by Ian Patrick
‘Did you say were, Nadine?’ said Ryder.
‘Uh-huh. We can now do that.’
‘Brilliant!’ said Pillay.
‘I’m all ears,’ said Nyawula. Which prompted an exchange of looks between Nadine and Ryder, and a very slight smile from Ryder as she continued.
‘We’re focusing on this guy Themba. The DNA we picked up from him didn’t give us anything to place him at KwaDukuza, and although we’ve ascertained without any question that it was his two buddies who violated Cst. Xana, we still had nothing to place him there as the third perpetrator. Until now. I’ve been doing some work on the guy’s shoes. He wore interesting shoes to the Ryder dinner party. Maybe he had heard of the high dress standards required in that household.’
‘So I’ve been told,’ said Nyawula.
‘No question,’ said Pillay. ‘Mrs Ryder sets high standards in fashion.’
Ryder didn’t offer a riposte.
‘Anyway, captain, this guy Themba’s shoes were quite snazzy, with distinctive treads. So I ran the information on his shoes against the footprints at the KwaDukuza scene. I’m happy to say we can now place him there along with his two nasty buddies.’
There was glee all around, Pillay and Ryder exchanging low fives, and a few exchanges among them about tightening the case against the three perps. Nadine continued.
‘There’s something else, Captain.’
‘What’s that, Nadine? I’m beginning to think you’re quite good at making my day.’
‘Those same lovely shoes worn by the charming Themba fellow also left prints all the way from Dlamini’s back door, around the side of his house, and into Isithupha Close. In addition, although he was careful enough to wipe his prints off the service pistol he placed into Dlamini’s hand, he failed to wipe his prints from the outside of the back door where he picked the yale lock.’
Amid the expressions of approval and congratulations, Nyawula’s voice was most prominent.
‘You’re definitely going on to my Christmas card list, Nadine. Give her some more coffee, someone.’
‘No thanks, I’m still fine with this one. Anyway, just to offer a suggestion for the way forward,’ continued Nadine, ‘I like to look into the relationships between different guns used in different hits. I’m still looking for the third SIG Sauer from KwaDukuza, and now that we know that our Desert Eagle Themba guy was the third perpetrator at that event, and that he was therefore using the third SIG at the time, with all the stuff we have on him it should be quite interesting to question him on how he came to exchange his SIG for the Desert Eagle he used at both the Dlamini house and the Ryder house.’
‘So in Sunday evening’s hit at KwaDukuza he was using a SIG, and in Tuesday evening’s hit at Lucky Dlamini’s he was using a Deagle. During that forty-eight hour period he exchanged his SIG for the Deagle.’
‘Exactly, Jeremy,’ said Nadine, ‘and he then came on to your house twenty-four hours later with the same weapon.’
‘Time for some interrogation down at the hospital, Captain?’
‘Definitely, Jeremy. But you won’t use the Trewhella method, will you? No rough stuff. You’ve already broken two of his limbs and some other bones.’
‘I’ll be gentle, Captain. Promise. I’ll take Navi with me.’
‘That’s being gentle? Detective Pillay?’
‘I’ll ignore that, Captain,’ said Pillay.
‘Oooo,’ said Nadine, ‘I love visiting your station, Captain Nyawula. Everyone is so butch here.’
‘OK, everyone. Back to work. Nadine, you’re a star. Thank you.’
‘My pleasure, Captain.’
They began to disperse in a buzz of comments and witticisms.
15.05.
Thabethe’s blood ran cold.
He had been trying for hours to get information on what might have happened to the three gangsters and Ryder. He didn’t want to risk another call to the phones of either Macks or Mavuso. He had gone into an internet cafe and searched for any incidents that might have taken place in the last couple of days in Westville.
He looked at the Durban Organised Crime Unit Facebook site where there were regular updates on incidents, especially hits and attempted hits on cops. Nothing.
He searched other sites, looking in the Durban area for Assault with GBH, Murder, Attempted Murder, Robbery Aggravated, Robbery Residential. Nothing. Had the three guys gone for the hit on Ryder? Had they decided against it?
Then he heard the radio newsflash. No names. But an attack on the Westville home of a senior police officer. Attackers overpowered. All three suspects apprehended. All three being held under police guard in hospital after sustaining injuries in the attack. He noticed that the normal phrase minor injuries was not used.
Thabethe stormed out into the street in a panic. What if they talk? What if Ryder starts tracking back and finds some connection?
What to do?
He had to find somewhere to think through the implications.
15.10.
Ryder and Pillay left the hospital feeling elated. The interrogation of Themba had proceeded far better than they might have anticipated. In the presence of his State-assigned lawyer, once they had confronted him with some of the evidence that had already been secured, and dropped deliberate tantalisers about how any co-operation from him might determine whether or not he died in jail as an old man, he began to sprout. When his lawyer tried to intervene he told her to shut up and let him do it his way, ntombazana! She seemed thereafter to have very little inclination to warn him any further of his rights, and simply took notes.
He gave the detectives the full story about how he’d lost the third SIG and his cell-phone in the bush near the beach, how they’d gone back in a panic and searched the place, and how after three hours neither pistol nor phone was to be found.
The two detectives believed him on that score. There seemed no logical reason to disbelieve him when, to the consternation of his lawyer, he was busy spilling his guts on everything else. The pistol and phone were indeed probably found by parties unknown, they concluded. They came to this conclusion because the patient seemed drained of any will to resist further and because he gave them, quite freely, the details of the weapon and the number of the lost cell-phone. He seemed to have thrown in the towel.
He also told them the history of the Desert Eagle picked up by Lucky Dlamini two years previously in Umlazi.
They had reached a point in their questioning of Themba, with him in full flow and no longer trying to keep anything back, when Ryder decided to focus on their decision to attack his own dinner party and to target him, specifically.
‘Is right. I remember. That Macks. Moegoe! Stupid! I remember he was saying to everyone there that we want to talk to the Detective, Mr Jeremy Ryder.’
‘So my question to you, then, is how did you three come to choose me to attack? How did you know that I was the detective on your case?’
‘Hau! Is simple, that one, Detective. When we hear those witnesses, those girls, that they were the daughters of that same skabenga Mkhize, we go looking for him and then we go looking for them. We not find him and we not finding them. But we find his mother. That mad one. Big woman. Crazy woman. Loud gogo. She says the girls they were not there and we say who is the detective they are talking to and she tells us Detective Jimmy Rider and she tells us - she is shouting at us like a big fat mad old crazy woman - that she will make sure that Mr Jimmy Rider is going to come after us and he is going to get us. Then we leave the mad woman and we ask questions by my police friends to see if we can find where you work and where you live...’
He paused as he tried to work through what information he could part with and what information was best kept to himself.
‘And then we were looking and we were finding no Jimmy Rider. We were looking and we were looking. There is no Jimmy and there is no Rider. Like horse rider, nè? Then after another short time, only then were we finding your proper name. We find Mr Jeremy and not Mr Jimmy, and Mr
Ryder spelled funny, not like horse rider, nè? And then we find where you live. Is simple.’
Ryder pondered a moment. He started to ask another question but thought better of it. He paused. Pillay looked at him, wondering what was coming next as he stared in the direction of the bedridden thug, but miles past him into some distant memory. Finally he spoke.
‘When you talked about those girls, you said that their father is a what, a skabenga? Why do you say that?
‘Why I say that? Hau! Everyone knows that man. You don’t know that man, the father of those two girls? All the police they know that man. But they never catch him. Never ever. He is a clever, that one.
The Legal Aid lawyer tried her best to control her client’s outpourings, but once again he told her brusquely to leave him alone, so she shrugged her shoulders and kept her protests to herself.
The two detectives eventually left the hospital and decided to part company for their remaining tasks of the day. Ryder would drop Pillay at the police station so that she could pick up Mavis after her afternoon workshop and drive her out to the Ngobeni family. Mavis had arranged to help with the next day’s funeral arrangements for Sinethemba. Ryder would go alone to see the twins in KwaDukuza. To try and unpick what they had just heard from the interrogation in the hospital. Especially the last thing the patient had said.
‘The father of those two girls? He is that skelm Spikes Mkhize.’
16.20.
Thabethe drove aimlessly for twenty minutes, thinking through his options. Was the detective on his tail? Had he put together any connection between him, the gangsters, and Spikes Mkhize? Or was he, Thabethe, just being paranoid?
Was it a conscious choice he had made to drive toward Addington Hospital? He found himself pulling Mkhize’s 1974 Ford XLE into a parking bay outside the Addington Hospital. He wasn’t sure what he was planning, if anything. He knew the hospital well, having worked there as an orderly for some months, running patients from floor to floor, sweeping, being treated like dirt by junior nurses and oppressive managers. He knew his way around the place better than most people. He had even recently kidnapped a patient. Could he do it again? Was he even contemplating doing that again?
Thabethe sat in the car, thinking through the dangers. Was it even worth running the risk of being recognised? Or being picked up by a camera? What would he gain from a hit on one of these three guys? What good would it do? What about the other two?
It was too complicated. After sitting there for a full twenty minutes, Thabethe decided against any action and drove away, slowly.
16.45.
Pillay drove them out to the Ngobeni family. She had intended merely to drive Mavis out there and drop her off but an effusive greeting and welcome from cousins and siblings of Sinethemba compelled her to park the car and stay for a while. She offered to join in and help. It was something of a baptism of fire, she would later tell her detective colleagues.
Sitting on benches outside the house four young teenagers each had a tray on their laps. On each tray there was a sheep’s head. Pillay was transfixed by the fact that the eyes of the animals were open but frosted over and the tongues were protruding. The youngsters were busy removing the fur with what looked like non-safety barbers’ razor blades. Pillay immediately turned away, only to be confronted by an even more disturbing sight. A group of women had their hands and forearms dug deep into large pots. When she moved across for a closer look she saw that the pots contained sheep intestines.
Mavis smiled and took her aside.
‘Is this some religious stuff?’ asked Pillay in a whisper.
‘No, not really,’ Mavis explained. ‘It’s just food. But there are lots of traditions and customs that the family would like to see followed.’
Mavis went on to explain different facets of what was going on in the various activities taking place both in the yard and in the house. She made a point of not generalising about different religious practices in the country, or indeed the continent. This was because they tend to be ‘ethno-religions,’ she said, which she then explained at some length to her companion. She illustrated with different examples, talking about different belief systems being determined by different ethnic communities that she knew of throughout southern and central Africa. Pillay was astounded that the shy Mavis she knew at work had such a wealth of knowledge and could speak so freely and fluently about it. It was every bit as impressive as Mavis’s lesson to the detectives earlier in the week on caffeine.
‘For us, Detective Navi, me and Sinethemba’s family, we believe that when we go to that side by the dead people the travelling is complicated. If we don’t do the proper things first in our funeral, then those people who die might come back and cause trouble for the relatives who are staying behind.’
Pillay marvelled at the intelligence behind the awkward sentence construction, and understood why Koeks and Dipps and the others, including herself, had been taken by surprise over the caffeine discussion. Mavis probably spoke about six or seven languages and they had all judged her, to their shame, on her less than perfect English.
‘One of the important things, Detective Navi, is when the people are killing animals for a part of a - how do you say - ritual sacrifice. It is not just for providing food for the guests, and then there are also some personal things of the one who has died. They are buried with them too because then they can keep her company on the journey to the other side.’
‘Are they going to slaughter an ox, too?’ Pillay asked with some consternation, looking around in case there was a tethered beast nearby.
‘Not this time. Some people they kill an ox at the burial. Some other people kill an animal a long time after the funeral, maybe a few months, or maybe even more than a year. Some of the Nguni peoples they are saying that if we are killing an ox then that is allowing the dead person to become an ancestor who then can protect the family members who are left behind.’
Mavis went on in some detail about different approaches used by different families in that very neighbourhood. She made a particular point about funerals being both a mourning and a celebration, and an opportunity to build solidarity in the community, and for the community to re-assert its collective identity.
‘It’s maybe strange when you see us dancing and singing and looking happy when the relative is being taken to be buried, but that’s why we do it.’
‘What about that other stuff I’ve heard about, Mavis, where they smear - what - ash, I think, on the windows?’
‘Yes, sometimes, sometimes they do that but Sinethemba’s family won’t be doing it. There are very old customs where, when someone is dying, we put on the ash, turn the pictures on the walls around to face the wall, and sometimes we cover the mirrors or take them away so that there are no reflections.’
‘And what happens with a vigil, Mavis? How does that work?’
‘The beds are taken from the room of the one who dies and then all the women they sit on the floor. Sometimes for a few days before the funeral, the people come from the neighbourhood and also from far away. They come to visit the family to pay their respects. The day before the funeral we bring the body home before the sun goes down and we place her in the bedroom. Then, like tonight, a vigil will take place all night. Usually the funeral takes place in the very early morning. Sometimes, in the country, on the farms, it is before the sun comes up. That’s because the people think witches are moving around in the afternoon looking for dead bodies for their muti. But because the witches sleep in the morning this is a good time for funerals, before they wake up. But for the Ngobeni family they’ll have the funeral in the afternoon. They aren’t scared of the witches.’
Mavis spoke about different aspects of the funeral customs and ceremonies favoured by the Ngobeni family. She clarified where family members would stand at the graveside. She described details about the funeral meal, and how the preparations that had shocked Pillay related to the occasion. She then went on to describe the cleansing rituals that would occur after the
burial and before the re-entry into the house.
Like most of their colleagues at work, Pillay had intended to show her respects at the police memorial service for the four constables that would occur some time later. But by the end of the explanation by Mavis she had committed herself to coming back the next day for the funeral.
16.55.
For the first ten minutes of his visit with the twins and their grandmother in KwaDukuza, Ryder did no talking. There was no way he was able to. The old woman was in full verbal flow from the moment he arrived, while she put the sausage-rolls in the already-heated oven and prepared the coffee for the four of them. The neighbours in Haysom Road, on all sides, must have heard her sounding off. It was without pause and at full volume.
She harangued him as if he was solely responsible for all the police in the area. She lambasted the police for their failure to get rid of every tsotsi in the land. In her view they should not be sent to jail, where they would deal in drugs. Instead, she proclaimed, they should all be lined up against a wall somewhere and shot. All the things they had stolen from hard-working good citizens like herself should then be taken back and distributed amongst the law-abiding citizens. There were so few of those left, she said to Ryder, that people like herself would do quite well out of such a policy of redistribution. Ryder and the granddaughters were too young to know that in the good old days the people themselves knew how to deal with crooks and scoundrels. She had once beaten the living daylights out of one young skabenga with her broom and she had been congratulated by that boy’s mother, and they had been friends ever since, and when her own drunken husband went to jail for theft, she said, that was a good thing. He was a no-good layabout and never once helped her around the house. When he came out of prison and ran away to Johannesburg, she sang the praises of Jesus, she said. Ever since that day she was determined to ensure that in her neighbourhood she would do her bit to report every single layabout skelm to the police. The police knew her well and they knew that she ran a good home.