The Harbinger

by Mark Graham

  “Inspector Mansell, what a pleasure.”

  “I’ll see my witness now, Wolfe. Right now.”

  “Suspect, Mansell, not witness. Suspect,” replied Wolffe. Beads of perspiration formed on his upper lip. “And the suspect is sleeping at the moment.”

  “You are a second-rate actor, Wolfe. Hardly better than your police work.” A sharp breath punctuated Mansell’s words. “I’ll see Anthony Mabasu in one hour, in private. Have him cleaned up, if you will.”

  “You have a visitor, Anthony,” announced Wolffe energetically. “A detainee under suspicion of murder, in a case ruled by the Police Act, is not by law allowed visitors. But you are a lucky man. We’ve made an exception in your case. We don’t expect gratitude, only cooperation.”

  Mabasu lay on an examination table in the infirmary. He had heard only half of what the interrogator said, understood even less. But he did understand the word visitor, and the word gave him a measure of hope.

  Two aides swabbed Mabasu’s feet. Salve was applied. The feet were wrapped in gauze bandages. Another aide spread a thin layer of Instant Heat across his rib cage and lower back. Four meters’ worth of bandages formed a tight cincture around his chest and abdomen. His wrists were treated with cold packs, a cloverine gel, and were lightly bandaged as well.

  Four aides hoisted Mabasu from the table into a wheelchair. The amphetamine sulfate solution injected into his forearm provided an instantaneous boost. A male nurse set a clipboard on Mabasu’s knees. The nurse worked a pen into his right hand.

  “Sign at the bottom, please.” A new voice, thought Mabasu, gazing into a smiling face. Despite parched lips and a swollen tongue, he tried to return the smile. The nurse tapped the clipboard. “It’s so you can visit your visitor. You know, always some crazy paperwork. Here now, let’s have some water first.”

  The water contained a high concentration of glucose and sugar, cold and quenching. Mabasu asked for more, but the nurse showed him the pen again. Mabasu signed the forms without reading and drank and drank.

  When Mansell entered the holding cell, Anthony Mabasu was seated behind a rectangular table split lengthwise by a partition.

  “Stand up,” Mansell ordered. Mabasu shook his head, looking more cadaverous than alive. An hour to patch this guy up? Mansell thought. It would have taken a week. “Was it coral rock this time or hard brick? Madmen. Bloody madmen.”

  Mansell stripped off his jacket. He loosened his tie. Together, they smoked, in silence for a time. Mabasu smoked as if he had been rewarded with a crust of bread in the face of eventual starvation. Mansell smoked to clear his mouth of the bile of Hymie Wolfe and every nightcrawler he represented. He smoked to clear his head of the inevitable, damning question. Had he truly expected to see Anthony Mabasu in any other condition?

  Security would know about Sylvia Mabasu’s death within the hour. The similarities between the death of Elgin and the woman were ultimately too striking. By chance or design, it didn’t matter; Mansell would approach the murders with the assumption that both were committed by the same person.

  “The coins on the floor at Elgin’s feet. You touched them. You held them in your hand. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It wasn’t enough to steal.” The words burrowed their way from Mabasu’s throat, guttural and broken. “I thought about it. Shit, easy pickings. But it wasn’t enough. You don’t know. It was stupid. Damn stupid. I shoulda taken ‘em.”

  “That would’ve made more sense. What about the locker door? Your prints were all over it. Hey, I’m trying to help you.”

  “I was scared. The guy was white. Shit, you know what that means.

  “It means you weren’t scared enough.”

  “I shoulda let it be. I shoulda run. . . . But it was my lady’s job. She was supposed to be there. I thought I could protect her. Shit. That’s a joke. I can’t even protect myself.”

  They’d gotten close, so Mansell veered away. He passed a water bottle across the partition and lit two more smokes.

  “The blue-and-white bandana. The one you said you didn’t own. Not your colors, you said. You left it in the locker room. You knew Elgin’s blood was on it, didn’t you?”

  Mabasu grimaced, shaking his head.

  “They showed you a watch.”

  “And a ring. Said they were the dead guy’s.”

  “They were. They found them in your house. In the dugout below the house.”

  “Never been under there. I know the kids play there sometimes, though. I’m screwed, aren’t I?”

  Mansell had gained a measure of respect for Anthony Mabasu over the last ten minutes. Not that every answer rang with truth; it was something else. You search for a man’s weaknesses, observe his ability to deal with those weaknesses. You judge a man’s capacity for evil based on that ability.

  Ian Elgin’s watch and ring had been wiped clean of any fingerprints. Mansell had spoken with the two Security officers who had searched Mabasu’s house; according to them, strict police procedure was followed. The items were found wrapped in an old newspaper, a four-day-old copy of the Bulletin. They had handled both items using a penknife. The articles were then bagged and taken straight to Forensic.

  Mabasu was innocent, Mansell was convinced of that. No proof; intuition. Intuition with a loose end. Watching Mabasu’s hands, he asked, “Why did you go into that locker room that night, Anthony? Not to clean up after your wife, not in fifteen minutes. We both know that. What made you go in there?”

  The right hand tensed; fingers curled into a fist and then relaxed. “Don’t know, really. Thought maybe she might’ve changed her mind, about goin’. You know women sometimes. Somethin’ told me.. . . Does Sylvia know yet? Does she know I’m here? I shoulda called her before, but we don’t have no phone. I was gonna call from work, but . . .”

  He’d lost him, and there was no going back. Mabasu needed to know, and now, Mansell thought, because Wolfe would surely use it; another thumbscrew neatly applied.

  Mansell leaned across the partition. He looked into Mabasu’s eyes. “Anthony. She doesn’t know. She’ll never know. Listen, there’s no humane way of telling you this. I’m sorry. Sylvia’s been killed. Three days ago in Ciskei—”

  “No, you bastard.” Mabasu grasped the arms of the wheelchair. “No. You’re lying.”

  “Her body was found this morning by the Ciskeian police.” “You lousy bastard. This is a goddamn trick.”

  Mansell shook his head. He cast his eyes downward. A harsh breath escaped his lungs. “No, I wish it were. I wish to God it were a trick. But I have to tell you now, like this, because the Security Police don’t know, or didn’t until now. And they’ll use it against you, Anthony. They’ll use it. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry? Shit. You’re an animal, just like them.”

  A door opened behind them, and Mansell held up a hand. He leaned across the partition again. “I’ll get you out of here. Just hang on. Hang on.”

  On his way out, Mansell stopped at Wolffe’s office on the eighth floor. He entered without knocking.

  “Sorry about our little misunderstanding this morning, Inspector,” Wolfe said.

  “Anthony Mabasu is sorry, too,” answered Mansell. “We’re taking the suspect off your hands, Major. CIB is filing charges this afternoon.”

  “Glad you came around.” The words were delivered with a smile.

  Mansell stared down at Wolfe. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. “I’ll send a team around first thing in the morning to pick him up.”

  ****

  Jan Koster arrived at East Fields, via helicopter, at 3:30 in the afternoon.

  His mood was predictably foul, and he was hard-pressed to contain it. The reasons were clear. Today was his youngest daughter’s birthday. Hannah was nine. At dawn, Koster had made love with his wife, Julia, for the first time in three weeks. Later, he’d taken the family for a breakfast cruise aboard their sailboat, Die Komeet. The weather on the cape had been balmy and cool: a sky dott
ed with feathery tufts, a seafaring breeze blowing in from the west. Together, they’d eaten cake and ice cream on the main deck with a perfect view of Table Mountain. At noon, he was bound for Johannesburg.

  The last seven years had taken a heavy toll on Koster and his family. A brief separation, one year ago, had left deep scars. Julia had suspected infidelity. Koster concluded that it was better than suspecting treason. Years ago, during instruction, he had been told that sex was a healthy outlet. Its use in the field was encouraged. Therefore, Koster never strayed.

  Seven years, he thought wearily. Life would never be the same after the twenty-second. If he was still alive after the twenty-second.

  Koster used a room, one reserved for him personally in the workers’ living quarters, to stow his luggage. The cot was neatly made, a reading lamp at the head, a water basin and mirror nearby. He changed from his suit into blue jeans, a cotton shirt, and construction boots. He took a short walk from the barracks to a barn-shaped building called Central Access. Here, the main shafts led to work stations and tunnels below. Outside shaft number four he was issued a miner’s hat. A ten-man demolition team and two engineers stepped into the shaft elevator next to him. They began their descent. Three other crews were already underground, each with a similar task.

  Two hundred and fifty meters below ground the elevator stopped. The team entered the Main, a cavernous work station twelve hundred meters square and three stories high, bored out of solid rock by drill and dynamite.

  A dozen tunnels led away from the Main, but two were conspicuous above the rest. Set side by side at the rear of the station, each was outfitted with electric cables and winch-rope systems—essentials for transporting arms and supplies deeper into the network.

  They entered the primary tunnel. It was a claustrophobic two and a half meters square. Caged light bulbs hung from each crossbeam. Members of the demolition team loaded full packs, coils of rubber-sheathed cable, and contact wire into tunnel cars. The engineers carried high-beam flashlights, tremor detectors, and pouches full of chewing tobacco.

  When they were four hundred meters into the tunnel, a series of ascending stopes rose sharply to a second station. Packs and equipment were hand-carried and reloaded.

  The tunnel leveled out for a time, but it meandered, pointlessly, Koster thought, and its size vacillated nervously.

  “A tunnel follows the reef,” he heard one of the engineers explain. “And a gold-bearing reef is like a woman, fickle and unpredictable.”

  The demolition crew found this amusing. Koster thought about Julia and her cries of pleasure and reluctance that morning. His depression mounted. He lost track of distance and direction. The chief engineer spat wads of tobacco juice at the base of each support.

  Then, without warning, the primary tunnel and its companion tunnel converged. This third station was called Supply Central. Larger than the other two, Supply Central was an oblong cave with sheared sides and a craggy stone ceiling. Foodstuffs and water barrels lined every wall. Work crews with blowtorches tarried over steel supports and track repairs.

  Koster threw himself on the ground next to one of the barrels. The water tasted bitter with chemicals. He drank three cups and poured a fourth over the back of his neck. In defiance of all the rules, he lit a cigarette. He thought about that day, four years ago, when they first discovered the tunnels extending from beneath the Homestake Mining claim. It took another sixteen months of drilling, blasting, and digging to link the largest of those tunnels with the primary tunnel and to create this subterranean grotto, where, Koster thought, in two weeks, the assault would begin.

  After the gear had been unloaded from the tunnel cars, Koster traded his metal cup for coils of contact wire and cable. The thirteen-man crew climbed permanent scaffolding into the connection tunnel. At the entrance, the demolition chief positioned a rectangular box containing the detonator switch. Koster watched closely as the lead wires were connected, making a mental note. Then they worked their way through the tunnel, securing the cable to each support. Koster felt the sweltering heat of the rock. Sweat burned his eyes and blurred his vision. The ground rose steadily beneath his feet. Three hundred meters further on, they came to the “dead” access shaft that lay below the central mining facility of Target Four.

  The shaft measured roughly ten meters across. Four iron ladders hung from the walls. Each rose from the floor of the tunnel to a deserted work station thirty meters below the surface. An elaborate system of pulleys, ropes, and pallets threaded its way down the center of the shaft from top to bottom.

  “Let’s get some light and air in here,” ordered the chief engineer.

  A generator housed at the base of the shaft kicked in. Electric light showered vertical stone walls. A secondary air pump circulated cool air throughout the tunnel.

  The demolition team set to work. Their packs contained high-grade plastic explosives, electrical blasting caps, plastic leg wires, and metallic trips. They worked in teams of two, setting charges at staggered points the entire length of the shaft. Jan Koster and the engineers served as their ground crew, feeding them five-kilogram packages of explosives and reams of contact wire by means of ropes and pulleys.

  They finished the task at dusk. Confirmation from the other three targets arrived within the hour.

  At eleven o’clock that night, while most of the camp slept, Koster returned alone to the connection tunnel beneath Homestake. The tunnel was deserted for now, pitch-black and stifling. Using a small flash, Koster located the detonator box ten meters beyond the entrance and quickly dismantled the back. Disconnecting and camouflaging the lead wires was a simple, if delicate, matter, and five minutes later he was retracing his steps. Lining the access shafts with explosives had been Leistner’s idea. “Just in case a show of strength is needed,” he had said. Koster had other ideas.

  By 2:30 in the morning he had rendered the three other detonators as harmless as the first. By three, he was back in his own cot, fast asleep and dreaming about a small seaboard town thousands of kilometers to the north.

  ****

  Steenkamp’s hands were covered in blood. An assistant sat in a glass cubicle poring over a microscope; another studied X rays. Steenkamp’s scowl deepened when he saw the chief inspector enter the room.

  “Is it different?” asked Mansell.

  “Too bloody similar.” The room was cool, almost cold. Still, Steenkamp’s face glistened. He waved a bloody finger at a white towel near the victim’s feet. “Wipe, please.”

  Averting his gaze from the table, Mansell dabbed the pathologist’s forehead and the bridge of his nose.

  “Same prognosis?”

  “Strangulation. Yes.”

  “ETD?”

  “Thursday afternoon. Sometime between three P. M. and six P. M. ,” Steenkamp answered. “The tarp retarded the cooling process just enough. Body tissues were slightly bloated. A few blisters. She didn’t die in that valley, though. She died in a sitting position. Lividity on the back of the thighs and the buttocks confirms that she probably remained in that position for an hour and a half to two hours.”

  “He waited until dark to hide the body.” Still, a lousy job of concealment, Mansell thought. Why?

  “A logical guess,” snapped Steenkamp. “So there she sat. He probably drank a beer and listened to the radio.”

  “Sure. A man who loves his work.” Was it laziness? Mansell wondered, or just contempt for the Ciskeian police? No, he thought, the killer wanted the body discovered. Or—his stomach tightened at the thought—Sylvia Mabasu is not his last target.

  “You were right about the struggle,” Steenkamp said. “The tips of the fingers were traumatized. The nails snapped off clean.”

  Chas du Toits amplified on this. He gestured to a tiny mass of bluish-black material wrapped in powder paper. “It’s a plastic rubber. It came from under the victim’s nails on the left hand. Also traces from the ring finger and index finger on the right hand. One of those synthetic gems with a hundred use
s. We’re trying to pinpoint it now.”

  “The dashboard of a car,” Mansell said bluntly. He glanced at the forensic chief for an opinion. Du Toits raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “Any traces of human tissue or blood around the fingernails?”

  “None, I’m afraid.”

  Mansell paced. He lit a fresh cigarette. Jabbing at the air with the orange ember, he said, “The attack came from the backseat. She reacted to the attack by grabbing for the dash, hoping to pull herself free. Unconsciousness occurred before she could change her defense to the rope.”

  “An abnormal reaction,” grunted du Toits.

  “Yes.” Beware of the percentages, Mansell thought. “Maybe.”

  With his free hand Mansell groomed lank hair as he circled the room. Du Toits said, “The rope is an exact duplicate in terms of make and wear, a nylon with rayon fibers. We tried matching ends with the rope used on Ian Elgin, but without success. There were three sets of prints on her purse. Her own, Anthony Mabasu’s, and another set we haven’t identified yet, but the narrowness suggests a child. The coin purse inside shows two sets, husband and wife.”

  “All right.” Mansell returned to the table. He scanned the print sheet with Sylvia Mabasu’s name at the top. “We found hair, native hair, on the chiffon scarf from the lounge at the railroad station.”

  “Not Sylvia Mabasu’s.”

  “I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” Mansell said. “Did anything show up on the tarp or on the victim’s clothes? Any link?”

  “The tarp is an utter mess. We’ve found plenty of fiber samples, and the oil and grease retained dozens of print fragments. We’re running it through a GC/MC now. We’ll do a ninhydrin test for prints as soon as that’s complete.”

  “When? It’s important.” Anthony Mabasu lurked over Mansell’s shoulder.

  “Gas chromatography takes time, Inspector.” Du Toits gestured with upturned palms.

  “I know, Chas. When?”

  “Tomorrow morning,” du Toits replied.

  Mansell thanked him and headed for the door. But du Toits waved a hand, his memory suddenly jogged. “Oh, Nigel. I nearly forgot. Good Lord. We finished Elgin’s apartment. His clothes are all South African–made. Johannesburg confirmed that from his wardrobe there as well. Sweaters, all native wool. But the black-andgray wool fibers we found attached to his sweater aren’t. They’re imports. Italian.”