A Sailor's Honour (33 page)

He walked on and turned right on the Reeperbahn. It would take him to the Rathaus and the bank in a roundabout way. He remembered the day he had met the major at the Vereins- und Westbank, as the bank was known at the time, to open the account. A subaccountant had been called from the back of the bank to help them. He remembered Herr Schmidt well. An unsmiling, serious man in his forties, Herr Schmidt had given them a sermon. Since they were foreigners, the account could have only one signatory. The major had pointed at De Villiers. The account holder's passport must be shown at each cash withdrawal. The major had nodded in De Villiers's direction again.

‘We want to run the account in US dollars,' the major had said.

‘That will be in order,' Herr Schmidt had said. ‘And,' he'd added, ‘every cash transaction larger than ten thousand dollars will be reported to the tax authorities.'

The major had nodded. ‘We intend to pay by cheque or bank transfer,' he had said. ‘And we expect some further deposits to be made from time to time from our account in Zurich.'

Herr Schmidt had looked at the major for a long time before he nodded. The significance of a Swiss bank between the source of the money and Herr Schmidt's bank only struck De Villiers much later. Herr Schmidt and his colleagues at the Vereins- und Westbank would be unable to trace the source of the funds in the account. Neither, of course, would anyone else.

It was a good scheme. Except that the bank would not allow anyone other than De Villiers to access the money in the account.

De Villiers and the major had waited while Herr Schmidt activated the account. It had taken the whole morning. Afterwards, De Villiers had walked back to the seamen's hostel alone.

He now walked along the same route he had then, but in the opposite direction. I could blame Herr Schmidt for this, he thought to himself. If it wasn't for his conditions for operating the account, I wouldn't be here in this dilemma. I wouldn't have had to kill.

The engineer and the major's wallets and passports needed to be burned, he knew, but he didn't have any matches. As he walked, he studied the details of the two men he had killed.

The engineer had a Turkish passport, giving his names and occupation. Suleiman Hertzeoglou. There was a business card in the inside sleeve of the passport holder. The engineer's employer was a Hamburg steel-engineering and construction firm with its offices in the city and its plant near the harbour. The card proclaimed that they were experts in the erection of bridges, arches and roof structures. The engineer's wallet contained a few banknotes and a small folder with photographs. The top photograph was of a woman and three children. He had a family. The woman wore a full-face niqab and the children traditional Muslim garb. The second photograph was of the engineer. He was somewhere in a desert country and wore camouflage fatigues. He smiled at the camera while aiming an
AK
-47 at a cutout target of an American marine.

De Villiers tore the photographs into small pieces and discarded them in small batches in the bins he passed. He stopped next to a drain and pretended to tie his shoelace. He slipped the wallets into the drain and waited until he heard them splashing into the water below.

The major's passport was South African. It had numerous visas and stamps in it. His last visit to Germany had been a few weeks earlier. De Villiers studied the passport photo. It was the major alright. He read the name aloud. Hermann Kunneke. After all these years, he had a name for the major. Hermann Kunneke. He wondered if it was the major's real name.

On the way to the bank, he stopped on a bridge over a canal. He remembered, for no reason, a brochure he had seen at the hotel. It said that Hamburg had more than 2,300 bridges, more than Amsterdam or Venice. He tore the photo pages from the passports and tore them into small pieces no larger than a thumbnail. He looked around and, when he thought it was safe, he dropped the pieces in the water. He watched as they drifted away like confetti. He discarded the mutilated passport covers in different trash bins many city blocks apart after wiping them clear of his fingerprints.

In the men's room opposite the Rathaus, he carefully checked whether there was any blood on his clothing and washed his hands.

He looked himself in the eye in the mirror and echoed the major's words.

‘It was an operational necessity.'

He crossed yet another bridge en route to the bank. Herr Amsinck offered him tea. De Villiers declined.

‘There is a slight change of plan,' De Villiers said. He handed Mr Amsinck the list with the account numbers and amounts. ‘I want these transfers to be made today. And then I want to make a donation to a charity.'

The bank official entered his password on his desktop computer and accessed the account. He picked up the list and entered the details of the first account. ‘Mr J Mazibuko, First Republic Bank, Port Louis, Mauritius, one million dollars,' he read from the screen.

‘Correct,' De Villiers confirmed.

Mr Amsinck pressed the enter button and folded his arms. A few seconds later there was a beep and he said, ‘It's gone through.'

He processed the next two quickly: $11,245,307.55 into the first account and $5 million into the second.

De Villiers stopped him when he was about to do the next transfer. ‘Let me think for a minute.'

He considered what Johann Weber had said. ‘While we don't want their money, you and I can't waive the amounts payable to Liesl and Zoë without their consent. They are entitled to compensation for the wrong done to them, and considering the danger they've been in, the amount is entirely appropriate. In Zoë's case, Emma has to give that consent. You can't make a unilateral decision.'

Mr Amsinck watched the bank's client with professional detachment. He had pronounced De Villiers's name correctly,
Duh-Ville-yeah
, from the first meeting.

‘Let's do it,' De Villiers said.

It took less than a minute for each of the transfers. The beep confirmed the transfer of $1 million to his own account. Liesl and Zoë's money.

‘There is now precisely one and a half million dollars left in the account,' Mr Amsinck said when the last beep had sounded.

‘I want that to go to a church here in Hamburg,' De Villiers said, ‘St Catherine's.'

Mr Amsinck showed his surprise. ‘I'm a member of the congregation,' he said. ‘But why?'

De Villiers hesitated. ‘The organ restoration needs more money, I see. But I don't have the account details.'

‘No matter,' Mr Amsinck said. ‘We have the account number.' He punched away on the keyboard. ‘What name should I put as the donor?'

De Villiers took a deep breath. ‘Just say it is for Annelise.'

‘You mean,
from
Annelise?
Auf Annelise.
'

‘No,
for
Annelise,' De Villiers said. He knew enough German to say, ‘
Für Annelise
.
'

Mr Amsinck processed the transaction. ‘Are you sure?' he asked when he was ready. ‘Für Annelise?'

‘Yes,' De Villiers said without hesitation.

‘How much?'

‘All of it,' De Villiers said.

Mr Amsinck pressed the key on the keyboard and De Villiers could hear the computer beep.

Once outside the bank, he carefully tore up the receipts and closing documents and allowed the pieces to fall one at a time from his hand as he walked back towards the Rathaus. He would catch a taxi to the airport there.

The first was a short flight and De Villiers kept looking over his shoulder through the airport and also on arrival at Frankfurt International. By the time they called the flight from Frankfurt to Singapore, De Villiers was well under the weather, but he was certain that there was no one on his spoor. He shaved off his beard in the bathroom of the first-class lounge and changed into his preferred gear for travelling: khaki cargo pants, Levi's denim shirt, cotton socks and RM Williams boots. He stuck the clothes he had worn during the operation in the bin for used hand towels. A hot shower had done him good, washed the blood away, in a manner of speaking. He felt cleansed.

But he was slightly under the weather. Well, perhaps more than slightly. The stewards in the first-class lounge had ignored him when he first arrived, but after he'd had a shower and changed, they were all over him, offering champagne and refilling his glass every time he had taken a few sips.

At the computer terminal in the business section of the lounge, he accessed the website of the
New Zealand Herald
. He watched a news clip showing Zoë emerging from the house in Kawerau at Tau Kupenga's side. The camera followed their progress down the driveway to the police car at the kerb. Halfway to the car, Zoë let go of Kupenga's hand and started skipping.

Hop. Skip. Jump.

Hop. Skip. Jump.

De Villiers watched the clip a few times. The clip ended with Kupenga waiting at the door of his car. He was shaking his head. De Villiers decided to give him a call. He pulled his secret cellphone from under his shirt and punched in the number.

Kupenga answered immediately. ‘Kupenga.' He sounded tired, but there was a big promotion waiting for him.

‘Hey, Bro,' De Villiers said in the vernacular of close friends. ‘I didn't break any laws in New Zealand or South Africa.'

‘Are you fucking mad?' Kupenga said. ‘I haven't had any sleep for two days. I've been up all night and I am still at the station writing up reports, and you phone from South Africa to tell me you haven't broken the law?'

De Villiers ignored Kupenga's mistaken assumption. ‘The law on its own is not enough, Tau, to bring the scales into balance. Sometimes you have to give it a little push.'

‘Where did you hear that crap?' Kupenga asked. ‘You have to leave these matters to the machinery of the law.'

‘You see,' De Villiers said, ‘I have this very clever brother-in-law. And he says the law is not enough. You have to give it a push every now and then.'

‘Crap,' Kupenga said. ‘You fucking South Africans have your own weird ideas about justice. We should never have allowed you into the country.'

‘Well,' said De Villiers, ‘you answer me this: what did the machinery of the law achieve here? Did they have any leads? Did they phone you with the address? In fact, did they achieve anything?' He answered his own question. ‘The machinery of the law is a toothless dog when you have to deal with evil men. It achieves nothing, my friend. Nothing at all.'

‘You're drunk,' Kupenga guessed correctly.

‘I always speak the truth,' De Villiers slurred.

‘Yeah, right,' Kupenga said. ‘Not even when you're drunk.'

De Villiers slept all the way to Singapore. The luxuries of first-class travel were wasted on him.

His dreams were confusing ones of ships in the Kalahari and a bushman on a fishing vessel. He tossed and turned, but in the luxury of a first-class seat, his nearest neighbour had no reason to complain. The stewardess watched with detached bemusement at first, but relented when he started talking in his sleep and tucked him in with a mohair blanket wrapped tightly around him.

The foreign transfers showed in the accounts when the offices opened the next morning. De Villiers was already in the air on the second long-haul, somewhere over Australia, halfway between Singapore and Auckland. $11,245,307.55 was received in the conscience account of the South African Revenue Services and $5 million in the account of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. The depositor was reflected as St Catherine. In Mauritius, the bank balance in the account of James Mazibuko doubled overnight.

The main newspapers carried the story on their front pages and the arrests were shown on national television. In time it made the international news.

They also confirmed that an old man in a wheelchair who used to address the meetings was not among those arrested. The man's personal aide is also missing.

The police have refused to give their names.

Unconfirmed rumours suggest that the police are looking for two further suspects. It is believed that one was a general in the old
SADF
and the other a senior officer. Their whereabouts are unknown, but it is believed that they may be overseas.

A source in the investigation team who declined to be named claimed that the missing men were at the helm of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Unit during the apartheid years.

The investigating officer, Inspector Alois Mncwabe, refused to be drawn on the issue and declined to confirm or deny the existence of the men mentioned by the farm workers. He referred all further enquiries to the deputy director of the National Prosecuting Authority, Advocate AA Nyembezi. Mr Nyembezi refused to elaborate, but said some unconfirmed information was still being followed up. A source at Interpol has given this newspaper the names of the men still being sought and confirmed that an international arrest warrant has been issued for them.