He’d phoned Tammy back.
“How the hell did you know?” he’d asked.
“Long story,” she’d replied. “I’ll tell you later. Are you all right? What can I do to help?”
“You can buy me a ticket. Business class to Jo’burg. Use a false name and make sure it’s fully transferable. I don’t know what passport I’ll be travelling on.”
“I’ll do that.”
She’d sounded pleased, excited at the thought of seeing him again. He couldn’t have cared less at that stage, but he’d played along because, right then, he needed her badly. He couldn’t access the safe in his apartment in case the local detectives were watching, and when he’d travelled to another part of the city to try and draw money from an atm, he’d discovered that his bank accounts had been frozen.
He’d had no idea how he was going to get out of the country safely, or how he was going to get hold of a travel document that wasn’t his own. His connection in Bosnia had been arrested years ago, which was partly why he’d started the South African operation. He’d subsequently hooked up with another dealer who worked in Moscow, but this man was proving to be uncontactable.
In prison or in hiding? One of the two, he was sure.
Since then, Salimovic had been on the run, checking into different, and increasingly seedy hotels every night, paying cash from a stash that was starting to run terminally short. His frustration at the situation made him so goddamn angry that he could have murdered the plainclothes policewoman he saw stationed outside his apartment, standing and watching. Waiting for him. He could have walked right up to her and flung her out over the balcony, forced his way inside, grabbed the wads of cash that were tucked away in his safe.
He’d murdered a woman that way before, years ago, when his half-sister—his whore mother hadn’t stayed with any man longer than a few months—had been living in the penthouse and working for him. Having a reliable female was necessary in his business, because women trusted other women more easily than they trusted men.
But she’d got drunk one night and an argument between them had escalated into a fight. She’d leaned back against the balcony, elbows resting on the rail and glass in hand, and started hurling insults at him.
Salimovic had not been able to restrain the eruption of fury that had taken him over to where she was standing in three long strides. Her smug expression had dissolved into horror when he bent forward, slid his arms under her knees, and heaved. The last he saw of her alive was the crotch of her pink knickers, neatly sandwiched in between her fish-white thighs, when she somersaulted backwards over the rail.
She’d screamed as she fell, and the sound had followed her tumbling body down, floor after floor, as she plummeted to the tarmac far below.
When the police arrived, he’d acted the part of a grieving brother. His sister was drunk, he had told the police. It had been a tragic accident.
He’d avoided arrest then, but Salimovic knew he couldn’t risk getting rid of the plainclothes officer in the same way, because there might be other detectives nearby. Besides, there was no guarantee the cash would still be there, the local police being what they were.
In any case, that was how people got caught. By being careless. He wasn’t careless, and he wasn’t stupid. He’d had contracts out on him before—it was the nature of the game—and he had gained something of a reputation for being the invisible man, disappearing the instant he smelled a rat.
He’d relieved his tension by paying a visit to a trusted friend’s brothel. A good friend who owed Salimovic a favour; so there was no charge and no questions asked. He’d spent an hour there and left the slut bruised and bleeding, inside and out.
Then, on the way back to his shitty hotel, he’d had another call from Katja, sounding nervous this time.
“Rodic called me from prison,” she’d said. “He said I should tell you that his passport is still at my house, if you need to use it. And he said something else, too. He told me you need to be careful, because he thinks there is something else going on.”
“What are you talking about?” Salimovic shouted.
Katja didn’t know. Rodic had also been nervous, and hadn’t been able to say much. She promised she would find out more when he called again. In the meantime, Salimovic told her to courier his cousin’s passport to a friend’s address.
It was a huge gamble, because the prison officials could have been monitoring the call Rodic had made, but it was his only hope. He’d got on the plane to South Africa the day after the passport had arrived. By then, his money was just about finished. He’d walked through Immigration, shitting himself with fear that the document had been flagged, but he’d been lucky. The police had been too slow.
He knew he couldn’t use Rodic’s passport again, but he hadn’t thought he’d need to.
Until he’d found himself trapped in South Africa, too. His usual connection for passports was no longer doing business, and his emergency contact had temporarily closed shop due to a security clampdown at Home Affairs.
South Africa was a big country with a police force that, in his opinion, could be kindly described as “inefficient”. It would have been easy for him to lie low for a while, but he knew that the police would soon be hunting for Tammy again, and he needed her to stay with him because she was his only source of money.
There was another reason Salimovic was in a hurry.
Tammy didn’t yet know what he had done to her father.
He’d kept her drugged to the eyeballs, placid and drowsy, and so far he’d managed to stop her from turning on the television or radio and hearing about her dad on the news. He’d hidden the remote control of the set in their room just in case and, as an extra failsafe, broken the plug.
He wouldn’t be able to relax until they were both out of the country and on their way to Brazil. There, he had a “friend” in São Paulo who was interested in buying her for his establishment, and for a very good price.
That money would allow him to start up his own operation again somewhere else.
Now all he had to do was to wait for Xavier Soumare to get their goddamn passports organised. He’d promised he could get it done fast, and although Salimovic wasn’t convinced, he’d had no choice but to organise all the necessary photos as well as a small deposit. In case it was a trap, he’d made sure he wasn’t around when Xavier and his woman partner had gone to Tamsin’s place yesterday morning to collect everything.
The passports had already been delayed by an extra day for some reason—Salimovic wasn’t sure exactly what. From the brief phone conversations they’d had, Salimovic got the impression that Xavier was totally paranoid, as suspicious and mistrusting as Salimovic himself, and in a way that reassured him.
Tammy stirred and murmured something sleepily. In an instant, Salimovic was by the bedside.
“How are you feeling, prejilepa?” he asked her. “Hungry? How about I go and get us takeaways and some wine?”
He smoothed her hair back from her sweat-damp brow. The sheet had slipped and, looking down, he was surprised at the surge of lust he felt.
“Perhaps I go for the takeaways later,” he said, smiling as he cupped one of her taut, silicone-enhanced breasts in his hand while his other prised her legs open.
He could sense she was sore, unwilling and tired, and she pushed back against his fingers.
“Not now,” she mumbled.
Salimovic’s smile widened. “Yes, now.”
“Go’way. I’m still asleep.”
In a swift, fluid movement he reached across to his bedside table and grasped the silver pistol that lay there.
He watched her eyes fly open as she felt the cold kiss of metal on her thighs. Slowly, he eased the weapon higher.
“You are not allowed to say no, prejilepa. It is one of our rules. In fact, now I think about it, it may be the only rule.”
He was trembling with arousal now, his finger caressing the trigger as the muzzle of the gun moved over her soft, pink flesh.
She flinched as she felt the pressure of the cold metal, but she did not say no.
Women like Tamsin learned the rules fast. It was why they were so useful to him.
With a swift motion, he buried the barrel of the gun deep inside her, hearing her gasp and her fearful whimper as he began to thrust it in and out.
Penetrating the daughter with the gun he had stolen from her father. There was a poetic justice in there somewhere.
As he thought about what Tamsin’s bastard father had done, Salimovic’s finger tightened on the trigger and for a white-hot moment, even he didn’t know whether he would be able to stop himself from pulling it.
41
Traffic crossing over the highway at the Allandale Road bridge was heavy with the afternoon rush.
This time, Pamela was perched on the black leather passenger seat of the Ferrari. Jade had insisted on driving.
The traffic began to move, and she eased the vehicle carefully forward.
She hadn’t broached the subject of Tamsin and Salimovic since they’d got into the car, mostly because Pamela had needed time to pull herself together. She’d stopped crying as they had driven past Kyalami racetrack, and blown her nose while they were waiting at the Vorna Valley traffic lights. Now, as the Ferrari inched across the highway bridge, Pamela had her bag open and was reapplying her make-up with the help of a compact mirror.
Jade judged that the time was right. “How did Tamsin and Salimovic get together?” she asked.
“It happened a few years ago,” Pamela said. “Terence met him on a skiing trip in Slovenia, and soon after he came back, they brought the first lot of girls in. It didn’t work out, as you know, and he got into a lot of trouble with the police, but the damage was done. Salimovic had been to South Africa and Tamsin took one look at him and—” Pamela made an expressive gesture with her hand.
“I see,” Jade said evenly. She could imagine the attraction that the young, troubled woman must have felt for a man who was wealthy, foreign, and above all, bad.
“They kept it a secret at first,” Pamela said. “When I found out Tammy was actually dating Sam, I hit the roof. I banned her from seeing him, of course, and Terence cut off all business dealings with him immediately.”
“But it didn’t work?”
Pamela shook her head sadly.
“It didn’t work at all. All it did was to alienate her, and from me in particular. She moved out of home, into her own place. She was supposed to start at varsity—we had her enrolled for a ba at Wits—but she dropped out after a few weeks. She’d been helping out at Heads & Tails occasionally, and she was very good at doing the admin and the management, so she ended up easing herself into a permanent position there. Within a year she was just about running the Midrand branch, and doing a good job of it, which left Terence free to open other branches and expand.”
And meant that Terence was no longer constantly looking over his daughter’s shoulder, Jade thought.
They were over the bridge now. A couple more minutes and she’d finally be able to turn left into Old Pretoria Road. From there, Jade hoped, the journey would go more quickly.
“She never forgave me,” Pamela said.
“How do you mean?”
“We’d been—well, not close. But we were friends. After Sam came into her life, Tamsin withdrew. We barely spoke. I think she regarded me as the enemy.”
Jade made a sympathetic noise. “Well, your daughter was dating a brothel owner,” she said. “I think any reasonable person would have done what you did.”
Pamela shook her head.
“No. I overreacted. I know I did. At that stage I didn’t know he was a brothel owner. All I knew was that he was bad news.”
“If you were estranged from Tamsin, how did you know what she was doing? How did you know that she was still seeing Salimovic, and how did you know he owned Number Six?”
Pamela twirled a blonde lock around her finger, and the gesture made Jade realise what she was going to say an instant before she said it.
“Raymond,” she said. “Our hairdresser. We were never at the salon at the same time. Tamsin made sure of that. But when she was there, she confided in him. She made Raymond promise that he wouldn’t tell me anything, and he said nothing for a long time. Recently, though, he’d realised that things were getting out of control. He called me in and told me everything. From what Tammy had said—and the phone calls she’d taken when she was at the salon—he’d learned that she was still involved with Sam, and that Sam owned a brothel in London.” Pamela removed a tissue from her handbag and dabbed her eyes again. “A brothel where illegal workers were employed.”
The Ferrari’s gleaming red bonnet inched round the corner. Open road at last. Jade put her foot down rather tentatively and was rewarded by a throaty growl from the engine and the sensation that a thousand horses were bursting out of their starting stalls.
Jade reined the horses in to a hand gallop. When the car was moving up the hill at a steadier pace, she focused once again on Pamela’s words.
“What did you do then?” Jade asked. “Did you tell Terence?”
“Oh, God, absolutely no way. He would have killed her, and I mean that quite literally, Jade. No, I asked Raymond to try and find out where the brothel was. Eventually he managed to get the name, and the area. And then I did a silly thing. I know it was wrong, but Sam was changing her, I could see it, and Raymond agreed with me. She wasn’t the sweet girl she used to be. She’d become … I don’t know. Secretive. Hard. Evil. It was beginning to worry me badly, so I made an international call. I phoned Scotland Yard. I told the police what Sam was doing, and I asked them to go to Number Six and arrest him.”
Jade took her eyes off the road for a moment to stare at her.
“You were the person who reported Number Six?” she asked incredulously.
“I was.” Pamela nodded with some pride.
“I don’t think doing that was silly, Pamela.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was what I did next that was stupid.”
The gates of Heads & Tails stood open, and the guard stood to attention when he recognised the Ferrari. Jade drove through, the tyres scrunching over the tarmac, her skin prickling with uneasiness at Pamela’s words.
The car park was half-full with the lunchtime crowd, and Jade noticed two black women walking slowly and dispiritedly towards the gate.
Perhaps they had arrived for a job interview, only to be turned away because Tammy was not available.
They would never know what a lucky escape they’d had.
“And what did you do next?” Jade asked Pamela.
“I thought … You see, I wanted to make things right with Tamsin. After Sam was arrested, I thought that it would be a good opportunity to rebuild our relationship. So I told her about the raid the minute I heard about it on Sky News. But I said that Terence had been the person who’d reported the brothel. I thought it was better to blame him, so that Tammy wouldn’t start hating me all over again.”
Jade stared at her, open-mouthed.
“Jesus, Pamela.”
She realised now that Pamela’s tip-off had signed her own husband’s death warrant.
Death by torture, the orders, and probably the execution too, handed down by Salimovic himself. A fitting revenge for the man he believed had betrayed him.
Did Pamela realise what she had inadvertently done?
Jade guessed that, by now, she did.
She had just one question left for Pamela, and she was going to ask it as soon as they had finished their business at Heads & Tails. When they had another chance to speak in private, she was going to ask her about her involvement with Naude.
She parked near the club’s door. Pamela climbed out, but instead of walking towards the entrance, she asked Jade for the car keys.
“There’s a private parking bay round the back,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take the car there. I don’t want it to be in view of the road. I’ll meet you inside.”
Jade watched the Ferrari disappear round the corner, and then headed for the entrance door.
Just as she reached it, she heard the familiar blast of a powerful motorbike engine. Jade spun round, hoping that this time she was wrong, and that it was her own recent thoughts that had fooled her into believing this was Naude.
But to her dismay, she saw the now-familiar red Ducati speed in through the gate. The black-clad rider steered the bike into the shade of a tree. He kicked down the stand, dismounted, and hooked his helmet over the handlebar.
Then Naude saw her and froze.
42
Jade grabbed her Glock and yanked it out of the holster, her finger curling round the trigger as she aimed. Across the car park lot, she saw Naude mirroring her movements. Just as fast, just as practised. He raised his Beretta and pointed it in her direction.
Whatever happens, don’t let him get to Pamela, Jade thought.
She sighted down the barrel of her Glock, her mind racing.
This wasn’t the right time or place for a gun fight. Shots fired now would mean police, questioning, delays. Shots fired to kill would mean certain arrest, even if she could prove to the detectives that Naude was a dangerous criminal.
Of course, she wouldn’t be able to prove anything if he killed her first.
What to do, then?
She dived for cover, landing spread-eagled behind the nearest vehicle, the solid white-painted people carrier.
Where was he?
She peered round the wheel arch, her heart banging in her throat, a new surge of adrenaline flooding her bloodstream.
Naude had taken cover too, behind a tree. She could see the sun glinting off his gun. She didn’t know if he’d thought the situation through in the same way she had.
At any moment, he might try to shoot his way out.
“You might find, one day, the only thing left to do is talk your way out of a situation. If that’s ever the case, Jade, make sure you choose your words carefully.”
Stolen Lives Page 25