by Kurt Ellis
‘Nothing yet, but we’ll get him.’
Creed opened the can and gulped down a mouthful. ‘Well then, Major Grey, congratulations on a winning start with this team.’
Grey’s eyes dropped to his cup and he inhaled the roasted aroma of the coffee beans. ‘I’ll accept your congratulations when I have him behind bars.’
‘So, have you identified which case you’re going to take next?’
‘Not yet.’ Grey took a sip, then said. ‘I’ve been offered a job at Interpol.’
‘That’s great.’
‘I start in March next year. I’ll need to move to Lyon in France.’
‘And the team?’
Grey was silent. He stared past Creed at the bicycle mounted to the wall. ‘I’ll be here until then,’ he eventually said. ‘I’d thought you’d be the ideal person to replace me, once we got you … back on your feet.’
‘Thought?’ Creed smiled. The stretching of his lip tore the wound a little more. He licked it again. ‘Past tense?’
‘Right now I think Meyer would be best. I would still like you to be involved though, Nick.’
Creed placed the glass back to his lip and leaned back in his chair. ‘I see.’ He turned to look out the window, at an old homeless man with dirty clothes and a tattered, greying beard and dark brown, sunburnt skin.
Grey gulped down the contents of his cup in one. ‘But that’s up to you.’
45
‘I’m telling you, Felix,’ she said. ‘I have him, right by the short and curlies.’
Tracey paced back and forth in the fish-bowl office of Felix Sherwood, her editor. He twisted strands of his grey moustache between index finger and thumb as he rocked back and forth in his chair.
‘I don’t know, Tracey,’ he replied cautiously.
‘Jesus Christ, Felix!’ She threw her hands in the air. ‘I have a man on the inside of the unit. And it’s someone we can trust, not Steenkamp. Father Policeman will play ball. I know he will.’
He folded his hands over his hard, swollen belly. ‘How? How do you know he’ll play ball?’
She paused, then said, ‘Call it female intuition. I just know he will.’
He was always quick to laugh, but at that moment a smile couldn’t have been further from his lips. He exhaled loudly. ‘You cannot ask me to go on your,’ he made inverted commas in the air, ‘female intuition. I have proper leads for proper stories here.’ He placed his palm on a small pile of papers to his right. ‘You are one of my highest-paid journalists. I can’t have you wasting your time and our money chasing after a story that might not even be there.’
Tracey was taken aback at how hurt she felt by his choice of words. He didn’t call her one of his best reporters. Instead, he said ‘highest paid’. Was she no longer worth the number of zeroes on her payslip? But she hid that pain and continued to plead her case. ‘Felix. The story is there. I just need more time. I’m one of your highest-paid journos for a reason. You hired me to do a job, to find you the impossible stories. Trust me, there’s a story here to end all other stories.’
He leaned forward. ‘Then tell me, what exactly is the story here?’
Silence for a heartbeat. ‘I don’t know yet,’ she confessed.
Felix laughed sarcastically and leaned back once more.
‘But there is one. Trust me. A little more time, that’s all I’m asking for.’ She hesitated once more, then added, ‘If I don’t bring you an exclusive, you’ll have my resignation.’
Part 2
‘I feel certain that I am going mad again … And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices …’ – VIRGINIA WOOLF
1995
‘Are you scared?’
‘Of course not.’
Joshua Creed’s eyes accused his twelve-year-old big brother of lying but his mouth remained still. He looked across the dark boardroom table to where Lizzie was furiously colouring in a drawing of a horse, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated. Their six-year-old sister had a pink ribbon tied in her black hair and wore a white dress with pink trim. The blue crayon she was using was not hindered by the lines of the image.
Normally, Nick Creed, a stickler for colouring within the lines, would have commented on this, even tried to correct her, but not that day. He turned his eyes down to the novel in front of him. Alexander Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo. It was from his mother’s bookshelf. He had grabbed it that morning, just as they were leaving for Durban’s Magistrate Court for the trial of Perumal Vijay, the man they had called Rumples.
‘You think you gonna get called in today?’ Joshua asked eventually.
Nick closed the book and pushed it aside. It was the story of a man who was sent to prison, and then escaped to seek vengeance on the people responsible. It was giving him the creeps. ‘I hope so.’ He straightened his tie. ‘This,’ he looked around to see if either of his parents were within earshot, ‘bullshit is becoming boring.’
It had been eight months since he had witnessed Vijay dumping his final victim in the sugar-cane field, and two weeks since the trial had begun. Nick Creed and his family had spent the days waiting in this room for him to be called to the witness stand. The office of the Kwa-Zulu-Natal Attorney General wanted them to stay close, but not to be in the courtroom while their other witnesses testified. They didn’t want Nick’s testimony to be influenced by anything he might hear.
‘See,’ Lizzie said with a huge smile. She turned her colouring book 180 degrees so that her brothers could see her art. ‘Pretty, huh?’
Nick smiled, ‘Beautiful, Lizzie. Your best ever.’
She grinned wider before scooping up the book and running to the corner of the room, where their father sat stiffly. Gabriel Creed was still, his eyes focused on the door. Nick could see a line of sweat running down his jawline from his sideburn, despite the air conditioning. He knew his father hated being near anyone wearing a SAPS uniform.
‘Daddy, see how pretty?’
Gabriel Creed blinked a few times before taking his eyes from the door and turning to his daughter. He plastered a smile on his mouth but Nick saw no smile in his eyes.
‘Wow, Pampoen,’ he said. ‘This is gorgeous. Where did you buy it from?’
He lifted her up and put her on his knee.
‘I didn’t buy it. I drew it.’
‘No. You’re lying. You couldn’t have done this.’
‘I did. Ask Nicky. He saw.’
His father turned his eyes to him. They were cold. He looked back at Lizzie. ‘Well, you’re a real artist if you coloured this in.’
The door to the room was pushed open and Nick saw his father flinch. Rebecca Creed stuck her head in. She had stepped out to go to the bathroom a few minutes earlier.
‘Nicholas,’ she started, her eyes wider than usual. ‘Okay, they said they’re gonna call you in five minutes. Are you ready?’
His heart delivered a single beat at that moment, louder than any other it had produced that entire day. He nodded and tried to smile. ‘Yeah, sure, Ma. I’m good.’
He didn’t think she believed him but she nodded. ‘I’m gonna get you some water quickly, okay? Don’t go anywhere until I get you some water.’ She closed the door.
His father stared at the door for a second, then said to Lizzie. ‘Do you want to do another colouring for me, Pampoen?’
‘Okay, Daddy.’ Lizzie leapt from her father’s lap and pulled out the nearest chair. She began to page through the book, looking for another image to colour.
Gabriel Creed stood from his seat and walked over to his two sons. Nick could smell the Old Spice aftershave on his father as he sat down beside him.
‘The Count of Monte Cristo,’ Creed senior said, reaching for the book. ‘It’s a good one. You’re liking it?’
Nick nodded. ‘I am.’ He lied.
‘Life’s a storm, my young friend. You’ll bask in the sunlight one moment, then be shattered on the rocks in the next. What makes you a man is what yo
u do when the storm comes. You must look into the storm and shout as you did in Rome.’
‘Huh?’
‘It’s a quote from the book. It’s about being brave when you’re feeling scared. It’s okay to be scared.’
‘I’m not.’
The man sighed audibly. Father and son, strangers to each other. When Gabriel had returned from exile, he had struggled to bond with his eldest. It wasn’t either of their faults.
Nick didn’t really know who he was and viewed him as a stranger living in his home, and his father might have viewed him as the same. Gabriel found it easier to form a bond with the younger Joshua and Lizzie. More impressionable, easier to please. But not Nick.
‘Okay,’ he said eventually. ‘But it’s okay if you are.’
‘But I’m not.’
Gabriel said, ‘Do you know what your name means?’
‘What? Nicholas?’
‘No. Creed.’
Nick shrugged.
‘It’s a prayer,’ Josh said. ‘Right? The “I Believe” prayer?’
‘Something like that,’ Gabriel smiled, ‘but not exactly. A creed is a statement of beliefs; a set of shared rules that people try to uphold. Your values.’ He inhaled deeply. ‘When I found out what it meant, around the time they killed my brother, I decided to come up with my own creed and live my life according to that. Things I believed in, you know?’
‘Like?’ Nick heard himself asking.
‘Like defending people who couldn’t defend themselves. Like fighting for people who were weaker than you and who were being wronged. Being a protector. You understand?’
‘I do.’ Josh said.
But what about family, Nick thought. Did you not value your family? Were we not part of your creed? But he didn’t say anything.
‘This creed, and being a Creed, is something I held onto while I was in exile. The thing is, my boys, sometimes doing the right thing is hard. Sometimes it’s scary. And it might be easier to simply do nothing and hope someone else will do it, but that’s not right. You understand me?’
Josh and Nick both nodded.
‘It’s okay to be scared, but it’s not okay to let fear control you. Remember that, boys.’
His mother pushed the door open. ‘It’s time.’
46
2019
Wednesday, 19 June
He didn’t like this. Not one bit.
Sergeant Benson Mapulane shivered in the cold. His SAPS-issued windbreaker was zipped up tight to his chin, his cap pulled low over his head, and yet he still shivered.
There was no wind. Just the parched freeze of nothingness. A veteran of the South African Police Service for over twenty-two years, Sergeant Mapulane looked over the demilitarised zone of dry, brown grass and the baked hard earth, across to where the strikers had gathered.
There were hundreds of them, maybe a thousand. Some wore their unions’ T-shirts, some sported soccer jerseys, and others had no shirts on at all, despite the freezing weather.
They pumped their fists in the air, many of them clutching traditional weapons: spears, assegais, knobkieries and sjamboks. The sound of the rhythmic chanting and dancing rolled down the hill that had become known as Sehuba, ‘chest’ in Setswana. It was like the breast of a young woman, with large steel bunny-ear-like structures stretching skywards behind it, towers for the power cables that ran between them. He swore that if he listened closely enough, he could hear the electricity humming through the thick wires.
Mapulane’s colleagues stood on either side of him, looking nervous. There were dozens of them – not nearly enough, but they were all well armed. He didn’t like this new breed of policemen, though.
When he’d decided to join the police force in his teens, he had done so because he felt it was his calling. His purpose. His mission from his ancestors. To help protect and serve his community from the evil that men do in the new South Africa. But this new breed of policemen were not like him. They joined the Service because their school marks were not good enough to get them into college, or because they couldn’t find any other form of employment. The South African Police Service had become a fall-back career.
The chanting from the strikers grew louder.
‘Stand fast,’ Major Sima instructed, marching out in front of them. ‘Riot squad, to the front.’
A line of heavily body-armoured officers stepped forward as ordered. Their directive that morning had been to disperse this illegal gathering of striking miners. Yet they had not expected the number of protesters that had gathered that morning to be in the thousands. Back-up had been requested but seemed to be taking ages to arrive, and the tension in the air had grown palpable. He could smell it. He could almost taste it.
Across the barren land, a shirtless man came charging down the hill. His arms waved wildly, a short spear in his right hand. He stopped after taking a few steps into the empty zone between the two forces, thrust his assegai towards the police, then he ran the blade across his tongue before dancing back to his fellow strikers.
The men next to Mapulane bristled. As Major Sima shouted further orders, more officers moved from their positions to alternative, strategic ones. Mapulane didn’t like the look of this at all.
Suddenly, a large group of strikers charged forward. Their feet were high, stamping hard on the solid terrain. Again, they stopped a few feet into the dead-man zone, stabbed and slashed at the air with their weapons and hit the earth with their knobkerries. Their taunts and war cries were carried to the police on the frozen wind.
Unlike the first striker, who had returned to the hill, this group remained where they stood. And more of them were streaming down the hillside. The distance between the protestors and the lines of police became no wider than a soccer pitch. Major Sima raised a bullhorn to his mouth and shouted, ‘Disperse immediately. This is an illegal gathering. Disperse immediately or you will be fired on and arrested. Disperse immediately.’
He repeated himself, first in Setswana, then in Zulu. Instead of dispersing, more strikers joined the group that had advanced.
Major Sima shook his head and lowered his bullhorn. He called out an order and a half-dozen police officers in riot gear stepped into the open, carrying guns the size of mini cannons. They aimed their weapons at a 45-degree angle over the heads of the protestors, and fired. The shots sounded hollow. The canisters they launched hissed as they somersaulted in the air. One or two landed in front of the crowd, but most fell right in the middle. The smoke spewed out; the teargas swallowed the strikers in a pink mist.
‘Disperse immediately,’ Major Sima repeated into the bullhorn. ‘This is an illegal gathering. Disperse immediately or you will be fired on and arrested. Disperse immediately!’
No movement. No sound of activity emanated from behind the candy-floss-coloured smog.
Mapulane heard himself saying, ‘I do not like this.’
A single person burst out of the smoke, his hand waving the traditional club. Then another with a larger knobkerrie. They were followed by more with machetes and assegais. And more, and more, and more. More men, sprinting towards the line of police, their weapons ready to strike.
‘Stop, or we will fire,’ Sima warned through the bullhorn. ‘Stop now!’
They didn’t stop. They ran faster. Sima took a step back. The strikers were only a few yards away when he shouted, ‘Open fire! Open fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!’
47
Luke Meyer stared at the screen in horror, his mouth agape. Thirty-two men confirmed dead, another fifty or more injured. The media had already dubbed it the Legodu Mine Massacre.
‘Well, maybe I should have gone to the North West after all.’ Tracey Wilson was sitting beside him at the Mugg & Bean bistro in Cresta Shopping Centre.
‘This is unbelievable.’ Absently, Meyer crossed himself.
The news report stopped for an advertisement break and Meyer turned away from the television screen. The sight of the scrambled eggs in front of him suddenly made him nauseous. He pushed
the plate away.
‘I can’t believe this,’ he said.
‘I can.’ She took a small bite of her unbuttered toast. ‘You police are exceptionally heavy-handed.’
He felt anger bubble inside but he dowsed it by swallowing. ‘You don’t know the full facts yet. How can you already deduce that the police are at fault here?’
She shrugged. ‘An educated guess based on past experience. Like Marikana. Shoot to kill, right? Isn’t that the mantra of your national police commissioner? Shoot to kill?’
‘Former police commissioner,’ he corrected her.
‘Does it matter? His philosophy is ingrained. Shoot first, shoot second, maybe ask a question, then shoot again.’
Meyer sipped his rooibos tea. He was growing increasingly agitated. Not only because she, like most South Africans, was clearly mistrustful of the police, but because she could be right.
‘These are your colleagues, Detective,’ she continued. ‘Men who are corrupt. Thieves, rapists and killers, all wearing the same uniform as you, all painted with the same brush as you. Good cops like yourself and others grouped in with these North West butchers. With Nicholas Creed.’
She was trying to manipulate him. Meyer knew this, but not-so-deep-down he actually agreed with what she had said. And further down, he had to also admit that he enjoyed the attention she was paying him and the time they had been spending together.
‘So is this why you wanted to meet me for breakfast?’ he asked. ‘So you can try to convince me to snitch on Creed?’
She smiled, nibbling another piece of toast. ‘I don’t think you’re a person who can be convinced to do anything. Either you’ll do it or you won’t.’
‘You’re talking about me betraying someone’s trust.’
‘Exactly.’ She put the slice of toast on her plate. She reached across the table and took his hands in hers. ‘If you allow men like Nicholas Creed to continue to believe they’re untouchable and above the law, then you are betraying the trust of all South Africans.’
