by Deon Meyer
'We have talked,' she said, and when he glanced at her, he saw the blood-red blush again.
'How is he?' It had been a month since Joubert had last talked to him. His former colleague was, like most SAPS members, very unhappy about his move to Jack Fischer and Associates. And Joubert could only speculate about the reasons. There was the usual antipathy to the private security business, the feeling that someone who left the Service was somehow a traitor. Also a touch of envy. And Jack's outspoken opinions about the police in the media hadn't helped.
'Fine, as far as I know. Bennie is very busy. Been practising his bass guitar a lot. And he's started a band. I think he has a new girlfriend.' 'Oh?'
'Some or other old singer.' Then she changed the topic, very deliberately. 'Tell me, what do you want me to do tonight?'
He filled her in on the background, and said he was on a fishing expedition. He was looking for anything that could throw light on Danie Flint's disappearance.
'OK,' she said. 'I'll give it a go.'
It took Vaatjie de Waal just over forty seconds to open the drawer.
Joubert reported to a weary Neville Philander, who, with a wave of his arm said to them: 'Go ahead, have a ball, Santasha will stay until you're finished, I'm going home.'
They walked to Danie Flint's cubicle. De Waal unrolled a leather bag on the desk, chose a thin, L-shaped tool that looked like an Allen key, fiddled in the keyhole, tried a slightly thicker one, kept his ear close to the drawer and nodded once, before he straightened up and pulled the drawer open.
'Two hundred and fifty,' he held his palm out to Joubert. 'I should have charged you petrol money as well.'
Joubert took his wallet out of his jacket pocket and counted out the notes. 'Thanks, Vaatjie.' He nodded in the direction of the bag that Vaatjie had already folded up and tied with a ribbon. 'I thought you weren't in that line any more?'
'You're not in the SAPS any more,' said de Waal and took the money. 'Tell me, where is Kallie van fucking Deventer nowadays?'
'Kallie took a golden handshake, four years ago. He and his wife run a guest house somewhere. Gansbaai?'
'A guest house?' he asked, as though that were beneath anyone's dignity.
'As far as I know.'
Vaatjie nodded. 'OK. Cheers,' and his short, round figure walked around the corner of the partition.
Bella watched him go, then looked questioningly at Joubert.
'We were at school together,' he said. 'His father, Oom Balie, was a locksmith in Goodwood. Vaatjie learned all about locks. Then he went burgling. For seven years. Tokai, Bishops Court, Constantia, a one-man housebreaking epidemic. Until Kallie van Deventer caught him. Vaatjie went to jail and got very fat. And when he came out, Kallie caught him again within a week, stuck in a kitchen window in Rondebosch, half in, half out..
While she laughed, Joubert pulled the top drawer fully open, had a look inside and saw only three items. He took out a Vodacom Starter Pack for a mobile phone, the packaging cut open, and put it on top of the desk. Then a key holder with two keys and a metal disc on it. On the disc was a design with the letters 'SS' in the middle. Below, the logo '97B' was punched into the metal. The last item in the drawer was a sheet of A4 paper torn in half. On one side four rows of letters and numbers were written in blue pen, neatly and precisely.
2044 677 277
9371
L66pns8t9o
speedster430
Joubert turned the paper over. It was one of the bus company forms, with columns and headings, unused, unmarked. He looked at the writing on the other side again. Was the first one a telephone number? Couldn't be, all local numbers begin with a '0'.
Then he realised Bella was standing beside him. 'Excuse me. If you would like to sit down ...' and he gestured at the chair and the computer. 'Go ahead, please ...'
'OK.' But first she bent down and kneeled, pulled the computer drive closer and had a look behind. Then she switched the machine on and sat down in the chair.
Joubert put the page down on the desk, looked closely at the two keys again. On one there was a Yale logo, on the other only six numbers. His fingers turned the metal disc on the keyring. The SS logo. It looked vaguely familiar. And the 97B? What could that mean. A flat number? Could be. A hotel room?
SS.
He rubbed his finger over the punched characters, in search of ideas. He came up with nothing.
He put the keys aside, opened the Vodacom package. There was a small manual, an empty plastic container where the SIM card had
been, and the cardboard card with the SIM card and cellphone's PIN number.
His brain made a connection, to something he had seen here earlier. He opened the middle drawer and stared into it. Between the writing materials, its cord neatly rolled up, lay the Nokia phone charger. But in the glove compartment of the Audi there was another charger, another brand, he couldn't remember what, he should have written it down.
'He had another phone,' he said.
'What?' asked Bella, but Joubert didn't answer. He took his own cellphone out of his pocket and called Tanya.
'Danie's cellphone, what kind was it again?'
'A Diamond,' she said. 'An HTC Diamond.'
91
He asked her how long her husband had had the HTC.
'I think he had an upgrade in April last year.'
'What phone did he have before that?'
'Oh, also an HTC, I think it was the TyTN, the one that slides open. Why?' Hope in her voice.
He was afraid of getting her hopes up. 'I'm just making sure. We're in his office, I've found a page with a bunch of numbers on it. Can I read them to you?'
'OK.'
He read the first series and asked her if it meant anything to her.
'No.'
After the third series she said: 'It sounds like a password. For his computer maybe.'
'Maybe,' he said. 'And Speedster four three zero ...?'
'I don't know ... No.'
'Thanks. I'll see you when we've finished.'
'Please, phone me if you find anything.'
When he had rung off, he put the symbols where Bella could see them. 'Could it have something to do with his computer? A password?'
'Maybe ...' she clicked the mouse, opened a window that said 'Network Connections', then another. 'No,' she said. 'It's not his network password ... Do you want to see his mail?'
'Please.'
'There's a lot...' and she showed him the Outlook panel. 'Two hundred and sixty-five new messages.'
He bent down and looked at the screen.
'Most of them are DRMP notifications, I'm not certain what that is. There's a DRMP icon on his desktop too,' she said.
Joubert tried to remember what the acronym stood for.
'It's something to do with how they manage the company. I'm looking at more personal stuff rather. Just a second ...' He went around the divider, found a chair next door, dragged it alongside her and sat down.
'The rest are just ABC HR. Bulletins. A couple of junk mails. The rest are ABC email addresses, look,' and she let the list scroll under the cursor. 'I don't see anything funny ...'
'Can you print out the whole list for me?'
'Just the headers?'
She could see he didn't understand. 'It gives you the sender and the subject.'
'Please.'
'OK. You just use Page Setup and Table Style .. .'The mouse moved with impressive speed. 'I don't know where the printer is.'
'We'll find it later. What else is there?'
'Just give me a minute.'
'I'll go and look for the printer.'
He picked up the sheet of symbols and walked down the passage until he came to an office where a young coloured woman was sitting at a switchboard.
'Santasha?'
'Yup, you must be the Private Eye.' She giggled and put out her hand. She was plump, with large mischievous eyes that laughed along with her mouth. 'This is a first for me.'
He shook her hand. 'Pleased t
o meet you ...'
'Is it you people printing?' she said, holding out a sheaf of paper.
'We are. Thank you.' 'Found something?'
'I don't know. We'll be as quick as we can.'
'No rush, I get overtime ...'
He showed her the symbols. 'Would you know what this is?'
She studied it carefully. 'Absolutely no idea.'
He sat with Bella, staring at the rows of numbers and letters.
Why did the first one look like a telephone number? He remembered the telephone directories in the credenza, took one out and studied the local dialling codes. The Oudtshoorn area was 044, but then the first number '2' made no sense. He ran his finger down the list of international codes, but none of them matched either.
Bella made a humming sound.
'Did you find something?'
'His browser history ... Can I have a look at those passwords?'
He passed it to her, looked at the screen. She had the Internet Explorer web browser open to a page with the heading 'Yahoo! Mail'. 'His history shows that he used this webmail...' She looked at the four rows of symbols, typed 'Speedster430' in one box, then something else in the box for the password, but he could only see asterisks.
'Bingo,' she said, as the web browser opened a new page. 'He had a Yahoo mail account. It's his address - [email protected]. And that L66 series is his password.'
'Aah ... ?' He still didn't know how she could have worked that all out, but then the page loaded fully and there was nothing - no emails.
'Looks like he deleted everything. Let's see if there is anything in the Sent Folder ...'
She clicked again. The folder was empty.
'That's weird,' she said.
'Why?'
'Look at his Outlook. Look at his Documents folder on the hard drive. He wasn't great on maintenance. But his Yahoo account...'
'It's clean.'
'Very clean.' She hesitated a moment. 'But there's another thing ...' She moved the mouse, scanning the browser again. 'His history shows that he was often on his bank's website ...' Absa's Internet Banking page appeared on the screen.
'No, they bank at Nedbank,' he said. That had been clear from the statements Tanya Flint had given him.
'Maybe,' said Bella. 'Let's try the first number ...' The one he had thought was a telephone number.
'And the shorter one may be his PIN.' A new page loaded.
Your chosen SurePhrase™ is: FLINT D. Your PIN has been successfully verified. The last time you logged on to Absa Internet or Cellphone Banking service was 25 November.
Type in only the characters of your password that fall in the RED blocks.
'Twenty-fifth of November,' whispered Mat Joubert. 'The day he disappeared.'
Bella van Breda typed in the third row of numbers and letters in the boxes.
The screen changed.
'How did you know?' he asked.
'That's how people are. They use the same things, the same passwords. It's easier to remember.' They looked at the screen.
Balances
Click on an account name or number to view transaction history.
Warning: the available balance on your account may include cheque deposits that
are not yet fully paid over to the bank, and that could still be reversed.
Account name
Account number
Current balance (R)
Available Balance (R)
Uncleared amount (R)
SAVINGS ACCOUNT
2044 677 277
134 155.18
134 155.18
0.00
Joubert whistled through his teeth. A hundred and thirty thousand rand. That changed everything. 'Can you print that out?' he asked urgently.
'It won't disappear,' said Bella calmly. 'Let's see what's going on in the account...'
She clicked on the account number and a statement appeared on the screen.
Mat Joubert sank back into his chair. 'Can you believe it,' he said. 'Can you believe it.'
'Four hundred thousand rand?' asked Tanya Flint, her face tight with shock.
'It looks like two cash deposits,' said Joubert. They were in her living room, he on the couch, she on a chair, the coffee table between them. 'On the seventeenth of October, 250,000, and on twenty-ninth of October, another 150,000, which adds up to the grand total of400,000 rand. Then he made a payment of just under 250,000 rand on the twenty-seventh of October, a direct transfer to an M. Marshall, and another on the twelfth of November, to HelderbergUp, for just over 11,000 rand. The rest is made up of cash withdrawals, interest and bank charges.'
Tanya sat on the edge of her chair and raised her hands to her face, her eyes never leaving the printed statement. Her body heaved. 'Oh, God,' she said.
92
She told Mat Joubert she didn't know where the money came from. She had never heard of an M. Marshall or HelderbergUp.
He asked if there was anything Danie Hint could have sold. He asked whether Gusti Flint could have given or lent her son money, or if there was any source she could think of, however odd, such as the Lotto, anything. And each time she gave the same desperately certain, 'No.' Then: 'How could he have hidden it from me?', pain and betrayal distorting her face.
Before Joubert could try to answer the question, someone called from the kitchen 'Hallo-o-o-o ...'
When he had arrived, Tanya Flint had told him the forensic technician was at work in the garage, but she was too anxious about the news, so there had been no time to say hello. He got to his feet.
'Jannie Cordier?'
Cordier looked like an Edgars advertisement, in dark blue chinos, yellow and blue checked shirt, neat brown belt around the narrow
hips. He stood, aluminium case in hand, looking at Tanya's tear- streaked face.
'Excuse me ...' he said.
'I'm Mat Joubert. Did you find anything?'
'That car has been wiped,' he said. 'Only one set of prints, on the door and the steering wheel. I will have to take Mrs Flint's to crosscheck,' his high-pitched voice matching the boyish face.
'What do you mean, wiped?' Tanya asked.
'From top to bottom. The boot is clean, the radio, the cubbyhole, the whole thing. Someone did a very good job.'
Tanya Flint looked stunned by the news. 'What does it mean?'
Joubert sat down slowly, because he would have to explain the implications to her with a great deal of diplomacy.
'If you ask me: bad news, Mrs Flint,' said Cordier. 'Very bad news.'
She looked at Joubert. He shook his head, unhappy with Cordier's tactlessness. Then he agreed with a sigh: 'It isn't good.'
Cordier waited patiently for Tanya Flint to calm down before he took her fingerprints. When she went to wash her hands, Joubert walked the technician to the door. 'Tact isn't your strong point,' he said to the man.
'What? I'm just honest.'
Joubert just looked at him.
'Someone would have had to tell her sooner or later.'
'Later might have been better.'
Cordier bristled and turned on his heel, barking, 'I'll send my bill!' over his shoulder as he walked angrily to his van. Joubert shut the door and went slowly back to the couch.
Now he had to deal with the other cellphone and the keys. It was going to be a difficult night.
Her hands were shaking when she came back and sat down. The lines on her face seemed deeper, the rings around her eyes darker.
'Tanya ...' he said.
'There's something else,' she said, already certain of it.
'Yes.'
'Tell me. Let's just get on.'
'He had another cellphone.' He told her about the Vodacom Starter Pack, the Nokia charger. She sat motionless and stared at the carpet. At last she said, 'What else?'
He took the keys out of his pocket, and put them down in front of her. She looked at them reluctantly.
'Do they also come out of the drawer?'
'Yes.'
She p
icked them up. The keys jangled as she trembled.
'Do you know what this is, here?' she asked and held up the SS logo between her fingers.
'No, but I...'
'Self Storage,' she said.
That lit up an image in his head, a big advertising board somewhere at the side of one of the roads he occasionally took: the blue SS logo, the advertisement for storage space. 'Do you know about it?'
'I know the logo. They have a warehouse in Montagu Gardens, close to my business.'
'Then I'll have to go and find out.'
She didn't give him the key. She closed her fist around it, as though it were something precious, a treasure.
'I'm coming too,' she said.
There was a high wire fence around the Self Storage warehouse, a double gate on the right-hand corner, a caretaker in his hut nearby. He stood in the headlights of his Honda, trying both keys in the huge lock, without success. His shoes crunched in the gravel as he walked to the caretaker's window. A black man with flecks of grey in his hair sat there with a tabloid paper spread out in front of him.
'Can I help you?'
'The key doesn't seem to fit,' said Joubert.
'Let me see.'
He took the keys and had a look. 'This is not our depot. Where did you find them?' he asked, his tone one of long-suffering courtesy.
'They belong to that lady's husband. He's gone missing.'
'Very bad,' said the man. 'Very sad. It might be for one of the other two depots.'
'Where are they?'
'There's one in Kenilworth, and one in Salt River.'
Salt River. Near Danie Flint's ABC job. He knew that would be the one.
'Thank you very much.'
'I hope you find him,' said the man, and handed back the keys.
In Otto du Plessis Drive, just beyond Woodbridge Island, Tanya said, 'It has to be for someone else.'
'What do you mean?'
'Danie ... I know Danie. I know him. The money ... He's helping someone else. He's protecting someone else. That's how he is. He cares about people.'
'Maybe it is,' he said. It was the best he could do for now.