Angel in the Shadows Read online

  The two front car doors were swung open at the same time. The driver, clad in a black leather jacket and half hanging over the roof of the car, stared at Kovalev, while his mate opened the rear door.

  ‘Two men,’ Radjen said. ‘One stays beside the car. The other grabs the boy from inside the vehicle.’

  ‘How does Kovalev react to the boy?’ Esther asks.

  Radjen could see Kovalev freeze.

  ‘As if he’s transfixed.’

  ‘What happens next?’

  ‘The first man forces the boy into the villa. Kovalev follows them. After that …’

  ‘After that?’

  The images became blurry. It was almost impossible to pull them up in his mind and report on them at the same time.

  From the villa, a crisp muffled bang sounded and another followed shortly afterwards.

  ‘Two shots with a silencer, from somewhere in the hallway.’

  Radjen saw how the driver immediately grabbed for his weapon, walked around the car and fired twice when Kovalev came outside with the boy. The first bullet grazed Kovalev’s upper arm and chest. Without thinking, Kovalev pressed the boy against his body in an attempt to protect him.

  The second bullet, judging from the sound, lodged in the top of the doorpost. Kovalev took hold of the boy, kissed him, shouted something in Russian and gave him a shove in the direction of the woods. The boy ran towards the trees, while Kovalev tried to cover him.

  In the brief silence between the shots, the shrill screech of car brakes sounded.

  Followed by a distant and dull thump.

  It wasn’t much more than that.

  But to Kovalev’s ears it must have sounded horrifying. Because it came from the direction in which the boy had fled.

  In a fit of powerless rage, forgetting the need to take cover, he ran towards the vehicle screaming, while emptying his weapon into the driver, who had nowhere to go.

  By the time Kovalev reached the vehicle, the driver was on the ground. He was still moving a bit and mumbled something in Russian. Kovalev leaned over and shot him twice through the head.

  From the road came the sound of brakes again. This time higher pitched and more drawn out than the first time.

  Kovalev ran into the woods.

  Radjen was exhausted and let go of the images. Esther approached him.

  ‘It was a fucking rescue mission,’ he said.

  Esther gave him a burning cigarette, which tasted like her lips.

  ‘That’s why I wanted you to do this,’ she said.

  On the way to Zorgvlied Cemetery, she told Radjen why she’d sprung the surprise visit to the villa on him.

  ‘It was Kovalev who arranged the encounter, but, from the way he talked about Sekandar during his interrogation, it was as if something broke down inside him the first time he saw the boy. Kovalev must have known what was in store for Sekandar and made a rash decision on the spot. He wanted to save him. But he had to improvise. Kovalev let him get away, and that’s why Sekandar was hit by a car. And ironically enough, by the very person Sekandar was meant for.’

  ‘Tragic,’ Radjen said. ‘But I still don’t understand why that makes Kovalev an important link here.’

  ‘Between that night at the villa and the evening Diba bashed in his brains, a MICU was hijacked and, in a separate incident, a doctor killed. Kovalev was involved in both attacks and could be the link to Lombard too. That’s all being looked into at this very moment.’

  ‘By whom?’

  She threw him a stern gaze.

  ‘Laurens Kramer.’

  He felt his temples throb. ‘On whose orders?’

  ‘On my orders.’

  ‘So now, without consulting me, you got the cavalry involved.’

  ‘Hold on. Laurens is the only one who can help us here. I asked him to put everything aside today so that we –’

  He didn’t let her finish. ‘You went behind my back.’

  ‘You were passed out on my sofa.’

  ‘Ah, I get it. You spared me the trouble.’

  ‘No, I was just doing my job. Like we agreed.’

  ‘And what did we agree on? I just heard someone whining that ninjas share everything.’

  ‘The pot calling the kettle black. You go poking around a crime scene in the middle of the night, without informing me. And then you have the audacity to criticize me for bringing on board one of the best digital detectives the department has. Give me a break.’

  ‘I’m still your boss and you should have asked for my authorization.’

  ‘You don’t want to use that tone with me.’

  ‘It’s the tone of your superior.’

  She drove off the road on to the verge, slammed on the brakes, flung the door open, stepped out and slammed the driver’s side door. Above the noise and occasional honking of the other cars on the motorway, he could hear her swearing as she continued through the high grass alongside the road in the direction of the woods.

  Radjen watched her walk away, all in black, her hair tousled by the wind. He thought about getting behind the wheel, putting his foot down on the accelerator and leaving without saying a word. Getting away from everything he couldn’t come to terms with. Anything was better than getting out of the car, running after her and saying he didn’t mean what he’d just said.

  But that’s exactly what he did.

  She rubbed her face, ran her hands through her hair a few times and took a few deep breaths.

  ‘You’re an ungrateful mongrel, really. It’s true what they say.’

  ‘What do “they” say?’

  ‘You push the people who work for you to the brink, but once the case is closed, you quickly forget what they did for you. Because then you’re already up to your neck in the next case. You don’t give a damn about people. As long as you’re working on something and you can be the boss.’

  ‘That’s nonsense.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? Isn’t that exactly what’s happening now? I do something you don’t like and …’

  ‘No! It’s different with you. It’s …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean … I really enjoy working with you.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t show.’

  ‘It takes some getting used to, this.’

  ‘What do you mean by “this”?’

  ‘How you …’

  ‘Try finishing a sentence, man.’

  ‘How you … how I … well … Damn. I’m sorry, Es. Really.’

  He’d never felt so exasperated. And apparently it showed. Her angry eyes softened.

  ‘C’mon,’ she said, as she gave him a gentle shove towards the car. ‘It would certainly be a shame not to put that fine suit you’re wearing to good use.’

  11

  A few kilometres outside Johannesburg, the rain clattered on the roof of the Toyota Cressida. The ash-grey clouds hung so low around the mountains of mining debris that Paul felt like he was driving through an endless tunnel. No matter how firmly he clutched the wheel, his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. As quickly as possible, he tried to pass all the taxi vans, four-wheel drives and lorries crammed full of goods, but the bad weather on the busy four-lane motorway made these kinds of manoeuvres perilous.

  He glanced at Dingane, who was slouched in the seat beside him, heavily perspiring and wheezing. He had the blank look of someone who was half in another dimension. The dark-red stain on the right side of his shirt continued to grow in size.

  ‘I should take you to a hospital,’ Paul said.

  ‘I killed three men and a woman,’ Dingane muttered. ‘Two of them were probably PIU agents. I’d never leave a hospital alive.’

  After finding their way out of the high-rise flat via the stairs, Paul had needed to support Dingane, who’d barely been able to walk as they’d stepped over the lifeless bodies of the blue-suited man and his companion. Dingane had given Paul a quick recap of what had happened to him when they’d parted ways at the Hut. He’d waited for the Land Cruiser. When it passed him fo
r the third time, he decided to follow it on foot. This was possible only because the traffic had come to something of standstill. The man in the blue suit and his mate had finally parked the Land Cruiser in front of the building where Dingane had rescued Paul at gunpoint.

  The painted cooling towers of the coal power station in the South-Western Townships loomed in the distance.

  Paul drove across the bridge at the corner of Klipspruit Valley and Khumalo Street. They passed the stone statue of a little boy in an old-fashioned school uniform with a raised arm, smiling at everybody who came by. The statue had been erected as a memorial to the children who had died there in a 1976 massacre carried out by the apartheid regime’s riot police.

  Following Dingane’s instructions, Paul drove on from Khumalo Street, past the small houses – some made of stone, some of corrugated metal and discarded wooden pallets – and along the shebeens, those local pubs with their colourful façades, arriving finally at one of Soweto’s most famous spots, Vilakazi Street. The vendors, who usually had their overabundance of handcrafted souvenirs displayed for the many tourists who visited Soweto, had thrown large pieces of plastic over their wares. They were huddled under makeshift awnings, shivering and smoking cigarettes together. The tourists had found shelter in the many restaurants along the street or taken refuge in one of the museums, such as the former home of Nelson Mandela.

  At the corner of Moema Street and Vilakazi Street, Dingane indicated that Paul should stop.

  ‘You drive like an old woman,’ he said. ‘But at least you got us here.’

  Paul saw a house painted pink, surrounded by a white latticed fence, and noticed some movement behind the windows. Soweto’s busiest street didn’t seem like the most obvious choice for a safe house, but he knew Miriam Zhulongu had powerful friends. As a high government official, her husband had worked for the Ministry of Defence, and Miriam herself had worked for years as a doctor for the Tutu Foundation. It was Leah Tutu, the wife of the renowned Archbishop, who had taken Miriam under her wing after the violent death of her husband, which Paul had recently witnessed. It had been a deliberate choice not to send Miriam and her children off to some secluded hiding place, but to keep them right here in the public eye, under the protection of round-the-clock bodyguards. The idea was that the PIU wouldn’t dare to harass her again while she was living here, at least not for the time being.

  Two men came out of the house and approached the Cressida.

  ‘Are you going to be okay?’ Paul asked.

  ‘Don’t worry, they’ll arrange someone to patch me up,’ Dingane mumbled.

  Paul put his hand on Dingane’s left shoulder. ‘You saved my life. I don’t know how to thank you.’

  ‘A matter of Ubuntu,’ Dingane said. ‘You would have done the same for me, right?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ Paul said with a wink. Then he addressed Dingane seriously. ‘Take care of yourself.’

  One of Miriam’s bodyguards opened the door on Paul’s side. The other was already bent over Dingane, checking how badly he’d been wounded.

  Paul got out. He watched the car with Dingane and the guard until it was out of sight. Only then did he turn towards the house, where a woman was waiting for him in the doorway.

  Miriam Zhulongu was a tall, slender, attractive woman with high cheekbones, a sensual mouth and dark-brown eyes that radiated both strength and compassion. She had a natural grace about her, but her affable smile struck him as merely polite – maybe because he found her striking beauty rather intimidating. Her handshake was as firm as her gaze.

  The house was sparsely furnished. The table in the living room was covered with sheets of drawing paper, markers and crayons. Miriam showed him a drawing of a man, a woman and three small children. A family portrait of colourful stick figures with faces as round as pumpkins. He was struck by the large sun hovering over their heads.

  ‘They’ve made hundreds of drawings like this,’ Miriam said. ‘One after the other, with that sun overhead. It’s their way of coming to terms with their father’s death.’

  ‘I greatly appreciate that you want to do this,’ Paul said.

  ‘It was his express wish,’ Miriam Zhulongu said. She lovingly glanced at the drawing. ‘Colleagues and friends often remarked that Thaba was so serious, but when you saw him with our children … He was the funniest father in the world. And he was caring, so caring. I used to say, “You’re too kind for the world,” and then he’d laugh. “I’m not so kind,” he’d say, “it’s just that the rest of the world is basically unkind.” ’

  She gestured to the table, where they awkwardly sat down facing each other. She frowned.

  ‘I want to ask you something, Mr Chapelle, and I want you to answer me honestly.’

  ‘Of course, I will.’

  ‘You were there, for the last moments of his life.’

  Paul nodded.

  ‘What I want to know is … Was he already dead? Before they …’

  He looked at her in surprise, and for a moment didn’t know what to say. ‘Why do you want to know this?’

  ‘My husband was not a fighter, but he had his principles. He stood up for what he believed in. It cost him his life. Thaba was my hero. I want to know how my hero died.’

  Paul looked at her long and hard. In these kinds of circumstances he’d normally lie through his teeth. But this wasn’t a woman you lied to. Not telling her the truth would be tantamount to not taking her seriously.

  ‘They tortured him,’ he said hesitantly.

  ‘How did they do that?’

  He paused and tried to hide how ill at ease he felt. ‘They tied him to a pillar,’ he finally said. ‘They beat him repeatedly until he passed out.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘You mean did he tell them things?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can’t imagine. Otherwise –’

  ‘Otherwise what?’

  ‘They needn’t have kept beating him.’

  The silence that followed made them both uneasy; it lasted for an unbearably long time.

  ‘The government first tried to convince me it was suicide,’ she said.

  ‘That’s a lie.’

  She looked at him questioningly. Paul thought about how to give her a truthful version of what had happened that would be more bearable than what he’d witnessed in person. ‘They … pushed him,’ he said finally.

  She lowered her head and covered her face with her hands. Even now she looked elegant, but he realized it was a gesture of quiet desperation.

  ‘I’m so sorry that I had to tell you all this,’ he said, when she looked up again.

  ‘No, no, don’t be sorry.’ She placed her hand on his. ‘I wanted to know the truth and now someone has told me. I’m thankful to you.’

  ‘You must have loved him very much,’ Paul stammered.

  She smiled. ‘I still do. And I’ll continue to do so for the rest of my life. Alongside of grieving for him. If I no longer grieved for this great loss, then with Thaba’s death I would have also lost the capacity to love. It makes no sense to continue fighting what you cannot change. Contrary to what people think, I harbour no resentment against those who killed my husband. I just want the truth to come out.’

  No anger, no revenge. Somehow, Paul wasn’t even surprised by the fact that she felt this way. In her eyes, perhaps forgiveness was the most dignified form of self-preservation. Without forgiveness she would also fall victim to those who had killed her husband – and that would deprive her and her family of a future.

  ‘I want to raise my children as proud South Africans,’ she said, as she stood up.

  ‘That’s my mission. Yours is reveal to the public what my husband wanted to give you.’

  She went over to a cabinet and pulled out a jewellery box, from which she removed a USB stick and handed it to him.

  ‘Thaba gave me love, happy years and three beautiful children. I want them to grow up with what he taught them and showed them of
the world. I want them to grow up in a country that still holds the promises of equality that Mandela believed in. I want to make sure that my husband didn’t die in vain.’

  Paul stood there with the USB stick in his hands, feeling a bit anxious.

  Exposing the corruption of the soon-to-be South African President was no longer Paul’s priority. His objective was to expose the global criminal network Valentin Lavrov had masterminded. Thaba Zhulongu hadn’t died in vain, no. But he didn’t have it in his heart to tell Miriam Zhulongu that the main reason he’d come to see her was because he needed this new information to help a woman who was still tainted by suspicions of being a terrorist.

  A woman who meant more to him than he cared to admit.

  After he’d said goodbye to Miriam Zhulongu, one of her bodyguards took Paul to the trusted neighbourhood clinic where Dingane had been admitted. South Africa never ceased to surprise Paul. Thanks to widespread idealism, what had once been a local GP’s office had developed into a huge health centre with an HIV outpatient clinic, a radiology department and nutrition centres with vegetable gardens and a plant market.

  The bullet had gone straight through Dingane’s shoulder, said the nurse who escorted Paul to the room where Dingane was recovering from emergency surgery. Even though he’d lost a lot of blood, there was no irreparable damage to the bone or muscles.

  ‘You didn’t have to come visit so soon,’ muttered a pale Dingane, who was trying to use his laptop with one hand.

  ‘You didn’t have to save me,’ Paul replied.

  ‘Of course I did,’ Dingane said. ‘Matter of self-interest.’

  ‘So nothing to do with Ubuntu?’ Paul asked.

  ‘I suppose a bit of both,’ Dingane replied. ‘I got word on the identity of the woman I killed in the flat in Johannesburg. Natalya Yegorova. She was head of Lavrov’s security for a time. Expert in martial arts and Russian Pencak Silat champion.’

  Now Paul knew why this woman had looked so familiar to him. On Farah’s white board in Edward’s office hung a poster of the Pencak Silat Gala that had been held at the Carré Theatre; Natalya’s photo had featured prominently.