Trackers (73 page)

September gave the same result. His
eyes grew weary. His concentration lapsed. He began to suspect his search was
fruitless.

He nearly missed it.

The twenty-ninth of September. Time
stamp of 11.48. Open road, no buildings, just veld. Too narrow a following
distance between the front of the bus and a black Mercedes sedan, looked like
an E-series. The car braked suddenly and inexplicably, the bus bumped the rear,
the boot sprang open. Another ten seconds where the bus and Mercedes pulled off
the road, nearly came to a stop.

He clicked to end the video, just
another one, useless. Somewhere in the back of his mind there was an
exclamation mark.

He started the next video, but his
subconscious said, go back to the previous one, there was something. Watch it
again.

A moment of indecision. Just another
minor accident.

No, there had been something.

So he sighed, shut down the new
video, clicked back to the previous one.

What was that in the boot?

His brain recalled the image. He suspected
he was imagining it.

He clicked again, it played, he
watched intently.

The boot jumped open. There. Inside.
A hand. Reefing, in the strip of sunlight that shone in on that single moment
when the boot was

fully open, just before it came down
again, then it was gone, the gap between the Mercedes and the bus widened, the
lid of the boot swung down again. He didn't know how to freeze the image,
looked anxiously at the screen, but the video had already stopped.

He clicked on it again, quickly
studied the icons, experimented with a few of them. Found the one that froze
the image, but he was too late. Joubert grunted with annoyance. He began again,
the mouse pointer poised, ready, waited for the moment. Stopped the video at
exactly the right time.

No doubt about it. A hand. Lifeless.
A delicate white hand resting on a torso. In the boot.

There were three figures in the
Mercedes, two in the front seat, one at the back. All men. The one in the back
seat turning his head after the jolt of the collision. Massive shoulders, a
peculiar face, twisted, as though there was no nose. Maybe it was just the
resolution of the video.

Joubert looked carefully, he could
see the series number of the car. E 350. The registration number was much
easier to read.

He looked at the rear-facing video
image. The bus driver, the empty seats looking forlorn behind him, his body
jerking at the impact. 'Fuck,' the driver said, the word clearly audible. Then
a hand gesture of frustration, rage. He turned the steering wheel to pull off the
road. 'Fucking cunt.'

Back to the forward view, freezing it
again on the moment when the boot was open wide.

A hand. A person, inside. Dead still.

He stared at the image, his brain
racing.

Had Danie Flint seen that?

Had it anything to do with his disappearance?

A person in the boot of the car. And
something about the way the hand lay, how it responded to the jolt of the
collision, told him it was unconscious. Or dead.

Should he search for more, up to
about 15 October?

And how would he handle it? It was
powerful evidence of a crime. Abduction at the very least. He would have to
call the SAPS, after he had phoned Eckhardt.

But he wanted to retain control.

Don't be hasty. Take it step by step.
He reached for his writing pad, clicked on the screen. He wrote down the date
and time. Looked for a reference to the exact spot it had occurred, found only
the bus and route number. He wrote down the bus driver's name. Jerome Apollis.
Then the details of the Mercedes. Zipped his notebook closed, so no one could see
the notes. His insurance policy.

He took out his cellphone and called
the Operational Manager of ABC. 'I think you had better have a look at this.'

Eckhardt was in his forties,
fashionable glasses, tall, lean, professional. He wore the sort of tasteful
suit, shirt and tie combination that made Joubert sigh over his own
non-existent sense of style. The Operational Manager stood with Philander, and
they both watched the video before he said: 'Neville, see if you can get hold
of Apollis. As quickly as possible. If he's on duty, get a relief driver.' Then
he turned to Joubert, 'Let's get the police involved.'

'There's an inspector in Milnerton
I'm working with ...'

'Call him.'

'I'm going to give him the
registration number of the Mercedes in the meantime.'

'Do what you think is necessary. You
have our full cooperation.'

Joubert called Fizile Butshingi. 'I
think I've found something ...'

'What?' Sharp and serious.

'Evidence of a serious crime. Could
be kidnapping, could be worse ...'

'Ay, ay. Where are you?'

Joubert gave him the address of the
ABC depot. 'There's a vehicle involved, and we will need the name and address
of the owner. If you could run it in the meantime.'

'Give it to me.'

His euphoria was tempered with
disappointment, because he knew what to expect.

This was the other big difference
between private investigator and policeman, he thought while he waited. You had
to come to terms with the fact that sooner or later you had to hand over
control.

There had been a moment, a minute ago,
when he had considered another course. The option to keep quiet - make an
electronic copy of the video, use Jack's contacts to find out who the Mercedes
belonged to, follow it up ...

But that implied that he would have
to be dishonest, break the ABC agreement, break the law, because here was clear
evidence of a crime. And he couldn't do all that.

Now Butshingi was going to take it
and run with it. He seemed like a good detective. As long as it shone light on
Danie Flint's fate, it didn't matter. He sighed.

At eight minutes past four his phone
rang. Mildred, receptionist at Jack Fischer and Associates: 'Mr Fischer would
like to know if you are coming back to the office today?'

'I don't know.'

'Please hold on.'

She put him on hold, elevator music
tinkling in the background. Then Jack was on the phone, his voice jovial. 'Mat,
looks like you're hot on the trail?' As though nothing had happened last night.

'I am, Jack. There's good progress
...'

'Excellent, excellent, happy to hear that.
Mat, Fanie and I have been talking this morning. We discussed the whole thing.
From all angles. Financial. Human aspect, that's important to us, Mat. Very
important. We would like to meet Mrs Vlok halfway ...'

Joubert choked back the impulse to
correct Fischer.

'... so we thought, we'll give her
one day free. Under the circumstances. Right thing to do. In this particular
instance.'

'Thanks, Jack. If all goes well, it
may not be necessary. But thank you.'

'Excellent, excellent. I thought I
would let you know ...'

Inspector Fizile Butshingi's face was
sombre when he arrived. 'This is a big thing, Sup. A very big thing.'

'Why?'

'Show me what you have.'

Joubert invited him to take a seat,
then played the video, froze it, pointed at the hand in the boot.

'Hau
,' said the Inspector. 'This is bad.'

'Who does the car belong to?'

'That's the big trouble. First, I went on the Natis system,
it told me the Mercedes belongs to a Terrence Richard Baadjies, vehicle
registration is a residential address in Rosebank. So I thought, let's see who
this man is. And I put him through the database. And I found a bad man, Sup.
Terrence Richard Baadjies, aka Terry, aka Terror, aka The Terrorist. Juvenile
delinquent when he was fifteen years old, sentenced to a facility for stabbing
and killing another child at school. Released after three years, then followed
sixteen cases, seven charges of murder, but only five convictions, three for
dealing drugs, one assault with intent, one for manslaughter while he was in
Pollsmoor. Did fourteen years.'

'Gang member,' said Joubert.

'Not just any gang member. He's number two of the Restless
Ravens.'

'Bliksem
,' said Mat Joubert, because that
changed everything.

'Yes.'

It took
him a while to appreciate the possibilities fully. 'We will have to call
Superintendent Johnny October .'The Cape Flats were October's turf. But far
more important was the fact that Johnny was his good friend. Johnny wouldn't
cut him out.

103

Superintendent Johnny October, with his tall, sinewy body,
short grey hair, the narrow moustache that he had trimmed the same way for
thirty years, one of the few Cape detectives who still wore a suit to work
every day, always in a shade of brown. He was the most decent person that
Joubert knew, soft of heart, soft of speech. Too modest for his own good at
times. His courtesy, even towards criminals, was unshakeable.

'Jinne,'
said October, once he had seen the
video, since he never swore.

'Umdali,'
said Butshingi. 'Very bad.'

'Can you see whether it is Terror?' Joubert asked.

'It could be him, Sup, in front
beside the driver. But this is the one we must concentrate on,' said October,
and pointed at the broad figure on the back seat of the Mercedes. The one with
the deformed nose.

'Why?' Butshingi asked.

'It's KD Snyders ...'

Butshingi made notes and asked: 'How
do you spell Kaydee?'

'KD It's an abbreviation. For Knuckle
Duster. That's his thing. His real name is Willem, but they call him KD. To his
face, and "King Kong" behind his back. Because of his nose, and his
size. He's a tragic figure. Comes from the Sabie Street courts, in Manenberg,
very bad circumstances. And then a dog attacked him when he was eleven, one of
those pit bulls at the Friday night dog fights. KD sneaked in the back past the
dog pens, they say, and this mad animal grabbed him by the face, and by the
time they pulled the dog off, it was very bad. The doctors' work didn't take so
well, the wounds began to fester, most likely because the parents didn't do a
good job of the treatment and things. Drink, Sup, the evils of drink. There's
not much mercy to be had in Manenberg. The children mocked him. And KD only
knew one answer to that. Violence. They say around fourteen he once wound a
bicycle chain around his fist, that's when the knuckles began. Of course, when
he began to gain a reputation and grow big, the Ravens saw his value. Terror
Baadjies was the one who initiated KD. From then on they've been like this,'
and Johnny October crossed his index and middle finger. 'He's Terror's
bodyguard and hit man.'

'Yoh-Yoh,'
said
Inspector Butshingi.

'But the main reason we must
concentrate on him is that right now KD is in Pollsmoor. Awaiting trial. For assault
with intent, and attempted murder. And this time we have a witness. It's not
going well with KD, he's in solitary. Barely a day in chookie and they tried to
stab him. There's a war on between the two factions of the Ravens, now that
Tweetybird has left the country. It's a power struggle ...'

'Wait, wait,' said Butshingi, and
looked up from his notes, worried. 'Tweetybird is the gang boss?'

'Was. He's gone.'

'Where did he go to?'

'The grapevine says he's in South America.
And now there's a power vacuum, and it's Terror Baadjies against Moegamat
Perkins for

the crown. War. Four months now, and
there's still no winner, and we can't keep up ...'

'And KD Snyders is inside because of
this war?'

'Yes. We have him for attempted
murder. And if he stays in Pollsmoor, Moegamat Perkins's men will kill him. So
we have a bit of room to negotiate.'

Mat Joubert thought. About Danie
Flint and Cape Flats gangs. A very strange combination.