Cry of the Firebird

by T. M. Clark

  ‘The evidence only points to contaminations in their own branded generic drugs,’ Piet said.

  Vaughan nodded as he rubbed his hands over his face. ‘Fucked up and in serious trouble is what we have here. Once we begin a full-scale quarantine, it will be extremely difficult to stop the spread of information to the public. There’ll need to be a recall on the drugs. We’ll need to ensure that we get the message out there on what drugs they need to return to their chemists for disposal.’ Vaughan was rubbing his head. ‘There have been drug recalls before; it’s nothing new. Only not to this scale.’

  ‘WHO warned that South Africa might get flooded with more expensive overseas drugs again,’ Lily said.

  ‘I hope not. And I do believe a bust like this will send a message to these overseas companies that think they can dump any rubbish drugs on to us, too,’ Vaughan said. ‘A clear message that South Africa is as sophisticated as the rest of the world. We haven’t slumped into Third World status yet.’

  ‘Where do we go from here?’ Piet asked.

  ‘Firstly, we make sure that Dr Winters has everything double-crossed with WHO, and they will not move before we do. We need to do this right and arrest the people responsible for the contamination. No use us going in guns blazing at the new CEO when there must be others involved. We need to cast our net wide and catch everyone. Three days, people, we go into Ayurprabhu Pharmaceuticals. The whole company will be going into lockdown.’

  ‘Okay, Dr Winters, you happy with that? You can make sure that WHO will wait for three days?’ Piet said.

  Lily nodded.

  ‘We’ll assemble the strike force to enter. I want legal ready, and TAKIES on site with us,’ Vaughan said, tapping his papers together on the table to ensure they were neat and ordered.

  ‘What’s a TAKIES?’ Lily whispered to Piet.

  ‘Special Task Force unit. These are the guys you do not mess with in South Africa. The men that go in to high-risk situations where normal police cannot and sort things out. The men you want watching your back.’

  Lily nodded.

  ‘Public relations will prepare the press releases that will go out once we have the factory in quarantine. We can tell the public that it is under further investigation. Let’s stop those drugs we already know about. Save some lives. You’re welcome to come with us, Piet and Makoni. Sorry, Dr Winters, police personnel only,’ Vaughn said.

  ‘I don’t need to be anywhere near them, thank you very much. They’ve killed plenty of my patients and caused me sleepless nights. If I had to meet them face to face, I’m not sure what I would do. I’m so angry at them,’ Lily said.

  ‘Fair enough,’ Vaughan said.

  The people around the table all stood up and wandered off to perform their various tasks until only Piet, Makoni, Lily and Vaughan remained.

  ‘Vaughan, I know for you this one will be personal. Are you okay going into this raid?’ Piet asked.

  ‘I really don’t know,’ Vaughan said. ‘I tell you if that bitch CEO wasn’t dead, I think I might have done it myself with my bare hands. But now, all I can do is ensure that everyone, and I mean every single person responsible for this contamination, pays. The audacity of this fucking drug company to come along and play God, targeting sick people.’ He flexed his fists. ‘I’m so proud of my son and the man he was able to grow into, despite that fucking virus, and they murdered him. I’ll get justice for every single victim here, every single one.’

  CHAPTER

  42

  Reyansh Prabhu sat at his desk. He wiped the tiny fleck of dust off it. Gone was all Mishti’s furniture, and he had redecorated with glass and leather. Rather, Anaya had organised for the redecoration now that he was CEO. She seemed to be floating around happier than he had ever seen her since his sister’s accident. And that happiness had spilled over into their bedroom, too.

  ‘Excuse me, Reyansh?’ the deep voice of his secretary said from the door.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s a problem in the reception area, police—’ He was cut off as two policemen appeared behind him.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Reyansh said. ‘Please come in, sit.’

  The policemen walked into the office. Two other officers were standing outside.

  ‘What seems to be the problem?’ Reyansh asked, putting his hands together to stop them from shaking. He had been off his drugs since the day he’d learned of Mishti’s death, so, it wasn’t the drugs playing with his nerves. His dream of being CEO of Ayurprabhu Pharmaceuticals, at last, came true when she died. But right now, he wished that Mishti was alive to deal with the police.

  The policemen were not sitting. Reyansh stood up.

  ‘My name is Colonel Vaughan Smith, and this is Detective Piet Kleinman. As the CEO of Ayurprabhu Pharmaceuticals, you’re personally responsible for all drugs manufactured and distributed from your factories. Do you acknowledge this?’

  ‘Not personally. I run the company now, but I only recently took over from my late sister, may she rest in peace,’ Reyansh said.

  ‘According to the law, you’re responsible. We want to ask you if you have anything to say on the counts that we are charging you with. Murder of at least fifteen South African prisoners and thirty-six civilians. Furthermore, it has been discovered that your company has been manufacturing contaminated and substandard drugs that did not perform their purpose, and your trading licence has been suspended. This includes all containers coming into South Africa as well as those already in transit. They will be seized on arrival, and the contents destroyed. It also includes all drugs on your premises and chemical compounds, and a raid is taking place there as we speak. The contents will all be tested, and anything found contaminated will be destroyed.

  ‘You are also charged with the murder of Dr Ian Hawthorne, the attempted murder of Dr Lily Winters, and the attempted corporate espionage of botany piracy from the San community of Platfontein. Do you have anything to say?’

  ‘I have nothing to do with any of that. I did none of these things that you accuse me of. Like I told you, I have only recently taken over from my sister. She would have probably been able to speak to you more about this; I do not know what you are talking about,’ Reyansh said. ‘You’re welcome to search our premises. I can show you around personally, and you can take all the tests you want. I am the head chemist here, too, and if there were tainted drugs like you say there are, then they have to have been created away from our factory. Our factory adheres to strict standards; our quality is of the highest standard. As for botany piracy—I don’t know anything about that either.’

  ‘Do you want to call a lawyer?’ Vaughan asked.

  ‘Why? I have done nothing wrong. If there is this botany piracy you speak of, I would like to get to the bottom of it as much as you. If there are tainted drugs on our premises, then this is disturbing as it could damage our company. I’ve already told you, my company will give you full cooperation. There is no need to threaten me or any of my staff with your guns.’

  Vaughan said, ‘I would like you to assemble all the staff. Do you have an area where we can talk to them?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, this way,’ Reyansh said, and he walked out of his office towards the factory. ‘Can I call them together on the PA system?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He walked to the main receptionist’s desk. ‘Holly, please call all the workers to assemble in the mezzanine eating area for a full staff meeting. This is all staff, administration and manufacturing.’

  She nodded and pushed the button, and began calling all the employees.

  ‘This way, gentlemen,’ Reyansh said.

  There were police and tactical soldiers everywhere. He took deep breaths to calm his nerves. He always knew that this might happen, but luckily with Mishti’s passing, he could plead ignorance and she would take all the blame. Her name would be tarnished, and he might come out of this looking okay. Still able to run his company the way he wanted to, and hopefully without the need to taint drugs ever
again, but for now, he needed to keep it all together and simply blame Mishti.

  To his amusement, his sister who had had the perfect reputation in life was about to have it ruined in death.

  The police surrounded them as he stood up and spoke to his workers for the second time since taking over leadership.

  ‘This is Colonel Vaughan Smith and Detective Piet Kleinman. They have come here today to look for evidence that our drugs are tainted. Please cooperate with them as much as you can and answer any questions they have so that we can catch whoever is responsible. They will be located in my office and will call you all in to speak with them. Please do not be afraid. Help where you can. We can’t afford to stay in quarantine for long, so the quicker we help the police, the better for all.’

  * * *

  Piet and Makoni sat at their desks.

  ‘Something is not right. I am still missing a piece in this puzzle,’ Piet said.

  ‘What? Are you sure?’ Makoni said.

  ‘Do you remember the first day you came to work here, you asked me two questions. How did the information get into the hands of Kagiso and Ulwazi Dubazane for them to have a hit on the doctors, and then the medical-aid-fraud assessor? And how did Kagiso know exactly where to find Dr Lily Winters that day?’

  ‘I remember that. We might not have answered those, but we have so much more. Organised Crime has invited you to be present when they interview Ulwazi Dubazane tomorrow after they picked her up yesterday. We have already been with the narcotics guys when they found nothing in the factory—no evidence of any tampering. The only person you could even consider arresting was the VP for his part in knowing about the book, but he said he was working on Mishti’s orders, so that won’t stick. Narcotics couldn’t prove the contamination was happening there, but those affected drugs are off the shelves, and new ones are being supplied to those who need them. What more do you think is still unsolved?’ Makoni said.

  ‘I know, we have solved so much, but I still feel like there is this piece missing, like everything needs to link together somehow. I still haven’t answered those two questions. But now I am adding a third to them: How did Ulwazi first come across the information that Ian and I were writing a book on plants?’

  Piet’s phone rang. ‘Detective Kleinman.’

  ‘You have a visitor. Please come through to the reception area.’

  ‘Makoni, keep thinking on this. I need to see who that is.’

  * * *

  Piet settled Bessie and Lincoln into a private interview room. ‘Right, this is a secure room, as you asked for. Why are you both here?’

  ‘I know that Lily and Quintin said that we can always talk to them, but I don’t know what to do. How to tell them,’ Bessie said.

  ‘Tell them what?’ Piet asked.

  ‘I think that I have harmed Dr Lily and Dr Ian without knowing about it. Lincoln thinks that perhaps we should tell you our story so that you know that we are not trying to keep secrets, but I was too trusting and blind with family.’

  Lincoln held her hand in his, but her eyes were filled with tears.

  ‘Would you like some water?’ Piet asked.

  ‘I think perhaps I just need to tell you before I can’t,’ Bessie said.

  ‘I am listening,’ Piet said.

  ‘My sister—she is not a real sister, but my sister-but-one. We grew up together in the Transkei. It was hard. My father abandoned my mother, and then my mother died having another child. My aunty, Mary, she took me in and raised me like I was her daughter, too. My sister and I we were like this.’ Bessie put her fingers together.

  ‘I understand,’ Piet said.

  ‘My sister, she got involved with a bad man. I moved to Cape Town to be far away from him. I begged her to run away with me, to come and make a new life. But she would not leave him.

  ‘For many years I did not see my sister. Then I heard that her husband had died and she had taken over his business. I travelled to Johannesburg to caution her not to do this, that now he was gone, she could be free of him and his family. But she would not listen.

  ‘Once again we parted ways. I met Lincoln and we got married. We were happy in our life in Kimberley. The family in the house before Dr Ian, they moved to Johannesburg and they invited me to visit when they moved, to help them before they could find a new maid. They would pay me to come back to Kimberley and carry on working for Dr Ian when they got a new maid.

  ‘That is when I saw my sister again. She was waiting for me outside the new house in Sandton. When she saw me, she asked why I was working in Sandton, as no one worked in those houses unless she said so. When I explained my situation, she said she was so happy. Happy to see me, like I was her. We decided to keep in touch because everything else didn’t matter; we were still sisters. We had to hold onto each other because we were all that was left of our Transkei family.

  ‘Every week she calls me, and we talk about our lives. She tells me about her life in Alexandra and about what her sons and grandchildren get up to. My only daughter had moved away; I don’t have family to talk about. I began telling her of the family who lives in Kimberley who I look after instead. About Dr Ian and what he was doing in his clinic in Platfontein. I was so proud that he was writing a book. A real book that one day I could go buy in the shop. I was proud of him, and of you, Piet. Of what you were making. I told her. But I did not think anything of it when Dr Ian was killed and the house was robbed. Then Dr Lily came to live in the house, and soon she had David, Maddy, Diamond, and Minke and all the guards, and I told my sister everything that was exciting and new in my life. How the sleepy house is so alive.

  ‘Then my sister’s child was killed—I did not know he had been killed in Kimberley. She told me her son had been shot by the police and I thought she meant in Johannesburg. I took leave from Dr Lily and I went to the funeral to support my sister.

  ‘Then the man—he came to rob the house. The one you shot with your arrow. I remembered him from the funeral—he was very good friends with my sister. That was when the bells in my head began ringing, and I told Lincoln. We did not know what to do. But today, we decided to come tell you because she is dead now. I got a phone call this morning to say that she’d passed over. She had a heart attack. And now I must go to jail for telling her things about my family, even though I did not realise that she was hurting them. I thought she was my sister, all these years I treated her like a sister would, I cared for her and loved her, and in the end, she hurt my family. It must have been her who hurt Dr Lily and Khanyi and your friend Natalie. My sister, and her igundane, and her secrets and her lies. She used me. She took what I loved and she hurt my new family. She hurt them. And I am the one who talked to her on the telephone all the time, the one who was so excited that now I too had all this news to share with her.’

  Bessie was sobbing. Lincoln had his arm around her.

  The fine hair on Piet’s arm stood on end. ‘Bessie, are you telling me that your sister was Ulwazi Dubazane?’

  Bessie nodded.

  CHAPTER

  43

  It was another summer day, with clear blue skies overhead and the African sunshine warming those who chose to lift their faces up towards her. Only Lily was oblivious to the weather. Instead, she looked from Mason back to Quintin.

  ‘Minke’s feathers have enough waxing-waterproofing. A perfect day for her to be returned to the wild,’ Mason said.

  Piet stood inside the studio. The quiet man in the storm around him as everyone talked over each other.

  ‘It can’t be time already for this bird to go home; it only just got here,’ Quintin protested. ‘Who’s going to be my muse when Minke is gone?’

  ‘Tiger,’ David said. ‘He will still attack your bow, even when Minke isn’t here.’

  ‘Lily,’ said Maddy. ‘She’s always your muse.’

  Quintin laughed and reached for Lily’s hand. ‘Of course she is. But I’m going to miss this fluff ball.’

  ‘I’m not going to miss cleaning up
its poop,’ Bessie said.

  Mason laughed. ‘We need Gentian Violet; if we spray a little on her head to mark her, then we can see her when she’s in the creche at all times. For a few days perhaps. But she’s ready to go wild again. She’s very healthy and ready to rejoin her feathered family.’

  ‘Do you have some handy?’ Lily asked.

  ‘In my bakkie. Hang on, I’ll go grab it.’

  ‘She’ll have a purple head, so we can see if the other flamingo babies are picking on her?’ asked Maddy.

  ‘I guess,’ Quintin said, nodding. ‘Hopefully not though.’

  ‘What about Tiger? He’s going to miss Minke,’ David asked.

  ‘He’ll get used to being alone again. Besides, he’s a cat; he’ll probably be happy to simply get back his box on my bench.’

  ‘One without bird poop in it,’ Bessie said.

  Maddy laughed.

  ‘True,’ Quintin agreed.

  Mason returned. ‘Quintin, hold Minke while I spray her head.’ He grabbed hold of Minke and passed her to Quintin.

  Minke was not impressed. She honked at Mason and tried her hardest to get out of Quintin’s arms.

  ‘Come on, Minke, it’s only hair dye,’ Mason said, carefully spraying her head.

  Quintin put Minke on the floor, and she ran to Tiger, who was lying in the doorway to the outside. She was honking still. Tiger stood up as if they understood each other, and he put his paw on Minke’s foot. Minke lowered her head down to Tiger’s level, and he began trying to licking off the purple antiseptic spray.

  ‘Oh no you don’t,’ Mason said, grabbing Minke. ‘That stuff is bad for Tiger.’

  ‘Are we ready to take her back to the dam?’ Lily asked.

  ‘Yes. Ja. Yebo,’ all came collectively.

  ‘Goodbye, Minke,’ Bessie said as she reached out to pat the flamingo. ‘You have been a good bird. Be safe in the wild.’

  ‘Everybody in the Cruiser, or if you want to go in Mason’s bakkie, climb in there.’

  They walked out, Minke struggling against Mason.

  ‘Put her on the ground. She’ll come by herself. We got her used to the back of the Cruiser. Watch,’ Quintin said.