Chapter 19

The following morning the first thing I did was to phone Willem.

‘Hi Vince, you’re up and about very early. I didn’t expect to hear from you until you got back,’ I could hear the eagerness in Willem’s voice.

‘I have, what I consider is good news. I have found out where Jacques and Moira Fortuin are staying in Cape Town.’

‘How did you do that?’ he asked.

I told him the whole story, from the time that I went into Balduccis’ restaurant at the Waterfront until I heard them talking in front of the house in Camps Bay.

‘What a bit of luck that you went to the toilet when you did, and, well done for acting so quickly,’ he sounded impressed.

‘I had better give you the address now so as you can add it to the other details I have given you. Are you ready?’

‘Yes, go ahead.’

I gave him the details spelling the address out for him.

‘Do you still plan on returning to Europe this evening?’

‘That is still my intention. I will go back to Camps Bay today and have a scout around to see if there is anything else of interest, but I will definitely fly this evening.’

‘Have a good flight and well done,’ Willem sounded genuinely pleased.

‘Bye.’

I had my breakfast, collected my car from the car park and set off for Camps Bay to take another look at the house and see if I could pick up any incriminating evidence on my listening device.

In my elation at having found where the Fortuins were living, I had assumed that I would remember the route that I took the previous evening. I didn’t and got totally lost ending up beside the University. I set up my trusted Tom Tom and used it to guide me to the correct address.

What faced me here in Camps Bay was a totally different scenario as the house had occupants living in it, and they no doubt would be on the lookout for suspicious activity. I would have to be ultra-careful that I didn’t show myself. If Moira spotted me, she would recognize me and the game would be up.

I drove past the house and took the next turn right down a hill. At the bottom, I turned right again until I was immediately below the house. I was now on the side of a hill, with the house the Fortuins were staying in, on the top to my right. To my left I looked out over other houses to Table Bay and beyond to the Atlantic. From his elevated view, Jacques could see any vessel entering or leaving Cape Town harbour. Granted he would need binoculars if he wanted to see details on the vessel, but I am sure that he would have thought of that.

Between the street I was now on, and the back of the property, there was a piece of waste ground about fifty meters long that was quite overgrown. I could see a well-worn path that wove its way up the hill and seemed to terminate at a gap between two houses. As I was watching, a man appeared from between the two houses. He was accompanied by a large dog on a lead. Once he was in the patch of waste land, he let the dog off the lead, and the dog started to hare around, sniffing at everything. The man continued down the path. On reaching the road the man called the dog, and he set off down the hill to my left, through another gap in the row of houses below the road. Clearly this was a route used by the dog walkers of the area.

I reckoned that if I could walk up the path as far as the back of their property, I could probably conceal myself in the long grass and small bushes that filled the left hand corner. I then would be able to point my listening device at the rear of the house while still concealed from sight. Looking from my position on the road, there wasn’t any obstruction between my proposed hiding place and the house. Whether I would be able to hear anything, was another matter and could only be proved by taking the device up there.

To be on the safe side, I decided that I had better find an escape route, just in case things went wrong, and I needed to get away in a hurry. It was lucky that I had the foresight to check a route out, as, when I took what looked like a main road, I came to a dead end after about 500 meters. I retraced my route and found that if I had turned left down the hill instead of going straight, there was a main road that went back to Cape Town by the coast. Satisfied I had an escape route, I went back to my spot on the road below the house.

I spent an additional twenty minutes just sitting in the car before I felt that I knew enough about the area to put my plan into action. I could see some activity inside the house, but they didn’t come out and stayed inside what I presumed was the kitchen.

One last look around convinced me there was no dog walkers about. I got out of the car, grabbed hold of the listening device and started walking up the hill. I left the path near the top and moved towards the spot that I had picked to hide in. Pushing my way through the long grass and bushes, I managed to get right up close to the rear fence of the house. I was invisible to anybody using the path, and also it was impossible to see me from the house. The only problem I now had was that it was so quiet that the voices coming from the listening device would disturb the peace and would probably be heard by someone casually walking on the path. With this problem in mind, I had a good look at the device. It must be a problem that users frequently faced. I was right, and I found that it was possible to set it on record and to switch the sound off.

I had a look around me and saw that nobody was currently using the path, so I switched the sound back on again to make sure that I was, in fact, picking up voices from the house.

‘I want to go to the shops this morning Jacques; do you have time to take me?’ I heard Moira’s voice eerily close.

‘We really must go and get your car from Hermanus so as you can come and go as you wish,’ Jacques replied. ‘I know that you hate driving the Merc as it is so large,’.

‘Perhaps you will have time to take me at the weekend,’ Moira suggested.

‘I will drive you down there on Saturday, and we can also give the house an airing. It has been shut up for over three weeks by now.’

‘I’d appreciate that as I hate not being mobile and I have things to do next week that I will need a car for.’

‘I have to go to Jo’burg next week for meetings so you will be on your own here for a few days and I will be leaving my car at the airport. I have to get a number of things out of the way before Caas gets here.’

I was so wrapped up in listening that I had forgotten to switch off the sound. Waking up to my mistake, I hit the button and went into silent mode.

Presumably, the Caas being referred to here was Caas Teifel the dealer from Rotterdam and skipper of the Belle Diamant. I now had another piece of the jigsaw to fit into my puzzle. Jacques Fortuin was undoubtedly part of the whole set up and my assumptions were now being proved correct.

It was a bit disconcerting not being able to listen to the conversation. I wasn’t able to check I was actually recording something, but I just kept the device running until I heard a car start up. Peering through the fence I could see the Mercedes being driven out of the property. I switched the device off and decided that I probably had enough recorded to have made my sojourn in the grass worthwhile.

I heard a noise of something swishing through the grass and the next I knew there was a cold nose touching my arm. I jumped in surprise which had the effect of causing the dog to bark.

‘Assegai, what is it?’ the dog’s owner called out coming over to investigate what was going on.

I stood up and moved out of the bushes, giving the man quite a surprise.

‘What are you doing here?’ the man asked me, still in a state of shock.

‘If you like to put your dog on its lead I will tell you,’ I replied thinking hard as to what I was going to tell him.

‘You are not going to attack me, are you,’ he asked as he slipped the lead onto the dog’s collar, keeping the dog between him and me.

‘No, you are 100% safe. I am only doing reconnaissance for the police. Here is my ID,’ I said, taking my wallet out and flashing my old service card which I still had in my possession.

‘What are you looking for,’ he asked, taken in it appeared by my ID and story.

‘We had a report of suspicious activity from a resident of those houses up there.’ I pointed at the houses above where we were standing. ‘They reported that they were convinced that there was a member of Al Qaeda staying here, and I have been trying to find out if it is true. You see this device; well it is able to pick up conversations up to 100 meters away.’

‘Wow, that’s amazing. Fancy a member of Al Qaeda living in this area.’

‘It’s extremely important that you don’t tell anybody that you met me. We don’t want to cause alarm do we?’ I emphasised to him.

‘No, I can see that, and thank you for explaining to me what you were up to,’ he said moving off with his dog.

I retreated to my car thanking my lucky stars for my ability to create a believable story even when unexpectedly sniffed and licked by a dog. I returned to Cape Town by my prepared escape route gaining the safety of the multistorey car park and my guest house.

Before I left that evening, I negotiated with Mrs Cronje that I could leave my various tools and the ladder in one of the sheds in the garden of the guest house. I told her that I would be back to stay with her for a while in about two weeks’ time. She was delighted that she would be getting more of my custom and said that it was a small price to pay for having one of her best customers back.

The flight to London gave me plenty of time to reflect on what I had achieved on my second visit to South Africa. My main aim had been to locate Jacques Fortuin and to find out where he and the diamonds were hiding. It had been a piece of good fortune that had helped me locate Jacques, but I also now had a firm connection between him and the yacht Belle Diamant. It was also essential that, as far as I could make out, they didn’t know that I was on to them. I thought it unlikely that the man with the dog would go knocking on their door telling them that were being spied on. I also hadn’t had time to listen to the rest of the tape that I had recorded with the listening device, so there was a chance that I might pick up some other information.

From an active army Major, I was now developing into a reasonable investigator. I felt confident that I was getting close to being able to provide Sir Montgomery Fortiscue the answers he was looking for, justifying the fee I was charging.