by Ian Patrick
Themba hung up in fury with a penetratingly shrill scream of frustration and handed the phone back to Macks. Mavuso and Macks stared at him. All three of them suffered from the stuff they had consumed last night. The bottles lay all around. Their heads were splitting. This extra exertion on the phone nearly sent Themba over the edge. It was not possible. The name must be on the list.
What next?
He fumed. He had to find out how to get to this detective that was closing in on them.
09.05.
When Koekemoer and Dippenaar arrived Nadine Salm was already there with her assistant, along with various junior Folweni police officers, two medics, a crowd of onlookers outside the property, and general mayhem. Nadine was being very forceful about people not trampling on the scene, and gave instructions to the police constables about the taping off of restricted areas. She barked a little in exasperation about the need for taping off both an inner and outer cordon, and wanted to know where form 297 was, asked who the responsible detective was and who had been appointed to manage the scene. No-one appeared to know the answers to her questions. She greeted the two detectives while muttering under her breath about more basic training being needed to stop constables trampling on evidence at potential crime scenes.
‘Crime scene?’ was Dippenaar’s immediate response.
‘Potential crime scene, I said, Detective. I know the call you probably received from Folweni this morning - same person who called me, I’m sure - offered suicide as the formal diagnosis of the case. All nicely cut and dried in the space of five seconds. First responder diagnosis accepted and filed. Takes it in at a glance and Bob’s your uncle. All solved. But my job is to look at the body and whatever else I can find and only later someone can think about what might have gone down. Maybe suicide. Maybe not.’
‘Yissus,’ was all Koekemoer could offer.
‘Sorry, guys. I hope that doesn’t sound too irritated. I didn’t want to insult anyone. I know all you detective types have done all the training and have studied Policy Number Two of 2005 and all that...’
The look exchanged by the detectives told her that she had prised open some long-forgotten memories, so she felt obliged to clarify.
‘Crime Scene Management.’
‘Oh, ja,’ they chorused together, unconvincingly.
‘But the detectives up the road at Folweni are in a bit of a state and this scene hasn’t been managed very well since Dlamini’s body was found. So I’m being a bit pedantic in an effort to pull it back on track. So, I’m sorry, OK? I know the two of you are just visitors, and the Folweni SVC guys are supposed to be handling the scene, but, to put it bluntly, they’re not. So here I am playing both manager and technician until they sort out their hierarchies.’
‘Ja. Well. No. Fine, Nadine,’ said Dippenaar.
‘Ja. No. You just go ahead, Nadine,’ said Koekemoer. ‘Fine. Don’t let us get in your way. We came down just because Dlamini was helping us on background for the KwaDukuza case, and it’s the Folweni team that will be handling this, but we just, you know...’
Koekemoer didn’t bother to complete the thought. They watched in silence as Nadine’s assistant whispered in her ear and then snapped away with the camera. Nadine, on her knees, was now checking the body from a position a few feet directly in front of the chair on which Dlamini’s body lay slumped. She then moved in an arc around to the wall behind the chair and called her assistant over. They whispered together, Nadine advising her on the precise area she wanted recorded, and asking her to take photos of a particular spot on the wall, before she then started investigating it a little more closely.
Koekemoer and Dippenaar exchanged a quizzical look and received their answer from Nadine, still kneeling with her back to them in front of the spot she had identified.
‘Ever seen a bullet from a Vektor Z88 do this, detectives?’
‘What’s that? Do what?’ offered Dippenaar.
‘Go through a guy’s throat, straight through the cervical vertebrae - I can’t tell yet, because of the tissue damage and mess but an autopsy will probably tell us that it was either C5 or C6, so opposite either the thyroid or cricoid - but certainly passing through some bone at the back of the neck and then straight through the chair and into the wall.’
‘Jeez. Really? Through the chair too?’ was the response from Dippenaar.
‘Clever bullet, don’t you think, for a little Vektor Z88 9 mm?’
‘You think maybe that...’
‘I don’t think anything yet, Detective Koekemoer. But it’s certainly interesting so far. The autopsy on this is going to be even more interesting.’
10.15.
‘Aweh?’
‘Skhura?’
‘Yebo, Spikes.’
‘Skhura, bra, is good you got a new phone.’
‘Eh-heh, you keep my number private, nè?’
‘For sure, Skhura. The car is good?’
‘The car is good, Spikes. I look after it for you. Is good.’
‘Fast one, that, Skhura. The guy who is selling it to me...’
‘You got news for me, Spikes?’
‘I got, Skhura. I got.’
‘Shweet, mfowethu! You talk.’
‘Skhura, I talk to that mad gogo.’
‘Your mother?’
‘That one.’
‘And she says what?’
‘My mother, she tells me the name of that detective, and me, I know that same detective. Even from just last week, I know him, and you, too. You know him. Bad one. Strong one. Be careful of that one, Skhura.’
‘His name, Spikes. His name.’
‘That detective is one Detective Jeremy Ryder.’
There was a long pause before Spikes continued.
‘You know that one well, hey, Skhura?’
‘I know him, Spikes. I know him. He was working there in the station at Durban Central when I was working there that one time. I never worked with him but I saw him. Maybe he’s remembering me from then, but I don’t think so. I saw his wife one time when she came into the station to leave something for him. Smart woman. Clever one. I heard her say that one time to the sergeant there that she was going back home to Westville. But her husband, I never spoke to him. I never worked with him.’
‘Big guy. Strong guy. Bad guy.’
‘I know him, Spikes, I know who he is.’
‘He’s the same one, Skhura, the one that wants you from last week. He’s the same one who is looking for your old phone. That same one.’
‘I know, Spikes.’
‘But he thinks you are now in Swaziland, Skhura.’
‘I’m not thinking so, Spikes. That one is too clever.’
‘You think he knows you put the phone on that lorry?’
‘I’m thinking like that, Spikes. That one detective he is not a mampara like the other ones.’
‘Skhura, now I’m worried. You know, that guy he is talking to my mother, he is talking to my daughters, then he will be talking to me. I know that one. Him and that charra detective. She too. She is too bad, that one Indian woman who works with him.’
‘I know, Spikes. I know.’
‘What you think I must do now, Skhura?’
‘Stay cool, bra Spikes. Stay cool. If they talk, you stay cool. You tell them you don’t know me.’
‘No, bra. I’m not able to say that, bra. He knows, that one. He knows I know you. Remember, I tell him that last time I know you, so that he will leave me alone. He knows, that one. He knows I know you, Skhura.’
‘Yebo. I remember, now, Spikes.’
‘So what must I do now, Skhura? What you want me to do?’
There was another pause while Thabethe thought through the implications.
‘Those three skabengas, Skhura, my mother tells them wrong. Moegoe, my mother. She says the detective is called Jimmy Rider. You know. She’s not knowing the spelling is funny. She thinks Rider like a horse, and no ‘y’ in his name.’
Thabethe’s mind was racing. He needed
to shut out Mkhize’s chatter.
‘OK, Spikes. OK. Is good. I call you again. Let me think. I call you.’
‘OK, Skhura. You call me. If this detective comes, I tell him I know you but I tell him you somewhere in Gauteng or Swaziland or Zimbabwe, nè?’
‘OK, Spikes. Is good. No. Wait. One more thing. One more thing, Spikes.’
‘Yebo, bra?’
‘One more thing, Spikes. You remember that big mlungu, that one with the red hair?’
‘uMlungu with muscles? Big one?’
‘Eh-heh!’
‘Red Rooster.’
‘Red Rooster! Is him, Spikes. That one. Big Red.’
‘That one with the boat, and the whoonga. You get the whoonga from that one there in the yacht club by Wilson’s Wharf, bra Skhura. You show me that one time.’
‘Spikes, I want you to do me one thing.’
‘What is, Skhura?’
‘You find for me where is that Big Red mlungu. I need some supplies, nè?’
‘OK, Skhura. I put out the questions. I find him for you.’
‘OK, Spikes. Thanks, bra. You find out for me and I call you… No! Wait!’
‘What is, bra?’
‘Wait, Spikes. No, I’m not calling you. You call me. Tomorrow. One o’clock. You call me, OK? You tell me what you find.’
‘One o’clock. Sharp, Skhura. I call you tomorrow one o’clock.’
‘Good, Spikes. We talk then.’
And he was gone.
10.50.
Themba and Macks, staring at the liquor and beer bottles surrounding them, were prompted again to challenge Mavuso about the money. He was again evasive but finally, when Macks pointed out that the gin, whisky, brandy, and vodka were way beyond the beer budget that Mavuso could normally afford, he admitted lifting the wallet from the dead Dlamini as they had left the house. He told them he had retrieved just under a thousand rands in cash from it as they had walked from the back door of the sergeant’s home to the car in Isithupha Close. That was why, on the return journey, he had suggested that they pull in to buy some booze and that he would pay for it with some cash that he had.
Themba was incandescent with rage as Mavuso produced Dlamini’s wallet.
‘Idiot! Wena! Moegoe! You know what happens when the police they catch you with that wallet?’
‘They don’t catch me, not me. Nxa! They will never catch me with this, man.’
‘Those blue lights,’ Macks screamed at him, ‘when we were thinking last night they were after us, if those cops they stopped us, and they found that wallet, we were dead, man. Moegoe! What you thinking?’
‘Hey, wena! You not talk to me like that, wena. Fokoff, man!’
‘Hey! Hey! Shaddup, Mavuso! What you think, man? Macks is right. You get rid of that wallet! What you think? You want cops to come all over this place. You finished if they finding that thing. Hayi! What you thinking, Mavusies?’
They gradually calmed down and Mavuso, in a sulk, agreed to dump the wallet as soon as they were on the road again.
They gradually turned their attention back to how they could find out more about this detective that was tracking them.
11.20.
KoeksnDips drove back from the scene hugely impressed by Nadine. She hadn’t offered any direct opinions about what had happened, but she had posed many questions. She wouldn’t be drawn on any theories, responding to them that she wasn’t too fond of theories, and preferred evidence. No jumping the gun, she said - acknowledging, in response to their exchanged glances, that it was an awful expression.
They had watched her dig the slug out of the wall behind Dlamini’s chair, along with a piece of the wall, place it carefully into an evidence bag, have her assistant take more photos, walk back and forth along a line of assumed trajectory for the bullet, frown repeatedly, scribble notes, mutter to her assistant, and painstakingly map out a complicated diagram for her own recollections later.
She had asked them to accompany her to check the back door, and with protective gloves had opened the door, peered closely at the outside face of the yale lock and elicited their agreement that there had definitely been some recent scratching there. She called the assistant over to test for fingermarks.
‘We’ll run anything we find against the vic’s fingerprints,’ she said. ‘Who knows? Worth checking.’
When asked for her anticipated timeline on this, Nadine told the two detectives that she had a few other things on her plate at present, but that she would try to get down to this case as soon as she could. Certainly, she said, she would have to come back once the body had been removed, the scene properly photographed and the initial scan completed. She wanted to do a reconstruction, she told them, so the scene would remain restricted for now, with a guard in place.
12.20.
Thabethe had been working through various possibilities. It was risky, but he decided to try it. He pulled out the cell-phone.
No password needed. He flicked until he reached recent calls made and received. Mav. Mx. Four other names. But Mav and Mx were the ones that were repeated, time and again. Mavuso and Macks from the bush on Sunday. Must be. Who else?
He paused, considering the potential danger. Then he decided to go for it. He pressed Mav and waited. Nothing. It just rang and then went to voicemail. Thabethe paused. Hung up. Contemplated. Then he pressed Mx and waited. It rang.
‘Yebo?’
‘Is Macks?’
‘Who’s this?’
‘I want Themba.’
‘Who?’
‘Themba.’
‘Wait.’
Macks held out his phone to Themba, who took it and answered.
‘Yebo?’
‘Me, I’m friend.’
‘You what?’
‘I’m not talking. You want that detective? That Detective Jeremy Ryder?’
‘Who’s talking?’
‘I’m not telling you who is talking. I’m telling you where is that Detective Jeremy Ryder.’
‘You know Detective Jimmy Rider? Maishe he tell you I’m looking for that one?’
‘His name is not Jimmy. His name is not Rider like in horse. His name is...’
‘Hey! Hey! Wena! Who you talking to? Who is this talking to me?’
‘Hey you too! Shaddup, wena! You lissen, isiphukuphuku! I’m telling you, that detective, I know where he is staying. That detective is going to grab you one time. I’m telling you where you can get that detective. Me, too, I’m wanting that detective finished. I want to bulala that one. He is looking for me too, and I’m wanting him dead, that one. I’m telling you where he is.’
Themba paused. He was tempted to cut the call. Must be a trap of some kind. But there was something about this guy…
‘You check if you want. That detective, he is living in Westville. I know. I was working with him one time. I know where he is staying.’
It was enough to keep Themba on the line. Within a couple of minutes Thabethe had passed on the information that Themba needed in order to be convinced, then clicked off.
Themba stared at the Nokia in his hand. Mavuso and Macks waited. Then Themba re-dialled the number for his policeman friend Maishe in Durban North.
‘Maishe? Is Themba. I found a mistake. Now I know. Now I know for sure. I want you to check a new spelling. Look for Detective Jeremy Ryder. Spell it with y and not i. R-y-d-e-r. Detective Jeremy Ryder, and tell me also if he is living in Westville.’
13.45.
Fiona’s extended lunch-hour provided barely enough time to accomplish all that was needed. She dashed home from work, picked up the luggage and Sugar-Bear, got them into the car, and dropped them off with the children and their friends. She thanked the parents profusely for their generosity in having both the children and the dog for the midterm break, enjoyed a bit of joking about her and Jeremy having a few days alone for a change, and then drove at pace back home via the supermarket.
She picked up from the shop the final few things needed for tonight’s dinne
r, dashed back into the house, and popped them into the fridge, cupboard and cabinet. Then she re-set the alarms and rushed back to the car for the trip back to the office.
As she pulled out of the driveway and turned left up the road toward the intersection, she didn’t notice the red Mazda 323 parked twenty or thirty paces in the opposite direction, down from the house. The three men inside the car watched her go up the hill. Then the Mazda moved forward, slowly, until it was opposite the driveway. One of the men got out, looked around, and walked casually up the driveway, trying his best to look like a delivery man of some sort, though he had nothing in his hands to suggest that he was delivering anything to anyone.
After three or four minutes the man returned to the car. There was a pause as they discussed what he had seen. Then they drove off, slowly, up the hill, in the direction of the old main road.
17.35.
Nyawula and Cronje were wrapping up for the day.
‘That’s about it, Piet. Thanks for pulling that together for me. Ryder said he’d have another look at it all tomorrow. He’s got a lot on at present, so he’ll appreciate your work on it.’
‘No problem, Captain. Jeremy also told me he’s got a big dinner on tonight. His wife’s business, along with some family from overseas, and stuff.’
‘Yes, so I understand. Anyway, thanks, Piet. I’ll be off now.’
‘Pleasure, Captain. You got a night off for a change, Captain?’