“Yes.”
“That’s the profit and loss that has been filed for the vineyard. This is a matter of public record. Anyone can see this.” He pointed along the screen. “Each year, there was an increase except for the odd occasion when some external factor influenced the estate.”
She noticed the year of her mother’s death showed the lowest profit in the vineyard’s history. Since then it showed a steady upward climb. Until recently.
“For each of the last six years, as you can see, there has been a steady decrease in profit.”
“Are there external factors to explain this?”
“For some, of course. For example, here,” he said, pointing to a specific column, “we had a drought, so the crop yield was down.” He pointed to the lowest figure on the spreadsheet. “And here, your father purchased some new land. But the turnover figures show a healthy, growing turnover, year upon year, so the rest of these should show an increased profit. Not a shrinking one.”
“How much are we talking about here?”
“Somewhere between twenty and twenty-five thousand a year.”
“Over the six years?”
“Yes. Around one hundred and fifty thousand rand, total.”
“And this money is actually, physically missing. Not just lost in a paper exercise somewhere?” She sipped her tea.
“The bank accounts tally within fifty bucks to the turnover, income, and expenditure spreadsheets.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“I’ve never looked in the safe to see if the funds are in there. It is possible that the money is there and the accounting technique used here hasn’t properly accounted for it.”
“Or…?”
“It’s actually, physically missing.”
“So, my supposed brother is skimming off the top.”
“It looks incriminating, but it’s also possible that your dad was using the money and not accounting for it.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know. But he was ill, so perhaps he paid medical bills with the money and forgot to put it through the accounts because of his illness.”
“Wouldn’t his medical insurance cover his bills?”
“Usually. But I don’t know the details of his coverage, or what exceptions were put on his cover.”
“Can you check that with the hospital?”
“With your permission, of course.” He pulled a stack of forms from his briefcase. “I came prepared.”
She grabbed the document and, after a brief perusal, signed to give her consent to the disclosure of the information. “So what next, Roland?”
“I keep digging. Now that you are the only signatory on the account, and we can safely rule you out as a suspect due to your absence, I can begin digging down into the specifics of when the funds went missing. From there we try to ascertain where they went.”
“Can you do that?”
“If they were electronically transferred, absolutely. If they were withdrawn in cash deposits, then I will be able to prove who withdrew them. Then we can call in the police.” His face shone with pride and excitement.
She laughed and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I love to see a man enjoy his work, Roland.”
“That I do, Ms. Frost.”
“Imogen. If you insist I call you Roland, then you have to call me Imogen.”
“Done deal.”
“How long before you’ll have confirmation for me?”
“A week.” He shrugged. “Maybe two. If I have to get a court order for CCTV footage from the local bank it will drag it out a little.”
“Please be discreet. If it is Sipho, I don’t want him running before we can have him arrested.”
“I’m afraid that horse will have already left the stable.”
“What do you mean?”
“As soon as the information on the accounts was changed into your name, his access was cut.”
“Yes—so as soon as he tried to access more funds he would have been aware that we were suspicious at the very least.”
“Exactly.”
“Shit.” She remembered the bloody knuckles and the cut over his eye from the previous day. Was there a connection? Her brain was spinning with no destination or focus, just too many unanswered questions.
“Yup, this is one great big pile of it. Oh, before I forget.” He fished an envelope out of his pocket. “Jim asked me to give you this.”
“What is it?” She turned the envelope over.
“An invitation to the mayor’s ball on Saturday.”
“Talking of shit, huh?” She laughed.
“Right, yah.” He chuckled. “I’ll be there with my wife. She’d love to meet you.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Jim said you were thinking of selling this place.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Every vineyard owner in the Western Cape will be there. And every moneyed bastard from Cape Town to Pretoria will be showing up too if you want to get the feelers out to sell this place as soon as this business is dealt with.” He closed his laptop lid. “Saturday night’s the place to start.”
She sighed. “I better see if I have a frock in my suitcase then.”
“A what?”
“A frock. A dress, fancy gown, all that shit.”
He chuckled. “If you’re lucky you’ll find something in town.”
“If not?”
“Cape Town.”
Suddenly, the idea of a shopping trip didn’t sound quite so unpleasant. “You know something, Roland, I think I might take a trip over there. I only ever remember seeing the airport.”
“Better take your platinum cards, Imogen.” He closed his briefcase. “And don’t be outside alone after dark.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
He snorted. “Is it worth the risk?”
Chapter Twenty-one
Amahle wondered at the cryptic message she’d received from Dr. Marais and why he felt it was necessary for her to go to his office after his initial refusal to have her meet him there. His office was situated amongst a maze of buildings, corridors, and wards that took her and Thambo an age to navigate.
“I’m glad you could make it, Ms. Nkosi,” Dr. Marais said.
The office was a mess. Papers strewn across the floor. Broken glass littered every surface, and computers and equipment were smashed everywhere she looked.
“I’ve been cleaning up all morning, but I’m not all that sure I’ve made much progress.”
“What happened?”
“I came in the morning and found it like this.”
Thambo picked up a chair and righted a teetering tower of flasks that looked about to fall. “Who else has access to your office?”
“It’s a hospital. The cleaning staff comes in and out, my secretary, and the administrators have keys. There’s the security service too.”
“We need to find you a more secure location,” Amahle said.
Dr. Marais frowned. “I’m the hospital CEO. Where do you suggest I go to?”
“I don’t know right now, but you staying here doesn’t seem like a sensible option to me, Doctor. Does it to you?”
“No, but reasonable solutions are just as difficult.”
“Then what about a guard?”
He looked over his shoulder. “I’ve got to admit this has made me feel more than a little uneasy. I have a wife, you know. And a daughter.”
“I know.”
“A guard sounds like a reasonable option to me.” He waved his hand about the room. “I don’t mind admitting that this terrifies me.” He wrapped his hand around her arm. “I have even more respect for your courage now, Ms. Nkosi. I don’t think I could have gone through all you did and been able to go on fighting afterward.”
She nodded but wanted him to drop the subject. “Have you looked into protection, or do you want me to arrange it for you?”
“I’d very much appreciate your assistance with that, Minister.”
>
“I think I can do that.” She smiled. “Do you have somewhere I can make some calls?”
“In my secretary’s office.” He pointed to the door at the far end of the room.
She pulled her phone from her bag as she stepped inside and felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. The room looked untouched.
“They damaged nothing in here, Doctor?”
“Apparently not. The door was unlocked. They came through here to get to my office, but it seems they were intent on making a mess in my office only.”
It didn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t a thug targeting him trash this room too? She sat at the desk and looked around her. She couldn’t see anything incriminating. She picked up the phone, but something in her told her that this wasn’t right. Since the attack, her instincts had become much sharper and she’d learned to trust them. She didn’t feel comfortable here.
She walked out of the room and leaned in close to the doctor’s ear. “I don’t like it. Do you have any way to test if these rooms have been bugged?”
He stared at her, his eyes wide, and shook his head.
“Thambo.”
“Yes?”
She waved him over and whispered the request in his ear.
“It will take me a little while, but yes, I can.”
“Do it.”
“I’ll be in the hallway.” He waved his phone to let her know why he was going to the hallway.
“You can go and sort out whatever you need to, Thambo.”
“Not going to happen, Minister. Not now.” He looked at her pointedly and she could see the resolve in his eyes.
She nodded and turned back to the shaken doctor. “You said you had more to show me. Can you still do that, or is it in this little lot somewhere?” She glanced around the room.
“Can we talk in here?” he whispered.
Amahle thought through his query. Maybe it was her paranoia, maybe it was the fact that there felt to be so many similarities to her previous experience, maybe it was her natural inclination to make decisions and never question them, but it made sense to her that acting in a way that triggered more suspicion from whoever was targeting them was a bad idea. What they needed was time to gather their evidence, to make their plans, and to find the people behind this. It seemed perfectly logical to her that arousing suspicion that they were aware of the increasing vigilance on them would only make their watchers nervous. Probably more dangerous too.
“If you already had it, then they already know about it. I can’t see what it changes at this point by you telling me.” She spoke quietly. “The only thing we don’t want is for anyone who is listening to suspect that we suspect they are listening.” She smiled. “Do you follow me, Doctor?”
“Of course. I have reports now from twelve different clinics. Ten of them have been supplied with fake medications by PharmaChem.”
“Are they all aspirin like the ones you had before?”
“Yes. Plain old simple aspirin. They cost pennies to produce or buy, and disguising them as Combivirine means they can sell each pill for around ten times the price of a whole packet of aspirin.”
“You said ten out of twelve clinics. What’s different about the other two?”
“They are private medical clinics.”
Shit. “Every one of the clinics you’ve tested offering free treatment is using fake drugs?”
“So far.”
“How large is your sample area?”
“I’ve got a sample from Jo’burg, Bloemfontein, two from Pretoria, two from Cape Town, two from Polokwane. I have one from Durban, two from Pietermaritzburg, and one from the clinic in Stellenbosch.”
“All over the country then.”
“Pretty much.”
“Does this company supply all the hospitals?”
“No. Not at all. They supply around forty-five percent of the large hospitals in South Africa at the moment. The rest are supplied by other South African companies or more commonly, they’re importing the drugs from America or the UK. There will be many places still using the proper medications.”
“But the private clinics, the people with money, they’re still getting the proper drugs?”
“I’ve only had two samples, but both were offering genuine treatments, despite being supplied by PharmaChem.”
“How many people are we talking about here, Doctor?”
“I don’t have a definitive number, but if every hospital PharmaChem supply is getting aspirin instead of their cocktails, then I’d estimate around three million people are currently being given counterfeit medication.”
It was almost too big to get her head around. The lack of empathy for all those suffering people boggled her mind. The level of greed required to even contemplate, never mind carry out, something like this was despicable. As much as she wished it wasn’t happening at all, she wished she couldn’t believe that it was.
“I think I need to start looking into some of my opposition to the HIV health care programme.”
“Ms. Nkosi, are you sure that is a wise idea?”
She shook her head. “I’m pretty certain it isn’t.” She smiled. “But it is the right thing to do. Can you get me a copy of that report? At least three or four copies please.”
“It’s on my computer, I can—” He pointed to the smashed box.
“Let me take the remains of that and see if we can get an expert to fix it.”
He nodded as they both began the task of tidying and reorganizing the office. After an hour or so, the door opened and Thambo walked inside with a small handheld device. He didn’t say a word as he scanned the outer office and then moved on to Dr. Marais’s office. Amahle watched him intently as he held it discreetly in his hand as he wandered seemingly aimlessly around the room before backing out and waving them to follow him into the hallway.
“There are recording devices all over the place. Video and sound. There’s also something going on with the computer that I don’t like. It’s smashed to pieces, but there are some weird energy readings coming out of it, and considering that it’s turned off, and unplugged, I really don’t like that. I want to get that out of here and examined by a specialist I know.”
“Is he reliable?” Amahle asked.
“He’s my brother.”
“I guess that’s a yes then.”
“I’m sorry it has come to this, Doctor,” Amahle said.
“I brought this to you. It’s my own fault.”
“No, it’s not either of our faults. That’s down to the bastards who are stealing from the sick to line their own pockets.” She hoped he hadn’t noticed the trembling in her hand, or the quiver she could hear in her own voice. Or if he did he put it down to the understandable anger she was also feeling. She gathered the nervous energy and channelled it into activity that would yield productive results. No time for feeling sorry for yourself, Ami. No time for fear. Too much to do. Just one more battle to fight on behalf of her people.
“Oh, and, Minister?” Dr. Marais said.
“Yes?”
“I’d look into those who didn’t oppose the programme. Someone very high up knows this programme inside and out. They have to in order to get this rolled out on such a large scale. I’d be more inclined to think it was someone who was part of establishing it from the very beginning.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. It made sense. It made her sick to think about it, but it made sense. This was organized, efficient, and he was right; they knew the system inside and out. They had to be a part of it. Whoever this mysterious “they” was, it was likely someone she had considered an ally, if not a friend. She thought about the words the man had said to her on the phone. They’d been exactly the same as those written in Grace’s blood. At the time she’d thought it a coincidence. Not anymore.
Chapter Twenty-two
“Tsotsi, no. I don’t want to go back to Cape Town. Smashing up shit is for fools. I don’t even understand why we had to go all the way up there. There’s hospitals in S
tellenbosch, and ones that are easier to get into than that one was.”
“You do as you’re told, boy. You came to me, remember? You wanted a job to earn your fucking morphine. Well, now you do as you’re told. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“Good. Now get your backside over here. We’re leaving in half an hour.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Smashing up shit didn’t work. Now we need to take more direct action.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were a boxer, right?”
Sipho swallowed the bile rising in his throat. “Yes.”
“Then think of it as a match.”
“Who am I fighting?”
“Does it matter?”
“Why am I to fight him?”
“Because I’m telling you to.”
The silence following the disconnection made his ears ring and he cringed. The cut over his eye from the shattered glass stung, and he wanted nothing more than to curl up on his bed and never move again.
“Sipho, where’s my medicine?” Mbali shouted down the stairs.
He sighed and grabbed his work coat. “I’ll have it for you tomorrow.” He looked down at the coat then hung it back on the peg. He selected an old, dark brown leather jacket instead. Easier to clean blood off, and easier to hide any he might miss.
“I’m in pain, boy. I need it now.”
He didn’t answer. He just closed the door behind him. He tried to harden his heart with every step he took, knowing that he didn’t have a choice. He had responsibilities, his mother had needs, and he had debts to pay.
So why do I feel like I’m walking toward the gallows?
Chapter Twenty-three
“Any chance of getting up there for the sunrise?” Imogen asked the man in the ticketing window and pointed to the top of the mountain.
“Same as everyone else. First car doesn’t run till eight thirty.”
“No exceptions?”
“I don’t run the cars, lady. I just take your money.”
Imogen grinned. “Worth a try.”
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