by Deon Meyer
What was the matter with him?
It was the weariness. The frustration.
He needed to rest. He had to think. He wanted to close his flat door behind him and pick up his bass guitar and just sit there, his brain in neutral, his fingers strolling along the neck, the notes vibrating in his belly. He wanted to go to sleep in the knowledge that tomorrow would be a relaxing day. He wanted lie down beside Alexa Barnard on her bed, behind her back, slip his hand around to her soft breast.
He opened his eyes, not liking the direction his thoughts were taking him. He sighed, glanced at Bones beside him, staring into space.
‘Let’s take it from the beginning,’ said Griessel.
‘Sure,’ said Boshigo, but without enthusiasm.
Methodically, Griessel laid everything out for him: by coincidence Makar Kotko was at a reception in December with the people of Gariep Minerals, when he noticed Hanneke Sloet. His lust for the sensual Sloet was immediately obvious. His strategy was to offer Silberstein Lamarque the opportunity to draw up the Gariep share contract, in the belief and hope that it would persuade Sloet to have sex with him.
Kotko kept on phoning Sloet and inviting her to dinner, but she constantly said no. Perhaps because Silbersteins quickly learned that Kotko might be organised crime. Or maybe just because she genuinely didn’t have time between the move to Cape Town and a visit to her parents over Christmas. But most likely because she wasn’t sexually interested in Kotko at all.
After the twenty-second of December, Kotko stopped phoning her.
Why?
Sloet moved into the new flat, and early in January she was ordered to investigate Kotko thoroughly. The report from Jack Fischer and Associates revealed his KGB history, and the fact that he liked to torture people with a bayonet. In spite of this, Silbersteins continued to do contract work for ZIC.
That gave Kotko two possible motives to murder her – both flimsy: he was a sick bastard, and didn’t like being rejected. Or Sloet let him know somehow that she had information about his past and would make it known. Or use it to her professional or financial advantage. Perhaps she had a document, that evening, or a memory stick, of the sort Fritz used to store music. And that was why Kotko sent someone. Someone who put a sharp weapon down on the floor to take the document out of her hand.
On the morning of the eighteenth of January Kotko and Sloet met at a Silbersteins conference. That night Kotko and his hangers-on were sleeping only four blocks away from Sloet’s apartment. Kotko hired two sex workers and spent the night with them, and his henchmen were at a strip joint till after twelve. Well established alibis.
But nothing prevented him from hiring a fourth person to murder Sloet. It was unlikely, because she would hardly have opened the door for a stranger. But Kotko might have known enough about her by then to get someone she knew. The alternative was that she was on her way out at ten o’clock that night. The attacker could have waited by the door, and surprised her when she opened it. But she wasn’t wearing underwear, and in general was not dressed to go out. So, also unlikely.
‘What am I missing?’ he asked after Bones had listened attentively to everything.
‘Beats me, Benny. When I was studying in the States, they always said: You must cover all the bases. Baseball term. Well, you’ve covered all the bases.’ After a moment of thought he said, ‘Do you remember what the Lamborghini man said?’
‘Henry van Eeden?’
‘ Yebo. He said Sloet had her priorities straight, nè. The report from Fischer and Associates must also have informed her that Kotko was very well connected politically. In the BEE world you just don’t fuck with a guy like that.’
‘That’s true.’
‘And the rejection theory. I don’t know, Benny. You establish alibis for yourself and your muscle, you hire a man who might get into her flat, maybe not … It’s a lot of trouble, a lot of risks, just to massage your ego.’
‘OK,’ said Griessel.
‘You’re not convinced?’
‘We’re missing something, Bones. That Silbersteins meeting on the eighteenth … I don’t know.’
The air hostess put a meal tray in front of each of them.
‘What a sad life we lead,’ said Bones Boshigo, ‘when the only balanced meal we get is airline food.’
Griessel didn’t hear. His brain was busy with the tangled web of the case. ‘Why?’ he asked.
‘Because this is all we’ve had to eat today.’
‘No, Bones. I mean, why would the shooter lie to us? About Kotko? His whole story is about the police protecting the communist. That’s his entire justification.’
51
Mbali drove to the Panorama Shopping Centre first, and clicked her tongue when she saw the Hendrik Verwoerd road sign. She parked, got out, went in search of the little office, as the Xhosa sergeant from Bothasig had directed her.
It was hidden away around at the back. It looked almost like a service entrance, just the usual sun-bleached brown wooden door, with a keyhole below the handle, and an additional outside bolt from which hung a big shiny new Yale padlock.
She walked around the corner to the main entrance of the shopping centre. She found a security official, showed him her identification card, and explained what she wanted. He was eager to help. He called a colleague over his radio, asked her to wait, and came back after a few minutes with the colleague. Both were carrying plastic milk crates.
She went with them back to the office. They stacked the crates under the window and carefully helped her to climb up. She had to stand on tiptoe to see through the window.
There was nothing inside, what she could see of the room was completely empty.
She climbed down, thanked the men, and walked back to her car. She climbed in, switched on the engine. Switched it off again. She took her cellphone out of her capacious black handbag, and typed a number in. It rang for a long time.
‘Hello,’ said Fick, out of breath.
‘Fanie, it’s Mbali. Are you very busy?’
‘No, I’m sorry, I was on my way home. The new shift is still in the parade room.’
‘Could you ask them to get the cellular records for the de Vos cellphone number? The one I told you about?’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Fick. ‘Before I go.’
She knew he must be very tired, but he was so eager to help. ‘I appreciate it,’ she said.
There was a moment, just before he turned off the R27 onto the N1, that the red-painted Chana skipped and stuttered, and the sniper clamped his fists tighter around the steering wheel.
But then the engine ran smoothly again.
What if he broke down on the freeway, this time of the afternoon? So terribly exposed. Traffic police would stop …
He glanced back quickly. Just the toolboxes. Even if they opened them, they first had to lift the top tray to see the rifle.
And he wasn’t wearing the wig today. A new green Springbok cap. Dark glasses.
He just had to stay calm, not look guilty. But the Chana had to last. Just until tomorrow.
He listened attentively to the engine, the city ahead of him.
He kept left, in the slow lane, for the Oswald Pirow off-ramp, on the way to Griessel’s flat.
Just after six the bombs began exploding.
Manie sat waiting for the call to say yet another policeman had been shot. He tried to steel himself for it, but he knew it would still be the final blow.
The telephone rang. He answered.
It was the National Commissioner. He was furious. He said he hadn’t believed the mess with the shooter and the Sloet case could get any worse. But it had. He said the media had gone crazy. They were calling him, the Minister of Police, and the President of the ANC Youth League. Hundreds of calls, he said. Far-fetched allegations. About Kotko, about the Youth League, about the very strong possibility that the shooter was entirely correct, the government and the SAPS were protecting a murderer.
Manie, worn out by the pressure and suspense of the long day a
nd little sleep, allowed the commissioner to scold and shout and blame. There was nothing else he could do. He knew he had made this bed for himself. It had been the right thing to do. And now he had to sleep on it. Unfortunately it was figurative sleep only.
For twenty-seven long minutes he listened to the tirade.
Then he put the receiver down softly on the cradle.
It rang again immediately.
Here it comes now, he thought. The shooter’s next victim.
He wiped his hand across his brow, and picked up.
It was the National Director of the Hawks, in Pretoria.
He wasn’t happy either.
For the second time Mbali sat in the fussily over-decorated sitting room, with the widow of Frederik de Vos. ‘There was cash in that safe,’ she said to the woman.
The widow cast her eyes down to the brandy glass on the table beside the easy chair. She picked it up and took a sip. The ice tinkled in the room’s silence. She put the glass down again carefully.
Mbali suspected the action was a kind of admission. ‘The day after your husband died, you went to his office. To get the money. Because you knew it was all there was. You saw that the computer was gone, and you suspected that someone else had a key. So you went and bought a new lock for the office door. Is that right?’
The widow looked away.
‘Mrs de Vos, you have not committed any crime, as far as I know. You can tell me.’
Again the woman picked up the glass and swallowed.
‘I give you my word. You are not in trouble.’
Mrs de Vos breathed slowly in. She said, ‘It was only on the Monday. On Sunday I was too crushed.’
‘You had the combination of the safe?’
‘It was his lucky number. Double four, double seven, double four. That’s all he ever used. But I never had a key to the door lock. But the hospital gave me this plastic bag …’ Her face crumpled, her eyes grew moist. ‘This little bag of his things. His cigarettes, his Zippo …’ She sobbed, picked up the glass again.
‘And the keys.’
The widow nodded, and sipped at the brandy again.
‘And you went in on the Monday. To get the cash.’
A nod.
‘And you saw the computer and the drives were missing.’
A shake of the head.
‘No?’
She took a tissue from the sleeve of the blue jersey, blew her nose. ‘The computer things were still there, on the Monday. In the other office. The one his people always used. When I went back on the Friday, they were gone.’
‘When did you go in on the Friday?’
‘I took the afslaer’s evaluator.’
‘What is an afslaer?’
It took a moment for Mrs de Vos to find the English word. ‘They sell you stuff. You know … when people can make a bod … a bid.’
‘Auctioneers?’
‘Ja. I had to sell the stuff.’
‘And then you bought a new lock?’
‘Ja.’
‘Where is the furniture now? The furniture from the office?’
‘At the auctioneers.’
Mbali sighed. That probably meant the furniture was forensically contaminated. But she would have to make sure. ‘What else was in the safe?’
‘Nothing. Just the money.’
‘How much cash?’
The lower lip trembled again. ‘I think there was a lot. Frikkie said, a week before he died, there was a decent pay day coming, this Friday. And then he took it and went and played roulette at GrandWest and he lost every cent and he went and blew himself away in a park. In a little park …’
She waited for Mrs de Vos to calm down. Then she asked, ‘How much was left?’
‘Four thousand two hundred. That’s all. That’s my inheritance. That’s what Frikkie left me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘That was Frikkie …’
‘I have to know who had a key to that office.’
‘His people.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Frikkie was never at the office. That was the only way they could get in. He gave them the key.’
‘How many people were there?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And you really don’t know who they were?’
The widow shook her head and picked up the glass.
‘I need a photograph of your husband,’ said Mbali. ‘And the details of the auctioneer. And the keys to the office.’
The sniper parked in the spot he had identified the evening before – just around the corner of Vriende Street, in Schoonder, with the nose of the Chana pointing at the Gardens Centre.
From here he would have an unimpeded view of the automatic steel gate of Nelson’s Mansions, the old 1950s block of flats. And he would be safe – the streets in the area were densely parked with cars, flat and town house dwellers who probably didn’t have garages. Another vehicle would not attract attention.
The night before he had sat here in the Audi for over an hour. He saw how every occupant of Nelson’s Mansions stopped at the gate, fiddled with a remote. He had used his watch to see that it took an average of twenty-two seconds for the gate to open completely. He would have nearly thirty seconds, from the moment that the detective stopped and pressed the button until he drove in.
Thirty seconds, to shoot the tyres of both wheels on this side. And then, the driver.
That was what he had practised, in the veld beside the R304 and the Little Salt River this afternoon. Three shots. Maybe four. Front, back, driver.
Until he had only ten bullets left.
Yesterday he saw there was a street light, about halfway between this parking place and the driveway of the flats. Over the distance of about forty metres he could see, clearly enough, the face of everyone who stopped … Without a scope. He had studied Griessel’s photos carefully on the Internet and in the newspapers. The over-long, unkempt hair, the peculiar Slavic eyes, the careworn face.
He would recognise him.
He made sure the Chana’s doors were locked. He waited, since there were quite a few pedestrians, on their way home.
When it was quiet, he climbed quickly over to the back, and pulled the screen down.
He took off the cap and dark glasses, put the strap of the torch around his head, and switched it on, at the lowest setting. Opened the tool chest, lifted out the tray, and put it aside.
He took out the rifle.
52
At twenty past seven Mbali finally traced the cellphone number of the auctioneer.
She identified herself and said, ‘I need access to the furniture of Frikkie de Vos.’
‘Who?’
She gave him all the details she had.
‘Come and see me tomorrow,’ the auctioneer said.
‘No. I need access now. It is related to this mad dog who shoots the police. A matter of life and death.’
‘Shit,’ said the auctioneer.
‘Profanity is the common crutch of the conversational cripple.’
‘What?’
‘Please tell me, how do you load and transport furniture for auction?’
‘Just like everybody else.’
‘Which is how?’
‘We wrap it, and then we ship it …’
‘What do you wrap it with?’
‘Plastic.’
‘When do you wrap it?’
‘Before we load it, for crying out loud.’
‘Good. I will meet you at your warehouse in half an hour.’
‘I live in Somerset West. It’s going to take me an hour.’
‘Then you had better leave right now.’
Then she phoned the head of the PCSI, the elite Provincial Crime Scene Investigation unit.
Griessel phoned Alexa while they were driving back from the airport.
She didn’t answer.
He phoned Ella. Her phone went to voice mail. He tried to remember what Alexa had said this morning before he left for Johannesburg. Th
e big rehearsal tonight. Or was it tomorrow night? He had only been half listening.
He hoped there wasn’t any more trouble. Please not tonight.
Beyond Tygerberg Hospital his phone rang. He answered in a hurry, hoping it was Alexa.
‘Benny,’ said Colonel Nyathi, ‘where are you?’
Griessel said they were ten minutes away from the DPCI offices.
‘We’re having a meeting when you’re back.’ In a funereal voice.
The sniper was uncomfortable and frustrated. So many times when cars stopped at the gate he had looked through the scope. And so many times he had to relax his trigger finger. It was nearly eight, and the policeman still hadn’t made his appearance.
Then another vehicle turned in, at the T-junction of Vriende and Buitenkant Streets, and he saw the blue lights on the van’s roof and the SAPS colours and emblem.
He froze. It drove slowly in his direction.
He could hear his heart hammering.
He felt an irresistible urge to slam the sliding gap in the side panel shut – at that moment it seemed gigantic, a gaping wound.
The patrol vehicle moved beyond his field of vision. He listened, turning his head to hear better. The sound of an engine, the hiss of tyres on the tar.
Behind the Chana.
Were they stopping?
Seconds ticked by.
The engine sound seemed quieter, and he thought they must have stopped.
Until he realised they had driven on. West.
His hands were clammy on the rifle.
The meeting began on a sombre note.
Nyathi said they had called Brigadier Musad Manie to Pretoria. ‘To go and explain what the National Director called “this fiasco in Cape Town”.’
A flurry of growling indignation and anger passed through the room. Nyathi hushed them. ‘The brigadier asked me to tell you this summons in no way reflects on your hard work and exceptional efforts. He had to make some big decisions today, he made them on his own, and he knew there were certain risks involved—’
More cries from the floor. Nyathi held up his hand for calm. ‘Please, let me finish. He knew about the risks, and he’s confident that top management will understand when he explains the circumstances. He asked you to continue with the same dedication and vigour you have shown under very difficult circumstances, and he wants you to know that he absolutely believes in our ability to crack these cases. I am in complete agreement. Now, let’s see where we are. Benny?’