The First Rule of Survival

by Paul Mendelson

  ‘Anything else I can do? A tasting?’

  ‘No, sir. Nothing more now. But we might come back. Thank you for your time.’

  Steinhauer unglues himself from his spot, legs heavy; ushers Don out into the main tasting room, and then into the entrance hall. They shake hands again; Steinhauer’s hands are clammy and cold. Don walks through the huge glass doors, down the perfect stone steps towards a shining metal wall with water pouring down it in varying quantities. As he reaches it, the water flow hesitates just for a moment, and Don sees Marc Steinhauer reflected, standing stiffly at his glass doors, watching him go.

  Don reaches his car and turns around. There is no one at the doors now. He strides to the furthest part of the car park and begins to walk around the winery. On two sides, it is bordered by vineyards. Don climbs stone steps up high behind the building, which has been partly recessed into the side of the hill. Above the winery building, the ground is planted with olive trees and lavender. Don realizes that the estate seems to have no roof; it is all planted up to blend perfectly into the hillside. On the fourth side, there is light woodland, a large grassy field containing the odd olive tree and several white goats, and a pathway leading down to a dam surrounded by eucalyptus trees. From his vantage-point, Don can see no fields of wheat or corn, no sign of a raw concrete building. He is disappointed; something had made him think that the most likely place for this cheese to turn up was at the estate itself. How sweet would that have been?

  * * *

  De Vries sees Don the moment he enters the squad room. Men are working the phones, compiling files, looking through records. There is a hum of industry. De Vries and Don February simultaneously open their mouths to speak; Don checks himself.

  De Vries says: ‘I think I know why the killer dumped the bodies at the farm-stall.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘When we drove back to town, I noticed that the Somerset West Police had a random roadblock operating both ways in the lead-up to the Gordon’s Bay turning, before Sir Lowry’s Pass. Looking for drink/drive, drug/drive customers. Fishing trip basically. I called the traffic controller over there, and he says he ran it the previous day and, listen to this, there was a second trapper unit four kilometres up the road on the other side of the farm-stall, an all-day operation, commencing seven a.m. If the driver got through one and heard about another, he might have panicked and decided to dump the bodies.’

  Don says nothing.

  De Vries insists, ‘It’s possible. The dumping indicates panic.’

  Don still isn’t sure.

  De Vries sees it in him and temporizes. ‘Anyway, I’m getting the names of everyone who was stopped that day. We’ll run them and see if anything pops up. It’s possible.’

  Neither is convinced.

  ‘It’s the best we have right now,’ he sighs. ‘What happened at the cheese place?’

  ‘Nothing good. Place sells maybe thirty of those cheeses each week. They last at least a week in the fridge. No cameras inside or out, half a dozen different staff, same number of other cheese products, olives, olive oil, estate souvenirs, same again of wine, and the place is busy. At ten o’clock the car park was half full.’

  ‘Shit. You don’t think it’s worth canvassing?’

  ‘If we had a picture, a sketch, then maybe. Even then, I doubt it.’

  De Vries grits his teeth. ‘It’s running cold all over again.’

  ‘One thing though. The guy who owns it seemed very jumpy about something. Talked way too much. And there is a strange connection I looked into. You are not going to like it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘His name is Marc Steinhauer.’

  De Vries’ face is blank, then transforms instantly. ‘Any relation to . . . ?’

  ‘Nicholas Steinhauer? Yes, I checked online. Marc is his younger brother.’

  De Vries shakes his head. ‘Jesus. Can it get any worse?’

  March 2007

  As the camera pans across the small studio, pulls out to reveal both parties, there is a second when one of the studio lights catches the polished brass of the middle button of his dark blazer. The unexpected flash would mesmerize a viewer, force him or her to refocus their stare at the screen, blink a couple of times. When the studio lights rise, the camera is on the smooth black-clad anchorwoman, but the viewer scarcely hears what she says; he or she craves illumination of the other seated figure. They do not know this consciously.

  ‘With the Western Cape Police stating that no ransom notice has been received, no communication with the abductor, the motive behind the abduction of the three Cape Town schoolboys on consecutive days at the end of last week remains a mystery. The South African Police Service, still acutely embarrassed by the disappearance of the third boy, Toby Henderson, son of SAPS Inspector Trevor Henderson, during an annual police function, stated bluntly again today that they have few leads.’

  The camera angle changes; a flattering profile shot for her, the man appearing from silhouette.

  ‘With me now, esteemed Cape Town criminologist and psychologist, Nicholas Steinhauer. Dr Steinhauer, the SAPS is drawing a blank in the search for Steven Lawson, Bobby Eames and Toby Henderson. Who should they be looking for?’

  Steinhauer fills the screen, black hair slicked back against his head, dark tortoiseshell spectacles framing deep brown eyes. He nods in appreciation of his legend; his thin lips smile. He takes the anchorwoman into his confidence.

  ‘Firstly, we only know what the police tell us.’ His accent is a mixture of English, Afrikaans and German. It is a strangely soothing combination, accessible to many an ear. He enunciates clearly; his words are firmly spoken, his lip-movements precise. Everything about this man is precise. ‘And they tell us little. If it is true that they have received no ransom demand, then my fear is that the missing boys have fallen prey to a team involved in child-trafficking which, in case your viewers do not know, is far more widespread in Southern Africa than might be assumed. This may bode well for the immediate physical health of the boys, but it presents the authorities with a massive task if they are to track and find them.’

  ‘It would involve pan-African cooperation?’

  ‘Yes – and more. The Arab states have shown themselves to be behind some of the more ambitious child-trafficking. Wealthy individuals order children, as if from a catalogue, and they are found and obtained for them. It is a grisly and inhuman business.’

  ‘To what end?’

  ‘It is a terrible lesson,’ Steinhauer tells her, ‘still not learnt by us. Back in the annals of history, men in Arabia have commanded great armies and been comforted by harems of beautiful women. Now, if such a man desires, he can buy himself young boys. These children, abused by their owners, will be used as his playthings, then sold into the lowest levels of the sex trade and finally discarded.’

  ‘If this is their fate, do Toby, Steven and Bobby remain on South African soil?’

  ‘You are asking me to speculate here, and that is not what I do. But if they have been taken by a highly professional team, there is every possibility that they have already left this country and even possibly the continent.’

  The anchorwoman touches her earpiece: ‘The SAPS imply that, at any minute, there will be a ransom demand and the inquiry will take on a radically different stance.’

  Steinhauer smiles indulgently. ‘To infer anything from the words of the SAPS is to take a substantial leap of faith. More than once, I have observed press conferences on major crimes and, without exception, I have felt that the media were being manipulated.’

  ‘That is a serious accusation. In what way manipulated?’

  ‘Let us be benign and suggest that the police are using the media to disseminate information which aims to promote public involvement in the case, to generate witnesses. More questionably, perhaps their actions are designed to suggest to a known suspect that he or she is not under suspicion and that they do not need to hide so carefully. More often, however, it is my contention that the SAP
S use the media to disseminate flattering views of what are, in brutal terms, failed investigations. Nowadays, the budgets for the SAPS are spent profligately on public relations staff, spin doctors and training courses for officers on how to present bad news in a good light. The whole focus of the SAPS seems distorted and, frankly, in a country torn apart by crime, this is highly disappointing.’

  ‘Is this a nationwide criticism?’

  ‘To the extent that such policies are dictated by the higher echelons and that presumably their policy is nationwide, then yes. However, it is particularly relevant here in the Western Cape, where we seem to have a deeply fractured service – certain teams attending to certain crimes, older white senior officers being moved away from general duties to head up certain clique units. It is clearly unhealthy and, without question, deeply damaging to morale.’

  ‘Are you directly criticizing the investigation into these abductions?’

  ‘I’m observing that the SAPS seem utterly blind to their own shortcomings and apparently unable to make any headway whatsoever in this matter. The fate of these three boys is in their hands, and the question we must all ask is this: are they trying hard enough?’

  Vaughn de Vries looks around the room of tired, expectant, unshaven faces and says, ‘Thank you very fucking much.’

  He looks back up at the screen, but the interview has ended. In the three seconds before he switches off the television monitor, he glimpses a bulky sports presenter wearing a small pink polo shirt, no sound coming from his fast-moving lips.

  He turns to Dean Russell – sees that they are the only two men in the squad room standing. Four officers are hunched over their desks half asleep; for the rest, the information drought has sent them to their beds, long overdue.

  ‘Fuckhead. What the fuck does Steinhauer have to do with it?’

  ‘There’ll be more.’

  ‘Am I so fucking out of touch, Dean? You tell me: am I?’

  ‘We’re white and old-school. It’s 2007, no one trusts us. We’re – what’s that French phrase? Persona non grata.’

  De Vries snorts, wonders whether Russell knows what he’s said, savours a split second of release from the ever-increasing tension inside him.

  ‘And it’s the white fucking media doing this, that’s what gets me. They didn’t say this shit back then, in the good old, bad old days, when we were the front line.’

  ‘Things were different then.’

  De Vries stares at his Inspector, sighs and says, ‘Go home, Dean.’

  2014

  ‘Steinhauer parlayed that one interview into a weekly column for the Argus and a television series. Shithead never got off our backs.’ De Vries trails off, his mind overtaken with the image of Steinhauer that day on the television.

  ‘My wife used to read that column first, every Friday,’ Don mutters. ‘She grabbed that Weekend Ahead section and got back to bed with it. Didn’t like it when it ended.’

  Everyone is thinking of something to say, to fill the void in information.

  ‘It is a strange coincidence, anyway,’ Don murmurs.

  Vaughn feels the pressure in his gut tighten. He cannot let the case stagnate. He must push forward, somehow.

  ‘Right, I can’t see anything here on the polythene wrapping. How’s that going?’

  Don straightens up. ‘Sally Frazer is on it. She has not found anything yet, but she is talking to a contact of mine right now. He has been a warehouse supervisor for twenty years; about that long again in factories. If he does not know anything, we will look further afield.’

  De Vries nods.

  ‘The crime-scene reports show that they cannot find any indications of a particular car tyre driving to the rear of the farm-stall,’ Don goes on. ‘I have got Joey Henkin to re-interview all the staff, asking about a nervous or panicking man, and whether or not any of them overheard conversations about roadblocks. He says not even a whisper from anyone.’

  Vaughn feels his energy draining again.

  ‘The lab guys are looking at the stuff on the boys again,’ he says, ‘trying to locate something which might give us an idea in what area this field might be. They say if they find certain pollens, that could rule in or out certain geographical areas . . .’

  De Vries wearily lets his head laze back on his neck, then he snaps it back.

  ‘Shit! You don’t understand, Don. This is what happened before. No evidence, no information, nothing. He’s going to get away with it again.’

  * * *

  John Marantz’s house is high on the lush southern face of Table Mountain, where rains pour day and night for weeks on end, the sun’s pale white winter rays absent behind the monolith. The trickling brooks swell to torrents and the mountain runs with foaming waterfalls. In the summer, the trees are lush and green, cool and dense, providing shade against the blasting sun; the same sentinels now protect the inhabitants from the South-Easter winds, and all is calm, the air scented and filled with fecund birdlife. He is high above the city here, his little house sitting at the end of a narrow cul-de-sac along from Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, as high on the mountain slopes as you can build. No one calls at his door, no neighbours bother him. He is just as he wishes to be: alone.

  He lies floating on the surface of his dark rectangular lap pool, his body the shape of the crucified Jesus, his hands relaxed, fingertips breaking the surface tension of the water. All he hears is the low hum of the pool pump from below him, a heartbeat in his head. The tiny current drifts him slowly outwards until he is high over the mountain slope, his head inches from the infinity edge. At the other end, his dog – a glossy-coated Irish terrier – sits, front paws aligned, eyes blinking slowly in the afternoon sun. The dog cannot discern that John Marantz is crying, cannot imagine that he feels as if he is floating in a huge well of tears, dark and bottomless.

  Marantz is home, but it is not his home. It is his chosen prison. Home would be back in London with his wife and daughter, but they have been taken from him and he has been forbidden ever to search for them. Now, he drifts alone, sometimes self-motivated to move, more often stirred by outside forces. He knows that he could break free from London, from his past career, be born again, yet something inside him hopes that there will be new instructions, even commands. It is as if ritual is all he has to keep him from crying all day long, forever.

  * * *

  De Vries sits unmoving in his dimmed office. He feels the weight of his responsibility bear down on him and wonders whether he can still shoulder it. There is no breakthrough; Don February’s warehouseman knew about polythene, but had no ideas, no insights.

  He meets with Director du Toit, an interview marked by long silences. He sits alone in his office, all through lunch and into the afternoon, smoking heavily, examining every angle he can think of – and still he has nothing.

  His wife, transferred two years previously to Johannesburg, calls him. A weekly commute became fortnightly, then monthly – and now she returns only to retrieve more clothes, personal belongings. They say nothing to one another. De Vries wonders why he stays silent, wonders why he feels content that she is leaving.

  Today she sounds happy, stimulated, feigning – Vaughn senses – concern for him and the reopening of the abduction case. She talks as if she is interviewing him. Seven years back, Suzanne de Vries had been a news reporter; she lived through the original investigation almost as much as he. Now, he suspects she only wants an inside opinion. He knows that she has bought an apartment in Jo’burg; his younger daughter has told him, but she has not. He knows he will not broach this subject now; knows that their marriage has ended, but she says nothing to him. When he tells her that he has no information about the case, she ends abruptly and hangs up. Intense, destructive frustration fills him. He has found acceptance; her cowardice disgusts him. In his dreams, he used to see her. Each night she appeared to him, smaller and smaller, further and further away. Now, in his dreams, she is not there. His daughters are present but out of sight; no one else in
his extended family exists any more.

  A knock, his door opening. Don February, clutching two sheets.

  ‘I have run all the names Somerset West Police gave us for people stopped by the roadblock leading to Sir Lowry’s.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Don arranges the two sheets on the desk in front of de Vries. He taps the first.

  ‘Robert Ledham, fifty-seven, arrested and charged with kidnapping and sexual abuse of two minors in Johannesburg in 1997 to 1998. The second kid got away after forty-eight hours, went straight to the police. Ledham served six years. He went to Port Elizabeth, stayed there until 2009 – but the journey is easy enough. Nothing since he arrived in Cape Town in 2009.’

  ‘Ledham wasn’t a name that came up in 07,’ de Vries says, glancing back at the desk-high stack of files on the floor behind him. ‘In any case, if he was living in PE, he wouldn’t be abducting kids in Cape Town.’

  ‘He is a convicted paedophile.’

  ‘I’m halfway through reviewing everything we collected over seven years and there’s nothing on a Robert Ledham.’

  ‘So why is there no record of him on our database?’

  De Vries opens his mouth, like a goldfish. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Maybe if there had been, he would have been considered?’

  ‘But he wasn’t in town.’

  ‘As far as we know.’

  ‘As far as we know. This is stretching it, Don.’

  ‘Okay,’ Don goes on, charged with his news. ‘This second guy, Deepak Tineer, forty-six, came to Cape Town from Durban in 2004, immediately got noticed by police because he was running what he called “prayer and meditation” classes: everyone – and this was mainly young men – wore loincloths. A lot of laying on of hands. There were complaints to the council, accusations against Tineer for indecent behaviour with children.’

  ‘Don. Our guy is white, not Asian.’

  ‘Why? I thought that was just a theory because of who he took, where he operated. Tineer could be educated, integrated.’

  De Vries leans back, then remembers that his chair has recently developed a dislike of such a manoeuvre.