The First Rule Of Survival (11 page)

‘I’m aware,’ de Vries says, collapsing into his chair, ‘that you are not personally responsible for “nothing”. But once, just once . . .’ His hands make fists. ‘I want one break on this. Seven fucking years it’s been “nothing”. Now, for Christ’s sake:
something
!’

‘I will extend the search. We will go to six years out, then seven. I can contact the main dealers if necessary. We both think this is a solid lead. I will work it.’

De Vries says: ‘Good, Don. You try to solve problems with work.’

‘It is the only way.’

De Vries looks at his watch.

‘Call me, anytime.’ He sighs. ‘I won’t be sleeping.’

2009

For fourteen months he lived in isolation while his house was being built. Neighbours and acquaintances tried to lure him out, but he rejected them until, one by one, they gave up. Just before Christmas, his closest friend in town, a Capetonian he’d met at university, Simon Van Wyk, asked him to escort his new wife to a grand party, he being sick.

‘You don’t have to do much, man. These media types talk a lot but they don’t say anything. Jane needs to network, but she can’t arrive alone. The food will be good and the bar is free all night.’

John Marantz looked into his kitchen, saw staleness and, on a whim, agreed. He was sober enough to drive; the shaking had subsided sufficiently for him to be able to shave. For the first time, the thought of standing up in public, being seen, being spoken to, did not terrify him. He liked Jane Van Wyk – a prominent young architect; she and Simon had helped him with his house, and they never asked questions of him.

His car was valet parked, and they walked, arm in arm, to the main entrance of the grand Bishopscourt mansion. They stood in line to meet their hosts, and looked beyond them, through the huge triple-height chandeliered lounge to the vast terraces of the candlelit garden, full of South Africa’s beautiful elite.

Perhaps she sensed his fear. She took his hand in hers and whispered, ‘You don’t have to stay, Johnnie.’

‘I’ll be in the garden.’

‘If you want to go, that’s fine. They’ll have cars to take guests home. If you stay, I won’t be long.’

He forced a smile, and they parted; partied.

*   *   *

On a far terrace, low down beneath tall Camphor trees, almost beyond earshot of the lively jazz band, a long wooden dining table boasts a single candelabra, candles dripping wax in the light summer breeze. Marantz sits alone with a bottle of fine Cabernet Sauvignon, sipping slowly, admiring the view of almost complete darkness, broken only by pinpoints of lights from houses across the valley, up where he would soon be living. He thinks that the darkness is like a cloak to him and for a moment he feels safe, unthreatened. Then he hears a wheezing, a stumble, and another guest appears from a smoky dimness, clutching his own bottle, talking, it seems, to himself and then, seeing Marantz, to him.

‘Another man who travels with his own supply.’

Marantz looks up to see a tall, thin, middle-aged man, curly salt and pepper hair whitening at the temples, pockmarked skin, and a creased suit the wrong side of good taste. He looks tired and his eye seems jaundiced.

The man gestures to a chair at the head of the table. ‘You mind?’

‘Please.’

The man stares at him. ‘English?’

Marantz looks up. ‘From just one word? That’s impressive.’

The man smiles, as if he knows it is, but he says, just too blankly; ‘I’m a famous detective.’

Marantz holds out his hand. ‘John Marantz.’

‘Vaughn de Vries.’

Marantz echoes, ‘A famous detective?’

De Vries tops up his glass, gestures at Marantz’s, says disparagingly, ‘An infamous policeman.’

Marantz frowns. ‘I know the feeling.’

‘What do you do?’

‘Same sort of gig, in London, but I’ve been retired. Play a bit of poker . . .’

‘Married?’

Marantz expected a shock; a moment when his breath might catch, but his reply came smoothly, almost nonchalantly.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Like that, eh?’

‘No. Not like that. They’re gone. Lost.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘By-product of the job. You have a family?’

De Vries chuckles knowingly to himself. ‘Two amazing daughters; dissatisfied, ambitious wife; no time, no energy, no motivation, no interest. You had kids?’

‘I . . . had . . .’ Marantz shuts his eyes, feels such agony well up inside him, a band of pain wrapped around his head, covering his eyes and ears. He waits maybe ninety seconds for it to become bearable. He looks up at de Vries, expecting confusion, perhaps revulsion. He sees a man waiting for him, accepting, but not asking.

Marantz mutters, ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be. I interrupted your escape.’

‘No.’

A waiter appears with a bottle on a silver tray. He bows at de Vries. ‘Your wine, sir.’

De Vries scoops it off the tray, examines the label. ‘If I’m still here in one hour, I want another.’

The waiter bows again and begins to climb the stone steps back to the big house.

‘You have them well trained.’

De Vries tilts the bottle at Marantz’s empty glass and then fills his own, almost to the brim.

‘Escort’s perks. She’s only here for the career.’

‘I’m with my best mate’s wife. Same reason.’

De Vries gestures at the candelabra with his glass, then up at Marantz. ‘Moths drawn to the flame . . .’

They meet to drink, to talk in stilted sentences and long silences. Marantz cries as he tells de Vries how he lost his wife and daughter, and he sees nothing in de Vries but compassion, devoid of judgement. That is the purest reaction he has witnessed.

One single day in 2008: the square grey concrete room, bare fluorescent tube, blatantly crude, a plain steel table, bounded on one side by a rudimentary iron chair, on the other by two plain steel armchairs. He is sitting next to a colleague, opposite a man with a Russian accent; three aliases in an anonymous room. The man is shackled to his chair, both his eyes purple, his nose broken. This is the third hour of the third day they have spoken to him. The man repeats his story, precise words. Marantz knows that it is a script, but nothing they do encourages him to depart from it.

The prisoner turns his head to his right, addresses Marantz’s silent partner. ‘You don’t say much.’

Marantz waits; his colleague, by arrangement, mute.

‘You have wife and children?’

The man turns back to face ahead, his stare dissecting them.

Marantz says: ‘You may never see yours again, Mikael.’

A tiny smile appears at the corner of the man’s mouth, his fat lip showing bright red.

‘At least,’ he starts slowly, facing Marantz and staring hard at him, ‘I know where my wife and daughter are.’

Marantz thinks of Caroline and Rosie, wonders whether this man has merely guessed at the make-up of his family, glances to the fourth finger of his left hand, sees that his ring is, as he would expect, absent. The man catches the glance, smiles broadly now, splitting open the corner of his swollen bottom lip.

‘You won’t need it any more.’

A sharp tingle in his fingers: Marantz reads not stoic bravado, but a reflection of knowledge. He stands, his colleague matching him, and they leave the room.

There is no answer to phone calls; an empty house, a missing car. All the might of the British Intelligence Services find nothing. When he proposes travelling to Russia, searching the world of their suspect, they tag his passport, exile him to his empty home. And then, he exiles himself.

In Cape Town, Marantz drinks. When he is arrested over a fight following an illegal poker game; when he draws a gun and lets unfocused eyes aim at the other men, he questions whether he should call de Vries. When he does, de Vries is there, in person, and they walk away from the station together. Marantz will not forget that.

When he weans himself from the bottle, de Vries still comes, and Marantz smokes mild Cape Town dope, joint after joint. De Vries is pissed as ever but, in the morning, he begins to welcome the light. He speaks of his daughters and edits his wife from his history. One month there was Suzanne de Vries, then a wife, a woman, and now no one whose partner is Vaughn de Vries.

Marantz takes pleasure from a man who knows the world they both inhabit, knows to talk about the facts and never about the thoughts, the fears, the terror; knows never to ask how he is feeling, if he is seeing anybody, if he is killing himself with, first booze, then dope. These are the rules when you enter a relationship like theirs. Such men understand that life revolves around rules; the making of them, the following of them, the breaking of them.

‘You know, Johnnie,’ de Vries says, feet up on the arm of the chestnut-brown leather sofa, warming his socks by the fire, ‘I’ve given up mourning my . . . proletarian marriage.’ He takes a draught of the red wine, nodding appreciatively. ‘My little girls are established. They have their network; they don’t need their parents. Not as parents anyway, and they sure as hell don’t need me. And, you know what? That’s a fuck of a relief.’

Through a cloud of dope smoke, Marantz says: ‘So, what else is there?’

‘What I do. That’s the point of me. That’s always been the point. Believe it or not, I can have women, Johnnie. I can have them, but I don’t want them to stay. I mean, there are women I want to fuck, and women I’ll hang out with but, right now, I can’t imagine a woman I want to do both with. Does that make sense?’

‘To you, obviously.’

‘I like knowing there’s no one waiting, worrying, to make me feel guilty, no one making demands at home; like there aren’t enough at work. I can get on with what I want to do, what I’m good at.’

‘Then you’ve found your place.’

De Vries raises his glass shakily. ‘I have.’

‘The drink doesn’t burn you? At work, I mean.’

‘Never let it. Secret of successful hard drinking: know how many hours you have to recover, work backwards, stop at just the right moment. Can’t say it’s conscious, just happens.’

‘You try so hard to be the cliché, but you just can’t manage it, can you?’

‘I try so hard to understand what the fuck you’re saying.’

‘You are a heavy-drinking, weather-beaten police detective with a broken marriage and anger-management issues – and somehow, you seem terribly pleased with your status. You’re supposed to have a breakdown and go crazy.’

‘Isn’t going to happen. Work’ll fuck me up, not the booze, not some stupid fucking woman. I’ve done the relationship and after twenty years, you know what? I like being single again. Like everything about it.’

John Marantz inhales deeply, keeping the laced smoke deep inside him, feeling the fire burn his throat and warm his lungs, feeling his fingertips tingle.

‘Then you’re a lucky man.’

De Vries snorts, smiles, lights his own cigarette and lies back on the sofa.

‘Let me tell you, Johnnie-boy,’ he says to the ceiling. ‘Sometimes I’m not sure but, just now, I think you’re right.’

2014

‘One break. One. You ever have anything like this? Where there’s nothing, and seven years later it comes back after you?’

‘No.’

‘Ever since that day, the time the first of them disappeared, nothing’s run for me, nothing works. He’s killed two of them, but one might still be alive. Bobby. Bobby Eames.’

‘You need anything, if I can help . . .’

De Vries frowns, asks, ‘You still have your contacts?’

‘I am no longer employed by Her Majesty’s Government.’

‘Going to stay that way?’

‘I received a call, the moment I landed in London. They’re watching me, even now.’

‘We’re all being watched,’ de Vries says. ‘They want to shaft me and du Toit over this and get us out.’

‘Don’t let that happen.’

‘Not within my gift.’

Marantz looks up at him. ‘There is influence. It can be applied . . . clinically. You know I’ll help you.’

De Vries nods slowly. ‘It’s good to see you, man.’ He sighs, relaxing a little finally, the alcohol slowly working. ‘Where’s your dog?’

‘Jogging with my neighbour’s daughter. She says she feels safer with him there.’

‘Good exercise for him. Probably enjoys it.’

‘Guess so,’ Marantz says. ‘We’ve never talked about it.’

*   *   *

Into the city before dawn, already de Vries can feel the heat of a still, clear late-summer’s day ahead. The squad room is deserted, the telephone operators snoozy, resentful of a loud voice demanding if there are any messages, any calls for de Vries. There are none.

At 7.30 a.m., a knock, his door opening. Don.

‘I have something.’

‘Shoot.’

‘I thought about Sarah Robinson’s statement, She called the car “smart”. I checked what cars her family own. They have a Honda 4×4, and an S-class Merc. Those are premium cars, so something that looked grand sounded bigger than a 5-Series BMW. I ran all the 7-Series BMWs sold in the Western Cape last year, found one name that is as weird as hell. Owner of a BMW 750iL – that is the long wheelbase version – Marc Steinhauer.’

De Vries, on his feet. ‘The wine estate? The cheese?’

‘There is more. I checked his website. The Fineberg estate logo is a gold portcullis – like a gate.’

‘On the sticker Sarah Robinson saw?’

‘Exactly.’

De Vries, his hands in his hair.

‘Jesus. Fuck, Don. What does this mean? If Steinhauer’s our guy; even if he’s connected. His fucking brother ran me down day in, day out seven years ago, shat on all of us. It’s too much of a coincidence.’

‘Let us see, sir. We search his car, ask who he lent it to. Be a strange thing to do; it is brand new, sold four months ago.’

‘Can we get a back-up unit from here? Are they in yet?’

‘Already sorted. Four guys standing by, two unmarked vehicles. Thought we might go in very gentle: Steinhauer is jumpy. If there is any trouble, we have back-up.’

Vaughn nods. ‘Agreed.’

‘We need Scene of Crime there too. Thought you might express a preference.’

‘Good,’Vaughn, adrenalin beginning to flow. ‘Call Steve Ulton. Tell him to drive to Fineberg immediately. I’m sure they’ll tow it back to the labs, but if there’s anything, we want to know straight away.’ He picks up the phone receiver, then slams it back down. ‘No. We’re going right now.’ He gets up. ‘Was going to call du Toit, but fuck it. You can call from the car. I want to wake this bastard up, no matter what.’