Pale Horses (6 page)

The feel of the Glock in her hands as she’d raised it, her arm steady, her aim true, to deliver the killing shot to the man who’d organised her father’s death. The coldness in the pit of her stomach that she felt when she thought about what she had done. She had no remorse for anyone she’d gunned down – in each case she felt that the killings were justified. The dread she felt was for herself … for her soul and, more practically, for her future. What could the life of an assassin ever be except an existence based on constant fear, forever running and hiding, evading not only the authorities but also those seeking their revenge or looking to cut off loose ends.

She sat down at her kitchen table, where no sooner had she opened her laptop and got out her cellphone than she was interrupted by a forlorn scratching at the wooden front door.

Getting up again, Jade let in Bonnie, the Jack Russell from the house down the road who’d become a regular visitor. Try as she might, Jade had never managed to spot her squeezing through the palisade that surrounded the cottage.

Jade bent down and scratched the dog’s head, an action that prompted her stump of a tail to wiggle like crazy. Then she tossed a couple of dog
biscuits into the plastic bowl that had now become a permanent fixture on the floor next to the fridge.

Jade thought having a timeshared pet wasn’t a bad arrangement. It was a whole lot better, in fact, than having a timeshared man. But she wasn’t going to allow thoughts of David Patel to prevent her from focusing on the new job she’d taken on, albeit reluctantly.

Using Google and the phone directory, she found contact numbers for all twelve of the companies that had already moved into their new office space in Sandton Views, as well as the number for building management. The phone calls that followed would, she knew, be routine research, a process that had to be done, even if the chances of getting a successful result were slim.

If she ticked all the boxes and followed all the leads, there was surely a chance that somebody at one of these companies would have known Sonet personally and might be able to explain to Jade how she had been able to gain access to this otherwise secure building.

Before she’d had a chance to get started, however, her cellphone rang and she found herself speaking to Wouter Wessels, her ex-client who’d given her name to Victor Theron.

‘Jade. How are you this morning?’ Wessels always sounded upbeat and cheerful, as if everything was right with the world. He’d even sounded that way when he’d phoned her a year ago to ask if she could investigate his wife, who he suspected was having an affair and who had just requested a sizeable divorce settlement. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I passed your number on to a gentleman who handles some of my investments. Victor Theron, his name is. I told him if anyone could help him, it would be you.’

‘Thanks, Wouter. Actually, he’s already been in touch with me.’

‘Good, good! Excellent. I know you’ll sort him out. He’s a good fellow, Theron. Trustworthy. No social skills, of course – all he can talk about is the markets. Pots of money, though, so mind you charge him your full rate.’ Wessels laughed heartily.

‘I will do,’ Jade replied, trying to sound lighter than she actually felt.

‘I owe him, you know. Years back … it was soon after 9/11, actually – my business got into some serious trouble and I needed to withdraw all my savings at short notice. I’d taken out a year’s investment contract
but when I phoned Victor he said he’d organise the funds for me within a month as a special favour. He sounded rather harassed and I felt bad asking for it.’

‘Go on,’ Jade said.

‘It was only later that I found out he’d literally just heard that his wife had been shot dead during an attempted bank robbery.’

‘Really?’

Bonnie pushed her nose against Jade’s leg and she leaned down and stroked the dog’s ears absent-mindedly, her attention entirely focused on what Wessels was saying.

‘In spite of that, during what must have been the most traumatic time, he made a plan for me and thanks to his generosity I was able to save my business. I felt terrible when I realised that. So I owe him, Jade, I really do. Anyway, got to run now, I can see my secretary giving me wild semaphore signals so it must be something important. Chat soon, and thanks again.’

Jade spent a few minutes digesting the information that Wessels had given her.

She’d instinctively thought Theron must have had a deeper motive for calling her in, and now she’d had found it. He’d lost his wife in a botched bank robbery. Now he’d lost another woman he was close to. No wonder he was driven to learn the truth about what had happened, and by whatever means it took.

Jade wondered why Theron hadn’t mentioned his wife’s death. Perhaps he’d thought it was too personal. Or, seeing as he had few social skills, an observation she had also made, he simply hadn’t tried – or thought – to tell her.

On the other hand, remembering how Theron had stopped and looked over at the
Candle of Hope
on the other side of the busy street, and told her the story about how it had been commissioned as an act of forgiveness by the property tycoon after the violent death of his son, perhaps he had tried, Jade thought. Perhaps he had.

The first three phone calls Jade made led nowhere. The Sandton Views building management team was in a meeting. Brainstorming ways to boost the building’s internal security systems, no doubt. She had no luck
with the firm of attorneys she phoned next, nor with the recruitment consultancy. But on her fourth phone call, she struck gold.

‘Good day. Williams Management. How can I help you?’ The receptionist who answered the phone sounded well spoken and well trained.

‘Hello. My name is Jade de Jong, and I’ve been hired to help investigate the death of the woman who fell from the roof of your building a few days ago while attempting to parachute down.’

Jade paused, waiting for a response before she asked whether anybody in the company had known the woman.

Before she could even form the question, though, the receptionist spoke.

‘Poor Sonet. It is such a tragedy. We are all devastated. How can I help you?’

Jade blinked. ‘Did you know her?’

‘Well, of course. We all did. She worked here – didn’t you know that?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘We’ve been waiting for the police, or somebody else, to come and ask some questions,’ the receptionist said.

Jade suspected that, for a while at least, the staff at Williams Management were unlikely to receive a visit from the police. Which left room for somebody else to intervene – a position Jade was eager to fill.

‘What time would it be convenient for me to come around?’ she asked.

Williams Management was currently the only company occupying the fourth floor of Sandton Views. This time, instead of using an illegally acquired access card, Jade signed in at the security desk. After the guard on duty had called the offices of Williams Management and given her a visitor’s badge, he let her through the turnstile.

The receptionist she’d spoken to on the phone earlier greeted her with a warm smile. She sat behind a curved white console situated directly
underneath a large green-and-gold ‘
WM
’ logo. The silver name plate on the console read ‘Lilian Mkhize’. Jade noticed that the artwork displayed on the walls consisted of stunning framed photographs of farms: endless golden vistas of ripening maize, smiling workers operating tractors, women wearing patterned headscarves helping to offload bags of seed under sunny, blue-white skies.

‘Thank you so much for coming in. This has been such a shock,’ Lilian said. She pressed a button on the switchboard and spoke into the phone. ‘Mr Engelbrecht?’ she said. ‘The police investigator is here. Would you like to come through and speak to her?’

‘I’m not actually a police investigator,’ Jade admitted. ‘I’m working on behalf of a client. But if I come across any relevant information I will pass it on to the police, of course.’

Lilian put the phone down. Her fingernails sported the most flawless French manicure Jade had ever seen, and her yellow blouse was the exact colour of the maize fields in the painting to her right.

‘I understand,’ she said softly.

Mr Engelbrecht was lean in build and as immaculately turned out as his receptionist, wearing a dark suit and shoes that shone like mirrors. He exuded a brisk energy and when he shook Jade’s hand, his grip was firm.

‘Shall we talk in my office?’ he said, once introductions had been made. ‘Hold all calls, Lilian. And would you get hold of the delegates on this list and remind them that the conference is starting an hour later than advertised?’

He tossed a cardboard file onto the reception console in what Jade thought was a rather dismissive way. She followed him across a floor so thickly carpeted that her even her thick-soled shoes sank into it and into a roomy corner office with a magnificent view of well-treed suburbia.

‘Please, do take a seat.’ He indicated a plush leather office chair and walked around behind his glass desk before lowering himself into an even bigger seat. If Jade’s chair was the ‘B’ model in the luxury catalogue, Engelbrecht’s was undoubtedly the ‘A’.

‘What does Williams Management do?’ she asked him.

‘Well, we’re officially a charity,’ he told her, rocking back in his chair and lacing his manicured fingers together.

‘A charity?’ Jade realised she could hear the note of incredulity in her own voice. To be truthful, she hadn’t tried very hard to conceal it.

‘For tax and administration purposes, yes.’ Engelbrecht’s pale blue eyes narrowed as he regarded her.

‘In these premises?’

‘Sandton Views offered us a three-year lease at an extremely favourable rate. They’ve been having difficulty finding tenants to occupy this building. The recession, you know. Companies are consolidating, downsizing, staying put, hanging on until things get better. We were looking to move a couple of months ago because our building was going to be demolished. So we came here. But that’s not the issue this afternoon, is it?’ he added, with some steeliness. ‘You’re here to discuss Sonet Meintjies.’

‘What can you tell me about her?’

‘What would you like to know? Bearing in mind, of course, that I may not be able to divulge certain information to you, because we do have confidentiality agreements in place for some of the work we do here.’

‘What kind of a person she was. What job she had. How long she worked here. Her background, if you know it.’

‘You seem to want a lot of rather general information,’ Engelbrecht observed. His shiny shoe was tapping on the carpet, making a soft, thudding sound. ‘Are you an investigator or a biographer? I was imagining that you would want to know more pertinent facts, for instance, what time she finished work on the day she died and how she obtained the keys to the locked access door she used to get onto the roof.’

‘And what time did she finish work that day?’

‘She didn’t actually come into the office at all.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘No. She was supposed to be here. Her phone was turned off so we couldn’t reach her.’

‘And how did she get hold of the keys?’

Now Engelbrecht smiled, although without warmth.

‘I have no idea,’ he said.

There was a moment of protracted silence, punctuated by the soft ticking of a gold-framed clock on the wall.

‘Well, now we’ve exhausted that avenue of questioning, would you be willing to help me with some biographical information?’ Jade asked.

‘I’ll tell what I can.’

‘How long had Sonet been working here and what did she do?’

‘She’d been with us for a little over two years. She usually worked in the office two days a week. On the other days she would travel, working on site in various locations, or attending meetings. Her job involved helping small, previously disadvantaged communities to set up sustainable farming projects. Growing staple crops; mostly maize.’

Engelbrecht glanced up and when Jade followed his gaze, she saw yet another of the large framed photographs she had noticed in reception. This one was of a group of women in brilliantly coloured traditional outfits tilling rows of small green plants. Soaring mountains provided a dramatic backdrop.

‘That shot was taken in early summer last year, and the community you see there is the iThokoza farming co-operative, located north of the Magaliesberg. I think Sonet actually started up that particular venture.’

Looking more closely at the photo, Jade saw that the printed legend ‘iThokoza, Rustenburg,’ was centred discreetly at the bottom of the print.

‘Whereabouts did she usually work?’

‘Rural communities, mostly in Gauteng, but occasionally further afield. She was actually starting to expand our operation to other provinces.’

‘I’m curious, how are the projects funded?’

‘Government, big business, a few private individuals and charitable drives. That income breakdown is fairly standard for any
NPO
, which stands for non-profit organisation, if you didn’t know.’

Noting the slight frown that creased Jade’s forehead, Engelbrecht smiled. ‘If you were expecting state secrets or internal conflict in the workplace, then I am afraid you are going to be disappointed. Sonet was a valued member of our team, and her work did an enormous amount of good. She will be missed.’

‘I understand,’ Jade said.

‘I don’t know much about her personal life, I’m afraid, but our receptionist might be able to assist you in that regard. I am an impatient person by nature and have never been one for water-cooler conversations. Lilian is a busy lady so if you could keep it as brief as possible, I would appreciate it.’

With that, it was clear the conversation was over. Engelbrecht stood up and ushered Jade out of the office. The heavy door closed softly behind him as she padded back down the short, but thickly carpeted corridor towards reception.

When she saw Jade come back, Lilian straightened her small pile of papers and pushed them to one side.

‘How can I help you? Mr Engelbrecht said you might want to ask some further questions.’