7 Days (42 page)

Mbali spoke, and Griessel sat and stared at Brecht. The cold, emotionless eyes, the brooding silence, the distance that said he had only scorn for them. That reserve, as though he carried secrets with him, even now, here, undeniably guilty. Griessel could understand why Fanie Fick had been so sure of his case back then.

Mbali laid out the evidence against him in a relentless voice. She said they knew he had stolen the rifle from a farm near Vosburg. They knew he had bought the Chana. They would investigate his computer forensically, they would connect him to everything. They would prove that the whole thing, from the moment he sent the first email to John Afrika, was part of a strategy to avoid the investigative spotlight when he shot Captain Fanie Fick. His Bible quotes and right-wing rhetoric were deliberately misleading, part of his big lie. They knew now why he had played the game with the police and the press, why he had been so careful in relaying the information about ‘the communist’. Because he was unsure whether de Vos’s widow knew about his and her husband’s contracts. Everything made sense now. She said, ‘I am going to do my best to remove you from society for as long as possible, because you are a premeditating, cold-blooded murderer.’

Not even a hint of reaction.

‘Now we know Captain Fanie Fick was right. You killed Estelle Steyn too,’ she said, because that was what forensic psychologist, Captain Ilse Brody, had suggested over the phone half an hour ago.

And she was right.

Brecht straightened up, and abhorrence washed over his face. ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘No. Estelle’s murderer is out there somewhere, and what are you doing? What? You take money, you look the other way. You break people. You destroy lives,
that’s
what you do.’ And to Griessel’s surprise the eyes brimmed with tears as well as fury. ‘Fick destroyed my life. He took my future, he stole it.
He
murdered
me.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘How can I say that? The court found me not guilty. But the world doesn’t work like that. I walk into the office, and I see how they look at me. I walk down the street, I sit in a restaurant, I phone a girl, I look into the eyes of Estelle’s mother, and I see that I am guilty. You think I’m afraid to go to jail? I’m in jail already. I’ve lost everything already. I had to get away, from everything. I sit in my house. I work for scum like de Vos. Nobody wants to hear from me.
That
is my prison. And Fanie Fick? You promote him, to the Hawks.
That’s
justice.
That’s
how your system works.’

The cuffs jangled as he gestured. ‘I’m glad I shot him. I’m glad he’s dead. The next time you accuse an innocent person, you’ll think twice.’

Griessel saw the gap. ‘But you did that,’ he said. ‘You accused Makar Kotko. You found him guilty of murder, and it wasn’t him.’

‘You know it was him. Did you also get paid, when you worked with Afrika?’

‘Can I call a journalist? So you can give him your proof?’

‘You wouldn’t.’

‘I will. But you can’t. Because you don’t have proof.’

‘I have,’ he said, quite desperate. ‘Hanneke Sloet came to me. She knew how he tortured people. She knew about the Trust. I showed her the payments, to the politicians, to the police. Payments that I had to cook. She said it’s a disgrace what happened to me. She said someone ought to tell the media about Kotko, so that a guilty person could be arrested for a change. He killed her because he didn’t want it to come out.’

‘Someone
ought
to tell the media? Did you think she would have done it? While her firm stood to make fifteen million out of his contract?’

‘He killed her.’

‘What’s your proof?’

‘That’s proof enough.’

‘Did you give her the original statements of the Trust?’

‘No.’

‘Did you tell her, if she went to the media, that you would make the statements available?’

‘No.’

‘Did you see payments that Kotko might have made to a professional hit man?’

‘No.’

‘You made a mistake, Samuel. Tell me, why did you give your second name to the old woman on the farm? Did you know there were guns on the estate?’

No reaction.

‘Where is your proof? Because Kotko has an alibi. His two henchmen have an alibi. Where is your proof?’

No response.

Griessel walked to the parade room. His JOC team was waiting for news.

They sat talking, voices subdued. Fanie Fick’s death hung like a shadow over the whole unit. They fell silent when he entered, looked at him expectantly.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Sloet did go to him, she did see the statements of the Trust. She said the media
ought
to know. So he believed it was Kotko.’

‘
Bliksem
,’ someone said.

‘Tomorrow we’ll start from the beginning again,’ said Griessel. All he could think of now, was his bed. And the sweet bliss of sleep.

They all stood up. ‘Is it true that you shot the airbag?’ one asked.

He nodded. ‘I was afraid he would get away.’

They smiled, shaking their heads.

‘While his cellphone was ringing the whole time,’ said Cupido. ‘Benna, I have to know, who phoned?’

He had forgotten about the call. ‘I don’t know.’

His colleagues grinned. He took out his phone, saw the SMS that said there was voicemail. He called it up.

It was Nxesi, the Green Point detective: ‘Captain, I am sorry to bother you, I know you are busy. But the people from the wireless keep phoning – they want access to the building. No rush, thank you very much.’

‘It was Tommy Nxesi,’ he said.

‘Go figure,’ said Cupido. ‘What did he want?’

‘People who want to get into Sloet’s apartment, to test the Wi-Fi signal.’

‘Oh.’

They walked down the passage. And Cupido stopped. ‘To test the Wi-Fi signal?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Was it broken?’

Griessel tried to remember. ‘I think they are installing it.’

‘Can’t be,’ said Cupido.

‘I suppose it could be out of order.’

‘For how long?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Cause … Can we phone Tommy Nxesi?’

He noted Cupido’s focus. He sighed, said, ‘OK,’ and tapped on his cell, made the call.

When he had finished: ‘The Wi-Fi was only installed at the end of January, Tommy says. They have to test it in every apartment now.’

‘That’s strange.’

‘What is it, Vaughn?’

‘Let me check the photos first.’

‘What photos?’

‘Crime scene, of her bedroom.’

‘They’re in my office.’

They walked together, Cupido’s hand on the back of his neck, his head bowed. The Wandering Thinker. Griessel followed him reluctantly, hardly able to keep his eyes open. Interrogating Brecht had sapped the last of his energy.

They opened the thick case file, slid the photos out. Cupido arranged them on the desk. ‘Check this,’ he said, pointing a finger at one photo. It showed the table top in Sloet’s bedroom. Her laptop, a few files, a fountain pen, a glass of red wine, nearly empty, an Apple iPhone. Close to it was the brown high-backed chair and the brown standard lamp, switched on.

He didn’t understand. ‘What am I looking at, Vaughn?’

‘She sent the email, to that big deal maker, just before ten?’

‘That’s right. To van Eeden.’

‘But how, Benna? No cellular dongle, no wireless. And it’s an old iPhone that, they can’t do Wi-Fi hotspots.’

He hadn’t the faintest idea what his colleague was talking about, as Cupido could see. ‘
Jissis
, Benna, there was no connectivity. How could she have sent the mail?’

‘Are you saying van Eeden was lying?’

‘No, Lithpel Davids’ report confirmed it. The mail was sent.’

‘I don’t understand, Vaughn.’

‘Benna, I think this laptop has a built-in 3G modem.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It’s like a built-in cellphone, but it connects with the Internet on the cellular network. If you take the SIM card out and put it in a phone, and you put money on it, you can make voice calls too.’

‘Ah,’ said Griessel, beginning to understand.

‘She could have made calls that we don’t know about. Or received them, from Mr Fucking Kotko. Lithpel missed a trick, canny coloured, that bro’, but nobody’s perfect. Let me give him a call.’

It was after eleven when Lithpel phoned back. He said of course Sloet’s Dell Latitude D630 had a built-in 3G HSPDA 3.66GHz Tri-band Embedded Mobile Broadband card in it. But Tommy Nxesi’s original request was just that he should look at emails sent, websites visited, documents created – and any of the aforementioned that might have been deleted. And that is what he had done. He assumed that the detective knew about the card, and ‘it’s not my job to do on-site training’.

Could he see if there was a call history on the card?

Yes, he could see, but there was nothing. Someone could have deleted it.

Could he see what the number on the SIM card was?

Of course he could. And he gave them the number, which they duly handed over to the IMC night shift, to start their well-oiled procedure to acquire a two-oh-five subpoena. And then beg their contact at Vodacom to give them rapid, urgent access to call records this one last time.

Which all only came through at twenty past twelve, when the exhaustion was greater than the anticipation, and Griessel lay sleeping, his head on his hands.

Cupido woke him. ‘No calls, but a whole lot of SMSes to one particular number,’ he said. ‘All the time, for months. And also on the night of the murder.’

‘Fuck,’ said Griessel, and tried to rub the sleep from his eyes.

They sat watching the operator trying to match the number with all the suspects they had on the system. And found nothing.

‘Let’s look at RICA,’ the operator said, because the new Regulation of Interception Act should have all the details of owners of SIM cards.

Seven minutes of waiting. The name and address appeared on the screen.

‘Can you believe it?’ Cupido asked.

Griessel couldn’t. It made no sense at all.

They stopped in front of the big wrought-iron gates in Hohenhort Avenue, Constantia.

Cupido was in the driver’s seat, and nudged Griessel, ‘Benna, are you awake?’

‘I am.’ But not entirely.

‘Is this the place?’

‘Yes.’

Cupido pressed the button of the intercom repeatedly, each jab punctuated with a ‘Hello? Hello?’

It took nearly ten minutes to elicit a response. Henry van Eeden’s voice, sleepy and irritable. ‘What is it?’

‘This is the SAPS. Open up.’

‘You’ll have to show me some identification.’

Griessel leaned across so the video eye could see him. ‘Mr van Eeden, this is Benny Griessel, I was here just the other day.’

‘It’s half past one at night.’

‘We are aware of that.’

A hesitation. Then, ‘Come in.’

The gate rolled open. Cupido drove in. He whistled as the night vista of the estate opened up to them. ‘How rich
are
they?’

‘Very.’

The exterior lights of the house lit up as they approached. The paved parking area was empty, the Lamborghini probably cosily tucked away in the garage.

They got out, Griessel walked in front, along the path, up the steps.
The catnaps he had taken in the office and the car had only made him feel even more dull. He shook his head, as if to shake the cobwebs out.

Van Eeden opened the door. He was dressed in a white dressing gown with a burgundy Oriental dragon motif. Barefoot. ‘Captain, what’s going on?’

‘Can we talk, Mr van Eeden?’

‘Of course.’

‘This is Captain Vaughn Cupido.’

Van Eeden put out his hand. Cupido ignored it. The man frowned, led the way to a sitting room, switched on lights. Modern and in good taste. ‘Please sit down. Can I put coffee on?’

‘No, thank you, Mr van Eeden.’

Van Eeden sat down, leaning forward, elbows on knees. ‘I take it this couldn’t have waited till morning.’

‘Mr van Eeden, I will ask you again, where were you on the evening of the eighteenth of January?’ Griessel asked.

‘I told you I was in Somerset West. I gave a speech. In front of three hundred people. Didn’t you talk to the congress people?’

He hadn’t. That was one of the things that had escaped him, in the hurly-burly of the investigation. Griessel took out his notebook, paged through it until he found the SIM card number. ‘Does this number look familiar?’ He read it to van Eeden.

Van Eeden deliberated for a moment. ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head innocently from side to side.

A light went on in the passage outside the door, and then someone appeared in the doorway. Griessel recognised her, van Eeden’s wife, the lovely, serene woman who reminded him of Alexa. He couldn’t recall her name.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

‘This is Captain Griessel, Annemarie. I’m not sure what’s going on.’ She looked at Griessel. ‘Evening, ma’am.’

‘Good evening. Shall I make some coffee?’

‘Please,’ said van Eeden.

She hesitated for a moment. Then she turned around and walked out.

‘It’s a cellphone number registered in your name,’ said Griessel.

‘In my name?’

‘On the RICA database,’ said Cupido, aggressively, now spoiling for a fight. ‘Which means you presented your ID. In person.’

‘Captain, you have my cellphone number. You know this is not mine.’

‘Then why is it registered in your name?’

‘I don’t know. It must be a mistake.’

‘You have only one phone?’ Cupido asked.

‘Just the one cellphone. There are quite a few land lines.’

‘Do you have a cellular modem? For your laptop?’ asked Cupido.

‘I have.’

‘What is the number?’

‘I don’t know. Do they have numbers?’

‘They do. Can you fetch the modem, along with your laptop?’

‘Just a minute.’ He stood up and walked out through one of the doors.

Cupido looked at the art on the walls. ‘And they call this art,’ he said. ‘My six-year-old cousin could do better.’

Griessel looked. Abstract. Vaguely familiar. He stood up, went closer.

In the right-hand corner, in square brush strokes, was the artist’s name.
Aalbers
.