In the Midst of Wolves

by Kurt Ellis

  ‘Nick? Are you there?’

  ‘Er, yeah. Sure, see you tomorrow. Gotta go.’ He hung up and turned the volume higher.

  40

  ‘You’ll do great,’ Meyer whispered to her, tentatively placing a hand on the small of her back.

  He had never been comfortable with physical contact. Maybe it was because the only physical contact he had had as a boy had come from the knuckles and belt of his father. He took a step back but could see that her hands were still trembling, hidden behind the podium from the flashing cameras and video recorders.

  Patel waited until the crowd of journalists had settled before she began.

  ‘Good afternoon.’ Her voice was shaky. She cleared her throat and repeated, louder. ‘Good afternoon. We’d like to request public assistance in locating a suspect wanted for questioning.’

  She swallowed and raised a photograph to the air, so all cameras could zoom in on the image. ‘We will provide you all with copies of this photograph. This individual is named Reginald Lucky Mthembu, also known as Reggie Mthembu. He’s a twenty-seven-year-old black male, approximately five feet ten inches tall, and weighs between eighty to ninety kilograms. He was last seen driving a stolen 2003 white two-door Opel Corsa. The licence-plate number is,’ she glanced down, ‘RBW 390 GP. That is Romeo Bravo Whiskey 3-9-0 Golf Papa. The suspect is wanted in connection with murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, hijacking, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm and resisting arrest, to name only a few. The suspect is armed and is considered extremely dangerous. Should anybody come into contact with this person,’ she held the photograph up once more, ‘or know of his whereabouts, they must please contact the Investigative Psychological Unit on 011 460 3131, or you can call the 10111 emergency number. Once again, we would like to remind the public that this individual is extremely dangerous. Do not attempt to confront or approach this man in any way. Should you know where he is, again, contact us.’

  She read the IPU phone number once more. Meyer hid a smile.

  She had done well, but that was the easy part.

  Now was time for the hounds to be unleashed. The hands of the reporters began to shoot up. A middle-aged man with thick spectacles called out, ‘Does this involve the dismembered body found in the field near Ennerdale?’

  ‘That is correct. We can confirm the name of the victim as being Lorraine Sinamane. Our suspect is a former boyfriend of the victim.’

  Another reporter shouted, ‘I believe the IPU was part of a botched raid on a drug dealer in Soweto this morning, in which this suspect outwitted you and got away. Any comment?’

  Meyer gritted his teeth. It infuriated him when some so-called journalists would distort facts to make a story more compelling and to make the police look incompetent. Journalism appeared to be more about trying to sell advertising space and copies now than telling the truth.

  ‘I’m afraid your sources are wrong,’ Patel stated firmly. ‘There was a raid in Soweto on a gang of suspected hijackers and cash-in-transit robbers. Members of the IPU were present at this raid, but it was a raid conducted by the SAPS Tactical Response Team. Again, there were members of the IPU present, but this wasn’t our operation. And the raid itself was a success. However, since that was the operation of the SAPS Tactical Team and not the IPU, I suggest you contact them directly for comment.’

  She had answered the question brilliantly. The man with thick glasses called out again, ‘Can you confirm that former Special Agent Nicholas Creed is consulting on this case?’

  ‘That I can confirm. Thank you for your time, but that will be all for the moment.’

  Patel walked away from the podium despite the enquiries being shouted at her, with Meyer close behind. She pushed open the door that led to the restricted offices of SAPS. As soon as the latch clicked into place behind her, she inhaled sharply. Her entire body shuddered.

  ‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ she repeated, her eyes welling up with tears. ‘How did I do? I messed up, didn’t I? I know I did.’

  Meyer smiled. ‘You did absolutely wonderful. Calm down.’

  ‘Did I?’ she grinned, a single tear running down her cheek. ‘Are you sure? The Creed question: I think I said “no more questions” too soon after it. Like I’m hiding something.’

  ‘Nonsense. You couldn’t have done any better. It was perfect.’

  She burst out laughing and wiped the tear away with the back of her hand. ‘My God. Creed was right.’

  Before he could ask her what Creed was right about, she continued. ‘My heart’s beating like a train. I thought I was going to pass out.’

  The two of them walked down the passage. ‘Do you think Major Grey was watching?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  Reshmee’s hand went up to her hair and she smoothed it back nervously. ‘Can I ask you something, Luke?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Is …’ she hesitated. ‘Do you know if … Major Grey’s dating anyone? I mean, I know he’s not married, but is he … seeing anyone?’

  Meyer could tell from the first day he had met Reshmee Patel that she had a crush on Major Grey. He wasn’t surprised by that at all. He was, however, very surprised by the fact that she had come to him to gather information. The two of them weren’t exactly close. The last five minutes were probably the longest time they had ever spent together. ‘I know he’s not married, but I don’t know if he’s seeing anyone,’ he said.

  She was blushing. ‘I suppose you must think I’m acting like a schoolgirl.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he lied.

  ‘Look, I know I’m only twenty-three, and he’s about ten years older than me, but I sometimes feel that there’s a connection between us. You know what I mean?’

  ‘I do.’ Meyer lied again. He didn’t understand what she meant at all.

  ‘I’m wondering how a man like Major Grey hasn’t been snapped up already. I mean, he’s nothing short of being a hunk.’ Her face crinkled in thought. ‘Then again, neither you nor Creed are married. I guess it’s tough to have a relationship doing the job you guys do.’

  ‘No truer words spoken.’

  Reshmee was right. Zwane was a newlywed and Steenkamp was on the other end of the married spectrum. His relationship with his wife had been slowly rotting over the years. As for Cho, Meyer knew Cho was married but that was all he knew. The pathologist didn’t share much about his personal life. These thoughts reminded Meyer once more that he had no one to go home to.

  ‘So what’s the plan now?’ Reshmee asked. ‘With Mthembu, I mean.’

  He sighed. ‘We just have to hope that we get lucky and that someone spots him. If not, then it’ll go down to some heavy footwork – compiling a list of all his known associates, narrowing it down to those he may go to for some cash or a place to stay. The hard graft: interviews after interviews after interviews. But hey, it will be a step closer.’

  41

  Luke Meyer sat alone at the table for two with a glass of Creme Soda. The restaurant, Manhattan Grill, was located on the bottom floor of Cresta Shopping Centre, opposite the Ster Kinekor cinema, and offered him soft lighting, good food and time to think. The waiter had just taken his dinner order of Portuguese chicken with vegetables, leaving him alone with his drink and his thoughts – thoughts about how the day had gone and whether he could have done anything differently.

  Could I have run faster and tackled Mthembu to the ground? Could I have saved that old man in the Corsa from being shot? He could see the bullets ricochet off the tar road as the gang of robbers shot wildly. One of the criminals had even had his eyes shut as he’d pulled the trigger.

  He remembered how that Tact Team officer’s body had jerked violently when the bullet struck him just inches from the groin. And how one of the robbers had slammed back into the car after being hit, red flowers of blood blooming through his shirt.

  ‘May I join you?’

  The voice startled him so much that he almost knocked over
his glass.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  She smiled. ‘I asked if I could join you.’

  Meyer looked at her closely. Blonde hair pulled away from her face in a ponytail. The delicate nose and chin. Those sparkling blue eyes and a smile that made his throat dry.

  ‘Pardon me, but do I know you?’

  She sat, not waiting for an invitation. ‘My name’s Tracey Wilson.’

  She stretched her hand out across the table. He shook it as a reflex action. ‘I’m a reporter with The Daily Standard.’

  Meyer retracted his hand. ‘I have no comment about the incident that happened today in Soweto. Please contact our media department for a statement.’

  ‘I’m not here about that.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  Her smile broadened. ‘I heard the food’s great,’ she teased, but Meyer didn’t encourage her by smiling. She added, ‘And I’d also like your opinion on someone.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Nicholas Creed.’

  ‘Ah, well, in that case … I have no comment about Nicholas Creed. Please contact our media department for a statement.’

  She laughed out loud. It was a honeyed laugh that seemed to emanate from deep inside her. ‘I’m assuming that’s going to be your stock standard response to any questions I may ask.’

  ‘You assume correctly.’

  ‘I see. Well then, do you mind if I then just enjoy a meal with you, Detective Meyer?’

  ‘I do actually. There’re other empty tables in the restaurant. Why not eat there?’

  She waved the waiter over. ‘But then I won’t have the pleasure of your company.’

  The young man handed her a menu. She absently paged through it and asked Meyer, ‘What do you recommend?’

  His non-response led her to look up, her eyes studying his. For the longest second there was nothing but silence, and then, for an unknown reason, he said, ‘I always have the chicken.’

  She grinned. ‘Okay, then chicken it is. And a glass of white wine please.’ She handed the menu back to the waiter before looking at the glass of green soda in front of him. ‘Any wine for you, Luke?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  The waiter walked off.

  ‘You don’t drink?’ she asked. Meyer didn’t answer. ‘Must’ve been tough then, giving communion wine when you were a priest.’

  He felt his right eye involuntarily tick. ‘You’ve researched me?’

  ‘I’ve researched all of you.’ Again, that smile. Meyer could tell that she used her sexuality as a weapon. And her smile was a missile used to knock down any walls of reluctance to speak. He wondered: how often did it work?

  ‘I do drink sometimes,’ he said. ‘Just not tonight.’

  ‘So, if you don’t want to talk about Creed, would you like to talk about yourself?’

  ‘I’ve no comment about myself. Please contact our media department for a statement.’

  She laughed again, and he decided that her smile probably worked most of the time.

  ‘Tell me, Luke. You don’t mind if I call you Luke?’ She didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘Tell me, Luke – how does one go from being a priest to being a cop?’

  He sipped his drink. ‘You did your research. You tell me.’

  She gave him a look that reminded him of a young Julie London. Or maybe it was her voice, a smoky whisper. ‘Well, even I don’t know it all. How about this: I’ll tell you what I do know about you and then you can fill in the blanks?’

  Again, Meyer didn’t respond. The waiter arrived with her glass of wine. She took a sip. ‘You’re from Cape Town. Raised in an orphanage. From there you entered the priesthood but left after a year. You became a cop, a good cop.’

  ‘If you ask any policeman, they’ll all say they’re good cops.’

  She took another sip. ‘True, but they don’t have your record. An eighty-eight-per-cent closure rate on all your cases.’

  ‘That’s twelve per cent too low.’

  ‘You received the SAPS Silver Cross for bravery.’

  ‘Awards don’t necessarily equate to being a good cop.’

  ‘So what does? Is it then the six complaints you filed against other police officers for corruption or brutality, or the complaint you filed against a magistrate that you thought was crooked?’

  ‘No, that just equals me being unpopular. And I didn’t think that magistrate was crooked. I knew he was crooked.’

  ‘But he wasn’t tried or convicted.’

  The topic still made the hairs on his neck stand up. ‘Doesn’t mean he wasn’t crooked.’ He sipped his drink – not out of thirst, but to occupy his hands.

  ‘Okay,’ she continued. ‘Deal’s a deal. Time to fill in the blanks. Why did you leave the church?’

  ‘I didn’t actually agree to that deal.’

  She smiled. ‘You didn’t disagree.’

  He finished the contents of his glass.

  42

  ‘I remember the day I decided I wanted to be a priest. I was eleven years old and in hospital, after my father had taken to beating me again. I was about to be placed in a home, a place of safety called St Dominic’s. And I was scared. Terrified. I had nothing in that hospital room with me except my bruises, broken arm and the St James bible that the hospital had in every room. I began paging through it, and for some reason it spoke to me. I didn’t understand all the words I was reading, to be honest, but I somehow knew their meaning, if that makes any sense.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Like they were lyrics to a song I’d heard years earlier. They were familiar somehow. And that’s when I knew I was meant for a great purpose. Chosen by God, if you will. So, I went to that orphanage with … eagerness, and I never saw my father again. I went on to complete my schooling and then seminary. When I did take my vows, I was sent to minister in a small town in the Western Cape called De Doorns. The town itself had only two kinds of people: the very rich, who owned the holiday homes and farms, and the very poor, who worked on maintaining those holiday homes and farms. The difference between rich and poor in South Africa couldn’t have been more concentrated than in De Doorns. But the people there, rich or poor, were generally good people.’

  The waiter brought him another glass of Creme Soda. ‘It was a Sunday afternoon like any other. I had been hearing confessions for most of it. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last confession. I stole a chocolate bar from Pick n Pay and I’ve been having lustful thoughts about my neighbour. That was as shocking as the confessions got there, to be frank. So that day I was seated in the confessional booth as usual, waiting for the next parishioner to seek absolution.’

  He smiled ruefully. ‘I can still remember the sound of his shoes on the tiled floor, the sound of his rasping breath, the smell of his Brut aftershave. He started, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” Now, remember, although anonymity is a given in the confessional, the small size of the town meant that I could basically identify every resident simply by their voice. I tried not to, but it was impossible not to know who it was. And it was no different in this case. The moment he started, I knew the confessor to be Willie Lubbe. Most of the people in the town called him Oom Willie. He was a man in his fifties, coach of the local rugby teams, in the front pew of the church every Sunday. I didn’t expect anything different from him other than the standard confessions I had become familiar with. I remember he took forever to get started.’

  ‘Actually,’ Meyer smiled regretfully, ‘I had to encourage him to begin. He started with a sigh and eventually said ‘I have these urges, Father. These desires that I can’t control. It started …’

  Meyer took another sip. ‘He told me it started when he was fourteen years old. That their maid had brought her son to work with her one day. He could still remember that his mother had made him a cheesy omelette that morning.’ Meyer could even recall Lubbe describing the omelette as being very salty. Why did he remember that so clearly? He continued, ‘He said the boy
was about eight years old, maybe nine. He took him to a nearby dam and they went swimming. They were both naked. He said the way the water glistened on his body … he …’ Meyer’s heart started to race and his throat became dry. ‘He had to touch him. He said he tried not to hurt the boy. That he tried to make him enjoy it, but the boy still told his mother that Lubbe sodomised him. His parents fired the maid immediately when she complained to them. He said he remembered the police coming through to their farm that night. He denied it all and they left. His father broke his nose that night. But he didn’t care. He didn’t. He had hidden that boys’ underpants under his bed, and simply knowing it was there was enough to arouse him again.’

  ‘My God,’ Tracey whispered, her blue eyes wide.

  ‘That summarises what I was thinking at the time. But then it got more sickening. He said that was when it had just started. He hadn’t stopped raping boys ever since. He told me that before he had come to the confessional, that very day, he had taken one of the boys he coaches in the rugby team to that very same dam. That was all I could hear. I couldn’t take another word. I remember rushing out of the confessional and into the toilet. I dry-heaved until my nose bled.’

  At that point, the waiter arrived with their meals. ‘Sorry,’ Meyer said to Tracey. ‘Not the ideal image when eating dinner.’

  ‘No, no,’ she responded. ‘It’s fine. Please go on.’

  ‘I wept that day. I just couldn’t stop. I cried my eyes out, right there in the church toilet. On my knees. Between dry heaves, I sobbed and prayed for those boys. It felt like I was stuck in a purgatory of rage, disgust and confusion. When I did manage to compose myself, I got onto the phone and called Father Walters and told him everything. He was my principal and mentor from St Dominic’s. He listened and sympathised with me, but his answer to the question of what I should do was something I just didn’t agree with. Father Walters had told me that the only thing I could do was to encourage the man to turn himself in.’