The First Rule Of Survival (33 page)

‘Classon agrees with me,’ du Toit says unhappily. ‘If you go after Steinhauer with nothing, you will turn opinion against us. You know that there are forces upstairs who would rather see this experiment, and all of us, disappear. You are playing with the fate of this entire department.’

De Vries grits his teeth. He feels an unutterable frustration build, and he knows that he must contain it.

‘Cut me loose. Don’t support me – I don’t care. I’m tired of playing politics. I’m sick of having to impress the media. I just want to do my job. I want every last man who knew about Steven and Bobby and Toby and, for God’s sake, Henrik, so should you.’ De Vries sits down opposite du Toit. Du Toit says nothing. They sit, not looking at one another. Minutes pass.

‘Come in. Sit down, and listen.’ Don February sits in front of de Vries. ‘Time is running out. Du Toit is losing it. He cares more about his damn department than about finding the truth. We have to keep the pressure on and resolve this. What did you make of Steinhauer?’

‘Before that, I have to tell you: Marc Steinhauer did
not
call Ralph Hopkins on the night before his suicide.’

‘What?’

‘I finally got an answer from the network. He made no call after eight thirty-four p.m. when he called his wife from Rooiels. I checked with Telkom; there is no landline connected to the Betty’s Bay house. I have rechecked the surveillance report, and spoken to the officer on duty. Steinhauer did not leave the property after he arrived.’

De Vries scratches his head. ‘Why would Hopkins lie?’

‘I do not know.’

‘Can we trace received calls on his cellphone?’

‘If we obtain a warrant, yes.’

De Vries thinks. ‘He would know?’

‘If we applied for a warrant, yes. The Constitution does not permit a secret application.’

‘The Constitution . . . ?’

‘As I understand it.’

‘What is Hopkins’ role in this?’ de Vries muses. ‘Before Marc Steinhauer jumped, Hopkins had spoken to him, maybe for a minute or two before we arrived . . .’ He closes his eyes. ‘I’m trying to think what he did when he was following Steinhauer with me . . .’ He says nothing. Then he snaps open his eyes. ‘Don, I want you to push on with any link between Dyk and any member of the Steinhauer family. Get your men to call hospitals throughout Cape Town if necessary. And call that doctor friend of yours: Matambo.’

‘Matimba. Yvonne Matimba.’

‘Yes. Find out if you can look at her sources. Ask her if she can help. Nicholas Steinhauer didn’t like talking about Dyk. We know there is a link because both Marc Steinhauer and Dyk visited that bunker. We have to find out what that link is.’

‘You think it is worth keeping an eye on Steinhauer?’

‘No. I told du Toit – he isn’t a physical guy. He’s not going to call anyone, meet anyone. He’s thought every step through; it’s in his head. That’s where it will stay.’

‘So, what do we do?’

‘If he’s the brains, and we know neither Dyk nor Marc Steinhauer is the physical presence, then there’s at least one more to find. That’s the weak link. If we find that person, or persons, it all comes crashing down. That’s what I’m counting on.’

‘Okay.’

‘Don. From now on, whatever else happens, we’re on our own. Du Toit is going to bow to pressure, and Thulani is going to try to close this down, tie it all to Marc Steinhauer and make the SAPS look good. They need a success too badly. We can’t let that happen. We need to get lucky. After seven fucking years, we need one thing – anything – to go our way.’

Don February hands out puff-pastry canapés, smiles at his guests, hears nothing they say. In the kitchen, he lays down the empty platter and walks to the bathroom. He locks the door, puts down the cover to the toilet seat, sits on it, his head in his hands.

He faces a decision; it haunts him every week of his life. He has to align his loyalty; he has to be confident that he is correct, certain of himself.

He recognizes in de Vries a blind passion which, though admirable, is dangerous to the case, to Don himself, even to the SAPS. He wonders, as he has done so many times, whether he should cut himself free of this man. He is a poor leader, a bigot and misogynist, probably a drunk, who has alienated colleagues, friends, even his family. Yet, despite this, there is something significant in de Vries that Don rates most highly of all. Amidst the jargon and paperwork, the bureaucracy and office politics, he stands for something which has always meant a great deal to Don, has defined his decisions for fifteen years: the pursuit of justice. Don thinks about his peers, reflects that amongst the university-educated black officers – the first batch of these black South Africans to reach the workplace in the new country – all their conversation, all their ambition, is their own. Whatever it takes to rise, inexorably higher; higher, especially, than the white man.

Don pulls off a length of lavatory paper, wipes his eyes and blows his nose, flushes the cistern. He unlocks the door and walks out to the party, so long-anticipated by his wife. She is standing there.

‘Donald,’ she says. ‘What are you doing?’

He smiles back at her, kisses her on the cheek, whispers, ‘You don’t need a policeman to tell you that.’

De Vries hesitates at his door. As he drove up the side of the mountain, he was so certain, but now he wonders whether he is compromising too much to achieve his aim. He is still frustrated by the knowledge that Johannes Dyk will reveal nothing; will almost certainly never break, never divulge his secrets. Suddenly, he knows his mind. He has weighed the consequences and he understands that no one can hurt him. He will not allow the top floor to capitulate; he will not allow Nicholas Steinhauer to walk away, to recover his precious reputation and to scorn the SAPS and de Vries himself in some gaudy fiction passing as fact. Everywhere around him, exploitation thrives unpunished because the law binds him and serves only to protect them. He has made his decision.

‘This is a bigger decision for me than for you.’

‘I haven’t heard the favour yet.’

De Vries looks at Marantz, wonders to whom this man’s loyalty truly lies. He takes a breath.

‘I need a list of patients’ names from a private medical practice.’

‘Names?’

‘Just names. I don’t need patient records, anything more confidential.’

‘Those of Dr Nicholas Steinhauer, perhaps?’

‘Ja.’

‘He was just on television, you know? I had it on while I changed.’

‘Doesn’t surprise me.’

‘What is it? You think he’s involved?’

‘I don’t think it, I know it. I just can’t prove it.’

‘Why his patients?’

‘Because he kept himself out of the actual kidnappings. He probably never visited the boys, but I know that he knew about them. I’m certain of it. That’s why I know he used somebody else and I was thinking: Who would he use? Who is weak and easily influenced? Who trusts this man and will do anything he asks?’

‘A vulnerable patient?’

‘Could be, couldn’t it?’

‘It could. Why not a simple warrant?’

‘I need to work independently.’

‘Off the record?’

‘For the moment.’

‘And you know it’s him?’

‘I’ve told you before, Johnnie: I meet them, I know they are guilty. This guy: he thinks he can run me, control my investigation. He did it seven years ago and he’s trying to do it now. He’s got the media lapping up every word he says; he’s going to write a fucking book, for Christ’s sake. The difference is, this time the SAPS guys on the top floor want him to be right. They want to pin this on Marc Steinhauer. For them, that reads well. They want to close down the case and make it go away, and I made my decision. That isn’t going to happen.’

John Marantz sticks out his bottom lip, nods slowly.

‘Who knows about me in your department?’ he asks.

‘I don’t know. No one.’

‘What about your warrant officer? February?’

‘He knows we know each other. He’s a sound officer. I think he knows what to ask and what to tell.’

‘You have to understand, Vaughn,’ Marantz says, meeting de Vries’ eyes. ‘I have nowhere else to go. This is my home now.’

‘No one will know.’

‘You talk about trust. When we met I liked you; when we talked I admired you. And then, when you got me out of custody, made serious charges disappear, you came down yourself to the station, drove me home. That bothered me. Made me wonder what was going on.’

‘Why?’

‘It was too much. You could have instructed them to let me out, but you came down, made yourself known, allied yourself to me. It made me wonder why.’

‘You’re as paranoid as I am.’

‘I hope so.’

‘It’s the glue in our friendship.’

Marantz smiles. ‘You have to promise me one thing,Vaughn. I have to know that I am protected.’

‘How protected?’

‘I’m an ordinary citizen – not even that. I’m not even a permanent resident yet.’ He shakes his head, sighs. ‘To hell with it. Tell me where I have to go.’

Vaughn de Vries raises a glass to himself, lets his eyes shut with relief.

‘Tomorrow morning. Perhaps you should make an appointment?’

He drives home slowly. It is only three kilometres. He keeps smoking, his elbow out of the open driver’s window. Dusk is falling over Newlands’ leafy side streets, and a fresh breeze is just beginning to shift the hot, smoggy air. De Vries has a feeling building inside him, which he gets only when he thinks he is on the verge of a breakthrough. Occasionally, he wonders who Marantz really is, whether involving him may be his last mistake as a senior officer in the SAPS but, equally, he knows that what this man does releases him to do what he is good at: to hunt down the guilty, to corner them, to make them submit. And there is another thing too. Whoever Marantz is, he is like him. They are both men who have lost everything else in their lives; who are free to act. He realizes, almost for the first time, that this man not only wants him as a friend, but needs him; that in each other they recognize men who seek goals unequivocally.

He pulls up at the traffic lights on the corner of Rondebosch Common. Ahead of him, he can see silhouettes of runners from the club that uses the Common for circuit training. Next to him, a motorbike pulls up, its motor raucous. De Vries turns and, suddenly, the flash explodes in his face. He ducks, closes his eyes, sees bright fireworks burnt into his retina. Looks up, but away from the window, and accelerates fast, left and away. He looks in his mirror and sees the motorbike still idling at the lights. He pulls up sharply, his breathing fast and short, considers whether to turn and chase the photographer; wonders how he has been followed, and whether the journalist saw him at John Marantz’s house? His heart pounds, hands sweating.

‘Fuck,’ he shouts, the short, sharp word reverberating like a gunshot around his car, leaking out of the window into the night air. He looks behind him. The bike is gone. He lets out a quivering breath, starts his car, soberly drives the last few hundred metres to his house, his eyes darting around him, fingers tingling.

When the doors to the elevator part on the top floor, de Vries finds himself facing Ralph Hopkins, who is waiting there.

Hopkins beams at him. ‘Good morning, Colonel.’ He tries to slip past de Vries and into the lift, but de Vries blocks him. They wait until the doors close.

‘What is this?’ Hopkins says.

‘Marc Steinhauer didn’t phone you at midnight, the day before he died.’

‘Of course he did,’ Hopkins says soothingly.

‘No. We know he didn’t call you. We’ve checked his cellphone records.’

‘Well, you must be mistaken, because I definitely spoke with Marc that evening.’

‘He didn’t call your number on his cellphone. He didn’t stop anywhere, and there is no landline at his Betty’s Bay house.’

Hopkins watches the lift doors closing behind de Vries.

‘I have to go,’ he says. He reaches to press the call button for the elevator, but de Vries stops him, slapping down his arm.

‘Perhaps,’ Hopkins says, making a show of rubbing his arm, ‘we’ll speak with your superiors.’

‘Fine,’ de Vries says. ‘You can tell them what I want to know.’

Hopkins looks at de Vries disdainfully. ‘Why would I lie?’

‘I don’t know. But I know you are. Someone else called you – perhaps from here?’

‘No.’

‘So you would have no objection to retrieving the call records for that day from your cellphone, and showing them to me? It’s barely a week ago, so I’m sure they’ll still be there.’

‘Definitely not. There could be confidential information contained within those records.’

‘What? From some dates and times and numbers?’

‘Indeed.’

‘So, to be clear,’ de Vries says calmly, ‘you refuse to confirm the source of the telephone call you claim to have received at midnight on the ninth of March?’

‘On the contrary, I have just confirmed it to you.’

‘You have repeated your challenged testimony. You’re a great stickler for proof. Simply extract the call received from your telephone records, via your service provider if necessary, and the matter is closed.’

‘I will consider that request, Colonel. Now I have another appointment to attend.’

‘What did you tell Marc Steinhauer when you raced into his house? We don’t know that, do we?’

‘I made a full statement after the event. If you’d bothered to read—’

‘And what you shouted to Marc Steinhauer, just as I was making contact with him – what was it? “Remember your family?” What did
that
mean?’

Hopkins steps backwards, flushed. ‘What do you think? I wanted him to focus on his wife and daughters.’

De Vries steps up to him, his face right in front of Hopkins’, his voice rising.

‘Not his family of boys then? Not his prisoners, or the plans he had hatched that could never be talked about?’

Hopkins’ rosy complexion is bright red now, sweat beads forming on his high forehead.

‘Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.’ He stares at de Vries’ intense expression, sputters, ‘You – you don’t think I . . . ? I have nothing whatsoever to do with this. I am a happily married man.’

‘So, according to you, was Marc Steinhauer.’