Random Violence

by Jassy Mackenzie

  “We need to find them.”

  “We’ll follow up tomorrow. I’ll get my team onto it first thing.” He grimaced. “While they’re still my team.”

  “David.” Jade sighed. “If the other superintendent was so useless, it will probably be Williams in the firing line, not you. You’ll be fine.”

  David didn’t answer. A few seconds later, he started to snore.

  Jade waited. “David,” she said again, louder. There was no response. He was deeply asleep. His face looked peaceful. He looked innocent, younger, but somehow vulnerable, in a way he never did when he was awake.

  She lifted her hand to her mouth and bit her nails, ago-nizing over what she should do. Having David sleep over on her couch wasn’t a problem. Not at all, although if she had her way he wouldn’t sleep over on her couch. They’d be pooling body warmth together in bed. But she really should wake him up and send him home. Tomorrow Viljoen was going to be released from prison. She had an early start ahead of her and she didn’t want David around.

  As she was considering her options, she heard honking outside.

  “Shit,” Jade muttered. She jumped to her feet. David mumbled something and pulled the covers tighter around him. He didn’t wake up.

  Grabbing her keys, Jade hurried over to the door and opened it as quietly as possible.

  Robbie was at the wheel of his BMW. She got in and closed the car door. The heater was on full blast. He was gripping a can of cider in between his thighs—Robbie had never been one for cup holders. He lifted it to his lips, took a long pull, and offered it to her. She declined. He shoved it back between his legs and grinned at her, tapping out a rhythm on the top of the can with his fingernails.

  “What’s up, Robbie? Why are you here? This time the cop next door is home. Didn’t your source tell you?”

  “Big day tomorrow,” he said. “Big, big day for you. Your friend gets out of chokie at last.”

  “Yes.” Jade studied him. He looked wired, tense, hyperactive. Yesterday’s adrenaline rush combined with large amounts of cider, she guessed. She’d never seen Robbie use drugs.

  “So. We’re going to follow him? Take him out, chop-chop, done and dusted?” He snapped his fingers.

  “No.”

  “Why not? You crazy or something? He’s going to come after you. I remember the last time you were as jumpy as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Looking over your shoulder all the time. You want to be like that again?”

  “He’s already got people watching me. I want to wait and do it properly. I can’t risk being caught.”

  They both looked round as headlights lit up the road. Robbie tensed. His hand slipped down and Jade knew it was on his gun. Anyone trying to hijack the Beemer would come off second-best if Robbie had his way. Before the car reached them it turned into a driveway further down. Just an honest citizen arriving home late. Robbie’s hand moved back up to the wheel.

  “In a couple of days you could be dead.”

  Jade felt uneasy. She didn’t want to be parked in the road, arguing with a small-time gangster who, for some unfathom-able reason, was going a few steps too far in helping with her problem. She didn’t want to be parked in the road at all. What if David woke up and came looking for her? He must never know about Robbie. She’d be in trouble trying to explain why she had dealings with him. David would rightly feel that she had betrayed his trust. She didn’t know what Robbie’s history was with the police. But she knew he had a record.

  “Not tomorrow, Robbie. There’ll be people around. I’m not doing anything if he’s got all his fanatical followers from the old days crowding round to congratulate him on his release. Let’s follow him, see where he goes, get an idea of his routine. Wait a bit longer, till the fuss dies down.”

  Robbie drummed his fingers on the wheel. “OK. Fair enough.” He opened the car door. “So. You going to invite me in for a coffee?”

  Jade jumped out of the car. Robbie was already walking towards the front door.

  “No.” She hurried after him, trying to keep her voice down without seeming obvious. He stopped in his tracks.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m tired and I’ve had a long day and we’ve got an early start tomorrow. We both need to be alert.”

  “I can crash on the couch.” He gave her a sidelong glance that confirmed the couch was the last place he intended to crash. His hand clamped round her waist and strayed upwards.

  “What about Verna?” she asked.

  Robbie looked smug. “Verna knows the deal.”

  This had happened before, the first time she met him.After they left the nightclub and he’d invited her back to his flat. She hadn’t wanted to go, but she knew she’d be safer with him than without him.

  He’d offered her his sofa and given her a T-shirt because her clothes were two days old and rancid with sweat and nightclub smoke. In the middle of the night, she’d woken to find Robbie next to her. His naked body was pressed against hers and his hands were groping around under the T-shirt.

  “Yeah, babe,” he’d said. “Ooh, babe.”

  At first, Jade had feigned sleep. When that didn’t work, she’d tried to resist. He’d ignored her. His strong arms had thrust hers aside. He’d pushed her legs apart. Jade had lis-tened to his harsh breathing and felt the rasp of his stubble against her face. She’d never felt so powerless. Perhaps this was part of the deal. Perhaps Robbie’s help had to be earned through sexual barter. Terrified and exhausted, she’d been about to close her eyes and let him do what he wanted. Then she’d changed her mind.

  She remembered that she’d reached down.

  “Yeah, babe,” Robbie had groaned. “Hold me. Yeah, like that.”

  Jade had gritted her teeth and then squeezed and twisted her hand as hard as she could, digging her nails into his soft flesh. For one white-hot moment, she hadn’t cared whether Robbie broke her arm, beat her up or kicked her out onto the street.

  “Bayyyyb!” Robbie’s voice had risen in a surprised and ago-nized screech. Then he’d flown off the sofa and collapsed on the floor, bent double with pain.

  After that Jade had pulled the duvet tightly around her, hoping he couldn’t see how violently her arms were trem-bling. “I said no,” she’d told him, hoping she sounded calm and controlled. She was already regretting what she’d done. But to her relief, Robbie was completely cowed.

  “No. You said no. I heard you.” He’d raised his head and stared at her again in painful disbelief. “No it is. OK then. Fine. Be like that.” Gathering the shreds of his dignity around him, he’d staggered back to his bedroom and slammed the door.

  She wondered if he remembered this incident now, as she removed his hand from her waist and turned to face him.

  “Robbie, sex is not part of our relationship. I’ve told you before. Go home and sleep in your bed. If you come in, there’ll be complications. Then neither of us will sleep and tomorrow will go badly because we’ll be pissed off with each other.”

  Robbie paused. Jade could almost see his brain working. His eyes lit up and he jumped to the wrong conclusion.

  “Are you screwing that cop next door? Is he your new boyfriend?”

  “No.” It was the truth, but she was glad it was dark so Robbie couldn’t see her blushing.

  “I think you are.”

  “I’m not. And even if I was, it’s nothing to do with you. We’re doing business, Robbie. You’re my friend. Nothing more. OK?”

  “You know, Jade, you’re a fuckin’ ice queen, that’s what you are.”

  Robbie turned and stomped back to his car. Gravel sprayed from the sidewalk as he drove down the road. Jade watched him leave, relieved he was gone, but terrified that by rejecting him again she’d made a dangerous enemy.

  21

  Jade didn’t sleep well that night. She didn’t know if it was because David was in the other room or because she was going to see Viljoen at last. She stayed awake for what felt like hours, remembering what had happe
ned on that fateful morning she left the little house in Turffontein.

  Her father’s coffee had stood half empty on his desk, a skin of cool milk wrinkling its surface. The lamp was off and his brief-case was gone. She climbed into her car and set off down the road to a surveillance appointment, taking the route that her father had when he’d left with Jacobs in the beige unmarked.

  As she reached a bend in the road, she slowed down. There’d been an accident ahead, at the one traffic light that she’d always thought was a pointless waste of electricity. The road crossing it was a steep and narrow lane that, even when traffic was thick, never seemed to have any cars on it. This morning, there had been one.

  A heavy truck must have been speeding down the lane and been unable to stop at the lights. The runaway vehicle had smashed into a car on the main road, crushing it under its wheels.

  Jade could smell burning rubber and the choking fumes of scorched metal. She hurried across to the smoking body of the truck and the awful shape of the car underneath it. A small knot of people surrounded the accident.

  As she walked closer, she felt her stomach clench. She recognized the crumpled car. It was Jacobs’s unmarked. The driver’s door was open but the passenger side was crushed under the chassis of the truck.

  “Dad!” Jade screamed.

  Jacobs grabbed her shoulders from behind. She turned and stared at him. He was wild-eyed, breathing hard, and his clothes looked rumpled.

  “We’ve called an ambulance,” he told her. “The ambulance is coming. Move away from the car, my girl. There’s nothing you can do.”

  “We’ve got to get him out.” She peered into the buckled mass of metal, the truck’s grille mounted on top in a bizarre display of victory. She recoiled from the blood that was oozing out of the shadows.

  Then, sirens wailing, the ambulance arrived. Paramedics leapt out and sprinted over to the car and started working through the narrow gap in the metal.

  “Where’s the truck driver?” someone asked.

  “Must have run away,” someone else said. “Probably didn’t even have a bruise. The cab’s hardly damaged.”

  “Probably drunk,” the first person said with loathing.

  Tears blurring her vision, Jade sat by the side of the road, staring blankly at the tarmac in front of her. Three cups of tea had been provided by the solicitous onlookers. She hadn’t done more than sip at the first one because her hands were shaking too badly for her to get the cup to her mouth, and her chest was heaving in a series of dry sobs that she was sure would choke her.

  She heard police sirens yipping and yapping followed by the screech of tires. An officer came and sat down beside her to ask some questions. She could hear the clank of heavy machinery and the hiss of hydraulics and the tearing scream of metal on metal. When she looked up again, the truck had been moved away and the paramedics were busy. She walked over, trying not to look too closely.

  “Is he alive?”

  The man shook his head. “He must have died on impact. Massive head injuries and internal trauma. Most probably he didn’t even know what was happening.”

  They strapped her father’s body to a stretcher and wheeled it away. Rubbing tears from her eyes as she watched, Jade recalled one of her father’s sayings. “Even if things go wrong, even if tragedy strikes, it is essential to do your duty.”

  She took a deep breath. She would take the file and give it to David. He could finish the work her father had started.

  “What are you doing?” asked Jacobs, stumbling to his feet as she walked towards the shell of the car. She steeled herself and looked in the passenger side. The seat and carpet were stained with her father’s blood. She closed her eyes and swal-lowed hard, tasting bile in her throat. Then she looked again, forcing herself to get closer. The paramedics had cut through the seat belt to get him out. The canvas straps hung, frayed and useless, and she pushed them aside.

  She looked in the back, under the seat, on the driver’s side. Then she walked round the car while the tow-truck driver sat patiently, waiting for her to finish, and checked inside the trunk. And then, because she didn’t trust herself to have searched properly the first time, she looked again, looked everywhere, her fingers sliding and scrabbling on the carpets, tears flooding her eyes again when she saw the dark red streaks on her fingertips and knuckles.

  Then she straightened up and stared at the blue-white horizon and shivered in the heat of the glorious sunshine as she realized that things were perhaps not all that they seemed to be.

  The briefcase was nowhere. It had disappeared.

  The briefcase was gone.

  The briefcase…

  Jade felt hands clutch at her, and she screamed and strug-gled, fighting for her life, because Jacobs was there, waiting, and this time she couldn’t escape.

  Then she realized that she was in her bed, in the cottage. She must have fallen asleep and had her old nightmare. But there was someone holding her and it wasn’t Jacobs. It was David.

  “Jadey, are you OK? You almost gave me heart failure there. I heard you crying and screaming. I came to see what was wrong.”

  She held onto him tightly and he stroked her hair. Jade could feel her heart thudding, although now she didn’t know whether it was from the nightmare or because David was sitting on her bed, gently holding her in his arms.

  “No, it’s nothing. Just a bad dream.”

  David carried on stroking her hair. His hands felt strong and sure as they cradled her head.

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  “Not really. I dream about my dad’s accident, sometimes.”

  She felt David’s chest rise and fall as he sighed. “I wish I’d been in Jo’burg when it happened. I can’t believe you had to go through something like that on your own. Finding your father dead in that horror crash. I’m not surprised you’re still bothered about it. And then you disappeared and I didn’t know where you were. We thought you’d had some kind of a breakdown. Post-traumatic stress. I was worried about you and so angry I hadn’t been granted permission to leave that police conference in Durban, I nearly resigned.”

  She closed her eyes, aware of the warmth of David’s body against hers. They had never been so close before. She squeezed her arms around him and felt him hold her tighter in response.

  “Hey Jadey. I missed you.”

  “I missed you too.”

  “Are you okay now?”

  “I’m fine. Thanks. Listen.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve wanted to tell you this for ages. I’ve always thought—you know, with my dad around, you ended up being like family to me. Like an older brother. And that wasn’t always the way I wanted to feel about you. Not at all.” She took another breath. This was hard work. David’s silence wasn’t helping either. His hand had stopped stroking her hair. What could she say next? How could she explain her feelings to him?

  “I think I’d like things to go further between us,” she ended lamely. That was it. Her reserve of courage had run dry, her palms were icy and she’d rather face down a charging elephant than say another word to David about what was in her heart.

  Then it all went wrong. She didn’t know why. It was dark, they were close together on her bed, separated by a couple of layers of insubstantial clothing. She was sharing her thoughts, her secrets. Something could have happened. Should have. But it didn’t. Instead, David pulled away from her and stood up.

  “It’s five-thirty in the morning. I’ve got to get going.”

  Jade struggled to her feet, rubbing her eyes. He hadn’t answered her, hadn’t shared his feelings in return. Why not? She’d have to wait until later to find out, because now he was pulling on his shoes and fastening his belt.

  “I’ll let you out,” she mumbled.

  “Thanks for letting me crash on your couch. Try and get some more sleep, and call me if you need anything.”

  She turned off the alarm and buzzed open the gate. He closed the door behind him, and she watched him leave, lis-tening to
the crunch of his footsteps on the road.

  22

  A single-lane main road, clogged with traffic, separated the grounds of Leeuwkop Prison from the large, semi-rural suburb where Jade passed a group of horses and riders as she took a shortcut through the back roads.

  She drove slowly past the horses, listening to the clop-ping of their hooves on the tarmac. If she lived in this area, she could get a horse. There were plenty of places to keep it. She supposed that she’d need to learn how to look after it. There was feeding involved, grooming, the regular replace-ment of those metal shoes. It sounded like a lot of work, thinking about it. She supposed there were establishments where she could pay to have all that done for her. Livery yards or riding schools. She’d seen a few signs for stables along the way. They could teach her how to ride the horse too. That would be an advantage.

  The leather of the horses’ saddles and bridles gleamed. The riders were kitted out in tall leather boots and jodhpurs. Big padded helmets with air vents. They wore gloves and carried whips. There was a lot of equipment involved in riding, that was for sure. Even without the cost of the horse, it would be expensive to start up. Too much of an outlay for her. She moved back to the left-hand side of the road again. Perhaps owning a horse was too ambitious. But she could start with a cat, or a little dog.

  She parked halfway down a side road, next to a security boom that was wide open and unmanned, and got out of the car. She was wearing tracksuit pants and trainers and a sporty-looking jacket that concealed her gun. She didn’t think anybody would look twice at a woman out on a morning walk on the sandy track alongside the main road.

  Jade had read that Leeuwkop Prison was built 40 years ago. The surrounding area must have looked very different then. She was sure that road had seldom seen cars back in those days and that the properties in the area must have been regarded as cheap farmland rather than sought-after semi-rural real estate.