The First Rule of Survival

by Paul Mendelson

  Vaughn looks at Don, who nods, but looks disgusted.

  ‘There’s a locked room down there,’ de Vries says. ‘What’s in that room?’

  ‘You have no right—’

  ‘What’s in the room?’

  ‘My work is in that room.’

  ‘What work is that?’

  Ledham straightens himself stiffly. ‘I’m an illustrator. For books.’

  ‘What kind of books?’

  ‘Children’s books. I create the illustrations for the Davey and Pie series.’

  De Vries remembers the title. He wonders whether he has bought the books for his daughters.

  ‘Just show us that room, please. Then we’ll leave you.’

  Ledham gets up and walks to the door. He produces a key from his trouser pocket and unlocks it.

  ‘If an intruder gets in, he can take everything but my work.’ There is a little pride in his voice.

  He enters the room, de Vries and Don February following. Two walls are covered, almost floor to ceiling, with beautiful, intricate drawings. Vaughn immediately recognizes the work; knows that his daughters have been enchanted by these pictures. He sees one wall covered with detailed pen-and-ink drawings, almost as atmospheric as William Blake etchings, each rendered much larger than he has seen in the books, the other wall showing coloured scenes of mysterious misty woodlands, medieval castles guarded by men in shining armour, and an underwater scene of huge colourful fish partying while the heroes are thrown around on a giant waterlily pad on the surface above them. He has read these stories out loud to his girls, admiring the artist. His daughters have gaped at the pictures, probably dreamt about the adventures.

  ‘You write these too?’ de Vries asks.

  ‘No. I am sent the text. I have only met the author once.’

  ‘The publisher knows about your past?’

  Ledham spins around to him.

  ‘No. I . . . I have no contact with anyone. I live here alone and mind my own business.’

  De Vries thinks about it; there is something repulsive about the thought of Ledham enchanting his innocent children. He looks back at the man, drained and slumping now, his head lowered.

  ‘That seems reasonable.’

  Ledham takes a deep breath.

  Above the long desk which runs down the entire side of the room,Vaughn sees giant versions of the lead characters: Davey, Pie, Salsa and Squash. On the desk itself, sketches and unfinished designs.

  ‘There’s a new one?’

  ‘If I am allowed my peace, yes.’

  ‘Doesn’t everyone do this on computer nowadays? You don’t use a computer?’

  ‘No. All my pictures are hand-drawn, hand-coloured, as you can see.’

  De Vries looks again at the pictures, and then at Ledham. He wonders how such a man’s mind works: to create pictures that delight children; to defile and humiliate and abuse them.

  ‘Thank you,’ Vaughn tells him, ‘for eventually cooperating. I hope that we won’t disturb you again.’

  Ledham opens his mouth, but shuts it again. He gestures them out of his studio, along the corridor to his front door. They leave and he closes it on them, standing silently, waiting to hear the car start up and drive away.

  * * *

  De Vries finds a new guard on duty at the entrance, but he is not a supervisor. He salutes de Vries and opens the gate.

  When they are back on the main road, de Vries asks: ‘What did he have in his collection?’

  ‘Just teen stuff, hardcore, but seemed legal. He had not unwrapped all of what he bought on Tuesday. It was still in a brown paper bag, with the receipt inside. Date and time shown. Fits.’

  ‘Not nice.’

  ‘I would not want my children looking at his pictures.’

  ‘Mine already did. I always liked those books.’

  ‘You would not like them so much if you saw what he really thinks about young girls, and what they should be doing to each other.’

  ‘My kids love his work; they don’t know the man.’

  Don contemplates what he means. He says: ‘I am sorry, sir, that those two leads were a waste of our time.’

  ‘Had to be done. When Ledham started lying I wondered what we had. Problem for me was, the moment we entered his place, it didn’t feel right. He didn’t look right. Can you imagine him shooting anyone; lifting them into a skip?’

  ‘What was bothering you then?’

  ‘He lied to me. Twice. If he’s lying, then he’s hiding stuff, and I instinctively want to know what. I knew that he didn’t stop for “snacks” at that mini-mart. That was lame. You find out what it really was, and his evasion makes sense.’

  ‘You said twice?’

  ‘Oh yeah. When I asked him about a computer, each time he denied it, but the guy definitely has one, or uses one. Probably just Internet stuff, might be relatively innocent. I’ll go back sometime and find out.’

  ‘How do you do that?’

  ‘What? Catch them at it? There are so many clues: eyes, hands, saliva – a break in their voice.’

  ‘So, when we get this guy, you will know.’

  De Vries turns to Don. ‘When I meet him? Instantly.’

  Robert Ledham waits half an hour and passes through the walk-in closet to another door which leads into his garage. He takes the ladder from its place on the wall and leans it against a narrow beam on the ceiling. He climbs slowly, opens a trapdoor above him and clambers up into the roofspace. Stooping until he reaches the central part of the space, beneath the highest point in the roof, he moves to a trestle table supporting a laptop and a colour laser printer. He boots it up, enters multiple passwords and logs onto a forum. Then, he begins to type.

  When Don February reaches his desk back at headquarters he sees four Post-it notes tacked to the side of his computer monitor. One is from his wife, three are from an Officer Morten manning the public response telephone lines. Don looks up at de Vries’ office, but he is not there. He decides to see what information Morten has before calling him. As he strides towards the lifts, he is aware of his heart beating faster.

  Ledham checks his work, and then posts his message. Soon, he knows that many hundreds of men throughout the Western Cape will read his words. They, in turn, will post them further afield. The news in Cape Town will keep them and many others absorbed, until the identity of this pioneer is revealed.

  Morten is the department’s technophile; his office is shared with two assistants and what seem to Don to be twenty different types of computer, monitors on the wall and grey electrical devices with dials and needles.

  ‘You have the recording here?’

  ‘You’ll hear,’ Morten tells him. ‘They tried to get her to give her name, but she refused. We can trace the cell number if I’m authorized.’

  Don nods. ‘Let me hear it, please.’

  Morten taps his keyboard. ‘I’ve set it up just to play what she has to say first.’

  The woman sounds young, Capetonian, maybe in her early to mid-thirties. There are street sounds in the background. Don is not sure whether she is in her car or at the side of a road. She sounds nervous.

  ‘Last night, I realized, when I was in the car park at MacNeil’s farm-stall, I did see a car drive around the back. I remember thinking:That’s a smart car for an employee, maybe it’s the owner. I’ve never seen him. Is there a Mr MacNeil?’

  Then, an officer’s voice, calm, encouraging. ‘What sort of a car was it?’

  ‘I’m not good at cars. I think it was a BMW. That or a Mercedes. It was a metallic colour – grey, maybe . . . I’ve been thinking about a number plate, but I honestly can’t remember.’

  ‘What time were you there, madam?’

  ‘Oh, of course, sorry. I don’t know exactly, but I was on my way back from a friend in Hermanus. I left there at four p.m., so maybe five p.m. Not later.’

  ‘Did you see who was in the car? The driver?’

  ‘No. I – I think there was only one person. I’m not certain.’ />
  ‘Did you see the car again? When you left?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry, no. Look, I have to go now—’

  ‘One more question – please?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Did you notice anything about the car? Any damage, markings . . . ?’

  ‘No – no, I don’t think so. I must go.’

  The clip ends, and Morten says, unnecessarily, ‘That’s where it ends.’

  Don stands completely still for a moment, taking in the call.

  ‘That is good,’ he says, still in a reverie. ‘You think it is straight?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ Don says. He turns back to Morten. ‘Let us pray this is something.’

  He calls de Vries while he waits for the elevator back to his office. Before he can say hello,Vaughn tells him, ‘I’m on my way down from the top. I’ll be there in two minutes.’

  Then he hangs up.

  Don looks at his phone at arm’s length, and smiles.

  ‘Shut the door.’

  Don does as de Vries tells him.

  ‘I’ve just come from Director du Toit. He’s getting heat from above. Politics, thick as shit. Tell me you have something.’

  ‘I do.’

  De Vries spins round to him. ‘What?’

  ‘Anonymous caller, sounds reliable, says she saw what she thinks was a BMW, or possibly Mercedes, metallic grey, probably the driver alone, pull around the back of the farm-stall at about five p.m.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I have been checking. It does not belong to MacNeil, nor any of his staff. He says that it is not a car familiar to him. Unless it was just turning, there is no other reason for it to be there. Not stopped in either direction by the roadblocks. But, listening to her, it sounds like she has thought about it, and I think she saw a BMW – called it “smart”, so I am guessing it is quite new. It gives us something.’

  ‘We need to talk to this caller.’

  ‘She would not give her name, seemed nervous and hurried.’

  ‘Can we trace the call?’

  ‘If you give the official permission, the officer down there says so.’

  De Vries stares at Don, who doesn’t react.

  De Vries says: ‘Well, do it.’

  March 2007

  ‘A professional kidnap. This is what you think now?’ du Toit says.

  Johannes Dyk recoils.

  ‘I have been speaking with my colleagues in the European agencies,’ he says. ‘They tell me that the Arab states are now the centre of child-trafficking, by order. A rich man, a group, seek Caucasian children. They want a certain type of boy, specific ages and cultural background. Middle-class, educated children from Europe, from America – these present problems, but now there is talk of Caucasian children being taken from Africa.’ He arranges some notes. ‘I have here a report on two children kidnapped from Kenya, discovered aboard a ship off Somalia. Investigators claim the ship was bound for Saudi. Everything taken into account, I begin to feel that this may be the more likely fate of our three victims.’

  ‘Are they still alive?’ de Vries asks, the words sounding perfunctory to him even as he says them. Three young children.

  ‘My gut feeling?’ Dyk says, tilting his head to the side. ‘Abducted by an individual in this country – based on precedent, no, I think it is very unlikely that they are alive. One victim: perhaps he is being held captive, but three? No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘And your alternative theory?’ de Vries says.

  ‘If they have been taken abroad, I would say that they are definitely alive. That is the purpose of them being taken, the product for which a supplier will receive payment. But if that is the case, I don’t know what to say. You must contact all your international colleagues immediately.’

  ‘We will do that,’ du Toit says.

  De Vries says: ‘If these boys have been taken by an abuser rather than a killer, how long would that abuser hold on to his victims?’

  The group turn back to Dyk.

  ‘I . . . I cannot say, generally. Obviously children can be abused and they continue with their lives, seemingly normally, until perhaps a later time. But, with kidnap, this is more . . . permanent. He, or they, has managed to abduct these children without being seen – without even, it seems, attracting attention. This leads me to believe that he would not risk identification by leaving his victims where they might easily be found. I suspect that he would have hidden those victims, and hopes that they will never be found.’

  Dean Russell murmurs, ‘Jesus . . .’

  Dyk produces the handkerchief again, clears his throat into it.

  ‘Furthermore, and I know that this is not what you want to hear, from the point of view of policing, the fact that he has now stopped is worrying. It may suggest that he has left the vicinity, and is now elsewhere, planning further attacks at a future time. It’s an unpalatable truth, gentlemen, but I think whoever is responsible may have left Cape Town, taking with him all his secrets.’

  2014

  ‘This,’ Sarah Robinson says, as she lets them in, ‘is why I thought twice before calling you.’

  De Vries and Don enter a grand hallway, a sweeping staircase with crystal balustrades, four marble pillars at its corners, leading through to an enormous living area and, beyond that, through wide French windows, a pool terrace and long garden. A typical, new-money Constantia mansion. She hurries ahead of them, back to her kitchen, where a boy and girl, about six or seven years old, are beginning to fight, their high voices rising, their energy causing them to bounce about on the spot.

  ‘You two, enough! Just eat some dinner and then go in the garden.’ The children pause, look at her, and then resume their chase, a little more quietly.

  She turns to de Vries and Don. ‘I thought the whole point is that those lines are anonymous.’

  De Vries beams at her. ‘Lovely house, Mrs Robinson. They are anonymous calls. We never trace callers unless it is a life-and-death situation. This is where we are now. We need your help. Will you take five or ten minutes to talk to me?’

  Sarah Robinson glances at her children.

  ‘My Warrant Officer, Don here, loves children,’ de Vries says. ‘Maybe he can supervise them for a few minutes in the garden?’

  Agitated, Sarah Robinson looks at her watch yet again. Her head darts from de Vries to Don, to her children.

  ‘All right. You two, go with this nice man. Show him your sandpit. And be polite.’

  The children edge towards the door and Don leads them outside. The boy screams and runs off, the little girl holds out her hand for Don to take.

  ‘They’re quite a handful at that age.’

  ‘Yes. You have children?’ Sarah Robinson asks. ‘How old are yours?’

  ‘Older now: eighteen and twenty. Both girls. So many secrets, so much gossip.’

  For the first time, Sarah smiles.

  Vaughn says: ‘Why don’t you get yourself a cold drink, and then we can talk briefly.’

  The concept of getting something for her own pleasure seems to stall Sarah.

  ‘Yes.’ She walks to the fridge. ‘Would you like something?’

  ‘Water’s fine.’

  ‘My husband prefers not to get involved in things like this. He won’t be pleased. That’s why I wanted to remain anonymous.’

  ‘Your memory could be a major breakthrough for us. Even if it’s nothing, we can eliminate that person from our enquiries.’

  Sarah Robinson nods nervously, sips her drink. Vaughn sits on the edge of his seat and leans towards her.

  ‘Think back to your journey, and tell me what you saw at MacNeil’s farm-stall.’

  She looks down from de Vries’ insistent stare.

  ‘I told you when I called your line.’

  ‘I know,’ Vaughn says soothingly, ‘but I want you to cast your mind back again.’ He looks up at her, meets her eyes. ‘You need to trust me. Put everything else from your mind for a couple of minutes and we’
ll see what you remember.’

  Sarah Robinson looks over her shoulder into the garden. De Vries’ voice is gentle, but it brooks no argument.

  ‘Imagine you are there; recall it as if you are seeing it for the first time. Don’t let anything else intrude . . .’ She looks mildly suspicious. ‘Try to think only of those few moments when you saw this car at the farm-stall. Sit back, just tell me what you see in your mind’s eye.’

  ‘All right. I arrived at MacNeil’s, I think before five on Tuesday.’ She is still sitting upright, her eyes open and fixed on her knees.

  ‘Okay. Take it slow,’ Vaughn tells her. ‘I need you to trust me for this to work. Close your eyes; it helps. Visualize how you were sitting in the car, how you were feeling. Mention every detail, however unimportant.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Why did you stop at MacNeil’s? What was in your mind?’

  She closes her eyes reluctantly; reopens them, closes them again.

  ‘I wanted bread – dark rye bread. We were having guests that evening. My husband likes cheese to end the meal. I had bought cheese, and I wanted the bread he likes.’

  ‘You have been to MacNeil’s before?’

  ‘Yes, many times. We have a house in the Wilderness. We would always pass MacNeil’s. Sometimes my husband would go in, but usually it was me.’

  ‘Take one deep breath; think only of your journey that day.’

  She does so; allows her eyes to shut slowly. The house is silent.

  ‘Are you on the road leading to the farm-stall?’

  De Vries hears a clock ticking in another room. He hears five gentle pulses before Sarah Robinson says: ‘Yes. The sun is going down. I’m thinking I may have to put my lights on at the end of the journey. My husband does not like me driving in the dark. I thought I must hurry . . .’

  ‘You arrive at the farm-stall. You pull off the road.’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘Where did you park?’

  ‘I – I parked opposite the main entrance, but away from it, on the side nearest the road.’ She opens her eyes, looks at him, then closes them once more, breathes. ‘I get out, lock the door with the remote thingy, walk towards the stall, but . . . but, a car is coming towards me so I wait.’