by Deon Meyer
Griessel knew the real problem was that Cupido was deeply concerned that the new commander would not put up with his nonsense. Mbali was conscientious and conservative. Vaughn was not. So he said she was the right person for the post, given the circumstances.
It had made no difference.
Despite his haste and the colourful outfit, Cupido’s face was sombre as he approached.
‘Benna, you don’t need to go inside. Our work here is done.’ Griessel could hear the tone in his colleague’s voice, the false business-like note hiding his dismay.
‘I didn’t drive all this way to . . . What’s going on, Vaughn? What happened here?’
‘Trust me, Benna, please. It’s an open-and-shut. Let’s go.’ Cupido put his hand protectively on Griessel’s shoulder.
Benny felt his temper rising. What was wrong with Cupido? He shrugged him off his shoulder. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or must I see for myself?’
‘Benna, for once in your life, trust me,’ with a desperation that merely inflamed Benny’s suspicions.
‘Jissis,’ said Griessel and began walking towards the front door.
‘It’s Vollie,’ said Cupido.
Griessel froze. ‘Vollie?’
‘Ja. Our Vollie. Vollie Fish. And his family.’
Adjutant Tertius van Vollenhoven, who had worked with both of them before, back when the Provincial Detective Branch still existed. Vollie, who dished up his West Coast sayings sparely and dryly in his Namaqualand accent when the night was too long and morale too low. Vollie Fish, native of Lamberts Bay, who went home on weekends and brought back seafood for the whole team on Mondays, with precise instructions on the cooking, because ‘to fuck up the preparation of a crayfish, that’s sacrilege, my friend.’
The man had caught two serial killers on the Cape Flats in four years, through endless patience and dedication. And then he had left, for Bothasig Station. He said he had done his bit, he wanted a quieter life, wanted to save his marriage, wanted to see his children grow up. But everyone knew it was the trauma of the investigations, month after month of standing beside the mutilated body of another victim, knowing that only a stroke of luck would stop the monsters, whatever you did.
The old injustice awoke in Griessel, the rancour towards those responsible.
‘Robbery?’
‘No, Benna . . .’
‘What happened, Vaughn?’
Cupido’s voice was barely a whisper. He could not look Griessel in the eye. ‘Vollie shot them, last night, and then shot himself.’
‘Vollie?’
‘Yes, Benna.’
He remembered, the two cute young girls, early teens, and Vollie’s wife, plump, strong, supportive. Mercia, or Tersia . . . He wanted simply to reject it, he did not want to visualise it: Vollie with his service pistol at a child’s bedside.
‘Christ, Vaughn,’ he said and felt the claustrophobia close in again, suffocating him.
‘I know.’
Griessel wanted to keep on talking; he wanted to escape the pressure. ‘But why? What happened?’
Cupido pointed at the uniforms at the door. ‘Bothasig Station found a girl yesterday, in the veld, other side of Richwood. The second one – same MO as a murder a month ago. It’s a serial. Bad stuff, Benna, very sick fucker. Vollie was there.’
Griessel put it all together, his hand on the back of his head. He tried to understand what happened – all the demons coming back to devour Vollie from inside.
‘Come, Benna. Let’s go.’
Griessel stood as if frozen. Cupido could see how his colleague’s face had turned ashen.
‘Benna, it’s better if we—’
‘Wait . . .’ He looked sharply at Cupido. ‘Why did Mbali send us here?’
‘Bothasig OC asked her to let us check it out. He said he wanted to be sure they weren’t missing something, because the media . . .’
‘Oh.’ And then: ‘Why do you want to keep me away from there, Vaughn?’
Cupido looked him in the eye, and tapped an index finger on his temple. ‘Because you’re not yet right, Benna. I know it.’
Jamie Keyter and the two forensic analysts had gone through every pocket of the victim’s jeans. There was nothing in them.
He had transferred the corpse to the big black body bag, zipped it up, and called for the stretcher. The body was carried to the ambulance. Forensics had packed up and carefully labelled the black plastic sheet and the red cord. One analyst fetched their metal detector and was busy walking in concentric circles around the crime scene, earphones on his head.
The other one stood with Jamie Keyter. Nobody else was within earshot. ‘I swear he looks familiar,’ said the analyst.
‘Obviously. He works with you,’ said Keyter, frowning behind his dark glasses.
‘Not him, the victim.’
‘As in, you know him?’
‘No, not know. Just know of . . .’
‘Like a celebrity?’
‘I just know I’ve seen him before.’
‘That’s fuck-all help if you don’t know where . . . Do you think he’s a policeman?’
The analyst regretted opening his mouth. ‘No, I . . . Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he just looks like someone who—’
The analyst with the metal detector stopped. ‘There’s something here,’ he said. He was about three metres from where the victim had been found.
The other one picked up a little spade, and climbed under the yellow crime tape. He used his hands to loosen the sand under the sensor of the detector, and scooped it away carefully. At first he could find nothing.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked his colleague.
‘There’s definitely something there.’
Forty centimetres under the surface he felt the metal. He worked with his fingers to get the sand out of the way. Then there it was.
‘Jis, it’s a cellphone.’
He stood up, fetched a brush from his tool kit then stooped again to brush the sand away, while Jamie Keyter called back the camera team.
‘iPhone 5, looks like . . .’ said the man from Forensics. He pressed a button on the phone but nothing happened. ‘Dead as a drol.’ At 15.07 on Wednesday, 17 December.
3
Transcript of interview: Advocate Susan Peires with Mr Francois du Toit
Wednesday, 24 December; 1604 Huguenot Chambers, 40 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town
Sound file 1
Adv. Susan Peires (SP): . . . Of course you may refuse. Then I’ll just make a note. But the recording is a much more reliable record, and it’s handled with exactly the same discretion. I will have it transcribed, which can serve as reference notes as well. The rules of privilege still apply.
Francois du Toit (FdT): Even if you don’t take my case.
SP: That’s correct.
FdT: Who transcribes it?
SP: My secretary, who is also subject to the privilege.
FdT: Very well, record me then.
SP: Thank you, Mr du Toit. Can you state your full name, date of birth and your profession for the record.
FdT: I am Francois du Toit, born on 20 April 1987. I’m a wine farmer from the Klein Zegen Estate in Stellenbosch . . . Out on the Blaauklippen Road.
SP: You are now . . . twenty-seven?
FdT: That’s right.
SP: Married?
FdT: Yes. To San . . . Susanne . . . We have a son of six weeks. Guillaume.
SP: Thank you. I understand from your attorney that the police are waiting for you right now? On the estate?
FdT: Yes . . .
SP: And you are requesting advice on how to handle the situation.
FdT: Yes.
SP: What is the police investigation about?
FdT: Gustav . . . my attorney . . . hasn’t he told you?
>
SP: I gathered it was serious, but I asked Mr Kemp not to provide any details. I prefer to hear it from the client directly.
FdT: It . . . it’s connected to the murder of Ernst Richter.
SP: The man who went missing? The Alibi Man?
FdT: That’s right.
SP: And you are involved in that?
FdT: The police would surely not . . . I’m sorry. It . . . It’s a long story . . . I have to tell you the whole . . . Please.
SP: I see . . . Mr du Toit, before we go any further, let me deliver the speech I give all my clients. I have been an advocate for twenty-eight years, and in that time I have represented more than two hundred people in criminal cases. Murder, manslaughter, rape, fraud – you name it. And my advice is always the same, and experience has shown over and over that it’s good advice: You don’t have to be honest with me, but eventually it makes my task that much easier. I don’t—
FdT: I intend to be honest . . .
SP: Let me finish, please. I’m not here to judge you; I’m here to ensure that you get the best legal representation that I can offer. I believe steadfastly in a justice system where an accused is innocent, until the contrary is proven beyond reasonable doubt by the State. One of my greatest responsibilities is to set the standard of reasonable doubt as high as possible. And I have accepted cases where the accused has told me he is guilty, and I fought just as hard for him as for those who protested their innocence, because the system can only work if we are all equal before the law. Therefore, I don’t object if you are guilty . . .
FdT: (Inaudible.)
SP: Please, Mr du Toit . . .
FdT: Call me Francois . . .
SP: No, I shall call you Mr du Toit. We are not friends; we are advocate and client. It is an official, professional relationship, for which you will pay me a lot of money. And I must maintain my distance and objectivity. I wanted to say, I don’t object if you are innocent. It will make no difference to my dedication or the quality of my work. I do my absolute best, because that is what you pay for. I can’t force you to be honest with me, but I would like to point out the implications to you. Undisclosed information has a way of coming out. Not always, but frequently. And when it comes out at an unsympathetic moment, it can do your defence incalculable harm. In terms of my role I can only take responsibility for what I know. I can only build your case and manage your defence on the basis of what you share with me. If it is your choice to present me with a fictitious version, I have no choice, I have to work with that. But in my opinion and based on my experience, that practically never has a positive influence. In short, Mr du Toit, the more frank you are with me, the better our chances are of keeping you out of jail. Do you understand that?
FdT: Yes.
SP: Would you like to think it over first?
FdT: No. I’m going to tell you everything. Everything.
SP: Very well. Where would you like to begin?
4
At 15.48 Benny Griessel walked into the Fireman’s Arms, according to legend the second oldest watering hole in the Cape, after the Perseverance Tavern in Buitenkant Street.
The Fireman’s had been serving alcoholics and other serious drinkers since 1864, which made the pub on this Wednesday 17 December about a hundred and fifty years old. Griessel didn’t give a hoot about the history of drinking in the Cape. It was the available parking in Mechau Street that made him stop here.
With an air of resolve he strode between the dark wooden tables and benches to the long bar, sat down, and waited to be served. He inhaled the scents of the tavern. They released a thousand memories, all of them pleasant.
His elbows on the counter, he noticed the faint tremor in his hands. He folded them together so the approaching barman would not notice.
‘Double Jack,’ he said.
‘Rocks?’
‘No, thanks.’
The barman nodded and went off to pour it. Came back with the chunky glass and handed it over, with its two fingers of amber – mechanical, practised motions, utterly unaware of the significance of this moment.
Griessel did not hesitate. He didn’t think of the six hundred and two days without alcohol that lay behind him. He picked up the glass and drank, deeply.
The flavour was a long lost friend; reunion was a joy.
But still it did nothing for him inside.
The comfort was not in that first swallow, he knew. That, and the anaesthesia and the calm and the order and the sense, the healing and the softening and the balance and that oneness with the universe only came later, near the end of the second divine glass.
The South African Police Service’s forensic science laboratory had been situated in Silverboom Avenue, Plattekloof since 2011, more than 17,000 square metres of impressive steel and glass. The backbone of the building was a massive capital C, four storeys high, with five thick arms flowing out from it – one each for the departments of Ballistics, DNA Analysis, Scientific Analysis, Document Analysis and Chemical Analysis.
It was in the kitchen of the Department of Scientific Analysis, while he was pouring coffee into a mug, that it suddenly struck him. The forensic analyst remembered who the sand-specked face of the body in the dunes beyond Blouberg reminded him of.
Could it be?
He said nothing to his colleague, just hurried over to his work station, put the coffee down beside the keyboard, and Googled a name.
He clicked on a link, watched the photo loading. He knew it; he hadn’t made a mistake. He searched in his notes of the day for Jamie Keyter’s cellphone number and rang it.
‘Jamie,’ answered the detective, as though he didn’t want to be bothered. He pronounced his name ‘Yaa-mee’, and not ‘Jaymee’, as the English would. The analyst found it mildly affected and irritating, like the man himself.
He identified himself and said: ‘I think . . . I’m reasonably sure the victim is Ernst Richter.’
‘Who is Ernst Richter?’ asked Jamie Keyter.
‘The guy from Alibi who went missing.’
Keyter was quiet for a moment. Then he answered with rising irritation, ‘I haven’t a clue who you’re talking about, pal.’
‘Then you had better call Stellenbosch Station.’
Griessel sat with both hands cradling his second dop.
He thought, this was his holiday, this. He needed nothing more. Mbali could quit her nonsense now.
On Monday she had examined his personnel file: ‘You haven’t had a holiday in three years, Benny’. Worried; the concern for him clear in her voice.
‘I had more than three months of sick leave after . . .’ and both of them knew he was referring to the shooting incident, where her predecessor had died, and Griessel had been wounded.
‘That doesn’t count. I want you to take a break between Christmas and New Year. You need to have a real holiday . . .’
A ‘Real Holiday’? All he could afford was to sit at home, and that would drive him insane within a day.
‘. . . And spend time with your loved ones.’
That was Kaleni’s trump card.
His loved ones.
Before Mbali had phoned him this afternoon, he had sat for twenty minutes in the Ocean Basket with his loved ones. His daughter Carla had talked non-stop to Alexa about arty stuff he knew nothing about. His son Fritz sat with his cellphone, fingers dancing over the screen, giving a secret little laugh every now and then as a new SMS or WhatsApp or Facebook or Twitter or BBM or whatever it might be made the cellphone tinkle or chime. As if his father didn’t exist. As if this wasn’t a special occasion lunch that Alexa had taken great pains to arrange. Fritz, who was going to cost him a fortune to send to film school next year – not a figurative fortune, a literal fortune. AFDA charged R5,950 for registration alone. And R10,000 enrolment fees. And R55,995 tuition fees. For one year. He knew the figures; he could recite th
em in the middle of the fucking night, because he had had to present them to his bank manager. And the bank had deliberated for nearly a month before granting him the loan.
And Fritz had no appreciation for any of this, just stayed glued to his phone right through the special occasion lunch, and Griessel didn’t know what to do.
Both of his children had a much better relationship with their mother. Sometimes he heard them talking on the phone with Anna, his ex. Conversations filled with laughter and shared experiences and intimate information. And he? What was he to do? His work was his life, and he couldn’t talk about it. Because of his so-called altruism and his depression, according to the shrink.
And that Van Eck boy, Carla’s new ‘friend’, who was studying Drama with her at Stellenbosch (at R29,145 a year, an amount that he had managed without a loan, but with some difficulty and extreme thrift, till now). Griessel could not stand Vincent van Eck. He had begun to wonder whether his daughter’s previous love, the Etzebeth rugby player, hadn’t been a better proposition. At least Etzebeth had known when to zip his lip.
Van Eck was full of chit-chat and opinions, and questions that Griessel did not want to answer. ‘What was your most interesting case? What do you think of the Oscar verdict? Why is our crime rate so high?’
Not a respectful ‘Oom’, it was ‘you’ and ‘your’, and his hair was too long and his eyes too sly and Alexa said he was a pretty boy and ‘sweet’ and Griessel didn’t want to be ungracious, the kid was Carla’s friend, after all, but he had a strong feeling that van Eck was a spoiled little prick.
Vincent van Eck. He could already hear Vaughn Cupido’s reaction: What kind of fokken name is that? Who calls their kid Vincent, with a surname like that?
At 16.28 Adjutant Jamie Keyter sat opposite the heavily laden desk of the commander of SAPS Table View Station, and told him that the body they had so carefully dug out of the sand off Blouberg was most probably a man who went by the name of Ernst Richter.