I’ll always believe that we could have caught the murderer sooner if it hadn’t been for the dispute between us. The opportunities slid past one by one while Nagel fought for dominance.
And eventually he solved the case with forensic evidence from tire tracks and the fiber of the camper’s carpets. “Not your psychological shit,” he’d said on that last evening when we were on our way to make the arrest.
Lord, and that last evening had started so well.
∨ Dead at Daybreak ∧
53
Meet me at Café Paradiso on Kloof Street in ten minutes,” the man on the telephone said to Hope.
“How will I know you?”
“I’m wearing a brown leather jacket.” And then the line went dead. She replaced the receiver. “Thank you so much,” she said to the Taiwanese woman, and ran out the door.
Nougat O’Grady swore softly and ran after her.
“Have you heard of fat guys who are incredibly nimble on their feet?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Well, I’m not one of them.”
♦
“Who sent you?” Bester Brits had asked Gary, and the answer was “Oh-ri-un,” and he didn’t want to hear it because his head was filled with the past and then he began to think, think, think, and here he was, with the telephone book, his finger moving down the list: Orion Motors, Orion Printers, Orion Telecom Corporation, Orion Solutions, Orion Wool & Crafts, all printed in heavy black letters except for Orion Printers and Orion Solutions.
Oh-ri-unSh…
All obvious business enterprises except Orion Solutions.
Oh-ri-unSh…
Just the name of the firm and the number, 462-555, no address, no fax number, nothing. They had kept the name. Were they that arrogant, that challenging?
Bester Brits dialed the number of Orion Solutions.
“Leave your name and number. We’ll call back.”
Not exactly client-friendly.
He dialed another number.
“Sergeant Pienaar.”
“Pine, it’s Bester Brits.”
“Colonel!”
“I’m looking for an address for a telephone number. I don’t want to go through the channels.”
“Give me five minutes, Colonel.”
He leaned back. Rank had its advantages.
♦
He was wrong about the ammunition: the R4 stuttered out as he rolled into the flat. He kept on rolling, the bullets stitching a row behind him, and he shot wildly, one, two, three shots with the Z88, hopelessly wide of the mark, fear injecting adrenaline, chunks of plaster and wood, dust and splinters, earsplitting noise. Tiny Mpayipheli’s Rossi .357 Magnum thundered once and then everything was quiet and he rolled to a halt behind the cheap sitting-room chair, his heart beating, blood hammering through his body, his hands shaking.
“He lied about the ‘us,’ ” said Tiny.
Van Heerden got up, shook the dust from his clothes, saw the man, the top of his head shot away by the heavy-caliber pistol. The sirens were close now, loud and clear. “We don’t have time,” he said. “We must be out of here before the police arrive.”
He shoved his hands into the dead man’s pockets – the fifth corpse today, he thought – revulsion against the bits of brain and bone and blood rising in his throat. He found nothing, looked round at the spartan flat, empty pizza boxes on the melamine kitchen counter, empty beer bottles on the coffee table, empty coffee mugs in the sink, two small boxes of ammunition on the floor, one open.
“I’ll choose my painting later, thank you.”
Mpayipheli walked to the bedroom while Van Heerden jerked open drawers and cupboards in the kitchen.
Nothing.
“Have a look at this,” Tiny called from a bedroom. He went through: R1 and R5 attack rifles leaning in a bunch in a corner, clothes strewn on the bed, two-way radios on the floor. Tiny stood in front of a cupboard, staring at an A4 sheet taped to the door, a printout from a dot-matrix printer.
Shift schedule:
00:00-06:00: Degenaar and Steenkamp
06:00-12:00: Schlebusch and Player
12:00-18:00: Weber and Potgieter
18:00-00:00: Goldman and Nixon
Sirens in front of the block. He knew the police procedure: they would come up the fire escape, two would cover the lift on the ground floor. He didn’t know how many uniforms there were by now, didn’t want to speak to the police now – this was no time to be caught up in the machine. He jerked the paper off the cupboard door. “Come on, got to go,” he said, and walked, Tiny following him, taking one last look at the body and the damage, out of the door. He pressed the call button for the lift, and the door opened immediately. They walked in, pressed P for the parking garage. As the door closed and the lift moved, he held his breath: it mustn’t stop on the ground floor.
“Your pistol,” Tiny said softly.
“What?”
“You can put it away now.”
He gave an embarrassed grin and looked at the lights above the door, GROUND FLOOR, which flashed once, the lift moving, PARKING GARAGE. His gaze fell on the handwritten note against a side panel of the lift.
Two-bedroom flat for rent in this building.
Call Maria at Southern Estate Agents,
283 Main Road.
When the door opened, he took the note down. They walked out. He looked at his watch: 14:17. Why didn’t Hope’s contact telephone? Why didn’t Hope phone?
♦
Sergeant Pienaar’s call was two minutes longer than the promised five. “The number is registered in the name of Orion Solutions, sir. The address is 78 Solan Street, in Gardens.”
“Solan?”
“I don’t pick ’em, Colonel, I just dig ’em out.”
“Thanks, Pine, you’re a star.”
“Pleasure, Colonel.”
Bester Brits put the pen down and rubbed his hands over his face with slow, rhythmic movements, softly, soothingly, comfortingly. Tired, he thought, so tired, so many years of searching.
Another dead end?
He would have a look.
Alone.
He walked out of the office. It was suddenly cold outside, the northwester tugging at his clothes, the fine rain, preceding the cold front, sifting down. He was hardly aware of it.
They wouldn’t be so arrogant.
Orion Solutions.
The hatred was all-encompassing.
♦
As usual there was no parking on Kloof Street, so she parked the BMW on a side street. She wanted to get Zatopek van Heerden on the cell phone but decided against it. First she must check to see whether the caller was here. She took her umbrella from behind the seat, handed it to O’Grady.
“Be a gentleman,” she said.
“No running?” He took the umbrella from her and got out.
“No running,” she said.
They walked from the corner to Café Paradiso, she and the fat detective under the umbrella, the rain gusting.