Random Violence (14 page)

“Yeah, babe,” he’d said. “Ooh, babe.”

At first, Jade had feigned sleep. When that didn’t work, she’d tried to resist. He’d ignored her. His strong arms had thrust hers aside. He’d pushed her legs apart. Jade had lis-tened to his harsh breathing and felt the rasp of his stubble against her face. She’d never felt so powerless. Perhaps this was part of the deal. Perhaps Robbie’s help had to be earned through sexual barter. Terrified and exhausted, she’d been about to close her eyes and let him do what he wanted. Then she’d changed her mind.

She remembered that she’d reached down.

“Yeah, babe,” Robbie had groaned. “Hold me. Yeah, like that.”

Jade had gritted her teeth and then squeezed and twisted her hand as hard as she could, digging her nails into his soft flesh. For one white-hot moment, she hadn’t cared whether Robbie broke her arm, beat her up or kicked her out onto the street.

“Bayyyyb!” Robbie’s voice had risen in a surprised and ago-nized screech. Then he’d flown off the sofa and collapsed on the floor, bent double with pain.

After that Jade had pulled the duvet tightly around her, hoping he couldn’t see how violently her arms were trem-bling. “I said no,” she’d told him, hoping she sounded calm and controlled. She was already regretting what she’d done. But to her relief, Robbie was completely cowed.

“No. You said no. I heard you.” He’d raised his head and stared at her again in painful disbelief. “No it is. OK then. Fine. Be like that.” Gathering the shreds of his dignity around him, he’d staggered back to his bedroom and slammed the door.

She wondered if he remembered this incident now, as she removed his hand from her waist and turned to face him.

“Robbie, sex is not part of our relationship. I’ve told you before. Go home and sleep in your bed. If you come in, there’ll be complications. Then neither of us will sleep and tomorrow will go badly because we’ll be pissed off with each other.”

Robbie paused. Jade could almost see his brain working. His eyes lit up and he jumped to the wrong conclusion.

“Are you screwing that cop next door? Is he your new boyfriend?”

“No.” It was the truth, but she was glad it was dark so Robbie couldn’t see her blushing.

“I think you are.”

“I’m not. And even if I was, it’s nothing to do with you. We’re doing business, Robbie. You’re my friend. Nothing more. OK?”

“You know, Jade, you’re a fuckin’ ice queen, that’s what you are.”

Robbie turned and stomped back to his car. Gravel sprayed from the sidewalk as he drove down the road. Jade watched him leave, relieved he was gone, but terrified that by rejecting him again she’d made a dangerous enemy.

21

Jade didn’t sleep well that night. She didn’t know if it was because David was in the other room or because she was going to see Viljoen at last. She stayed awake for what felt like hours, remembering what had happened on that fateful morning she left the little house in Turffontein.

Her father’s coffee had stood half empty on his desk, a skin of cool milk wrinkling its surface. The lamp was off and his brief-case was gone. She climbed into her car and set off down the road to a surveillance appointment, taking the route that her father had when he’d left with Jacobs in the beige unmarked.

As she reached a bend in the road, she slowed down. There’d been an accident ahead, at the one traffic light that she’d always thought was a pointless waste of electricity. The road crossing it was a steep and narrow lane that, even when traffic was thick, never seemed to have any cars on it. This morning, there had been one.

A heavy truck must have been speeding down the lane and been unable to stop at the lights. The runaway vehicle had smashed into a car on the main road, crushing it under its wheels.

Jade could smell burning rubber and the choking fumes of scorched metal. She hurried across to the smoking body of the truck and the awful shape of the car underneath it. A small knot of people surrounded the accident.

As she walked closer, she felt her stomach clench. She recognized the crumpled car. It was Jacobs’s unmarked. The driver’s door was open but the passenger side was crushed under the chassis of the truck.

“Dad!” Jade screamed.

Jacobs grabbed her shoulders from behind. She turned and stared at him. He was wild-eyed, breathing hard, and his clothes looked rumpled.

“We’ve called an ambulance,” he told her. “The ambulance is coming. Move away from the car, my girl. There’s nothing you can do.”

“We’ve got to get him out.” She peered into the buckled mass of metal, the truck’s grille mounted on top in a bizarre display of victory. She recoiled from the blood that was oozing out of the shadows.

Then, sirens wailing, the ambulance arrived. Paramedics leapt out and sprinted over to the car and started working through the narrow gap in the metal.

“Where’s the truck driver?” someone asked.

“Must have run away,” someone else said. “Probably didn’t even have a bruise. The cab’s hardly damaged.”

“Probably drunk,” the first person said with loathing.

Tears blurring her vision, Jade sat by the side of the road, staring blankly at the tarmac in front of her. Three cups of tea had been provided by the solicitous onlookers. She hadn’t done more than sip at the first one because her hands were shaking too badly for her to get the cup to her mouth, and her chest was heaving in a series of dry sobs that she was sure would choke her.

She heard police sirens yipping and yapping followed by the screech of tires. An officer came and sat down beside her to ask some questions. She could hear the clank of heavy machinery and the hiss of hydraulics and the tearing scream of metal on metal. When she looked up again, the truck had been moved away and the paramedics were busy. She walked over, trying not to look too closely.

“Is he alive?”

The man shook his head. “He must have died on impact. Massive head injuries and internal trauma. Most probably he didn’t even know what was happening.”

They strapped her father’s body to a stretcher and wheeled it away. Rubbing tears from her eyes as she watched, Jade recalled one of her father’s sayings. “Even if things go wrong, even if tragedy strikes, it is essential to do your duty.”

She took a deep breath. She would take the file and give it to David. He could finish the work her father had started.

“What are you doing?” asked Jacobs, stumbling to his feet as she walked towards the shell of the car. She steeled herself and looked in the passenger side. The seat and carpet were stained with her father’s blood. She closed her eyes and swal-lowed hard, tasting bile in her throat. Then she looked again, forcing herself to get closer. The paramedics had cut through the seat belt to get him out. The canvas straps hung, frayed and useless, and she pushed them aside.

She looked in the back, under the seat, on the driver’s side. Then she walked round the car while the tow-truck driver sat patiently, waiting for her to finish, and checked inside the trunk. And then, because she didn’t trust herself to have searched properly the first time, she looked again, looked everywhere, her fingers sliding and scrabbling on the carpets, tears flooding her eyes again when she saw the dark red streaks on her fingertips and knuckles.

Then she straightened up and stared at the blue-white horizon and shivered in the heat of the glorious sunshine as she realized that things were perhaps not all that they seemed to be.

The briefcase was nowhere. It had disappeared.

The briefcase was gone.

The briefcase…

Jade felt hands clutch at her, and she screamed and strug-gled, fighting for her life, because Jacobs was there, waiting, and this time she couldn’t escape.

Then she realized that she was in her bed, in the cottage. She must have fallen asleep and had her old nightmare. But there was someone holding her and it wasn’t Jacobs. It was David.

“Jadey, are you OK? You almost gave me heart failure there. I heard you crying and screaming. I came to see what was wrong.”

She held onto him tightly and he stroked her hair. Jade could feel her heart thudding, although now she didn’t know whether it was from the nightmare or because David was sitting on her bed, gently holding her in his arms.

“No, it’s nothing. Just a bad dream.”

David carried on stroking her hair. His hands felt strong and sure as they cradled her head.

“Anything you want to talk about?”

“Not really. I dream about my dad’s accident, sometimes.”

She felt David’s chest rise and fall as he sighed. “I wish I’d been in Jo’burg when it happened. I can’t believe you had to go through something like that on your own. Finding your father dead in that horror crash. I’m not surprised you’re still bothered about it. And then you disappeared and I didn’t know where you were. We thought you’d had some kind of a breakdown. Post-traumatic stress. I was worried about you and so angry I hadn’t been granted permission to leave that police conference in Durban, I nearly resigned.”

She closed her eyes, aware of the warmth of David’s body against hers. They had never been so close before. She squeezed her arms around him and felt him hold her tighter in response.

“Hey Jadey. I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

“Are you okay now?”

“I’m fine. Thanks. Listen.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve wanted to tell you this for ages. I’ve always thought—you know, with my dad around, you ended up being like family to me. Like an older brother. And that wasn’t always the way I wanted to feel about you. Not at all.” She took another breath. This was hard work. David’s silence wasn’t helping either. His hand had stopped stroking her hair. What could she say next? How could she explain her feelings to him?

“I think I’d like things to go further between us,” she ended lamely. That was it. Her reserve of courage had run dry, her palms were icy and she’d rather face down a charging elephant than say another word to David about what was in her heart.

Then it all went wrong. She didn’t know why. It was dark, they were close together on her bed, separated by a couple of layers of insubstantial clothing. She was sharing her thoughts, her secrets. Something could have happened. Should have. But it didn’t. Instead, David pulled away from her and stood up.

“It’s five-thirty in the morning. I’ve got to get going.”

Jade struggled to her feet, rubbing her eyes. He hadn’t answered her, hadn’t shared his feelings in return. Why not? She’d have to wait until later to find out, because now he was pulling on his shoes and fastening his belt.

“I’ll let you out,” she mumbled.

“Thanks for letting me crash on your couch. Try and get some more sleep, and call me if you need anything.”

She turned off the alarm and buzzed open the gate. He closed the door behind him, and she watched him leave, lis-tening to the crunch of his footsteps on the road.

22

A single-lane main road, clogged with traffic, separated the grounds of Leeuwkop Prison from the large, semi-rural suburb where Jade passed a group of horses and riders as she took a shortcut through the back roads.

She drove slowly past the horses, listening to the clop-ping of their hooves on the tarmac. If she lived in this area, she could get a horse. There were plenty of places to keep it. She supposed that she’d need to learn how to look after it. There was feeding involved, grooming, the regular replace-ment of those metal shoes. It sounded like a lot of work, thinking about it. She supposed there were establishments where she could pay to have all that done for her. Livery yards or riding schools. She’d seen a few signs for stables along the way. They could teach her how to ride the horse too. That would be an advantage.

The leather of the horses’ saddles and bridles gleamed. The riders were kitted out in tall leather boots and jodhpurs. Big padded helmets with air vents. They wore gloves and carried whips. There was a lot of equipment involved in riding, that was for sure. Even without the cost of the horse, it would be expensive to start up. Too much of an outlay for her. She moved back to the left-hand side of the road again. Perhaps owning a horse was too ambitious. But she could start with a cat, or a little dog.

She parked halfway down a side road, next to a security boom that was wide open and unmanned, and got out of the car. She was wearing tracksuit pants and trainers and a sporty-looking jacket that concealed her gun. She didn’t think anybody would look twice at a woman out on a morning walk on the sandy track alongside the main road.

Jade had read that Leeuwkop Prison was built 40 years ago. The surrounding area must have looked very different then. She was sure that road had seldom seen cars back in those days and that the properties in the area must have been regarded as cheap farmland rather than sought-after semi-rural real estate.

By the time the Viljoen brothers’ trial started, Jade had already left the country. But she read about it, and she saw pictures of the two brothers in the newspapers. Older pictures of them at their farm and more recent pictures of the two standing in the dock. The elder brother looked like a Voortrekker leader, with his square silver beard and stern expression. The younger Viljoen had a mustache and was shorter, more anxious, less sure of himself. He told the judge he had followed his elder brother’s lead. That he always had since he was young.

The judge sentenced the elder brother to life imprison-ment. As befitted a dangerous criminal, he was sent to the maximum security section at Leeuwkop. The younger brother was found guilty as an accomplice to murder and was sentenced to fifteen years, in the medium-security section of the same prison. After the day they were sentenced, the brothers never saw each other again.

Soon after the brothers were incarcerated, gang violence broke out in the maximum security section. The 28s had caused the trouble. They were a powerful gang, renowned for their tradition of taking “boyfriends” through force and coercion. They’d clashed with the relatively new Big Five gang, whose members were infamous for being prison informers.

Jade never knew whether Viljoen senior had been involved with the 28s or the Big Five, whether he was simply collateral damage, or whether somebody wanted him dead. After the violence had been brought under control by the prison authorities, it was reported that he was one of the four fatalities.

The younger brother had his term reduced to ten years for good behavior. Jade had read that he was a model prisoner. In the extensive grounds surrounding Leeuwkop inmates grew the bulk of the fresh produce used in prisons around the country. Viljoen junior had assisted enormously with the innovation of new farming methods and had been respon-sible for a substantial increase in productivity. In his own unlikely way, he would be leaving prison a hero.

Jade watched the entrance to Leeuwkop. It was quiet. She took in the face-brick gateposts, the guardhouse with a security boom and the few cars driving in and out. She couldn’t see a huge contingent of militant right-wingers gathered to welcome their idol out of prison. She couldn’t see anyone at all. Except for Robbie, cruising through the traffic in a white Volkswagen Golf. He honked, and waved at her. Traffic was so slow she was walking faster than he could drive. She jogged over to the passenger side and climbed in.

“Undercover today,” he said. “I don’t want bullet holes in the Beemer’s bodywork.” He laughed. The interior smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and the fabric of the seats was worn. Jade wondered whose car he was driving. He didn’t bring up what had happened between them the previous night.

Robbie parked the car by the side of the road opposite the prison. Traffic was still thick. Taxis stopped at the intersec-tion, discharged passengers, and pulled away. Hawkers sold fruit and vegetables under fabric gazebos anchored into the dusty ground. Jade could see dented apples and blackening bananas and what looked like fruit salad in Tupperware con-tainers, their lids damp with condensation.

Groups of people were waiting on the roadside, looking for gaps in the slow-moving traffic so that they could cross the road.

“We’re not exactly going to stick out like a sore thumb in this chaos,” Robbie remarked. “Want a piece of biltong?” He rummaged in a plastic bag on the dashboard. “This stuff’s the real McCoy. Got it from a place in the Natal Midlands. Went down last week to get a couple of vehicles. Those cattle, they taste better than anywhere else in the country. Steak, biltong, it doesn’t matter what the hell you do with those cows, you can’t do it badly. Meat’s in a class of its own.”

Jade shook her head. She wasn’t hungry, which was unusual for her. Partly because she lost her appetite whenever she wondered why David had pulled away from her, in silence, in the darkness of the early hours. And partly because she was apprehensive about seeing Viljoen again.

She wondered what cars Robbie had brought back. Stolen luxury vehicles, that was her guess. Robbie didn’t go in for hijacking, or at least, he hadn’t ten years ago. He’d once told her that his principles were too high. Robbie’s principles, she had learned, were governed by standards that nobody else could hope to understand.

“He’s out any minute now, hey?” He poked her in the ribs.

“Eight thirty, they said the bus arrives.”

They watched the road. Jade saw an elderly white Mazda turn off the main road and drive up to the prison gates. The car stopped, reversed, and parked outside the boom.

“Bet that’s his transport.” Robbie shoved another handful of biltong into his mouth. “Fanatics obviously have less of a budget these days. Or it could be someone else looking to take him out, quicker than us.” He laughed. “Don’t think much of their getaway car, though.”

Jade tensed. She could see the prison bus. It approached the gates slowly, as if the driver was reluctant to let his passenger reach them and walk out a free man. The guard raised the boom and the bus drove through and parked in the turning area outside the prison.

The driver strolled over to the guard at the gate. They had a brief discussion. Then the passengers stepped down onto the tarmac.

One black man, one white man. Business wasn’t brisk in the departures area of Leeuwkop this morning. The black man looked confused, a teenager who was probably still flabbergasted that the system had landed him in jail. Jade wondered if he’d been a gang member. Or was now. She didn’t think he could have committed a serious crime. Not if he was already being paroled.

Behind him was Viljoen.

She’d imagined he would be tall and strong, like his brother had been. Perhaps ten years ago he was. But prison had clearly aged him. He was a frail husk of a man. The wind tugged at his faded garments, threatening to pick him up and blow him away. His mustache was now gray and straggly and the hair on his head white and stringy.

“Hell’s bells,” Robbie said. “You didn’t tell me he was a pensioner. We don’t have to worry about putting a bullet into him. He’ll probably keel over from old age before he reaches his mom’s place.”

Jade wondered if he could feel her rage like heat, radiating through the tinted glass of the back window. He had killed her father, as sure as if he’d fired the gun himself. The Viljoen brothers had paid Jacobs, and Jacobs had taken the money and engineered her father’s death so that nobody would think it had been more than a tragic car accident. Except Jade. Because her father’s briefcase was missing.

That had been her first warning. Investigating further, she discovered from the paramedics that the seat belt mechanism on the passenger’s side of the car had been jammed closed, trapping her father in the car. Even if he’d seen the truck hurtling down the hill towards him, he would have been unable to escape.

The single witness to the accident said the beige car had stopped, for no discernible reason, in the middle of the cross-roads. Engine failure, perhaps. The driver, Jacobs, had climbed out of the car and walked round to the hood. Then the approaching truck had blasted its horn and Jacobs had run for it, diving out of the way as it smashed into the stalled vehicle.

Jacobs confirmed this story, although Jade suspected he would have confirmed reports that aliens had beamed the truck down and landed it on the police unmarked, had a witness volunteered the information.

Afterwards, the police told her that the truck had been stolen from a nearby transport company. A fence was broken open in the night and the vehicle hotwired. She asked if they had found the driver. They said they hadn’t. She asked if he’d left any evidence in the cab. They said they were working on it, but Jade knew from listening to her father that meant they didn’t have any evidence at all.

The witness observed that Jacobs seemed distressed after the accident occurred. He’d run back to the car and half-climbed inside to try and rescue his colleague. Jade guessed he’d been making sure her father was dead, and collecting the briefcase. In the chaos that followed it would have been easy to dispose of. In all probability, the truck driver had taken it with him when he disappeared from the scene.

In her state of shock, her deductions had been hazy, her reactions slow. When Jacobs came for her that night, she real-ized almost too late that she was right. He was prepared to go to any lengths to complete his deadly contract.

Robbie glanced sideways. “Stop looking like that.”

“I’m not looking at you.”

“I know that. But your expression’s making me shit myself. I’ve seen mercenaries gunning down the enemy in the Congo looking less pissed off than you do.”

Jade tried to relax. “When were you in the Congo, Robbie?”

Robbie winked at her. “I’ve been a lot of places in the last while. Some you don’t want to know about.”

Viljoen and the black prisoner reached the car. The black man opened the door and helped Viljoen inside. He bent stiffly, fumbling his way forward into the passenger seat. The younger prisoner closed the passenger door and got into the back of the car. What was Viljoen, a committed racist, jailed for the brutal murder of three black farm employees, doing in a vehicle with a black ex-convict?

“What the hell?” Robbie frowned. “Was this the slowest kidnapping I’ve ever seen? Or did your friend just agree to share his car with a darkie?”

Jade shook her head. “I can’t believe it either.”

“Where’s his welcome committee? Where’s the gang of Voortrekkers with their rifles and swastikas and pointy white hats?”

“The hat-wearers were the Ku Klux Klan, Robbie.”

“Whatever. You get my drift.”

The Mazda pulled out into the traffic. Robbie waited for another few cars to go past and then followed.

Viljoen’s lift drove at a steady pace. Jade could sense Rob-bie’s frustration. He was itching to go faster—Robbie lived for speed. To compensate, he alternated between biting his nails and beating his fingers on the dashboard of his car in a manic rhythm that he kept up all the way to Pretoria. Jade knew there was no point in asking him to stop, but the sound was so irritating that she began to consider other alternatives. Like knocking him on the head with the butt of her gun and taking the wheel herself.