Angel in the Shadows Read online

  Paul resisted the impulse to grab the backrest of the seat in front and give it a good shake. But Edward had anticipated this reaction from the Russians. He’d already phoned the NFI and asked them to thoroughly examine Paul’s photos to corroborate their authenticity.

  All they had to do now was wait. He took another swig of his whisky, inserted his earphones and put on his favourite song, ‘Yer Blues’ off The White Album.

  4

  Radjen reached for the alarm button, just like he always did from bed. But his head wasn’t lying on his comfortable goose-down pillow and no familiar streak of pale morning sun was visible between the narrow opening of the curtains. His face was pressed against a cold floor, and the light penetrating his half-open eyes was harsh and blue.

  Still groping with his hand, he realized the sound had nothing to do with his alarm clock but everything to do with his phone. When he finally pulled it from his inside jacket pocket, it had stopped ringing.

  He saw the same number listed four times on the screen. Without thinking, he pressed the redial button, turned on his side and made an unsuccessful attempt to get up from the ground. In his dizzy state, he heard a woman’s voice.

  ‘Radjen?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Did I wake you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where are you? Are you at home?’

  ‘Who is this?’

  There was a pause on the other end of the line.

  ‘Are you drunk?’

  ‘No.’

  He was trying as hard as he could to connect the voice to a face, to give that face a name.

  ‘Then what’s going on?’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Stop kidding around, please.’

  ‘No, I …’

  He felt his heartbeat accelerate.

  The woman on the other end was silent.

  ‘Monique? Is that you?’

  He heard the sobbing tone of his own voice as he spoke. ‘Everyone thinks you’re dead.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  A different face emerged for the voice, a different name.

  ‘Esther … Damn … Sorry.’

  ‘Jesus, man. What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I …’

  He looked around. He still didn’t know where he was. He grabbed on to a leg of one of the tables holding the fish tanks and pulled himself up. He heard the water splash. He hung over the tank, nauseated, until he fully realized it was Esther’s voice.

  She asked, ‘Where are you?’

  He took a hurried breath and tried to concentrate.

  ‘Atlantis.’

  Her voice was strained. ‘Look around you. Tell me what you see.’

  He turned around with difficulty. In a flash he saw Thomas Meijer hanging there again, in the blue light, his tongue limp.

  ‘Meijer … I’m in the shed … in his garden.’

  ‘What are you doing there?’

  He looked at the wide-open door and once again felt the blow that had knocked him to the ground. Struggling to breathe, he staggered to the doorway and deeply inhaled the crisp night air. Lights were being switched on in the surrounding houses; windows were being opened. In the distance he heard Esther call his name several times. Questioningly first, then with urgency, followed by a command.

  He brought the phone close to his ear and asked, ‘Could you come here?’

  There was apparently something in the way he’d asked, because she not only sounded calmer, but her voice had a caring tone.

  ‘I’m on my way, but first I’m going to call it in to Central Dispatch, to cover our bases.’

  ‘Esther …’

  ‘Yes?’

  He stared straight ahead; his thoughts swallowed up in a void.

  ‘What is it, Radjen?’

  ‘Central Dispatch … Tell them it’s not a burglary, that it’s just me. In case the neighbours have already called the police.’

  ‘Okay, I will.’

  ‘And send the forensics guys. As soon as possible. To collect and secure any trace evidence from the garden.’

  ‘But what happened?’

  ‘Please, just do what I say and come.’

  ‘First say you’re okay?’

  Just as she was asking, he got the feeling he’d been stabbed in the head with a knife. He couldn’t catch his breath. Once he’d inhaled deeply, he said in a raspy voice, ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You’re not fine. I can hear it.’

  ‘I got whacked in the head. But I’ll be okay.’

  ‘I’ll send medical assistance. Stay put.’

  He pressed his back against the wall and let his body sink to the ground, until his legs were stretched out in front of him on the wet patio tiles. The phone slipped out of his hand.

  He hung his head and listened to the sound of the rustling leaves. It reminded him of water lapping the shores of a lake.

  Dogs barking in panic were the most dangerous. The voice ordering him to stand up sounded the same. He lifted his head, opened his eyes and looked straight into a blinding torch beam.

  ‘Police. Stand up!’

  He muttered, ‘Just stay off the grass.’

  The second voice sounded a lot calmer. ‘This guy is drunk, man.’

  A hand was rested on his shoulder. A face came close to his. A nose sniffed. The hand was removed from his shoulder. The face withdrew.

  ‘No alcohol.’

  Radjen reached for his inside jacket pocket.

  ‘Keep your hands where we can see them!’

  ‘My ID …’ he whispered.

  This time the hand grabbed him by the shoulder. The other hand slid inside his jacket and pulled out his wallet. There was a hushed consultation. Central Dispatch was contacted via mobile radio.

  The subdued voice of the face right in front of him now sounded calmer.

  ‘Sorry, Inspector. Suspicious activity was reported by a neighbour. We’ll ask Central Dispatch to send an ambulance.’

  But Radjen had other priorities.

  ‘This is a crime scene. Stay off the grass for God’s sake!’

  Less than an hour later, the bump on his forehead was the size of a golf ball. The worried paramedic had checked Radjen’s pupils with a light and asked him how long he’d been unconscious. Based on the time that had elapsed between the first and last time Esther had phoned him, Radjen figured about three and a half minutes. The dry heaving had stopped and the nausea too. The paracetamol he’d been given seemed to be helping.

  He stood looking out of the bedroom window together with Esther. They silently stared into the garden, where forensics were going through the motions of collecting any fingerprints or footprints left behind.

  ‘It’s no use,’ Radjen mumbled, still holding the bag of frozen peas against his forehead. ‘Laurel and Hardy have contaminated any evidence there might have been.’

  She turned her head in his direction. ‘Shouldn’t you go to hospital?’

  ‘The paramedic only told me to take it easy.’

  ‘Did you tell him about the explosion in The Hague? About the crackling and whistling sounds you’ve been hearing since then?’

  He shook his head. Esther stared into the garden again.

  ‘I thought we agreed to do everything together,’ she said.

  ‘Isn’t that what we’re doing?’

  ‘You go snooping around here in the middle of the night on your own, without official authorization, without permission. So, no, that’s not what we’re doing. And when Kemper finds out you were here without a search warrant, you can flush this entire case down the drain.’

  ‘I’ll talk my way out of it.’

  ‘Like you did with the policemen who arrived on the scene. Bullshit.’

  ‘That went okay.’

  ‘Sure.’

  He removed the bag of peas from his forehead and turned towards her with some difficulty.

  ‘When I went … and left you …’

  She looked at him
cynically. ‘Man, sounds like the beginning of a schmaltzy André Hazes song.’

  ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve gone back to a crime scene on my own, because … Jesus, I’ve never told anyone about this before.’

  ‘So maybe it’s something I don’t want to know?’

  ‘I think you need to know.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Otherwise, you’ll think I’ve lost it completely.’

  She pulled out a packet of Gauloises, lit two and passed him one.

  ‘Well, I already think that, so don’t be shy.’

  Strangely enough, it wasn’t hard for him to tell her how he could replay a crime in his mind, discover new insights this way – that details were literally revealed to him. She listened without interrupting. Then she drew her conclusion.

  ‘Thomas Meijer must have had an appointment with whoever killed him.’

  ‘Only he had no idea it was his murderer.’

  She blew smoke against the windowpane and seemed to enjoy the foggy effect created on the glass.

  ‘Why do you think they were meeting?’

  ‘Perhaps to arrange something or to exchange information or money.’

  Esther turned her back to the window and gazed around the room.

  ‘What I still don’t understand is: why meet in the middle of the night? And why at home, while your wife is upstairs in bed sleeping?’

  Radjen stared into the garden. The two white shapes in search of footprints beside the shed looked like they were engaged in a slow pas de deux. He spoke methodically, carefully weighing his every word.

  ‘His execution had to take place in this setting. That was the express intention: a murder made to look like suicide. So the appointment had to be here, not somewhere else. And that’s why it was in the middle of the night and not during the day.’

  He heard a faint squeaking. Esther had taken a seat on the edge of the bed.

  ‘I wonder how they arranged to meet up,’ she said. ‘We’ve checked all of Meijer’s emails and his phone. No trace of an appointment.’

  Radjen sat down beside her, with the cigarette pressed between his lips, and held the sack of frozen peas against his forehead again.

  ‘In any case, the person responsible for your injuries was neither a burglar nor a tropical fish enthusiast.’

  ‘Oh no?’

  ‘No. It was his killer. He also came here to find something.’

  He looked at her.

  ‘I want that shed stripped. Everything inside needs to go to police central storage. We’re missing something and I’m going to find out what it is.’

  Esther stood up and took a last puff. ‘I’ll take care of it,’ she said. ‘You need to lie down. I’ll drive you home.’

  Radjen shook his head. ‘Over my dead body.’

  Esther drove Radjen to her place in Amsterdam-Noord instead. She turned the sofa in her apartment into a bed and made him lie down, still fully dressed. Then she started to untie his shoes. He was feeling a lot less queasy.

  ‘Why did you call me in the first place?’ he asked.

  She stopped loosening his shoelaces and looked at him.

  ‘I didn’t want you to get any crazy ideas about me in your head.’

  ‘What kind of ideas?’

  ‘That there’s … something wrong with me.’

  ‘You’re … I mean … there’s nothing wrong with you.’

  She pulled off his shoes.

  ‘In any case, you don’t have to worry about me.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  She draped a blanket over him.

  ‘But by now someone else should be worried about you? Have you called your wife?’

  He shook his head. She pulled out her phone.

  ‘What’s her number?’

  ‘What are you going say?’ he asked. ‘Mrs Tomasoa, your husband is sleeping at my place tonight?’

  ‘Yes, exactly. And that perhaps she should take better care of her husband.’

  ‘Don’t. She’s sleeping.’

  ‘Jesus, Radjen –’

  ‘I’ll talk to her tomorrow, I promise.’

  She was now standing very close to him.

  ‘Your wife, her name’s Monique?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then who’s Monique?’

  He sighed deeply as if to say something along the lines of ‘It’s a long story’ and didn’t reply.

  ‘All right, then,’ Esther said, as she started to turn off all the lights in the room. Before she pressed the button on the lamp beside the sofa, she hesitated.

  ‘So how do ninjas say good night to each other?’

  ‘I don’t know … just good night, I suppose.’

  ‘Okay, then. Good night.’

  She switched off the light and walked towards the door.

  ‘Good night.’

  Radjen silently stared at the ceiling. The night sky in the arched windows was the colour of copper tarnished black. He saw volatile electric streaks of light shooting across the darkness. This continued for a bit behind his closed eyelids, until a black veil of sleep blotted out everything.

  5

  A hand on his shoulder woke him. The plane was shaking like a wet dog. The hostess pointed to his unfastened seatbelt. Paul was still too sleepy to start panicking. But just in case, he swallowed an oxazepam with a few gulps of whisky. For what felt like an endless bumpy descent, he was as calm as a Zen master who’d just raked together all the gravel in his garden in cosmic harmony.

  With a relaxed smile of recognition, Detective Elvin Dingane was waiting for him in the arrivals hall. Standing there in his cream-coloured suit, he was the spitting image of the young Miles Davis on the 1950s album cover Live at Newport: handsome, hip and a force to be reckoned with.

  ‘From where I’m standing, it would’ve been better if they’d kept you in hospital a while longer,’ Dingane said, giving Paul a firm handshake. ‘Or is a smashed-up face a badge of honour in your profession?’

  Dingane’s smile was warm and engaging. For someone who fought serious crime, he was remarkably civilized. Perhaps his refined nature was how he shielded himself from all the cruelty and ugliness that came with his line of work. He was the type of guy you could spend an entire night with shooting pool and propping up the bar philosophizing about how to avoid the dark side of life, but also how attractive it might be on occasion to give in to its temptations.

  Dingane drove Paul into Johannesburg in his Toyota Cressida. Every available square centimetre of the city was plastered with election posters. From the Mandela Bridge, Paul spotted an immense banner on the COSATU building of the equally immense and despicable face of Jacob Nkoane. The slogan underneath proclaimed A BETTER LIFE FOR ALL.

  ‘Some people call him the man with roubles up his arse,’ Dingane said. ‘According to the polls, he’s going to win by a landslide. Apparently a hundred million rand was dumped into his campaign and that’s not just South African money. You really have to ask yourself where the ANC gets the nerve to keep waving the struggle-for-freedom flag when a man like Nkoane is undoubtedly going to be President. If our beloved Madiba had ever imagined the country’s ruling party indulging in this kind of conduct, he might have stayed on Robben Island forever.’

  Paul took a long hard look at Dingane. He noticed the wrinkles around his eyes, the touch of grey at his temples. Dingane was, as always, smartly dressed, and was undoubtedly just as decent in his dealings with others, but Paul could tell that in only a few weeks’ time he’d become a different man. More cynical, older.

  ‘Where’s the man who claimed a few weeks ago that the majority of the ANC’s people could be trusted?’ Paul asked.

  ‘He’ll soon be out of a job,’ Dingane said. ‘Once Nkoane becomes President – and that will be the case in just three days – he’ll declare our investigation illegal and dissolve the Scorpion Unit. Mark my words.’

  ‘So the ANC is even prepared to undermine the constitution to protect its own interests and people
?’

  Dingane threw Paul an emphatic look. ‘That’s why it’s so important you’re willing to share your information with us.’

  ‘Says the man who not so long ago insisted I leave the country.’

  ‘That was for your own safety.’

  ‘What about your safety, then? Damn, you’re a state official poking around in your government’s shit.’

  ‘I was appointed to take a closer look at all aspects of the ANC. That’s my job. That was my assignment. And, as long as I’m still a Scorpion, I plan to keep doing just that. I know I’m being watched by agents from the PIU, the Presidential Intelligence Unit. They ripped apart Zhulongu’s computer and office, and when that offered up nothing concrete, they turned his house upside down. They didn’t find the backup. So then they interrogated Zhulongu’s widow, Miriam, for hours. They even threatened to take her children away from her if they later discovered she was withholding information. She didn’t give an inch.’

  ‘She sounds like a strong woman,’ Paul said.

  ‘She is,’ Dingane replied.

  They drove to Ferreira Town, the heart of Johannesburg, where Dingane parked his car directly opposite the oldest building in the city, the Hut, a former dynamite warehouse from the era when the city was known as Egoli, ‘the place where gold was found’. Not so long ago, it was a bleak neighbourhood better to avoid, even during the day, but the tide had turned. Young entrepreneurs, who took the slogan ‘rainbow nation’ seriously and applied it in practice, had breathed new life into these districts.

  Dingane ordered two kudu pies and two large mugs of organic beer, and they sat down at one of the big tables right outside the Hut, to keep an eye on the Cressida.

  ‘What should we toast?’ Paul asked.

  ‘The wisdom of Ubuntu,’ Dingane said.

  ‘Here’s to Ubuntu,’ Paul replied. ‘Humanity towards others.’

  After a few welcome gulps of beer, Dingane gave him a serious look. ‘You never told me how you originally got involved in the Nkoane case.’

  ‘That’s because you’ve never asked me.’

  ‘I’m asking now.’

  ‘My father spent years researching how the Soviet Union tried to spread its Communist ideology around the world. I can assure you that there would not have been an armed black struggle in South Africa without an enormous amount of Russian weapons and money. In other words, without the former Soviet Union, there may not have been an ANC, and without Khrushchev, Mandela might never have become the President of the country decades later. The arms trade between Russia and South Africa is as old as the ANC itself. In that respect, nothing new under the sun. But when President Potanin announced during an official three-day visit to South Africa several months ago that the cooperation between the two countries would be strengthened, I knew there was more to this. In fact, it’s about the exchange of nuclear fuel and technology for large-scale energy projects. As the most important presidential candidate, Jacob Nkoane might someday come in handy for future deals with Russia. There were rumours about secret deliveries of weapons. I’ve spoken to sources behind the scenes who have confirmed that Lavrov lined Nkoane’s pockets with bribes. The Citizen dared to publish the story.’