by Ian Patrick
Tony got out of the Mercedes, opened the trunk, and took out a long red box, half the width but twice the length of a shoebox. Then he walked across the road, away from the building next to which he had parked. He had clearly decided not to park adjacent to where he was actually going. Instead, he walked about thirty paces straight down the road and turned right into a place with a small forecourt, with space for five or six cars, fully visible to Thabethe still sitting in his car back on the road. Tony walked across the parking area, unlocked the front door of what seemed like a three-storey warehouse, looked around over his shoulder before entering, and closed the door behind him. Thabethe was intrigued, but decided to sit and wait rather than follow. He could take a closer look later, when everyone had left.
It proved to be the right decision. Within twenty minutes a white panel van arrived, and parked in the parking space, and Tony emerged to greet the new arrival. They both entered the building. Twenty minutes later they both re-emerged, struggling with what looked like a very heavy wooden crate. They took some time to manoeuvre it into the van. Then the door was locked, they shook hands, and the driver left carrying some papers. Tony in turn received a large envelope from the driver and stood there watching him drive off. Then he re-entered the building.
Thabethe stayed where he was.
12.20.
Pillay drove away from yet another search at the Montpelier Road house. Another largely fruitless search. Largely. Except for one flimsy possibility. A fourteen-month old receipt, scrunched back by the desk drawer into a scrap of bundled paper that no-one else had paid any attention to because it had become wedged in the corner of the drawer-space. She had unravelled it to read ‘DA 68: Application for delivery of goods ex state warehouse... Section 17.’ And an address in Overport scribbled in pencil, along with the words ‘easy access to Sparks Road / Springfield, Mayville...’
Her mind raced through the possibilities as she drove toward the Berea. She was dying to call Ryder, but she couldn’t say anything, yet, about Nyawula’s arrangement for them. Perhaps she should just get on with it, scout this place, see what comes up. If anything. The form DA 68 was more than a year old. Could mean nothing. Damn. She would love it if Ryder could join her.
Her dilemma was answered for her. Ryder on the iPhone.
‘Jeremy? You OK?’
‘I’m OK, Navi. Where are you?’
Within seconds Ryder had arranged to meet up with her at the Overport address, and within fifteen minutes the two of them had arrived in their separate cars, found parking in the forecourt, and then paused for discussion next to Ryder’s Camry.
‘Nyawula called me twenty minutes ago.’
‘He told me, too, Jeremy, early this morning. How do you feel about it?’
‘I’m OK, Navi. Don’t think that…’
‘I’m really sorry, Jeremy. I know I can’t really – I know it will take some time – Ed was...’
‘I’m good, Navi. No need to say anything else. OK? Nyawula asked me to let you know that he’s talked to me, but to keep it between us until he’s ready to make an announcement.’
‘Thanks. I’ll do what I can...’
‘Let’s check out this place of yours.’
They moved to the front door and Pillay knocked, loudly. After fruitlessly trying that for a few seconds, she tried the handle, with no great optimism. To her surprise, it opened. She called into the interior.
‘Anyone home? Hullo! Anyone there?’
Nothing. They moved in, apprehensively. They were on a ground-floor passage leading to a flight of stairs. They could see a landing on the first floor, then beyond that another flight of stairs leading to a second floor. On a table in the passage just next to the front door, on their right, was a small collection of documents. They looked at first glance like no more than post, adverts for pizza delivery, business envelopes, junk. As Ryder picked up the pile to flip through them Pillay leaned in through the open door on their left. Nothing. There was a second door, also to their left, further down the passage, but Pillay was more interested in looking up through the stairwell to see how far the place stretched.
‘I’ll have a quick check upstairs, Jeremy. You check down here. OK?’
Ryder nodded, still looking through the post, and she moved to the stairs as he skimmed through the documents in his hand. She called up the stairs as she went.
‘Hullo? Anyone home? Police.’
Her boots clumped upward on the stairs, deliberately loudly to add to the alert, for the benefit of anyone who might not hear her because of the noise of photocopying or some other possible reason.
‘Looks like no-one’s around, Jeremy. I’ll start at the top.’
She moved up the flight of stairs toward the second floor rooms, as Ryder put the papers back down on the table. Nothing more there of any significance. Just letters to ‘The Occupier,’ advertisers, marketing junk, and charity appeals. He moved down the passage to the second room on his left, knocked, opened the door, and went in.
Tony stepped in behind Ryder as he entered, and brought the club down with such force onto the back of his head that it snapped the wood in two. Ryder dropped instantly, by no means unconscious but sufficiently stunned to preclude resistance and allow Tony to move his bulk rapidly toward him. Within seconds he had secured the detective’s wrists behind his back, tied with nylon rope to the thick main plumbing line that ran an inch from the wall and three inches above the floor, just to the left of the doorway.
Tony immediately stuffed Ryder’s mouth with a discarded oil rag and then stood back. Ryder, his senses still dulled by the blow, tasted paraffin as he tried to manipulate the rag with his tongue to stop himself choking. He could utter nothing more than a dull compressed grunt as his captor hissed at him.
‘You’re going to give me some information, detective. But you can give it to me after I’ve wasted your partner. She’s useless to me. Just a hindrance. I’m going to take her out. Just like I did with your previous partner.’
Ryder struggled in vain. Tony moved to check through the window. All clear outside. Then he peered through the crack at the hinges of the door, up the passage. Nothing. He moved back to a spot six feet from the door, facing it, and facing Ryder sprawled on the ground, and waited.
It didn’t take long. In the silence both of them heard a door open upstairs, on the first floor, followed by footsteps and then another door opening. Then another. Then more footsteps, this time descending on the staircase, rapidly. Heavy boots. Pillay. Ryder’s brain was racing as he tried to clear the fog and focus. With his mouth full of oil-rag, there was no way for him to warn Pillay, who was already at the foot of the stairs and now moving quickly down the passage toward the door, calling out.
‘Jeremy! Clear upstairs. What you got?’
Tony took a step forward toward the door, the Desert Eagle clasped in his right hand. Pillay wouldn’t have a chance. He needed no information from her, so he’d just blow her away as she walked through the door. The downed cop was the guy who probably had the information he needed: how close the cops were to Thabethe, what they knew about the casinos, the plans for Saturday, and who their contacts were. She was nothing more than a hindrance.
He raised the weapon to shoot her point-blank as she entered the room. But Ryder’s head was clearing rapidly. He saw the intent in the gunman, and from the sound of Pillay’s voice and her heavy boots on the wooden floor he computed the exact moment of her arrival. Stretching every sinew in his body he chose his moment, thrust his body toward Tony, to the limit allowed him by the rope holding him to the plumbing, and as Tony raised the Desert Eagle he smashed his right boot into his adversary’s left shin, just above the ankle.
Tony’s shot angled to his right, as a result of Ryder’s kick, and grazed Pillay’s upper left arm, taking a fair piece of her flesh with it and initiating massive bruising of the muscle. A fraction to his left and the bullet would have shattered bone and knocked her off her feet. As stunned as she was, and immedi
ately finding her left arm bloodied and useless, she had enough instinct to dive forward and head-butt Tony in the midriff with her full body weight behind the movement. The gun went sprawling one way, the gunman the other, and both he and Pillay struggled to get to their feet, but she had fallen awkwardly onto her right elbow, which instantly sent heat and a shock wave to her right hand, rendering it useless for drawing her own weapon in time. As she clambered up, she turned and saw that Tony was already on his feet, the dagger in his right hand. Seven-inches, inclusive of a three-inch blade. Double edged and very sharp. With a black Micarta handle, highly polished.
The pain from her left arm was unbearable. Tony was moving far too fast for her to draw her weapon with the numbed and almost equally useless right hand. He moved rapidly toward her with the dagger.
12.40.
‘Any chance of a coffee in here, Piet?’
‘Coming right up, Captain!’ Cronje called from the next room.
Nyawula was troubled. Something was nagging at him. What was it? He certainly had enough on his plate to deal with. Four of his unit’s Vektor Z88s had gone missing with Thabethe. Now within twenty-four hours two of them turn up in the Wilson’s Wharf incident and another one turns up on the beach at the Suncoast Casino bushes. One of the weapons still remained out there, somewhere. No doubt connected with Thabethe. All of this looked bad for the unit and for him as the Captain tasked with bringing down the tally of lost weapons, not just for his specific team but for the whole unit.
But there was something else, too. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was that was troubling him.
He doodled on the pad before him. His notes weren’t hanging together. The man on the beach was a British tourist, so the office of the British High Commission was now involved. It had become a more important case than it might otherwise have been. The initial reports seemed to indicate that it was a straightforward – if ever these things could be considered straightforward – homicide, with robbery as the motive. As tough as it was on the victim and his family and the tourist industry, Nyawula was more interested in the weapon than the victim. Forensic Services were following up on the prints, and ballistics were doing their thing. The Z88 must surely lead them somewhere? He needed a break.
And then there was Trewhella. The team had been devastated at the news. And those in the wider unit. And those further afield in other stations, too. They had popped in and out of the office all morning as if on automatic. Faces grim, bodies bearing the weight of the endless fight. Some of them doubtless thinking of throwing in the towel. The annual party tomorrow at Mabhida Stadium would involve the usual speeches. Fight the good fight. Against what? For what return? Certainly not measurable by salary. He couldn’t blame the men and women under his care for starting to question their careers in the face of rampant crime and corruption. He would have to try and muster some spirit in the team. Get them back to working closely together. Trewhella had been widely admired, despite his unorthodox habits. He had instilled fun into the team. He had been central to it. He had to try and rebuild some purpose and camaraderie.
Cronje walked in with the coffee and put it on the desk in front of him.
‘Thanks, Piet. I appreciate it.’
‘Pleasure, boss.’
Cronje turned to go, but Nyawula stopped him.
‘Piet.’
‘Yessir?’
‘How long have you been with SAPS?’
‘Ag, jeez, Captain, must be more than twenty years now.’
‘Seen a few changes?’
‘Sure thing.’
‘Especially with detective stuff. Lots of changes since 1994 and all that.’
‘Definitely, Captain.’
‘How has it changed for you, Piet? What do you think the big changes were?’
‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously. You know you can speak freely.’
‘Yissus, Captain. What can I say? I suppose the big thing for my dad was that under apartheid there was a bit of confusion between security police stuff and CID stuff.’
‘Your dad?’
‘Ja. He was a cop in the sixties, you know. Bloody good. Durban Criminal Investigation Department. His office was there by Smith Street – you know, when it was still called that. Anyway, I remember, way back when, hey, when my mom took me once to see him in his office. When I was still a laaitie. Must have been eight years old or something. My dad was a Detective Sergeant. Very popular oke. With the CID manne, that is.’
‘Not with the criminals?’
‘Jislaaik no, Captain. No way. He wasn’t popular with those guys ‘cos he was so damn good. But, hell, they respected him, you know? My dad had no time for politics, you know, and he didn’t care if they were black or white or coloured or whatever. If they were robbing, murdering or breaking the law he would nail them. Never had a problem with a guy because he was, you know, black or something. Hated the government, you know? But, hell, man, he liked his work, hey? And I reckon even the crooks, like, respected him for that, you know? But he saw some things, I tell you, Captain.’
‘Yes?’
‘Ja. He saw some of the kêrels taking a few short cuts, you know? He was always the hell in with the security police okes. He wanted to just focus on crime, you know, but they kept on bringing the politics in. Some of them were bad, man.’
‘But still good detectives, don’t you think? Some of those old security police guys became even better sleuths when things changed.’
‘Ja. Struesbob, hey, boss? Those okes were good at what they did. Their undercover stuff was brilliant, man. After his retirement my old man used to say that when they didn’t have to deal with State Security stuff but could get on with the crime matters, they became bloody good detectives.’
The two of them could hear Dippenaar and Koekemoer arriving in the next room, so Nyawula called out to them.
‘In here, KoeksnDips. Come in.’
‘Hi Captain,’ said Dippenaar, as they both came in, ‘sorry to interrupt but Koeks and I were just passing through so we thought we’d drop off a bit of info we picked up.’
‘What’s that, men?’
‘They’ve done all the autopsies on the three guys involved in the action at The Grove and Wilson’s Wharf, and the reports show that all the bodies had exactly the same evidence of drug use just before they died. The summary says that the usual kinds of ingredients found in nyaope were present in all of the guys. The conclusion was that these guys were all higher than kites when they attacked the old couple.’
‘They also show that the guys had been pumping the stuff into their systems for a few hours before they ran into Ryder and Trewhella,’ added Koekemoer. ‘They must have been like animals when they attacked the ou toppies in The Grove.’
‘Sir, sorry, but I should just add something. When I was with Jeremy at the old lady’s flat on Tuesday, when Ed was down at the Addington – er – interviewing the fourth guy – um...’
‘Yes, Piet? What?’
‘Um – well Ed phoned Jeremy while we were at the old lady’s flat, Captain, when we were finding the money under her carpet, you know. It was after he had seen the fourth guy at the hospital. He said in the phone call that the guy confessed to him that the four of them had bought some whoonga earlier that night. They had bought it off some boat there by the wharf, Captain.’
‘OK, Piet. Thanks. Right there, at the wharf? That’s interesting,’ said Nyawula.
‘I’ll check on the autopsy report for the fourth guy, Captain,’ added Koekemoer. ‘It’ll obviously be mainly about the strangling, but it’ll probably also show that the guy was on nyaope too.’
‘We’ll also take another good look around the wharf if you like, Captain,’ said Dippenaar.
‘Thanks, Dipps. Thanks, Koeks. I appreciate the effort you’re putting into this.’
They all paused. Nyawula was struck by the fact that the death of Trewhella had thrown a dark and heavy blanket over the normal energy and buoyancy of the team. These inter
ventions of theirs had been unusually downbeat, given the importance of what they were reporting. Nyawula resolved to loosen them up a bit.
‘See what I mean, Sergeant Cronje? This is good sleuthing. Always ahead of the game. Was your dad as good as these two guys?’
Dippenaar and Koekemoer looked perplexed.
‘Sorry, men. Piet and I were just talking about the ‘good’ old days when his dad was a top Detective Sergeant in the CID. Sergeant Cronje is very knowledgeable about the old days. He has a whole theory about it. How did you put it, Piet? Something like when investigative policing moved from spying on political activities to surveillance of criminal activities...’
‘Daarsy!, Captain, that’s just what I meant just now when we spoke. I couldn’t express it like that, myself, you know. But ja, just like you said right there.’
Koekemoer and Dippenaar teased Cronje, throwing in phrases like Herr Doktor Professor Piet Cronje and investigative surveillance, oo la la! Not detective work but investigative surveillance, ou Piet! To which he responded:
‘Yissus! but you guys just don’t stop, hey?’
‘Piet and I were talking about the old security branch detectives. How so many of them were brilliant criminal detectives once they no longer had to do the political stuff.’
‘Ja, Captain, you’re right, there, hey,’ said Dippenaar. ‘Koeks and me, we knew some of those old security branch guys, and they were damn good, you know. Mandela must have poeped himself when those guys were looking for him in the old days.’
‘Dis reg, Dipps,’ Koekemoer contributed. Remember those reunion parties at Wentworth when those guys would talk about what they had been doing in those days? I was much younger then and I thought those guys were scary, jong.’
‘Captain was just saying, guys, before you came in, how when things changed and the politics was different most of those guys then became as good as the old CID guys like my dad, who only used to do the crime cases and didn’t have to bother with the politics.’