7 Days (36 page)

‘I am sorry for your loss,’ said Mbali.

‘Thank you.’ The tears flowed.

‘Mrs de Vos, where do I find your husband’s associates?’

‘Associates? What associates?’

‘He is De Vos
and Partners
.’

‘No,
liewe Vader
, I don’t know, it’s been ten years …’

‘How do you mean?’

‘It’s been ten years since he started using the firm’s money for gambling. That’s when the partners left.’

‘But he still called himself De Vos and Partners?’

‘On the sign, yes. But it was only him. No right-thinking auditor would come within a mile of him. Why are you looking for them?’

‘I need to look at his client list. Do you know where the records are?’

She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand and asked in surprise, ‘But don’t you know about the break-in?’

‘What break-in?’

‘At Frikkie’s office.’

‘No.’

‘Someone got in. The week after his death. Walked off with the computer and the back-up. Must have read in the paper that Frikkie was dead, knew there was no one there.’

‘All the records were on the computer?’ Her heart sank.

‘That’s right.’

‘And he only worked alone?’

‘Are you from the Bothasig station?’ Mrs de Vos asked.

‘No. I am from the Hawks.’

‘Because Bothasig knows all
those
things.’

‘They only have the file on the suicide. It doesn’t say anything about Mr de Vos’s work.’

The woman shook her head. ‘They asked all the questions after the break-in, and I told them.’

‘What did you tell them?’

She took out a fresh tissue, blew her nose at length, pushed the
tissue under the sleeve of the blue sweater and said, ‘Let me tell you about Frikkie. When he took the money ten years ago, everyone left. Partners, clients, friends, everyone. He was very lucky not to lose his registration, I think it was because the partners knew it wouldn’t make much difference. Frikkie wasn’t one for work. Gambling, yes. But not work. So they thought he would go under quietly. But Frikkie was no fool. He got other people to do the work. Sort of stray dogs, if you know what I mean. The business is full of them. The drinkers, the lazy, the stupid, the ones who’ve been fired. Accountants who couldn’t get work anywhere else any more. Frikkie would say: Come and work with me. They would come, and go. One after the other. And let me tell you straight, the only clients Frikkie could get were people who wanted to cook the books. Or who were skimming off the top. That sort of thing. That’s why his employees never stayed. They were scared. Of being caught. And if you ask me, it was one of his crooked clients who stole the records. That’s what I think.’

‘Can you remember their names?’

‘I kept my nose out of it, I don’t know who his clients were.’

‘No, I mean, the people who worked for him.’

‘Not a cooking clue.’

‘And the bank statements? Where are they?’

‘They aren’t going to help you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Frikkie wasn’t a fool. His crooked clients paid him cash. And he paid his lame duck people cash. And he gambled with cash. And he never paid a cent of tax on the whole lot.’

The Jack of Diamonds in Prestwich Street had a playing cards theme. There were neon examples outside, a massive framed one on the rough, varnished brick wall inside. Playing cards for beer mats and menus and the drinks list at the bar. Playing cards on the barman’s shirt.

Cupido sat down on a bar stool. ‘Hi, Jack,’ he said.

‘You think you’re the first to try that one?’ said the barman, not amused.

‘Still clever,’ said Cupido.

‘You’re a cop,’ said the barman. He had a hand-rolled cigarette behind his ear. A laconic expression.

‘A Hawk, pappie. Your worst nightmare.’ He shoved his identity card across the counter.

‘You still have to pay for your drinks.’

‘Are you a comedian, Jack? Who do you think is going to have the last laugh?’

‘I’m just putting all my cards on the table here.’

‘You
are
a comedian.’ Cupido took the two photos out of his jacket pocket, and put them down in front of the barman. ‘Play this hand, wise-ass.’

The barman took the cigarette from behind his ear, lit it slowly, and studied the pictures. Eventually he said. ‘Yep, they’ve been here. Last time was about a month ago.’

‘So they are regulars?’

‘About every month or two.’

‘Evening of Tuesday, eighteenth of January?’

‘Maybe. Thereabouts.’

‘What can you remember?’

‘They took Sandy for a private lap dance in the Queen of Hearts …’

‘Where’s that?’

‘There.’ He pointed to a curtained doorway, behind him. There were playing cards on the curtain.

‘Don’t you think the playing card theme is a little overdone?’

‘So you’re an interior decorator now?’

‘I’ll redecorate your face if you don’t lose the attitude. How come you remember about Sandy?’

‘Because she complained.’

‘Why?’

‘About those two. They wanted blow jobs.’

‘And now you’re going to tell me you don’t do that kind of thing in this posh establishment.’

‘Sorry, I don’t do it personally, but you can ask one of the girls.’

‘One more crack and I’ll fucking arrest you.’

‘Cool it. They didn’t want to pay. Blow job is extra.’

‘And then?’

‘I asked them nicely.’

‘And then?’

‘Then they paid.’

‘What time did they leave here?’

‘Late.’

‘What is “late”?’

‘Twelve. One. Thereabouts. Drank a lot. Left a big tip.’

Mbali knew the Bothasig Police Station was one of the best in the Peninsula. That’s why she was puzzled as to why they had said nothing about the break-in at Frikkie de Vos’s office when she enquired about the suicide case file.

Until she drove there and asked the investigating officer.

He was a young Xhosa sergeant, full of respect for her Hawks status and rank, and he told her it wasn’t a break-in.

‘There was no sign of illegal entry, Captain. And there was no purchase record of the computer or the back-up drives. I mean, she reported the burglary almost a
week
after she says it happened. She kept saying how she was completely broke, and kept asking me for the case number to file an insurance claim. And there was a safe in that office, and it’s still there, nobody touched it.’

‘So you didn’t open a file?’

‘I did. Just to give her the number. I mean, she’d just lost her husband, who’d gambled away all their savings. But there was no burglary. That’s why we didn’t tell you about it.’

‘OK. Now, tell me from the beginning. When did she report the burglary?’

‘On the twenty-first of January. Six days after the suicide.’

‘She came in here?’

‘No, she called the station. A vehicle with two uniforms went out to the office …’

‘Where is the office?’

‘At the back of the Panorama Shopping Centre in Sonnendal. Hendrik Verwoerd Drive.’

‘Hendrik Verwoerd Drive?’

‘That’s right.’

‘This DA municipality. They have money to build bicycle lanes
for the rich, but they don’t have money to change a street name like
that
?’

‘Viva, ANC, viva,’ said the sergeant.
‘Amandla.’

‘
Ngawethu
,’ said Mbali, the response to the Struggle cry an instant reflex. ‘And then?’

‘I was called out. So I saw right away there was no forced entry. Two locks on the door, these small, high windows, but there was nothing. And inside too. Everything was fine. No mess, everything in order. But missis de Vos said there was a computer there, and two back-up hard drives. But you know how, when you pick up a computer, you can see the clean square where it stood?’

‘
Ewe
.’

‘Nothing like that. And then I asked for the purchase receipt for the computer, and she said her husband didn’t keep receipts. He just worked in cash. So then I asked about the safe. Big as a fridge, standing right there. With a combination lock. And she said there was nothing taken from the safe. I mean, Captain, why would they not take the safe? If they wanted to steal stuff.’

‘How did she know there was nothing taken from the safe?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe she opened it.’

Griessel leaned back in the seat of the plane and shut his eyes for a moment. He was exhausted. His head felt thick, as if the extent of the case had grown too big. There wasn’t enough room for everything any more.

‘We are not palookas,’ the Camel had said.

Manie was wrong. Benny Griessel was a palooka. His instincts had told him it was Kotko. He had been so sure. Everything fitted.
Jissis
. What was the matter with him? Was he losing his touch? Even in his drunken years he never made such horrible errors of judgement. Maybe that was the fucking problem, this sobriety. Maybe he should get the attention of the air hostess and order a Jack and Coke, because what difference had being sober made?

At that moment it was such an immediate, seductive escape that he had raised his hand halfway before he came to his senses.

What was the matter with him?

It was the weariness. The frustration.

He needed to rest. He had to think. He wanted to close his flat door behind him and pick up his bass guitar and just sit there, his brain in neutral, his fingers strolling along the neck, the notes vibrating in his belly. He wanted to go to sleep in the knowledge that tomorrow would be a relaxing day. He wanted lie down beside Alexa Barnard on her bed, behind her back, slip his hand around to her soft breast.

He opened his eyes, not liking the direction his thoughts were taking him. He sighed, glanced at Bones beside him, staring into space.

‘Let’s take it from the beginning,’ said Griessel.

‘Sure,’ said Boshigo, but without enthusiasm.

Methodically, Griessel laid everything out for him: by coincidence Makar Kotko was at a reception in December with the people of Gariep Minerals, when he noticed Hanneke Sloet. His lust for the sensual Sloet was immediately obvious. His strategy was to offer Silberstein Lamarque the opportunity to draw up the Gariep share contract, in the belief and hope that it would persuade Sloet to have sex with him.

Kotko kept on phoning Sloet and inviting her to dinner, but she constantly said no. Perhaps because Silbersteins quickly learned that Kotko might be organised crime. Or maybe just because she genuinely didn’t have time between the move to Cape Town and a visit to her parents over Christmas. But most likely because she wasn’t sexually interested in Kotko at all.

After the twenty-second of December, Kotko stopped phoning her.

Why?

Sloet moved into the new flat, and early in January she was ordered to investigate Kotko thoroughly. The report from Jack Fischer and Associates revealed his KGB history, and the fact that he liked to torture people with a bayonet. In spite of this, Silbersteins continued to do contract work for ZIC.

That gave Kotko two possible motives to murder her – both flimsy: he was a sick bastard, and didn’t like being rejected. Or Sloet let him know somehow that she had information about his past and would make it known. Or use it to her professional or financial advantage. Perhaps she had a document, that evening, or a memory stick, of the sort Fritz used to store music. And that was why Kotko sent someone. Someone who put a sharp weapon down on the floor to take the document out of her hand.

On the morning of the eighteenth of January Kotko and Sloet met at a Silbersteins conference. That night Kotko and his hangers-on were sleeping only four blocks away from Sloet’s apartment. Kotko hired two sex workers and spent the night with them, and his henchmen were at a strip joint till after twelve. Well established alibis.

But nothing prevented him from hiring a fourth person to murder Sloet. It was unlikely, because she would hardly have opened the door for a stranger. But Kotko might have known enough about her by then to get someone she knew. The alternative was that she was on her way out at ten o’clock that night. The attacker could have waited by the door, and surprised her when she opened it. But she wasn’t wearing underwear, and in general was not dressed to go out. So, also unlikely.

‘What am I missing?’ he asked after Bones had listened attentively to everything.

‘Beats me, Benny. When I was studying in the States, they always said: You must cover all the bases. Baseball term. Well, you’ve covered all the bases.’ After a moment of thought he said, ‘Do you remember what the Lamborghini man said?’

‘Henry van Eeden?’

‘
Yebo
. He said Sloet had her priorities straight,
nè
. The report from Fischer and Associates must also have informed her that Kotko was very well connected politically. In the BEE world you just don’t fuck with a guy like that.’

‘That’s true.’

‘And the rejection theory. I don’t know, Benny. You establish alibis for yourself and your muscle, you hire a man who might get into her flat, maybe not … It’s a lot of trouble, a lot of risks, just to massage your ego.’

‘OK,’ said Griessel.

‘You’re not convinced?’

‘We’re missing something, Bones. That Silbersteins meeting on the eighteenth … I don’t know.’

The air hostess put a meal tray in front of each of them.

‘What a sad life we lead,’ said Bones Boshigo, ‘when the only balanced meal we get is airline food.’

Griessel didn’t hear. His brain was busy with the tangled web of the case. ‘Why?’ he asked.

‘Because this is all we’ve had to eat today.’

‘No, Bones. I mean, why would the shooter lie to us? About Kotko? His whole story is about the police protecting the communist. That’s his entire justification.’

Mbali drove to the Panorama Shopping Centre first, and clicked her tongue when she saw the Hendrik Verwoerd road sign. She parked, got out, went in search of the little office, as the Xhosa sergeant from Bothasig had directed her.

It was hidden away around at the back. It looked almost like a service entrance, just the usual sun-bleached brown wooden door, with a keyhole below the handle, and an additional outside bolt from which hung a big shiny new Yale padlock.