Деон Мейер - Cobra

‘Maybe,’ said Griessel, because aspects of the argument did make sense. ‘But for that reason they could have murdered him here, and then the media would have said: Look how dangerous South Africa is . . .’

Nyathi’s phone rang. The colonel answered, listened, said a few times: ‘Yes, sir’, and then: ‘I’ll wait for him.’

After putting the phone down, he looked at Benny. ‘That was our Hawks commissioner, in Pretoria,’ he said. ‘He asked me to receive a representative of our very own State Security Agency. To share the details of the case.’

‘But how did they know . . . ?’ asked Griessel.

‘They monitor the Consulate, of course,’ said Nyathi. ‘Probably their telephones too.’

‘All cloak and dagger, nè . Dis ‘n lekker een dié , what fun,’ said Bones. ‘Colonel, thanks for including me. Much more exciting than investigating pyramid schemes. Let me go do a little digging on Adair . . .’

When Cloete came in, Griessel went straight to his office to send Emma Graber the incorrect email address for Paul Anthony Morris/ David Patrick Adair. The one that Cupido had confirmed was Paul_Morris15@gmail.com. He thought for quite a while before deciding on a false address. Nyathi had asked for a typing error, something that could be explained as a simple error, should Graber realise the address was false. One possibility was to swap letters around, but that was too easy. The one he eventually sent to the British embassy was Paul_Morris151@gmail.com – making him feel ever so slightly like a spy.

Then he walked back to IMC.

Captain Philip van Wyk said they had searched the national databases and there were no references to bullet cartridges with snake engravings or the letters NM on them. And all the other processes were still running.

At twenty-two minutes past ten, Griessel sat down in his office, bolt upright, so that the fatigue and despondency would not overcome him too quickly.

In truth, they had nothing.

If you thought about it.

Now that they knew who Morris truly was, the cellphone and computer records wouldn’t really help.

And if Bones was right, that meant Adair was already dead, and the murderers would likely feed his remains to the sharks, or bury them.

Once again foreign mischief brought over here. Just what this country needed.

Seven detectives, Forensics, IMC, and Nyathi’s whole day dedicated to something that would come to nought, he knew it already.

Maybe the Spooks of the SSA should take over the whole thing.

He should rather just go to sleep.

But he didn’t want to. That fokken snake on the cartridge, that was the thing that had snagged his attention, that would not let go.

What sort of fool made a stamp of a spitting cobra, and then marked his ammunition, every round? Which would take a hell of a lot of time. For what?

Leaving them on the crime scene like a visiting card . . .

With the letters. NM. Initials? Nols Malan or Natie Meiring or Norman Matthews, like the pretentious number plates of the rich that said ‘look how fokken common but cute I am’.

Then he made the international connection, and he got up and he walked back to IMC, his brain back in gear again.

‘We will have to do an Interpol enquiry,’ said Griessel to van Wyk. ‘About the cobra and the letters.’

‘Good idea.’ Van Wyk halted. ‘You know they also have a database of stolen and lost travel documents. Shall I look up Paul Anthony Morris on that?’

Griessel knew it wouldn’t help, but he kept up appearances. ‘Please.’

He turned and walked back to his office. While he waited for Nyathi and the SSA agent to finish talking, he wanted to bring his admin up to date. The file would have to be created. He must write an email to his team, remind them to forward him their interview reports and witness statements for Section A. Then he must write out his own interviews and notes, and in Section C, he must fill in the investigation journal on the SAPS5 form, a detailed, chronological history of the case.

It made him wonder: should he leave out the discussion with the Consulate entirely? Or just not mention the full content?

Nyathi called him within fifteen minutes.

‘They want to be kept in the loop,’ said the colonel. ‘So now I have to liaise with an SSA agent as often as I deem necessary.’

‘Sir, if we ask the SSA to look in their database for a hit man who engraves his shell casings . . .’

‘I did not tell him about the engravings, Benny. I had to tell them about Adair, because I don’t know what they might have eavesdropped on. But I told them no more than we told Graber.’

‘OK.’

‘Anything new?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Go and get some sleep, Benny. Tell Philip’s people to alert you only if they find something big.’

15

He drove home.

Alexa would still be awake.

She was a true creature of the night, staying up till all hours. In the evenings she answered emails and talked on the phone when he wasn’t there. She went over the figures from the record company while she listened to demo CDs of hopeful artists (‘One never knows . . .’), and she talked with him about his day when he eventually arrived home.

And she cooked for them. He suspected it was her method of suppressing the urge to drink, an attempt at a degree of normality, to create a homely atmosphere after the chaos of her first marriage, and the bohemian nature of her world. He also suspected that she thought that he expected it of her, even though he had denied it.

But Alexa was no chef. She had no natural aptitude for cooking, and she was easily distracted if a text or a call came in, so that she couldn’t remember which of the ingredients she had already added to the pot. And her sense of taste was decidedly suspect. She would carefully taste the pasta sauce, declare it perfect, but when she dished it up and began to eat, she would frown and say: ‘Something is not right. Can you taste it too?’

He would lie.

But these were insignificant untruths. White lies.

The big lie, the unmentionable, unshareable and increasingly unbearable lie, the fraud that assailed him now on the dark, silent N1 on the way to Alexa, was the one about sex.

He swore out loud in the car.

Life just never gave him a break.

If you drank as he used to drink, seven days a week, sex was not a big priority. When lust sometimes overcame him, his alcohol-soaked equipment wouldn’t cooperate anyway.

But then you dried out, and that had consequences. The biggest problem of being on the wagon was the desire for the healing powers of the bottle. Close on those heels was the return of the libido, at a time when you have way too much mileage on your middle-aged clock, and desirable women were not necessarily queuing up to accommodate you.

Which was what was so damn ironic. Six months ago he was head over heels in love with Alexa, and a big chunk of that was his desire to make love to her, good and proper. Look, he was a sucker for a beautiful mouth, and she certainly had one, broad and generous and soft. And like most guys, surely, he appreciated a royal pair of jugs – as Cupido, faced with an impressive bust measurement, would longingly, admiringly describe them.

And there was Alexa’s voice, and her attitude, and that look in her eyes, as if she knew what you were thinking, and she wanted you to keep on thinking just that. He had always had a thing for her, from way back, when she first hit the limelight and he was just one more nameless fan staring at the sexy singer on the TV screen, harbouring his unseemly secret thoughts.

He was crazy for her.

But then, after the chaos of the Sloet case, six months ago, it happened for the first time, and it was everything that Benny Griessel had dreamed of. Lord, that woman could kiss, and her body was just the right combination of soft and firm, even though she was closer to fifty than he was. She was so instantly responsive, her hands all over his body. Her eagerness, her spontaneity, she didn’t mind showing her pleasure, shouting, in her jubilant velvet voice: ‘Oh yes, Benny, yes. Good, Benny, so good, more, more, more,’ along with a few other things that you wouldn’t ever mention to anyone, but that were thrilling all the same.