Деон Мейер - Cobra

The X-Trail turned right into Andringa. They followed, the driver had to look up from the cellphone, then down again, to type in the number.

‘Watch it!’ said the passenger.

The driver looked up quickly. The X-Trail had stopped suddenly. The doors opened and two men came running back, each with a pistol in hand.

‘ Fok , bro, reverse!’ screamed the passenger. But the driver hadn’t even stopped yet, and when he did, with a short shrill screech of tyres, it was too late. The men were right there, moving impossibly swiftly. And surely. One aimed a weapon at the front wheel. A soft explosion, then the hiss of the tyre going flat, and then they were at the doors of the Golf, jerking them open, grabbing the cellphones from their hands. Then they slammed the doors, ran back to the X-Trail, jumped in.

The X-Trail drove off.

The students sat there.

‘ Jissis ,’ said the passenger.

The driver let out a sound that was just like a tyre defl ating.

Benny Griessel didn’t use his cellphone. He phoned the Sea Point SC from a telephone beside the video console in the control centre.

The first thing that the station commander said to him was: ‘There’s a cartridge here with a snake on it.’

‘How do you know about that?’

‘I was present at Captain Kaleni’s interrogation at the V&A. She phoned someone and talked about “shell casings with the etchings of a snake” . . .’

‘OK, who is the deceased?’

‘She hasn’t been identified yet. Young coloured woman, she seems to have been alone at home. Intruder gained access via a broken window in the sitting room. He forced open the woman’s bedroom door, the lock is broken. And he shot her once, in the forehead.’

Jissis , thought Griessel. What the fuck was going on? ‘OK,’ he said, and tried to keep the vexation out of his voice. ‘It’s definitely linked to two other murder cases. I’m sending Captain Vaughn Cupido, if you can just seal the scene so long.’

‘Already done,’ said the SC.

‘Thank you, Captain,’ said Griessel, with relief. And satisfaction, because the SSA didn’t know about this one yet. ‘What’s the address?’

‘Ella Street number eighteen, up in Schotsche Kloof’

Griessel rang off. And then everything happened at once.

‘Vaughn, I’ll have to send you to the Bo-Kaap,’ said Griessel.

‘It’s that girl.’ Lithpel Davids pointed a finger at the TV console where a video was being played back.

‘ My fok ,’ said Cupido.

‘That is very unprofessional language,’ said Mbali.

Griessel’s cellphone began to ring.

‘What girl?’ asked Mbali.

‘The Facebook girl. Alvarez,’ said Lithpel.

They climbed slowly and carefully over the bodies of the security men to reach the TV screen.

‘What Facebook girl?’ asked Mbali.

‘It’s her,’ said Cupido.

Griessel’s cellphone kept ringing, but his eyes were glued to the screen. Lillian Alvarez stood with her face to the camera. She stared at a hairpin in the hands of the pickpocket. Knippies’s face was turned to her, his hand touching her handbag.

‘What Facebook girl?’ asked Mbali again.

From outside came the voice of Arnold, the short, fat Forensics guy: ‘Hallooo? Anybody home?’

Griessel answered his phone: ‘Hello?’

‘You had better hurry,’ said the woman’s voice, the one who called herself Joni Mitchell. ‘SSA are on the way. They are going to take over the scene.’

‘The Waterfront scene?’

‘Yes.’

Then she rang off.

‘He stole something from Alvarez,’ said Cupido.

‘ Liewe ffff . . .’ said Jimmy, the skinny Forensics detective, when he saw the five lifeless bodies. But he never completed the word because Captain Kaleni shot him a withering look.

27

‘Out,’ said Benny Griessel to Thick and Thin.

‘Don’t you think it’s you who should leave?’ said Jimmy. ‘You are occupying the whole—’

‘Out!’ said Griessel more sharply.

This was very unlike the Griessel they knew. They just stood there.

‘Jimmy, please, go and wait out in the corridor. And hurry up.’

They heard the urgency in Griessel’s voice, and responded.

‘Is somebody going to tell me about this Alvarez girl?’ asked Mbali.

‘Later, Mbali,’ said Griessel. ‘We have very little time. The SSA are on their way . . .’

‘Shit,’ said Cupido.

‘The SSA?’ asked Mbali in disbelief. ‘The State Security Agency?’

‘Please, everybody. We’ll talk later. Right now we need to look at that footage. Quickly, Lithpel, play it back.’

Tyrone walked up and down the Company Gardens path. Once again Nadia had forgotten to turn her phone back on. Not for the first time.

He phoned again.

It rang. For a long time.

His heart sank more. He was going to get voicemail again.

Then she answered. ‘Hello?’ and he could hear in that single word that something was wrong. The cops had already phoned her.

‘Nadia, it’s me. I can explain, doesn’t matter what they told you, it’s not true . . .’ He heard something on the line, a hiss, as if Nadia were in a car.

‘They’ve got me, boetie . . .’ There was fear in her voice, fear as he had never heard it, and his gut contracted.

‘The cops?’

‘Is this Tyrone?’ A man’s voice. But it wasn’t a cop accent.

‘Who’s this?’

‘Tyrone, I have Nadia, and you have something I want. If you give it to me, we will let her go. If you don’t, I will shoot her, right between the eyes. Do you understand this?’

Tyrone began to shake uncontrollably. ‘I don’t have anything . . .’

‘You stole a wallet at the Waterfront this morning.’

He said nothing.

‘Do you have the wallet on you now?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Why are you being funny, Tyrone. Do you want me to hurt your sister?’

‘No.’

‘Do you have the wallet on you now?’

‘Yes.’

‘I want you to look in the wallet. There should be a memory card in there.’

His heart leaped. A memory card? There was no memory card there. ‘There’s just cash and credit cards . . .’ he said.

‘I want you to look very carefully,Tyrone. Take your time.’

‘You will stay on the line?’

‘I will stay on the line.’

He sat down on a garden bench, put his cellphone down beside him, took out the wallet. Trembling, his fingers riffled through the cash. There was nothing slipped between the notes.

The wallet had three flaps for bank cards. He went through each one.

He found it in the back flap, when he pushed his fingers into a sleeve that seemed empty from the outside at first. He pulled it out.

A blue card, light and thin. Verbatim SDXC. 64GB.

He grabbed the phone. ‘I have it.’

‘I want you to look at the card,Tyrone.’

‘I’m looking.’

‘That card is your sister’s life. If you lose it, she dies. If you break it, she dies. If you damage it in any way, and I can’t read the data, I will kill your sister. I will shoot her right between the eyes . . .’

‘Please!’ screamed Tyrone, and squeezed the memory card tightly in his hand. ‘I will give it to you.’

‘That’s good. Where are you now?’

‘I’m in the Gardens.’

‘Where is that?’

‘In Cape Town.’

‘That’s good. Did you call your sister from a mobile?’

‘A cellphone. Yes.’

‘And you will keep this phone with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you will keep it on?’

‘Yes.’

‘That is good,Tyrone. I will call you.’

‘When?’ he asked with fear in his voice.

But the line was already dead.