Death Dealing

by Ian Patrick

‘Oh. Ja. I see. Sorry. I thought… but when you were small…’

  ‘I was born next door to the Musgrave Shopping Centre. I’m living in the same flat where my mother had me as a baby.’

  ‘Oh. Ja. Well. I see. Anyway, you ever seen a guy as evil as this? I mean, you know, even in Musgrave it can be dangerous. If I had a daughter who…’

  ‘Here comes some mansplaining, Navi,’ said Ryder. ‘Watch it unfold.’

  ‘What? What’s that, Jeremy. What’s mans-planning?’

  ‘Mansplaining, Koeks,’ interjected Pillay. ‘Jeremy’s just alerting us to a big explanation coming along from you in a few seconds. From a man. All for Mavis’s benefit. In case she doesn’t understand, you know? I mean, she’s only a woman.’

  Koekemoer was dumbfounded for a second. Then they all burst out laughing, Mavis loudest of all.

  ‘Jirra, you okes. It’s hard for a guy to even…’

  ‘Don’t worry, uncle Koeks,’ said Mavis. ‘It’s not a problem. We’re just joking. But you’re right. It’s dangerous out there, and I have seen some very bad people. I must take you to visit my friend Nonnie in KwaMashu some day. She lives in a very bad area. I can show you some people there. But it’s not safe for a white Afrikaner man, you know. It would be OK if you came along with us, though. Nonnie and I know how to look after ourselves. You’ll be safe with us.’

  ‘Yissus, ou Koeks,’ said Dippenaar, as the others chuckled, ‘remember when Mavis was this shy young intern. Now she’s a constable she’s a big tough…’

  ‘Not so much on the word big, please, uncle Dipps,’ said Mavis. ‘I’m losing weight every time I go to one of Navi’s classes. You should go too, you and Koeks. Navi can teach you to protect yourself against the people with evil eyes. Especially men with evil eyes.’

  ‘You go, girl!’ said Pillay.

  ‘OK guys,’ said Ryder, getting to his feet and interrupting the levity. ‘So we know these men picked up just short of ten thousand before the cards were cancelled, and we know where they were just before three o’clock on Saturday and between eleven and twelve on Sunday and on Monday. We need to get out to each of these locations and ask around to see who might remember seeing any of them at around those times.’

  They agreed a plan of action, and all started moving out. Ryder paused to pick up a message from Cronje, while KoeksnDips made their way to their cars philosophising about the woes of white men.

  ‘Mavis, can I speak to you for a minute?’

  ‘Sure, Navi. What is it?’

  They stood on the stairs leading into the car park, Pillay still nursing a polystyrene cup of coffee.

  ‘Just a spontaneous thought. I wondered whether you wanted to come over to my place for dinner tomorrow night. We could discuss your research project.’

  ‘Oh dear, Navi. I’m so sorry. I can’t. I’m going to have dinner with a friend in KwaMashu. I…’

  ‘Oh. OK. No problem. It’s very short notice. I just thought…’

  ‘I’m really sorry. I’d love to do that. It’s just that tomorrow night…’

  ‘Don’t say another word. It was entirely on a whim. I loved the exchange with Koeks inside, and it just struck me that you and I should spend a bit of social time together. We only ever meet at work.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Navi. I would like that very much.’

  ‘Is the friend you’re having dinner with the same one you told me about on Sunday? The one who went with you to that tavern? With her brother?’

  ‘Yes. That’s the one. Nonnie. Nonhlanhla. She’s been a friend for many years. Since high school. She… um… well, she invited me to dinner with her brother, and…’

  Mavis had the sense that Mavis was a little embarrassed. Maybe the mention of the brother was the cause, she thought.

  ‘OK, well, I better get going, Mavis. I’ll catch up later.’

  ‘Thank you, Navi. But please, let’s do it together sometime soon. I’d really like to.’

  They punched fists lightly and Pillay went down into the car park while Mavis went inside. She bumped into Ryder coming out.

  ‘So long, Mavis,’ he said. ‘See you later.’

  ‘Bye, Jeremy.’

  She went in and Ryder caught up with Pillay.

  ‘Want to join me, Navi? I’ve just had a quick word with Pauline. She invited me to stop in for a coffee. Nadine’s in good hands, she said.’

  ‘Love to, Jeremy. Will she mind if I just arrive with you?’

  ‘Course not. She said she was feeling better. She said she’d thought that she wanted to be alone but after a couple of hours of it she decided that that was not necessarily a good policy, so she said I should let people know she’s changed her mind about being a hermit and anyone is welcome. Except at visiting hours, of course, when she’ll be at the hospital with Nadine.’

  ‘The brief bit I heard this morning sounded really awful. You going to tell me more about what happened last night?’

  ‘Sure. Hop in. We’ll just spend half an hour there. Pauline makes the best coffee.’

  ‘I’ve heard you say that exact same sentence using the names of about six different people. Sounds like whoever makes coffee for Jeremy Ryder makes the best coffee around.’

  ‘You got it. Let’s go.’

  They got into the Camry and drove out of the car park.

  13.15.

  Police cordons had been set up very quickly. A team from Forensic Services arrived at the scene at a quarter past one and commenced their work in the first instance on the body in the street. They would work on the bodies in the building only later.

  The nursing staff in Addington Hospital would later give evidence to the effect that Mr Kwanele Khuzwayo had come all the way from Pietermaritzburg and attended his check-up appointment as arranged. They had checked his head wound, cleaned it, changed the dressings, and advised him to continue with the tablets he had received when initially attended to by the medics. He appeared to them to be in good spirits, though a little distant. He answered to their questions in monosyllables, and had not pursued any line of conversation they opened with him.

  The investigating officers would later compile a report that tracked his movements after leaving the care of the nurses in question. Drawing on CTV footage, eyewitness accounts, and contradictory evidence from a number of witnesses, the final report would indicate that Mr Khuzwayo left the nurses and turned in the direction opposite to the one leading to the exit hall. He took the stairs rather than the elevator, and the CTV camera on the second floor recorded him entering the ward of the man known by the nursing staff on the floor as Toothpick. Before entering the man’s ward, the camera showed that Mr Khuzwayo drew a weapon from a shoulder-holster under his left arm. The weapon was later identified by the first responders as an illegal large capacity magazine weapon. They also reported that the first assessment of the crime scene led them to believe that Mr Khuzwayo had stowed in different pockets of his casual hiking jacket two extra magazines each containing fifteen rounds. The entire first magazine was used on the man named Toothpick. Fifteen bullets were fired, all of them entering his face, most of them in the region of his mouth. It was likely that the very first bullet proved fatal, but Khuzwayo had continued firing until the magazine was empty. The victim’s face was entirely destroyed.

  The same CTV camera then caught him leaving the room. It showed him discarding the first magazine as he walked and replacing it with the second, also containing fifteen rounds. By the time he reached the ward containing the second of the six men, the pistol was fully loaded. He went to each of the remaining five victims in turn. In each case, it was testified by witnesses and by cross-reference in some instances to different CTV cameras, Mr Khuzwayo spoke to the victims prior to shooting them. All of them were shot in the face and in the face only. Whereas the first victim had received fifteen bullets, each of the others received either four or five bullets to the face.

  Khuzwayo then made his way to the top floor of the hospital, from where he f
orced a janitor at gunpoint to provide him with access to the roof of the building. The janitor escaped unharmed, and was able to testify that Mr Khuzwayo had then jumped to his death in the street below.

  The first responders submitted their report, and the matter was referred for further investigation.

  14.45.

  At Pillay’s suggestion, on the way they had called Pauline Soames to ask whether they could upgrade the coffee invitation and bring her some lunch. She agreed, and they then stopped in to buy a few things. When they got to Pauline’s apartment Pillay and Ryder rustled up an impressive lunch while they spoke to her.

  By the time they had eaten she was in high spirits. She was much better, Ryder whispered to Pillay during a break when their host fetched more coffee, than he could have hoped for given the circumstances of the early morning. As they left her apartment Pillay and Ryder agreed that she seemed to be fully recovered and on top of things. She would be visiting Nadine during visiting hours both in the afternoon and the evening, and she would keep them informed if there were any significant developments.

  The two detectives felt much better about the situation as they drove away.

  ‘Oh, look,’ said Pillay. ‘I hadn’t realised. That’s the apartment block where Mavis lives. I wonder if she knows she’s a close neighbour of Nadine and Pauline?’

  ‘I think she does. I think I heard them mention it once.’

  ‘Lots of people migrating up to the Berea and around here, from further down. Funny how cities gradually move their centre of gravity, and in so many cases the movement is northward.’

  ‘Not so slowly, either. I know lots of people who are moving away.’

  They drove all the way up Musgrave Road and turned down toward the city on the M17, following it until it became Sandile Thusi Road. That was when Ryder received a call from Piet Cronje.

  ‘Yes, Piet?’

  ‘Sorry, Jeremy. Bad news. Captain said I should let you know.’

  ‘What, Piet? I hate receiving calls like this from you.’

  ‘Mr Khuzwayo, Jeremy.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘He topped himself at lunchtime.’

  Ryder hated the expression. He answered Pillay’s enquiring look.

  ‘Khuzwayo has committed suicide.’

  Pillay was shocked. Ryder continued with the call from Cronje.

  ‘How, Piet? Where? Lunchtime you say?’

  What Cronje had to say next was enough to have Ryder screech to a halt and pull the Camry over to the kerb. It was also enough for him to get out of the car and walk up and down the pavement as he received all the details. Pillay also got out, and walked next to him. She could hear from Ryder’s responses what had happened, but it was only when he shut down the call to Cronje that he could give her more precise information. They stood on the pavement next to the Camry and digested all the details.

  The two detectives were mortified. They drove in silence back to Station Command.

  16.05.

  Thabethe and Wakashe were sitting at a table tucked away in the far corner of the Mugg & Bean in Musgrave Centre. Thabethe had told his two friends a few hours earlier that he had a craving for one of the M&B’s famous Gourmet Burgers with chunky fries. They had agreed with alacrity. He’d chosen the Black and Blue burger and the others had both gone for Big Daddies. Having finished their meal they were now finishing off with coffees. Mgwazeni had gone to the toilet. Thabethe was scanning a newspaper while Wakashe was staring at two women at a table nearby. The two women asked the waiter if they could relocate to a table on the other side of the restaurant and Wakashe was now sneering at them as they moved.

  ‘Durban women, Skhura. They’re stuck-up. All of them. They think they’re too good for us.’

  Thabethe grunted, continuing to page through the newspaper.

  ‘Here comes Mgwazeni. He looks like he wants to tell us something big.’

  Thabethe looked up and saw what he meant. Mgwazeni was in a hurry. He joined them at the table, speaking animatedly.

  ‘I just heard something, comrades. One guy was listening to the four o’clock news on the radio on his phone there in the toilet. He told me. Big thing at Addington Hospital.’

  ‘What big thing,’ asked Wakashe.

  ‘Some guy, he walks in with a gun and he kills six people. Dead. Finished. Then he’s killing himself.’

  ‘He’s killing doctors?’ asked Thabethe.

  ‘No. He’s killing six patients in their beds. Shooting them dead. All of them.’

  Thabethe shrugged. It was not particularly shocking to him. He was interested simply because he had once worked as an orderly in the hospital. He remembered the much-discussed case of a woman’s body being found in the basement there. He would have been much more interested had the man killed six doctors. That would have pleased Thabethe, as he recalled with no fondness the bossy people to whom he had reported at the time.

  Nevertheless, Thabethe became a little more interested with Mgwazeni’s next words.

  ‘This guy in the toilet. He’s telling me that the man who killed the six guys was the same man who was robbed by the same guys on Monday. They broke into his house in Glenwood, there, and they killed the man’s sons. Then the cops caught the guys and they ended up in hospital. Then this father goes to the hospital and kills them. Then he kills himself…’

  Thabethe had risen to his feet and the other two stared at him. Then they, too, an instant later, understood what Thabethe had recognised. Within seconds they were sitting down again, huddled in an excited whispered exchange. Thabethe was reminding them of what the guy with the matchstick was saying to them on Sunday. They remembered the venomous way he had spat out the name Khuzwayo.

  ‘That’s it!’ said Mgwazeni. ‘The guy in the toilet was telling me that name. Khuzwayo. The man who killed himself, on the news they were saying his name was Khuzwayo.’

  ‘I remember when that guy, matchstick man, when he said that name I remember I was thinking yes, maybe it’s true, the name Khuzwayo means he who is warned. I was thinking then that someone should warn this man Khuzwayo about old matchstick.’

  They sniggered at the thought. None of them was particularly interested in Khuzwayo’s fate, but Thabethe did draw their attention to one further thought he had about the matter.

  ‘You see why I’m saying, comrades, it’s all right to sell whoonga but you shouldn’t have too much of it yourself. You want to burn your brains, like matchstick, then smoke it. Me, I like just a little bit to smoke. But I like much more to sell. These guys who smoke too much, they are moegoe. I don’t have anything to do with them. I’m not like them. Whoonga will kill them. Not me. Me, I’m too clever.’

  They departed, chuckling together in gleeful companionship.

  16.15.

  They were all gathered around Nyawula’s desk. Ryder was leaning back against the wall, arms folded. Pillay and Tshabalala were in the two chairs in front of Nyawula’s desk. Nyawula was seated behind the desk. KoeksnDips and Cronje were all standing with hands in pockets. All were in shirt-sleeves. The two fans were circulating warm air. All were perspiring.

  ‘Yissus!’ exclaimed Dippenaar. ‘Those bastards. Not only did they kill the two sons. Now the family’s lost the dad.’

  ‘That’s not even half of it, really, Dipps,’ said Pillay. ‘Mrs Khuzwayo and the daughter are going to suffer for the rest of their lives.’

  ‘I wish I could have been put in a room with the six guys, Captain. Me and a baseball bat.’

  ‘Then I would have lost a good cop, Koeks,’ replied Nyawula. ‘So I’m glad we didn’t do that.’

  ‘What, Captain? You think I couldn’t have handled those guys?’

  ‘The Captain’s not saying you would have lost a fight against them, Koeks,’ said Cronje. ‘He’s just saying that if you did that then you would have ended up in jail.’

  ‘That’s right, Koeks. That’s all I meant. It would have been different if you’d taken them down while they were resis
ting arrest. Then you could have used whatever weapon you wanted to, even a baseball bat. As long as you could argue that it was in self-defence or they pulled a gun on you, or resisting arrest, or…’

  ‘Ja. True, hey, Captain,’ he replied. ‘If only Jeremy had killed the bastards when he took them down, instead of just putting them in hospital. Old Khuzwayo would still be alive today.’

  There was a horrified silence in the room as everyone, including Koekemoer, suddenly realised the impact of that statement on Ryder. They all looked at Ryder. He was stunned by the statement, as if he had only just realised the implications.

  ‘Ag, sorry, Jeremy. I didn’t mean it like that, you know. I was just…’

  ‘It’s OK, Koeks. OK. Don’t worry. But you’re right, of course. Those six men were the lowest, most vile… there would have been few people who would have wasted more than a few seconds thinking about it if I’d put them down for good.’

  He paused. Nobody offered a comment. They all watched him. Pillay, especially, was deeply concerned. She knew Ryder. There was that look again. He was travelling. Miles away.

  ‘OK, everyone,’ Nyawula said. ‘The press will be all over this. I need to work on something to give them.’

  ‘There was a discussion on talk radio just as I was coming in, Captain,’ said Mavis. ‘They were inviting people to call in and say whether, if Mr Khuzwayo hadn’t jumped, he should have gone to jail or whether he should have been released. Not one person was saying anything different. Every single caller was saying that if that was the case then he should not have stood trial. Everyone said that he should have been set free. They were saying an eye for an eye and things like…’

  ‘Just what we need,’ said the Captain. ‘A vigilante society. Person with the biggest gun wins. I wish these radio talk shows would slow down a bit and arrange a more reasoned discussion… Anyway, please, everyone, just refer all calls from the media to me. Let’s also do everything we can to respect the Khuzwayo name. No comment is better than any comment I can think of, at present. We need to work on something that will satisfy people. But still tell the truth. Let’s go.’