Cobra

by Deon Meyer

  ‘He did do that sometimes.’

  ‘Where would he go?’

  ‘To friends.’

  ‘And he would stay out all night?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘What was the procedure when he left the house?’ asked Griessel.

  ‘He just left, and they locked the door behind them.’

  ‘And this morning?’

  ‘One of our agricultural workers saw Cyril’s body. At about six-thirty, on his way to report for work. And then he saw the front door of the guesthouse was open . . .’

  ‘OK,’ said Cupido, ‘we’ll have to speak to the daughter . . . We have to speak to all the staff, in about . . .’ he looked at his watch, ‘in about an hour’s time. Can you assemble them for us?’

  Cupido began to rant as they walked towards the car, just as Griessel knew he would.

  ‘“They pay almost double the going rate.” That’s the trouble with this country, Benna. It’s just naked greed, no fucking ethics. Everybody just wants to score, it’s just skep, pappie, skep, before doomsday comes. Seventy thousand bucks for a week’s personal security? We’re in the wrong business, I’m telling you. And that lesbetarian wants to bliksem me? What for? Because I tell it like it is? She can’t do that, I mean, what do you say? There’s just no appropriate response to a lezzy, you’re gefok if you say come try me, you’re gefok if you zip your lip. There should be a law against that sort of thing. Wants to bliksem me? With seventy thousand in her back pocket and her Calvin Klein suit and that hair . . . And what is this here? German owner of a Boer farm with a French name where a Brit is kidnapped. Fucking United Nations of Crime, that’s where we’re heading. And why? ’Cause they bring their troubles here. Like those French at Sutherland, and the Dewani thing, and who gets the rap? South-fokken-Africa.’

  They got into the car.

  ‘I’m telling you now, the perpetrator will be a foreign citizen, but d’you think the TV will mention it? Not on your life, it’ll be like “crimeridden society” all over again, all that kak. It’s not right, Benna. Wants to bliksem me. But they screen the little volkies in slave uniforms and let them clean up after their whitey backsides until ten o’clock at night. Chocolates on the pillows . . .’

  ‘Forensics are here,’ said Griessel when he spotted the white minibus parked at the guesthouse, beside the SAPS photographer’s Corolla, and the two ambulances.

  ‘They’ll have to get a move on – we have to search the Brit’s room.’

  ‘And the Giraffe.’ Beside the big Ford Territory of the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigations – DPCI, or the Hawks – stood tall, thin Colonel Zola Nyathi, commanding officer of the Violent Crimes Group.

  As the first Hawk on the scene, Griessel reported as succinctly as he could. He was aware of the colonel’s sharp eyes on him, with that unreadable, unchanging poker face of his.

  When he had finished, the Giraffe said: ‘I see,’ and stood with his head bowed, deep in thought.

  Eventually: ‘You’re JOC on this one, Benny.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ His heart sank, because the last thing he needed in his current situation, was the responsibility of the so-called Joint Operations Command.

  ‘You already have Vaughn. How many more people do you need?’

  He knew the Hawks liked big teams who could hit hard and fast, but he was still sceptical about this approach. Too many people falling over each other, especially on an investigational level. And he knew command didn’t always mean control over the direction of the investigation. ‘Four detectives, sir.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I’ll get Cloete out. And start oiling the consulatory wheels.’

  Captain John Cloete was the Hawks’ media liaison officer. And Griessel knew they were going to need all the help they could get with the British Consulate. For though the Brits weren’t as bad as the Canadians, and the Canadians were not as difficult as the Chinese – embassies were not keen to share their citizens’ information, especially when there was crime involved. And in any case, they were bureaucratic dead-ends. So all he said was: ‘Thank you, sir.’

  He noticed Nyathi’s gaze dwell on him a moment before the colonel nodded, turned, and walked back to his vehicle. He knew it was because he looked so terrible. He cursed himself again. Last night he should have . . .

  ‘Come, Benna,’ said Cupido, ‘let’s check how far Forensics are.’

  In Dorp Street in Stellenbosch, a tour bus was parked in front of Oom Samie se Winkel, the now-legendary old-time store and tourist magnet.

  Tyrone Kleinbooi eyed up the tourists on the pavement. Europeans, he recognised them by their pale legs, their get-up. He had given up wondering why European and American visitors were the only people in Africa who bought and wore safari outfits – the hunting jackets (with pockets for ammunition), the Livingstone helmets or wide-brimmed hats, the boots.

  His senses sharpened. He focused on the group lining up at the door to get on the bus. At the back stood a middle-aged woman with a big raffia shoulder bag. Easy target. She would be expecting contact with other tour members. Her purse would be in the bag, right at the bottom, in the centre, big and fat, loaded with rands and euros and credit and cash cards, ripe for the picking. All he had to do was to take the hair clip with the little yellow sunflower that he had in his pocket, hide it in his hand, bend down in front of her, and pretend to pick it up.

  Uncle Solly: I had an appie who tried that trick with money, a ten-rand note. He flashed it at the mark, and the mark’s attention went immediately to his wallet. Now that’s just stupid. You use something that is colourful and pretty. But not money.

  ‘I think you dropped this, ma’am,’ he would say quietly, intimately, confidentially, with his big innocent look-how-honest-our-locals-are smile. And his even features. With his right shoulder nearly touching her.

  With her eyes and all her attention focused in surprise on the hair clip, he would slide his right hand into the bag, get a sure grip on the purse.

  She would beam with grateful goodwill, because these white people from the north are black people pleasers, probably feeling guilty about their own colonial escapades. She would reach out her hand to the clip, and then shake her head. ‘Oh, thank you, but it’s not mine.’ He would bump her lightly with his right shoulder as he withdrew his hand from the bag, and put the purse in his pocket.

  The withdrawal is the key. Smooth and fast. Keep the wallet upright, don’t let it hook on anything – the last thing you want at that crucial moment is a snag. And remember, there are other people who might be watching, so you want everyone’s attention on the dropped object, you hold it high and handsome. And then you get the wallet out of sight, and your hand out of your pocket. Show it to the people, here is my innocent hand.

  ‘My apology, ma’am,’ he would say.

  She would reply in a Dutch or German accent: ‘No, please, don’t apologise.’ Except the Austrian woman, two years ago, who said ‘thank you’ and took the clip out of his hand. He had the last laugh though. The profit from her purse was nearly two thousand rand.

  He would smile, turn, and walk away, look back and wave at her. Don’t rush it. Saunter,Ty. But be aware, want jy wiet nooit . . . You never know, the words echoed in his head.

  He was in between the tourists, next to the woman, ready, every nerve ending tingling, the adrenaline flowing, just enough.

  And then his brain said, Don’t.

  If it feels wrong, walk away.

  He saw the pair of security guards just beyond the shop, their eyes on him.

  He walked past, to Market Street, and his sister’s flat.

  5

  From the front door, Griessel and Cupido could see the two men from Forensics at work under the bright spotlights in the sitting room. And hear their heated rugby conversation.

  ‘I’m telling you, Bismarck is not a man, he’s a machine,’ said Arnold, the short fat one, vehemently.

  ‘You shoo
t your own argument in the foot,’ said Jimmy, the tall thin one. They knelt side by side, in the spacious lounge.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  As a team they were known as Thick and Thin, a relic of the tired old quip from the days when they first began to work together: ‘Forensics will stand by you through thick and thin’, which in turn had been inspired by fat Arnold’s previous Forensics partner, a freckled, cheeky and pretty redhead woman, who had self-deprecatingly referred to their partnership as ‘Speckled & Egg’. There was a fair bit of murmuring when she left in search of greener pastures, and Jimmy – male, and far less attractive – was appointed.

  ‘Bismarck is a machine? How does a machine get injured? Anyway, this year we will win the Cup, because your Sharks machine is going to seize up when the chips are down. Just like last year . . .’

  ‘May we come in?’ Griessel called.

  ‘Thank the Lord, the Hawks are here,’ said Arnold.

  ‘I feel so safe now,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Are you wearing shoe covers?’ Arnold asked.

  ‘Haven’t you finished up front here yet?’ Cupido retorted. ‘Maybe you should stop talking rugby kak and get your arses into second gear.’

  ‘Rugby kak? What sort of Cape coloured are you?’

  ‘The sort who will kick your whitey arses if you don’t pull finger.’

  ‘If you’re a kicker, the Stormers need you,’ said Arnold. ‘All fifteen fly-halves are injured again.’

  ‘Fokkof,’ said Jimmy. ‘Come in if you have shoe covers on. There’s something very weird here you should see.’

  The ‘something very weird’ was a cartridge case.

  ‘It’s a Cor-Bon .45 ACP +P,’ said thin Jimmy as he held it up for display with a pair of silver pliers.

  ‘Not all forty-fives can shoot the Plus P,’ said Arnold.

  ‘Only the more recent models.’

  ‘Your Plus P has a higher maximum internal pressure.’

  ‘And higher velocity.’

  ‘We can explain that in layman’s terms if you don’t understand.’

  ‘We know easy words too.’

  ‘So now you are ballistics and language experts?’ asked Cupido.

  ‘Your modern Forensic’s scientific knowledge is vast,’ said Jimmy. ‘Bordering on genius . . .’

  ‘In contrast with your average Hawk,’ said Arnold.

  ‘AKA the bird brains,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Fokkof,’ said Griessel. He knew it wouldn’t help to try to be witty, because they always had the last word.

  ‘Benny, you look particularly appealing this morning.’

  ‘Or is that “appalling”?’The Forensics duo grinned at each other.

  ‘Not so very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, eh? And not too sharp-eyed for a Hawk either,’ said Arnold.

  ‘Don’t you see it?’ asked Jimmy.

  ‘See what?’ asked Cupido.

  ‘The engraving.’ He held the cartridge closer and rotated it.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Griessel.

  ‘Take this,’ said Arnold, and he held out a magnifying glass. Griessel took it, and studied the copper tube.

  ‘It looks like a snake. Ready to strike.’

  ‘Amazing,’ said Jimmy. ‘That he can see anything at all through those bloodshot eyes.’

  ‘And what’s under the rearing snake?’ Arnold asked.

  ‘Are those letters?’The engraving was tiny.

  ‘Praise the Lord. The Hawks can read.’

  ‘We can bliksem you too,’ said Cupido. ‘What do the letters say?’

  ‘“N”, dot, “m”, dot,’ said Arnold.

  ‘So what does that mean? “Never mind”?’

  ‘Where do you dig that up?’

  ‘NM. Never mind. Don’t you understand texting language? I thought you were so clever?’

  ‘Sophisticated people don’t use texting abbreviations. Capital N, small letter m stands for “newton-metre”. If both were small letter it would stand for “nanometre”. But in both cases without the dot,’ said Arnold.

  ‘So what do the two capital letters with two dots stand for?’

  ‘I thought you were the detectives.’

  ‘Because you rocket scientists don’t know?’ said Cupido in triumph.

  ‘We can’t do all your work for you.’

  ‘Or, at least we can’t do all your work for you all the time.’

  ‘Fokkof,’ said Griessel. ‘We have to search the last room. Are you finished there?’

  ‘Haven’t even started.’

  ‘Jissis,’ said Cupido.

  They went to interview Scarlett January, daughter of the murdered worker, Cyril.

  Cupido sat beside her on the comfortable couch in the sitting room. He held her hand, his voice gentle and sympathetic. Griessel and Christel de Haan each sat in a chair.

  ‘I’m so sorry for your loss, little sister.’

  The pretty, petite girl nodded through her tears.

  ‘If I could, I would not have bothered you. But we want to catch these evil people. They must pay for what they have done to your daddy.’

  Another nod.

  ‘Are you OK to answer a few little questions?’

  She sniffed, blew her nose, and said: ‘Yes, uncle.’

  ‘You are very brave, sistertjie, your daddy would be very proud of you. Did you work with him every day in the guesthouse?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The night shift, nè?’

  Nod.

  ‘Did you see the Englishman?’

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘What can you tell us about him?’

  ‘He was very friendly.’

  ‘Did he talk to you?’

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘My table looked nice. And the food was good.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘And it’s so lovely here. On the farm. If he looks out the window. That’s all.’

  ‘OK, sistertjie, that’s very good. Now the bodyguards. Did you talk to them too?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Were they nice to you?’

  ‘Ja, uncle. But they didn’t talk much.’

  ‘Now, last night, what time did you leave there?’

  The memory of the previous evening caused Scarlett’s shoulders to shake. It took her a time to say: ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s OK, sistertjie. So more or less nine o’clock?’

  Nod.

  ‘And everything was OK. There in the guesthouse?’

  Nod.

  ‘The same as the other nights?’

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘The bodyguards weren’t different?’

  ‘No, uncle.’

  ‘Can you tell us how you left? Did one of them walk with you?’

  ‘Ja. The one they call B. J.’

  ‘OK, tell me nicely.’

  ‘I told B. J. I was finished. He went and unlocked the front door. He went out first and looked, and then he came back in and said everything is fine. Then I called Daddy, because he had to help me with the trolley down the steps. Then—’

  ‘What trolley?’

  ‘The trolley with the leftovers and the dishes.’

  ‘OK, and then?’

  ‘Then we went out, Daddy helped me down the steps, and I pushed it back to the restaurant.’

  ‘And then they locked up again?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘That’s OK. And you didn’t see anything, while you were pushing it back to the restaurant?’

  ‘I just . . .’ And Scarlett January began to weep again. Christel de Haan stood up, gave her a couple of tissues and sat down again.

  When she had regained some control, she said: ‘Uncle, I . . . I’m a bit shy, uncle . . .’

  Cupido leaned closer and whispered in her ear. ‘So just tell me, I won’t tell a soul.’

  She nodded, blew her nose, and turned her mouth to his ear.‘Daddy says I was born with the helm . . .’


  ‘OK.’

  ‘Because I get these gevoelentes; premonitions.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘When I was walking there, I got this feeling, uncle.’

  ‘What sort of feeling, sistertjie?’ he whispered, barely audible.

  ‘Evil, uncle. A terrible evil. Over there by the bougainvillea.’

  6

  Tyrone told his sister about her results. He sat on the only easy chair in Nadia’s one-bedroom flat – the one with the broken leg that he had found thrown out in front of a house in the Bo-Kaap. He had mended it. Not good workmanship, because he didn’t know much about woodwork. But it was sturdy, and it was comfortable.

  ‘So, I’m very proud of you,’ he said.

  She sat at the big work table with her long black hair, and delicate, almost fragile beauty. He had swapped it for a stolen iPhone at the second-hand shop in Woodstock’s Albert Street.

  ‘Thanks, boetie.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll have the money by the end of the month,’ he said. He took out his wallet. ‘Here’s the rent for the flat.’

  ‘No, I only need a thousand, I got lekker big tips.’

  ‘That’s what I want to talk about. Tips or not, you’re here to study.’

  ‘But I like the work, boetie.’

  ‘I understand, but nou’s dit crunch time.’

  ‘I can’t just sit and swot all day.’

  ‘So go for a walk. Or socialise a bit.’

  ‘No. We eat for free, at the end of the shift, it saves me good money. And where will you get more than five thousand rand by the end of the month?’

  ‘Big paint job in Rose Street, a whole block of flats. I’m one of the subcontractors for Donnie Fish. And it’s interiors too, so it can ma’ rain. And in any case, the Cape economy is booming again, tourism is up seventeen per cent. Ek sê jou, by December there will be enough for half of next year’s class fees as well. You just swot, so that you make the selection. I don’t want you wasting your time with waitressing.’

  ‘It’s not wasting time.’ She had that stubborn look around her mouth that he had known since they were little. ‘And I will make the selection.’

  He knew he wasn’t going to convince her. ‘That’s what I want to hear.’

  The four extra Hawks detectives arrived – Lieutenant Vusumuzi Ndabeni, small of stature, with a manicured goatee and wide-awake eyes; Lieutenant Cedric ‘Ulinda’ Radebe, the ex-boxer, whose nickname in Zulu meant ‘honey badger’; Captain Mooiwillem Liebenberg, the DPCI’s best-looking detective and most respected skirt-chaser; and Captain Frankie Fillander, the veteran with a long scar from his ear to his crown from a knife wound.