Just a Dead Man (21 page)

Adam led me back to my seat on the boulder. I noticed for the first time that he was wearing latex gloves. “Who was shot?” I asked again. “Was it Busi?”

“Yes, it was. She's alive, but she's badly hurt. The ambulance is on its way … I can hear it.” He turned his head, and I too heard a siren's wail, coming to a crescendo as, red lights blazing, an ambulance came up the off-ramp behind us and drew to a halt.

“Did Mchunu shoot her?”

“Yes. Don't worry, Laura. We've got him.” He paused. “You were brave, getting a call through to me. How did you do it without him seeing?”

I tried to explain, but my mind wasn't working sequentially and my words stumbled over each other. Adam nodded. “Just after your first call came through, we got another, from Michael. He had gone home to fetch something, and found the gate open, the remote on the ground and the dog locked in the house and going crazy. He knew something had happened to you.”

“God – I must phone him. He'll be desperate. Where is he? Is he still at home?”

“It's all right. He's there, with your parents. We'll call him now.” He pulled out his own phone and scrolled down the list of names. After a moment, he spoke. “Dr Anderson? Inspector Pillay here. Laura's fine. I'm with her now.” He passed me the phone.

I have no idea what I said to my father. I was crying now, and shaking, but I spoke to both him and Mike, and finally to my mother. It was her voice that calmed me down the most. As I was talking, the sergeant came over with my phone in hand. He spoke to Adam who got to his feet, his hand still resting on my shoulder. When I had finished, he took his phone back and said something to my mother. He then turned to me.

“Right, Laura. I'm going to send you back to town in the ambulance. I know Busi Dhlamini will be in it too, but that can't be helped. I want you checked over, and I want you away from here. Okay? I have to go now, but the sergeant will help you. I'll come and see you tomorrow.” With that, he was gone, and Sergeant Dhlomo took my arm and led me, cautiously, to the waiting ambulance.

I
DON'T HAVE A LINEAR
memory of that trip back to town: just isolated moments, like strange, still photographs. Two paramedics working over the silent form of Busi Dhlamini. There was blood on the stretcher where she lay, and an oxygen mask over her face. I remember the plump young policewoman who deliberately placed herself between me and Busi. But the thing that bothered me most was my wet jeans. I could smell my urine over the metallic blood and disinfectant odour in the ambulance. The policewoman spoke briefly to one of the paramedics and then reached up to a shelf above my head, bringing down a blanket, which she placed over my lap. I remember her saying, “Don't worry: no one will notice. No one cares,” and patting my hand. But other than that, the journey is a blank.

I do remember coming home. My father fetched me. He was a familiar face at Casualty, and the sister-in-charge was with him, waiting for the ambulance when we came in. After I had assured him that I was unhurt, he took me straight home. As we got out of his car, I saw Mike, his face white, standing by the door. For a moment he was a child again, throwing himself into my arms, tears running down his cheeks.

Once indoors, I began to try to tell them about the
kidnapping, but the whole episode seemed unreal. Not something that had happened to me. I asked whether Rory knew, and my father said they had decided not to contact him until they knew more. He could do nothing, except worry. After they had spoken to me at the crash scene, Dad had phoned him and given him a version of events. I phoned him then, suddenly almost too tired to explain myself, but trying to reassure him that all was fine – or getting there, at least. My father then took control, handing me a mug of tea, insisting it was sweetened, which made it bordering on the undrinkable, but I was past caring. Then my mother took me to the bathroom and ran a deep, hot bath. She removed my clothes: a couple of weeks later she would give them back to me one Sunday, washed and ironed. Slowly the hot water began to thaw my knotted muscles, making me feel almost human again. I had no idea of the time, but she brought me my pyjamas and dressing gown, and I went back to the living room. The studio, with its uncurtained expanses of glass reflecting us back from the impenetrable dark, was too exposed. I wanted to remain hidden from anyone, anything, out there looking in. Grumpy planted himself firmly at my feet, obviously forgiving me for inexplicably shutting him into the house.

I asked Mike for his side of the story. He explained that he and Stephen had come home to fetch some CDs for the party. As soon as Stephen drove in the gate, Mike knew something was wrong. We never leave the gate open, and we never, ever, leave Grumpy in the house: he has a fine, carpeted kennel for when we aren't home. And when Mike saw the remote control for the gate lying on the edge of the flower bed, he panicked. He tried my phone but it was engaged: it must have been when I was trying to alert Adam. He then called the police, and got
through to Sergeant Dhlomo who assured him someone was coming, and told him to phone his grandparents and ask them to come over. The police came quickly, a woman sergeant and a constable, who explained that Inspector Pillay was tracking my phone and that he would keep them informed. They had stayed until everyone knew I was unharmed and on my way home.

Mike's white face told me how horrible the ordeal had been for him, waiting and afraid. From the kidnapping to the hospital had only been a period of a few hours: it was nine o'clock now. But they had been very long hours for us all. Eventually, my father insisted, over my objections, on giving me an injection of something and making me go to bed. He and Mum were staying the night. To my surprise, though it was probably due to whatever my father had shot into me, I slept.

 

When I managed to crawl out of bed the next morning, I felt like an old woman, stiff and aching. Dad explained that it was the result of shock and the adrenaline that had been pumping through my system – not that it was much comfort. My clothes felt like a cage around my body, setting nerve ends jangling wherever they touched me, even though I was wearing my softest jeans and a baggy sweater. Mum made us breakfast, and I had a longer and more sensible conversation with Rory. Life had to go on.

It was late afternoon before I heard anything further from Adam. Mum and Dad had gone home, insisting that if I was concerned, they would return, any time. But I knew I needed to regain control. Dad had taken me aside and suggested I go for trauma counselling, that talking about yesterday would help me to get it out of my system. I promised I would, if I felt I wasn't coping. But right then,
I could think of nothing worse. I just wanted the whole situation to go away.

Mike twice offered to make me a cup of coffee during the morning, and spent the rest of the time hovering over me. But by lunchtime his solicitude had worn off, and I had to produce lunch for us. And then he retreated to his room and his computer. He seemed fine.

I was wandering restlessly around my studio, unable to settle to anything and doing a bit of desultory tidying up, when the doorbell rang. It was Adam. Mike popped his head round the corner, and when I told him who it was, he came to join me, obviously interested in what the police had to say.

Adam looked exhausted. He hadn't yet been home, and I felt almost guilty that I had enjoyed a solid, drug-induced eight hours with my family dancing attendance while he had been working. He sat down heavily on the studio sofa and Mike, excelling as a shining example of a considerate teenager, went off, unasked, to make more coffee.

My first question was about Busi Dhlamini. In the horror that had played itself out yesterday, despite having initiated what happened, she had seemed to be an unwilling participant, nervous when she came into my house and frightened as she drove the car. The sight of her still, bloody body in the ambulance had not been far from my mind all day.

“She's still unconscious, but off the critical list. She was shot in the neck, but the bullet seems to have missed anything vital. Obviously we need to talk to her as soon as possible.”

I asked whether she was involved, or had been forced into driving the car and coaxing me out of the house. Adam shrugged. “We can't be sure. She certainly knows Mchunu, who is some kind of business associate of her husband.
She's estranged from him – he lives in Durban and she's based in Mthatha – but their businesses still seem to be linked. We'll have to follow it up, but until we can speak to her, we can't do much. That said, however, I doubt if she was involved in the killing of either her brother or her father. My guess is that Mchunu has some kind of hold over her – perhaps connected to her husband's business, perhaps not – but only involved her in your kidnapping. She could plausibly turn up at your house.”

“And … and Thabo Mchunu?” I didn't even want to mention his name. Uttering those words made him, and yesterday afternoon, too real.

“We're holding him. He hasn't been cooperative so far, and he's a man with important political connections.” Adam rubbed his hand over his face. He was undoubtedly under pressure from his superiors to produce watertight evidence if he wanted to hold Mchunu, and eventually charge him with two murders. I asked if he was the killer, and Adam shook his head.

“No – he's much too much of a Mr Big for that. But I'm certain he contracted the killers. And I have no doubt he would have been prepared to kill –.” The unspoken “you” echoed in my head. Adam leaned back and rubbed his eyes. “I should be getting a statement from you, Laura, about what happened yesterday, but I'll give you the background.” He paused, and grinned at me, the smile lightening up his grim face and making me feel suddenly warmer. “You deserve it.”

And so Adam explained that early the previous morning, Durban police had arrested two men in a shack settlement on northern edges of the city. They were, in fact, the guys behind Flash Funerals, which operated, probably illegally and unlicensed, from the bakkie I had seen. Adam had gone down to Durban to interrogate
them, and had arrested them on the spot on suspicion of Phineas Ndzoyiya's murder and brought them back to the city. One had talked, and Adam had just taken a break from the interview when my call came through.

“I actually thought you had pressed the dial-out button by mistake, and I was about to disconnect when I heard you mention Thabo Mchunu. I listened, and realised what was happening: he must have got word from somewhere that we had arrested his hitmen and he was angry. He obviously saw you as a nuisance, and presumably called in Busi Dhlamini to take him to your house. And then, a few minutes after your call, Michael phoned Thembinkosi.”

Adam explained how he and the sergeant had been monitoring my phone. They hadn't known what car we were in, but a traffic cop who had been at the bumper bashing that held us up phoned in, concerned by what she had seen, saying the passenger in the front seemed agitated, and that she had caught a glimpse of what might have been a firearm in his hands just as the car drove off. Thinking that maybe it was a hijacking, she managed to scribble down the registration number. Adam said they realised pretty quickly that we were heading for the N3, and they immediately got cars out looking. Fortunately, with that tip-off, they had been on our track almost right away.

“We were following, as discreetly as we could. No lights or sirens. But once you turned off the main road, we had to act. We had no idea where you were headed.”

I couldn't help feeling that I might have been shot when the police appeared behind us, or killed when Busi smashed into what must have been a crash barrier of some kind. I suppose I would have been what the military and the cops cheerfully refer to as collateral damage. As it was, I had two spectacular bruises on my knees, probably
from when I rolled out of the car, and the flaky feeling that comes when you realise you're genuinely lucky to have survived.

Adam went on to tell me a bit more of what he had discovered. The whole
Mendi
connection was a red herring: Phineas Ndzoyiya had indeed felt strongly about it, and it was his initial argument about it with Mchunu that had made him do some research into the other man's background to try to find out why he should have been so interested in a memorial on the Pondoland coast. He had uncovered a whole lot about Mchunu and his involvement in companies that were buying up land and putting together a consortium of shadowy, politically well-connected figures aiming to get a toehold into titanium mining, and make a fortune. The memorial gave him a plausible reason to visit the area as a civil servant involved in National Heritage. On the surface, the mining companies seemed to be Australia based, but what was going on behind the scenes would need a lot of forensic digging. I looked at Adam: I felt cynical about anyone's chances of ever unravelling that kind of thing. It would need political will, and if Mchunu was really well connected in South Africa's power structures, a provincial police force would be unlikely to get the access it would need to make anything stick. Mchunu was beginning to sound like one of the country's Teflon men. I could testify that he had tried to kidnap me, and what he had said about me interfering in his plans, but a clever lawyer might be able to make that go away.

Adam explained that environmental assessments stated that the mining in the area would do irreparable damage: then there were others claiming it would be minimal, as long as a bit of rehabilitation was done. Phineas Ndzoyiya had methodically investigated the background of those
involved, and was suspicious that one of the pro-mining reports had been paid for by a company linked to Mchunu. He was beginning to voice those suspicions in the Pondoland community, and although there was a body of opinion that wanted to see the mining go ahead, Phineas was beginning to get more people to ask more awkward questions. The mine and the arterial road that would have to be built to service it would disrupt communities and bring dubious advantages.

“When Mchunu suggested Daniel contact Phineas Ndzoyiya about the
Mendi
,” said Adam, “he was probably wondering whether there was something in it for him, some way of dealing with Ndzoyiya, or at any rate, keeping tabs on him. He knew Daniel was coming here, and would be around the university … I don't think Rhoda Josephs was involved, but again, we'll have to investigate. She's a friend of Mchunu, and he probably asked her to be in court when Daniel appeared, but that's all. But we're pretty sure he spoke to Martin Shongwe, who is a cousin of his, and asked him to keep an eye on Daniel while he was on campus – which, of course, is how he heard that Daniel and Phineas had agreed to meet.

“When he heard Phineas was coming up from Durban to see Daniel, I reckon Mchunu decided it would be a good time to get him out of the way, once and for all. He sent his hitmen – the guys at Flash Funerals seem to have owed him for favours in the past – to murder Phineas. They picked him up from his son's house, and probably killed him in their bakkie – the vehicle's still with forensics, but if he was murdered in it, we'll find out soon enough. Then Shongwe must have phoned Mchunu to say Daniel was planning to come to see you. According to the hitman who is now singing like a bird, Mchunu phoned him and told them to dump the body near your house, though probably
without any real idea about how to make a link. But I'm sure he would have found a way to alert us to Daniel's presence when the body was found. It was just lucky for him that Daniel found it himself – a bonus. That made us focus on the
Mendi
connection rather than anything else. And, of course, Daniel's link with a bunch of immigrant vigilantes in Johannesburg, and his reluctance to talk to us didn't help his cause. Maybe we
were
a bit too quick to arrest him – a Zimbabwean refugee who was known to the police.”

Adam sighed. “We've all made mistakes: it wasted time, but then, when you got into contact with Paul Ndzoyiya, Mchunu was concerned that more might come out, I suppose. And your remark about Flash Funerals got him worried.” For a moment, we sat in silence. I know I was contemplating my guilt, guilt for another death, guilt for all the worries I had caused. I have no idea what Adam was thinking … probably that he was exhausted.