Trackers (71 page)

Received a large amount of cash.
Spent it on himself. Sly. Selfish.

Then, overnight, gone.

No new insights. The signs all
pointing in the same direction. Until he finally dozed off, well after two a.m.

In the morning Margaret was cheerful.
As he ate his yoghurt and muesli, she said: 'You know, I've been thinking. All
this moving around, all the trouble with the building contractors, the property
market, buyers in and out of the house, any time of the day. Maybe it's time
for a change.'

'What do you mean?'

'I was out in Constantia yesterday,
and I was standing there, looking at this tired old house, thinking what it was
going to take to fix it all up, going through it all again, and I asked myself,
why? Do I really want to? Do we really need to? Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe I
need something entirely new, but I just couldn't work up much enthusiasm for
it.'

'No,' he said. 'You're not getting
old.'

She kissed his cheek. 'There's money
in the bank. And I like this house. It's perfect for us. And I like Milnerton.
It's ... central, we're close to everything, the neighbours are nice ... I'm
happy ...'

He nodded, not sure where she was
going.

'Start your own agency,' she said.

'My own?'

'Mat, these last few days ... It was
like the old days again. You were so immersed. Despite Jack Fischer, you were
enjoying it.'

'That's true.'

'So, start your own agency. You're a detective.
It's what you do. Do it for yourself. I know, it will take a while to generate
the income, but we're comfortable, financially.'

'Margaret,' he said seriously.
'You're not just saying that because I'm a bit down?' 'You know me better than
that.'

It was true. He nodded.

'I can help. Do the books, answer the
phone, decorate the office.'

'I...'

'And besides, I've always wanted to
be a Pi's babe.'

'You are ...'

'A private dick's dame. A gum-shoe's
gun moll. A sleuth's skirt...'

He smiled.

'A shamus's broad, or dame, or
chippy...'

She kept on. Until he laughed.

Back at the office you could cut the
atmosphere with a knife. The silence hung oppressively. Fischer and Delport
were in consultation, behind closed doors. Mildred, the receptionist, scarcely
greeted him.

He sat down at his computer, brought
the project up-to-date, made sure everything was correct so that Jack couldn't
point an accusing finger at anything. Then he walked out, to Greenmarket
Square, went and sat in a coffee shop, so he could think things through.

He knew where the gaps in his
knowledge lay, but he wasn't sure how to fill them.

Danie Flint had spent the greatest
part of his day at work. He operated his secret life from there, the bank
account and the Yahoo email. And it was in his working hours that he had found
the financial opportunity. Had to, Tanya was dead sure she would have known if
it came from somewhere in their social circle.

But how? What was it that he didn't
know about Flint's daily tasks, his routine?

Hard to say. Because Neville
Philander, the overworked, frenetic, telephone-answering Operational Manager,
never had the time to give him the detail. And Philander sat with all the
information, the personal contacts, the first-hand experience. How would he get
him to share that calmly?

He outlined his plan as he drank the
coffee, then he took out his cellphone and made the call.

Bessie Heese was in a meeting. He
asked her to phone him back urgently. He couldn't drink
more
coffee, he'd
had two cups at home as well, but he didn't want to go back to the office. He
paid his bill and left, thought of lingering in Clarke's Bookshop, there was
nothing else to do.

Heese phoned before he reached Long
Street.

He described the situation with
Neville Philander.

She was businesslike, faintly
irritated. 'Didn't we ascertain that the money didn't come from us?'

'We only ascertained that it wasn't
your money. I can't remove his work environment from my list yet. I'm only
asking for an hour or two of Philander's time. Away from the office.'

She countered. 'That is the nature of
Mr Philander's job. He has a central managerial role.'

'I know. But he's the one who can
help.'

He deduced from her silence that she
was weighing things up. 'Very well,' was the reluctant response. 'Can he come
to your office?'

They met at the Wimpy on St George's.
Joubert drank tea, Philander a cappuccino, and exclaimed to Heaven when Joubert
told him about the money. 'No way, he couldn't have stolen it from us.' Then,
dumbfounded, he wiped the milky foam from his upper lip.

'I know. But the chances are good
that in some or other way in the course of his duties he spotted the
opportunity.'

'He only works the bus routes,' said
Philander, shaking his head. 'Tell me where he could scratch out that kind of
money.'

'Tell me exactly how he worked.'

'I
did
tell you.'

'I want detail.'

'Like in every hour of the day?'

'Please.'

'It's not gonna help you.'

'Then I can rule it out.'

Philander stared out of the window,
in no mood for this conversation. He shrugged. 'If Aunt Bessie says talk to
the PI, I suppose a man's got to do it.'

'She's a bit of a Nissan,' said Joubert.

Philander laughed. 'That's the
truth.' He sipped at his cappuccino, took a deep breath, and said, 'OK. Danie
Flint. Typical working day. Leave home, half past six, seven o'clock, doesn't go
to the office, goes directly to his areas, drives along his routes. Every day a
different routine, to keep the drivers on their toes. Milnerton, Montagu
Gardens, Killarney, Du Noon, Richwood, Table View, Blouberg, Melkbos, Atlantis,
in no specific order. Too much to cover in one day, so the idea is to cover
your whole area in two or three days.'

'In his Audi?' He wanted to see it in
his mind's eye, exactly how it was.

'That's
right.'

'Sticking
exactly to the bus routes.'

'That's it.
The routes of choice, for that day.'

'Can you give
me the routes?'

'Do you want
to drive them?'

'Yes, I do.'

'Sure.'

'Why must he
drive the routes every day?'

'To check if the driver is keeping to
schedule. Are they on time? How they drive, how full the buses are. He's there
if a bus breaks down, or is in an accident. He scouts new routes, where there
are people standing waiting for taxis, and he looks for opportunities, he
checks how the routes can be improved.

'Then around eleven the area managers
come back to the office. To do the admin. Write up the notes from the morning,
record and process accidents and mechanical problems. Handle driver infringements.
Check fuel figures, new drivers trained and started on the job, answer emails,
fine-comb DRMP logistics, read bulletins, attend meetings, it's mostly the
same, every day.

'Then, around three o'clock, it's
back on the routes, exactly the same story, for precisely the same reasons.
There's no time to snooze, no time to make big bucks, it's just not possible.'

'He got the
money somewhere,' said Joubert.

'Maybe he
inherited. And he didn't want to tell Tanya.'

'Inherited
money doesn't come in cash.'

'Fair enough.'

'Were you ever
an area manager?'

'I was,' said Philander.

'Imagine you needed a lot of money.
Cash. Urgently. You have to get it, even if you have to steal, let's say your
wife is in hospital...'

'You mean, where would I steal it at
work?'

'Or in the work environment.'

Philander drank the last of his
cappuccino while he pondered.

'There's only one place. The big
ticket office. But you would need two or three other men, walk in there with
guns and masks, and rob the place.'

'No other possibilities?'

'Not for big bucks.'

Joubert hid his disappointment.
'Another cappuccino?'

'Aren't we just about finished?'

He wasn't sure if there was anything
else. He thought back over everything Philander had said. One thing stood out.
'The DRMP, tell me what that stands for again?'

'Driver Risk Management Programme.'

'Is that the thing that caused the
strike?'

'Just so.'

'But it's a computer program. Why
would they strike over that?'

'It's much more than a computer
system.'

'Oh?'

'It's a long story.'

Joubert nodded. He had the time.

Philander sighed. 'Maybe we better order more coffee.'

'It's all about the DriveCam.'

'The DriveCam?'

'In 2007, we were the first depot
where Mr Eckhardt and them experimented with the new system, because we are the
smallest. And the best, even if I have to say so myself. The thing works like
this: every bus gets a video camera up front, here by the rear-view mirror. The
DriveCam. One eye looks forward, and one eye looks back, and there's a hard
drive inside. Now, obviously the camera doesn't put everything from morning to
night on the hard drive. It's on all the time, and it records everything, but
it's got like a motion detector and a little computer thingy inside, if the bus
jerks, then it saves image and audio, ten to fifteen seconds before the event,
and ten to fifteen seconds after, depending on the severity. Are you with me?'

Joubert said he thought so. But
didn't a bus jerk a lot?

'Look, I say "jerk" for
explanatory purposes. The motion sensor works with what they call
"inertia". You know about G-forces? Now,
that's
the thing. If
the driver
donners
into something, then it's negative
G-force, negative inertia, then your DriveCam records. If he brakes helluva
sharply, or accelerates too quick. Even if your driver goes around the corner
too fast, then the sensor registers, and it saves the video ...'

'Why include cornering?'

'Why? When do you go around the
corner too fast, my bro'? When?'

'Tell me.'

'When you run a red robot, that's
when.'

'Aah ...'

'Now we come to the mind-blowing
part. When that bus comes back to the depot tonight, then all those bits of video
of the jerks automatically download wirelessly onto our server. Just like
that, when the bus drives in the gate, you see? And that server is connected to
the Internet, it sends all those clips to America, because that's where the
system was developed. The Americans have software that analyses it all, and
they email those video clips of trouble back to the area manager. The serious
stuff, like accidents, are cc-ed to me and Mr Eckhardt.'

'Let me just make sure I understand,'
said Joubert. 'If the bus accelerates or brakes too fast, the camera records
it...'

Philander nodded. 'With a back and
front view. You can see what the driver is doing, and you can see what is
happening in the road.'