Stolen Lives

by Jassy Mackenzie

  That was enough. Edmonds snatched the phone away from her ear as if it had bitten her. Then she punched the disconnect button and quickly replaced the mobile on its rest. Her haste made her clumsy; on her first try it fell off and clattered onto the coffee table.

  She couldn’t believe that her suspicions had been so easily confirmed. Without a doubt, Amanita’s grandfather knew Xavier Soumare, and from the sound of it had been expecting him to call.

  Edmonds jumped as she heard footsteps on the tiles outside, and a moment later Richards walked onto the verandah.

  “There you are. Come and have a look at this,” he said.

  Edmonds followed him outside and across the lawn to a covered patio where Barak was waiting. Nearby, a swimming pool of near-Olympian proportions sparkled in the sun.

  Her mind was racing. She wanted to tell Richards about the call she had just made, but she didn’t want to do it while she was within earshot of the Cypriot detectives, in case her actions ended up getting them both into trouble.

  She decided it would be more sensible to tell him later.

  “Down there.” Richards pointed to a stone archway. “In the wine cellar.”

  Following the men down a steep flight of stairs, Edmonds saw the sturdy steel security gate at the bottom had been cut open— by the police, she supposed—and was standing ajar. She stepped into a gloomy room that didn’t just feel cool, it felt cold. Wooden shelves lined the walls, with curved indentations on which hundreds of bottles rested.

  Edmonds stared at the opposite wall, where two large wine barrels had been moved, stained rings on the floor indicating that they had been resting there for years.

  The Cypriot police had done their work well. Behind the barrels, in a small recess, was a sturdy-looking safe door.

  “This is what Barak just showed me,” Richards explained. “They’ve got a professional safe-cracker already on the way, coming to open up. Another hour or two and we’ll know what’s inside. Apparently the house is clean. The detectives found no criminal evidence anywhere upstairs. So whatever secrets Xavier and Mathilde have been hiding, it’s my bet we’re going to find them in here.”

  47

  On the highway to Dullstroom, Jade felt as if she was driving straight into a vast wall of cloud. Occasionally, lightning flickered eerily across the bulky piles of cumulus, or forked, hard and bright, to the ground. The trees swayed theatrically in the high wind, throwing leaves and small branches against the windscreen. When particularly strong gusts blew, the unmarked shuddered as if a hand were pushing it gently but insistently sideways.

  The weather was as disturbed as Jade’s own thoughts as she considered what motives Salimovic, Tamsin, Naude, and the mysterious Xavier and Mathilde might have for their actions. They seemed to her like pieces placed randomly on a chessboard— but who was on which side? And why?

  Jade was beginning to worry that they were missing at least one crucial piece of information. She wished she could call for police backup, but police backup could mean certain death for Kevin.

  Better to arrive quietly.

  She reached the town just before eleven p.m. and drove slowly along the main road. Dullstroom was situated in the highlands of Mpumalanga, and she remembered it well because her father had taken occasional fishing trips there in the past. It was typical highland country—forested slopes, rolling hills, and countless dams. These, her father had optimistically informed her, were filled with trout, although Jade couldn’t ever remember him having caught so much as one.

  She was surprised to see that the town itself had tripled in size since she’d last been there. From the direction signs she passed, fly-fishing was still the main attraction, but now ranks of new-looking shops, restaurants and other businesses lined the main road, clamouring for customers’ attention.

  She was now just a few kilometres away from her destination. There was the turnoff that would lead her to the country house. She left the main road, and after a couple more turns was soon driving through dark and empty countryside, down the long and rutted road that led directly to the smallholding.

  A flash of sheet lightning illuminated the scene ahead. A winding sandtrack flanked by tall, dry grass; two or three animals grazing near a bushy copse. Jade had no idea what they were. Buck of some kind, with long, straight horns that looked almost silvery in the lightning.

  They regarded the car with quiet curiosity.

  “Headlights off,” Jade muttered, wishing for a moment that David was in the car with her. “Better not to let them know I’m coming.”

  A twist of the knob, and her little car was careering into the pitch-black night at a speed that suddenly seemed far too fast.

  She fumbled a gear change and the car veered off the track, hit a bump with a metallic scrape, and for one dizzying moment became completely airborne.

  Jade clamped her lips together and braced her feet against the carpet. Her heart was pounding hard as the car slammed down again, bounced violently, and then she was back on course, braking hard and slowing to a crawl.

  Another flash of lightning revealed a tall, solid gate ahead. It was set in a high palisade fence crested with vicious-looking coils of razor wire.

  She stopped outside it and frowned into the darkness. She could just make out the lights of the farmhouse in the distance.

  She had expected to find tight, Jo’burg-style security near the house, but the height of this perimeter fence meant that getting in was going to be more difficult than she’d thought.

  Another pair of lights far to the left caught her eye, and she twisted round in her seat.

  They seemed to be moving. An optical illusion? Or …

  There it was again. The distant twinkle of approaching headlights, the beams bobbing and bouncing, intermittently swallowed by the undulating terrain.

  Damn. Somebody was coming this way.

  Jade reversed the car, then swerved off the sandy path and into the veld. Coarse grass scraped the undercarriage and she flinched as she hit a rock with a deafening bang.

  She needed to find cover fast, but how could she tell where cover was? At least the strong wind would blow away the dust that had billowed out from under the tyres, so whoever was approaching would have no idea that another car had recently driven this way.

  But all it would take would be one lightning-flash for her to stand out, as bright and visible as a beacon.

  A hideous scraping sound told Jade that her poor little car would be due for a visit to the painters when she took it back to Rent-a-Runner, and quite possibly the panelbeaters too.

  She’d driven right into the thorny embrace of a thick-looking bush.

  The car rocked and bounced as she reversed and drove cautiously round the bush. She could see nothing now, and could only hope she’d done a good enough job of hiding herself.

  Peering through the whipping leaves, Jade saw a dim glow. Then a moment later she was dazzled by a set of headlights on high beam. She blinked and instinctively ducked down in her seat.

  Then the shadows swung away and she guessed it would be safe to look up again.

  A big, dark vehicle was heading towards the gate, which Jade saw was starting to roll open.

  This could be her only chance to get inside.

  She swung her door open, and a gust of wind nearly ripped it off the car. It roared across the veld and whistled through the tree branches. Flying dust stung her eyes and made them water, but she could see the ruddy glow of brake lights disappearing as the car drove through the entrance and the gate started to close.

  Jade set off at a run over the uneven ground. She bashed her shin against a rock, and felt her ankle turn as her foot slipped into a hole. She went sprawling and landed, face-down, in a shallow ditch.

  As she scrabbled to her feet, she realised she’d reached the dirt track and that the ditch was actually a drainage channel. A smoother surface. Easier to run.

  She didn’t think it was possible to go any faster, but she managed to increase h
er speed.

  The gap was barely a metre wide. If she didn’t get there in the next few seconds …

  Jade flung herself at the gate. Her shoulder crashed against its steel frame, slowing it down just enough to let her slip through the narrow gap before it closed. She spun round and grabbed the bars, gasping for breath, trying to jolt it out of its rhythm and force it to stay open, but the powerful motor didn’t skip a beat.

  She’d got in, but now she was trapped.

  She fumbled with the metal box that housed the gate motor, but wasn’t surprised to discover it was locked with a large and solid padlock.

  Frustrated, Jade turned away from the gate.

  As she crept cautiously up the long driveway, she thought back to when David had dropped her at the cottage. He’d wound down the driver’s window and called out to her, but the gathering wind had blown his words away.

  Now, Jade realised he had said, “Be careful.”

  48

  Salimovic hurried down the carpeted corridor and into the master bedroom.

  The storm had caused the power to dip, a problem that happened regularly in this area and was known as a ‘brown-out’. As a result, the whole house was steeped in semi-darkness.

  He’d just got back from the petrol station where he’d driven his hire car to buy diesel for the generator, in case the brown-out turned into a black-out. To avoid any incriminating documentation, the car had been hired by Tamsin using the credit card and driver’s licence of Raquel Maloney, the decoy they’d snatched from Hyde Park shopping centre and later dumped at the petrol station on the n3 highway.

  Now, in the bedroom, Tamsin lay naked on the bed. He’d stuffed a nylon stocking into her mouth as a gag, and tied another round her head to secure it. The nylon was biting into her cheeks. Her hands were bound behind her with cord, and livid bruises mottled the flesh of her thighs and upper arms. Salimovic hadn’t marked her face—after all, she had to get through immigration without any questions asked—but he hadn’t needed to.

  He’d smacked her around before, from time to time, but never as badly as this. She looked up at him, and for the first time he saw real fear in her eyes. She was utterly submissive. All the fight had been beaten out of her.

  He hadn’t wanted to do this, but he’d needed the pin codes for her bank cards, so he could continue to draw on her account after he’d sold her on. In an uncharacteristic show of stubbornness, Tammy had refused to give them to him.

  She’d told him eventually, but it had taken time. Time he didn’t have. And now other things were going wrong, too. He had assumed that by now Pamela Jordaan would have arrived. He had a nice little setup waiting for her, and was looking forward to getting the details on her bank accounts as well.

  But the blonde bitch’s cellphone was turned off, so she obviously hadn’t read the sms he’d sent from Tamsin’s phone.

  “My princess,” he whispered, easing onto the bed beside Tamsin and running a fingertip over her face. “My sweet little princess.”

  She flinched from his touch, breathing hard. Near her mouth, he saw the stocking was running with saliva, and he wiped it away. He felt her relax slightly at this gentle gesture.

  “I’m so sorry, my darling,” he said. “But why did you make me do that to you? You know how angry I get when you say you don’t trust me. We’re a team now. I don’t know why you can’t understand that. Now, let me undo you.”

  As he picked at the tight knots he’d made in the stocking, he heard Tamsin’s phone give a familiar beep.

  He’d plugged the phone into the charger in the lounge. Abandoning his efforts, Salimovic ran through to the semi-dark room. He hoped this was Pamela, messaging to say she was on her way.

  As he picked up the phone, the lights flickered and dimmed again.

  He had two voice messages, but neither one was from Pamela.

  The first message was from Rodic’s whore, Katja. Her voice sounded slurred, and he would have bet a million euro that she was stoned.

  “Rodic called again. He said the police told him someone was driving in your Aston Martin.”

  Salimovic couldn’t believe his ears. His Aston? How the hell? Clamping the phone to his ear, straining to hear her mumbled words, he listened to the rest of the message.

  “The police said they saw the car outside Number Six on the night of the raid. A woman attacked a cop and then escaped in it. They found it later, in a field.”

  Salimovic’s puzzled frown remained, but he felt he could relax. At least the car had been found. It had cost him a fortune, and was one of his most treasured possessions.

  “It was burned out,” Katja continued.

  “Shit!” Salimovic shouted. He punched the sofa cushion in a fury.

  Christ, what was going on? Some bitch escaped Number Six in his car? Who, and how? Surely not one of the sluts who worked there. They were weak, harmless. After breaking them in, he’d seen the terror in their eyes.

  “Oh, and something else important. Rodic said the police were … Oops. Battery dead!” Her laugh cut off abruptly as the message ended.

  Definitely stoned.

  Cursing, Salimovic called her back, but he only got her voice-mail. “Call me the minute you get this,” he snapped, resisting the self-destructive urge to fling the phone down on the tiled floor. He hoped to hell she’d plugged it in to recharge before she passed out.

  The second message he listened to carefully, twice, before nodding with satisfaction. His frown disappeared and was replaced by a thin, humourless smile.

  Salimovic flicked the switch that turned on the outside lights and pressed the button to open the gate.

  “Prejilepa,” he called cheerfully. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to wait just a little longer before I untie you. We have company arriving soon.”

  Pocketing the phone, he strode back towards the master bedroom to fetch his stolen gun.

  49

  It had taken Jade what felt like hours to cover the short distance between the gate and the house step by careful step, keeping her eyes peeled for sensors and security beams. As she drew closer she saw that a number of the rooms were dimly lit.

  Hugging the white plastered wall, she edged her way along the side of the house. It was cold now; it was always cold in Dullstroom at night, and with the wind blowing face-on, she found herself having to clench her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering.

  A flash of lightning lit up the car she’d seen arriving earlier, which was now parked on the paving near the front door. She was sure the gate buzzer would still be inside it. But to reach the car, she would have to get past a pair of French doors.

  Jade crouched down. She’d have to leopard-crawl past them in case she activated a sensor or an alarm. But as she edged forward, an outside light went on by the front door and another light flickered into life down by the gate, which Jade saw was rolling open again.

  That could mean only one thing—somebody else was about to arrive.

  As quietly as she could, she tried the rattly and rather loose handle of the French door. It was unlocked, and no alarms sounded when she eased it open, but despite her efforts at stealth, the door itself made a loud scraping sound. She froze, forcing herself to count slowly to five.

  Since nobody shouted or pulled the curtains back, she guessed she had been lucky, and that the room was empty. She slipped inside, closing the door behind her, then flattened herself against the wall, her heart pounding hard.

  That was when she realised the room wasn’t empty after all.

  Hunched up on the bed, arms tied behind her, was a naked woman.

  It was Tamsin, but not as Jade had expected to find her. She was bruised and beaten, trussed and gagged. A victim now, just like all the women she had helped to traffic.

  In Jade’s opinion, the young woman deserved everything that had happened to her, and more. Under other circumstances she would have walked away, ignoring her plight without a twinge of conscience, but she couldn’t do that now.
<
br />   Tamsin was a key witness in David’s case, so Jade had to get her to safety. More importantly, she would know who else was in the house, and Jade needed that information urgently.

  She stepped over to her side and began wrestling with the cruelly tight gag. But the knots in the stocking resisted all Jade’s attempts to undo them, and although she had a gun with her, she had no knife.

  “Tamsin,” she whispered. The woman blinked when she heard her name.

  “Is there a little Indian boy being held anywhere in this house?”

  Tamsin shook her head.

  So Kevin was somewhere else. Swallowing her disappointment, Jade turned her attention to Tamsin’s wrists.

  “Who did this to you?” Fumbling behind the woman’s back, Jade gritted her teeth as she tried to work the knots open. “Was it Salimovic?”

  No response.

  “How many people are in the house now, besides you?”

  Tamsin wiggled an index finger.

  “One? Are you sure?”

  The brown-haired woman nodded.

  That levelled the odds.

  “When I’ve untied you, I suggest you get dressed fast.” Jade pointed to the pile of clothes on the floor beside the bed. “Then go out through that door and try to get out of the gate. My car’s behind a bush about fifty metres to the left. Hide behind it.”

  At that moment, Jade heard a male voice from inside the house. He shouted something she couldn’t hear and then, “We have company arriving soon.”

  Then she heard footsteps approaching the wooden bedroom door.

  Salimovic.

  Looking up, Jade saw there was no key in the door’s lock. No chance to buy anymore time for Tamsin.

  Adrenaline surged through her as she scrambled to her feet, tugging her Glock from the holster. Turning away from Tamsin, she faced the door, feet shoulder-width apart, aiming the weapon chest-high. No time for negotiation; not with other people arriving soon. She was going to take him down, shoot to kill as soon as he entered the room. With the element of surprise, she would have the advantage, even if he was holding a gun too.