Death Dealing

by Ian Patrick

  What were the chances? Thabethe wondered whether this new guy was up to it. His hands were smashed. Maybe the fight had gone out of him.

  ‘You think he’ll do it, Mgwazeni?’

  ‘Eish! I’m thinking maybe he’s too messed up, Skhura. We have to see.’

  Thabethe nodded in agreement with his cell-mate.

  Nothing to do but wait.

  23.30.

  Ryder could never sleep on an aircraft. It was usually dinner then a movie. Then a whisky. Then another movie. Then, on this occasion, there would be an attempt at reading some of the documents he had collected in Oxford and London. In the early hours of the morning there would be another movie. Eventually, he thought, there would emerge the merciful sounds of breakfast in the galley. Which would mean one thing only to him. Coffee.

  But that was all still a long way ahead. They were somewhere over the Sahara, he reckoned. No. Maybe further south. Johannesburg still more than six hours away. Damn! Surely we’ve been flying for longer than only four to five hours? He couldn’t be bothered to check the screen yet again for the moving map of his journey, and his seat on the aisle provided no access to a window, which in any case at that altitude and in the dark would provide no information about where they were.

  Not yet ready for that next movie, he retreated into memory. He replayed the last five days since he had left Durban and flown off to England, at the request of Captain Nyawula.

  Nyawula had been asked by the Brigadier to take the trip to England himself, to link up with a few specialists in crime and policing, and with a few academics in the field. In order to satisfy the demands of a donor who had set up a fund to send top Durban cops to England. To create productive links. Which was shorthand for Surely something can be done about crime in this region? What’s wrong with our guys? They need to learn from people who know how to do it. The Brigadier, despite his irritation at the assumptions being made by the donor, had thought it was a good opportunity, and he chose Nyawula’s team. Captain Nyawula had in turn chosen Ryder, who had experience of the Thames Valley Police, anyway, and good contacts in the region, and who could therefore probably get more out of the visit than any of the other detectives on his team. The Brigadier reported back to the donor that Detective Jeremy Ryder, one of their best men, had been chosen for the visit and he would report back in due course.

  Ryder had accepted. Only five days, Fiona had said, and he could link up with some old friends, too. Friends from the time they had spent in England together…and it’ll be your first real break in a few years from front line police work…and a break from Durban, too. She had been quite forceful. His wife could be very persuasive at times. Ryder had accepted, reluctantly.

  It had been a long time since he had last spent more than forty-eight hours in England. The forty-eight hours had been for a funeral in London two years ago. He had good memories of the years spent before that in the United Kingdom. Not least of all the memorable day shortly after their arrival there much more than a decade ago, when Fiona, to test the system rather than for any other reason, had reported to her local police station in Oxford the disappearance of a couple of potted plants from the garden. She had been at pains to tell the cop at the station that she wasn’t really concerned to get them back, and that she didn’t want any of them to waste their time on such a trivial thing, but it was just that if this kind of thing was happening more generally…

  ‘Not at all, ma’am,’ the officer had responded. ‘We appreciate you alerting us to it. Every little crime could lead to a bigger event so don’t hesitate to let us know. This is what we do.’

  Fiona had appreciated his comment, and had detected no sense of irony or sarcasm until she heard the officer’s companion mutter, behind him.

  ‘You never know when you might be dealing with some serial box-hedge thief.’

  She had let it go, and left the station just a little embarrassed. It was only a week later that she really felt embarrassed. This was when she received a letter and a pamphlet in the post-box from a charity called Victim Support. The letter declared that they understood Fiona had been a victim of crime in Oxford and it offered her emotional support and practical information for victims and the pamphlet included information about your rights and the Code for Victims.

  He had teased her mercilessly about not underestimating the post-traumatic stress that can be caused by the loss of one’s beloved succulents, but she had got over the embarrassment and in fact got used to dining out on the story, especially with South African friends, once they had returned years later to the country of their birth.

  After Detectives Koekemoer and Dippenaar had also heard the story they, especially, had referred back to it time and time again. Crime on another planet. Yissus, those guys in England know nothing, KoeksnDips would say.

  Next thing, there was Ryder, on a mission back to the UK to see some old friends in the Thames Valley Police, to pick the brains of some prominent academics in crime management, and to link up with a few top people studying the intricacies of crime networks. All at the behest of a private donor, a businessman wanting to see an improvement in police work in KwaZulu-Natal. As if we know nothing and need the Brits to teach us, Ryder mused. We could teach them a thing or two about crime. Crime much darker than anything they experience on a day-to-day basis.

  He was served another whisky on the plane. He had asked the steward offering passengers cups of water or juice whether he could get a whisky instead. The man next to him, mercifully, was not the talking type. So Ryder sipped and drifted back into his thoughts.

  It had been a few very busy days for him in England. He thought back on one of the highlights of the visit, one that was of particular interest to him because it reminded him why he had some years ago left a career in higher education to move into policing. As his plane now flew somewhere over central Africa, Ryder began recalling the experience: a visit to one of the ‘new’ universities in England.

  *

  Ryder had arrived early for his appointment to see Professor Hutchinson. The professor had apologised, told him he would be detained for only a few more minutes but would join him very soon, and asked his secretary to point Ryder in the direction of the room where they would be meeting. He apologised further for the fact that his own office wasn’t going to be available, as he had offered it to a post-graduate assistant for an interview he was conducting. Then he apologised for not offering any tea or coffee, but their scullery area was being painted. He was about to apologise for something else, but Ryder precluded it with a No problem at all, really, Prof. I’ll go and grab myself a coffee at the counter in the Students’ Union, and...

  The secretary was charming, and responded to Ryder’s comment by walking with him, grabbing a takeaway coffee for both Ryder and herself, and settling him into the meeting room. She assured him that the professor was a very sweet man, a highly regarded academic and a very charitable man, but that he spent an inordinate amount of time apologising for everything.

  She left Ryder alone in the room with his coffee. She, too, apologised for the fact that the meeting between just the two of them had to take place in a meeting room around a table clearly designed for 14 or 16 people. The only meeting room available on the timetable, she had said.

  Left alone in the room Ryder noticed that a couple of people from an earlier meeting had left their papers at the far end of the table. One of them was just the Agenda paper. The other was the same Agenda paper stapled to what appeared to be the full set of papers for the meeting in question. Ryder took a look at the stapled collection.

  Agenda for a meeting of the something-or-other committee or group with an impenetrable acronym. What particularly intrigued Ryder was the structure of the agenda.

  12.01 Welcome and apologies.

  12.02 Additions to the agenda.

  12.03 For Approval: Minutes of the previous meeting.

  12.05 Matters arising.

  12.25 Directorate Strategic Planning.

  12.4
5 Directorate Administration:-

  12.45 - Introduction.

  12.50 - Costs of printing and consumables.

  13.15 - Travel policy.

  13.18 - Departmental notice-boards.

  13.20 - Equipment budgets.

  13.25 - Financial report: overview.

  13.30 - Team updates.

  13.35 - Arrangements for Directorate end-of-year party.

  13.58 - AOB and Date of Next Meeting.

  14.00 - Close.

  Ryder was intrigued. Do all universities function in this way, he wondered? He couldn’t help wondering whether the precise timing on agenda items was the product of an anally retentive chairman of this particular committee, or whether it was a characteristic of the institution more generally. What if someone on the committee was in mid-sentence on travel policy at 13.18? Would the chairman say Sorry, Bill. Time up. We need to move now on to the urgent matter of departmental notice boards!

  He shook his head in despair as he noticed that there was more time allocated on the agenda to the end-of-year party than there was to strategic planning in the directorate. Maybe the previous end-of-year party had been a disaster and they wanted to get it right the next time, he mused.

  He was even more astounded to see the list of names and titles of the people who attended such a meeting. It appeared that the vast majority of them were senior ‘Directors’ and ‘Assistant Directors’ of some sort, and all presumably well paid. The dates of future scheduled meetings suggested they met almost once a fortnight. He did a rough calculation of possible salaries and time spent on this stuff by more than a dozen highly paid employees and he began to understand why there was so much debate about university finances in the country.

  But the biggest chuckle for Ryder was in relation to scribbles in the margins of one of the attached pages. The page in question had columns of figures and appeared to be a report by the chairman proudly boasting about the fact that their directorate had come in significantly under budget on expenditure for equipment in the previous year, and that they had been able to return a couple of hundred thousand pounds to the university on savings accrued against the directorate’s allocation for equipment. The angry scribbles in question included the words:

  And this is to be applauded????

  So what if students are outraged because nothing works and most rooms have broken equipment?

  What complete and utter anal retention!

  Trying to score brownie points with the Director of Finance

  -Yes, while we struggle with no equipment!

  The five scribbled comments were in three different sets of handwriting. Clearly some committee members were passing this back and forth among themselves during the meeting in question, and adding their scribbles. Like naughty children talking behind the head teacher’s back.

  Surely this set of papers was left here deliberately, and not by oversight? Ryder couldn’t help chuckling at the mischief involved: let the next meeting find out what we have to put up with, perhaps? But on the face of it the angry scribbles appeared fully justified. Maybe Sergeant Piet Cronje back home would be interested in how this particular institution ran its administration, Ryder thought. So he folded the stapled papers and tucked them into his pocket, leaving the other copy of the single agenda paper on the table.

  A present for Piet, he mused. Must ask him to follow this practice and allocate precise timing to the agenda of meetings. He could see it now:

  8.00 Welcome: ‘Hi guys.’

  8.01 Jokes from KoeksnDips.

  9.01 Strategic planning.

  9.02 Break for Coffee.

  9.58 What to do today.

  10.00 Break for tea.

  11.00 That’s it. See you tomorrow.

  Professor Hutchinson arrived, breaking Ryder’s train of thought.

  ‘Sorry. So sorry, I was just….’

  ‘No problem, Professor. I was just playing detective. I was looking with some interest at the agenda paper someone left over there. It’s from some meeting.’

  The professor walked over and looked at the single page as he spoke.

  ‘Oh. Yes. Well. Sorry to see the university displaying its dirty laundry like this. I could tell you about some of this. But I won’t. Not worth my while. Hmmmm. Or maybe I will. Hmmmm. You probably picked up the fact that they spent less time on strategy than they do on...’

  ‘Yes. Couldn’t help notice that.’

  ‘Yes. Well. I’m only an academic, of course. Some of us, the lesser mortals, do ask questions about some of our other colleagues in the institution. Colleagues who are charged with looking after our corporate identity.’

  ‘Corporate?’

  ‘Yes. They look after what they call our corporate – um – affairs. This is the time of year when they do their strategic planning, so they’re quite busy.’

  ‘It’s an annual thing?’

  ‘Yes. This is what they call the strategic planning season. When do you in the South African Police Service do your strategic planning?’

  ‘Oh. Well… let me see…when do we do our strategic planning? Hmmmm. I suppose… yes. I would say between 6.30 am and 7.00 am.’

  ‘Yes. Ha. Yes, I see. We could do with a bit of that kind of thinking here. Anyway, some of our colleagues like to think that they are ensuring our corporate identity.’

  ‘Interesting nomenclature. Sounds like a factory rather than a university...’

  ‘Yes. Well, perhaps the less said the better...’

  ‘Well, thanks, Professor, anyway, for seeing me...’

  ‘Please call me Richard. It’s Jeremy, is it?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks, Richard, I appreciate you giving up your time.’

  ‘Not at all. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your first email and then the material you sent me after that. Most intriguing. I think I can offer some views...’

  *

  Ryder’s memory of the discussion was ruptured. He realised that he had, in fact, dropped off to sleep somewhere along the route traversed by these memories. He had slept fitfully and had then resumed the memory of his visit to Oxford, recalling the range of characters and personalities he had encountered. At one point he had found himself being chased by a mad committee chairperson carrying a rolled-up agenda paper, with flecks of white foam in the corners of her mouth. As scared as he was, he had refrained from drawing his pistol.

  Passengers yawned and groaned and rubbed their eyes and lowered shelves for breakfast trays. Ryder declined breakfast, but asked for more coffee. Then he tried to watch that movie he had promised himself. He fell asleep after just a few minutes.

  Eventually the breakfast trays were cleared. Final calls were made, and passengers started preparing themselves for the last leg of the journey into Johannesburg. Ryder put his head back and closed his eyes as he thought back further on the last few days.

  2 SATURDAY

  07.05.

  Thabethe was woken by the sound of metal dragging across metal. As his eyes fluttered open he heard the man whispering from the cell across the passage. He glanced back, over his shoulder, and immediately leaped to his feet. Both of the man’s hands sported bulky white plaster casts. One of them was a full solid plaster cast and the other, on the right hand, was a partial cast with a couple of fingers protruding independently and supported by splints. The man clutched a gleaming prize between the two casts. He was stroking the spoke, taken from a wheelchair, across the iron railings of his cell.

  He had not needed the spoke wrench, he said to his new friend. When he had woken up in there, his hands were encased in plaster and he found himself alone. He had remembered the words about the wheelchair and the spokes. But someone had already started repairing the broken wheelchair, he told Thabethe. The spokes were just lying there on the windowsill. He had struggled. He had knocked four of them off the windowsill onto the floor, from where they were impossible to pick up. Then he had finally succeeded with the fifth attempt. He had managed to roll it off the sill and then clasp it between his two
clubbed hands and tuck it down into his trousers, next to his right leg. But he hadn’t been able to use his hands to secure it. He had poked it through the material of his trousers in two places, to try and secure it that way. Lucky for him the nurse hadn’t noticed anything and he was brought back to the cell. He had simply walked stiff-legged to his bed and they had left, locking the cell.

  Thabethe was ecstatic. He shook Mgwazeni, who had slept through the exchange and now woke, immediately surprised at what he saw. He joined Thabethe at the bars, both of them whispering urgent instructions and advice. They got the man to clasp the spoke upright between his two cumbersome plastered mitts and fling it across. It took ages. He struggled, nearly dropping it. Thabethe knew that if it fell on the floor the man would never be able to retrieve it. Eventually he managed to secure it between his huge plaster casts and fling it across. It clattered through the railings into the cell opposite. Mgwazeni picked it up and gave it to Thabethe, who quickly studied it. The next few minutes saw him sharpening the point of the spoke by rubbing it energetically against the concrete floor of the cell.

  Still conversing in Zulu, Thabethe ascertained the man’s name.

  Wakashe, Thabethe and Mgwazeni were going to become good friends, said Philemon Wakashe.

  07.40.

  Ryder tensed as the plane hit the ground at Oliver Tambo International Airport thirty minutes behind schedule. He had never got used to landing. There was always a moment of deep apprehension for him as the pilots brought the throttles to idle and engaged full thrust reversers. Even if the autopilot was doing everything else, and keeping the aircraft centred on the runway, Ryder always at this moment prepared for a possible slewing sideways. What exactly he would do under such circumstances, he didn’t know.

  At about eighty knots he could feel the reversers being disengaged, and he started to relax. Johannesburg. A couple of cups of coffee in the airport building and then a switch to his Durban flight. As the plane slowed for the long taxi in, he mused further on his five-day sojourn in England.