Random Violence (18 page)

26

Jade sat with David in his office. Now that the excitement of tracing the axe was over, the silence between them felt uneasy. She didn’t know what to say to him. She was worried that if she spoke, she would end up saying something she would regret. Or he would misinterpret her words. Instead, she stared at the wall opposite her and said nothing. She was relieved when the phone rang. The sergeant at the front desk was on the line. David put the call on speakerphone. Jade wondered if he did this in the interests of transparency, so she wouldn’t think it was his wife calling.

“We’ve got a man here to see you,” the sergeant said.

“Well, go on then. Why are you phoning? Just send him up.”

“Superintendent, I think in this case it would be easier for you to come down.”

Graham Hope was waiting downstairs in the foyer. The sergeant had thoughtfully found him a chair. He sat perched on its edge, his bad leg stretched in front of him, his crutches on the floor beside him.

“Ah, Jade. Good to see you again.” He fumbled for his crutches and used them to haul himself into a standing position. He held out his hand to David. As he did, one of the metal sticks tumbled to the floor again. The loud clatter caused people in the queue for the front desk to turn and stare.

David bent and picked up the crutch and handed it to the man.

“Thank you, thank you. As I’ve said to Jade, I’m counting the days till this damn leg is mended. I’m Graham Hope.”

“Superintendent Patel.” David shook his hand.

“I was passing by. The deeds office is down the road and I had to pick up some documents for a house sale.”

David said nothing. Just nodded and waited for the man to continue.

“Actually, I’m here on behalf of one of my clients.” He stopped and looked abashed. “Jade is going to think I’m a fearful gossip, and I’m sorry about that.” He winked at her. “But I had to make a personal visit and confirm this with you.” Hope paused again, propped his elbow on a crutch, and scratched his chin. “This is rather embarrassing. I don’t know why I have to be the one to ask these questions. I’m the front man, I suppose. Speaking on behalf of the community. I heard Piet Botha was arrested earlier today, so I’ve just popped in to confirm whether it’s true.”

David groaned. Then he turned to Jade with an incredu-lous frown. “Did you tell him this?”

Jade glared at him. “No, I did not. What do you think, I go around leaking information on the case as soon as your back is turned?”

Graham reached out and took her arm. Was it her imagi-nation, or did she see David glance at his wedding band and then at her, an unreadable expression on his face?

“I’m sorry. Now I’ve put the cat among the pigeons.” Graham blinked, and smiled disarmingly. His expression looked inno-cent, but Jade realized he had picked up the tension between them immediately. Graham’s amiable manner concealed lightning-sharp instincts that would have made a top investi-gator proud. Now, she guessed, he would use the situation to his advantage.

“I didn’t mean to do that.” He continued speaking, proving her right. “And, Superintendent, I’d like to confirm that Jade has never discussed any aspect of your case with me that she shouldn’t have, not even during our pleasant chat over lunch the other day.”

Jade glanced down. David’s arms were by his sides. His hands had balled into fists. Was he jealous? Or did he disap-prove of her having lunch with a married man? She lifted her chin. How dare he be jealous. And if he disapproved, then why was he round at her cottage like a hungry dog wagging its tail every time he thought there was a chance of getting some cop food? How hypocritical could a man be?

“No,” Graham shook his head, eyes twinkling. “I’m here because of a random and unconfirmed sighting. A neighbor saw him being driven away in a police vehicle, and thought she recognized him.”

David looked at the man with dislike. “Yes, Piet Botha is in police custody at present,” he snapped.

Graham beamed. “Well, that is excellent news. You don’t know it, Superintendent, but you’ve made our day. I’ve always thought that part of the northwestern suburbs is one of the safest in Johannesburg. That’s what I tell my clients, at least. If this had been a random hijacking, I would have been proved a liar. As it is, I think we can all stop holding our breath and looking over our shoulders.” He gave Jade’s arm a final squeeze.

“I’ll be off. Many thanks. And congratulations, Superin-tendent. We can all sleep easier knowing the South African police service is working so tirelessly.”

He fumbled with his crutches, threaded his arms through them, and swung away towards the door.

“What the hell?” David asked. “Is he legal to drive with a leg like that?”

“His car’s an automatic.” Jade turned and walked back up the stairs.

“Oh, so you’ve been in his car?”

“David.” Jade stopped on the step above him and turned towards him, infuriated. With the extra height it provided, she was almost eye to eye with him. “I have not been in his car. He told us the first time we met him at Piet’s place that he drives an automatic. What on earth is your problem with him?”

David shook his head. He pushed past her and continued up to the second floor, his heavy footsteps echoing in the stairwell. By the time they’d reached his office, he’d brought his temper under control again.

“Nothing. This case is getting to me, that’s all.” He pushed open the door. “Bad enough without having a human broad-casting system conveying information to the general public before my goddamn team even knows about it.”

David had a fan heater in his office. Its gentle rattling and buzzing was the only noise Jade could hear as she followed him into the room and sat down again. She began staring at the wall again, and saw David staring at the one opposite. They didn’t speak. David’s stomach rumbled. In the tense silence, the noise sounded like Vesuvius erupting.

They both jumped when the phone rang. David grabbed the receiver on the first ring.

“Yes. Yes! Fantastic. Bring them along.”

He slammed the phone down and turned to Jade, his ill humor forgotten. “That guy’s the best in the business. He’s on his way now.”

The tech brought five A5 photo prints with him. He spread them out on the desk.

“He’s very pale-skinned,” he said. “At first I thought I was messing up the color balance, but when I tried a normal skin tone, it looked like the shop had had a power failure, it’s so dark.”

They looked down at the prints.

The man’s jaw was massive and heavy. His lips were full and his nose looked twisted, as if it had been broken. His pale skin was blotchy, with reddish-brown scars on his cheeks and nose.

“He’s no oil painting, that’s for sure,” David muttered. “What’s with the skin? Thandi said he had something on his cheeks. You can see it in that pic. On his nose, too.”

“It’s some sort of pigmentation. Freckles, perhaps, or scar-ring from sunburn. I’ve sent the pics to a professor at Wits University to see if he has any other ideas.”

“Looks bloody unhealthy.”

“His hair is red, we think. With black and white footage, we can’t be sure. But red hair would match his skin coloring.”

“His age? His height?”

“At least six feet two. Between thirty-five and fifty years old. And weight probably around a hundred and twenty kilo-grams. He’s overweight for his size. Heavy but not obese.”

“Thanks.” David clapped the man on the back. “Let us know more as soon as you know.”

The technician must have called in some favors of his own, because he phoned back again later with more news. David put the call on speakerphone so Jade could hear the report first-hand.

“About the scarring on his cheekbones and nose. The pro-fessor at Wits says it might be from burns. Scalding, perhaps. Probably also the result of long-term exposure to the sun.”

David replaced the handset.

“Sun exposure and a local accent. So our friend’s probably been in South Africa most of his life.”

Jade realized what he was thinking.

“He would have done national service.”

“Yup. A compulsory stint in the Army, same as any other white guy. Army service was two years, right up until the late eighties. It was only dropped after the 1994 elections. So, if he wasn’t a draft dodger, and he grew up in South Africa, there’s a ninety-nine percent chance that he would have spent at least one year, probably two, in the Army.” His face broke into a triumphant grin. “Private Jade de Jong, since you enjoy spending long hours with strange men, I hereby volunteer you for the research task force.”

27

Defense Force headquarters had undergone one of the many name changes that had swept South Africa during the last decade. Sometimes Jade felt she had returned to an entirely different country.

Headquarters, originally called Roberts Heights, was nestled at the foot of the hill where the Voortrekker Monu-ment had been built. In a fit of nationalism, the old regime had renamed the base Voortrekkerhoogte, or Voortrekker Heights. When the ANC came into power, that name had been discarded. The new name was Thaba Tshwane, which Jade personally thought sounded like somebody sneezing.

Apart from the change in signage, the Army base looked the same as Jade remembered it from her few brief visits long ago. When she drove through the gates early the following morning, she was shown through to the office of the Chief Directorate of Human Resources. The director was a tall man with close-cropped hair and a ramrod-straight carriage. His voice was clipped and brisk with a surprisingly English accent that Jade had noticed when she had phoned him the previous afternoon.

Once he’d heard her story in person, the director picked up the phone.

“I need to access all staff records from 1974 to 1989. We’ll need two of you to help us search through the files. I’ll see you at the records office in five minutes.”

He gestured to Jade.

“Come on. Let’s go.”

The lawns outside the admin center were the only place in the South African winter highveld that were emerald green and lush. Jade saw two soldiers weeding and trimming and another one moving a sprinkler around. In the Army, any-thing was possible, she supposed.

The director gave two corporals the job of locating the paper files and carrying them from the vaults. He sat with Jade and got ready to search the computerized files.

“We should start with height,” he decided. “What are our parameters?”

“Let’s take everyone over six foot.”

“Fair enough. That’ll weed out three quarters of them.”

Jade was glad she’d come early, because the task in hand seemed endless, with record after record flashing up on the screen, and the two helpers running backwards and forwards with armfuls of files. She was pleased that they were also dili-gent about keeping her coffee cup refilled.

They went through the first five years’ worth of files before lunch. The following ten after lunch went more quickly.

“Were you already experiencing reduction in numbers?” Jade asked.

The director nodded. “Every year you could see a difference.”

By half past three the computer work was over. Jade looked at the massive stacks of paper files she would need to go through one by one and sighed.

With the color photo provided by the tech as reference, she started searching through the records. Each file contained an identity photograph and a full description. She looked at the photos of the young men who had been forced to sign up for military service in the old South Africa.

The men looked so young, so innocent. Wide smiles, guileless eyes, skin scarred with acne but otherwise smooth. She was sure that when the photos had been taken, the men had no idea what their future held, or the part they would play in enforcing the apartheid regime, like pawns in a flawed game of chess.

At half past five she found the file she needed, although she didn’t realize it at first. The repetitive mechanical processing of paper had lulled her into a stupor. She flicked through its pages automatically. Then she stopped, went back, and looked again.

The man was called Garth Whiteley and was from the 1976 intake. The records stated that his hair was red, his eyes blue. He’d squinted at the camera, unsmiling. In the black and white photograph his skin looked doughy and pale, blotched with grayish streaks of scarring over his cheeks and nose. He had a bulky jaw and a nose that looked identical to the one of the man in the hardware store photograph.

“I think we’ve found him,” she called.

The director came over and took a look.

“Seems like a match to me. Whiteley. Let’s see what hap-pened to him.”

He turned to the computer and typed in a couple of commands.

“He spent three months in basics. Then he went through to intelligence. Obviously a clever boy.” He frowned down at the yellowed pages. “Looks like he spent three years in the army, and most of it under the command of my friend General Nel. I can call Nel if you like. He’s still around. Find out more about Whiteley.”

“Thank you,” Jade said.

The director got on the phone. He talked and listened, scrib-bling notes on his pad. Jade waited, looking at the pages that were completed thirty years ago. His identity number was there. His home address too, although she doubted he would still be living there. It was for a house in Townview, Germiston. Back then, it had been a place where working-class whites had lived. Now, Jade was sure it was close to being a no-go area. She wondered if Whiteley had wanted to do his national service. Being poor, he wouldn’t have had a choice. Rich boys who didn’t want to do national service had emigrated or pleaded that they were medically unfit. With the help of an obliging family doctor, any excuse could be fabricated.

“Right. I’ve got some interesting information for you.” The director put the phone down. “Nel remembers him well.”

“Fantastic. What was he like?”

“From the Army’s point of view, he was a contradiction.” He glanced down at the paper. “Nel says he was orphaned just before he was called up. His mother, a single parent, committed suicide by drowning herself in the bath, apparently. Whiteley qualified for exemption because of that, but he chose to join up anyway. He was overweight and unfit. Barely made it through basic training. But he had a brilliant strategic mind.”

“Hence the move to intelligence?”

“Exactly. He performed well for a year, worked his way into a leadership position. They sent him to the border, then to Angola, where he ended up in charge of a unit after the com-mander was killed in a training accident. That was when the trouble started.”

“What trouble?”

“Theft of supplies. Theft of equipment. It happens from time to time, but this was on a serious scale. Looting of the surrounding villages. A couple of the troops in his unit must have been intimidated, because when we investigated they wouldn’t say a thing. Another couple of troops went missing. Suspected of desertion, but you never know.”

“What did General Nel think at the time?”

“At the time, he thought Whiteley was a poor leader, that he was letting his troops run riot. It was only later that he realized Whiteley was behind it all. Nel reckons he was selling equipment and supplies to the enemy, the SWAPO terrorists. Getting cash or diamonds in exchange. He didn’t have a shred of proof, so he couldn’t arrest him, but he got him recalled to Pretoria and discharged from the Army.”

“Did he ever see him again?”

“Never. But he wasn’t surprised when I said he was a suspect in a criminal case. He said Whiteley was a violent man. And a dangerous one.” The director paused and paged back through his notes. “But he didn’t call him Whiteley while we were talking. He referred to him as Whiteboy. A nickname, I suppose.”