Trackers (63 page)

Santasha's voice, impatient:
'Neville, lovey, are you going to answer that phone today?'

Joubert followed Philander down the
corridor. 'Not if you take that tone with me.'

He disappeared through a door,
Joubert went in behind him, Santasha shouted: 'I'm not taking a tone, lovey,
I'm motivating you a little.'

The room was divided into four office
spaces by chest-high partitions, each with a desk and a credenza, all in the
same light wood colour. The two visible desks were untidy, a few piles of
papers and files, no one sitting there.

'So motivate the caller to hang on a
little,' Philander shouted, and walked around a partition, up to a window and
pointed. 'That's Danie's cubicle,' he said. 'Pretty much as he left it.'

'Thank you,' said Joubert.

'Have a ball,' he said, then turned
on his heel and jogged to the door.

Joubert surveyed the desk, credenza,
office chair. Simple, on a grey carpet. The desk had three drawers on the left.
Under the desk was the computer case, on top, the mouse, keyboard and screen.
One pile of papers and a clipboard, a mug with a Porsche logo, coffee dregs in
the bottom, dried up now. Photos and notes were stuck on the faded blue fabric
of the partition.

He sat down on the chair and looked
at the photos. In the middle was one that had been taken in front of the depot
building, probably of the whole administration staff, six men, three women.
Philander was in the middle. Danie stood second from the right, at the back,
big smile. Joubert wondered which one of the three coloured women was the
diplomatically insistent Santasha.

Next to it was a photo of Danie and
Tanya Flint, taken at a work party. Her face was fuller then, she was looking
in amusement at Danie, in a funny little hat with a beer in his hand, laughing
uproariously. Another photo of Danie on a boat, somewhere on a river, arms
draped around the shoulders of two friends. Three magazine cuttings of sports
cars, an Audi R8, a Ferrari F430 Spider and a Lamborghini Murcielago LP640.
Yellow Post-it notes with scribbled names and telephone numbers, reminders of
meetings and deadlines for reports, the number of exclamation marks denoting
the urgency of each.

He pulled the stack of papers closer
and worked through them. Official ABC forms, with figures and references,
apparently to buses. One light brown folder with the ABC logo on it, and the
word Applications' below it, 'Please return to HR, Mrs Heese!!!' in angry red
letters. Inside were job applications for bus drivers, each with a photo, a
short CV and a report from the HR department.

He pushed that aside, tried the top
drawer of the desk. It was locked.

He opened the second drawer. A metal
basket for writing materials, with various sized compartments. Cheap ballpoint
pens, two pencils, a stapler, blue box of staples, an unused eraser, a roll of
Sellotape, scissors, a post code guide, three packs of Post-it notes, a Nokia
cellphone charger, paper clips, a Bic cigarette lighter missing its roller
wheel, a Ferrari keyholder, and two white electric two-point plugs.

The bottom drawer didn't offer much
either - the original disk for the computers; Windows XP, a handbook for an
ink-jet printer, two old
FHM
magazines and
a
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition,
an
Auto
Trader,
and two
Car
magazines.

Joubert moved the chair so he could
slide open the door of the credenza. It was full of light brown files, arranged
according to date, from 2004 to 2006, and two telephone directories. He took
out one of the files and riffled through it. Indecipherable ABC documents. He
put it back, and slid the door closed.

Where would the key to the drawer be?
On the Audi's keyring, which had disappeared along with Flint?

Only one more thing he could check:
the computer. He peered under the desk, found the button and pressed it. The
computer switched on. He watched the screen, waited until all the icons had
appeared. Outlook. Word. Excel. Explorer. DRMP.

He sat staring at the screen. Would
it be a problem if he opened the email program? If he had still been in the
police he would have sent for a computer expert, and someone to unlock the
drawer, within half an hour he would have had access and insight. But now every
hurdle meant further expense, the weighing of potential results against the
cost.

This was no way to run an investigation.

Mat Joubert sat in front of Danie
Flint's computer with his head in his hands, and considered doing things his
way. He knew it had implications. He knew it went against the grain, against
his better judgement. Three decades of experience had taught him it was wiser
to work according to the rules, because doing otherwise always came back to
bite you.

What he should do was go to Jack
Fischer and say no, he didn't agree with this policy of milking clients. Honest
and straight, that was the only way he knew.

But he also knew he wasn't the
fastest detective in the world, he was slow and methodical, worrying too much
about detail. What would he say if Jack said, 'Then you must work faster'? He
couldn't deny his weaknesses.

Then he remembered Jack Fischer
saying he must pressure Dave Fiedler, the cellphone plotter, for a discount.
That implied at least the right to control costs, and he took out Bella van
Breda's business card, the young woman with the glasses and the blush. Bennie
Griessel's neighbour. He called her, first had to explain who he was before he
could describe his problem.

'I can try,' she said.

'The problem is, my client's
budget...What will it cost?'

'That depends. If you wait until I've
finished this afternoon, I won't charge anything.'

'No, no, you can't do it for free
...'

'Let's see if I can find anything
first...'

'What time do you finish?'

'About six o'clock.'

'Can I pick you up?'

'Please.'

He wrote down her work address, rang
off and walked to Neville

Philander to ask if he could come
back in the late afternoon.

He bought a can of Tab at a little
cafe in Woodstock, studied the map that he kept under the seat to see how to
get to Gusti Flint's house, and ate his sandwiches in the car on the way to
Panorama. Margaret had made his favourite: avocado, grated biltong and thinly
sliced parmesan, the flavour and texture were just right, like all her food.

He put the new pieces of the Danie
Flint jigsaw together, the photos on the wall, the cuttings of sports cars, the
use of yellow Post-it notes as reminders, the magazines in the drawer. A
completely normal young man, a fast life and impossible dreams. Extrovert,
cheerful, always laughing, but a hard worker, ambitious, reliable. The polar
opposite to his wife's serious nature, less concerned about money, living for
today, tomorrow would take care of itself. Like most people of that age, they
all believed things would simply work out.

Where were the cracks?

There had to be. His disappearance
was not random, that was the thing that bothered Joubert the most. The Audi
parked at the gym excluded chance, he wasn't the victim of a random robbery.

The only potential source of conflict
was the bus drivers he fired. And it was going to take time to work through
every personnel file, then cross-reference the possible suspects for previous
convictions, since he knew that violence always had a history.

And time was money.

He sighed, drank the last of the Tab
out of the can, and put on his indicator for the Panorama off-ramp.

Mrs Gusti Flint told Mat Joubert, in
a controlled and modulated way, how hopeless the South African Police Service
was since 'they' had taken over. 'But I'm not a racist.'

She was a very attractive woman,
looked in her late forties, but must be ten years older. Tastefully groomed,
hair short, expensively cut and dyed blonde, the make-up light and skilfully
applied across the wide face, the prominent, regular features. Her bosom surged
above the neckline of a short-sleeved lavender mohair sweater. Around her neck
was a single string of pearls. Two chihuahuas sat on her lap, their bulging
eyes fixed on Joubert in suspicion. Her large hands repeatedly stroked one of
the animals when it coughed accusingly in his direction. She had a single ring
on her right hand, a complex knot of gold and diamonds. The nails were long and
painted a light shade of purple, and below, above one of her high-heeled
sandals, a fine gold chain encircled her ankle.

He listened patiently to her
objections to the SAPS, which eventually pointed specifically at their
handling of her son's disappearance, and how they should accept responsibility
for that. 'He went missing right next to them. Right next to them. And now poor
Tanya has to hire a private firm and the poor child doesn't have that kind of
money, her business is barely on its feet,' and Joubert wondered why Gusti Flint
didn't help her daughter-in-law financially, since her house was large and
luxurious, the furniture expensive, the air conditioning whispering
effectively.

When she had finished, he said, 'Mrs
Flint, how often ...' and the chihuahuas started to bark.

'Fred! Ginger! Quiet! Please, call me
Gusti.'

The little dogs turned their eyes on
her and wagged their tails.

'How often did you see Danie ..

The dogs barked.

'Wait,' she said. 'Let me put them
away first.' She picked up the animals, leaned forward and put them down on the
thick carpet, displaying her cleavage. Then she looked up quickly at him, saw
that he had noticed, her gaze lingering a moment before she got up and called
the dogs, 'Come on ...'

The chihuahuas looked reproachfully
at Joubert before reluctantly trotting after her.

He watched her walk away, the sway of
her hips, her bottom possibly a fraction too large for the tight white slacks.

Not quite what he had been expecting.

Her high heels clicked back. 'What
about something to drink?'

'No, thank you.'

She sat down, crossed her legs, and
smoothed her long fingers over the slacks. 'They can be a nuisance sometimes,'
she said, 'but they are all I have.'

'Danie's father ... ?'

'Gerber passed on nine years ago. At
sixty. That Sunday he had cycled the Cape Argus, the Monday he collapsed in his
office. Massive heart attack, so unexpected, he was fit, always very fit,'
recounted with the fluency of oft-repeated facts. 'Most dreadful time of my
life, my husband snatched away, my son already out of the house, suddenly I was
a woman alone. But you adjust, you rebuild your life. That’s what I tell Tanya,
time heals all things, you come through on the other side. And now my son has
gone as well, and the most awful thing is that we don't
know.
I could say
goodbye to Gerber, however hard it was, at least there was a funeral, a letting
go. It was hard enough for me, but his poor, poor wife, I wish I could take her
pain away, or take it on me, she's so intense.'

'Mrs Flint, do you still have ...'

'Gusti, please. "Mrs" makes
me sound like a
tannie.
We are just as young as we feel.'

'Did you still have regular contact
with Danie?'

'I have the most wonderful son. He
phoned me twice a week, popped in once a week, I know everything that happens
in his life. Let me tell you, this thing is part of the terrible crime in this
country, senseless crime; he never had an enemy in the world. He was just like
his father. The whole world loved Gerber, that's why he was on the City Council
for nearly twenty years. But those days are gone, we're not safe in our own
country any more, they're busy ruining everything, I'm not saying we should go
back to Apartheid, but there are those of them who say, themselves, things were
better then ...'

She stood too close to him when he
said goodbye, held his hand too long. 'Are you married, Mat?' despite the thin
gold ring on his finger.