Clutching his cellphone, Mr Ramsamy accelerated through Stronghold Security’s exit boom, swerving to avoid a slow-moving silver Jeep outside the gate. He sped down Fredman Drive, following the familiar route back home, weaving between the lanes of slow-moving traffic, accelerating through lights as they turned red.
This, his important day at the office – the third and final of the three important days with their overseas visitors in attendance – would have to wait.
So would his plans to limit any damage that Pretorius might cause.
On the first morning, when Dutton and Powles had arrived, he’d excused himself from the boardroom and rushed back to Ms Anderson’s workstation. Stronghold’s computer system allocated guards to vehicles at random at the start of every working day in order to nullify any threat of collusion. The guards didn’t know who they would be working with or where they would be headed until their routes were assigned each morning.
This time, Ramsamy had broken his own rules and overridden the system, assigning Pretorius and the three most trustworthy and experienced guards to the same vehicle. In the company of these men, he was confident that Pretorius wouldn’t be able to get up to mischief. And he hadn’t. The day had passed without incident.
Later that afternoon he’d shown Anderson how to override the system. Shown her three times, patiently, bearing in mind she was only the admin assistant and not an expert in computers. The program he’d written was supposed to be idiot-proof. You didn’t need a degree in computer science to work it. Still, Anderson hadn’t been hired for her computer expertise. She’d applied for a job when they first took the company over and was subsequently hired because she was willing to work for a low salary and learn as she went along.
When she’d struggled to understand the procedure, Ramsamy had said that he would sit with her the following morning and run through it again.
Yesterday morning, to Ramsamy’s relief, Pretorius hadn’t shown up for work. Ramsamy had prayed that he’d be absent again today.
No such luck. After arriving fifteen minutes late, Pretorius had strolled into the staff room without offering so much as an explanation or apology. Ramsamy had planned to have harsh words with the guard and then go and help Anderson change the vehicle allocation. Instead, he’d received the call on his cellphone that was sending him speeding back home, everything else forgotten. Nothing was more crucial than the safety of his family.
Ten endless minutes later, he skidded to a stop in his driveway. A police vehicle was already there, and a guard from their local Neighbourhood Watch. His wife, his two sons and his daughter were standing by the gate, huddled together in a tight little knot a few paces away from the crumbs of glass twinkling on the brickwork, the only evidence that remained of the trusty Toyota Camry they’d bought three years ago.
When she’d phoned him, sobbing and shocked, Shireen had managed to reassure him that she and the family were unharmed. But Ramsamy hadn’t believed it until now. Until he saw his beloved wife and his precious children clinging to each other, tearful and trembling but alive and well.
In a few giant strides he reached them and, blinking back tears, gathered them into his arms.
‘I’m sorry, my love,’ he said to Shireen. ‘I’m so sorry this had to happen to you.’
‘It was so sudden,’ she whispered. ‘We backed out of the gate and they were there. Three guys, all with guns. I tried to drive away but they smashed the side window and pulled us out of the car.’
‘The man hurt my arm, Daddy,’ his youngest said, holding out her trembling limb for inspection.
He examined the smooth brown skin, wishing for a furious moment that he could kill the man who had touched his daughter. Rip him limb from limb.
‘Where does it hurt, my sweet?’
‘Everywhere. My elbow’s really sore.’
‘Do you need to go to a doctor?’
She sniffed. ‘I need you to rub it with some Deep Heat.’
‘I will,’ he promised.
The police radio crackled as the officer reported the hijacked vehicle. Shireen opened the gate and they went inside, into a house that suddenly didn’t feel like the safe family haven it had been. While his wife spoke to the police and filled in the statement form, Ramsamy made them all some strong, sugary tea.
He brought the mugs through on a tray. Then he fetched the Deep Heat from the medicine cabinet and gently massaged a small amount into his daughter’s elbow. The strong menthol odour filled his nostrils, and he wondered if he would recall this day every time he smelled it again.
‘What do you want to do?’ he asked his wife.
She cradled her mug in her hands, swiftly recovering her poise.
‘I think the children should go to my mother’s house today,’ she said. ‘I’ll phone the school principal and explain.’ She ruffled the younger boy’s hair. ‘You can miss a day of lessons. Nani will look after you and bake you a carrot cake. You can go back tomorrow and tell your friends what happened to you today.’
The children exchanged increasingly optimistic glances. Ramsamy guessed what they were thinking. Carrot cake, a holiday, and instant hero status when they returned to school. Perhaps some good would come out of this frightening event after all.
Shireen turned back to him. ‘I can’t go to work. We have a sales meeting today, but I’ll have to miss it. I must phone the gate people right away and get a locksmith out, because all the keys were in the car. And my handbag. I’ll need to cancel my cards.’ She sighed. ‘If you could take the children to my mother’s house, I’ll ask the security guard to stay here until the locks are changed. I’ll organise a hired car until we can sort out the insurance.’
He frowned. ‘Will you be all right? Do you want me to send a guard from the office, my love?’
She shook her head. ‘No. It won’t be necessary. It’s a big day for you, and you need all your staff there. I’ll be fine with our neighbourhood security.’
‘Do you want me to come back and stay with you after I’ve dropped the children off?’ he asked, taking her empty cup from her and kissing her on the cheek.
She looked up at him and for a moment he saw the truth in her eyes – that, yes, she was frightened and shocked. Yes, she wanted him to come back. But she shook her head again decisively.
‘You need to get back to the office. You’ve already been away too long. Anyway, we live in South Africa,’ she said. ‘These things happen. We must cope with them.’
He kissed her cheek again, wishing he could be as strong as she was. Then he called the children and left, locking the doors and looking anxiously around him as he drove out and headed down the quiet suburban road.
Nick drove out of Sandton and headed for the highway. He reached it without seeing any other police cars. His phone was still turned off, so Masondo wouldn’t have a clue where he was. The down side to this, of course, was that Nick couldn’t receive any calls.
So far, his hunt for Rachel hadn’t produced any results, but he knew where he should go next.
He needed to find out more about the elusive Jonas, the gangster with a criminal record and a prison history. Jonas had been driving away from Rhythm Town when the accident had taken place.
Nick was convinced that Jonas’s disappearance after the crash was somehow linked to Natasha’s murder at the hospital and also to the dead guard in his house. Natasha had asked him where her boyfriend was, and then she’d asked if she would be safe. Looking back, Nick had a feeling her questions had been related. Natasha had been involved with a criminal. Perhaps they’d been fighting when the accident had occurred. A violent argument could easily have caused the crash.
He remembered Masondo mentioning that Jonas had served time in Modderbee prison on the East Rand. Nick knew somebody there. His only prison connection, in fact. It was a long shot, but this connection might have known Jonas when he was inside, or known somebody who had known him. Perhaps Nick could learn where the gangster was now, or who his contacts were.
At the moment the evidence pointed rather troublingly towards him. He’d arrived at Jo’burg General hospital at around the same time Natasha’s throat was slit and the body of the guard, killed in exactly the same manner, had been found in his hallway.
If Nick had been a detective, he would have suspected himself, too.
He had to act quickly because he was becoming paranoid. He was starting to feel like a wanted man, as if the whole of Jo’burg knew he was on the run after the murder at his house. If he waited any longer, he’d probably be too worried about getting arrested at the prison to go there at all.
Nick headed south on the N3, and then peeled off onto the N12, heading east. Although the roads were still busy, most of the traffic was going in the opposite direction, from the East Rand towards Jo’burg’s CBD. The drive took him just over half an hour.
He pulled up outside the prison gates and stopped in the dusty roadside parking area. Modderbee was set in the flat landscape between Benoni and Springs, a country area dotted with mine dumps, clumps of grass and the occasional tree.
It had to be the most depressing place he’d ever seen. In stark contrast to its rural surroundings, the prison’s bleak face-brick buildings clung to the ground like a giant scab. It was surrounded by the highest chain-link and razor-wire fence he’d ever seen, an insurmountable barrier to freedom. Inside was worse. Nick hadn’t seen the cells, but he’d heard first-hand about their condition. Hideous crowding. One bar of soap per prisoner per month that had to be used for personal hygiene as well as laundry. Old, tattered blankets crawling with lice. Endless days, months and years of sitting idle with absolutely nothing to do.
Nick had been so wound up about finding Rachel and evading Masondo that he didn’t start to feel the old nervousness until he’d reached the visitors’ entrance.
In a queue that wound round two corners and back again, the wait felt like forever. At the door, a body search, checking for weapons and contraband. A female warder with garlic breath and a gold tooth took his ID book and paged through it, glancing at the photograph and scribbling down the number on a smudgy photostatted form.
She handed the book back to him.
‘Who you here to see?’
He indicated the name, prisoner number and unit number that he’d already filled in on the back of the form.
Nick didn’t sit down. There wasn’t any room on the crowded benches. Other visitors were sat on the floor. He stood by the door and waited another half hour before they finally called his name.
‘Nick Kenyon. You can go through to the visitors’ room now.’
A guard searched him again before he was allowed to pass through the security door. A chorus of voices emanated from the room. It smelled of dirt and sweat. An empty chair stood half-pushed back from one of the booths.
Nick pulled the chair closer and slid into it, resting his elbows on the table in front of him. Two steel wings on either side allowed them some privacy, but a screen of thick glass prevented any physical intimacy. A black phone receiver attached to a metal cable lay on the table. Like the glass, its surface was spattered with layers of dirt and spittle.
Nick picked up the phone, trying not to let its greasy mouthpiece touch his face. The man waiting behind the glass watched him, holding his own phone in a similar manner, the orange sleeves of his prison-issue overall pushed back and creased.
He had pale, sun-starved skin and large hands. Spiky eyebrows and pouched eyes. White stubble frosted a jaw on the way to losing its firmness. Unkempt grey hair curled over his collar. He looked at Nick without smiling, his expression unreadable.
Nick took a deep breath.
‘Hello, Dad,’ he said.