by Kurt Ellis
‘Him?’
‘Yes, him. Look, Steenkamp has over thirty years’ worth of experience on the force.’
Zwane laughed mockingly and Meyer didn’t like it.
‘But he’s a drunk.’
‘So is Creed.’
‘But he’s lucky to still be employed by us. I mean, how many charges were laid against him by his wife for assault? Just last week, his son tried to get a restraining order against him. I …’
Meyer raised a hand again. ‘Look, whatever else you may think of Steenkamp, I agree with him on the Creed matter. As far as I’m concerned, Major Grey is the best cop in this country and ranks up there in the world, which is why I don’t understand why we need Creed. Grey knows everything Creed knows.’
‘Maybe what they’re saying about the Major is true, then.’
Meyer turned around to face Zwane. ‘What are they saying?’
‘Didn’t you hear?’ Zwane’s eyebrows were raised. ‘Grey’s been offered a job with Interpol. Someone is retiring at year-end and they want the Major to replace him. I don’t know who or what position, but I believe he’s only with us for a few more months. Maybe he wants Creed to replace him. To continue the project.’
No, Meyer thought. That can’t be. He saw the silver BMW snake around the bend.
‘Speak of the devil.’
Meyer pushed open his car door and waited for the car to come to a stop.
13
Creed saw Meyer and Zwane get out of the car behind him. Steenkamp stood at the entrance of the apartment building, arms over his stomach, glowering at Zwane and then at him.
‘Looks like the children have been quarrelling again,’ he said.
Across the road from the apartment block, an old man watched them from beneath the bonnet of an old Datsun. Pretending to be busy with the engine, it seemed. His hand randomly touched parts and twisted caps, but Creed could see he was actually studying their movements from the corner of his eye.
The residents of these areas, where South Africa’s black populace had been confined for decades, were always cautious of the police. Every family had had a member, or at the very least, had known someone who had simply gone missing at the hands of the police during the apartheid years. They remembered leaders of the anti-apartheid movement tortured and killed by men wearing the South African Police Service uniform.
Those such as Ashley Kriel, only twenty years old when tortured and murdered by the police; or Neil Aggett, a doctor and trade unionist who supposedly hanged himself in a jail cell; or Steve Biko, leader of the Black Consciousness Movement, shackled naked in a prison cell and beaten to death. In recent times, the scabs of these wounds had been picked at by fresh cases of police brutality: the televised murders of Andries Tatane, shot in the chest with rubber bullets at point-blank range and beaten to death with batons during a service-delivery protest in 2011, or Mido Macia, a taxi driver handcuffed to the back of a police vehicle and dragged through the streets of Daveyton in 2015, his injuries resulting in his death.
Then there was the Marikana massacre, the most brutal mass killing in South Africa since the 1976 Soweto uprising, where thirty-four miners were shot and killed by police during a protest. All three incidents had been caught on film, undoubtedly stoking the distrust of the police among South Africans.
Before long, the driveway mechanic wiped his hands on an old T-shirt he was using as a rag and decided to retreat into his house. Meyer walked up to them, engrossed in his notepad, a sight Creed was becoming familiar with. ‘Her name is Lorraine …’
Meyer scanned the page in front of him, flipped to the next page and back again. ‘Her name is Lorraine Sinamane. She’s eighteen years old. Her manager at work reported her missing this morning after she didn’t report for duty on Monday or today. He said he came by earlier and found that no one was at home. After going through the flat, he found her cellphone and purse. He thought that was very strange so he went to report it.’
‘He went through her flat?’ Grey asked, his eyebrows furrowed. ‘How did he get in?’
‘He had a key.’
Grey nodded. ‘Does he have any theory or thoughts about where she could be?’
‘No. The man said that she’s a bit of a wild child. She’s … inclined to heavy partying, apparently, but the alarm for him is that she left her cellphone behind. He said she’d never go anywhere without her cell.’
‘Where’s this boss now?’ Creed asked.
‘At his place of work.’ Meyer flipped a page of his notepad. ‘DLC Debt Collecting, in Randburg. Everything I told you was based on the report he filled in at the station. I haven’t had the chance to interview the man himself as yet. He did leave us a key to get into the apartment.’
The four men crossed the street and joined Steenkamp.
‘I hear Erasmus folded,’ Creed smirked at the rotund police officer. ‘Who would have thought, huh?’
Steenkamp didn’t respond.
The five climbed the double flight of stairs to the first-floor flat.
The apartment building in which Lorraine Sinamane rented a one-bedroom flat wasn’t a dump, but well on its way to becoming one. Pink and green graffiti had been sprayed on the dirty cream walls of the stairwell. When they arrived at the landing, they passed two broken windows covered with garbage bags, rippling in the light breeze like black ship sails.
They pulled on latex gloves when they arrived at the apartment. Detective Meyer yanked the unlocked latch of the security gate aside before inserting the key of the front door. It opened without resistance and the men filed in, led by Grey.
The layout of the flat was simple. On their right, an archway led to a small kitchen; to the left was a tiny bathroom. Straight ahead of them was a spacious lounge. The entire far wall was large glass windows, stretching almost from ceiling to floor.
As they entered, Creed noticed a framed photograph of a young woman on the wall, cloaked in a black gown with a white sash over her shoulders, and proudly clutching a diploma. The name of a small local college was printed on the ribbon over her chest.
It was her toothy grin that Creed recognised. The young woman in the photograph had the same gap between her front incisors as the lipless victim in the veld.
‘It’s her,’ he said. ‘She’s the vic.’
They fanned out. Creed walked into the kitchen. A compact white refrigerator hummed softly in a corner of the room. There was a small, three-plate stove, and running along the walls were metal built-in kitchen cupboards. A kettle, microwave and toaster rested on the counter top, along with a set of house keys with a Minnie Mouse key ring.
He opened the fridge and studied the contents. A few eggs, a box of long-life milk, and a two-litre bottle of Coca-Cola that was half empty. A six-pack of cider, a few jars of pickles and jam, and some condiment bottles. In the door of the fridge, he saw another two loose bottles of cider and two loose bottles of beer.
He shut the door and inspected the stove. As he walked, two small cockroaches scurried across the floor from beneath the fridge. He watched as they sprinted away from his heavy boots and disappeared under the cupboard.
Back to the fridge. He grabbed the sides of the appliance and pulled it away from the wall. The linoleum tiles offered little friction and the small fridge slid easily. Craning his neck around the side, he inspected the dirty floor, then pushed the fridge back and returned to the stove. A small metal pot was on one of the hotplates.
Creed lifted the lid. Red baked beans in a stiff tomato sauce filled the bottom quarter of the pot. It was beginning to smell sour. The kitchen sink contained no dirty dishes. In the drying rack was a single white plate, a spoon, a glass and a blue coffee cup, all washed.
Creed turned back to the stove and peered down its sides. In the crevices he saw four roach motels, two on either side. Next he opened the cupboards. Dishes, cups, groceries, and a large supply of cleaning chemicals and bug spray.
He had seen enough. Leaving the kitchen, he spotted the smal
l pedal bin standing unobtrusively beside the doorway. He stood on the pedal; the lid yawned open. The garbage was about three-quarters full with organic waste, including onion peels and tomato skins, plus an empty egg tray. An empty can that had once contained the beans on the stove and a single empty cider bottle rested on the top. He went on to the bathroom.
‘Hey, Meyer,’ he called out, pausing to study the locks on the front door. He assumed Meyer would have his head buried in his notepad in the bedroom with Grey. ‘Did the boss say the house was locked when he got here?’
Indeed, Meyer’s voice came from the bedroom. ‘He said it was, both the door and the gate.’
Creed looked for damage to the door frame and scratches on the lock, the tell-tale signs of someone having tampered with the mechanism to get into the apartment, but he found none.
The bathroom smelt strongly of ammonia. The bath tub in the corner had a ring of abrasion where the circle of dirt had been scrubbed away. A single blue toothbrush rested in a toothbrush holder.
Creed looked up, his heart skipping a beat. Strange, dead eyes looked directly back at him. His eyes.
He quickly turned away from the mirror to the thin slit of a window on his right. The window was open and the lace curtain flapped slowly in the icy breeze. Could someone have got in through there? Too small, he thought. But a child could have fitted through.
One of the more disturbing cases he had worked on was in Florida, where a man used his eight-year-old son to break into houses in order to rob and rape women living alone. The father would post the boy through small bathroom windows, and have him fetch the house keys so he could enter. A possibility here?
Exiting the bathroom, Creed stopped in the middle of the lounge. Bulky, multi-coloured bean bags were scattered around the room, a sort of informal lounge suite. Steenkamp was standing at the large windows, staring out vacantly as if haunted by a ghost only he could see. In front of the largest bean bag, a pair of woman’s shoes had been neatly placed.
The television was a large flat-screen resting on an entertainment unit made from expensive-looking wood. He inhaled deeply and caught the faint scent of something lingering in the air. Something … bad. Decay, perhaps? A wet kind of decomposition that reminded him of his youth, when he and his friends went looking for crabs in the small, polluted Newlands East river. He inhaled again and was surprised when a wall-mounted automatic air freshener spat out a gust of lavender-scented spray. He could no longer detect that smell of rot.
Steenkamp pushed open the glass door leading to the balcony and stepped outside. The street noise filtered in. It sounded a lot like the white noise that plagued Creed until he’d had a drink or a blunt to block it out. A drink or a smoke. He had a joint in his pocket at that very moment. He could slip out for a minute and smoke it. Just to take the edge off. Pushing the thought away, Creed went to join Grey, Meyer and Zwane in the bedroom.
There were signs of a struggle. The bed was slotted tightly into the corner of the room, its covers dumped on the floor. On a mirrored dressing table, cans of deodorant and bottles of perfume had been knocked over.
A cellphone was charging on the floor; the black cord snaked over the carpet. A magazine and two thick textbooks lay on the large desk: Business Management in South Africa and Ergonomics in Design: Methods and Techniques. Between the desk and the bed was another glass door. He could see Steenkamp still outside on the balcony.
‘Okay, Nick,’ Grey said, ‘tell me what you think.’
Creed licked his lips. ‘The abduction took place in this room. From what I can see, she was a very clean girl; kept everything neat and tidy. If you look in the kitchen, the dishes are washed and packed away. She has a cockroach problem which she was attacking aggressively. She was fighting them with bug spray, roach motels and cleanliness. But there’s a pot of food left out on the stove. She wouldn’t have willingly left it there, not with her cockroach war. If she was going out, then she would have put it in the fridge. Not to mention the cellphone she left charging here. No, she didn’t have any plans on going anywhere that night. She came home from work alone, had a drink then made supper.’
‘How do you know she was alone?’ Zwane raised an eyebrow.
‘The dishes. One plate, one cup, one spoon. In the bin, there’s a single cider bottle. She didn’t have a guest. But she does have a special someone in her life. There are beers in the fridge for him.’ Creed rubbed his forehead and walked out of the room.
‘Her boss, no doubt.’ Meyer added. ‘Why else would he have a key?’
Creed continued. ‘She wouldn’t have left this room in such a mess. She was tidy. Obsessively tidy. You only have to look at the rest of the house to see that.’ The balcony door opened and Steenkamp walked in. ‘She was definitely taken from here.’
Grey nodded. ‘Any idea how he would have got in?’
‘No clue. No signs of anyone tampering with the door, and her keys have been left on the kitchen table.’
‘There’s no way someone can climb up there,’ Steenkamp said, flicking his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Too high, and there’s nothing to climb on.’
‘She probably knew the unsub,’ Meyer proposed. ‘He knocked on the door, she let him in and he attacked her. Carried her out and locked everything up. Maybe there’s a third set of keys.’
Creed nodded to himself. That theory did make the most sense, except one aspect that just didn’t sit well with him. Why would the unsub have wasted time locking the house up behind him after he’d abducted her? Spending that extra moment would put him at unnecessary risk of discovery.
‘Right,’ Grey started. ‘Steenkamp, bag the toothbrush and a hairbrush and get it to Cho as soon as possible. I want DNA confirmation that this is our vic. Zwane and Meyer, chat to the neighbours and see if they can tell you anything. If they heard something. Nick and I will go see her boss. Once we have victim confirmation from Cho, we’ll visit the family. If we’re wrong and she’s not our vic, then I don’t want to put the family through unnecessary pain.’
Grey pulled out his cellphone and called the Forensics and Crime Scene Unit to process the flat.
14
Grey received two phone calls during the drive to the Randburg offices of DLC Debt Collecting. The first was from Cho, saying he had processed the T-shirt but found nothing significant on it. The second call was from someone Creed didn’t know. From the way Grey spoke, it sounded as if it was a reporter. Grey responded with a curt ‘no comment’ before hanging up. His phone rang once more after that but he ignored the call.
They eased through the stop-start traffic of Randburg until Grey had pulled the car into the parking lot of a four-storey face-brick building. Grey flashed his SAPS identity card to the security at the door, who immediately let them through. In the reception area, they wrote their details in a visitors’ registration book and were directed to the third floor.
Entering the lift, Creed caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrors that stretched from roof to floor. During their university days, he and Grey would work out at the gym together, competitively pushing each other to their physical extremes. Creed would motivate Grey to bench press 100 kilograms before he himself would attempt 120 kilograms with Eli at his head, spotting him, pushing him, encouraging him. Then Grey would attempt 140 kilograms, and so on, until they both experienced muscle failure and couldn’t do one more curl or one more press.
Their fitness and physique back then had been remarkable. Even in Seattle, Creed had remained active. He hadn’t taken weightlifting as seriously as Grey had, and he’d stopped boxing, but at the Bureau he had taken up Krav Maga, the Israeli martial art, as well as basketball. He sucked at basketball but it was a great way to stay fit and strong.
When he looked in the mirror of the lift and compared the difference in physique between himself and Grey, he realised just how much that person he used to be was now a complete stranger. A different man to the sickly looking person in the mirror, with his greying flesh and hollow eyes. H
e looked away. He turned his back on that ghost and watched the numbers light up and dim until they reached the third floor.
The doors slid open into a thunder of voices, some aggressive, some laughing. In front of them was a motivational poster of five multiracial hands stacked on top of one another, clasping wrists, above the word ‘TEAMWORK’.
Creed instantly thought of Lorraine’s severed hands. He didn’t doubt for a moment that they had been in the victim’s home only an hour earlier. The DNA comparison would confirm it, he was sure.
At reception, they asked for Clifton Hlongwane. The attractive black woman behind the desk made a phone call, hung up, and offered Grey and Creed a seat in the reception area. They both declined, choosing to remain standing at her desk. Five minutes passed before a handsome man came gliding in. He had a large smile on his face as he firmly shook their hands. A salesman’s smile.
‘Clifton,’ he said by way of introduction. He ushered them into a small boardroom where the smile immediately slipped from his lips.
‘Have you found her?’ he asked, concern choking his words.
‘Not as yet,’ Grey responded evenly. ‘We’re looking into a few leads.’
Grey and Clifton Hlongwane sat at the table. The room was cold, bordering on unpleasant. Creed decided not to sit. He walked over to the window, overlooking a parking lot. A grey caravan was parked on the pavement, and a man was selling pap and meat through its window.
‘I’m concerned,’ Hlongwane continued. ‘Very concerned. I mean, this isn’t like her. I think something bad must have happened.’
‘Why would you think that?’ Grey asked.
‘It’s just a feeling, you know? I mean, why would she leave without her phone? She never went anywhere without that phone. Never. And her bedroom was a mess. She was always neat. Always tidy.’