7 Days

by Deon Meyer

  ‘There were white people in Umkhonto,’ said Griessel.

  ‘Where do we begin, Captain? It could be anyone.’

  He thought about it. Could it be a banker or a businessman in this suit? Maybe Boshigo knew him. ‘Let’s email the photo to Bones.’

  ‘I can MMS it,’ said Fick, sat down and tapped at the mouse and keyboard.

  ‘I’ll phone him now,’ said Griessel, and called Boshigo’s number.

  ‘The man who never sleeps,’ said Bones when he answered, the sound of a television programme in the background.

  ‘Sorry, Bones …’

  ‘Don’t worry, Benny. What can I do?’

  Griessel explained about the photo.

  ‘He’s playing games, nè,’ said Bones. ‘Wait, it’s coming through now …’ After a few seconds: ‘Sorry, Benny, I don’t know him.’

  ‘Thanks, Bones. I just wanted to be sure.’

  ‘Looks like a conman from the fifties,’ said Bones. ‘Or a loan shark …’

  40

  He looked closely at the photo again. Bones was right. There was something reminiscent of a bygone era. Was it the hairstyle?

  It had been sent to him and John Afrika. Maybe the general knew who it was. He called Afrika’s number. It went straight to voicemail. He didn’t leave a message, he would try again tomorrow. Then he called Nyathi and Manie, to inform them of the latest developments.

  When he had finished, he asked Fanie Fick, ‘Will you let me know if anything else comes in?’

  ‘I will. Oh, and that name you gave me: I found three possible Calla Etzebeths on the NPR …’

  ‘Oh. Yes … the one I am looking at is around twenty,’ said Griessel.

  ‘OK. That would be Carel Ignatius Etzebeth. And he’s clean. No record.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said Griessel, and he had to hide his relief.

  ‘His cellphone number has been RICAed. Do you want me to plot it?’

  That was the only way he could find out how seriously involved Carla was with the Neanderthal. But it would be misuse of the Hawks’ time and manpower. ‘You are busy, it’s probably not worth the effort,’ he said.

  ‘It’s no trouble, Captain. I have to wait for the other data to be processed anyway.’

  In the basement, beside the BMW, he checked his watch. It was half past eleven. He phoned Alexa to tell her he was on his way.

  ‘Hello, Benny …’ Ella answered in a whisper.

  ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘Yes, Alexa is fine. But she’s fallen asleep. Don’t worry about it, she was quite tired after the day’s shopping and all. I don’t think we should wake her.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it was …’

  ‘It’s OK. We watched the news, we know you’re having a hard time. Just between you and me, she bought this very sexy dress, and then we prepared a dinner for you, with candles and everything. And Alexa really can’t cook – the duck is so tough, you can barely chew it. But she wanted to do that for you, to say thank you. I think she hoped tonight … you know …’ A conspiratorial suggestion in her voice.

  He didn’t know. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Use your imagination, Benny. Anyway, I am going to sleep here at her place tonight, we’ll talk again tomorrow … Good luck, Benny.’

  ‘I’m …’ he said, but the line was already dead.

  He stood there and said, very quietly and with extreme frustration: ‘Faux pas.’

  He lay on his back in the darkness, the sheets and blankets kicked off in the heat. He knew he was going to battle to sleep, even though he was back in his flat, even though the sounds were familiar and soothing – his pawnshop fridge downstairs, the TV of the woman next door, and the hum of traffic in Annandale Street. Now that the crazy day was over, his rage at the shooter overwhelmed him, slowly, like a tide coming in.

  It was only during the reading of the last email, in the company of his colleagues in front of the screen, that he really began to hate the fucker. The cunt who phoned him, who sat on the other end of the line and lied to him while he struggled and fought and scrambled and ran from one false hope to the next. Not just him. Mbali Kaleni had looked lost tonight, dead tired and despairing, because nothing was working out. And Musad Manie’s voice when he spoke to the general in Pretoria … There was a hopelessness there for the first time, as though he knew they were worn out. And this thing had scarcely begun.

  And then he sent that meaningless, self-glorifying, apologetic email giving the SAPS ‘grace’. Like a fucking lord.

  What kind of person was that?

  What kind of person phoned the police to stop a robbery, and then shot one of them dead? It was the lowest form of cowardice.

  If he truly believed the SAPS were protecting someone, why didn’t he tell the press? Why didn’t he reveal his information and suspicions and accusations to the media? He must know they would descend on it like vultures and try to rip up the carcass of the SAPS.

  Jissis.

  He knew it wasn’t just the shooter, it was the whole Sloet case. The frustration, the pressure, trying everything, getting nowhere. Running in circles, powerless. He hated this kind of case where there was just nothing – working like a blind man in the dark.

  And then the shooter came and made everything even more difficult. The screaming injustice of it all seared through him, stoking his hatred.

  If it was up to him, he would ignore the advice of the forensic psychologist and he would write back to that little shit. ‘You coward, you play your games, you lie, you hide behind anonymous emails and mystery photos, you sneak around in a fucking Kia and shoot policemen who are trying to do their thankless jobs. Because you have some hangup about communists and Hanneke Sloet’s death. You think you are this moerse hero, but you don’t have the guts to stand in front of us and say this is who I think murdered Sloet. Why not? Because you are a sick fuck and you think you are the Messiah, because you know the fucking media is loving every minute of it. Let me tell you, you are nothing. You’re a lame duck, spineless, you’re complete and utter shit and I’m going to put you away so deep and for so long, among people who will fuck you up so bad that you will wish you’d taken your fucking little triple-two moffie gun and blown your brains out all over your little wig.’

  So strong was the feeling of rage that he wanted to get up and get out the old laptop that he’d bought on a police auction a while back, and pound away on the keyboard until he’d sent the email off, and he wondered suddenly, where did it come from, all this fury?

  But he knew.

  He sighed, shifted the pillow, turned on his side. It came from yesterday evening. When he had sat and told Alexa about his day.

  The first time in his life. He had never done that when he was married to Anna. He had wanted to keep the death and killing away from her and the children, had wanted one place that was normal and unspoiled.

  And last night, he realised – fleetingly and reluctantly – it was a kind of relief, the offloading of experiences and frustrations. A sort of release, to tell someone. For the first time he truly understood what Doc Barkhuizen meant by ‘don’t internalise your work’.

  And the idea that had come to burden him, in that moment during his conversation with Alexa, was how different his life could have been if he hadn’t been so blindly stupid. He had avoided it the whole day, but now he had to admit it: Anna would have listened. Anna would have sympathised, Anna would have understood if he came home at night and told her everything: death, and how scared it made him. The blood and the smell and the lifeless, helpless bodies of children and women and old people, and the knowledge that that was what people could do to people. The pressure. The tension about everything – not enough money, the long hours, the expectations of the next of kin of the victims, and bosses. And the derision of the public and the press.

  If he had shared all that with Anna, ten to one he would never have started drinking, and ten to one Anna would not have left him, and he would be sleeping curled aroun
d her back in their marriage bed tonight, without the frustration and hatred that he was feeling.

  And he’d thought he was over the whole divorce thing.

  Life was never simple. It didn’t help at all to reason like that. Especially not today, because he had had enough.

  Today, in Manie’s office, after the conference call with Ilse Brody, the psychologist, Cloete had read them some things off the Internet. People reacting to the shooter news reports, tweeting and Facebooking, and they all sat there feeling the crying injustice of it all, because there was only scorn for them.

  And he, Griessel, had sat and thought, that is how it was going to be with the Hawks: big cases, big publicity, big pressure. And fuck-all appreciation. The SAPS could do what they liked, they could solve one case after the other, they could force the crime statistics down slowly but surely, but, in his lifetime they were never going to get either thanks or respect.

  And he had no option, he had to put up with it. Because that was all he was. A policeman. He couldn’t do anything else. And he didn’t want to. But fuck knows, if you looked ahead and only saw trouble, then you wondered, was it all worth it?

  And he had thought maybe he could talk to Alexa about it tonight. Maybe it would help to get some of the stuff out of his head.

  Alexa, who had bought a sexy dress and cooked him dinner and lit candles.

  And then fallen asleep, because the shooter had fucked up his whole evening.

  I think she hoped tonight … you know …

  If Ella meant what he thought she meant …

  Jissis. It was nearly a year since he had had a bit, two weeks ago he had woken up on this very bed from a dream where he and Alexa were lying naked, his hands everywhere on her, and everything felt just right.

  Tonight that dream might have become reality. If it wasn’t for the shooter.

  The bastard.

  DAY 5

  Wednesday

  41

  The first turning point came at half past five in the morning, when they phoned Griessel.

  He woke up suddenly from a deep sleep, fumbled and fumbled again for the cellphone on his bedside cupboard, knocked it to the floor. He eventually got hold of it, kneeling on all fours on the carpet. ‘Hello?’ His mouth was dry and his voice hoarse.

  ‘Benny, I’m so sorry to wake—’ said van Wyk of IMC.

  Griessel straightened up, sat down on the bed. ‘Have you found something?’

  ‘The guy in the photo. He’s a Russian. And he knew Sloet.’

  ‘A Russian.’ Henry van Eeden had been right. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Makar Kotko. As in “MK”.’

  ‘Makar Kotko,’ he savoured the foreign name. ‘Where does he fit in?’

  ‘Benny, the brigadier and Nyathi are on their way too. The situation is a bit sensitive. I don’t want to say too much over the phone …’

  He wasn’t in the mood for ‘sensitive’. Not at this time of the morning. He suppressed a sigh and said: ‘I’m on my way.’

  ‘Uyesu,’ said Nyathi.

  They stared at the photograph in disbelief, printed out on plain A4 paper. The resolution was not very good. Makar Kotko, just as he appeared in the shooter’s photo, but now in the wider context of three other people. Kotko was in the middle, shaking the hand of the man beside him. Two others, on either end, looking on smiling.

  Manie just wiped his hand over his brow.

  ‘That’s why I called you so early,’ said van Wyk.

  ‘It was the right thing,’ said Manie. He looked old, the lines on his face cut deep this morning.

  ‘That’s the Youth League ou?’ Griessel asked, and pointed at the man shaking hands with Kotko, because he wasn’t entirely sure.

  ‘That’s right,’ said van Wyk.

  ‘Edwin Baloyi,’ said Manie reproachfully.

  ‘Secretary General of the ANC Youth League,’ said Nyathi dumbfounded. ‘The motor-mouth …’

  ‘So who is Kotko?’ Manie asked, and then held up his hand. ‘No, first explain to me how you got hold of this photo.’

  Griessel knew what he meant. It was preparation, so that Manie had an answer ready for his superiors when the circus began.

  ‘Last night we put Sloet’s cellphone records from last year into the system,’ said van Wyk. ‘We began with December, and worked backwards from there, because we reckoned that the months closer to her death were more important. And so they were. In December there were sixteen numbers that did not fit with those we had on record of her family, colleagues, her friends, or her work responsibilities. So we went through them, and compared them to her bank statements and credit card account to clarify matters. Fifteen of them made sense. Estate agents, transfer attorneys, her bank manager, the removals company, the municipal offices, et cetera. But one number, a cellphone, didn’t fit in anywhere. Someone who phoned her, on Saturday the eighteenth of December, Monday the twentieth of December, and Wednesday the twenty-second. Benny told us to look specifically at the twenty-second, possibly some Russian person phoning her. This ou phoned her three times on the twenty-second. At a quarter to six in the afternoon, the conversation lasted seventeen seconds. Then he phoned again at eight thirty, she did not answer and he left a voice message, and the last one was at ten forty-one, again unanswered, again to voicemail. And when we saw the name, we began to wonder, because it did sound Russian and the initials were MK. And when we Googled him, we came across this photo.’ Van Wyk pointed at the printout lying in front of them. ‘It’s the same one that the shooter sent, except that he cropped it to show only Kotko.’

  ‘Who is he?’ Manie asked.

  ‘Brigadier, we only began researching him just after five this morning, so we haven’t got much. His full name is Makar Vladovich Kotko. He is a Russian citizen, and a director of ZIC. Zoloto Investment Corporation. It is a South African company – they have very little information on their website, they seem to be consultants. But ZIC is a full affiliate of MZ. That stands for Magadan Zoloto, or Magadan Gold, a Russian mining company.’

  ‘What is he doing in this photo with Baloyi?’ Manie asked in a tone of voice that sounded as though he didn’t really want to know the answer.

  ‘The photo appeared in August last year in Hlomelang, the official Internet newsletter of the Youth League. Kotko visited their offices to make a donation. On behalf of ZIC. Five hundred thousand rand.’

  ‘Uyesu,’ said Nyathi again.

  ‘That’s not all, Brigadier,’ said van Wyk. He put another printout down between them – a news report. The headline read Russian interest in SA mining? ‘This is from Mining Weekly of November last year. Apparently Kotko’s ZIC is looking into investing in some of our mining companies. And Gariep Minerals is one of them.’

  Manie looked at Griessel. ‘Gariep is part of the whole BEE set-up?’

  ‘He could have met Sloet through that, Brigadier.’

  Brigadier Manie read the news report, then looked at the photo again, for a long time, and poker-faced. ‘How do we know the shooter isn’t messing around with us again?’ he asked at last.

  ‘We don’t know. But it looks like Kotko is around fifty years old. He is definitely out of the Russian communist era,’ said van Wyk.

  ‘And he knew Sloet well enough to have her cellphone number,’ said Griessel. ‘She wasn’t the sort of woman who would just hand it out.’

  ‘Is Kotko in the Cape?’

  ‘ZIC’s offices are in Sandton. According to their website. We have requested Kotko’s cellphone records. We will have to see if he was in the Cape at the time of Sloet’s death.’

  ‘What worries me,’ said Nyathi, ‘is why the shooter says the SAPS is protecting Kotko. And then sends us a photo cropped from a Youth League meeting.’

  Manie sighed. ‘It’s a minefield, and we will have to tread extremely carefully. Benny, get hold of Bones. He’ll have to come and help.’

  ‘We will have to tell Mbali as well, Brigadier. Because somewhere between the Russian and Sloet,
is the shooter.’

  The second turning point came at half past six, when van Wyk walked into Griessel’s office. His eyes were red from lack of sleep. He put a few sheets of paper on the desk and said, ‘Kotko may have connections with the Russian Mafia.’

  ‘Faux pas,’ said Griessel and scribbled frantic notes in his book.

  ‘It’s in here,’ said van Wyk, and tapped the printouts. ‘Magadan Gold belongs to Arseny Egorov. Egorov is what they call an oligarch, a billionaire who made his money after the fall of communism. No one really knows how he got his start, but later he bought a media company, and then mining and oil. Last year he left Russia, as Putin’s people were investigating him for “irregularities”. He lives in England now, but there are quite a few stories in the Wall Street Journal and Fortune about his connections with the Solntsevo Brotherhood. And that is organised crime. Dangerous okes …’

  Griessel said, ‘We must take it to Oom Skip.’ ‘Uncle’ or rather, Colonel Skip Scheepers of the Hawks’ Organised Crime Group was past his retirement age, but the DPCI had asked him to stay on because of his encyclopaedic knowledge of international gangs.

  ‘I’ve phoned Oom Skip already. He and Bones are going to look at all this.’

  The third turning point was eleven minutes later.

  Colonel Zola Nyathi, with a severe expression and a curt, ‘Please come with me’, fetched Griessel and walked to Brigadier Manie’s office.

  When they walked in, General Afrika looked up from where he was sitting. Griessel could see the aversion and disappointment, as though Afrika did not want him there. The first thought that came to mind, considering Nyathi and Afrika’s attitudes, was that they had found out that he had misused the IMC system to spy on the Neanderthal. His heart sank.

  ‘Benny,’ Afrika greeted him dourly.

  Nyathi closed the door behind them. Brigadier Manie said: ‘Take a seat.’

  Griessel greeted them, and tried to think up some excuses. He and Nyathi took their seats, on either side of Afrika.

  ‘General, please repeat what you told me and Colonel Nyathi,’ said Manie.