by Tony Park
There, sitting in a wicker armchair, and very much alive, was Robert Greeves.
31
Sannie urged Henk Wessels to drive faster.
‘Hey, I don’t want us getting in a car accident. The house is just up the road.’
‘I know you. You look worried,’ she said. ‘You run your finger around your collar when something’s wrong.’
He looked at her. ‘Of course I’m worried. The sooner we get you reunited with your kids the better. I want them out of that house in case the other kidnappers come back.’
She nodded. It was odd, though, that Henk hadn’t called in more uniformed officers already, to move her children somewhere else. It’s what she would have done, but then, she wasn’t the captain.
‘Here it is.’ Wessels stopped the car.
There was nothing unusual about the modest single-storey home except for the two uniformed police outside, and, additionally, the fact that both the officers were white. There were still plenty of whites in uniform, but it was a little odd to see a pair of them together. Most of the junior ranks these days were black Africans, unlike when Sannie had joined the police service. Sannie nodded to the officers, who smiled back at her, as she followed Wessels up the garden path, impatient to get to her children.
Wessels pulled out a key and unlocked the front door.
Sannie brushed past him as he opened it. ‘Christo? Ilana?’
She entered the shabbily furnished lounge room, and smelled stale cigarette smoke and old cooking oil. ‘Christo? Ilana?’
‘Mom?’ Christo called from the kitchen. He ran out, his sister hanging on to his shirt tail.
Sannie put her hand to her mouth and rushed to them. She dropped to her knees, flung her arms wide and drew them to her, and buried her head in Christo’s shirt, letting the fabric soak her flood of pent-up tears. She was too overcome to speak.
‘Where have you been, Mom?’ Ilana asked.
‘This man who knew Tom came and collected us, Mom. Is Tom okay?’
Sannie sobbed, deep and hard, and stepped back from Christo so she could wipe her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Christo, listen to me. Are you all right, my boy? Are you hurt? Did that man . . . hurt you? Did he hurt your sister?’
‘No, Mom.’
Ilana looked up at her, and when Sannie saw her blinking back the tears, she started to cry again herself.
‘Mom, are you okay?’ Christo asked.
‘Yes, my boy, I’m fine. Let’s go. I’m taking you home.’
Tom was looking at Greeves and didn’t see the broken beer bottle in the grass. The glass shattered and crunched when he moved his feet.
‘Who’s there?’
Tom made no move to hide. He was more than ready for this confrontation. He stepped into the light.
‘Detective Sergeant Furey,’ Greeves lowered himself slowly back into his chair. ‘Take a seat.’
‘I’ll stand.’ Tom kept looking around him, his pistol hand following his gaze as he swept the verandah, watching the flanks, and the door that led back inside the lodge.
‘I expect you’ve got some questions. Scotch?’
Tom shook his head.
‘Well, don’t mind me if I have another.’
Tom detected a slight slurring of the minister’s words. From what he could see, Greeves looked in fine shape. His face and arms were golden and healthy looking in the reflected light. His hair was brushed and he wore a crisp white cotton shirt, open at the neck, with navy chinos.
‘On your feet. Let’s go.’
‘Oh, not so fast, Tom. You made it this far. At least tell me how you knew it was all a fake, that I was never truly abducted.’
‘You first. Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why did you fake your kidnapping? What kind of a scandal made you do it?’
Greeves said nothing. He refilled his glass from the decanter on the table and took a long sip.
‘It was Ebony, the stripper, wasn’t it?’ Tom listened hard for any sound of movement in the house, and checked each side of the verandah again while he waited for the reply.
‘Yes.’
‘When did you sleep with her?’
‘You tell me.’
Tom looked down into those cold grey eyes. ‘How old was she? Ten? Eleven?’
Greeves exhaled and raised his glass, waving it casually. ‘If you must know, she was twelve. I didn’t know it at the time, I thought she was older.’
‘And you think that makes it all right?’
‘All right?’ Greeves stared back at him, defiant. ‘No. And that’s the truth. I know it’s not all right, but I can’t change it. It’s just the way I am – the way I’m wired. I like young girls. I’d forgotten all about her. It happened in South Africa, years ago. She came to England as an illegal, saw my picture in the newspaper one day, and contacted me. She bloody well made an appointment at my constituency surgery.’
‘And you had her killed.’ Tom felt the anger rising in him and tried his best to control it, to stay calm.
‘No! I’ve never killed anyone in my life.’
‘You lying bastard.’ Tom took a deep breath of his own. He needed to keep it together. ‘You sent Nick to get her . . . to kill her.’
‘No. I swear it. I swear on the life of my children. I told her it wasn’t me . . .’
‘But you recognised her.’
Another sigh. ‘Yes, I knew it was her, but I tried to convince her she was wrong.’
‘And so you sent Nick to do your dirty work.’
‘No, nothing happened. Not for a few weeks. She called my office and left me another message, saying, cryptically, that she’d been talking to the media and only I could do the right thing. Helen, my press secretary, told me, although she thought it was a prank call.’
‘Was that when you sent Nick to negotiate with her, after she contacted you?’
‘Nick’s dead, Tom.’
‘Bullshit. He’s masquerading as a journalist called Daniel Carney. It took me a while to put it together, but as soon as I realised you’d faked your death, it was obvious Nick was still alive as well.’
Greeves looked to one side of the verandah, and Tom followed his gaze. Greeves turned his eyes back to Tom. The defiance had gone from his face. ‘What gave it away? I’m curious.’
‘The monkeys.’
‘How?’
Tom recalled his internet research, about African primates. ‘Vervet monkeys are only active in daylight hours. They sleep in trees overnight.’
‘So?’
‘So, you and your band of merry men would have had to capture them during the day. Bernard’s stage-managed escape didn’t happen until well after dark. Your people lured the monkeys into cages during the day and kept them somewhere nearby. As soon as Bernard made it away safely you had the monkeys brought in and positioned in the house. You all had plenty of time to get away. It was proof the whole set-up had been planned well in advance.’
Tom waited for a reaction, but got none, so he continued. ‘Someone drew half a litre of blood from you at some stage – not a difficult operation for your friend Doctor Khan – and spread it around the room where you’d been held, to make it look like you’d been shot. Khan even drew some cerebral spinal fluid and mixed it with the blood. Nice touch, that, though the spinal tap mustn’t have been pleasant. The hair was a giveaway, though. You made a mistake there.’
‘Really? Do tell.’
‘The “abductors” left your hair on the bathroom floor, after they’d shaved your head, for us to find. However, there was no blood in the hallway from the supposed wounds on the soles of your feet, which Bernard had seen as “evidence” of your torture.’
‘And you figured this out all by yourself?’
‘The clues, the evidence, were all there. All it needed was motive. That was the hard part. You wanted to drop out . . . to get out of the public eye without shaming your Party, but you couldn’t just quit. There was more to it, even after you ha
d Nick kill the African girl.’
‘You think you know it all.’
‘Most of it. You can fill in the blanks when I get you back to London. Your mate Khan was the nail in the coffin, wasn’t he?’
Greeves shrugged. ‘You tell me.’
‘I heard on the car radio that the South Africans recently busted an international people-smuggling racket, whose main purpose was to supply the sex trade – including underage boys and girls for sick perverts like you. Khan needed to disappear too – I’m betting he knew the trail would lead to him. I’m also betting that the UK link was those two blokes in Enfield who blew up their own house. Was that Nick who topped them in the street? Had you sent him there as well, to get rid of some connection, or record they had of you?’
‘So, what are you going to do with all this information, Tom? The world thinks I’m dead. The British government is happy – there were rumours of my imminent demise already circulating. The press has swallowed the story. What would it take for you to turn your back?’
Tom shook his head. The bastard was trying to buy him. ‘A decent, honourable man took his life because of you, and you took my life away from me. I want it back.’
‘Well, that’s not going to happen. Who else have you told your little tale to?’
‘I was wondering when you’d ask. I’ve sent a letter to a friend of mine who’s a crime-scene investigator. She’ll know the right questions to ask the right people. I’ve also told her that if anything happens to me, and she gets stonewalled by MI6 or the government, to pass on everything to Michael Fisher at the World.’
‘I wish you hadn’t done that.’
Tom looked up towards the lodge’s front door, from where the cultured female voice had come.
Janet Greeves emerged from the shadows. She held a two-two calibre semiautomatic pistol, fitted with a silencer, in her right hand. ‘Drop your gun, Detective Sergeant Furey.’
‘Do as she says,’ said another voice from behind Tom.
He turned and saw a swarthy man holding a short-barrel AK 47 assault rifle emerge from the line of trees that shielded the main lodge from the first guest bungalow. He was trapped.
‘Doctor Khan, I presume?’
The man smiled and shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter who I am. Drop your gun now, Furey, or I’ll shoot.’
Tom noted the man had a large mobile phone hanging heavily from a clip on his belt. A satellite phone, he guessed. Tom considered his options. He could take one of them out, but not both of them. What he needed to do now was stay alive, for as long as possible. Not that he fancied his chances. He crouched, aware of the two weapons following his every move, and placed Sannie’s pistol on the tiled verandah floor.
Greeves started to get up from his chair, but his wife took a step towards him, out of the shadows, and swung her pistol towards the politician’s head. ‘Stay where you are, Robert.’
‘What?’ Greeves looked back at his wife, the puzzlement plain in his face.
‘Cover him, Pervez.’ Janet Greeves closed the gap between her and Tom, but stopped out of arm’s reach of him.
‘Pervez?’ Greeves looked imploringly at the Pakistani South African, but the man just shook his head. ‘What the bloody hell’s going on?’
‘Furey knows too much,’ Janet said to her husband.
‘I can get away, get a new identity. Why are you betraying me?’
Janet laughed. ‘Betraying you? Don’t be pathetic, Robert. It was worth the gamble, but our bodyguard friend here was too clever. For his own good, and for yours.’
‘You bitch.’
Tom looked from husband to wife, and back again. ‘What did he do, Janet? Did he touch your children just like he touched the African kids when he was over here for work and play?’
‘Very perceptive. I knew early on in our marriage that Robert wasn’t particularly interested in me, save from using me to breed a couple of children, which were part of his political career. The overseas trips started early on, and I had my suspicions. When our daughter was ten, I caught him sitting on her bed, looking at her body, lifting her nightie, while she was asleep.’
‘Janet, please . . . he doesn’t need to know . . .’
‘Shut up, you miserable piece of shit.’
Greeves looked as taken aback as Tom was by the vehemence. It was as though he was seeing these feelings released for the first time. Janet looked back at Tom. ‘I told him then that if he ever touched the children I would have him killed. Arrest and a trial would hurt the kids more, I thought, not to mention the damage it would do the Party.’
‘So, the agreement was that he’d indulge his sexual desires overseas – with other people’s children.’
‘Don’t judge me, Mr Furey. I did what I did to protect my family. Honestly, I wish the events that led us to being here now had happened a decade ago.’
‘Janet, this is ridiculous . . .’
‘I said, shut up.’
Tom kept his eyes on the woman. ‘I suspected you knew what was going on, with the fake abduction, but I didn’t realise you were the mastermind. What forced you to act – the stripper threatening to go public, or the breaking up of the sex-slave smuggling ring in South Africa?’
‘Both, in fact. Pervez here convinced Robert that he could safely, discreetly, bring . . . God, I hate saying it . . . a child into the UK. An African child, for that’s my husband’s sick little fantasy. Robert had . . . ordered an eleven-year-old girl for himself. If Pervez had been caught there would have been a trail leading to Robert. Nick found out about the impending operation through his contacts in the South African police, and tipped me off.’
Tom looked at Greeves. The man had been going to buy a child. He returned his focus to the wife. ‘So you and Nick were having an affair – that wasn’t just a red herring?’
She shook her head. ‘“Affair” might be too strong a word, as it implies some romantic involvement. I have needs, and Nick was more than happy to satisfy them – physical needs and business needs. I sent him to the girl, Ebony, and told him to pose as a journalist and offer more money than the World. I would have been happy for her to leave England with a bag of money, but she changed her mind. She told Nick she’d prayed about what she was doing, and that even if she gave the money to her church, back in Africa, God wouldn’t be happy. She told Nick she was going to go public, whatever happened.’
‘So you had her killed?’
‘I said before, Nick helped me with a number of personal and business needs. If it had just been the woman, that would have been the end of it, but the South Africans were on to this other sordid little business.’
‘I’d hardly call the international trafficking of children for sex a sordid little business,’ Tom said.
‘Don’t try my patience, Furey.’ She straightened her arm, raising the pistol to his eyes.
Tom thought she looked like a leopardess sizing up her prey. Like the silent predator, she had been waiting in the background, watching for her moment to strike. He glanced at Greeves again and saw his face was white with fear. Greeves had good reason to worry – Tom sensed his wife had been waiting, perhaps hoping, for this opportunity. This man who had travelled to the world’s war zones in defence of British foreign policy, stared down the media and the opposition in parliament, was cowering in the face of the woman who had held his destiny in her hands for so many years.
‘Why go through the whole charade of the abductions, the tapes to the media?’
‘I owe nothing to my husband, Sergeant Furey. I did not, however, want my children to suffer more than they had. Also, I am a staunch believer in our government, but the Party wouldn’t survive yet another sex scandal, especially one of this magnitude. Having Robert and Nick die at the hands of terrorists would only strengthen the resolve of the great unwashed British public to support their leaders in their fight against evil.’
Tom was tempted to throw the last word back at her, but he held his tongue. The woman was a zealot and he knew th
ere was nothing more dangerous in creation. He turned to face the man with the assault rifle.
‘What happened to Carla Sykes? She was part of the kidnap plot.’
‘Janet shrugged. ‘She had a past history of involvement with drugs – as I believe you found out. There was some cocaine waiting for her in a hotel room in Mozambique – a bonus arranged by Nick as a replacement for the quantity she planted in your room. I doubt we’ll hear from her again.’
Tom tried not to let the shiver show. ‘And you, Doctor? When did you change sides from husband to wife?’
‘Me? I never had a side. Mrs Greeves offered me money to organise the abduction of her husband. I paid for the mercenaries and sent them on their way after Mozambique. If they are caught, or ever decide to go public, all they will do is recount how their “terrorist” paymasters let them go, just before they killed their hostage. Now Mrs Greeves has offered me more money to . . .’
‘To do as I say.’
‘Where’s Nick?’ Tom asked.
‘On his way here,’ Janet said. ‘I flew here when he told me you were closing on Robert and Pervez. I needed to get a feel for things first-hand, to see if the situation could be saved. Clearly, it cannot. I’m assuming that since you told Robert you’d sent a file to your crime-scene investigator that your South African partner knows everything as well?’
Tom shook his head. ‘No. Absolutely not. All she knows is that I was on my way here, to Malawi. She has no idea about any of this . . . about you.’
‘That’s not true, I’m afraid,’ Janet replied.
He felt his fear for Sannie and her children rising, burning, inside him.
‘You must believe me. I didn’t tell her all my suspicions, just in case something like this happened. I knew the odds were against me. She can’t prove anything. You’ll get away with it. Kill me and no one will know. I’ll just disappear. Please believe me, Janet. I was bluffing, you know, about the letter to the investigator and the press.’
Janet shrugged. ‘I thought you might be. She was given a warning, Tom, which she has failed to heed. She knows, all right.’
Tom shook his head. They had an insider. He felt a fool now, even as he learned he’d been right. He’d exposed Sannie and her family. ‘Sannie has two small children. Don’t leave them without a mother.’ He thought he saw a moment of doubt cross her face, a slight softening. He was wrong.
