by Ian Patrick
‘The info was good, Vic,’ he replied. ‘They watched her over a period of five weeks. They nailed her routine exactly. She would arrive at 10.00 am almost every Tuesday and Thursday. Then she would wrap up at 12.30 and go across to John Dory’s for fish and chips and a glass of white wine. She never - not once - ate anything else. Then she would leave at almost exactly 2.00 pm each and every time. They watched her hail taxis, and followed her back to her apartment block a couple of times.’
Vic didn't look at Tony through any of this. He kept his eyes on the other two. Tony had paused. Vic gestured - a simple beckoning from the second and third fingers of his right hand - that Tony should continue.
‘On two key occasions after she had big wins on the machines, they even tracked her all the way home and right up to her flat on the eighth floor: once on pretext of checking elevator doors and another time making as if they were checking passageway lights in the building. Both times, the guys were right behind her and checked the numbers she punched in for the main door, and both times they were able to follow her all the way up and see her unlock her security gate and go in, leaving the door wide open but locking the gate behind her …’
One of the two underlings, overweight, perspiring, and nervous, wilting under Vic's inscrutable stare, added his piece.
‘That was me, the second time, Vic. I mean the overhead lights. I checked the passage light right in front of her door just after she went in, one Tuesday. I got past the security guy no problem, just walking in behind her, holding a clipboard and carrying a toolbox. Told him I had been sent by the agents after a complaint. I told the old bird, too, in the lift, that I was there to fix lights, so when we got to her flat she didn't even bother to close the door while I started checking her passage light just outside her security gate. She just locked the gate behind her and left the door open. I saw her take her handbag straight into her lounge and she pulled the envelope out right there, twenty feet in front of me as if she forgot I was there. That was the day she won twenty-five thousand rands. I had watched her wrap up things at the cashier’s when she cashed out, and followed her all the way, and Jannie picked me up in the car and we followed the taxi, and he waited downstairs to watch while I went up…anyway, she left the envelope on the table in the lounge and made herself some coffee. As if I wasn't there. She was talking to herself, like…’
His partner, thin, young, freckled, highly strung, speaking rapidly and with a thick Afrikaans accent, interjected, apprehensively.
‘... and like Dirk says, Vic, that was the day I was watching there by the front of the building, Vic. Tony, you know? There where I showed you? All afternoon, Vic. I watched Dirk leave after he did the lights thing and the old ouma didn't come out the rest of the day. I watched all the time until the banks were shut and she didn’t come out. The next day I was back vroeg in the morning and she did her normal newspaper walk then went straight back to the flat. Never came out again. The day after that one, Vic, I followed her on the newspaper thing again and then followed her when she did the 9.30 taxi to the casino. She definitely didn’t visit any bank after winning the 25k. And she only played with a few hunnertrand notes that day, so she definitely left the 25k in the flat...’
Dirk nudged his partner:
‘ - tell them about the day you were at her door, Jannie.’
Jannie continued:
‘Ja, that's right, Vic. I was there on the other day Tony mentioned. The guard thought I was checking the lift, you know? Same thing for me: I had a watchamacallit - a clipboard and box of tools, and I was in. I saw her go into her flat, and leave the door wide open but lock the gate, you know, and she put her bag straight there on the table in the next room where I could see and she just pulled out the envelope and sommer started counting hunnertrand and twohunnertrand notes without even caring about me being there.’
Tony added his bit to clarify:
‘That was the day she went home with 14k, Vic. A Thursday. Cashed out, all stuffed into an envelope. I was with the guys that day and all three of us watched her do it at the cashier's counter then saw her put it into her bag. Then Jannie tracked her all the way back home and did the elevator thing, while Dirk watched the front of the building this time. Same thing after Jannie left, right, Dirk?’
‘Same thing, Tony. I watched Jannie leave and watched the rest of the day and the next day and she definitely didn't visit any bank.’
Vic drummed the fingers of his right hand on the glass top, scowling. Then he got up from the chair and rasped.
‘OK, guys, let me have a word with Tony. Don't go far. Hang around downstairs near the tables where Tony can get hold of you. Get yourselves a drink at the bar.’
Jannie and Dirk were visibly relieved. They muttered their thanks and left Tony alone with Vic. Vic leaned his enormous bulk back against the edge of the desk, chewing his bottom lip and thinking. Tony waited.
‘You say it was Jannie that contracted the four black guys for the job this morning?’
‘Yup.’
‘Where did he find them?
‘He told me they were the same guys - well, two of them anyway - that he had used before. For the hit last year on that guy who reneged on payments for the confiscated slot machines. Remember him?’
‘How could I forget?’
‘They worked fine that time, Jannie says. He organised two guns for them through a contact, a disgruntled ex-cop who’d stolen a few pistols and sold two of them to Jannie dirt cheap, especially for that hit. Jannie said it had gone well that time so this time he just called the same two guys. They still had the guns. They’d been part-payment for that first job.’
‘So Jannie never met the other two from this morning’s hit?’
‘No, Jannie's two just went ahead on their own and got their two buddies in on the act. Apparently Jannie didn't know there would be four of them.’
‘Arsehole.’
‘Yup.’
‘I want you to watch Jannie, Tony.’
‘OK, Vic.’
‘And what's the case with Dirk? Seems nervous as all hell.’
‘Doesn't like fouling up, that's all.’
‘Watch him.’
‘OK, Vic.’
‘Any chance of the fourth bugger in hospital leading the trail back here?’
‘Don’t think so, Vic. None of us knows him or has had any contact with him. Jannie's two guys were two of the three guys wasted by the cops this morning. There's no trail back to Jannie. He himself never met this fourth guy.’
‘All the same… can we get anyone into the hospital before they move that guy to the cells?’
‘You want him taken out?’
‘It would make me sleep easier.’
‘I'll get onto it, Vic.’
Noon.
Ryder sat there, cross-legged on the floor, with the carpet peeled back from the wall and the easel leaning against the opposite wall, where he had moved it to get at the carpet. One hundred and eighty-four thousand rands. It had been spread out in piles of no more than ten notes each, to avoid creating lumps in the carpet. Spread over more than half the area covered by the carpet.
Because Ed had gone on to the hospital, he had called Piet Cronje to send someone else to meet him at the apartment. He had wanted a witness if there was going to be cash. Piet had come himself, and had arranged for a photographer, too. No-one else had been available from the team, so Piet had issued instructions to the intern who had arrived mid-morning after a training workshop. He left her panic-stricken to look after the office and to call him if she needed to.
Cronje had never seen so much cash in one place.
‘Fok.’
‘Not bad, hey? A year's salary for you, Piet.’
‘Nooit! Much more, Jeremy, man. Jislaaik!’
‘Let's bundle it up and get it signed off.’
Ryder sat, contemplative, as Cronje gathered up the notes and the photographer recorded as much as she could from every possible angle. This is what the bastards w
ere looking for, thought Ryder. How had they known? If the old woman was this careful, she wasn't likely to blab about it to anyone. How had they known which key to grab from the guard? How had they got the code for the lock on the front door? How would they know about the old woman’s secret stash?
He reached for the iPhone on the first vibration and before the first ring.
‘Yep?’
It was Trewhella.
‘Our survivor is talking.’
‘Good, Ed. Did you remove fingernails, or what? I would have thought that Addington Hospital would allow you to see him only with witnesses present. Did you charm the nurses?’
‘Just the opposite, buddy. I arrived while his legal-aid appointed friend was out taking a pee. As I walked in and the guy recognised me he almost crawled up the wall. When the Spiderman walk didn’t work he tried to jump into the nurse's arms to escape me. Tore all his dressings and covered her in blood. She was only too pleased to leave me alone with him while she ran off to scrub down in case of HIV. Actually, I really enjoyed my time alone with him.’
‘Don’t tell me you used some Trewhella stuff on him.’
‘You think so poorly of me, partner. What can you be insinuating? No, he actually turned out to be a very obliging young man. But they might have to re-set the shoulder.’
‘Jeez, Ed, you gotta be careful, man. What did you learn from the guy?’
‘Well, he told me that the four of them had got a good supply of nyaope off a dealer in a boat moored at the yacht club a few hours before they hit on the old couple. Tried to explain their actions as drunken behaviour attributable to nyaope.’
‘Nyaope?’
Cronje looked up enquiringly and Ryder brought him into the conversation.
‘Ed tells me the guy in Addington is talking, Piet. Apparently he and his cronies bought some nyaope off a boat right there in the harbour before they hit the old couple. What else did you learn from the guy, Ed?’
‘Well, you were right about the guns, Jeremy. His dead buddies had a contact who paid a cop for the two guns. They were part of our own supply at the station. Remember our beloved Constable Thabethe? Sacked last year? Him. Looks like the Captain called it right about that bastard. Hated him from day one. Told me he didn't trust Thabethe as far as he could throw him. Couldn't pin it on him, but was convinced that the four guns we lost last year had something to do with Thabethe. Nyawula gets these things right. That's why he made Captain. He's got a nose for shitheads. Despite being such an irritating bloody academic. What you got?’
‘Guess how much the old lady had stowed away under her easel?’
12.20.
Dippenaar and Koekemoer stood in the passageway outside the general ward, each with a polystyrene cup of coffee. Pillay sat, slumped and yawning, in the only chair in the passageway. She was short. Very short. This had prompted a perception in many that she was probably quite vulnerable on the streets. That perception was faulty.
Sergeant Navaneetham Pillay had topped her Police Training College group in hand-to-hand combat. She could up-end a two hundred pound six-foot adversary in the blink of an eye. She had biceps that bore testimony to many victories in arm-wrestling contests with devastated new male recruits. By popular consent she still held the one hundred metre sprint record at Durban Indian Girls High School, though this was contested in the record books. More than ten years ago, at the athletics day in question, her time had been disallowed by the official time-keeper ‘because of wind conditions.’ But her coach, the teachers, and her classmates rejected that official decision. For them, and for her, the time stood. She was the champion. Unofficial, but the genuine champ. She had a name-sake - same spelling and all, as she would frequently say - who was more famous than her. Working for the United Nations, her friends often said. But Navi was the one that was the real legend because of the hundred metre unofficial record.
‘Tired, Navi? Drinking all night again, Sergeant?’
‘I wish, Dipps. Since I briefed you guys this morning I've done nothing but paper. Forms and questionnaires, yissus! Trauma data collection form for this, form 308 for that, blank copies of form bloody 297 missing. Special permission for surgeon's report to be filed over here. FPS report to go over to that office. Form 308 is being phased out, didn’t you know? Well, then, why the hell don’t we have the new forms? Don’t know. Better use Form 308 until we hear from someone else up the line. I didn't join up for this shit, man. You and Koeks have it easy. You just have to shoot the bastards and leave me to play the clean-up woman. I have to go and collect all the rubbish.’
Dippenaar and Koekemoer chuckled. Pillay continued.
‘Remember the days when the cops would just shoot, call the cleaners, and write a sentence on the file when they were next back in the office? Gone, man. Now it's about the guys getting off because a form 308 wasn't completed. No, your honour, I didn't do the form because I'm the woman who put four bullets into him. Yes, your honour, I knew the bullets in his arsehole must have been from my gun. Why, your honour? Because it was me that shot him in the arsehole, your honour. I saw the bullets go in and saw him crap himself as they went in. Yes, your honour. No, your honour. And what about the rights of the woman he raped and killed, your honour? Yes, your honour. No, your honour, I don't have a law degree. That was the other Pillay. The famous one. Yes, your honour, you go ahead and set him free, your honour, and next time I'll do a form 308. But next time I'll make sure I put six bullets into his head, your honour. Then we can all spend more time reading more forms. Then…’
She was interrupted by a small, wiry, nervous man with dandruff and a perpetually open mouth who emerged from the ward, carrying an ancient leather briefcase in his left hand and two sheets of paper in his right. He addressed himself to Pillay, who remained seated.
‘Thank you, Detective Pather…’
‘Pillay.’
‘I beg yours?’
‘Pillay. Not Pather. I'm Sergeant Pillay. And thanks for the promotion.’
‘Oh, sorry, I thought…’
‘That's OK. I look just like her. She's a cousin of mine. We all look alike, you know. I got lots of cousins. Want a new car? I got a cousin can fix you up, quick.’
‘Thank you. Yes. Thank you, and thank you for completing form 308. I was able to get the information processed quickly.’
‘And?’
‘There were three bullets in the body. We'll only have accurate information after a full autopsy, but it is likely that all the bullets came from the same weapon that was found twenty feet from the body, on the beach next to the bush. A Vektor Z88 9mm. The surgeon says he didn't have a chance of saving the man. The bullet to the face was the fatal one, and bounced around a bit, you see… anyway the autopsy will tell us more, and ballistics... But in the meantime you asked about the bullets, so I…these copies are for you.’
‘Thank you.’
Pillay took the two pages proffered, and the small man coughed, nodded his goodbyes, and walked down the passageway, pretending not to notice the suppressed chuckles from Koekemoer.
‘So much for complaints about form 308. Hey, Pillay, or Pather, or Naidoo, or whatever your name is, what can you tell me about…’
Pillay wasn't laughing. She looked up from what she was reading in the forms held firmly in her grasp.
‘Hey, guys. The weapon from the bush on the beach. Last night. The Z88.’
Dippenaar was first to respond.
‘What? What about it?’
‘It was one of ours. Last few digits on the number stamp reminds me of my cell-phone, so I remember it well. One of those four guns we lost last year. When Constable Thabethe left. Remember? That creepy bastard with the eyes. Captain Nyawula got rid of him, and a few months later he went to jail. Last night's weapon was one of ours. One of Thabethe’s haul.’
14.15.
Trewhella and Ryder stood on the pavement outside The Grove. Trewhella stuffed the last piece of the chicken burger into his mouth as Ryder spoke.
‘I don't know how you can eat that after that brunch this morning.’
‘Five hours ago. Late breakfast, late lunch. Just a snack before dinner.’
‘We're not going to get any more out of the tenants. Not one of them knew anything about how much cash the old bird had stashed. The hit came from someone outside.’
Ryder's iPhone sang.
‘Yep? Yes, Piet. Yes, he's with me. We've been interviewing tenants in The Grove. What? Both of us? When? 4.30. OK. What's it about? This morning? Also at Addington Hospital? Ed was down there too, on The Grove case. They must have been within spitting distance of each other. What? Serious? Whew. OK. Tell the Captain we'll be there.’
He hung up. Trewhella raised his eyebrows and waited.
‘Captain Nyawula wants us at 4.30. Interesting development.’
‘What?’
‘You told me this morning that Dippenaar, Koekemoer and Pillay were on a case at Addington?’
‘Yep. So?’
‘They were also handling a homicide with gunshot wounds. No panga in this one. But three bullets. 9 mm.’
‘So?’
‘Like ours. From a Z88. Like the ones we retrieved from the scene this morning.’
‘Go on. Keep me waiting.’
‘A Vektor Z88.’
‘So? Dime a dozen.’
‘One of the Vektors that disappeared from the station last year.’
‘Shit.’
‘Just like our two Vektors, this morning.’
‘Shit.’
