by T. M. Clark
Piet and Natalie drove behind her; she could see them clearly in her rear-view mirror. She called Quintin.
‘Hello. It’s the umculo womuntu speaking to his lovely wifie.’
She could hear his voice clearly with her phone on speaker, and it made her smile, despite everything going on. Quintin had always managed to do that. ‘Hey, Music Man, your Zulu pronunciation is getting better. Just letting you know that Piet and Natalie are on their way to our house and are right behind me.’
‘Are they staying for dinner?’
‘I offered them a braai with us to de-stress, yes.’
‘I’ll get Bessie onto it. How was the meeting?’
‘Heartbreaking. It was never going to be easy to tell someone that they bought the drugs that inevitably killed their loved one, without having some type of fallout. I feel strongly for them, losing Jenny was hard on them. But we left them with the knowledge that we were going to go hard after the killers.’
‘Listen to your tough talk. Where is Khanyi, he’s supposed to be the tough one?’ Quintin asked.
‘Sitting next to me, so don’t embarrass me.’
‘That’s like a red flag to a bull. How far are you from home?’
‘I’m coming back over the train tracks and up Midlands Road—Oh my God, Quintin, someone’s lying on the road. It looks like a hit-and-run—I’m going to have to stop. I can’t just drive past.’
‘No. Drive!’ Khanyi was shouting. ‘Don’t stop!’
She had already braked hard—Khanyi had his handgun out even as she slowed.
‘I’m not leaving a person to die in the middle of the road,’ she shouted at him. ‘I’m a doctor!’ She jerked to a stop and wrenched her handbrake upwards.
‘It’s a trap, Lily,’ Khanyi said, trying to grab at her arm, but she twisted it out of his fingers and got out of the car, running a few steps.
Instantly, the body on the road rolled over, jumped up and ran towards her.
Screaming, she attempted to run back to the Cruiser. The man was faster. He reached forward, grabbed the edge of her blouse and yanked her. She fell hard on her back, her head slamming against the road.
Bitumen bit into her skull. She could feel the stones as they broke flesh.
Time slowed.
She tried to roll over, to get onto her knees and get up, and the move gave her enough time to see the police vehicle stopped behind her Land Cruiser, and that Piet and Natalie were running towards her. Khanyi was in front of Piet. She felt the man grab her firmly by the hair, but before she was even yanked to her feet, both officers had their weapons drawn and were shouting at him. They spoke in three or four languages, shouting, ‘Drop your weapon! Let her go!’
Instead of complying, he brought her closer to his chest, pulling her hair so hard it made her neck strain at the angle that he forced it into.
She could smell the pungent aroma of an unwashed body. And his breath was hot as he shouted back at the police right next to her face, in a language she didn’t understand. The smell of cheap tobacco surrounded him, but it was the coldness of the gun that he’d pressed hard into her temple that made her freeze.
Flashes of the pictures of Ian went through her head.
She was going to die.
‘Put the gun down,’ Piet instructed. ‘Put it down and let her go. Now.’
‘No,’ her attacker said.
Khanyi came at them out of nowhere, a bull charging—knocking them both over. Lily could feel the pressure of the man’s fingers in her hair loosen as he pulled her down with him. Taking advantage of his distracted moment, she broke free and rolled away. This time she managed to stand up and run towards the lights of the car. She could see the silhouettes of both Piet and Natalie, and knew that she would only be safe when she got to them.
She heard grunting and bone hitting bone behind her, but she didn’t stop. She knew she had to get to the safety of the Land Cruiser.
Gunshots exploded in the night, and she threw herself down on the road, putting her hands over her ears. Trying to make herself as small as possible, she looked to see how far she had to get to the Land Cruiser to use it as a shield as she had been taught so many years ago before she went to Zam Zam.
She leopard-crawled towards the lights, which were not close enough.
‘Lily,’ Khanyi said, lifting her by her midriff and enveloping her in his arms as he ran to the back of the Land Cruiser.
Natalie and Piet were running past them, towards the man who had tried to kill her.
Opening the back door, Khanyi put Lily in the boot, pushed her flat and crouched over her to shield her. He was looking out, his 9mm ready. ‘Stay down. And for God’s sake listen to me this time.’
‘You shot him. You shot him,’ Lily said over and over.
‘Not me. But that’s the best outcome we could hope for. If they didn’t, you would be dead by now,’ Khanyi said. ‘Stay low. Piet is checking the surrounding area to see if there are others out there. Natalie is on the other side of the road covering him.’
After a while, Natalie returned. ‘Lily, you okay?’
‘Not really, but I’m alive, and that’s what matters.’
‘Why did you let her stop, Khanyi? I thought you explained all this to her. I thought—’
‘I did, she didn’t listen to me,’ Khanyi said.
‘You should have shot him when you got out of the bakkie before he even got to Lily,’ Natalie said. ‘Not just smacked him a few times. The bastard got up again; he was coming for you. You didn’t drop him good enough.’
‘Will you two stop arguing!’ Lily said. ‘Let me up.’
‘No,’ Natalie and Khanyi said together.
‘Oh great—they agree on one thing,’ Lily said.
‘Wait, continue to shield her,’ Natalie instructed. ‘Piet!’ she called loudly. ‘Anyone else in the bushes?’
‘No. I found his vehicle but no other tracks. If there was someone with him they did not get out at the same point, and the likelihood is that they have run away.’
‘Do we need to get the dogs?’ Natalie shouted.
‘Let me up,’ Lily said.
‘Khanyi, you best let her out of the boot because there is blood on the mat. I need to check her over.’
Khanyi moved from his position like an agile leopard.
Piet had just jogged up to them. ‘I think it might be an idea. Can you radio this into the station? I am going to carry on looking for more signs of where the partner is. They normally work in pairs. Besides, we have discharged our weapons—we need to report in. Lily, you okay?’
‘Yes, thank you, Piet.’
‘I’m on it,’ said Natalie.
Piet disappeared back into the bushes.
‘Thank you for having my back,’ Khanyi said.
‘He’s not getting up again, that I can assure you,’ Natalie said.
‘You killed him,’ Lily said.
‘Unfortunately. He was going to kill you, so I made a choice,’ Natalie said. ‘If we weren’t so close behind you, you would have been dead. What were you thinking, stopping for somebody on the road? That’s one of the oldest tricks in Africa. They make you think that they need help, and they rob you, kill you, or worse, rape you. You’re from Africa—you should know better. Call it into the nearest police station and keep driving.’
‘I know, but I’m a doctor—I couldn’t just drive past. What if it was real and I could save them?’ Lily said.
‘Ag, man, I get you, but next time, please keep on driving. It’s your life or theirs here. We might not be there to help again. Come on, let me look at you—where’s this blood coming from?’
‘My head—I could feel the stones when it smacked the ground,’ Lily said as Natalie snapped on latex gloves and turned Lily around.
‘Eina, jislaaik. There it is. Nice big cut, needs cleaning too. Will have that one seen to in the emergency room. That’s going to hurt when the adrenaline leaves. Going to make sleeping on your back difficult for the
next few days.’
‘Oh my God, Quintin. He was on the phone; I didn’t hang up. He would’ve heard all of this. I left him on speaker!’
‘Quintin, you there?’ Natalie said loudly, but there was no answer on the handsfree. ‘Stay here, I’ll go to the front and see if I can find your phone,’ Natalie said.
‘It was in my pocket,’ Lily said. ‘It’s probably on the road somewhere.’
‘Okay, will look on the road.’ Natalie walked towards the dead body, and Lily watched her. She bent down and grabbed the phone, then jogged back, handing it to Lily.
Lily pushed the screen and it lit up. ‘It’s still working.’
‘Right, you call Quintin. I need to go use my police radio. Khanyi, watch her closely. Shock’s going to set in any moment. Perhaps get her a foil blanket out of the emergency kit; she’s going to need it before the ambulance arrives.’
Lily’s fingers were starting to shake so much she was struggling to put the code into her keypad to unlock it.
‘Code?’ Khanyi asked, calmly taking the phone from her.
She gave it to him, and he dialled Quintin’s number, then put the phone to her ear. ‘Hold the phone.’
She put her hand over it and held tightly. He dug in the back for the blanket.
‘Lily? Lily? Are you okay?’ She could hear Quintin’s frantic voice.
‘I’m here, Quintin. I’m safe now,’ she said as she pressed her phone closer. She could feel the smear of blood on her phone from her ear, and she physically shuddered. ‘On Midlands Road, about three kilometres from our turn-off. Someone tried to kill me.’
‘I’m coming,’ Quintin said.
* * *
Hours later, Lily still sat in the Roodepan police station. The building was painted what used to be white, but too many people had smoked indoors for it to have remained pristine, and now it looked like an eggshell light brown. There were big ‘no smoking’ signs up all over the place. Lily’s eyes were drawn to the thick bars on the windows. She silently admitted to herself that she must live in a dangerous place when even the police station had bars on it to keep the criminals out.
Downing the last of the can of Coke that Piet had pushed at her and instructed her to drink, she lifted one of her hands. At last, the tremors had gone. Her stomach twanged with hunger. After being discharged from the emergency room with stitches in her head, she’d gone straight to the police station. And stayed there.
Although the hospital had cleaned her up, Natalie had taken her clothes and put them into an evidence bag, leaving her to wear the light-purple scrubs from the emergency room.
Quintin sat beside her, holding her hand in an interview room. Piet and Natalie were opposite her at the table, and Khanyi sat on a chair, next to them. In front of them was a binder with photographs and sketched pictures.
‘Have you seen any of these faces before?’ Piet was pointing to different people. ‘Take your time, have a good look. Both of you.’
‘Why am I looking at these?’ she asked. She didn’t recognise a single person.
‘That was not a simple attempted hijacking. It was attempted murder. The man who tried to kill you is a known associate of a gang in Alexandra. If this man came after you, someone has put a contract on you. His name was Kagiso Dubazane, he is wanted for other contract killings. Usually he works out of Alexandra in Johannesburg, so he was a fair way from home. Dubazane has gone to court once before, but he got off on a technicality—someone messed up in the paperwork, and not surprisingly he had an expensive and elite legal firm working for him.’
‘He was a known criminal?’ Lily asked.
‘Yes,’ Piet said. ‘I am worried that they will send someone else to finish the job. A contract, or a hit as some would call it, is mostly paid upfront to the person who organises it. Not afterwards. Then whoever is organising the hit, only pays the money over to the hitman once they have proof that the execution has taken place. In a professional execution, there is always someone who pays, someone who organises and someone who does the deed. We now need to find out who the organiser is, and who actually wants you dead. And most importantly, why.’
Lily swallowed and ran her hands through her hair. Then flinched when she touched her wound. ‘Do you think this is the same person who killed Ian?’
‘I do, and probably Chelmsford, as well. Too convenient, that style of hijacking. Now our jobs are to find out what you put your foot into. If this is about the tainted drugs or something else.’
‘We can’t discount any of our wild ideas now,’ Natalie said.
‘If drug dealers are angry with us for growing a few plants to make medicines, surely someone might have attempted to break into the property, try to steal them, burn down the hothouse. Not attempted to kill Lily first off?’ Quintin said.
‘I agree,’ Piet said. ‘But you have locked up your place pretty tight. It was as if this killer knew where you were going to be. He seemed surprised that you had company, but he knew your location, that you would come down that road. He knew your Land Cruiser.’
‘People could probably set their clock by what you do,’ Khanyi said. There were icebags across his fists, a reminder to Lily that he had gone into a physical fight with a killer to protect her. ‘We spoke about shaking up the days, but it’s really hard for a doctor—it’s a lot to rearrange. And there is only one road into town from Lily’s place. We found night-vision binoculars at the scene to look for you, ensure it was you before laying in the road. But then, he could have just got lucky.’
‘Not that man,’ Piet said. ‘He did not have the brain capacity to get lucky. He was told precisely what to do, where, when and how.’
‘We can’t rule out that someone told him you were going to be on that long stretch of straight road,’ Khanyi said.
‘True. But we need to find who. Who knew? Our dogs did not find any other scents when they searched, and they would have detected another presence. Kagiso Dubazane was a cold-blooded killer. He would not simply take time out to randomly target someone. Can you think of who you told that we were going to Mr Parkes’s farm?’
‘I guess I might have said something to Jacob because he always likes to know where I am, and of course to June. I can’t go anywhere without her knowledge for insurance. Actually, I asked Bessie if she had been near Hopetown and if there were any butchers on the way worth stopping at for biltong. But she wouldn’t have times that I was travelling, and she never knew it was today.’
‘One thing we got from him was his gun. If it is a match to other hijackings, then at least we have an idea of what his legacy with that was,’ Piet said.
‘Can I go home yet?’ Lily asked.
Natalie nodded. ‘Quintin can take you now; I’ll grab my things. I’ll take turns with one of the other policewomen from Roodepan and Kimberley police stations to keep an eye on you. As well as Khanyi. Just until he can organise to bring in more women personnel to protect you, be with you all the time for a while. Until we catch these guys.’
Piet said, ‘We do not believe that this gang will stop coming for you. Even though we have killed one of the assassins, they will keep surfacing when least expected. We do not know how much time we have before they try again. We need to find some answers. Quickly.’
CHAPTER
30
Quintin couldn’t relax, as much as he tried. Neither could Lily. They were together in the lounge, Lily with her feet up on the couch, but they were both restless.
Tiger walked in and jumped onto the table. ‘No, you get down, you are not allowed up there. Next, you’ll be begging for food,’ Lily said.
‘Hang on, if Tiger is here, where’s Minke?’ Quintin got up and walked to the garage, Tiger and Lily following behind.
Quintin frowned. Minke was not in her little caged area. She had managed to hop out of it yet again.
‘Where’s Minke?’ Lily asked.
They heard the kids laughing and went to the outside door. Opening it, they saw them in the little por
table swimming pool they had bought for Minke, splashing around with the bird honking.
‘Did that cat just dob them in for going outside?’ Lily asked.
‘I believe he did,’ Quintin said, lifting Tiger up and stroking him. He was rewarded with a loud purr.
Bessie was watching them from across the way. Little Diamond was dressed in her bathing suit, and Lincoln was putting the hose away, having filled the small pool for them that he emptied daily.
‘Well, at least they didn’t go swimming alone this time. Looks like they got Bessie to jailbreak them,’ Quintin said, as Diamond took off towards the pool, where David helped her into the water with them.
Lily laughed. ‘Those kids are going to miss that baby flamingo when it goes back to the wild.’
‘Yeah and their excuse to stay here with us, too,’ Quintin said.
Lily could hear a sadder tone in his voice.
‘Unfortunately for David and Diamond, it might not be an option to go anywhere else when Elise dies. Piet says that their real family are gone. Those two will be all alone now. If they still lived in the desert, the tribe would bring them up together, but now welfare will take them, probably split them up and house them with foster parents if they are lucky.’
‘Won’t Piet take them on?’
‘He didn’t say he wouldn’t, but he seemed to think that welfare might not think him a suitable candidate for adopting two kids. He has no wife, and he works all the time, and he already looks after his sister. Well, the financial burden is on him, he employs someone to watch over her when he’s at work.’
Quintin hugged Lily close.
‘I can’t do this, Quintin, this knowing that they’re about to have their lives implode on them. Knowing that we’ve all had a moment of happiness together as a family but it will end when Elise dies and they get split up. I need to get out, get away.’
‘With me, I hope,’ Quintin said.
‘You’re the only one I do want around right now. But I feel like every move we make at home today is being watched.’
‘It is, but we can play hooky. What about a visit next door? Should we see if they can fit us into their private game reserve for a night or so?’