The First Rule Of Survival (6 page)

‘This is a very serious matter, Mr Steinhauer,’ Don interrupts. ‘How many of these Roulades do you sell each week?’

‘Maybe . . . twenty, thirty. Why?’

‘And how long does it keep fresh?’

Steinhauer bridles at being ignored, then answers, ‘In the fridge, ten days or so. We don’t use preservatives.’

Don smiles at him. ‘I do not expect the answer to be positive, but do you keep a record of who buys the cheese?’

A snort. ‘No, Inspector. We have scores of visitors here every day. Mainly, they buy our wine, but many customers come here to our temperature-controlled Cheese Room. Some buy cheese also, some not.’

‘Okay, sir. Who usually manages this section?’

‘Any one of the girls. All my staff have tasted all the wine, our products, all the cheese . . .’ Steinhauer trails off, watches Don walk over to the display at the end of the counter, where he taps a basket containing business cards and completed forms.

‘How many of your customers fill in your forms, or leave their business cards?’

‘It’s a way of building a database of customers. You see, we offer a case of wine each year – as a prize, but also an incentive – to whoever’s card is randomly selected. I don’t know what percentage of customers enter. Can you tell me what this is about?’

Don dismisses the database idea. Why should a kidnapper, murderer, enter his name for a case of wine? He turns back to Steinhauer.

‘Your cheese turned up on a murder victim, sir. You tell me that it is sold in very small quantities, so naturally, we have to follow it up.’

Don watches Marc Steinhauer recoil, steady himself, concentrate on breathing normally.

‘How terrible. I’m sorry. I don’t know how I can help.’ He runs a hand through his thinning hair, winces as he reaches the crown. Don watches him; watches Steinhauer realize this.

‘A bump. Our house is a converted barn. Low beams.’

‘Okay.’

‘Anything else I can do? A tasting?’

‘No, sir. Nothing more now. But we might come back. Thank you for your time.’

Steinhauer unglues himself from his spot, legs heavy; ushers Don out into the main tasting room, and then into the entrance hall. They shake hands again; Steinhauer’s hands are clammy and cold. Don walks through the huge glass doors, down the perfect stone steps towards a shining metal wall with water pouring down it in varying quantities. As he reaches it, the water flow hesitates just for a moment, and Don sees Marc Steinhauer reflected, standing stiffly at his glass doors, watching him go.

Don reaches his car and turns around. There is no one at the doors now. He strides to the furthest part of the car park and begins to walk around the winery. On two sides, it is bordered by vineyards. Don climbs stone steps up high behind the building, which has been partly recessed into the side of the hill. Above the winery building, the ground is planted with olive trees and lavender. Don realizes that the estate seems to have no roof; it is all planted up to blend perfectly into the hillside. On the fourth side, there is light woodland, a large grassy field containing the odd olive tree and several white goats, and a pathway leading down to a dam surrounded by eucalyptus trees. From his vantage-point, Don can see no fields of wheat or corn, no sign of a raw concrete building. He is disappointed; something had made him think that the most likely place for this cheese to turn up was at the estate itself. How sweet would that have been?

*   *   *

De Vries sees Don the moment he enters the squad room. Men are working the phones, compiling files, looking through records. There is a hum of industry. De Vries and Don February simultaneously open their mouths to speak; Don checks himself.

De Vries says: ‘I think I know why the killer dumped the bodies at the farm-stall.’

‘You do?’

‘When we drove back to town, I noticed that the Somerset West Police had a random roadblock operating both ways in the lead-up to the Gordon’s Bay turning, before Sir Lowry’s Pass. Looking for drink/drive, drug/drive customers. Fishing trip basically. I called the traffic controller over there, and he says he ran it the previous day and, listen to this, there was a second trapper unit four kilometres up the road on the other side of the farm-stall, an all-day operation, commencing seven a.m. If the driver got through one and heard about another, he might have panicked and decided to dump the bodies.’

Don says nothing.

De Vries insists, ‘It’s possible. The dumping indicates panic.’

Don still isn’t sure.

De Vries sees it in him and temporizes. ‘Anyway, I’m getting the names of everyone who was stopped that day. We’ll run them and see if anything pops up. It’s possible.’

Neither is convinced.

‘It’s the best we have right now,’ he sighs. ‘What happened at the cheese place?’

‘Nothing good. Place sells maybe thirty of those cheeses each week. They last at least a week in the fridge. No cameras inside or out, half a dozen different staff, same number of other cheese products, olives, olive oil, estate souvenirs, same again of wine, and the place is busy. At ten o’clock the car park was half full.’

‘Shit. You don’t think it’s worth canvassing?’

‘If we had a picture, a sketch, then maybe. Even then, I doubt it.’

De Vries grits his teeth. ‘It’s running cold all over again.’

‘One thing though. The guy who owns it seemed very jumpy about something. Talked way too much. And there is a strange connection I looked into. You are not going to like it.’

‘What?’

‘His name is Marc Steinhauer.’

De Vries’ face is blank, then transforms instantly. ‘Any relation to . . . ?’

‘Nicholas Steinhauer? Yes, I checked online. Marc is his younger brother.’

De Vries shakes his head. ‘Jesus. Can it get any worse?’

March 2007

As the camera pans across the small studio, pulls out to reveal both parties, there is a second when one of the studio lights catches the polished brass of the middle button of his dark blazer. The unexpected flash would mesmerize a viewer, force him or her to refocus their stare at the screen, blink a couple of times. When the studio lights rise, the camera is on the smooth black-clad anchorwoman, but the viewer scarcely hears what she says; he or she craves illumination of the other seated figure. They do not know this consciously.

‘With the Western Cape Police stating that no ransom notice has been received, no communication with the abductor, the motive behind the abduction of the three Cape Town schoolboys on consecutive days at the end of last week remains a mystery. The South African Police Service, still acutely embarrassed by the disappearance of the third boy, Toby Henderson, son of SAPS Inspector Trevor Henderson, during an annual police function, stated bluntly again today that they have few leads.’

The camera angle changes; a flattering profile shot for her, the man appearing from silhouette.

‘With me now, esteemed Cape Town criminologist and psychologist, Nicholas Steinhauer. Dr Steinhauer, the SAPS is drawing a blank in the search for Steven Lawson, Bobby Eames and Toby Henderson. Who should they be looking for?’

Steinhauer fills the screen, black hair slicked back against his head, dark tortoiseshell spectacles framing deep brown eyes. He nods in appreciation of his legend; his thin lips smile. He takes the anchorwoman into his confidence.

‘Firstly, we only know what the police tell us.’ His accent is a mixture of English, Afrikaans and German. It is a strangely soothing combination, accessible to many an ear. He enunciates clearly; his words are firmly spoken, his lip-movements precise. Everything about this man is precise. ‘And they tell us little. If it is true that they have received no ransom demand, then my fear is that the missing boys have fallen prey to a team involved in child-trafficking which, in case your viewers do not know, is far more widespread in Southern Africa than might be assumed. This may bode well for the immediate physical health of the boys, but it presents the authorities with a massive task if they are to track and find them.’

‘It would involve pan-African cooperation?’

‘Yes – and more. The Arab states have shown themselves to be behind some of the more ambitious child-trafficking. Wealthy individuals order children, as if from a catalogue, and they are found and obtained for them. It is a grisly and inhuman business.’

‘To what end?’

‘It is a terrible lesson,’ Steinhauer tells her, ‘still not learnt by us. Back in the annals of history, men in Arabia have commanded great armies and been comforted by harems of beautiful women. Now, if such a man desires, he can buy himself young boys. These children, abused by their owners, will be used as his playthings, then sold into the lowest levels of the sex trade and finally discarded.’

‘If this is their fate, do Toby, Steven and Bobby remain on South African soil?’

‘You are asking me to speculate here, and that is not what I do. But if they have been taken by a highly professional team, there is every possibility that they have already left this country and even possibly the continent.’

The anchorwoman touches her earpiece: ‘The SAPS imply that, at any minute, there will be a ransom demand and the inquiry will take on a radically different stance.’

Steinhauer smiles indulgently. ‘To infer anything from the words of the SAPS is to take a substantial leap of faith. More than once, I have observed press conferences on major crimes and, without exception, I have felt that the media were being manipulated.’

‘That is a serious accusation. In what way manipulated?’

‘Let us be benign and suggest that the police are using the media to disseminate information which aims to promote public involvement in the case, to generate witnesses. More questionably, perhaps their actions are designed to suggest to a known suspect that he or she is not under suspicion and that they do not need to hide so carefully. More often, however, it is my contention that the SAPS use the media to disseminate flattering views of what are, in brutal terms, failed investigations. Nowadays, the budgets for the SAPS are spent profligately on public relations staff, spin doctors and training courses for officers on how to present bad news in a good light. The whole focus of the SAPS seems distorted and, frankly, in a country torn apart by crime, this is highly disappointing.’

‘Is this a nationwide criticism?’

‘To the extent that such policies are dictated by the higher echelons and that presumably their policy is nationwide, then yes. However, it is particularly relevant here in the Western Cape, where we seem to have a deeply fractured service – certain teams attending to certain crimes, older white senior officers being moved away from general duties to head up certain clique units. It is clearly unhealthy and, without question, deeply damaging to morale.’

‘Are you directly criticizing the investigation into these abductions?’

‘I’m observing that the SAPS seem utterly blind to their own shortcomings and apparently unable to make any headway whatsoever in this matter. The fate of these three boys is in their hands, and the question we must all ask is this: are they trying hard enough?’

Vaughn de Vries looks around the room of tired, expectant, unshaven faces and says, ‘Thank you very fucking much.’

He looks back up at the screen, but the interview has ended. In the three seconds before he switches off the television monitor, he glimpses a bulky sports presenter wearing a small pink polo shirt, no sound coming from his fast-moving lips.

He turns to Dean Russell – sees that they are the only two men in the squad room standing. Four officers are hunched over their desks half asleep; for the rest, the information drought has sent them to their beds, long overdue.

‘Fuckhead. What the fuck does Steinhauer have to do with it?’

‘There’ll be more.’

‘Am I so fucking out of touch, Dean? You tell me: am I?’

‘We’re white and old-school. It’s 2007, no one trusts us. We’re – what’s that French phrase? Persona non grata.’

De Vries snorts, wonders whether Russell knows what he’s said, savours a split second of release from the ever-increasing tension inside him.

‘And it’s the white fucking media doing this, that’s what gets me. They didn’t say this shit back then, in the good old, bad old days, when we were the front line.’

‘Things were different then.’

De Vries stares at his Inspector, sighs and says, ‘Go home, Dean.’

2014

‘Steinhauer parlayed that one interview into a weekly column for the
Argus
and a television series. Shithead never got off our backs.’ De Vries trails off, his mind overtaken with the image of Steinhauer that day on the television.

‘My wife used to read that column first, every Friday,’ Don mutters. ‘She grabbed that
Weekend Ahead
section and got back to bed with it. Didn’t like it when it ended.’

Everyone is thinking of something to say, to fill the void in information.

‘It is a strange coincidence, anyway,’ Don murmurs.

Vaughn feels the pressure in his gut tighten. He cannot let the case stagnate. He must push forward, somehow.

‘Right, I can’t see anything here on the polythene wrapping. How’s that going?’

Don straightens up. ‘Sally Frazer is on it. She has not found anything yet, but she is talking to a contact of mine right now. He has been a warehouse supervisor for twenty years; about that long again in factories. If he does not know anything, we will look further afield.’

De Vries nods.

‘The crime-scene reports show that they cannot find any indications of a particular car tyre driving to the rear of the farm-stall,’ Don goes on. ‘I have got Joey Henkin to re-interview all the staff, asking about a nervous or panicking man, and whether or not any of them overheard conversations about roadblocks. He says not even a whisper from anyone.’

Vaughn feels his energy draining again.

‘The lab guys are looking at the stuff on the boys again,’ he says, ‘trying to locate something which might give us an idea in what area this field might be. They say if they find certain pollens, that could rule in or out certain geographical areas . . .’