by Ian Patrick
‘Wait for it, guys,’ said Ryder. ‘Thabethe broke out of prison in Westville on Saturday morning.’
The cacophony that greeted Nyawula and Ryder was worse than they had imagined it would be. The detectives were outraged. Pillay’s response was the foulest by far in language, but the volume of the responses from Koekemoer and Dippenaar was enough to bring Piet Cronje to the door.
‘It’s OK, Piet. KoeksnDips are just busting a gut over the news of Thabethe’s escape, and Navi’s rewriting the dictionary.’
‘Yissus, Captain. I thought they were lynching you. I’m sure the sound will travel up to the Brigadier’s office.’
Cronje closed the door and retreated into his office as Nyawula continued.
‘Jeremy was speaking to Warrant Officer Mphe at Westville. She says that Thabethe made the break on Saturday along with the same guy that was originally jailed along with him. What’s his name, Navi? The one you took down three months ago?’
‘Mgwazeni,’ replied Pillay.
‘That’s the one. Jeremy, you want to tell them what you found out?’
‘Westville told me that Thabethe and Mgwazeni broke out along with a third guy whose name they weren’t sure of. They named him as Mofokeng at first, then said they weren’t sure. There appeared to be some disagreement about who he actually was. So they’re on the case and will let me know soon who we’re looking for. Anyway, I understand that the prison was undergoing massive renovations and extensions and that the three of them were housed, unusually, in a relatively deserted wing off the beaten track. They managed to overpower a guard, take his keys, and steal a vehicle.’
‘They killed the guard,’ interjected Nyawula. ‘With Thabethe’s trademark choice of weapon.’
‘Omigod,’ said Pillay. ‘Not a bicycle spoke?’
‘Not quite,’ replied Nyawula. ‘A wheelchair spoke. One of them managed to smuggle into their cell a spoke from a wheelchair being repaired on the premises. Sorry, Jeremy. Please continue.’
‘The Westville prison guys are in a bit of a shambles and still not very clear about what exactly happened. The cops from Westville Station Command have been looking at the scene. One of the detectives I know up there, Mpho Mphe, told me that because of the renovations just about every single protocol at the prison had been ignored. Three gates were not only unlocked but left wide open. Two of them were actually propped open against their retracting springs, if you can believe it. Looks like the three thugs had everything except the red carpet helping them on their way.’
‘You say they stole a vehicle, Jeremy?’
‘Yes, Koeks,’ Ryder replied. ‘A couple of the vehicles had keys in the ignition. There was so much coming and going with builders and planners and various deliveries of construction materials that whoever was in charge was simply overwhelmed by it all and basic security was shelved for the day. Whether Thabethe and his cronies planned this or whether they just got lucky on the day they chose to make a move, no-one knows.
‘Any news on where they went, Jeremy?’
‘Yes, Dipps. The car was traced to KwaMashu. Abandoned in Section K, according to Mpho. Westville have got two constables making enquiries in the area and are following up a possible lead with a reported sighting of three strangers from someone living in a place on Sikwehle Road. An older woman heads up the local Street Committee and the guy reported it to her rather than to the police. She’s quite fierce, apparently, and reports about anything out of the ordinary go to her in the first instance. The Captain and I have been talking about picking this up, guys. We think that Thabethe won’t spend a lot of time mucking about, and will be back soon onto his old nyaope customers. We need to get out and about and make some enquiries at his old haunts, and see what we can find.’
‘Thanks, Jeremy,’ said Nyawula. ‘Koeks, Dipps, can you do two things? Firstly, see what information you can pick up from the six patients Jeremy put in hospital. I can’t ask Jeremy to do that, for obvious reasons. Might cause heart attacks, too, and then we’ll be sued. Be careful. Only light questioning. Make sure you speak to them with their legal aid present. See if you can find out where they got their whoonga. See if they react at all to the name Thabethe. Secondly, after that, can you get out to Nomivi’s Tavern and see whether you can pick up any information on whether Thabethe has been seen since Saturday?’
Koekemoer and Dippenaar chorused in affirmation.
‘Navi, can you get over to the Westville cops on duty in Sikwehle Road? Jeremy can give you the cell-phone number for the lead person who’s making the enquiries out there.’
‘Sure thing, Captain.’
‘Mavis, will you do something for me, please? I need some information on this third guy who broke out with the other two. Mofokeng or whoever he is. Speak to Piet. He’s in touch with his opposite number at Westville and they’re going to pull the file on the guy. But I need you to go beyond the file and see what else you can find about him.’
‘Yes, Captain.’
‘OK, people. I know you’ve got lots of other stuff on your plates, but let’s see what you can come up with. In the meantime, please, someone, find a picture of Thabethe and put it over the dartboard in Piet’s office. I need some practice.’
As they moved out of Nyawula’s office Ryder took Pillay aside and they walked outside into the car park as he added snippets of information gleaned from his conversation with the Westville detectives. Then they stood next to Ryder’s Camry as he spoke further.
‘I’ve just thought of something else, Navi. With all the confusion at Westville I thought I’d get out to the prison myself and ask a few questions. Want to come along with me on your way out to KwaMashu?’
‘Sure thing. What do you have in mind?’
‘I was thinking. If I were Thabethe and was breaking out of jail after being inside for a couple of months, the first thing I’d need would be some cash.’
‘You think he might have mugged someone in the vicinity? Should we check on local crime reports at Westville SC?’
‘We could pop the question, but Westville SC are in a bit of a panic so it might be better if we don’t come at them from too many different directions. Mavis is going to be up there checking on the identity of the third guy, so she could pick up the extra information for us while she’s doing that. No, what I thought you and I could do is go straight to the prison itself and ask a few questions.’
‘Sounds good.’
They hailed Mavis as she, too, came into the car park, and Ryder asked her to solicit the extra information when she was at Westville Command. Then he and Pillay drove in separate cars out to the prison.
Within half an hour they had obtained the information that Ryder needed. Yes, he was told in response to his specific question, the prison management had checked on the deceased guard’s possessions at the time of his death. Yes, indeed, they had notified the family and checked with them about their own understanding of what the man must have had in his possession on the day of the unfortunate incident. Yes, they had subsequently agreed with the family that the absence of his wallet necessitated someone contacting the bank and cancelling the related debit and credit cards. The additional information obtained by Ryder was that apart from the deceased guard another of the guards had also suffered a loss of his wallet along with his briefcase, and he, too, had reported the matter to his own bank. The only problem, the detectives were told, was that all of this took a couple of days and the bank cards had only been cancelled on Monday morning.
Before Ryder and Pillay left the prison Ryder made a quick call to Piet Cronje. He provided the various card details and arranged for the sergeant to follow up with the banks concerned. He specifically needed Cronje to obtain any information that was available on the possible use of the bank cards between Saturday morning and Monday morning.
Cronje told Ryder that he would be on the case like a Sharks number eight onto a loose ball. Ryder expressed the view that he hoped Cronje could do better than that, and he and Pillay drove
away from the prison in their separate cars.
14.05.
Mavis Tshabalala stood outside the Westville Police Station as the constable placed a plastic chair against the wall for her. There was no available office or desk inside, they told her, and she replied that she was quite comfortable to go through the file outside and enjoy some fresh air while she made some notes. In her hand was the file on the man who had escaped on Saturday morning with two prisoners named Thabethe and Mgwazeni.
The constable who helped her had been very attentive. As he positioned two upended milk crates intended to serve as a desk she nursed the mug of coffee he had prepared for her. He told her not to hesitate if she needed anything, and went back inside. He said he’d get busy immediately on the other request she had made: a report on local muggings in the vicinity of the prison since the break-out on Saturday morning, especially any cases of people having had cash stolen from them.
Mavis sat down, made herself comfortable, took a sip of coffee, and placed her mug on the makeshift table. Then she opened the file on the prisoner known as Mofokeng.
14.10.
Detectives Koekemoer and Dippenaar were at Addington Hospital. They stood in front of the bed of the man they called perp number four. The patient’s head was bandaged, as was his throat. His eyes were puffed up and swollen, and when he spoke the sound was barely vocalised. His words came out on a column of air, unvoiced, in no more than a forced whisper.
The man’s young legal aid representative sitting in the corner of the room seemed very nervous. The two detectives concluded after his inaudible and inarticulate introduction of himself that he was probably on his first assignment. He kept quiet throughout, emitting nervous coughs every few seconds.
Koekemoer and Dippenaar did not, in any case, say or do anything that was likely to elicit any protest from an inexperienced legal representative. They might have been a little more careful with someone more experienced in the room, but they felt that their presence had already intimidated the young representative even more than they had intimidated the patient.
The detectives made some subtle and some not-so-subtle references to the discussion they had just had in the ward next door with the patient’s friend, perp number three, who, they said, had been very helpful to them. Number four was confused and wary, not knowing how much the detectives knew and weighing up the chances of him receiving a lighter sentence if he co-operated with amaphoyisa.
‘So listen, my friend,’ said Koekemoer. ‘Detective Dippenaar here is a very impatient kind of man, you know? He’s the type who gets the hell in when people in custody make things worse for themselves. Is that not so, Detective Dippenaar?’
‘Definitely. Vragtig! Absolutely right, Detective Koekemoer. I get really woes, you know? When I hear people lying to me, or holding back on the facts when they know I’m going to find out the truth, anyway, once I question their friends. I get really angry because I can see their prison sentences just getting longer and longer the more they lie to me, you know? Then I have to…’
‘Ja, Detective Dippenaar. You’re right there, hey? All these guys in jail for so many years because the judge just got pissed off with them telling lies, when they could have got half the sentence if they just came out and told the truth. Just think of it. Twenty-five years in jail, and if they had just told the truth the judge might have given them twelve years. Out again for good behaviour after seven or eight years. But instead, they stay in for twenty-five years. Shame, man. I feel sorry for the guys, you know?’
‘Not me. I don’t care, you know, Detective Koekemoer? I just think what the hell, we’ll get the information anyway so they can go on and get their longer sentences, what does it matter to me?’
‘So, my friend,’ said Koekemoer, turning back to the man in the bed. ‘What’s it going to be, hey? Are you going to tell me the same thing your friend next door has just told me, or are we going to report that he told the truth and you told us nothing, so, judge, can you give this guy here double the sentence of the other guy, please? Are you going to tell me, just so that we can check your friend’s story, where you got your whoonga from and who was the guy who sold it to you?’
Within minutes the two detectives had obtained the information they needed. They now knew where the six men had bought their whoonga, what quantity, how much they had paid for it, where the deal went down, and who the man was behind the sale. They were unable to elicit any names. It was clear that the patient had not known the names of the men he had met. But the two detectives knew immediately from the description exactly who it was that the patient and his cronies had dealt with.
It was a man with scary eyes.
14.15.
Pillay arrived in Sikwehle Road in KwaMashu. The two constables who had been making enquiries in the neighbourhood were supervising the tow-truck as it hitched up the vehicle that had been stolen from the prison, and they briefed the detective on what they had learned. The movements on Saturday of the three escaped prisoners were not yet fully clear to her, but she was left in no doubt that the three men had passed through this way. She also received from the constables a detailed report on the stolen car, which had been thoroughly examined. Finally, they said, they had asked a resident to request the woman who headed up the local Street Committee to come down the street to talk to them while they supervised the removal of the vehicle. They wanted to talk to her about any other possible leads they might follow.
Pillay saw the woman striding toward them, purposefully. At a distance she looked much younger than her years. They had said she was sixty-something. Pillay had been expecting someone with some wrinkles in the face and some lines of experience reflecting the poverty that abounded in this neighbourhood. She expected a body to go with that: perhaps a plump woman who walked with a cane, or at least a limp, or someone who walked slowly, or who rolled as she walked. Not this woman. She was thin and wiry and she strode as if she was marching to the podium at an athletics meeting to collect her medal.
As she approached, Pillay saw that there were indeed lines in the face, and the woman’s visage did indeed bear the marks of a hard life. Her jaw was clenched in a way that brought her nose into closer proximity with her chin than should be the case in most women that age. As a consequence of this the lips appeared as very thin straight lines, pursed together with a determined conviction.
She was introduced to Pillay by the constables, who then both took a step back as if they knew what was coming. Pillay managed to thrust out her hand in greeting and get a few words out before the tirade started.
‘Hullo, Mrs Xaba. I’m Detective Navi Pillay from Durban. We’re searching for criminals who broke out of prison. I believe you are head of the Street Committee…’
‘I am the head, yes. We do everything by ourselves in this street because amaphoyisa they are useless. They are lazy. They are stupid. They are crooks. The courts they are useless. The judges they are crooks. Nobody there in town can help us. We only, us, here, we can help the people who live here. We keep our eyes open here…’
With the woman speaking at top volume it was not long before neighbours started appearing at their front doors or windows, or at their front-yard fences. People called to family members within their homes, or called over fences to people in the houses next door. Let’s go and listen. Ma Xaba is lambasting another policeman from Durban.
She did so without pausing, stringing sentences together in one long stream of consciousness that drew upon every thought she had ever entertained about the tsotsis that were like a plague of cockroaches living off the good clean-living citizens of Sikwehle Road. She lambasted Pillay as if she was the sole person responsible for the failures of every policeman and policewoman in the land. She expressed the opinion that every criminal should be handed over to her team in the neighbourhood rather than be sent to prison. If they were sent to prison, she said, they would only do drugs. But if they came to her instead, she would teach them a lesson they would never forget. They would wish t
hat they had had her as their mother when they were children, instead of having the no-good parents they must have had, because with one exception no child of hers had ever stolen anything or done anything wrong. They knew that if they had done so they would have had the hiding of their lives. She would have flayed the skin off them and broken their knuckles so that those hands would never have been capable of stealing anything. Only one time, she said, only one time did one of her very own sons forget that rule, and he would never forget it again, because first her good friend had beaten him for stealing something, and when the son had come crying to her and told her what had happened, what did she do? She gave him another beating. Then she had called the woman concerned and congratulated her and thanked her for beating the hell out of the boy and teaching him a lesson that was good for him; and she and that woman had been best friends ever since. That woman, who lived in KwaDukuza, that Mrs Mkhize, was just like her. The two of them ensured that the bad children in the neighbourhood would be rooted out so that the good children could grow up properly. What this country needed, she said, was some weeding. The bad people needed to be pulled out by their roots. The country needed people like her and Mrs Mkhize to keep the younger generation on the right side of the law. It was time, she said, that the idiotic judges in the land were also sent to her and Mrs Mkhize so that they could also be taught a thing or two about what real justice was and about how to hand out justice.
Pillay could do nothing. She noticed neighbours with their hands up to their faces, covering their giggles as they enjoyed the sight of Ma Xaba having a go, again, at the cops and the entire criminal justice system.
The older woman continued, telling Pillay that it was only mothers and grandmothers like herself and Mrs Mkhize who could ensure peace in the street. As she went on, Pillay thought that somewhere, sometime, Jeremy Ryder had told her of a similar experience he had had with a cantankerous old woman, but one who, like this one, was in some perverse way actually on their side, so it was worth it, Ryder had said, to let them get it all out.