Stolen Lives (39 page)

Then a shove from outside forced the door open again. Its edge connected with his head, nearly toppling him over, and for a moment he thought he’d lost the battle. But he wasn’t ready to give up. He flung himself back against it one more time, with all his weight behind it, and just before it finally slammed closed, Xavier pulled his arm back.

Salimovic was on his feet in an instant. He wrestled the bolt across, then sprinted down the corridor to where he could get a shot at the man from one of the darkened and empty guest bedrooms.

He snatched the door open, ran across to the window, crouched down and sighted over the sill.

Sighted at nothing.

Xavier Soumare had disappeared.

Had he driven away, or was he still on the premises? Salimovic didn’t know. From this window he could only just see the rear bumper of his own car. If another vehicle was parked in front of it, it would be invisible from this vantage point.

“Bastard!” Salimovic hissed. “Jebi ga!” He was trembling in reaction, or perhaps it was simple rage. If it hadn’t been for Katja’s phone call, right now he’d be lying dead in the hallway with a bullet in his brain.

Xavier must have been planning all along on doing this. Slowly gaining his trust, meeting up with Tamsin, even going to all the trouble of supplying him with the passports. But why?

Salimovic didn’t have a clue. It wouldn’t be the first time, though, that a deal had gone sour like that for no apparent reason.

He remembered that Tamsin, and now Katja too, had told him Xavier was working with a woman. That meant he must be with the whore who had sneaked through the open French door in the main bedroom and pointed the Glock at him earlier.

Who was now tied up in the trophy room, a helpless prisoner, awaiting his revenge.

With a jolt, Salimovic realised that the French door in the bedroom was still unlocked. Xavier could have got in that way, just as the other bitch had done. He could be inside the house by now. He could be right behind him.

He spun away from the window, his eyes straining into the semi-darkness, cursing the wind for its wailing when what would help him most right now was quiet.

Moving as silently as possible, he made his way back to the master bedroom.

He smelled the blood as soon as he entered the room; a coppery whiff, subtle but unmistakable. He froze in his tracks when he located its source.

He was too late. Xavier Soumare had already got to Tammy.

She lay face-up on the bed, still gagged, still bound. The right side of her face was soaked with blood. It had spilled onto the pillow and pooled in her hair.

The dark hilt of a knife was sticking out of her right eye-socket while her left eye stared ahead sightlessly.

Staring more closely at the gruesome sight, Salimovic noticed that her head was twisted sideways at an awkward-looking angle.

After stabbing her, Xavier must have broken her neck in a silent, deadly and expert manoeuvre.

“Shit,” Salimovic whispered.

Now he couldn’t take her with him and sell her, as he had been planning. Worse, he couldn’t use her to get to her rich-bitch mother, which meant he was going to end up seriously short of cash again.

Soumare had stolen his property, his prejilepa, his little darling.

Salimovic knew what he had to do, but he was going to have to act fast. The French door was standing wide open, so he guessed Soumare must have fled outside after murdering Tamsin. He’d start the hunt for him later; but right now he was intent on revenge.

He locked the door, so that the black man couldn’t get back inside. Then he reached out and took hold of the knife’s hilt. He’d seen worse in his time, but all the same he had to grit his teeth before he wrenched it out of her eye-socket. It came free with a wet, sucking noise and he wiped some of the bloody residue onto the sheet, noticing his hands were unsteady.

“An eye for an eye,” Salimovic whispered, pleased with the irony of the expression.

Silent as a shadow, he began to make his way back towards the trophy room.

Jade climbed to her feet. She’d expected Salimovic to be back by now, but after she had heard the gunshot there had been silence, followed by the far-away slamming of a heavy door.

Thanks to Salimovic’s brutal treatment, her left arm was virtually crippled and both her hands were swollen and weak. She flexed her fingers, hoping the movement would help the circulation get going again.

The only potential weapon she could see was the pair of long metal tongs that Salimovic had used to pick up the coal. Using her stronger right hand, she eventually managed to pick them up. The tongs weren’t much of a defence, but they might allow her to break the padlock on the gate motor if she needed to get away.

And, right now, she did need to get away. She was outnumbered two to one, and she had no gun. There was no time for anymore heroics.

The trophy room had an archway at each end. Which one to choose?

Salimovic had taken the one on the right. To be safe, Jade took the other one.

It led into a big kitchen, with a scullery door which proved to be locked. Another passage led to two bedrooms. Empty of all furniture, with no keys in the locks. From there, a short corridor led into a lounge. Double doors opened into a hallway, and beyond that Jade could see the big front door.

Stepping as quietly as she could, Jade crept into the hallway.

Cold air flooded in under the door. She grabbed hold of the bolt and tried to push it open, but it was old and stubborn, and her hands were still so weak that the metal proved impossible for her to shift.

As Jade turned away, something on the ground caught her eye. Bending closer, she saw three new-looking South African passports.

These must be the fakes that the syndicate at Home Affairs had been forced to supply. For these, David’s wife had been threatened and his son had been abducted.

Now, here they were, lying discarded on the floor.

Jade hesitated only a moment before picking the passports up. With difficulty, because bending her wrists was agony, she slipped them into her jeans pocket.

Then she tensed as, right beside her, a cellphone began to ring.

The phone was under the hall table, where somebody must have dropped it.

It must surely belong to Salimovic. And any moment now, Jade was sure he’d be coming to find it.

She had no choice but to go back to the trophy room, where she’d been tied up.

As she entered the room, the coals shifted in the grate and the sound made her jump.

She knew she couldn’t have much time before he came back.

Think, she urged herself.

She could hide. But where?

Behind one of the heavy velvet curtains that framed the main window, perhaps.

But as she moved towards the window, Salimovic walked into the dining hall. He was aiming her gun at her and when he saw she was free, he grinned widely.

“Still all alone?” he said, a comment which she didn’t immediately understand. “You got out of those ties by yourself? Your precious Xavier didn’t manage to rescue you?”

He spat out the last words, and with a sick feeling, Jade realised that Salimovic and Xavier were not, in fact, on the same side. Worse still, he now clearly believed she was the black man’s female accomplice.

“Hands up,” he said. “Drop those tongs. And if you try and run, I’ll shoot you in the back.”

Jade released the tongs and they clattered to the floor. Then she raised her hands slowly above her head. Or tried to. Salimovic’s grin widened as he saw the red-raw skin on her wrists.

“So you burnt your way free. Did you enjoy it? Want to do it again?”

He took a step closer, and Jade saw his gaze focus on her bulging pocket.

“Take them out.”

“What do you mean?”

“The passports. You’ve got them there. You’re hiding them in your jeans pocket. Throw them to me. Now.”

No point in resisting. Wincing, Jade managed to tug out the three documents. She tossed them towards Salimovic’s feet. They landed in a little riff, like cards dealt in a casino. He picked them up and put them in his own pocket.

“Your friend tried to screw me using these,” he said. “So I screwed him back. I never paid him. But you know what? I think you can be the payment.”

Jade said nothing.

“Where is he now?” he asked her. “Tell me where Xavier is, and I’ll let you go free.”

“He’s not my friend,” Jade said. “I don’t know why he tried to rip you off. And I don’t know where he is.”

The fingers on Salimovic’s left hand twitched and Jade saw a knife appear in them. On its blade was a streak of blood that still looked fresh.

“Oh, I think you do know,” he said, and took another step towards her.

Xavier Soumare stood very still, his emaciated body pressed back against the window, staring through the tiny nick he’d made in the velvet curtain with his fourth and last knife.

It was an awkward shooting angle, because he couldn’t let the muzzle of the gun disturb the fall of the curtain. In addition, he was consumed by the need to cough, so badly he could feel blood bubbling in his lungs. Working slowly, with every movement a monumental effort, he managed to get his right hand into a workable position.

Through the tiny gap, he could see the woman’s back. She was just a few feet in front of him. He couldn’t see Salimovic at all— the woman was blocking his narrow view—but he could hear him speaking.

Xavier aimed for the exact centre of Jade’s black jacket.

He let his breath out slowly, his hands steadying as his finger tightened on the trigger.

52

David been on raids before; many of them. Most of them in his younger days, back in Durban, before he was promoted to detective.

Most of them had been routine raids on illegal casinos, nightclubs, adult entertainment venues. And yes, the occasional raid on a brothel. He remembered one of the sex workers, a well-built coloured woman, pretty until she’d opened her mouth. Boy, she’d let rip, sending a volley of curses his way in a high-pitched screech.

“Fokken big policeman, I’ve got a right to earn an honest wage. Why don’t you fokkoff and go hassle daaie charras that are busy giving cheap bjs next door? Jou ma se poes!” she’d yelled, and David had been glad that his sketchy knowledge of Afrikaans hadn’t allowed him to translate her last words with any accuracy.

He’d got the idea, though.

He’d seen a lot in his raiding days. He’d thought he had seen it all.

Now, David realised that he hadn’t. He hadn’t had any idea how bad it could get.

They pulled up outside the Bez Valley brothel in the orange Mazda, the Pimpmobile as Jade called it, because nobody could possibly suspect it was a police vehicle. It was followed at a distance by two unmarked backup cars which would cordon off the entrance as soon as the Mazda was safely inside.

Once a modest residential suburb characterised by small, quaint houses, Bez Valley had been engulfed by the urban rot spreading southwards from Jo’burg’s city centre. The streets were empty of everything except crumpled plastic packets and smashed bottles; the low walls in front of the houses chipped and eroded. Every bit of glass that wasn’t already broken was protected by wire mesh and thick with dust.

For the brothel’s customers, off-street parking was mandatory. Thembi rang the bell and the guard shone a torch into the Mazda before allowing it inside.

David was glad he was sitting in the back. He was so distracted, so concerned about his son, that even with the help of the gps he knew he would have lost his way. A bmw with similarly mirrored windows left the premises, driving fast, as the Pimpmobile parked in the otherwise empty lot.

This property had replaced its low wall with a high, barred fence and an electric gate. Not just to keep criminals out, but to keep prisoners in.

Where was Kevin now, David wondered, as he eased the back door open and climbed out into the hot, breezy night. He’d checked in with Naisha on an hourly basis throughout the afternoon. The last time he spoke to her she had been crying, and there was still no news.

Where the hell was his boy?

Unlike their British counterparts, the South African police were fully armed when they conducted raids. David’s service pistol was securely holstered on his hip, and he was wearing a Kevlar vest.

“The main entrance is this way,” Thembi whispered. “And there’s a second door just down there, if you follow that path.” He’d been into the brothel the previous week, under the guise of a client who would prove too nervous to avail himself of the facilities, and had given David a full report on the building’s layout and the numbers of the staff who worked there. Without a doubt, Thembi had confirmed that this establishment was using trafficked workers who, from the looks of things, were permanently imprisoned in their rooms.

When he’d checked the gps coordinates on the white van from Heads & Tails after driving back from Jade’s house, David had seen that the van had indeed travelled to this address.

He couldn’t wait to begin questioning the owners.

“Go round to the back,” David directed the third officer in a low voice. On the way to the main entrance he walked past a dirty window with thick blinds. He followed Thembi to the front door.