The First Rule Of Survival (34 page)

‘My God! My God, when I called you a conspiracy theorist, I realize now that is exactly what you are. Is that it? You find one, desperately confused man is embroiled with paedophiles and abusers, and suddenly everyone you meet is under suspicion. Is that what happens?’ He pulls himself up, begins to strut back and forth, murmuring to himself.

‘This isn’t just about one man though,’ de Vries tells him. ‘It’s a conspiracy of powerful, influential, probably rich men, all working together in their evil ring. I will find every last member of this group and I will bring them down, no matter who they think they are.’

Hopkins is recoiling from de Vries’ fervour.

‘Good luck, Colonel.’

‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ de Vries says, keeping him within striking distance. ‘Why did you lie about being called by Marc Steinhauer?’

‘I did not.’

‘Was it someone from here, in this building? Is that what it was? They called you to warn you that we were about to arrest Marc Steinhauer, that we had conclusive forensic proof against him?’

‘No.’

‘Did they want you to warn him?’

‘Absolutely not.’

De Vries is about to speak again but, at the end of the corridor, a tall figure can be seen, a booming voice heard.

‘Colonel de Vries. Come here.’

De Vries knows the voice. It is General Thulani, Assistant Provincial Commissioner.

Hopkins brushes past him and punches the call button on the lift. De Vries slowly walks towards Thulani. As he goes, he hears the familiar ‘ting’ of the elevator, and imagines Hopkins stepping into the car, descending to street level, walking away to his wood-panelled office, or his club, or a smart restaurant for a rich lunch.

Thulani is wearing his full dress uniform: a uniform for funerals and press conferences.

‘Come in to my office,’ the man says.

Vaughn follows him through his anteroom, past his white secretary, and into his cold office.

‘Sit down, Colonel.’

De Vries sits, says nothing; wills himself to calm down, to regain control of his emotions, his frustration.

‘What was the cause of that altercation?’Thulani seems to loom over him from his raised, throne-like chair.

‘I was asking Mr Hopkins some questions, sir.’

‘Controversial questions, it seems. I don’t think that a public corridor is the right place to hold an interview.’

‘Mr Hopkins has provided crucial evidence which is not backed up by any facts or records. He is lying. I need to know why.’

‘Then you must undertake that enquiry officially.’

De Vries nods, keeps his head down. After a few moments of silence, he looks up. Thulani is still looking at him. Finally,Thulani says: ‘Aren’t you going to ask me?’

‘Sir?’

‘What Ralph Hopkins was doing on the top floor? Surely that interests you.’

‘I try not to think about what happens on this floor.’

Thulani laughs tightly. ‘He requested a meeting with me, to discuss what he perceived to be harassment, on your part, of his clients.’

De Vries shrugs.

‘I told him that I did not agree and that this investigation demanded cooperation from everybody, regardless of who they are.’ He looks at de Vries, but sees nothing which suggests approval or gratitude. ‘He also wanted to inform me that Dr Steinhauer wishes to return to his main home in Johannesburg.’

De Vries sits up. ‘What did you say?’

Thulani smiles. ‘I told him that as long as he undertook not to leave the country without notifying me, I was content that he should do that.’

De Vries shouts. ‘
What?
’

‘Colonel . . .’

He clenches his fists under Thulani’s desk, pushes his tongue hard up against the top of his mouth, ungrits his teeth, says calmly, ‘I think that’s a mistake, sir. Nicholas Steinhauer remains a serious suspect in the imprisonment and abuse of Steven, Bobby and Toby. We should be seeking warrants to search his homes, his office . . . buildings he has used, not letting him travel freely around the country.’

‘I disagree. There’s no evidence whatsoever. I’ve read the transcripts of your interview, been reviewing your reports regularly. Coincidence, yes, but that is not sufficient to restrict this man’s freedom of movement.’

De Vries tightens his fists.

‘Furthermore,’ Thulani says, ‘there is no question of further interfering with this man’s freedom. There are no grounds for seeking warrants in relation to Nicholas Steinhauer since there is no evidence. You are out of line, Colonel.’

‘This man,’ de Vries says, ‘has played all of us – I suspect me especially – since this whole thing began, and he thinks he’s going to get away with it again.’

‘Be careful, Colonel,’Thulani says. ‘You are beginning to sound paranoid. The SAPS cannot be seen to support a vendetta. I was not here seven years ago, but I know that Steinhauer gave you and Brigadier du Toit a rough time in the media. You may think that this is a good opportunity to regain a little pride—’

‘That’s not what this is about. He may want you to think that, but it isn’t. If you give this man a chance to escape, he will.’

‘Well,’ Thulani says, leaning back, ‘I’ve made my decision. It was taken, as always, as a matter of law. If you need to speak to Dr Steinhauer again, he has told us that he will be moving to his Johannesburg address in a few days’ time. We have no reason to doubt him. If he had not been prepared to face questions, why would he have returned from South America? He is not a flight risk.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ de Vries mutters.

‘I think,’ Thulani says slowly, seeming to mull over his words, ‘that if nothing more can be uncovered in this matter – and I read that we have nothing but a dying old man refusing to speak, and half a dozen unidentified fingerprints and DNA samples – you will wrap this investigation up. You, of all people, should know just how busy we all are.’

De Vries closes his eyes, takes a deep breath.

‘Those “half a dozen fingerprints” probably belong to half a dozen men who are guilty of illegal imprisonment and sex offences against minors, and who are complicit in murder. Does that mean nothing?’

‘It means a great deal. But how many more murderers and rapists are still free because we do not have the resources to track them down? Do you know how many cases most officers have on their books? You live a charmed life here, Colonel. While you spend considerable time and resources on the death of these three white children, there are ten times as many every single day on the mortuary tables of the Western Cape: poor and black and coloured and just as mourned by their families as your three victims.’ He takes a breath. ‘There will be no end to this list, and getting stuck on one case for however many years it is, does no one, least of all yourself, any favours whatsoever.’

De Vries stays sitting upright, his jaw clenched. He can feel the pulse in his neck throbbing and he is sure that Thulani is observing it now, knowing how easy it is to rile him. A steely calm comes over de Vries’ brain, if not his body.

‘I will,’ he starts, ‘begin to conclude my inquiry, sir. Perhaps by the end of the week?’

‘Forty-eight hours.’

‘That’s not possible.’

‘Then I will find a man who thinks that it
is
possible. That is what will happen.’

Don February finds de Vries leaving the building at noon. De Vries opens his mouth to speak but instead the Noon Day Gun sounds on Signal Hill, echoes around the City Bowl and back from the sheer flat face of Table Mountain.

‘Where’s that hamburger place you took me to?’

‘Top of Long Street.’

‘I’m going there.’ De Vries waits to cross the street.

‘Dr Matimba says that she will look for us,’ Don tells him, ‘for references to Johannes Dyk and also Nicholas Steinhauer. We are lucky. She says that she will make this a chapter in her paper.’

‘That and Steinhauer’s new book. No cloud without a silver lining.’

‘I am sure she does not mean—’

‘Forget it. If she finds what we need, I don’t care.’ He strides into the road, stops midway to wait for a speeding Mercedes, hears his cellphone ring and runs to the other side. ‘Ja?’

‘It’s John. I have the information you want.’

De Vries turns his back on the SAPS building. ‘What’s there?’

‘I’m driving home. I don’t know.’

‘How do I see it?’

‘I’ll sort it out; email it to you.’

‘Good. How long will that take?’

‘Maybe an hour. I’ll try to send you what you want and not the rest of the rubbish.’

De Vries gives him a private email address and hangs up. He looks back across the road and sees that Don is still standing there, watching him. He waves, and strides up the hill and across town.

Yvonne Matimba says, ‘In relation to Valkenberg and St Magdelene’s Hospital, I can’t find any references to Nicholas Steinhauer whatsoever. Johannes Dyk, yes. He was at Valkenberg at the time Hubert Steinhauer was running whatever experiments he was involved in when he was suspended.’

‘They worked together?’

‘It seems so. Most of the records, as I told you, are incomplete. It looks like someone has deliberately removed files.’

‘When did Dyk stop working at Valkenberg?’

‘Only a few months after Steinhauer had resigned. The news item I found was that Johannes Dyk had retired after thirty-five years, the last fifteen spent at Valkenberg East.’

‘What did he do?’

‘From what I can see, Dyk specialized in brain formation in young children. He wrote several academic papers concerning the influence on children of their parents, their peer-group – perhaps at school – and external forces, such as deprivation, family strife, or abuse. He was one of the first experts to suggest that children were far less influenced by their parents and far more vulnerable to influence from their peer-groups and siblings.’

Don shudders. ‘Maybe this is what he witnessed Nicholas Steinhauer doing; helped him to do it.’

‘We can only guess as to the workings of the human mind.’

Don shakes his head slowly. ‘My guesses are still way out.’

De Vries stares at the names of some 370 private patients and former patients of Dr Nicholas Steinhauer. He has burning indigestion from the burger he has wolfed down at lunchtime, no antacid pills in his desk drawers; a feeling of deterioration and humiliation about his physical state.

Getting up from the café table, surrounded by students, walking downhill, feeling the flesh on his chest jog up and down like breasts and, above all, seeing the look on the faces of the people in the streets, he has realized that, despite his height and weight, he has no presence. As a young officer, he would walk the streets of the city and people would part to let him through. Now, it is he who dodges and dribbles his way around the populace. It makes him feel weak.

He has scoured the list for any name he might recognize, but there is nothing. Now, he is checking each name against those with a criminal record in the SAPS system. He is certain that there would be an easy way to check all the names simultaneously, but he neither knows how to enter them into the system en masse, nor how to begin such a protocol. There are a few hits for minor offences, as well as two for rape, but both of these crimes were for men against women.

De Vries notices two intriguing factors: firstly, that there are the names of Steinhauer’s patients seen in his Johannesburg office, as well as those here in Cape Town; that the profile of Steinhauer’s patients consists almost exclusively of teenagers and young men under the age of thirty-five. There are no women and no older people.

Don February knocks at his closed door, and Vaughn calls him in.

‘We have a definite link between Johannes Dyk and Hubert Steinhauer at Valkenberg,’ Don says. ‘They worked together on the same research investigating the brain formation of children. It looks like Dyk tried to support Steinhauer at the time of his suspension.’

De Vries says, ‘So when Dyk talked about Steinhauer’s sons, he was telling the truth?’

‘They worked together for several years, so it is quite possible that Dyk was a friend of the family.’

‘Nicholas Steinhauer lied then, when he said he scarcely knew him.’

‘I think so.’

‘Hold the door.’

Before the identity of the voice registers, Don has already depressed the button which reopens the doors of the elevator. Colonel David Wertner steps in, nods at him and stands by the buttons. As the doors close, he presses the red Stop button. Then he reaches into his trouser pocket and produces a set of keys, selects a small gold one, inserts it into the elevator control panel and twists it. The light for Don’s floor goes out. Wertner presses the button for the basement, the doors close and the lift begins to descend. They ride in silence and, when the cubicle jolts to a stop, Don remains in the corner until Wertner tells him to follow him.

‘Take ten minutes,’ Wertner tells the female officer at the reception desk to the archive files. ‘Go for a walk in the sun and buy yourself a nice cup of coffee.’

Don stares at Wertner, sees teeth in his smile.

She walks towards the lift without a word. Wertner moves around the desk and sits in her chair.

‘I’ve brought you here, Warrant Officer, so that we can talk without interruption.’

Something, Don reflects, easily achievable in Wertner’s own office, without the need to bring him to the windowless, echoing hallways of steel shelving and brutal fluorescent lights; the key that overrides the elevator settings, the demonstration of rank and control of those he watches.

‘Stand here.’ Wertner gestures in front of the desk. ‘There is only one chair.’ He leans back in it. ‘You find yourself in a difficult situation. To be promoted and to work for a senior officer on a high-profile case such as this may have seemed a gift, but it can also be a curse. You are observed more carefully and your decisions will be analysed. Because I am not alone in recognizing your talents, I am going to take you into my confidence. I expect you to respect this. Colonel de Vries has made few friends because of his working methods, but he suffers from paranoia that he is persecuted by his peers. The facts are simple in this matter. The SAPS has changed, clearly for the better, and Colonel de Vries’ style of policing is now outdated and, frankly, ineffective. My department was ordered to scrutinize his failed investigation seven years ago into the disappearance of those boys and, concurrently, for incidents between then and now, leading up to his handling of this current murder investigation. Do you understand me?’