Death Dealing

by Ian Patrick

  He and the professor had hit it off so well that after their meeting they decided to have lunch together in the Students’ Union and continue some of the conversation they had started. Hutchinson’s many research interests included things ranging from criminal and social justice to issues surrounding public order, community and urban renewal, substance misuse and rehabilitation programmes. He had led research projects for the Thames Valley Police, Health Authorities and voluntary organisations. He and his graduate research students had studied crime, crack-cocaine and heroin use, homelessness, and had worked with community development projects supported by the Communities Against Drugs initiative of the Home Office’s Crime Reduction Unit. He had been a member of the Drugs Prevention Advisory Service Regional Training Forum and was actively engaged in developing training strategies for drug workers. He was even more interesting, Ryder thought, than the helpful people he had met at Oxford University’s Centre for Criminology the previous day, and the broad tapestry the professor had woven for his visitor from South Africa had been extraordinarily helpful. Before they concluded lunch, they had agreed that Ryder would invite the Professor’s research colleague, Joyce, who happened to be in Durban during the coming week, to dinner at the Ryder home. Joyce, he told Ryder, was doing research on precisely the kind of thing they were discussing.

  How was he going to distil everything into a short report for the benefit of both Nyawula and those to whom he reported on the one hand, and the donor on the other? Ryder contemplated how he might draw the various threads together. Could the day-to-day work in criminal policing in Durban learn anything from a study of the theoretical domains of rights, justice and security? Or from an esoteric study of penal culture, policy and practice?

  He could see already what Detective Koekemoer might have to say about that last one.

  Would the Brigadiers and others in the Cluster Commands in KwaZulu-Natal have any interest at all in United Kingdom studies of the intersections between public policy and criminology, or sociological and normative approaches to the analysis of crime and justice? Ryder and Nyawula had had many discussions about the politics of policing. On one matter they were in total agreement: in South Africa there was a desperate need for a movement toward citizens consenting to being policed. Without consensus law enforcement would remain mired in controversy and accusations about police brutality, rumours of hit squads and demonstrable political interference. Nyawula’s constant refrain was that the South African Police Service had to be seen not as the armed wing of state control or as a single monolithic organisation charged with maintaining law and order. It had to be viewed, instead, as one among many players in the complex chemistry of peace and security. It had to achieve this position through an attitude of community engagement rather than community control. Easier said than done, they agreed, because while engaging they still had to put out fires.

  The aircraft came to a halt and passengers stood up as one to collect their possessions from the overhead cabinets. Thoughts of the place of criminal justice in the social sciences gave way in Ryder’s head to thoughts about coffee.

  08.25.

  Wakashe, Mgwazeni and Thabethe discussed the plan carefully. Thabethe and Mgwazeni had studied the pattern virtually every morning during the ten days they had been in this cell, they told their new companion. They had both been moved there from an overcrowded cell after a major brawl among the prisoners, and since then they had watched carefully to see how this more isolated wing of the prison was managed.

  The next guard to come strolling along would be the one with the keys. The other guards, normally down the passage and in the front hall, would be in the canteen with most of the guards from the other sectors, having their breakfast. The normal schedules had been disrupted by the builders and all the contractor lorries and cement-mixers coming and going. Instead of becoming more vigilant during the disruptions, Mgwazeni said, the prison had become less vigilant. Confusion reigned outside in the common areas, and the patterns normally followed by the guards had also been disrupted. But they always came checking this section at around this time, before the prisoners had their breakfast, added Thabethe. This was the best time to do it. Five minutes from now. Maybe ten.

  ‘How come they put us over here in this section? Why not in the main section?’

  ‘Because of these same renovations,’ Thabethe replied. ‘They’re building a whole new section.’

  ‘You, Wakashe,’ added Mgwazeni, ‘you don’t know how lucky you are. You could be in Mangaung. You could be in the main section here at Westville. There, they put the electrics on the prisoners. You remember that guy he was saying to you last night about electricity? I’m telling you, wena, they do that. They put electricity on the guys. You are lucky to be in this section, my friend.’

  ‘Us too,’ said Thabethe. ‘We don’t know why they put us here. But we hear they’re finishing with the renovations next week. Then they’ll put us back in there with the crowds. Here, now, it’s quiet. We’re lucky, I’m telling you...’

  ‘Shhht!’

  Wakashe stopped him in mid-sentence. Then came the sound of the gate at the end of the passage. Thabethe readied himself. Mgwazeni stood rigid, right next to him. Both men stood pressed against the railings of their cell, directly opposite Wakashe, and told him to do the same.

  The guard came strolling down the passage. It was the one who had struck the new prisoner with the iron pipe. He stopped in front of Wakashe.

  ‘New man Mofokeng. Or some call you Wakashe. New man Wakashe. Which one is the new man? Which one is the old one? Wakashe, or Mofokeng?’

  Wakashe offered no reply, so the guard continued.

  ‘New man with new hands. Now maybe you will listen, nè? Show me your hands.’

  Wakashe obliged. Thabethe readied himself, directly behind the guard, across the passageway.

  ‘I’m wanting to ask you something,’ said Wakashe, holding his hands out between the bars. ‘You see these hands?’

  ‘What you wanting, my friend?’ said the guard, taking one step toward the prisoner, looking down at his plaster casts.

  Without replying, Wakashe suddenly thrust forward with both hands, smashing the guard in the chest with his plaster-covered mitts and pushing him back off balance. The guard stumbled back three paces.

  And found himself skewered.

  Thabethe had sharpened the spoke to a fine point. A point as fine as any weapon needed to be if it was to be inserted through the tough fabric of a prison-guard uniform and the easier fabric of the cotton shirt beneath, through the fat and muscle and sinew concealed by such clothing, and through the kidney that lay beneath. As the cold penetrating steel made its passage forward through the layers of astounded human tissue, Thabethe’s wiry left arm snaked out around the guard’s neck and pulled him backward. Thabethe’s words rasped into his ear.

  ‘Is nice? Nè? Just like sosatie, nè? But this kebab is too fat nè?’

  On each nè? he thrust the spoke deeper and deeper, until with the last push the sharp steel point burst through the front of the man’s tunic. The guard stared in anguished horror at the bloody spike protruding from his belly and felt Mgwazeni’s hand reaching down to the keys that were attached to his belt. As the keys were lifted, he fell down onto his knees with wide staring eyes, facing Wakashe, who stared back at him, devoid of any feeling other than admiration for the skills of his new friends opposite.

  Thabethe bent down as the guard fell, his right arm still reaching through between the bars, and withdrew the spoke. The guard toppled forward onto his face.

  Within seconds Thabethe had flung aside the spoke and Mgwazeni had their cell-door open. As Mgwazeni went across to free Wakashe, Thabethe pulled the guard over onto his back and rifled through his pockets. He ripped open the wallet he found in the breast pocket and a quick look through the contents told him that it contained cash, credit card, and two debit cards. Searching further through the wallet produced a scrap of paper in the coin-pouch. Astounding. H
ere was a man who wrote his pin numbers on a piece of paper and kept them, along with the cards, in the same wallet.

  Thabethe pocketed the wallet. Then he snatched the keys back from Mgwazeni as Wakashe emerged from his cell.

  ‘Quick. They’ll come back soon.’

  The three men ran down the passage to the first gate, and tried three keys before they struck the right one. They burst through, and then immediately skidded to a halt. Thabethe saw a briefcase tucked in under the small desk fronting the security gate. He snatched it and continued on the frenetic journey to gate number two. They got through the second gate with the first key they tried, then they continued on down the next passage. Within seconds they found that the renovations taking place had resulted in three of the normally closed barricades being propped wide open - barricades that Thabethe and Mgwazeni had studied on their first arrival and that they had thought, pessimistically, would be their final undoing even if they managed to get this far. But for now the gods were smiling.

  With Thabethe still clutching the briefcase they dashed toward the first vehicle they saw. No keys. They tried the next vehicle. No keys. They tried the next. Keys in the ignition. Within seconds the car started and they churned up sand and grass as they lurched forward, smashed against the partly-opened exterior gate, and found themselves hurtling down the road toward freedom. The last thing Thabethe remembered seeing was the gold-coloured lettering on the sign at the front as they passed through.

  Welcome to Durban Correctional Services: A place of new beginnings.

  08.45.

  Ryder slurped an insipid Wimpy coffee while he waited to board his flight for the short hop to Durban. He had day-dreamed further about his UK sojourn, and wondered what he could write in his report to satisfy the donor who had funded his visit.

  He had met some sharp detectives in the Thames Valley Police, but none of them had seemed significantly different to his colleagues in Durban. As sharp observers and sleuths, Koekemoer and Dippenaar and Pillay would hold their own against any of those guys, he thought. Navi Pillay would probably outclass any of them in hand-to-hand combat. Furthermore, judging from his assessment of the average weight of the cops he had met, Navi would definitely outpace any of them over a hundred metres. He hadn’t met anyone in forensics who could rival Nadine Salm, either. As for day-to-day management and leadership, Sibongiseni Nyawula was definitely up there with the very best of them.

  The real difference, he mused, was higher up in the organisation. There were some sharp cookies at the top of UK police management, and the country seemed to have sorted out the political interface between police management and government bodies. The politicians kept their noses out of police work, and if they didn’t the media would be on to them instantly. That was the essential difference, when he compared it with the South African system. That, and the fact that the top police management figures in the UK were articulate in front of the media. Almost at spin-doctor level, thought Ryder, but much more direct and trustworthy than their political counterparts.

  How was Ryder going to get that argument through in his report? And what was he doing, even thinking that particular thought? Why shouldn’t he just tell it as he saw it? Was he becoming part of the very problem he had identified? Why, he mused, are people so worried about speaking their minds? Why do those people in that university committee meeting-room scribble child-like naughty comments on the agenda paper instead of openly confronting their idiotic obsessive chairman? Why do the good cops worry that they’ll get nailed if they simply tell the Commissioners to butt out of police investigations and take their political agendas elsewhere?

  Ryder realised that the source of these day-dreaming thoughts was the newspaper on the seat next to him. Someone had discarded it, and Ryder had glanced casually at it, with its front-page story about the Minister of Police and a top Johannesburg cop and the Commissioner, all at loggerheads amidst allegations of political interference. And the criminals were doubtless chortling with joy.

  Ryder picked up the newspaper and turned to the sports page.

  09.40.

  Thabethe was ecstatic. The briefcase contained yet another wallet where the owner had scribbled down the pin-codes for his cards. Blessed are the idiots, he screamed with delight to his companions. This time the owner had written the pin numbers in ballpoint on the interior flap of the wallet. Thabethe saw that the second wallet contained a credit card and a debit card, along with a small amount of cash. He added to the second wallet the bank cards and the scrap of paper and cash from the wallet he had retrieved off the body of the first guard. Then he flung the first wallet out of the window.

  The three men dumped the vehicle outside a house in KwaMashu Section K and made their way on foot along a brief section of Sikwehle Road before turning into one of the side streets, eventually arriving at Wakashe’s shack some blocks away, at the back of a property in Dada Road. Wakashe’s mother beat a hasty retreat. She knew one thing for sure about her son. He brought trouble wherever he went, and she had long ago abandoned any effort to speak to him about his activities. She knew he was supposed to be in jail. He had been sent there only last week. This could mean only one thing: the amaphoyisa would be along soon, asking questions on the whereabouts of her son.

  These new men he had brought home with him, especially the man with the big eyes, seemed to her to represent even more trouble. The best way to deal with this, she reasoned, was to seek out her sister two blocks away in Sikwehle Road and ask if she could move in with her for a couple of days. This would not be the first time she had done that, in an effort to get away from her renegade son. She felt more secure at her sister’s place. Sikwehle road was known to be comparatively safe these days because it had a vigilant and very well-organised Street Committee.

  Left alone with his two new friends, Wakashe brought out the beer, declaring that the oppressive heat and humidity of KwaMashu would soon evaporate even his blood unless he could find some way to cool down. The heat in this place could get so oppressive that it took the fish out of the water - likhipa inhlanzi emanzini, he proclaimed - adding that this demanded some ice-cold luxury as a refreshing change from the foul water of the prison in Westville. In a textured and idiomatic form of isiZulu used normally by only rural Zulu-speakers, Wakashe engaged his friends in conversation laden with plaudits for Thabethe, and laced with gratitude and admiration for both of them.

  Mgwazeni’s Zulu was equally fluent and idiomatic, while Thabethe’s more urban use of the language was more direct than colourful, but sufficiently in touch, and the three men had no need to resort to English.

  Thabethe, keeping key facts to himself, let Wakashe know that both he and Mgwazeni had been arrested three months previously by a Durban cop who had on more than one occasion destroyed his business operations. That cop had put him in jail, along with Mgwazeni, and that cop would pay for what he had done.

  ‘Who is this cop? Tell me, brothers. Tell me and maybe we three can get him. Maybe you can give him the spoke like you did to that guy who broke my fingers. Who is this cop?’

  ‘That one is Detective Jeremy Ryder,’ said Thabethe. ‘You spell it funny. Not R-I-D-E-R. It is R-Y-D-E-R.’

  ‘That man, my friend, I will kill him for you. I will show him the spear of my fathers.’

  ‘No, Wakashe. No. That man is for me. That man is mine. I am going to get that detective. Maybe you can have his wife. His wife, that woman, for her you can use your other spear. But me, I am going to have that cop. Or maybe you can have that cop’s two sons. I’ve seen that man’s two sons. You can teach this guy a lesson by taking his wife and his family. But him? No. I want him. I want him for the spoke.’

  Mgwazeni added to the growing levity. That cop also had a partner, he told Wakashe. An Indian woman. An Indian tokoloshe who had arrested him while Ryder had arrested Skhura. That Indian woman was for him. He was going to cut her up into pieces.

  ‘Mgwazeni has a good name, nè?’ Thabethe added. ‘Mgwazeni: the one wh
o stabs.’

  They laughed, and drank, and joked, and cursed until they had finished all the beer. As they did so, Thabethe dreamed of how he would take down the detective that had frustrated him at every turn.

  He also drank so much that he threw caution to the wind. Normally, Thabethe would not have shared so soon with this new friend the information that he had once had constant access to a secret stash of cash, buried in a tin near Nomivi’s Tavern. The proceeds of a flourishing trade in nyaope. He had shared this information with Mgwazeni only after more than two months together in a cell. Only, in fact, when they had been moved to the double cell ten days ago. By then he thought he could trust Mgwazeni. By then, too, there were no other ears about.

  Now he extended the information immediately to this new friend. He had made one hundred thousand rands very rapidly, he told Wakashe, and he had kept his profits lying in a tin six inches below ground. Money that Thabethe had earned through his efforts in developing a slick trade in dealing nyaope. Money from the sale of the drug, using street-wise kids who would never be caught. Money that could have grown, in time, to a million rands if it had not been for the interfering Detective Jeremy Ryder.

  Thabethe seethed with anger as he thought of what might have been, and he pondered how he might claw back the business that he had lost since Ryder took him down three months ago.

  ‘One hundred thousand rands? You got buried in a tin?’ asked Wakashe.

  Thabethe and Mgwazeni could both see the impact of this thought on Wakashe. This was a new friend indeed. A man who would probably be completely compliant because of the smell of money. Until he saw actual cash. Who knows what might happen then?

  ‘Yes, but not now. Not any more,’ replied Thabethe. ‘I was having the money there but I was using it all. What I’m saying is that I can fill up that tin very quickly with my business. I know how.’