by Ian Patrick
‘Ja, I’m telling you, I’ve run a very successful operation here for years, now. I was one of the first…’
‘Sorry. I’m sorry. Do you mind? I’ve just got to do this very quickly, and I…’
‘Ag, ja, sorry, lady. Sorry. I’m talking too much, hey? It’s what my wife says, you know. She teases me a lot about my talking, hey? But one of the reasons I’ve had a successful operation, you know, is that my customers over the years got to know me, you know? I mean, and I got to know them, you know? I remember the one… ag, ja, sorry. Anyway. No. I’ll let you get on with it, then.’
‘Thank you.’
He moved on to the next terminal and started speaking to the young woman there. Meanwhile, Thabethe suddenly whispered excitedly to his companions as he found what he was looking for.
‘There! There she is! That’s the one!’
They all peered in closely, looking at what he had brought up on the screen.
‘Ja! It’s her,’ said Wakashe. ‘That’s the one. She’s the one. What’s her name, Skhura?’
They crowded together, faces close to the screen, as he found her name. He read further, remembering the facts he had read all those weeks ago when looking at the paper version of the same article. He remembered, now, the article had described the talented young SAPS Student Constable Mavis Tshabalala who was seconded to Greytown, but who lived in a tiny flat right next door to the Musgrave Centre on Durban’s Berea. Which she found so convenient, she was quoted as saying, because she so often did her weekly shopping at the Musgrave centre on a Saturday morning.
9 SATURDAY
09.10.
Ryder had cooked one of his cholesterol specials for breakfast at 8.00 a.m. His two sons and Sugar-Bear always approved of them. His wife said on occasion to friends that she merely tolerated them, but in fact she was enormously impressed at her husband’s catering skills when he was in the mood. The family enjoyed the meal outdoors on the front lawn, under a large umbrella in the already blistering heat. Then, with the dog happily at work on the plates scattered over the lawn, Ryder pecked his wife on the cheek before leaving for his 9.30 a.m. workshop downtown.
‘Don’t forget Mavis Tshabalala is delivering something for me sometime in the next few hours,’ he said as he walked to the car.
‘I remember. Mid-day, you said. What is it?’
‘Nothing to do with you.’
‘Oh. I see. Sorry I asked.’
‘Mind your own business,’ he said.
‘OK.’ She pouted, over-acting, knowing that this must have something to do with her birthday the next day.
‘I’ll be back around two. Don’t forget we’re watching the game at three o’clock.’
‘I won’t. I’ll aim to finish cleaning the living room just in time for you to spend the afternoon littering it with your crisps.’
‘And your beer-cans.’
‘You can talk!’
‘Bye.’
‘Bye.’
‘Bye, guys.’
‘Bye dad,’ the two boys chorused together, and started to clear the table. They gathered the dishes to take them inside, followed closely by Sugar-Bear, who felt that he hadn’t quite finished his work on the plates. Fiona spread the newspaper out while enjoying another coffee.
10.25.
Thabethe couldn’t believe his luck. There, twenty paces in front of him in the Musgrave Shopping Centre, was Constable Mavis Tshabalala. She was in the queue for the counter in The Body Shop, where customers were paying for their goods and then having them gift-wrapped by the assistant. Their target was having some hilarious conversation with another customer. They appeared to be finding something very funny, and it had been the high-pitched giggle from Mavis that had attracted his attention.
‘Look! Look, comrades. It’s her! The same one. Look!’
The three of them were almost out of control with excitement. From the moment they had entered the shopping centre half an hour earlier they had done their best to keep their conversations quiet and low-key, and to appear as inconspicuous as possible. Wakashe wore dark glasses and a cap. Mgwazeni wore a balaclava folded up on his head but pulled down low to just above the eyes. Thabethe wore a hooded track-suit top. They were wary of CTV cameras, and they kept their distance from anyone who might be a cop in civvies. The three men had gone about their business in a fairly casual manner, though with their eyes constantly scouting the terrain. But now, on seeing Mavis Tshabalala, they abandoned any attempt to appear casual and nonchalant.
They decided quickly that Mgwazeni should hang around the shelves adjacent to the cash register in the shop so that he could eavesdrop on the cop’s conversation with the other customer. No reason was given for why it should be Mgwazeni who should do it, but they all knew that neither Wakashe with his bandaged hands nor Thabethe with his distinctive eyes should do the deed.
The other two retreated to watch from a distance as Mgwazeni casually drifted into the store and began looking, disinterestedly, at the soaps and oils and lotions on display, while craning his neck to listen to what Mavis was saying to the customer behind her in the queue.
‘He’s a very nice man. They say he’s one of the top detectives in the province. You wouldn’t think so. He’s such a gentle person. I’m hoping to be a detective like him one day.’
‘Well, if you become a detective I’m sure you won’t ask your juniors to go and buy your husband a birthday present for you,’ said the woman. ‘Trust a man.’
‘Oh, no. He didn’t ask me to do it. I just heard him say it was his wife’s birthday and he needed to buy her a present, and he wanted something from The Body Shop, and wasn’t sure when he was going to find the time to do it. He said he had this very big meeting today. I think it’s all day long. A workshop or some long seminar for senior policemen, I think. So I just offered. I told him I would be here anyway, and that I would get the present for him. They live in Westville, and I’m going out to Westville to meet a friend for lunch today, so I said I would drop in and give the present to his wife – but all wrapped up, you know, so that she doesn’t know it’s her birthday present. I’ll tell her he asked me to deliver a package to his home containing work stuff from the office. So after the gift-wrapping I’m going to quickly take it home and wrap some old brown paper all over it and then put it all in a big bag I’ve got and disguise it before I take it to his wife.’
‘Well, be careful. Maybe a detective’s wife will know a thing or two. Maybe she’ll know enough to think you’re up to something.’
‘You’re right. They say at the station that Fiona Ryder is even sharper than Detective Jeremy Ryder.’
That was the sentence that got Mgwazeni going. He immediately backed away and went back to join his friends.
‘What you doing, Mgwazeni?’ hissed Thabethe. ‘You were right there, and those two they’re still talking. You can find out more, bra…’
Breathless with excitement, Mgwazeni stopped him in mid-sentence.
‘Skhura, wait. She was saying something. Big something.’
‘What? What, man?’
‘She was saying better stuff than we were thinking. She is going to take that stuff she is buying, and she is taking it to the house of that Jeremy Ryder detective.’
‘What? What? What you telling me, Mgwazeni?’
‘That one, she is taking that birthday present there to the wife of that detective. She was telling that woman next to her that she is taking that stuff to the wife of Ryder there at his house in Westville, and, bra, better news…’
‘What? What better?’
‘She is saying to that woman that Ryder is at a meeting all day today and she is dropping that stuff at the home there by Ryder’s wife. She is going to her own home first, then she is going out there to the home of Mrs Ryder in Westville.’
Thabethe was quivering with excitement. At last. At last here was an opportunity to get back at the man that he hated more than anyone on the planet. With Ryder away at some meeting, his wife w
ould be completely vulnerable. This was the opportunity he had been dreaming of. He would destroy Ryder. He would destroy that cop by killing his wife.
Not just killing her, added Wakashe. He knew how to make women suffer, he said to his two companions. Before they killed her he wanted the chance to do a few other things with that detective’s wife.
10.30.
Ryder and Nyawula met at the coffee urn outside the conference room at Durban Central Station Command, each grabbing a cup of very insipid coffee before moving outdoors for a break from the endless talks on strategy and budgets and statistics and projections. Ryder was beginning to think maybe that bizarre chairman of the committee in Oxford might have the right idea after all: downplay the importance of strategy and just put all your efforts into having a big annual party for the staff to make them happy. Except in the Oxford case the staff members had seemed anything but happy.
‘Makes you want to decline your promotion, I’m sure, Major.’
‘Tell me about it, Jeremy. Can you believe all the crap being spoken?’
‘Are they treating you any better now that you’re a Major? When you were a mere Captain did they treat you like a junior at these workshops?’
‘Not really, but it certainly helps having the rank. How about you, Lieutenant Ryder? You should also be a Major, of course. The reason you’re not is that you don’t play the political game as well as I do.’
‘Thanks, Sibo. Appreciate it. Good advice from the one guy I respect. Play the game, Jeremy. I thought you were different.’
‘Course I am. It’s a joke, you know. G-O-C-E spells joke, or don’t you get it?’
‘I get it, don’t worry. It was me who was joking.’
‘Oh.’
‘Ha! Got you.’
‘How does Fiona put up with you?’
‘She doesn’t. She just ignores my bad jokes and talks me into the ground. Trouble is, she’s usually right, and I’m usually wrong.’
They both chuckled. Nyawula paused, letting the moment settle, before continuing.
‘You feeling better, Jeremy? You seemed to have been hit hard by Khuzwayo’s death.’
‘I was. It was bad. But worse than that was Koeks reminding me that if I’d taken those six creeps put of the picture in Albert Park on Monday, Kwanele Khuzwayo would still be with us. I lost a bit of sleep over that. Koeks has a way of showing us all the truth, especially at times when we’re not looking at it.’
‘He’s as subtle as a sledgehammer, old Koeks.’
‘No. I don’t agree. I think he’s one of the very best.’
‘True. Him and Dipps. Both brilliant cops. Salt of the earth.’
‘But it was like a slap in the face, Sibo, what he said. Maybe our obsession with always doing the right thing is not appropriate for this country. Maybe fighting fire with fire is the best way. The billions of rands going on court cases, lost dockets, bail for heinous crimes, perps being released and going straight out to kill innocent people. Maybe we shouldn’t be trying to arrest the devil and put him away for a few years, hoping he’ll reform. Maybe because we know he wants no part of reform we should simply be trying to execute him. Stop dealing in morality and ethics, and start dealing in retribution, pure and simple.’
‘I think exactly the same thought every single day of my life, Jeremy. But then something brings me back from the brink.’
‘You think that kind of thinking takes you to the brink?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘The brink of what?’
‘Chaos. Where everyone loses. Mutually assured destruction.’
‘It’s good to talk to you, Sibo. Sorry to have re-visited the same subject all over again. Speaking to you helps a lot. When I don’t really believe in what I’m saying, but saying it anyway, that’s when I’m looking for someone to tell me why I’m wrong. You and Fiona have a knack for doing that.’
‘Look. They’re calling us back in. Next session is all about the checklist for proposing merit awards for constables. Stirring stuff. Are you ready for this?’
‘As ready as I am for anything police management can throw at me, Major. After you.’
They went back into the conference room, joining the lines of uniformed and non-uniformed police officers streaming in after the tea-break.
12.05.
Thabethe, Mgwazeni and Wakashe followed Mavis Tshabalala at a distance in the shopping centre after she emerged from The Body Shop. They watched her, impatiently, as she did her grocery shopping and then watched her as she went into a cosmetics store and spent a long time chatting to the shop assistants. Eventually they followed her as she left on foot to go home from the Musgrave Centre, laden with her various packages. They watched her go into the block of flats no more than a hundred paces away. Mgwazeni was then dispatched to fetch their car, parked in the Musgrave Centre parking garage, while the other two kept an eye on both the entrance to the block of flats and the entrance to the parking area that served the residents of the apartments. Mgwazeni pulled up next to them minutes later, in a white 1990 Opel Astra. They joined him in the vehicle, he pulled over to the kerb, and they sat and waited.
It was not very long before Mavis drove out of the apartment block’s parking garage. She was driving a white Mazda 323. The three men were very excited. They followed her across the Berea and then onto the highway, driving under the Toll Gate Bridge out toward Westville. They followed her around under the Rockdale Avenue Bridge, onto Essex Terrace and then into Cochrane Avenue, pausing at the top of the road as they saw her turning right up into the driveway of Ryder’s home.
‘That’s it. That’s where they live. I been there once before,’ said Thabethe. ‘These people, they’re the only ones in this street with no high walls and security gate. They think they are safe because he is a cop.’
He recalled walking up the same driveway some months ago and surveying Ryder’s house in the middle of the night before finally deciding that the time was not right for him to act. He wondered now whether he should have proceeded with his plans on that occasion.
They drove slowly down the hill past the driveway and parked on the verge further down the road, from where they could see Mavis alight from her vehicle at the top of the driveway.
‘There she is,’ said Thabethe, as Fiona Ryder emerged from the house to greet Mavis. ‘That’s her. I seen her one time before. That’s the wife of Ryder.’
Wakashe got excited, and started hissing out the venomous thoughts that were stewing inside, before Thabethe stopped him instantly.
‘Wait. Wait, Wakashe. Look.’
They watched as Fiona Ryder and Mavis Tshabalala spoke and exchanged laughter, and then the former took the package that the young cop held out for her. They waited for the Mazda 323 to reverse back down the driveway, and they watched it drive up the hill and around the corner.
12.25.
Nyawula and Ryder had come out of the last session before lunch and Nyawula was very generous: there was no reason, he said to Ryder, that both of them should continue to be put through this suffering. The post-lunch sessions were going to be even more boring than the morning sessions, and there was nothing there that specifically required Ryder’s attendance. He would be entirely happy to cover for Ryder if he wanted to take off earlier than he had intended.
Ryder didn’t have the heart to tell his boss that he had intended, anyway, to sneak off after the lunch session, on some pretext or other, to watch the rugby on television, so he was relieved to hear this. They had a quick sandwich and tea together and Ryder made a surreptitious exit from the venue. Nyawula went back into the fray, dealing politely and graciously with a pontificating Brigadier on the way into the conference hall.
Before leaving the venue in the Camry, Ryder called Pauline to check on the status with Nadine. It was good news. Nadine was making excellent progress, he was told. He asked Pauline to convey warm wishes from both him and Fiona.
He felt much better about Nadine’s predicament as he drove home.
The only concern he had now was for Hlengiwe Khuzwayo. He couldn’t get out of his mind the implication, from Koekemoer’s innocent comment, that in some strange way he was personally connected to Khuzwayo’s suicide. Each one of the six evil men in Albert Park had been either resisting arrest or intending him harm at the moment of his confrontation with them. He would have been entirely justified in taking out each and every one of them; in removing them from a society that needed permanent protection from them, not just temporary protection. Had he done so, Khuzwayo would be alive today. What was it about him that he would choose to disarm and arrest, rather than kill the most evil of criminals? What was it about him that he would shoot to kill only as a last resort? Did it really have to be a last resort? Was there not already sufficient justification for instant and permanent retaliation against men who were the incarnation of Satan himself? Does one deal cards with the devil? Or should one deal only death to him?
Ryder felt himself thinking thoughts darker than any he had ever entertained. To see people like the greatly admired Nadine Salm and the loving father and husband Kwanele Khuzwayo go to the wall because of the actions of people totally devoid of any moral consciousness was beginning to tip him over the edge. Why couldn’t he simply be like his beloved Border Collie? Sugar-Bear had no qualms. If the dog sensed evil he would attack it, immediately, without hesitation. He didn’t weigh up any ethical considerations. If some evil demon attacked the Ryder family - the dog’s own personal herd of sheep - Sugar-Bear would act instantly. He would kill in order to protect.
Maybe, thought Ryder, he needed a new rule of thumb. No longer arrest in order to protect. Maybe, from now, kill to protect.
14.05.
Thabethe, Mgwazeni and Wakashe cursed. They were livid. Outraged. Ryder had just pulled into the driveway. He was supposed to have been out all day, but he had just driven down the hill and up into the driveway. The whole plan was collapsing.
They had been sitting there for over an hour, talking through the plan. Checking on alternative escape routes, if they needed them. Mgwazeni had even gone on a brief scouting visit. He had walked up the driveway, casually, as if he was someone who was simply looking for work as a gardener. He had intended to knock on the front door and say, confidently, that he was unemployed and looking to work in the area. He would use that opportunity to see whether there was anyone else at home. Or whether there was a dog. That would be an important consideration. If he knocked on the door or rang a doorbell a dog would come running, if there was a dog. Surely there must be a dog, if there were no high walls and gates?