by Deon Meyer
‘But there aren’t any spatters on his fingers. Only on the thumb.’
‘True. But that’s consistent with a suicide where a pistol is used. The firearm itself, especially the butt, prevents the blood spraying on the fingers, the thumb excepted, of course. If you look through the magnifying-glass, you’ll see there is secondary spatter on the first joint of the index and middle fingers. That’s normal. I don’t see anything to make me believe that forcing by another hand was involved.’
‘Are you absolutely sure?’
‘I’ll have another look in the mortuary, and do the residue tests too. But I would be surprised.’
‘Thank you, Uli.’
‘Sorry, Captain.’
Sergeant Lithpel Davids arrived, grumbling. ‘Is there nobody in this unit who watches UEFA Cup quarter-finals? Is nothing sacred?’
‘What are you moaning about now, Lithpel?’ asked Cupido.
‘The soccer on TV, cappie. The beautiful game. Nothing that you rugby barbarians would understand. Where are the computers? I’d like to get to work before my Wednesday is ruined as well.’
‘Come and look at the body first,’ said Cupido, very deliberately, as it was well known Davids couldn’t handle blood or trauma scenes at all. Anything the least bit gruesome made him instantly nauseous, and apparently gave him terrible nightmares for weeks after.
‘Cappie, I swear I’ll resign right here and go work for Dial-a-Nerd. You’re an evil, evil man.’
‘That you haven’t yet been had up for insubordination is one of the greatest miracles in the law-enforcement universe,’ said Cupido.
‘That’s because of my sunny disposition,’ said Davids. ‘Everybody loves me.’
‘In your dreams. Come on, the study is down the passage. Body is in the kitchen.’
Lithpel cupped a hand against the side of his face to shield his eyes from the scene at the kitchen table. He followed Cupido into the study and looked at the computer and the cell phone on the desk. ‘So, which of my many and varied skills will you be needing tonight?’
‘Right. We have reason to believe that the forces of evil staged the suicide of the umadala inside there. We’re looking for a motive for murder, Lithpel. We’re looking at friends and associates, we’re looking at hanky-panky, dark state secrets, world-domination conspiracies. Anything. So, unlock the phone, get us the good stuff. Full hard-drive analysis of the PC, including emails, browser history, social media . . .’
‘Unlock the phone? Unlock the phone? Wait, let me quickly get my Garrick-Ollivander-manufactured magic wand, the one with the phoenix-feather core . . .’
‘Garrick who?’
‘Jissis,’ said Lithpel Davids. ‘No soccer, no Harry Potter. You’re heavy gam, cappie. You’re genuinely the least cultured cop I know. What do you do in your spare time?’
‘A thoroughbred Hawk doesn’t have spare time, Lithpel. We live for our work.’
‘Ja, ja, whatever.’ Lithpel spotted the technical manual on the bookshelf. He took a step closer, ran his finger over the book spines. ‘So who lived here with the umadala?’
‘Nobody. Those are his things. He was a bigwig in State Security’s computer systems.’
‘A blood brother,’ Davids said. ‘A fellow geek, a kindred spirit, an alter ego. Why didn’t you say so? For him, I’m bringing my A game.’
Chapter 57
Griessel and Cupido unlocked the swing-up door of the single garage with a key they found in a bunch hanging on the back door.
There was a white Mercedes Benz E200, eight or nine years old. The boot was empty.
Against the rear wall racks of cheap shelving held seven cartons of the same size, all with the upper flaps cut away. They examined the contents. Household items, tools, all carefully and logically ordered.
‘Benna, the umadala was a tidy man. Across the board.’
‘But where are the tools for the veggie garden?’
‘That there is exactly why we pay you the big bucks . . .’
They went out, walked around the garage. There was an outside room and toilet behind it. They shone their torches through the window. An old, rickety, dusty couch and the worn grass box of a mower were all they could see inside. Cupido swung his torch over the back garden. Vegetable beds, two with support frames, the soil dug over and raked, but nothing currently growing.
‘Look there,’ said Cupido and illuminated a structure against the vibracrete back wall. ‘Wendy house. There’s our garden shed, I scheme.’
They walked towards it down the paved path between the vegetable beds. It was a large Wendy house, with its own tiny porch in front. The door was bolted, with a hefty padlock. Cupido held up his torch while Griessel tried various keys on the bunch. He found the right one, unlocked the padlock and unbolted the door.
Inside were garden tools, fertiliser, wooden stakes for the frames, baling twine in a roll, all organised, neatly arranged. Against the rear wall an old kitchen spice rack held dozens of seed packets. A small table, a single old kitchen chair. On a table lay another notepad and a pen. The notepad was of exactly the same kind as the one they had seen in the study. Griessel flipped through the pages. He saw sketches of the beds, with indications of what Menzi Dikela would have planted – maize, beans, carrots, beet, tomatoes, cucumber, cauliflower.
Further examples of the deceased man’s handwriting, so Griessel placed that notebook in a bag too. Then they went out, locked the door again, and returned to the house.
Satisfied that they had seen everything.
Mooiwillem Liebenberg was outstanding at interviewing women. He was exceptionally handsome and known as the George Clooney of the Hawks. And he had a ‘million-dollar, high-wattage smile’, as his colleague Vaughn Cupido described it with a touch of envy. But he also directed his genuine, warm and charming attention like a searchlight on women. As if whatever they said to him was of enormous worth. Mostly they responded positively.
So it was just as well that he was the one who knocked on Mrs Mercia van der Merwe’s door. Mercia would provide the first breakthrough in the Menzi Dikela conundrum.
Initially she was incensed at being disturbed in the middle of the night – just after midnight, in fact. She opened the door with a scowl, lips pursed tightly in disapproval. Pink dressing-gown and beige slippers. Sixty-one years old, brunette-dyed hair ruffled with sleep.
Liebenberg apologised with heartfelt sympathy for bothering her so late at night, then went on to tell her of her neighbour’s passing and said how much it would mean to him if he could talk to her. Her expression altered to reflect shock, sorrow and concern; she ushered him in, invited him into the sitting room. She wanted to know what had happened. He said it looked like suicide, but they weren’t yet sure.
She said that was too tragic, he was a dear old man. She brushed away a tear. And put up a hand to smooth her hair.
He asked her if she’d known him well.
Reasonably well, she said. Well enough for him to send her vegetables in the summer, and for her to return the favour with a milk tart in thanks. ‘You know how it is these days. We pass our neighbours by. We didn’t visit back and forth much. Not because he was black, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not one of those types. But just because that’s how it is, these days. We live our separate lives. He was a dear man. Always so courteous, always greeting when he passed by.’
Mooiwillem said he understood entirely. And had she seen anything over there today, anything out of the ordinary?
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I did. Now that you mention it. This morning. I’ve got Barberton daisies out here in the front garden, and this is their time to flower. But what with all the water restrictions, the municipality caught so unawares . . . All these people moving to the Cape, they should have foreseen the water shortage. In any case, I have to water the daisies by hand with the bath water, and the daisies don’t like soapy water, but what can a person do? So I was standing out there with the watering can and I saw the van stop at Uncle Menzi’s
house, and three men getting out.’
‘What time this morning?’
‘Jong, it must have been . . . nine o’clock. Or half past nine? Somewhere around there, just after I had my bath, so there was water for the daisies. A shallow bath, mind you, because the municipal water-meter readers spy on a person, and they’re just waiting to cut you off if you’re not careful. Anyway, I saw the van, a pitch-black van, and three men got out, in suits and ties, mind you, and went inside there with the old chap.’
‘How long did they stay?’
‘That I can’t say. I went back inside.’
‘Can you describe the van?’
‘Well, I don’t know much about cars, but I think it was a BMW van. You know, with the blue thingy on the front.’
‘A BMW van?’
‘Yes – you know, looks like a station wagon.’
‘Hang on.’ Liebenberg took out his phone, googled BMW vehicles, and showed her a picture of an X3. ‘Something like this?’
‘Yes, only black. And a bit bigger, I’d say.’
He played around with the phone again, brought up a photo of a black X5, and turned the screen to her.
‘Yes! I think that’s the one,’ she said. ‘Just like that.’
‘Can you describe the men?’
‘I didn’t pay that much attention. They were black men . . . Collar and tie, dark suits.’ She waved apologetically to show that was all she could say.
‘Did Mr Dikela often receive visitors?’
‘Jong, you know, I don’t hang around in my front garden all day. So I really can’t say. People did visit, every now and then. Old chaps like him. But not dressed up in a suit and tie – that’s the first time I saw that. I did wonder who the people were. They looked so . . . official. I suspect it was the municipality.’
‘Why did you think that? Did you see the number plate?’
‘No, it wasn’t that.’
‘What was it?’
‘Jong, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead. It’s not right, you know.’
Liebenberg gave her his fullest, charming, warm focus and said: ‘Ma’am, it would mean the world to me if you would tell me what you know.’
Mercia van der Merwe blushed, touched a hand to her hair and cast her eyes down to the carpet. ‘I think he’s been pinching water. You just don’t get tomatoes and cucumbers that big unless you’re crooking the water restrictions. I think they were from the municipality, coming to tell him they’re cutting off his water.’
Griessel and Liebenberg took the news to Mbali Kaleni, who was now sitting on the front of her Hawks BMW. She looked weary, the long day taking its toll.
‘Thandi was right,’ she said, with a sigh of relief, as she slid off the bonnet. ‘That is very good news. And good work, Captain.’
‘Thank you, Colonel,’ said Liebenberg.
‘What do you suggest we do now, Benny?’
‘I think we need to look at the street cameras, Colonel,’ said Griessel, ‘the N2 and the M5, maybe Voortrekker Road in Salt River. Those are the only real exits from here, whether they came from the city or somewhere else. We have a time frame for their arrival, and we suspect the victim was dead by two o’clock, so we know by what time they were gone. And we’re fairly certain it’s a black X5. They’re not as common as the white ones. That does narrow it down. We’ll get a number plate, if we’re lucky.’
‘We should look at black X3s too,’ said Liebenberg. ‘I’m not entirely convinced she got it exactly right.’
‘It’ll have to wait until morning,’ said Kaleni. ‘The Metro Police . . . We don’t want to show our hand with too much urgency.’
‘I’ll be there at nine,’ said Liebenberg.
Two ambulance men passed them carrying a stretcher bearing the body of Menzi Dikela. Professor Phil Pagel walked alongside.
Pagel solemnly handed over to Griessel an evidence bag containing the victim’s shoes. ‘Lady and gentlemen, I bid thee goodnight,’ he said. ‘All tests to proceed as speedily as the clandestine nature of the case allows.’
The second, even greater, breakthrough in the case happened quite by chance. As is often the way with criminal investigations.
Sergeant Lithpel Davids carefully sealed Dikela’s phone, then applied his gloved hands to the desktop computer mouse and keyboard to get the hard-drive copier going. While that was under way, he checked for the most obvious information – recent websites visited, emails with significant subjects, password-protected files, social media accounts . . .
And found nothing.
Not even the normal signs that Menzi Dikela had a lifetime of computer systems behind him. Such as the use of an offbeat, alternative web browser. This PC had only Microsoft Edge. He knew no self-respecting career techie would tolerate that abomination. Far rather Tor, or Freenet, or I2P, or Yandex. At the very least Firefox, Google Chrome or Waterfox.
But Microsoft Edge? Most peculiar.
He knew techies and the world they lived in, the air they breathed, even the old and retired among them. He often ran into them in digital chatrooms. This grandpa was clearly still online, and Davids knew the war cry of computer nerds worldwide was ‘Old geeks never die, they just go offline.’ He knew the ways they kept up to date, which ingenious, obscure programs they accessed, and where they went to source and hang out on what he – tongue-in-cheek when talking to uninformed detectives – called the ‘interwebs’.
And Dikela’s computer showed no sign of any of that. Not a trace.
There was email – in orderly folders – from and to a few friends, of the how’s-it-going-with-the-grandchildren sort, correspondence with his daughter, and with his divorce attorney over a request for an increase in maintenance. There were digital bank statements and municipal accounts, a few electronic plane tickets, accounts for his internet access and not much more. Menzi Dikela had visited news websites daily, South African and British, Google and occasionally Google Maps.
Lithpel began to worry that he was overlooking something. He sat with his head bowed, deep in thought, and waited for the hard drive to finish copying. Back at the office he would use all his equipment to find out what the old guy was hiding from him.
And so, head down, his gaze randomly fell on the ADSL modem in the corner of the two-door cabinet, the doors left open by Griessel and Cupido. It was an ordinary Netgear N300, two or three years old, completely in keeping with this sort of household use. He noticed two network cables plugged into the back of the modem. Both disappeared into a neatly bored hole in the back of the cupboard.
A bit strange. Two? There was only a single PC here.
He got up and had a closer look. One cable was visible on the left, glued to the skirting board, leading to the computer on the desk.
But the other just disappeared into the wall.
Chapter 58
Lithpel Davids pulled the lockable cabinet away from the wall. It was weighed down with files and documents and, with his slight frame, he had to brace and strain until he had shifted it far enough to see what was going on behind the cupboard.
One network cable ran along the skirting board to the desk. The other disappeared into the wall.
He wondered what the old grandpa’s plan was with that. It wasn’t a big house. This Netgear modem created a large enough Wi-Fi signal to cover all the rooms. Was something else connected to it? He pulled back the curtains above the cabinet, trying to see if the network cable reappeared on the other side of the wall. But the burglar bars and the dark outside made that impossible.
Lithpel went out into the passage, towards the kitchen. Carefully at first, as he didn’t want to look death in the eyes. Then he remembered that the body had been removed. He asked Arnold if he could borrow a torch.
Arnold gave him a big, powerful one from his aluminium case (‘Always knew we were the light in the life of the Hawks’), but Lithpel was on a mission and barely thanked him, before hurrying out of the front door, past Griessel and Cupido, who were standing under
the lemon tree talking.
‘What’s up, Lithpel?’ Cupido asked.
The sergeant didn’t reply, but walked to the left, along the paved pathway that ran along the side of the house. He stopped outside the study window and aimed the torch at the base of the wall. A white plastic pipe led away from it, connecting with an elbow joint pointing down into the paving. Nothing more could be seen. It had to be housing the network cable.
‘Weird,’ he said out loud. Why would the old man lay a network cable outside the house?
He played the beam of the torch back and forth across the backyard. At the rear against the concrete wall was a Wendy house. The paved path that ran along the wall stretched to it, with only one kink where it deviated a few degrees from the corner of the house to match the grid of the vegetable beds.
He walked towards the Wendy house. The door was secured with a big padlock. He shone the torch down to where the little house was mounted on a concrete slab. He couldn’t see a white pipe emerging from the paving or the ground at the front or on the left side.
He kept walking. At the back, right in the centre, at an angle of ninety degrees the pipe emerged from the ground and ran into the Wendy house.
‘Cappie, who’s got the key for the Wendy house?’ Lithpel asked.
Griessel removed the bunch from his trouser pocket and found the right one. He handed it over. ‘What do you want to do there?’
‘Something weird.’
‘What is it, Lithpel?’ Cupido asked.
‘Seems like the old man ran a network cable all the way to the Wendy house.’
‘Are you serious?’ With Lithpel you never knew.
‘This time on a Tuesday night? Of course I’m serious, cappie. Let’s keep it real.’
‘Jirre, Lithpel, it’s late. Don’t mess with us.’
‘Cappie, come on, I’ll show you.’
They followed him to the study window. Lithpel pointed out where the cable emerged. ‘That’s a LAN cable inside the pipe there, coming from the inside. And I think it leads to the Wendy house out the back. Come and see.’
