by Deon Meyer
Irritably he pressed again. Once, twice, three times.
Nothing happened. Not a sound.
Fielies had clearly seen something. The binoculars. Appearing and disappearing.
He hammered on the door with the base of his fist. Boom, boom, boom, boom, the sound echoed inside. Open up, fuckers.
No reaction, no sound of footsteps.
He took out his phone and looked up Boef Beukes’s number that he had called last night. Pressed the green key. It rang unanswered. Boef knew who was calling. And he probably knew why, because the chump with the binoculars up there had probably phoned his boss and said the SVC people were at the door.
He banged one last time on the door, more out of frustration than expectation.
Then he turned and left.
39.
He had fetched himself a chair from the luxurious sitting room, carried it up the stairs and positioned it next to Cupido’s. They watched Sangrenegra return and listened while Fielies reported. The Colombian had been to the police and directly home again.
They sat and waited and had meaningless chats. They tried to keep the attention of the team, the detectives down the street, and the others hidden in the veld behind the house.
It was 15:34 now and the sleepiness felt like lead inside him. He must have been asleep with his eyes open, because when Cupido said with an edge, “Benny . . . ,” he jumped in fright. Looking down at the street he saw a panel van parked at Carlos’s door. There was a big blue cross on the side. First Aid for Pools. Intensive Care Unit.
A black man got out. Big. Blue overalls.
Griessel picked up the radio. “Stand by, everyone.”
The man walked around to the back of the panel van and took out pipes, nets and other paraphernalia.
“That’s their sign on the wall,” said Cupido, binoculars to eyes.
“What?”
“On the wall of Carlos’s house. There, beside the garage door. ‘Swimming-pool care by First Aid for Pools.’ And a number.”
The swimming-pool man approached the front door. He pressed the intercom and waited.
“The number is four eight seven double-o, double-o.”
Griessel called it and waited.
The door across the street opened. They could see Carlos. He held the door open. The black man picked up all his things and went in.
“The number you have dialed does not exist,” said the woman’s voice in his ear. “Fuck,” he said. “Are you sure of that number?”
“Four eight seven double-o, double-o.”
“That’s what I . . .” He realized he hadn’t added the Cape Town code and he swore and pressed 021 and then the number again. At the fourth ring a woman answered.
“First Aid for Pools, good afternoon. This is Ruby speaking. How may I help you?”
“This is Detective Inspector Benny Griessel here from Serious and Violent Crimes. Can you tell me whether you have a Sangrenegra on your books? Forty-five Shanklin Crescent in Camps Bay.” He tried to communicate urgency in his voice so she wouldn’t fuck around.
“I’m sorry, sir, we cannot give you that information over the telephone . . .”
He stayed calm with effort and said: “Ruby, this is a police emergency and I do not have the time to . . .” He wanted to say “fuck around” and had to think of other words. “. . . Please, Ruby, I’m asking you really nicely here.”
She was quiet at the other end and perhaps it was the desperation in his voice, because eventually she said: “What was that name again?”
“Sangrenegra.” He spelt it out for her. Across the street the front door was still shut.
He faintly heard Ruby tapping her keyboard. “We have no Sangrenegra on our records, sir.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir, I am. Our computer doesn’t lie.” Sharply.
“Okay. Now we have to be sure here. Do you have a forty-five Shanklin Crescent in Camps Bay?”
“One moment.”
“Postman,” said Cupido, pointing down the street. A man in uniform was riding a bicycle from postbox to postbox. At Carlos’s house all was quiet.
“Sir?”
“I’m here,” said Griessel.
“We do have a forty-five Shanklin Crescent, Camps Bay on our books . . .”
He felt extremely relieved.
“The client is a company, it seems.”
“Yes.”
“The Colombian Coffee Company.”
“Okay,” said Griessel. The tension began to ebb.
“Here he comes,” said Cupido. The big black man exited the front door. He was holding only a white plastic pipe.
“They seem to be good clients. All paid up,” said Ruby.
“He must be fetching something from the van,” said Cupido.
Griessel’s eyes followed the black man in the blue overalls. The clothes looked a bit tight on him. The man opened the driver’s side door.
“We service them . . .”
The man tossed the swimming-pool pipe into the front of the van.
“. . . on Fridays,” said Ruby.
The man got into the van.
“What?” said Griessel.
“Something’s not right,” said Cupido. “He’s leaving . . .”
“We service them on Fridays.”
“. . . and his tools are still inside.”
Griessel grabbed his radio: “Stop him! Stop the swimming-pool man, everybody!” He rushed down the stairs, phone in one hand and radio in the other. Ruby said “Excuse me?” faintly over the phone as he screamed into the radio: “Fielies, turn your car around and stop the swimming-pool man!”
“Are you there, sir?”
“I’m on my way, Benny.”
He nearly fell as he turned the corner on the last set of stairs and the thought crossed his mind that the world was a fucking funny place. For years you don’t climb stairs and then all of a sudden you are faced with more stairs than your fucking legs can manage. “Hello?” said Ruby over the cell phone. “He’s around the corner!” shouted Fielies over the radio.
“Go, Fielies, drive, man!”
Griessel sprinted across the street to Carlos’s house. He heard feet slapping behind him, and half turning he saw Cupido and two constables running across the tar.
“Sir, are you there?”
The postman on his bicycle was in front of him, wide-eyed and mouth agape. Griessel sidestepped and for a second he thought they were going to collide.
“Hello?”
His knee bumped the rear tire of the bicycle and he thought if he fell now the cell phone and the radio would be buggered. He regained his balance. He shoved the door open and ran in and saw the Colombian lying by the swimming pool, blood everywhere. He reached him, he lay on his face and Benny turned him over and saw he was stone dead, a huge hole in his chest. He said: “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” and Ruby said: “That’s it!” and the cell phone made three beeps and the three policemen behind him skidded to a halt and then everything went quiet.
On the corner of Shanklin and Eldon, Detective Constable Malcolm Fielies wondered whether the swimming-pool man had turned left or right. He turned left, guessing, and ahead saw the panel van turning right and he put his foot flat on the accelerator and the tires screeched.
He turned right down Cranberry after the man and he saw on the sign that it was a crescent and he thought, got you, motherfucker, let’s see you get out of this one! But the road ran straight as an arrow and he saw the brake lights go on ahead and the van turned left and Fielies cursed and shouted into the radio: “I’m after him!” but he knew they only worked over short distances and he didn’t know whether they heard him.
He threw the radio down on the seat beside him and turned left. Geneva Drive. He suspected it was the street leading up to Camps Bay Drive, the one leading into the city, and he changed the Golf down to a lower gear and listened to the engine scream as he drove.
He was catching up, slowly but surely he was catching the mo
therfucker, although this motherfucker could drive.
He grabbed the microphone of the police radio off its hook and called Control and said he needed back-up, but then Geneva curved sharply to the right, so fucking unexpectedly, and he felt the back of the Golf go and he grabbed the steering wheel with both hands. The tires screeched and he saw he was going to hit the curb. Look through the turn, that was what they were taught. He looked through the fucking turn. Too fast. There went the back end and he spun, 360 degrees, and the engine stalled on him. He said “motherfucker” very loudly. He turned the key and it whined and whined and then it took and the Golf and Detective Constable Malcolm Fielies pulled away with screaming tires. At the T-junction with Camps Bay Drive he stopped and looked left and right and left again, but there was no sign of the panel van.
The swimming-pool floor of the house was filled with policemen and forensic people. Griessel sat to one side with his cell phone in his hands. He felt he had robbed Christine van Rooyen of her last chance to know her daughter’s fate. He thought, if the child was still alive somewhere, they would never find her now.
He knew that Senior Superintendent Esau Mtimkulu and Matt Joubert, first and second in command of SVC, and Commissioner John Afrika, the provincial head of Investigation, were arguing about his future down there beside the pool. If they sent him down the tubes, it was only right, because he had continued to believe the assegai man was white, even after he had had good evidence to the contrary. That was why he had been so slow to react to the swimming-pool van. That was why he had phoned first.
His fault. Too much fucking faith in his instinct, too cocky, too self-assured — and now he would pay for it.
The phone rang.
“Griessel.”
“Inspector, the helicopter has found the swimming-pool company’s van on Signal Hill Road. We are sending a patrol vehicle.”
“And the suspect?”
“He’s gone. It’s just the vehicle.”
“Explain to me where it is.”
“It’s the road that turns off Kloof Nek Road to the lookout points on Signal Hill, Inspector. About half a kilometer in there is a clump of trees on the right-hand side.”
“No one goes near the vehicle, please. They must just secure the area.” He was on his feet and walking over to Cupido. “Vaughn, they found the van on Signal Hill. I want you to think carefully — was he wearing gloves?”
“No fucking way. I checked him out thoroughly.”
“So you’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Griessel crossed over to the three senior officers. They stopped arguing when he approached. “Superintendent,” he said to Joubert, “the helicopter has found the van on Signal Hill. We think we have a good chance of getting fingerprints. He wasn’t wearing gloves. I want to take Forensics immediately . . .”
He could see from the three faces that it was coming now.
“Benny,” said John Afrika, quietly so that only the four of them could hear. “You will understand if Superintendent Joubert takes over now?”
He fucking well deserved it, but it hurt and he didn’t want to show that. He said: “I understand, Commissioner.”
“You are still part of the team, Benny,” said Matt.
“I . . .” he began, but didn’t know what to say.
“Take Forensics, Benny. Call if you find something.”
They found nothing.
The assegai man had wiped the steering wheel and gear lever and the door catch with a cloth or something. Then Griessel recalled he had taken stuff out of the back and the forensic examiner sprayed his spray and dusted with his brush and said: “We have something here.”
Griessel came around to look. Against the outer panel of the rear door a fingerprint showed up clearly against the white paint.
“It’s not necessarily his,” said the man from Forensics.
Griessel said nothing.
He sat at the breakfast counter of his flat and ate some of the thinly carved roast leg of lamb from Charmaine Watson-Smith’s dish. But his mind was on the bottle of Klipdrift in the cupboard above.
Why not? He couldn’t think of a single good answer to his question.
He had no appetite, but ate because he knew he must.
Last night he had had big theories about why he drank. Griessel the philosopher. It was this and it was that and everything but the truth. And the truth was: he was a fuck-up. That’s all. Whore-fucking, wife-beating, drunken sot fuck-up.
Where was that jovial fellow who used to play the bass guitar? That’s where he had been last night and now he knew. That guy was already a fuck-up, he just didn’t know it. You can fool some of the people some of the time . . . But you can’t fool life, pappa. Life will fucking catch you out.
He stood up. So weary. He scraped the last of the food into the bin. He washed and dried the dish. He didn’t feel like taking it to the old girl now. He would leave it at her door in the morning with a note.
You can’t fool life.
His cell phone rang in his pocket.
Let the fucking thing ring.
He took it out and checked the screen.
ANNA.
What did she want? Can you fetch the kids on Sunday? Are you sober? Did she really care whether he was sober or not? Really? She didn’t believe he had it in him in any case. And she was right. She knew him better than anyone. She had watched the whole process, lived through it. She was witness number one. Life had caught him out and she had had a ringside seat. She knew in six months’ time she would phone an attorney and say let us put an end to this marriage with my alcoholic husband who still drinks. The six months were just to show the children she wasn’t heartless.
Let her call. Let her go to hell.
1 MISSED CALL.
1 MISSED LIFE.
The phone rang again. It was the number from work. What did they want?
“Griessel.”
“We’ve got him, Benny,” said Matt Joubert.
40.
They were all in the task team room at SVC when he walked in. He could feel the excitement, saw it in their faces, heard it in their voices.
Joubert sat beside Helena Louw where she was working on the computer. Bezuidenhout and his night team were there too. Keyter stood talking to a constable; the fucking camera he had borrowed was still hanging from his neck, zoom lens protruding.
Griessel sat down at one of the small tables.
Joubert looked up and saw him, beckoned him closer. He got up and went over. “Sit here with me, Benny.”
He sat. Joubert stood up. “May I have your attention, please?”
The room quieted.
“We have identified a suspect, thanks to fingerprints that Inspector Griessel and his team recovered from the vehicle of the swimming-pool company. His name is Thobela Mpayipheli. He is a Xhosa man in his forties from the Eastern Cape. His registered address is Cata, a farm in the Cathcart district. That is in the Eastern Cape. Earlier this year Mpayipheli lost his son during an armed robbery at a filling station. Two suspects were arrested, but escaped from detention during the trial. It seems as if that is where it all began. By the way, he owns an Izuzu KB pickup, which fits with the tire print that Inspector Griessel found, and we must assume that that is the vehicle with which he traveled to Cape Town and Uniondale. That is all the information we have at this time.”
Griessel’s cell phone rang again and he took it out of his pocket.
ANNA.
He switched it off.
“So,” said Joubert. “Since I am going to ask Griessel to go to the Eastern Cape, I will hold the fort at this end.”
He didn’t want to go anywhere.
“We are going to search the Cape with a fine-tooth comb for Mpayipheli. He must be staying somewhere. Benny will find out if he has any family or friends here, but in the meantime we will have to visit or contact every establishment that offers accommodation. We are waiting . . .”
Joubert’s eyes turned to the doo
r and everyone followed suit. Boef Beukes had come in. Behind him was the man in the suit that Griessel had seen in Beukes’s office. Joubert nodded in their direction.
“We are waiting for good photos from Home Affairs and you will each get one, along with the best description we can compile. There already is a bulletin out for the pickup and we are putting up roadblocks on the N-one, N-two, N-seven, R-twenty-seven, R-forty-four and four places on the R-three hundred around Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha. We will also provide details to the media and ask the public to cooperate. In an hour or so we should have a timetable drawn up, so that you can begin phoning places of accommodation. Stand by until we are ready for you.”
Joubert came to sit beside Griessel directly. “Sorry about that, Benny. There was no time to warn you.”
Griessel shrugged. It made no difference.
“Are you okay?”
He wanted to ask what that meant, but he just nodded instead.
“We’ve booked you onto the nine o’clock flight to Port Elizabeth. It’s the last one today.”
“I’ll go and pack.”
“I need you there, Benny.”
He nodded again. Then Boef Beukes and Mr. Red Tie came up to them. The unknown man was holding a big brown envelope.
“Matt, can we have a word?” Beukes said, and Griessel wondered why he was speaking English.
“Things are a bit mad here,” said Joubert.
“We have some information . . .” said Beukes.
“We’re listening.”
“Can we talk in your office?”
“What’s with the English, Boef? Or are you practicing for when the Argus phones?” Griessel asked.
“Let me introduce you to Special Agent Chris Lombardi of the DEA,” said Beukes and turned to Red Tie.
“I work for the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, and I’ve been in your country now for three months,” said Chris Lombardi. With his bald pate and long fleshy ears, Griessel thought he looked like an accountant.
“Superintendent Beukes and I have been part of an interagency operation to investigate the flow of drugs between Asia and South America, in which South Africa, and Cape Town in particular, seems to play a prominent part.” Lombardi’s accent was strongly American, like a film star’s.