by Deon Meyer
SK: The police? I don't understand ...
EM: He took me in the car, to the police. Then he said, I must talk, or I wouldgo to ijele, the jail.
SK: In the police station?
EM: Hhayi. Outside.
EM: And then you told him?
EM: What could I do?
SK: And then?
EM: Then he phoned Inkunzi. And he let me go.
SK: Did he torture you?
EM: Kunganil
SK: Did he hit you or something?
EM: Hhayi.
SK: Not at all?
EM: (No response.)
SK: Did he ask you about anything else? What was in the bag?
EM: Like what?
SK: Anything.
EM: He just talked about the money.
SK: Nothing else? Nothing?
EM: Ma h ha la.
66
'She's stopped,' said Quinn over the car radios to her trackers. 'In the Tyger Valley parking lot, the eastern side. Team One, how far are you from the shopping centre?' 'About a kilometre ...'
'Hurry up. Park, and go and find her. Team Two, do the same. Team Three, let us know when you get there, you have to cover her car.' 'Roger,' they responded, one after the other.
'We're plotting her cellphone now, we'll let you know more or less where she is.'
She knew the Tyger Valley shopping centre, every nook and cranny of it.
She hurried into Entrance 8, stopped abruptly and looked around. People everywhere, walking in, walking out, but nothing that looked suspicious.
She walked into the centre, slipped left into the Pick 'n' Pay side entrance, then out again at the Durbell Pharmacy end, down the escalator, turned left, ducked under the barrier at the cinema.
'Madam!' shouted one of the movie ticket collectors. Milla began to jog, just waving her hand at him.
Out the other side, she turned right, up the steps, then left again in the Arena. The telephones were there, near the escalators, as she had recalled. She opened her handbag, took out her purse and went to the coin-operated phone furthest away. She took out the coins. Had one good look around, tapped in the numbers one by one.
It rang.
She put the coin in the slot. It dropped.
'Hello?' Lukas's voice was brusque.
'I don't have much time, I'm calling from a payphone. I'm going to ask you two questions. Just answer them. Nothing else.'
'Milla, what's ...'
'Nothing else.'
'I'm listening.'
'Do you work for the CIA?'
She listened with every fibre of her being, heard the sound he uttered, astonishment and amusement combined, as though she was making a joke. 'Do I work ...' Another noise, a little concern now. 'No. The answer is no.'
He's telling the truth, Milla thought. She knew it. 'Did you shoot Julius Shabangu?'
'No!' Fervent. 'Milla, you have to tell me ...'
'Lukas, just listen. The flat was bugged, they're listening to my cellphone calls, I think they're following me. They're looking for you. I want to warn you, and I want to help you.'
He was quiet a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was suddenly calm. 'Do you know who they are?'
'Yes. The Presidential Intelligence Unit.'
Another silence. Then, 'How do you know...Wait, that's not important now. Where are you?'
'In the Tyger Valley Centre. No one followed me when I came in.'
'Where is your cellphone?'
'In the car. Outside.'
'Good. Listen very carefully, I'm going to tell you what to do.'
Rajkumar waddled into the Ops Room out of breath, holding a memory stick in his hand. 'You had better listen,' he said to Quinn and Masilo, and pushed it into a computer.
'Patch it through to the system,' said Raj. 'News bulletin on Kfm, five minutes ago.'
He got the audio file playing. The newsreader's voice, clear and solemn: Local police are calling on the public to help in the search for Cape Town businessman and Muslim religious leader Mr Shaheed Osman. Osman was reported missing after an apparent car-jacking outside the Azzavia Masjid mosque earlier today. Several witnesses saw a man forcing Osman into his late model Toyota Prado. Family members have told Kfm news they are deeply concerned about Mr Osman's health, as he suffers from a serious heart condition.
She walked briskly out through the Game exit, through the underground parking, to the slope down to Hume Street. She looked for a pedestrian path, spotted one to the right and jogged over to it. She skidded down the incline to the bottom.
The street was busy, just as she had hoped. She waited for the first gap in the traffic and sprinted. A motorist hooted sharply at her, she stood on the island for a second, then ran across the other lane, to the ugly steel fence of Willow Bridge. Only then did she stop and look around, out of breath, searching, as Lukas had coached her. Were there any other people walking too fast? Or running. Identify them. Colour, gender, clothing, height, appearance.
There were none.
She ran to the corner and turned left.
'Nothing?' Quinn asked over the cellphone.
'It's a big centre,' the operator said. 'There are only four of us.'
'Keep looking.'
'What about her cellphone?'
'We suspect she left it in the car.'
First she bought a bright red headscarf, and a white jacket. She asked for the largest shopping bag they had. Then, the sunglasses with outsize white frames. If you don't have cash, use your credit card. It doesn't matter now.
Then she bought a cellphone.
Where is your cellphone?
In the car.
Good. Leave it there. Buy a new one. They will ask for your ID, tell them you will bring it tomorrow, it's an emergency, your...your phone has been stolen, you have to let your family know urgently. Buy a charger that works in a car. Then find a place, somewhere in a shop, where you can watch the doors, somewhere quiet...
She walked down to the basement parking, ran to the back, against the wall. On the back of a blue Mazda she put down the box with the cellphone, opened it and assembled.
There is usually enough power in the battery to last an hour or two ...
When she was finished she sent the SMS. HAVE PHONE. NOW FOR STEP 2.
She wound the scarf around her head, put on the dark glasses and slipped into the jacket.
At Pick 'n' Pay she quickly bought the bare essentials - a toothbrush, colourless lip gloss, mascara and deodorant. A writing pad and pen. She asked one of the bag packers where she could find a minibus taxi.
'Where to, madam?' Amused.
'To Bellville.'
'Up in Durban Road, at the Engen garage. But it's a long walk.'
'It doesn't matter. Thank you.'
Walking out of Willow Bridge was a problem, there was only one route in and out.
Get something to change your appearance, a jersey or a jacket, something bright. And a big shopping bag, anything to change your silhouette. From then on try to walk differently, slower, head down, like you are tired, on your way home. Don't look back, don't look round, just walk ...
It took her just over fifteen minutes to reach the filling station. There were three taxis there. She approached the rear one. 'Where are you going?' she asked the fare collector.
'Is that a philosophical question, or does madam want to ride with us, genuine?'
67
She took the Metro train from Bellville to the city.
There were few people travelling in that direction this late in the afternoon. She sought out the busiest compartment, as Lukas had instructed her. She kept her eyes on the floor, her handbag on her lap, holding it with both arms. Most of her fellow travellers were young men. Milla thought about the report on organised crime. She SMSed Lukas: ON THE TRAIN.
Minutes later came the response: WAIT IN FRONT OF STATION IN ADDERLEY. BLUE VW GOLF. She replied: OK.
Then she put the cellphone in her handbag, sat hunched over in her se
at and wondered what he would say when she told him everything.
'We can't find her,' the operator told Quinn.
'They have CCTV. I'm going to phone the shopping centre office and ask them to let you look at the tapes. She must be there somewhere, her car and cellphone are. But two of you must keep looking. What about fitting rooms ... ?'
'It's difficult.'
'No it isn't. Look.'
She didn't have to wait long before the blue Golf stopped next to her. The car's paint was faded, it had rust spots, a few dents. She bent down, saw it was Lukas wearing a baseball cap, opened the door and got in.
He pulled away immediately, but put out his hand and grasped hers, looked at the headscarf and the dark glasses. He grinned and said: 'Mata Hari Strachan.' She saw the tension in his face, thought she was to blame. She squeezed his hand and said, 'I'm sorry.'
'No, Milla, I am.' His eyes on the busy traffic.
'Lukas, there are things you don't know.'
He glanced fleetingly at her, worried.
Then she told him, from the beginning.
They drove towards Blouberg, in the last crush of rush hour. Past Milnerton Beach where she had come to her senses a few hours before, though she was barely aware of her surroundings. She let the words tumble out of her, too fast, the pressure to confess her deceit was too great, she stumbled over the sentences. The sun was setting over the sea, Lukas's face was grim in the soft light. He listened in silence, not looking at her.
When she was finished, he just said, 'Milla ...' with a weary admiration.
She felt the relief of a burden set down, the suspense of waiting for his reaction. It didn't come quickly.
He sighed. 'I don't work for the CIA and I had nothing to do with Shabangu's death.'
'I believe you.' Then: 'Was it coincidence, Lukas? When you went dancing?'
'Yes.'
'And the Monday night?'
He lifted his hand from the steering wheel in a gesture of helplessness.
She waited, increasingly aware of his tiredness.
'One night in New York,' he said quietly, 'I was thinking about a university girlfriend. Just incidentally wondering what had become of her. And the next day I bumped into her on Lexington Avenue ... What are the chances ... ? I can't explain it...'
She understood what he was trying to say. 'I know.'
'It just happened ...'
'Do you still think of her?' Her attempt to provide relief.
It worked. He turned his head and smiled. 'Not so much any more.'
'You're tired,' she said.
'No,' he said. 'I'm in trouble. And I'll have to tell you about it, because you are part of it now.'
At half past six the operator told Quinn they had studied the video material. They had seen Milla Strachan walk into Entrance 8 of the Tyger Valley centre just after 14.00. They could determine her route more or less, she had been responsible for a small flurry of excitement at the cinema, she had walked past a camera in the Arena. It was fourteen minutes before they saw her leave via Exit 6 on the western side. One last camera had followed her trail in the underground parking lot, apparently to the outside.
They suspected someone had picked her up there.
Lukas Becker told Milla about the kidnapping of Shaheed Latif Osman.
It was supposed to be over within a couple of hours, he said. He wanted to intercept Osman and his car outside the mosque, get him into the Golf in a way that ensured no one could follow them, drive to Blouberg, tie Osman to a chair in the rented apartment and say as soon as they paid the money back he would release Osman.
It had initially run according to plan. Outside the mosque Osman had been very frightened, then he recognised Lukas from their previous confrontation outside Osman's house, and calmed down a bit. He had got into his Prado, followed instructions and driven off, saying over and over, 'Shabangu is lying, I don't have your money.' To which Becker had patiently replied: 'Then you will have to get it.'
The first problem arose when he had forced Osman out of his car next to a railway line in Woodstock. While he was getting out, Osman had put his hand in his pocket. 'Don't,' Becker shouted and pointed the pistol at him, but the man ignored it. Lukas tackled him to the ground, pinned his hands and pressed the pistol barrel to his cheek.
'Lie still.'
There was dreadful tension in Osman's body, a desperate look in his eye. Becker, acutely aware that his time was running out, ripped off the jacket and searched it. He found only a cellphone, tossed it over the fence.
Osman jumped up then, but strangely did not run away. He struggled back to his car.
'What are you doing?' he shouted, stopping him.
'The bag,' Osman said urgently.
The bag. The shoulder bag Osman had carried out of the mosque.
Lukas turned back swiftly, pulling Osman with him, and collected the bag from the Toyota Prado. He had to be quick, because his pursuers were coming.
Once they were over the railway tracks, in the alley between factory buildings, Osman tried to take the bag from Lukas. 'Give it to me!'
Lukas jerked it away and said: 'Come.'
Osman, despair etching his face, walked more slowly and grabbed his chest. 'My heart,' he said.
'Stop lying. Come on!'
In the Golf, Osman had sat hunched up, waxen, wet with perspiration, breathing rapidly. A trembling hand reached out for the black bag in slow motion.
'Leave the bag.' Then he looked into Osman's eyes, saw his wild panic. The hand jerking back to Osman's left shoulder, face distorted in pain. Still, Lukas Becker did not believe him.
'I have to have my medicine,' Osman groaned.
Lukas ignored him, concentrating on the road ahead, and the rear- view mirror.
Then Osman collapsed. Becker cursed and stopped. Picked up Osman's head, saw the eyes rolled back. He grabbed the man's wrist, felt the dreadful pulse and knew it was a heart attack, he had training in basic first aid, he knew the next fifteen minutes meant life or death to Osman.
That changed everything, he raced into the city, to the nearest medical help, the Chris Barnard Memorial Hospital, with an unconscious Osman. He stopped at Casualty, carried Osman in with a fireman's lift and called for help. The medical personnel rushed up to them, ordering him to put Osman down on a hospital trolley. He explained that the man had had a heart attack, he lied and said he had found him just down the street.
They ripped open Osman's Muslim robe, pressed stethoscopes to his chest, put an oxygen mask over his face and pushed him through the swing doors.
'I phoned the hospital just before I picked you up. They still haven't identified him, but they say his condition is critical. If he dies ... I thought the people following him were his people. His bodyguards. I thought the people following me were his people. But when you spoke about the PIA over the phone ... That changes everything. They can connect me. They think I murdered Shabangu. Now they will think I killed Osman as well.'
Janina Mentz threw the stapler first. The paperweight followed, leaving another mark in the door of her office.
Then she said, 'Jesus Christ,' before striding up and down her office, her face crimson with fury.
Tau Masilo just sat there. He had no defence.
A housewife, a report writer, an amateur, had evaded the professional surveillance teams of the Presidential Intelligence Agency.
What was there to say?
He unlocked the door of the holiday unit at the Big Bay Beach Club and let her walk in. The interior was gaily decorated, cottage furniture, sea-blue and white walls, an open-plan sitting room and kitchen. She put her shopping bag on the kitchen counter beside a black carry bag.
She turned to him, held him tightly. His arms wrapped around her, but with tension in his body. 'Milla, you can't stay here ...'
She looked up at him in query.
'This is my trouble,' he said. 'My problem. My risk. They can't do anything to you, you are not guilty of anything. You have to walk away
from it all, until it's over ...You .. .Your circumstances ...'
She just shook her head, knowing that she couldn't answer him now, the words would come out wrong, like when she had confessed in the Golf.
'When did you last eat?' she asked.
68
Lukas, my love,
Alliteration, unintended, but I am immediately delighted by it. And therein lies the root of the problem.
Because my life is a flood of words, a stream, a river that never stops flowing. I am not a drowning person being washed along, but a water- word creature. I frolick here, in the words of my thoughts, the words I hear, the words I read and write. The words are in me and around me and through me and they never stop. I bob and swim and dive in them, splish and splash, this is the world I live in, my natural habitat, I can see the words and feel, hear and taste them.
The word-water is brown; a thousand drops of colourless conjunctions, and in-between words, and only-there-to-serve-other words. But some words are silver, like fish that dart and leap, glittering bows in the sun. Action words, wholly dynamic. Verbs. Living words. And others are heavy, dark, riverbed words, round rolling boulder words that scrape and chip and erode, and here I go again, compulsively, I am an addict, this letter is my intravenous feed, my dose for the day.
Speech is different. There the current frequently drags me away, there are whirlpools and rapids and submerged rocks; then the words slip away. But when I write, when it is just me and the river and I can open my eyes under the surface, I see every word, and search and select.
So I write. Much, and often, and have done for a long time. It gives me control. And that is the dilemma.
Thoughts and written words don't make a life. They can tell the stories, but they can't make the stories. They can fantasise (and I am good at that), but fantasies are phantom stories, word shadows, mirages that fade away when you get too close. They are rivers that dry up.
I don't have a story, Lukas. I began to write a book, the other day, and my best resource was to tap everything from my single major act - my running away, my making-life-new-at-forty. That is the sum total of my doing, my single source of character conflict, the climax of my existence and the depth of my story river. Perhaps you will understand better if I