“What?” Jade stared across the table at him in astonishment.
“With the upgrades we’re making to the equipment in the red security zone, the next forty-eight hours are critical for Inkomfe. The reactor room is more vulnerable than usual. We cannot afford to have anything go wrong. If Botha spends that time in a holding cell, it will be safer for us, and also safer for him.”
“But . . .” Jade had to stop herself from gaping at him. “Arrested? On what grounds? Are you talking about that malicious-damage-to-property charge?”
“That charge has been withdrawn—I don’t know why. It’s possible that Botha threatened or intimidated the bar owner. The police can’t arrest him without a new charge. There is a detective at the Krugersdorp station who works closely with us at Inkomfe, and is as concerned as we are about this situation. If there were any grounds for Botha’s arrest, this detective could do the job immediately.”
Jade stared at Gillespie across the desk, feeling a sense of surrealism. “I don’t understand. What grounds are we talking about?”
“Well, what has he done?” Gillespie asked, pushing a lined notepad and a pen across the table to her. “You’ve spent some time with him recently. Did he drive recklessly? You told me that you fled from the Best Western motel at high speed. You could write an affidavit confirming this. Or, given the circumstances, perhaps you would be prepared to do more. Did he threaten or abuse you in any way? Did he coerce you into leaving with him? I see you have a graze on the back of your left hand. Did Botha cause it?”
Jade was quiet for a minute.
Gillespie was clearly desperate. He was asking her to exaggerate, or even fabricate the events of the past day. Getting Botha arrested wouldn’t take a wild leap of imagination, since there had already been a warrant out for him. But now that the charges had been dropped, Gillespie had no alternative but to use her to try and get him jailed.
She didn’t know what to think.
Putting him in prison would solve her problems, but it wouldn’t solve Botha’s. There was no easier place to murder somebody than when they were trapped in a police holding cell.
Gillespie was doing this because he cared, because he didn’t want to recklessly endanger her, and because he wanted to prevent a catastrophe at Inkomfe during a vulnerable time.
But Botha had genuinely cared about her, too. He’d refused to leave the motel without her, believing she would be in danger if she stayed. Writing an affidavit for his arrest would be throwing him to the lions.
“Jade, while you think of what to write, I’m going to get your check for this job,” Gillespie said. “I apologize again for the delay.”
He left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
Jade stared down at the blank page, trying to convince herself that what she was about to do was right. A few untruths would have to be penned, but she’d done worse in the past than lying. She could walk away glad that she had helped Gillespie make Inkomfe a little safer.
She picked up the pen and did a test scribble. The pen worked just fine.
Report of Reckless Driving, she headed the page.
On the night of 20 November, I witnessed Mr. Carlos Botha drive at high speed out of the Best Western motel Krugersdorp. He exceeded the speed limit and drove in a reckless manner that endangered other road users, and which caused him to crash his car . . .
With a sigh, Jade tore the page into pieces. That wasn’t working. She’d have to try the other angle.
On the night of 20 November, I was coerced by Mr. Carlos Botha into accompanying him when he left the Best Western motel. He grabbed my arm at one point, pushing me against a wall and causing a deep graze on my hand. Botha intimidated me into . . .
Jade ripped the page up again, with more force this time. Then she wrote on the third blank page:
I’m sorry, Mr. Gillespie. This isn’t going to work. The charges are too flimsy. If Botha is arrested, he’ll be inside for a maximum of twenty-four hours. Less, if he has a good lawyer. If he’s planning anything, he’ll still have time to put it into action. And he won’t trust me anymore, or anyone else, for that matter. He’ll go into hiding, and you’ll lose the only link you have to him. Give me another day and let me see what I can do.
She threw the other pieces into the trash bin, stood up and left the meeting room.
From here, there were no locked doors between herself and freedom. She didn’t know what to say to Gillespie if she ran into him on his way back with her money, but she didn’t see him. However, as she passed one of the other rooms, she heard his voice coming from behind the closed door. She stopped and listened.
“Please,” he said in strained tones. “Please help me out. Give me just a little more time. I’ll get it to you as soon as possible.”
Frowning, Jade walked on, back to the security desk to claim her belongings, wondering what on earth Gillespie could be speaking about.
It was nearly a quarter past three in the morning when Jade left Inkomfe, and by the time she reached Sandton, she could see the beginnings of brightness on the horizon. As she drove into the hotel parking garage, she realized that the spot she’d been in earlier was now occupied. She’d have to take the one closest to it and hope that Botha didn’t notice her car had moved during the night.
She paced quickly back to the suite and let herself in, breathing out a relieved sigh when she saw the lounge area was dark, and Botha’s bedroom door was closed.
Finally a chance to have a shower. After ten minutes under the hottest water she could bear, she climbed into bed and programmed her phone alarm for seven-thirty. She was sure she’d wake before the alarm sounded. Her internal clock was accurate even when she was very tired. Hopefully, three hours of sleep would be enough for whatever the day might bring.
But she didn’t get those three hours.
The shrilling of the hotel phone jerked her out of deep slumber. Disoriented, she fumbled for the receiver, picked it up and mumbled, “Hello?”
But there was no recorded voice on the line, telling her the time in a tinny voice. Only an expectant silence.
“Hello?” Jade said again.
The line went dead.
Wide awake now, she sat up. It was a quarter to six. She’d slept for just over an hour. No wonder she felt groggy. Had she made a mistake when programming the wake-up call?
She was sure she hadn’t. So had the hotel been trying to contact her?
She dialed reception. “It’s Jade de Jong,” she said. “My phone just rang, but there was nobody on the line. Do you know anything about it?”
“Just a moment, Mrs. de Jong,” the receptionist said.
“Ms.,” Jade corrected her, but she was already listening to hold music. The receptionist picked up the call again and said, “I’m sorry. Thandi, the other receptionist on duty, put the call through to you by mistake. A gentleman just called to confirm whether you’d checked in late last night, and to asked if you’d left a package for collection at the front desk. Thandi transferred him to your room instead. I do apologize.”
“No worries,” Jade said.
A cold knot tightened in her stomach. She and Botha hadn’t been well hidden. All it had taken to track them down was patience, a loosely fabricated cover story and some phone calls.
The hunters had found out her name. It hadn’t taken them long, either.
This hotel was no longer safe. They needed to get out. Every moment was vital.
Botha must have heard the phone ring. When she knocked on his door after hastily pulling on her clothes, he opened it immediately. She saw he was dressed—half dressed, at any rate. His torso was taut and hard-muscled without a trace of fat, his skin a matte beige.
“Somebody phoned the hotel asking if I was checked in,” she told him. “But we got lucky. The switchboard operator made a mistake and put the call through.”
&
nbsp; “Not good,” he said. “We’d better get moving, then.”
He walked to the bathroom and returned with his shirt, which she guessed he’d washed and hung up to dry overnight. He slipped it on, put his laptop away and hoisted the backpack onto his shoulder. A minute later, they were running out of the suite.
When the elevator arrived, Jade pushed the button for the second floor. When Botha glanced at her, she explained, “A precaution. I don’t want to come face-to-face with them in the lobby.”
He nodded.
They got out on the second floor, which was the conferencing and dining level. The aroma of coffee filled the air, and the clinking of cutlery suggested that the first room service breakfasts were being prepared.
They walked down the final flight of stairs, and she cautiously pushed the door open and peered around.
The lobby was empty. The elevator doors were closing.
They jogged across the tiled floor to the basement stairs. Looking back, Jade saw the elevator had stopped on their floor.
They sprinted down to the basement parking and scrambled into the car, and she accelerated out of the garage.
After five minutes of zigzagging, they were on William Nicol Drive, heading north. She felt shaky from nerves and bludgeoned from lack of sleep. This had been a close call, far too close. A simple mistake had saved their lives. Had it not been for the receptionist’s error, things would have gone very differently.
“How did they find us?” Botha asked.
“They found out my name,” Jade said. “They must have guessed we’d hide out in a hotel, and spent the night calling around.”
What could she glean about the criminals from this? They were more patient than she’d guessed, and more intelligent, too. More organized.
She pressed her lips together. Something still wasn’t adding up. It was a lot of time for the men following them to have spent chasing a crazy hunch. She needed to think this through. As of now, she had the uneasy feeling that their pursuers had the advantage.
“So . . . no more hotels?” Botha asked.
Jade shook her head. “No. But we need to go somewhere to regroup. Not easy to do while driving around Jo’burg watching our backs.”
“I know a place we could go,” he said.
“Where’s that?”
“It’s a townhouse in Honeydew that’s being refurbished. The keys are with the caretaker who lives in the complex.”
“Who does it belong to?”
“Someone I trust.” He didn’t say any more.
They made it out to Honeydew in the northwest of Johannesburg by twenty-five past six, as traffic thickened and trickles of cars started to become streams. Jade hadn’t been here for years, although she remembered David complaining a few months ago that the precinct had recently experienced a dramatic increase in violent crime. This was partly due to the illegal mining taking place on its outskirts, but also because of the epidemic of development in northern Johannesburg, which had hit the area hard. From upmarket golf estates and townhouse complexes to low-cost housing projects and informal huts and shacks, the influx of new residents made the gathering of crime intelligence impossible. You couldn’t spot criminals when everyone was a stranger in town, David had explained.
Luckily, Botha’s complex was located next door to the golf estate in a neatly maintained street that was, according to the signage, protected by Scorpion Patrol Neighborhood Security.
On the other side of the main road, they saw a coffee shop rolling up its shutters in preparation for the day. It had a drive-through, which was also about to open. For the sake of coffee, Jade was prepared to risk another few minutes out on Jo’burg’s streets.
Looking over her shoulder was becoming exhausting. For a moment, she wished she’d taken Gillespie up on his offer. Written the affidavit and handed Botha over to the police, and told Gillespie she was off the case.
What would she do then? A tropical destination beckoned, somewhere far away. A chalet on the beachfront. Running for miles on the firm, damp sand until her legs ached, swimming in the sea. Fresh fish on the grill, music pumping from a rustic bar nearby where a glass of white wine waited for her. Or a cocktail in a coconut shell.
And then the darkness caught up with her again.
The killers who had called the hotel had asked for her by name. They knew who she was. She’d always have to watch her back, even in paradise. Looking out for pale, muscled arms newly bared to the sun. Cold eyes masked by mirrored shades. Strong fingers that wouldn’t hesitate to pull a trigger or clamp around a throat. There were a hundred ways to find somebody who’d fled the country, and a thousand ways for them to die.
Instead, she started thinking about guns.
A weapon would definitely be useful to her now. These guys weren’t playing games; this wasn’t just intimidation. It was an organized pursuit, a chase meant to end in a kill. Her Glock had been confiscated by the police months ago, and she’d jumped through so many hoops in her efforts to get it back that she was beginning to feel like a circus tiger.
A captive, declawed tiger.
She sometimes wondered if Superintendent David Patel had an active role in frustrating her efforts. He knew about her fruitless attempts to get the weapon back because she’d made the mistake of telling him, thinking he could help. Perhaps he believed she’d land herself in less trouble if she didn’t have a gun.
David had always lacked imagination. But she wasn’t going to start with the resentful thoughts about him now. The bottom line was, she was weaponless, and she needed a gun.
How could she solve this problem?
A rustling sound caught her attention, and she turned toward Botha again. She was startled to see that, while she’d been staring out of the window at the drive-through, a large pile of high-denomination banknotes had materialized in her car’s glove compartment. “What’s this for?” she asked.
“It’s your payment. Partial payment, rather. I don’t have any more cash on me right now.”
“Wait a minute. Botha, I never said I’d work for you. I haven’t agreed to take on this job.”
“This isn’t for future services.” His voice was soft, and it broke as he was talking. She thought the stress might be starting to catch up with him. You could only go so far on adrenaline.
“What’s it for, then?”
“It’s for what you’ve already done. Call it professional services rendered. You’ve saved my life twice so far, and I think I owe you for that.”
“I can’t accept this.”
“I won’t take it back. Please, Jade.”
Well, it was the only money she’d received for this job so far, even if the wrong person was handing it to her.
As she tapped the pile of notes with her fingers until it was a perfect oblong in shape, Jade wondered exactly who she was working for.
With some difficulty, she folded the thick bundle in half and zipped it into her jacket pocket.
“Thank you,” she said, putting the car into gear and heading for the drive-through window, where the attendant was now on duty. “Coffee’s on me.”
Chapter Nineteen
The morning was bright, sunny and clear, thanks to last night’s rains. Green grass seemed to have clothed the arid sidewalk strips overnight. Birds chirped and fluttered. A beautiful day, Mweli observed. Pity she was about to spend it holed up in this office, chasing after leads she feared would not be worth the time spent on them. She’d rather be like Chakalaka, snoozing belly-up in the sun.
Her to-do list was getting longer by the minute, with two main cases occupying most of her time: the motel crime scene, and the body dumped in the Robinson Dam. She still had some final calls to make, to confirm the logistics for the dredging operation at the dam tomorrow. Once she’d finished those, it was back to the motel murder investigation. Her first task was to make an inve
ntory of all the personal possessions that had been found in the Best Western room. They had been bagged up at the crime scene and transferred straight to the Randfontein precinct, where they had been locked away in the evidence room.
As she unlocked the evidence room, the shrill of the phone in the office made her jump. Phiri answered it. From what she could hear of the one-sided conversation, another reporter was already on the story. She listened, tightening her lips with satisfaction at Phiri’s responses.
No, his boss was not available. No, Phiri was not authorized to speak about the case. Yes, it was under investigation. No, he could not comment about the identity of the murder victim until the next of kin were notified. Yes, his boss’s name was Detective Mweli. Yes, she would release more details as soon as she was authorized to do so. Yes, she was the acting station commander. No, the real commander was on long leave due to illness. No, Phiri was not going to give out the cell phone numbers of either the acting commander or the regular commander.
Mweli closed the evidence room door behind her. The room was cool and smelled musty. The cluttered shelves seemed to taunt her with their contents. So many cases, so few convictions.
Easing a pair of gloves onto her plump hands, she placed the bags on the table.
Item one was a wallet containing two credit cards, a driver’s license and eight hundred and fifty rand in cash.
Item two was a briefcase. The case was a high-quality item. It had been standing on the table when the bodies were discovered. It contained a silver pen and pencil slotted into special holders, and a zipped-up leather pouch containing an asthma inhaler and a pack of headache tablets with three remaining. The only other item was an empty white plastic document folder with its snap fastener undone.
There was no laptop inside the case, nor had there been any phones on the scene. Mweli was already bracing herself for accusations that the police had pilfered them. And yet, if a criminal had stolen the computer and phone, why had he not bothered to take the cash in Loodts’s wallet?
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