by Deon Meyer
The little procession went on into the darkness. Forensics’ bright torch lit their way to the back of the structure. ‘Check it out,’ the sergeant said.
‘That is weird,’ said Cupido.
‘That’s my point. Can we look inside now, please?’
He gave the key back to Griessel, who undid the padlock, pulled back the bolt and opened the door. Lithpel lit up the back wall with its rack of seed packets. There was no sign of a cable. ‘Impossible,’ he said.
‘Now hang on a minute,’ said Cupido. He went in, paced out the expanse between the door and the wall.
‘I see what you’re doing there, cappie,’ said Lithpel.
Griessel said nothing; he waited for Cupido to go outside and pace out the same distance. ‘We lost about a metre and a half inside,’ he said. ‘That’s a false wall.’
They found the edge of the door in the rear wooden wall when they looked closely. It was an expert job, an almost seamless match of the pattern and texture of the Wendy house.
It took them some more head scratching and experimentation before they lifted the spice rack and the door opened.
Inside the narrow hidden room a long counter ran the length of the wall. Under the counter flickered the lights of an emergency battery array. On top were power cords for at least two computers, two keyboards, two mice. An inkjet printer stood at one side. The network cable came up from beneath, plugged directly into what looked like a small LAN splitter. An electricity supply came out of the floor.
Under the counter was a two-door cabinet, similar to the one inside the study. It looked as though the doors had been forced open.
‘That’s more like it,’ said Lithpel Davids.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Cupido.
‘This is a techie geek’s den, cappie. Check it out. Back-up battery pack for power failures, so you don’t lose data. Two Logitech performance laser mice. Two slabs of Das Keyboard – that’s serious stuff, real mechanical keyboards. Pro grade, not for amateurs. And that! Do you know what that is?’ He pointed at the splitter.
‘Network cable splitter,’ said Cupido.
‘No, cappie. That is your state-of-the-art Ubiquiti UniFi Security Gateway. You configure it with a command-line interface. Again, for pro use only, it’s a serious firewall, and you can also create your own VLAN.’
Griessel and Cupido just stared at him blankly.
‘That means nobody gets to spy on you, cappie. Nobody is even going to know you’re online, or what you’re up to. And nobody is going to get inside your system.’
Griessel pointed at the elongated phantom shapes on the counter where the wood was slightly darker than the rest of the surface. ‘Were those two computers?’
‘Yebo, yes,’ said Lithpel. ‘Looks like they were here till quite recently. But they’ve gone now.’
Griessel crouched and pulled open the broken cupboard doors. ‘Just like whatever was here,’ he said. The cupboard was empty.
Griessel, Cupido, Kaleni and Lithpel Davids stood in the Wendy house, speculating on the possibilities, trying to work out what Menzi Dikela might have been doing in this secret room. And how it might have led to the crime scene in the house.
Lithpel said the range of possibilities was as wide as God’s grace. The grandpa could have run a massive server there, with a database of who-knew-what, or he could have been mining digital currency. He could have been utilising the dark web to buy wicked stuff, drugs or credit-card information. Or be involved in cyber-fraud or hacking. ‘Or maybe he was just watching child porn.’
‘Hayi!’ said Kaleni.
‘Colonel, all I’m saying is that you don’t build a secret little room, with a heavy-duty security gateway, and use weapons-grade hardware to watch Netflix.’
‘He was a decent man,’ said Kaleni, firmly.
Griessel said he thought they could assume that this was what the three men in the black X5 were looking for. That they broke open the cupboard under the counter, that they took the two computers away. They would have to assume that the computers contained information the SSA wanted badly. His best guess, based on what they knew of Dikela, was sensitive data on state capture, on corruption.
Then they murdered Dikela, and made it look like suicide.
‘So they just came in here, shot him, and took the stuff? How did they know where to look?’
‘Maybe they had a guy as smart as me,’ said Lithpel. ‘Following the breadcrumbs.’
‘Wait,’ said Griessel, taking out his cell phone, and calling Professor Pagel.
‘I hope there is a breakthrough, Nikita,’ the pathologist answered, still jovial, even though it was nearly one in the morning.
‘Prof, the stuff they might have injected in our victim, or made him drink, could it make someone talk? Can it make you say things you wouldn’t normally say? If they wanted to extract information?’
Pagel thought for a long time before he answered. ‘It’s possible. I’m not an anaesthetist, I speak under correction. But something like midazolam . . . They refer to Guedel’s classification, the four stages of anaesthesia. There is a pharmacokinetic window, Nikita, a certain stage after administration of a narcotic when the patient . . . Let us say inhibitions become less restrictive. Many surgeons have stories to tell of the things patients say when they’re under anaesthesia, the questions they answer without scruple. Very personal, painfully private things . . . If your suspects knew what they were about, it’s surely possible. My advice would be, talk to an expert.’
Chapter 59
Griessel drove home along Philip Kgosana Road, up around the flank of Table Mountain. It was twenty to three in the morning and he was exhausted. His brain didn’t want to be bothered by the case any more.
He looked down at the city. It spread out wide below him, flickering with a magical beauty, like the reflection of an imaginary starry sky on a lake of silver. Such a harmless-looking scene, he thought. Cape Town in the early hours had an innocence like that of a sleeping child. Unaware of the evil, the monsters that lurked.
He thought about that moment on the stage earlier tonight – it felt like a lifetime away – when he and Rust came so close to nirvana. He thought about how he’d felt, inside the music. Transported. Safe. Happy. In complete equilibrium, every note precisely in its place.
He played bass guitar because it had simplicity and regularity to it. Predictability. Structure. Music was order, perfect order. And his job was an impossible, constant and mostly frustrating battle against chaos. Every crime, every murder was a false note that shrieked and screamed and penetrated his grain and marrow and bone, a cacophony, a terrible disruption of order. It made him an obsessive policeman, swept him up in a war that he could never win, but neither could he surrender. Because he ached, always, for harmony.
Tonight bothered him particularly.
Too many false notes, and he couldn’t find the right chord or key in any of them.
He took his four-minute shower, then climbed into bed behind the warm, soft body of Alexa. She murmured something, barely audible, but it sounded like ‘Glad you’re home,’ and then she slept on. He was in awe of her ability to switch off so easily, sleep with such deep surrender.
Lord, it was good to be with her.
What if she turned him down when he proposed to her on Sunday?
That would be a mess.
Should he rather let things be?
Only five more days before he had to make his little speech.
No, he thought, it’s Wednesday already. Four days.
His gut contracted.
Part V
Chapter 60
Wednesday, 30 August, Daniel Darret, Amsterdam
His first morning in Amsterdam. There was no email from Vula. No news about the president’s programme due to kick off in two days’ time in Paris, no pointers to help him make the best choice of weapon.
It didn’t matter.
Those seven hours on the road yesterday were the first chance he’d ha
d to think through the operation properly. To weigh up everything he knew against possibilities, variables, strategies. To ponder his motives, ask himself if he could actually pull the trigger in that instant when the familiar face filled his scope.
And he still didn’t know.
But he had to plan for it. In the car he’d had the time to do that. To prepare for the deal. Logic dictated that an arms dealer like Ditmir would be dubious about an unfamiliar new (black!) client arriving without a reference and wanting to buy just one firearm. A member of the Albanian Mafia would not hesitate to try to take advantage of such a situation. Consequently, and in general, he would have to guard his identity, his place of abode and his vehicle’s registration number. Against Ditmir, and the people who were still hunting him.
He must prepare for the return journey as well, any potential police roadblocks, and for carrying a large and visible, illegal, unlicensed weapon in his car. He had prepared for that by making a visit to Carl Denig, the outdoor shop in the Weteringschans where he’d bought an assortment of camping gear.
Now, after breakfast at the Ambassade Hotel, his temporary home, he put the remainder of his plan into action. He approached Reception for advice: he was looking for a special type of boat owner who could provide a unique service. He fabricated some details to make sense of his request. It took them about a quarter of an hour to find him a suitable candidate. He smiled when he saw the name the concierge had written down. The suggested boatman was Pelle Baas.
Daniel called the number, explaining to Baas what he required. The man sounded considerably younger and a whole lot more sober than the last skipper he’d hired. They made an appointment and agreed on a fee.
Then he took a walk, just after eight in the morning, to stretch his legs, and get his blood flowing after the long drive in the Peugeot the day before. And to breathe in the city, renew his sense of the rhythm and crowds, the ebb and flow, the mood of it.
He wandered aimlessly, choosing his course impulsively, for close on two hours. It had been ten years since he’d last been there, but it felt like the soul of the place hadn’t changed at all. There were more offbeat museums, more cheese shops, more cannabis fumes, more tourists. But everything that had inspired and delighted him before was still there. He tried to dissect and understand it. It was the unique charm of the architecture and the canals, the narrow alleys and broad squares. The eclectic blend of ancient churches, art dealers and sex workers, shoulder to shoulder. The frenetic cyclists, trams, cars, rivers of pedestrians. The weight of centuries of trade, battle and struggle, the libertarian history. Everything played a role. But the essence of it was how it felt to him, the atmosphere. There was an intangible, subtle spirit of festivity, a joyful bonhomie, as if freedom, diversity and tolerance were still celebrated daily. Or could it be the enduring underlying sense of gratitude the Dutch had that the sea had been tamed and the land drained?
This was what the land of his birth should have been like. Now. Twenty-plus years after the miracle of 1994, after all the sacrifice and pain and hard work. It had all the ingredients to make it a second Amsterdam, a land and a place to stand as a monument to the triumph of good. Oppression and discrimination defeated, like a stormy sea pushed back behind a dyke. Maybe it wasn’t too late. He consoled himself with the idea that he could pull the trigger to stem the flood, help tip the balance, so that South Africa might one day celebrate her true liberation.
At ten o’clock he found himself in the hustle and bustle of the Albert Cuyp market. He knew he ought to keep moving, stick to his planned schedule and get the weapons transaction started, but he wanted to postpone the pressure a little – and the tension that a military weapon in his car boot would bring him.
He turned and began his approach in the direction of the Oudezijds Achterburgwal, and then he was on the Museum Square and he remembered what the pretty young woman in the yellow dress had told him about Christophle le More, the medieval bodyguard and archer he had reminded her of. Few people know of him. His portrait’s hanging in the Rijksmuseum.
On the spur of the moment he bought a ticket, and went to find the painting.
It wasn’t big, but it was impressive. In a gilded frame, Le More in a blood-red coat, his peculiar hat a lighter shade of red. And the face, his eyes turned to the right as though lost in thought. Self-confident. Proud, as though content with his place, his long journey there. As if he was home.
Daniel thought of the painting that Élodie Lecompte had made of him. How all that he could see in it was his own longing. He turned abruptly and hurried out.
Oudezijds Achterburgwal number 82D was a bell on a door, with a typed strip underneath that read Ditmir’s Trading. There was a small speaker on the wall. He pressed the button, but didn’t hear ringing.
He waited until a woman’s voice instructed him: ‘Second floor, please.’ The door buzzed. He pulled it open, went inside. A flight of wooden stairs, no lift. He climbed the stairs. On the first floor there was a heavy door, no sign, no indication of what went on behind it. On the second floor he found an opaque glass door with Ditmir’s Trading sandblasted on it and, underneath, The Best from Albania!, the giant exclamation mark sealing the good news.
There was a little camera just above the door. He opened it and went in.
The room inside was spacious. There were two women behind an extended desk on the left, their long straight blonde hair styled identically, one half falling down the back, the other draped forward over the shoulder. There were brightly coloured posters on the wall behind them, on each a big logo announcing Made in Albania. They featured photos of textile products, tobacco, fruit and vegetables. A lot of vegetables. Three white two-seater couches, stylish and modern, stood against the windows on the right. Two tables with pamphlets and magazines. Two cameras. One in the corner, one behind the women.
They greeted him cheerily. ‘Good morning, sir! Welcome to Ditmir’s Trading!’ More exclamation marks. They could have been sisters. Equally tall, equally blonde, equally painted, their make-up a tad heavy, wearing grass-green blouses and blue jeans that echoed the colours of the Made in Albania logo. Rosemary and Thyme. Rosemary’s front teeth were slightly more prominent. Thyme had a tiny, shiny gemstone adorning her left nostril.
He walked up to the desk and returned the greeting. ‘I’d like to see Ditmir in person, please,’ he said. He could see the blonde came out of a bottle.
Still smiling, Rosemary said: ‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t, but I really don’t mind waiting.’
‘I’m not sure that he’s free today. What is it about?’
‘I’m interested in his special range of products.’
‘Oh, perhaps I can help. Which specific products did you have in mind, or would you like to discuss the whole range of Albanian exports?’
‘I’d rather speak to Ditmir in person, if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course, sir. Won’t you please take a seat?’
‘Sure.’
He sat on the middle couch, picked up one of the brochures. It said Albania was 131st in the world in exports. He wondered if that was an apology or a boast.
He saw Thyme pick up the receiver of a phone, and speak into it in a language he did not understand. Hopefully she was talking to Ditmir or one of his people, who would be watching him on a TV screen somewhere in the building.
In the brochure he read about Albanian trade. The top exports of Albania are Leather Footwear ($310M), Crude Petroleum ($277M), Footwear Parts ($187M), Chromium Ore ($134M) and Non-Knit Men’s Suits ($129M). He wondered what ‘footwear parts’ involved. He had no idea what a non-knit men’s suit was. He’d assumed all men’s suits were ‘non-knit’. Not that he was any sort of connoisseur: he hadn’t owned a suit for decades.
Thyme put down the phone. ‘Sir?’
He stood up. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m afraid Mr Ditmir won’t be able to see you today.’
‘When will I be able to see him?
’
‘His diary is extremely full. Perhaps you can come back tomorrow?’
‘I’m in rather a hurry.’
‘I’m really sorry, sir. He is such a busy guy. Maybe tomorrow?’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It will be difficult, but I’ll try.’
He said goodbye. They smiled at him amiably and wished him a ‘nice day’.
With an exclamation mark.
Chapter 61
When he was back on the street he turned north, along the canal. He couldn’t wait till tomorrow, he realised. He really ought to be back in Paris by tomorrow night. But first he must establish whether his hunch was right.
He expected the evasive Ditmir to have a means of evaluating potential clients. He suspected that he would be followed now. Consequently he stopped in front of the Casa Rosso club and pretended to examine the poster advertising a sex show, in order to cover his back. He spotted them. Two men of average height, broad shoulders, emerged from the same door of Ditmir’s Trading, about a hundred metres behind him.
He lingered a moment longer, as if he was seriously considering the Casa Rosso show, like a man who suddenly had time on his hands. He pretended to turn away reluctantly, and walked on to the Molensteeg Bridge. He turned right there, and right again, in the direction of the Waag.
They were approaching, about a hundred and fifty metres behind him, making no real attempt to be unobtrusive. Or maybe they just weren’t very good. One was a bit bow-legged. They looked as though they might be cousins. There was a hint of the comical about the pair, like something from the silent films of the 1920s. Laurel and Hardy. He wondered if all Albanians came in handy packs of two.
On the Nieuwmarkt Square he sat down at a little table on the pavement of the Café del Mondo, which afforded him a view across the plaza. He took it all in like an entranced tourist. He could see them out of the corner of his eye, as they paused indecisively in front of the Albert Heijn supermarket.