Random Violence (17 page)

Jade knew she’d have to speak to David again at some stage. When she could face the idea. She’d come to terms with the fact that David wasn’t her hero any more. He wasn’t the older, more experienced idol he had been ten years ago. He was a man dealing with his own messy and complicated personal life, and it was bad luck for her that she’d become caught up in it. She had to accept that. After all, they were investigating a case together. Her father had always emphasized that the case must come first, whether she was working with people she liked, people she hated, or people who she felt had let her down.

So Jade put the case first.

She drove out to Annette’s house. She wanted to see Piet again, find out if there were any other pieces of information he’d simply forgotten to share with her. Jade felt sorry for him. He had lost the woman who was close to him. More than that, he had lost his much-cherished dream of being able to make things right with her again.

Sometimes, Jade knew, losing your dreams could be worse than losing your reality.

“There’s a lot I’d tell your mother, if she had her time over,” her father had said on one of the rare occasions he had spoken about his wife. “Such a lot I wished I’d said. Don’t be shy, Jade, when you need to tell somebody you love them, or you’ll regret it one day.”

She thought about those words as she was driving. She had tried to tell David how she felt, and it had backfired on her. David had other issues to deal with. He’d lost his heart to another woman. Or rather, as Jade saw it, to a conniving bitch who’d probably only fallen pregnant in the first place in order to entrap him.

Piet wandered out of the house wearing a paint-spattered tracksuit and his ancient sandals. He buzzed her inside, keys in one hand, brush in the other. The circles under his eyes looked darker than ever and his hair stood on end in a wild, tangled bush.

“Jade. It’s good to see you. Is there any news?”

“Nothing concrete yet.” She climbed out of the car. “But we’ve been working non-stop. We’re pursuing a few prom-ising leads.”

Piet was too naïve to realize this meant no progress had been made.

“That’s great. Come in.”

Jade followed him into the master bedroom, where sheets of newspaper covered the carpet. A stepladder stood on the newspaper and a tray of paint and an artist’s palette were bal-anced on what looked like a clotheshorse. Piet had outlined an intricate pattern of leaves and flowers on the wardrobe door and now he was filling it in.

“I have to do something to distract myself from this busi-ness.” He took a heavy step onto the bottom rung of the ladder. “My wife has been murdered. And now the police are prying into everything. My bank statements. My insurance policies. Nothing is private any more. They’re still making out like I’m guilty.” He set the brush down and twisted round on the ladder. His eyebrows spiked in all directions and he had a smudge of green on his nose. “I don’t want Annette’s money. I’ve already decided I’m going to donate it to charity. To the Animal Anti-Cruelty League, because I feel guilty about giving away her dogs.

“So I don’t know why they’re doing this.” He turned back to his work. “I mean, I’ve been cooperating with them for more than a week. Are they getting impatient because they haven’t found a suspect yet?”

The bed had been stripped of linen. Jade perched on the edge of bare mattress, patterned in blue and white. “Not at all. But they can’t clear you immediately, either. Bank state-ments and insurance policies take a while to obtain. It’s all routine, Piet. You needn’t worry.”

She watched as he swept his brush across the palette. He dabbed paint onto a leaf, adding more green to an area already dark green. He withdrew the brush and leaned backwards, evaluating the result with his head on one side. Jade could see no discernible difference. But then, she wasn’t the artist.

“Tell me about Annette,” Jade said.

Piet looked over his shoulder at her. “But I told you already what she was like.”

“Tell me again. Why was she so private?”

He dabbed the brush in the paint again, his movements prac-ticed and confident. He looked contented and sure of himself when he was painting. As if this was a world he understood, one where nobody killed or threatened or lied.

“She had to rely on herself from an early age.” Piet dabbed, inspected, and dabbed again. “Her parents died before I met her. Cancer. They were chain smokers, both of them. Annette never touched cigarettes. She hated that I smoked. That was another problem between us.”

“So she had no family except her brother?”

“No family apart from him. Family was important to her because she had so little. She loved her brother. And even when we divorced, she kept in touch with me.”

“You two never had children?” Since seeing Naisha and the boy she now realized was Kevin, Jade had decided she needed to ask these questions upfront, so the answers couldn’t come back to bite her later.

Piet shook his head. “Annette couldn’t. She had women’s problems. Endometriosis, I think they called it.”

“And her brother?” Jade was thinking about the two golf trophies on the wall unit. Now they were packed away with everything else.

Piet shrugged. “Adrian was married and divorced. Many years ago. No kids.” His face pulled down into mournful lines. Jade wondered whether Piet had wanted children.

“What was his wife’s name?”

“Tracy. I don’t remember her maiden name. She lives in Ireland now.” He looked over his shoulder again, apologeti-cally. “Not Ellie. I don’t know who Ellie was. Annette never said anything about an Ellie.”

Jade’s cell phone rang. She jumped. She couldn’t help it. She scanned the incoming number and her stomach knotted. It was David calling. She didn’t want to speak to him, but the case came first.

“Hi,” she said.

“Jade. Where are you?” David’s voice thrummed with tension.

“I’m with Piet, discussing a couple of things.”

“Shit,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Just move away from him, OK? Get somewhere private. I need an urgent word.”

Jade stood up. “Sorry, Piet. Emergency call.”

He nodded without turning away from his painting.

She went into the garden and looked at the view again. Yellow grass, blue sky, wooden fences, red brick barn.

“Are you there?” David asked.

“Of course I’m here.” Control yourself, she thought. Be nice. Don’t snap.

“Officer Moloi has just come into my office with evidence relating to Annette Botha’s case.”

“Go on.” Jade walked down the hill towards the horse barn, feeling the long grass brush against her knees.

“The Diepsloot patrol unit found a body just outside the informal settlement last night. A gangster, shot dead in the road. He had a thousand rand in his pocket, which, amazingly, didn’t disappear before we came along, a Colt .45firearm, and a business card belonging to one Piet Botha. The weapon’s already at ballistics for test-firing, to see if it’s the same .45 used to murder Annette.” He paused. “I’ve got a car on the way. We’re arresting Piet and bringing him in for questioning.”

Jade walked through the wood-framed doorway into the horse barn. The roof was high and large windows flooded the place with light. The barn was divided into roomy stalls. Down its center was a wide corridor paved with a rubberized material. It was springy underfoot. She stepped along it, her footsteps soundless.

“Jade? Are you there?”

“That can’t be right. I just don’t think Piet could have arranged that. He can hardly organize for the gate to be opened when somebody arrives.”

“The evidence contradicts that. We have to bring him in.”

“David, he’s not acting guilty. I don’t believe he’s a liar. He’s just a sad little man who’s missing his wife. And he’s terrified of going to jail. I’m going to feel like Judas if I know you’re coming for him and I don’t say anything.”

“Please stay there, Jade. You can tell him, if you like. Maybe he has an explanation.” David sounded unconvinced.

Jade turned and walked back along the rubber matting. It was smooth and still looked brand-new. Then it dawned on her that the barn didn’t smell of horse. There was no manure. No flies. The concrete floors were clean and unstained. No traces of straw, or whatever horses ate. Horses had never lived here. The barn was an empty shell.

“I’ll tell him,” she agreed reluctantly. “Maybe there’s a reason for it. Personally, I think someone’s setting him up.”

She went back up to the house with leaden feet.

Piet stumbled off his ladder when she told him the news. He collapsed on the bed, buried his face in his hands and started to sob.

“Jade, I don’t believe this. How can it be? This is a bad dream. I’m living in a nightmare.” He looked up at her, his furrowed face streaked with tears and paint. “How can a gangster have my business card?”

“Piet, we have to try and think clearly here. The sooner the police have an explanation, the sooner you’ll be out of custody. Did you have your wallet snatched at any stage? Was there a burglary at your house?”

Jade looked at him, hoping against hope that something plausible had happened. How had his card ended up in the clutches of a township tsotsi? She needed to think for him, because she could see Piet wasn’t capable of coherent thought at the moment.

He shook his head. “No burglary.”

“You’ve been giving your business cards out to all the press who’ve been round to get your story. Perhaps the guy got hold of your card that way.”

“Perhaps.” Piet blew his nose. Jade saw that his hands were shaking. “How can we tell?”

“The detectives will have to follow up. In the meantime, you need to get ready to go. The patrol vehicle is on its way.”

Piet looked at her, wild hope in his eyes. “Jade, I’ve had an idea. I’m going to make a run for it. Now, in the Golf. I’m going to escape them. Will you cover for me?”

“No, Piet, please don’t do that. Or you’ll be in worse trouble.” Jade grasped his shoulders. “We’ll sort this out as quickly as we can. In the meantime, put the lids on your paints and get yourself a warm jacket. Not an expensive one. Something old. It might be chilly in those cells.”

“Will I be locked up with other people?”

She nodded. “There’s usually three or four in each holding cell.”

Piet’s knees quivered and he slumped back onto the bed. “I’m going to be anally raped, I know it. They’re going to beat me up. Please don’t let them take me, Jade.”

She walked over to the mural and carefully moved the clotheshorse aside. Piet had a few clothes in the cupboard. She chose a thick hooded jacket with old paint stains on its front. Nobody would fight him for that, she hoped. She found a pair of socks on a shelf and took those as well. She pushed Piet’s arms through the sleeves, feeling as if she was dressing a child for school. He put his socks on and tightened the Velcro on his rafters.

“I need to go to the bathroom.” He shuffled away, arms wrapped round his body.

When he returned, the car was honking at the gate.

“Will you lock up, Jade?” he asked. “Will you take care of everything till I get back?”

“Of course,” she reassured him. “Call me as soon as you’re out, too, and I’ll pick you up.”

“They’re not going to handcuff me, are they?”

“Shouldn’t think so,” she said. But she was wrong. The arresting officers were new and keen and weren’t prepared to bend the rules. Suspects under arrest had to be cuffed. Piet stared in horror, tears welling in his eyes as the officer fas-tened the metal bracelets around his wrists. He looked small and alone in the back of the police car as it turned out of the driveway and disappeared down the road.

25

Jade put the lids back onto the tins of paint and put them back in the tray with the others. She found some paint thinner and an old jar in the scullery. She left the brush to soak and took the stepladder out to the yard.

There wasn’t much else to straighten up. The kitchen was filled with cardboard boxes ready for transport and storage. She could see which ones had been labeled by Piet. His writing was large and bold, the capital letters written with a flourish. There were more boxes in the corner that Annette must have packed before she died. They were carefully sealed and had small neat lettering on their sides. “Books,” “Bathroom” and five or six large boxes labeled “Adrian—Sport” and “Adrian— Personal.”

Jade heard honking outside. For a crazy moment, she thought the police vehicle was back, bringing Piet home again. She ran outside with the remote in her hand.

David was at the gate.

“Open up, Jade. We need to get moving.”

She locked up the house and hurried over. “What’s happened?”

He waved a sheet of paper. “We’ve got a match for the fin-gerprint on the axe.”

David looked relaxed, almost unconcerned, but Jade could tell from the set of his jaw that he was already on the chase. She took the paper, trying not to think about the fact that it had been procured for him as a favor by his wife. She was going to focus on the task ahead and try to forget what had happened the day before.

Her eyebrows rose as she read through the printout. “This thumbprint belongs to a woman.”

“Yup. We’re on our way to find her.”

Thandi Khumalo lived in a rented flat in an apartment block opposite a park. It looked like tranquil suburbia, but the steel access gate and the perimeter fence topped with razor wire told a different story.

They found the caretaker in the garden fixing a security light.

“Thandi? I’d be surprised if she could even lift an axe.” He laughed. “But she works at a hardware store, so she might have sold it.” He gave them the address; she worked near Sandton.

They got back into the police car.

“We can take a short cut through Alex township. If you’re not scared.”

“I’m more scared driving through Alexandra with a cop than I would be on my own.”

David grinned. “Me too.”

Looking through the car window, Jade was surprised at how the sprawling settlement had been improved. Rows of modest houses were set out in geometric formation, forcing the corrugated-iron shacks into retreat. Jade could see power lines and streetlights. The air was clear. People had planted flowers and trees in the spaces outside their homes.

“It’s a lot better now,” David declared. “The houses on this side of the road were built for athletes competing in the All Africa Games. When the games were over, they were passed on to residents, and they’ve carried on building houses from there. Most of the townships are the same, now. Low-cost housing is starting to take over.” He nodded approvingly. “In a hundred years or so, there probably won’t be any crime at all. Everyone will be happy, in their own little homes with electricity and television.”

“Pity you won’t be alive to see it.”

“Speak for yourself. I plan on living till at least a hundred and eighty.”

The hardware store where Thandi worked was in a newish shopping center. Thandi herself was sturdy and short, with a bright smile and straightened hair gelled back and held in place by a butterfly clip. She wore blue jeans and a black golf shirt with the hardware store’s logo on the pocket.

David explained the situation. The store manager hovered in the background, keen to hear the latest news from the world of crime fighting. Thandi listened, leaning forward, eyes wide and attentive. When he told her that a murder had been committed with the axe, her hands flew to her mouth in horror.

“Eish!” she said.

“Do you know anything about it?” asked David. He opened his file and passed her a photocopied sheet with the axe’s measurements and a 10x8 color photograph.

Thandi and the manager looked at the photo as if it was going to leap off the page and attack them. They glanced at each other and nodded.

“This is the type of stock we sell,” the manager confirmed.

“Thandi. Did you sell an axe recently? Or pack one onto the shelves? Handle one at all?”

Thandi thought for a while. Then she nodded.

“On Monday morning I sold such an item to a customer.”

“And before that?” David asked. “Any other sales?”

She shook her head. “That was the only axe I have sold for a while. People like to buy them at the start of winter, in May. Now it is nearly July.”

David leaned forward, his expression intent. “Tell us about the customer.”

She thought some more, pursing her lips and rubbing her fingers together.

“He asked me for equipment. Axe, hedge-clippers, a crowbar. And gloves. I fetched everything for him. He made me walk all around the shop.”

Jade and David exchanged glances. Yolandi had been assaulted with a crowbar on Wednesday night. Had this man purchased the weapon used to attack her as well?

“How did he pay?”

“Cash, I think. Yes, because he counted his change as if I was stealing from him. Then he told me to pack the shopping for him. He took the bags and left the shop.”

The manager cleared his throat. “Monday morning. Would a security video help you? We’ve got one in place here. I’ll get it for you and then you can play it back and see him.” He rushed off to the back of the store.

Thandi continued. “He was a white man. Tall.”

Jade looked at Thandi, who, if she wore platform shoes, might have reached five feet in height. To her, the word “tall” probably covered a broad range of possibilities.

“Taller than him?” She pointed to David, who drew himself up to his full six foot five. Thandi’s head came to the middle of his chest.

“Maybe.” She had to crane her neck in order to see David’s face. “Maybe as tall as him.”

“We’ll see more from the video,” David said. “Tell us any-thing else you noticed about him.”

“He had short hair. Brown, I think. Or red. He did not smile. He had something on his face.” She smoothed her fingers along her cheekbone in demonstration. “Here on his face. Like scars.”

“His age?”

She shrugged. “Not young. Not old.”

“What about his voice? Did you notice any accent?”

Thandi thought about it. “He sounded ordinary. Like any white South African guy.”

David scribbled notes. “Anything else? Did you see where he went afterwards? His car?”

Thandi shook her head. “Perhaps if you ask the car guard. He is good with remembering people.”

They thanked her, and she headed over to the till, head held high, proud at having been able to help.

The manager brought back the security tapes for Monday that covered the hours from nine a.m. to one p.m. “Shout if you need any others. But we checked on the computer. The purchase was made at ten past eleven.”

Before they left the shop, David took a couple of digital photos of the till area using his cell phone. He asked the manager for a Stanley tape measure to record the height of the counter. To Thandi’s amusement, he measured her too. “These photos will help the techie with color analysis from the black and white footage,” he said. “Should be able to get the guy’s approximate height as well, with these references.”

Jade went out to talk to the car guard, but their conversa-tion was not as fruitful. The man said he knew all the regu-lars, but he did not remember a man with a scarred face.

“So he’s not a regular.” David looked disappointed. “Suppose it would be too good to be true if he was.”

“Makes sense,” Jade said. “You wouldn’t go and buy a murder weapon from your local hardware store. We were lucky that Thandi remembered him. Otherwise we’d be as deep in the dark as we were when we started.”

Jo’burg Central’s media center sounded grander than it looked. It was in fact an old meeting room equipped with a TV, a video and DVD machine, some basic computer equip-ment and a variety of uncomfortable chairs. After the techni-cian had copied the tapes onto DVD, he, David and Jade went in and settled down to watch the footage.

“They’ve got the time running at the bottom of the screen on digital display,” the techie said. “Where do you want to start?”

David turned to Jade. “How about ten past eleven, when the man made the purchase? Then we’ll see what he looks like, and we can go back and see when he came in.”

“Sounds good,” she said.

Jade watched as the day in the life of a hardware store flick-ered past at high speed in grainy black and white. The security camera had been set up to show the shop doors and the two tills. The till staff had their backs to the camera, the customers faced it. She wondered whether its primary purpose was to keep the clients or the staff honest. As the technician fast-forwarded, people raced in and whirled past and scuttled out. Money and goods whipped from hand to hand. The security guard near the tills zigzagged to and fro like a goalkeeper.

“Right. Let’s slow it down here.” The time was 11.05. He pressed a button and the scene shifted to normal speed. They watched an old lady hobble past. Her progress seemed infi-nitely slow. She left the screen and the two tills stood empty. The technician’s finger hovered over the fast-forward button.

“No,” David said. “Wait.”

A minute later two more customers appeared. Then Thandi came into view, pushing a trolley. She was easy to spot, being a head shorter than everyone else and two heads shorter than the bulky man who was following her. His head was turned towards her and his back was to the camera. Jade watched her push the trolley over to the till and unload the goods.

The technician pushed another button and the scene went into slow motion. The man had his hands in the pockets of his jacket and was keeping his head down.

“Shit. The bugger knows there’s a bloody camera there.” David shifted in his chair.

Thandi hefted the axe and the other items onto the counter, scanned the purchases and looked up at the man.

“She’s touched that axe all over its handle,” Jade said.

David nodded. “He must have wiped it. He was careful. Just forgot about the base.”

The man produced a wallet from his pocket and counted out seven one hundred rand notes. Thandi gave him his change. Then he pointed at the plastic bags on the counter. She started packing his goods. The axe was long and heavy and Jade saw that she’d had to support the base of the handle with her thumb in order to get it in a bag.

The man picked up his purchases and strolled out of the shop.

“Crap,” David said. “Couldn’t he have looked up?”

“Don’t worry,” the technician said. “That footage told us something.”

“OK. Before we go any further, let’s backtrack and see what he did when he came in.”

“How far shall I go back?”

“How long does it take someone to decide what bloody axe to buy? They’re all the same. Go back fifteen minutes and let’s see if he’s there.”

Ten minutes before he left the shop, the man strode in, hands in his pockets. He went straight past the tills and headed for the gardening section.

“There you have it.” David banged his fist down on the table. “Guy couldn’t even smile for the bloody camera.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the tech said. “We’ll run it again. I’m seeing enough of his face to get a few good stills. Can’t ask for more. A camera like this, it’s put in for the staff more than the customers. You see how you can watch everything they’re doing when they turn to the cash drawer?”

He zoomed in on a frame. “This is the best one I see, but there’s a few other good ones. We should be able to get his approximate height and weight, too.”

“How long will it take?”

The techie sighed. “You don’t want to know what my backlog’s like.” Then he saw David’s face. “For you, Superin-tendent, we’ll prioritize it. I’ll call you in a couple of hours.”