Sacrificed

by Chanette Paul

  “I’m on my way to Cape Town. My flight leaves in a couple of hours. Please, I must see the manager.”

  The woman sighed. “What’s your name?”

  “Cassandra Colijn. The box is in the name of Josefien Colijn.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Please wait here.” She waved towards a row of chairs against the wall.

  Caz sat down on the edge of a chair. Five minutes later the woman was back.

  “The manager can squeeze you in between appointments. His assistant will call you.”

  It was a full thirteen minutes before she was taken to a booth with four orange plastic chairs and a round melamine table. The manager was a man in his early forties with a drawn face and fine veins on his cheeks.

  “Good morning, ma’am. Barend Stols,” he said. “How can I help you?”

  “I would like to remove the contents from my mother’s safe-deposit box and close the account. She was Josefien Colijn and she recently died ...” She fell silent when he began to shake his head.

  “We haven’t had any private boxes for years, ma’am. If we ever had any.”

  Caz took Tieneke’s note from her handbag and showed it to him. “The branch moved to this location, I know, and according to this note the boxes were transferred here.”

  “Mrs. Colijn, it’s donkey’s years since the branch moved here.” He looked at the note again. “This dates back almost eleven years.”

  “But what could have happened to the box? It contains my mother’s property. Left at the bank for safekeeping.”

  He raised his hands and got to his feet. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I can’t help you. There must have been some communication between the bank and the person who rented the box, but it’s not information I can access. It was long before my time.”

  “But ...”

  “I’m sorry, you’ll have to excuse me. I have an appointment with a client. It’s a pity people don’t keep their personal information up to date. It happens all the time with estates. Try your mother’s attorney. Or the executor. They might know more.”

  The notary was in a country where banks remain in the same spot for centuries and had no information other than a note and a key in an envelope that he had kept safe. The executor of her so-called mother’s estate had been murdered. Thanks for nothing.

  “Thank you for your time,” was all she said. She would have to take up the matter with one of his seniors. Someone who actually cared about the repercussions when a bank allowed a client’s strongbox to get lost.

  With an irritated gesture, Caz draped the straps of her handbag over her shoulder and pushed the note into the same pocket where the key was.

  When she walked out through the revolving door, she wasn’t nearly as annoyed with the bank as with Fien and Ammie Pauwels. Couldn’t they have handled their bloody affairs better?

  Njiwa would probably be waiting for her here on the sixteenth, guess that she had come sooner when she failed to arrive, or think that she was coming later and wait a few more days, but what would happen then? He would go straight to Stanford, probably strangle her as well and still not get what he was looking for.

  She had to find out whether the box really contained nothing but “two wooden objects” before she could decide what to do next. Whether to let De Brabander know what Matari and Njiwa were after. What he could do about it from Belgium was a different matter. At least he might stop believing that she was the kingpin who refused to give her accomplices their due. Besides, she had to know what was in the strongbox before she could decide how to outwit Njiwa. Or whether she should just hand him the bloody mask and figurine.

  They might have value as items of African art and Ammie might have carried them with her on her flight through Africa, evidently to protect her child and herself, but she was certainly not prepared to sacrifice her life for the sake of money and sentiment. Njiwa could take his bloody nkísi and go, as long as he left her alone. Not that she could see it happen, but she supposed there was a chance.

  But for now she could do nothing. Make no plans. Just wait for her tongue bone to be crushed as well. In vain.

  Unless ... Moerdyk. Would Moerdyk know?

  Caz jumped back, startled, when a minibus taxi came racing towards her and braked sharply. She was berating herself for not watching where she was going when the sliding door was flung open in front of her. Someone grabbed her arm, yanked her handbag from her other arm and tried to drag her inside. Caz gripped the doorframe and held on. The taxi began to move. Shouts sounded from various directions. Caz lost her balance. Her knees grazed the tarmac while she tried to break free from the painful grip on her arm.

  Hands grabbed her from behind and wrenched her away from the minibus. Her eyes met those of the man who had been trying to drag her into the taxi. It was Njiwa, but not the Njiwa she remembered. His face was twisted with rage. He shouted something and the taxi pulled away with screaming tires.

  “Sorry, Madam, sorry, Madam. Eish. You hurt? Bad man, very bad man.” Caz looked up at an old man who was gently trying to lay her down on the tar. His face showed suffering but his gaze was clear.

  “Tsotsis. Bad tsotsis.”

  Caz tried to suppress her tears of fear and rage. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” Her knees burned like fire.

  He shouted something in an indigenous language.

  A woman in a traditional shweshwe dress kneeled by her side. “Ma’am? Can I call the ambulance? The police?”

  Caz shook her head. An ambulance was unnecessary. The police wouldn’t help her, just slow her down. She had no strength for endless explanations that would lead nowhere.

  Annika’s car drew up beside her. “Bloody hell, Caz, are you okay?” she gasped.

  “I’m fine. This man saved me.” She turned, but the old man was gone.

  “What happened?” Annika asked the black woman.

  “They tried to steal her. The tsotsis.”

  “The man who saved me, where is he?” Caz asked anxiously.

  Annika looked around. “What does he look like?”

  “Black, elderly. Dressed in overalls, I think.”

  “He left, ma’am. Ran back to the taxi he was just getting into when he saw what was happening. Will you be all right now?” the woman asked.

  “I’ll be okay. Thank you, you’ve been very kind.”

  “No problem, ma’am. Eish, what is this country coming to?”

  With a wave of her hand, the woman walked away, her back straight.

  “Fuck it, Caz. What happened? I saw that fucking taxi race towards you. I shouted to try to warn you, then I heard the commotion.” Annika’s voice was shrill. She had to be scared out of her wits, because Caz had never heard her swear before.

  “It’s a long story.” Caz tried to get up, but her knees refused to cooperate. Annika helped her to her feet and she limped to the car. Njiwa must have figured she would come earlier. He had probably been waiting for days. The taxi was almost certainly one of those that had already been there when she went into the bank.

  “Something to do with the key?”

  Caz nodded. Her hand went to the pocket of her jeans. The key was still there. Regretfully so, actually. He might as well have taken the damn key that didn’t unlock anything anyway.

  Annika had just switched the engine on when there was a knock on the window.

  Caz looked up, startled. A security guard. She opened the window a chink.

  “The other taxi driver. He saw the taxi that’s not allowed to pick up people here. He was here yesterday as well. The driver wrote down the registration. I called the police. They’re on their way. You must wait.”

  Caz sighed and looked at Annika, who shrugged.

  “I can’t. I have to get to the airport. I’m flying to Cape Town.” She was still en route on an international flight and had to be there two hours ahea
d of time.

  He shook his head. “You must wait.”

  Thirty-nine

  Caz

  Cape Town

  Caz sat down on her suitcase to take the weight off her knees. She was in pain, despite Annika’s effort to take her to a pharmacy where her wounds were attended to while waiting for the police. She was convinced all her previous aches and pains had also decided to kick in again. She was a bloody wreck.

  Hopefully the guys from the long-stay company were on their way with her car. Without her cellphone her hands were tied, but Annika had informed them of the time of Caz’s arrival and where she would be waiting.

  Thank goodness for Annika. She had cut the interview with the police short. The police had assumed Caz had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. An incidental victim. The two men in the taxi must have seen her enter the bank and thought she had cash on her person.

  Caz didn’t enlighten them. What could she tell them? The man had wanted to kidnap her because he was after the nkísi she had inherited? He had most likely murdered a woman six thousand kilometers away? Unfortunately, she didn’t know his name. Neither did she know where the nkísi were.

  Besides, she and the policeman had found it hard to understand each other. The other taxi drivers kept interrupting to rant about the new taxi stealing their clients. A babble of voices ensued.

  She had given all her details and a case docket was opened. Robbery and attempted abduction. For what it was worth.

  At last she was home. Well, almost.

  A drive of nearly two hours lay ahead before she’d get to Stanford, and she still had to pick up Catya at the cattery, but she would be home well before sunset. She wasn’t keen on arriving after dark, though common sense told her Njiwa couldn’t possibly already be waiting.

  She remembered she would have to pick up her house keys from the security people. Her own set had been in her handbag. How convenient for Njiwa. She would have to replace the locks, probably a futile exercise, but one more item on a long list of things that needed to be done. Thankfully she had left the remote with the security people as well.

  While the woman at the pharmacy had been tending to her injuries, Annika had made sure that Caz’s South African cellphone was blacklisted. When she had been ministered to with plasters and antiseptic ointment, Caz had reported her credit cards stolen. Annika had had a similar experience and knew the drill.

  She had a spare phone at home, but she would have to get a new SIM card. During the flight to Cape Town she realized that both her cellphones had been in her handbag. Still, her most pressing problems were more or less sorted out. For the time being.

  She was thankful her passport had been in her backpack and her car keys with the guys at the long-stay parking.

  After a while someone drove up in her Camry. It might be a rustbucket, she thought, but at least she had her own transport again.

  It was good to be back. Despite everything. She knew the roads. She had her independence back. She knew how things worked over here. She could read people’s facial expressions and body language. She knew she wasn’t safe, but she could at least make plans in flawed but familiar surroundings. Take precautions. Hopefully.

  Wednesday, October 15

  Caz

  Overberg

  Caz had just fed a furious Catya and made herself a cup of coffee when her landline rang. She limped to the study. It had been a long night but she had finally fallen asleep, the panic button clutched in her hand.

  “Ms. Coolen?”

  “Caz Colijn speaking.”

  “Captain Dlamini. I’m calling about the incident at Silverton.

  “I have some good news and some bad news. A patrol car spotted the taxi and tried to pull it over. The taxi sped off, but lost control, left the road and overturned. We arrested one of the passengers. He had the house keys you described—on a silver whale-tail keyring—in his possession. But I’m afraid we didn’t find your handbag. I’ll fax some photos to the Stanford police and you can try to identify him. They’ll be in contact.”

  “Who is he?” She held her breath.

  “According to the passport I have in my possession, David Verstraeten.” His tongue tripped over the surname.

  Caz sat down. Damn it, they had the wrong person.

  “Where’s he from, according to his passport?”

  “He has a South African passport, but I see he was born in the DRC.”

  Perhaps they didn’t have the wrong person after all?

  “Will he go to prison?”

  “As far as we can ascertain, it’s his first offence. His fingerprints aren’t in the system. I don’t know whether we’ll get very far with the attempted abduction charge. The eyewitnesses disappeared before we arrived on the scene and the security guard didn’t see what happened himself. We’ll have to wait and see what the prosecutor decides.”

  An overworked prosecutor in a judicial system drowning in a deluge of crime couldn’t be expected to make handbag theft a priority.

  She thought for a moment. At least the man seemed to know what he was doing. He sounded sympathetic.

  If Dlamini and De Brabander pooled their knowledge, they might find out the truth. In the meantime it might buy her enough time to try to find out what had happened to the bloody strongbox.

  “Captain, a young black man followed me when I was recently in Belgium. He goes by the name of Njiwa. I can’t be sure whether he’s David Verstraeten until I’ve seen the photos, but it was Njiwa who tried to drag me into the taxi. A detective in Ghent by the name of De Brabander is looking for this Njiwa in connection with ...”

  “Why is this not in your statement?”

  How could she explain? “I was shocked. I had to catch a plane. Everything was in such a muddle.”

  “Well, let’s see first whether you can identify Verstraeten. Once you’ve identified him, we can take it further. I’ll contact you shortly.”

  She had to be content with that.

  Luc

  Ghent

  Luc was hardly aware of the throng of students. Since Lieve phoned earlier that morning, he’d been unable to get Ammie out of his thoughts.

  It turned out that her lethargy wasn’t the result of age or the stroke. There was a psychological reason, the psychiatrist had said. Ammie was mentally cutting herself off from reality because of something she refused to face.

  Lieve was in tears. “She was so lucid on the two occasions her daughter was here, Professor. How could she just regress like that again? Sometimes she doesn’t even seem to recognize me.”

  Ammie’s daughter. Ammie’s bloody daughter, who as good as robbed Ammie of her soul.

  Like Lieve, he had also thought Ammie would be better a day later. Or maybe a few days later. But the psychiatrist thought that kind of withdrawal from reality could last a long time. It might even be permanent. And it was all that woman’s fault.

  Ammie had been right. A hellcat.

  “Luc!”

  He stopped when he saw Laura approach.

  “Good day, Luc.” She was slightly out of breath when she reached him.

  “Good day, Laura.”

  Laura seemed embarrassed. “Luc, I’ve been wanting to apologize for the things I said. About what happened in Leuven and about your appearance.”

  “There’s no need, Laura. Forget it.” He meant what he said, yet he appreciated her willingness to clear the air.

  “No, I was wrong. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I was ... well ... a bit jealous.”

  “Laura, don’t ...”

  “No, I have to. I really enjoyed the time we spent together after the academic procession. Just talking to you. I now know I read too much into your kindness. I understand. I’m not an attractive woman. Nor am I exciting, but I’d like to be your friend. Sometimes you’re probably lonely too. I’d
like to make up for my rash pronouncements. Why don’t you join me for supper on Friday evening?”

  Luc looked at Laura. No, she wasn’t attractive or exciting, but she was intelligent and sincere. Someone with integrity.

  “That would be nice, thanks, Laura. I’ll bring wine.” Definitely not South African wine, he told himself.

  Laura gave him a broad smile, a slight blush on her cheeks. “Would seven suit you?”

  “Seven is fine.” It was time for him to regain his equilibrium and Laura was just the one to help him with it. They might even become more than friends in the end. Be there for each other when necessary.

  Beauty and excitement weren’t the be-all and the end-all in life, after all. On the contrary, they could be destructive. Ask Jacq DeReu.

  Caz

  Overberg

  Moerdyk junior expressed his condolences when Caz informed him that both Josefien and Tieneke Colijn had passed away, but she realized he had no idea who she was talking about.

  “I believe your grandfather looked after their affairs. I contacted your secretary about six weeks ago. She’ll know more.”

  “Thanks for letting us know. I’ll wind up their affairs and send the final account. You can claim against the estate.”

  Caz suppressed a sigh. A claim against an estate in Ghent that was provisionally frozen? She could kiss another small fortune goodbye. “Fine,” she said, “but there’s another matter.” She told him about the missing safe-deposit box. “I’m at my wits’ end. Can you advise me?”

  “I might get an answer while I’m winding up the estate. I must admit, though, that I’m not up to speed with my grandfather’s affairs. His system wasn’t exactly user-friendly. He was also reasonably unorthodox. Old-school. The affairs of the clients he still personally took care of until recently are a particular mess. Of course those were the cases my father sent my way when I joined the business. But if I run into a blank wall, I’ll ask my grandfather. He’s eighty, but he’s still sharp.”

  “That’s kind of you.” He’d probably bill her for asking his grandfather, she thought after she had given him her contact details.