Деон Мейер - Cobra

‘Were you?’

‘If there were any signs, Fikter and Minnaar would have reported it.’

‘OK,’ said Griessel.

7

The bodyguards said Morris sat in the dining room during the day with his computer and iPad, and in the evening, by the fire with a book that he had found on the sitting-room bookshelves. Sometimes he just stood at the window in the dining room, looking out over the Franschhoek Valley. ‘I never knew this country was so beautiful,’ he had apparently once said.

Griessel asked them where he kept the computer and iPad.

‘He didn’t. Every time that we left, they were still on the dining-room table,’ said Conradie.

‘And at mealtimes?’

‘Morris ate in the dining room; we ate in the kitchen.’

Conradie saw Griessel frown. ‘It’s protocol,’ he said.

‘Did he have a cellphone?’

‘He must have. We never saw him with it,’ said Conradie.

‘But he could have used it in his room at night when you weren’t with him.’

‘It’s possible.’

‘He never asked you to phone anyone?’

‘No.’

‘Is there Wi-Fi in the guesthouse?’ asked Radebe.

‘Yes.’

Radebe made a note.

‘This place . . .’ Griessel indicated the wine farm. ‘I still don’t understand why you brought him here. It’s not hard to get in, if you really want to.’

Barnes frowned, sighed softly, and said: ‘Personal security is as good as the client’s briefing. We have safe houses and safe apartments that a full SWAT team would not get into, if there were enough PSOs that knew what they—’

‘PSOs?’

‘Personal Security Operatives.’

‘OK.’

‘But this guy said nothing about the nature of the threat. We can’t force him. The protocol is, if they don’t tell us anything specific, the boss describes all the options, and then he has to decide for himself.’

‘This place is fine if no one knows you’re here,’ said Conradie.

‘But someone did know he was here,’ said Griessel.

The bodyguards nodded, uneasily.

‘How? What are the possibilities?’

‘He might have told someone,’ said Barnes.

‘Before he came,’ said Conradie. ‘Or while he was here. He could have sent someone an email . . .’

‘What else? The men who abducted him are professionals.’

The silence stretched out longer, before Conradie said: ‘If the pros follow you . . . It’s not always possible to spot. If they’re very good. If they use two or three cars. If they attach a GPS tracker to your car.’

‘That’s it,’ said Barnes. ‘The only possibilities.’

Griessel nodded. ‘And he never seemed afraid or concerned?’

‘No. He was relaxed. And a nice guy. One of the easier clients we’ve had in the past few years.’

‘Anything else?’ asked Radebe. ‘Anything that he wanted?’

‘Yesterday Morris asked for South African financial magazines and newspapers. I bought them yesterday evening at the CNA at the Waterfront, and brought them along this morning.’

They took down both bodyguards’ details, and let them leave.

‘I will follow up the Wi-Fi, Benny,’ said Radebe. ‘Find out who the service provider is for this place. Philip and his guys can get the logs.’

Over the past months Griessel had worked hard at his limited technological knowledge. Cupido and Captain Philip van Wyk of IMC, the Hawks’ information management centre, were good, enthusiastic teachers. He didn’t know very much yet, but he did know it was possible to track someone’s Internet footprints in that way.

‘Thanks, Ulinda. IMC will have to look at cellphone calls as well. Morris must have had one. Any foreign numbers . . . and if we can identify his phone . . .’

‘. . . we can trace him. These bodyguards would have phoned to be let in the door; if we can get the phone numbers of the two victims, it will make it easier to track Morris. Same cellphone tower, if you get my drift.’

Griessel nodded. He should have thought of that. ‘Vaughn is in the city – I will ask him to get that from Body Armour. Thanks, Ulinda.’

‘No problem.’

The rain whispered softly on the roof.

Griessel and Liebenberg searched the big guesthouse from top to bottom. Griessel was in Morris’s bedroom carefully going through everything again when Fillander and Ndabeni returned from questioning the farm workers. They came and stood in the doorway, their heads and shoulders shiny and wet with rain.

‘Nothing,’ said Fillander. ‘The ones who were here didn’t hear or see anything unusual. There are four labourers who left on Saturday for Robertson for the weekend. Family funeral apparently, they will only be returning today. Maybe too much of a coincidence, Benny. I asked that they phone us when the people are back.’

‘Thanks,’ said Griessel.

‘What’s next, Benny?’ Ndabeni asked.

‘I need you to walk the farm perimeter,’ he said. ‘The perpetrators did not enter at the main gate, so there might be signs somewhere . . .’

‘OK, Benny.’

‘I’m really sorry, but I don’t trust the station uniforms to do a thorough job in this weather. And if we wait until the rain stops, there might be nothing left. Ask Christel de Haan, the hospitality manager if you can borrow umbrellas.’

‘OK, Benny, no problem.’

And then he was alone again, and he picked up the overturned desk chair and sat down so that he could think and get the weight off his feet.

Jissis , he was getting old. Two, three years ago he wouldn’t have been so poegaai after an exhausting night of . . .

Better stick to the matter at hand.

He tried to visualise it, the entire event: Last night. Just after nine. The suspects hiding here somewhere, watching Scarlett January and her father, Cyril, carry the trolley down the steps, Scarlett wheeling it away.

One gunman for both victims, Thick and Thin had said. But to abduct a man would be hard for just one person.

One gunman, with helpers?

They hide until the bodyguards open the door, survey the area, and let Cyril out.

They wait until the door is closed again. They close in on Cyril. Pistol to the head. They take him back to the front veranda. Phone them inside. Tell them you forgot something.

Cyril calls.

They shoot him from behind. Blood spray on the outside of the front door. With a silencer? Probably, as no one on the farm heard anything, and the sound of a shot would have alerted the bodyguards inside.

Why hadn’t Cyril used the alarm code over the phone?

If they don’t open, if anything goes wrong, you’re dead.

Shoot Cyril before the door opens. Ram the door so the bodyguard staggers backwards. Shoot the bodyguard. He falls back, in the hallway.

The second bodyguard is in his room, deep inside the house. He hears something, grabs his pistol, comes running down the passage. The suspects are already in the sitting room. The executioner shoots the second bodyguard, first through the hand, then in the head.

The executioner gets Morris. Pistol to the head, but it doesn’t help, he puts up a fight. Wrestles him to the ground. Makes him lie down. Handcuffs his wrists with cable ties.

Why snip off one cable tie? Was it too tight?

Morris’s wallet is missing. Morris’s computer and iPad are missing. Probably a cellphone too, though the bodyguards have never seen it. The clothes were strewn about, the cupboard moved.

At first they tie Morris to the bed with a spare cable tie – or something else – while they search for something? And cut it loose when they take him away from the house?

Why take the wallet, computer and iPad?

What else is missing?

What were they looking for?