by Deon Meyer
Joubert realised that this would seriously affect ABC's loyalty to Flint - and their cooperation with him. 'No,' he said. 'We just have an inexplicable sum of money to account for here. I don't yet know how he came by it, but crime is one of the possibilities.'
She digested the information, with a slight, controlled frown. 'But why do you think this money has something to do with ABC?'
'Statistics.'
'Oh?'
'When a white-collar worker without any history of criminal activity is involved in fraud, the chances are more than eighty per cent that his employer or place of work is in the picture.'
'I see,'
He asked the question again: 'Was there any major theft of cash from the company last year?'
Bessie Heese considered the question. 'Will you excuse me a minute?'
'Of course.'
She stood up and walked out of the room.
He stared after her, dimly aware of her shapely calves and ankles, his thoughts overwhelmed by the possibility that she was going to ask permission to share a secret with him that might blow this whole thing wide open.
98
He was mistaken.
It was ten minutes before she returned, tucking her skirt carefully underneath her as she sat down opposite him again and said: 'Inspector, you must understand, as manager of human resources I only get involved when a staff member has to face a disciplinary hearing due to misconduct. If money goes missing without anyone being implicated, I would not necessarily know about it. So I had to ascertain the facts from our Managing Director first. And get his permission to share them with you. Because this is highly confidential information.'
Joubert nodded. He knew that if the stolen sum was large enough, most big companies would handle it internally. And keep their lips sealed about it, for fear of damage to their corporate image.
'Our Managing Director has authorised me to share the information with you. But with the proviso that you inform us immediately if Danie Flint is involved in a crime.'
'Very well.' He would have to give something in order to get something.
'The fact of the matter is that our largest single financial loss due to theft last year was just under 60,000 rand. At one of our ticket offices, in June. We realised it within twenty-four hours of the theft, identified the guilty parties, and the case was dealt with within two weeks. Flint was not involved at all.'
'Sixty thousand,' said Joubert. He couldn't keep the disappointment out of his voice.
'Inspector, you must realise, our systems are highly sophisticated. I know one doesn't always associate it with a bus company, but we use the best technology available, especially regarding the finances. We do a daily reconciliation, we can identify anomalies immediately. Even relatively small amounts.'
He was still battling to accept the bad news. 'Are you absolutely sure there were no other amounts? Four hundred thousand or more?'
Her eyes widened a bit at hearing the amount, but she recovered quickly. 'I give you my word.'
Joubert sat there, his whole theory destroyed.
'Four hundred thousand? Danie Flint stole four hundred thousand?' Bessie Heese asked, some expression in her voice for the first time.
He parked the Honda at work, but he didn't walk to the office. He left via the basement, walked around to the St Georges Mall, then up towards the cathedral. He didn't notice the street hawkers, the stalls, the tourists, the diners and drinkers at the tables outside restaurants. He was oblivious to the way the stream of home-bound office workers parted for his tall, broad figure as he moved against the flow, his brain occupied with the big question: where had the money come from?
Statistics were on his side, the general rule: a white man in his thirties, with a good job and no previous criminal record, steals first from his place of work. It all rested on the universal principle of Predisposition + Environment + Current Circumstances that is drilled into detectives in every criminology course. In other words, the suspect's inherent tendency to resort to crime, plus his formative environment, plus opportunity. And it was the latter that was under consideration here. Opportunity.
Danie Flint's psyche made him capable, allowed him to grasp the Big Opportunity. And the profile said the opportunity was usually in the work environment, because that was where he spent most of his time. That was where his knowledge was, his experience, his insight into systems, procedures, security, so that he could assess possibilities, make judgements about the likelihood of getting away with the crime.
But Bessie Heese of ABC said they'd never lost 400,000 rand.
And he had absolutely no idea where another opportunity might have come from.
He put aside everything he knew. He walked past the cathedral, up the footpath through the Company Gardens, to Government Avenue. He went back to the beginning, and tried to construct a new theory. He thought about the money. A considerable amount. Cash. The key factor was cash. White collar crime was about cheques, falsified accounts, doctored tenders, Internet transfers, cooked books. Not cash.
Bank robbery was cash of 400,000. Or cash-in-transit heists, casino robbery, pension pay points. The rest was small change. Even the robbery of supermarkets, restaurants, shops. Ten, twenty, thirty thousand rand if they were lucky.
But banks, cash-in-transit vehicles, casinos were not Danie Flint's world. In this country that was largely the territory of organised township crime gangs. Far removed from the bus milieu.
He considered Flint's other activities and environments. Gym. Circle of friends. Residential neighbourhood. The only potential was the neighbourhood, he had heard people refer to Parklands as 'Darklands', with reference to the number of Nigerians who had moved in there in recent years. But the majority of them were good citizens, working in legal jobs.
Anything was possible. What if Danie Flint had struck up a conversation with someone in a sports bar, someone with a plan?
Unlikely. What could he have offered them? Nigerian cartels specialised in drugs, credit card and four-one-nine fraud. And given
Flint's age, his job, the circles he moved in, he couldn't have been of much assistance.
Unless ...
He would have to ask Tanya about it, even though it was a wild guess.
Two amounts, two deposits, twelve days apart. Two-fifty, and one-fifty.
Why two separate amounts? Caution? Not wanting to attract too much attention? Or was there a more practical reason?
He stood on the pavement in Annandale Street, with the entrance to the Mount Nelson Hotel across the road from him, and he knew he would have to delve into it again, deeper and more thoroughly. Somewhere there was a piece of information that would answer all the questions.
The only problem was, he had no idea where to look. And Tanya Flint's money was running out.
A quarter to six, and Jack Fischer was still in his office, papers spread out in front of him, head bowed in concentration.
Joubert hesitated at the threshold, fighting thirty years of SAPS conditioning not to disturb a senior officer when he was busy. He shook it off. This was not the service.
'A moment, Jack?'
Fischer looked up. 'Of course, of course. Take a chair.'
When he had settled himself in one of the large chairs opposite Jack, he said: 'Jack, there's something here that worries me.'
'Tell me.'
'What do we do if Tanya Hint doesn't have more than 30,000 rand?'
'I thought you were nearly finished with the case?'
'It might take a couple more days. Maybe more. She has fourteen hours left, if I don't book any travelling expenses. What do we do if it is not enough?'
Fischer leaned back, smiled at Joubert in a fatherly manner. 'I told you, they always find the money.'
'And if she really can't?'
The smile disappeared. 'Of course she can. How much money is in the account you discovered?'
'You know it could be months before she has access to that money. If it isn't connected to a crime.'
; 'But it's security. And she has the house, the cars ... Doesn't she have some sort of business too? What about policies? If they have a mortgage bond, there must be a life insurance policy on the husband. Come on, Mat, you know she'll make a plan.'
He considered Fischer's point of view. 'I want to clarify the principle,' he said. 'Let's say she tries everything, but still can't raise the money. Or she can only get it in a month's time ...'
'She'll get it, Mat.'
'Jack, theoretically. Let's just say.'
Fischer's patience was wearing thin. 'We don't work with theories. We select clients, we don't accept them if they can't pay.'
'Has there ever been a single client who said "I just can't carry on"?'
'I won't say there was never ...'
'What was the policy?'
'We handle each case on merit.'
'Jack, you're evading the question.'
Fischer threw his hands in the air, his face reddening. 'You keep harping on this. What for?'
Mat Joubert leaned forward, his shoulders loomed. But he kept his voice even. 'Because before I left here this afternoon, Fanus Delport said, "Now don't you go making too much progress". Because at morning parade ...'
'He was joking, fuck, Mat, where's your sense of humour?'
'It's the context, Jack. You're the one who wanted me to get her bank statements electronically so we could book Fanus's hours too. "Double time", so we could milk her. It's the norm here. At morning parade no one asked how any cases were progressing. It was all "how much money did you make?" "Did you book your kilometres?" ...'
'How the fuck do you think you run a business?' Aggressive. 'This isn't a charity here. There are salaries and infrastructure. Do you know how much the office rent is every month? And our telephone account? You tell me, how do we pay for that if we just start working for people for nothing, a bloody free-for-all? You tell me.'
'Free-for-all? Who said anything about free-for-all?' Joubert felt his
own temper rising. He took a deep breath, shook his head and said: 'That's not the point.'
'Well if you're so fucking smart, tell me what the point is'
It took him a while to regain control: 'The point is, if I'm this close to a solution after two days, and she doesn't have the money, I want you to tell me to carry on. Finish the job.'
'You know as well as I do, "this close" means nothing. What if the case takes another week or so? Or a month? Where do you draw the line?'
'Jack, we're not fools. We know how long something will take, we know how far or how close we are to a breakthrough. And I'm telling you now, I need another three days for this. Four, maximum. To either solve it, or to know it can't be solved. She can pay for two days. Surely we can afford to give her two days free. Or on credit. Or something.'
'Have you got a thing on with her? Is that what this is about?'
Mat Joubert rose out of his chair, ready to smack Fischer with the back of his hand.
What saved him was Jack's reaction, suddenly rolling his chair backwards, raising his arm defensively, the cowardliness of it.
It made Joubert stop, fight for control, get it into his head that his whole future hung in the balance.
He stood there for a long time, then turned and walked to the door.
Jack said nothing.
He was out of the office and halfway down the passage when he stopped and went back. Fischer's hand reached out for the telephone. Joubert ignored it. 'I left the Service because I didn't count any more, Jack,' he said, his voice very quiet now. 'I felt it was unjust. Because I believe we do count. All of us. Tanya Flint as well. Especially Tanya Flint. Because she borrowed 30,000 rand to hire us. Not to enrich herself. Not to go and buy some or other meaningless thing. But to do her duty by her husband. And now it's turning out to be a hell of a painful process, but she has more guts than you and I together, Jack. She wants to get this done. And I'm telling you tonight, if Tanya Flint says she's tried everything and she can't raise more money, then I will finish her case. For all I care, you can subtract the cost from my salary.'
99
The first thing he did when he got into his Honda was to phone Tanya Flint to find out if she was already at home.
'Our pistol is gone,' was the first thing she said to him.
He asked what pistol.
'Danie's. I wanted to take it out of the safe, after the break-in and the ... message. But it's not in the safe.'
'When did you last see it?'
'About a month or two before Danie disappeared.'
'I'll be there in twenty minutes.'
He drove to Parklands. Tried to concentrate on the meaning of the missing pistol. Had Flint taken it? Why?
But the thing with Jack occupied his attention. In Otto du Plessis Drive he found he was handling the car roughly. Angry. With himself. With Jack Fischer. With the whole fucking situation he found himself in.
He should have known, because he knew Jack. Granted that was fifteen years ago, before Fischer had been promoted to Johannesburg, but the signs were there, and it didn't help saying time heals everything. He should have listened to his police colleagues, Benny Griessel and Leon Petersen, who both had the same reaction when he broke the news to them. Jissis. Isn't Jack Fischer a bastard? those had been Griessel's words.
He was right.
Because when he had told Jack how he felt, told him the Flint case could be subtracted from his salary, Jack had sat back in his chair and smirked at him and said, 'Well, then that's what we will do,' and he had gathered up the papers on his desk and began reading again as though Mat Joubert was no longer standing there.
No 'Sit down and let's talk it out'. No reconsideration of his viewpoint, no measured, adult discussion of the case. Just ignored him.
As though he didn't count.
And now?
Three days on the new job, fifty-one years old, white, Afrikaner, what did he do now? He wasn't going to stay with Fischer, and he couldn't afford to resign. There was no other work that paid nearly as well, and he couldn't face shopping centre, or corporate, or neighbourhood watch security, he would die before fifty-five. And with the housing market so slow, and Margaret already having made an offer on the Constantia house, they would need his income.
What did he do now?
He asked Tanya what kind of pistol it was.
A small Taurus, she said, Danie bought it so that she could use it too.
Could she shoot with it?
She had. At the shooting range.
Had Danie said anything about the firearm, in the month or two before he disappeared?
Not a word.
Was it definitely in the safe?
Always.
So Danie must have taken it?
Yes. Her expression said she knew it was confirmation of his opinion that Danie was involved in something.
He talked with Tanya again about the money. He asked her about Danie's friends in particular, the possibility that he might have met someone at the gym, in the neighbourhood, at a restaurant or a bar, with whom he could have done business of any kind.
She insisted that she would have known. All their friends were married, all the women loyal, if there had been something, she would have heard about it. And besides, he almost never partied without her. Sometimes, the exception, but mostly they were together, side by side.
Now what, she asked.
He had to find the source of the money.
How?
He would keep digging.
She just nodded.
He invited her again to stay over with him and Margaret.
She thanked him, but said no thank you again. Although the pistol was gone she had the house alarm, the panic button, the armed response would react to that. She wasn't going to be intimidated.
'I've been thinking about the break-in,' he said. 'There are many ways to pass this message on to you. They chose a specific modus operandi. A careful one. Almost half-hearted. That says something. I'm not yet sure what.
..'
He met with Inspector Fizile Butshingi at Milnerton Police Station. Butshingi made them tea in the kitchen, which they drank sitting on either side of the battered government-issue desk, piled high with dossiers.
Joubert told him about the investigation, from beginning to end. He left nothing out. When he was finished, he said, 'If you could look at cash-in-transit robberies, August, September, October. Four hundred thousand rand, probably more. Something out of the ordinary.'
'Let me try,' said Butshingi.
'And if you could help get Table View to keep an eye on Tanya Flint's house tonight. I would appreciate it very much.'
'OK. And maybe have our people patrol her business.'
'Thank you very much.'
Then he looked at Joubert and shook his head. 'Weird world, Sup ...'
'Yes,' said Joubert. 'And getting weirder by the day.'
Margaret had always been sensitive to his depression, read the signs easily.
'What happened?' she asked straight away.
They walked through to the kitchen. He told her about the dead end in the investigation. And his falling out with Jack Fischer.
She did what she always did. Talked to him, about inconsequential things. Asked him to pour them each a glass of wine. While she applied her skills in the kitchen and made them bobotie, yellow rice and sweet potato, one of his favourites.
In front of the TV she looked for something to watch that he enjoyed, found a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond on a satellite channel. Leaned against him, head on his shoulder, both of her hands wrapped around his.
In the night he lay thinking about Danie Flint. Tried to follow the spoor as he had found it. Cheerful extrovert, party animal, ambitious area manager with sports car pictures on the wall, lost a father, somewhat self-obsessed, materialistic mother, married to a serious, dedicated, driven woman.
Received a large amount of cash. Spent it on himself. Sly. Selfish.
Then, overnight, gone.
No new insights. The signs all pointing in the same direction. Until he finally dozed off, well after two a.m.