by Ian Patrick
‘Are you aware, mister, that sexual activity with a minor is classified as rape?’
It was a hammer blow. The man started crying. It was a sorry sight.
‘No, please, I’m sorry, I just… I’ll go, I promise...’
‘Shaddup!’ said Pillay. ‘Shut your mouth, you fat pig, and stop blabbering.’
There was a moment of silence. The man quivered like a big white jellyfish. He was perspiring in such a way that the beads of sweat were dropping off his face directly onto the ground. His shirt was wet, a product of both his current ordeal and whatever excitement he had experienced in pursuing whatever activity he had engaged in with the two young women.
Suddenly, to the amazement of the two detectives, the man dropped to his knees, and from the kneeling position he placed his forehead on the ground. And wept, silently.
Ryder motioned Pillay aside and whispered to her.
‘Looks like he’s already learned the lesson. And I’m worried about a heart attack.’
‘I think you’re right, Jeremy. I’d love nothing more than to take him in and process him and let him understand how we define rape in this country, but maybe he’s already learned enough to run with his tail between his porky legs, back to Leeds or York or wherever he comes from.’
They turned back to the man and ordered him to his feet. They let him stew a little longer before they let him go, and watched him in disgust as he waddled off. Then Pillay moved over to the car.
‘OK. Let’s go, Jeremy. We have a party to go to. Why they call it a celebration, I don’t know.’
‘Because meeting guys like that, Navi, reminds us that there are still quite a few people in this country we can celebrate. Thandiwe was one of them.’
They pulled out of the parking area, heading for Izingolweni.
12.50.
Pullen had been briefed by Thabethe. He didn’t know the south coast very well, apart from the main beach resorts, but Thabethe had given clear enough instructions.
‘You go to Mpenjati River, nearly 100 miles from Durban. First you take the N2 to Port Shepstone and you go through those toll gates then you are on R61 going to Port Edward. And then you pass Trafalgar on your left side. Then maybe one more mile you turn first road right after Mpenjati River to go up the hill then you find the road to Izingolweni.’
Pullen had checked the directions on the map afterward, and now ran through his memory of them again as he got nearer. Pass San Lameer, then Trafalgar, both on the left, then take the right turn toward Izingolweni on the far side of the Mpenjati River. This is the northern branch of the road to Izingolweni, he remembered Thabethe saying. There’s another one down opposite the turn-off to Port Edward. But take the first one. Pullen would find Mlungisi waiting at the Mpenjati corner on the R61 at 1.00 pm sharp.
His timing was down to pure luck rather than design. Mkhize was there. The man Pullen knew as Mlungisi climbed into the car and instructed Pullen to drive up the hill then meander down a few miles on the far side, on one of the two roads from both north and south that joined before they led toward Izingolweni. As they drove, Mkhize explained that the police constable named Thandiwe was to be buried on the farm where she had been born, very close to the place where the two roads met. But that would only be in eight or nine days time. Today was just a ceremony, Pullen understood, something to do with clearing away bad spirits before the body was interred. They had under an hour to set up before the ceremony commenced, and they could expect the guests to gather from 1.30.
Thabethe had told Pullen that the hit on Mashego would be made by five men under instruction from Ryder, at exactly 2.00 pm, as the ceremony started. They didn’t tell Pullen that Thabethe had contracted the men, paying them half in advance with the remainder of the money to be handed over after they had taken down Mashego. Instead, they told the journalist that one of the men was known to Thabethe and had confided in him, and that on the day Thabethe had offered that man a lift from Durban in order that he might obtain more information about the dirty work they all did for Ryder. Thabethe would then brief Pullen so that he could add the finishing touches to Durban’s Dirty Detectives, as Pullen had already told them he was going to headline his report.
At their destination they pulled in off the road and started unpacking the equipment from Pullen’s car. Mkhize found an appropriate spot.
‘Here. You put your camera here. You take the zoom shots, nè? The people they will stand over there. You will see Detective Mashego and the woman, Constable Buthelezi, both. They will stand somewhere down there. You see, by those rocks? There. Then you will see the men come. I think it is five men. They will attack Mashego sometime before the priest he starts talking. We are knowing that these men they work for Ryder and Ryder has paid them to kill Mashego, because Mashego he is taking the business from Ryder.’
Thabethe would have frowned at the unsubtle way in which Mkhize was overdoing it, repeating and extending and clarifying and providing altogether too much information. But Pullen didn’t notice. He was beside himself with excitement. He was going to film a hit on a drug-dealing cop, organised by another drug-dealing cop. He would be the only journalist for miles around. It would be the biggest scoop imaginable.
‘Where is Menzi?’ he asked.
‘Mzenzisi.’
‘Sorry, Mzenzisi. Is he going to be here?’
‘Yes, he will be here,’ Mkhize replied. ‘He will be trying to find out from those men how much that Detective Ryder was paying them, and some more information about the drugs, so that he can give you that information for your story. Now you must get the camera ready. And we must stand back here, so that the amaphoyisa they will not see us.’
Mkhize saw the excitement in the newspaper man as the guests started gathering, and marvelled at his naivety. As Pullen finalised the preparations and secured his camera, and checked the quality of the light, and batteries and sound, and focus, he didn’t notice Mkhize take out his cell-phone and dial the signal through to Thabethe. A minute later Thabethe emerged from one of the two cars parked unobtrusively in the distance, some three or four metres off the road. He was followed by Mgwazeni. Thabethe wore a balaclava pulled low down on his forehead. The film that Pullen was going to take would be studied closely by the cops, and he wanted to remain as obscure as possible. Even though Pullen had agreed that the focus of the film must be on the five hit-men and on the actual hit on Mashego, they all knew there was no escaping the fact that in the action Mzenzisi would also probably be caught on film.
The four other men got out of the second car, parked just behind Thabethe’s, and joined up with Thabethe and Mgwazeni. Pullen filmed the gathering guests in great excitement as Thabethe and the five men sauntered unobtrusively down the hill toward where the service would take place.
Mkhize pointed them out to Pullen and then looked in scorn at the journalist as he turned his camera on the gangsters and giggled and snorted and uttered a string of superlatives under his breath as they walked down the slope: brilliant! amazing! wow! cool! jeez! incredible! Pullen was thinking that his covering shot of the five men sauntering down the hill might even rival the slow motion shots of the hoodlums in Reservoir Dogs.
Mkhize turned from the journalist in disgust. The filthy, smelly idiot was like a child in his excitement. How easy it had been to set him up. Mkhize glanced around the field where the organisers had set up a makeshift marquee for the ceremony. More of a simple tarpaulin supported on poles than a formal marquee. This clearly wasn’t a family with money. But the murdered constable had clearly been popular, because a large crowd was gathering. There were also a few people in police uniform in one area. And quite a few children.
He could see the unmistakable figure of the giant Detective Mashego, standing just outside the entrance. He was with a woman in police uniform. That must be the Constable Buthelezi he had heard about. She and Mashego were often together, he had heard.
He leaned into Pullen and pointed out Mashego and Buthelezi.
&n
bsp; ‘There they are. There is Mashego. The five men are heading for him and that woman. Make sure you keep your camera...’
Pullen swung the camera around to focus on Mashego, then quickly swung it back again to line up the trajectory that the five men would take.
‘OK. I see him. I saw him on Tuesday, with Ryder. Big guy. I’ve got the shot. I’ll track them down the hill. Looks like they’re heading straight for him now...’
Mkhize traced his gaze over the same trajectory as Pullen, as the gap between the advancing men and Mashego started closing. About sixty more seconds before they get there, he thought. His glance shifted to a point halfway between Mashego and the six approaching men. He expected Thabethe to peel off at about that point and leave it to the five assassins. At the halfway point Mkhize’s gaze paused. There was another clump of people. Among them was a very big white man who stood out from those around him. He seemed, somehow, familiar. Next to him stood a small Asian woman.
Suddenly, Mkhize turned to stone. He stopped breathing. His pulse took off at a gallop. He could feel blood throbbing through his temples, and he broke into a cold and clammy sweat.
Ryder. What’s Ryder doing here? And the Indian cop.
Mkhize leaped into action. Standing behind Pullen, who was fixated on what he was filming, he waved furiously at Thabethe, gesticulating wildly in an effort to attract his attention. It was hopeless. Thabethe was staring resolutely in front of him, with a focus on no-one but Mashego. The six men were making directly for Mashego in a line that would take them right past Ryder and the Indian woman, who were about twenty paces away from Mashego.
Pullen was bubbling with excitement at the quality of his camera-work. Mkhize was desperate and now frozen into appalled inaction as he could only watch. The six men were ten paces from Ryder. At that moment Mashego moved away from Buthelezi to go over to Ryder and Pillay. With Mashego drawing near, Thabethe hadn’t even noticed Ryder. He muttered one last instruction to the five assassins before peeling off from them.
‘OK. You see him. The giant. Straight on, there. Here he comes, this way. I see you after, back at the car. You get the rest of the money when you cut that one down. Go, comrades.’
He stepped off to the right, and came face to face with both Detective Jeremy Ryder, who had turned to glance at the passing group of men at that precise moment, and Detective Navi Pillay, who did the same thing a fraction of a second after Ryder.
There was a moment of stunned immobility as Ryder, Pillay and Thabethe stood face to face. Then Pillay, staring at those unmistakable eyes peering out from below the balaclava, shouted.
‘My God! Thabethe!’
It was a signal for pandemonium.
Thabethe sprang into action and thrust out at both Pillay and Ryder, screaming at the assassins to run for it. Ryder and Pillay, both startled by the action, slipped and bumped into each other in an effort to regain their balance. Mashego, startled, suddenly registered the drawn daggers of the five approaching men. Buthelezi, hearing the disturbance, turned and instantly sprang into action as she saw the blades, and started running up the slope toward Mashego.
The five men turned as one, abandoned the plan, and joined Thabethe in the sprint up the slope back to the cars. Pullen and Mkhize watched in stunned amazement at the turn of events. Thabethe and Mgwazeni were the first to make it to the top. They plunged into Thabethe’s car, with Thabethe at the wheel, and the four others, following close behind, scrambled into the second car. They took off in a swirl of dust and sand, the second car screaming past Thabethe’s and leaping into the lead.
Both cars roared down the road, engines ready to burst, leaving clouds of blue smoke and dust, and within seconds were lost to view. Meanwhile Ryder, Pillay, Mashego and Buthelezi were sprinting for their two cars, parked much further up the hill. Pillay had been impeded by a guest, panic-stricken, who collided with her and went sprawling. Pillay, momentarily confused about what to do, paused, then cursed and decided to continue running up the hill. The delay cost her some twenty paces. Ryder beat her to the car, so he got in behind the wheel.
Without waiting for anyone, Ryder started the car and began moving off, Pillay just making it in time to dive into the passenger seat. They took off without looking for the other two cops.
Pullen and Mkhize kept low as the latter watched the four cops leave, his hand restraining the journalist, and his face signalling that they should make no sound that could draw attention to themselves.
As the two police cars disappeared from view, Mkhize breathed more easily and shouted at Pullen to get up and start backing away with him from the crowd of guests.
14.20.
Ryder and Pillay were gaining fast on the two sets of fugitives, with Mashego and Buthelezi having lost some ground and fallen behind. Buthelezi had stumbled badly running toward her car, and Mashego had stopped to help her. By the time they pulled away, Pillay and Ryder were almost out of sight. The car radio crackled into action as Buthelezi took off after them, Mashego pulling on his seat belt while calling in Pillay.
‘They’ve taken the left hand route to Munster, Nights! Northern branch of the Izingolweni Road. We’ve just turned into it and Jeremy’s trying his best to kill me.’
‘We’re a minute behind you, Navi. Did you see who they were?’
‘Yes! Our number one fugitive. Skhura Thabethe. No-one has eyes like that. We can’t believe that we came face to face with the guy we’ve been hunting for two months.’
They had a brief exchange, Ryder throwing in a few of his own comments for Mashego’s enlightenment, shouting over the roar of the engine, with Pillay sketching in some background before she interrupted herself on their status in the chase.
‘We’re heading down now to the R61. When we know whether they choose to go north or south I’ll call in Port Edward as back-up. In the meantime can you call Margate for further back-up? Tell them to start heading down this way and we’ll update them when we can.’
Mashego was on the case immediately and within seconds Margate SAPS agreed to dispatch two cars southward. Pillay was back on the radio again within seconds.
‘They’re heading north on R61. I’ll give you more if they turn off.’
‘Got you.’
Ryder and Buthelezi floored their respective pedals as their partners kept the radio contact going with Margate and Port Edward.
*
Thabethe had his foot flat down, almost touching the car in front, as they shot down the hill and over the Mpenjati River bridge. He screamed at his companion as they crossed the river.
‘Get them on the phone, Mgwazeni. Tell them we can’t beat the cops on the main road. They’ll have cars coming from Margate. Tell them to turn at Trafalgar. To the beach! To the bush!’
Mgwazeni got the message through to the men in the first car just in time. The man who took the call as they were halfway up to the top of the hill saw the turn at Trafalgar and screamed at his driver.
‘Make a right! Here. Turn right!’
The first vehicle slewed across the road, Thabethe on their tail as if glued to it, both cars crossing right in front of an oncoming car heading south down the hill, and they shot up the main road toward Trafalgar, heads hitting hard against the roof of each car as they hit the speed bump. Both vehicles went straight through the first stop street at over a hundred kilometres an hour, with Thabethe sticking to the pathfinder. At the second stop street they slowed slightly, the police car following them having fallen back, and they both turned right into Cunningham Avenue before picking up maximum revs again.
*
Ryder lost a few precious seconds as he slowed down briefly for the turn toward Trafalgar. The family in the car going south disappeared down the hill in a blaze of hooting, the driver doubtless now white as a ghost. As he swept into Trafalgar Drive, up and over the hill toward Nelson Drive, he regained speed at a hundred kilometres an hour. He then saw the two cars ahead swing right into Cunningham. Pillay grabbed the radio again, firstly calli
ng Mashego to update him and to ask him to update the Margate team in turn, and then she called Port Edward SAPS with the message that all roads were leading to one of the beaches at Trafalgar.
14.25.
Pullen and Mkhize tried to appear as unobtrusive as possible as they backed slowly away from the stunned crowd of onlookers, whose eyes had not been on the two of them during the melee, but on the departing vehicles. The guests were now starting to talk over one another in great excitement as the family and the priest tried to understand what had happened and tried to console the parents and family members.
Pullen was trying to understand why his companion wasn’t allowing him to continue filming, but was instead bundling him hurriedly toward the car, telling him in a loud whisper to shut up and he would explain later. They both grabbed whatever equipment they could and got to Pullen’s vehicle. They ripped open the car doors and trunk, throwing everything in. Then Mkhize screamed at the newsman to drive and get them the hell out of there.
The car took off in a cloud of dust and within seconds they were hurtling down toward the right branch of the road from Izingolweni that would take them away from where Mkhize knew the others would be heading. As they thundered past the northern branch of the road to the left leading to Munster and Trafalgar, Mkhize instinctively knew that that was the route the others would have taken. He felt safer heading away to the south. He needed as much distance as he could find to put between himself and Ryder.
He cut short Pullen’s further protests and screamed at him to shut up while he tried Thabethe on his phone. No response. He cursed. He screamed at Pullen to go faster. Children scattered from the sides of the road as they thundered past.
‘What happened, Lungi? What happened back there?’ shouted Pullen.
Mkhize remained silent as he considered all his options.
14.30.
Siren blaring and blues flashing, Ryder and Pillay were right back on the tail of the two cars as they hurtled up toward the top of Cunningham Avenue, with Mashego and Buthelezi some way back but gaining rapidly. The first three cars were each now little more than ten metres apart at the bumpers, and four pedestrians jumped for their lives as they thought they were in the middle of a stock-car race. At the junction with Effingham Parade the first car turned right and Thabethe nearly rolled his vehicle as he decided to split from them and pulled the wheel hard to his left. Ryder and Pillay stuck to Thabethe and Mgwazeni. As Ryder twisted left, dropped two gears and fishtailed back onto the chase at maximum revs, Pillay grabbed the radio and got hold of Mashego again.