Memo From Turner

by Tim Willocks

  ‘Put your thumbs in your ears,’ he said. ‘When you hear the shots, scream.’

  ‘Shit.’

  Hennie fired. Boom-boom.

  The lock was blasted from the wood and the door swung half open and Iminathi screamed and Hennie shouldered the Benelli and kicked the door the rest of the way. He stepped to the left leaving Iminathi stranded in the doorway while he took cover behind the door jamb.

  He saw Turner right where Simon said he’d be, in the far left corner by the main counter, where he could watch the street door and the approach to the centre door through the Plexiglas. He had his Glock aimed high above the door, as if he’d reacted to cover the shotgun blasts, then again to protect Iminathi. He wore a vest. Hennie aimed below the vest, an easy shot. The centre door opened and Simon’s left arm levelled his Steyr at Turner’s head.

  It was done.

  ‘Gun on the floor, kick it to me,’ said Simon.

  Turner laid the gun down and kicked it over.

  ‘Take the vest off.’

  Turner ripped open the Velcro side straps. He was staring at Iminathi. She was shaking, her hands still covering her face but no longer her eyes. Hennie pushed past her. He spotted the laptop on the left-hand plastic side counter.

  Simon stuck Turner’s Glock in his belt. Turner lifted the vest over his head and dropped it. ‘Face towards the glass, on your knees, both hands on the counter.’

  ‘I’ve got him,’ said Hennie. He had the muzzle of the Benelli aimed at Turner’s spine from a metre away. ‘Deal with the laptop.’

  Simon circled quickly around Hennie to avoid his line of fire. He tapped at the laptop’s keyboard. ‘I’ve stopped the upload. Now I need his phone.’ Simon circled again and reached straight for Turner’s right pants pocket. ‘He might have hooked that into the Wi-Fi, too. It wouldn’t make sense, competing with his own bandwidth, but we’ve got to be sure.’

  Simon pulled Turner’s phone out and tapped and scrolled the screen.

  ‘No password?’ said Hennie. He realised that some futile caveman urge was competing with Simon’s mastery of modern technology, a contest he was certain to lose. Simon had flattered him with that ‘as good as us’ comment. He’d meant ‘as good as me’. That was OK. Stark bollock naked and holding a sharp stone he’d still fancy his chances with either of them.

  ‘He’s a cop,’ said Simon, tapping and scrolling. ‘If he has to make a certain kind of call, the five seconds it takes to plug in a pin can be the same five seconds it takes someone to die.’ Simon stopped tapping and seemed satisfied. ‘The vid is on the phone but he was uploading through the carrier not Wi-Fi. Another hour to go. The vid stays here in Langkopf.’ Simon circled a third time, back to the laptop. ‘Look.’

  Hennie sidestepped over, keeping the shotgun on Turner. He waited until Simon had covered Turner with his pistol, then looked at the screen where Simon was pointing.

  ‘What about that, Turner?’ said Hennie. ‘Estimated time to completion: two minutes. Looks like it isn’t your day after all.’

  Turner didn’t answer. He stared at the red plastic fascia of the counter, perfectly still, perfectly relaxed.

  ‘I’m deleting the video,’ said Simon. He clicked and tapped. ‘Secure delete. Disk utility. Erase free space.’

  ‘Can’t they recover deleted files?’ said Hennie.

  ‘A deleted file usually sits there until you need the space, then the computer writes over it, but that might not be for months, or even never, so it’s recoverable.’ Simon tapped the touch pad again. ‘Not this one. I’ve overwritten and erased it three times. It’s gone. The CIA couldn’t get it back.’

  Simon closed the laptop. The original file on the micro-disk was in Simon’s small intestine. No one would be recovering that either.

  ‘Tape him up,’ said Hennie. ‘We don’t want any of those Shaolin Temple tricks, do we, Turner?’

  Hennie took a roll of duct tape from his thigh pocket and handed it to Simon. There was a tearing sound as Simon unspooled a length of tape. Hennie glanced at the doorway. Iminathi was still standing there, crying.

  ‘You can go,’ said Hennie. ‘Thanks for the help.’

  Iminathi sobbed, ‘I didn’t do anything.’

  Hennie wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or to the back of Turner’s head. He wasn’t interested either way. ‘Go and straighten some hair. If you’ve got any complaints, call the police.’

  Iminathi stared at him with hatred. She turned and fled. What could she do? She was a bright enough girl, which was good, because she’d know that she could do nothing, and that no one would help her to do it.

  Simon wrapped the tape four times around Turner’s left forearm, over his shirt sleeve. He cranked that arm behind Turner’s back, pulled his right arm to join it, and wrapped the right forearm the same way without breaking the tape. Then he bound both forearms together from elbows to shirt cuffs, round and round until the whole double sleeve of tape was several millimetres thick. He tore the tape free of the roll. Hennie covered Turner all the way.

  ‘Stand up,’ said Hennie.

  Turner rose from his knees in one smooth motion. He looked at Hennie. His face was blank. He had the coldest eyes Hennie had ever seen, and he had seen more than his share. They revealed nothing. Not anger, nor fear or threat, not frustration, defeat or defiance. They were calm, still, disturbingly green. If they revealed anything, it was that he was at peace with himself. Since he must have known that he was going to die, that was as cold as a man could get.

  ‘Quite the Zen motherfucker, aren’t we?’ said Hennie.

  Turner continued to look at him in silence. Hennie realised, with a strange sense of confusion in his gut, that this man demanded absolute respect, and he, Hennie, had no choice but to feel it.

  ‘Where’s your car?’ said Hennie.

  Turner didn’t answer.

  ‘Can’t be far away,’ said Hennie. ‘We’ll find it. Depends on how much longer you want to stand in here listening to me.’

  Turner thought about it. ‘The medical centre car park,’ he said. Simon pulled a ring of keys from Turner’s pocket. He also took the pepper spray and a Swiss Army knife.

  ‘I’ll bring the car round the back. Listen for the horn,’ said Simon.

  ‘Call Mark Lewis at the garage,’ said Hennie. ‘Tell him no excuses.’

  Simon pointed at Hennie’s shotgun. ‘Give yourself a bit more distance.’

  Hennie nodded. He was forgetting the basics. He took three backward steps away from Turner. Simon took the laptop and the Kevlar vest and went out through the street door and pulled it closed behind him. Hennie heard a faint rasp and a click and turned. He saw a plume of grey-blue smoke rise up above the main counter behind the Plexiglas window.

  ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘The bookie,’ said Turner. ‘I’d give him a thousand and tell him to get that door fixed before Winston sees it.’

  ‘Oi, bookie,’ said Hennie. A man rose behind the glass like some prehistoric lizard. ‘Come here.’

  The bookie came out through the door, a cigarette smoking between his lips. Hennie dug his wallet out and gave it to the bookie. ‘You heard him. Help yourself to a grand and fuck off.’

  The bookie opened the wallet, took out the bills, showed them to Hennie, and returned the wallet. Hennie put it in his pocket. The bookie walked out of the street door and closed it behind him.

  ‘You do know,’ said Hennie, ‘that he’s never going to pay for that door?’

  ‘Why should he?’

  Hennie laughed. ‘I’m the only one who gets it, you know.’

  ‘Gets what?’

  ‘Gets why you’re here. Gets you.’

  Turner stared at the red plastic fascia of the counter, perfectly still, perfectly relaxed. Hennie felt a strong impulse to make some connection with him. He didn’t know why he would want to do that with a man he was about to kill, but there it was. And because he was about to kill him, why not?

  ‘I mean,
OK, nobody ever gets anybody else, anywhere, ever,’ said Hennie. ‘Nobody gets their wife, their children, their parents. Nobody gets John Coltrane, nobody gets Shakespeare. How the fuck could they? They might think they do, but they don’t, not really, not completely. Only in flashes, moments.’

  ‘You think you’ve had a moment?’ said Turner.

  ‘They’re all asking, what the fuck is wrong with this guy? Why doesn’t he take the job, the money, the clinic, the keys to the kingdom? What’s his problem with this fucking dead girl? I said you were a maniac myself. But now I see you’re not.’

  ‘What do you see?’ said Turner.

  ‘You don’t care what I see.’

  ‘No I don’t.’

  Hennie laughed again. ‘You’re a man who sees the way things are. Which is that it’s all bullshit. It’s meaningless. It’s fucking chaos. But somewhere in that gigantic, bottomless ocean of pure bullshit, the man who sees the way things are has to choose the worthiest bullshit he can find and make a stand for it. It might be that woman who makes you feel a thousand feet tall. It might be the flag of a country that will shovel you into the ground with no more thought than a cat burying its own turds. It might be a girl with no name lying dead in the street. But it’s that knowing that if you walk away from it, if you take the money and run, you’ll be ghost to yourself. You’ll be nothing. It’s that feeling in the blood, when you know you have to ride it till it crashes.’

  ‘Does Margot see the way things are?’

  ‘Like a fucking eagle.’

  ‘You should let me go,’ said Turner. ‘Cape Town murder police will hunt you down.’

  Hennie smiled. ‘I’m sorry it’s going to end without giving you a chance.’ He wasn’t sure he meant that, but he felt like saying it.

  ‘I have a chance,’ said Turner. ‘You don’t.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Hennie.

  There was a distant double blast on a horn from the rear of the building. Hennie motioned with the shotgun towards the door past the counter.

  ‘Time to hit the road to Dreamland.’

  24

  Turner knew where he was headed from the moment Simon started to tape his arms up. Handcuffs or flexicuffs would potentially leave marks on his wrists; certainly if he chose to make them. Simon had been careful; the tape was inescapably secure but not too tight. The glue was only on his shirt, not his skin.

  They were going to drive him out into the desert in the Land Cruiser and leave him to die, like Iminathi’s father.

  As he talked with Hennie, Turner ran escape options through his head. They hadn’t taped his legs. They were aware that his death would have to stand up to a professional investigation. They didn’t want glue on his pants. His shirt was easily replaced. He’d be helpless enough without his arms. Hennie didn’t want to blow him apart in the middle of town. They wouldn’t be able to conceal the forensics. They wanted an accidental death. A clean corpse that would pass examination by a coroner. No marks, no blood; no mess.

  Turner considered attack strategies. The bookmaker’s building was the same length as La Diva. Probably the same basic layout. Corridor with bathroom, large middle room, kitchen. The middle-room doorway: spin and sidestep to get some cover from the wall; Hennie constricted in the corridor. Kick the shotgun barrel aside; a stomp kick – wherever he could land it. Take it from there. Turner couldn’t see what he had to lose.

  What then? A chase through the streets with his arms taped behind his back. Who would cut him loose? A hairstylist? The hotel clerk? A doctor or a nurse? A bound man was bound for a reason, usually a good one. He had his badge in his pocket but whoever helped him would need some courage.

  Iminathi?

  On the list of suspects of who had told Hennie where to find him, she was number one. At the door she had appeared horrified; but after standing six inches from a double shotgun blast, blind fear was more likely. Number two was the slim chance that the third spotter had seen him slip into the bookie’s. He didn’t have a number three. Logic would insist on adding Captain Venter to the list, but it would also insist on a vast difference in probability. He’d known Imi for less than five hours, Venter for over five years.

  Best case: he’d be at large, unarmed, a hunted man with nowhere to run. Chances of getting that far: very poor. Worst case: dead in the kind of faked random-murder scenario Rudy had had in mind. Chances of that: very high. The alternative: survive the desert. Chances of that: remote. But not zero.

  ‘Time to hit the road to Dreamland,’ said Hennie.

  ‘A Johnny Mercer fan,’ said Turner.

  ‘Just full of surprises, aren’t you?’

  Hennie motioned towards the inner door. Turner walked through. Hennie kept a good distance, two metres. The attack idea dissolved into the realm of fantasy, where it had always belonged. He’d just be boxed up in the next room; Simon would come. The best he could do would be to make them beat him bloody or shoot him. Any possible victory would be post mortem. Stay healthy while you can. He passed through the corridor. The kitchen door and back door were open. He could see the rear half of his Land Cruiser outside, doors open, waiting for him.

  Rudy appeared in the back-door frame.

  Turner charged at him.

  ‘You fucker,’ shouted Hennie.

  Rudy cocked his fists like a boxer. Turner jumped and pounced from the run. As he landed he kicked Rudy with full force and momentum through the Conception Vessel 4 meridian point, between the pubic bone and the navel, focusing into the Dan Tian. Rudy hurtled backwards and his legs gave out. The back of his skull put a new dent in the wing of the Land Cruiser as he fell.

  Turner burst outside. Simon came at him from the right. Turner tried to weave around him but Simon was well on his toes this time and didn’t give him an exit. He was smiling. His teeth shone. Turner spun and ran. Hennie dropped the shotgun as he came through the door and tackled Turner from the side. His left arm slammed across Turner’s chest and dragged him into a crushing embrace. His right arm looped over his head and clamped his throat in the crook of the elbow, cranking his chin up. Turner relaxed, went with it. Protect the cervical joints. Breathe. Let the adrenaline settle, save energy. He could have crushed the bones of Hennie’s feet, but there was no point in risking a broken neck.

  ‘Bastard.’ Hennie’s voice rasped into Turner’s left ear. Turner let him wrestle him to the Land Cruiser. Hennie changed grip, one hand on his bound arm, the other round the nape of his neck. He had big hands. He walked him round the car, half bent over, and pushed him into the right rear seat. He pinned him with an arm across the throat while he stretched and inserted the seat belt across Turner’s chest. He stood back and panted.

  Hennie grinned, to hide the fact that, for a moment, he’d been alarmed. ‘You are a fucking handful, I’ll give you that.’

  He closed Turner’s door and went to help Simon drag Rudy to his feet. Rudy moaned and struggled. He was concussed but the deep agony pervading his pelvis and bowels was bringing him round. He had lost his shades. They manhandled him into the front passenger seat, where he writhed, semi-conscious. Simon sat beside Turner, no seat belt. Hennie collected his Benelli, stowed it in the boot, and climbed behind the wheel. He took a short breath and blew it out, as if to credit himself for a tough job well done. He engaged drive and moved off.

  At the main street he turned north. Parked by the kerb at the edge of town was a dusty, well-used Land Rover Discovery. Hennie flashed it twice with the headlamps. As they passed the Discovery, Turner recognised Mark Lewis, the car mechanic and one of the group who had been in Cape Town. Lewis pulled out and followed behind them.

  Turner had no doubts now. He was going to be stranded far from anywhere with a disabled Land Cruiser. He shifted his position to glimpse the temperature gauge. Outside it was forty-one degrees centigrade.

  They picked up speed. No one spoke.

  Turner had no good ideas. These men were committed. They’d done this before. They’d got away with it before.
Yet he picked up a sombre feeling from Hennie and Simon. Premeditated murder was a heavy matter. They were both ex-soldiers, proud of that and what it made them, both in front of each other and each in front of himself. They knew this wasn’t war. War carried at least the illusion of honour. This was cowardly and squalid. No use in pointing it out; they knew it.

  He thought about his impending death. From thirst. It would be slow and unpleasant. Then slow and painful. Then he would lose his mind. He had seen a couple of reality shows on the subject, by TV survivalists. Cacti and lizards. From what he’d seen from the road a cactus wouldn’t survive any longer out here than an old lady; or a young man. The San Bushmen survived, but Turner didn’t know how. Turner had had a glass of water in his hotel bathroom. He’d drunk some of Jason’s milkshake. He was already thirsty. They would have to leave him his guns if they wanted it to look accidental. He wondered if he would get to the point where that would seem the intelligent way out.

  The music of Conan the Barbarian struck up. Simon was watching the video on Turner’s phone.

  ‘What the fuck is that?’ said Hennie.

  ‘Jason’s training music,’ said Simon. ‘Dead lifts. I have to admit, he was built.’

  ‘Fucking juice monkey, it’s not real muscle. Get to the pay-off, before Rudy wakes up.’

  Simon skipped forward, once, twice. Turner watched Jason waving his jug.

  ‘I didn’t hurt a fucking fly in Cape Town.’

  They listened to the exchange. Turner didn’t need to see any more. He could see it any time he wanted, in his head. He watched Hennie’s jaw muscles bunching as Jason gave his account of the death of the unknown girl in Cape Town.