‘The one on the left is definitely the man who had been watching my house,’ Cameron said. ‘I nicknamed him “Sari” because he replied “sorry” to everything I said and had a foreign – possibly French – accent. The other one rings a bell but I can’t immediately place him.’
‘I managed to take a detour past the table they were sat at on my way to the loo,’ Brian said. ‘He had quite a strong Australian or South African accent.’
‘There is a very significant difference,’ Cameron said. ‘I don’t have anything in particular against Australians – which doesn’t stop me from supporting anyone playing any sport against them – but it irritates me when anyone mistakes my accent for an Australian one.’
‘His accent wasn’t like yours,’ Brian said, sounding as if he was trying to be placatory, ‘it was much more … I don’t know … much thicker, throaty, more guttural, that’s why I thought it might be Australian.’
‘Australian accents tend to sound more nasal,’ Cameron said absent-mindedly, looking at the photograph and trying to remember when he had recently heard mention of an Australian accent. It suddenly came back to him, and a fraction of a second later he recognized what was under the beard.’
‘Christ!’ he said. ‘That’s Poggenpoel.’
‘What?’ Brian asked, startled.
‘That’s his name,’ Cameron said. ‘It’s Poggenpoel. That’s the connection.’
‘What connection?’ Brian asked. ‘You aren’t making a lot of sense.’
‘I may not be,’ Cameron said. ‘But all this is. Poggenpoel is the missing link. I belatedly woke up to the fact that it was van Zyl who was somehow behind what was happening. But it was a complete mystery what possible link he could have had to a Rwandan woman who was being hunted down because she was scheduled to testify at a war crimes tribunal.’
‘OK, Sherlock Holmes,’ Brian said, ‘but it is still a complete mystery to me – just think of me as a rather dim-witted Watson and explain. For a start, who is Poggenpoel? That sounds suspiciously like another of your nicknames, like ‘Sari’. Nobody could really be called Poggenpoel.’
‘They are,’ Cameron said. ‘It’s an Afrikaans family name. I would prefer not to go by it myself as it means frogs pool, but I didn’t make it up. One of the policemen said that either the person who phoned in to report seeing my gun being buried, or the one who reported that he had stumbled across Mutoni’s body, I can’t remember which, had an Australian accent. I’ll bet it wasn’t Australian at all – it will have been South African. It will have been Poggenpoel who made that call.’
‘All of which, undeniably fascinating as it is, still doesn’t tell me who he is,’ Brian said.
‘He was Venter’s right hand man,’ Cameron said. ‘A kind of Chief Operating Officer to the extent that he did the actual work of overseeing the search when they raided our house, while Venter buggered around planting bugs and getting bitten by our dog. That was the most intelligent thing that dog ever did. A tall man with a badly pockmarked face, which is probably why he wears a beard these days.’
‘So, let me try to get this straight,’ Brian said. ‘You think Sari was involved in tailing Mutoni with a view to murdering her, even if he didn’t do the actual killing himself, and that Frogs Pool is the link between him and van Zyl. I’m going to call him Frogs Pool – there’s no way I’m going to get my throat round the way you pronounce that name. I wish we knew the other man’s real name, calling him Sari feels embarrassingly childish. So you think that seeing Sari talking to Frogs Pool provides the link between van Zyl and the murder.’
‘Exactly,’ Cameron agreed.
Brian sat and thought for a while before going on.
‘That’s all very well, and may well be true, but it doesn’t prove that you didn’t commit the murder. More to the point, it doesn’t explain how your gun came to be used as the murder weapon – which is the mainstay of the evidence against you. It was obviously crucial for the van Zyl side of the equation that your gun should be the murder weapon and that it should be found by the police on your allotment, but that doesn’t explain how they got hold of it. You’ve identified one crucial link, but there is another equally important link still missing – how do the South Yorkshire Police come into it? How did the gun get from the policeman who stole it to Sari or Frogs Pool, one of whom, we must presumably now assume, pulled the trigger?’
‘Yes,’ Cameron said. ‘I suppose it must have been one or the other.’
‘You seem unsure,’ Brian said.
‘No, not unsure,’ Cameron said. ‘I’m still trying to get my head around that. I had assumed that, because it is Hutu leaders who are on trial, any hitman sent to murder Mutoni would be a Hutu. But the more I think about it the more sense it makes for them to have hired a hitman who wouldn’t stand out quite so obviously when tailing a target in Sheffield. The only reason I spotted Sari watching my house and tailing me was because I had so much experience of being tailed by the Special Branch in South Africa. I got the impression that Mutoni also assumed that it was Hutus she needed to worry about. If that was the case, it would have made it a lot easier for Sari or Poggenpoel to abduct her.’
‘Which brings us back to the missing link,’ Brian said, ‘the link between the policeman who stole the gun and whoever pulled the trigger.’
‘Excuse me,’ a nervous voice came from the corner, ‘but I can’t let you keep on accusing a member of this police force of stealing something.’
Brian shot a look across the table that Cameron interpreted as conveying a ‘leave this to me, you are in enough trouble already’ message, and turned magisterially round to look at the young constable.
‘What is your name?’ Brian asked, after a couple of seconds pause for effect.
‘Andersen, Sir,’ the constable said, taking a further step out of his corner, ‘spelt with an “e”.’
‘I assure you I have no intention whatever of spelling it, Constable Andersen,’ Brian said. ‘Would you mind telling me how you propose to stop us saying whatever we like. I’m not aware of any regulations about what may, or may not, be said in interview rooms in police stations. Is there a list of such regulations you could show me?’
‘No, not exactly,’ Andersen conceded. ‘But I can’t allow you to question the integrity of this police force. I can call a halt to the interview and escort Mr Beaumont back to his cell.’
‘Does this police force have any integrity after Hillsborough?’ Cameron couldn’t resist asking.
Brian shot Cameron another warning look.
‘Hillsborough was nothing to do with me,’ Andersen said. ‘I was only six years old at the time. We are trying to move on from Hillsborough.’
‘I’m sure you are,’ Cameron said. ‘But someone stole my gun and used it to commit a murder, and the only time anyone could have stolen it was when members of this police force raided my house.’
‘I’m sure justice will be done,’ Andersen said, managing to sound enigmatic and pious at the same time, as he retreated the two steps backwards into his corner.
Although Andersen reverted to pretending that he wasn’t there, it was much more difficult after his intervention to avoid being acutely aware that every word they said was being listened to. Conversation became awkward, and Cameron began to feel that it was time to let Brian go, pleased as he was to be back in contact with him, and little as he looked forward to having to return to the solitude of his cell.
‘Do you remember the uniformed New York river-man who came to my allotment?’ Cameron asked, confident that it wouldn’t take Brian long to pick up the Hudson reference.
Brian looked momentarily puzzled but then nodded.
‘I think you should get in touch with him,’ Cameron said. ‘I misjudged him. He is sympathetic and might be able to help where Poggenpoel is concerned. He might have seen him around. Can you leave that print of your photo
with me? I assume you can print another one.’
‘Sure. I’ll go now,’ Brian said, looking at his watch. He pushed the photo across the table to Cameron, and stood up. ‘I’ll contact him and visit again when I can. In the meantime look after yourself.’
‘There isn’t a lot of alternative in here,’ Cameron said. ‘But I haven’t heard of anyone slipping on bars of soap or falling down the stairs in this police station, which people made such a bad habit of in apartheid police stations, so I should be OK. Thanks for coming to see me – it’s been very good to see you. Ciao.’
Andersen had materialised from his corner again, ready to escort Cameron back to his cell. As he reached the door, Cameron looked back to see Brian’s very large form standing beside the table giving him a thumbs-up sign. He felt much more reassured than the austerely painted walls of the corridor and the clanging gate gave him any right to feel.
Chapter 18
The next time Cameron saw Hudson was the following afternoon, when he arrived armed with a mug of tea again. Cameron showed him the photograph and asked him if he remembered having seen either of the two men.
‘It’s not a great photograph – the light obviously wasn’t good enough,’ Hudson said. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen the shorter man, but the other one seems familiar – I think I have seen him somewhere, but I can’t remember where.’
‘It must have been fairly recently,’ Cameron said. ‘He’s a South African with a strong Afrikaans accent. I’m pretty sure he was involved in some way in Mutoni’s murder.’
‘Where do you know him from?’ Hudson asked.
‘He was Special Branch,’ Cameron said. ‘He was one of the bastards who turned our house upside down and scared our children witless. He was also one of the ones who used to sit in a white Corolla watching my house. He is very tall, so I used to hope he was finding it extremely uncomfortable. I had seen him on other occasions – keeping an eye on Black Sash stands and similar. I think he was probably Venter’s most trusted lieutenant – a nasty piece of work. His face was very pock-marked, which is probably why he wears a beard these days.’
‘That’s it – I have seen him,’ Hudson said. ‘It was when you said he was very tall that I remembered. He was wheeling an old man in a wheelchair outside the court when you were remanded. He pushed the wheelchair to the door of the court, but didn’t go in – he just stood outside holding the door open. I got the impression that the man in the wheelchair wanted to hear what was going on. That seemed a bit odd – the courtroom is accessible, so he could have pushed the wheelchair in if he was that interested.’
‘But the hearing only lasted about three minutes,’ Cameron said. ‘How could he have known which three minutes? Were they waiting outside beforehand?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Hudson said. ‘I only got there just in time for the hearing myself. They left immediately afterwards. I remember thinking that it seemed like a lot of effort to go to for three minutes.’
When Cameron didn’t respond, Hudson, who had lowered himself onto the bench beside him, turned to look closely at him.
‘Are you OK?’ Hudson asked. ‘You are looking very pale all of a sudden.’
‘Did you get a look at the man in the wheelchair?’ Cameron asked, ignoring the question and trying less successfully to ignore the sudden shivery, standing-outside-the headmaster’s-office feeling that had come over him.
‘Not a proper look,’ Hudson said. ‘He was wearing a rather smart felt hat tilted over his forehead so it was difficult to see his face. He had a tartan rug over his knees. He just gave the impression of being very old. Why? Do you think you know who it was?’
“I don’t know, but I have a nasty suspicion that it could have been van Zyl,’ Cameron answered. ‘The main difficulty with that, though, is that van Zyl isn’t particularly old. He couldn’t have been more than five years older than I was – ten at most – when I encountered him. I’m sure he is behind all this, but he’s too young to have to be pushed around in a wheelchair. If it was van Zyl, that would explain why he didn’t want to go into the courtroom – he wouldn’t have wanted me to see him.’
‘So what would he be doing here?’ Hudson asked.
‘Overseeing the success of his end game, I would guess,’ Cameron said. ‘The sick bastard is probably planning to be in court when they sentence me to spend the rest of my life in prison for a murder that he engineered.’
‘He must really hate you,’ Hudson said. ‘If you are right, and it is van Zyl, it must be costing him an arm and a leg. Air fare from South Africa, a hotel or B&B for weeks and weeks – who knows how long it will be before the trial is over?’
‘Not to mention hiring the hitman and paying someone to push him around in his wheelchair,’ Cameron said. ‘But I don’t think money was ever an issue for him. You should have seen what he had in his office – not your standard government-issue furniture, that’s for sure. He had Persian rugs on the floor and some valuable paintings on the wall. I imagine his career might have come off the rails after what happened. His bosses will have concluded that van Zyl was ultimately responsible for Venter’s death – one way or another, I should have been got out of the way before I could do any damage. They wouldn’t have minded how I was got out of the way.’
‘But he won’t be in a wheelchair now because he was knee-capped by them as punishment for his mistake,’ Hudson observed.
‘No – even though two Irish brigades fought on the Boer side in the Anglo-Boer war and could well have passed a few tricks on to the Boers,’ Cameron said. ‘If it was van Zyl in that wheelchair, something else must have happened to him. There are plenty of possibilities – apart from anything else, South Africa has one of the highest road-accident death tolls in the world. Could you put feelers out to try to establish who it is and where he is staying? If van Zyl has taken the trouble to come all this way to be here for the denouement, I’m sure he will still be around somewhere.’
‘Denouement?’ Hudson asked.
‘Sorry – the end of the story, the final act, the end-game in Go,’ Cameron said.
‘If academics said what they mean first time round, people would take them more seriously,’ Hudson said. ‘I need to go now. I’ll keep an eye out for the man in the wheelchair – at least he can’t do anything to you while you are in here.’
As Hudson closed the cell door behind him and turned the key, Cameron reflected that it was good that Hudson could feel relaxed enough with him to be semi-critical. But it was impossible to feel positive about being locked in his little box of a cell while van Zyl was free to carry on scheming and manipulating somewhere just out there in the city.
As the days had passed and his trial had drawn nearer, Cameron had begun to feel increasingly panicky and claustrophobic whenever it was mentioned. Any suggestion of panic had to be firmly suppressed in case it was interpreted as evidence of guilt, but the more he tried to suppress it the greater the build-up of anxiety. Exercise had always provided the best distraction from anxiousness – a few minutes of jogging or riding a bike, even a brisk walk up one of Sheffield’s hills, was enough to distract one from almost anything – but that was no longer an option. Running on the spot and press-ups didn’t have the same effect.
So, when Harriet came in the following morning to tell him that a firm date for the trial had been set a couple of weeks away, it took all of Cameron’s limited reserves of will-power to stop himself from running at the cell door and trying to smash it open with his head, like Chaucer’s blacksmith who, so the story went, used to do that to three-inch oak doors. Harriet couldn’t stay for long but, recognizing that Cameron wasn’t in a good place, promised that she would contact Brian and suggest that he brought Cameron some more books.
‘I haven’t managed to read the books he brought me first time round,’ Cameron said, gesturing towards a neat pile on the floor in the corner. ‘There’s no point in bringing b
ooks for me to read. The only books that would be any use to me would be ones with hollowed-out middles containing sleeping tablets or cyanide pills.’
‘Don’t talk like that,’ Harriet said. ‘Lynn will be flying over in the next day or two and I’m sure her testimony will make a difference. In the meantime I’ll get hold of Brian.’
‘I really don’t need charity visits, Harriet,’ Cameron said. ‘I don’t want Brian coming in here on a mission to cheer me up. His song and dance routine wouldn’t be up to the task, even if he had one.’
‘I’ll talk to him anyway,’ Harriet said, as she left. ‘I need to catch up with him.’
Brian duly arrived that afternoon, and Cameron was escorted to the interview room for his visit. As he sat down at the table opposite Brian, Cameron noticed the plastic bag of books on the table.
‘It must have been a Lidl bag,’ Cameron said, forgoing any preliminaries.
‘Good afternoon, to you too,’ Brian said. ‘What must have been a Lidl bag?’
‘The plastic bag they buried my Sig Sauer in on my allotment,’ Cameron answered. ‘I only caught a brief glimpse of it, and it had been raining so it was covered in mud, but bits of what looked like the yellow and blue logo on that bag were just visible. I didn’t recognize it then as I’ve never been to a Lidl.’
‘You should try it sometime,’ Brian said. ‘That means the bag didn’t come from your house when your gun was stolen – a bit of information to file away for future reference. It isn’t going to help us much, as we already know that there were no useful fingerprints, and no traces of DNA, on the bag. But I’ve been busy since I last saw you.’
When he first sat down, Cameron, preoccupied with the plastic bag, hadn’t noticed that Brian seemed even more bouncily energized than usual – like an overgrown schoolboy bursting to tell someone his news.
‘Don’t keep me in suspense, then,’ Cameron said. ‘Give me the gory details.’
‘Not gory enough yet,’ Brian said, ‘but I’ve been going every evening to the pub where I took that photograph in the hope of catching your Frogs Pool man on his own. Two nights ago I had a conversation with the man you call Sari instead. His name is actually Jacques Couve de Murville, but he said I could just call him Jack – although he has a strong French accent and couldn’t manage the hard J.’
Game of Stones Page 24
