liv. Why shut me out now?’ Butcher’s eyes narrow and lips tighten. ‘It’s Yushkov, isn’t it?’
A pause. ‘Yes.’
‘Jesus.’ He looks down, shaking his head. She can see his jaw muscles tighten. ‘He’s in Johannesburg, isn’t he?’
‘Yes. He warned me there’s an assassin watching me.’
Butcher inhales deeply, looks up. ‘Did he give you anything else? Like a name?’
‘No.’
Ponnappa, her face leached of its natural colour, looks over Butcher’s shoulder. ‘What about Casburn? He could be tailing you,’ she says.
‘Yushkov knows Casburn. It’s not him.’
‘Terry Blunt?’ Butcher suggests.
‘I don’t think so. Blunt is heavy-handed. Loud. He’s too clumsy to be an assassin.’
‘How does Yushkov know?’ Ponnappa asks.
A question Wolfe hasn’t dared contemplate. ‘He didn’t tell me.’
‘Olivia, think! What kind of people is Yushkov involved with to know this stuff?’
The wrong kind of people.
‘We gave him little choice.’
‘We?’ Butcher’s freckled face flushes with anger. ‘This country gave him a pardon, which is more than he deserved. He was a Russian bloody spy.’
‘No, he wasn’t, and he saved my life more than once.’
‘And you saved him from a life sentence, more’s the pity. Can’t you see he’ll destroy you? Stay away from him!’ Butcher’s chair hits the floor as he suddenly stands and walks away.
Ponnappa grimaces, her eyes following Butcher who is now off-screen. ‘Yushkov can help keep Olivia safe, right?’ she tentatively suggests. ‘Maybe it’s a good thing Yushkov is around?’
‘He’s going to find out who it is,’ Wolfe says.
Butcher comes back into view. ‘Sorry, Liv. I shouldn’t have lost it. Look, I detest the man. And I hate to say it, but if a professional killer is after you, Yushkov is handy to have around.’
‘I don’t need saving.’
‘Christ!’ Butcher slaps his palm on the table. ‘Then come home. You’re no match for a psychopath.’
33
Wolfe feels the residual heat of Butcher’s fury long after their Skype connection is cut. She hastily warns Owethu and Mama Gcina.
The assassin may have seen her with them, so they should be wary. Next, she tries to reach Thusago, but he doesn’t pick up, neither his mobile nor landline. She tries not to let it bother her, but she’s worried. She emails Cohen an update, with twelve photos of the victims attached, then tries phoning Casburn, leaving a voicemail message.
Dan. It’s Olivia. I have evidence of four murders, connected to Ximba. Please call me. It’s urgent.
She has no idea where the murders took place. Which country, even. So who does she contact? With Major-General Msiza potentially involved in a cover-up, Wolfe doesn’t want to contact SAPS.
As darkness blankets the motel, Wolfe feels increasingly nervous. She double checks her go-bag. Checks the knife-comb is easy to grab. Checks the CZ 75 Thusago gave her. She chambers a round, then decocks the hammer. All she then has to do is give a squeeze on the double action trigger – this way if she has to react, she won’t have to remember to flick the safety off. For the first time in her life she wears a gun holster on her belt. It feels awkward, weighty on her hip.
Unable to forget the photographs, she steels herself to look at them again. This time at the location. As she scrutinises the three images of the woman in the slaughterhouse, she notices a gold cross on a chain around her neck. Wolfe zooms in, then dials Butcher on FaceTime.
‘I think the female in the slaughterhouse is Russian,’ says Wolfe. ‘She’s wearing a Russian Orthodox cross around her neck.’
‘Well spotted.’ She waits for him to bring up the photo on his screen. ‘But that doesn’t mean she was killed in Russia. She might be Russian Orthodox and living in, say, South Africa.’
‘I don’t think so. Check the first photo of her. Bottom right. The cranberry juice bottle.’
She waits for Butcher to comment. ‘Chudo-Yagoda?’ he says.
‘Exactly. I’d put money on it that’s only available in Russia.’
‘Then we can rule out Blunt as the killer. He’s never left Africa. I checked.’