by Deon Meyer
Mbali Kaleni said, ‘Hayi,’ and clicked her tongue.
The Camel raised a huge hand. ‘Sergeant Dimba and Colonel Gwala now wish to extend their deepest apologies to me, to Lieutenant Colonel Kaleni, and to Benny. They realise their loyalty was somewhat misplaced, but they hope we will understand that it was all done in the spirit of protecting the Great Police Brotherhood.’
‘They don’t know about the Okapi blade in the back of Johnson’s head,’ said Benny Griessel.
‘Obviously,’ said Kaleni.
‘And so, the commissioner asked me, in the light of this information, that we do not persevere with an investigation that was evidently a suicide, and lay the matter to rest.’
Chapter 27
‘Is that what you want us to do, Brigadier?’ Cupido asked.
‘That is all, colleagues. Thank you very much,’ said Musad Manie.
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Kaleni, and stood up.
The detectives followed her example, said goodbye to Manie and followed Kaleni out of the door.
In the corridor Cupido said: ‘But, Colonel, this is crazy. The man was stabbed. He was murdered.’
Kaleni kept on walking, her heels click-clacking down the passage.
‘Colonel, please,’ said Cupido, desperation breaking through into his voice.
She halted. The short Zulu woman looked up at him. ‘Captain, did your mother ever read Dr Seuss to you?’ she asked.
‘Colonel?’
‘Dr Seuss. Did your mother ever read his books to you?’
‘No, I . . . uh . . .’ said Vaughn Cupido. ‘We were a very healthy family.’
‘Dr Seuss wrote children’s books, Captain.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘You know what my favourite quote from Dr Seuss is?’
‘No, Colonel.’
‘“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” My mother made me recite it over and over again.’
‘It’s a good one,’ said Griessel, who also had never heard of Dr Seuss, but he knew she was giving them a hidden message and he was trying to understand it.
‘So, we will walk to the library. To learn and to go places,’ Mbali Kaleni said.
They followed her, dumbstruck, out of the Hawks building, turned left and first right into Carl van Aswegen Street, to the Bellville Library Centre.
Just over two years ago Colonel Kaleni had been very large. Vaughn Cupido had taken exception to the euphemism. ‘The Flower is fat,’ he had said. ‘It doesn’t help to throw around politically correct terminology like “rotund” or “plus size” or “overweight”. She’s fat. Very fat. Finish and klaar.’ In those days his relationship with her was strained, the result of a personality clash and his envy at her promotion.
In the meantime, Kaleni – to everyone’s surprise – had lost a great deal of weight by following the Banting lifestyle, and in the crucible of fighting serious and violent crime the relationship between her and Vaughn had advanced to a ceasefire, and eventually to wary mutual respect.
As she walked to the library ahead of them, Cupido thought how strange it was: she was just a slim shadow of her former self, but she retained the gait of a fat woman. The old waddle that said, ‘I’m fat and I don’t tolerate any nonsense,’ was still there, especially when she was on the warpath. As now.
She led them to a quiet corner of the library and waved them to seats at the table.
They sat down. She sat too.
Kaleni looked around before leaning forward conspiratorially and whispering: ‘You know I love this country.’
‘Yes, Colonel,’ they said quietly.
‘You know I am an honest person.’ Her expression was most solemn.
‘Yes, Colonel,’ said Griessel.
‘Painfully honest,’ said Cupido. ‘Sometimes.’
She ignored his remark. ‘You know I like to do things by the book. Even when it’s difficult.’
‘Yes, Colonel,’ they both replied.
‘Now, I must tell you I can no longer be honest and do things by the book,’ she said.
They waited for her to explain. She stared out of the library window, turned her face back to them and took a deep breath. ‘I don’t have to tell you about the state-capture mess.’
Griessel looked at Cupido, who said: ‘No, Colonel. We know.’
‘We are in very deep trouble. The whole Crime Intelligence Division of the SAPS is corrupt and captured. There’s no doubt that the national director of Public Prosecutions is a corrupt and captured man. And that our minister of police is a corrupt and captured man, and so is the president of the nation. Captured and corrupted by three Indian criminals who masquerade as businessmen. I’m not sure about the national commissioner of police, but he takes his orders from the corrupt minister, so he has no credibility any more.’
‘But we are not captured, Colonel,’ said Cupido, with passion.
‘That’s right, Captain. We’re not captured. And that’s exactly why I cannot now be honest and do things by the book at the same time. Because the book says to follow the commissioner’s orders. And we’re not going to do that. These are the darkest days in our nation’s history since apartheid. These are desperate times. My mother and father were activists in the struggle. There were times when I was very worried about the risks they were taking, the things they were planning and doing. They always used to say: “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” So now I’m saying that. I believe the VIP Protection Unit in Pretoria is corrupt and captured. They’re trying to hide something, and I think that something is very serious. And I think that something can be very detrimental to those three Indian criminals and their state capture. I think Johnson Johnson heard or saw something on that train that’s making all the corrupt people very nervous, and that’s why the minister and the director of Public Prosecutions put so much pressure on the commissioner. That’s why they concocted this nonsense about a suicide. And why the commissioner called Brigadier Manie. But the brigadier didn’t order us to stop the investigation. Like Dr Seuss said, the more you read, the more things you will know. I read between the lines of the brigadier’s instructions. And between the lines he indicated to us that we should continue with the investigation. And that we should be very, very careful. And that’s exactly what we’re going to be doing. Very carefully, very low-key and very crafty.’
‘What do you mean?’ Cupido wanted to know.
‘You remember the Cobra?’ she asked them.
They nodded. They remembered the case well – a few years ago a British scientist was abducted near Franschhoek and the Hawks had had to clean up the nest of hired assassins. Griessel was shot and barely escaped death. In the process they had to sidestep South Africa’s National Intelligence Agency too.
‘It’ll be like that again. Under the radar. Except we’ll have to be even more careful. This time we don’t know who we can trust. Even in our own midst.’
‘Are you saying there are Cape Town Hawks who are . . . captured?’ Cupido seemed to have difficulty linking all those words in the same sentence.
‘I’m saying we can only trust each other.’
‘Jesus,’ said Cupido. ‘The kid was right.’
‘Hayi,’ said Kaleni. ‘Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain. What kid are you talking about?’
Cupido explained about his girlfriend’s son.
Kaleni shook her head. ‘This is not what we struggled for,’ she said. ‘Even the children know . . .’
As the late-afternoon readers began to fill the library, she had to lean closer across the table to make her whispered words audible. She said they were not going to use any of the SAPS systems during their investigation. The corrupt and hijacked had eyes everywhere. They would monitor the systems so they would not mention the Johnson docket again in morning parades. And talk to no one about the case.
‘But what about Uncle Frankie and Vusi and Willem?’ Griessel wanted to know.
‘You’ll have to make them read between the lines,’ Kaleni said. ‘And I’ll have to allocate other dockets to them as well.’
‘We can trust them, right?’ said Cupido.
‘Of course.’
Cupido sighed in relief.
‘This case is going nowhere, Colonel,’ said Griessel. ‘We’ve got nothing. Only the knowledge that Dimba is lying and that the VIP Protection Unit is trying to mislead us. Apart from that, we have zero.’
‘Zilch,’ said Cupido.
‘Have you exhausted all avenues of enquiry?’
‘No, Colonel.’
She gave them the familiar Kaleni look, intense and serious.
They closed off the Johnson Johnson docket in the SAPS national computer system, listing the cause of death as suicide. Griessel made copies of everything in the physical file before delivering the original to Kaleni for her signature.
In the corridor, Cupido began taking down the photos that he and Fillander had put up with so much effort. He stored them in his office.
They went to tell Fillander, Ndabeni and Liebenberg that the docket had been closed. They also whispered into each man’s ear to gather in half an hour’s time, a quarter past six that Friday afternoon, at Johnson Johnson’s flat in Olympus Street, Springbok Park.
Fillander phoned his wife to tell her he would be late – again.
They set off, to put up the photographs in the victim’s flat, in the open-plan living area, and the passage, in both bedrooms and in the one and a half bathrooms. They worked till close on midnight to complete all the information about the people on the photos and make cross-references.
They found no trace of Faku or Green.
Chapter 28
Benny Griessel was dreaming. He was sitting opposite Alexa Barnard in an expensive restaurant, scrabbling through his pockets, but the ring was gone. Then he realised it was on the table, beside the candle. The candle was burning with a deep red flame, casting an unnaturally rosy glow on Alexa’s face.
‘Do you want to ask me something, Benny?’ She seemed impatient.
He picked up the little jewel box with the ring in it. His fingers trembled and he fumbled opening it. The diamond looked minuscule. He felt so ashamed, wished the earth would swallow him. His voice was shrill, nervous and pleading: ‘Alexa, marry me. Please.’
He stared at her intently. He watched her face slowly melt and the tears begin to roll down her cheeks. She reached for his hand, took it with great tenderness. ‘Ay, Benny, I’m so sorry, but I can’t . . .’
He awoke, shivering with fear.
Saturday morning.
The Rovos train was beautiful. In the twilight of a platform at Cape Town station, its elegant gunmetal grey and silvery white was in stark contrast to Transnet’s grubby, dilapidated carriages and the graffiti-smeared Metro Rail rolling stock. It was like a visitor with the style and elegance of a bygone era, holding out the promise of exotic destinations.
Joanie Delport met them on the platform. She handed them a document in an elegant Rovos cover. ‘This is a photocopy of the train’s log,’ she said. ‘Mrs Strydom said she’s sorry not to get it to you sooner, but it’s only available in hard copy.’
‘The log?’ Cupido asked.
‘Yes. The hospitality manager of the train keeps it. He writes down when the train stops or departs. What time and where.’
They thanked her.
She invited Griessel and Cupido to step on board.
In the long corridor of the carriage the ochre of the wood glowed in the light of stylish lamps. There were beautiful original paintings on the panels, and the carpet under their feet was thick and luxurious.
Even Cupido was quiet.
She showed them the compartments. They looked at the names of rivers above each one, at the large windows, the beds and sofas, the ingeniously designed bathrooms. Staff busied themselves vacuuming and dusting, bringing clean linen, making beds. She led them through the dining room, with snow-white tablecloths, crystal and silverware, and at last to the lounge at the very end, where they could sit on deep couches to show her the hundreds of photos of the passengers on the laptop.
Initially she said no to each photo, not spotting Terrence Faku or Oliver Green in any of them. Later she just shook her head. Photo after photo, without success, while Griessel and Cupido’s hopes faded and their hopes plummeted.
But when photo 286 appeared on the screen, she suddenly said: ‘Wait, go back one.’
Cupido tapped the computer. The previous photo reappeared. It had been taken in the dining room during lunch as light was pouring through the windows, a Karoo landscape outside.
Delport leaned close to the screen. She stared for a long time, then lifted a finger and said: ‘There. That’s . . . I think that’s Green.’
The photo had been taken with a cell phone. The windows were bright, the people in the dining room poorly lit. And the man she pointed out was four tables away from the camera, only the back of his head and small part of his profile visible. His head was turned twenty degrees to the right, as if he was planning to look at the view. His right arm was partly raised and he had something in his hand. A piece of cutlery, perhaps. And opposite him, just a glimpse of his companion, the upper part of a grey-haired man’s hairline. A black man, perhaps.
They didn’t sigh. They didn’t moan. Griessel just asked: ‘Are you sure?’
‘I . . . Almost certain . . . Yes, yes, it has to be him.’
Cupido marked the photo, then went on to the next.
It turned out to be the only one where she could point out either of the two phantom men.
Joanie Delport offered them coffee, but they declined politely, and asked if they could go to where Mrs Scherpenzeel slept, then to Faku, Green and Johnson’s compartments.
First she had to determine exactly where Mrs Scherpenzeel had stayed, then led them from the restaurant carriage to her royal suite. A few minutes later they walked towards the locomotive, to Green’s compartment, and two carriages on to where Johnson would have slept. She slid the door open and they stood in the pullman suite where Johnson had been stabbed in the back of the head with an Okapi blade.
Griessel inspected the sliding lock of the door to the corridor. Small, neat and effective.
‘Some of the passengers forget to lock the door from inside at night,’ she said, ‘because there’s no key to turn.’
Griessel told her that, as he understood it, Johnson’s sofa would have been converted into a bed by the time he returned from the dining room.
She nodded.
He tried to picture it: the sofa folded out into a double bed, the small table moved out of the way. A narrow strip of floor between the door and the window, where Johnson would stand and talk to Dimba on his cell phone. His back to the door?
Cupido waited patiently, because he knew what his partner was doing. It was Griessel’s gift to imagine himself into that moment. But Vaughn knew this was a skill for which Griessel had paid a price.
Griessel slid the door open and shut. It was relatively quiet. When the train was on the move, there would be the noise of wind and wheels on the track. The clickety-clack over the rail joints. Johnson would have been focused on the phone call, listening to Dimba. His voice might have been loud and heated. He didn’t hear the door open. The wound was deep and straight, a fast, powerful, stabbing action, from directly behind.
Griessel looked at the wooden blinds hanging above the windows. ‘Are the blinds closed at night?’ he asked Delport.
‘Yes, but a lot of the guests open them again if we’re moving.’
‘How often are the windows and blinds cleaned?’
‘After every trip.’
Too late to get fingerprints.
He walked to the window. It shifted easily, opened wide. Two people to lift the body and swing it out. Johnson had weighed ninety kilograms approximately. It would have taken some effort. Driven by the adrenalin of fear, urgency and murderous intent. Two men
of seventy-something who were still fit and lively.
Difficult. But possible.
‘Thank you,’ he said, and turned around.
Outside, at the car, Cupido said he would give the photo to Lithpel Davids. Perhaps he could do something with it.
Sergeant Reginald ‘Lithpel’ Davids worked with Philip van Wyk at IMC. Everyone considered him a technological miracle worker.
Griessel said that Lithpel was still trying to get Johnson’s phone to work.
‘We haven’t got a thing, Benna,’ said Cupido.
‘There are more photos on the way.’
‘If we haven’t got lucky yet, what are the chances?’
‘I know.’ He shared the feeling that they weren’t going to make the breakthrough with this one.
‘We can talk to the ex again. She might have learned something about corrupt politicians from JJ’s stint at the VIP Protection Unit. Maybe she knows the Green guy on the photo.’
‘Maybe he said something to WO Neville Bandjies, his old friend from Brackenfell station.’
‘But who can we trust?’
‘I don’t know. Robyn . . . The VIP Protection Unit cost her her marriage. I think we can trust her.’
‘Maybe you’re right. See you at the office.’
From the Hawks’ offices they drove together to Robyn’s Ark in Brackenfell, the traffic around them dense and slow.
Cupido took out his phone while Griessel was driving and found what he was looking for: ‘Okay, Benna, so last night I was doing some research. I found this website, Wedding Bells dot com. Everything you ever wanted to know about getting hitched but were too bashful to ask. And there’s an article about how to pop the question. This dude reckons, “The secret to asking for your beloved’s hand in marriage is to keep it simple. The moment can be tense and overwhelming for both of you, and women have a sixth sense about these things anyway. So, a James Joyce stream-of-consciousness speech just won’t do.”’