Stolen Lives

by Jassy Mackenzie

  “No.”

  “Well, keep your eyes and ears open,” David advised.

  “I will.” Jade put the wine back in the fridge.

  “Oh, and I’ve got a message for you from Moloi,” he added. “He said he’s arrested Pamela. He’s keeping her in the holding cells overnight.”

  Jade spun round to face him, her disquiet at his earlier news forgotten. “What? Why the hell is Moloi doing that? And why couldn’t he pick up the phone and tell me himself? He knows I’m guarding her.”

  David shrugged. “I saw him in the parking lot as I was leaving. I’m sure he would have phoned you otherwise. Seems Mad Pammie wasn’t too cooperative. In fact, from what I can gather, she threw a hissy fit when Moloi started questioning her. She tried to march out of the interview room and then she started demanding a lawyer. So he locked her up. Said she needed to cool off, and he also said something about her being a suspect now. What’s the story there?”

  Jade’s annoyance at Moloi’s behaviour suddenly seemed trivial compared to what she had seen at Pamela’s house earlier. She sat down opposite David and told him exactly what had happened that afternoon.

  “Jesus, Jade. Hubby tortured and mistress found dead, and on the premises too? And Pamela had cancelled the security guards? It’s not looking good for her now.”

  Jade shook her head. “It isn’t. She also fired her live-in domestic worker, which I’m now thinking was probably for the same reason. And there was no sign of forced entry when I arrived.”

  “So you reckon she paid this Naude to do it?”

  “It’s looking that way, isn’t it? I mean, she denied knowing him, but he had keys to the house, and he’d left messages on the phone in her study.”

  “Then why would he have tried to shoot her the next day?”

  Jade shrugged. “Maybe he was panicking. Trying to cover his tracks. Look at this.”

  She took her jacket off the back of the chair and showed David the bullet-holes.

  “Bloody hell,” he said. He put his beer down on the table and examined the damaged fabric, shaking his head. As Jade had done earlier, he poked at the two neat holes.

  “That was a close call, all right.” He looked up at her, but she couldn’t read the expression in his eyes.

  “He nearly got lucky, that’s all.” Jade didn’t want to think about the corollary—that she had nearly got unlucky.

  She took the jacket to her bedroom and tossed it on the bed. Perhaps she would take it to the dry-cleaners and get the holes repaired. More likely, though, she’d end up throwing it away. It was a cheap garment, and far from new.

  When she returned, she saw David had recovered well from the shock of her near miss and was prying the lids off the takeaway containers. She noticed he had got himself chicken korma. An odd choice for meat-loving David, she thought.

  He scooped a mountain of rice onto his plate and tipped the contents of his curry container over it.

  “If Terence survives, they’ll be able to question him. He must have seen the person who tortured him,” David said.

  “I don’t think he’ll make it, David. And even if he does, he has no tongue left, no eyes, and I doubt very much whether he will have any hands, because that wire was so tight that they were black and swollen from the wrists up. So questioning him is going to be a long process.”

  “He’d had a coal put right inside his mouth, you say?”

  “Right inside.”

  “How the hell do you force anybody to open wide for that?”

  Jade shook her head. “I don’t know. And I don’t want to think about it.”

  She stirred her curry, breathing in the aroma of chilli and coriander. David had generously left her a quarter of a container of rice, and she knew that if she wanted any of it, she’d better get to it fast before he finished his plate and started looking around for more. She felt sick whenever she remembered Terence, and she could easily have gone without eating at all. But David had brought it for her, so she tipped it out and spooned sauce over it.

  David was nearly halfway through his overloaded plate, shovelling chicken pieces into his mouth as if attempting to break some kind of speed-eating record.

  “Seems like two completely different modus operandi, though,” he said through a large mouthful of food. “The two incidents, I mean.”

  “I agree. That’s what’s confusing me. Whoever tortured Terence knew what they were doing. But Pamela’s attempted murder was a different setup. Amateurish. A drive-by shooting like that, in broad daylight, from a motorbike. It was hardly guaranteed to succeed. I mean, if I’d been … ”

  Jade put down her cutlery and sipped her wine, trying to cover her confusion. Idiot, she chastised herself. She was about to say— if she’d been going to do a job like that, she would have done it differently.

  Not the most intelligent thing to say to David, given their current situation.

  Thinking fast, she continued. “If I’d been quicker to grab the wheel, I could have knocked him off his bike. Even if he’d killed Pamela, there was no guarantee he’d have got away without being injured.”

  David nodded in agreement. Then he reached across the table and hooked a finger over the top of the rice tub. Tilting it towards him, he seemed surprised to find that it was empty.

  “There’s half a container of fish curry left, if you’re still hungry. I can cook you some rice,” Jade said.

  David considered her offer. “Thanks, but no thanks. Extra hot is too damn fiery for me. I might be half Indian, but I can’t eat a decent curry without regretting it for the next two days.”

  “So perhaps only your top half is Indian.” Jade said, drawing an imaginary line across her own midriff with her hand, surprised to find herself smiling in amusement at the thought. “And the bottom half—”

  “Isn’t.” David finished for her, looking slightly embarrassed.

  “Well then, all I can offer you is some baked butternut.”

  “I’ll pass on that too, thanks.” He clapped a hand over his stomach.

  “Middle-age spread’s setting in. Got to start fighting it, Jadey.” He grinned at her and his grey eyes sparkled with mischief. “You run, I diet. Looking at both of us, I’d say your regime is a hundred per cent more successful.”

  Taken aback by the unexpected compliment, Jade changed the subject.

  “What are you doing after this?”

  “After this?” David glanced at his watch and back up at her. His smile disappeared, replaced by a dubious frown. “Er … I’m, er … ”

  Too late, Jade realised he’d misinterpreted her question as an invitation. And now he was looking for a polite way to tell her that no, he didn’t want to spend the night.

  Before Jade could explain, David spoke, sounding relieved.

  “I’ll probably go back to work. I’ve got a stack of info coming through from detectives in London who need our help with a trafficking case.” He pushed his chair back, stacked their empty plates, and carried them over to the sink.

  “That’s a shame,” Jade continued. “Because I was going to ask if you wanted to go somewhere with me.”

  “What, now?” David spoke over the sound of splashing water.

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “Heads & Tails.”

  “Terence Jordaan’s strip club?” He turned to stare at her, sponge scourer in hand.

  “Yes.”

  “Why d’you want to go there?”

  Jade shrugged. “Curiosity. I’d like to get a feel for the place. To see what’s going on there now, and whether the operation is still as squeaky clean as Captain Thembi said it was.”

  David slotted the plates into the drying rack and wiped his hands with the dish towel.

  “It’s been a while since that last report of Thembi’s was made,” he said almost to himself. “Might be a good idea to visit the place, since it is on our watch list.”

  Jade didn’t reply, just waited for him to make a firm decision.r />
  It didn’t take too long.

  “All right, then,” David said, sounding decidedly more cheerful than he had done at the prospect of going back to work. “I’ll come along with you.”

  “Give me a minute to dry my hair,” Jade said, aware that it was hanging in damp, unstylish locks around her face.

  “I’ll wait in the car.” David strode towards the kitchen door. Preoccupied with his thoughts, he hit his head on the lintel. It made a dull, thudding noise.

  “Ouch,” he said. “Shithouse!”

  Rubbing his forehead, David walked outside and pulled the door closed behind him.

  25

  Eunice Nkosi’s phone rang at half past eight that evening while she was helping her daughter with her maths homework. She picked up the cellphone, saw the number was withheld, and rejected the call. Probably some irritating telesales person on the night shift. And no, she didn’t want to listen to some earnest soul from New Delhi gabbling about the benefits of an accident insurance plan she couldn’t afford.

  She turned back to the textbook, squinting down at the geometry figures, battling to assimilate the logic behind the rules so that she could help her child. Those two angles were equal—the curved line across them indicated that. So then, that angle opposite the first one …

  The phone started to ring again.

  Not a telesales caller, then—they didn’t ring twice. Something urgent, perhaps? A relative, her mother?

  Sighing, Eunice answered. “Yes?”

  “Eunice Nkosi?”

  She frowned. The male voice on the other end was unfamiliar.

  “Speaking,” she said, more cautiously now, worried about who the caller might be and aware that the distraction had sent the geometry solution right out of her mind, just as she had been about to grasp it.

  “You have disappointed me,” he said.

  Eunice realised she was gaping in surprise. Disappointed how? Her first ludicrous thought was that this was something to do with her daughter’s schoolwork.

  “How do you mean?”

  A chilly laugh. “I think you understand exactly what I mean.”

  She didn’t have a clue—but then, suddenly, she did. A dreadful suspicion began to surface in her mind.

  “Who are you? How did you get my number?” she stammered.

  “Ask your Zimbabwean friend,” he said. “She was very helpful when I asked her for information earlier this evening. In fact, I had difficulty making her stop talking.”

  “I … but … ” Eunice suddenly felt deathly cold. There was no way that Lindiwe would have given out Eunice’s cellphone number. Not unless she’d been forced to.

  The man continued. “She told me that you could not get my passports today, but I cannot wait. I need you to organise the documents for me first thing tomorrow.”

  “But I can’t! That’s what I told Lindiwe this afternoon. Our new department manager—”

  “You will find the necessary photographs in an envelope in your post box,” the man continued, as if she hadn’t even spoken.

  Her spine contracted. “What do you mean? What post box?” For some reason, the image of her pigeon-hole at work came to her.

  Troubled by the tone of her mother’s voice, her daughter looked up at her anxiously.

  “Mummy, what …?”

  Clamping a hand over the mouthpiece, with an angry frown at her daughter and a finger of the other hand on her lips in warning, praying that the caller hadn’t heard her small voice, Eunice stood up. Stumbling and nearly falling over the chair in her haste, she turned and hurried out of the dining room.

  “What do you mean?” she asked again. She could hear the tremor in her own voice.

  “In the box on your gate. The blue one.”

  Oh, Lord, no.

  It was fully dark, but the street lamp near her house offered some light. Peering out of the lounge window, she could see the shadowy outline of the post box attached to her gatepost. He knew what colour it was. That meant Lindiwe had told him where she lived.

  Eunice squinted into the shadows, but couldn’t see anyone at the gate, or any cars on the road outside. Even so, he had been here. She gripped the phone harder, with a sudden surge of anger. How dare Lindiwe give this man her home address.

  “You’ll find your payment there, too,” the man said in the same dry, emotionless tone.

  Then he hung up.

  “Mummy?” the young girl said again, her voice anxious.

  “Stay where you are, darling,” Eunice said, trying her best to sound reassuring. She hurried back into the dining room and pulled the curtains tightly closed.

  Taking a deep breath, she opened the front door and stepped onto the short path that led to the gate. A low gate, useless against intruders, which was why Eunice had installed industrial-grade burglar bars on all the windows, and a sliding security door on the front and back entrances.

  A rustle in the flowerbed made her jump and she spun towards the sound, stifling a cry. It was only the neighbour’s cat, who used the soft earth as a toilet and, Eunice was sure, was the reason why nothing grew well there.

  For once, she didn’t shoo the cat away. He stared at her, eyes bright in the dim light, looking oddly disappointed that tonight she wasn’t playing her usual game with him.

  A fat, brown manila envelope was protruding from the post box. She wrestled it out, hearing a small ripping noise as its side caught on the narrow, steel rim.

  The envelope was heavy and strangely bulky. Holding it tightly, Eunice hurried back towards the house. She slid the Trellidor across the doorway, listening to the reassuring snick as the double lock sprang into place. Then she slammed the front door, realising her breathing sounded as if she’d just run round the block.

  She couldn’t open the envelope in front of her daughter—children notice, children talk—so she took it into the kitchen. Glancing into the dining room as she passed, she saw the little girl was focused on her textbook and chewing her pencil.

  She slid a knife under the envelope flap and slit it open, then carefully removed the smaller, slimmer window envelope with the photos inside.

  Eunice raised her head when she heard a soft noise coming from the direction of her bedroom. The damn cat must have sneaked inside while her back was turned. Well, he’d have to stay where he was for now, because she was too busy to chase him round the house and throw him out.

  At the bottom of the manila envelope, she found a small, black plastic bag containing an oddly shaped object.

  Was this the payment? There certainly wasn’t any cash inside.

  Eunice felt her heart speed up again as she took the bag out, because her first crazy thought was that it was drugs, that the man had paid her with a chunk of cocaine or a few baggies of dagga, that it was a setup and the drugs squad was now closing in on her house.

  She slid her hand into the bag and touched the strange object. It felt cool and soft and oddly familiar.

  Rethinking her approach, she upended the bag onto the kitchen counter.

  Two severed fingers tumbled out and rolled onto the Formica, curled up like the legs of a dead house spider.

  The skin was black, the nails neatly manicured. Protruding from one of the raw ends, Eunice could see a jagged piece of bone. With a lurch, she realised she recognised the enormous rings on each one. They were real diamonds, her friend had told her proudly. Valuable diamond rings.

  Oh Jesus, he’d cut off Lindiwe’s fingers.

  Open-mouthed, panting hard, Eunice felt the scream building up inside her. A scream of pure horror, from somewhere deep inside her soul.

  Somewhere along its journey, the sound morphed into a low, dreadful groan. Eunice turned away and leaned over the kitchen sink, gagging and spitting as the contents of her stomach rose up in her throat. Dear God, somehow she was going to have to pick up those fingers again and put them back in the bag, or risk her little one seeing them.

  The thought of touching them made her retch again and she gr
asped the steel rim of the sink for support, gasping for air.

  After a while, she turned on the tap and splashed her face with cold water. Now that her panic had subsided, although she was still terrified, she felt able to think more clearly.

  Eunice wasn’t stupid. She’d had a contingency plan in place for a long time now, to be put into action if the worst happened, even though she hadn’t had any idea what the worst could be.

  Now she knew.

  Despite the potential consequences, Eunice wasn’t going to cooperate. First, and most importantly, she was going to get in her car and drive herself and her daughter somewhere safe. Her ex-husband lived on the other side of Pretoria, in Moreleta Park, and they were still on good terms. Good enough terms, anyway, that she knew he would be prepared to take them in for the night.

  Then she was going to call the police and blow the whistle on the syndicate. She’d lose her job, but if she gave the police the names of the other syndicate members, she hoped she’d avoid a lengthy prison sentence.

  She was going to turn state witness. She was going to ask the police to protect her and her daughter, even if it meant spending the rest of her life under house arrest.

  “Sweetie?” She called her daughter, surprised at how steady her voice sounded. “I need you to pack up your homework and put some clothes in a bag. And your toothbrush, and your jammies. We’re going to see Daddy.”

  She wrapped a tea towel around her right hand. Then, half-closing her eyes and gritting her teeth, she managed to poke Lindiwe’s severed fingers back into their little bag.

  Eunice hurried down the short passage to her bedroom to pack an overnight bag for herself. She still felt sick, and she was shaking so badly she hoped she would be able to drive.

  She would just have to manage. If she did, then in an hour they would be safe. And although her life was about to change for the worse, in a way it would be a relief not to have to keep on looking over her shoulder at work anymore.

  Her bedroom was dark. As Eunice fumbled for the light switch, the shadows in the corner of the room seemed to shift. The next moment, a cold hand yanked her forward and another clamped itself roughly over her mouth. Her legs turned to jelly as she felt the prick of a sharp blade at her neck. As she tried to twist away from the pain, pinned by her invisible captor, she heard a fast, rough, snuffling noise that she suddenly realised she was making as she fought for air.