Death Dealing (25 page)

 
They drove slowly down the hill past the
driveway and parked on the verge further down the road, from where they could
see Mavis alight from her vehicle at the top of the driveway.

‘There she is,’
said Thabethe, as Fiona Ryder emerged from the house to greet Mavis. ‘That’s
her.
I seen
her one time before. That’s the wife of
Ryder.’

Wakashe got
excited, and started hissing out the venomous thoughts that were stewing
inside, before Thabethe stopped him instantly.

‘Wait. Wait,
Wakashe. Look.’

They watched as
Fiona Ryder and Mavis Tshabalala spoke and exchanged laughter, and then the
former took the package that the young cop held out for her. They waited for
the Mazda 323 to reverse back down the driveway, and they watched it drive up
the hill and around the corner.

12.25.

Nyawula and Ryder
had come out of the last session before lunch and Nyawula was very generous:
there was no
reason,
he said to Ryder, that both of
them should continue to be put through this suffering. The post-lunch sessions
were going to be even more boring than the morning sessions, and there was
nothing there that specifically required Ryder’s attendance. He would be
entirely happy to cover for Ryder if he wanted to take off earlier than he had
intended.

Ryder didn’t have
the heart to tell his boss that he had intended, anyway, to sneak off after the
lunch session, on some pretext or other, to watch the rugby on television, so
he was relieved to hear this. They had a quick sandwich and tea together and
Ryder made a surreptitious exit from the venue. Nyawula went back into the
fray, dealing politely and graciously with a pontificating Brigadier on the way
into the conference hall.

Before leaving the
venue in the Camry, Ryder called Pauline to check on the status with Nadine. It
was good news. Nadine was making excellent progress, he was told. He asked
Pauline to convey warm wishes from both him and Fiona.

He felt much better
about Nadine’s predicament as he drove home. The only concern he had now was
for Hlengiwe Khuzwayo. He couldn’t get out of his mind the implication, from
Koekemoer’s innocent comment, that in some strange way he was personally
connected to Khuzwayo’s suicide. Each one of the six evil men in Albert Park
had been either resisting arrest or intending him harm at the moment of his
confrontation with them. He would have been entirely justified in taking out each
and every one of them; in removing them from a society that needed permanent protection
from them, not just temporary protection. Had he done so, Khuzwayo would be
alive today. What was it about him that he would choose to disarm and arrest,
rather than kill the most evil of criminals? What was it about him that he would
shoot to kill only as a last resort? Did it really have to be a last resort?
Was there not already sufficient justification for instant and permanent retaliation
against men who were the incarnation of Satan himself? Does
one
deal
cards with the devil? Or should one deal only death to him?

Ryder felt himself
thinking thoughts darker than any he had ever entertained. To see people like
the greatly admired Nadine Salm and the loving father and husband Kwanele
Khuzwayo go to the wall because of the actions of people totally devoid of any
moral consciousness was beginning to tip him over the edge. Why couldn’t he simply
be like his beloved Border
Collie
? Sugar-Bear had no
qualms. If the dog sensed evil he would attack it, immediately, without
hesitation. He didn’t weigh up any ethical considerations. If some evil demon
attacked the Ryder family - the
dog’s
own personal
herd of sheep - Sugar-Bear would act instantly. He would kill in order to
protect.

Maybe, thought
Ryder, he needed a new rule of thumb. No longer arrest in order to protect.
Maybe, from now, kill to protect.

14.05.

Thabethe, Mgwazeni
and Wakashe cursed. They were livid. Outraged. Ryder had just pulled into the
driveway. He was supposed to have been out all day, but he had just driven down
the hill and up into the driveway. The whole plan was collapsing.

They had been
sitting there for over an hour, talking through the plan. Checking on
alternative escape routes, if they needed them. Mgwazeni had even gone on a
brief scouting visit. He had walked up the driveway, casually, as if he was
someone who was simply looking for work as a gardener. He had intended to knock
on the front door and say, confidently, that he was unemployed and looking to
work in the area. He would use that opportunity to see whether there was anyone
else at home. Or whether there was a dog. That would be an important
consideration. If he knocked on the door or rang a doorbell a dog would come
running, if there was a dog. Surely there must be a dog, if there were no high
walls and gates?

But he hadn’t got
as far as knocking on the door. He heard the ear-shattering sound of music
coming from the garage at the top of the driveway. He walked toward the side
door of the garage, which was wide open, and suddenly two young boys ran from
the garage toward the back of the house. They didn’t turn. They didn’t see him.
They disappeared around the back, so he quickly looked in at the doorway. There
was a sound system, blaring out music that he couldn’t even identify. It
sounded strange. Like nothing he had ever heard. There was nobody in the
garage. These boys had run from the garage leaving their sound system playing
music to nobody.

He looked around
the corner at the back area of the property. No dog. The boys had left open the
back door. He considered following them to the back door but then he thought
better of it. If he were to be confronted by someone, what would he say? Why
was he approaching the house via the back door? He changed his mind and
retraced his steps back to the front of the house.

He walked onto the
patio. The front door was open. No dog. He approached the door. He could hear
the sound of some machinery. In the distance was other music. Not the same music
that came from the garage, but something just as awful to his ears. Loud,
screeching, mechanical sounds in the distance. Then he realised that the sound
of the machinery was the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Someone was using the
vacuum.

He decided not to
ring the bell. Someone was in there, somewhere. They were cleaning the house.
There was definitely no dog. He decided to re-join his companions in the car in
the street. He reported back to Thabethe and Wakashe. It looked like Ryder’s
wife and his two boys were the only people in the house, he said. No dog.
Perfect. It was time to act.

Then, just as they
were about to alight from the vehicle, a car appeared at the top of the road.
They waited. The car turned into the same driveway.

Ryder.

The men seethed in
anger. They couldn’t see this through. Ryder was too dangerous.
Too unpredictable.
Wakashe disagreed. He wanted to take on
the detective. There were three of them. They would have surprise on their
side. If they could take out Ryder they would have his wife and sons. The other
two argued against it.

Impasse. What
should they do?

14.15.

Fiona Ryder switched off the vacuum
cleaner for a moment, and asked Jeremy to pop out to the supermarket to pick up
a few things for dinner. He was busy removing his jacket, pistol and shoulder
holster, and was changing into something more comfortable. Having just arrived
home he was looking forward to relaxing in front of the television. The
afternoon rugby promised good things, and that was to be followed by a
leisurely Saturday family dinner at home, for a change, during the course of
which he and the boys would produce their presents for her birthday. They would
include a suitably wrapped meaty bone from Sugar-Bear, which, according to the
attached card signed with a paw-print, the dog would request her to cook for
him and then share at lunch the next day.

Ryder was happy to run the errand.
He needed to add some more beer to the supplies, anyway, before the rugby
began. He put the pistol in its normal position, under a T-shirt in his wardrobe,
then changed into shorts, a casual short-sleeve, and his old running shoes, and
made for the front door.

‘Where are the guys?’

‘Didn’t you hear them? Banging away
in the garage.
Or maybe upstairs.
I don’t know.
They’re running between Jason’s room and the garage. They’re recording some
sound-track
of their own to lay over some computer game, or
something. One moment they’re up in his room. The next they’re out in the
garage. Been going on since mid-morning.’

‘And Sugar-Bear?’

‘Sugar-Bear’s depressed. You know
how he hates it when I vacuum. He’s upstairs in Jonathan’s room with his paws
over his ears. No sheep in sight. Noisy household.
No-one
wants to play with him. He’s very sad.’

‘OK. OK. I’ll give him a quick run
when I’m back. I’ll have twenty minutes or more before the kick-off.’

He pecked her on the cheek and was
gone. She resumed work on the carpets.

The noise of the vacuum cleaner permeated
the entire house except in both bedrooms upstairs, where it had competition
from two separate sound desks, one in each room. It seemed to their mother as
if the Ryder boys were trying to outperform each other with the volume of their
respective sound systems. She had the fleeting thought that perhaps the sound
of the vacuum cleaner was actually quite soothing by comparison.

Outside, in the garage, there was
another source of sound: the thudding beat of Candlebox’s
Into
the sun
. All these sources of sound
working together added to the depression of Sugar-Bear, lying upstairs in
Jonathan Ryder’s bedroom, facing the window with his back to the door.

And all of this sound meant that
neither the dog nor the boys nor Fiona Ryder heard the three intruders when
they arrived.

14.30.

Ryder was very quick with the
shopping. The list comprised only five items, which were all on display in
abundance. He quickly picked them up, collected a twelve-pack of his favourite
lager, and was back inside the Camry within minutes.

The traffic was flowing easily, so
he managed to listen to barely one of his favourite Fleetwood tracks by the
time he returned home. He only half-registered the battered white 1990 Opel
Astra parked on the verge just down from his driveway as he turned into it.

Thirty minutes before the game
started. He’d take Sugar-Bear for a quick twenty-minute run, get back home, and
grab a beer just in time to watch the kick-off.

The double-length single-width
garage was positioned at the back of the property, at the end of the long
driveway. A hedge bordering the neighbouring property ran from one corner of
the garage along the length of the driveway down to the road. On the other
front corner of the garage the driveway gave access to a small paved area
providing a route to the back garden, and at this corner there was a large
clump of pampas grass, three metres in diameter, with flowering stalks
approaching some four metres in height.

The Ryders seldom parked a car in
the garage. It was too much bother. The garage was now home to bicycles and
guitars and drums and other paraphernalia, so the two cars were usually left
parked on the driveway in single file directly in front of the garage’s large
remote-controlled metal door. Years back it had been necessary to park them
inside because of opportunistic burglaries in the neighbourhood. Ryder had burglar-proofed
the garage himself at that time, employing his particular brand of
do-it-yourself skills. But burglars had then made themselves scarce, anyway,
with the advent of Sugar-Bear. So the garage was no longer considered necessary
to ensure security for the two vehicles.

Ryder parked the Camry directly
behind Fiona’s car at the top of the driveway and made his way toward the back
entrance of the house. As he rounded the corner and passed the pampas grass he
saw that the side door of the garage was wide open. He decided to pop in and
greet the boys who, he thought, were probably still playing music together.

Well before he approached the door
he could hear music, obviously recorded and not live. The tortured sounds of
some post-grunge number struck his ears, but it was not the only sensation that
he was aware of. As he was about to enter the room he felt a rush of air from
behind and instinctively jumped forward.

Thabethe cursed as the sharpened
point of his bicycle spoke missed its target and thrust instead into thin air.
Ryder’s rapid movement caused him to lose balance. The bag of groceries and the
carton of beer went flying, and he fell sideways against a stack of wood as he
turned to face the adversary, who he recognised instantly. Thabethe.

The panic in Thabethe’s eyes made
them even wider than Ryder could have imagined was possible. The eyes bulged as
if they were about to pop out of his head, and for an instant the detective
froze in shock.

Thabethe knew he had lost the
advantage. He immediately stepped back, slammed the metal door, and threw the
outside bolt. As an extra measure he turned the key in the lock, withdrew it,
and flung it away into the pampas grass. He paused, thought for a moment, and
then bent down and pulled open the door of the small metal box on the right of
the door, outside. He reached into the box and threw off the main power switch,
cutting off all electricity to the outbuilding. And rendering completely
useless the power switch that operated the front door of the garage from inside.