Деон Мейер - Cobra

‘ Jirre ,’ said Tyrone Kleinbooi. ‘What name is there on your computer, dollie?’

‘“Nadia Kleinbooi”. And I’m not your “dollie”.’

‘Do I look like a Nadia?’

‘How should I know? There are some funny names on this computer.’

‘Nadia is my sister, dolly. We don’t have a ma, and we don’t have a pa. This is money that I earned with my own two hands, versta’ jy ? And what is left in my wallet, I have to go and give to her to pay her rent on her flat. So don’t you sit there and judge me. Have a heart, we pay as we can, she worked flippen hard, those results belong to her, not you lot – so why can’t she see them?’

‘I don’t make the rules.’

‘But you can bend them, net ’n bietjie . For a brother.’

‘And lose my job? Not today.’

He sighed, and pointed at the screen in front of her. ‘Can you see them there?’

‘The results?’

‘ Ja .’

‘I can.’

‘Did she pass?’

Her face revealed nothing.

‘ Ag , please, sister,’ he said.

She glanced around first. Then said softly and quickly: ‘She passed well.’ She took the money and began counting.

‘ Dankie , sister,’ he said, and turned to go.

‘ Jy kannie net loep nie , you must wait for your receipt.’

‘ Sien jy , I knew you could gooi Flats.’

4

They felt the pressure, the urgency of time slipping away.

‘Cyril was a friend to me,’ said Marcus Frank, the German owner. ‘A valued employee.’

Benny Griessel knew there was a risk that Cupido would say something like, ‘So why did you make him wear a slave uniform?’ and so he interjected quickly: ‘You have our condolences, Mr Frank. Now, one of the—’

‘Our reputation is in tatters,’ said Frank. ‘The media is waiting at the gate.’

‘I understand. But one of the guests is missing, and we have to move as fast as possible. Can you tell us what Mr January was doing at the guesthouse last night?’

Frank made a helpless gesture in the direction of the still weepy Christel de Haan.

The woman put on her glasses and said: ‘He cleared the dinner table, and lit the fire.’

‘What time?’ asked Cupido.

‘At exactly nine o’clock.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘That was our agreement with them.’

‘The bodyguards?’

‘Yes. Breakfast at exactly eight o’clock, house cleaning at nine, lunch at one, dinner at eight p.m. Final clearing, and hospitality at nine. They are very strict, they have a lot of rules.’

‘Like what?’

‘They screened all our people. Only six were cleared to work when they rented the guesthouse, two for breakfast, two for house cleaning in the morning, and two for dinner and evening hospitality. It made things very difficult . . .’

‘Why?’

‘Because sometimes members of our staff are ill, or they want to take a vacation . . .’

‘So why did you rent the house to these people?’

‘They pay almost double the going rate.’

Cupido shook his head again in amazement. ‘OK. So Cyril January was one of the cleared people?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did it work? Did he have keys?’

‘No, no, if they wanted to enter, they had to call one of the guards when they were at the door.’

‘How?’

‘With a cellphone. They had to say a code word. They had to say “breakfast in the green room” if it was safe, or “breakfast in the red room” if they thought there was danger.’

‘ Jissis . And then the guard unlocked the door?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you said there were two people serving dinner?’

‘Yes. Cyril’s daughter . . .’ De Haan’s eyes filled, and her voice became hoarse. ‘I’m sorry. His daughter, she’s only eighteen . . . She served dinner with him, and they cleared the table, and then she left with the trolley. Cyril was doing hospitality . . .’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Chocolates on the pillows, check the bathroom supplies, like soap and shampoo and shower gel and hand cream, and light the fire . . .’

‘Do you know what time he usually finished?’

‘Between nine and half past.’

‘And his wife thought he went to town last night?’

‘He did do that sometimes.’

‘Where would he go?’

‘To friends.’

‘And he would stay out all night?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘What was the procedure when he left the house?’ asked Griessel.

‘He just left, and they locked the door behind them.’

‘And this morning?’

‘One of our agricultural workers saw Cyril’s body. At about six-thirty, on his way to report for work. And then he saw the front door of the guesthouse was open . . .’

‘OK,’ said Cupido, ‘we’ll have to speak to the daughter . . . We have to speak to all the staff, in about . . .’ he looked at his watch, ‘in about an hour’s time. Can you assemble them for us?’

Cupido began to rant as they walked towards the car, just as Griessel knew he would.

‘“They pay almost double the going rate.” That’s the trouble with this country, Benna. It’s just naked greed, no fucking ethics. Everybody just wants to score, it’s just skep, pappie, skep , before doomsday comes. Seventy thousand bucks for a week’s personal security? We’re in the wrong business, I’m telling you. And that lesbetarian wants to bliksem me? What for? Because I tell it like it is? She can’t do that, I mean, what do you say? There’s just no appropriate response to a lezzy, you’re gefok if you say come try me, you’re gefok if you zip your lip. There should be a law against that sort of thing. Wants to bliksem me ? With seventy thousand in her back pocket and her Calvin Klein suit and that hair . . . And what is this here? German owner of a Boer farm with a French name where a Brit is kidnapped. Fucking United Nations of Crime, that’s where we’re heading. And why? ’Cause they bring their troubles here. Like those French at Sutherland, and the Dewani thing, and who gets the rap? South- fokken -Africa.’

They got into the car.

‘I’m telling you now, the perpetrator will be a foreign citizen, but d’you think the TV will mention it? Not on your life, it’ll be like “crimeridden society” all over again, all that kak . It’s not right, Benna. Wants to bliksem me. But they screen the little volkies in slave uniforms and let them clean up after their whitey backsides until ten o’clock at night. Chocolates on the pillows . . .’

‘Forensics are here,’ said Griessel when he spotted the white minibus parked at the guesthouse, beside the SAPS photographer’s Corolla, and the two ambulances.

‘They’ll have to get a move on – we have to search the Brit’s room.’

‘And the Giraffe.’ Beside the big Ford Territory of the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigations – DPCI, or the Hawks – stood tall, thin Colonel Zola Nyathi, commanding officer of the Violent Crimes Group.

As the first Hawk on the scene, Griessel reported as succinctly as he could. He was aware of the colonel’s sharp eyes on him, with that unreadable, unchanging poker face of his.

When he had finished, the Giraffe said: ‘I see,’ and stood with his head bowed, deep in thought.

Eventually: ‘You’re JOC on this one, Benny.’

‘Yes, sir.’ His heart sank, because the last thing he needed in his current situation, was the responsibility of the so-called Joint Operations Command.

‘You already have Vaughn. How many more people do you need?’

He knew the Hawks liked big teams who could hit hard and fast, but he was still sceptical about this approach. Too many people falling over each other, especially on an investigational level. And he knew command didn’t always mean control over the direction of the investigation. ‘Four detectives, sir.’