“I’ve given you the address as well,” said Khanyi, and she showed me all her teeth to cover her embarrassment.
“Do not spend it all at once,” said Fehrson, still convinced that his joke was a good one.
Chandler cooked for us on the double gas stove and convection oven that he’d insisted I install in the warehouse. A company of Italian fitters had arrived in an old truck and set to work installing the fully operational kitchen, with oak island to seat ten, right in the centre of the warehouse floor. It had surprised them that the kitchen needed to be operational because they had always believed that movie sets had to look good but never actually work. I had explained that our movie was going for verisimilitude and they had smiled and not asked questions about my fingers or bandaged leg.
Chandler insisted on the kitchen because he expected that Breytenbach would intensify his search for us and didn’t share my confidence that Fehrson’s Department would not be assisting him. Chandler also paid for the kitchen because of the unfortunate failure of our expected good fortune, which was something we all tacitly agreed not to mention. But as we finished the vincis grassi, the pasta dish that Chandler described as what ‘lasagne dreamed of becoming’, Fat-Boy broached the subject.
“If the customs people called Breytenbach and told him they’d found all his gold in those boxes, why was there no mention of it in the papers? They’d been going on about it enough before.”
“Perhaps it was orders of Piet van Rensburg,” said Robyn. “He still pretty much controls the media, and when they’d squashed all the rumours about the damaged nephew, he would have put a clamp on the whole story, including the weapons and maybe the gold too.”
“But the roadblocks … his people crawling all over the place. If he’s got the gold, why are they still doing that?”
“He’s looking for us,” said Chandler. “He’s not a man who forgives and forgets. We know that. We must lie low for a few more weeks.”
“Or months.”
“I was relying on that gold,” said Fat-Boy.
“Weren’t we all?” said Chandler.
“Life is meaningless without it,” said Fat-Boy. He held out his glass for some more sparkling water and then gulped at it. We weren’t allowing alcohol in the warehouse.
“But you have your life, as do we all,” said Chandler. “Even if it is a meaningless life.”
Fat-Boy downed his water and put the glass down with a bang.
“We were so close,” said Fat-Boy. “It was just over there.” He pointed at the glittering lights that came over the harbour water and flickered in through the big doors, which I had opened because the breeze off the sea carried a little moist warmth with it this evening. Fat-Boy narrowed his eyes and squinted to see further. “Looks like they fixed that crane we busted up,” he said.
“It’s been over a week,” said Chandler. “They are bound to have fixed it.”
“Let’s go for a walk after dinner,” I suggested. “Maybe BB dropped a bar or two.”
We donned warm jackets and walked from the warehouse back along the dock road to ‘C’ berth. Chandler and Robyn walked ahead because they were not limping. Fat-Boy and I trailed behind them, Fat-Boy grumbling because Chandler had insisted on doing this by foot.
“It will do you good,” I said. “A bit of exercise will help the healing.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Fat-Boy. “A bit of exercise and I’ll lose weight. But what the fuck do I want to lose weight for?” Fat-Boy grabbed at my sleeve and brought me to a halt, leaning on the stick the hospital had given him. “You don’t get us darkies, do you, Angel? I’m not fat, I’m prosperous. Don’t you see? Thin niggas are poor niggas. I’m not a poor nigga.”
“Without your gold you are,” I said.
Fat-Boy pouted and then walked on as if he could get away from me. We continued past the warehouse in which Fat-Boy and I had abandoned our gold, now closed up, dark and menacing. Beyond it was the crane which a little over a week ago had been crippled and awaiting replacement counterweights.
“Is it this one?” asked Chandler as we reached them at the foot of the crane. He looked up at the towering latticework of steel.
“This one,” confirmed Fat-Boy, “but where’s our concrete blocks?” He looked around the base where we had laid the frames for the lightweight foam blocks into which we had intended to set the gold bars in order to hide them.
“They would have cleared those,” said Chandler. “Would have found out how light they were and then just pushed them into the water. They probably floated out to sea.”
Fat-Boy nodded and looked up at the crane. “They got new blocks from somewhere. Look at those weights up there: brand new.”
We all looked up at the pale concrete blocks which provided the counterweight for the crane.
“Hang on,” said Fat-Boy. He was looking past me towards the warehouse. “That’s our fucking forklift. What’s it doing out here?”
The yellow machine with the speed impediment was parked beside the warehouse like it had been sent outside for bad behaviour.
“We left that fucker inside,” said Fat-Boy.
“Breytenbach’s men would have abandoned it,” said Chandler. “When they drove their gold out of here.”
“But why bring it back here? It’s been parked like they didn’t want anyone to notice it. You remember it, Angel. It hardly moved.”
“I remember it,” I said.
Chandler shrugged. “No use to us now.”
Robyn’s dark eyes were on me.
“Ben?” she said. “What aren’t you telling us?”
I lit a cigarette and inhaled.
“What is it, corporal?” asked Chandler.
“I assumed that harbour security would have searched the warehouse,” I said. “After the whole business with the truck, and that man Kenneth’s body. And then there was the explosion at the stadium. But they believed the whole thing had been about the weapons.”
“What are you saying?” asked Fat-Boy.
“The forklift was in a jumble of broken equipment. Nobody even noticed it.”
“You were in hospital,” said Robyn.
“Sure. But that was a few hours later.”
The others were silent. Above us a lonely gull squawked, and then suddenly a cluster of them descended on something floating in the dark water.
“I think I’m going to kiss you,” said Robyn.
“Me too,” said Fat-Boy.
But Robyn got there first.
Keep Reading
Will the ‘gold heist gang’ get away with it? What will Gabriel find when he goes to the address given to him by Khanyi? Is Sandy still alive?
The story continues in Vengeful – Book Three in the Gabriel Series.
Get your copy of Vengeful here
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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-as
sassin 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. (You’re reading it 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.
Buy Vengeful now
About the Author
David Hickson is an award-winning filmmaker and writer from South Africa. His work has included internationally released feature films, television series and live entertainment television shows.
David travelled to Italy several years ago, an adventure that he and his family, including two young troublemakers and an assortment of spoilt and demanding domestic animals, are still enjoying. He loves walking and cycling in the hills of Italy, drinking the local wine, and telling stories that entertain and stir the emotions of his readers.
For more books and updates:
www.davidhickson.com
Copyright © 2021 by David Hickson
The moral right of David Hickson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living of dead is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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