The men run.
Ralph Hopkins comes up close, right in de Vries’ face.
‘You caused this, de Vries. I was getting through to him. He was going to come in. What the hell did you say to him?’
‘You heard.’
Hopkins’ face is red, windblown and lashed by salt spray. His eyes are bulging.
‘You threatened him.’
‘Fuck off, Hopkins. You heard.’
‘You threatened him and he stepped back in fear.’
‘That is not what happened – as you well know.’ Their faces are almost touching now; neither man backing down. ‘You have no right to interfere in a police operation. If you’re not in Cape Town with the rest of us, I’ll issue a warrant for your arrest.’
Quite deliberately, ‘I’ll be there.’
De Vries reaches the house, turns once more to the sea, closes his eyes, rubs them hard, screams into the wind. He feels a wave of blackness roll in towards him; more weight than he can bear. He pulls himself up, staggers back towards the driveway, and then across the main road to the side-street.
As he reaches his car, his cellphone rings. It is du Toit. He answers, listens, shouts above the wind: ‘Imagine the very worst fucking scenario . . . Then double it.’
PART TWO
‘Suspend de Vries,’ General Simphiwe Thulani says.
‘I have no power to stop you, sir.’
‘Not me, Henrik. You. If you suspend him, if you are seen to suspend him, it will bolster your position. It will provide a chance for a new man.’
‘That’s what you want, isn’t it?’ Du Toit stares past Thulani and out to the tall grey buildings, reflecting the blinding sunlight; behind them, the tablecloth of bright white cloud peeping over Devil’s Peak, seeping over the crest of Table Mountain. ‘To have your own appointee take over this inquiry and sideline my department. I won’t let that happen.’
‘Henrik,’ Thulani continues smoothly, calmly, ‘you should consider your own position in all of this. De Vries is the de facto face of this entire business. If you want to remain where you are, it may be necessary to make clear your repentance . . . with a sacrifice.’
Du Toit, standing: ‘Forget it. We have six witnesses who say de Vries was nowhere near Steinhauer when he jumped. The guy was unstable, and he was just about to be arrested for crimes stretching back seven years and all over the national headlines.’
‘To be arrested and to be convicted are two different things. Now you have to find unequivocal proof. I have always felt that your loyalty to de Vries is misplaced. He will take you down with him.’
Du Toit is scornful. ‘I didn’t know you cared, sir.’
‘I advise once more, on the record: allow me to allocate a new department to this matter.’
‘No. You have no authority. I have taken advice from above and they are clear that the investigation will be concluded by my teams.’
‘From above,’ Thulani echoes mockingly, raising his eyebrows. ‘Then you have one chance: find the evidence, make it so clear even our blessed media can understand, tie it all up neatly and close down the case. Don’t complicate it; don’t go looking for hidden messages. If you can do that, the SAPS comes out of this well. Any other outcome and you, and your department, will struggle to survive.’
‘That’s what we intend to do.’
‘If you’ve done your groundwork, Marc Steinhauer can be fully implicated, the case closed. No one will shed a tear over what might have happened to him.’
‘He took his own life.’
‘That remains to be seen.’
‘That,’ Du Toit snaps, ‘is the fact of the matter.’
Thulani stands, brushes down his dark pinstriped suit, fastens a jacket button.
‘So be it. Your department is responsible. Sort it out.’
‘We will.’
‘If you don’t, we will all be making the trip to Pretoria – and some of us won’t come back.’
Thulani’s office door opens as Du Toit makes for it. Julius Mngomezulu holds it for Du Toit.
‘And Henrik,’Thulani says quietly, ‘when I send Julius here for an update from you, I expect you to provide one. Do I make myself clear?’
Du Toit says nothing, sweeps past Mngomezulu, out of the brutally air-conditioned office, through the thickly carpeted anteroom, and into the tepid concrete corridor.
* * *
Five hours of interviews by the Police Incident Investigation team; efficient, unerringly inquisitive, but respectful. One saving grace: Steinhauer was not in police custody at the time of his accident. He had not been arrested. Four back-up officers, one surveillance officer, and Colonel Vaughn de Vries, all singing from the same songsheet, all recollecting corresponding facts, similar impressions. Ralph Hopkins, advocate, claiming threat and intimidation, but without conviction and, crucially, without corroboration. No witnesses have heard the dialogue between them. Hopkins cannot remember the exact words; indeed, no words he cares to repeat. The Warrant Officer from Kleinmond makes it clear he witnessed no intimidation and no vicinity to the victim: all were at least ten metres away from him. Two were unsighted; four believe he deliberately stepped over the edge. Hopkins is uncertain about this, but agrees that there was no physical contact between the SAPS and his client. His protestations become more vague; more quietly delivered. The investigators lose interest in Hopkins, hint at a rapid conclusion to their enquiries. De Vries takes no comfort from this.
Don February, his questioning curtailed; Mary Steinhauer and her children to comfort, now protect and respect for their loss. His men still search their house, wrap what might be evidence in sterile plastic bags, label them with numbers and letters. Pathologist Harry Kleinman examines an unrecognizable, shredded human body, pickled in brine, rust-coloured scratches covering its surface like cross-hatching on a fading pen-and-ink drawing. De Vries, devoid of energy, still and despairing in his office, watching time pass, waiting for release from his procedural incarceration. Teams of officers work on, unsure whether all is in vain: there is no momentum, no direction.
Du Toit comes to de Vries’ office at eight p.m.
‘It’s over,Vaughn. Incident Investigation have gone; signed off. No suspensions, no delays. They’re independent for now so we’ll get no undue influence. Thulani’s been put in his place by the brass and we’re still holding the reins. We have to tie this all in to Steinhauer as quickly as possible. I’ve told February that, whatever the circumstances, he proceeds with a full investigation into Steinhauer’s activities. The beach-house remains under our control and all items confiscated from the main residence stay with us until we’re satisfied. Whatever the tragic events of Betty’s Bay, this man is still under suspicion on a number of counts. We’ll take some stick in the press to begin with, but I think we can let it be known that he remains a very strong suspect for the dumping of the two bodies, and is therefore implicated in everything from their deaths to the previous abductions.’
‘That all sounds very neat, sir.’
‘That’s the way it will be described by us; if the press want to mix it up, we can’t stop them. I want you to review everything we have, and pray it all comes out as we think. The teams in Riebeek West, the surrounding areas, and approach roads are still active and will remain so. When we question Steinhauer’s wife and staff, we may get a vital lead to the murder site, and with it, Bobby Eames’ whereabouts.’
‘Are you taking control?’
‘No. I was merely . . . outlining future activities during your enforced absence from the inquiry. I will continue to oversee your conclusions and relay them to the press.’
‘And what if my conclusions are not black and white? What will you do then, sir?’
‘That is not an option. There are eyes everywhere, and they are not connected to very sophisticated brains. We need answers – simple answers.’
‘The one thing I tell you, right now,’ de Vries says miserably, ‘is that this is not simple.’
Du Toit looks down at him
. ‘However bad you feel now, you have to keep it together. You have to lead this investigation, because if the pressure was on before, it’s twice as heavy now – for both of us.’
De Vries stares ahead.
‘Go home,Vaughn. I’ll coordinate here, and get everyone away at a decent hour. I want you here at eight a.m. tomorrow morning and we’ll convene before everyone is assigned new tasks at nine a.m.’ Du Toit sighs. ‘You’re no use to anyone like this.’
‘It keeps playing out, over and over again,’ de Vries murmurs. ‘I can’t get it out of my head that he’s gone. We wait seven years to catch him and he escapes.’
‘Escapes?’
‘Yes. Just that.’
‘My God, man, he’s dead. Don’t go talking about “escape” when every wall in this city has ears.’
‘My mind has never left this case, sir, for seven years.’
‘Get the evidence, tell the story. Find Bobby Eames: Steinhauer won’t have escaped then.’
De Vries gets up, takes his jacket from the back of his chair.
‘I need to think,’ he says.
‘You need to rest.’
‘Can’t.’
‘You have to.’
‘Not the way I’m made.’ De Vries opens his office door, gestures du Toit out, locks the door, murmurs, ‘Sorry.’ Du Toit watches de Vries accelerate away from him down the corridor.
John Marantz drives his old Mercedes back home through tunnels of trees, the side streets of Newlands smelling damp and fresh after the evening shower. It is dark around him; the streetlights have been stuttering to life in the mornings, fading away as night falls. He crosses the deserted freeway, turns up towards the mountain; changes to a low gear as he accelerates up the steep gradient leading to Vineyard Heights and his little mountain hideaway. As he reaches the end of the cul-de-sac, he opens his garage doors with the remote; he hears his dog barking. Under his neighbour’s overgrown bougainvillaea, he sees a figure. He brakes, extra aware of threat, since he is holding stacks of 200-Rand notes in his loose jacket pockets. He switches his headlights to full beam; the figure stirs, stumbles towards him. It is Vaughn de Vries.
‘I couldn’t drive, Johnnie.’ He slaps his hand on the roof of Marantz’s car, swaying slightly. ‘I took a cab; it dropped me off here and drove away before I found you weren’t in. I wasn’t walking all the way down there, thought I’d wait. It’s after midnight.’
‘It’s three a.m.’
‘Must have slept. Where were you?’
‘Poker game. You’re lucky the security guys didn’t pick you up.’
‘They’re probably in the next bush along.’
Marantz takes his arm.
De Vries says, ‘I need to talk to you.’
‘I thought you might.’
1985
At the age of nineteen,Vaughn de Vries served his two years in the South African Army. To avoid active National Service, some of his friends studied subjects they couldn’t begin to understand at universities both in the veldt and abroad. Others left the country for good; still more had family who rallied to exert influence to ensure home posting, desk jobs or the assurance of unsuitability. When Vaughn received his call-up papers, Piet de Vries was eating a big farm breakfast, swimming in oil. He watched his son opening the summons and just nodded.
‘Best be over it, boy.’
Three months later,Vaughn finds himself out of training, buzz-cut and bruised, humiliated and dehumanized, with an acknowledged aptitude for logistics and planning, but to be used as a foot soldier. He refuses the chance to return home before being posted to the border – to fight, he knows, in Angola with the UNITA rebels against the Soviet-backed MPLA, who loathe the all-white South African army.
His troop-leader seeks to demean him, but always breaks their stare first. Vaughn silently questions every move, every tactic. He says nothing, but the other men know that he challenges the captain. He is allocated a scrawny, nervous buddy to supervise; a college dropout, bright but naive. Vaughn knows that his leader hopes that this man will drag him down, distract him for a moment, lead him to make a fatal mistake.
They climb down the koppie towards two stone-built buildings perhaps fifty metres apart. They stop, crouch low in the crackling dry scrub, twigs scraping on coarse oiled fabric like chalk on blackboard. They are so close to one another that their arms in their thick fatigues are touching. He turns to meet Rikhardts’ eye, oblivious to the sweaty painted mask of camouflage heaving and quivering. The man’s eyes are bloodshot, encircled by burgundy not painted on. He takes out his water-bottle, unscrews the cap, offers it to Rikhardts. He watches the man take a first gulp, then restrain himself, still wary of squandering the ration; he sips three times, before passing it back to de Vries, his hand shaking.
‘There’s no time to rest,’ de Vries whispers hoarsely. ‘You okay to go on?’
Rikhardts nods, his eyes wide.
They scan the scrubby, sandy landscape. There is little cover between their position in the tiny valley at the edge of the koppie and the two buildings. The hot wind blows unrelentingly, deafening them on one side of their heads. De Vries gestures Rikhardts to take the right-hand building, indicates that he is to survey the building anticlockwise. He raises his weapon, proffering some cover.
‘Go.’
Rikhardts scampers away across the barren rocky ground, sliding behind low windblown scrub level with the far wall of the building, looks back at de Vries, raises his gun. De Vries scans the perimeter quickly, checks his boots, scans from the other direction and then sprints to the corner of the left-hand building. As he runs, he catches a glimpse of four men running low, perhaps half a kilometre away. He recognizes their shapes, their gait, their attire. These are his men. He has his section to check, they have theirs. No one can fall behind.
He stands, back to the chalky stone wall, sees no windows on this far end, begins to edge around to the rear of the building, his back scraping against the crude bulging building blocks. He glances around the corner: nothing. He scans the ground behind the building, which drops down to a shallow river valley lined by skinny trees with a diagonal gait, before rising up into a large tor of heavy dark rocks. He is out of range should a sniper be hidden there.
He twitches around the corner again, neither sees nor hears any sign of life, and sharply twists his body around so that his back is now hard against the rear wall of the building, his gun pointing down the length of it. This wall contains a door almost at the far end, but no windows that he can see. He edges along the wall, suddenly crouches low. In the far distance, there is gunfire: the MPLA men are close. His heart starts to pump, his palms sweat. The wind propels harsh cries, another burst of fire. It is so hot that it is sucking the spit from his panting mouth, yet suddenly he freezes. To his right, he senses movement. He turns to see the wooden door of the building open outwards, the door shielding whoever might emerge. He raises his weapon.
The man steps out, the wind slams the door, and he suddenly twists, gun pointing. De Vries’ swollen, dehydrated fingers struggle to prime the weapon. He achieves it, faces the man, aware that they are mirroring each other: weapon under the right arm, left hand at his side, palm up, eyes bulging, breathing hard. Time stops. De Vries meets the eyes of the tall, thin, black man, sees the blood pumping in his exposed veins, his arm straining, shaking. The man’s left leg collapses suddenly and he grimaces, eyes never leaving de Vries’. The MPLA fighter is topless, the left leg of his combat fatigue trousers ripped and shredded, a makeshift bandage over his left kneecap, a shining slick of dark oily blood running down his bare leg to his dusty boot.
They stare at each other. De Vries realizes that the man is downwind of him, must be able to smell his sweating fear. But the fighter is injured and his weapon begins to tilt towards the ground. De Vries finds that, almost subconsciously, he is allowing his weapon to fall too. The fighter nods at de Vries very slowly and de Vries echoes him. The fighter takes a wobbly step backwards; de Vries also,
his mind racing, knowing that prisoners are not welcome, slows down the move forward, and he has neither will, nor heart, to kill this emaciated, wounded man. They both back off further, eyes locked, until the man reaches the end of the wall. He jerks his head upwards; de Vries sees only white discs flashing, and then he disappears around the corner of the building.
De Vries edges to cover at his corner and then he exhales; a breath that seems to last minutes. The utter futility of their action overwhelms him; exhaustion hits his brain and he hunches up and dry-retches over the shifting dust of the ground beneath him. He draws himself up, shaking and dizzy, takes a swig of water, does not regret the stand-off, believes it to have been the logical stratagem, knows that he has no choice but to back his judgement, to store it away, never to reveal it to anyone.
He stows his flask, begins to edge back to the rear wall, prepares to push on to their goal. He surveys the territory once more, seeking the next point where they can find cover, remembers Rikhardts, turns around the corner once more and sees him, his back to the far building, moving towards the end of it. Rikhardts looks up, sees de Vries, tilts his weapon upwards and continues his move. De Vries takes a deep breath, then rounds the corner and begins to slide along the rear wall again. Rikhardts reaches the corner of his building and steps out to cross the twenty-metre space between the buildings. De Vries looks behind him and then, at the sound of two jarring, ear-piercing shots, sees Rikhardts fall, watches blood rise like a fish-pond fountain, be whipped low by the wind.
De Vries hears his heart thump three times, suddenly grits his teeth and charges along the back wall of the building, reaches the corner and runs straight out, weapon primed. He sees nothing, runs to the front corner, looks right, then left, sees the same MPLA fighter sprinting, bow-legged but agile, away across country towards the koppie they have climbed and then hard left towards the river and the giant rocky outcrop of the tor. He is already beyond range. De Vries contemplates giving chase, the anger in his stomach cramping him, leaving him breathless, but he knows that he wants Rikhardts to live more than he wants the fighters dead.
The First Rule of Survival Page 13