by Ian Patrick
‘Yes. You remember. Like everyone. They all know about Anene. Because it was a big story. The newspapers liked that story, because the newspapers from overseas liked that story, and the television. So the newspapers here, they also liked that story, because...’
Ryder stared at him in fascination. And thought he was about to witness an event that would lead to a resurgence of scientific interest in the largely discredited theory of spontaneous human combustion. But Mashego paused in mid-sentence before exploding, then calmed down, and then became icily quiet with his next sentence.
‘But did you know about another young girl called Letty in Kimberley? No. Only the people from her community knew. They knew. Because the journalists… they chose to write the Anene story at the right time. The time was right for their news story. They needed that story at that time. But it took them a long time to find out about the Letty Wapad story. Because that was not such a big story at the right time. And Lindi from Vosloorus? No newspaper report for her. None. Nothing. And what about Buhle from Katlehong? Or Zinhle from Inanda. Or what about my daughter...’
Ryder and Pillay could see where this was going but they thought he needed to let it out so they did nothing.
‘No. I could talk about my daughter. Yes, I could talk about my daughter. But let’s talk about Letty. Because she was like my daughter. No newspaper article for a long time. Anene, well she was lucky. That journalist decided to write her story. Then another journalist. Then another one. When they decide to write, then it is OK. Then there is a story. But when my daughter is not important enough for a story, then it is different, nè? So, my daughter. No, not my daughter. So Letty. This girl. So the newspapers they’re not interested first, nè? Only later, when they think maybe there is a story to sell their newspapers, then, yes.’
Ryder thought he was beginning to ramble, but he came back immediately onto the tracks, almost as if he was pushing the memory of his daughter forcibly into the corner, into the background, squeezing her, sheltering her behind the story of Letty.
Pillay was at a loss.
‘So this young girl. She is 24. My daughter was 17. Same thing. Young girls. They stabbed her many times. They raped her many times. In the graveyard. In the cemetery. They cut her from here to here.’
He motioned from his breastbone to his genitals.
‘Then those men they took out what they found inside there, and they hung that stuff that they took out from her on the gravestones, nè? Like hanging Christmas lights, the detective who was investigating said. Then they put a big rock inside her. Inside them. Both of them. Down there. Inside. They put a rock. This big.’
He clenched an enormous fist and held it up in front of the two detectives as if he was going to use it to punch them.
‘She died alone, that girl. Like my daughter. Same thing. They died alone. With those things done to them. Both of them. But the pathologists said that they died not straight away. First they suffered. Then they died only later. After those men they had gone. After they had finished their business and gone.’
They stood in silence. Large, isolated, single drops of water were released from the pregnant black clouds above them. The wind blew scraps of newspaper across the tarmac, and a couple of plastic bags played whirlpool for a few seconds before subsiding to the ground. Pillay broke the silence.
‘We can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like. None of us can ever understand how people… all we can say, Nights, is that we keep going at this stuff so that we can bring down people like that.’
‘I appreciate that, Detective Pillay...Navi… I’m sorry… but my wife, she’s a dead woman inside, since then, you know? And me. Maybe I’m dead inside, too, you know? When that happens to your child, then it is like...’’
‘We can never know, Nights,’ said Ryder, ‘I’ve got two sons...’
Mashego suddenly grabbed him by the shirt-front, his massive right fist clawing Ryder’s shirt into a ball over his sternum, as if he was a playground bully threatening some other kid. Ryder was startled but didn’t react and let him do what he needed to do. Mashego’s eyes filled with tears as he spoke almost nose to nose to Ryder.
‘You look after those children, Jeremy. You look after those boys of yours. There are people wanting to take those lives away from you, and to take them away from your wife. You mustn’t let them, Jeremy, ...you mustn’t...you can’t...’
Mashego let go and broke away from him, turning his back on both of them and slapping his big open hand against his forehead with a force that would have felled a lot of people. Then he stood with his back to them, hands on his hips, staring up at the black sky with his mouth wide open in a silent scream. But there was no sound.
Ryder and Pillay stood in silence, then Ryder moved up beside him and put his hand on his shoulder as he spoke, quietly.
‘OK, Nights. OK. OK. We appreciate you taking us into your confidence. If we can do anything… Let’s keep in contact, OK? If any of us come across anything on Thabethe, let’s… well… let’s keep in contact.’
Mashego nodded without looking back at them. Pillay could think of nothing better to do than put her hand affectionately on his other shoulder. He appreciated the gesture and, still without turning his head, put out his massive right fist for her to punch, gently, with her own. Ryder did the same, and their fists kissed for a second. Mashego nodded again and without turning he walked away from them across the road, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. He didn’t look back.
Ryder and Pillay watched him go without exchanging any words. The rain started falling. It became unusually dark. A police siren sounded in the distance. The rain started pouring. The two detectives remained where they were. Within seconds they were drenched.
Then they turned slowly and walked in silence back to Pillay’s car.
13.35
Michael Pullen watched as Ryder and Pillay stood in the pouring rain until they were sodden before walking to their car, getting in, and driving away from the Durban North Police Station. Pullen’s wipers were working at top speed, but still not making any significant impact on visibility as the rain fell in buckets onto the windscreen. He watched as the two detectives drove past him down Norrie Avenue. No point in following them in this weather, he thought. He’d just sit there until the worst was over, and try and understand what he had just witnessed.
His thoughts went back to his earlier conversation with Thabethe - the informant whose name he still did not know - and back to what he had done following that conversation. He had had to put aside for the time being the notes he had recorded on Detective Jeremy Ryder and try a different tactic. He had decided he would go out to the Durban North Police Station in the hope of interviewing one of the six constables who had been involved in the Saturday night massacre. He had surmised that maybe he could scare one of them into coming clean about what had happened. Maybe lunch-time was the best time to find them, he had mused. He would go out to the station, ask around, and see whether he could find one of them.
He couldn’t believe his luck when, as he parked his car on the verge diagonally opposite the police station, but some twenty paces down the road, he saw three people walking from the station onto the grass verge opposite. The gods are smiling on me at last, he thought. Two of the three he recognised instantly. Detectives Ryder and Pillay, from Umdloti on Sunday. Two of the bastards that had humiliated him. And a third man. A giant of a man, even bigger than Ryder.
Pullen watched, excited and fascinated, as the three stopped and engaged in conversation on the pavement. His camera was working overtime. He snapped away at the three figures. He tried to work out what was happening. It seemed to have started as a casual conversation, but it was now looking serious. Was there an argument? The big guy seemed to be aggressive and surly. The two detectives seemed to be interrogating him. Suddenly the big guy bunched his right hand into a fist, threatening Ryder. Threatening to punch him. He’s saying something, speaking right into Ryder’s face.
/>
A few large raindrops splashed down onto Pullen’s windscreen. He cursed, but carried on clicking away with the camera. The three on the pavement were now standing still and not speaking. Now they’re speaking again. Now, suddenly, the big guy has grabbed Ryder by the shirt-front, threatening to hit him. Ryder’s just taking it, not defending himself. Eyeball to eyeball stuff. Incredibly aggressive from the big man. Now he’s let Ryder go and he seems very worked up. Turned away from the other two. And now? Forgiveness all around? First Ryder then that Indian woman go up to the big guy and put a hand each on the guy’s shoulders. Then friendly punches with the fists. All resolved. But the big guy still seems upset. Walks away. Bloody rain coming.
What was that all about? Pullen contemplated what he had just witnessed. Is that big guy the cop who headed up the massacre on the beach, maybe? Is he in cahoots with Ryder? Is Ryder here with his Indian sidekick to warn him to keep his mouth shut, or to lend him support?
Pullen’s mind started concocting a new scenario for what had happened on the beach. He was excited. He would recover the ground he had lost through one simple mistake. He might have got it wrong about the lead detective on the beach, but he was not going to let go of his starting assumption.
These are dirty cops. I’m going to expose them.
15.25
The afternoon sun reappeared over Durban as if from a short afternoon nap. The sky reverted to blue everywhere except in the west where, heading out to the Drakensberg, the bulging black clouds were turning their attention on Lesotho and on terrain beyond, out to the north and north-west. The streets in the city centre were giving off steam as the sun sucked the moisture up from the tarmac. There were already dried-out patches of road and pavement that gave no sign of any of the day’s heavy showers.
Humidity crept back into shirts and into armpits and across foreheads. Store managers were barking orders as brooms were marshalled against the dirt and refuse that had been washed up against their entrances and under their shop-front windows. Cats foraged. The evil cackling of birds, picking out from the garbage newly displaced worms, mingled with the delighted screams of children splashing in puddles.
Mkhize had spent the last few hours visiting old haunts. Making enquiries. Being disappointed. He had to be careful. Couldn’t leave footprints. If someone found out that Mkhize was back in town and asking for a guy called Thabethe, it would be like advertising to the cops. There were so many informers these days. No-one could be trusted. So his enquiries were very casual. By the way, remember that guy…. whatever happened to him…is he still alive? I heard he went to Swaziland…
He pulled out his new iPhone. Bought in Johannesburg. Registered to an address in Orlando East. No connection at all to anywhere in KwaZulu-Natal. He punched in the number for the only woman he trusted. A cleaner at Nomivi’s Tavern.
By the time he closed off the call, she knew what she had to do. She mustn’t store the number on her phone. At Mkhize’s instruction, she had to write it on a piece of paper. She must hide that piece of paper. She must hand it to one person only. No-one else. Ever. And she knew that no-one, absolutely no-one, must know that Spikes Mkhize was back in KwaZulu-Natal. As far as she knew, he was in Gauteng somewhere. Anyone who asked. Especially amaphoyisa. Anyone except one guy. Skhura Thabethe. If ever he made contact, this was the number she could give him, and only him.
16.25
Nadine and Pauline had set up what looked to Mavis Tshabalala like an enormously complicated scenario in their laboratory, in an effort to understand the ballistics from the Umdloti shootings. Charts and drawings and a huge whiteboard, along with two laptops with animated drawings, and photos and sketches showing trajectories and starting points and assumed impact points cluttered the entire room. In response to a specific question from Mavis, Pauline was explaining what they had been looking at for most of the day.
‘Most people, Mavis, think that it’s just a matter of matching slugs to gun barrels, but it’s very much more complicated than that. The divers spent hours searching under the water for us, retrieving all these bullet casings. We think they did incredibly well on that. Poor guys. We were very unfair on them. By the time they had recovered fifteen casings they thought that that was it and that they had probably got them all. But Nadine and I put pressure on them because we had information that there were at least thirty casings, maybe even thirty-one, ten metres out into the water.’
‘How did you know that, Pauline?’
‘We were told by Detective Mashego, Mavis,’ interjected Nadine, ‘who told us he had counted thirty-one bullets being fired at him and the constables by the four guys in the water.’
‘He was counting while they were shooting at him?’
Both Nadine and Pauline laughed.
‘Sorry. I’m saying the wrong thing?’
‘Absolutely not, Mavis!’ said Nadine. ‘Exactly the right thing. We’re laughing because once again Mavis Tshabalala gets it in one!’
‘Exactly,’ added Pauline. ‘Mavis, you’ve got a knack for this stuff. That’s exactly the question to ask. How does he know thirty-one rounds are being fired when they’re supposed to have been aiming right at him!’
‘When we were on the beach on Sunday morning, Mavis,’ Nadine added, ‘we asked Detective Mashego to describe what happened and both Pauline and I were amazed when he told us the thirty-one bullet scenario. It’s something that we’re holding in the back of our minds while we go through all of this. Anyway, as Pauline says, the poor divers thought they had finished the job when they had scoured the sea-bed and found fifteen casings, but because we had this figure of thirty-one from Mashego, we asked them to keep going. Two hours later the total they had recovered was twenty-eight. We had to face facts and accept that the remaining three - if Mashego’s counting is reliable - have simply been lost, dragged away by currents, or buried deep in the sand, or something. But twenty-eight out of thirty-one is not a bad recovery rate.’
‘Those twenty-eight casings, by the way, Mavis, refer only to the weapons of the four guys in the surf. There’s another whole lot of casings collected from the beach. From the police weapons. We’ve counted forty-six of those,’ said Pauline.
‘So the police fired back forty-six bullets? Six or seven shots each?’
‘That’s right, Mavis,’ said Nadine. ‘On average. Some more, some less. We’ve been looking at all of that since lunchtime, working out which slugs came from which police weapons.’
Both of them then dazzled Mavis with discussions about striations, spiralling grooves and lands in gun barrels, analysing the striata in bullets fired from the same barrel, trajectories and velocities, firing pin impressions, and the ways in which bullets enter human tissue and leave traces for the forensic scientists. Mavis was thoroughly absorbed, especially when Nadine and Pauline then went on to talk about how they had matched all thirty-three of the bullet wounds in the four men back to each and every one of the weapons of the seven police officers.
‘Thirty-three hits. Forty-six rounds fired. So the cops had a hit rate of about 72%. Not too impressive, at a distance of ten metres, wouldn’t you say, Mavis?’
Mavis pondered Nadine’s question, before answering.
‘Maybe some of the police were firing to miss?’
‘Oh, Mavis. You are really the best. You’ve got to join me and Pauline in this lab one day.’
Mavis beamed as Nadine gave her an enormous hug.
‘Nadine and I were also thinking that, Mavis. One constable fired ten rounds in total and we could trace only one of the thirty-three slugs back to his gun. And Detective Mashego wasn’t the best marksman in his team on the night, by the way. We’ve checked his weapon and he fired seven rounds. We’ve traced five hits for him. Two into one guy, two into another guy, and one into a third guy. If he also shot at the fourth guy he appears to have missed with two of his total of seven shots.’
‘Have you asked him how many he shot?’
‘No, Mavis,’ said Nadine. ‘W
e asked him a few general questions on Sunday, but that kind of questioning will come from the guys at IPID. They’ll get all of this stuff that we’re doing now in a formal report, and then they’ll be interviewing each of the police officers involved. They’ve already each had one interview, I understand, but there’ll be more once IPID have more information. By the way, Mavis, you know that what we talk to you about here is confidential?’
‘Yes, of course, Nadine. Yes. I understand.’
‘Thanks. Wouldn’t want anything to leak before Pauline and I know for ourselves what we think might have happened on the night. And another thing. Pauline and I lifted the evidence from the beach so our work since then is simply because we’re interested in where it all might lead. There are other people in this unit who are doing completely independent tests on the evidence we lifted, and we’ll only hear much later what they think it all means, from their own perspectives.’
‘Yes, I see. Thank you, Nadine.’
‘The real marksman on the night, Mavis, was a constable Buthelezi. She appears to have had nine hits. One guy took three bullets from her weapon. The other three each took two from her. Want to know the best part of her story?’
‘What, Pauline?’
‘Constable Buthelezi fired a total of nine rounds on the night. Nine fired, nine hits. Sharp cookie.’
They went on with the details, and Mavis was more convinced than ever that her future career was going to be in forensics. Then Nadine took a call on her iPhone.
‘Nadine Salm. Yes. Oh, yes, hi, Genevieve. How are you? Yes, no problem. Definitely. Go ahead… What? Really? Wow. That changes things, doesn’t it? But no guns used? OK, so that means we still keep working separately, but we’ll talk whenever…. Yes. Agreed. No, thanks for letting me know. It’s very useful. Thanks a lot. Bye.’
She hung up and answered the enquiring looks from Pauline and Mavis.
‘That was Genevieve. From the other team looking at the homicide on Sugar Cane Road, Mavis. They’ve been talking to the pathologist and have just had a team meeting to take stock. It wasn’t only our four guys involved in the action. There were seven of the bastards.’