by Ian Patrick
Dlamini paused and thought he had said too much.
‘Ja, I remember now, too,’ Koekemoer interjected in the pause. ‘I heard lots about those three guys. They all used fancy guns, didn’t they? Magnums. People used to talk about the three white guys in Umlazi with their fancy weapons.’
‘No, I don’t remember what gun, Detective. But yes. That Freckles, that one he was doing drugs and gambling all the time. Anyway, one night I caught him big time. Me and Lindiwe, we surprised him, and he ran, and because I was running after him and shooting after him, but missing, he was very scared, then the people all around they ran after him too, and they chased him away, and everyone was happy...’
In his narrative to Koekemoer and Dippenaar Dlamini omitted any reference to the weapon that the young Afrikaner gangster called Freckles had dropped on that occasion as he had fled the pursuing Sergeant. The Afrikaner boy had lost his weapon and fled into the night, never to be seen again in Umlazi. Dlamini had picked up his gun and had kept it, without reporting his find to the Folweni Police Station. It was a beautiful weapon. He had thought it might prove useful one day, and had kept it in his cupboard at home in Isithupha Close.
Dlamini loved the weapon he had found. Better than his own weapon, the standard SAPS Vektor Z88, he thought, when he picked it up. This one was gas-operated, with polygonal rifling. Six-inch barrel. With a Picatinny rail.
The weapon was a titanium gold Desert Eagle Mark XIX.
14.30.
Ryder and Pillay had left the scene of the homicides and had driven in separate cars the short distance to KwaDukuza where they had a simple takeaway pie lunch together in Cato Street before making their way to the KwaDukuza Police Station on Chief Albert Luthuli Street. The twin sisters had already been fetched from their home nearby on Haysom Road by a local constable who took them to a room at the station for their 2.30 appointment. Here, they had been told, they were to be questioned by two detectives from Durban.
Jessica and Nobuhle sat in trepidation. They had been severely reprimanded by their father for having reported what they witnessed on Sunday, but they had been equally reprimanded by their grandmother for listening to their father’s nonsense. From the old woman’s point of view her son was a no-good layabout and his advice was the worst possible advice they could receive. She told them it was their duty to report bad things to the police, and she was proud of them for having done so. It was equally important, she had told them, that they should now go further and give the amaphoyisa the details so that those tsotsis could be caught and thrown in jail where they belonged.
By the time Detectives Ryder and Pillay walked into the holding room the twins were nervous wrecks.
‘Nobuhle? Jessica? Hullo. Hey. Nice braids. Very smart. I’m very pleased to meet you. Thank you for coming to talk to us. I’m Detective Jeremy Ryder. This is Detective Pillay.’
‘Navi Pillay. Hullo. Which one is Jessica?’
‘Me, I’m Nobuhle.’
‘Me, I’m Jessica.’
After the handshakes and a bit of phatic chatter the detectives started some gentle probing. Pillay had the folded sheet of flipchart paper the forensics people had given her at the R74 scene. She unfolded it and laid it out on the single table in the room. The twins and the detectives then went painstakingly over everything they had told the officers the previous day at the crime scene.
‘Can you tell us what the men looked like?’ Ryder addressed his question at both of them.
‘The man driving the Mazda, he was fat.’
‘That’s very good, Nobuhle. Very good. Thank you. That kind of information is very good for us. Very helpful. Can you describe the other two?’
‘No, Mr Jeremy, I’m sorry. I’m not remembering.’
‘Hau? Wena?’
‘What’s wrong, Jessica?’ Pillay responded as Jessica lightly slapped Nobuhle’s hand.
‘Sorry, Mrs Pillay. It’s nothing.’
‘No, tell us, Jessica. Everything you say is important. Don’t worry.’
‘Sorry, Mr Jeremy. I was thinking only that… you know, Nobuhle she was teasing me on Sunday. That one man, that other one that was in the front of the car there next to the fat man, he was the tall one. He was the skinny one.’
‘Oooh! Yes. Right. I forgot that,’ Nobuhle said.
They could extract little more than that by way of descriptions of the three men. Describing the third man was beyond them. They couldn’t think of anything to characterise him. Just that he looked like a gangster. A skelm. Which didn’t help the detectives very much.
It was also not possible to identify which were the two men that had run into the bush chasing after the constable. With all the bullets flying, and some of them coming dangerously close to the sisters on the hill, they hadn’t had time to register anything further about the three men. Nevertheless, they were able to point out directions and angles on the rough diagram on the flipchart paper, and in response to a question from Ryder they felt that they might indeed be able to identify the three men if they were to see the three of them together.
The detectives eventually called the constable in charge to tell him that they had finished and that the girls could go back home. They then gave appreciative farewells to the twins, letting them know that it was possible they might visit them again for further information, but that for now they had been very helpful and could go.
The detectives went out to their cars for a conversation before heading back to Durban. Nobuhle and Jessica left considerably more at ease than when they had arrived at the station.
15.05.
Koekemoer and Dippenaar pulled away from the Folweni Police Station.
‘That Dlamini oke is a good cop, Dipps.’
‘Ja’k stem saam, Koeks.’
‘That story about the Freckles ou rings a bell with me, but I can’t think what it is, you know?’
‘Ja, old Dlamini was holding back something there, I think.’
‘Think so?’
‘No question. But he seems a good guy.’
‘Ja.’
They drove on in silence for a minute before Koekemoer returned to the subject.
‘If I was one of those psychologist types, ou Dipps, I would say that Dlamini should be put on leave or something.’
‘Nooit! No way. A guy like that needs to be at work. Have the other okes around him. That ou is in a bad way, man. That Lindiwe must have been something else, hey? He couldn’t stop talking about her. If he sits at home all alone thinking about her he might just top himself. If I was the commander there I would take his gun away for a couple of weeks and make sure he was in the office every day, talking to the other okes.’
‘Ja. Maybe.’
‘No maybe about it, boet.’
They had to pause above the Mbokodweni River for a traffic snarl-up caused by a broken-down truck while they continued their conversation. Dippenaar continued on the subject of Cst. Xana.
‘She was only twenty-six, hey? Two merit awards, and bloody good looking, from those photos.’
‘Ja, and all the okes there raved on about her. Seems like she was hot stuff all round.’
‘Did you hear that bit, Koeks, about the bad things these guys had to handle in the past? That constable who took on the bad oke from Phoenix Station, that detective who went bad and started robbing stores? Apparently old Dlamini was supposed to be in that store at that time, but he had a flat tyre and the other cop took the bullet instead and vrekked. It was from that time that they called Dlamini Lucky.’
‘Jirra, Dipps. I get so woes when I hear about these cops going bad. Put them in my sights, I tell you, and...’
‘Ja, Koeks. Me too, hey?’
‘Like that Thabethe bastard. Nyawula wants that oke more than anything. Jeremy too. He hates a bad cop more than anything, old Jeremy.’
The traffic cleared and they started making better progress, returning to the subject of Dlamini and their concerns for his welfare.
15.15.
; The three men were heading south on the M35 as Koekemoer and Dippenaar were heading north. Had the occupants of either vehicle been aware of each other’s existence they might have glanced over to the opposite side of the motorway as they passed by Isipingo Hills and seen their two cars both crossing the same imaginary line before continuing in their opposite directions.
The red Mazda 323 still had the false number plates. Thirty minutes earlier they had left the grandmother of the twin girls Nobuhle and Jessica Mkhize. The girls had not been there but they had been left a very clear message.
‘That old bitch better tell her moegoe son. I kill that old bitch next time. Fat cow! Talk to me like that! Call me fat. That old bitch she is two times fat.’
Macks and Mavuso were laughing hysterically at Themba’s fulminations.
‘Next time you can have that one, Themba! You can steek that old gogo. Me and Mavuso we like the young ones, nè, Mavuso?’
‘Is right, bra. Is right. We like the meat young, you and me. Not Themba. He likes the old ones.’
‘Eish! I hate that,’ Themba continued, ‘when women shout like that, I want to steek them big time. They shout at me I steek them. I get a spoke and I steek them good.’
‘Hau! Bra Themba!’ exclaimed Mavuso. ‘Sorry, my bra. Me and Macks we making a big mistake. We thinking when you say steek, we thinking you want to naai the old bitch.’
‘Ja, Mavusies! We can help Themba steek the old bitch but we not going to help him do that other one too! No way!’
‘No, bra Macks. That one, no way. That one, you do that and she talk and shout and complain while you naaing her.’
‘Ag, fokoff, you two. Shaddup now, we must talk about one thing. Serious.’
‘OK, bra Themba. We good, me and Macks. We good. What you want, bra?’
‘That old gogo. She was saying one thing to me.’
‘What was she saying, bra Themba?’ asked Macks.
‘She tells me, that one, she told me one thing that I’m thinking. She told me that some Detective Rider was going to be asking some questions. Some Jimmy Rider. Like horse rider. Or maybe James Rider. Or Jiminy Rider. Or someone like that. Some detective. Some one big-shot detective. He is going to handle the case, she says.’
‘So what you say, Themba?’
‘I’m thinking, Mavuso. I’m thinking. Maybe I’m thinking we find where this detective he is living, nè? I got a friend there in Durban North, Maishe, in the police station there by Durban North, he can tell me what detective is working what station anywhere in KwaZulu-Natal, nè? Also, comrades, he can find the records and tell me the houses, the streets, where they live, these detectives. Maybe we can visit this Detective Jimmy Rider there by his house and we can see what he is finding out about us three, nè? And we can stop him from finding more stuff about us.’
Sniggering and agreement from the other two. Bra Themba was not too bad when he was sober, they were thinking. He had some good ideas. They exclaimed like children watching an old Hollywood western as they pointed and fired imaginary revolvers using their fingers and thumbs, as they boasted about what they would do to this Detective Jiminy Rider when they had him in their sights.
‘Look. We here.’
They were approaching the Mbokodweni River as Themba quickly brought them back to earth. The car fell silent.
They had assumed that Lucky Dlamini would be at work at the SAPS station in Folweni. They were hoping that an easy break-in at his house at the end of Isithupha Close would give them the Desert Eagle that Themba wanted so badly.
Themba slowed right down and took the turn for Philani Mall, but then turned in the other direction and made his way toward Amehlo before turning into Isithupha. He slowed right down as they drove slowly past the house that he identified as Dlamini’s. He stopped, turned around, and came slowly back. All three of them looked at the windows of the house for any sign of someone at home.
They stopped and waited. Nothing. No-one at home. Then they moved the vehicle down about twenty paces from the house, assured themselves that the coast was clear, got out, and made their way quietly around to the back of the house.
Themba found the flimsy yale lock easy to pick.
18.35.
The twins were terrified. Jessica was crying. Nobuhle was trying to comfort her, but she was just as afraid as her sister. They cowered in their bedroom in their grandmother’s house in Haysom Road. It was just down the road from the police station, but they were still in fear of every sound they heard outside.
Their interview at midday with the two detectives had been reassuring, and they had felt much better when they were on their way home. They were convinced that their grandmother’s advice was better than their father’s. Better to do what they could to get these evil men behind bars and make the streets safer. The two detectives had been very helpful and had explained very carefully what would happen next. The detectives had driven off leaving them much happier than they had been since Sunday evening before the terrible event.
But since this afternoon things had escalated. Their grandmother was hysterical when they returned home at 3.30. She was right now on the phone to their father and they were having a massive argument. She had been trying to get him on the phone since 3.00. Where had he been? She had been visited by three skabengas this afternoon, she told Mkhize. Thank Jesus the girls were not there because they had been at the police station. The men had threatened her and told her that her son and his daughters were impimpis and that they wanted to talk to him, the son, and also to the twins.
She blurted all of this out very quickly, and she now demanded of Mkhize that he immediately telephone the police and report these men, because she was convinced that they were the three who had killed those constables on the R74.
Mkhize did the wrong thing trying to deal with this demand from his mother. His first reaction was to shout at her and tell her that she was a fool for suggesting something so outrageous as going to the police. He didn’t complete the sentence but had to pull the phone rapidly away from his ear as the barrage of words from his mother spewed out at a volume that sent crackling distortions through the speaker in his cell-phone.
‘Wena! Hey, wena! Wena, isigebengu! Shaddup, man. This here your mother talking. You don’t say to me like that! You shaddup, wena!’
The twins listened to the barrage of words that accelerated from their grandmother’s mouth as she got into her stride. Within seconds she had numbed Mkhize into acquiescent silence and then went on to berate him for every major disappointment he had brought to her life since he turned fifteen and ran away from school. She shouted into the phone about his laziness, his drugs and drinking, his women, his stupid wife who was not even fit to be a mother and who had run away to Johannesburg because she wasn’t a proper mother, and how she, the real mother, who knew her responsibilities, had to take over and at her age she now had do it all over again with her granddaughters and work her fingers to the bone with no thanks from anyone and how he, her only son, had no respect for her or for anyone but himself and his drugs and his drinking.
‘Vilapha, wena! Do some real work for once! Landela mina! You listen to your mother, wena! Skelm! This family will talk to amaphoyisa when amaphoyisa ask us questions, and we will report skollies and tsotsis to amaphoyisa when we see bad things happening in our streets, and you lalela, or there will be trouble! You think you too old to have discipline in your life? Ngizo shaya wena!’
Eventually she calmed down and by the time she hung up she had got Mkhize to accept that the way to deal with this problem was to let the police handle it, and to take note that if those three men came back she would beat the living daylights out of them with the knobkerrie she kept behind the kitchen door, and he, Mkhize, better take care because the next time he came here it was not beyond her to take the knobkerrie to his head, too.
The twins weren’t sure whether they were more terrified of uMamamkhulu or the three gangsters. They helped her without uttering a word as she prepared dinner,
her pots and pans and dishes being clattered and clanged far more loudly than they had ever experienced it. But the food, as always with uGogo’s cooking, was delicious. By the end of the meal the old woman had calmed down considerably, and was placated by the knowledge that the meal had been one of her best and that her granddaughters might inherit some of the bad qualities of their father but at least they would never be able to blame her for their nutrition. They still had a chance to grow up, unlike their no-good mother, she proclaimed, as good girls.
20.20
Thabethe and Mkhize sat in the latter’s room round the back, behind Nomivi’s Tavern, drinking beer.
‘You want ‘nother car, Skhura? I gotta 1974 Ford XLE only one hundred and twenty-five thousand kilos. Four-door, paperwork all good with license. I got from this guy in Phoenix. He fixed it up good. Very fast. Needs painting but good car. Twenty-five thousand rands only for you, bra. Or ten thousand rands rent for one month and also for down payment on full sale if you want to buy after one month.’
‘No thanks, Spikes. The boere they looking for me. Better I use taxi. For now. Maybe ‘nother time.’
‘Sharp, bra.’
Thabethe finished loading the magazine with fifteen rounds, and Mkhize was passing him an additional small carton.
‘Is another fifteen in there, Skhura.’
‘Thanks, Spikes. Thanks. Good. How much, Spikes?’
‘Skhura, my friend. I been thinking.’
Thabethe thought, here it comes, some reason for an extra-special high price. Spikes will argue that things are bad, he needs money, and didn’t like to do this, but Skhura would understand.
But he was wrong. Mkhize had something else on his mind.
‘Skhura, my bra. You know me. Spikes is skrik vir niks, you know?
‘I know that, Spikes.’
‘But Skhura, I gotta problem. Maybe you can help. Then the bullets they free.’