by Tony Park
Wessels walked out of his office and stopped by her desk. ‘You look anxious.’
‘I can’t get in touch with my mom or the kids.’
‘Sannie, I’ve just told Erasmus and Ndlovu they’re working late to help track down this Carney fellow. It won’t look good if you clock off now.’
‘I know that,’ she said, more quickly and harshly than she’d intended. ‘But I’m worried about them.’
Wessels sighed. ‘Gee, I’m an old softy. Go, quickly. Make sure you keep calling hotels on your cell phone all the way home and back. I’ll tell the others you’re going to Home Affairs or something.’
‘You’re a star,’ she told him, and he blushed and turned away, heading briskly to the coffee machine.
Sannie was halfway home in her car and talking to the reception at the Holiday Inn, Sandton, when her phone beeped, signalling she’d received a message. When the desk clerk told her there was no Daniel Carney staying at the hotel she ended the call and checked the message. When she played it back there was nothing. Silence, except for the low hum of a car engine. She’d hoped it would be her mother. Perhaps it was, and she had accidentally dialled her number without knowing it. Sannie checked the caller ID, but the number was blocked so it wasn’t her mother.
She drove one-handed, holding the phone in her other hand. It started to vibrate and ring.
‘Van Rensburg,’ she said.
‘Inspector, pull over if you are driving. I wouldn’t want you to have an accident.’
‘Who is this?’ The man’s voice was altered, as though it was coming through an electronic synthesiser. A chill ran down her body.
‘That doesn’t matter for now. What is important, however, is that I have your children.’
29
Tom had tried to call Sannie from the Zambian town of Chipata, but hadn’t been able to get reception for his mobile. In the morning he had crossed the border from Zambia into Malawi, a frustrating process of queuing and to-ing and fro-ing that took the best part of two hours.
It was a relief to be on the last leg towards Lake Malawi, even if it was on the poorest excuse for a road he had come across in his life. To call it surfaced was a gross exaggeration, as there seemed to be more holes than tar, and in some sections a new route had been carved out on either side by drivers taking to the verges.
If Zambia was a poor country, Malawi was destitute, but the people seemed friendly enough. He got smiles and waves from children and polite nods from adults as he bounced and cursed his way towards the lake that took up most of the small country.
He checked his phone regularly, but still had no reception. However, in a few places he noticed roadside phone kiosks. If he couldn’t get a signal at Salima, the next major town, he would use one of them, or look for a hotel on the lake shore from which he could pay to make a call.
As in Zambia and Botswana, Malawi’s roads were lined with signs advertising tombstones, coffins and funeral services. Twice he passed open-top bakkies carrying coffins flanked by mourners in their best shabby clothes. He imagined this was what it must have been like to live through Europe’s Black Plague: the slow but inevitable whittling away of whole households, villages and communities until the survivors dispersed, perhaps taking the sickness further afield. At the border post he’d noticed young girls with braided hair and wearing tight, sequin-covered jeans climbing into the cabs of long-distance lorries which queued while awaiting customs clearance. Africa’s roads had replaced its rivers as ribbons of life – and death.
Salima might have been a pretty town once, but it seemed as chipped and holed and crumbling as its main road. He parked outside a bank and changed some pounds into kwacha, to have cash for his coming nights’ accommodation and food and fuel for the Land Rover. He hoped to be in Malawi no more than a couple of days, but was prepared to stay until he had answers to the questions that drove him onwards.
While the town looked as though it was on the lake shore on his map, the reality was different. The water was a further twenty kilometres, on the shores of Senga Bay. The road now ran atop a raised embankment over flat land that he guessed must flood when the rains came. There was even less room to manoeuvre around potholes now, so he spent much of the drive in second gear, climbing into and out of the eroded basins.
Instead of being greeted by a panorama of the massive inland waterway, he found the beach at Senga Bay guarded by walled villas, guesthouses, and a white concrete hotel, whose gate he drove through. In a yard behind the main building, still with no view of the water, was a small but shady camp ground. There were two other South African-registered vehicles, a jeep and a Land Cruiser, parked under a tree. They had rooftop tents like his and a washing line was strung between the two roof carriers.
Tom went to the hotel’s reception and asked if there was a phone he could use. He checked his watch. Five pm. Sannie might not be home, but Elise and the kids would be. He would try Sannie’s cell and then her home landline.
He signed in and paid for his campsite, and dialled Sannie’s cell phone. It was busy but, unlike his phone, didn’t go through to voicemail when it was engaged. The home phone rang until the answering machine kicked in, and he left a message.
Tom tried Sannie’s mobile again, but it was still busy, so he went in search of the hotel bar. At least he’d been able to leave a message at Sannie’s house, and she’d get it eventually.
Sannie had stopped her car on the side of the highway. Cars whizzed by her.
Ordinarily, stopping was the last thing she would have done – even to talk on her cell phone. To stop or, worse, break down on a main road in Johannesburg was to invite the attention of car-jackers. However, it was impossible to listen to the inhuman, distorted voice on the other end of the phone and concentrate on the road at the same time.
‘I told you, I have no idea where Tom Furey is!’ She knew she should keep her cool and not antagonise the caller, but he had her children. She wanted to scratch his eyeballs out – to kill him.
‘You will soon enough. There’s a message for you on your home answering machine. He is at Salima, on the shore of Lake Malawi. If he gets to Cape Maclear, where he is heading, you will never see your children again.’
‘Are you in my bloody home? I’m going to –’
‘Shut the fuck up, you stupid bitch. You will never see your children again if Furey does not turn around and return to England via South Africa. Do you understand what I am telling you, Inspector? Your children will not die, not immediately at least, but you will never see them again. The same goes if you tell your police superiors or anyone else what I’ve just said.’
Sannie started to cry, the fat tears rolling down her face. She thought of the paedophile ring that the police had just busted.
‘Listen to me, Inspector. Contact Furey – I don’t care how you do it – and call him off. If he gets to Cape Maclear we will know first. He will die and your children will disappear – forever. Your children are already out of South Africa. When Furey is in London they will be released and you’ll be told where to find them.’
‘No, please . . . let me talk to them and I’ll –’
‘You can stop this, Inspector. Tell Furey that Robert Greeves is dead and there is no way he will ever find the men who abducted him. He can, however, save your children.’
‘Wait . . .’
The phone line went dead. Sannie wiped the tears from her cheeks, smearing her makeup, and rammed the car into gear. She dropped the clutch and floored the accelerator. A car horn blared behind her as she barged her way back into the traffic, but she ignored it.
On the way home she called Wessels and, through her sobs, explained that her kids were gone. Despite the kidnapper’s warning she blurted out what she knew of Tom’s travels. This was no time to hold back information from her boss. Wessels told her he was on his way to her place and would dispatch some uniformed officers immediately.
Sannie stopped two hundred metres from her home, drew her pistol and co
cked it. She walked the rest of the way to her gate and pressed the remote. She darted in as soon as the gap was wide enough and, weapon raised in front of her, kicked open the back door, which had been left ajar.
‘Police! Mom? Where are you?’ With her left hand Sannie cuffed away errant tears and steeled herself for what she might find.
She moved through the kitchen and checked the kids’ rooms and hers. She saw Ilana’s Barbie on the floor and two of Christo’s toy cars. She choked back another sob and kicked open the bathroom door, bringing her pistol to bear.
Elise was sitting on the toilet, fully clothed, but her hands and ankles were bound with plastic cable ties and her mouth was gagged with masking tape. Sannie holstered her pistol and ripped off the gag.
‘Oh, baby, I’m so, so sorry.’ Her mother started to cry.
Sannie tried to calm her as she knocked makeup and pill bottles from the bathroom cupboard in search of a pair of nail scissors. By the paleness of her mother’s face it looked like she was in shock. Sannie snipped through the ties and helped Elise stand. ‘It was only one man, Sannie, but he had a gun and . . .’
Sannie ran a hand through her hair. Now was the time for her to bottle her own emotions and get a good description of the kidnapper. She had to calm her mother down and extract every scrap of information she could from her – as though she were any other witness.
‘I’ll put the kettle on, Mom. Get some paper and a pen and start writing down everything you can remember, right from the start. Especially what he looked like. Did you get a good look at him?’
‘Sannie, I’m so, so sorry. If he hurts them I’ll kill myself and . . .’
Her mother was becoming hysterical. ‘Sit down! Write, Mom, and then I’ll ask you some questions.’
Outside she heard the wail of a siren.
‘He said he was a journalist, from England, and that he knew Tom. He said his name was Daniel . . . um, let me think of his surname. Daniel . . .’
Sannie turned from the stove and felt the blood draining from her own face. She swallowed hard. ‘Daniel Carney?’
‘Yes, that’s it. Daniel Carney.’
After having a couple of beers, Tom went to reception and picked up the telephone handset. Nothing.
‘Ah, but it is broken,’ the woman said.
‘I don’t suppose you have any idea when the line will be fixed?’
She shook her head.
Ah, Africa, he thought. He said goodbye to the receptionist and walked back out into the night. The sky was clear and the moon was on the rise. He walked around the hotel to a security fence which isolated a patch of beach for hotel guests only. A light breeze decorated the lake’s surface with silvery ruffles. Tiny orange lights winked further out. Fishermen, he supposed. In other circumstances it might have been lovely. But not tonight.
When Tom returned to the Land Rover he slid out the toolbox and placed it on the front seat. He took out the nine-millimetre pistol and unwrapped it, and loaded the two spare magazines with eight bullets each from the box Sannie had given him and put them in the zippered internal pocket of his shorts, which he would wear again tomorrow. He carried the pistol up the ladder into his rooftop tent. He didn’t think he would need the weapon tonight, but he might tomorrow.
Wessels was trying to be comforting and professional while at the same time struggling with his obvious anger at Sannie for not telling him earlier about Furey’s safari to Malawi.
‘Does the bloody fool think he can take on a gang of terrorists by himself?’
Sannie shrugged. ‘I wonder if there are any terrorists at all.’
‘What do you mean? Of course there are.’ Wessels sat beside her on the couch in her lounge room. Elise had recovered enough to make tea for the uniformed officers, and a forensic team busied itself taking prints and looking for other evidence that Daniel Carney might have left behind. ‘They killed Robert Greeves, Sannie.’
‘I think Tom thinks that Greeves is still alive. The kidnapper told me to tell Tom that Greeves was dead, as though that would make him stop whatever he’s been doing.’
Wessels sighed. ‘But why would the terrorists keep him alive, and why fake his death? He’s worth far more to them as a live hostage.’
‘Greeves’s wife told us her husband often talked about retiring to Malawi. That’s why Tom’s gone there, I think.’
‘He didn’t retire, he was executed. The English police have it on video.’
‘They also have the death of another man on video, Nick Roberts, Greeves’s first protection officer.’
‘Ja, so what?’
‘I’ve just been over and over the description of Daniel Carney that my mother gave, Henk.’
‘And?’
‘When we get the passport photo of Carney from the British Foreign Office, I’m pretty sure I’m going to know who he really is.’
Tom woke before dawn, folded the rooftop tent and secured it, and hid the pistol beneath the driver’s seat of the Land Rover before locking the vehicle. He walked in bare feet through the hotel to the lake shore and, after a few minutes of stretching, started to run.
He ran harder and faster, alternating sprints with slow jogging. When the lake gave up the first shimmering sliver of the new day’s light, he turned and ran into the clear water, striking out towards the unseen far shore, much to the amusement of two paddling fishermen. The water was cold, and it shocked his nerve endings to life. He knew that in a few hours he would be baking and sweating in the Land Rover, so he enjoyed the invigorating coolness while it lasted.
He jogged across the beach and back to the camping ground. There was no need to shower after his dip in the clear fresh water. Lake Malawi, like everything else he had encountered in Africa, was not as he had expected. He’d had visions of muddy, turgid water – perhaps a huge inland cesspit. However, he’d discovered it was more like the world’s largest swimming pool, with a white sandy beach. A beautiful place. He watched the male and female eagles pass the red sun, and wished Sannie was here with him to share the moment.
Sannie had stayed awake all night, but there had been no more phone calls. Wessels dozed on her couch and the uniformed police had just left, replaced by two from the morning shift. Her mother was asleep in her room, thanks to a tranquilliser administered by a police doctor who had called in during the night.
She paced the linoleum tiles of her small kitchen, another cup of black coffee in her hand. Try as she might, Sannie couldn’t stop herself from imagining the horrific things someone might be doing to Ilana and Christo. As a police officer she knew just how evil adults could be to children. Even though she wasn’t patrolling the streets any more, hardly a day went by when the media wasn’t reminding her by reporting the rape or murder of a child. Some people in South Africa still believed having sex with a virgin was a way to cure HIV-AIDS. Sannie sniffled back the tears before they came; she had to be strong. She’d asked herself, over and over, what she would say to Tom if he called. Part of her wanted to do exactly what the kidnapper said – to get him to drop his foolish quest. However, the very demands the man had made on the phone confirmed that Tom was on the right trail, and dangerously close to whoever was behind this bizarre plot. The other part of her – the veteran police officer who had faced bullets and death in the line of duty – wanted to find these men and arrest them.
No. Find them and kill them.
Sannie peeked through the door at Wessels, who was now snoring in front of the TV, which was tuned to the sports channel. A golf tournament had put him to sleep. She picked up her handbag, and took the cordless phone from its cradle and walked outside into the yard. It was just after eleven and she shielded her eyes with her free hand against the sun’s glare.
‘South African Airways, good day,’ said the female operator.
‘Hi. I need to make a booking, please. What time is your first flight to Lilongwe, Malawi?’
Inside the house again she went to her bedroom, stripped off the blouse, pants and boots
she’d been wearing for nearly twenty-four hours, and stepped into the ensuite to shower. She took only a few minutes to wash and then dress. She selected a short-sleeve khaki bush shirt and matching trousers and hiking boots. From the closet she fetched her gym bag and packed it.
Wessels stirred as Sannie walked back out into the lounge room. He yawned. ‘What are you up to?’
‘I know it sounds crazy, but I’m going to the gym, Henk. I think some exercise might help me. I’ll only be gone an hour and I’ve got my cell phone.’
He rubbed his stubbled chin and then stretched his arms. ‘Ja, a workout might help relieve the stress. I’ll stay here until you get back and then I’ll have to go into the office. A couple of detectives will be here soon to stay with you – in case he calls again.’
‘Okay, see you.’ She walked out quickly, before he twigged that hiking boots weren’t the most normal thing to wear to the gym.
In the garage Sannie shifted some boxes – mostly Christo’s old stuff – and found his diving gear in a tin trunk. She rummaged through the mask, fins and life vests until her hand closed around the solid length of the weapon. She lifted the diving knife free of the clutter and unsheathed it. The stainless-steel blade was nearly thirty centimetres long. Razor sharp on one side – she remembered how he used to test it by shaving the hairs on his forearms, which always made her shiver – and wickedly serrated on the other. It glittered in the pale dawn light coming through the window. There was no way she would get on to a commercial flight with her police-issue pistol unless she had the paperwork to prove she was on official business. But she wasn’t going into their lair unarmed. She carefully replaced the knife in the stout plastic scabbard and buried it at the bottom of her bag, under the lift-out semi-rigid piece of vinyl covered card that kept the bag’s shape. If her bag was inspected by customs when she got to Malawi, a woman carrying a diving knife but no scuba gear might provoke questions and she didn’t want to be delayed. She zipped the bag shut and got in the car.
