The October Killings (30 page)

“We saw no attack,” Nkobi said. “The prisoner needs to know that lying about us is not going to help him.”

Bishop tried another angle. “You were pretty good there for a moment,” he croaked. The traces of a mocking smile showed on his face. “Of course, it helps that my hands were cuffed. Perhaps you'd like to try it some time when my hands are free?”

Before Freek could respond, Nkobi had stepped between him and the prisoner. “Let me take over,” he was saying. “Why don't you rest, deputy commissioner?”

It was good advice and Freek took it. But he went no farther than the front office, where the amplifier was working again and he was again able to follow the interrogation.

It was mid-afternoon when the call for Freek came through. The citizens of a township in a disputed zone had barricaded the road into the township and were burning heaps of tires in front of the barricade. Apparently they were protesting against the poor service they were receiving from their municipality. They wanted the provincial boundaries redrawn to move the township into the Gauteng province, where they believed they would receive better treatment. Refuse had not been removed for weeks, pensions were often paid months late and the township's roads were so potholed that traffic could move at no more than walking pace.

“I'm sorry to interrupt your Sunday, but I hope you can go personally,” the polite voice of the Gauteng minister for local government reached him over the connection. It had the sing-song quality of South African Indian speech.

“I would be happy to go, but we are in the middle of a very important interrogation.”

“This is far more important. I'd like you to go. Let me give you the number of my mobile in case you need to contact me.” He read out the number. “Just in case you need me.”

Freek allowed a pause to get the minister's attention. “I'm afraid this is a very important interrogation.”

“Of one suspect?”

“Yes, but this is an important suspect.”

“Look, one of our department's buildings is close by and could be threatened. I think you should go personally.” The voice was less polite now.

“I'll send good men.”

“I want you there. The premier wants you there. Do you want me to call the national commissioner?” There was nothing polite about the voice now. Polite threats rarely sound polite to the threatened.

“Not especially,” Freek said, “but I'm not going on your authority.”

“All right. If that's the way you want to play it. Expect a call from the commissioner.” The connection was cut with more than a click as the phone was put down heavily on the other side.

Fuck him, Freek thought. He picked up the phone immediately though to start making arrangements for a suitable squad to go to protect government property. He hoped the politician would be able to reach the commissioner. That would simplify everything for him. He would either receive an order to stay where he was, or to go to what sounded like a fairly minor disturbance, as riots go.

It took the politician a while to find the national commissioner. His call reached Freek nearly an hour later. “I want you to do what he wants,” the commissioner told Freek.

“I feel I might be getting somewhere with this prisoner,” Freek said. It was not true, but to leave now for another job was unthinkable.

“He'll still be there when you get back.”

“Commissioner, you know that's not the way interrogations work. We have to keep at him.”

“Sometimes we have to make choices. I need you to go there.”

“And of course, there is the time element in this matter.”

“You believe that about the twenty-second?”

“Gordon does.”

“Do you?”

“I don't know, but he's been right so far. He usually is.”

“Nevertheless, I need you to go.”

There was a long pause as Freek thought about this order.

Eventually, there was nothing left to say but “Yes, sir.”

Something in Freek's tone failed to satisfy the commissioner. “Listen, Jordaan, I know you're a good officer. That's why I moved you up when I got rid of your colleagues from the old regime. But I want you to think about this: what does it look like when communities in the new South Africa riot? What is the message it sends to the rest of the world? I need a man there who will calm things down without killing people. That's why I want you to go.”

“All right, commissioner, I'll leave immediately.”

The commissioner was not yet finished. “Another thing. About refusing to take orders from that politician…”

“Yes?” Freek said. The commissioner was touching a delicate nerve.

But the other man was not unskilled in handling his senior officers. “You did the right thing. My senior men take orders from me. I don't want my regional commissioners and deputy commissioners taking orders from every member of an executive committee who thinks he's important. If it happens again you tell him to fuck off—in polite language, of course.”

“I think that's what I did, sir.”

“Good. One other thing…”

“Yes.”

“Remember I don't want any marks on Bishop. I don't want any bruises left on him. I also don't want your men undressing him. I don't want to hear later that he was naked while being interrogated. I don't want him being kept awake for a hundred hours and more at a time. And I don't want someone squeezing his balls till he screams in agony.”

“You're not leaving me with very much,” Freek said.

“This is the way it has to be.”

“Not even keeping him awake? We have so far.”

“Not even that. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Good. Now get out to that township for me.”

When Freek replied this time it was with far more conviction. “Yes, sir. I'm on my way.”

*   *   *

The twilight was already merging into darkness by the time Freek reached the offending community. He knew township communities like this one almost as well as if he had grown up in one. The people of these communities were not among those who had gained from the country's change of government. Most felt that they were no better off than they had been under the apartheid government. Pension payments, refuse removals, street repairs, the salaries of junior civil servants: all seemed more erratic now to those who had hoped for so much from the new government. The new traffic cops seemed as anxious to find fault with their old and struggling vehicles as the old ones had been, and the banks still saw them as bad risks. Of the jobs and houses promised by the first democratic government, some houses had materialized, but very few jobs. Those who had been poor and uneducated were still as poor, and their children seemed unlikely to achieve better education. Many of the girls who finished high school could still do no better than a position as a domestic worker in the home of a white or Indian family. Many of the young men still gathered in restless groups on street corners, unemployed and no longer looking for employment. The occasional riot was rooted in nothing more than disappointment. Freek knew them well.

A string of policemen and their vehicles, both cars and armored vehicles, were blocking the road, bottling up the riot so that it did not spill out of the township. Beyond them, another barricade prevented the police from entering the township without a fight. This one consisted of piles of burning tires from which dense clouds of black smoke were blowing toward the line of policemen. As Freek drove up, some of the police vehicles were already moving back as their drivers tried to get away from the smoke.

Freek stepped out of his own car and waved an officer closer. He was a young man, perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five, and very earnest about his role in life. “Lieutenant Vilakazi, isn't it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Freek pointed to the barricade and the figures behind it that could only be seen dimly through the spasmodic flames from the tires. “Look behind those burning tires. What do you see?”

“People from the community. They look angry.”

“And behind them?”

“More tires.”

“That's right. If we pull back, they will build another barricade of burning tires in front of the present one. We can't have them driving us back. Tell your men to keep our line where it is. I know this is not pleasant, but we'll have to live with it for now. Perhaps the wind will change.”

Lieutenant Vilakazi ordered the police vehicles back to their original positions. The movement caused some shouts of anger from the barricade. As Freek had predicted, some of the men and young boys were already bringing tires forward to set fires closer to the police position. “Put one round of tear gas among them,” Freek said.

One of the constables fired the round, and the members of the township community retreated, coughing and spluttering. The tires they had brought remained scattered where they had left them.

“What should we do now, deputy commissioner?” Vilakazi's forehead was wrinkled with indecision.

You're too young to be in charge of this, Freek thought. He hated the fact that he had been forced to leave the interrogation of Bishop, but he was glad for Vilakazi's sake that he had come. “How long has this been going on?”

“All afternoon. They lit the fires at about two.”

“Call the nearest fire brigade and tell them we want them to put out piles of burning tires. Then get the roads department to send a front-end loader to stand by in case we need them.”

“They will try to stop us.”

“Perhaps. I passed a Chicken Licken a few kilometers back. Send a man to bring back burgers for all of us. And coffee.”

“Deputy commissioner?”

“I'll authorize the payment.”

“But deputy commissioner, what's it for?”

Freek looked seriously at him, then laid a hand on his shoulder. “Listen, son. I just want to make things uncomfortable for them, but I want them to see that we are having a party. When the men eat their burgers, I want them to do it in the light from the vehicles.”

“Yes, sir.” Lieutenant Vilakazi sounded impressed. “That's very clever, sir.”

“Thank you,” Freek said. “You have to be clever to be a deputy provincial commissioner.”

Before Freek arrived, the lieutenant had made two attempts to negotiate with the protestors at the barricade. Both attempts had been rejected, the second rejection accompanied by a hail of rocks.

“We'll wait,” Freek told him. “And while we wait, we'll give them a taste of tear gas every fifteen minutes or so. At the same time, we'll have our burgers and coffee. If they show signs of wanting to negotiate, ignore it. We'll see who gets tired of this game first.”

A roadblock at the main intersection leading into the township was turning away cars, the owners of which were unaware of the trouble in the township. Four hours after Freek's arrival, a police car passed through the roadblock and came straight at him. The driver braked hard, stopping within a few meters of the police barricade. Captain Nkobi leaped from the driver's seat, followed by four of his men. Freek had left Nkobi and the men at the Tshwane West police station to support Sergeant Tshabalala and the two on duty with him. He had intended to take no chances with security on this night.

“What in hell are you doing here?” Freek demanded.

“I was told to come. I was told to hurry, that there was a crisis here.”

“Who gave that order?”

Before Nkobi could answer, a sheet of flame flared within a few meters of them. A bottle containing liquid fuel had burst against one of the police cars and the burning liquid was spreading under the car. A teenage boy was running back to the shelter of the burning tires. Within moments, a second Molotov cocktail fell short, sending up another burst of flame.

One of the policemen was trying to start the car's engine to get it away from the flames when Nkobi, who had seen the flames reaching up into the engine compartment, pulled him out of the driver's seat. A moment later the car was burning. By the time the fuel tank went, in a far bigger explosion than the Molotov cocktails had produced, the policemen were all clear of it. Freek, who had taken shelter behind an armored vehicle, heard an eruption of cheering from behind the township barricade. The protestors were having a a good time. This was going to take longer than he had anticipated.

A third, fourth and fifth Molotov cocktail burst along the line of police vehicles, one of them landing against a windscreen, cracking the glass, but bouncing into the road and spreading fire as it went. Tshwane West police station and the man being held in the cells there seemed very far away.

36

By the time Abigail arrived home, Robert had been there for some hours. He had fallen asleep in a comfortable armchair, and woke up when Abigail came through the front door. He rose as soon as he saw her. “My God, you look terrible,” he said.

Robert too had not slept. “You don't look too great yourself, buddy,” she said.

“And Leon?”

“They're getting nowhere with Bishop.”

“Any chance they'll find Leon some other way?”

“There's only today and maybe tomorrow.” Robert had never heard her sound that desolate.

“You need to sleep.”

“But there's so little time.”

“You still need to sleep.”

“I won't be able to.”

“We've got pills.”

“I can't sleep. I don't think I'll ever be able to sleep again. I've spent the last week searching for Michael Bishop. We found him and we captured him, and we are still nowhere.”

“Look at it this way.” Robert reasoned with his wife. “While the police have him, he can't kill Leon.”

“But I don't know where he is or how he's being kept. He may be dying of thirst right now.”

“Are they still interrogating Bishop?”

“All night. They've been hammering at him all night. Yudel dropped me off. I think he went back there. Oh God, Robert, I don't know what to do.”