Деон Мейер - Cobra

Griessel’s cellphone made a cheerful sound in his trouser pocket. He knew who and what it was.

His colleague looked keenly at him. ‘But that’s an iPhone you got there.’

‘Yes,’ said Griessel.

‘Since when?’

‘Friday.’

Cupido’s eyebrows remained raised.

‘Alexa gave it to me,’ said Griessel.

Alexa Barnard. The new love in his life, the once famous singer, now a rehabilitated alcoholic, one hundred and fifty days sober now, and slowly rebuilding her career.

‘The iPhone 5?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘ Jy wietie ?’ Cupido chortled at his ignorance.

Griessel took the phone out of his pocket and showed it to him.

‘Yip, iPhone 5C. It’s not an Android, but Benny, broe’, dai’s kwaai. Welcome to the twenty-first century. You have graduated from appie to pro.’

Over the last few months Cupido had been one of Griessel’s technology mentors. He had been nagging Benny for a long time to get an Android smartphone.‘An HTC, Benna. Just don’t go and get a Samsung. Those guys are the new Illuminati, taking over the world, gimmick by gimmick. Never trust a phone company that makes fridges, pappie.’

At the front door of the guesthouse Cupido called inside: ‘Jimmy, are you done?’

Griessel quickly read the SMS on his screen. Missed you. Good luck. Can’t wait for tonight. Have a surprise for you. Xxx

From inside the house came the reply: ‘Close enough. Just put shoe covers and gloves on again.’

They obeyed in silence, and picked their way through the hall, sitting room, and down the passage. They found Thick and Thin in the last bedroom, busy packing away fingerprint paraphernalia.

‘Found a couple of weird things,’ said Arnold.

‘So did we,’ said Cupido. ‘ You two.’

‘Sticks and stones,’ said Jimmy.

‘Water off a duck’s back,’ said Arnold. ‘Firstly, there is blood spray on the front door, which doesn’t make sense with the way the bodies are lying.’

‘Inside or outside?’ asked Griessel.

‘On the outside of the door.’

‘The door was open when I got here. The blood could have come from inside.’

‘We considered that,’ said Jimmy, ‘but it still doesn’t make sense.’

‘Secondly,’ said Arnold, ‘we found another cartridge in the hallway. In amongst the arum lilies. The same calibre, the same cobra engraving.’

‘One shooter for both victims,’ said Jimmy.

‘Thirdly, all the man’s clothes are new,’ said Arnold. ‘As in brand new. And I mean everything. Even the underpants.’

‘The suitcase too,’ said Jimmy. ‘Practically out of the box.’

‘ And his passport.’

‘Where’s the passport?’ asked Griessel.

‘Top drawer, on the right, in a little leather cover, new, fancy,’ said Arnold.

Griessel stepped carefully over the rucked-up carpet and the bed linen on the floor, and pulled open the drawer of the bedside table. Inside was a shiny leather pouch. He picked it up, unzipped it. There were boarding pass stubs for Air France and SAA inside. They showed that Paul Anthony Morris had taken Flight AF0990 from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris to Johannesburg on Thursday at 23.20, and on Friday, Flight SA337 from Johannesburg to Cape Town. Business class, both times.

The passport was tucked into a compartment of the pouch. Griessel pulled it out. It seemed very new still, the red cover with its gold lettering and national coat of arms was smooth and without creases or marks.

He opened it, paged to the photo ID. It showed a man in his fifties with a long, symmetrical face, no hint of a smile. His hair covered his ears, but neatly trimmed, dark, with grey wings at the temples. He looked slightly downwards at the camera, which made Griessel wonder whether he was tall.

To the right of the photo was his date of birth – 11 September 1956 – and the date the passport was issued. Barely a week ago.

Cupido came and stood beside Griessel as he paged over to the immigration stamps. There were only two: France, last Thursday, and South Africa, Friday.

‘Brand new,’ said Cupido.

‘That’s what we were trying to explain to you,’ said Jimmy with an exaggerated long-suffering sigh.

‘Did you see a wallet anywhere?’ Griessel asked.

‘No,’ Arnold said. ‘If he has one, it went along. Or it’s somewhere else in the house.’

‘Anything else?’

Jimmy put his hand in his briefcase and took out a transparent evidence bag. ‘A cable tie,’ he said, and held the bag up. ‘It was here, half under the bed.’

Griessel took the bag and inspected it closely. The cable had been tied, and then cut.

‘Just the one?’

‘That’s right.’

Griessel let the police photographer take pictures of the passport first – the outside page, stamp page, and information pages. He asked Cupido to travel with the photographer, wait for prints, and take them to the British Consulate. ‘Be diplomatic,Vaughn,please . . .’

‘Aren’t I always?’

‘And phone the Giraffe first, find out if he’s greased the wheels yet.’

‘Sure, Benna.’

He would rather have gone himself, so he could think. About the case. About his sins. And also because Cupido was the least diplomatic of all the Hawks. But he was JOC leader. For now he would have to stay here.

He jogged through the drizzle to the garage where Radebe and Liebenberg were questioning the two Body Armour employees.

The four men stood in a tight circle, which they opened up to include Griessel. Liebenberg introduced him to the two bodyguards, Stiaan Conradie and Allistair Barnes. The same short haircut, broad shoulders, black suits, and white shirts as the victims. Their faces were grim.

‘I’m sorry about your colleagues,’ said Griessel.

They nodded.

There was an uncomfortable silence, eventually broken by Captain Willem Liebenberg who spoke while referring to his notebook: ‘They relieved the night shift every morning at seven-thirty, and worked twelve hours, till nineteen-thirty. The procedure for handing over was a cellphone call from outside, with “green” and “red” as code words for safe or unsafe. Then the front door would be unlocked from inside, and locked again. They said the British guy . . . Morris, was friendly, but not very talkative—’

‘You do understand, we don’t encourage conversation,’ said Barnes.

‘It distracts us from our work,’ said Conradie.

‘So they actually know very little about the man,’ said Liebenberg. ‘He’s about one point eight metres tall, more or less ninety kilograms, black hair, brown eyes. He speaks with a distinct British accent. Every morning after breakfast, and every afternoon after four, he went for an escorted walk of about forty minutes here on the farm, and every—’

‘Did he request that? The walk?’ asked Griessel.

Conradie replied: ‘We give the clients a portfolio of choices. That was one that he chose.’

A portfolio of choices. If Cupido had been here, he would be going on about that: An ex-policeman talking fancy.

‘And that’s safe?’

‘Safety is relative,’ said Barnes. ‘Unless the client divulges the nature of the threat. Which Mr Morris did not do.’

Radebe shook his head. ‘Did you ask him?’

‘Miss Louw does that. The background research. She said the client chose not to divulge. Our responsibility is to convey the portfolio of choices to the client, and to accommodate them. If he believes the threat is of such a nature that it’s safe to go for a walk, we must accept that,’ said Conradie.

‘He asked us if we were sure no one had followed them from the airport,’ said Barnes.