CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sam was quiet and went to bed straight after dinner. Juba was back from his conference so Clem disappeared next door; I watched Sons of Anarchy and went to bed.

Sam was still looking depressed in the morning.

'Sorry ladies, I'm just feeling frustrated. Every time we close a lead we find ourselves up against a brick wall. Whoever is behind this is leading us down the garden path all the time and has the most extraordinary luck with other people widening the gap for them.'

'Yes and no,' I said. 'There are a few mistakes that have been made; firstly, there is John letting the cat out of the bag with details of Brian's adoption, which no one else knew. Something smells there. Once we have sight of the records the motive may expose itself.

Secondly, Arendse panicking and running off will be a serious problem for the masterminds. He obviously omitted vital information for a reason and when we catch up with him, he may just be the catalyst to wrapping up the case; we need to get to him before they do.

I am comfortable that all three boys are still alive but I think that someone is going to get them out of the country soon now, I just can't figure out why and how.'

'Talking about the adoption,' Sam said. 'I received the details from John last night, it matched those that his wife gave us yesterday. The problem is that I googled the name and it doesn't seem to exist. I've made an appointment with the former head of the social welfare who was in the saddle when Brian was born. We are meeting her at the retirement home where she lives at eight-thirty.'

We put the address into our Garmin and half an hour later were sitting and having tea with Linda Evans, a very refined upright-looking senior citizen. I estimated her to be in her late sixties. Sam had filled us in on her credentials on the way to the home. She had been with social welfare since she left university and had worked herself up to the top position ten years before she retired. She had been on retirement for five years; one year after Brian had been adopted. She was highly rated and passionate about her job. The social welfare monitored and accredited all adoption agencies in the country so she might be able to lead us in the right direction.

'Mrs. Evans, thank you for seeing us on such short notice, we are enquiring about the Lady with the Lamp adoption agency.' Sam then methodically took her through the steps that led us to her.

'The agency was set up by a couple, Ivor and Elise Arendse,' she began, 'who started it in the early nineties after their adoptive son George left the home to further his studies. They were close to retirement and wanted to give something back to society as well as staying busy at the same time. I was involved in the accreditation process; it is not easy to start an agency in this country. There are many hoops to jump through and I will not bore you with those details. Suffice to say that the Department of Social Welfare keeps a tight rein on things which of course it should.

Over the years the agency sailed through the stringent audit reviews and we received many compliments from parents who had successfully adopted a child. The adoption process is laborious so any parent who finishes the marathon deserves the prize at the end of the rainbow. They'd become frustrated with the process at times and would complain to us, mistakenly thinking that the agency was the problem, which was seldom the case. We received few complaints about Lady with the Lamp.

Tragically Ivor and Elise were killed in a car accident two years before I retired. They were coming home from a Valentine's Day dinner and a drunk driver in a Mercedes Benz lost control of his vehicle on the opposite side of the highway just before the Beyers Naude off-ramp. He rolled his vehicle which veered onto their side of the highway straight into the unfortunate couple. They were killed on impact. He was drunk and of course survived but did receive a five year jail sentence. Five years for taking two lives, it was a good deal for him. Our justice system, with all due respect, never serves the interests of the victim.'

'Amen to that…' Sam and I said in unison.

She smiled and continued. 'George, the son applied to take over the agency and we approved the transition provided he kept the staff that had worked for his parents. I started to become worried when, one by one, they resigned and for the first time they received a qualified audit. I interviewed George and told him we were unhappy with the situation; he was extremely aggressive and defensive and accused the auditors of incompetence. I agreed to review the auditor's files but they were impeccable. I sent a note to George informing him that a follow-up audit would take place six months later and that the accreditation would be revoked if the agency received another qualification. He laughed and told me that he was closing it down that week and would send me the necessary documents. I received them the following week and we delisted the agency from our accreditation records and placed an advert in all of the national newspapers to that effect. He returned all of the records to the department as requested.'

'What did this George Arendse look like?' Sam asked.

She described our lost detective; maybe the fog would clear at last.

I couldn't help thinking that when I retire I would like to be as alive and alert as this lady was, no wonder she held the top job for so long.

Sam asked her if she could set up an appointment for us to see the details of the adoptions for the year in which Brian had been adopted.

'My dear young man,' she said beaming, much to our amusement. 'Have you not entered the technology age as yet? I suggest you do, I am still a director of the Department. I will contact them and they can scan the documents to me, I will help you decipher the information. Like any profession we use acronyms which you may struggle with.'

I could swear Sam blushed; he avoided our eyes so I was probably right. It was difficult to tell with him.

While Linda contacted the Department, Sam called the SAPS HR department.

He switched on the speaker phone so that we could all hear the conversation.

'Sally, please call up the personnal file for a George Arendse based at Honeydew police station.'

He waited a few minutes for her to confirm that she had opened the file on the system.

'Right, now go to his CV and check where he stated he worked in 2000 and 2001.'

'It says he worked at the Lady with the Lamp Adoption Agency.'

'After that?'

'He joined the police academy, obtained good marks from what I can see and graduated with distinction.'

'Thanks Sally.' Sam rang off. No doubt that George from the agency and our George were one and the same, this was a major breakthrough. Linda's computer started to spew out pages as we finished with Sally. There were three pages. Not much activity in the last year leading up to Brian's adoption.

We sat around her dining room table and analysed the information, Brian was the last adoption. We all grinned simultaneously when we saw the second last entry. Jonathan Manning. We gave each other high fives much to Linda's amusement; this was the link we had been looking for.

'Help us with the information here please Linda; what does DOB stand for?' Sam asked.

'Date of birth… and guess what? They are the same for both boys,' I said. 'Good heavens, they're twins!'

'Why didn't Jackson notice they were twins though?' Clem asked. 'He was one of the people who saw them together.'

'I can answer that,' Linda said. 'They were fraternal twins; do you see the 'ft' next to the birth dates? That indicates fraternal twin.'

'What the hell is a fraternal twin?' Sam said in bewilderment. 'I thought a twin was a twin and they all looked alike?'

'The ones that look identical are exactly that, Identical Twins,' Linda explained. 'They develop from a single fertilised egg that splits whereas fraternal twins are developed from two different eggs fertilised by two different sperm cells. Did you know that over two thirds of twins are fraternal? You think that identical twins dominate because they stand out so clearly but they are just far more noticeable.'

'Wow,' Clem said. 'I've also learnt something. Do they have the same father? Sorry stupid question, I know.'

'There's no such thing as a stupid question. Yes, they have the same father although there have been rare cases of women producing twins from different partners,' she said slyly.

We could have asked ourselves why we weren't alerted to the fact that Jonathan Manning had been adopted but that was such an easy one. Georgie-boy had not recorded the fact! We would check with the Manning's but there will be no doubt they had told him.

'Last question Mrs. Evans, and then we will leave you in peace,' Sam said triumphantly. 'Who were the blood parents?'

'That unfortunately is where I have to burst your bubble and I am sorry to do so because it is obviously information vital for solving the case. The blood parents are entered into a secure database which is separate from the rest of the information, for obvious security reasons. We will only open that database on a court order. The information is entered electronically, only one person at the agency is allowed access and receives a user ID and a unique pin number; they can only enter information and have no read or edit rights available to them.

When our administrator received the documents from George on closure of the business, she noticed that the database had not been updated. She contacted George but he had disappeared. I retired shortly after that and I guess it got lost in the transition as the administrator left more or less at the same time. We have absolutely no idea who the parents were.'

'I knew that it was too good to be true,' Sam said. 'Nothing easy about this case.'

'One thing that puzzles me,' I asked. 'Why did they split the twins; surely that is not standard practice?'

'No, it is not. There has to be exceptional reasons for splitting twins and we will only do it for fraternal twins. The Area Manager at the time was fired as soon as we had found out that they were adopted by different parents. George had cleverly altered the birthdates of one of the boys when the adoption was submitted to our Board for approval. The original certificate, if you find it, will show the incorrect date. I do not know which boy's certificate was altered. The process had been finalised once we found out what had happened and we did not want to get into a protracted court case so we let it slide. We were harsh on the Area Manager, she was young and inexperienced and George was just too sharp for her. It was one of my few regrets in a long and satisfying career. I found out where she was working after I had retired and apologised. She has just qualified as a Chartered Accountant, she was over the moon when I apologised and keeps in contact with me. You can fix mistakes of the past if you have the courage to swallow your pride.'

We would have to find George to find out who the blood parents were and I had a feeling that this would prove to be a challenge.

'One last question, is there any way that we can find out who was working for George when he closed the company down?' I asked.

'Of course.'

She made the phone call and two minutes later her computer gave birth to one more page, she looked at it and handed it to me. It had one name on it; Edith Bandia, her job title was tea lady. Edith was working for one of the other agencies which were based in Johannesburg.

'This may help,' she said. 'We always underestimate people in these types of jobs. One of my auditors says that he starts his audit by having tea with the tea lady, two hours later he has completed twenty percent of the audit report. They are the unnoticeable and we tend to forget that they see and hear everything. People are careless in their presence with what they say and do.'

'I have learned that as well through experience,' Sam said. 'When we have a domestic situation we go straight to the helper, they will tell you exactly what has been going on in that household; people would cringe if they knew what people in the townships knew about them through the domestic workers. We will definitely talk to Edith. Mrs. Evans, you have been a great help,' he added. 'I've learned a lot from you this morning; we retire our senior citizens far too early nowadays. The youth thinks that it has the market cornered for 'knowledge and clever' but they forget wisdom which is far more valuable and more difficult to accumulate over the years.'

We contacted Edith and she was happy to speak to us.

When we arrived at the agency we found out that Edith had been identified as having potential way beyond what is required by a Tea Lady and through training, had worked herself up to assistant manager. She was in her thirties, attractive, well dressed in traditional garb and had an easy smile which automatically drew you to her.

We told her about our meeting with Linda Evans and that she had suggested we should talk with her.

'An amazing Lady that one,' Edith said. 'She is the one who insisted that the department put me through a battery of psychometric testing; she calls me once a month to find out how I am progressing.'

Another brownie point for Linda, she had not mentioned any of that to us.

'The Arendse's were fine people, very humble and totally committed to placing the right children with the right people. Mrs. Arendse was a mentor to me and piqued my interest in the profession.' 'She is the one who introduced me to Linda. Mr. Arendse treated me as an equal right from day one. I am totally indebted to them.'

'George on the other hand, was not a nice person. He treated me with disdain and was extremely rude and obnoxious. Mrs. Arendse told me once that when you adopt a child you have no idea how that child is wired and sometimes you land up with one that does not appreciate the second chance that they have been given; you chose a snake and find out when it is too late how much venom it has.

Just after the twins were brought in for adoption, George announced that he was closing down the agency. The agency was running at a loss since the tragic death of his parents, due to his attitude. People just did not want to deal with him after their first visit, and the other staff members were told to go immediately. I was told to stay on until the office had closed to help with the transfer of all of the documents and files to the Department. The day after the other staff had left, an elderly gentleman came to see George, and I could see that they already had past dealings. A few days later the elderly man returned and I heard him say to George that his son was refusing to sign the documents. George told him not to worry, he could fix it.

After he left and while I was cleaning George's office later, I noticed a number of documents on the table and took a peek.'

She looked at us with embarrassment.

'It was the first time I had ever done that but I just had an uncomfortable feeling about the situation. The documents related to the adoption of two boys; twins. I just remember the one name, Brian, because my son's name is Brian. There was a set of documents for Brian and one for the other boy on the table which I found odd. Normally twins are a package deal, but it had happened once before just after I joined so I did not dwell on it. The agreement for the boys to be adopted had been signed by the parents and I noticed that they had been born out of wedlock. There was a death certificate for the mother as well, which shocked me. I only remember the name Christine, I cannot remember the surname. The hospital was the Brenthurst Clinic in Parktown. I heard the car returning and quickly put the documents back as they were. I never saw the elderly gentleman again and the people who adopted the boys never once came to the office.'

I reported it to the area manager, Judith Tsabalala, who is not with the company anymore. She told me that she knew about the adoption and everything was in order. She did tell me though that the death certificate could not have been for the mother as George would have mentioned that. I'm still convinced that the death certificate was for the mother, why would he hide that? She had obviously signed the forms before she died.'

'Unless it was a forged signature?' Clem said.

She nodded, 'Could very well have been.'

It was late afternoon so we returned home; it had been a very informative day, we had a lot to chew on.

Once we had settled down with a drink and some snacks that Clementine had magically conjured up, we started to brainstorm.

'George is involved in this up to his eyeballs,' Sam said.

'I agree,' I said. 'He knew about the adoption and interviewed both set of parents; he withheld the information from us. He knew we would find out about it, that's why he disappeared. I sms'd Jonathan's mother on the way home and she has confirmed that she told him that Jonathan had been adopted. There is something strange about that adoption; we have to find out what that is. We also need to find out if Brendan was adopted, that's the one thing that bothers me, I can't find a link.'

Juba arrived just as we were wrapping up; he wanted to take Clementine out for a meal.

'She has a curfew,' I teased. 'She has a long day ahead tomorrow and must be back by ten.'

Juba grinned. 'Sure thing ma'am, I will have her back on time.'

'And no hanky-panky!'

'Can't promise that, she's a wild one!'

Clem smacked him on the arm and they left.

 Sam and I went to bed; it had been a long day, we had another session with Jenny tomorrow. Sam would drop us off and do some groundwork on George and contact the Brenthurst Clinic to see if they had any records of Christine's death.

I had a strange dream and woke up flustered, most unusual for me. I normally slept like a log and dreams were few and far between. I could not remember much except someone singing Handela over and over.

At breakfast I told Sam and Clem about my dream.

A thought appeared out of nowhere. 'I might be far off base but maybe we should follow it up,' I said.

The one thing that I have found strange is the fact that the two twins went out of their day care centres so willingly. We know from Matumi that Brian's face lit up when he saw whoever had come to fetch him; someone else had mentioned that when they interviewed Jackson, the Scout Master, every boy's face lit up when they saw him.

 I sent Mary Manning, Jonathan's mother, a message earlier on to ask her if Jonathan was one of those children who favoured the letter 'h' in his speech. Some children would say for example Happle for apple. She not only confirmed that he did that but he also had an unusual habit of putting an 'n' after the 'a', so he would actually say Hanpple.

That got me thinking; if you removed the letters 'h' and 'n' from 'handela', you land up with 'adela'. I looked up scouting terminology to find that the word Akela is used to describe the leader of the Scouts pack being a symbol of wisdom, authority and leadership. Akela would look after him; he was expecting Akela that afternoon. Jackson is Akela.'

Clem looked at me in astonishment. 'You are scary,' she said. 'I would never have worked that out.'

'Fantastic Casper!' Sam applauded, 'I think you've hit the nail right on the head and it makes perfect sense. I will drop the two of you off at Jenny's; I have a lot of homework to do. Send me an sms when you're finished, I'll come by and fetch you.'

Thuli waited until we had had our tea and scones, Jenny's scones were to die for.

She looked at Jenny who nodded for her to start.

She put her head in her hands, looked down at the floor and began.

'I am six years old – it's 1974. My Dad, Mom, myself and my two brothers are sitting around the table having dinner in our home in Dobsonville. The door bursts open, five white cops. They are all huge. They have rifles trained on us; one of them pulls my father out of his chair. Another grabs my mother and pushes her against the wall, my father tries to intervene. They club him on the head with the butt of the rifle, he goes down moaning. My eldest brother tries to take a swing at the cop who hit my dad; one of the others backhands him, he goes down like a stone. I am too scared to say anything, it is all so surreal. It is as if I am watching the scene from afar. Two of them pick my father up from the floor and carry him out to the police van, my mother starts screaming. Our neighbours have heard the commotion, they start gathering at the gate of our house shouting obscenities about Boers. One of the policeman fires shots into the air, they run in all directions. I start screaming, watching the van disappear around the corner. It would be the last time I would see my father, we are all inconsolable. The neighbours return and stay with us until dawn, we find out later in the truth and reconciliation committee hearings that he was taken to Vlakplaas where he was tortured and finally murdered by the Apartheid hit squad. The worse part of it is that the squad consisted of whites and blacks. Our own had betrayed us. My Dad was a senior member of the ANC; he was a peaceful man who abhorred violence. He just wanted us to live in a normalised society, my mother had to support us until I was old enough to go and work. She was a nurse at Baragwaneth hospital, she earned a pittance. She insisted that we all complete our studies, we went hungry many nights but we all finished school; our father believed that education was the key to success. My two brothers went on to become doctors. I met Dingane shortly after Matric and we were married, he had a lucrative scrap yard business, he wanted me to stay home and look after the children. He also came straight out of poverty and we both vowed that we would never return to it.'

She kept silent for a few minutes, no-one breathed.

'I am home. My beautiful home in Bryanston; seven bedrooms, large kitchen, huge lounge and entertainment area, Olympic size swimming pool and Lapa to die for. Jacuzzi, under floor heating, our furniture was hand-made oak. We have every utensil and gadget you can think of, our years of suffering are long gone. We have just returned from a cruise around the Norwegian Fjords, it is our tenth overseas trip, no expenses spared. I have a Mercedes sport; Dingane has a TT and a Harley Davidson. Our two children attend school at St. Stithians, we are living the dream life. Dingane has a huge job, well respected. Everyone looks up to us.

The front door bursts open. My God, I am back to the past. Ten Hawkes rush in, rifles aimed at me and my two children, they are shouting for Dingane. He appears from the bedroom where he has been sleeping. bewildered and scared. What is he scared of? He hasn't done anything wrong? They read him his rights and leave with him in one of the five vehicles they came in. I shout to him that I will send our lawyer to the charge office straight away. I phone him and he confirms that he is on his way and that I must stay at home with the children. He will catch up with me later; the rest of the morning is a daze. I wait anxiously for Richard; he arrives and takes me into the study, he tells me that Dingane has been charged with tender fraud. He approved a number of tenders for his friend Jake, who has a construction business. Tenders were granted at inflated prices, Jake and Dingane shared the spoils. Jake has turned state's evidence; Dingane has admitted to him that he is guilty.'

'How do you feel now?' Jenny asked quietly. 'I'm sad, angry, furious, and homicidal. I cannot believe that he has done this to us, I want to cry but I can't. That is how angry I am, my Cinderella world is falling apart. I know that he is in trouble; he had a fall-out with the Deputy President recently, he is not in favour. If he was, everything would be brushed under the carpet; now he will be hung out to dry.'

She stopped, sobbing gently.

'Tell the group what happened after that,' Jenny said.

'He was hung out to dry,' she said softly. 'Fifteen years; he may be paroled in seven if he is lucky. Our entire estate was sequestrated to pay back the money that was fraudulently siphoned off; I was left with the clothes on my back. My brothers clubbed in and bought me a small home in Darrenwood, they also gave me funds to get my life back on track. I started a small export/import business with the money; I source clothes from China and sell them to the retail giants. We are back to having a decent lifestyle, God has been good to me. St. Stithians were wonderful; they gave my two children a full bursary to continue their schooling.'

'What about Dingane?' Clem asked.

'He has two years left for parole; he is a model prisoner and has set up a legal help group for the prisoners. He is a qualified lawyer. He has apologised to me over and over again and he keeps telling me that he just wanted the best for us. I had never taken notice of our finances, I had no idea what was going on.'

Her voice became stronger.

'I have told him that I will wait for him and that I love him, I will always be his wife. We have agreed that when he gets out he will join the business as a partner and we will manage the finances together. I know that he has learnt his lesson, he will never take a chance again.'

'How do you feel now?' Jenny asked

'I can't help thinking that I should have known what was going on, an MEC could never earn the money that Dingane was bringing in. I think that I closed my eyes to it, I was entitled. I'd had a deprived childhood through no fault of mine or my family and society owed me.'

'In many ways that is true,' Jenny said. 'Apartheid did deprive the vast majority of black people; you were entitled to claw back some of what you lost, you must never slap yourself on the wrist for enjoying a good lifestyle if you have worked for it. You thought that you and Dingane had worked for your money like you are doing now. I personally respect people like Dingane who took his medicine like a man, learned a valuable lesson and turned his back on corruption. Too many people worldwide get away with corruption every day and if they are caught, it is everyone else's fault, they never change their ways.'

'I agree,' I said. 'You know Thuli, I have the greatest admiration for you for standing by your man; he made a mistake. We all do but he has not only owned up to it, but made it right with what he is doing in prison. Many women would have been eternally bitter and would have left him.'

The other girls all nodded in agreement, stood up and hugged Thuli. You know what the most important lesson I learnt was? You can not only have too little money in life but also too much. I love my three bedroomed home; I found that I never needed a Jacuzzi, it just attracts bacteria and nude bodies anyway and man did I see some awful bodies in my Jacuzzi in my time.'

We all laughed. 'You don't need all the trappings of luxury to be happy, I would give up everything just to have Dingane back and lying next to me, holding me in bed. I love my business and I thank God every night for my children who stood by me every inch of the way. They love their father and can't wait for him to be back with us. My brothers have also been marvellous; they both make good money but live such simple lives, they are devoted to their profession. They do house visits, which is unheard of today. They do not send out accounts, their patients pay what they can afford; they turn no-one away. It was only when I came down to earth that I realised that the perfect role models were right under my nose. Dingane agrees and has apologised to them for belittling their way of life in the past.'

'Have you beaten the devil?' I asked

'Yes, I think so,' she said. 'My biggest problem is that I firstly blamed all of the whites for my problems, this group has made me realise that there are bad people in every race group, we tend to generalise. When I first met Joan, I thought that she was just another racist white bitch, she turned out to be anything but and people from my own racial group destroyed her and her family. My children don't see race, they see people, which leads into my second problem; blaming Jake for Dingane's jail sentence. My children told me not so long ago that there will always be good and bad people in this world, Dad is a good person because he accepted that he made a mistake and has turned his life around. Uncle Jake is not a good person because he has never accepted that he made a mistake, we're lucky we have Dad.

I had just not turned the coin over; Dingane was guilty, it didn't matter what happened to Jake. Someone once told me that corrupt people who get away with it live hell on earth, don't envy what they have. They know that they don't deserve it and so does everyone else. Who wants to live like that?'

Amen to that, I thought.

'You are blessed Thuli,' Jane said passionately, 'and you deserve it. Give your children a big hug from this group.'

'Next week is our last session and Shirley, we look forward to it.'

My stomach tensed, it would be hard but it had to be done.

'We will decide where to after that.'

'If you think you are getting rid of us,' Thuli said, 'forget it girl, it's not going to happen.'

We all laughed and clapped at the same time.

I sms'd Sam and he picked us up half an hour later.

'I have been a busy bee ladies,' he said proudly. 'While you were having your tea party, I found out that first of all, Brandon is not an adopted child so we still sit with that puzzle and secondly a lady, Mary Benson, did pass away three days after giving birth to her twins, Brian and Jonathan at the Brenthurst Clinic; she was an unmarried high society call girl.

She knew she was dying and signed the adoption papers in the presence of the nursing sister on duty, Martinique. She is currently the matron at the hospital. George gave her the papers to sign and Martinique was the witness. Mary refused to divulge the name of the father and the name was listed as unknown on the document. Martinique told me that a young man came to the hospital the day after Mary died demanding to know where the children were; he maintained that he was the father. Martinique showed him where the twins were and contacted George, who told her to ignore him. The young man had contacted him as well and had made the same claim, he pointed out that Mary had stated on her death bed, in front of Martinique that she did not know who the father was. There could be any number of men who could make the same claim due to her profession. He convinced me that there was no need for a DNA test and the following day two separate sets of parents fetched the boys. The appointments were made at different times, she realised then that neither set of parents knew that their son was a twin.

Thirdly, our friend George posted a letter of resignation from an internet café into Honeydew last night. We have also found out that he deposited a cash amount of hundred thousand into his bank account the day after he interviewed the Manning's; no-one knows where he is. We certainly have a consistent pattern of one hundred thousand rand bank deposits.

Fourthly, and here you need to hold onto your hat Sis; you hit the jackpot with Jackson. It is July holidays and he is away somewhere, no one knows where. I checked the criminal records; he has a juvenile record which is sealed. I managed to pull strings to find out what it contained and guess what? He was investigated for molesting a young boy of eleven; he was seventeen at the time. The parents declined to prosecute and he was put on probation, he was also suspected of molesting two other boys but that investigation went nowhere.'

My heart sank into my stomach; we could be looking for a paedophile ring after all.

*****