Cobra (27 page)

She remained quiet for a moment. ‘I underestimated you. I won’t make that mistake again.’

‘Go on,’ he said.

‘We suspect that he deployed this new algorithm on the SWIFT system without sanction. We suspect he gained access to information in this way about corrupt activities of British parliamentarians, of much greater scope than that which was already known. Bribe money from media interests, from weapons manufacturers, from interest and pressure groups. Large amounts in Swiss bank accounts. And it goes up to very high levels. Up to the cabinet. Then he tried to blackmail the British government. Something like “use the Protocol to fight organised crime, or I’ll make this public”.’

‘It still doesn’t explain why the SSA wants to take over the investigation.’

‘If we can get Adair, Captain, we can get all that information. And in the diplomatic sphere, that has incalculable value. You know that the British Department of International Development wants to halt their financial support to South Africa in 2015?’

‘No.’

‘Our government is very unhappy about that. And that sort of information could definitely make the Brits reconsider.’

He mulled over this for a moment.

‘OK. But what is your agenda?’

‘Are you familiar with the Spider-Man-principle?’

‘The what?’

‘The Spider-Man-principle. With great power comes great responsibility. That sort of information would give our government great power, Captain. I don’t think our government can be trusted with such great responsibility.’

32

Under normal circumstances Tyrone Kleinbooi liked Bellville Station. It reminded him of Uncle Solly’s stories about District Six – the
mengelmoes
of people and colours, the hustle and bustle, the music blaring out, competing from every point of the compass, the aromas of food stalls and takeaway cafés wafting at you as you walked by. His favourite clothing store just around the corner, in Durban Road: H. Schneider Outfitters. A
continental
name. And
Outfitters
. The sound of sophistication, just like their pinstriped suits and shoes and colourful waistcoats. And there, on the square at Kruskal Avenue and among the informal traders’ stalls in the alleyways and malls, you found more characters and shysters per square metre than any other place in the Cape. Look any which way and there’s counterfeit brand clothing and accessories from China, so much of it, such a racket, that you couldn’t even take a picture. If you took out your phone to snap something, the stall owners were on to you at once, ‘No, brother, please, no photos.’ They asked nicely, but there was a vague, veiled threat behind it.

It was no place for his industry – mostly poor and lower-middleclass moving through here – for him it was a place to relax, to check things out, to shoot the breeze. Because the other great feature of the station was that you almost never saw a policeman here. He had already worked it out for himself: law enforcement turned a blind eye to all the counterfeit, and probably also the stolen goods, because there’s no serious crime here. Maybe because everyone was in transit, and there weren’t
kwaai
valuables to steal. Perhaps because all the shysters and counterfeit traders looked out for each other, did their own policing.

So the cops don’t scratch where it doesn’t itch, and they don’t bother you here.

Which was a good thing right now.

Logic told him the cops were already looking for him. A nationwide manhunt, for the fugitive from the Waterfront killings. Tomorrow morning his face would be on all the front pages, but now his CCTV star appearance was probably a Kodak moment in every policeman’s breast pocket.

Here he didn’t need to worry about it. He could just look for helpers. And that was where his trouble lay. It wasn’t going to be easy. There were a few coloured businessmen, mainly in the Bellstar Junction in front of the station. Rich cats, they weren’t going to do any monkey-business for a brother for just a few hundred rand. The Nigerian money-changers and drug dealers were also a no-go area. They had the good taste to make themselves invisible in small apartments on the second and third floors of the buildings in the area. And they didn’t come cheap either.

But mostly, on the ground, it was all Little Somalia here.

And your trouble with Somalians is that they’re cat-footed. They tread warily. Because of the xenophobic attacks. And the fact that so many of them are illegal aliens. They don’t trust anybody except fellow former countrymen. You see it in their sceptical Somalian eyes. If you didn’t buy anything at his stall, if you loitered, or you came to
gooi
a scheme, then they checked you out doubtfully, talk about
under suspicion
. And the shake of the head came early on, no, no thanks, not interested.

But he had better get an assistant quickly. Because his time was running out. It was twenty past two.

Griessel told Janina Mentz to text her number to him. He would think everything over and phone her back. Then he rang off, and he switched off his phone, and drove to Stellenbosch by the Bottelary Road, because it was easier to spot a tail on that route.

And when he crossed the R300, his eyes constantly checking the rear-view mirror, the whole situation crashed down on him. Not gradually, but with a sudden, crushing weight.

And with it, as always, like a whirlwind, the thirst for booze descended on him: he instantly felt the smooth, cool weight of a glass in his hand. Short. Neat. No ice. No mixer, just the raw, rich taste of Jack Daniel’s on his tongue, and the heat down his throat. He shivered and gripped the steering wheel; his body craved the tingle of alcohol,
now
. ‘
Jissis
,’ he murmured. His mind told him there were places he could go, here in Kraaifontein, shebeens and a few bars, and nobody would even know.

But what about Nadia Kleinbooi?

Just a quick stop. Five minutes. Brackenfell or Kuils River, it was just a little detour, two lightning doubles, line them up, barman. Christ, the bliss that would flow, slip, slide through his veins and fibres to the deepest reaches of his body. Only two, they would heal him, of everything, they would last him till tomorrow, and tomorrow everything would be better again.

Saliva gushed into his mouth, his hands shook. It had been months since he had last had this uncontrollable thirst. Part of him was aware of what was happening. He knew the trigger. The ‘secondary one’ was what Doc Barkhuizen called it. When he realised how rubbish and useless and irrelevant he was. And he needed the drink to confirm it, and he needed the drink to heal it.

Phone Doc.

Fok
Doc. Doc didn’t understand. Doc’s life worked; his did not. He was hopeless, useless, bad. His work was increasingly becoming a joke. He had drunk away his life, lost his wife, the respect of his children. He could hear it in Fritz’s voice when he talked to his son. Fritz just kept him informed, but he
talked
to his mother. His colleagues gave him one look on a bad morning, and immediately jumped to the conclusion that he had hit the bottle. They were merely tolerating him, that uneasy sympathy you have for the handicapped. And Alexa Barnard, she would drop him as soon as she had her alcoholism and her life under control again, as soon as she saw through him once more and realised how shit he really was. He, who lied and ducked and dived from her because his
fokken
rascal couldn’t keep up. And why couldn’t it keep up? Because he had poured his libido, along with the rest of his life, down his throat.

He put his indicator on to turn left in Brackenfell Boulevard. There were drinking holes down near the hypermarket, his old, old hangouts when he used to pour one last
dop
before going home. Warm places in this wintry weather. Welcoming.

At the back of his mind there was a voice asking:What about Nadia Kleinbooi? She was Carla’s age, Christ, would he go drinking if it were
his
daughter?

He turned the indicator off again. It was faster to make a quick stop in Stellenbosch. Buy a little bottle. For the afternoon and the evening.

That’s what he would do. He settled on that.

Only once he drove past the entrance to the Devonvale golfing estate, did he focus on the true origin of his self-hatred and the urge to drink.

Mbali Kaleni had spoken with so much feeling about the devastation of democracy. And then Janina Mentz said this government could not be trusted with such a great responsibility. The fuck-up was that they were both right. And therein lay two big problems. First and foremost was déjà vu. Because he still remembered what it was like under apartheid. It didn’t matter how hard he used to believe he was only fighting the good fight against crime, that he was on the side of the good guys, there was always the niggling little voice in the back of his head. You couldn’t avoid the hatred in the others’ eyes, or the rage of the media, and the grubby association with colleagues who were doing evil things – even a few senior men in what was then the Murder and Robbery Squad. It wore you down slowly, because when you worked with death and violence and everything that was sick in a community, impossible hours for a ridiculous salary, then you wanted to, no you
had
to, believe you had good and right on your side. Otherwise you lost your self-respect, your faith in the whole business, and you began to ask yourself:What was it all for?

That had been one of the reasons for his drinking. That pressure. They all needed to soften the sharp edges of reality.

And then came the New South Africa and the great relief: now he could do his job in the bright, clear daylight of justice and respect.

It was what carried the SAPS through the first decade after apartheid, through the massive transformation, and the mess of national commissioners who were fired under one dark cloud after another. But now it felt like it was back to the bad old days again. A government that was slowly rotting. And it was catching. More and more policemen were doing stupid things, and there was more and more mismanagement, corruption and greed, sinking the Service deeper and deeper into the quicksand of inefficiency and public distrust. Despite the new national commissioner, who tried so hard, despite the work of thousands of honest and dedicated policemen, despite senior officers like Musad Manie and Zola Nyathi, whose integrity was entirely above suspicion.

Just as in the old days, he was increasingly reluctant to tell people he was a policeman.

Where did that leave him? A rat on a sinking ship. Once again. He couldn’t leap off, he had one child at university and another that wanted to go to a
fokken
hellish expensive film school. At forty-five he was just a stupid career policeman who could do nothing else.

Which brought him to the second problem that Mbali and Mentz’s words had revealed: his inability to think about stuff like the powers of the government, information laws, and Struggle history. What was wrong with him that he was stuck at ground level, always wrestling with such basic, mundane things? So that he was embarrassed when Mbali pointed out the bigger picture, the deeper principle, with so much passion and integrity.

What was wrong with him? He had become irrelevant in a vocation that demanded deeper thought and insight and intelligence. In a country and a world that was changing far faster than he could adapt to it.

What was
wrong
with him?

Just about everything.

But nothing that drink would not put right.

The irony did not escape Tyrone Kleinbooi.

Beggars can’t be choosers, he thought, but to go and choose a beggar?

He had no choice: time was running out, and fast. He was hurriedly scanning the stall in front of Bellstar Junction for a helper, a sidekick, and then this
ou
appeared beside him, as abrupt and unexpected and embarrassingly silent as a wet dream. Filthy, and with many hard years on the clock. But under the brown layers of sunburn and lack of personal hygiene, he saw to his surprise that the guy was a whitey. In a faded blue overall jacket, ragged orange jersey underneath, eyes bright blue in a red-brown face, he said, ‘Brother, I haven’t eaten today.’

At first Tyrone wanted to say, ‘Brother?
Watse
brother, nowadays you’re a brother of everyone that lives and breathes, what’s up with that?’ But he thought better of it and looked more closely at him. This
ou
would pass for a coloured.

He’d never thought to ask a whitey. Because the ones you could trust wouldn’t help with a coloured man’s troubles. And the rest . . .

‘Show me your hands . . .’

‘Excuse me?’ said the man.

‘Show me your hands.’

The man slowly lifted his hands, palms up. Tyrone looked. He saw no tremor.

‘You’re not on
tik
?’ Tyrone asked.

‘That’s not my drug.’

‘What is your drug?’