by Tony Park
She batted her fake eyelashes. ‘At the station in Barberton they think I am at a conference with the provincial chief in Nelspruit. I have the afternoon free.’
The girl brought their drinks. He swirled his, enjoying the tinkling of the ice cubes. Sindisiwe ordered the ladies’ fillet and he chose the ribs. ‘I wonder what we can do to help you while away the hours?’
She leaned forward, elbows on the table. ‘Business first. McMurtrie’s daughter has disappeared.’ She waited for him to say something.
He shrugged and spread his hands. ‘It’s not surprising his daughter has run off. The news media reported her father has died in a plane crash and then, I heard, the mother drove herself off a cliff.’
‘Hmm, yes. Coetzee at the mine said he sent one of his drivers to collect the dominee and the girl after he heard about the deaths of McMurtrie and the Australian woman. The dominee is missing, as is the driver. How did you hear the girl had run away?’
He sipped his Scotch. He didn’t like the seriousness that creased her face. The sex was better for the colonel than it was for him, but he needed her in his pocket if he was to ramp up production at the mine. He had already sent word to his network of zama zamas, and those he had not been holding against their will, his hard men and enforcers, had started moving back underground. A small team had already begun blasting the night before. With the legal mining operations halted due to the enquiry into pollution, his small band had free rein underground. They had even bribed a Global Resources man on caretaking duty to start up the compressors for them, so they could use the power drills left underground by the company. With Global Resources in chaos, the time was right for him to bring his workforce back to what it had been, and potentially double it. ‘I have my sources, just as you do.’
She leaned closer to him, lowering her voice. ‘The mine worker Coetzee sent, Timothy Nyati, was known to us. He had a record for assault. Your kind of man. Was he one of yours, Wellington?’
The waitress brought their food, forcing Sindisiwe to suspend her interrogation and sit back in her seat. He wished she would shut up and eat her food so he could fuck her and be on his way back to his mine. When the white girl was gone he said: ‘I have many men in my pay.’
‘As I said, he’s gone missing as well. Wellington, we have a golden opportunity,’ she let out a little snort at her pun, ‘to make some serious coin out of the mine now. But a missing girl and a missing churchman is already drawing the media to me. It will only be a matter of time before the Hawks descend on me if I cannot solve this case. I will have to do something.’
She folded her arms over her bosom. He cut his ribs up and began chewing. He preferred traditional food, sadza as they called the maize meal starch in Zimbabwe, and the rich relish of meat and gravy. But coming here to this wild-west cowboy-themed restaurant, and taking a room at the hotel afterwards, was about status. He chose the time and place of their meetings, and always made them in public, so that Sindisiwe would know who called the shots. If she wanted her share of the money she had to take her share of the risks.
He finished a second rib and licked his fingers. She glared at him over her untouched steak. He took another sip of Scotch and caught the waitress’s eye and pointed at his glass. ‘What if I told you the girl was alive?’
Sindisiwe was a big woman who needed plenty of fuel. Her hunger got the better of her. She cut into the rare steak, and seemed to be forcing herself to play it cool. ‘And the dominee?’
He shook his head and picked up another rib.
She ate a small mouthful. When the waitress returned Sindisiwe asked for a glass of red wine. ‘And this man Nyati? Do you know where he is, Wellington? Look at me when I talk to you, this is important.’
He felt the rage shoot to boiling temperature inside him. How dare she. If she had been his wife, in Zimbabwe, she would have felt the back of his hand for such a remark. ‘You’re not going to get the girl back.’
Sindisiwe shook her head. ‘If she has been with you or your men I don’t want her. Her story will go front page. We will all be finished. They will send the recces underground to kill every last one of you.’
‘She is unharmed. For now.’
Sindisiwe put down her knife and fork and put her hands over her ears. ‘I don’t want to know, but I want this resolved.’
He sucked a rib, grazing the last of the tender meat off with his teeth on either side of the bone. He licked his lips when he was finished and savoured some more Scotch. ‘I want to hear you say it. Tell me you want the girl dead.’
‘Keep your voice down.’
‘Say it.’
She looked nervously around the restaurant at the gossiping housewives, the fat child’s birthday party, the shopkeepers and businessmen taking their lunch breaks.
‘Say it,’ he said again, leaning in.
Her eyelids narrowed and her lips parted a little. He saw her big breasts heaving. Something had changed in her. She had dropped the façade of integrity and concern for a moment and he could see into her dark soul through her limpid, almost hidden eyes. ‘Tell me what you have planned for her,’ she whispered.
‘Mohammed wants to sell her.’
A smile played across the colonel’s painted, glossy lips. ‘So she will make us much money.’
He nodded. ‘A golden-haired child is worth almost as much as gold.’ ‘Finish your drink. It is time for us to go to the hotel.’
*
After they had showered and Sindisiwe had reapplied her makeup, they both drove back to Barberton in separate cars. Wellington passed her early on, his Audi hugging the twisting turns of the pass as though it was on railway tracks. He waved at her and thought he would not see her again for some time, but her big black BMW loomed large in his rear-view mirror.
She accelerated hard and passed him at a hundred and fifty kilometres an hour. Fuelled by the Scotch and the memory of her screams in the hotel room, he geared down and revelled in the surge of power he felt vibrate up through his body from the engine. He was doing a hundred and sixty when he edged alongside her and they stayed like that for a few seconds. She had been better in bed this time than on any of their liaisons. The talk of the child had done it for her. She was sick.
He gunned the Audi’s engine and left her in his wake. He had work to do. In the mirror he could see her easing back to the speed limit, as befitted a senior officer of the South African Police Service. She was getting back to her patch now and had to be careful.
Wellington took his phone out and dialled Timothy Nyathi’s number while he drove. At Wellington’s instructions Nyathi had stayed away from work, in hiding, since the news of McMurtrie’s and Hamilton’s deaths. As one of Wellington’s paid spies Nyathi had dutifully called Wellington and told him the news as soon as he’d heard it, and relayed Coetzee’s orders to him to go and pick up the dominee and McMurtrie’s daughter. This had given Wellington the opportunity to kidnap the girl and eliminate the minister, though he had not told Timothy of his plans, merely that it was time for him to lay low in preparation for an important, lucrative job.
‘Hello, boss, how are you?’ said Timothy Nyati.
‘Fine. Are you still in Emjindini?’
‘Yes, boss. The newspapers, the radio, they are full of talk about the dominee and the girl, I …’
‘Relax, my brother. It will all be fine. I need to collect you, now, as I have another job for you.’
‘Boss, I –’
‘I will be in the township in ten minutes.’
He pulled up outside the pastel blue house and waited, the engine running. Nyati emerged from the modest backyard, where Wellington knew he had been staying in a shack. A legal miner lived in the house, but he was also on Wellington’s payroll.
Timothy was looking behind and all around him as he darted out to the road and slid into the low-slung car. Wellington spun the wheels as he took off. ‘Boss, I am worried.’
Wellington reached under the driver’s seat and pulled out a br
own paper bag. ‘Open that, take a sip.’
Nyati opened the bag and broke the seal on a half-jack bottle of Johnny Walker Blue. ‘Hey, this is the good stuff, boss.’ He took a swig and passed the bottle to Wellington, who made as if he was taking a long draft, but in fact swallowed very little.
‘Have more,’ Wellington said. ‘Open the ashtray. There is a zol in there. I want to thank you for what you did, my brother.’
Nyati found the joint and lit it. Sweet marijuana smoke filled the cab. Again, when he passed it to Wellington, the general held it to his lips for a while but inhaled only a little.
Nyati coughed. ‘Boss, about the girl …’
‘Chill, my brother. Have some more of my weed.’
Wellington drove into Barberton and turned left at the Toyota dealership and headed out towards the mine. ‘Like I said, all will be fine. I have been talking to the police, Timothy. We have come up with a way to make it look like someone killed the dominee and the girl and then killed himself. But I need your help again. Don’t worry, you will be paid, just as I have always paid you for your information.’
Nyati nodded. The drink and the drug seemed to have eased his worries. ‘I have never killed anyone, boss.’
‘I know, Timothy, and I’m not going to ask you to. But I do need you to be my backup. Have you ever fired a gun?’
He shook his head and drank some more. ‘No, boss. But I have seen it done, on television.’
Wellington passed Fairview Mine and the turn-off to the Diggers’ Retreat and Sheba. He checked the Audi’s odometer and when he had gone far enough he indicated left and turned onto a narrow farm road. He stopped the car and got out. ‘Come, Timothy, let’s have some fun. Bring the bottle.’
Wellington started walking into the bush, careful not to let the thorns snag on his tailored shirt and designer jeans. When Timothy said, ‘Eish, boss, what is that smell?’ Wellington knew he had come back to the right place.
‘Some dead animal. Finish the Scotch and give me the bottle.’ Wellington waited while Timothy, already unsteady as he tipped back the bottle, finished the liquor and handed it over. Wellington then walked twenty paces and rested the bottle in the fork of a thorn tree. He went back to Timothy, took the unlicensed Sig Sauer nine-millimetre pistol from the waistband of his jeans, cocked it and handed it to the other man. ‘See if you can hit it.’
Timothy grinned like a boy and nodded. He held up the pistol and it wavered as the target swam in his vision. When he pulled the trigger the noise of the gunshot and the recoil took him by surprise. His hand jerked up and he closed his eyes instinctively. When he opened his eyes a look of dismay clouded his face. The bottle was still in the crook of the branch.
Wellington came up behind him. Timothy flinched away when Wellington put his hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s OK. Let me show you, brother.’
He placed his right hand over the younger man’s hand and used his left to show him how to steady the pistol. ‘Squeeze.’
Wellington eased his grip on Timothy’s hands and he fired again. The bottle shattered. ‘Yes!’
‘That is good, my brother. Now we have work to do, but first let us see what is smelling so bad.’
‘All right.’ Timothy handed the pistol back to him.
Wellington led them through the wait-a-bit bush, in between the trees. The stench became stronger and Wellington’s eyes started to water. ‘Look, there he is.’
‘He?’ Timothy moved up from behind him to get a look. Timothy retched and put his hand over his mouth and nose. ‘Ah! It is a human. Who is this, boss?’
‘It’s the dominee.’
Timothy gasped as he stared at the bloated body. ‘Who killed him, boss?’
Wellington raised the pistol and put it against Timothy’s right temple. ‘You did.’ He pulled the trigger.
*
The men sat around the meeting table in the mine manager’s office. Pictures of Coetzee’s wife and daughter had been placed on Cameron’s old desk.
This office would always remind Chris of Cameron, and now that he knew for sure he would never see the old mine manager again, he felt the sadness drag him down. Cameron had been a good man, respected by the whole workforce. He had been hard on men who broke the rules, but only because ignoring or flouting the regulations made for an unsafe workplace. He’d had a true commitment to the environment and pollution control and Chris thought this had gone deeper than just complying with the company’s rigorous standards. He was sure Cameron had been against the plan to mine Lion Plains, and that was a turning point for Chris. Chris had argued against the development, even as he was forced to tick the boxes of the development application as part of his duties as the environmental manager. Cameron had not stood up to the company, so Chris had done what had to be done. All the same, he would never have wished for Cameron, or Kylie for that matter, to be killed. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach and his peripheral vision started to blur.
He was barely aware of what the other men on the executive team were discussing. Jan had ordered him to attend the meeting; even though he had verbally tendered his resignation he would have to work out his notice and hand over to a new environmental manager.
‘Chris?’
‘Yes. Sorry?’ he looked at Jan and realised he had not heard the question.
‘I asked if you have any news about the independent review of air quality in the mine.’
‘Oh, right. Sorry, boss. The team hasn’t been able to take samples yet.’
‘Why not?’
Chris looked at Coetzee, who remained impassive. ‘The zama zamas. They’ve come back to the mine. The monitoring guys bumped into two men yesterday, one armed with a pistol and the other with an AK-47 and the criminal miners told them to voetsek. The guys are too scared to go back down without an armed guard now.’
Jan looked to Coetzee, who coughed, clearing his voice. ‘I had to reprimand two of our guys this morning. I was doing a walk around and saw the compressors were running. I asked them why and one guy said one of the zama zamas had come to him, in the township, and pulled a gun on him. He said if he didn’t come into work and start the compressor, then the guy would kill his wife and child.’
‘Bliksem.’ Jan ran a hand through his hair.
Chris could see the big boss was stressed. He wondered if Jan’s lapse into the local vernacular was intentional, to make it seem like he was still one of them.
‘Do we get the armed security guys to come back?’ Casper, the geologist, chimed in.
Jan shook his head. ‘Not for now. We’ve been in the news too much in the last two weeks. I don’t want the media crawling all over us again. We’ll wait until things die down and then send some teams down.’ He looked to Chris. ‘But we’ve got to get the independent monitors down there. Chris, you were with the illegals for quite a while; you know where they were mining.’
Chris held his breath. He felt the fear-induced adrenaline surge through his bowels. ‘No.’
Jan held up a hand. ‘Hear me out. This mess with the samples happened on your watch. You can’t explain how the pollutant readings were so high and you kept telling Cameron and Kylie and me that we were compliant, then all of a sudden it goes off the Richter scale. You know where they were operating and you can take the monitoring team to somewhere else underground.’
‘No. I told you, I quit. I’m not going underground again.’ He fought but couldn’t contain the panic in his voice.
‘We’d send armed security down there with you. Just to protect you and keep the zama zamas at bay, not to take them on like last time.’
Chris placed his palms down on the table to steady himself. ‘That didn’t work last time. Paulo Barrica and Themba Tshabalala were killed.’
Coetzee coughed again. ‘Ag, he did have a rough time down there, boss.’
Jan fixed him with a stare for a few seconds and Coetzee coughed again and looked away. ‘It’s a mine,’ Jan said. ‘It’s supposed to be rough.’
Chri
s pushed back his chair. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t take any more of this. I told you in the car, I quit!’
‘Sit down.’
Chris felt dizzy, and there was something about the quiet way that Jan had spoken that made the words sound more like a threat than an order. He lowered himself back into his chair and hated himself for being such a damned coward. Hein, Casper and Roelf were all sitting silently, watching him and the boss.
Jan stared at him across the table. ‘You know where those elevated contaminant samples came from, and you know how and when they were taken, don’t you?’
Chris swallowed back the stinging bile that was rising up the back of his throat. The room swam and his heart started pounding. ‘No, I … I mean, yes, they were part of the normal testing regime in the mine and they came from level eleven and …’
‘Bullshit.’
The others looked at him accusingly. Chris felt the perspiration beading his forehead. Even the eyes of the black miner on the wall, the painting that had been given to Cameron as a gift by the mining union, of all organisations, glared at him in accusation and disgust.
‘No …’ He choked on the rest of his flimsy protest and coughed.
‘Yes. You were carrying monitoring pumps when you and Tshabalala were ambushed by the zama zamas. You were with the criminal miners, underground, for a week before Cameron rescued you. We know the zama zamas care nothing for safety. You got the illegals to wear your pumps and you had the samples hidden on you when you were brought up to the surface.’
‘You don’t know what it was like …’ Chris began, although his heart wasn’t in his defence. He couldn’t continue the lie and, as sickening as it was, he knew he would never be completely right with himself. This would cleanse him, like a bitter, purgative drug.
‘I don’t care, you fucking wimp. You brought those highly contaminated samples back from where your zama zama boeties were working and you substituted them for the regular samples taken from the Global Resources workers. Either those bastards at the monitoring company went behind our backs to leak the information to the press because they told you about the elevated readings and you did nothing, or you organised the leak yourself. Jissus, Chris, you’ve nearly bankrupted this company because of your dishonesty, but that was what you intended all along, wasn’t it?’ Jan was red in the face, his fist bunched above the table as if he was about to jump across it and pummel him.