Stolen Lives

by Jassy Mackenzie

  Her father’s voice, as soft and dry as the breeze.

  “Naude!” she shouted.

  No response. Only the rustle of leaves.

  Jade inched round the side of the white people carrier. If Naude wasn’t answering, he might be adjusting his aim instead, using her voice to guide his gun.

  But then he shouted back.

  “Jade?”

  He sounded … confused, was the best word she could think of.

  Had she been wrong about him?

  Choose your words carefully.

  “Put your gun down,” she called.

  A pause.

  “Put yours down,” Naude shouted back.

  “No shooting, ok?”

  “Why are you still holding onto that Glock, then?”

  Jade tensed when Naude identified her gun. That level of awareness indicated professionalism.

  “Here. Look.” She held the Glock by its barrel and stretched her hand out, past the back bumper of the white van, where Naude could see it clearly.

  Her hand was steady. She was glad about that, because the rest of her body felt as if it was vibrating.

  “Now you,” she called. “Your turn.”

  Slowly, a large, leather-clad arm appeared from behind the tree, holding the Beretta in the same position.

  Jade stood up and pushed her gun back into the holster.

  Across the car park she saw Naude doing likewise.

  At that point, a white Audi shot across the parking lot and accelerated out through the exit gate. The blare of its horn was deafening.

  A client making a break for freedom. He must have seen the whole thing. Had he alerted the people inside the club? Had anyone else seen?

  They had. Jade saw a beefy, black-suited figure appear at the door. Shielding his eyes with his hand, the bouncer stared out into the parking lot.

  “It’s ok, bru’,” Naude called. “Everything’s under control.”

  The bouncer looked at Naude, then at Jade. He shrugged, then turned round and walked back inside the club.

  Whatever happened now, Jade knew she was on her own.

  Naude strode across the parking lot towards her. He was sweating profusely. His hair was sodden, and rivulets of sweat were running down his face. He wiped them away with his sleeve, leaving a wet, shiny streak on the leather.

  Jade kept her eyes glued to his right hand. The minute it dropped towards his holster, she was going to act first, and to hell with the consequences.

  Naude stopped when he was just a few paces away and folded his arms. The sun backlit his hair, giving him an incongruous-looking halo.

  “You’ve been making a lot of trouble for me,” he said.

  “You’ve been making your own trouble,” she responded, lifting her chin and looking him in the eye.

  What had David said a while ago that she’d found so hurtful? Something to do with the fact that he’d stared into a lot of killers’ eyes, and they all looked the same. They all had the same expression, he’d said—something hard; something cold.

  Then David had stared directly at Jade. “You have it,” he said.

  “What?” she’d asked, rattled.

  “That look. Killer’s eyes.” He’d smiled, but without mirth. “You have it in spades. I can see it whenever I look at you.”

  He’d left soon after that, and Jade had walked straight to the bathroom and spent a few minutes staring, concerned, into the mirror. Killer’s eyes? What was David going on about? Try as she might, all she had seen was that her own eyes were wide, green, and worried-looking.

  Looking closely at Naude, she didn’t have a clue whether he had the eyes of a killer or not. She obviously didn’t have David’s instincts in that regard.

  Naude gave a low chuckle. “Never had the chance to make trouble for myself.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Before he could answer, the bouncer appeared at the door again and shouted out, “Bru’, the security guard says he already called the cops. They’re on their way.”

  “Right. Thanks,” Naude called back. “I’m out of here,” he said to Jade. “I’m having to avoid the police at the moment. Thanks to you.”

  He started walking back towards his bike.

  “Wait,” Jade called after him. “Just a minute. You were telling me why you never had the chance.”

  Naude lifted his helmet onto his head and swung his leg over the bike’s seat. It started with a roar and he spun it round in a tight turn, sending grit flying.

  Jade thought he was going to ride straight past her and out of the open gate, but when he reached her he brought the big motorbike to a stop.

  “You want to know what’s going on?” His voice was muffled by the helmet.

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t help you there. I don’t have a clue what’s going on myself. But I can tell you what I know. Not here, though.” He patted the seat behind him. “Get on.”

  In a heartbeat, Jade weighed up the pros and cons.

  Going with Naude might get her killed. But it would give Jade her only chance to find out his side of the story.

  “You don’t know if it’s a hornets’ nest until you poke it with a stick.” Who had said that? Her father, probably. The logic behind the saying was simple enough—it basically defined police work. If you dig around enough in the right place, something will come buzzing out looking to sting you.

  Jade hesitated for only a moment before making a firm decision. Then she climbed onto the leather seat behind Naude and grasped him around his waist.

  The butt of his Beretta dug into her forearm. As she had expected, there was no way he could draw his own gun now. That single fact had convinced Jade it would be safe enough to go with him.

  “Don’t shoot me, ok?” said Naude. He sounded amused, as if he’d just had the same thought.

  Then, before she had time to change her mind, the bike leaped forward. They were out of the gate and down the road by the time Jade heard the first sirens, faintly, behind them.

  43

  Jade’s eyes were streaming, thanks to the hot, dusty air flying past her face. She’d tried twisting her head and looking back, but her hair, blown by the slipstream, had whipped around her face and ended up lashing her eyes as well.

  Now her forehead was braced against the back of Naude’s leather jacket and her eyes were tightly shut, apart from a few instances where she’d dared open them to stare down at the tarmac flashing past below her as the bike angled around a corner.

  They rode for about fifteen minutes before Naude slowed, came to a halt, and switched off the engine.

  They were in the shade of a tree, near the junction of two minor roads. She had no idea what area they were in, but judging from the angle of the sun on her face, she thought they’d been heading north.

  Jade slid gratefully off the pillion. Naude kicked the bike’s stand out and swung one leg over the saddle. He pulled off his helmet and hung it from the handlebar, just as he had done back at the club. Then he leaned against the bike, arms folded, staring at her.

  Jade noticed his arms weren’t crossed through each other. Instead, his right hand was cradling his left elbow and the palm of his left hand was face up in the crook of his right arm.

  He saw what she was looking at.

  “Your shot grazed me,” he said, nodding down at his arm. “That day at Pamela’s house. Your bullet caught me on the inside of my forearm. Bled like hell. Burns the crap out of me whenever I bend it.”

  “You swerved as I fired. I was aiming for your chest,” Jade said.

  Naude nodded. “I was aiming for yours, too. At first I was going to aim for the head. But in motion, at that distance, I thought it was better to shoot at centre mass.”

  “You got my jacket. Just a couple of centimetres to the right of my ribs.”

  “My front wheel caught on a loose brick,” Naude said. “It threw my bike off balance. Funny, that probably saved both our lives. I’ve never shot at a living person before
, only targets, but I wanted to put you down.”

  He reached into his jacket pocket with his right hand and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

  “You smoke?”

  Jade shook her head.

  Naude lit up and exhaled a grey cloud that quickly vanished into the dusty air.

  “Good shooting, anyway. I’m glad I got a chance to tell you that.” He inhaled again.

  “I thought yours was a lucky shot,” Jade said.

  Naude shook his head and tapped his chest with his index finger. “Central Gauteng Practical Shooting Association open champion, handgun section, almost every year from 1992. The times I didn’t win were when I didn’t enter.”

  Jade remembered the man on the motorbike pursuing them down the road just after Pamela had appointed her as a bodyguard. Shots had been fired; glass was shattered. But nobody was harmed. Neither of them had been touched by a bullet.

  A sharpshooter would certainly have hit his target from that distance, even mounted on a motorbike. It would have been the equivalent of point-blank range.

  That left only one explanation.

  “Pamela hired you.”

  Naude nodded. “Ja. She hired me.”

  “To torture and kill her husband?”

  “Nope. She paid me to shoot him in the head with a silenced weapon and dump his body somewhere out of the way. Ditto his girlfriend. I told her I didn’t have a silencer, so she told me to wrap a pillow around my gun. She said she’d watched people doing that in movies and it seemed to work just fine. I thought it was a bloody stupid idea, myself, but what could I do? Money talks, and it spoke loud enough to convince me.”

  Jade could well believe it had. She saw now that the Ducati he was riding was a 1098r, the most expensive model by far. For a moment she wondered how an ex-bouncer could manage to afford these luxury wheels, and what other work he had been doing since he left Heads & Tails.

  The motorbike creaked as Naude shifted position. A car swished past on the quiet road.

  “Why didn’t you shoot them, then?” Jade asked.

  Naude stared down at the glowing tip of his cigarette.

  “Pammie and I have been friends a long time,” he said. “Since we were youngsters. Good friends. Friends with benefits at one stage, know what I mean? We’ve been in business together. We’ve played together. No secrets between us.”

  Jade nodded.

  “That’s how I know she’s been wanting a divorce. Terence opposed it, of course. No good reason, I don’t think, just that it was something she wanted and he didn’t. He was a piece of shit, by the way. I’m not saying what happened to him in the end was fair or right, but Jesus, he sure as hell had something coming to him.” Naude dropped his cigarette butt on the stony verge and stamped it out with his boot. “Anyway, back to Pamela. Time went by, she pushed harder, he started threatening her. If she divorces him, she’s in trouble. If she divorces him, he’s going to start hurting people.”

  “Pamela’s mother?” Jade asked.

  Naude nodded. “So you heard about that? Could have been organised by Terence, could have been an accident. Who’ll ever know?”

  “So then she asked you to kill him?”

  Naude shook his head. His grey-streaked fringe, clumped and flattened from the snug-fitting helmet, flopped from side to side. “Wasn’t as simple as that. She waited. See, from time to time in his line of work, Terence gets threats made against him. It’s happened before when he went up against a rival chain of clubs. They started fighting back, and things got really nasty. I was working for him at the time, and I saw how badly he was shitting himself. Talking about emigrating. In the end he just left Jo’burg for a while and went underground. Came back and sorted out the people who’d threatened him, and it was business as usual.”

  Another car drove past and Naude turned to watch it go.

  “So Pammie decided to wait,” he said.

  “For another threat?”

  Naude nodded.

  “Wait till Terence was nervous again, wait until she thought there was more trouble coming his way. Then, if the police investigated, they’d stumble upon whatever had been scaring him. Because, as you know, the spouse is always the first suspect. So she reckoned, that way, she’d have an alibi.”

  Jade nodded.

  “And I had another idea,” Naude continued.

  “Involving me?”

  “Well, involving somebody like you. Anybody, really. I just said, go hire somebody to keep you safe, but for God’s sake don’t make it some trigger-happy man who’ll try and shoot me when I do the job.”

  “So she hired me.” Jade nodded slowly. Now she realised that Pamela’s panic, and subsequent crash, hadn’t been caused by Naude’s pursuit. It had been caused by the fact that Jade was getting out her gun and preparing to return fire.

  “But nothing went the way it should have done. It was a total screw-up, start to finish.”

  “Why?”

  “Pammie made a plan to be away for a couple of nights. She knew Terence would have Crystal there. She gave me the keys to get in and I drove there just before midnight. Had no idea what I was going to do, or how I was going to do it. I was shitting myself too, right enough.”

  “And what happened?”

  Naude shook his head. “The gate was wide open. Terence’s car was in his carport, and some other car I hadn’t seen before was parked at the top of the driveway. I went away. Thought maybe they had company. Came back a couple of hours later and the other car was gone, but the front door was still open even though there was nobody around. I went inside; checked the bedroom.” He grimaced. “I didn’t know the girl was already dead and Terence had been tortured, but I guessed something had gone badly wrong for them, so I locked up and got the hell out.”

  “Is that why you went ahead with the mock shooting the next day?”

  “Yup.” Naude grimaced. “When that taxi hit my bike from behind, I thought I was history. Wished I’d asked Pamela for danger money on top of my fee. Then I realised I’d left voice messages on her home answer phone instead of her cellphone. I rushed over there to delete the messages, and saw the girl’s body in the bathroom. And then I saw you.”

  He shrugged. “That’s all I can tell you.”

  “Do you know where Tamsin is?” Jade watched him closely.

  “I know she’s missing. It’s not unusual for her. She goes away from time to time on business. Disappears for a few days, then she’s back again as if nothing’s happened.”

  “A dancer at the club told me you’ve done work for Tamsin.”

  Naude frowned and started to shake his head again. Then he stopped, seeming to realise what Jade was talking about.

  “Oh, you mean placing girls in other jobs?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t do that anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “Tammy hasn’t referred anybody to me for a long time. It used to be a good system. If the girl worked out somewhere else, I’d kick a finder’s fee back to her. Win-win.”

  “Do you know anything about a man called Salimovic?”

  Naude went silent and Jade saw his jaw tighten.

  “Don’t know anyone who goes by that name.” He glanced down at his helmet, then turned his head to watch another passing car.

  Was he lying? Jade had no idea.

  Then his cellphone beeped and he pulled it out of his pocket. He read what must have been a text message, and pocketed the phone again.

  “Time to get going. You want me to drop you back at the club?”

  Jade nodded. “Thanks.”

  He swung his leg over the bike, then hesitated and turned back to her. In an even voice, he said, “If there’s anything I can do to help sort this out, let me know. Pammie’s a good friend. I don’t like seeing her in trouble.”

  Jade got back on the bike and tucked herself in behind him, inhaling the sweet smell of warm leather and the sharp tang of fresh sweat.

  Then he started his bike and pull
ed away so fast that Jade nearly fell off. She grabbed at his jacket and clung on for dear life.

  Jade couldn’t see any police cars when they got back to the club. She guessed Naude’s bouncer friend must have told them the call-out was a false alarm. All the same, Naude stopped just long enough to allow her to dismount before roaring back out of the gate, and turning in the direction of the highway.

  Jade rubbed her stinging eyes, blinking away what felt like a whole flock of small flying insects. Then she pulled her shirt straight and raked her fingers through her hair.

  Thinking it over, she realised that Naude’s account of what had happened over the last couple of days answered a lot of questions. Even though she still didn’t trust the moustached man, she did believe his story.

  Almost.

  44

  After a search, Jade found the private parking area that Pamela had mentioned; a garage just a few steps to the right of the back door where the dancers had stood smoking.

  The only problem was that it was empty.

  Pamela’s red Ferrari was no longer there.

  Outside Heads & Tails, twilight was deepening, and Jade noticed dark, angry storm clouds gathering on the horizon. Inside, the black-painted ceiling and neon overhead lights steeped the place in permanent night.

  Nobody in Heads & Tails had seen Pamela Jordaan. Not the bunny-eared worker at the front desk, nor the grim-faced bouncer, nor the waitress hurrying to the kitchen with a tray stacked high with empty glasses and dirty ashtrays.

  Jade could think of only one possible explanation. After parking her car, Pamela must have walked around the building and seen Jade leave on the back of Naude’s motorbike.

  She would have known then that the game was up.

  Jade was pretty sure that Pamela had told the truth about her daughter while they were driving to the club. However, up till then, most of what she had said had been lies. In her efforts to organise her husband’s murder, Pamela had lied to Jade, she had lied to Moloi, and she must have lied to countless other people. Lied with a straight face, looking them in the eye.