The First Rule Of Survival (3 page)

‘Facing the shooter?’

‘It seems so.’

‘Moving towards him?’

‘I can’t tell, but this victim certainly had his hands raised. If I’m right about the same shot taking his finger and piercing his lung, then his hands were more in front of him than up in surrender. I’m merely speculating here, piecing what I have into some kind of a working theory.’

‘The boys are definitely from the same scene?’

‘Judge for yourself. Body B, here, is also a Caucasian male, as you can see – probably a little older, sixteen to seventeen years. Also, the single shot. Although we don’t have the ammunition, it seems pretty clear that it is the same gun. Same estimate of time of death.’

De Vries interrupts him. ‘Can we say, with any certainty, that they were shot at the same time by the same gun?’

Kleinman smiles at him. ‘I know you want me to say that, and I concur that it is highly likely. The evidence all points that way, but it is not conclusive yet, not in a scientifically proven sense.’

De Vries feels the first small steps being taken.

‘But we can work on that assumption. What else?’

‘The contents of their stomachs reveal identical eating patterns leading up to their deaths: both had eaten only one meal, I estimate almost eighteen hours previously, and it appears to be identical: pasta, tomato sauce and carrots. They had drunk only water.’

Kleinman refers again to the boards.

‘I noticed a similarity in their builds. Both are lacking muscle for their general development, and carry excess weight in the stomach region. Both display very poorly maintained teeth, with both boys having large amounts of dental decay, which would surely have been causing discomfort, if not pain. You want to see?’

De Vries shakes his head, rotates his hand to restart Harry Kleinman.

‘We’ve run preliminary blood samples and there is no indication that these boys are related.’

‘Unrelated, yet showing similar signs of upbringing; recent behaviour?’

‘The diet, yes, but they may simply have eaten the same meal on this occasion. The lack of exercise, leading to muscle deterioration, the similar dental patterns, the overall . . . physiognomy of these boys, suggests that they have been living similar lives for many years.’

‘Living rough?’

‘No. At least, I certainly doubt it. Look how pale his body is. This is a boy who spends very little time outdoors. Palms and soles of feet smooth. Same on Body A.’

‘Any forensic interest?’

‘One more thing. Both boys display signs of homosexual activity, over a period of years, and seemingly relatively recently also. It’s difficult to say, but I tend to think that it was not consensual. I can’t identify whether the activity took place between them, or whether it was perpetrated by a third party – or more than one other party. Instinctively I’d say it suggests sexual attack or even sustained abuse.’

There is a silence, interrupted only by a shocking zap from the fly-killer on the wall. Vaughn and Don turn towards the noise, see a narrow wisp of brown smoke rise towards a stained patch on the ceiling.

‘However, I can’t tell you whether there was a sexual element to the attack which resulted in them being shot. It seems unlikely. And the weapon used, if I’m right, suggests an outdoor scene.’

‘Because it is a hunting weapon . . . ?’

‘And also that it would be an unwieldy gun to carry around or use indoors.’

Vaughn notices that Kleinman is still staring at the body on the table. ‘Forensics?’ he asks.

‘One substance on the body, looks post-mortem. Both bodies are pretty clean, underneath all of that. Body A has something on his heel. Not sure what it is. Probably from when his body was dragged to where it was wrapped. It’s in the lab already.’ He looks back down at his clipboards. ‘I retrieved samples from beneath their fingernails and particles from their hair, which may come from the original crime scene, and particulate from their throats and lungs.’

‘What was that?’

‘I can’t tell. It might simply be from dust from whatever area they were confined in, but there is a build-up over time.’

Don February asks, ‘What do you mean, “confined”, Doctor?’

De Vries smiles to himself, glances at his Warrant Officer: rarely speaks, but misses nothing.

Kleinman turns to Don. ‘You’re quite right; that was conjecture. It seems to me that these boys have been confined together, probably without proper exercise, possibly for a long period of time. They have been subject to similar routines and, at least recently, a similar diet. This suggests to me a prison – a children’s correctional centre? An overbearing, perhaps abusive family, where both, though unrelated, are living?’

In the silence that follows, de Vries begins to hear his heart pumping inside his head, deep and sickly.

He stutters, ‘Show me a picture of the other boy, Body A.’

Kleinman gestures at his assistant, who passes him a file.

‘Just the face. I only need to see the face.’ De Vries is very pale. He feels a fever hit his groin, his stomach, begin to move its way upwards through his body. His legs feel wet with sweat. He grits his teeth and wills these sensations away.

Kleinman pins a picture of the face of Body A to the illuminated board. De Vries looks at it and shuts his eyes. Then he opens them and studies it more closely. He looks up, tries to swallow away the bile that is rising in his throat. His eyes dart from side to side.

Kleinman puts his hand on Vaughn’s shoulder.

‘What is it, man? You know this victim?’

‘It’s worse than you can possibly imagine.’

‘Who is it then?’ Kleinman stares at de Vries, uncomprehending.

‘Those boys,’ de Vries murmurs. ‘All these years, I thought they were dead.’

2007

The Area squad room is packed with detectives, uniformed police officers, now even off-duty officers, chattering in low voices. Expectation is rife. Vaughn de Vries watches the men stand loosely to attention as Senior Superintendent Henrik du Toit weaves through the room towards De Vries’ office.

De Vries waits at his door, shakes hands and ushers his commanding officer to his desk. He then turns back to the squad room, announcing: ‘Inspector Russell will brief you on the background, so that everyone knows exactly where we are. Then we will assess our reaction and assign officers. It’s going to be a long night, so make your excuses to your families, grab a pie and get ready.’

He goes back inside his office, hides his disconcertment that Du Toit is sitting in his chair behind his desk, sits opposite him in one of his deliberately uncomfortable guest chairs.

‘There’s discontent brewing, Vaughn,’ Superintendent du Toit starts, loudly as ever, ‘that you weren’t at the Annual Family Day.’

De Vries sits up, immediately indignant. ‘I have a possible double abduction, and they think I should be braiing with the wives?’

‘No, I meant that you weren’t at the scene immediately.’ Du Toit shakes his head despairingly. ‘Anyway, relax Vaughn, I put them straight. But you must understand, if Toby Henderson is really missing – if he doesn’t turn up somewhere, really soon – then this could be the third. Three in three days – a serial abduction case. The moment the media get hold of this, that will be it: the floodgates will open. So we need to move fast, and get results. Bring me up to speed with the first two.’

De Vries is downcast.

‘There’s fuck-all, frankly. Steven Lawson, aged seven years four months, presumed abducted from Rondebosch Common area, Thursday the eighth between 1500 and 1530 hours, walking home from Rondebosch Boys’ Prep School to Peacock Lane. Ten-minute walk; safe area. We believe he was seen crossing Campground Road, heading towards the common. He’s usually accompanied by a neighbour’s son who, that day, was absent from school due to emergency dental work. We’ve stuck signage in the locale, stopping school-run cars yesterday. We’ve knocked on everyone’s doors: nothing. Absolute blanks.’

Du Toit shakes his head again. De Vries wishes he would stop. He clears his throat.

‘Robert Eames, usually called Bobby, eight years, eight months, disappeared from Main Road between Mowbray and Observatory yesterday afternoon, Friday ninth between 1545 and 1615 hours. He was on his way from school to meet his father, who owns the used-car dealership opposite the Shell garage just past Groote Schuur Hospital. His dad called us at 1830 yesterday, having checked with his wife and friends that Bobby had not gone anywhere else.’

Du Toit looks bleak. ‘My God. One a day. I can’t believe this.’

‘We’ve had officers on the street all this afternoon,’ de Vries says. ‘As you know, I took them off leave for Family Day. Again nothing. We assume the suspect is in a car. The boy gets in, the car drives away. So far, there are no known connections between the boys, or their friends. Early days still. Why do they get into the car with this guy? Why does nobody see anything?’ He tilts his head, like a nervous tic.

Du Toit urges: ‘Somebody saw. Maybe they don’t even know it. We have to find them.’

‘And then, sir, this afternoon, as you know, Toby Henderson goes missing following our own SAPS Family Day.’

‘Where’s Trevor Henderson now?’

‘God knows.’ De Vries holds his head. ‘Must be going out of his mind. Last I heard, he was still talking with Toby’s friends, trying to see if anyone knows anything. Jesus, for this to happen in broad daylight, at the police’s own event, for Christ’s sake.’

Du Toit nods again, this time remains mute. A silent acknowledgement: Toby Henderson, son of SAPS Inspector Trevor Henderson, is today missing, surely now abducted. They imagine how the scene must have unfolded. A perfect late-summer’s afternoon. The cricket club sports ground, an idyllic occasion: the match in play, officers, wives and families, girlfriends, all at tables around the pitch, a running buffet up at the pavilion, braais smoking, filling the air with sweet meat-scented smoke, a cake-stall under bunting. Around the corner, a playground for the kids, a golf speed-gun for the guys, measuring the longest drive in the force. Between cricket sessions, the divisional jazz band playing on the pavilion balcony.

When, thinks de Vries, was the critical moment? In the midst of the afternoon, when the game was in full flow, the party beginning to swing as the effects of long, cold beers on a hot, dry afternoon begin to take hold. One moment when everything is as it should be . . . the next, when you become aware of a low whine of hysteria beginning to disturb the calm – and then that second when everything breaks down. The match stops, the players’ formation disintegrates. Policemen congregate, begin to splay out through the crowds, imparting the news, satiating the increasing need to know. And then mothers calling children, older siblings running towards the play area, desperate to claim their own.

A child is missing.

‘Everyone cooperating?’

‘As you’d expect, sir. None of the men are going home. Uniformed guys are passing through all neighbouring streets to the cricket club, with Toby Henderson’s picture, and Steven Lawson’s and Bobby Eames’ too. I worked through last night and I’ll do it again if we have even the slightest chance of finding Toby – not to mention the other boys.’

‘And you’ll instruct Trevor, how?’

‘I’m not going to be the officer calling him off the team, sir.’ The ‘sir’ emphasizing who is of higher rank, who makes decisions. ‘If this were my son, nothing on earth would keep me from being right in the middle of the action.’

Du Toit approves.

‘Keep an eye on him. We don’t want to compromise a prosecution, or the safety of the other abducted boys. You happy I handle the press, leave you alone?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘But expect a call, Vaughn. They’re going to want to talk to you too.’

He looks out towards the now-dark city. ‘You think we can issue a warning of some kind?’

De Vries snorts. ‘The moment this breaks, there won’t be a parent in Cape Town letting go of their child’s hand.’

2014

To support power-saving, the SAPS hierarchy have decreed that at the SAPS central building after dark, all non-essential lights are switched off. De Vries, glad to be rid of the pervading fluorescence, has only one small Anglepoise lamp illuminating his office and conference room. He sits, head in hands, nose low over a large beaker of whisky. He’s meditating – something he would never do consciously. Steven . . . Bobby . . . Toby . . . : mug-shots, school photographs, headlines, bylines, memories, the file cover closing over them.

From the squad room, Don February has watched him like this for the last fifteen minutes; he is thinking, too. Dr Harry Kleinman enters the squad room and knocks briskly at de Vries’ door. Don gets up and follows him into the office, staring at the coroner’s thick bare legs in shorts and his short-sleeved pilot’s shirt with epaulettes.

De Vries looks up, gestures them to sit down, but Kleinman starts talking immediately.

‘It’s pretty much confirmed,Vaughn. I went back through the records. Toby Henderson sustained a multiple break in his left ankle, aged six years, seven months. That matches exactly with what I can see.’

De Vries shuts his eyes. Steven . . . Bobby . . . Toby . . .

‘I’ve viewed the case photographs at the time of their abduction, and I believe that the other boy is extremely likely to be Steven Lawson. I’ve cross-checked the blood type, and that’s a match. His group’s AB, which is less than five per cent of the population, so it’s strong, but certainly not conclusive. We should be able to DNA a confirmation from a hairbrush, or something that his family have kept. In any case, the age, physical features, all seem right.’

‘Jesus Christ. What do I tell their parents? After seven fucking years, we’ve found your son; he was alive until forty-eight hours ago, and now you have to come identify your lost, dead child. I fucking hate this job.’

Harry Kleinman slumps down in the chair directly opposite de Vries, his voice weary but soothing.

‘In my experience,Vaughn, however traumatic the news, in the long run, the parents of missing children just want to know what happened. They can bury their sons, grieve properly, find closure.’