by Ian Patrick
Saturday night had turned into what was going to be a very long Sunday, he thought, and on this particular beach it was going to get crowded very soon.
00.55.
The sea was leaden and still. Eerily still. The waves breaking onto the beach were as small as any the seven cops had ever seen, but the movement of the water was still enough to tug and pull at the four bullet-ridden bodies, nudging them a few inches up the wet sand and then back again. There was hardly any sound from the gently cascading surf, although there was a small current that saw the bodies float some fifteen or twenty feet away from where they had been shot before they drifted in to the shore.
The cops moved down the beach, as this was happening, toward the small outcrop of rocks in the surf. Waiting for the bodies to come in, they joked and teased each other as they came off the adrenalin high that the action had produced in each and every one of them. For two of them it was the first time they had ever put a bullet into a human being. For the others, who had varying experiences of action, the sensations were not significantly different. One of them, Thenjiwe Buthelezi, was saying that she was convinced she had put at least two bullets into each one of the four men, which took her tally since joining the police to half a dozen. All killed in self-defence, she added, to chuckles from a few of her companions. She had never felt better, she replied to a question from one of the non-chuckling constables who, he said, had just shot his first-ever criminal.
The detective in charge, having radioed the detective sitting back in the car, given him a detailed run-down and asked him to call in the cleaners, now stopped next to the rocks and addressed the six uniforms again.
‘OK, people. Let’s get it straight. Each and every one of you has to sing from the same hymn sheet, nè? We’ll all be filling out IPID forms and we’ll each be questioned separately. We have to have exactly the same story. Got it?’
There were nods and affirmations from all six of the uniforms.
‘We five chased them through the bush. Some of us fired shots at that stage. All misses. Try and remember how many rounds each of you fired from your weapons in the bush, OK?’
He turned to the two women who had joined the chase from the southern end of the beach.
‘Thandiwe and Thenjiwe, you too. I’m assuming you fired no rounds until you got here on the beach?’
The two women nodded affirmatively and he continued.
‘Then when we chased them into the water, they went out about ten metres, got it? Ten metres. Don’t forget that. Ten metres into the water, with all of us waiting at the edge. Then, while we were waiting to arrest them, they turned suddenly and all of them started firing at us. Like madmen. Round after round. They were like lunatics. They were trying to kill us. Only when they started firing, did we return fire. Then, because they didn’t stop, we continued firing at them. OK?’
Further nods and agreements.
‘Make sure each one of you can account for exactly how many rounds you fired altogether, both in the bush and at the water’s edge. Remember, forensics will track back every single slug they dig out of these bastards and they will then place each and every one of those bullets back into each one of our weapons. Speaking for myself, I know I fired off seven rounds, none in the bush, all of them right here, and I’ll swear I had hits with at least four bullets, two each into at least two of these guys. Maybe a fifth round into a third guy, but I can’t be sure. The rest in the sea. That’s my story. Make sure you each have your own story, nè?’
There was a chorus of affirmations.
‘Anyone here feeling uncomfortable with this?’
His question was greeted by silence. He paused and then continued.
‘We’re talking about scum, people. Filthy murdering bastards. We’re saving innocent people by taking out cockroaches like this. We don’t want any time wasted on this, people. We sing the same song. Let me know now if any one of you is feeling uncomfortable.’
Silence.
‘We’re just cops doing our duty, people. We deal plainly with criminals. We tell them to put up their hands. If they don’t, we shoot them. Our story is clear and simple. They turned on us. We defended ourselves. Simple. Questions?’
Again there was silence.
‘OK. Now no-one here touches a thing, right? We don’t try and retrieve the weapons from the water. We don’t touch the bodies. We wait. Crime Scene Management takes over from here. We tell the story. The same story. Exactly the same facts. Other people will do the rest. We wake up on Monday and we get on with the next job. OK? OK. Let’s get back up the beach there and wait for the cleaners.’
As the seven police officers began to move up the beach toward the bush, one of them noticed a slight movement in the black rocks behind them, paused, and walked back a couple of paces to investigate.
‘What’s wrong, Thenjiwe?’ asked the detective.
She paused, looked out at the rocks, then relaxed.
‘No. Nothing, Captain. I thought I saw something. But nothing. Maybe a seal. Maybe an eel.’
‘Let’s go,’ the detective said. They moved up the beach toward the road, which would soon be crowded, he said to his companions.
01.05.
Skhura Thabethe’s ebony skin, set against the black wet rocks, provided a background against which the cold blue moonlight picked out little more than the protruding whites of his eyes. He shifted position as he watched the cops walk slowly away up the beach, talking and laughing and giving reassurances to one another. He had frozen into complete immobility for a moment, as he thought the cop had spotted him. He thought she had looked straight into his eyes, but after staring intently she then relaxed and let it go. He didn’t breathe until she had turned her back and started moving off, up the beach with the others.
Thabethe’s eyes were bloodshot. This was not only the effect of the whoonga he had been drawing into his lungs for the last couple of hours, but also the result of submerging himself in the surf as part of his nightly cleansing ritual. For reasons known only to himself, he would always open his eyes and his mouth under the salty water, as if to cleanse them of the day’s filth. The effect was to inflame the network of veins and arteries and make them even more prominent against the yellow-white sclera of his bulging eyes. Eyes that unnerved most people who came into contact with him.
He had surfaced from the deeper water after his nightly dip, and had begun making his way back to the rocks, just as the commotion had broken onto the beach. Startled, he had moved swiftly into the cover of the rocks as he watched the action unfold.
He knew from newspaper reports that the Durban North police, desperate to cut the crime wave in their region, had taken it upon themselves to work with private security contractors to clear the bushes on the north coast of vagrants and the homeless and others who sheltered there for various reasons. As a result, he was avoiding his more familiar haunts around Durban and had come further north, to this place in the bush he last used more than six weeks ago. It had been perfect for his purposes at the time. He had kidnapped a man from Addington Hospital and held him prisoner all day long in the very same spot where he had spent the last couple of hours smoking whoonga.
But maybe this place was getting too hot now. As a man on the run from the cops, going on now for some two months since he had been released from prison, he had to keep low. After two narrow escapes six weeks ago he had disappeared for a month into rural Swaziland. Then he had ventured back, carefully, after that. The bushes up and down the coast had provided good refuge for the last fortnight.
And now the cops here, on this beach. Surely they weren’t reaching this far with that clean-up operation? What is a team from Durban North doing way up here? As far north as Umdloti? His first thought was that the clothes and the nyaope joints he had concealed in the bush had been discovered, and he was now trapped, stark naked, a couple of hundred paces from his belongings. But as the four men raced across the beach into the water and he saw the flashlights and the silhouettes of the co
ps following them, he realised that he was not the target. Had they chased these guys all the way from Durban North?
He had receded into the cover of the rocks, watched and listened, and had stared straight back at the woman cop until she gave it up, thinking it was merely her imagination that she had seen something move.
Now, as the cops moved up the beach, he saw his opportunity to slip away. Like a slippery black eel he slid slowly back into the water on the sea side of the rocks, and headed south, crawling rather than swimming in the shallow surf, his hands digging into the sand beneath the water and pulling himself forward. He travelled more than fifty metres before he felt safe enough to emerge from the water and make his way slowly up the beach toward the bush. He would have to double back northward through the undergrowth to where he had left his clothes, and he would have to hurry. From what he had seen, the place was likely to be crawling with more cops very soon.
He had to get out of there and back to Durban.
08.50.
Ryder stretched luxuriously. He could hear Fiona downstairs. The clatter of the dishes and the smell of toast and coffee promised good things to come. She normally didn’t do Sunday breakfast, and especially in light of the fact that they had only crawled into bed sometime after 2.00 am.
It had been a thoroughly enjoyable formal dinner at the Brigadier’s home. He remembered precious little after they had watched the host open another bottle of Laphroaig at 1.00 am, prevailing upon them all to stay for another drink and for more of the fine conversation they had enjoyed throughout. The guests still standing at that stage included Captain Nyawula along with the Cluster Commander, the Vispol Coordinator and the Detective Coordinator and their spouses. Along with some other guy who was a private security man and whose wife was a journalist. Ryder couldn’t remember the journey home, other than the fact that he knew Fiona had had to do the driving.
Now here she was, a mere six hours later, up and about and preparing breakfast for him. Was she just feeling a little guilty and simply doing her best to out-do the superb breakfast he had served her in bed twenty-four hours ago?
He thought back on the previous day’s breakfast. He enjoyed few things more than cooking up a storm on a Saturday morning and waking her up with a tray of goodies. There was nothing predictable about his Saturday morning feasts. He always improvised. Never planned. He started by opening the fridge and seeing what took his fancy. But from there anything could happen. So she could expect anything from pancakes, to bacon and eggs, to kipper and eggs, to Eggs Benedict, to fruit and muesli. It depended on what was available. He once even tried fried banana on her. Only once.
But always coffee. Frothy coffee. Strong. Coffee that he enjoyed much more than she did. But she humoured him. Even when she would have preferred tea, she enthused about his coffee, knowing that he would be disappointed if she did anything but enthuse. So she usually got in first. Hmmmm. Nice. It was her way of precluding his questions about the coffee. If she didn’t enthuse he would be bound, after a while, to say something like nice coffee, don’t you think?
Not that they had a pattern with breakfasts, him on weekends and her on weekdays. Far from it. It just often turned out that he was the one to get to it on weekends, both Saturday and Sunday. Mostly, she would do weekdays, while he was in the shower. On weekdays, when he started early, once he was in the shower his singing wasn’t really conducive to her staying in bed anyway, so she tended to do the breakfast.
But now it was Sunday and she was clearly at it, he thought. Sounded promising. Smelt even more promising. He would wait and be served in bed, whatever surprise she had for him. Wish she would bring a cup of coffee, though, while she was getting on with the rest of it.
‘Jeremeeeee!’ The call echoing through the house ruptured his coffee fantasy.
He called back in reply, asking her what she wanted. Her reply was not encouraging.
‘The children and I are off. We’ve had breakfast. Coffee’s made, if you want some. If you want anything to eat I’m afraid there’s only muesli. Help yourself. There’s no more toast: the bread’s finished. No eggs, either. I’ll get some later. Bye!’
He remembered. She was going with them to the school gala.
‘Bye,’ he called back, dejectedly.
‘Sugar-Bear needs a walk!’ were her parting words
‘OK,’ he called.
He listened to the sounds of them departing. Doors banged. The security gate clanged. Her car coughed. And again. Then the ignition took. Revs. Then they drove away. Silence crept in to the Ryder household.
He listened to the silence.
Then he dragged himself slowly toward the shower. Maybe he could fry himself a banana, he thought.
I wonder what goes with fried banana?
09.05.
Thabethe sat alone in a corner of the cafe, nursing a drink. He had sat there long after finishing his breakfast.
It was six weeks since he had narrowly escaped arrest at the hands of the interfering Detective Jeremy Ryder. He still seethed with anger that the cop had been the cause of the complete collapse of his nyaope business. Ryder was also the reason why Thabethe’s good friend Spikes Mkhize had quit town, last heard of in Gauteng somewhere.
He had no means of contacting Spikes. The two of them shared a secret. A secret stash of cash, the proceeds of their drug sales, buried in a tin in the ground a hundred metres from Nomivi’s Tavern. But Nomivi’s, both of them knew, was too hot. The cops would be on the lookout. They knew that both men had used Nomivi’s as a base. They might still be watching. The money could stay where it was for now. The time would come.
For now, Ryder was the big problem.
That was why Thabethe had put the call through to the journalist at the Natal Mercury before dawn. He had made his way to Durban after his escape from the beach at Umdloti, cursing at the paucity of taxis. Then he hung around Osborne Street in Greyville. He had not known what exactly he intended to do, but he knew that he wanted to let some journalist discover what he had seen on the beach, and cause some trouble for the cops.
Why not tie it in to Ryder and embarrass him at the same time?
Thabethe had watched, and seen individuals come and go, and saw that the lights were on in the building. Clearly there were quite a few people at work, even before dawn on a Sunday. But he couldn’t risk a face-to-face encounter with anyone. After four attempts he finally found a functioning telephone. Not expecting anyone to actually answer, he was completely surprised when he was first put on hold and then a sleepy voice answered.
‘Yes?’
‘You reporter for the news?’
‘Could be. Who’s this?’
‘I seen cops shooting people with their hands up in the air.’
Silence. Thabethe continued.
‘I seen the cops at Selection Beach by Umdloti. They tell four guys to hold up their hands. The guys they hold up their hands. Then the cops they shoot them. Maybe forty bullets. They kill those men, and the cops they are laughing.’
Silence.
‘You listening? I’m telling you. You can go now and see. At Umdloti. On the beach.’
‘What’s your name, please?’
‘I’m not telling my name. The cops they shoot me too.’
‘Are you prepared to come in and talk to me? Can you come now?’
‘I’m not coming. The cops they get me too. You remember that one time when those cops...’
‘Why should I believe you, my friend?’
‘Because I’m not your friend. I’m not asking money. I’m wanting nothing from you. I’m telling you what I’m seeing. You go there now to Umdloti and you see four men with forty bullets, maybe more, dead there on the beach.’
‘How many policemen?’
‘I’m thinking six cops. No. Seven. One big detective in charge and six other cops. Two women. All constables, I think.’
‘Are you saying that the cops lined these guys up and then shot them?’
‘The men they
were in the water and they were having their hands up high and the cops, they all shot those four men.’
‘You say that all the cops fired?’
‘Yes, but one big detective in charge. You go up there and you check and you see.’
‘What time was this?’
‘It is happening at one o’clock this morning. Maybe earlier. Definitely after midnight.’
‘And what were you doing there, my friend? What were you doing on the beach at midnight on a Saturday?’
‘Is not mattering what I’m doing there. I’m telling you I’m seeing the cops kill these men.’
Silence. Thabethe waited. Eventually the journalist spoke again.
‘You sure you won’t come in and speak to me so that I can know who you are? I won’t tell anyone who you are. I’ll just check your story.’
‘I’m not coming. You go and see for yourself. Umdloti.’
‘Wait! Don’t go. Tell me more. How do you know this one guy was a detective?’
‘I’m knowing that detective. I seen him before. Very big man.’
‘Oh? You know him? So what’s his name?’
‘His name is Detective Jeremy Ryder.’
09.30.
Ryder was in the park with his Border Collie when his iPhone rang. The dog was down low on his haunches, contemplating whether to herd five or six toddlers who had like errant sheep gleefully escaped their parents. Ryder was throwing a tennis ball to persuade him otherwise. The parents of the toddlers, noticing the dog’s intent, glared at Ryder and rushed up to the kids. Ryder flung the ball as far as he could across Sugar-Bear’s line of sight and that kept the dog occupied for all of ten seconds. He took the call.
‘Ryder.’
‘Jeremy, sorry to call on a Sunday.’
‘Hi, Navi. What’s up?’
‘Any chance you can drive out to Umdloti? I’m here with Nadine Salm and Pauline Soames.’
