by Ian Patrick
Then he stopped, stunned by his sudden recognition of what it was that Tony had said. 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 played the sentences over and over again in his foggy memory. He visualised Tony’s leering face as he had hissed through clenched teeth.
...you can give it to me after I’ve wasted your partner... I’m going to take her out. Just like I did with your previous partner...
Ryder stopped breathing for a few seconds as it became clear to him. Then he reached for his iPhone.
‘Navi. It’s me. We have to talk. Now. No, I’ll come to you. It has to be alone. Where are you?’
17.10.
With Dirk still tied to the tree, Thabethe had removed the handcuffs and the gag, to allow him more easily to manage his burger and chips. He had changed back into his own clothes, dumping the constable’s uniform under the bush and covering it with sand, and had gone off more than an hour ago to get food for each of them, leaving his prisoner cuffed, tied and gagged. Dirk was now gratefully slurping the can of coke that came with the food. As he did so, he watched Thabethe slip the key to the cuffs onto the key ring that also held the key to the Ballade. They both ate in silence.
When they had finished, Thabethe drew the iPhone from his pocket and played to himself, yet again, the message that he had listened to so many times already. Then he paused as he remembered the other call. The one that hadn’t been a recorded message: And bring back the box from Overport. He played it over again in his memory, then stared at Dirk.
‘What is this box at Overport?’
‘What?’
‘What is meaning this box at Overport?’
‘I don’t know what you talking about.’
Thabethe leapt to his feet and put his foot on Dirk’s damaged knee. Dirk screamed with the pain.
‘What is the box in Overport?’
‘Stop! For God’s sake, stop! Pleeease! I’ll tell you!’
Thabethe released his foot and gave him a moment to recover. Dirk whimpered in agony.
‘It’s just a box I seen them carry. It has papers and stuff. I never saw inside the box. They just take it around with them everywhere they go. It’s not in Overport. They keep it somewhere else. I never seen it in the safe in Overport.’
‘Safe? What is safe? I been there. There is no safe in house in Overport.’
Dirk was desperate. He wasn’t thinking properly. Tony’s going to kill me. Why did I talk about the safe. The pain. I can’t … Thabethe moved in again.
‘No! Please, no! I’ll tell you. They have a small safe. In the wall. On the ground floor. The second room. I’ve seen it open. I’ve never seen anything inside. When I saw it that time it was empty. Standing open. But empty. I swear.’
‘Good. You show me. Tonight, you show me. We go there and you show me, fat man. Tonight.’
Thabethe bent down and put the cuffs back on Dirk’s wrists. Then he removed the ropes, and kicked the bag containing Dirk’s clothes over to him.
‘Now you take off pyjamas. You get clothes on. Then we talk some more.’
He watched Dirk struggle, handcuffed, to remove his hospital clothes and get back into his own, including shoes and socks. It seemed interminable, and the cuffs had to come off then back on again for the shirt exchange with the pyjama top, but Dirk finally finished, sweating profusely and groaning in agony every time his knee went even slightly out of alignment. Seeing the packet of painkillers and anti-inflammatories in the bag as he pulled out his shoes, he begged to be allowed to have a few tablets, which Thabethe allowed him. He swallowed them with the last of the coke, and sat down again, back against the tree, panting and sweating as he waited for the drugs to take hold.
Thabethe put his prisoner back on the rope, looped it once around the tree and through his arms then around his torso before tying it behind. He then kicked the pyjamas and dressing gown under the bush, and scuffed soil over them. Then he threw the gag and tablets into the bag, sat back, opposite him, and played the iPhone message again. And again.
Dirk watched him, helpless.
17.20.
Ryder and Pillay sat opposite each other, each nursing a coffee. Her left arm was in a sling. She was stunned by what she had just heard.
‘I could kick myself,’ said Ryder. ‘For months, now, Ed and I couldn’t work out how it was that they always seemed to be one step ahead of us. Every time we made a move on them, they seemed to have cleared out just before we got there. We put it down to bad timing. We didn’t even pause to think that there might be some inside information involved. But when that arsehole had me tied and gagged he told me – at lunchtime, goddammit – that he knew you were my partner. That was less than one hour after I myself had been told you were my partner, and he knew about Ed being my partner, and about him being wasted. How did he know that? The very next day. It could only have come from inside.’
‘You think maybe one of ours? One of our own guys?’
‘I don’t know, Navi. I just don’t know.’
‘Should we go to the Captain?’
‘Do we know it’s not him?’
‘Shit.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Can’t be, Jeremy. It just can’t – not Nyawula.’
‘I’m sure that’s right, Navi, but until we know for sure, it’s just the two of us…’
‘Wait a minute!’
‘What?’
‘It can’t be our guys, Jeremy, and it can’t be Nyawula. It has to be higher up. Nyawula told me at 9.30 yesterday about you and me. Told me not to tell anyone until he had spoken to you. You say he then told you only at midday. So it was only you, me and Nyawula that knew by the time we hit the warehouse. And the guy we wasted. Who was already at the warehouse.’
‘And he couldn’t have received the news about us while he was in the warehouse. There was no land line, and he didn’t have any cell-phone on him, according to forensics. It was one of the things that struck them in the clean-up afterwards. Guy in a warehouse, smartly dressed, no phone. Mercedes keys in his pocket, but no phone. They searched all around the place and drew a blank. It was only later on, when Koeks and Dipps were sent back to the scene, and combed through the place, late in the afternoon, that they finally found the car in the road, up the hill. It had been broken into. No phone there either.’
‘So he either left his phone in the cubby and it was stolen, or he didn’t carry a phone at all on the day, which is unlikely. But whatever the case, he received no call while he was in the warehouse. Whoever told him about you and me told him before he got to the warehouse.’
‘And he must have been told even before Nyawula confirmed things with me,’ said Ryder, ‘which means he was told by someone other than Nyawula. Before Nyawula could confirm things with me. Which means that it was someone higher up the food chain. Someone who knew that Nyawula wanted us in a new partnership without going through the normal procedures.’
‘Someone in authority over Nyawula. Someone in the Cluster. Or higher. Or someone in HR or in IPID.’
‘Or a business associate. Ed was always on about the Chinese business connection. They’re too cosy with some of the units, he always said. OK. Let’s go and see Nyawula, Navi. This stuff is just starting to get bigger than any of us ever thought.’
‘Too late for that today, Jeremy. Piet told me as I was coming here that Nyawula was in no mood for anything other than the shit he has to handle tonight. He’s already left for the big party, apparently, because he has to change into civvies, then he has to – in person – fetch a couple of big-wigs, then have a pre-party drink with the top brass. Apparently he told everyone at the station that he wants to be on the front line somewhere in deep KwaMashu tonight rather than deal with the fat-cat guys at the top of policing in this province.’
‘Damn. I forgot about tonight.
Fiona and I are also going. I need it like a hole in the head. I better go home and change. You going too?’
‘Yep. For my pains. I’m going. Someone told me I can’t wear trousers. Is that right?’
‘Can’t imagine you in a dress, partner. It would be like imagining Ed in a skirt. But you’ll do OK. Let’s hold this stuff for Nyawula for tomorrow morning, then. Can’t raise it with him tonight.’
‘See you at the party. Tell Fiona if she doesn’t like whatever I decide to wear tonight that I’ll be coming to her for advice about my wardrobe one of these days.’
‘See you there. It’s going to be a long night. Let’s pick up this stuff again tomorrow.’
20.05.
The traffic had virtually disappeared. Thabethe pulled the Honda Ballade into the empty forecourt parking area, as close to the front door of the warehouse as he could get. He would have preferred to park up or down the road as he had done previously in the Mini. But the risk of attracting attention with a crippled man at his side, hopping down the hill in obvious pain, had to be weighed against the possibility of the police checking the warehouse again at this time of night. He had heard something on the news about some big police function at the stadium, so maybe they were all occupied anyway. Nevertheless, they needed to get in and out as quickly as possible, so he left the car with the keys in the ignition and pushed Dirk toward the building.
He picked the lock again and they entered the warehouse.
‘You show me, quickly. Which room?’
Dirk motioned with his head, his hands still cuffed in front of him. Second door on the left.
‘There’s nothing left upstairs. It’s all been moved out. Nothing down here, either, except for the one little place we keep a few things when we need to.’
‘You show. Now.’
They walked down the passage, Dirk hobbling in pain, and entered the room where Thabethe had stared at the chalk-marks and tape marks the previous evening. Dirk was very agitated when he saw these. What went down here? Who was put down by who? Did Tony kill a cop? How could he contact Tony? Would Tony ever find out if he gave the information on the hiding place to Thabethe? Maybe Tony would just think that the cops had found it when cleaning the place.
Dirk hesitated, then found Thabethe staring at him. Those eyes. He moved over, grimacing with pain, to the corner of the room behind the door.
‘Down there, I can’t kneel. See there, that screw. Just pull.’
Thabethe told him to move back to the centre of the room. He waited till Dirk did so, then he squatted next to the screw that Dirk had identified. He twisted it counter-clockwise, and pulled. A perfectly disguised cavity covered by a wall panel, hinged on one side, swung outward with the screw, revealing a long narrow space into which was nestled a long red box. Thabethe recognised it as the box that the driver of the Mercedes had removed from his car the day before. He reached in and removed the container. Could this be the key to the big money the Afrikaner boy had spoken about? He laid it on the floor and removed the lid. Papers, receipts, invoices, gold and platinum and black casino cards, cash, more papers, more cards, more papers. He lifted pages at one end, wanting to keep everything in the box but still see everything that was in it. He was transfixed. More cards. More cash.
Then he heard the room door slam.
Thabethe cursed, dropped everything, lurched for the door handle, yanked the door open, and ran into the passage. Dirk, hopping in agony and terror, had made it to the front door. He pulled it open, hands cuffed together, and got his bulky frame through as Thabethe was two-thirds of the way down the passage, then he slammed the door behind him and slid the police bolt and hammered the padlock home, locked. Thabethe screamed and hammered on the door from the inside. Dirk hopped like a madman toward the Ballade, screaming in agony with each jolt of his body transmitting agonising shocks to his left knee. He fumbled with the door, scrambled into the driver’s seat, and with his hands cuffed together and with his left knee eliciting from him groans of agony he turned the ignition key once, then twice, then as it took he thrust down as gently as he could onto the clutch pedal. He tore off from the forecourt, the engine screaming in first gear until Dirk found the means to rip it into second and then into third.
The hinges on the knee-brace were by no means tightened to a straight-leg position, but they had certainly not been prepared for the purposes of driving a car, so with only minimal flex in the knee Dirk was forced into a position where his buttocks weren’t settled into the seat but hovered a few inches above it, partly supported by extra strain on the thigh muscles of his right leg and partly by his fat girth which allowed him to put pressure on the backrest, leaving the left leg stretched out to the clutch pedal and only partially bent. In this contorted position Dirk tried his best to manage the vehicle. The car swivelled left and right and out into the road and he was gone.
Thabethe ran back into the room, grabbed the red box, smashed a window with it, swiped at the jagged bits of glass to clear them, then clambered out, swearing every step of the way. He ran out across the forecourt into the night, clutching his treasure but cursing his stupidity.
*
Dirk managed to drive no more than a couple of hundred metres before it became impossible to use the clutch any longer, his knee joint unable to respond to anything his agonised mind willed it to do. He swung the wheel and the car lurched into the first side-road he could find, then bumped and bounced into the darkest recess available in the road.
He switched off, removed the bunch of keys attached to the ignition, struggled with the key ring and found the key to the handcuffs. He freed his hands, slid the seat back to give himself more space for the injured leg, and sat panting in the dark. There was no way he would be able to drive any further. He would have to take his chances sleeping in the car tonight.
Thabethe had thrown the bag with the painkillers onto the back seat. Dirk struggled, leaning over the back of the driver’s seat, snatched at the packets inside the bag, and swallowed four of the tablets, one at a time, with nothing but saliva, unsure of the dose but desperate to eradicate the pain.
He reached for and found the lever, tilted the backrest as far back as it could go, carefully stretched out his bad leg as far as he could manage, and lay in the dark, feeling the throbbing in his leg for another ten minutes before the tablets started taking effect and the pain began to subside.
21.05.
The Moses Mabhida, built as a FIFA Stadium for the 2010 World Cup, was described in the invitation to the event as a ‘sporting cathedral.’ Its grand arch, three hundred and fifty metres long and more than a hundred high, was a key feature, and for this evening’s entertainment before the speeches and dinner there were rides for guests to the top on the funicular for a three hundred and sixty degree viewing of the city at night, and a range of different tours of the building and facilities.
Tonight they were not offering the normal tourist opportunity to plunge off the arch from one hundred and six metres on the Big Swing. Ryder might have tried that, just to escape the rest of the evening. Fiona had disagreed with him about doing the pre-event tour. He had wanted nothing to do with it, but she hadn’t been to the stadium so she was going to have it her way. He meekly accepted. He knew this was one he wasn’t going to win.
Parking was relatively easy, controlled by efficient and very polite and helpful traffic marshals. They were then ushered into the correct channels and tickets were checked, then clusters of guests were formed and eventually the two of them drifted along with the rest of their special tour group. Thankfully, for Ryder, they knew no-one else in this particular group. An excessively exuberant young man with a misplaced confidence in the quality of his rehearsed one-liners, and with serious adenoid problems, spoke too loudly and with far too much jollity. Ryder was on the receiving end of quite a few pokes in the ribs from Fiona, designed to prevent him from commenting on most of the guide’s failed punch-lines.
They half-listened to the memorised speech. World
Cup 2010 … world class stadium… New York has the Statue of Liberty, Paris has… and we have the Moses Mabhida… symbolises hope and victory… the greatness of South African sport… the great arch representing the previously divided nation now working together … those of you who support AmaZulu would have been particularly proud... at which point Ryder’s muttered indication that Kaizer Chiefs was his team drew critical stares and whispered criticisms and a sharp elbow in the ribs from Fiona, so he decided to play it quiet for the rest of the tour. The guide went on … Neil Diamond chose to play here in 2011 … They saw the gymnasium, heard how the team from Top Gear had used the stadium not once but twice, and there was lots of ooh-ing and aaah-ing when they saw the VIP presidential suites, the change rooms and the tunnel. Finally, they were released from the torture to go off to the main function for a different kind of torture. At least one with a drink, thought Ryder.
The guests paraded in, some in uniform but most in the type of civilian clothes that struck Ryder as little different from uniforms. Uncomfortable suits, ties, new shirts and shoes bought especially for the occasion had already caused many of the men deep anguish. Women’s dresses, many of them looking out of place and downright inappropriate on some of the bodies, given the amount of flesh in relation to the square meterage of cloth, were the focus of much of the initial conversation. They drifted in with the human tide, nodding, smiling pasted-on camera-smiles, and whispering on occasion to each other what the hell is her name, again?
They moved from the reception table where they had their names ticked off and were told their table number, and Ryder saw Pillay in the distance looking supremely uncomfortable in an entirely inappropriate dress. In fact, it was the first time he had seen Pillay out of trousers. Her arm was still in a sling. She and Cronje, Dipps and Koeks were in sombre conversation, doubtless about Ed and the agonising funeral to come on Monday. They waved, clutching their comfort-blankets of a welcoming glass of bubbly, all of them feeling as uncomfortable and as out-of-place as Ryder was. Ryder waved back. Fiona guided him on into the hall.