Деон Мейер - Cobra

‘You can just tell us what you remember,’ said Griessel.

‘And if you get tired, just tell us.’

‘OK.’

‘We would love to hear everything. About the . . .’ And then Griessel stopped, because a cellphone was ringing. He thought it was his, because it had the same ringtone, but he touched his pocket, and realised his iPhone was off.

‘It’s my phone,’ said Nadia, and looked at her bag on the chair beside Griessel.

He bent, opened the bag, saw the light from the screen of the ringing phone. He took it out. ‘Do you know this number?’ he asked as he passed the phone to her.

‘No.’ She took the phone, answered it. ‘Hello?’

She listened for a moment, then they saw her face brighten as she said, ‘ Boetie ! Are you OK?’

Tyrone had showered and changed into clean clothes. He pushed the pistol into the back of his belt, under the jacket. He put the stolen wallet, where the original memory card was still stored, in the inside pocket of his jacket. After that he took cellphones One and Two, put them in the side pockets, and walked to the Cape Quarter Lifestyle Village on Somerset Road.

He shouldn’t have pondered everything that happened that morning, because that’s what caused him to make the mistake. But he couldn’t help it, it was so close to the Waterfront, and the Schotsche Kloof, and he recalled everything so vividly – how he had been shot, how he had run for his life, the dog that nearly bit him. He relived the fear, and that moment at Bellville Station, when he realised they had drugged his sister. And the heart-wrenching moment when they shot her. It all made him so angry, a fierce anger coiled in his brain, the thirst for revenge overpowering everything.

His mind was still full of it when he switched on the cellphone at the entrance to the Food Spar and phoned Nadia’s number.

Nadia’s number? What was he thinking, he thought later, get a grip you fool, because he’d actually meant to phone the hospital’s number and ask for Sister Abigail, but his head was filled with vengeance, and he was tired, finished, done in, klaar. A kwaai crazy day, big lapse of concentration. The phone rang and rang, and suddenly his sister answered, startling him. His heart thumped and he wondered, was she alone?

‘I’m fine, sussie . Are you OK?’

‘Where are you? Why aren’t you here?’

‘ Sussie, are you OK? What do the doctors say?’

‘They say I was lucky. Two broken ribs, and I bled a bit . . .’

‘What did those bastards give you?’

‘I don’t know. Something that made me very dof . I got so sleepy. They injected me in my arm . . . Where are you, boetie ?’ He heard fear in her voice.

‘I am busy sorting things out. I’ll come and get you, as soon as I’m done.’

‘What things? Done with what? Didn’t you give them what they wanted? I can’t remember that well, boetie . . . The polieste are here now. You must come and talk.’

He had thought as much, that’s why he had phoned from here. Thought he was smart and clever and alert. He must finish this call, but he didn’t want to leave her like this. ‘Don’t you worry, versta’ jy ? Everything is going to be all right. You must just get better now. Just tell me, how many of those ouens were there that kidnapped you?’

‘What things must you sort out,Tyrone?’

She only said Tyrone when she was angry. It was a good sign, that she could be angry at him. ‘Don’t worry. How many were there?’

‘I think four. But you can’t say I mustn’t worry. What card were they looking for? How did you get mixed up with such people,Tyrone?’

‘I will explain everything, sussie . I just tried to help someone, then there was this massive misunderstanding . . .’ He stopped talking, it wasn’t the time for explanation, he didn’t even know what she knew. The cops were sitting there, maybe listening. He must finish up. ‘Just get better. Do you need anything?’

‘What I need is to know what you mean by “As soon as I’m done”.’ And he could hear, there wasn’t too much wrong with her, she would be OK after all.

Then he made his second mistake, out of sheer relief, and because the anger and revenge still clung to every fibre of his being: ‘Nobody touches my sister. I’ve got something they want. Now I’m a player. And they’re going to pay.’ It just came out, and he was immediately sorry that he’d said it.

‘No! Boetie , no! Those are annerlike people. Let the polieste deal with it.’

‘Keep that phone with you. I have to go. And remember one thing: I love you very much.’

He pressed the button to kill the call before he could hear her reaction, then he switched the phone off completely. ‘Shit,’ he said out loud. He began walking immediately, purposefully, out of the shopping centre.

Fifty metres on, he said quietly to himself: ‘ Jirre ,Tyrone, you didn’t handle that well. Get a grip.’

46

Lillian Alvarez wept.

Bones sat and glared at Cupido.

Cupido knew that his colleague clearly did not understand the very first defence mechanism of a woman caught out in a lie. ‘I know you’re trying to protect him,’ he said with great compassion. ‘But if you want us to find him, you will have to tell us the truth.’

Bones stood up, took a snow-white handkerchief out of his pocket, and held it out to her.

‘There really isn’t anything to tell.’ She took the handkerchief, dabbed beneath her eyes, then at her nose, and looked at Cupido, pleading.

Bones sat down again.

‘It’s not like we’re going to call the university and tell them the good professor was having an affair with his beautiful young student.’

She stared at the carpet.

‘Maybe that’s not the case,Vaughn,’ said Bones.

‘Maybe,’ said Cupido, but the word was loaded with irony.

‘I know what you’re doing,’ said Lillian Alvarez.

‘We’re trying to save your lover.’

‘I watch TV. You’re playing good cop, bad . . . Save him? What do you mean, save him?’

‘David Adair was kidnapped, Miss Alvarez. By the people who wanted to get their hands on that memory card. So the sooner you start telling us everything, the sooner we can try and save him.’

Her mouth was half open, her tearful eyes expressed shock and reproach. She fought against emotions, and eventually she said, ‘I knew it.’

Then she began weeping again.

‘My brother,’ said Nadia Kleinbooi to Griessel, distress in her voice. ‘He’s mixed up in something ugly.’ She pressed call-back on the number that Tyrone had phoned her from, but a recorded message said: ‘The subscriber you have dialled is not available. Please try again later.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Griessel.

‘Tyrone said they are going to pay, because he has something they want. And he wanted to know how many they were. Those people are going to kill him.’

‘Your brother has something they want? A card?’

‘Yes. He says he’s a player now.’

‘A player?’ asked Mbali.

‘Whatever that means,’ said Nadia. ‘I don’t like it.’

‘The people who are looking for the card are the same ones who kidnapped you?’

‘Yes.’

‘He still has something that they want?’

She nodded anxiously.

‘Do you know what it is?’ asked Griessel.

‘I thought . . . I don’t know. It must be the card. But I thought . . . I was very confused . . .’

‘What kind of card? A credit card, a bank card?’

‘The one Frenchman, he phoned Tyrone after they grabbed me. And he said Tyrone had stolen a wallet, and there was a memory card in the wallet, and he would exchange the card for me . . .’