Random Violence (19 page)

28

David’s team was waiting for him outside the station at six the following morning. After checking Whiteley’s current details he discovered he still lived at the same house in Townview that had appeared on his Army records. He thought that was odd, since, according to Jade’s research, the man had spent most of his Army years enriching himself at his country’s expense. Perhaps he’d gambled his fortune away.

They were all wearing Kevlar vests. Whiteley was a violent and potentially dangerous criminal. The tension in the car was tangible and David found himself driving in an unchar-acteristically conservative fashion, watching the road ahead with both hands tight on the wheel. He wished Jade was there to make a cheeky comment and ease his nerves. He knew how she felt about his usual driving style.

Townview was an area of narrow streets and steep hills. Seeing the littered gutters, smashed windows and cracked paving, David thought that compared to here, almost any-where could be classified as a good neighborhood.

They passed a couple of people hurrying along the pave-ment, looking cold. A young couple, dressed in the generic uniform of whatever chain store they were headed for to do their day’s work. A single girl with a pasty face and a grubby cream jacket, wearing a very short skirt. She stumbled on the paving in her high heels.

David was sure she was on her way home, rather than on her way out. She had probably been dropped off at the main road by a client who, in contrast to his behavior the night before, wasn’t prepared to go all the way with her the morning after.

He pulled over, parked on the pavement outside Whiteley’s house, and climbed out as the backup vehicle stopped behind him.

The tiny house had peeling paint and a yellowing picket fence. He saw overgrown grass in the square of garden, dead branches hanging low over the fence, and a garage with a closed door. A dog kennel and a shed were crammed between the house and the fence. The dog kennel didn’t seem to be occupied, and the door of the shed hung half open.

“You stay behind us,” he told the junior members of his team. “You come with me,” he told Moloi. The solidly built black officer walked by his side. Weapons ready, the other men took up positions to the left and right, where they could cover the front door.

David walked the short distance from the car to the door, shoulder to shoulder with the other officer. He raised his fist and hammered on the door. The sound was as loud and heavy as a drum.

There was silence for a minute. Then David heard footsteps inside the house. At the same moment he felt Moloi tense.

The door opened. The man they’d seen in the hardware store stood before them, hands on hips. His head was inclined to one side, brows raised and full lips in a half-smile as if he was curious, but unworried, about the presence of four policemen outside his front door in the early morning.

He wore faded blue jeans and a black T-shirt that stretched taut over the curve of his stomach and emphasized the pallor of his scarred face.

“Mr. Whiteley.” David stepped forward. Whiteley was a couple of inches shorter than him, but the man carried himself tall. His bulk was intimidating. David straightened his back and squared his shoulders, and looked straight into the man’s eyes. “I’m Superintendent Patel from Johannesburg Central’s Serious and Violent Crimes Unit.”

Whiteley met David’s stare. “Yes. Can I help you?” His voice was slow and toneless. His pale eyes were as emotionless as his voice.

“We’re here because we have reason to suspect that you are involved in the murder of a Mr. Dean Grobbelaar.”

Whiteley snickered.

“What proof do you have, if I might ask, gentlemen?”

“Sir, we have proof linking you to the purchase of an axe. A weapon which was subsequently used to murder Mr. Grobbelaar. We have warrants to search your premises and to arrest you.”

Whiteley shrugged. “I bought an axe a week or so ago. I bought a lot of equipment.” He looked out at his dismal garden. “I was going to tidy the place up. I put the stuff in the shed.” He pointed to the wooden door that swung open in the breeze. “It was broken into, unfortunately. The night after I bought it. I reported it to the local police station in the morning.”

He looked David in the eye and his puffy lips widened into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Aren’t the police shocking? Haven’t even had one cop round yet to take a look.”

“Check that out,” David said to Moloi. He turned back to Whiteley. “Where did you report it?”

“My local cop shop. Townview. Feel free to check. Assuming they haven’t lost the records. I dialed the emergency number first. That 10111 number everyone’s always talking about. Do you know, it didn’t even get answered? I was glad I wasn’t being raped or killed or anything.”

Whiteley’s smile stretched into a broad grin. From where David was standing, in the pale morning light, his face looked like a death mask.

“Sir, I’m sorry nobody investigated your break-in further. We’ll follow that up. In the meantime I must ask you to accompany us to the station.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Yes, you are.”

Whiteley raised his eyebrows. “Well, this is a first. My lawyer will have fun with it. Human rights and all. Am I allowed a phone call?”

“At the police station. Not here and not now. Please get into the vehicle over there.”

“Can I lock up my house?”

“We’ll do that, after we’ve searched it.”

“And if there are items missing when I come back? This is a dangerous area, you know.”

Only when you’re in it, David thought. He kept his tone polite. “When our officers have searched the house, they will secure it properly. The keys will be kept until you are released.”

“Kept by the police. Now that fills me with confidence.” Whiteley yawned and stretched. “Can I get my jacket?”

“We’ll come with you.”

They didn’t have far to go. The jacket was lying on top of a chair in the lounge. An old chair with a tattered corduroy cover and stuffing poking out of a hole in the cushion. It stood opposite an entry-level television set. Its scratched frame and old-fashioned buttons gave away its age.

Whiteley slung the jacket over his shoulders. David stood alert while Moloi patted him down, checking the man’s body and jacket pockets for weapons. He found none.

“Let’s go.” They walked across to the car. Whiteley tossed the house keys over to Moloi. It was a poor throw, and the officer fumbled the catch. Whiteley sniggered again as Moloi bent over and scrabbled for the keys in the ragged grass.

David clenched his teeth. He didn’t like this at all. Not the man’s disrespect, he was used to that. What he didn’t like was the fact that he felt he was being set up. His gut told him that Mr. Whiteley was two steps ahead of the game. That he had in fact been waiting for them.

He indicated the back door.

“Get in please.”

“No handcuffs?” Whiteley yanked open the back door and heaved himself inside.

David climbed in the driver’s seat. The younger officer got into the back with Whiteley.

“We’ll risk the trip without handcuffs, sir. After all, we don’t want to offend your human rights unnecessarily.”

David started the ignition and drove to the station.

An hour later, he was on the phone to Jade.

“We’ve got Whiteley in custody.”

“What’s he saying?”

“Not a bloody lot. He claims he’s an unemployed construc-tion worker.”

“Right. Do you believe him?”

David sighed. “At this stage, I wouldn’t believe him if he told me what time it was. He’s a liar. And he doesn’t respect the police either. He’s playing with us.”

“What about the axe?”

“Claims he had a break-in the night he bought it, and it was stolen. Also claims he reported the crime.”

“And did he?”

“I’m following it up. As fast as I can. His lawyer’s arrived, and he’s a complete asshole. He’s ordering us to release Whiteley. And he’s starting to ask difficult questions about how we traced him through the axe. He wants to take the matter higher. If Commissioner Williams finds out what we did, I’ll be in deep shit. I’m hoping Whiteley lied about the burglary. Then I’ll have some leverage.”

Jade made a sympathetic noise. “Unemployed construc-tion workers can obviously afford the best legal advice in the business. Does he have an alibi for the time of the murder?”

“He says he was at home alone.”

“Fancy that. What’s in his home, anyway?”

“Jadey, not a lot. Not a lot at all. My guys have just rung; they’ve finished searching. Won’t you drive over and take a look before they go? I want you to tell me what you think.”

David slammed down the phone, then picked it up again and dialed the Townview station.

After two phone calls to Townview had got him nowhere, David lost his temper. He was sick of hearing that the officer in charge was busy or on another call. He grabbed his car keys, marched out of the building and started his engine with a roar. If they wouldn’t talk to him on the phone, wait till he pitched up on their doorstep. They would talk then, all right.

The Townview police station was dusty and dirty, with yel-lowing notices on the wall informing the public about things nobody bothered to read. He shook his head as he thought what Jade’s father would do if he saw the average police station today and how it compared to the ones he commanded.

Commissioner de Jong would have exploded in a bout of furious energy, a trait that Jade had inherited and, because of that, always amused him. He would have scrubbed the place down, put in a request for new chairs, ripped the old posters off the walls. He would have repaired and patched and given the place a fresh coat of paint. Removed those dusty old blinds and brightened the place up. And knowing Jade’s father, if it still wasn’t bright enough, he would have knocked another couple of windows into the wall himself without bothering to ask permission first.

David’s greeting was not returned by the large lady con-stable at the front desk. She looked up at him with dull eyes.

“Yes?”

“I’d like to see your station commander.”

“In connection with?”

“Private matter. And urgent,” he added, as she heaved herself to her feet and lumbered across the room. She was unfit and unkempt and her uniform was stretched to its limit in every direction.

David was kept waiting another half hour, which did not improve his mood. He watched a long line of people form and edge forward with excruciating slowness. He listened to the list of crimes. Cell phone theft. Handbag theft. Car hijacking. House break-ins. The police station was evidently under-staffed, the officers demoralized. If de Jong were there, redec-orating wouldn’t have ended with the paint on the walls. He would have put in a few new faces and shoved fireworks up the backsides of the existing staff. Or maybe not. Maybe the system was crippled to the extent that even the most dynamic individuals couldn’t change it.

The Townview Station Commander was a sorry spec-imen. Overweight, wheezing and with a deliberately slug-gish manner that had doubtless filtered down to the other officers. He looked about fifty, although he was so fat it was difficult to tell.

“What case are you talking about? Couldn’t the constable at the front desk have helped you?”

“I don’t have the time to spend an hour explaining it to her and then have her refer me to you. I’ve got a man in custody with a lawyer who’s got his stopwatch on, counting the minutes we’re detaining him without ‘adequate’ proof.”

“You say it’s a burglary?”

“It was reported to your station nearly a week ago, but you never followed it up.”

The commander shrugged. “A burglary is a low priority case.”

David felt his jaw clench. “A burglary is a crime. That’s what the South African police service is for. We fight crime.”

A mound of case dockets lay on the desk, papers spilling everywhere. The chief pushed a couple to one side and then gave up the search. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he wouldn’t meet David’s accusing stare. David would have bet a million rand that in the bottom drawer of his desk there was a bottle of alcohol.

“It obviously didn’t come through to me. It must still be waiting at the front desk.”

“What the hell are you doing leaving dockets in your front office?”

“It’s our policy here.” He raised a hand and fiddled with his nose.

“You don’t really give a shit, do you? You’re just marking time till your retirement.”

“I will not be spoken to like that.” The chief pushed his chair back and it toppled over, landing on the tiles with a crash.

“Then do your job. Find me the bloody report.”

“Get out.”

“Not until I’ve got what I need.” David towered over the man, looking down in disgust at his greasy scalp. The com-mander looked up at him and then he shuffled through to the front desk and barked out an order. The lady constable with the ill-fitting uniform stopped pretending to help the long line of customers. She let out an impatient sigh and, dragging a chair behind her, plonked herself down next to a pile of dockets on the dirty floor.

David stood and watched her. He was fuming, but he knew that the people stranded in the queue were probably even angrier. If he hadn’t been in such a bloody hurry to get back to his office, he would have dragged the fat officer’s sorry ass over to the counter and told him to deal with the public himself.

It took the constable twenty minutes to sort through the folders. Eventually she unearthed a single sheet of paper. She handed it to her boss.

“Here you are,” he said, passing it to David.

It contained words written in an indecipherable scrawl. He squinted down at the uneven letters. A phone call had been made to Townview Police Station on the date that Whiteley had stated. The sergeant who had taken the call had recorded his name, ID number, address and landline number. A semi-literate sentence beneath stated that “tools for cutting the garden” had been stolen.

“So. This report was made, but never followed up?” David asked.

The two officers stared at him in silence.

David made a copy of the report, strode out of the station, climbed into his vehicle and roared away.