7 Days

by Deon Meyer

  Griessel walked up to Kotko, bent down, pressed the barrel of the Z88 against the Russian’s cheek. ‘You are in very deep trouble, arsehole.’

  ‘You cannot do this!’ Kotko screamed, spraying saliva.

  ‘Fuck you,’ said Griessel. He rifled through the Russian’s jacket pockets, found his cellphone and took it out.

  ‘Take him,’ he said to the task team leader. ‘Quickly.’

  Bones Boshigo walked in, wide-eyed at the action. ‘The Giraffe phoned, Benny. We got the warrant.’

  The pretty young coloured woman at the Southern Sun Cullinan Hotel in the Strand area told Cupido the second room paid for on the night of the eighteenth of January had been for two of his ‘friends’. Fedor Vazov and Lev Grigoryev.

  He recognised the names. The same pair that Afrika had got off the bar brawl charge.

  ‘Thank you, sister,’ he said, with regret that he did not have more time to devote some attention to her.

  He asked for the head of security at the hotel. When the man arrived, an ex-policeman with a round beer belly, Cupido said, ‘I see you have CCTV cameras everywhere. How long do you keep the videos?’

  ‘Eight weeks,’ said the security chief.

  ‘Fucking excellent,’ said Cupido.

  The manager of Sandton’s FNB branch phoned Mbali within twenty minutes after she had requested the information.

  ‘Thank you for your prompt response,’ said Mbali.

  ‘Head office says it can save some police lives,’ said the woman. ‘All I can tell you is the Isando Friendship Trust is mostly an Internet account. There is no designated bank officer to take care of it. We have systems in place to alert us when the account gets overdrawn, or about POCA violations.’

  ‘Do you have any white, Afrikaans, middle-aged men with access to the account details?’

  ‘Yes. One or two.’

  ‘Is it possible to see if they have looked at the account since last September?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s going to take a while.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘About fifteen minutes.’

  Twenty-one minutes past one.

  Griessel sat in the back of the BMW, along with two burly task team members. They followed the speeding police van, both vehicles had their sirens on.

  ‘So how are the wedding plans coming along?’ Zondi shouted at Boshigo.

  ‘Eish, brother, I’m still negotiating with her parents.’

  ‘You getting married soon, Bones?’ asked Griessel, who hadn’t known about it.

  ‘Yes, Benny. Maybe next year.’

  ‘So, how much are you in for?’ Zondi asked.

  ‘Hundred thousand.’

  ‘Jeez.’

  ‘She’ll have a degree in December.’

  ‘Is that what your wedding is going to cost?’ Griessel asked anxiously.

  ‘No, Benny, that’s the lobola, nè,’ Bones shouted over his shoulder.

  ‘You have to pay a hundred thousand so you can marry her?’

  ‘Yebo. She’s an educated woman.’

  ‘Faux pas,’ said Griessel.

  ‘You’ve got a daughter, nè?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s what the reception will cost you. We guys all pay, one way or another.’

  Twenty-seven minutes to two.

  The Sandton police station was an ugly two-storey building of khaki brick, with steel shutters over the windows and a red zinc roof.

  They had to wait at the portcullis, then drove to the back of the inner courtyard. The uniforms jumped out, unlocked the back of the police van. They followed Griessel’s instructions, hauled Kotko out and marched him to the cell block at the rear.

  He looked at Benny, hate written across his face as he made hurried little shuffling steps in the foot shackles. ‘You are finished,’ he said, his accent pronounced. ‘Tomorrow you will have no job.’

  Griessel grinned at him and followed on behind. The cell block stank of urine, vomit and disinfectant.

  They dragged Kotko to the nearest cell, on the right, and shoved him into the single, battered plastic and steel chair that was positioned with its back to the door. Griessel and the two task team members followed. He motioned the uniforms to close the door. They slammed it shut with a loud metallic clang.

  Griessel sat down on the bare mattress on the concrete bed. The task team members stood on either side of Benny, their assault rifles aimed at Kotko.

  ‘You are in deep shit,’ said Griessel.

  ‘Fuck you,’ said Kotko, and the grimace of fury bared his pointed teeth. With his hands cuffed behind him, he sat awkwardly bent forward, just as Griessel had hoped.

  He took out Kotko’s cellphone, held it in his hands. ‘Who are you going to call now, Makar?’ he asked with as much contempt as he could muster. ‘You think you are this important person. You think if you pay people money, if you corrupt policemen and politicians, we can’t touch you. But you’re making a big mistake. Let me tell you what I’m going to do. I am going to have a press conference in exactly …’ He looked at his watch. He saw it was nineteen minutes to two. ‘… forty-five minutes. And I’m going to tell the media I have arrested you. And then I’m going to tell them who you really are. This sick fuck who tortures people with a bayonet …’

  He saw Kotko’s eyes narrow momentarily in surprise.

  ‘This cheap Russian gangster who is too disgusting to be liked by women, so he has to pay prostitutes …’

  ‘Fuck you!’ Kotko tried to leap off his chair at Griessel. The man’s arms strained against the handcuffs and his face was blood red. The task team members pressed the barrels of their weapons against his chest, forcing him back roughly.

  Griessel knew he was on the right track.

  ‘You don’t want people to know you are a loser. A pervert. I will tell the media you are a sad, middle-aged wacko who stalks women … who kept calling a woman because he hired her law firm. You know what she told her friends about you, Makar? That you are a pathetic Russian. That is what I will tell the media.’

  Kotko spat at him. The spit landed on the lapel of Griessel’s new jacket. He ignored it.

  ‘And I will tell them that’s why you killed her. Because your ego is so small that you could not take the rejection. I know what happened, Makar. You called an escort agency for a whore that night. And then you got all worked up, and decided you wanted the real thing. So you went to Hanneke Sloet’s flat and you took out your little penis, and she laughed at you, because you couldn’t get it up. Too old. Too pathetic. So you stabbed her. That’s what I will tell the media, and then we will see how many political friends you have left, you sick fucking pervert.’

  ‘I did not kill her!’ screamed Kotko, out of control.

  ‘Or was it something else, Makar? Did she blackmail you? For a bigger commission? Or cash? Did she say she’ll talk to all your political friends about your bayonet days? Or to the media? Is that why you killed her?’

  ‘I did not kill her,’ he repeated, this time slightly calmer.

  Griessel stood up, picked up the end of Kotko’s tie and wiped the spit off his jacket lapel. ‘You can tell that to the judge, you bastard.’ He walked to the door and banged on it.

  The uniforms opened it from outside. Griessel motioned to the task team members to go out. He followed them, slamming the door behind him, walked down the passage, past the rest of the task team, and the uniforms, and Bones Boshigo, who was standing near the exit, and out into the sun.

  He took out his cigarettes, lit one. Noticed a slight tremor in his fingers. Jesus, what he would give for a Jack Daniels, neat, right now.

  ‘How did it go?’ asked Bones, deeply respectful.

  ‘I think it went reasonably well.’ He drew on the cigarette. ‘Big ego. It helps.’

  ‘What now?’

  Griessel consulted his watch. A quarter to two. ‘We’ll give him five minutes. To take a good look at that cell.’

  ‘Benny, you old fox,’ said Boshigo.


  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Mbali phoned,’ said Bones. ‘She said Table View’s bad apples are all accounted for, and the Fischer private eyes look clean too. She said you must ask this guy who would have known about the payment to John Afrika. And the Isando Friendship Trust.’

  ‘OK,’ he said.

  The FNB bank manager phoned Mbali back.

  ‘Our two white Afrikaans employees did not access the account of the Isando Friendship Trust in any way over the past nine months,’ she said.

  ‘You absolutely sure?’

  ‘Yes. As a matter of fact, none of our personnel accessed the files since September. The log shows only routine system maintenance.’

  ‘OK,’ said Mbali. ‘Thank you very much.’

  She sighed long and deeply when she put the phone down. Then she positioned her small pudgy hands over the keyboard of the laptop to Google the phone number of the South African Revenue Services.

  The security chief of the Cullinan Hotel played the videos back on a computer monitor for Cupido. At twice the normal speed, as they didn’t have the time.

  The first camera showed the front lobby of the hotel on the night of the eighteenth of January. It showed how Makar Kotko and two other men came out of the lifts, walked through the lobby, and out through the door. The timeline showed 19.02.

  Cupido guessed they were his henchmen, Vazov and Grigoryev.

  He asked for the video to be fast-forwarded to 21.00. On the time code 21.26, Kotko walked back in through the front door. With Natalya and Nika on either side of him. With an arm around each of them.

  The henchmen were not with them.

  48

  Fourteen minutes to two. Griessel went back to the cell alone. Knowing that he still had one hand to play. And there was nothing in it. He was going to bluff. Big time.

  He opened the door and said, ‘You’re under arrest for the murder of Hanneke Sloet. You’re under arrest for money laundering, and for corruption. We’re going to put you away for a long time, Makar.’ Then he slammed the door shut behind him.

  ‘You have to understand, I did not kill her,’ said Kotko, his face turned towards Griessel. He had calmed down. There was pleading there now, as though he was depending on Griessel’s sense of fairness.

  Benny sat down slowly, shook his head. ‘I know you did it. We have your cellphone records. They place you at her apartment that night. They show how you stalked her in December. You wiped the door handle, Makar. But we have stuff that can get latent prints from any surface. We have forensic evidence. Hair. We will match it to your hair. And you have a history of sticking blades into people. We have a witness for that. That’s all we need to convict you.’

  ‘No prints. No hair. Impossible.’

  ‘Maybe I don’t need that.’

  ‘But I have an alibi. There were two girls. From the escort agency. You can call them now.’

  ‘You paid two junkie prostitutes to say they were with you? That’s your alibi?’

  Kotko’s face changed colour again. ‘They are not junkies. I did not fucking kill her.’

  ‘You can try your luck in court,’ said Griessel, shrugging.

  ‘Call the girls.’ And then, with difficulty, ‘Please.’

  ‘I don’t have time. The press conference is in twenty minutes.’ He stood up. ‘You will stay here for a few nights.’

  ‘You cannot do this. I have the right to call my lawyer,’ said Kotko.

  ‘No, you have the right to legal representation. Section thirty-five-one D of the Constitution. It says I can detain you for forty-eight hours before I take you to court. You can call your lawyer tomorrow. Maybe.’

  He walked towards the door. Kotko looked at him urgently. ‘Please,’ he said.

  ‘See you tomorrow.’ He opened the door, then stopped as though reconsidering.

  ‘Please,’ said Kotko again, a man who stood to lose everything.

  ‘You’re not giving me anything, Makar.’

  ‘What can I give you? Money?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘Are you trying to bribe me?’

  ‘No, no, you said I must give you …’

  ‘I was thinking about information.’

  ‘What information?’

  ‘Who knew about your payments to John Afrika?’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘The police general who got your two friends out of jail in Cape Town. You paid him twenty-five thousand rand.’

  ‘I did not pay him a cent.’

  ‘The Isando Friendship Trust did. We know all about it.’

  Kotko swore in Russian. Then he asked, ‘What do I get, if I tell you?’

  ‘I’ll postpone the press conference.’

  Kotko thought it over. ‘How long?’

  ‘Depends on what you tell me?’

  ‘I want to call a lawyer. And you must check my alibi first. Before talking to the media.’

  ‘If you tell me the truth. About the Trust.’

  Kotko bowed his head. He considered the offer, then looked up. ‘No media talk today.’ With finality.

  ‘If you tell the truth.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘So, who knew?’

  ‘Just one man.’

  When the man from SARS said his name was Gideon Cebekhulu, Mbali switched over to Zulu in relief and asked him where he was from. From there on it was easy.

  He consulted his system while she held on. She waited five minutes before he said the auditors who had submitted and verified the statements of Isando Friendship Trust were De Vos and Partners. He gave her a post box address in Edgemead.

  She said she needed a street address.

  He said there wasn’t one. But there was a cellphone and fax number.

  She wrote it down.

  ‘Freaky,’ said Makar Kotko to Griessel.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Freaky Deevoss.’

  ‘You’ll have to spell that for me.’

  ‘F.R.I.K.K.I.E. is his name. D.E. V.O.S,’ he spelled it out, slowly and carefully.

  ‘Frikkie de Vos?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘My accountant.’

  ‘Where can I find him?’

  ‘You can’t. He’s dead.’

  Mbali Googled ‘De Vos and Partners’. She found a single web page, of amateurish design, offering accounting services at Competitive prices!!!!!!!!

  She wondered why people felt they had to use more than one exclamation mark.

  She noted the same cellphone and fax number that she had obtained from the friendly man at SARS. This time she had a name. Frikkie de Vos.

  She called the cellphone number.

  ‘The number you have dialled does not exist.’

  She tried again. With the same result.

  Luck was just not on her side. She got up. Corporate Crime would have to tell her how she could track down an accountant.

  ‘You must phone the Camel urgently,’ said Bones outside, in the blinding Sandton sunlight.

  Griessel phoned at one minute past two.

  Brigadier Manie’s voice was urgent. ‘Vaughn Cupido says it looks like Kotko didn’t do it. The hotel video shows he was in his room with two escorts the whole night.’

  ‘Jissis,’ said Griessel. After all that trouble. And he had been so bloody certain.

  ‘I know. But it doesn’t mean he’s completely innocent. Remember the two henchmen that John Afrika got off the assault charges at Table View?’

  ‘Yes, Brigadier.’

  ‘Vaughn says it could have been them. Fedor Vazov and Lev Grigoryev. They were in the same hotel as Kotko, and went out in the early evening with him, but only came back after twelve. Table View still had their address details on hand. The two are up there, not far from where you are. The task team has gone to get them. You’ll have to tackle them too, Benny.’

  ‘Right, Brigadier.’ He hoped Manie wouldn’t hear his faked enthusiasm.

  ‘I’m sorry, Benny.’

 
‘Brigadier, Kotko says there’s only one man who knew about the payments from the Isando Trust. An accountant by the name of Frikkie de Vos. Trouble is de Vos blew his brains out with a shotgun on the fifteenth of January. Apparently he was a heavy gambler, and lost just about everything that Saturday night. Can we check the records to see if he’s telling the truth?’

  ‘I’ll tell Mbali straight away.’

  ‘What are we going to do about the media, Brigadier?’

  ‘Benny, I wish I could tell you. I don’t see any light yet. But we still have about forty minutes. Let’s see where we stand then.’

  Griessel went and had a smoke in the corner of the police station yard, on his own. So that the bottled-up cursing could be released. ‘F-f-f-f-u-u-u-ck,’ he said, the fricative stretched out and filled with emotion. Then he said it again and again, staccato swearing bubbling out with all his frustration.

  His rage at the shooter was renewed, and fierce.

  If Kotko had an alibi, if it wasn’t him, why had the shooter sent the photo? Why was he messing with them? Why was he pushing them around?

  For the fun of it. To see the police run around in circles, like headless chickens – what sort of sick bastard would do that? All the trouble to fly up here, all the suspense, all the rules broken to interrogate the Russian, all the risks taken by Manie and Nyathi and the Gauteng Hawks, and all for nothing?

  Jissis, what sort of world was this?

  And the craving for the bottle stirred in him. His defence mechanism for over a decade. When nothing made sense, drink. It didn’t help to understand, but at least it made you feel less bad about all the shit.

  He angrily flicked the cigarette butt through the high wire fence, and watched it land in a small explosion of sparks on the tarred road.

  Then he turned and walked back to Bones.

  The head of the Hawks’ Corporate Crimes group put the financial statements of the ZIC consultants company in front of Brigadier Manie and said, ‘He’s a money launderer. There’s no doubt about it. The procedure is the same every time: he buys shares in a South African mining company with dirty money, and channels the returns and dividends back to Arseny Egorov.’