by Deon Meyer
Whats in the boxes? Griessel asked.
Look, said Ngubane and sat down on the single chair, an expensive piece of office furniture with a high back and brown leather.
Griessel opened one of the boxes. There were books in it. He took one out.
A Tale of Two Cities
was printed in gold lettering on the spine of the book.
Look inside.
He opened it. There were no pagesjust a plastic filler with sides that looked like paper.
Not a great reader are you, Carlos? said Griessel.
Fuck you.
A woman phoned Caledon Square about eight oclock. Ngubane continued in Afrikaans. She was crying. She said her child had been abducted and she knew who it was. They sent a team to the flat in Belle Ombre Street and found the lady. She was confused and bleeding from the head and she said a man had assaulted her and taken her child. She was . . . he searched for the Afrikaans word.
Unconscious.
Ngubane nodded. She gave the mans name and this address and she said he had raped her too. She said she knew him and he liked children . . . you know? And then she told us hes a drug lord.
Griessel nodded and turned to look at Sangrenegra. The brown eyes smoldered. He was a lean man, veins prominent on his forearms, dressed in blue denim and trainers. His hands were cuffed behind his back.
The uniforms phoned the station commander and the SC phoned us and I was on call and talked to Joubert and got the task force. Then we were all here and the task force arrived by helicopter and the works. We found five men here. Carlos and those four downstairs. They found the drugs in the basement and the girls clothes in this ones room. Then they found blood in his BMW and a dog, one of those stuffed toys, but no child and this cunt wont talk. He says he knows nothing.
The child. Its a little girl?
Three years old. Three.
Griessel felt a red flood of revulsion. Where is she? he asked Carlos.
Fuck you.
He jumped up and grabbed the man by the hair, jerked his head back and kept pulling the dark locks. He shoved his face close up to Sangrenegra. Where is she, you piece of shit?
I dont know!
Griessel jerked his hair. Sangrenegra winced. She lie. The whore, she lie. I know nothing.
How did the girls clothes get in your room, you cunt? He jerked again as hard as he could as frustration gnawed at him.
She put it there. She is a whore. She was
my
whore.
Jissis, said Griessel with disgust and gave the hair one last pull before he left him. His hand felt greasy. He wiped it off on Sangrenegras shirt. You lie. You cunt.
Ive been through that process, said Ngubane behind him in a calm voice, as if nothing had happened.
Ask my men, said Sangrenegra.
Griessel laughed without humor. Who gave you this? he asked and shoved a finger hard onto the bruise on Carloss cheek.
The Colombian spat at him. Griessel drew his hand back to slap him.
He said he visited the complainant today, Ngubane said. He says she is a prostitute. She invited him to her flat. The child wasnt there. Then she hit him for no reason. So he hit her back.
Thats his story?
Thats his story?
And the mother?
Social Services are with her. Shes . . . traumatized.
What do you think, Tim? Griessel realized he was out of breath. He sat down on a box.
The child was in his car, Benny. The blood. And the dog. She
was
there. He drove somewhere with her. We have two hours from the assault on the complainant until we got here. He took the child somewhere. He thought because the mother is a call girl, he could do what he wanted. But something happened in the car. The child got scared, or something. So he cut her. Thats what the blood looks like. Its against the armrest of the back seat. Looks like an he searched for the Afrikaans word again. . . artery. Then he knew he was in trouble. He must have got rid of the kid.
Jissis.
Yes, said Ngubane.
Griessel looked at Sangrenegra. Carlos stared back, with disdain.
I dont think we should be optimistic about the child. If she was alive, this cunt would want to bargain.
Can I try something? Griessel asked.
Please, said Ngubane.
Carlos, said Griessel, have you heard of Artemis?
Fuck you.
Let me tell you a story, Carlos. There is this guy out there. He has a big assegai. Do you know what an assegai is, Carlos? Its a spear. A Zulu weapon. With a long blade, very sharp. Now, this guy is a real problem for us, because he is killing people. And do you know who he kills, Carlos? He is killing people who fuck with children. Sure you havent heard about this, Carlos?
Fuck you.
We are trying to catch this guy. Because he is breaking the law. But with you we can make an exception. So this is what Im going to do. Im going to tell all the newspapers and the television that you have abducted this beautiful little girl, Carlos. I will give them your address. And we will publish a photograph of you. And Im going to see to it that you make bail. And Im going to keep all your friends in jail, and leave you here, in this big house, all alone. We will sit outside to make sure you dont go back to Colombia. And we will wait for the guy with the spear to find you.
Fuck you.
No, Carlos. You are the one who is fucked. Think about it. Because when he comes, we will look the other way.
Sangrenegra said nothing, just stared at Griessel.
This assegai guy, he has killed three people. One stab, right through the heart. With that long blade.
No reaction.
Tell me where the girl is. And it can be different.
Carlos just stared at him.
You want to die, Carlos? Just tell me where the girl is.
For a moment Sangrenegra hesitated. Then he shouted, in a shrill voice: Carlos dont know! Carlos dont fucking know!
33.
When they shoved Sangrenegra into the back of a police van and clanged the door shut, Ngubane said: I owe you an apology, Benny.
Oh?
About this morning. Griessel realized he had already forgotten the incident; it had been a long day.
We get a little paranoid, I suppose, said Ngubane. Some of the white cops . . . they think were shit.
Griessel said nothing.
I went to visit Cliffy Mketsu. In hospital. He says youre not like that.
Griessel wanted to add that no, he wasnt like that. His problem was that he thought
everyone
was crap. Hows Cliffy doing?
Good. He says you have more experience than the rest of us combined. So I want to ask you, Benny, what more can I do here? How do I find this kid?
He looked at Ngubane, at the neat suit, the white shirt and red tie, at the mans ease with himself. In the back of his mind a light began to shine.
Are there other properties, Tim? These drug guys, they have more than one place. They have contingency plans.
Right.
Talk to Beukes. They must have known about Sangrenegra. They will know about other places.
Right.
Has Forensics been to the mothers place?
He nodded. They got his prints there. And they drew the mothers blood. For DNA comparison with the blood in the car. They say that way they can tell if it belongs to the kid.
I dont think shes alive, Tim.
I know.
They stood in silence a moment. Can I go and see the mother?
Sure. Are you going to use this guy as bait?
Hes perfect. But I have to talk to the mother. And then we�
�ll have to talk to the sup, because Organized Crime is involved, and I can tell you now, they wont like it.
Fuck them.
Griessel chuckled. Thats what I was thinking too.
When he drove through the city towards Tamboerskloof, his thoughts jumped between Boef Beukes and Timothy Ngubane and the children he saw in Long Street. At half-past eleven at night there were children everywhere he looked. Teenagers on a fucking Monday night at the top end of Long Street, at the clubs and restaurants and cafés. They stood on the pavements with glasses and cigarettes in their hands, small groups huddled beside parked cars. He wondered where their parents were. Whether they knew where their children were. He realized he did not know where his own children were. But surely Anna knew. If she were at home.
Beukes. Who had worked with him in the old days. Who had been a drinking partner. When his children were small and he was still whole. What the hell had happened? How had he progressed from drinks with the boys to a full-blown alcoholic?
He had started drinking when Murder and Robbery was still located in Bellville South. The President in Parow had been the watering hole, not because it was anything like a presidential hotel, but there would always be a policeman leaning on the long mahogany bar, no matter what time of the day you turned up there. Or that other place beyond Sanlam in Stikland that made those delicious pizzas, the Glockenberg or something, Lord, that was a lifetime ago. The Glocken
burg.
There was a Spur Steak Ranch there now, but in those days it had been a colossal tavern. One night, thoroughly drunk, he had climbed on the stage and told the band they must cut the crap and play real rock n roll and give me that bass, do you know Blue Suede Shoes? His colleagues at the big table had shouted and kicked up a row and clapped and the four-piece band had nervously said yes, they knew it, young Afrikaner fuckers with soft beards and long hair who played Smokie and he put the bass around his neck and got behind the mike and sang One for the money . . . and they were off and rocking, between the commotion from the floor and the orchestras relief that he was not hopeless. They were cooking; they thrashed that fuckin song and people came in from the bar and from outside. And that Benny Griessel had run his fingers up and down the neck of the bass guitar and he laid down a fucking carpet of bass for the rock n roll and when they had finished everybody screamed for more, more, more. So he let rip. Elvis songs. And he sweated and played and sang till who knows what time, and Anna came looking for him, he saw her at the back of the Glock. At first angry with arms folded tight, where was her husband, look at the time. But the music melted her too, she loosened up and her hips began to sway and she clapped too and screamed: Go, Benny, go! because that was
her
Benny up there on the fucking stage,
her
Benny.
Lord, that was a lifetime ago. He hadnt been an alky then, just a hard-drinking detective. Like the rest of them. Just like Matt Joubert and Boef Beukes and fat Sergeant Tony OGrady, the whole damn lot of them. They drank hard because, hell, they worked hard, back then in the late eighties. Worked like slaves while the whole world shat on them. Necklace murders, old people murdered, gays murdered, gangs, armed robbery wherever you turned. It never stopped. And if you said you were a policeman, the room would fall silent and everyone looked at you as if you were lower than lobster crap, and that, they always said, was as low as you could go.
Then he had been as Tim Ngubane was now. At ease with himself. Lord, and he
could
work. Hard, yes. But clever. He nailed them, murderers and bank robbers and kidnappers. He was ruthless and enthusiastic. He was light of foot. That was the thinghe had danced when the others plodded. He was different. And he thought he would be like that always. But then all the shit had a way of overwhelming you.
Maybe that was the problem. Maybe the booze only got the dancers; look at Beukes and Joubert, they dont drink like fish, they plod along still. And he? He was fucked. But there in the back of his mind the germ of an idea remained that he was better than them all, that he was the best fucking detective in the country, end of story.
Then he laughed at himself there behind the steering wheel, at the top end of Long Street near the swimming baths, because he was a wreck, a drunkard, a guy who had bought a bottle of Klippies an hour ago after nine days of sobriety and only half an hour ago had lost control with the Colombian because he was carrying so much shit around with him and here he was, thinking he was the be-all and end-all.
So what had happened? Between Boef Beukes and the Glockenburg and now? What the fuck happened? He had reached Belle Ombre Street and there was no parking so he pulled half onto the pavement.
Before he opened the door, he thought about the body tonight in Bishop Lavis. There had been no death screams in his head. No dreadful voices.
Why not? Where had they gone? Was it part of his drinking; was it the alcohol?
He paused a few moments longer and then pushed open the door, because he had no answers. The building had ten or twelve floors so he took the lift. There were two black policemen in civilian clothes at the door, each with a shotgun. Griessel asked who they were. One said they were from Organized Crime and that Boef Beukes had sent them, since she would be a target now.
Did you know about Sangrenegra before this happened?
You should talk to Beukes.
He nodded and opened the door. A young woman jumped up in the sitting room and came over to him. Did you find her? she asked, and he could hear the hysteria just below the surface. Behind her on the couch sat two police officers of the gentler sort, smaller and thinner, with caring hands folded sympathetically on their laps. Social Services. The members of the Force who appear on the scene when all the shit is already cleared away. A man and a woman.
Not yet, he said.
She stood in the middle of the room and uttered a sound. He could see her face was swollen and there was a cut that someone had treated. Her eyes were red with weeping. She balled her fists and her shoulders drooped. The colored woman from SS got up and came over to her and said: Come and sit down, its better if you sit.
My name is Benny Griessel, he said and held out his hand.
She shook it and said, Christine van Rooyen. He thought that she didnt look like your usual whore. But then he smelt her, a mixture of perfume and sweat; they all smelt like that, it didnt wash out.
But she looked different from the ones he knew. He searched for the reason. She was tall, as tall as he was. Not scrawny, strongly built. Her skin was smooth. But that wasnt it.
He said he worked with Ngubane and he knew it was a difficult time for her. But perhaps there was something she knew that could help. She said he must come through and she went over to a sliding door and pushed it wider. It led onto a balcony and she sat on one of the white plastic chairs. He got the idea that she wanted to get away from the SS people and that said something. He joined her on another of the chairs and asked her how well she knew Sangrenegra.
He was my client. He noticed the unusual shape of her eyes. They reminded him of almonds.
A regular client?
In the light from the sitting room he could only see her right hand. It was on the arm of the chair, finger folded into the palm, the nails pressing into the flesh.
At first he was like the rest, she said. Nothing funny. Then he told me about the drugs. And when he found out I had a child . . .
Do you know what we found at his house?
She nodded. The black man phoned.
Did Carlos ever take you to other places? Other houses?
No.
Have you any idea where he would have taken . . . er . . . your daughter?
Sonia, she said. My daughters name is Sonia.
The fingers moved in her palm, the nails dug deeper. He wanted to reach out to her. Where would he have taken Sonia?
She
shook her head back and forth. She did not know. Then she said: I wont see her again. With the calm that only absolute despair can bring.
* * *
In the early hours it was only five minutes drive from Belle Ombre to his flat. The first thing he saw when he switched on the light was the brandy bottle. It stood on the breakfast counter like a sentry watching over the room.
He locked the door behind him and picked up the bottle and turned it in his hands. He examined the clock on the label and the golden brown liquid within. He imagined the effect of the alcohol in his fibers, light-headedness, and effervescence just under his skull.