by Ian Patrick
Maybe the Colonel was one step ahead. Maybe he did actually use Mashego this morning. Maybe Mashego is already in and he’s just moving carefully before he commits.
Tomorrow night’s meeting might help to resolve everything.
16.15.
Pullen had immediately agreed to meet the men he knew as Mzenzisi and Mlungisi Mkhohlisi. At his suggestion they met at the outdoor Blue Zoo Restaurant in Mitchell Park. Thabethe and Mkhize were wary. They were still wanted men. Lunch would be over and most of the dining patrons would have left, but the Friday afternoon crowd would be hanging around. Nevertheless, after checking the patrons from a distance they felt able to join Pullen, who was waiting for them at a table and immediately ordered a round of beers.
Within minutes they were weaving their web again for the journalist. Pullen sympathised immediately as Mkhize explained his nervousness, building on what they had previously told him in KwaMashu. The story was that Mlungisi was terrified of Ryder because he no longer wanted to sell drugs for the man. He had heard from friends that Ryder had put out a contract on him, and that was why he was now looking around nervously in case he was recognised.
‘Don’t worry,’ Pullen said. ‘I know most of the faces that sit around here. They’re always the same Friday afternoon crowd. I come here a lot. In fact I’m also coming back here on Sunday for lunch with a football coach. I’m researching an article on him for next week...’
‘You writing soccer things?’ asked Thabethe.
‘Yes. Um… it’s one of the things I do… soccer and crime...’ Pullen felt uncomfortable and wasn’t going to tell them about the humiliation he felt, having been kicked off the crime page, as he saw it, and relegated to sport. He changed the subject back again.
‘Anyway, so what have you got for me on Ryder?’
The two men then took Pullen on a journey through Ryder’s supposed corruption, Mashego’s involvement in this, and how they had now learned more about a widening rift between the two detectives. The big news they had for Pullen today was this. Mlungisi had learned from his friends that Ryder had put out a contract on Mashego and was going to have him assassinated in full view of the guests at the ceremony planned tomorrow for the deceased constable, the one who had died at Virginia Airport. Mashego was a close friend of the dead woman. Ryder knew this, and Ryder had arranged for five men to take Mashego out in full view of many other cops who would be present, some of whom were linked to the drugs conspiracy run by Ryder. Ryder wanted it done this way so that Mashego would no longer be a threat to his drug empire, and so that a powerful message would be sent to other cops present, many of whom were scared of Ryder because they knew that he controlled a big drugs empire. The hit would involve knives and not guns. This was because Ryder didn’t want a shootout with lots of policemen around. And he wanted to show people that he could get very close to even a powerful giant of a man like Mashego and cut him down whenever he wanted to.
Pullen was completely taken in and believed every word. He agreed to be available to meet them tomorrow at Izingolweni for the action, even though it was a long trip. It was his own suggestion that rather than relying on photographs he should take a video camera. If he could capture the action, as if by accident, while just happening to be filming the ritual of an interesting traditional wake scene, it would be sensational…
The three men parted with the plans securely laid. Thabethe and Mkhize left, excited at the prospect of all of this finally getting Ryder into a big mess and getting him off their backs. And both of them were amazed at how easily the stupid journalist was falling for all of this.
Pullen watched the men go up the hill toward the exit, and started imagining his name up in lights.
16.40.
Pillay responded without hesitation to the invitation from Ryder to join Nadine Salm and Pauline Soames at the scene of the Virginia Airport shootings. Purely social, Nadine had said on the phone, according to Ryder. They duly arrived in Ryder’s car and after the informalities the two forensics officers commenced mapping out the scene for the two detectives. After ten minutes of orientation the two guests realised that their presence there was for more than merely social reasons. When that suggestion was put to Nadine by Ryder, she confessed.
‘OK, Jeremy. Of course. Far be it from me to hide anything from Detectives Ryder and Pillay. We haven’t been chatting to you for the last ten minutes simply because we like your company, both of you. Although we do, of course. It’s just that the IPID guys are so busy with other cases and, to tell you the truth, so disinterested, that Pauline and I thought we might share a few things with you two instead. Very bad practice, of course, so we know you’ll keep the fact of this invitation to yourselves.’
‘How do you mean, they’re disinterested, Nadine?’ asked Pillay.
‘Well, Navi, the IPID guys were down here earlier this afternoon and we tried to interest them in what we see as a few, well, anomalies, but we got the distinct impression that they weren’t really interested.’
‘It was almost as if they wanted us to shut up shop quickly and go home and report it as an open and shut case,’ added Pauline. ‘The matching of Radebe’s dagger and the three DNA profiles to the vic on Sugar Cane Road has just about sealed the attitude of everyone in IPID. Everyone is so horrified by what happened up there that they probably think...’
‘Think that we should simply endorse the reports of Buthelezi and Mashego and move on to the next case?’ suggested Pillay.
‘That’s more or less what I was going to say, Navi,’ said Pauline.
‘What kind of anomalies were you thinking of, Nadine?’
‘Well Jeremy, let’s see. Where shall we start? OK. So we have the story from Buthelezi and Mashego that runs like this… and as I say that, in fact, it reminds me that when I say the story is from the two of them, in fact it was Mashego that did most of the talking. He seems to have, well, assimilated everything Buthelezi told him when he arrived on the scene, and was able to speak for both of them in great detail about what had happened both before and after he arrived on the scene.’
Ryder was trying to see whether there was irony in Nadine’s words, but she was poker-faced. She continued.
‘So, anyway, we have the story from Buthelezi and Mashego, as I say, that runs like this... ’
She walked them through the scene as she talked, pointing out the various markers that had been placed on the ground and on trees and bushes.
‘Thandiwe runs in ahead of Thenjiwe and gets shot three times in the back and falls down right here. Thenjiwe follows straight after and as she enters the clearing she gets clobbered from behind and drops down right over here. They drag her over and tie her up here. While she is out, for a few minutes, we understand, they strip and rape Thandiwe over there. So far, so good. No problems with any of that. Scuffle marks, footprints, blood, semen, all hang together with that scenario. But then other interesting things seem to happen. Thenjiwe wakes up, struggles with one of the guys who’s trying to strip her. She breaks free and overpowers him, we are told. As this is going on we assume the other two guys are having a smoke break or something, because they don’t intervene.’
Ryder and Pillay exchanged looks but kept silent. She continued.
‘Thenjiwe turns the tables on the guy, but he manages to get his weapon into his right hand because he’s about to be involved in a shootout with her. The other two guys are still watching, doubtless very interested, or maybe they’ve nodded off for a few winks as she pumps ten bullets into baddie number one, who dies with his gun in his right hand, having shot seven bullets back at Thenjiwe...’
‘Judging from the ballistics examinations on Wednesday night,’ explained Pauline.
‘...seven bullets at Thenjiwe, who was by that time standing over here. All of which bullets happen to miss Thenjiwe. The other two guys are probably waking up at this point. Seventeen bullets must make a helluva noise, after all.’
Ryder and Pillay already had a clear picture of where
Nadine was going with this, and both of them were extremely depressed.
‘Then, we understand, Thenjiwe runs across the clearing, because the other two guys are now firing at her. She drops her weapon but, incredibly lucky for her, she manages to grab Thandiwe’s weapon that is lying just over there, within reach. The other two guys, meanwhile, each fire off eight rounds at her.
‘Ballistics, again,’ added Pauline, unnecessarily.
‘Such bad shots, they were. All sixteen of those bullets missed. But not so for our Thenjiwe. Remember, this is the sharp cookie who fired nine bullets at the four guys in Umdloti on Saturday night and got nine hits. Well, blow me down if she doesn’t do it again. Twelve shots fired by Thenjiwe from Thandiwe’s gun, and twelve hits. Not just hits. Perfect hits, given the fact that everyone is ducking and diving and running and firing back. Twelve perfect hits from Thenjiwe.’
‘Six slugs each,’ added Pauline. Incredible grouping. Both vics receiving perfectly symmetrical hits in virtually the same spreads on their torsos.’
‘And these two guys who took on the best markswoman in town also both died with their guns in their right hands.’
‘I think you’re leading up to a comment about the right hands, Nadine,’ said Ryder. ‘You’ve mentioned right hand a couple of times.’
‘Clever Detective Ryder. See, Pauline? Never disappointed. This detective knows his stuff.’
‘Uh-oh! I get it,’ said Pillay. ‘How many of them were left-handed?’
‘Absolutely correct question, Navi. Our research has shown that baddie number one, Mr Sipho Radebe, was left-handed. Silly man, wasn’t he, to forget that little fact when he grabbed his gun with his right hand. Taking on Thenjiwe Buthelezi one-on-one, he really should have chosen his favoured left hand. The other two were indeed right-handed. No problem there. Apparently.’
Ryder was standing, arms folded, looking at the ground, dejected.
‘I’m really sorry, Jeremy. I know you would rather...’
‘Not at all, Nadine,’ said Ryder. ‘This is what you do. And thank God for you and Pauline. I suppose there’s a lot more in addition to what you’ve just said?’
‘There is, Jeremy, but we don’t need to go over it. You get the picture. The scuffles in the sand, the position of Mashego when he is on the scene, apparently only later, his footprints when he’s leaning over the bodies. Compared to what he told us. You name it.’
‘There was one thing they seem to have got right,’ observed Pauline. ‘The trajectories. Kneeling in the sand. Executioner and victim, both. Looks like they thought of the angle of the bullets, so she just knelt down for the final shots as the vics were on their knees. Probably begging for mercy. Maybe not. Who knows? But definitely on their knees, whatever they were doing.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Pillay. ‘Not a word about any of this in the movies. Why don’t the two of you go on television? Give a lecture to all the would-be perpetrators out there and tell them that whatever they’re thinking of getting up to, Nadine Salm and Pauline Soames will be watching.’
‘Very kind, Navi,’ said Nadine. ‘But I think I’d only have one sentence for the audience.’
‘What’s that, Nadine?’ replied Pillay.
‘There’s no such thing as a perfect murder.’
16.50
Mashego and Buthelezi were on their way to Izingolweni for the Saturday afternoon ceremony. They had both been offered beds for the night in Thandiwe’s home, where Thenjiwe had frequently been a welcome guest. She was always treated as a member of the family, the parents having recognised the special and very close bond between her and their daughter. When told that the giant Detective Mashego, with whom both constables had worked and about whom they had so often spoken in glowing terms, had offered to drive Thenjiwe, they extended the invitation to him. And they had been persuaded to come down in time for Friday night supper and prayers, too. It would be a small occasion for family and close friends, unlike the next day’s planned celebrations where they expected well in excess of two hundred guests.
Mashego was preoccupied for much of the journey. He was thinking of his old friend Nxumalo. He had suffered as much as Mashego himself. Both of them had lost children under the most appalling circumstances imaginable. The journey of revenge was well known to both policemen. Having spent years working dutifully and meticulously as what the system described as Merit Award officers, doing everything by the book, each of them, in separate incidents, had been thrust into hellfire.
They had worked together for two years before Cat’s promotion had taken him off in another direction. They had remained in contact initially, but work and family commitments had seen them drift apart. Then, in each case, they had come back together, briefly, at the funerals following the two cataclysmic moments in each of their lives. But in each case neither could provide solace or comfort to the other. Each of them had had to burn in hell and then smoulder and then rise from the ashes to wreak revenge in the most horrific manner on the people who had destroyed their children and their families.
The pattern of their vengeance had been different in each case. But the results had been the same. They had each embarked on a journey as a different kind of cop. From the moment of the death of their children they had redefined their own approaches to police work. No longer watching people and organising and marshalling and coaxing and managing and warning and apprehending. From then onward, in each case, policing meant cleansing. Cleansing the world of garbage. Policeman as sheriff and judge and executioner.
They had lost touch after they each sensed that the other recognised this change in their friend. For each of them it was better that they remained separate and pursued their own agendas privately.
Until Nxumalo re-established contact. And urged him. And cajoled him. With such passion. Last night, in front of the crashing waves, it was as if some evil sea monster was rising from the water to coax them both into even murkier depths than they had each plumbed in the last few years. The wind and the waves last night…
‘Nights? Nights? Where are you, Nights?’
He realised that Buthelezi had been speaking to him.
‘Sorry! Sorry, Thenji! Hau! I was far away. I’m sorry!’
She smiled. Her first smile in two days.
‘That was so strange, Nights. I was speaking to you for almost a minute before I realised that you were somewhere else. What were you thinking?’
‘Sorry, Thenjiwe. I was thinking of an old friend. I met him last night… I was thinking about the times when we worked together...the things we have done together.’
‘I was telling you that we’re much earlier than I thought we would be, so why don’t we pull in at the picnic spot at Mpenjati? It’s coming up any second now. Next turn left, just before the river.’
‘OK. Good idea.’
Mashego turned in on the northern bank of the Mpenjati River where it entered the sea. The Mpenjati Nature Reserve had long been a favourite area for her and Thandiwe, she told Mashego as they pulled in under the trees on the bank of the river.
They got out and walked down-river then stood in the shade, with a view across the river in front of them and to the Indian Ocean little more than two hundred metres on their left. Unusually, for a hot Friday afternoon, there were very few people in view. The opposite bank was deserted except for an old couple some twenty metres downriver toward the surf, sitting on a blanket spread out on the sand and tucked in close to the bank for some shelter. Three young children were playing in the river.
‘Probably their grandchildren,’ said Buthelezi.
Beyond them, out where the river joined the sea, there were a few people in twos and threes, knee-deep in the surf, watching the tide go out and skimming pebbles on the water.
Mashego’s attention was caught by two young women emerging from the ablution block directly opposite them above the bank on the other side of the river. They were followed by two middle-aged men.
‘Working girls,’ said Buthelezi. ‘Ther
e’s so much poverty here. Young girls. Some of them fourteen and fifteen. We could go across there and arrest those guys right now. But it won’t stop anything. It’s been going on for years. The police around here don’t even bother any more. They used to grab the guys just to scare them into paying bribes to let them go. But the cops were caught doing that, so now they don’t even bother, and the girls are here all the time. Trading in full view. On the road where we came in, too. There are always customers for them.’
‘Should we do something? Just to scare the guys? Tell them how old the girls are? Tell them we’re taking them in for statutory rape?’
‘No, Nights. I’m too dead inside. I don’t even have the energy.’
‘I understand.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and started weeping. He put his arms around her. He could find nothing to say. He just held her gently against his massive chest.
‘I loved her, Nights,’ she said, looking up at him, the tears coming fast. ‘I loved her so much. I don’t know what I can do.’
The big man felt his own eyes swimming. He thought of his own daughter. He had no words to comfort her, so they stood like that for fully a minute before parting.
‘Let’s walk a bit,’ she said.
They walked downriver some fifty paces and then stopped, looking at the surf in the distance. A slight breeze came up, a gentle south-easter, bringing with it some sand.
‘Down there to the left is Trafalgar,’ she said. ‘Thandi and I used to walk from here all the way down to the main beach at Trafalgar. Sometimes we would go up the paths to the left, through the bushes toward the road at the top, then walk along the road and look out over the big luxury houses toward the ocean. We knew those bushes so well. We loved this area. We used to joke about how one day we would be able to buy one of those houses and move in together, and look at the sea every day. I almost feel as if Thandi is here, Nights. She’s here, somewhere, calling me. Telling me to join her. Listen to the wind in the leaves. Maybe it’s Thandi.’