Cobra (5 page)

‘AKA the bird brains,’ said Jimmy.

‘
Fokkof
,’ said Griessel. He knew it wouldn’t help to try to be witty, because they always had the last word.

‘Benny, you look particularly appealing this morning.’

‘Or is that “appalling”?’The Forensics duo grinned at each other.

‘Not so very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, eh? And not too sharp-eyed for a Hawk either,’ said Arnold.

‘Don’t you see it?’ asked Jimmy.

‘See what?’ asked Cupido.

‘The engraving.’ He held the cartridge closer and rotated it.

‘What is it?’ asked Griessel.

‘Take this,’ said Arnold, and he held out a magnifying glass. Griessel took it, and studied the copper tube.

‘It looks like a snake. Ready to strike.’

‘Amazing,’ said Jimmy. ‘That he can see anything at all through those bloodshot eyes.’

‘And what’s under the rearing snake?’ Arnold asked.

‘Are those letters?’The engraving was tiny.

‘Praise the Lord. The Hawks can read.’

‘We can
bliksem
you too,’ said Cupido. ‘What do the letters say?’

‘“N”, dot, “m”, dot,’ said Arnold.

‘So what does that mean? “Never mind”?’

‘Where do you dig that up?’

‘NM. Never mind. Don’t you understand texting language? I thought you were so clever?’

‘Sophisticated people don’t use texting abbreviations. Capital N, small letter m stands for “newton-metre”. If both were small letter it would stand for “nanometre”. But in both cases without the dot,’ said Arnold.

‘So what do the two capital letters with two dots stand for?’

‘I thought
you
were the detectives.’

‘Because you rocket scientists don’t know?’ said Cupido in triumph.

‘We can’t do
all
your work for you.’

‘Or, at least we can’t do all your work for you
all
the time.’

‘
Fokkof
,’ said Griessel. ‘We have to search the last room. Are you finished there?’

‘Haven’t even started.’

‘
Jissis
,’ said Cupido.

They went to interview Scarlett January, daughter of the murdered worker, Cyril.

Cupido sat beside her on the comfortable couch in the sitting room. He held her hand, his voice gentle and sympathetic. Griessel and Christel de Haan each sat in a chair.

‘I’m so sorry for your loss, little sister.’

The pretty, petite girl nodded through her tears.

‘If I could, I would not have bothered you. But we want to catch these evil people. They must pay for what they have done to your daddy.’

Another nod.

‘Are you OK to answer a few little questions?’

She sniffed, blew her nose, and said: ‘Yes, uncle.’

‘You are very brave,
sistertjie
, your daddy would be very proud of you. Did you work with him every day in the guesthouse?’

‘Yes.’

‘The night shift,
nè
?’

Nod.

‘Did you see the Englishman?’

‘
Ja
.’

‘What can you tell us about him?’

‘He was very friendly.’

‘Did he talk to you?’

‘
Ja
.’

‘What did he say?’

‘My table looked nice. And the food was good.’

‘Is that all?’

‘And it’s so lovely here. On the farm. If he looks out the window. That’s all.’

‘OK,
sistertjie
, that’s very good. Now the bodyguards. Did you talk to them too?’

‘Not really.’

‘Were they nice to you?’

‘
Ja
, uncle. But they didn’t talk much.’

‘Now, last night, what time did you leave there?’

The memory of the previous evening caused Scarlett’s shoulders to shake. It took her a time to say: ‘I don’t know.’

‘It’s OK,
sistertjie
. So more or less nine o’clock?’

Nod.

‘And everything was OK. There in the guesthouse?’

Nod.

‘The same as the other nights?’

‘
Ja
.’

‘The bodyguards weren’t different?’

‘No, uncle.’

‘Can you tell us how you left? Did one of them walk with you?’

‘
Ja
. The one they call B. J.’

‘OK, tell me nicely.’

‘I told B. J. I was finished. He went and unlocked the front door. He went out first and looked, and then he came back in and said everything is fine. Then I called Daddy, because he had to help me with the trolley down the steps. Then—’

‘What trolley?’

‘The trolley with the leftovers and the dishes.’

‘OK, and then?’

‘Then we went out, Daddy helped me down the steps, and I pushed it back to the restaurant.’

‘And then they locked up again?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s OK. And you didn’t see anything, while you were pushing it back to the restaurant?’

‘I just . . .’ And Scarlett January began to weep again. Christel de Haan stood up, gave her a couple of tissues and sat down again.

When she had regained some control, she said: ‘Uncle, I . . . I’m a bit shy, uncle . . .’

Cupido leaned closer and whispered in her ear. ‘So just tell me, I won’t tell a soul.’

She nodded, blew her nose, and turned her mouth to his ear.‘Daddy says I was born with the
helm
. . .’

‘OK.’

‘Because I get these
gevoelentes
; premonitions.’

‘I understand.’

‘When I was walking there, I got this feeling, uncle.’

‘What sort of feeling,
sistertjie
?’ he whispered, barely audible.

‘Evil, uncle. A terrible evil. Over there by the bougainvillea.’

6

Tyrone told his sister about her results. He sat on the only easy chair in Nadia’s one-bedroom flat – the one with the broken leg that he had found thrown out in front of a house in the Bo-Kaap. He had mended it. Not good workmanship, because he didn’t know much about woodwork. But it was sturdy, and it was comfortable.

‘So, I’m very proud of you,’ he said.

She sat at the big work table with her long black hair, and delicate, almost fragile beauty. He had swapped it for a stolen iPhone at the second-hand shop in Woodstock’s Albert Street.

‘Thanks,
boetie
.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll have the money by the end of the month,’ he said. He took out his wallet. ‘Here’s the rent for the flat.’

‘No, I only need a thousand, I got
lekker
big tips.’

‘That’s what I want to talk about. Tips or not, you’re here to study.’

‘But I like the work,
boetie
.’

‘I understand, but
nou’s dit
crunch time.’

‘I can’t just sit and swot all day.’

‘So go for a walk. Or socialise a bit.’

‘No. We eat for free, at the end of the shift, it saves me good money. And where will you get more than five thousand rand by the end of the month?’

‘Big paint job in Rose Street, a whole block of flats. I’m one of the subcontractors for Donnie Fish. And it’s interiors too, so it can
ma’
rain. And in any case, the Cape economy is booming again, tourism is up seventeen per cent.
Ek sê jou
, by December there will be enough for half of next year’s class fees as well. You just swot, so that you make the selection. I don’t want you wasting your time with waitressing.’

‘It’s not wasting time.’ She had that stubborn look around her mouth that he had known since they were little. ‘And I
will
make the selection.’

He knew he wasn’t going to convince her. ‘That’s what I want to hear.’

The four extra Hawks detectives arrived – Lieutenant Vusumuzi Ndabeni, small of stature, with a manicured goatee and wide-awake eyes; Lieutenant Cedric ‘Ulinda’ Radebe, the ex-boxer, whose nickname in Zulu meant ‘honey badger’; Captain Mooiwillem Liebenberg, the DPCI’s best-looking detective and most respected skirt-chaser; and Captain Frankie Fillander, the veteran with a long scar from his ear to his crown from a knife wound.

Standing on the lawn of the guesthouse, Griessel brought them up to date with the details. He had to concentrate, because the weariness was a burden growing steadily heavier. And he was increasingly self-conscious about his appearance, and the looks that he was getting from his colleagues. He asked Ndabeni and Fillander, the gentlest of the officers, to question the farm workers, and told Radebe and Liebenberg to talk to the bodyguards.

Then he and Cupido walked to the veranda to hear whether Forensics were finished yet. The wind blew suddenly chill again.

‘Global warming?’ said Cupido as he looked up at the dark clouds once more looming in the east. ‘Seems to me every winter is colder and wetter.’

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.