by Deon Meyer
‘Yes.’
‘And yet you never thought of telling us? Because you’re still working on the Kotko contract, and that’s fifteen million in your pockets, and you would rather let a murderer walk free than lose one fucking cent. You disgust me, you know that? Was Kotko in the Cape the day of Sloet’s death? The eighteenth of January?’
Pruis’s lips grew thin. He looked away.
Cupido knew what the answer would be.
44
Cupido closed the door of the small office behind him and phoned Griessel.
‘Where you, Benna?’
‘On the N1. I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
‘Kotko was in the Cape on the eighteenth, the day she died. He had a meeting with Silbersteins and Sloet, just before lunch. Cause they had to discuss his contract. But he had the hots for her, big time.’
‘Jissis,’ said Griessel.
‘He’s our man, Benna.’
‘But what was his motive?’
‘Again, I think it’s rejection, Benna. She wouldn’t njaps him.’
‘What about the weapon that he put down on the floor? What did he want to take from her? Yesterday you asked, what did she have?’
‘Maybe he just wanted to check if she was dead …’
‘We’re going to need more than that in the circumstances.’
‘True. OK. Leave it to Beaver. Pop in when you get here.’
Cupido put the phone away and opened the door again. Pruis was standing with his cellphone, busy typing an SMS.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m letting my colleagues know where I am.’
‘If I catch you letting slip one fucking word about this investigation, I’ll fucking lock you up.’
‘Do you want to read it?’ He held the phone up so Cupido could see.
At the Hawks. Cancel everything for today.
‘OK.’
Pruis sent the SMS.
Cupido said, ‘Why did he kill her?’
‘Why do you think it was him?’
‘Because a lot of things fit. What did she have on him?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You said you found out he was organised crime. Did you, like, use it as leverage? A bigger slice of the pie?’
‘No. We don’t do that.’
‘Ja, sure.’
‘We don’t do that.’
‘So why did he kill her?’
‘I don’t know.’ But Cupido wasn’t convinced.
‘I’m telling you, I’m going to get a court order for that due diligence, and if I find something there that you haven’t shared, I swear, we’ll prosecute you for obstruction, I’ll fucking destroy you.’
Pruis sat down, but the eyes flicked between table and wall. He said nothing.
Cupido took out his phone. ‘OK. If that’s the way you want to play it.’
He phoned.
‘Wait,’ said Pruis.
‘What?’
‘The due diligence didn’t reveal much.’
‘But?’
‘We were … wary. So we asked Hanneke to investigate further.’
‘And?’
‘She hired a private company to look into Kotko, in January … Jack Fischer and Associates.’
‘Those pricks? And then?’
‘They found out he was KGB.’
‘Kotko?’
‘Yes.’
‘Like in Russian Secret Service? That KGB?’
‘Yes. He was head of the KGB’s Africa bureau. In the eighties. Before the Wall came down.’
‘Jissis.’
‘That’s how he got to know so many of our government people. And then he became Arseny Egorov’s security. In the nineties.’
‘His enforcer.’
‘Something like that.’
‘And that’s it?’
‘No.’
‘So talk to me.’
‘Apparently he liked to torture people. Back then.’
‘Torture?’
‘That’s right. When he interrogated them.’
‘How?’
‘With a bayonet. In the anus.’
In Brigadier Manie’s office Cupido brought them up to date with the latest information.
For the first time since the investigation had begun, Griessel felt the old stirring, his instinct kicking in. This was the one.
‘The lawyer said Sloet knew about the KGB background,’ said Cupido. ‘He said Sloet did the investigation, she got the report from Jack Fischer and Associates. But he couldn’t see why Sloet would want to blackmail Kotko with this. She was the kingpin of the whole contract, Kotko gave his business to Silbersteins because he fancied her so much.’
‘In any case that is all circumstantial evidence,’ said Manie. ‘There is nothing that can be used in court.’
‘Jack Fischer and Associates must have got the information about the bayonet from a source, Brigadier,’ said Griessel. ‘We will have to find out who that was.’
‘Jack Fischer is not a friend of the SAPS any more,’ said Manie dubiously.
‘There are other ways too,’ said Griessel. ‘If Kotko likes blades, somewhere in Johannesburg there will be someone who knows. He will have a pattern.’
‘You will have to put him through the grinder, Benny,’ said Nyathi.
‘Yes, sir.’
Manie was still sceptical. ‘He was KGB. He won’t be scared of questioning. And he has connections. We will have to place him at the murder scene. Forensically.’
They all knew they had nothing at the moment that would do that.
‘Do we have enough for a search warrant?’ Nyathi asked. ‘For his house and his office?’
‘Not yet,’ said Manie. ‘Let’s see what happens in the next few hours. Which brings us to the shooter. Werner, how many people do you have available?’
‘Half of the team is at Table View, Brigadier,’ said du Preez.
‘I have a feeling …’ said Manie. ‘There are a bunch of old detectives at Jack Fischer and Associates. Perhaps with a grudge against the SAPS. They investigated Kotko, they could have come across proof of the payment to John Afrika. Get a personnel list for Fischer’s and give it to IMC, let them cross reference to triple-two rifle owners, Kia vans. Anything.’
‘I want IMC to look at Fischer’s Internet records. It would have logged if someone used an anonimail account. And I will go talk to Jack Fischer, after I’ve questioned Pruis,’ said Mbali, the light of battle in her eyes.
‘I think we should send Oom Skip Scheepers,’ said Manie. ‘Why, sir?’ she asked indignantly.
‘Because Jack Fischer is ex-SAPS. And he was Jack Fischer’s commanding officer, years ago. We will have to use honey, Mbali. We’re working against the clock, we don’t have time for vinegar.’
She nodded, but she wasn’t happy.
‘Brigadier, I want to book Pruis. For obstruction,’ said Cupido.
‘Give him more rope,’ said Manie. ‘It’s better to use it as leverage. For now.’
‘We have to go, Brigadier,’ said Griessel. ‘Our flight is at ten o’clock.’
Manie nodded. ‘I’ll talk to the manne up there in the meantime, Benny, to get the timing of this thing right. It’s going to take some fancy footwork. Hopefully we will have something on the table when you get there. But good luck. And good hunting.’
Mbali and du Preez asked Hannes Pruis to accompany them to the CATS interrogation room. It was cold as they walked down the corridors, but Pruis took his jacket off. There were sweat stains under his arms and down his back.
They sat down. Pruis asked for water. Mbali fetched a carafe and a glass. Pruis drank deeply, wiped the sweat from his brow and said he realised it looked as if he had been protecting Kotko. But he wanted to make it clear that before this morning, and Captain Griessel’s phone call, he hadn’t made the connection between Kotko and communism. It was twenty years since the end of communism in Russia. Twenty years. If they had asked him about a Russian it would have been a d
ifferent matter … And he had never, but never, connected Kotko to Hanneke Sloet’s murder. There was just no way, no motive, that made sense to him …
‘But you knew about the bayonet?’ Mbali asked in total disbelief.
‘But Hanneke was never tortured … I swear, it never crossed my mind.’
‘Hayi,’ said Mbali, her disgust at the man obvious.
Du Preez pointed at the video camera beside the table. ‘We are going to record the interview, Mr Pruis.’
The lawyer nodded.
Du Preez switched on the camera, and nodded at Mbali.
She asked, ‘Did you know about Makar Kotko’s ties to senior members of the South African Police Services?’
Pruis’s eyes widened slightly. ‘No.’
‘Are you absolutely sure?’
‘Yes. We knew he was connected to people in government. And the Youth League.’
‘But no SAPS people?’
‘No.’
‘You had Sloet contract Jack Fischer and Associates to investigate Kotko?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have the Fischer report?’
‘Yes. In my office.’
‘Will you make it available to us?’
He hesitated for only a moment. ‘Yes.’
‘And there is nothing in the report about a SAPS member?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Did you do any other research, or have any other research done on Kotko?’
‘We did due diligence on ZIC. His company.’
‘And you found nothing about any SAPS members?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know about the trust Kotko controls?’
‘What trust?’
‘The Isando Friendship Trust.’
Pruis shook his head. ‘I’ve never heard of it.’
‘Are you absolutely sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who knew about Kotko’s interest in Sloet?’
‘How would I know how many people she told?’
‘Who at your law firm knew about it?’
‘The romantic interest?’
‘Yes.’
‘Just me. It’s not the sort of thing Hanneke or I wanted to advertise.’
‘On the eighteenth of January you and Sloet had a meeting with Kotko at your offices?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you indicate to Kotko in any way that you knew about his KGB background?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘And his history with bayonets?’
‘No.’
‘Was there any way Kotko could have known about the Fischer investigation?’
‘We pay them to be discreet.’
‘Could he have known?’
‘I don’t really think so.’
‘But it’s not impossible?’
‘Nothing is impossible. It’s just very unlikely.’
‘Mr Pruis,’ said du Preez, ‘if another member of the SAPS is shot today, and we find any evidence that you have not told us the whole truth, I will make it my personal number-one priority to criminally prosecute you. In any way I can think of. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is there anything else you would like to say to us?’
‘I’m sorry. But I’m telling you, there is nothing else.’
Mbali stood up. ‘We’d better share all of this with Benny,’ she said.
45
After take-off, Bones looked at Griessel’s hands, clamped tightly to the armrests. ‘You OK, Benny?’
‘I don’t like flying.’
‘It’s safer than driving, nè.’
‘They fall, Bones. Every now and then.’
Boshigo laughed.
Later, as they enjoyed the light meal with the gusto of detectives who’d had no time for breakfast, he said, ‘You know I’m just window dressing on this trip? The black face to appease the gods …’
Griessel’s mouth was full of food. He could only shrug.
‘So, what do you say about all this stuff, Benny? The politics, the intimations of corruption …’
He finished chewing before answering, ‘What can you say, Bones? That’s how it is. And it’s not new. When I was with Murder and Robbery, in the old days … The things we had to do. For politics. Cover-ups. Look the other way. Those days you never saw any of it in the papers. They got away with a lot more.’
‘Nothing changes,’ said Boshigo thoughtfully.
When the air hostess had removed their empty plates and plastic cutlery, Bones said, ‘Last night, when you phoned, I was watching a movie. In the Shadow of the Moon, a documentary about the astronauts who went up there. And at the end of the movie one of the astronauts, when they were in the shadow of the moon, he looked at the earth and he said, it’s so small and fragile. But everyone he knew was there, nè. And after they came back down, they went on this world tour, and in every land the people said to them, “We did it.” Not, “You Americans did it.” No. “We did it.” I got all emotional, nè. I grew up in Fort Beaufort. When I was this tall, my father took me outside one night, he showed me the moon. He said Benedict, people have walked on that. Why? Because they dreamed, nè. He said, you must go into this world, ukuphupha, with a dream. And you must follow that dream, until you catch it. This morning when I heard about all the shenanigans, I thought, what is happening to us? Madiba had this dream, Benny. The Big Ukuphupha for South Africa. But we are losing that dream now. I sat there last night, missing my father, nè, he died in two thousand and five, and I thought, why can’t we be “we” again? In this country. In the whole world. Because we are all on this one small planet.’
‘According to Kotko’s credit card, on the night of the eighteenth of January he paid for two rooms at the Southern Sun Cullinan Hotel in the Strand area,’ said Captain Philip van Wyk.
‘Two?’ asked Manie.
‘That’s right, Brigadier. We’re waiting to hear from the hotel who signed in. But there were two more payments on the card. One was for dinner, an amount of 1,232.45 rand at the Buena Vista Social Café in the Waterfront. The other one was for 3,000 rand to Midnite Moves.’
‘The escort agency?’ Cupido asked.
‘Yes,’ said van Wyk. ‘His cellphone records show that he phoned Midnite Moves at 18.32 and 18.51. I thought you would want to know that.’
‘Thanks, Philip,’ said Manie.
‘Sounds like a man setting up an alibi,’ said Cupido.
‘Exactly,’ said Brigadier Manie. ‘You’ll have to go and find out, Vaughn.’
Griessel stared out at the expanse of the Karoo shifting past below them, and he wondered why he never thought about such things? Dreams for a country. And a planet that was one. Deep stuff.
Like Alexa and her ‘people’s dramatic images and conduits’. Trouble was, if he wasn’t scurrying around with case files, he was thinking of his bank balance and his drinking problem and his divorce, about Carla’s boyfriend and Fritz’s tattoo. And how not to make a fool of himself. If he dreamed, it was about sex. With Alexa.
How did you get your head past all that and start worrying about the planet?
Mbali was on the point of walking out of the women’s toilet on the second floor of the DPCI building when two Hawks detectives walked past.
‘Now you know why Afrika got her to be JOC on the shooter,’ she heard one say.
‘Because of Amsterdam?’ asked the other.
‘That’s right.’
It burned through her.
In her office her phone rang. She answered. It was a member of the Hawks’ Crime Against the State group (CATS) saying there were no suspects who had worked in Table View station in September and had since been discharged. And the station commander assured them that he had not discussed General Afrika’s phone call, about releasing the two Russian citizens, with a single soul.
She did what she always did when she was upset. She got up from behind her painfully neat desk, picked up her big black handbag and slung it over he
r shoulder. She closed the office door behind her, walked to the lift, and took it down to the ground floor. She walked out of the front door, up Market Street, to Voortrekker. At the traffic lights she waited until she could cross, and then turned left, past the entrance to Home Affairs, where passport photo salesmen and hawkers of pens and ID-book covers hustled. Past the Tote. Today she didn’t look with repugnance at the good-for-nothings hanging about there. Past K’s Hair Design and into Catch of the Day.
The little grey-haired woman greeted her. ‘The usual?’ she asked Mbali.
‘Yes, please.’
She watched the woman scoop up the chips with a little steel shovel and slide them into the white paper bag until it was full, the salt and vinegar sprinkled over, the whole package wrapped up in a sheet of brown paper. She put it down beside the cash register.
‘You should eet feesh.’
‘Maybe next time.’
‘One medium chips. One Coke. Twenty-six seventy-five.’
Mbali had the cash ready. She handed it over, took the chips and can of cold drink and put them carefully in her handbag. So her colleagues would not see them.
‘Thank you.’
‘See you tomorrow. Catch the bad people.’
‘Bye.’ She walked out. Only then, with her source of comfort safely in her handbag, did she think about the worry and the tension.
That was what everyone thought: John Afrika had requested that she lead the case because he thought he could manipulate her.
It was a triple blow. She wasn’t making any progress. The allocation of the case hadn’t been on merit. And Afrika had believed he could control her with his knowledge of the Amsterdam fiasco – the biggest, most horrible humiliation of her life. Which had only happened because she hadn’t wanted to let her country down.
Her discomfort and the suspicions of Sunday were now confirmed.
What was she going to do?
Back in her office she shut the door, sat down, took out the Coke and chips and put them on the desk.
She unwrapped the paper. The aroma was strong.
She pulled the first chip out with her fingers, and put it in her mouth.
She would show John Afrika. And all the others, like Vaughn Cupido and his hangers-on, the ones who gossiped and sniggered and made insinuations about her fastidiousness, her figure, her sexual orientation. Musad Manie, who did not want to send her ‘vinegar’ to Jack Fischer. She would show them, she would catch this shooter. On her own. In her own slow, thorough, by-the-book way, which she knew irritated her colleagues immensely.