Trackers

by Deon Meyer

  When he had dealt with the last call, he leaned back in his chair and pondered the phenomenon of the sanctification of the victim. It was a common syndrome, driven by the guilt of surviving, and the universal never-speak-ill-of-the-dead piety that so bedevilled a policeman's work, as it papered over all the cracks. And there always were cracks.

  At eleven he phoned Mrs Gusti Flint, Danie's mother, to ask whether he could talk to her. 'You are very welcome,' she said. 'I'm here all day,' and she gave him an address in Panorama.

  In Neville Philander's office, with a telephone ringing and the air conditioner going full blast, Mat Joubert asked if he could see the records of all the bus drivers that Danie Flint had fired between 1 September and 25 November.

  'Jirre,' said Philander, standing beside his desk.

  'Sorry to bother you,' said Joubert.

  'Neville,' shouted the woman's voice down the corridor.

  'Just a minute,' Philander shouted back, looking at his phone as though it were a snake. He said to Joubert: 'Do me a favour: personnel records are at head office, if I start sukkeling to get it now, my day will be buggered. Don't you wanna go have a look, while you've got Mr Eckhard's blessing?'

  'Of course. Where is the head office?'

  'Neville!'

  'Santasha, please! It's in Epping Industria, Hewett Street, thanks man. Come on, I'll show you where Danie's cubicle was.'

  Santasha's voice, impatient: 'Neville, lovey, are you going to answer that phone today?'

  Joubert followed Philander down the corridor. 'Not if you take that tone with me.'

  He disappeared through a door, Joubert went in behind him, Santasha shouted: 'I'm not taking a tone, lovey, I'm motivating you a little.'

  The room was divided into four office spaces by chest-high partitions, each with a desk and a credenza, all in the same light wood colour. The two visible desks were untidy, a few piles of papers and files, no one sitting there.

  'So motivate the caller to hang on a little,' Philander shouted, and walked around a partition, up to a window and pointed. 'That's Danie's cubicle,' he said. 'Pretty much as he left it.'

  'Thank you,' said Joubert.

  'Have a ball,' he said, then turned on his heel and jogged to the door.

  Joubert surveyed the desk, credenza, office chair. Simple, on a grey carpet. The desk had three drawers on the left. Under the desk was the computer case, on top, the mouse, keyboard and screen. One pile of papers and a clipboard, a mug with a Porsche logo, coffee dregs in the bottom, dried up now. Photos and notes were stuck on the faded blue fabric of the partition.

  He sat down on the chair and looked at the photos. In the middle was one that had been taken in front of the depot building, probably of the whole administration staff, six men, three women. Philander was in the middle. Danie stood second from the right, at the back, big smile. Joubert wondered which one of the three coloured women was the diplomatically insistent Santasha.

  Next to it was a photo of Danie and Tanya Flint, taken at a work party. Her face was fuller then, she was looking in amusement at Danie, in a funny little hat with a beer in his hand, laughing uproariously. Another photo of Danie on a boat, somewhere on a river, arms draped around the shoulders of two friends. Three magazine cuttings of sports cars, an Audi R8, a Ferrari F430 Spider and a Lamborghini Murcielago LP640. Yellow Post-it notes with scribbled names and telephone numbers, reminders of meetings and deadlines for reports, the number of exclamation marks denoting the urgency of each.

  He pulled the stack of papers closer and worked through them. Official ABC forms, with figures and references, apparently to buses. One light brown folder with the ABC logo on it, and the word Applications' below it, 'Please return to HR, Mrs Heese!!!' in angry red letters. Inside were job applications for bus drivers, each with a photo, a short CV and a report from the HR department.

  He pushed that aside, tried the top drawer of the desk. It was locked.

  He opened the second drawer. A metal basket for writing materials, with various sized compartments. Cheap ballpoint pens, two pencils, a stapler, blue box of staples, an unused eraser, a roll of Sellotape, scissors, a post code guide, three packs of Post-it notes, a Nokia cellphone charger, paper clips, a Bic cigarette lighter missing its roller wheel, a Ferrari keyholder, and two white electric two-point plugs.

  The bottom drawer didn't offer much either - the original disk for the computers; Windows XP, a handbook for an ink-jet printer, two old FHM magazines and a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, an Auto Trader, and two Car magazines.

  Joubert moved the chair so he could slide open the door of the credenza. It was full of light brown files, arranged according to date, from 2004 to 2006, and two telephone directories. He took out one of the files and riffled through it. Indecipherable ABC documents. He put it back, and slid the door closed.

  Where would the key to the drawer be? On the Audi's keyring, which had disappeared along with Flint?

  Only one more thing he could check: the computer. He peered under the desk, found the button and pressed it. The computer switched on. He watched the screen, waited until all the icons had appeared. Outlook. Word. Excel. Explorer. DRMP.

  He sat staring at the screen. Would it be a problem if he opened the email program? If he had still been in the police he would have sent for a computer expert, and someone to unlock the drawer, within half an hour he would have had access and insight. But now every hurdle meant further expense, the weighing of potential results against the cost.

  This was no way to run an investigation.

  89

  Mat Joubert sat in front of Danie Flint's computer with his head in his hands, and considered doing things his way. He knew it had implications. He knew it went against the grain, against his better judgement. Three decades of experience had taught him it was wiser to work according to the rules, because doing otherwise always came back to bite you.

  What he should do was go to Jack Fischer and say no, he didn't agree with this policy of milking clients. Honest and straight, that was the only way he knew.

  But he also knew he wasn't the fastest detective in the world, he was slow and methodical, worrying too much about detail. What would he say if Jack said, 'Then you must work faster'? He couldn't deny his weaknesses.

  Then he remembered Jack Fischer saying he must pressure Dave Fiedler, the cellphone plotter, for a discount. That implied at least the right to control costs, and he took out Bella van Breda's business card, the young woman with the glasses and the blush. Bennie Griessel's neighbour. He called her, first had to explain who he was before he could describe his problem.

  'I can try,' she said.

  'The problem is, my client's budget...What will it cost?'

  'That depends. If you wait until I've finished this afternoon, I won't charge anything.'

  'No, no, you can't do it for free ...'

  'Let's see if I can find anything first...'

  'What time do you finish?'

  'About six o'clock.'

  'Can I pick you up?'

  'Please.'

  He wrote down her work address, rang off and walked to Neville

  Philander to ask if he could come back in the late afternoon.

  He bought a can of Tab at a little cafe in Woodstock, studied the map that he kept under the seat to see how to get to Gusti Flint's house, and ate his sandwiches in the car on the way to Panorama. Margaret had made his favourite: avocado, grated biltong and thinly sliced parmesan, the flavour and texture were just right, like all her food.

  He put the new pieces of the Danie Flint jigsaw together, the photos on the wall, the cuttings of sports cars, the use of yellow Post-it notes as reminders, the magazines in the drawer. A completely normal young man, a fast life and impossible dreams. Extrovert, cheerful, always laughing, but a hard worker, ambitious, reliable. The polar opposite to his wife's serious nature, less concerned about money, living for today, tomorrow would take care of itself. Like most people of that age, they all believed t
hings would simply work out.

  Where were the cracks?

  There had to be. His disappearance was not random, that was the thing that bothered Joubert the most. The Audi parked at the gym excluded chance, he wasn't the victim of a random robbery.

  The only potential source of conflict was the bus drivers he fired. And it was going to take time to work through every personnel file, then cross-reference the possible suspects for previous convictions, since he knew that violence always had a history.

  And time was money.

  He sighed, drank the last of the Tab out of the can, and put on his indicator for the Panorama off-ramp.

  Mrs Gusti Flint told Mat Joubert, in a controlled and modulated way, how hopeless the South African Police Service was since 'they' had taken over. 'But I'm not a racist.'

  She was a very attractive woman, looked in her late forties, but must be ten years older. Tastefully groomed, hair short, expensively cut and dyed blonde, the make-up light and skilfully applied across the wide face, the prominent, regular features. Her bosom surged above the neckline of a short-sleeved lavender mohair sweater. Around her neck was a single string of pearls. Two chihuahuas sat on her lap, their bulging eyes fixed on Joubert in suspicion. Her large hands repeatedly stroked one of the animals when it coughed accusingly in his direction. She had a single ring on her right hand, a complex knot of gold and diamonds. The nails were long and painted a light shade of purple, and below, above one of her high-heeled sandals, a fine gold chain encircled her ankle.

  He listened patiently to her objections to the SAPS, which eventually pointed specifically at their handling of her son's disappearance, and how they should accept responsibility for that. 'He went missing right next to them. Right next to them. And now poor Tanya has to hire a private firm and the poor child doesn't have that kind of money, her business is barely on its feet,' and Joubert wondered why Gusti Flint didn't help her daughter-in-law financially, since her house was large and luxurious, the furniture expensive, the air conditioning whispering effectively.

  When she had finished, he said, 'Mrs Flint, how often ...' and the chihuahuas started to bark.

  'Fred! Ginger! Quiet! Please, call me Gusti.'

  The little dogs turned their eyes on her and wagged their tails.

  'How often did you see Danie ..

  The dogs barked.

  'Wait,' she said. 'Let me put them away first.' She picked up the animals, leaned forward and put them down on the thick carpet, displaying her cleavage. Then she looked up quickly at him, saw that he had noticed, her gaze lingering a moment before she got up and called the dogs, 'Come on ...'

  The chihuahuas looked reproachfully at Joubert before reluctantly trotting after her.

  He watched her walk away, the sway of her hips, her bottom possibly a fraction too large for the tight white slacks.

  Not quite what he had been expecting.

  Her high heels clicked back. 'What about something to drink?'

  'No, thank you.'

  She sat down, crossed her legs, and smoothed her long fingers over the slacks. 'They can be a nuisance sometimes,' she said, 'but they are all I have.'

  'Danie's father ... ?'

  'Gerber passed on nine years ago. At sixty. That Sunday he had cycled the Cape Argus, the Monday he collapsed in his office. Massive heart attack, so unexpected, he was fit, always very fit,' recounted with the fluency of oft-repeated facts. 'Most dreadful time of my life, my husband snatched away, my son already out of the house, suddenly I was a woman alone. But you adjust, you rebuild your life. That’s what I tell Tanya, time heals all things, you come through on the other side. And now my son has gone as well, and the most awful thing is that we don't know. I could say goodbye to Gerber, however hard it was, at least there was a funeral, a letting go. It was hard enough for me, but his poor, poor wife, I wish I could take her pain away, or take it on me, she's so intense.'

  'Mrs Flint, do you still have ...'

  'Gusti, please. "Mrs" makes me sound like a tannie. We are just as young as we feel.'

  'Did you still have regular contact with Danie?'

  'I have the most wonderful son. He phoned me twice a week, popped in once a week, I know everything that happens in his life. Let me tell you, this thing is part of the terrible crime in this country, senseless crime; he never had an enemy in the world. He was just like his father. The whole world loved Gerber, that's why he was on the City Council for nearly twenty years. But those days are gone, we're not safe in our own country any more, they're busy ruining everything, I'm not saying we should go back to Apartheid, but there are those of them who say, themselves, things were better then ...'

  She stood too close to him when he said goodbye, held his hand too long. 'Are you married, Mat?' despite the thin gold ring on his finger.

  'I am.'

  'Come and see me again. Any time.' Her perfume was strong, her eyes full of meaning.

  His head was spinning when he drove away. He considered the influence of a mother like Gusti Flint on her son. And how he was going to tell Margaret about this encounter, as that was the one thing that made his wife furious: another woman, knowing he was married, yet giving him the come-on.

  Only once he was beyond the Canal Walk off-ramp did he focus his attention on the problems of the investigation. How was he going to get the top drawer of Danie Flint's desk open without paying a few hundred rand for a locksmith? And then he began weighing up the possibilities, and when he thought of Vaatjie de Waal, he turned around at the Otto du Plessis interchange and drove all the way back to Parow.

  90

  Vaatjie de Waal lay half inside a Subaru Outback, only his short, fat lower body visible in a grubby blue overall, his head and torso under the instrument panel.

  'Vaatjie,' Joubert said.

  'What?' Irascible, impatient.

  'Can we talk?'

  De Waal moved so that he could see. He recognised Mat Joubert, shut his eyes, shook his head and sighed. 'No, oh, Jissis.'

  'Social visit,' said Joubert.

  'Like hell,' said de Waal, scrabbling around on the seat till his fingers closed around a small pair of pliers and he disappeared behind the instrument panel again. Joubert guessed the boss of Decible Demons must be installing a radio or taking one out. On the window fronting Voortrekker Street was the promise: Mad About Car Audio, Crazy Prices, Insane Sound. That must be Mrs de Waal's clever marketing. Vaatjie's talents lay elsewhere.

  'I don't know anything.'

  'I want your skill, not your information.'

  'What for?'

  'I have a drawer that needs opening.'

  'Get Kallie van fucking Deventer.'

  'I'm not in the Service any more, Vaatjie.'

  That stopped him. He dived out from under the panel, extricated himself from the interior with surprising speed and stood up. He was half Joubert's height, but broader. His head was as round as a ball, the frown just a single crease in the high forehead. 'Why?' he asked, and wiped his hands on his overalls.

  'Retired.'

  'But why?' Hands at his sides, just as much a cartoon character as he had been when Joubert knew him at high school.

  'It was time to go.'

  'And now?'

  'Now I'm in the private sector.'

  The eyes flicked from Joubert to the reception desk where Vaatjie's wife was sitting out of earshot behind a computer.

  'I'm not in that line any more.' Meaning housebreaking, his first career.

  'But you still know how to work a lock. And I don't see customers lining up outside here.'

  'Times are tough, friends are few.'

  'Two hundred rand for five minutes' work.'

  'You're fucking crazy. I don't work for peanuts.'

  'What's your price, Vaatjie?'

  'Five hundred.'

  'It was good seeing you again,' Joubert said, and turned to go. 'At that price I can get a locksmith.'

  He was nearly at the door when Vaatjie called: 'Three hundred.' />
  'Two-fifty,' said Joubert over his shoulder.

  A moment of silence. 'OK. Fucking OK.'

  As he walked into the office, his cellphone rang.

  'Boetie, I've got bad news,' said Dave Fiedler. 'Your IMEI profile, there's nothing. Last SIM card was your subject's, last phone call was 25 November, he's been off the air since that day, not a peep since. Sorry, Boetie, I wish I could help more.'

  He thanked Fiedler, sat down behind his desk. He felt disappointment, and for the first time concern, a deeper unease. That had been

  their best chance of a breakthrough, to find something to grab hold of in the darkness. More than that, it said something about the disappearance. Your opportunistic thief, your vengeful ex-bus driver would have used the phone, or sold or pawned it. Even thrown it away somewhere, for someone else to sell.

  That was 3,500 down the drain. Now they would have to spend more money on the fingerprints, another shot in the dark.

  Tanya Flint didn't take the news well. Joubert could hear the despair in her voice, the exhaustion.

  'What now?' she asked over the phone.

  'Now we'll have fingerprints done. And I'm not finished with ABC, I want to work through the personnel records.'

  She was quiet for a long time before she asked: 'Tell me honestly: Is there any hope?'

  'There's always hope,' he said, too quickly maybe. Then, 'When I finish tonight, we can reconsider. We ought to have a better idea by then.'

  'Thanks,' she said, but without enthusiasm.

  He phoned Jannie Cordier, the forensic technician, and asked him to go and take the fingerprints, after half past six, when Tanya would be at home. Then he saw to it that his admin on the project programme was up-to-date before he went to pick up Bella van Breda. Less than two days' work and the expenses were over 10,000 already. And there was nothing that he could do about it.

  'So, you know Bennie Griessel,' he said to Bella, in his car on the way to the ABC depot.