Vengeful: A Conspiracy Crime Thriller (The Gabriel Series Book 3)

by David Hickson

  “Thank you,” I said, and I meant it.

  He called for the guards to take me away, and we sat in silence as we waited.

  “It wasn’t my doing, Gabriel,” he said, as I stood to leave. “Your lawyer should have been more circumspect, instead of arriving here and showing his face to all the cameras.”

  He sounded genuinely regretful.

  “I kept telling him that,” I said, and followed the guard back to my cell, full of my own regret.

  “We are very pleased of course,” said Fehrson, “very pleased indeed.”

  He bared his long teeth and receding gums in what might have been a smile.

  “Of course we are,” he repeated in case the inevitability of their pleasure had not been clear.

  Khanyi joined him in his smile.

  “There was a delay,” I said, “of the full seventy-two hours.”

  Khanyi shook her head in sympathy and Fehrson tut-tutted.

  “A law unto themselves,” said Fehrson. “The police these days, shocking what this country has come to.”

  He gave a dip of the head in silent regret. Belinda, the nearly spherical chief of catering for the Department, announced her arrival in the Attic with a series of loud puffing sounds like a steam train letting off excess steam.

  “Coffee,” announced Fehrson, as if the murky brown water Belinda brewed was something to celebrate.

  “The milk was sour,” said Belinda. “I added powdered creamer.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” said Fehrson, but he didn’t keep the enthusiastic smile up for long when faced with the white lumps that floated at the top of his mug.

  We waited until Belinda had huffed and puffed her way back down the spiral staircase and then I spoilt the celebratory mood by saying, “Could we stop with all the pretence, and get straight to the point?”

  Khanyi looked up from the mug she had been squinting at as she blew the white lumps to clear them.

  “What point?” she said.

  “We all know the reason for the seventy-two hour delay. I expect that you have identified the man who came to see me by now. What is it you want from me?”

  “Want from you?” asked Khanyi, but she placed her coffee mug back onto the table in case she needed both hands for the next bit.

  “There are four of us,” I said. “I suppose you have established that by now and have already identified the others. What is it you want?”

  “Must you insist on speaking in riddles, my boy?” asked Fehrson, and in his irritation took a sip from his mug, then winced and placed it onto the table and glared at me as if it was my fault.

  “You’ve traced them,” I said, “haven’t you? You know Chandler was my captain when I served in the British army, and I expect you know about his associates, and some of what we have been up to recently.”

  Khanyi glanced at Fehrson, but he was staring regretfully at the whirlpool of lumps in his coffee as he made a loud clattering sound, stirring it with a teaspoon.

  “Your police captain suggested we meet here,” I continued, “when he had questions about that judge, because he described it as neutral territory. But that was nonsense, wasn’t it Khanyi?”

  Khanyi opened her mouth to provide another denial, but I spoke before she had a chance.

  “There was a reason for your keen interest in the police investigation into my activities. And it has not been hard to guess who posted my bail.”

  Neither Khanyi nor Fehrson said anything. They both looked up at me with clear eyes and innocent expressions, but I was not fooled.

  “Before you deny it,” I said. “Allow me to make a proposal. If I must sell my soul to the devil, let me at least name my price.”

  “The devil?” said Fehrson, and he tried to produce a laugh.

  “What price?” asked Khanyi flatly.

  “Indemnity. Not for me, but my colleagues.”

  Khanyi said nothing. Fehrson reached for his cup of coffee and raised it to his lips, before remembering his earlier regret, and lowered it again.

  “You would want it in writing?” he asked. “This indemnity?”

  “I would,” I said.

  “I will let Khanyisile take care of the paperwork,” said Fehrson, and he raised his mug towards me as if he was about to propose a toast. “You always were a cunning devil, young man. Your colleagues must be grateful they have you on their side.”

  “Not at all. My colleagues regret the day I joined their side,” I said. And I meant it.

  Thirty-Four

  Chandler drove us to the airport in his custom Jaguar XJ220, with matte bronze finish and surround sound. It felt like we were floating along the highway in a bubble, with Yo-yo Ma and a fifty-piece orchestra stuffed into the trunk. We finished the Adagio movement of Elgar’s cello concerto and Chandler switched it off. We drove in silence for a few minutes.

  “Know why the cello does that to you?” asked Chandler.

  “Does what?”

  “Stirs up the emotions more than any other instrument – you know why?”

  “I don’t.”

  “It is the instrument that is closest to the human voice. Evokes the sense of a fellow human desperately trying to express themselves, but with no words, no meaning, only the pure sound. It’s the sound of desperation that evokes the emotion.”

  “You’re making that up,” I said.

  We drove in silence for a few minutes.

  “What did your government goons want?” he asked, eventually. “It was them that paid your bail, wasn’t it?”

  “They wanted nothing.”

  He took his eyes off the road in order to study me.

  “They never want nothing, Angel. Don’t lie to me.”

  “Did it for old time’s sake,” I said.

  Chandler turned back to the road.

  “You’re with us now, Angel, on our side of the line. Remember that. If you need anything, you come to me, not to those snivelling white-washers.”

  “I won’t forget,” I said.

  Chandler switched the player on again, and the first jaunty chords of the fourth movement sprang out at us. Then a breathless pause and the cello’s plaintive tone evoked so much emotion in Chandler that his grasp on the steering wheel wobbled.

  “Desperation,” said Chandler, “that’s what it is. The sound of desperation.”

  Fat-Boy was waiting for us at the entrance to the hangar. We performed a series of complex handshakes, and he pulled me in close, pressed me up against his belly, and squeezed hard.

  “The colonel says you didn’t kill those men,” he said in a tone that made it clear he hadn’t believed the colonel.

  “I didn’t,” I said.

  “Want to tell us what this is all about, Fat-Boy?” asked Chandler.

  “We’ll be about an hour,” said Fat-Boy, and he indicated the Cessna-182 standing behind him. A youthful boy with a peaked cap was holding a phial of fuel up to the sky.

  “That child the pilot?” asked Chandler.

  “He’s got a licence,” said Fat-Boy.

  “One he bought off the black market? Or did he do the test?”

  “He’s my aunt’s nephew,” said Fat-Boy, as if that answered the question.

  “All set, Uncle Stan,” called the youth.

  Fat-Boy swung his arm wide in a gesture that invited us to climb aboard.

  “Grab yourselves a headset,” he said, “we’ve got shit to talk about.”

  Chandler sat up front beside the pilot and I noticed his hands hovering beneath the dual controls as we accelerated down the runway in case he needed to take over. But the young pilot lifted neatly into the crosswind and kept us straight until five hundred feet, then turned onto a westerly bearing, and Chandler relaxed.

  “Three times,” said Fat-Boy into his headset microphone so that the words nearly burst my eardrums. “That’s how I knew.”

  “What did you know?” I asked.

  “Where it was,” said Fat-Boy in his gloating voice. “How many times do you
think those Dark Bizness slave-labourers carried that gold?”

  “Three times?”

  Fat-Boy glared at me through his good eye.

  “Not counting the time it was in the concrete,” said Fat-Boy, dissatisfied with my answer. “They used a crane for that. I mean with their hands.”

  “Twice?”

  Fat-Boy shook his head.

  “Three times,” he said.

  “That’s what I said the first time.”

  “Why three times?” asked Chandler irritably.

  “That’s what I asked the man guarding me in that little room on that boat. He got guard duty ’cos he refused to carry those boxes again.”

  “Little cabin,” said Chandler. “Rooms on boats are called cabins.”

  “No, Colonel, this was a room.”

  “What did the man say?”

  “Kathathu is what he said. It means three times. He was an angry Xhosa, that one. Said they had to carry those bars kathathu, not kabini.”

  “I don’t understand,” I admitted.

  “Remember that other boat?” said Fat-Boy. “The one you pushed me off? With the captain with one eye that got killed.”

  “I remember it,” I said.

  “When I asked him why three times he said: first onto this big ship, then onto that old boat, then into the truck.”

  “Why onto the old boat?”

  “That’s what I wondered. Then afterwards I realised – if the bars they loaded into our truck were fake bars, they must’ve loaded the real bars somewhere they thought nobody would look. That’s why three times. Didn’t I tell you that old boat was going to be auctioned off?”

  “You did.”

  “Don’t tell me you bought the goddamn boat, Fat-Boy,” said Chandler.

  “I didn’t,” said Fat-Boy. “But it turns out Lebo Madikwe did.”

  Fat-Boy’s nephew landed without incident on the dirt strip at Langebaan, and then another of his relatives, presumably from the branch of his family that had not been killed when building the railway line, drove us to the harbour and took us out to the barge in a small dinghy.

  The wheelhouse was still leaning at a crooked angle, splintered wood scattered across the deck. Fat-Boy led the way down below.

  There was an old tarpaulin lying over what could have been a pile of bricks. Fat-Boy pulled the tarpaulin off, and our gold glimmered in the dim murk.

  “One hundred and twenty bars,” said Fat-Boy. “I counted them.”

  Chandler turned to me.

  “I will leave it to you,” he said, “to tell Robyn that her curse has returned.”

  “I knew they were wrong,” said Bill and he blew his nose on a bright purple handkerchief before clarifying, “about it being you who killed those men.”

  “Thank you, Bill,” I said. “There was a moment when I thought even you might suspect me.”

  Bill’s eyes were full of tears, and he blinked in preparation to deny his suspicion. But I smiled to show I was only teasing. “It was a beautiful speech,” I said.

  “I got a bit emotional,” he complained, and wiped his eyes.

  “We all did. That’s what memorial services are for.”

  “I like Robyn,” he said. “She’s very kind.”

  We both looked over to where Robyn was supporting Tannie Sara.

  “She is,” I agreed, and Robyn looked up as if she knew we were speaking about her.

  There had been a small group at Sandy’s memorial service, and afterwards a handful of us stood around her grave, while the wind played tug of war with our scarves and pressed the priest’s robes up against him in an inappropriately intimate fashion as he finished the final prayer. Bill had made a very moving speech and Leilah had clung to me and wept, leaving my shoulder so damp that it was now growing cold in the icy wind at the grave. Benjamin stood on the other side of Sandy’s last resting place, his lips moving in a silent prayer of his own. Then he turned from the grave and, with Leilah on his arm, led the way to his house where we were going to celebrate Sandy’s life in what he had described as a non-denominational wake.

  Bill and I trailed a little behind Tannie Sara, who walked with Robyn’s support, and was trying to find her sunglasses in an enormous bag that hung over her shoulder. She found the glasses, at least three sizes too big for her face, and used them to cover her red eyes. Then she found a tissue to wipe the tears that fell beneath them.

  “For a short while I did,” admitted Bill when we were halfway down the hill. “Just for a short while, I thought it was possible that you killed those men. You seemed so angry, so vengeful.”

  “You didn’t try to stop me,” I said.

  “Why would I stop you? I was also angry. I believed you were doing it for all of us.”

  We continued in silence to Benjamin’s house. The fire was still burning, and I helped him warm the mulled wine. Then we stood before the wall of photographs of Sandy and her sister and proposed toasts to them both.

  Robyn and I walked to the foot of Benjamin’s garden and we stood together on the bank of the river.

  “I’m so glad you wanted me to be here,” said Robyn.

  “Sandy has been a part of your life. Of course you should be here.”

  She leaned up against me, and I put an arm around her and held her close.

  “Our lives are going to change now, aren’t they?” she said.

  “In what way?”

  “In a good way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve done enough running, and trying to escape. Things are going to swing back in our favour.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Now that we’ve shaken the curse,” said Robyn, and she looked up at me with her dark eyes, as if she was asking a question.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Now that we’ve shaken it.”

  The sky was clear, and the light of the moon shone off her face.

  “Unless the curse has returned,” I said. “Then we might be in trouble.”

  Robyn shook her head and smiled.

  “It’s nonsense, all of that, isn’t it? There is no curse.”

  “I thought you were convinced about it.”

  Robyn laughed, as if the idea was absurd. We stood in silence for a moment and listened to the sound of frogs in the river and laughter from the house.

  “Fat-Boy has found the gold, hasn’t he?” asked Robyn, her eyes still on mine.

  I nodded. “Fat-Boy and the colonel have been frightened to tell you.”

  I looked into her eyes and realised that she had tricked me.

  “You are convinced it’s cursed, aren’t you?”

  “Of course it is. We’re not just in trouble, Ben, we’re in deep, deep trouble.”

  But she smiled, and then she kissed me.

  When we returned to Sandy’s wake, Tannie Sara was wearing her sunglasses again because she didn’t want us to see that she was still crying, although the streaks of mascara were a bit of a giveaway. She had asked Benjamin for his forgiveness – he had given it – and the two of them were standing arm in arm and laughing at Leilah who insisted that she would give Bill a special discount if he ever found himself at Pandora. Bill was blushing and drinking his mulled wine too fast. I helped myself to more wine, Robyn fixed herself some sparkling water with elderflower cordial, and the six of us laughed and cried all night.

  It was a night I wanted to last forever.

  Also by David Hickson

  Have you read them all?

  Treasonous – The Gabriel Series – Book One

  A journalist’s dead body is pulled from the waters of Cape Town harbour, and disillusioned ex-assassin Ben Gabriel wonders whether he died because of questions he was asking about the new president. Gabriel knows that sometimes it takes one killer to stop another, and will do anything to discover the truth, even if that means stepping outside the law.

  Buy Treasonous now

  Murderous – The Gabriel Series – Book Two

  When a massacre in a
small country church shatters an Afrikaans farming community, the message that this is “only the beginning” sparks the fear of genocide. The Department asks Ben Gabriel to apply his unconventional approach to discover the truth behind the massacre – a task made more difficult by the intensive search to find a large number of gold bars stolen from one of the country’s most powerful men.

  Buy Murderous now

  Vengeful – The Gabriel Series – Book Three

  A series of prominent members of South African society are being brutally murdered. When the police discover that a certain Ben Gabriel recently visited each of them, he becomes a hunted man. And when Gabriel is linked to a multi-million dollar gold heist, his life becomes even more complicated. (You’re reading it now!)

  Culpable – The Gabriel Series – Book Four

  A foreign chemist is on the run and Gabriel needs to find him before he betrays the country and sells his deadly secrets. But who is the chemist running from? And why are members of the gold heist gang being targeted? Is someone looking for the stolen gold, or are they trying to stop Gabriel?

  Enjoy this book?

  You can make a difference

  If you enjoyed reading Vengeful please take just a few moments to leave a review on Amazon. It can be as short as you like!

  Every review makes a huge difference – I would be so grateful.

  It is super easy … just go to the book’s page on Amazon, or click here:

  Vengeful on Amazon

  THANK YOU SO MUCH!

  Want to read even more?

  If you have enjoyed this story then I think you will love reading a short novella called Decisive which tells the story of a mission Ben Gabriel is sent on by the Department to assassinate someone … but who?