Cobra

by Deon Meyer

  The Sea Point Station commander stood at the door of the Waterfront Shopping Centre. He saw Captain Kaleni waddling towards him, filled with fire and purpose. His heart sank; her legendary reputation preceded her. He knew she was clever, but she was difficult.

  He greeted her politely. He stretched out his hand for the door.

  ‘No,’ said Mbali, ‘you are not wearing gloves.’ All he wanted was to keep his station’s collective butt, and his own individual one, out of trouble. He didn’t say that many hands had already touched that handle. He merely nodded and watched as she dug a pair of gloves out of her handbag and put them on.

  ‘Don’t you have gloves?’ she asked.

  ‘In the car,’ he said.

  ‘Go and fetch them.’

  He nodded, and asked one of his detectives to fetch them.

  ‘Do you have shoe covers?’ she asked.

  He called to the detective to bring them too.

  Mbali shook her head in disbelief. ‘You wait until you are properly attired. And then you come in. Only you.’

  ‘But the sergeant was first on the scene . . .’

  ‘I will question him when I come out.’ She pointed at the other detective, and the uniform sergeant. ‘You guard this door.’

  Then she walked in.

  ‘What makes you think they’ve bugged our offices?’ Nyathi asked.

  They were standing in the underground car park, beside the clubhouse door, where no one could see or hear them: the Giraffe, Griessel and Cupido.

  ‘It was something she said, sir,’ said Griessel. ‘When she warned me not to tell anybody. “If I hear you speaking out, the phone calls will stop.” She didn’t say “if I heard”, but “if I hear”. Maybe I’m wrong, but it made me very uneasy.’

  Nyathi stood there for a long time, his head tilted. He sighed. ‘They are already monitoring our email and our phone calls. The sad thing is, you might be right. And we have to assume that you are.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You go back, and you make copies, just the two of you. Don’t talk to anybody about it. Just do it. Bring me all the original material and I’ll hand it over when the agent comes.’

  ‘Does that mean we continue the investigation, sir?’ asked Cupido.

  ‘Damn right it does,’ said Nyathi.

  Mbali Kaleni wanted to cry.

  It was her greatest secret, greater than the secret packets of crisps or KFC or chocolate that she ate alone in her office. Greater than the fantasies about the actor Djimon Hounsou that she sometimes allowed herself in bed at night. At a murder scene she wanted to cry. It was all about the loss, the senselessness, tragedy, but above all the human capacity for evil. That broke her heart, and she often mused on this with great solemnity and concern. Why did people do it? What was it that, especially in this country, drove people to rape and maim and murder? The heavy burden of the past? Or was it something that came from the bedrock of South Africa, a demonic energy field that unsettled people’s minds?

  She was purposefully strict with the SC back in the passage, because she really wanted to come in here alone. That way she would not have to work so hard to hide the tears. She knew, just one sign of weakness, and her male colleagues would be crowing. But now, at least, she could let her shoulders sag and allow the silent tears to well up. She dug in her handbag and took out a bunch of tissues, gripping them in her fist as she looked at the five lifeless bodies. This afternoon their loved ones, fathers and mothers, wives, children, would be torn apart by grief. A few days only in the headlines, but this deed would last so much longer, would ripple outwards creating single breadwinners and greater poverty and misery, far into the future, when a son or daughter of one of these men would say to a social worker or a magistrate: ‘My father died when I was four . . .’

  She wiped away the tears, pushed the tissues back into her handbag. She straightened her shoulders, and began to study the crime scene.

  Tyrone Kleinbooi ran across August Street, over the empty plot, and jumped up against the high concrete wall of the school. He wanted to be among people, that was his only defence up here in Schotsche Kloof, where the houses were too few and the streets too wide.

  He clambered over the wall. The school grounds were quiet.

  Holidays, he had forgotten it was the holidays.

  He ran past the school buildings, down to the main gate, next to the netball court. An ageing security guard with a military cap set on askew, struggled across a concrete area, shouting and waving a knobkierie stick at him.

  Tyrone kept on running.

  The main gate was high and locked, but the chain was long, so that he could force it open a crack and squeeze his skinny body through.

  He looked back.

  He didn’t see anyone, except for the old uncle with the cap, gesticulating wildly and shouting inexplicable things.

  He was through. He ran past the Schotsche Kloof flats, the ugly housing projects where washing flapped from windows. An aunty shouted from up there: ‘Hey, look at him run now.’

  He was grateful it was downhill. He swerved left, through backyards, into the upper end of Church Street.

  He looked back again.

  Nobody.

  They made hurried copies of everything. Griessel passed the documents on, and the more technologically skilled Cupido copied them.

  Griessel’s phone rang. He took it out, annoyed by the interruption while they were under so much pressure. MBALI on his screen.

  He answered.

  ‘Benny, I’m at the Waterfront. There’s been a shooting. Five security people dead . . .’

  Griessel suppressed the ‘Jissis’, because Mbali didn’t like expletives or swearing.

  ‘I think you’d better come,’ she said.

  ‘Mbali, we’re very busy . . .’

  ‘I know. But the colonel briefed us on the Franschhoek shooting at morning parade, and he said there were shell casings with the etchings of a snake . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There are a lot of them here, Benny. And I mean a lot.’

  Fok, thought Griessel, he should not have been so impatient and hasty – his cellphone was being tapped, now the whole SSA knew it too.

  ‘I’m on my way,’ he said.

  ‘Can you bring Sergeant Davids too? There’s a lot of technology we’ll have to figure out.’

  ‘OK,’ said Griessel, and rang off.

  Nadia Kleinbooi sat at the bottom of the Neelsie, the student centre of the University of Stellenbosch, at a long wooden table with some of her classmates. Her cellphone rang. She barely heard it, because it was a noisy environment, the voices of students, music playing.

  TYRONE, she read. The guy must have delivered the phone.

  She covered one ear and put the phone to the other. ‘Hello?’

  ‘I’m really sorry to bug you, but there’s nobody home.’ The Good Samaritan’s voice again.

  ‘No, please, you’re not bugging me. My brother works in the city, he’ll only be back tonight. I . . . Can you maybe put the phone in the mailbox? I will try to . . .’Tyrone lived in the back room, and she didn’t know if the Muslims would realise that it was his phone. She didn’t know what to do.

  ‘I’ll bring the phone to you,’ said the man.

  ‘No, I’m in Stellenbosch, it’s far away . . .’

  ‘Stellenbosch . . .’ His voice became clearer. ‘I have to go there, before I fly out.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. My hotel is there.’

  ‘Oh. That is . . . You are a very kind person.’

  ‘No, no, I know about losing a phone. It is a . . . grand dérangement.’

  ‘You are French?’

  ‘Mais oui.’

  ‘That’s so cool.’

  ‘So where do I find you?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I have class until one o’clock. Where is your hotel?’

  ‘Right there in Stellenbosch. I will call you when I get there?’

  ‘OK, just after on
e. Call me just after one.’

  24

  Further down the corridor, in the belly of the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront shopping centre, was the office of the head of security. At two minutes past twelve, Mbali sat on one of the visitors’ chairs. A coloured security official sat opposite her. The Sea Point Station commander stood against the wall.

  ‘I was on duty at the Red Shed when I heard them on the radio,’ said the security man. He was shocked and nervous.

  ‘What time was this?’ asked Mbali.

  ‘I can’t say exactly.’

  ‘More or less?’

  ‘I’d say about nine. Maybe . . . maybe quarter to, ten to nine . . . I’m not sure.’

  ‘OK, what did you hear on the radio?’

  ‘That they’ve caught Knippies.’

  ‘Who is Knippies?’

  ‘He’s the pickpocket. We’ve been trying to catch him for a long time now.’

  ‘Is that his name? Knippies?’

  ‘That was what we called him. He’s . . .’

  ‘What is his real name?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did your colleagues know?’

  ‘No. Nobody knows.’

  ‘What do you know about him?’

  ‘We . . . He . . . We’ve had complaints, for a long time, two years, maybe longer. People who report they’ve been robbed. By a pickpocket. Every time, it’s the same thing, this guy, Knippies, he would come up to them and ask if they dropped this hair knippie, what do you call it, a hairpin, you know, the thing women put in their hair, with a butterfly or a flower on it. Sometimes he would use a lighter, like a Zippo, when it’s a guy he wants to rob. And they all said it’s a black guy, slim, about one point eight metres tall, wears black, sometimes blue denim. So, for a year . . . maybe more, we were looking for him, all the security officials, we would look for a skinny black guy. And the control room would scan for him, and tell us there’s a suspect . . .’

  Mbali put her hand in the air. The security official stopped talking.

  ‘The control room is where the CCTV is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This Knippies, how often did he rob people?’ she asked.

  ‘Once a month. Maybe . . . It . . . I don’t know, sometimes it would be two on one day, and then nothing for weeks.’

  ‘But about once a month?’

  ‘About.’

  ‘OK.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘Oh. OK. I . . . Yes, once a month. But he was clever, he knew where the cameras were, so he always robbed people where there weren’t any cameras. And then about a year ago, maybe less, maybe August . . . I’m not sure . . .’

  ‘That’s OK.’

  ‘OK. Thank you. So, maybe August, they put in extra cameras, the small ones. And in March – yes, it must have been March – they caught him on camera, just by the pier, at the charter signs. They caught him on video stealing from a guy, a photographer, he stole a lens from his bag with the lighter trick. But they didn’t see it live, he is very slick, very quick. When the guy came in to report it, they played the video back, and they saw him. And then we had a shot . . . a photograph of Knippies. Turns out he’s coloured, but dark, you know? So they showed all of us the photograph, and the video . . .’

  ‘That’s the same photograph that is on the wall? In the control room? The one that looks like the guy on the TV screen?’

  ‘Yes, that’s Knippies.’

  ‘OK. And this morning?’

  ‘I heard it on the radio.’

  ‘Exactly what did you hear on the radio?’

  ‘I heard Control call Gertjie and Louw. They patrol the amphitheatre. Control said they had spotted Knippies, and Gertjie and Louw must look for him. There were a lot of civilians, we had the cruise ship in this morning, so Control was directing them, you know. Go left, go right. And then I heard Louw call it in, they caught him.’

  ‘Is that what he said?’

  ‘Yes, but in Afrikaans. “Ons het hom, Control, ons bring hom in.”’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then everybody called in to say well done. And Control said: “His ass is grass, he’s on video.”’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then I heard Jerome call on the radio about the shooting.’

  ‘Who is Jerome?’

  ‘He’s an official.’

  ‘A security official?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Like you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘I don’t know. After nine. Some time after nine.’

  ‘How did Jerome know about the shooting?’

  ‘He had his tea break, and he said he wanted to take a look at Knippies, so he went to the control room, and he saw everybody was dead.’

  ‘Where is Jerome now?’

  ‘He’s in the bathroom. He’s throwing up. A lot.’

  Tyrone stole a Samsung S3 in St George’s Mall, from a man’s windcheater.

  He hated Samsung S3s, because they have seven sorts of screen lock. Most people used the pattern, the nine dots that had to be connected in a certain order.

  He tried the three most popular patterns.

  Nothing. The thing stayed locked.

  He didn’t have time. He tossed it in a rubbish bin and looked for his next victim.

  They threaded their way through the traffic on the N1, blue lights on, but sirens off. Griessel drove. Cupido blew off some steam about Mbali.

  ‘Last week she tells me, a man’s worth is no greater than his ambition. Just because I was taking a break with Angry Birds. I mean, can’t a man take a break now and then . . .’

  ‘Who is Angry Birds?’

  Lithpel Davids laughed from the back seat.

  ‘Not “who”, Benna, “what”,’ said Cupido patiently. ‘It’s a game. On my phone. You should try it, there’s an iOS version too. Great stress reliever. Anyway, so then I want to say to her: “Mbali, if I had as much ambition as you have, I would also be a doos,” but fok weet, then you would never get her to shut up about your swearing, and how that’s also a sure sign of weakness, she’s always got a fokken quote. What’s wrong with swearing? I mean, it’s just another word. What really pisses me off is people that want to say “fokken”, but then they gooi “flippen” instead, and that’s OK. It’s not fokken OK, they mean the same thing. And intent is nine-tenths of the law, pappie. But you can ma’ say “flippen” in front of Mbali, daai’s cool. I mean, Benna, there’s no justice when it comes to that woman.’

  ‘Possession.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Possession is nine-tenths of the law.’

  ‘OK. True. But what is possession without intent?’

  ‘Also true.’

  ‘Fokken Mbali . . .’

  Cupido was quiet for a while, and Griessel thought of a conversation he had had in the Wimpy at the Winelands Engen service station on the N1, one morning on the way back from a case in Paarl. Over coffee, Mbali had hauled a textbook out of her massive handbag. The Law of Contract in South Africa.

  ‘I’m sorry, Benny, I have an exam tonight.’

  He hadn’t known she was studying again. She, who already had an honours degree in Police Science. So he asked.

  ‘I’m doing a B Iuris at UNISA.’

  ‘Do you want to leave the Service?’

  ‘No, Benny.’ She had hesitated and looked at him in a measured way, then decided she could trust him. ‘I want to be the commissioner. One day.’ There was no arrogance in the statement, just a quiet determination.

  He had accepted that she meant the national commissioner, and he had sat thinking in amazement. About people. About himself. His trouble was that he had never wanted to be something. He had just wanted to be.

  A man’s worth is no greater than his ambition.

  Perhaps that was why he had become a boozer and fuck-up. Perhaps you should have three- and five- and ten-year plans for yourself, higher asp
irations. But how do you get there if you are still struggling with all the trouble that life throws at you?

  What was he to do about this trouble between him and Alexa?

  His only ‘ambition’ was to avoid a njaps.

  What did that say of his worth?

  Maybe it said everything.

  Where did you get an agenda for this sort of trouble, a three-day plan. Or was he the only one who battled with this kind of shit?

  25

  Pickpocketing is a lucky dip,Tyrone. You take what you can get. That’s why you need more than one fence. ’Cause everything’s got value for someone.

  But what do you do, Uncle Solly, if you don’t have time for the lucky dip, if you need to steal a phone specifically, and opportunity doesn’t exactly come knocking? And you’ve never really thought about this before, and you don’t have the time or inclination to ponder on it? ’Cause the clock is ticking like crazy, and you can’t phone your sister from a public phone, ’cause that’s exactly the problem, right, they are public, especially the row of coin and card phones up in St George’s Mall. You can’t just go stand there and say: ‘Nadia, I’m in deep trouble, if the cops phone you, say you don’t know who the call is from.’ It’s noisy there by the phones, it’s not like you can stand there and whisper. Or you waltz into a restaurant and say here’s a hundred bucks, please let me use the phone, it’s an emergency. And the maître d’ hangs around suspiciously to check that you’re not phoning Beijing. And Uncle Solly, Nadia is going to skrik, she’ll be so scared, and she’ll ask: ‘Now what’s going on?’ and if I don’t say, she’ll worry. ’Cause I’m all she has. I’ve always been all she has.

  And in his urgency, his haste, eyes flitting from one pedestrian to the next, it hit him suddenly, out of nowhere: How had the gunman known where he lived?

  The thought made Tyrone stop in his tracks, and shiver.

  When the fat Muslim chick buzzed him, he thought it was the cops. But it wasn’t, and he hadn’t had the time to work that one out.

  How the fuck?

  Did the shooter tail him?

  Must have. He didn’t want to shoot Tyrone in public. He wanted no eyewitnesses. So he tailed him, all the way behind the taxi. He’s good, never saw it coming.

  He looked around, slowly, carefully, his eyes scanning for the man in the grey baseball cap. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof.