by Deon Meyer
Wednesday, 24 December; 1604 Huguenot Chambers, 40 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town
Sound file 16
SP: The Lafite bottles, are they unique?
FdT: Yes. The five arrows that lie across each other, with the vintage year cast over it. And the shape, the colour . . .
SP: How did you get the bottles? Is it possible . . . ?
FdT: It’s possible and it’s easy. You take an example of your bottle to one of the local manufacturers, and tell them that is exactly what you want. He had the bottles made here. It’s the—
SP: But they, the bottle people would surely see—
FdT: Lafite’s bottles aren’t known here. I wonder if there are ten people in the country who would really recognise a Lafite bottle for what it is without its seal and label. The chances that the glass company would know are very slim. And if you order ten thousand bottles, fewer questions are asked. The greater problem is the corks, because every Lafite cork has a stamp with the name on it. Richter never said where he had the corks made, but he delivered ten thousand. I think they were manufactured in China. Or maybe in Portugal, because here . . . You would have had to bribe someone at the Stellenbosch cork producers to make them in the factory at night, and I don’t think the . . . I think the risk would have been too great. But money is a funny thing . . . The seals and labels were definitely made in China. He said something, the night we bottled, about how cheap it had been . . .
SP: And you simply put your wine into the bottles?
FdT: It was done on Klein Zegen, by . . . There are a whole bunch of guys who have mobile bottling units nowadays. They come to the farms and bottle right there. Richter had a guy, the man knew my father, they worked together years ago. He must have paid him well, because he brought his unit at night . . . and because more and more of our wine exports are unbottled, wholesale exports, the bottling guys are under pressure, work is getting scarce. Then they don’t ask questions . . .
SP: How . . . Richter must have worked with people in China, then? To get the wine there, and sell it . . . ?
FdT: Absolutely. Not just the distribution and sales, but . . . the money, he said a few times he was just waiting for the money. I think someone financed him. It was a large amount, to make everything work. And my money, the two million that I received – it came from a bank in China.
SP: What would ten thousand bottles have brought him in . . . ?
FdT: I can only guess. At that time Lafite was selling for between five and eight thousand rand a bottle. Let us say he and his financier got a thousand per bottle. That is ten million income, three or four million profit? But I think they got more. I think it was in the region of two thousand per bottle. Then it starts to be profitable, if you cover all your production and transport costs. But . . . I think Richter was just a sort of middle man. I don’t think he was the top dog.
SP: Why?
FdT: When he took his wine away, when I had been paid, I didn’t hear from him again, not for over a year. Then one Sunday I bought the Rapport, and there was a photo of him on the front page. I got quite a fright. But then I read he had started this website for cheaters. Then I thought, you don’t start something like that if you have ten or twenty million in the bank. And I thought he might not have got much more than I did after all, if that was the best he could do.
SP: And then?
FdT: Then I went on with my life. Until Monday 24 November. Now, a month ago. Ernst Richter arrived on my farm. This time in an Audi TT, the Corolla probably sold long ago. I was afraid San would recognise him from all the newspaper stories, and I took him to my office and asked him what are you doing here?
And he said he wanted money. He wanted five hundred thousand rand. I said I don’t have that sort of money lying around. And he said I had better get it. Or he would tell the whole world what I had done.
78
Sunday 21 December. Four days before Christmas.
Sunday. The day of rest. A day for church, for visiting family, long, heavy Sunday lunches, and long, deep afternoon naps.
But not for the Serious and Violent Crimes Group of the Directorate for Priority Crimes. For them it was a difficult day for the investigation, because nobody wanted to be disturbed: not witnesses or suspects or informants or off-duty policemen.
A day of loneliness, because there was something about a Sunday, as Kris Kristofferson used to sing, that made a body feel alone. And you felt it in your body and your bones if your name was Benny Griessel, and you got up alone and ate your Weet-Bix alone – because Alexa wasn’t there to make her usual morning omelette for him. Alexa couldn’t cook, the omelette was always too runny, or overcooked, or too salty, or too bland, but she made it with so much love and commitment that it didn’t matter. Benny thought how he would eat it every time, and how two hours later at work he could still taste the odd flavour in his mouth, and how he would think of her then.
But not on this solitary Sunday.
If you’re Benny Griessel on this sombre, sober Sunday, you drive alone through the quiet streets and you see the newspaper posters on the lamp posts: WIFE SHOOTS FARMER OVER ALIBI and MAYOR DENIES ALIBI CLAIM. But you don’t fret over it. Your mind – without a headache this morning, but fuzzy from the medication and the withdrawal and the fear of the thirst – and your longing is focused on Alexa. All the things that sometimes irritate you beyond measure, don’t matter at all this Sunday. Such as the way she introduces you to the music folk in her circle as her ‘master detective’. The way all her creams and mascaras and lipsticks and mysterious bottles and tubes and pencils spread themselves around the bathroom like an amoeba, occupying an ever larger surface every day and pushing your meagre few toiletries into an ever-shrinking corner of the cupboard under the basin.
And this morning there was more space than usual for your stuff, and you thought, just come back, I don’t mind. There’s too much space here without you.
Sunday. The day of loneliness, if your name is Vaughn Cupido. Get to work early, to fight the loneliness, to keep your mind from straying to thoughts of the lovely Desiree Coetzee. Who might just have a thing for whiteys, but then again might not. And how are you going to wangle seeing her today, because yesterday you couldn’t, and it was like there was a big black hole here inside you, and you can’t understand it, because you last felt like this in fokken high school in Mitchells Plain, over Elizabeth ‘Bekkie’ November, and whatever happened to that chick anyway?
And then Major Mbali Kaleni walks in and gives you a premature Christmas gift: a reason to phone Desiree Coetzee.
‘Captain, we’ll have to investigate the guy who published the Alibi database. That’s the price we will have to pay for reaching out to the Chinese.’ All apologetic-like, nogal.
Then you say: ‘I’m cool with that, Major,’ with more enthusiasm than is appropriate, and your commanding officer looks at you a little funny, but you don’t worry, ’cause why you don’t feel so alone any more. This Sunday is suddenly looking up.
And you phone her number, and she answers, her voice a little bit sleepy and husky, sexy, and you apologise for disturbing her at such an early hour, and you say, really sorry, but I have to come and see you, about the case.
And she says then you must come to the house. I’m here with my child.
The first seventy-two hours of your normal murder investigation is all adrenaline: excitement and action and hurry and focus. Organised chaos, a driven team of detectives blowing in like a hurricane to propel the ship of justice across stormy waters.
But if there are no breakthroughs, if the winds die down after five days, then you’re in the dreaded doldrums. The waters settle, go still. The ship bobs directionless, becalmed. The drudgery, the footwork, the phone work and the endless admin begin. Hopes of an outcome, a solution and an arrest begin to fade. And that is the thing that detectives the world over hate most. The paperwork: sitting do
wn and writing reports and filling out forms and dockets and documents.
Griessel and Liebenberg had to compile a document to send to Durban, Bloemfontein and Johannesburg. The document had to serve as a guideline during interrogation. Because the adjutant at IMC (Captain Philip van Wyk was spending Sunday at home with his family) explained to Benny and Mooiwillem that Ernst Richter made seventeen calls with his ‘secret’ cellphone.
One of them was to the regional bank manager.
IMC had compared the other sixteen unknown numbers with client details in the Alibi database.
Only fifteen yielded positive results.
The sixteenth was not an Alibi client. He was the second last number that Richter called on the secret cellphone. It only lasted ninety-four seconds, considerably shorter than any of the other calls that he made. The number belonged to one Mr Peter McLean of Kuilsriver. He had no criminal record.
In fact, none of the sixteen people that Richter had contacted had records.
Five were in the Cape, nine in Gauteng, one in Bloemfontein and one in Durban.
And so the drudgery began, the administration and frustration, because the detectives first had to compile the document laying out the nature of the interrogation. Then they had to track down their colleagues at the DPCI branches in other cities on the most difficult day of the week. And ask for the kind of help that no Hawk wanted to give just before Christmas, because they all had dockets and routine work and holiday plans of their own. Then Griessel and Liebenberg had to explain over the phone what they wanted, and send the document through.
Only in KwaZulu-Natal was there enthusiasm. ‘Shane Pillay? I know this guy,’ said the Durban Hawk. ‘Very rich, owns four car dealerships. Real arsehole. So he was cheating on the missus? Sure, I’ll go talk to him.’
It was just before lunch when Benny and Willem started calling the Cape numbers.
On the way to Stellenbosch Cupido phoned Lithpel Davids.
‘Cappie, it’s the sacred Sunday.’
‘No rest for the wicked. Tell me, my genius, would you be able to find out who the people are that leaked the Alibi database?’
‘As in track and identify?’
‘Follow his digital footprints, I hear that’s what you techies have to do.’
‘Cappie, I am many things, but that is next-level shit, for a network and internet specialist. I’m a jack of all technological trades. I can try, but it will take a month or so.’
‘We don’t have that sort of time.’
‘Then I’m not your man, I’m happy to say.’
‘Have a lekka Sunday, Lithpel.’
Desiree Coetzee lived in Welgevonden Estate, on the northern side of Stellenbosch, on the R44 to Paarl. Among the whiteys.
Cupido got out in front of the townhouse and looked around. It was a well established property development, the houses closely-packed, the gardens tiny. His old house in Bellville-South at least had a yard where a laaitie could play.
It was the laaitie who opened the door. Tall and skinny, with knobbly knees. Inquisitively shy blue eyes with a café-au-lait skin, dark hair like his mother.
‘I’m Vaughn Cupido,’ he said and put out his hand.
‘The policeman,’ said the child, giving him a long look as they shook hands.
‘You say your name, Donovan,’ Desiree’s voice preceded her hurried footsteps.
‘I’m Donovan.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Cupido and then there was Desiree, her hair still wet, the lipstick fresh.
She’d taken trouble, he thought, despite the short notice. White blouse, denim, barefoot. Breathtaking.
They said hello. He apologised. She said it was okay, it’s a quiet Sunday. He said it was a tough week, you deserve a quiet Sunday.
Donovan stood staring at him, then asked: ‘Uncle, have you got a gun?’
Cupido wanted to say, yes, I’ll show it to you; he wanted to impress the kid. But chicks were funny. Just now she might not like the idea of him showing her boy a gun. He just said: ‘I have.’
‘Will you show it to me, uncle?’
‘Donovan, have you made your bed?’
‘No, Mommy.’
‘Now then. The uncle isn’t here to chat, he’s working.’
Donovan was reluctant to leave. He peered at Cupido in the hope of getting a glimpse of the gun. Then he went up the stairs.
‘You have a nice place.’
‘Thanks. It’s a rental, but we love it. If I can just get another job around here . . . Donovan is in a good school. Coffee? I only have instant, sorry.’
‘That will be nice, thanks.’
‘Did you find anything?’ she asked over her shoulder as she filled the kettle with water.
‘Maybe. Richter . . .’ He had to change gears, adjust his tone of voice, for to him the murder victim was also a criminal now, but to her he was still a deceased employer. ‘It seems to us that he made a lot of money in China, and . . .’
‘In China?’ Frowning, astonished, so that the water ran out of the kettle spout.
‘He never said anything? About his travels?’
‘He talked a lot about his travels. How crazy he was about the Far East. How hard-working the people were. But not a word about money.’ She turned off the tap.
‘Anyway that’s not why I’m here. It’s about Rick Grobler.’
Again she stopped what she was doing and looked at him. ‘You’re kidding.’
‘No, he’s not a prime suspect any more. His car and phone tested clean. It’s about the database. Do you know if he’s made any progress yet? In his quest to find the leak.’
‘Why?’ she asked sternly.
‘’Cause now it’s pertinent to the case.’
‘How is it pertinent to the case?’
‘It’s complicated . . .’
‘Why don’t you ask him yourself?’
‘After Thursday . . . He’s not going to fall into my arms, if you know what I’m saying.’
‘You were like the Gestapo on Thursday. That white detective who had the cheek to tell me I wasn’t shocked enough over Ernst’s death . . .’
‘He had a bad week . . .’
‘So you keep telling me.’
‘Will you be able to help? With Grobler?’ He wanted to say, it looks as if you have a special bond, but she would know it was jealousy, and that would let the cat out of the bag.
She was busy measuring instant coffee into two mugs with a teaspoon. ‘It’s going to take some grovelling on your part. And you don’t look like the sort of klong who is that good at grovelling.’
79
Transcript of interview: Advocate Susan Peires with Mr Francois du Toit
Wednesday, 24 December; 1604 Huguenot Chambers, 40 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town
FdT: Then I told him there was nothing I could do. I didn’t have the money. All that I made on the deal was put into the farm and San’s restaurant and into the next crop. I might be able to help him next year sometime, when my cash flow improved, with a hundred thousand or so. Then he said he needed the money now. I must go and borrow it. He basically lost his cool; I could see this guy was desperate now. So I asked him where all his money had gone? And he said things didn’t work out so well with the business. Please, I had to help him.
Then I said no, I wasn’t going to borrow the money to lend to him. And if he couldn’t wait then he would just have to tell the world. But then everyone would know what he’d been up to too.
I just hoped he couldn’t see how I was shaking inside. Because if it all came out now . . . This is a big year; I’ve just released my first wine. I went to New York and London to launch it. I’m still waiting to hear if I can get distribution, we worked very hard . . . If all this came out now . . . I’ll never recover . . .
SP: And then?
> FdT: Then he swore at me and said I would regret it. And he left. The next thing, I read in the newspapers that he’s disappeared. I believed then he had run away, you know, from his creditors. And I thought that was also a way out, and I felt a bit bad that I hadn’t been able to help him. And then, last week, they found his body, and it’s a helluva thing, with all his clients’ names on the internet, and the whole world wanting to know who murdered him . . .
SP: Mr du Toit, you never saw him again after he left the farm alive? On . . . Monday 24 November, is that correct?
FdT: That’s right.
SP: That’s . . . When did he disappear?
FdT: That Thursday the news broke, but he went missing on Wednesday already.
SP: And you had no, absolutely no, further contact with him?
FdT: That’s right.
SP: Then why are you here?
FdT: My mother . . . The day he was there, when he came to ask me for money. I think my mother overheard us.
80
Griessel phoned the first number on the list, the only one who wasn’t an Alibi client.
A man answered quickly. ‘Hello?’
‘Is that Mr Peter McLean?’
‘Yes? Who’s speaking?’ A Cape Flats accent.
‘My name is Benny Griessel, I am calling from the Police Directorate for Priority Crimes . . .’
‘Is it about Sammy? I told you last time, Sammy doesn’t work here any more. Let him sleep it off, I’m not coming to fetch him.’
‘No, Mr McLean, we are investigating the murder of Ernst Richter . . .’
‘Who?’
‘Ernst Richter. We have on record that he phoned you, on Friday the twenty-third of May this year . . .’
‘Twenty-third of May?’ Annoyance in his voice now.
‘That’s right, we . . .’
‘You want me to remember who phoned me . . . what is it . . . six, seven months ago?’
‘We want to ask you if you would come and talk to us about the call, please. Our offices are in Bell . . .’
