by Ian Patrick
‘Suits me,’ said Ryder. ‘As if I don’t have enough on my plate, anyway.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said Pillay. ‘We’ve got enough to keep us going for weeks.’
‘I wonder how Mashego reacted when he heard the reports that I was supposedly leading his team at Umdloti?’ Ryder added.
‘Who was that, Jeremy?’
‘Detective Mashego, Piet. He was the guy who was actually on the beach with his team on Saturday night.’
‘Oh, yes, of course. What a coincidence.’
‘What, Piet?’ asked Pillay.
‘The oke just called me an hour ago.’
‘Who, Mashego?’ asked Ryder.
‘Ja, Jeremy. He was asking about your old friend Thabethe.’
The two detectives were very interested, and threw a barrage of questions at Cronje. Within a minute he had downloaded the essence of the conversation he had had with Mashego.
Ryder stared into the distance. Pillay knew that look. He was deep into making all sorts of connections. Pillay and Cronje exchanged looks, and Pillay made herself a cup of tea while she continued.
‘So, Piet. Tell me. How did Detective Mashego seem to you on the phone? Was he, like, agitated or angry or anything like that?’
‘No, not really, Navi. He seemed to just, you know, be throwing in a couple of casual questions about Thabethe. Said he was working on some old cases and was just looking for possible connections.’
‘What is it, Jeremy?’ Pillay had noticed Ryder come out of his reverie. He was back with them. But he had an intriguing frown, she thought.
‘Maybe you and I should visit Detective Mashego,’ said Ryder.
21.10
There were three men in the small hotel room that masqueraded as an office. One man sat behind the desk in the only chair available. Another stood next to him. They both faced the third man, standing in front of them. The lights shone from behind the two men onto the third, and he peered at them as if through gloom, trying to avoid the light in his eyes.
The man in the chair with the light behind him was about fifty years old, ruddy-faced, portly, with a pink fleshy neck struggling against the tight white collar and double-knotted navy blue tie that tried to strangle him. His close-cropped fair hair was slicked down with oil in a side parting. His sidekick was a thin, wiry man, six feet tall, with long untidy red hair and stained, crooked teeth. He wore a white T-shirt tucked into jeans held up by a belt that was too long and that had as a consequence been spiked in order to create two extra holes for the prong of the buckle. Despite this effort the jeans still looked in danger of falling down around his knees.
The man facing them wore the SAPS uniform of a Lieutenant Colonel. He was a big man, six feet and four inches tall, weighing about two hundred and twenty pounds. He was neat and well-groomed and appeared relaxed and comfortable, with the exception of the light shining in his eyes. He had perfectly straight teeth that appeared arctic white against his ebony skin.
The man in the chair spoke. His voice was deep, resonant, and loud. He spoke with authority and calmness, and commanded attention easily. He had a pronounced Afrikaans accent but was clearly completely at home with English.
‘I must apologise, Lt. Colonel Nxumalo. I’m not trying to blind you. It’s just that I prefer, you know, a little bit of anonymity. I’m a private man. I don’t shake hands and I don’t get too close to people until after I’ve worked with them and got to know them.’
‘It’s no problem,’ Mr du Plessis. ‘Your friend explained.’
‘Frankie,’ said the third man. ‘You can call me Frankie, like I said.’
The seated man waved to signal Frankie to leave it there and keep quiet, and then continued.
‘Good, that’s clear, then, and can I call you - I believe your name is ‘Cat’?’
‘They call me Colonel Cat, yes.’
‘Interesting. How do you get a name like...’
‘It’s not important, Mr du Plessis. It’s to do with my praise name, Mkhatshwa. And Nxumalo means I come from the family of Shaka. Not important.’
Frankie giggled, unnecessarily, which irritated both of the other men. Du Plessis cut through and brought them back on track.
‘OK, Cat. Colonel Cat. Let’s get down to business. Frankie has told you something about why I wanted to talk to you. I just want to confirm. You and me, we’re on the same side. I know you have seven kills to your name...’
‘That’s not how I...’
‘Yes, OK, sorry, that’s not a good way for me to express it. Let me just say this, then. You and me, and the people I represent, and Frankie here, we seem to think alike about a couple of things. Let me not put words in your mouth, but let me say this. There are bad people out there. And there are also corrupt police officers, and corrupt court officials, and corrupt prosecutors. And therefore there are bribes, and stolen dockets, and ways in which bad people can laugh at the system and carry on tomorrow what they were doing yesterday. We agree, right?’
‘We can agree on that, yes,’ said Nxumalo.
‘The reason we approached you through Brigadier… well, let’s not name the Brigadier, shall we? I once promised him that I would never mention his name. We approached you through our mutual friend the Brigadier. We did so because we know that you, like him, and many others like you and like me, and even like Frankie here, we all have something in common.’
Frankie sniggered as his name was mentioned, and Nxumalo nodded, in silence. He could see where this was going. He had agreed to have this discussion. The Brigadier, who was a trusted friend, had recommended this meeting, and he had met with the go-between, Frankie, without any concern. The only concern had been fifteen minutes before this meeting, when he had had to succumb to a search by Frankie. Humiliating. He had never carried a wire before, and had no intention of starting now. That wasn’t his game.
‘You see, Cat. I hope you don’t mind me saying this. You see, Cat, I only speak to people like you after I’ve done one helluva lot of research. Forgive me for prying. But I know about the tragedy you suffered seven years ago. I know that you hunted down those three men. We all know that you executed those three men - no, please don’t protest - we know that you executed those three men and we all applaud you for doing so. It won’t bring back your son, but it will have given you some satisfaction.’
Nxumalo felt very uncomfortable. Who exactly was this guy? Could this whole thing be a subterfuge? Could these guys simply be following up on some IPID investigation, trying to trap him? Then he thought of his friend the Brigadier. No. He was a trusted friend. OK. So he would give this guy du Plessis a little more room, to hear what he had to say.
‘It gave me some - a little - a little satisfaction at the time, yes.’
‘Many of us have had similar experiences, Colonel Cat. A long time ago I had police experience myself. Not here. Elsewhere. But I can’t say that my experience was very different from your own. I, too, had the same… well, let me just say that as a cop I also had the opportunity to experience some satisfaction after I had been involved in a couple of little incidents.’
Frankie sniggered again. He knew the story that du Plessis was thinking of.
‘I also know about some of the other cases you handled,’ du Plessis continued. ‘I know about the man in Inchanga, for example, and the two men in Port Shepstone. The man in KwaMashu Section K. The three men in La Lucia… I won’t continue, Colonel. You can see what I mean.’
For the first time since he had arrived at the hotel, Nxumalo was deeply concerned. How did this man know about each and every one of the cold-blooded killings he had perpetrated? In each and every case he had felt fully justified in executing the men involved. Brutal, appalling, evil men in each case. Nevertheless, there was no getting away from it. In each and every case he had quite simply executed the men.
Du Plessis could see that the Colonel was not going to protest or deny or try and explain. He had the man exactly where he wanted him. He was now ready for
a proper discussion.
‘Let’s not go into any more detail than that, Cat. All I want to say to you is this. I need men like you, and I can treble your salary. For doing what? Let me assure you, Cat. For doing very little more than what you are already doing. Well, perhaps a little more. There are no strings attached to what I’m saying. There are ways of ensuring that any money that comes to you will be properly disguised. No traces back to deposits into your bank account. No traces back to me or to Frankie here.’
‘Are you asking me to be a hit-man?’
Du Plessis laughed, loud and heartily, with a deep resonant chuckle. Frankie emulated him, though in a reedy voice that emitted cackling rather than chuckling.
‘No, Cat. No, Colonel. By no means. Let me explain what I’m looking for,’ Du Plessis said, reducing the volume to a level more befitting a serious conversation. ‘All I’m asking you to do is this.’
Du Plessis then sketched out for the Lieutenant Colonel the kinds of action that he had in mind. He would communicate only through Frankie. There would be good-faith payments up front. Cash in an envelope. More cash on completion. From time to time Frankie would meet with him to provide the information. In every single case Cat could be assured that the man or woman identified for attention would be a known criminal of the worst imaginable kind. People who had escaped punishment for their crimes because of bribes or blackmail or stolen dockets or corrupt court officials. He would only ever be asked to attend to people who were guilty. No person who had not been charged on the basis of hard and solid evidence would be targeted. OK, so there would be cases where people could be classified as ‘innocent’ because they hadn’t been found guilty by the courts of a crime. But that would be the case only because they had purchased their innocence. In every case there would be sufficient evidence to proceed.
Nxumalo suppressed the thoughts bubbling up within him about the assumption that du Plessis was making in regard to his own role here as final judge and arbitrator. He suppressed it in the same way he had suppressed each of his executions of the three men who had butchered his son and had raped his son’s wife seven years ago. In his own mind, Nxumalo had no reservations whatsoever about those first three executions. In the subsequent cases, he had rationalised his actions in the same way he was now rationalising the words that came from du Plessis. He only half-heard the next few sentences from the man in the chair. The thin blue line. The fight against evil. The need to fight fire with fire.
He was prepared to accommodate all of this because he had already crossed the line.
The meeting eventually ended with agreement all round, and a large manila envelope stuffed with cash. And a separate file containing photographs and information typed on four or five pages. Information on the first assignment. But no handshakes. By the time Nxumalo stepped out into the night and walked along Durban’s O.R. Thambo Parade, he had still not properly seen the face of the man who called himself du Plessis. But he had money.
And he had the name of his first target. A man who ran a small fleet of taxis.
3: TUESDAY
09.05.
Not a cloud to be seen. Shimmering blue, as far as the eye could see. Out over the Indian ocean there was a line of ships stretching to the horizon, each awaiting its turn to offload cargo. At uShaka Marine World there were very few people out in the open. Most of them sought shade, even this early. A few tourists, obvious from their cameras and from their inappropriately thick-cotton shirts, were snapping away, posing in front of the sign over the tarted-up shipwreck entrance to Snorkel Lagoon. The sign was painted in garish red, green and white onto three pieces of wood roughed up to look like driftwood. The driftwood also bore the name of a prominent car hire company. All around, memorabilia and icons of supposed authentic indigenous Zulu culture jostled with signs of marketing and prominent brand names. Prices were hugely inflated for goods that a few hundred metres down the road could be obtained at a significant discount to the figures displayed here.
Spikes Mkhize was satisfied with the prices he had struck in the four deals he’d made in a very short space of time. He pocketed eight hundred rands as his third customer tucked into his hip pocket the joints he had just bought and went off to find a secluded spot for his first hit of the day. Mkhize, for his own part, now went in search of a big breakfast.
He had paid two hundred and fifty rands for the overnight City to City bus and had thought it not a bad price as the vehicle pulled out of Johannesburg Park Station at 20.45 the previous night. By midnight he was cursing. The bus was full and there were crying babies all around. Then there was a diversion, then a breakdown halfway down Van Reenen’s Pass. By the time they pulled into Durban at 07.30, three hours later than their scheduled 04.35 arrival, he was wrecked.
By the time Mkhize had made his way to the waterfront, where he knew he would be able to offload, in return for a few hundred rands, some of the nyaope he was carrying, he was already feeling the humidity. After six weeks in the altitude of Gauteng he had almost forgotten that the summer humidity of Durban could turn people damp within minutes even this early in the morning. He’d grabbed a large coke stuffed with ice-cubes at Gambit’s Fast Foods, before making his way through the tourist complex, and he had offloaded the whoonga in what seemed no time at all.
Time now for breakfast, and to work out how he could possibly find his good friend Skhura Thabethe. Neither of them still carried the same cellphones they had had six weeks ago when they’d split and gone their separate ways. Mkhize had a new one, but he would have to make enquiries before flooding the ether with calls from the instrument. The cops had ways of tracing, as he knew from experience. He would have to move carefully, because both he and Thabethe were wanted men.
09.55.
The day was smouldering. The normally green suburban lawns in the neighbourhood were already baked into straw from days without rain. The oppressive humidity, even a couple of hours before midday, had people scurrying for whatever shade they might find. Those cafes and restaurants that had had the foresight to provide their own generators against the threat of load-shedding and the shutting off of air conditioners, were doing a roaring trade. Customers sipped on glasses loaded to the brim with ice-cubes.
Thabethe sat alone in the interior of the Wimpy restaurant in the Windermere Centre off Lillian Ngoyi Road, cooling his hands by clutching a Mega Freezo Granadilla. He was worried. He had finally got hold of Mr Michael Pullen. Firstly he wanted to thank him for doing a great story yesterday. Secondly, he wanted to give him some more dirt on Ryder. Pour garbage all over the cop. Give the journalist details of all the violent things that that cop had done in the last couple of months. Even give him the cop’s address in Westville, which he happened to know, following his intention on one occasion to break into the detective’s home. Give him Ryder’s address so that the journalist could camp outside and hassle him the way Ryder had hassled countless others trying to get on with their lives.
He was worried because these intentions of his had come to a grinding halt. Firstly, after his call had been passed from one person to the next, he was told that Pullen had been given the day off work and was not in the building. Secondly, after hanging up in surprise and then thinking about it and re-dialling, and persisting, he finally got someone who could provide a cellphone number where Pullen might be reached. Then, after finally getting Pullen on the line, and Pullen having recognised his voice, he had been subjected to a torrent of abuse and screaming from the journalist, who had then closed down the call in extreme agitation.
There was nothing more to be gained there, thought Thabethe, and shrugged his shoulders. But the shrug soon turned into doubt. Then real concern. And now Thabethe was seriously worried. From the bile spewed out by the journalist, it was clear that Thabethe’s stunt would have repercussions. What was it the news reporter had said, in his diatribe? Ryder had a watertight alibi and the article had come across as deliberately vindictive and was seen as a simple smear against Ryder by someone who
must have borne him a grudge.
Thabethe had miscalculated. He suddenly realised that he had now been flushed out of hiding by his own actions. Until now there had been no way the cops could know that he was anywhere near KwaZulu-Natal. But now Ryder would work through who might have been responsible for the smear against him. And that would lead him to Thabethe himself.
Moegoe! Idiot! He smacked himself on the forehead with his open hand. All he had succeeded in doing was to give Ryder a few hours of embarrassment, and now the cop would work out who it was that had smeared him, and would come looking. Ryder would be back again on Thabethe’s trail.
Thabethe got up from his seat and left the restaurant, not quite sure where he was heading. But he knew that whatever else he did he had to get a copy of today’s Mercury. Judging from Pullen’s reaction on the phone, there would be some update stuff in the newspaper.
As he hit the street outside, it was as if a furnace door had been opened and a gust of stifling heat brought the perspiration to his forehead and turned him sticky under the arms within seconds. His eyes were alert, looking around, constantly. He felt exposed, as if he had come down from the foothills and was now out on the open terrain. With Ryder out there somewhere, hunting him down.
11.05.
Inside Piet Cronje’s office the power was back on. He had brought in from home an extra fan. He and Mavis Tshabalala were perspiring as they worked on opposite sides of the desk, each with a fan blowing warm air at them. An ice-box sat in the corner of the room, the ice almost completely turned to water. Nyawula appeared in the doorway. All three of them had stripped off whatever extraneous clothing they had worn on arrival in the morning, and all three of them had shirts that were damp.