All the way through the interview, I felt things were not quite real. There were so many gaps. So many of the questions that McEwen answered in her cold, steady voice seemed wrong. I couldn’t believe her story. My instinct was that she was lying through her teeth.
Julia McEwen finally reached the end of her capacity for answers. We’d have to talk to her again, but for now it was enough. We would have to act fast.
I sat at Bea’s desk for a moment, straightening my back, feeling vertebrae crackle. My neck was stiff and my watch told me that I hadn’t eaten for a long time. I needed a big, starchy sugar lift, a double espresso and a slice of chocolate cake. By some miracle, Bea arrived with a tray at that very moment. Lemon meringue, not chocolate, but it would do.
‘Here you are, Thabisa,’ Bea said. ‘A sugar-caffeine rush is what makes the world go round. You okay?’
‘I’ve been better.’
‘I came to work past the BEC building. There are police crawling all over it, pavements taped off, the lot. Serious, hey?’
‘Yes, it’s serious.’
I had only taken one sip of coffee when Zak arrived, wearing a black nylon-web gun belt and a bulletproof vest. He looked cool and confident.
‘I need to speak to you, somewhere private. Come with me,’ he said. He took my wrist, moved me through the corridor to Mandile’s office without breaking stride. His long legs forced me to run to keep up with him. I started to argue but he ignored me. He kicked the door shut, sat on Mandile’s desk and faced me. His eyes narrowed so I couldn’t see what was in them.
‘It’s all true,’ he said. ‘The manager is in the vault. He’s been dead about four hours by the look of things.’
‘Has the body been properly identified?’
‘Yes. His wife’s in Australia holidaying with their kids. We got one of his staff to ID him. Not the greatest thing for somebody to do just after breakfast. It’s James Wilmot, manager of the bank for over twenty years. He was sixty-two, just about to retire, poor sod.’
I thought of the man planning his retirement, maybe a holiday to see his kids in Australia; now that future remained frozen. Everything can change in an instant.
‘What did McEwen have to say?’ Zak asked.
‘She’s answered all the questions, but I don’t believe it’s as straightforward as she says. I don’t trust her. It’s not just that she’s in shock. It’s all too pat, too simple. I don’t understand why she was still hanging around with her abductor. She had every opportunity to get away and yet she didn’t even try. She went along, doing the heists, bank robberies, being an accomplice, even to murder.’
‘Probably Stockholm Syndrome,’ Zak said. ‘Like Patty Hearst. They fall in love with their captors and won’t leave them.’
‘Only in this case, the captor is another woman.’
Zak looked surprised.
‘Another woman? That’s got to be a first. Well, I guess the same rules apply.’
‘The other woman’s name is Sue Kellon. She’s at a house off Graham Street. It runs off Worcester Road. We’ve surrounded it with six armed police officers who we seconded from Port Alfred and Kenton. She’s armed and dangerous. We need proper back-up, a Crime Prevention Unit to go in and get her.’
‘We’ll have to get one from Port Elizabeth. There’s not enough support here.’
‘Mandile’s already called for it. They should be here in about an hour. But it’s too long to wait; I’m worried she’ll get away, especially when she discovers that McEwen has gapped it. I think we should go in now.’
Zak watched my face closely. ‘We could take a support team from here and an ambulance. We’re all highly trained professionals. It should be enough but I’m not sure,’ he said.
‘McEwen wants to come with us; she’s convinced that she can talk Kellon into giving herself up quietly. If McEwen has been a captive of this woman it sounds unlikely, but perhaps she could come along as a last resort?’
‘Why isn’t she under arrest?’
‘She hasn’t been charged with anything yet.’
‘I don’t like it.’
‘I think it might work; they were obviously very close.’
‘At least one of them is a murderer, Thabisa. They’re dangerous.’
‘I think it’s worth a try to let McEwen negotiate before anyone gets hurt.’
‘I still don’t like it.’
‘It’s the way I want to play it, Khumalo. We don’t want a blood bath if we can avoid it.’
‘Okay, it’s your call, but I’m not in agreement. I would rather just go in there and get her.’
‘I think it’ll work better my way.’
Zak Khumalo’s mouth twitched. I was pretty sure it wasn’t a smile.
‘Let’s look on the bright side,’ I said. ‘Maybe I’m right.’
My gut instinct was that this wasn’t as simple as it looked. Something wasn’t right. I wanted to see the two women together. That might answer my questions, put things into perspective.
I was wrong. I was so wrong.
27
6 July 2006 – 11.00 a.m.
For the first time since she had abducted Julia, Sue slept deeply. As she woke, peace flooded through her. With surprise she realised her rage was gone. She had lived with it for so long it took her a moment to identify the sensation of its absence. It was like the silence when one discovers the rain has stopped or the wind has died down.
She climbed out of bed, stumbled into the bathroom and splashed water on her face, wincing at her gruesome reflection. She looked terrible.
‘Julia, where are you?’ She walked into the kitchen.
Nobody there.
Late morning light poured through the window. She opened the fridge, took out a tub of yoghurt and ate it, wincing with pain from her damaged mouth.
‘Julia?’ she called again.
She opened the door of Julia’s room. Empty.
A noise outside attracted her attention. She peered through a crack in the curtains and looked out of the window. An armed police officer was standing in the garden. A walkie-talkie crackled instructions.
Julia had gone to the police.
Sue ran to her bedroom, scrambled through the cupboard for Sando’s envelope. Then back to the kitchen, to find a matchbox. She held the envelope in the sink and burned it, watching flames eating the sheets of paper that she had risked her life to steal. Sando was safe. Then she prepared; her dues for all the lost lives, horror and confusion were about to be paid.
She was nervous, but that didn’t keep her from weighing the pros and cons, trying to guess what might happen and how she might possibly survive. She put on a designer dress, wincing as she pulled it down over her lacerated face. Next, leather boots as soft as butter. She’d always believed in dressing for the occasion.
She felt a great flare of anger about Julia, and then bleak sadness. The only person who had ever really cared about her had betrayed her. She was alone again, she had always been. But she wouldn’t cry over spilt milk, she would get into battle mode and fight this out. Fight it until her last breath.
As she waited for them in the cottage’s sitting room, she held the Glock steady. She smiled wryly. Just like in the movies. She wouldn’t go quietly. Courtrooms, explanations and jail didn’t enter the equation. Not for Sue Kellon. She’d go down fighting.
When the cars came up the pan-handle and turned toward the cottage, she took a deep, calming breath. She looked over the top of the weapon, finger on the trigger, holding her breath, ready to shoot anyone who came through the door.
Car doors banged. Four dark silhouettes stood against the sunlight alongside two police cars, behind them an ambulance, with medics tumbling out of it.
Next, a loudspeaker. A disembodied voice shouting: ‘Miss Kellon, we know you’re in there. Come out with your hands up... put down your weapon, come outside...’
Choose. You don’t want to be taken alive. You can kill one, maybe even two. She could see Julia standing next
to a woman with braided hair, and two men, one much taller than the other.
Julia’s voice came over the loud speaker: ‘Give yourself up, Sue, please... just come out with your hands up... nobody’s going to hurt you... please Sue...’
She’d always thought she’d be safe from this sort of ending. Somebody else would sort it out for her. Ollis would step in and save her. There had been no fear at the beginning, only happy times. The trap had been so easy to fall into; his laughter when he held her, his lips travelling over her skin; his mouth whispering dirty, sexy words against her neck.
‘A little fear is good, isn’t it?’ his words flickered in the silence. ‘It’s good to push yourself further.’ She was doing that now. As far as she had ever gone. ‘I’ll be there to help you. You’ll be safe with me.’ But he wasn’t there. Nor was Julia. Sue pushed her feelings down deep to where they couldn’t sabotage her. She was alone – just as she always had been. Nobody and nothing was safe. No one could be trusted. No one should be loved. Life was full of traps.
When you wake to life, real life, you understand it’s just a road and travelling it entails countless choices.
Whether you want to or not, you’ve got to walk that road alone. What it comes down to in the end is the choosing.
She had never chosen well. Even when she chose Julia. Or had Julia chosen her?
The door was kicked in, the silhouettes entered the room, black against the sunlight. They were all aiming their guns at her.
‘Put down your weapon. Put down the gun or we fire,’ a man shouted.
Sue’s finger hovered on the trigger, aiming at the woman with the braided hair, but she heard Julia screaming at her, from somewhere outside, begging her not to fire. ‘Come out Sue. Please. Sue, I love you. I love you.’
The familiar voice stirred something inside her and she hesitated, turned fragile, at the wrong moment. And with that, she lost her chance.
Stupid bitch, she told herself. You’ve blown it this time. The sunlight outside blurred and wavered before her eyes and everything was a confusion of liquid sunlight and shadows.
Sue blinked. Shook her head. You had your chance, you stupid cow. And now, it’s all too late. Without warning she fired at the tall policeman. He crumpled to the floor.
A sudden, splintering shock of pain in her chest, the world white and slow. She was sliding, slipping, falling. The last sound, a rush of frantic feet, a voice yelling, ‘Let me through. Let go of me.’ Her last sensation, Julia’s thin arms around her, her voice again screaming: ‘No – No! Sue, don’t die... don’t die...’
A long weightless drop, then clouds skimming around her, closing over her and she was flying.
28
6 July 2006 – noon
‘No!’ Julia shrieked.
She flew at me, her eyes wild.
‘You bitch,’ she yelled. ‘You’ve killed her... oh my God, you’ve killed her.’
She threw herself at Sue. ‘Don’t die, don’t die,’ she sobbed, cradling her body.
My bullet had sent Sue Kellon slumping to the floor, crystal-blue eyes glazed, staring up at the white ceiling. Globules of red all over her chest, running down her arm and dripping from her limp hand.
Through a daze, I saw Zak stand. The ceramic plates in the bulletproof vest had saved him. I heard myself whispering... Thank God, thank God, he’s not dead. He looked shaken, but he was alive.
I’d had to fire that shot. I’d aimed and fired. Just as I’d been trained to do.
Zak came to me; put his arm around my shoulders. My knees gave out and I slumped against him. The room was full of people, police, paramedics, hectic movement. From the corner of my eye I could see them working on Sue Kellon, hooking her to an IV line, shouting orders and running with equipment.
I couldn’t breathe. The paramedics brought oxygen, but I couldn’t breathe. There just wasn’t enough air in the room.
Zak scooped me up, and carried me out into the garden, away from the insanity of the house. He was talking to me, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. He moved me to a garden chair and knelt beside me. His lips were moving but I couldn’t hear his voice. A roaring storm filled my ears. His words reached me from a great distance. ‘It’s okay, Thabisa, it’s okay, just breathe deeply, lean on me, just relax, I’ve got you. You’re safe.’
They came through with Sue Kellon on a trolley, rolling her past us, her eyes wide open and staring. They’d put an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. Blood everywhere.
Julia ran beside the stretcher. Zak reached out to stop her.
‘It’s too late,’ he said quietly. ‘She’s gone.’
She slapped his hand away.
‘Don’t touch me, you fucking murderer. I’m going with her,’ she hissed.
Zak gestured to a nearby police officer, ‘Cuff her,’ he said. ‘Take her to the hospital.’ The young officer did as he was asked. Julia McEwen fought him, kicking and screaming, but she finally stumbled against him and he led her away.
Zak bit his lip and turned back to me. ‘Are you up to following them to the hospital?’ he asked
I nodded. My teeth were chattering. I was shivering with nervous energy.
‘Breathe,’ Zak said. ‘Try and take deep breaths.’
We followed the paramedics through the streets of Grahamstown.
‘It’s too late, she hasn’t survived,’ Zak said. ‘You had to fire. There was no other choice.’
I nodded and tried to inhale slowly. My feelings of guilt were overwhelming. I knew all about shock and grief. I’d seen countless examples. I’d been to the site of a hundred fatal accidents, but the bodies in the bags weren’t people I’d shot. Not an attractive young woman, somebody my own age, dressed to kill in a beautiful black dress, who had stared into my eyes as I fired. Tears ran down my face and dripped onto my shirt.
Zak pulled over to the side and put his arm around me. He didn’t speak, he just held me.
‘I feel terrible,’ I said. ‘I hesitated for a moment, but when she shot you –’ I broke off, unwilling to finish the sentence, even inside my own head. And then the meaning of what I had just said penetrated. ‘Oh my God, Zak! She shot you. Are you okay? Are you okay?’
‘I’m touched that you care so much about my health,’ he said with a wry grin. But then his expression changed and grew harder. He tightened his grip around my shoulders, turning me, forcing me to look at him, to watch his dark eyes scan my face.
‘Thabisa, we’re trained to do this, it’s our job.’
‘I know... but...’
‘We had no choice. If you hadn’t stopped her, she’d have killed us all. Shots to the head would have been next. Bulletproof vests and plates aren’t a hundred percent insurance, you know.’
‘I know, Zak, but it was bad, really bad...’
‘I know it was.’
‘You could have died.’
‘We could all have died,’ he said, ‘but we didn’t. I’m going to have an enormous bruise, want to have a look?’
‘No thanks,’ I said.
We sat for a few minutes until I got control of myself. Zak pulled out into the traffic again. ‘How are you doing?’ he asked, breaking the silence between us.
‘I’m okay. It’s just... I’ve never deliberately shot anyone before.’
Zak parked in a private lot reserved for emergencies. We entered casualty together. It was a small unit, crowded with people. I saw Tom with a huddle of other doctors and nurses. He excused himself and hurried over to me. He took my hands in his.
‘We know what happened,’ he said. ‘She’s dead, Thabisa. There’s nothing more we can do.’
I nodded. The moment after those words were spoken, they splintered into a thousand shapes. I had seen them all. People collapsing, howling, freezing in shock, sobbing with the pain of it all.
My work should have conditioned me to this. Police officers, firefighters and ambulance crews have to learn detachment techniques early. Normally I was able to cope, I didn�
�t get sucked in to personal feelings, but this was different. I had shot and killed this woman. As my shock subsided, and I felt calmer, I could feel my public, police-officer mask slipping back on again. But I knew I would see Sue Kellon’s face in my dreams for a long time to come.
Tom, Zak, and the medics looked calm and in control. All of them were good at hiding emotion. Everyone in the emergency room had been trained to compartmentalise, it was part of the job, but perhaps they all felt like wrecks inside. Just like me.
I moved to where Julia McEwen sat, her head slumped in her hands. I reached out.
‘Come, Mrs McEwen,’ I said. ‘Lean on me, let me help you up.’
Tom moved forward. Julia sagged between us, unable to stand. We led her into a small, emergency room and helped her to a narrow bed. She lay there, covered in Sue’s blood, her arm flung over her face. A police officer stood outside the door.
‘Leave her here, Thabisa,’ Tom said. ‘We’ll try to stabilise her. She’s in shock.’
‘We need to interview her, Tom,’ I said. ‘When will she be able to answer questions? She’s been involved in some pretty brutal robberies and at least one murder.’
Tom stared at me, plainly shocked by this information.
‘She should be okay in a few hours. Maybe later this afternoon? I’ll let you know.’
Director Mandile arrived, sidling up to stand next to me, bustling with self-importance, claiming glory for the capture of the criminals, promising a lurking reporter from the local newspaper press information when it was available.
‘Yes, yes,’ I heard him say, ‘we just went in there and dealt with it, we didn’t need any help from Port Elizabeth. We are perfectly capable of solving difficult national crimes in Grahamstown. I personally directed operations; you can quote me on that.’
I just gave him a withering look and walked away. Officious little man.
I stood in the bright winter afternoon. The hospital looked down over the town and rolling green hills beyond. It was the kind of crisp, clear day when university students rode bikes in parks and office workers chose to eat their lunch outside. A day when no one deserved to die.
Now I See You Page 22
