by Ian Patrick
‘Don’t let your women strike back, wena! Who’s the boss there, bra Seeps? Do it, Seeps, then we must go. Quick! You scared of that bitch?’
Both voices joined in cackling laughter, adding to the humiliation of the man called Sipho. With renewed energy and rage he ripped her trousers down to below the knees and climbed on top of Buthelezi, whose muffled screams escalated. Suddenly he ripped down her blindfold.
‘You must watch, bitch! You must look. I want you to see what a man can do to a woman who thinks she is tough. Who thinks she is a man. Now I am going to turn you into my woman.’
His two companions screamed with laughter.
Buthelezi looked into the yellow nyaope-fuelled eyes three inches from her face. The image of the first dog she had ever encountered came into her mind. An evil devil from hell with yellow eyes and gnashing teeth was how the three-year old Thenjiwe had viewed the first dog with which she had ever come face to face. Her mother had tried to comfort her, but the experience had so shocked the child that it was years before she could shake off her feelings of repulsion whenever she was in the presence of a dog. And now she felt the same horror as she looked into this man’s lascivious leering face.
Then two shots were fired.
There was total silence. Everyone, Buthelezi included, froze. Then she heard Mashego’s voice.
‘Drop them! Now! On the ground! You! Up! Up! Get up!’
Buthelezi felt her would-be abuser lift his weight off her, and she sobbed with relief. Mashego. Mashego had found them.
‘Take off her gag. Now! You two, stand still. One move from you and you’re dead.’
She retched as the foul rags were pulled out of her mouth.
‘Untie her! Do it!’
Buthelezi’s bosom heaved as she sucked breath into her lungs. As her arms were freed, she spat out the foul fumes of diesel or whatever concoction was embedded in the fabric that had choked her. Her relief and rage and anguish were set aside momentarily, however, as she looked over and saw that Thandiwe, who a matter of minutes ago had lain sprawled out on her stomach with bullet wounds in her back, was now sprawled out on her back, her blouse ripped open and her trousers removed and her pants about her ankles.
‘Thandiwe!’
She ran over to Thandiwe and collapsed on her knees next to the constable.
Then she screamed.
A long, agonised cry of existential pain and helpless fury. An atavistic sound of rage echoing from prehistory and down through the ages. A sound to instil terror into any person or any animal within hearing distance.
A sound to transform into burning acid the stomach juices of the three perpetrators. The three men shuddered in fear as her scream faded away into a muffled sob.
But Buthelezi’s rage hadn’t simply dissipated. It was as if a huge iron lid had been placed over the mouth of a volcano, temporarily subduing the molten lava that bubbled within. She saw her gun on the ground, where it had been flung, on the other side of the clearing from where they had rapidly tied her. Mashego watched the three men closely, his Vektor SP1 trained on them. Buthelezi walked, as if in a dream, across the clearing to pick up her gun, and Mashego knew what was coming. He willed what was coming. And he supported to the hilt what was coming. He spoke ominously quietly to the three men.
‘Keep your hands on your heads. Easy, now! Don’t move. Stand still.’
Buthelezi picked up her weapon. Checked the magazine. Blew off the sand. Wiped it on her sleeve. Turned. And walked back to her abuser.
‘Fifteen feet, Thenjiwe,’ said Mashego.
She nodded. She knew he was right. Ballistics would check for GSR. But she wanted, firstly, to look into the man’s eyes. She wanted to confront the dog that had tormented her since she was three. She wanted the evil dog to know who was in charge.
The man was trembling in fear. His eyes flashed from her to the big cop. Then back to the woman cop. What were they going to do? She brought her face into a space twelve inches from his own, locking her gaze onto him. His eyes dropped. He couldn’t maintain the contact. She paused, then stepped backwards. And again. And again. And yet again. And more. Until she had placed herself some fifteen feet away from him. Then she raised her gun, aiming at him.
‘No!’ the man screamed. ‘No! Hayibo! You can’t...’
She shot him in the right shoulder. He screamed and fell back against the tree, clutching the wound with his left hand. Mashego kept his eyes on the other two men. As they dropped their hands - more in shock than in any attempt at action - he shouted at them.
‘Hands on your heads! Don’t move. Stay exactly where you are!’
They obeyed. Buthelezi paused. Then she fired another bullet. This one into the man’s left shoulder. Again, he screamed in agony, twisting to the left against the tree, unable to raise his right hand to clutch the new wound. Both arms hung helplessly, as if just dangling from their collar-bones. She waited for the scream to die away. Then she put a third bullet into his stomach. His scream this time was primeval. It mixed indescribable pain with anguished horror. Only now did he know what the policewoman intended. His knees buckled, but he remained upright, eyes bulging in terror.
She put a fourth and a fifth bullet, fired rapidly together, into his groin, shredding his genitals. Then a pause. Followed by a sixth into his right lung, just below the collar-bone. Then another pause, and a seventh into the left collar-bone. She didn’t want him to die yet, so she paused for a few seconds. Mashego pointed his weapon at the other two, who were whimpering in terror. One of them fell to his knees, and started begging, his hands clasped in front of him as if praying to the big cop.
‘Put your hands on your head!’ barked Mashego, and there was instant compliance. The man’s companion joined him on his knees. Both of them with their hands on their heads. Both weeping in sheer terror.
Buthelezi watched as the numbness started in her victim. Still, miraculously, on his feet. Blood appeared in his mouth and dribbled over his bottom lip. He was mouthing words but no sound emerged. Just bubbles of blood. There was no more pain. Or it was simply, now, distant. He struggled like a man in a dream, trying to remain on his feet. He failed. As he fell to his knees she raised her gun again, taking aim.
‘No, Thenjiwe. Wait!’ said Mashego.
She paused, still looking at her victim.
‘Trajectory,’ said Mashego. ‘Ballistics! You’re too high.’
She understood immediately, and slowly went down on both knees. And took aim again, two-handed. Victim and executioner were both on their knees, fifteen feet apart, facing one another. Her next bullet hit him dead centre on the sternum, shattering the bone into countless fragments. And the next went adjacent to it, a centimetre to the left. She watched him rock back, still on both knees. His yellow eyes bulged, staring at her. Then she put a tenth bullet into the middle of his forehead. He toppled forward, face first, into the soil.
The two men on their knees were shuddering in uncontrollable fear as Buthelezi turned and looked at them. They whimpered as if they were babies unsure of what was happening to cause them such trembling discomfort. Then she looked at Mashego. He nodded. She got to her feet and walked over to the two men who started whimpering louder, begging her, pleading for mercy. She paused.
‘Get up,’ she said.
They obeyed. She stood, looking at them. She held the gaze, expressionless. Their eyes dropped to look at her shoes. There was a slight moment of miniscule relief for the two men as she then stepped back, turned, and walked back to the body of Thandiwe, holstering her weapon as she did so. She stood over the constable’s violated body, and reached down to pick up something in the undergrowth just ahead of the body. Thandiwe’s service pistol. Thenjiwe picked it up, turned, and looked at Mashego. He nodded.
‘It’s OK, Thenjiwe. We’ll work out together exactly what happened here. Go ahead.’
She walked over to the two men, training Thandiwe’s pistol on them.
‘Look at me!’ she said.
&nbs
p; The men obeyed instantly, thinking that anything they did to annoy this woman would result in death for them. They had better obey every order, they thought. Otherwise they wouldn’t survive. If they followed her instructions they would face jail. If they disobeyed her, they’d end up like Sipho.
They were wrong in their assessment. Buthelezi placed herself fifteen feet from the two men. Then she put one bullet into each of their stomachs. They both collapsed in shock onto their knees. Then she went down again on one knee, held the pistol in two hands and put two bullets each into both men, one into each of their shoulders. Just as she had done with Sipho. She paused for a second or two and then put three quick consecutive bullets into one man, into the chest. Then the same into the other man. She watched them both die with horror in their eyes and agony in their voices. Then she stood up and lowered the weapon, staring at the two dead men.
As silence returned to the clearing, Mashego walked over to her, holstering his weapon. He took Thandiwe’s gun from her, and folded her in his arms.
‘OK, Thenjiwe. OK. It’s OK, comrade.’
She wept, loudly, into his chest. Her wails turned into sobs, and she clung to him. He held her for a few moments more then spoke, gently.
‘Let’s work out our story. We need to work out how you had one shoot-out with the one guy, then how you managed to grab Thandiwe’s gun and win the shootout with the other two guys.’
She nodded, and gently withdrew herself from his arms. Then she walked and knelt down over Thandiwe’s body. Mashego followed and knelt down beside her. Both of them were on their knees next to the body of the constable. She reached out to touch the body, but Mashego restrained her. He pulled back her arm, gently.
‘Don’t touch,’ he said, then put his arm around her shoulders and continued. ‘Don’t touch anything. Wait here.’
He got to his feet. She let her head drop onto her bosom, exhausted, weeping over the body of her dearest Thandiwe, as Mashego went about his business. He pulled a large white handkerchief from his pocket and went over to each of the men in turn. Using the handkerchief to protect against his own fingermarks, he picked up each of their weapons, in turn, and fired seven or eight rounds from each of them, working out the angles and the direction in each case. Deliberately hitting trees in some cases, and in other cases firing straight into the sky overhead through gaps in the canopy of bush, just to lose the bullets. Then he placed the weapons into each of their right hands. He angled their wrists carefully, taking care to replace the trigger fingers, then he positioned each of the dead hands carefully on the ground.
Then he walked back over to Thenjiwe and helped her to her feet. He held her in his arms for a few seconds before speaking.
‘Let’s rehearse,’ he said, releasing her and stepping back a couple of paces. ‘You need to have your answers ready. Simple, straight answers. You’ll need to speak to them simply, when they come. Plain and simple.’
She nodded before replying.
‘Plain and simple,’ she said.
The sun fled. In the distance, a police siren sounded, drawing nearer.
5: THURSDAY
06.45.
Koekemoer, Dippenaar, Pillay and Cronje were out in the car park. They were complaining about the latest outage that had killed off the fans in the office. As a consequence, being indoors was a killer. It was already looking like another sweltering hot day and they had been told that electricity would come back on again only at 10.00 am. The Captain, however, was inside because he had to follow up on something urgent.
Mavis Tshabalala had offered to nip off and buy some ice-cold cans of Coke and Fanta to replace the normal coffee and tea for this time of the morning. As she arrived with the goods they all cheered.
‘Daarsy! Good one, Mavis! Are they cold?’
‘Freezing,’ replied Mavis. ‘Everyone’s doing the same. Long line. They’re selling like...’
‘Not like hot-cakes, please, Mavis,’ said Koekemoer. ‘It’ll make me sweat just to hear someone say that.’
‘Weird expression, isn’t it?’ said Pillay. ‘Wonder where it comes from? Selling like hot-cakes.’
‘I read somewhere that it started when they made pancakes or flapjacks in America and they used to sell them at Church fairs and fêtes and things, and they had to be sold while they were still hot, so they were bought very quickly. Something like that. What are you ous looking at, man?’
They were all staring at Cronje as he said all of this. Koekemoer spoke for all of them.
‘Yissus, Oom Piet! There you go again. Blerrie eekhoring! Where do you store all that stuff you read about? Does that cabinet ever get full? What’s going to happen when you run out of memory space, jong? I heard someone describe Alzheimer’s in an interesting way, you know, that makes me think of you, Piet.’
‘Ja, Koeks? How do you mean?’
‘No, man, Piet. This guy was saying that memory is like a bucket of water, you know. When you’re still a laaitie you get all these experiences and you remember things, and you start filling up the bucket in your head with memories, like water, you know. So then this goes on your whole life. Then what happens when the bucket gets full? Just like water, okes. It starts overflowing. And which is the water that pours out? The most recent water you’re trying to add. Not the water in the bottom. There’s no space left in the bucket, so the water you’re trying to add now just pours straight back out again. Like memories when you become an ou toppie, you know? Forget where you put your keys two minutes ago. Forget why you came into the room. Forget to buy things from the shop. But long-term memories? Different, hey? You remember when you had your first ice-cream like it was yesterday, jong. And you remember the name of every Springbok who played in 1995. And you even remember that first soentjie you ever got, hey, Mavis, from that boykie at the bottom of the playground when you were seven years old? You’ll never forget that, will you, hey, Mavis?’
‘It’s true, Detective Koeks. He was a very nice boy, that one.’
‘Ja, same with me, hey, Koeks,’ said Dippenaar.
‘What, Dipps, you kissed a little boykie in the playground too?’
‘Ag, sies, jong. No, man, Koeks. Fokoff, man. I’m just saying I can remember things that happened twenty, thirty years ago, hey, as if they were yesterday, but now I’m introduced to someone new and one minute later I forget their names, hey?’
‘Ja, ou broer. You especially, Dipps. I noticed that. Sannie told me the other day you woke up next to her in bed and you said Wie’s jy, vroumens?’
‘Ag kak, man, Koeks. Jirra, you talk...’
Ryder pulled up in the car park. Cronje asked Mavis whether she had got him a drink, too, and she replied in the affirmative.
‘Hi, Jeremy,’ said Cronje. ‘No power inside. Load-shedding again. But the Captain is there at his desk, working on something. Anyway, it’s too hot for coffee. Mavis got you a Coke.’
‘That’s great. Thanks, Mavis,’ said Ryder as he took the can she held out for him.
‘It’s a pleasure. I better take one to the Captain, too,’ said Mavis, and went off up the stairs as Ryder continued.
‘It’s never too hot for coffee, Piet. But I can wait. Something cold will be great right now. So what’s happening?’
‘No, man, Jeremy, normal day,’ said Cronje. Robbery in Glenwood. Assault with GBH in Umbilo. Mugging in Umbilo, separate case completely. ATM blown up in Musgrave. Stash of weapons found in Point Road. You want it, we got it. We sell crime stories like hot-cakes here. But none of our local stuff on the news, hey? It’s all about that hit near KwaMashu on the taxi guys. And you heard about that other stuff at Virginia Airport on the radio? One cop down and three bastards taken out last night?’
There were affirmative noises all round. They had all picked up on the news.
‘I heard it was one of those same cops from Saturday night in Umdloti that took the bastards down,’ said Dippenaar.
‘That’s right,’ Ryder replied, ‘Thenjiwe Buthelezi. And the cop w
ith her, who went down in the action, was also with her when they got involved at Umdloti.’
‘Oh. I didn’t hear that bit, Jeremy,’ said Pillay. ‘I knew that a policewoman was shot, and I heard that the three guys were then taken out by another cop. Single-handed. So that was Thenjiwe? Good for her.’
‘I got all the details from Nights Mashego,’ said Ryder. ‘He got there only after the action. Apparently. He called me afterwards from the scene. Said that back-up had arrived from Durban North and that he didn’t need me to help but just wanted me to have the news, because we had been talking just before he went out there.’
Ryder left it there, without elaboration, as they all broke into separate conversations about the event, what they had heard on the radio, and what Cronje had picked up from his opposite number at Durban North. During this hubbub Mavis was coming back down the stairs to re-join them, and she took a call on her iPhone halfway down. Ryder watched her face as she digested the news. Mavis was one of those people whose heart was as directly connected to her facial muscles as her brain was, he thought. He saw her register a range of emotions, cover her mouth to stifle a gasp, and then try to deal with the tears.
Pillay was the next person to notice. She rushed over immediately and put her arm around Mavis. The others then noticed, too. Mavis closed down the call, turning her back on the others while telling Pillay in an undertone what she had heard, before walking off to the toilets. Pillay turned to brief the others.
‘The cop who went down last night was raped. After she had been shot. Mavis knew her. I didn’t get her name...’
‘Thandiwe,’ Ryder said.
‘That’s it. Mavis said that Thandiwe had been friends for a long time with Thenjiwe Buthelezi. More than friends. They’ve been living together for the past year...’
There was a collective hush as they digested the information, before Dippenaar picked up the thread.
‘Yissus! Raped as well as shot. Raped after she was shot. Bastards.’ He spat out the word. ‘Put guys like that in front of me in a room somewhere, and I...’