by Deon Meyer
Two family exiles finding each other, and in each other, the characteristic that they believed they lacked in themselves: her fire, outspokenness and dynamism, his gentleness and quiet determination.
38
When detectives with enough experience work together, they develop an intuitive feel for each other.
Benny Griessel sat and listened to Cupido calling the Forensic Science Laboratory in Plattekloof and asking them to send people to Stellenbosch for fingerprints ‘Because we have a suspect in the Richter case.’ The last sentence said with great emphasis.
Griessel stood up, still with the vague euphoria of booze enveloping him, took the handcuffs out of his jacket pocket and pulled Rick Grobler up by his T-shirt, rough enough to confirm the seriousness of his intentions.
‘Come, Ricky,’ he said and twisted Grobler’s right arm behind his back.
Cupido, who usually played the role of the bad cop, caught on immediately. ‘Let’s just think about this, Benna. It’s not that simple . . .’ he said.
Griessel clicked the cuffs around Grobler’s right wrist.
Neither Griessel, Cupido nor Liebenberg believed with any conviction that Rick Grobler was the guilty one. The evidence in hand was just too flimsy. It just didn’t chime with their instincts, honed through thousands of interrogations. Grobler had been just too shocked when he heard that Richter had been strangled.
But all three Hawks men knew, when you worked with members of the public as suspects – in contrast with hardened criminals – intimidation was a very handy instrument. Act fast, decisively and just a little bit roughly. Establish the Power of the Law, create a dynamic of inevitability, as though this were an irreversible process with only one endpoint, and a very unpleasant one at that. Now and then you got a practically instant frightened confession. Often it would at least provide a better indication of guilt. But mostly it kicked off a process of negotiation where the detectives had the upper hand.
But they must decide if he was worth the trouble and time to arrest and focus on. A mistake either way could at best be a waste of time and at worst a total disaster for the investigation.
‘Will we take him out the front or the back?’ asked Cupido.
‘The front,’ said Willem Liebenberg, promptly playing along, so that Cupido would be the only voice of sympathy.
‘Let the press get their pictures,’ said Griessel.
‘No,’ said Rick Grobler, his voice hoarse, while Griessel bent his left arm behind his back and cuffed that one too.
‘Think about his mother, Benna,’ said Cupido. ‘What if she sees his face on TV, the poor aunty . . .’
‘It was him, Vaughn,’ Griessel said. ‘We’ve got enough.’ He began to push Grobler towards the door.
‘Please,’ said Grobler, his face waxen.
Griessel hesitated, deliberately. Grobler saw it as an opportunity. He talked fast, his voice filled with fear now: ‘It wasn’t me. Take my DNA, take my fingerprints, take anything. My phone is at my PC; I know you can trace it, where I was that day. Take it, please. Please.’
Still they just stood there. Give him space.
‘I was stupid, I should never have threatened him, I know. Stupid, stupid, I should never have got so angry. Look, I’ve got social interaction issues, I’m working on that, but I swear, I swear . . .’
‘Slow down with the swearing, Tricks. We’ve heard it all before.’
Grobler stood awkwardly with his hands behind his back. ‘What can I say? What do you want . . . ? What can I do? It wasn’t me, please, don’t take me out of here like this . . .’
‘What social interaction issues do you have?’ asked Cupido, his voice sympathetic.
‘Vaughn, we’re wasting time,’ said Griessel.
‘It’s nothing that . . . I struggle socially, that’s all,’ said Grobler quickly. ‘I . . . my psychologist says I don’t mirror well.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I . . . struggle to read people, their reactions . . . I say things that . . . I talk too much, about my work, that’s all that I . . . I don’t understand that they don’t know anything, and then they don’t want to . . . It has nothing to do with Ernst Richter. It doesn’t make me dangerous, it just makes everyone dislike me.’
Grobler dropped his head in humiliation, shoulders slumped.
‘Sit, Rick,’ said Cupido.
Grobler sat down again, but Griessel remained standing, a menacing presence.
‘What have you got to give us, Tricks? How are you going to save your arse?’
Grobler made a sound of despair.
‘It’s your last chance, Tricks.’
Grobler looked up, but only at Cupido. He began to talk.
Arnold and Jimmy from Forensics were not so cheerful when Ndabeni walked into the laboratory with his plastic evidence bags.
‘You could just have asked, Vusi,’ said fat Arnold. He and his partner were frenetically busy sorting documents and stapling them together.
‘We always do our best for you guys,’ said tall, skinny Jimmy with reproach in his voice.
‘Priority service for priority crimes, that’s the policy – official, and our personal commitment. I mean, have we ever let you down?’ asked Arnold.
‘No, we haven’t,’ answered Jimmy. ‘Never. So why, Vusi? Why?’
‘Guys, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Ndabeni.
‘It’s okay, Vusi. We know you guys are feeling the pressure. But just keep in mind, we’re only human,’ said Jimmy.
‘Maybe a little more than human, but . . .’ said Arnold. He held two hands up in the air for Ndabeni to see. ‘Two hands. Still only two hands.’
‘You guys are kidding me, right?’ said Vusi.
‘Not this time.’
‘You sure?’
‘You ran to Major Kaleni. While we’re working at the speed of light, you went and complained to The Great Cactus Flower.’ Mbali Kaleni’s first name meant ‘flower’ in Zulu. A host of unflattering nicknames had blossomed from it.
‘I did not,’ said Vusi indignantly.
‘It’s okay, Vusi. We forgive you.’
‘I did not call the major, guys.’
They heard the honesty in his voice and looked up from their work. ‘You didn’t?’ asked Arnold.
‘No. I’ve been busy at the morgue. Why would I call her?’
‘So she can call our CO. And tell him we’re too slow.’
‘I would never do that.’
‘So why did she call our CO? Here we are, slaving away for you guys. We never get the credit, we never get the spotlight, it’s all about the Hawks; but we do it anyway. And the thanks we get, is that our CO walks in here and says Major Cactus Flower is very unhappy about the pace of our work.’
‘Stank vir dank,’ said Jimmy. And because he suspected that Ndabeni would not understand the phrase, he added: ‘It stinks.’
‘I’m sorry, guys, but it wasn’t me.’
They wanted to blame someone, and their body language showed they were reluctant to believe he wasn’t the guilty one.
Jimmy stapled the last set of documents firmly and held them out to Vusi. ‘Your GC-MS results.’
Vusi put the evidence bags on the table and took the document. He looked at it.
‘I have no idea what this means,’ he said as he studied the chemical tables.
‘The report for ordinary human beings is on the last page,’ said Arnold.
‘Hastily compiled,’ said Jimmy.
‘But very accurate,’ said Arnold.
‘And to save you time, because you are such a busy Hawk, we’ll tell you what we found.’
‘Your baling twine and your plastic sheet show very high traces of Triazole.’
‘You will also find electron microscope photographs in there of t
he Triazole powder granules.’
‘Irrefutable proof.’
‘Produced at the speed of light.’
‘For the oh-so-busy Hawks.’
He waited for them to say more, but they just leaned back smugly in their chairs.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Vusi.
‘We knew you would ask that question.’
‘But we waited, to prove a point. You guys can’t do all that busy, important Hawks stuff without us. Go on, admit it.’
‘Of course we can’t. You guys are geniuses.’
‘Are you messing with us?’
‘No, guys. I hold you and your work in the highest regard. And I’m very grateful for what you’ve done. And the speed . . .’
‘You’re a Hawk with a heart, Vusi.’
‘One of the few.’
‘Triazole is a fungicide, Vusi.’
‘For agricultural use.’
‘Farmers spray it on their wheat to kill fungi.’
‘And on their vegetables, and their fruit.’
‘Your problem here though, is that the Western Cape has all three, in abundance.’
‘Wheat, vegetables and fruit.’
‘The Swartland and the Overberg for wheat, Philippi and Joostenberg for vegetables . . .’
‘Apples and pears in the Grabouw area, and of course grapes all over the place.’
‘The concentration of Triazole is pretty high. Industrial strength.’
‘Okay,’ said Vusi.
‘So if you ask us, Ernst Richter was killed on a farm. The Triazole, the baling twine, the very long plastic sheet, it all points to agriculture.’
‘So if we were Hawks, we would look at the Alibi database, and get a list of all their wheat, fruit and vegetable farmer clients . . .’
‘But that’s just us.’
‘The slowcoach scientists.’
‘The tortoises to the Hawks’ hares.’
‘What we’ve also done, Vusi, just because we care, we’ve called three big agricultural companies in the Peninsula.’
‘We didn’t have to . . .’
‘Exactly. But we did. And these guys tell us that more than 80 per cent of the Triazole is sold to wine farmers.’
‘Which is statistically tricky, because more than 80 per cent of the Peninisula’s agriculture, measured in earnings per hectare, is viticulture.’
‘Or viniculture, if you want to be precise.’
‘And we, thorough as we are, do.’
‘A pair of very precise tortoises.’
39
Transcript of interview: Advocate Susan Peires with Mr Francois du Toit
Wednesday, 24 December; 1604 Huguenot Chambers, 40 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town
FdT: Ma is the most pragmatic, systematic, organised person I know. She thinks ahead. Not just a week or a month . . . That story about my mother taking on Oupa Pierre over the dop system only after working out how long it would take – that’s the way she is.
Pa asked her to marry him, two years after they met. She said yes, but only in another four years’ time. She had already planned her life for those years. First she wanted to get her doctorate, then she wanted to travel, for a year at least – Europe, India, America – before she married and started a family.
Pa had to wait. And he did. I think it was very hard for him, that year she was overseas. He flew over once to spend two weeks with her, but for the rest he had to be satisfied with postcards and letters . . .
He was already thirty-one when they married in 1985. She was just a year younger. They bought a house in Onder-Papegaaiberg in Stellenbosch, and Ma went back to work at the university as a senior lecturer.
Ten months later my brother was born. My parents christened him Paul. It’s not a family name, just one they liked; they didn’t want to honour Oupa Jean or Oupa Pierre with a namesake.
But Pa’s relationship with the stars . . . The gods have a sense of irony, I think. Because Paul didn’t inherit Oupa Jean’s name, just his genes – almost all of them.
40
Rick Grobler’s ‘social interaction issues’ were working against him now. He knew he had to be careful, because if he expressed his dislike for the late Ernst Richter too strongly it would complicate his case. But the pathology of his condition included the practically irrepressible urge to vocalise his feelings – whatever was on his mind came out of his mouth, inevitably and at length.
To add to that, if he did not explain how unpopular Richter was, he would remain the only suspect.
So he began slowly and carefully. He told the investigators that Alibi.co.za was really just smoke and mirrors. Not because the products did not work, but that almost everything that had appeared in the media and advertising was untrue.
‘Take the story that each alibi is crafted for the client’s specific needs. That’s . . . nonsense. They . . .’ and he gestured in the general direction of the client services department ‘. . . use the same stuff over and over. The same graphics. There are often complaints from people who say that’s not what they asked for, and then client services say, go read the fine print . . . The clients have to take it, what are they going to do, sue us? Ask client services to show you the emails from all the clients swearing and bitching about the service . . .’
Grobler was gradually building up steam. He said the wonderful data security that Ernst Richter had described to the press was a myth. Any of the programmers could scratch around in the database as they liked. Just about the whole company knew that Ernst Richter regularly went through client details, looking for prominent people. Desiree Coetzee, the operational manager, had tackled him at least twice about it. But Richter said it was his company, he owned the data, he could look at what he wished. So the privacy he boasted of was nonsense. Everyone knew it, but no one had the courage to speak up about it.
‘What did he do with the famous names?’ asked Cupido.
‘Nothing. It was an ego trip, that’s all.’
‘I thought everyone was so happy here?’ said Benny Griessel.
‘That’s a load of kak,’ said Grobler vehemently. And then, regretting the outburst: ‘Sorry. But it’s not true. After the downsizing everyone has been working harder and longer, and there are all these rumours that there are more retrenchments to come, because things aren’t going too well for the company. Except for Ernst. He drives around in a TT and dates all the chicks in the town left, right and centre; every lunchtime he is out for two or three hours and then he comes back to the office half-pissed and high and then he wants to be chummy with IT and graphics . . .’
Finally his urge got the upper hand: ‘I’m not the only one who thinks he’s a drol. Everyone thinks so. And there they sit, too scared to say so. Just ask the other programmers. Behind his back they all said he’s a wannabe hacker, with all those T-shirts of his, but he can barely code HTML. When we built the site, we realised he got stuck on HTML 4. He’s a fucking fraud, I’m telling you. He’s all false front, nothing about his image is the truth. Nothing. Bo blink en onder stink: all that glitters is not gold, my friend. And there are some people they fired who are much angrier than I am . . .’
‘Such as who?’
‘I can’t remember all the names. There were two downsizings . . . But you should have heard them, when they came out of the admin offices . . . they all wanted to bliksem Ernst, because the newspapers were saying the company was booming; in the meantime they were firing people all over the place.’
‘Did anyone threaten him? Say anything about—’
Cupido’s phone rang. Vusi’s name on the screen. He held up a hand in apology and answered it. He listened, said a few quiet words and then said goodbye. He looked at Rick Grobler. ‘Tricks,’ he said, ‘how often do you go to wine farms?’
‘Wine farms?’ Completely taken aback at this new line of i
nterrogation.
‘What part of the question don’t you understand?’
‘Wine farms? What has that . . . ? I never go to a wine farm. I drink beer.’
‘Where’s your car?’
‘Here in the parking area.’
There was a knock on the door. All four looked up. Desiree Coetzee stood there, a frown on her face.
Cupido stood up. ‘We have very interesting chemical evidence, Tricks,’ he said. ‘We are going to take your car and analyse it, six ways till Sunday. And if we find you were near a wine farm, your mother is definitely going to see you on TV.’
A wave of relief seemed to wash over Rick Grobler. He let out a long and slow breath. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Sure.’
Cupido hid his disappointment at this reaction and began to walk towards the door. ‘Go with Captain Liebenberg, give him your ID number, your cellphone details and your car keys. We are going to take the car to Forensics, let it tell us its story.’
‘How will I get home?’
‘He will take you. And you stay there, Tricks. Don’t you move without letting us know.’
‘How long will my car . . .’
‘When we’re done with it.’
Cupido opened the door.
‘The dayshift people want to know if they can go home.’
Cupido looked at his watch and saw it was already past five. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Where can I reach you, if necessary?’
‘I’ll still be here for a while . . .’
Frank Fillander realised early on in his career as a policeman that he had many colleagues who worked faster than he did, and who were more intelligent. He had always had just two great assets: his unlimited patience and his insight into people. Handy characteristics when it came to detective work. It was because of these qualities that he slowly but surely advanced to Captain in the Hawks. Not bad for a fifty-one-year-old coloured man from Pniel, with only Standard Eight to his name.
