Деон Мейер - Cobra

He felt his back was soaking wet. The gunshot wound was bleeding.

He ran right in front of a car on Dock Road, tyres screeching. hooter blaring, it only just missed him. He ran over the central island, down to the Granger Bay car park, running right through, between parked cars, then took the stairs to the Coast Road level.

Outside. Turn right, his chest was on fire. He looked back. Saw no one.

Ran across the street, through the gate at Somerset Hospital, then through the big wooden doors.

Someone at the reception desk shouted after him.

He ran past, down the long cold corridors, past frowning nurses, and out of the back.

Hospital grounds.

He kept directly south, ran around buildings, past cars. Looked back again.

Nobody.

He saw the ruins, a building half demolished. Abandoned. He aimed for it, into it.

He found a dark room with no windows. He staggered against the wall, his breathing like a bullet train, sweat pouring off him. Loose bricks, broken planks in the worn floor. The stink of cat piss.

He picked up a length of wood, like a truncheon.

He turned to face the door-less opening, raising the wood high, and stood there waiting, gasping.

On Facebook Lithpel Davids found eighty-seven people with the surname of Alvarez, of whom only one had the first name Lillian.

‘At least we know it’s most likely a woman,’ he said drily.

Cupido was still sitting back, not participating, while Benny Griessel and Lithpel went down the list. To number twenty-two. Beside the small photo and an icon of a house it said Cambridge .

‘That one,’ said Griessel.

David clicked.

A Facebook page opened up. A big photograph on top showed a kitten sleeping on the keyboard of a laptop. A smaller photo beside her name showed a young woman in her twenties, with long black hair and a sultry dark beauty.

‘Looks like a Spanish dolly,’ said Lithpel.

Griessel did not hear him, his eyes scanned further down: below ‘Work and Education’ it stated Research Fellow at Applied and Computational Analysis (ACA) at DAMTP. He said, ‘That’s her.’

For the first time Cupido sat up straight. He looked at the screen. ‘I don’t like this.’

Griessel waited for him to explain. It took a while.

‘Is this Adair married?’ Cupido asked at last.

‘The Consulate said he’s divorced.’ And then he remembered Emma Graber’s little games, and how positively she had passed on that information. As though she didn’t want them making further enquiries.

‘I’m calling Bones,’ said Griessel.

Tyrone Kleinbooi stood with the piece of wood in the air for a long time.

But nobody came.

His hands and knees began to shake uncontrollably.

He lowered the plank slowly. He felt his face. The blood had begun to clot. He put the wood down without making a sound, and stretched an arm around his back. His jersey was torn across his back. Wet. Sore, but not unbearably so.

He sat down, his ears still pricked. His heart hammered and his body trembled slightly.

Shock. He was in shock. So this is what it feels like. He let his head drop, tried to slow his breathing down. He would survive, for now. I survived, Uncle Solly. Escaped. And then he thought of his rucksack, and the blows began to hit home. His cellphone. All the cash from this morning’s work. The video. The radios that had crackled . . .

They were going to find the cellphone, the police. They would see there was only one name and number in the address book. Nadia’s. If the police phoned with it, she would say: ‘Hello, Tyrone.’

Then they would have him.

He had to go back. He had to get the rucksack before they came.

It was too late. His face was bloody, and his back, and his clothes.

He was large as life on that TV screen, the image frozen. His photo on that noticeboard.

When the police walked in, they would see it. They would play the whole video back, of how he stole the wallet.

There were other security guards at the V&A who would have heard over the radios that they had caught the pickpocket. That they had taken him to Security.

Everyone would think that he had done the shooting. They would put his face on national TV, and in the papers. Crazy pickpocket killer on the loose. Police all over the country would be hunting him.

Nadia would see all of that.

Jirre .

He would have to phone her. He would have to tell her some story. A story she would believe.

He had to steal a phone. Quickly. He would have to lie low. Quickly.

But first he had to get to his room, and wash, and put on clean clothes, and get his cash stash.

He better get going.

Bones let them carry on while he searched for information. He found it. ‘No, Adair is not married. That’s what Wikipedia says, nè . A bachelor.’

Griessel relayed the information.

‘OK, so maybe she isn’t his skelmpie ,’ said Cupido. ‘But still. Check out that chick, pappie. She’s fokken prime, she works with the donner , and she arrives here in the Cape saying: “Come into my arms, you bundle of charms.” Doesn’t that make you wonder?’

‘About what?’

‘About the whole thing, Benna.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense in this thing. I mean, nothing quite fits. So I think it’s time that we consider a few alternative theories. Let’s say he’s the one who did the shooting. I mean, Benna, we really don’t know what went down there on the slave plantation.’

Griessel wondered if Cupido was being deliberately obtuse because he was still unhappy that they hadn’t taken him into their confidence. ‘Why would he shoot them?’ he asked. ‘The people looking after him?’

‘It’s not as wild as you think, Benna. This guy has his hands on the whole financial system. Now that’s a very big temptation, doesn’t matter who you are. And he’s an expert, he knows how the whole system works. How difficult can it be to skim off the top. Just tell the system, just pay me two cents off every transaction, and I’m telling you, within months you’re a millionaire. Huh, Lithpel, that’s possible?’

‘Pothible, but they will catch you, thooner rather than later.’

‘And that’s my whole point,’ said Cupido.

Griessel tried to object, but Cupido held his hand up in the air. ‘Just hear me out, Benna. With an open mind. Let’s say it’s something like this. Let’s say the professor had a big scheme, and he planned it a long time ago. And he knew, sooner or later, someone would realise it. You have to leave tracks, I mean, everyone knows you’re the guy who wrote this software. They know you’ve got your fingers in the pie, you’ll be suspect, eventually. So you build an exit strategy . . .’

‘Hell,Vaughn, I think that’s . . .’

‘No, Benna. Here we have an academic who suddenly has a false passport? How? I don’t buy it. Here’s this innocent professor who has a whole other Morris identity, and he makes his Gmail cleaner than a virgin’s conscience? I mean, come on. Here’s a man who for months protests about terrorists and organised crime, and then he goes suspiciously quiet? Here’s a middle-aged bok with a pretty young thing, but what can he offer her? A university salary? I don’t think so. And I ask you, where’s the soft spot in the whole bodyguards and safe house set-up? Inside, pappie. You’d never see it coming . . .’

‘But what about the cobra on the . . .’

Griessel’s cellphone rang. He took it out of his jacket pocket.

UNKNOWN.

He answered. ‘Griessel.’

‘I have information for you about David Patrick Adair. I will call you back in two minutes. Make sure you are alone.’