‘I have to,’ he said studying his nails, ‘but I’ve got home ground advantage, don’t I?’ His eyes shone bright in the ceiling light.
Why did she worry so much about this man, Bella thought?
•
Four days later Philander walked into the office where Bella was sitting and spread the Cape Times out on the desk with a flourish. A report had been circled in red on page four with the heading ‘Body at Miller’s Point.’
Bella glanced at it. ‘Yes, I saw it, Quentin, two days old, not for us, but it’s nice to see you.’
‘I know, Bella, it’s for the Simon’s Town police. But Baatjies is mine. When I spoke to him he mentioned Gatiep’s choms, he was quite specific – Curly Booysen then Delron, Goppie and someone called Cupido. Told me where they hang out. I asked for Curly at the disco in Main Road but they said they’d not seen him for a while. Went to his house a few times but it was dead quiet. Then I saw this report about the drowning. Strange that there was no car, no fishing or swimming stuff – nothing. It got me thinking, so I asked Baatjies again for a description of Curly …’
‘Sit down, Quentin, you’re making me nervous.’ Her elbows were on the desk, fingers forming a tepee. She could smell his aftershave – warm spices. If she ever came across it in a faraway place she’d think of Philander – it was her dream to travel one day. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, on a hunch I took Baatjies to the Salt River mortuary. You’ll never guess, Bella.’
A woman’s shrill voice came from the charge office – a complaint of abuse, no doubt, Bella thought. In the background she could hear the comforting crackle of the radio.
He continued, ‘For the second time the poor man had to identify a body, and it was Curly Booysen. The question is how come it was found so far from Lavender Hill? I tracked down Delron in a shebeen … I didn’t say a thing about Curly and Gatiep, just asked general questions about the Evangelicals. He got nervous, and blabbered.’ Philander laughed. ‘Most do, even if they’ve done nothing wrong … well, not in the past twenty-four hours, anyway! Then Delron dropped a gem – the person killed outside Green Point stadium at the time of the World Cup was Cupido.’ Philander was now running, nose to the ground, a blue-eyed bloodhound.
In a flash Bella could see where Philander was going. ‘Yster, Quentin! On the surface the three men have nothing in common – they died in different places at different times, two from stabbings one from drowning – but they were all Evangelicals! Have you told the EGM? Dockets for multiple killings have to go to them as you know … and you have to advise the Simon’s Town police.’ Philander had little time for the EGM – Ernstige en Geweldsmisdaad Eenheid, the Serious and Violent Crime Unit.
‘Minute, Bella! It’s complicated. There’s still Kuscus and Fritz … and very much still Bettie, and now of course Cupido, Gatiep, and Curly. How can one docket cover all of that?’ Philander patted his stomach, ‘Gut-feel, Bella, I know, but it’s all pointing to the Evangelicals. I just need time …’ Philander impulsively grabbed her hand sending a shock through Bella. ‘What are you doing, Warrant Officer Philander?’ she said without taking her hand away. ‘What if someone walks in?’ It was too late to say ‘please don’t do it,’ or ‘you’re out of line’.
‘I need a few more days, Bella. You know how I feel about the EGM.’ He was always complaining that the EGM didn’t know the streets as well as he did; he’d get the info and they’d get the credit.
She loved the feel of her hand lost in his and looked at him with more than just a docket for multiple killing on her mind – she felt sudden want, love, and burning guilt.
•
Philander seemed unstoppable. Two days later he said cryptically, ‘I’m baiting up hooks, Bella, I’m going fishing.’
‘For God’s sake, Quentin, are you versin! So far I’ve treated everything as off the record but I can’t go on much longer. You’re not Rambo, you know, you’re SAPS.’
He laughed. ‘Maybe, but can there be better bait than Kuscus and Fritz? I’ve asked them to ask Hannibal Fortuin if Gatiep and Curly and Cupido are Evangelicals. Note are, Bella, not was – Hannibal doesn’t know I know they’re dead. There’ll be two hooks on the line, one at the end and one higher up. Guess who the higher one is for? It’s a long shot but you can catch two fish with one cast, you know.’
‘You’re talking in riddles, Quentin, and I don’t fish. I imagine you need a lot of luck,’ she said. The name Hannibal was like a siren. Hannibal the Evangelical, the Lord’s own vigilante, self-proclaimed protector of Lavender Hill, community do-gooder, Christian equivalent of the Muslim PAGAD. But that had been in the beginning. Then something happened. Today he was still leader of the Evangelicals but it had become just another gang on the Flats, feeding off the community, feared even by cops. Hannibal had become more powerful but as a criminal, making the job of the police in Lavender Hill more difficult. Somehow Hannibal always managed to stay a step ahead when it came to raids and witnesses.
Slowly he explained what he was doing. ‘That’s the plan, Bella. Let’s hope it works.’
‘You do have a way of pulling things together, Quentin,’ she said softly and with admiration. How could she tell him it was her heart that he was pulling apart?
Nineteen
It occurred to Zane that if Justin, BAT’s creative director, were to draw his brain as a pie chart of thoughts it would slice three ways with little room for anything else: Lena, his new liquor client, and his imminent black belt grading. It was all he could think about.
He hadn’t counted on Bernadette. He was busy doing a call report when his phone rang.
‘Hello big boy.’
The way she said it was unsettling when he was trying to remember who had said what in a tricky GHD meeting. Since winning the cooler business, BAT had gone into overdrive to catch the time of the year when holidays, Christmas and the New Year, and soaring temperatures all conspired to make people drink more than usual. Bernadette didn’t wait for a response. ‘How about we eat in tonight?’
‘Mm … just a moment, Bee … ah, look, I’ve just gotta train extra long tonight, the grading is around the corner and I’ve skipped too many sessions already.’
One of her silences consumed the line. Usually he said something to break it, this time he didn’t feel like it. Then a torrent, ‘Zane, for weeks you’ve been distant … even when we’re together it’s like you’re not there, baby! We don’t make love like we used to – it’s unnatural, unhealthy, actually depressing considering it’s so good. What must a girl do, hey?’ Her voice became sultry. ‘I’d have to, you know …’ she giggled, knowing the thought of her masturbating turned him on.
Instead of erotic images of Bee he thought immediately of Appleby, who had at last explained brand wanking to Zane after drinks in GHD’s pub one evening. Appleby was a good oke. Any edges he may have had as a young man had been chipped away by disappointment, like when he was swapped for a younger man by his wife and overlooked for senior jobs in London. ‘Jeez Appleby,’ Zane had said, ‘all they talk about are their brands, oh, and rugby. It’s like there’s nothing else in the world. Don’t they have families, food, friends and warm beds to go to? Reading a novel would be better!’
Appleby had brought his face, creased like old granadilla skin, closer to Zane’s. ‘It’s the phenomenon of brand wanking, old man. You’re obviously ready for it. You see, it’s found amongst clients who’ve been with the same company for a long time – marketing types mainly, but you’d be surprised how high up it goes – and amongst agency people who play along, creative types especially. It’s rampant where there are brand leaders that have acquired iconic status …’
‘Iconic? Ah, that’s what everyone calls the new Green Point soccer stadium.’
‘White elephant would be more appropriate,’ Appleby said caustically. ‘Anyway, these people are in awe of their brands. They won’t be seen dead using a competitive brand. They even try to convert people, engaging in campaigns of misin
formation and giving the competition a bad rap.’
By this stage Zane was grinning. Appleby’s dark humour always cracked him up. And it suited Zane’s frame of mind as regards GHD. ‘Ja,’ he said, ‘they talk as if their brands are people, no, more like choms deserving respect. They’re so defensive, Appleby, you can’t say anything negative about their brands. It’s arse-creeping really, isn’t it?’
‘You’re going to make a good advertising man, Zane.’
•
It was after 9 pm when Zane rode back from the dojo, his body warm and loose from focused training, his mind as keen as a katana. The last class of the day was always hard – brown and black belts only with Sensei Simon actively participating – but tonight had been extra rigorous with the grading around the corner. Zane’s black belt syllabus was demanding: complex kihon combinations, high-level kata, and freestyle kumite fighting. His kata of choice was Kankudai, one of the longest – sixty-five movements that took about ninety seconds. For two years Zane had been honing it for his shodan grading but tonight it was as if he had just started, prompting Sensei Simon to say, ‘Done with energy like a rock falling into a pool – too much going in too many directions. And you didn’t end where you started – you must end on the same spot, on the embusen.’ His blue eyes quizzed Zane, like the time Zane arrived with his mouth busted from Curly. What Sensei Simon really meant was, ‘you cocked up, now pull yourself together.’ Zane had responded with a spirited ‘Oss, Sensei!’
Late sunsets and long twilights had arrived in the Cape and there was the Christmas and New Year break to look forward to. Maybe surfing with Malaki in False Bay for a week, Zane thought, and then doing a bike trail in the Boland where there were no cars, pedestrians, or lampposts. And before that hopefully a bonus, although the grapevine had gone ominously quiet with Magnus morosely walking the floors at BAT. Hell, with a Hermanus holiday home and bigger profits on the way from the cooler business Magnus should be delirious. If Magnus had a quarter of his troubles he’d be suicidal, Zane thought as he took on the speed humps. Zane no longer enjoyed them, didn’t ramp and whoop, he just rode over them like motorists did, with irritation and impatience. Of his many preoccupations Lena weighed on him the most. She’d been thrust into his life like an unplanned, unwanted child – no gurgling, red-faced baby that melted hearts and took away some of the regret, but a creature as cold-blooded and dangerous as a Cape cobra. Zane’s thoughts jumped to the little brother he almost had but his mother never wanted – a brother who thankfully died in birth, strangled by his own umbilical cord at home with no medical help. There had been no preparation for his coming – no knitted clothes, no second-hand cot, not even a name. Nine months earlier, on New Year’s Day, Zane’s father and mother had engaged in a screaming session after a bout of heavy drinking. In a rage Eddie dragged Gloria to the bedroom. With their hands over their ears but still hearing it, Zane and Chantal fled the flat. Gloria’s cries followed them into the street, it sounded as if she was dying. They ran and ran, all the way to the police station. But the patrol cars were so busy on that New Year’s Day it took an hour before the police got to the flat. They found Gloria in a heap on the bed looking like a boxer after fifteen rounds, and Eddie in front of the TV watching sport. Zane’s mother refused to lay charges – out of fear or perverse loyalty, Zane wasn’t sure. All he knew was that three months later his mother’s stomach started to grow. The fact that no one said a word about the episode could not remove the bulge. It became bigger by the month and his mother’s silences longer. Had the kid lived she probably would have called it September to have something for the birth certificate. Trouble was there were already too many Septembers on the Flats.
On the stretch of road that was Wellington Avenue it was as though Zane had another rider with him, ghostly in the street lights, accelerating when he did, slowing down with him, stopping when he stopped. He was like a shadow rider but Zane recognised him. It was the boy who had run away when his father beat his mother, watched school fights with clammy palms. It was the Evangelical who had done nothing to stop the man next to him from being shot or the girl from being gang-raped as part of Hannibal’s initiation rite. It was his shadow rider who had crossed the line from Lavender Hill to Wynberg with him – the boy with the joyless eyes.
Zane shook his head as he entered his building. He’d gone to Lena’s aid on the train, yes, but with what fearful frame of mind, what half-heartedness! It had been more out of self-preservation. And the medicine to save her was so that he wouldn’t have to take her to hospital and risk his past from floating up like something putrid and long dead.
Bernadette was waiting for him, in his gown with nothing on underneath. For the first time he regretted that she had her own key. The realisation that he would rather have Lena in the flat than Bernadette troubled him. Was it self-preservation too – that it was safer to have Lena with him because of what she might say when she was not with him? How crazy, not long ago he was worried she would stick a knife into him while he was asleep. What strange women he had in his life – Bernadette, a rebel who liked to hang out in funky places, a good-time girl, happily taking what her rich father offered her. Lena, also a rebel but genuine – her rage against the things men did to women pure in its intensity even though it was frightening. Zane didn’t know about modern slavery – Lena’s words – in the way he knew about drug trafficking. He had been shocked at what she had told him. Human trafficking wasn’t the kind of thing ordinary people acted on, he thought, even if they knew about it. But Lena had acted – had gone out into the streets and rescued the Thai girl, looked after her until she disappeared. Lena was the real thing, like Coca-Cola in the ads on Justin’s wall. She stood up for what she believed in, took injustice, abuse, and evil head on. She might be a murderer but she had no shadow rider following her everywhere. Or did she?
Twenty
Hannibal ran a hand over his stubbly hair, his eyes like embers in his brown-sugar face.
‘So, Delron, this cop came to see you in the shebeen, huh?’
‘Ja, Boss.’ Then hastily, ‘I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was sommer minding my own business.’ Delron looked the athletic type – not an ounce of fat, only muscle, number 1 haircut. He was a cool dude – T-shirt the colour of red paw-paw, ‘Dockers’ in white broken letters on the front, black Diesel jeans, and loafers. Girls loved him. The gang thought he was lean only because he had so little to eat after spending his money on larney threads.
‘Exactly, Delron, so why pick on you, in a packed shebeen? I don’t like it. Are you sure you haven’t fucked up?’ They were at the tik house making crystal meth. With a huge street value per kilo, money had been pouring in since they started making the stuff and providing lollies and lighters for free – a ‘one-stop tik shop’ as Hannibal described it. He knew that taking tik made one crave sex not food. Hannibal could see it in the eyes of the dumpy, dowdy housewives who bought the crystals – the prospect of having great sex and losing weight at the same time. It was an irresistible proposition, the bonus being that it kept their husbands faithful for a while.
‘Apart from causing the explosion, no, Boss. The mang’s not for this gamat. No sirree, I wanna stay free! Jesus, I’d rather be dead than do time again.’
Delron had blown a hole through the wall of the tik house two days earlier, the second explosion since they started. Making crystal meth was easy except once the chemicals came together they had the potential of a small bomb. Every batch was like a man with a short fuse – it didn’t take much for it to go off. By some miracle nobody had been killed or maimed when the fireball flung glass, burning plastic, acids and solvents, and flesh-eating anhydrous ammonia in all directions.
‘What was the gatta’s name?’
‘Philander, Warrant Officer Philander. I know because I demanded to see his ID,’ Delron said aggressively, trying to regain favour.
Hannibal stopped what he was doing. Shit, it had to be Philander. He would have preferred any cop except
Philander. When Hannibal’s men hijacked that car how could they have known that Philander’s wife was inside? Out of millions of cars they had to pick that one. Fuck it. And now Philander talking to Delron. Why now, after so long? What was new? Hannibal had been edgy since pushing Curly off the ledge. He had burnt Curly’s stuff in his yard where he normally made a fire for a barbeque. The plastic, canvas, and cloth had let off weird horrible smells, burning like some witches’ brew spelling trouble for him.
‘Think again, Delron, did he ask questions, about anything or anybody?’ Hannibal turned unblinking eyes on him. He had to know if Gatiep or Curly were mentioned.
‘Not a thing I can aim my piss at, Boss. That’s why I got nervous … like, why me, and why was he there? Maybe it’s because I’m an Evangelical, he knows I am.’
‘That’s not against the law. He’s sniffing, Delron, sniffing, for what I don’t know. Maybe it’s still that wife of his who got burned accidently, remember? Maybe …’ Hannibal got Delron in his sights again, ‘maybe it’s because you’re a dude, Delron, and you look easy?’
Delron looked hurt. He was about to say something when Hannibal gave him a disarming smile and slap on the back. ‘Forget about it, Delron, forget Philander, he’s sore about his woman, he’ll get over it. Don’t we all have to get over people who die, huh, my bra?’
•
The next afternoon Hannibal saw her again. She was going home, the evening sun still high enough to catch the auburn fall of her hair. He couldn’t see her face but he knew the way she moved, how well he knew it! His own body reacted the way it had always done – slight shaking, face warm, tongue feeling stuck. It was as though the intervening years had never happened. It was the third time he’d seen her from the tik house and every time it caused a torrent of emotion to run through him: a longing to hold her, regret at how he had lost her, hatred of her brother, a resolve to get her back. Hannibal experienced many emotions. Some seemed to have lodged themselves in his brain permanently. Fear was not amongst them, except the fear of being rejected. Nothing and no one frightened Hannibal the General, only rejection did. It was okay when he cast aside the meek God of the New Testament, the warrior-God of John Eldredge, the many women in his life, Curly, and others. But when it happened to him, with Chantal, it was like a cut that never healed. The irony of it had been eating away at him like corroding rust – it was because of his rejection of God that Chantal stopped regarding him as a good force. Without God, Hannibal’s argument that the end justified the vigilantism of the Evangelicals evaporated. When Hannibal pronounced God dead he also killed the good in the gang – in Chantal’s mind. And how her brother had helped her in this, a traitor! Hannibal was convinced that Zane had been responsible for him losing Chantal, the one person he could talk to and share things with. All Hannibal could do now was to reflect on the world, allowing his pain and hatred to build up for the next cage fight when he would attack his opponents with brutal glee that was both sanctioned and legal. But of late even this was unsatisfying, like the angel wings on his Honda. He needed more blood.
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