Trackers (61 page)

He told her again he understood, but he didn't think she need
worry

about that.

Then he described other
possibilities, as he had tried to figure them out in the parking lot. Just a
theory, he said, she must please understand that. He suspected something had
happened outside Virgin Active, just after Danie had got out of the car, and
before he could pick up his bag. Or, after he had finished exercising and had
just put the bag back, because he suspected the card system was sometimes
faulty.

There were a few things that
suggested it wasn't robbery in the parking lot - Danie's disappearance, the car
and the bag were still there, the constant presence of people, car guards, and
the proximity of the police station. It left them with two possibilities. The
first was that Danie might have walked to the shopping centre to draw money, or
something. And in the process was lured away, or drawn into something.

The other possibility was that
someone had been waiting for him, someone who, for some reason, meant to do him
harm. Perhaps someone who knew him, someone he trusted enough to get into
another car.

She shook her head at this
suggestion.

'You don't agree?' he asked.

'Danie had no enemies,' she said with
absolute assurance.

'He had to fire some bus drivers ...'

'Have you been to see Neville?'

'Yes. And he says Danie was very
popular. But it's a strange world. It only takes one unstable person ...'

She thought about it. 'Maybe,' she
said.

'I want to request access to ABC
records. I want to search Danie's office. They might not like that.'

'Let me phone Mr Eckhardt,' she said.
'He's been very sympathetic all along.'

'Then I would like to take a look at
the Audi.'

He saw her glance at her watch. 'I...
can I show you how the garage door works? I have to get back to work. There are
a few orders ...'

'Of course. Have you used the car
since ...'

'Not at all. It's just the way it was
when I fetched it. I'll get the keys for you.'

Before she left, they agreed that she
would phone Mr Eckhardt, the head of ABC, to get permission, and he would go
ahead with the profile of the cellphone. She took him to the garage, showed him
where the automatic door mechanism was. Then she stood stock still for a
moment, turned to him, put a hand on his arm and said earnestly, 'Thank you so,
so much,' before her heels click-clacked quickly across the concrete floor to
her Citi Golf.

Deep in thought, he watched the car
reverse out, head down the road. Then he came back to the present, went over to
the small workbench right at the back of the garage, and stood a while
studying the space. Danie Flint was not a handyman. The garage was storage
space, not a workshop. Cardboard boxes against one wall, steel shelves against
the other, old paint tins, yellowed Sunday newspapers, a broken kettle, half a
bag of old
braai
briquettes, a few tools, the wheel
of a racing bike.

Joubert took out his cellphone,
unzipped his writing pad to find the number, and phoned Dave Fiedler.

'Dave, it's Mat Joubert, from Jack
Fischer.'

'Yip,
Boetie?'

'We want to do a profile on a IMEI.'

'Hit me with your rhythm stick.'

Joubert read the number slowly.

'Gotcha. I'll call you, hopefully by
tomorrow, late afternoon.'

He zipped the writing pad closed, turned
and studied the Audi.

It took him a few moments to realise
he was not prepared. He would have to find his murder kit at home, the one with
rubber gloves, plastic evidence bags, tweezers, scrapers, cotton wool, sticky
tape, the black and white fingerprint powder. Margaret would know where it had
been stored for the last five years. For now, he would have to make another
plan.

He walked around the car, carefully
inspecting the outside, looking for fresh scrapes or dents. And blood spatters.

He found nothing, just an awareness
of something that eluded him. He stopped, thought deeply, couldn't pin it down.

He took out a handkerchief, carefully
lifted the door handle, so as not to disturb fingerprints.

He bent down and took a look inside.

The interior was reasonably clean.
Sand and gravel in front on the driver's rubber mat, nothing out of the
ordinary. The inside of the door had no recent scuff or scratch marks that
could indicate a struggle, someone being dragged out against his will.

He looked under the driver's seat.
There was nothing, only dust.

He slid in, sat down on the seat,
keeping his feet outside, touching nothing.

Black leather upholstery, satellite
navigation, electric windows, cruise control...
Full
house,
a car salesman would have called it.

Then it came to him, the thing that
had eluded him earlier - this car, compared to Tanya's. Two-litre, blood red
Audi Sportback with the works, compared to the blue simplicity of the 1400
Citi. Earlier she had said that Danie had bought his car second hand, but even
then this Audi wasn't cheap, around two hundred and fifty thousand, compared to
what? You could buy the Volkswagen Citi for around seventy thousand.

A big difference. He weighed this
information against what he knew about their marriage, but it gave him no more
insight. Then he used the handkerchief and undipped the glove compartment,
leaned over to see what was in it. A plastic envelope with the manual and
service book. He took it out. A spectacle case. Inside were sporty dark
glasses. Adidas Xephyr. He put them on the passenger seat, beside the manual.
An HTC phone charger with a springy cable and a plug for the cigarette
lighter. A cheap ballpoint pen, two yellowed petrol slips a year old, and half
a pack of chewing gum.

He put everything back carefully,
closed it and got out. Then he walked around the car, opened the other door and
peered under the seat.

The boot didn't produce anything
either.

Joubert fetched his writing pad from
the workbench, put the keys there as he had arranged with Tanya, pressed the
switch that opened the door and jogged out quickly.

He drove back to Virgin Active,
because it was on his way home to Milnerton. There was no sense in going back
to the city in the rush- hour traffic. And it was half past four - he wanted to
get the feel of how busy the place was in the late afternoon, at the time Flint
disappeared.

There were a great deal fewer parking
spaces. He found one and stopped, sat a while watching. Then he opened Tanya's
file with the contact numbers and went through the list of people. One name
caught his eye:
Inspector Keyter, SAPS, Tableview.
In her
thorough way, Tanya Flint had written down the case number beside it.

Could it be Jamie, the detective
constable who had joined the Serious and Violent Crimes Unit before that was
also disbanded? Most likely, since if he recalled correctly Keyter had been
promoted from Table View. And Tanya Flint had talked about a detective who
fiddled with his fringe.

He took the file along with him, got
out, locked the Honda and walked to the police station. The south-easter was
well under way, blowing up his jacket flaps and forcing him to hold the folder
tightly to his chest.

Table View had never been one of his
favourite police stations. He and Margaret had lived nearby in Frere Street
after they were married, before she began buying up old houses and renovating
them. From time to time he had to pick up faxes or forms at the police station,
or go in for computer access. Even then there were already too many cowboys,
too much attitude.

The charge office was hot, and fairly
busy. He waited his turn, asked if Jamie Keyter was available. Not
Jay-mie,
if he
remembered correctly, but
Jaa-mie.
The black
constable said he would go and check. A little while later he came back and
said: 'The inspector is coming.'

Joubert waited to one side, out of
the way. He wished he could loosen his tie, that he'd left his jacket in the
car. For five minutes he stood and listened, at the border post where two
worlds met, the public and the police. Every police station had its own
rhythms, its own

atmosphere and sounds. The
complainants' voices, some angry, others defeated. Out of an office somewhere
came the loud words of an argument. Telephones ringing, the patient footsteps
of the three uniforms manning the counter, generally soothing and reassuring,
bending over to help fill in statements, probably on their feet for six hours,
their movements slow, going through the routine motions.

Then Keyter arrived with a scowl on his
face for whoever had come to bother him, until he saw Joubert. His body
language changed in an instant. 'Sup?' he said, like a man with a guilty
conscience.

'Jamie,' said Joubert and put out his
hand. 'I'm not with the Service any more.'

Keyter shook his hand, taken aback.
'Sup?' he said, the information too unexpected to process. Joubert could see
that he hadn't changed much. Still wearing tight golf shirts, sleeves stretched
over bulging biceps. Today's was black with the silver Nike logo on the chest,
to go with black jeans and black Nike trainers.

'Friday was my last day. I'm with
Jack Fischer and Associates now.'

'Oh. Oka-a-ay,' Something in his tone
that made Joubert's hackles rise.

'I'm working on a fifty-five. One
Danie Flint who disappeared last year. His wife said it was your case.'

'Danie Flint?' He scratched his head.

'Last year, late November. His car
was abandoned here at Virgin Active.'

A light went on. 'Oh, right. That
one.' He looked at Joubert expectantly.

'I just wanted to ask you if you had
any insights to share, Jamie.'

'Insights, Sup?'

'I'm not a Sup any more, Jamie.'

'OK... I'll have to get the dockets,
but if I remember correctly ... There was nothing. The guy was just gone.'

Joubert suppressed a sigh. 'Yes,
apparently that was the original problem. Did you speak to anyone at his work?'

'I... No, I mean, the guy ... There
wasn't... Sup, you know how things are, the guys go fishing with their pals,
they don't tell the old lady ... I mean, his car was here ...'

Joubert nodded, put his hand in the
inside pocket of his jacket. Keyter
's
eyes followed the mov
ement with wary
eyes. Joubert took out

his wallet, extracted a business card
and gave it to the detective. 'If you remember something, or find something, Jamie
. . .'

'OK, Sup, I'll call you right away.'

'I'm not Sup any more ...'

He sat in the Honda and watched his
theory being systematically confirmed.

The parking lot filled up, people walked
to the gym with sports bags, or to the library, with books in their arms. There
were short periods when it was quiet, two or three minutes where something
could have happened to Danie Flint if the attacker was very confident and
efficient. But a struggle here, a fight that went unnoticed, seemed
increasingly improbable.

He sat there till after six, and
thought of Jamie Keyter and the Flint dossier. He knew the way things were with
detectives at stations, even the lazy ones like Keyter - too many cases, too
little time, so there was always something that fell through the cracks. Tanya
was right, missing adults were not always a priority, unless there was obvious
proof of a crime. Otherwise they fell in the category of domestic conflict, he
had dealt with countless numbers as a uniformed policeman. Thirty years ago.

Lord, how time flies.

He drove to Milnerton, to Tulbach
Street where he and Margaret had been living for the last six months, their
fifth house in five years, but he didn't mind, because she took so much
pleasure in her 'projects'. She would go looking for a real bargain, a solid
house in a good neighbourhood that had fallen into disrepair, 'worst house in
a good neighbourhood' was her motto. Then she renovated it with her keen
insight and good taste, smartened it up, and when she was done, they would move
in. A house sold more easily if there were people living in it, activity,
aromas from the kitchen, tasteful furniture in the rooms. When she was
expecting potential buyers, she would put vanilla in the oven, or bake a cake,
and put on some cheerful music at a low volume, make sure the house was cool in
summer, or warm in winter, with a fire in the grate. She was already in the
process of buying the next one, in 'lower Constantia, she could get it for next
to nothing in this slow market.