Stolen Lives (35 page)

“You need information on this van?”

“Yes. Firstly—”

“Do you have a warrant, sir?”

“A warrant is on its way,” David said, with such assurance that only Jade knew it was a bluff.

Jade heard a muffled creak from outside the door. Clara, getting up to do another bout of tidying.

“Sorry,” the bouncer said. “But I’ll need to check the warrant as soon as it arrives. What else do you want to know?”

When she heard keys jangling, Jade realised she had guessed wrong. Clara wasn’t doing anymore filing. Clara was finally going home. To dance widdershins round her cauldron or sacrifice a goat in her back garden, or whatever the hell she did for fun in her spare time.

“Firstly, who is the vehicle’s designated driver? If there is more than one person, I’ll need every name. Secondly, how long has it been owned by this company, and was it purchased new? Thirdly, where has it been … ”

Then Jade heard the faraway rattle of a big diesel engine starting up.

She was on her feet as fast as if an electric current had been run through her chair, before David could say another word and before she could offer any explanation for her actions.

The big bouncer was ready for her. He was quick on his feet, too, despite his size. He moved just as swiftly. Before Jade could get to the door, he was positioned in front of it, blocking her exit. Feet apart, knees slightly bent, arms at midriff-level in front of his body.

Braced for a fight.

On certain occasions, Stewart had explained to her trainees, a bodyguard would not be able to avoid getting involved in physical conflict. When that happened, she said, she was going to share the only rule for success.

“Martial arts?” the American student had asked, and Stewart had turned on him with a withering glare.

“Martial arts are bugger-all use to you in a street fight, laddie. I’ve seen black belt experts knocked out cold by street fighters because the experts couldn’t decide which of their fancy moves they should begin with. The only rule is this. Act fast and act first. Practise one or two moves until you know them better than your own name. Use them instantly, and with all the force you have.”

Jade was at a disadvantage in terms of height and weight, compared to most of her opponents, so she’d rehearsed a routine as swift as it was dirty.

By the time David shouted “What the hell?” Jade was already making her move.

A feint with the left hand to draw the bouncer’s stronger right away by throwing a weak punch; a move that only tricked people because she was a woman. He grabbed her left hand hard, crushing it in his meaty fist, but that didn’t matter, because before he could do any damage, Jade let rip with her double whammy. Her right knee hammered into his groin, and her right fingers straight into his eyes, as stiff as prongs.

The bouncer let out a strangled gasp and doubled over, clutching his groin, just as David half-leaped over the desk to help her, pens and pencils scattering.

“Jadey! What on earth’s the problem?”

“Knock him out!” she shouted. She wrenched the door open so fast that it slammed into the bouncer’s back. Pounding her way through the now-empty office towards the door at the back with the big green Fire Exit sign above it, she was relieved to find that Snake Eyes Clara had left it unlocked when she’d left.

When she’d left to drive away in the white van with the mirrored windows.

Jade sprinted across the car park. Clara had already reversed the van out of its parking place, but she seemed to be having difficulty engaging first gear, because when she saw Jade racing towards the driver’s door, she put her foot down and it promptly stalled.

Jade flung herself at the driver’s door and grabbed hold of the handle.

Locked, of course. Bloody central locking. And now Clara was turning the engine over again, glaring through the window at Jade. In a couple of seconds she’d be on the move.

Wrenching her Glock from its holster, Jade smacked the butt against the window glass with all her strength. Despite her efforts, the window didn’t break. One of the drawbacks of owning a gun made largely of polymer, perhaps.

The engine roared into life and Jade heard the gearbox engage. She was sure that, this time, Snake Eyes would have worked out where to find first gear.

Jade angled the gun away from Clara’s head and aimed at a place where she had a clear line of sight through the opposite back window. With her left hand she grabbed a tight hold of the vehicle’s roof-rack.

As she fired, the van surged forward, so fast and suddenly that the rack ripped out of her hand and she went sprawling, face-first, onto the rough tarmac.

Jade thought it was over then, but, wonder of wonders, the abrupt leap forward had been caused by Snake Eyes stalling the car a second time, startled by the sound of the gun.

She scrambled to her feet. Her shoulder throbbed and her right cheek was stinging. Her elbow was grazed where she’d used it to break her fall, but her right hand was undamaged, and so was the gun it held.

The bullet-hole in the window that was now a web of cracks had given her the opportunity she needed. She punched the Glock’s butt into the hole, and this time the glass gave way so easily that Jade’s arm just kept on going. The side of the gun clubbed Clara on her right temple.

It was a hard and uncompromising blow. The woman reeled sideways, stunned. Her horn-rimmed glasses flew off her head.

Jade fumbled for the door handle through the rough-edged gap. She pulled it up, and she was in. Another whack on the head for Clara. Two points scored for the Glock. The admin assistant collapsed sideways, lolling onto the passenger seat.

Jade grabbed her ankles and yanked them towards the door. The woman was wearing brown court shoes. One of them fell off as Jade dragged her out of the vehicle. As she did so, Clara’s skirt rode up and exposed her legs and her knickers, both of which were off-white and thick-looking. Jade slid an arm under her head to stop it from thumping down onto the tarmac. She didn’t want to kill her. Dead bodies were far harder to question than admin assistants with a nasty headache.

“How much did Tamsin pay you?” Jade asked the prone woman rather breathlessly, as she moved her none too gently into the recovery position. “Were you and Granite-Face getting good money to keep quiet about what she was doing?”

Jade didn’t expect an answer to her questions. Clara’s snake eyes remained closed and she groaned softly.

“I hope it’ll be worth the prison time,” Jade said.

As she stood up, a glint of orange caught her eye.

David was scrambling out of the unmarked, which he’d parked sideways-on so that it blocked the exit gate of Heads & Tails.

“You’re crazy,” she shouted. “If this woman had got the van going, there’s no way she would have stopped. She’d have smashed straight into your car and knocked it out of the way, with you inside.”

David didn’t react. He just stared at her, taking in her rumpled hair and bleeding elbow, her ripped jeans and grazed cheek. Taking in the people carrier’s shattered driver’s window and the bullet-hole in the glass opposite. Eventually, he replied.

“No,” he said slowly, shaking his head. “I’m not the crazy one here, Jadey. You are.”

45

David moved the unmarked away from the gate, and Jade heard him using the radio to call for backup. Job done, he locked the car and started striding purposefully towards her, his large shoes scrunching on the tarmac.

Jade wanted to hug him for the brave but foolish action of parking his car across the entrance. She wanted to tell him she loved him, that her heart was breaking for him and everything he was going through.

Instead, she pointed out that one of his shoelaces was coming undone.

While David bent down to sort it out, Jade took a look inside the van.

There, she saw what she had expected to see in Tamsin’s office.

Although the interior smelled pleasantly of strawberries, there were crumpled tissues on the floor, a stack of dance cds strewn over the passenger seat on top of a pink sports top, and a bottle of perfume, a lipstick, some gum, a granola bar, and a half-empty pack of Silk Cut all stuffed into the central console.

And, most tellingly of all, an instant Polaroid four-photo passport camera was lying on the carpet on the passenger side, half-in, half-out of its padded bag, on top of a large box of film.

Staring at the now-empty seats in the back, Jade shivered to think of who had sat in them, where they had been taken, how their hopes and dreams had been brutally shattered.

To her, those seats reeked of despair.

A gps navigator was positioned on the dashboard. Aware that the police would need to fingerprint this device, Jade folded her jacket sleeve over her index finger and pressed the “On” button.

After a few false starts, she discovered a list of the most recently travelled destinations. The airport, the Michelangelo hotel. Two other addresses in Sandton, one in Bez Valley, one in central Pretoria and one in Dullstroom, Mpumalanga.

Dullstroom. That was the one Jade needed. Her cellphone had gps, and she copied the coordinates into it. Then, frowning, she double-checked the routes that were shown on both.

“Why did Tamsin take those roads?” she said aloud.

At her feet, Clara was starting to utter a series of dazed-sounding grunts. David opened the unmarked’s boot and tossed Jade a pair of handcuffs. She cuffed the woman’s hands together behind her back and threw her shoes under the Mercedes van. Without them, she wouldn’t get far.

By the time David’s team arrived, together with a police car from the Midrand precinct and a forensic technician, the admin assistant was fully conscious and spluttering threats at Jade.

Jade stepped back and watched the action from the sidelines, feeling oddly left out, even though she had watched similar scenes many times when her father was alive. Over the next few hours, she knew that the officers would question the club’s employees in detail and, when a warrant arrived, search the premises and gather evidence.

Police questioning and investigation. A lengthy, pedantic process. A series of tiny jigsaw pieces that, if you were thorough and lucky, would eventually be joined together to reveal the full picture. No way to speed it up; not with the team still awaiting the necessary search warrant.

But Jade didn’t have any time to spare. She needed to get going as soon as possible.

David was inside the club with Captain Thembi, who was barking commands at his team. With the music now turned off, his voice sounded very loud.

Somebody had switched on all the overhead lights, and in the brightness Jade could see peeling paint on the walls and scuff marks on the floor. The nightclub staff were lined up on one side of the room. She recognised Opal and Amber, who were whispering together and looking scared, but was relieved to see that the helpful Ebony had obviously had the night off. A number of rather dumbstruck-looking clients were lined up on the other side. All were waiting to be questioned.

The bouncer, who now sported a swollen lump on the side of his head courtesy of David’s elbow, was sitting at the end of the line, his hands cuffed behind his back.

When Thembi had finished speaking, Jade tapped David on the shoulder.

“I’ll see you later,” she said.

“What … Where are you going? I thought you needed a lift.”

“You’re busy here, and I’ve got to get going. Now. I’ve called a taxi to take me home.”

David stared at her, eyes narrowed. “I’m not too busy to drive you back to your place. Why the urgency, Jadey? What’s up?”

“I’m going to get my car. Then I’m driving to Dullstroom.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I studied the gps in that van. It’s been driven regularly to a few destinations. One of them is a place in Bez Valley, so they may have been doing business with the brothel you’re raiding tonight. One of the other destinations is Dullstroom. That’s a small town, it’s out in the middle of nowhere, and I don’t believe for a moment it’s a hotbed of illegal sexual activity. But Terence owns a country lodge in that area, a top-security place which he’s apparently used from time to time as a hideout. I think Tamsin has been taking the trafficked women there to get them broken in.”

David didn’t reply, and from his expression she knew he was thinking of Kevin.

Every step that led them closer to Tamsin and Salimovic might also lead them closer to his son.

Then he took the keys for the orange unmarked out of his pocket and jangled them in his hand.

“Come on, then,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”

A strong wind had started to blow and as they pulled onto the highway, Jade could feel it buffeting the car.

The first summer storm was on the way.

“So Terence has a country lodge?”

“Well, it looks more like a small farm.”

She glanced down at her phone to double-check the coordinates. To her consternation, David leaned over too and peered down at the screen.

“Should take you about three hours to do that distance, I’m guessing.”

“You’d do it in two.” She glanced up and immediately panicked. “David! Tanker!”

The noise from the growling engine noise of the slow-moving tanker ahead filled their car. A timely swerve, and David just managed to avoid ramming the unmarked into its tailgate. They whipped past its solid steel flank.

Jade’s heart was leaping in her throat, and she prised her fingers away from the dashboard with some difficulty.

“The Mercedes van used a lot of back roads to get there,” Jade said, when she was capable of calm speech again. “A real zig-zag of a route. It certainly wasn’t a shortcut. I’m guessing Tamsin did it so that the women wouldn’t have any idea where they were headed. Going along minor roads, sand roads, back routes, you’d never be able to tell anybody exactly where you had been taken.”

“Fewer road signs, and less risk of running into a police roadblock,” David observed.

“That, too.”

“You think this Naude chap knows what’s going on?”

“David, I don’t know. Perhaps he’s in on the conspiracy, perhaps he isn’t. If I’d got five rands for everyone who’s told me the truth in this case, I still don’t think I’d be able to buy a loaf of bread.”