The October Killings (33 page)

Superficially, there were no marks on the policeman's body. The eyes were open and bulging slightly, but there were no obvious wounds. Freek was certain that the autopsy would indicate that the brain had been starved of blood. He had already examined the body of the constable who had gone outside to find the source of the drunken singing. His body was lying on its side, pushed against the wall of the building. In his case, the wound was obvious. A very thin wire, probably a piano wire, had cut deeply into his neck, almost from ear to ear. In its very neatness the wound was different from the cut left by a knife, but it was at least as effective.

Only Tshabalala was missing. Freek had known him, both as a law enforcement officer and as a colleague, for more than ten years and he could not believe the sergeant would have been involved in Bishop's escape.

“He must have been,” the sergeant said. “He's not here.”

A constable, one of four blocking the passage from the cells to the charge office, had his own opinion. “Unless he was abducted.”

“Get out of the way,” Freek shouted at the constables. “And out of the building if you're not doing any good.” He pointed at the sergeant. “You, have you seen to it that they searched everywhere?”

“Everywhere, deputy commissioner.”

A new officer was coming through the door of the charge office. “There's a small storeroom under the building,” he said.

“Who the hell are you?” Freek wanted to know.

“Lieutenant van Tonder from Wonderboom, sir. I was stationed here last year.”

“Show me this store.”

“You get into it from outside,” van Tonder said.

“Move, man, move.” Freek was pushing him through the charge office door.

Van Tonder led the way to the side of the building and down a short flight of stairs that led to the storeroom door. The door was ajar and he pushed it open. “There's a ceiling-mounted light switch with a cord,” he said. “Give me a moment.”

As the light came on a faint groan reached them from deeper in the room. “He's here,” van Tonder said. Then, after the slightest pause, “He's alive.”

Sergeant William Tshabalala was on his back, partly obscured by one of the shelves that had collapsed. The state of the storeroom reflected what had happened there. Few shelves were still mounted, cardboard boxes that had been neatly piled had come crashing down and were either blocking the space between the shelves or simply scattered across the floor. Clearly, he had fought for his life with more than ordinary determination. The wound caused by the wire was not as complete as the one that had killed the constable.

“Has someone called the medics?” Freek heard himself shouting.

“No, sir. We didn't know he was here. The others are dead.” The voice behind him sounded like that of the man who had found the spare key to the cell.

“Call them now, for Christ's sake. Call them immediately. I want this man in hospital in ten minutes.”

Freek knelt next to Tshabalala. Immediately the sergeant's eyes widened. Freek thought he saw anguish there that had nothing to do with the sergeant's pain. His lips were moving. He was trying to speak, but the faintness of his whispering was drowned by the voices of the men in other parts of the station. “Shut the fuck up, all of you,” Freek shouted, turning his head toward the men behind him.” He pointed to a man who was blocking the door behind him. “You, go and shut them all up.”

The man disappeared and Freek bent over Tshabalala, bringing his face to within a few centimeters of the sergeant's. As the sounds behind him died down, Freek could make out a ragged whisper. “I'm sorry, sir. I'm sorry I let him get away.” Duty had never been a small thing to the sergeant. His failure was a more pressing matter than his pain. “I'm sorry.”

“It's all right, William. You'd better not talk.” Freek had been relieved to find the sergeant alive, even in his present condition. He would never have admitted it, even to himself, but he would rather see one of his good men killed in the line of duty than go bad and take money to help a prisoner escape.

“I made a mistake,” Tshabalala whispered painfully. “You know the way you always tell us to…” But the voice faded. “You always tell us…” he tried again.

“Don't talk, William. The medics are coming.”

But Tshabalala had to explain himself. “You always tell us to do the important things first, but I let a drunk interfere…” His voice was fading again. “I let a drunk man interfere with the important thing you gave me to do.”

“William, quiet now. It's all right.” One of Freek's large hands was holding him by a shoulder, a steadying pressure to show him that he was not alone.

“I don't know how the prisoner got free, but I was concentrate … concentrating on a drunk man. He was singing…” The voice faded unevenly, for the last time now. Sergeant Tshabalala's eyes closed slowly.

Something caused Freek to turn his head. Yudel was at his shoulder, his eyes bright with an intensity Freek had seldom seen in them. “Listen to me,” Yudel said. “You must listen.” He led Freek away from the sergeant's body. Freek glanced back only once. “Listen to me.” Yudel's voice held an urgency that forbade discussion. He led Freek out of the storeroom, then out of the charge office and into the gathering twilight. “You know the place Abigail heard about where she thought Bishop may be holding Lourens.”

“Yes, you searched it with her and there was nothing.”

“There's a second house farther up the hill. It's hidden in the trees. We didn't even know about it.”

Freek's eyes hardened. “Are you telling me this?”

“Abigail's on her way there.”

“My God, that woman.” He turned and shouted at a nearby officer. “How many flying squad men are here?”

“Six, deputy commissioner,” the answer came back.

“I want all of them with me. Get to your cars and follow me.”

“I need to explain to you how to get there,” Yudel was saying.

Freek seemed to have difficulty believing what he was hearing. “You can tell me on the way.”

“No. I need to explain. I can't come with you.”

To Freek, this was simply another inexplicable Yudel Gordon moment. “Christ, Yudel. Tell me then. Tell me fast.”

40

The road that skirted the lower slopes of the little mountain range had even less traffic than on Abigail's other visits. A few cars and pickup trucks from the small farms that surrounded the city, and the village at Hartebeespoort dam, were on their way into town seeking the evening's entertainment. Almost all the traffic was from the opposite direction, headlights flashing past in the gloomy twilight.

She had told Yudel, so she knew he would be coming, probably with Freek, but waiting for them was out of the question. That this was the last day was the thought that drove all others from her mind. It was the only thought possible.

The brush came right down to the fence line on most properties. Vyefontein was on the right-hand side on the steep slope of the Magaliesberg mountains. Here and there a farm gate punctuated the fence line, usually guarding a rocky farm track that was almost immediately lost in the scrub.

Today, Vyefontein seemed farther from town. Perhaps I've passed it, she thought. I know I've passed it. I've been traveling too fast. It's behind me. Oh, Lord, it's behind me and I've wasted this precious time.

She had lifted her foot from the accelerator and was about to press it down hard on the brake, when her mobile phone rang. The car was slowing without her braking as she used her left hand to get the phone out of her bag. Freek was on the other end. “Abigail?”

“Yes.”

“Don't go in. Wait for me at the gate.” He was asking the impossible. “Do you hear me?”

“Yes, you said I shouldn't go in.”

“Wait for me at the gate. We're on our way.”

“Where are you now?”

“In the last suburbs. We'll be out of town in a minute or two.” Over the connection she could hear the sirens of the police cars. That meant that they were not waiting for traffic lights.

“Yudel will show you the place. He's been there twice.”

“He's not with me.”

“Where is he? I thought he was on his way to fetch you.”

“He said he couldn't come.”

“Couldn't come?” Abigail found the idea as disturbing as any other part of the Leon Lourens matter. “He must have gone crazy. What could possibly be more important?”

“I don't know, but I'm coming and I've got men with me. Just don't enter the property till I get there.”

“I hear you.”

“It could be a trap. Bishop is free. He may have a trap waiting for you.”

“Free? How.”

“Never mind how. He's very dangerous.”

I know him better than you ever will, she thought, as she switched off the phone. With the call finished, her foot came down hard on the brake. The car slid to a stop directly opposite the gate of Vyefontein.

The old, rusted padlock still held the chain in place. Abigail left the car in front of the steel and wire farm gate. With one foot on a cross-member, she swung the other leg over. In a moment she was inside the property and stumbling up the track. Apart from the remains of some attempt at a driveway, paving stones that broke through the surface of the ground at odd intervals, the earth was deeply rutted as if a truck had traversed it after it had been softened by heavy rain.

It was too dark to see the ground's uneven surface clearly. Abigail stumbled on a paving stone that had settled at an angle and went down on her hands and knees. As she got up, she could see the house against what little light was left in the sky. It was the same house she had already searched twice.

Her hands were stinging and she was aware of small stones clinging to them. Without thinking, she wiped them on her trousers. It took a second and third wipe to get rid of them. Now she did look down. She could just make out the smears where she had wiped her hands.

She reached what had once been the garden of the house and stumbled again, this time in loose sand. The track from the road so far had been uneven, but she could see that beyond this point the slope became steeper. There was still no sign of a second house. Could it be that there
was
no house? All she had to go on was a couple of old and faded drawings in a file that had probably not been opened for thirty years. Perhaps there was nothing. Perhaps Bishop did want her to come, but that he knew there was nothing, that this was just his idea of a joke. No, that was impossible. Humor was not something he was capable of. That was not it.

On the far side of the house she found an opening in the brush that could have been an extension of the driveway. It was still longer since this one had been in use. It was densely overgrown in places by hard veld grass. She moved forward, looking down. Even in this light, she was again seeing the occasional paving stone in the grass.

It was another driveway and it was going in the direction the plan had indicated. If the second block on the plan was the gabled house, this would take her there.

But, as Freek had told her, there was the possibility of a trap. She knew that. And how could they have let him go? Bishop was what he was, but what was he? Whatever he was, she believed he was capable of causing death and destruction for its own sake. Even Yudel had not used a scientific term to describe him.

She stopped for a moment to listen. Perhaps Freek and his men had arrived. Faintly, filtered by the scrub, she heard the sound of an internal combustion engine. But it was too deep and too rough—either a farm truck or a tractor, something with a large diesel engine.

With her breath roaring through her open mouth and her legs shaking with the effort, she brushed past an overhanging branch. Ahead she caught the briefest glimpse of a wall that had once been white and was now gray with age. As she drew closer, she saw that it was streaked by the many summer rains since it had last been painted.

She pressed forward, looking up now. She stumbled on another uneven place and went down on her hands and knees again. This time, as she rose, she saw the Cape Dutch gables through the branches. Now she did stop. She stood completely still and listened. There was still no sound from the road.

The house was large and single-storied. A broad flight of stairs in the center led up to the dark hole that the front door had once filled. Like the door, the window frames along the front had long since been removed. They were sought-after items by the region's endless homeless. The two high gables that dominated the façade stood on either end of the house with perhaps forty meters of decaying roofing in between. Some roof beams had collapsed, taking patches of slate tiles with them and leaving ragged holes in the tiled surface. The signs of what must once have been a wonderful garden were still visible. A wooden pergola was still standing, its paint peeling and discolored. The remaining plants in an ancient rose garden had not been pruned for many years and now formed an untidy tangle down one side of the house. On either side of the drive, broad lawns had been overtaken by rough thatching grass that was more than waist high. Despite the decay, something grand remained, a lingering memory of the property's glory days. A hundred years before, the house must have been as fine a dwelling as any in the country.

The last ten or fifteen meters to the house were open, except for the long grass that had overtaken the lawns. She briefly considered the possibility of crawling through the grass, but that would take too long. She wondered about Freek. Considering where he and his men were when he phoned, he should have arrived by now. They would have torches and would surely make better time up the hill than she had. But what if he missed the gate? There were few landmarks in this bush country. She had almost turned back too soon, and she had been there twice before. No, the car was there. They would see the car.