Daddy's Girl (5 page)

‘This girl walked across some rough ground,’ said Clare, a finger hovering over the girl’s instep.

Ruth Lyndall cupped the child’s feet in her
narrow hands. There was a fading henna tattoo on the sides of her grubby feet. A white shoe clung to the left foot.

‘Let’s have a look inside her.’

Clare helped the pathologist position the trolley under the low dose X-ray machine, relieved to move her eyes away from the naked child. She looked at her ghostly double. The spectral image on the computer screen, surrounded by start-up, documents,
trash icons, was bearable. The original was not.

‘What I was looking for.’ The pathologist moved the mouse arrow along the pale lattice of rib bones on the screen. On each rib was a bead of white bone. ‘This little girl’s only jewellery.’

‘What is that telling you?’

‘That this child has been abused for a long time,’ Dr Lyndall explained. ‘You only get those in kids who’ve been badly
shaken as babies or toddlers. The bones crack and then heal in this formation. It’s called a string of pearls fracture.’

‘You going to open her up?’ asked Clare.

‘I have to. This – the old vaginal injures – the fact that her disappearance wasn’t reported, make this look like a family affair.’

She switched off the machine, enveloping them in silence.

‘I’d better go if I’m going
to make my speech, then,’ said Clare, pulling off her mask. ‘Did you get a chance to dig out those reports I asked you for?’

‘On my desk,’ said Ruth. ‘There’s an envelope with your name on it. The raw data. Five years’ worth of violent deaths. I pulled out the female victims, then separated the children for you.’

‘You see a pattern?’

‘I’ve been here since five this morning. I got my
morning coffee at three this afternoon. The only patterns I’ve seen were those from the start of a migraine.’

‘I’ll start going through this tomorrow, do the mapping too,’ said Clare, ‘then I’ll call you.’

‘Monday. Call me Monday. My family’s in town.’

Ruth Lyndall’s husband and only daughter grew olives in the Karoo. She saw them at weekends. Her way of doing marriage. Her way of
keeping her daughter alive. It seemed to be working. She opened the leather case next to her. The blades flashed under the neon.

‘Monday, then.’

The pathologist watched Clare disappear into the change-room, then she selected a knife. Lifted it out. Measured. Cut.

The wind whipped the car door from Riedwaan Faizal’s hand. He had parked opposite Caledon Square. The forbidding stone plinth was punctuated with small barred windows. The holding cells. Above these, the Victorian brickwork contained a warren of offices. It was quiet, except for some muffled shouts from the cells and tuneless Friday night singing from the bar on the first floor.

Climbing
a flight of stairs, Riedwaan turned where the sign said Organised Crime and Drug Unit in bright orange letters. The younger cops doing correspondence courses in criminal psychology called them the OCDs. Thought their joke was hilarious. Fuck them. Though only an obsessive compulsive would stick with gangsters long enough to bust them. The work was dirty and dangerous and it had broken up his
family. They were probably right, he thought grudgingly, as he knocked on the secretary’s door. Sticking with this unit had to be a kind of disorder.

‘You’re late, Captain Faizal,’ said Senior Superintendent Edgar Phiri’s secretary.

‘A double murder,’ said Riedwaan. ‘Two girls. So sorry, Louise.’

‘Senior Superintendent Phiri and Captain Delport are waiting for you.’ Louise’s expression
did not soften, but she held out her hand. ‘You’ll need copies of your report?’

‘It’s sorted.’ he said. Riedwaan’s report existed – just not on paper. What he had to write down was in a notebook he carried in his breast pocket. The important stuff he kept in his head.

Louise tossed her greying blonde hair and returned to her keyboard, dismissing him and his lie.

Edgar Phiri, lean and
fit, with just a sprinkle of iron-grey at the temples, turned from his vigil at the window when Riedwaan opened the door.

‘Faizal.’

Phiri’s promotion was recent, but authority sat comfortably on his shoulders. He had earned it, and he did not think coming from Jo’burg was a handicap. His competence had not harmed his reputation, but it was not making him many friends either.

‘Sit,
please.’

A folder was placed in front of Phiri’s empty chair, Operation Hope stencilled on it in orange.

‘Delport.’ Riedwaan acknowledged the other man in the room.

‘How was the loony bin?’ Delport was doodling crosshairs on his folder, turning the ‘o’ in Hope into a target. ‘A month on a Karoo funny farm cure you of your anger management issues?’

Riedwaan sat down, pulling out
his cigarettes. One raised eyebrow from Phiri told him he was not going to be smoking, but he left them on the table in front of him.

‘Good to see you’re still concerned about my welfare, Delport.’

Tertius Delport, seconded from Narcotics to Phiri’s Gang Unit. The burst capillaries on his face a map of the bars he had made himself at home in. He had reason to drink. Before ’94, he’d kept
human rights lawyers busy; the suspects he questioned sometimes took a bit of time to walk unaided again. He hadn’t changed his methods, but these days the suspects were gangsters and addicts and dealers, and nobody worried much about his methods of winnowing them out.

Riedwaan switched off his phone. Phiri did not tolerate calls during his meetings.

‘Van Rensburg will join us soon.’ Phiri
sat down, opened the orange file, took off his Rolex, and aligned it with his paperwork. ‘Shall we begin?’

Delport hid his six o’clock tremor by keeping his hands under the table.

‘Faizal.’ Phiri sat with his back to the door. ‘I got your apologies from Rita Mkhize.’

‘Another shooting,’ said Riedwaan. ‘In Maitland, this time.’

‘Gangsters,’ said Delport. ‘I like it when they do
our job for us.’

‘Two schoolgirls,’ Riedwaan cut in. ‘No gang links in the family, according to the database.’

‘You’re linking it with the Unit’s current joint operation?’ asked Phiri.

‘A territory claim, is my guess.’ Riedwaan put his hand into his pocket and took out the coin labelled as evidence at the crime scene. He put it on the desk. ‘The signature.’

‘Soviet kopek.’ Phiri
picked it up. ‘1989 mint. Same as the last time.’

‘The coin was on the victim’s face, the little girl. Means the killer got out of the car and put it there. Whoever does that is sure that no one’s going to remember seeing them – or live long enough to say anything, if they do.’

‘Drugs,’ said Delport. ‘Someone they know owed money.’

Riedwaan shook his head. ‘This is some Number gangster
proving his manhood, moving himself up the ranks. There’s talk of the 27s everywhere. Dogs marking new territory, those two girls in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘Bullshit,’ snorted Delport. ‘The Number does that inside prison. What’s it going to help anyone on the outside?’

‘If I knew the answer to that, Delport, maybe those little girls would be eating lamb curry right now.’ The
pain behind his eyes again. Riedwaan rubbed his temples, thought about having a drink.

Phiri pulled out a dog-eared, hand-written page. ‘Yours is an unusual interpretation of the facts, Faizal.’

‘Makes a change that he’s got any facts to interpret,’ muttered Delport.

‘We’ll hear him first, Delport, and then comment on it. You’ll get your opportunity to raise objections and offer alternative
viewpoints. Faizal?’

Delport folded his arms and watched as Riedwaan took a street map out of his pocket. He swivelled it round to Phiri.

‘The area from Sea Point,’ he swept his pen across the Promenade and the strip of beach north of the harbour, ‘to Maitland, up to Milnerton. All this behind it,’ he indicated the swathes of security estates and new suburbs that had mushroomed on the
wetlands and abandoned industrial areas inland, ‘is up for sale.’

‘Pam Golding doing the transfer?’ Delport asked.

Ignoring him, Phiri uncapped his pen and opened his notebook. ‘For sale to whom? And for what period?’

‘My bet is that Voëltjie Ahrend is in on this land deal,’ said Riedwaan. ‘But there’s also international interest. The Russian mafia. The big boys hope to end the turf
war. The 27s are the foot soldiers, very effective, very brutal. They’ll see to it that all the other gangs – the 28s, the 26s, the Americans, The Firm, the Mongrels, or whoever else – obey the Keep Out sign. It’s a red ink deal: sealed in blood. Blood brothers, rather than partners in crime, you could say.’

‘What about the Italians, the Colombians?’

‘The Italians wrapped things up years
ago. Bought the politicians they needed,’ said Riedwaan. ‘The South Americans like it here – shipping lines are good.’

Riedwaan pocketed the bagged coin.

‘You’re not convinced?’

‘I’ve been trying to fix on what’s bothered me,’ said Riedwaan. ‘It’s the type of violence. This is something new. A warning.’

‘These Russians.’ Phiri, expert in reading the small calibrations of falsehood
and truth in a man’s face, kept his eyes on Riedwaan. ‘Tell me more.’

‘My sources aren’t sure who they’ve given it to, but I heard a three-year lease.’

‘Your sources,’ Delport stabbed a thick finger at Riedwaan’s map. ‘Ex-gangsters and prostitutes. No names. No dates. On the basis of that and a couple of small drug busts, you want frozen assets, blanket search-and-seizure orders, and six
arrest warrants.’

Riedwaan counted the items off on his fingers. ‘That’s about it,’ he said. ‘Plus full witness protection for my informants.’

‘Who you don’t name.’ Delport pushed his bull neck forward. ‘There was a truce – no killings, no collaterals like your two dead schoolgirls – until you started stirring things up.’

‘Captain Faizal,’ Phiri headed off Riedwaan’s response. ‘Perhaps
you could build your case a little more before we decide on what action to take?’

‘This spate of murders.’ Riedwaan swallowed the antagonism he felt towards Delport and spoke directly to Phiri. ‘Here, here and here: the negotiation. Drugs, talk of heroin, pure and cheap. You had any of that, Delport?’

‘Couple of busts,’ said Delport. ‘Nothing that looks like it’s going to flood the market.
Seems like the tik merchants have got that wrapped.’

‘Adult entertainment, upmarket strip clubs, protection. Something called Gorky Investments came up a couple of times. Seems quite legitimate, but they’re skating on the edge of legality. And that edge, in South Africa, has been pushed even further away from honest, thanks to our esteemed leaders.’

‘You’ve got something on them?’ Delport
cracked his knuckles.

‘They’ve got friends.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘So, all speculation again, Faizal?’ said Delport. ‘You think they might be behind JFK’s assassination too?’

‘There’s a gap in the market here. Space for a small outfit. Niche marketing. Boutique services, is what you’d call it if you were running a hotel. Voëltjie Ahrend’s the muscle,’ said Riedwaan. ‘Small
outfit. Young. Didn’t spend much time in prison, but was in with Graveyard de Wet. Learnt his tricks from the master. Now he’s using the branding of the 27s like a franchise.’

Riedwaan waited as the sirens outside went past. ‘All you need is a way of managing it. Violence is easy. You teach one person a lesson once, and everyone gets it. These people don’t decide things by committee.’

Leaning forward, Delport cut in, ‘Don’t tell me you’ve bought this bullshit about the 27s moving out of the prisons and onto the street? One or two body-building clubs, a bit of extortion, a few strippers. Anything more organised than that is a figment of the media’s imagination. It’s throwing money away, going after them.’

‘The capital.’ Phiri kept his eyes on Riedwaan.

‘One kopek is hardly
capital,’ Delport sneered.

‘Let me hear this,’ said Phiri. ‘I’ll decide. Who’s backing Ahrend, Faizal?’

‘I’m trying to pin it down. Hard to find an individual. Shell companies behind shell companies in the property that’s been selling. Management outsourced, the muscle, too. Whoever it is gets others to take the risk, guarantees a flow of merchandise, skims their fees off the top. Low
risk. High reward.’

There were muffled voices at the door. Seconds later it opened, and a statuesque woman filled the doorway. The charcoal skirt and jacket were so tailored that she may as well have worn her uniform. Behind her were two men in Special Directorate uniforms.

‘Special Director Ndlovu. I didn’t expect to see you in Cape Town.’

‘Phiri.’ The woman nodded.

‘Captain Faizal,’
said Director Ndlovu. Riedwaan was on his feet. The woman held a folder with his name on it. They had crossed paths before. ‘What have you done with your daughter this time?’

‘I don’t have her.’ The pen in Riedwaan’s hand snapped. ‘Where is she? What’s happened?’

‘Your wife went to collect her from her ballet class, Captain. She’s gone.’

‘She’s gone home with one of the other girls,
surely?’ Riedwaan’s chair toppled as he stepped towards the door.

Ndlovu blocked him.

‘Shazia checked that. She checked with Yasmin’s teachers too.’ The expression in her eyes was arctic. ‘You knew she’d be there, and now she’s gone.’

Delport, Phiri, Louise standing in the doorway behind the uniforms, Ndlovu – all had their eyes on him. ‘Just the week before your wife was going to
take the child to Canada. The family court ordered that you return the papers on Monday. Have you signed?’

‘No,’ said Riedwaan, shoving his cigarettes into his pocket, feeling for his keys. ‘I have not signed.’

Salome Ndlovu turned to Phiri. ‘Then…’

‘Don’t you fuck with me, Special Director Ndlovu.’ He had his hand on her arm, the grey silk of her jacket slippery under his palm.

‘Is that another threat, Captain Faizal?’ She didn’t flinch.

Ndlovu’s men stepped into Riedwaan’s body space.

‘No.’ Riedwaan’s hand dropped to his side. ‘But I don’t have her. And the longer you believe I do, the harder it’s going to be for me to find her.’