In the Midst of Wolves

by Kurt Ellis

  ‘I know.’ Grey stole a look at Meyer, who had been joined by Steenkamp and Zwane as they reviewed the crime scene. ‘At least we have a witness.’

  Creed nodded and took another puff of tobacco. He had been tempted. His anger had controlled his gun hand, but at the last minute common sense had pushed his aim lower. The bullet had buried itself in the punk’s thigh instead of his forehead.

  ‘About today …’ Creed started.

  ‘Look,’ Grey interrupted, ‘I don’t want to talk about today. We’re done, Nick. You’re right. Maybe you should go to Durban and get your mind right before you destroy yourself – and anyone else caught in your self-destructive blast range.’

  ‘Like Megan.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘But that’s the truth.’ Creed sighed. He dropped the cigarette to the floor and ground it into the tar. ‘You’ve done everything you can for me, Eli. And I appreciate it all. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I do.’

  Words they couldn’t quite grasp flitted around them like tiny moths of regret.

  77

  ‘Meyer, come see here.’ Steenkamp looked down at the road, his grey breath pluming in the frigid morning. His torch shone a beam of the light onto the ground. Zwane was hunched next to him.

  Meyer walked over. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You see what I see?’ Steenkamp asked, indicating a jagged indent in the tar surrounded by dry blood. ‘We’ve a bullet in here.’

  He waved over a member of the ballistics team to retrieve the slug, and the three of them walked away.

  ‘You see it?’ Steenkamp prompted once more. ‘The angle?’

  ‘What?’ said Zwane.

  ‘There was no angle,’ Meyer started. ‘The bullet was fired from directly above, straight down, into the ground.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Steenkamp rubbed his red nose with the back of his hand. ‘I bet that was the shot in the leg. The only shot with an exit wound.’

  Zwane looked confused. ‘I still don’t understand.’

  ‘Look,’ Meyer adjusted his position and stood side-on. He used his hand to make the shape of a gun. ‘In order for the bullet to be embedded into the tar like that, with no angle, it had to be fired straight down, like this. This means the suspect was flat on his back when Creed shot him again.’

  ‘But …’ said Zwane, ‘why would he do that?’

  ‘Because he’s an arrogant twit who does his own thing, that’s why,’ Steenkamp said.

  The three of them stood in silence. Zwane slowly shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe that. There must’ve been something else. There—’

  ‘Zwane,’ Major Grey called out, gesturing him over.

  Steenkamp turned to Meyer once they were alone. ‘I know what you did.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘The article,’ Steenkamp smiled grimly. ‘You’re that bokkie’s source, aren’t you?’

  Meyer’s heart tripped over his guilt but he tried not to react.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Steenkamp continued. ‘With tits like that, I’m surprised there aren’t more of us spilling secrets to her.’

  ‘Us?’ Meyer raised an eyebrow.

  Steenkamp ignored the question and continued. ‘Mr Hollywood Man’s a problem and he needs to go.’

  ‘He’s going,’ Meyer looked out into the dark fields beside the road. ‘He’s not going to be part of the team.’ Not after he almost shot Grey, he thought.

  ‘He will be.’ Steenkamp shoved his hands into his jacket pocket. ‘I know. Because Creed is going to lead the team, if Grey gets his way.’

  Meyer locked eyes with Steenkamp.

  ‘Pretty reporters aren’t the only people with sources.’ Steenkamp looked around him to make sure there was no one within earshot. ‘An old friend of mine works in the police commissioner’s office. He saw an email between Grey and Sindane in which Grey says he wants Creed to lead the unit once he goes to Interpol.’ He paused to let this sink in.

  Meyer struggled to believe this, especially after what happened today. Surely, Grey wouldn’t allow Creed to take over the team, even if he had previously recommended him. Surely … but he wasn’t sure at all. Creed should have been arrested for taking the shot at Grey to begin with, yet Grey hadn’t done so. He had let him get away with it. What else would he let him get away with?

  ‘Look,’ Steenkamp added, ‘if anyone should take over from Grey, it should be me, or even you. But not Mr fucking Hollywood Psycho there. We can’t allow that. We can’t let that happen.’

  ‘I agree.’

  Steenkamp’s eyes showed relief and joy. ‘Good. So, what we gonna do?’

  Meyer didn’t respond. He walked away from Steenkamp and pulled out his cellphone. After a quick search for her number, he pressed the call button. It rang for a while, before Tracey finally answered. ‘Hello.’

  ‘You win.’

  78

  His eyes burnt. They felt sandy and raw. Luke Meyer had returned home from the crime scene Creed had left at the corner of Grand Central Boulevard and the K101 just before four in the morning. The sky had already started to turn purple like a bruise as the sun began to stir. But even then, as exhausted as he was, he had struggled to fall asleep. And when he did, he only managed half an hour of slumber before his alarm went off.

  Meyer trudged through the office. There was a gentle, early-morning buzz of activity. Before he made his way to his desk, he slogged off to the kitchen for some java. He wasn’t usually a coffee drinker but he felt like a bolt of caffeine for the day that lay ahead of him.

  He found Reshmee Patel sitting at a corner table, her slim fingers sliding across her iPad. Her face looked heavy with concern.

  She looked up at him. ‘Hey, you don’t look too good, Detective.’

  Meyer smiled. He stuck a styrofoam cup under the coffee machine and pressed the relevant buttons. ‘Thank you, Reshmee.’

  She returned his weak smile. ‘A bit of a storm last night?’

  ‘Yes, it was.’ Meyer took the cup and joined her at the table. The coffee looked like mud. He took a sip and cringed. It tasted like mud too.

  ‘I could’ve told you that the coffee would be bad.’

  ‘I knew it would be. But not this bad.’

  Another smile. She swiped her finger across the tablet screen a few more times. ‘I got an email from Major Grey early this morning about what happened. Is Creed okay?’

  Meyer shrugged. ‘He looked fine to me.’

  ‘Amazing,’ she whispered, almost as if in awe. ‘Why would Mthembu go after him?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Meyer took another sip and grimaced again. ‘Creed does strike me as someone who makes enemies easily, though.’

  She laughed sweetly. ‘But hey, at least there’s a suspect we can question now.’

  ‘Yeah, despite Creed’s best efforts,’ Meyer mumbled as he put the cup to his lips again.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  She stared at him for a second. ‘Anyway, the Major asked me to go over what happened last night with Creed, so we can prepare a press statement.’

  Meyer nodded. ‘That’s wise.’

  ‘I know. The funny thing is, within ten minutes of receiving that email, I received another from Tracey Wilson from The Daily Standard asking me about what happened last night. That woman’s like a bloodhound. How did she know? I mean, can she just smell when a crime’s occurred?’

  His hand began to shake. Meyer didn’t know if it was the result of sleep deprivation or guilt at what he had agreed to do, but he had to place the coffee cup on the desk before the contents sloshed over the rim.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said, getting up and walking out.

  79

  He was sitting on the steps outside his back door when he saw her. Carly was dressed in her brown school uniform. She walked through the front gate next door and along the side of the house. Her eyes were kept to the ground, as if she was afraid to meet his.
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  ‘Carly,’ he called.

  She hesitated, but finally looked up at him. He motioned for her to come closer to the fence. She didn’t reply but she did approach.

  Creed took a sip of coffee. It was still a little too hot to drink. He had arrived home in the early hours of the morning and, as always, struggled to sleep. He had spent most of the last couple of hours staring at the television screen in a zombie-like state.

  He had managed to zone out for a bit, until the actor playing Douglas Redman on the Crime and Investigation channel re-run of the Rooney case called out his name. That had jerked him awake.

  The neighbour girl appeared to be somewhere between fear and anger.

  ‘You shouldn’t have gone in the room,’ he said.

  ‘You shouldn’t be keeping such disgusting things in your house,’ she responded defiantly.

  Creed shrugged, then took another sip that burnt his lips. ‘I’m sorry for shouting at you. I …’

  She shook her head, preventing him from finishing. ‘Who was she?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That … blonde … woman … in most of the pictures.’ She grimaced as she thought. ‘The one with her …’ She couldn’t bring herself to finish her description of the scene.

  Creed paused. ‘Her name’s Megan. She … was my fiancée.’

  Her teenage eyes widened with horror. ‘I’m so sorry. I …’ She paused. ‘But why’d you have pictures like that of her in the room. It’s sick.’

  ‘Yeah, it is. That’s why I have them. You … just won’t understand.’ Another sip, less scalding.

  ‘Try me. I’m not as stupid as you think.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re stupid. I think you’re full of crap, but not stupid.’ He inhaled deeply. ‘It’s my punishment. To make sure I never forget what I did. Never forget that I wasn’t there to help her when she needed me the most.’

  Carly nodded as if she actually understood, but Creed doubted it. It barely made sense to himself. The ashy smell of the burnt pictures still lingered in the air. Grey had ripped them all down and burnt them. The residue was already cold and wet in the braai stand next to him.

  ‘Sometimes,’ she started softly, ‘sometimes, all we need to do is figure out two things: what is our fault and what isn’t. We can’t control everything, Nick. We …’ Stammering, she looked towards the road as a car pulled up. ‘Those things that aren’t our fault: we shouldn’t blame ourselves for them. And things that are, we need to make sure we don’t make the same mistake again, but we must move on.’ Her eyes fell to the floor. ‘At least, that’s what I think.’

  Creed heard a car door slam. He looked at the road and saw Reshmee Patel walking towards him. Her eyebrows furrowed at the driveway gate that lay in a twisted shape of broken metal.

  ‘My father has moved out,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

  Creed nodded.

  ‘Do you … think I can come by some time to play with the dogs?’

  ‘You can come by any time you like.’

  80

  They sat at his glass-dining room table. Reshmee Patel had her laptop open in front of her while Creed held a whisky tumbler, having switched from coffee to Johnnie Walker Black.

  ‘I need to know it all, Nick,’ she started. ‘I can’t be getting any surprises, you know. There’s a reporter who knows a lot of things – too much about you that even I don’t know. I need you to come clean.’

  He took a sip. ‘I saw your Reggie Mthembu press conference. You looked good. Almost confident.’

  She lowered her eyes to her laptop screen.

  ‘I read her previous story, this Tracey Wilson,’ he said. ‘She’s got nothing. There’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘The Major disagrees.’ She looked up. ‘Which is why I’m here. I need to know everything before she does.’

  Creed sighed. ‘If you want to do this, then come back tomorrow. When I’m sober.’

  ‘You’re sober now, aren’t you?’

  He smiled. ‘Not for long.’ He took a huge gulp from his glass, draining the alcohol until only ice cubes were left.

  Reshmee stared at him for a second, her eyes a mix of confusion and frustration. She folded her hands across the table and said, ‘That’s fine. I’ll come back tomorrow. But, before I go, can you answer just one question?’

  Creed shrugged as he poured another shot of whisky. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Why are you such an asshole?’

  The neck of the bottle clanged on his glass as it almost slipped from his grasp.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ He cocked his head. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Oh, I think you heard me.’ Her eyes bored into his. ‘All I’m trying to do is help you. All Grey is trying to do is help you, but you are being a complete and utter asshole about it. I want to know why.’

  Creed was stunned. He didn’t know where the insult had come from, or even if he was angry about it. He burst out laughing. He laughed so hard that tears began to run down his cheeks. But Patel didn’t laugh. Her face was as still as stone.

  Creed wiped the tears away with the back of his hand. ‘You do have some cojones on you, don’t you?’

  ‘Cojones?’

  ‘Spanish for balls.’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t think you need testicles to call an asshole an asshole.’

  Creed smiled. ‘So, so true.’ He took a sip. ‘I’ll tell you what: I’ll answer any and all questions you have for me if you’ll join me for a drink, and then return the favour.’

  ‘The favour?’ her eyebrows furrowed.

  ‘Answer questions I may have about you. Quid pro quo, Clarice.’

  81

  She laughed hard. ‘Is it that obvious?’

  Creed nodded. ‘It is. You look at Grey as if he was a member of New Edition.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Are you serious? The boy band.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You seriously don’t know New Edition?’ She shook her head. ‘Christ.’ Creed sat back in his sofa. ‘You make me feel old.’

  Reshmee laughed and took a sip of her whisky-and-Sprite mix, unwilling to drink the single malt neat or with water. Creed took another sip, then reached for his father’s guitar resting against the wall behind him.

  ‘Here,’ he said, and began to strum the chords to ‘Hey There, Lonely Girl’. He mumbled the words with a thick tongue, and Reshmee, seated next to him, laughed.

  ‘No clue, Nick. Or maybe I do know it, but you just sing so terribly that I don’t recognise it,’ she teased.

  Laughing, he replied, ‘That could be it.’

  ‘But honestly, Nick.’ Her speech was slurred; she’d dragged out the word ‘honestly’. ‘Is he seeing anyone? I mean, of all people, you must know something about his personal life.’

  Creed downed the contents of his glass. ‘I don’t know, hey. I think I remember him dating someone, not sure who though, some years back. But that’s it. He wasn’t very interested in girls after Hettie died. She was it, you know? And we weren’t in touch much when I was in America.’

  She finished her drink and pushed her tumbler over to Creed to pour her another. ‘How was it?’

  ‘How was what?’

  ‘America. I’ve always wanted to go.’

  Creed took a sip. ‘It was good. Big. Everything is really big. They drive big cars, they eat big food, they have big voices. Just … excessive.’

  ‘And the FBI?’

  He handed her refilled glass back to her. ‘Amazing. I mean, the Behavioral Analysis Unit is the pinnacle of what we do. It’s a bloody big deal, but it got to my head.’

  Her smile slipped from her face.

  Creed looked at the swirling amber liquid in front of him. ‘I had it all. A great job, challenge after challenge. I know you might not like the way it sounds, but the reason I liked doing this job was the challenge. The competition.’

  ‘Competition?’

  He raised his hands. ‘I know, I know. I’m supposed to say that
the reason I hunted serial killers was because I wanted to protect the innocent. Or bring closure to the families and fight evil, yada yada yada and all that other bullshit. I know that’s the answer Father Detective Luke would give. But for me, that’s a secondary reward, a positive by-product. For me, the main reason I love it,’ he took a sip, ‘loved it, past tense, was the challenge. It’s just me and him. Or her. Or them in some cases. Brain against brain. The ultimate game of hide and seek with the … greatest of risk. I lived for the hunt. And there’s nothing better to hunt than another human being. Animals are simple. Easy. You want to shoot a buck? Wait for it by a watering hole. They’ll eventually turn up. Or a lion: you just follow the herds; the lions will be nearby. Animals are simple, motivated by simple things – hunger, thirst, shelter, reproduction. But man,’ he smiled. ‘Man is the only animal that will hunt, that will kill, just for the pleasure of killing. Man is the most dangerous game. Man will deceive, manipulate and strategise. I even had a tattoo done with the Latin proverb Homo homini lupus – man is wolf to man. Have a look here …’ Unbuttoning his shirt, he turned his back and pulled the collar down past his shoulder to show her the tattoo. ‘There’s nothing that human beings won’t do to each other. Nothing … For me, hunting down these killers was the ultimate pleasure. Hunting the hunters.’ He faced her and did up his shirt. ‘You know how you define a serial killer?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Someone who murders three or more people over a period longer than a month, with a cooling-off period between murders. For someone to get away with one murder, they would have to be reasonably intelligent. To get away with two murders, they need to be intelligent and have a good seasoning of luck. But three murders? That means the unsub is either bloody smart or the luckiest bastard alive. And that’s where I’d come in. Ending their luck. Or proving that I’m smarter than they are.’ He took a huge sip. ‘Yip. That’s why I do what—’ He checked himself. ‘That was why I did what I did. Because it proved I was smarter than them. But that arrogance was my downfall, because one of them proved that he was smarter than me, and that led to Megan …’ He stopped. No, he didn’t want to talk about that. He forced a smile. ‘And you?’