He wakes up. He is at home. It is a dream. His daughters stand either side of his bed. They do not smile. He looks down at himself and he is frozen rigid. He lifts his arm to hold out a hand and it cracks at the shoulder and drops to the bed and then to the ground . . .
He wakes up. Sits up quickly, doubles over, a thick cough grabbing his chest and shaking him. It was a dream . . . He retches. Then he remembers: it is only partly a dream; it is also a memory.
He cannot stay awake, cannot move to get out of bed, cry out for attention. It is not a hospital; he thinks a guest-house. A man claiming to be a doctor visits his bedside, speaks soothingly. He does not remember more. Then he wakes to find evening has come and it is almost dark behind his thin curtains. Don February looks around his door. He comes to his bedside;Vaughn cannot wake up, but Don tells him: the body is being driven to Cape Town, to Harry Kleinman, to be identified. Nothing, and no one else, has been found. The building is almost untouched, but two bedrooms have been used at some point. An air-conditioning system was in operation – generators deep underground, with settings to change the air in the middle of the night. The Crime Scene team have taken hundreds of samples and will be reporting in due course.
De Vries cannot focus; cannot think.
His warrant officer says, ‘Go back to sleep. Tomorrow morning, we walk through the crime scene.’
De Vries tries to speak; nothing happens. His eyes close.
He sees that it is now 5.23 a.m. His head drags him back down to his pillow. His legs ache, his head throbs – perhaps, he thinks, from lack of alcohol. Eventually, he pulls himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, and tries to focus, tries to string logical thoughts together – and fails.
At 6.30 a.m., de Vries is dressed and washed. He leaves his room, pads down a creaky wooden corridor, and finds the Crime Scene leader, Steve Ulton, sitting at a dining table, eating a cooked breakfast and drinking coffee. When he sees Vaughn, he stands up.
‘Vaughn. Are you okay, man?’
‘Yes. Think the bastards doped me. Can’t wake up.’
Ulton glances around, pulls out a chair and gestures to de Vries. Vaughn sits, and Ulton pours him coffee. He leans into de Vries, his voice hushed.
‘They couldn’t find you, man. They got to the end of the second corridor and the doors are padlocked and you aren’t anywhere. It was like, there’s nowhere to go, but you’re gone. When they found you, they nearly shot you. They said you were . . .’ He searches for words. ‘In shock. They carried you out. Do you remember any of this?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t think it’s a problem; Warrant February handled it. That place is a dungeon.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Eight of us are billeted here for the night, in Riebeek-Kasteel,’ Ulton continues. ‘Some more of the team are up the road. The press arrived after about an hour – the boys from the city – and they’re probably in every spare room between here and Malmesbury. How the fuck do they find out so fast?’
He sees de Vries’ blank, blurred expression, takes a long sip of coffee and stays silent.
A coloured waitress comes into the room and looks at de Vries, who has his head on his chest.
Ulton says: ‘More coffee, and bring him a cooked breakfast like mine.’
‘Brown or white toast?’ she asks, oblivious to the scene.
Ulton smiles. ‘He looks like a white man to me.’
She ducks back out of the room.
Ulton says, ‘Your boss is due here at nine a.m.’
Vaughn pulls himself up. ‘Du Toit?’
‘Ja, and General Thulani. Wants a full briefing, like always.’
‘So he can deny he knew anything.’
Ulton chuckles.
‘Shit,’ de Vries croaks. ‘And then the press. He’ll love that.’
‘Doc Kleinman told February that he would try to have a positive ID by eight a.m.; would phone it through to him from town.’
De Vries nods. ‘Where is Don?’
‘I think he’s here, but we were working very late last night. We couldn’t decide how to deal with the body. We couldn’t get it out, as it was frozen in. We had four guys carry the entire freezer out. It took eight of them to get it up out of that tank area, up to ground level. Shit, man. That was after midnight.’
De Vries hunts for more coffee, but Ulton’s pot is empty.
‘She’ll be here just now,’ Ulton tells him. ‘I know it’s the worst possible scenario, but at least it’s over. It’s all over.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ De Vries tells him, his bloodshot eyes still blinking in the light, sounding like he is ending a long day. ‘Whatever we know now, it’s nothing. It’s only just beginning, I’m telling you.’
* * *
‘It is Robert Eames,’ Kleinman tells de Vries by telephone at precisely 8 a.m. ‘Several strong indicators – long and short of it, it is the boy. I can’t place time of death accurately, but combining the information derived from the remains directly, comparing skeletal growth with his last known measurements, and the development of the other boys, I would say that he died between two and three years ago.’
‘How?’
‘I know you want something, but I can’t give it you. He was placed in the freezer immediately after death and his remains are well preserved, but there are no immediate physical signs. So I can discount some obvious causes: he wasn’t shot or stabbed. I don’t think he fell and there is no sign of blunt trauma. In fact, so far, I can’t find any physical evidence on his remains. Toxicology will take longer.’
‘Any thoughts?’
‘Not really.’
‘Thanks, Harry.’
‘Vaughn? I’m around if you want me. If you want to talk . . .’
‘Okay,’ de Vries says tonelessly, and hangs up.
De Vries ends up with over an hour to survey the outside of the bunker. Officers have moved several areas of camouflage from on top of the rectangular basin. Inside, there is bright daylight to illuminate the scene. Steve Ulton, Don February and a police photographer trail de Vries. Together, they try to recreate the scene of the shootings of Steven Lawson and Toby Henderson.
At 9.20 a.m., General Simphiwe Thulani and Director Henrik du Toit arrive for their tour. De Vries accepts no congratulations for finding the site; he stays blearily focused and stutteringly abrupt.
‘Based on what we know so far,’ he tells them, ‘we are certain that Steven Lawson was shot here . . .’ He indicates the bloodied area further from the entry doors to the bunker. ‘And Toby Henderson was shot here.’ He points to the messier scene closer to the entrance.
‘Putting together this information with the coroner’s reports suggests that the boys were walking or running towards the entrance of the bunker, and were then shot by Marc Steinhauer. We have Steinhauer’s fingerprints and DNA all over the rifle – that was the first comparison the Crime Lab made – also on the unique polythene wrap, and the entry doors.’
The senior officers glance at one another.
‘We have speculated that Steinhauer either released the boys from their cells or they escaped by force. They may have attacked and overpowered Marc Steinhauer, on whom we witnessed a head wound, and then attempted to flee. They located the main exit but, once in this tank area, they were unable to escape. The exit gate may have been padlocked, or they may simply not have seen how they could escape. Steinhauer may have recovered, collected the rifle and gone after them. When they ran towards him, he shot them.’
‘And after the shooting?’ du Toit says.
‘In the eighteen hours following their deaths, Marc Steinhauer wrapped the bodies in this distinctive material and subsequently transported them to his car boot.’ De Vries moves the party back towards the trapdoor into the concrete tank. ‘There are drag-marks here, and also here, leading up to the trapdoor. Getting the bodies up the ladder must have been very difficult, but you have to remember that both children were very light.’
&
nbsp; ‘But why move them?’ du Toit asks.
‘We don’t know,’ de Vries tells him. ‘That doesn’t make sense. One boy was already dead inside the building. Why not leave the bodies here, seal up the building, and leave the site? It hasn’t been discovered in seven years – why should it be located now?’
‘He worked alone?’
‘There is no evidence that Steve Ulton and his team can find to show that there was more than one person involved in either the shooting or the removal of the bodies from the site. However, as you can see, the scene is messy, and could easily have been compromised.’
‘What have you found inside?’ du Toit says.
‘Only what is in the Crime Scene report. We can’t begin to put together a picture of what might have happened to those boys, but we know that they were confined within that cell-block for the last years of their lives; seven in the case of Steven and Toby, and at least three or four for Bobby Eames.’ He lowers his voice. ‘Background research has revealed a family history of abuse, both physical and sexual, going back at least to Marc Steinhauer’s father, who worked as a doctor at the Valkenberg Mental Hospital. There were complaints made against him concerning the mistreatment of his child patients. I have spoken with his sister; she recounts a frightening home-life.’
‘And what about Nicholas Steinhauer,’ du Toit says. ‘The media darling?’
‘Abroad, apparently in Argentina. We have made no contact with him.’
‘You think he’s involved?’
‘Based on circumstantial and historical evidence: definitely. However, until we hear from the Crime Scene guys, we won’t know if we can place him here.’
Du Toit turns to Thulani. ‘My God, sir. If it turns out that he is behind this, the media will go crazy.’
Thulani nods, very grave.
‘What else?’ du Toit says.
De Vries straightens his hands outwards.
‘Nothing I can tell you for certain, but everything fits. Ulton’s team found that damn cheese in the entrance, along with what looked like a basket of packed lunch, and there’s masses of stuff which may, in time, be traceable. In terms of what we know right now, that’s what we have. We don’t know whether it was just one, or both Steinhauer brothers. We don’t know if others were involved. That’ll come when we start getting test results. We’ve tied up the shootings of Steven and Toby, but we don’t know how Bobby Eames died. Dr Kleinman says we might know in due course, but there are no obvious signs as to cause of death.’
‘All right,’ du Toit says. ‘We have something to give the press. What are you doing next?’
‘I’m going back to Cape Town. There is information coming in all the time, and we’ll put it together. This isn’t over yet.’
‘What do you mean?’ du Toit asks.
De Vries regrets saying that, regrets revealing anything; puts it down to sedatives and too much coffee. He knows that this is where their paths diverge. Thulani and du Toit want closure – his hated phrase – neat and packaged and closed to challenge. He wants the truth, the explanation, however complicated, however messy. He knows that he will have to fight for it.
He says, casually, ‘Either Nicholas Steinhauer was involved, or there will be others. This wasn’t organized by Marc Steinhauer alone.’
‘Based on what?’
De Vries turns to du Toit, annoyed that he seems to be allied with Thulani and against him but, mostly, frustrated that he has trapped himself.
‘I met him. I spoke to him. I’m telling you: he is not the brains behind this. Besides, think about it: this is a substantial operation and it would have taken more than one man to sustain it. It wouldn’t surprise me if he came to rescue those boys while his brother was away, and it all went wrong. He was a puppet.’
Du Toit nods. ‘We’ll keep that to ourselves for the moment, I think.’ He looks over at Thulani, but he gets no reaction.
‘So,’Vaughn says, ‘if you don’t need me, I’ll get back to Cape Town.’ He looks first at du Toit, and then at Thulani.
His voice low and calm, General Simphiwe Thulani says, ‘We don’t need you, Colonel.’
De Vries wakes in the middle of the night; finds himself slumped over his kitchen table. His day is blurred, already, in his memory. The drive back: Don February at the wheel, braking suddenly on the fast narrow highway, jolting him awake. Pathologist Harry Kleinman, in his office, telling him he has nothing more on the means or date of Bobby Eames’ death; urging him to go home. He cannot recall the journey to his house, wonders if he has his car, or whether he was driven. He looks at his watch, sees that it is 2 a.m. He fights to stay awake, unsteadily walking through to his bedroom; considers brushing his teeth, but instead sits on the edge of his bed. He takes off his shirt, fumbles with his socks, struggles out of his trousers, and gingerly swings his legs up and lies down. He groans loudly, is asleep within moments, yet in his head, he feels awake, afraid.
‘Tell me about the aunt.’
Ben Thambo looks around the table, at Director du Toit, de Vries and Don February. He says, ‘Herself, she is no help, but her carer said that Marc Steinhauer did not stay there on March the fourth.’
‘So,’ de Vries says, ‘we assume he stayed at the olive farm after he killed the boys. Marc Steinhauer was there perhaps once a fortnight. That doesn’t sound enough to sustain three boys. So, who else was visiting it? Assuming that the reason these boys were taken and held was for some kind of sexual abuse, there must have been others.’
Ben Thambo looks at his notes.
‘The evidence from the workers at the olive farm is not clear. When we showed them the pictures of Nicholas Steinhauer, two of them claimed to have seen him, but neither could tell me when, only that it was some time before. They did say that other cars sometimes parked briefly at the barn and processing area, but they couldn’t specify any makes of cars, or whether or not they had seen the occupants.’
Don February says: ‘In any case, if people were visiting the bunker, they would not park there. They would drive around the property on the perimeter road as we did.’
‘Did these workers say they had seen cars driving there?’ de Vries asks.
‘I didn’t ask them that specifically, sir, but I did ask if they had seen cars or people on the property generally, and they said that there were always a few people around.’
‘Are we certain,’ du Toit asks, ‘that the road on which we approached this bunker is the only access to it?’
Don says: ‘There is no road access from the other farm. An off-road vehicle could probably reach it, but the team found no tracks to suggest that option was taken, certainly not recently. It looks like the only access was from the Fineberg olive farm, along the track we took.’
De Vries asks: ‘Have the owners of this other farm, where the site actually lies, been questioned?’
‘Two members of the team visited the farmhouse,’ Don February replies. ‘The owners are away, but there are farmworkers. They told us that they were employed by an Ernest Caldwell, who bought the farm eleven years ago. They had never been to that area of the farm, since the cultivated fields end almost a kilometre from the site. Because of the sloping nature of the land, it seems to have been left untouched.’
‘We need to talk to the owner,’ de Vries says.
‘He is due back tomorrow.’
‘I don’t like this,’ du Toit announces. ‘Any number of people could have visited that site without drawing attention. Without suspects, it’s going to be almost impossible to identify them.’
De Vries says, ‘We have a possible interest in Dr Johannes Dyk. He was the consulting psychologist on the original abductions.’
‘In what regard?’ du Toit asks.
‘He is sick and old now, but we believe that he knew the two Steinhauer brothers professionally, even socially. There are coincidental links to a known paedophile, and . . .’ de Vries tries to frame the sentence ‘. . . in the light of what we now suspect about the abductions, the i
nformation he provided to the investigation now looks misleading.’
‘Deliberately so?’
‘I stress,’ de Vries says, ‘he is a person of interest, and we will be talking to him again.’
‘That would be bad,Vaughn.’
De Vries looks at du Toit, thinks: that would be complicated. He does not care how du Toit feels. He will have these men now, every one of them.
Du Toit turns to Don February.
‘What has Steve Ulton come up with regarding prints and DNA?’
‘Nothing yet, sir. He says there is a mountain of potential evidence. His team focused first on the weapon recovered and, as you know, matched the prints found on the butt to Marc Steinhauer, similarly with the plastic wrapping. Marc Steinhauer’s prints have been found inside the building, in the anteroom and in the cell area.’
‘So,’ du Toit continues, ‘if we find other prints, they are meaningless to us unless the owners are in the system.’
De Vries says, ‘This evidence is always the same: if we apprehend a suspect, it will confirm his, or her presence, but it won’t help us to identify that suspect. We’re working backwards again.’
‘Nonetheless,’ du Toit says, ‘we are working, and we have discovered answers.’ He stands up. ‘Your team has done well, but we need this wrapped up. The moment CSL Steve Ulton finds a match to someone we have in the system, let me know. We find one, maybe we’ll find all the others too.’ He nods at each man in turn, leaves the room.
De Vries shakes his head. ‘He just doesn’t get it,’ he mutters.
Ben Thambo and Don February catch each other’s eye, then both stare straight ahead.
The First Rule of Survival Page 22
