Death Dealing Read online

  Death

  Dealing

  IAN PATRICK

  Text copyright © 2015 Ian Patrick

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction and except in the case of historical fact any resemblance to any persons living or dead is coincidental

  Cover designed by RGS

  DEDICATION

  To my wife, my best critic and friend.

  OTHER BOOKS BY IAN PATRICK

  DEVIL DEALING

  GUN DEALING

  PLAIN DEALING

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Preface

  Chapter One: Friday

  Chapter Two: Saturday

  Chapter Three: Sunday

  Chapter Four: Monday

  Chapter Five: Tuesday

  Chapter Six: Wednesday

  Chapter Seven: Thursday

  Chapter Eight: Friday

  Chapter Nine: Saturday

  Glossary

  About the Author

  PREFACE

  This is the final in a series of four connected but stand-alone books. Each can be read as an independent self-contained volume. Or they can be read in sequence or out of sequence as four related episodes in which the central themes and major characters reappear in other episodes, the intention being to provide an overall organic and cohesive narrative for the quartet.

  The four individual volumes explore moral and ethical choices made by police in their day-to-day confrontation with rampant and brutal crime in contemporary South Africa. The texts are fictional but based on field research and the author’s physical exploration of the local environment, including actual locations where different events take place. Interviews were conducted with detectives and forensics experts both currently active and retired, and with local observers and participants, including victims of crime. The action aims for authenticity and plausibility, and strives to be resonant of conditions on the ground. The research included detective-guided tours of front-line scenes in the war against crime, and of police facilities, protocols and procedures. Actual events are reflected alongside fictive events, although all characters are fictional.

  In the thoroughly absorbing task of writing this book and its predecessor volumes over a few years, I owe an inestimable debt to many people. Some of them prefer to remain anonymous. Others have graciously allowed me to name them. To all of them I offer enormous thanks and gratitude.

  First and foremost in the ranks of people to whom I am grateful are my family. As much as I value reading, and however indebted I am to the craftspeople of literature throughout history who have instilled in me a love of words, I cannot find language that will sufficiently express my gratitude to my wife and my two sons. They have tolerated with great patience my frequent retreats into the silent joys of research and creative writing.

  The police detective who took me into KwaMashu in April 2015 to study some of his work on the front line, as he described it, had no idea that he would be taking me into the teeth of a dramatic xenophobic storm on that particular day. He allowed me to sit with him while we watched drug-dealers at work. He explained in meticulous detail exactly what was going down before my eyes, and how the team of children (for that’s what they were) played their individual roles in a sophisticated series of drug trades. We watched as the various role-players passed money and contraband on the street, as cars and motorcycles and pedestrians slipped past the youthful traders and quick sleight-of-hand saw packages and money being exchanged, unnoticed by most of the people passing in the road.

  After taking me to different locations to watch the kinds of crime that permeate society on many street-corners, it was time for the detective to return me to base. As he did so, we ran into a horde of people caught in the throes of massive protest. Violent action hit the streets and the country reeled in shock at what became media headlines for the following week about xenophobic violence. The detective ensured that I was returned safely to my base in Durban, and I wrote that night into the early hours of the morning, trying to capture the flavour of what I had seen that day. I begged my detective to allow me to identify him and thank him in print for his support, but he declined. Nevertheless, although he felt more comfortable remaining anonymous in this prefatory statement, he kindly allowed me to name after him one of my characters who appears in the second of my four volumes. I am pleased to pay homage to this extraordinarily helpful detective in this way, and I thank him for his time, dedication, interest, and unwavering commitment in the mammoth task of South African police work.

  I am indebted to many people for their willingness to correct my misconceptions, and to enable me to adjust some of the nuances in my writing in the interest of ensuring more authentic depiction of the day-to-day work of the police. Any remaining mistakes are entirely mine.

  I am grateful to Gerrit Smit for very helpful detailed conversations about police procedure and protocol. This ranged from day-to-day interactions among police both in the field and in the station office, to procedures and protocols and actions and behaviour at crime scenes. In particular he gave me wonderfully detailed descriptions about the work of police divers (who feature briefly in the third volume of this quartet).

  My thanks go also to Captain Saigal Singh. The enormous wealth of his experience as both a detective and forensics specialist were particularly exciting for me, having studied various courses on forensics and crime scene management in order more accurately to write certain scenes. It was illuminating to have him hold up a mirror of extraordinary reality to what I had until then only studied academically. I gained valuable insights from his frank and honest conversation about the emotional impact of their work on forensics investigators. His uninhibited discussion of these matters made an indelible impression upon me. I hope I have reflected his thoughts faithfully and honestly, particularly in this final volume.

  Penny Katz was helpful beyond any call of duty. Apart from referring me to front-line detectives she gave me insights into aspects of crime and policing that have proved enriching beyond what I had imagined possible. To interview victims of crime, and to go some small way toward understanding the pain and loss and trauma involved, has greatly affected my approach to research and writing. My personal experience of family trauma as a result of crime now plays only a background role in my writing, but Penny allowed me insight into facets of this experience that I greatly value.

  Some potential interviewees chose to decline my requests for interviews, and of course I entirely respect their choices in this regard. In one or two other cases, after initial readiness to participate the contact went cold and emails and phone-calls were simply ignored. I suspect that this was not unrelated to me mentioning that I would also be covering police corruption in my work. But even in those cases willing and helpful comments were received from people working in the very same offices as those who ignored my calls and emails.

  I extend grateful thanks, therefore, to many people, ranging from police Brigadiers to Detectives and Constables both retired and currently active, from victims of crime to forensic investigators, and from my family to friends and colleagues. Many of them don’t know exactly how helpful they have been to me even in brief communications or by referring me to other sources. Hennie Heymans, a retired policeman in Pretoria, has done extraordinary work in preserving the historical record on policing in South Africa, and he answered my questions promptly and with extensive knowledge of the past.

  For any shallowness, superficiality or mistakes that might remain in my text, I apologise to these sources. I offer the excuse that the act of writing transports me into realms of satisfaction and joy. Not a day goes by during which I do not marvel at my good fortune in being able to create characters both evil and understandable, or both fun-loving and deadly serious. I li
ve each day with them, exploring their thoughts and actions, enjoying their deviousness, their energy, their witty remarks, their preconceptions and multiple subjectivities, and the excitement of their lives. They frequently surprise me. Where on earth do they find the things they say to each other? How is it possible that these inventions of my imagination take over control of the creative process, elbow me aside for a moment, and entice me down paths that I had no intention of following? How is it possible that they can teach me so many things about my own preconceptions?

  I derive great pleasure from coaxing my characters out of the shadows and refining and polishing them in an attempt to reflect authenticity and plausibility. Some of them move me emotionally, and some of them are devilishly evasive and lying villains. But they all fascinate me and I carry them in my head even now, many months and in some cases years after they first appeared at my fingertips. I want to know what makes them tick, and I want to know their counterparts in real life.

  I have gone out into the field many times to find out more about my fictitious characters because I insist on plausibility and authenticity in fiction. Otherwise how will we learn about our lives?

  Ian Patrick, November 2015

  Thursday, 22.25.

  The ensuing discussion of local hijacking incidents and housebreaking and murder and armed robbery and grievous bodily harm and rape and disembowelment seemed to Ryder to provoke far more polite and gentle and rational conversation among his guests than had the subject matter of crime fiction.

  Death Dealing, Chapter 7

  1 FRIDAY

  17.50.

  Two burly guards were not enough to bring the screaming prisoner down the passage into the cell. He collapsed, shouting and kicking, and clung to the railings as they tried to prise him off and drag him to the gate. The warder cursed and called for another two men. He added, almost as an after-thought: and send a needle and some of the stuff to calm him down.

  The guards couldn’t prise the man’s fingers off the railings, so they sat on him and waited for the reinforcements. It was a matter of only minutes before two more men arrived in the company of a nurse. She was carrying her bag of goodies for troublesome prisoners.

  ‘I hope you have a double-dose in there,’ the warder said. ‘This bastard is causing grief.’

  ‘Triple-dose,’ she replied. ‘They told me it was Wakashe again. Or at least that’s one of the names he uses. Apparently they finally recorded his name on the file as Mofokeng, but I know the guy from this morning when he was still called Wakashe by one of the other prisoners who seemed to know him well. He’s a sneaky bastard. He’s been screaming and fighting all day since they brought him in. They handcuffed him to the fence outside from the moment he arrived, while they processed the others, so that they could hear themselves speak in the office. Then it took three men to bring him in from outside and make him stand still while they fingerprinted him. He was screaming that they had the wrong man and that it was the third time they had taken his prints. We told him he was having prints for the third time because his ten year sentence had just been changed to thirty years by order of his tribal chief.’

  ‘And he believed you?’

  ‘Yes. Idiot. For a few seconds. Time enough to get the prints done.’

  Throughout this exchange the warder watched as she opened her bag, took out the phials, prepared the syringe and got ready for the injection.

  ‘We could see from the moment he arrived that he was going to be trouble,’ she said. ‘I’ve been expecting this. That’s why I’ve made it a triple. OK, guys. Get him into the cell.’

  The two new guards wasted no time. One of them carried a short piece of metal piping in his hand. He gave the prisoner one chance only.

  ‘OK, Wakashe. Or Mofokeng. Or whatever you call yourself today. Are you going to let go now, or do you want your fingers smashed?’

  The prisoner responded by whimpering and adjusting his hands to make his grip on the railings even more secure. The warder nodded and the guard responded by smashing the pipe over the prisoner’s right hand, fracturing the second and third metacarpals. This immediately loosened his grip on the railing with that hand. The horror of the blow and the excruciating pain along with the piercing scream did not, however, lead to a loosening of the left hand. The guard looked again at the warder, received the nod, and immediately struck again. This time he broke the proximal phalanx in the left index finger and the distal phalanx of the left thumb. The prisoner screamed and let both hands fall to the ground. The man with the pipe then stamped on the left hand, adding a crushed carpus to the damage, along with screams that echoed down the corridor and burst into the holding area out front.

  ‘OK. That’s enough. Take him through. Looks like he won’t be having dinner.’

  The four guards obeyed the instruction from the warder, dragged the man into the cell, and threw him onto the bed. Two of them held him while the woman followed up promptly and thrust the needle into him. She pumped in the full contents of the syringe.

  They locked the cell door and the four guards started walking back down the passageway, the man with the iron pipe saying they had to get back to the east corridor to guard the dinner queues.

  ‘Thanks, men,’ said the warder. ‘See you later. Thanks very much,’ he added to the nurse. ‘Show only a single dose in your report, OK?’

  ‘Of course,’ she replied, and followed after the guards.

  The warder then addressed the prisoner, who was murmuring, weeping in agony, and trying to find some way of positioning his mangled hands to alleviate the pain.

  ‘You’ll sleep it off. If you’re lucky you might even have your hands set by the time you wake up. Idiot. When will you guys learn? Next time, you obey me when I give you an order, and you won’t get any bones broken. Next time we’ll use electricity on you. Understand? Then you’ll have something to scream about, my friend.’

  As the warder walked down the passage he caught, momentarily, the gaze of one of the two prisoners in the cell opposite the newly incarcerated man. It was only a very brief contact. This was a prisoner whose gaze had unnerved the warder when the man first arrived at the prison, and he now felt unnerved again. The guy’s eyes were weird, the warder thought. He did not pause but walked on down to the gate.

  Skhura Thabethe waited for the warder to turn the corner before he spoke to his new neighbour across the passage.

  ‘Hey. You hear me? Hey! Wena. You hear me?’

  ‘Yini?’ The man uttered his response from the deepest wells of pain. He couldn’t even focus on the direction of the voice that was addressing him.

  ‘You listen to me, wena.’

  The injured man raised his head and looked across. He saw two men in the cell opposite. He made eye contact with Thabethe, and immediately went silent. These were the eyes of an evil man, he thought, while shuddering in response to each of the agonising spasms from his hands. This was what he imagined the devil to look like. The eyes were like… what were they like? They were eyes that were not human. Red veins against a dirty yellow that was supposed to be where the whites of the eyes were. Eyes bigger than most eyes he had ever seen. And black in the centre. Big black holes in the centre. Holes that were like… nothing. Empty black holes. Staring at him.

  ‘What are you saying?’ The man spoke to Thabethe in Zulu, and Thabethe responded fluently in kind, although he had often said to strangers that isiZulu was not his mother tongue.

  ‘Listen to me. Quietly. They’ll come and take you to the hospital room, just down there. Maybe tonight, maybe in the morning, early. They’ll come for you. You want to get out of this place? We can help you get out.’

  The man was immediately on his guard. Through the searing pain he thought of stories he had heard of prisoners like this playing the newcomer, taking advantage of the naive new inmates and ripping them off. But he was in too much pain to entertain a dialogue with this man with the strange eyes. Whatever they had injected into him was beginning to take hold. He f
elt himself drifting. He knew that whatever they had pumped into his bloodstream was designed to put him down and out. He could feel the room spinning.

  Before he passed out he registered some of what the man with the eyes was telling him. Be careful of the warder and the guards. They use electric shocks on the prisoners in here. They drug the prisoners. Some prisoners have died. No guard has ever been arrested for the murder of a prisoner. We have to get out, or we’ll die in this place. When the builders finish the construction work outside in the new sector they’ll take us back to the crowded cells. We’ll have no chance there…

  And he half-registered some other strange things the man with the eyes was saying, about bicycles. No. Not bicycles. What had the man with the fixed stare said to him? Not bicycles…wheelchairs. There were three wheelchairs in the room where they fixed up the prisoners who were hurt. One of the wheelchairs in there was broken. It had been there for weeks.

  There is also a spoke wrench on the windowsill.

  The man was asleep.

  Thabethe stared at him. He wondered how much information he had got through to the wounded prisoner before he had faded. By the time the man passed out Thabethe had whispered to him across the corridor that the nursing room was the only place where there was no guard on duty. The nurse would clean him up, inject him, do whatever they did, but would go in and out of the room doing her business and leave him alone. In and out. She would leave him all alone in the room for minutes at a time. There was a chance, while she was out. He could get things from inside that room while the nurse was out.

  Come back with one spoke, Thabethe had said to him. One spoke from the broken wheelchair. One spoke was all that was needed. Put it down your trouser-leg. Try and stick it there with sticking plaster or something. Get that one spoke for me and I’ll get you and me, and this man here, all three of us, out of this place…