Death Dealing

by Ian Patrick

  Ryder was very tempted to leap in at that point. He found himself entirely in agreement with Busisiwe and felt the impulse to join forces with her. But he stopped himself from intervening as he suddenly realised that he might then be as guilty of the same kind of mansplaining of which he had accused Koekemoer. In any case, Theresa’s intervention was better than any that he had intended.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, Busi,’ said Theresa. ‘Marcus invariably hasn’t actually read the guy he’s quoting. He’s usually just quoting someone else’s quotation of them.’

  Amidst the polite laughter Marcus managed a riposte.

  ‘Well, at least I can quote some political commentators. Which suggests I’m reading them. What’s your favourite author’s quote at present, Jeremy?’

  ‘My favourite author?’

  ‘No, your favourite quote.’

  ‘Oh. Well. That’s easy,’ replied Ryder. ‘My favourite quotation is from Ralph Waldo Emerson.’

  ‘Oh? And what, might I ask, is that?’

  Ryder replied, quietly.

  ‘Emerson said: I hate quotations. Tell me, instead, what you know.’

  It being very late, the guests left quietly, murmuring in pairs as they made their way into the darkness. Fiona Ryder glared at her husband.

  23.05.

  Ndileko and Mavis sat in a corner of the tavern. Music blared and drink flowed. Patrons were trying in vain to cool themselves down by waving any object that might substitute as a fan. They used anything thin and flat that might help to move the stagnant air in the place. Pieces of paper or cardboard, or plastic trays that had served to carry drinks, were all waving in front of perspiring faces.

  He had grown enormously in confidence as the night wore on. Friends came and went. He was by no means well known in the tavern, but on this particular night he was pleased to introduce Mavis to some of his friends who had chosen the same night to visit. They also danced together, and shortly after eleven-thirty they were talking about giving up the mission when three new men arrived.

  There was a noticeable dip in the level of noise in the venue. It was almost as if someone had made an announcement. The music continued, but the level of conversation and laughter and energy took a distinct dive. Mavis turned at the same time as Ndileko as they sensed the change in mood, and they both saw, at the same time, the eyes of Skhura Thabethe at the entrance near the far end of the bar. Mgwazeni and Wakashe were with him.

  Mavis was breathless with excitement. She and Ndileko were fascinated as they saw the attention of the entire venue switch focus onto the three men. They watched as respectful and subdued greetings were directed by patrons at Thabethe. His two companions didn’t appear to receive any such greetings. It was Thabethe who attracted the attention. People whispered to one another. Those in the know told those who didn’t about the man with the eyes. Gradually the hubbub of conversation started up again, but there were still many in the tavern occasionally glancing over at Thabethe as more and more information was shared. Then the sound started returning and escalated back to its earlier level.

  Mavis whispered into Ndileko’s willing ear, telling him as much as she could without, she thought, crossing any line that Captain Nyawula might draw. It crossed her mind to put out a call immediately to Navi Pillay, but then she thought of the danger. The man with the eyes appeared to be scanning the entire room. If he saw someone whispering into an iPhone he might walk over and ask why, the moment he entered the room, they chose to make a call that looked to him like a very surreptitious call. There was something about the man that chilled her into inaction. She decided that in any case by the time any cop responded to a call, the three men would be on the move again. She would then be left trying to explain why she was acting way above her pay grade and putting herself and her companion in danger.

  Ndileko was fascinated. He told Mavis that the man with the bandaged hands was now familiar to him. He had seen him before in the tavern. He remembered particularly seeing the man a few months ago, dancing wildly at one of the hip-hop competitions. He had never seen the third man, nor the man with the eyes, he said, and added that the man with the eyes was a man that one was not likely to forget.

  They both agreed that they would simply be as unobtrusive as possible, and watch, and wait, to see what they might learn about the three men.

  23.40.

  The Ryders cleared up glasses and crockery and cutlery and were doing a final clean-up around the dining-room, living-room and kitchen before preparing for bed. Cushions were being fluffed up, a brush and pan were hard at work, carpets were shaken out, and windows and doors checked as they spoke. Sugar-Bear was doing the pre-wash on the dishes outside. He always enjoyed a dinner party, when the Ryders would abandon thoughts about the dog’s diet and let him simply play his part in cleaning up.

  Fiona decided against picking up with him the subject of the post-dinner conversation with their guests. There were more important things to discuss, like Nadine Salm.

  ‘Do you think Pauline is OK?’ she asked. ‘I was worried after I spoke to her this morning. I was right about her wanting to be alone. I asked her if she’d like me to come around for coffee but she said she’d prefer to be alone. She was going to see Nadine both this afternoon and tonight. But now I’m thinking that once she gets home after a visit to the hospital, that’s probably exactly when she would really like some company. Is it good for her to be all alone?’

  ‘I called her just before everyone arrived tonight, to check on the latest news. You were in the shower. Sorry, I meant to tell you, but the guests started arriving so it slipped my mind.’

  ‘What’s the latest on Nadine?’

  ‘Pauline said she’d spent a couple of hours with her this afternoon and she was making good progress. She was going back tonight to spend a bit of time with her.’

  ‘Too late to call now, I suppose?’

  ‘I’d say so. If we were calling Nadine herself I’d say no problem. She’s always been a night-owl.’

  ‘Maybe that was part of the problem.’

  ‘I think that’s right. As long as I’ve known her she’s burned the candle at both ends. We’ve joked about it in the team. Anyone can call Nadine Salm anytime and she’s likely to be in the laboratory or testing and re-testing some evidence somewhere. I spoke to one of her colleagues not too long ago, a detective turned full-time forensics guy. He told me he had once been a bit like her. Once evidence starts turning up and points to something new, it’s like a drug. They become compulsive, he said. Will work right through the night looking for connections, and then can’t sleep as they think of possibilities and new links. He said he often got up in the middle of the night and went to his desk to draw diagrams linking bits of evidence and staring at them to see if there was something new.’

  ‘Can’t be healthy if it becomes too obsessive, I’m sure,’ she observed. ‘Like you and Kaizer Chiefs.’

  ‘I’m sure. Or like you and the Sharks, maybe. Hanging on in the vain hope that maybe one day your team will actually win. This guy told me he hit a wall once, because he had been pushing it too hard, like Nadine.’

  ‘Oh? What do you mean, hit a wall?’

  ‘He was saying he thought he’d seen everything. Would be perfectly at ease dealing with slaughtered bodies, burns, acid, bullet-wounds to the face, and all that. For years he never even blinked at the stuff. With decomposing bodies he simply got used to wiping some stuff on his nostrils to kill the smell of putrefaction and get on with the job. Nothing got to him, he said, until one day it all just imploded.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It wasn’t even the most gruesome of scenes, he told me. One could hardly even see the wounds on the body, he said. But it was this four-year old girl. The simple fact that it was this beautiful innocent little thing in front of him, looking like an angel. That’s what did him in.’

  ‘Oh my God. How awful.’

  ‘It was the father, apparently. So they wrapped up the case. Others took
the body away. Someone else nailed the father. Another person dealt with the family. This guy just went home. Another day in the office. Another death. Then, in the middle of the night, he went crazy.’

  Fiona said nothing. She just looked at her husband and waited. He paused for a moment before continuing.

  ‘He told me he woke up in the early hours of the morning and started tearing his own house apart. Throwing things, kicking his foot through doors, punching his way clear through a window. His wife and kids called ambulances and police and everyone they could think of. He said he learned from his family much later that he had simply flipped and was a complete and utter stranger to them. The medics finally took him off to hospital and kept him there and then sent him home after a fortnight.’

  ‘What happened then? Did he go back to work?’

  ‘Not immediately. He was put on special leave. He told me he simply went into a dark room with a bottle of whisky a day and didn’t come out for a month. Then one day it disappeared. As if it had never happened. He went back to work and pretty soon was back to full strength. He still worries that it lurks around the corner and will spring out at him again one day. But he simply couldn’t understand how it just floated away. He said he still occasionally thinks of the little girl, but it’s more of a distant memory now, and he’s not attached to the emotion… weird.’

  He stared into nothing. She knew that look so well. Doubtless, she thought, he was thinking of the many corpses he had seen, and the many perpetrators he had put away.

  She put her arms around him and snuggled into his chest.

  ‘You won’t implode on me, will you?’

  ‘Don’t think so,’ he said.

  ‘What could make you implode?’

  ‘Dunno. If something happened to you. Or the boys.’

  The dog whined.

  ‘Or Sugar-Bear,’ he added.

  ‘Wasn’t that strange? Almost as if he knew you were leaving him out.’

  ‘Never. I include him too.’

  ‘Implode, or explode?’

  ‘Explode first, I think. Then implode.’

  They stood in the middle of the room, arms around each other, swaying gently for a minute, before she spoke.

  ‘Bed?’ she said.

  ‘Bed,’ he replied.

  The dog, agreeing, went and curled up in his box in the kitchen. They did the alarms, tweaked Sugar-Bear’s ears, and started turning off the lights.

  23.50.

  The shebeen was heaving. Loud young men were dancing and shouting. Some of them had removed their shirts, ostensibly because of the heat but in many cases simply to show off their torsos. Their bodies glistened with perspiration in the smoke-filled room. The smell of marijuana permeated the place. Groups of men and women gathered over drinks, shouting above the noise in an attempt to be heard by the person next to them. People jostled one another in an attempt to find a space. There were occasional moments of tension as people argued about being bumped or pushed. Violence hung in the air, waiting for a signal.

  Newcomers squeezed into the tavern. As they arrived and felt the wall of heat hit them in the face, they peeled off whatever superfluous external clothing they had on. The defective sound system blared out a distorted version of Die Antwoord’s popular Girl I want 2 Eat U. Men and women, most of them oblivious to the misogyny being belted out through the room, swayed and bopped in time to the music.

  Mavis and Ndileko tried to the best of their abilities to appear focused only on one another while checking, from time to time, on the three men. The drink flowed. Patrons plucked up the courage to approach Thabethe, whose reputation as a supplier was second only to his reputation as a man who shouldn’t be crossed.

  From time to time a young man - they were always males, she noticed - would approach Thabethe and whisper something to him. Money would change hands, unobtrusively. Then Thabethe would accompany the youngster outside. Thabethe would eventually return alone, and only after five or six minutes would the young man also return and make his way back to where he had been sitting or standing previously with friends. Meanwhile Wakashe and Mgwazeni were getting to know each other a little better. They were full of praise for their companion. Wakashe was animated.

  There was a moment, however, that sent a chill down Mavis’s spine. In one of her casual glances over at the three men, she made eye contact with Wakashe. It was just a moment, but it was deeply disconcerting. She thought the eye contact was accompanied by a lascivious leer at her. She transferred her gaze immediately, back to Ndileko. A moment later Mgwazeni guffawed loudly, doubtless in response to something Wakashe had said about the eye contact with the woman in the corner.

  Mavis felt very uneasy. Not only was she attempting to do detective work when she was nowhere near detective status, but if the captain or her colleagues found out they would think her reckless. She was proud of her work ethic, and she had earned the respect of all of her colleagues, yet here she was behaving as if she had never learned a thing in training. In addition, she was putting Ndileko in danger. She suddenly saw the gravity of the situation. She decided she should change gear. Instead of pushing this any further right now she could report tomorrow to the Captain that she happened to be at Mabaleng Tavern with a friend when she saw the three men. The value of that would lie in the Captain then liaising with the KwaMashu police and putting a watch on the tavern for the next week. In that way she would have played a useful part, but simply as an innocent citizen. She wouldn’t have endangered anyone…

  Then Mavis’s plans changed yet again. The three men suddenly got to their feet and started making for the exit. It was almost as if they had got wind of a threat to their hard-won freedom. They left very quickly, and Mavis got to her feet.

  ‘Come, Ndileko. They’re going. Let’s follow.’

  ‘OK, Mavis. But careful. Let’s keep back. Don’t let them see us. How far do you want to follow them?’

  As they weaved their way through the throng of patrons, Mavis heard a police siren in the distance. That explains it, she thought. The three men had left the moment they had heard the sound. That was the reason for their sudden departure. As she and Ndileko stepped out, they could see the three men in the distance, walking rapidly into the shadows. The men turned the corner at the end of the next building.

  Mavis was slightly ahead of Ndileko. She strode rapidly toward the corner of the building as she answered his question.

  ‘I just want to see where they go, Ndileko. We won’t follow them too far. I want to see if they go back to Wakashe’s house in Dada Street. That’s where his mother lives. If they go there then I can call someone and tell them that on the way home from Mabaleng Tavern we saw them in the street and I recognised him and we watched them go into the house, and…’

  She was breathless as she whispered while trying to catch up with the three men. As they turned the corner of the first building the three men were already at the far corner of the next building. It was almost as if they must have run, once they had turned the corner, thought Mavis.

  ‘Come, Ndileko. Quick. Let’s not lose them.’

  They increased their pace from a fast walk to a canter. Both breathless, whispering to each other, they ran around the corner of the second building. To be confronted by the three men standing shoulder to shoulder, facing them, this time speaking in English.

  ‘Sexy lady! Sexy lady from Mabaleng’s. She is following me into the night. Into the dark night,’ said Wakashe. ‘Me, the man she was looking at all night. Hullo, sexy lady.’

  ‘Ntombazane, ngifuna ukudla nawe,’ said Mgwazeni.

  The three men guffawed, in recognition of the line from the song, as Mgwazeni continued.

  ‘Maybe you are not speaking isiZulu? I am just saying, sister, I want to eat with you.’

  ‘Tchai!’ retorted Wakashe. ‘Mgwazeni, he can say he wants to eat with you, Ntombazane. But me, I’m wanting to just eat you. Wena ungowami. You are mine, sister. Come. Let’s have dinner, just you and me.’
/>   8 FRIDAY

  00.10.

  Mavis and Ndileko froze in terror as the three men sauntered toward them out of the shadows. The lascivious leer from Wakashe was even more terrifying to them than the wolf-like eyes of Thabethe, which seemed fractionally less threatening once they emerged into the pool of light cast from the street-lamp on the corner.

  For an instant Ndileko was rendered completely immobile by the shock of running into the men. Then he started trembling, violently, in abject horror at what lay in store. He couldn’t run. He was paralysed with fear and couldn’t elicit a reaction from hands or feet or head. He was rooted to the ground. Not so, Mavis. She paused for a second before Navi Pillay’s face loomed into her consciousness as she recalled the extraordinary class in which Navi had demonstrated to the gathered women recruits the art of kick-boxing.

  Mavis was aided by a police siren in the distance. Was it the same vehicle that had hurtled past the tavern just moments before, in search of some fugitive? Or was it yet another vehicle out on the hunt for the endless line of hoodlums terrorising the neighbourhood? Whatever the answer, the siren served to distract the three men for a moment. Mavis stepped forward onto her left foot and lashed out high with her right foot, angled perfectly straight and horizontal to the ground, as Navi had taught her. Mavis had never, in any of those classes, kicked as high as she now did. Her foot connected with Wakashe’s throat and he went down in an instant, gasping for breath, clutching at his neck, trying desperately to relieve the pressure on his windpipe, but unable to do so as his bandaged hands provided no flexibility for the fingers.

  Thabethe and Mgwazeni were struck immobile for a moment and then reacted to the movement from Mavis by rushing forward at her, but suddenly the street was flooded in blue light. The police car came into view from behind the tavern, and suddenly all five of them were bathed in light. Thabethe and Mgwazeni changed their minds instantly and grabbed Wakashe, pulling him to his feet. The three of them ran. They hurled themselves over the nearest fence and disappeared into the dark.