A Sailor's Honour (3 page)

They dozed off again.

The phone rang. The one Pierre de Villiers always carries on a leather thong around his neck.

Only three people had the number. His wife, his daughter and his brother-in-law. Emma, Zoë and Johann.

But Emma was lying in bed next to him in post-coital slumber. Zoë was on the way from school and should arrive any minute. And Johann Weber was in Durban where it should now be – De Villiers did a quick calculation – a few minutes after seven in the morning. They should get out of bed and dress quickly before Zoë arrives, he thought, and poked Emma in the ribs.

His special phone did ring now and then – people dialling the wrong number – but he answered anyway. ‘De Villiers.' He didn't mention that he was a detective in the New Zealand Police.

‘Pierre?' It was Johann.

De Villiers sat up and swung his feet off the bed. ‘Yes, hello, Johann.' He walked into the passage. ‘What …'

Weber interrupted. ‘I have an urgent message for you. Please listen carefully.'

De Villiers felt his groin muscles tighten. He ran the fingers of his left hand across the operation scar stretching from his pubic bone to his navel. The itchy keloid tissue was a constant reminder of the cancer. He looked over his shoulder to see if Emma had followed him into the passage. ‘Go on,' he said.

Johann Weber spoke slowly, with the clipped diction of an advocate. Every word was carefully enunciated, with equal emphasis so that each word carried the same weight. Every sentence was carefully constructed so that there was a natural balance between subject and object, with a verb the fulcrum between them.

‘Listen carefully,' he said.

‘Where are you?' De Villiers asked, ignoring the injunction.

‘I'm at the office,' Weber said, impatience in the usually calm voice. ‘Now listen, a few minutes ago I had a call from a man who said that he had been tasked – that's the word he used – by the major to instruct me to give you a message and to do so immediately.'

De Villiers took a deep breath and held it. The major. After twenty-five years of conflict, he still didn't know the major's name. He didn't know the name of the man who had sent him into Angola on a near-suicidal mission, the man who then had him arrested by the military police, held in detention and tortured. He had long known that the major had been behind the torture and the use of the mind-altering drugs that had left big gaps in his memory. This was the man who had persuaded him to leave the army – I wanted to be a soldier, he felt like crying out – and then pulled the plug on the covert operation that was so irregular and so secret that the regular
SADF
could not be associated with it. This is the man, De Villiers said to himself, who was somehow involved in the murder of my wife and children back in 1992.

De Villiers might not have known the major's name, but he knew that a message from him spelled trouble.

‘What did he say?' he asked. A mere second had passed from the first mention of the major.

There was a small pause. ‘He said: “And you thought we couldn't reach you there in New Zealand.”'

‘What's that supposed to mean?' De Villiers asked. ‘“You thought we couldn't reach you there in New Zealand.”'

‘No,' Weber said. ‘“
And
you thought we couldn't reach you there in New Zealand.”'

‘I don't understand,' De Villiers said. ‘What difference does it make? Are you sure you got it right?'

This time there was a longer pause. ‘Pierre,' Johann Weber said, ‘don't argue with me. I can tell you at four in the afternoon what a witness said at ten in the morning, to the word, with every nuance and pause. It's what I do every working day. I listen and interpret what people say. He said: “
And …
”'

‘But what does it mean, Johann? You always say that you're a man who works with words. What does this mean?'

‘It means that something has already happened,' Weber said immediately.

‘Like what?'

‘I don't know.'

De Villiers thought of possibilities. He could see no immediate reason for the major to send him a message. But they had come looking for him the last time he had been to South Africa. He'd been forced to take an earlier flight out of the country to evade them.

‘Did he say anything else?' he asked.

De Villiers could hear a door slamming and someone saying good morning. ‘Yes,' Weber said softly. ‘He said that he had a message from the general for me. It was: “It's time to get even.”'

For a time neither spoke. Then De Villiers broke the silence. ‘What do you think this means, Johann?'

‘I don't know,' his brother-in-law said, ‘but I think we are going to find out soon.'

‘Well, I'll think about it and get back to you,' De Villiers said.

‘Yes, I think we are both going to have to think what we might have done to have them threaten us in this manner.' A thought occurred to Weber. ‘Do you think it's the same people who came looking for you last year when you were here?'

‘The major, for sure,' De Villiers said. ‘But I can't for the life of me imagine why.'

‘There must be a reason,' Weber said.

For a time neither man spoke while De Villiers tried to think of a reason. ‘I can understand that they would hold a grudge against me,' he said eventually. ‘But not you.'

‘It might go back a long time,' Weber suggested. ‘A long, long time.'

De Villiers took the cue. ‘But why now? And what could they want?'

‘I don't know,' Weber said and rang off.

They found out within minutes.

De Villiers dressed slowly as he thought the matter over. What happens at 5 p.m. here and at 7 a.m. in Durban that would affect both Johann and me?

The answer came as he was tying a shoelace.

Zoë comes home from school here at the same time that Liesl Weber goes to work there.

De Villiers had stayed with the Webers for nearly three months in the winter of 2008 when he was receiving radiation therapy at the Durban Oncology Centre. He knew the timetable of their household intimately. Liesl Weber leaves for work at her Aids clinic at 6.45 a.m. three days a week: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

It was Monday.

‘I think we've been threatened,' he said to himself.

‘What did you say?' Emma asked behind him.

‘Nothing,' he said.

He scrolled to his bother-in-law's number on the cellphone and pressed Call
.
Weber answered on the second ring.

The idea came to De Villiers as he spoke. ‘Contact Liesl immediately and take her to a safe place. I'm going to fetch Zoë.'

‘I was about to phone you and suggest the same thing,' Weber said. ‘If they touch my wife, they'll have a war on their hands.'

De Villiers remembered his brother-in-law's soft lawyer's hands from their last meeting. They were not hands used to making war. ‘It won't be a war,' De Villiers said. ‘If they hurt Zoë, I will kill them in their beds, every one of them.'

He ended the call and rushed from the house. It was a short walk to the school. He followed the route Zoë always took. Left into Murvale Drive. Right into Maugham, left into Priestly and left again into Wycherley Drive to the school. He had forgotten to take a coat or an umbrella. Cold rain ran down the back of his neck and spine. He shivered as he walked. Numerous children in their school uniforms were walking in the opposite direction. The school was deserted. Even the teachers had left. He retraced his steps and was soon back home. Emma was in the kitchen preparing dinner. He went into every room.

Zoë was missing.

He returned to the school along a different route, running this time. She was not supposed to take that route. It was longer and carried more traffic. When he arrived back home, Zoë had still not arrived.

He went outside and phoned Johann Weber.

Weber phoned back ten minutes later. Liesl Weber was missing too.

Now the
‘And'
made sense.

What did the major want?

Johann Weber had a different question. ‘Why would anyone want to abduct my wife and threaten me?'

De Villiers didn't have an answer. ‘Could it be a client or an opponent who is disgruntled enough to want to get back at you?'

‘I'm a commercial lawyer, Pierre. I don't deal with clients of that kind. And if I did, it would have nothing to do with you.'

‘It doesn't make sense,' De Villiers conceded.

‘Why both of us at the same time?' Johann Weber asked the logical question.

De Villiers couldn't think of a common enemy. ‘I can't work it out.'

For a while the only sound on the line was the static of the long-distance call while Johann Weber and Pierre de Villiers thought about it.

They ended the call without having found an explanation that made sense.

Auckland has everything a great city should have, and more. A million and a half people, living in diverse suburbs stretching over sixty kilometres from north to south and forty from east to west. The warm Pacific to the east and the cold Tasman Sea to the west. Volcanic rock rising above the houses, islands dotting the ocean. It has a modern central city, but you can still find parking at any time in the main streets. Every suburb with its schools: preschool, primary, intermediate and high school, with children walking to and from school in their uniforms, the little ones wearing hats to protect them from the sun. Modern shopping centres, north and south, east and west. Modern people, from north, east and west. A blend of Polynesian, Asian and Caucasian. Infrastructure that works. Sanitation, electricity, water. Highways with traffic flow. Streets without potholes. Ferries carrying cars and passengers to the islands and to work. Marinas for the 200,000 boats. Parks with old, established trees for greenery. Universities, institutes for higher education and libraries. Sports fields and gymnasia. Beaches for swimming, fishing and sailing, and lots of inland waters. Municipal workers in the parks and police patrolling the streets at night.

And the police are good. Very, very good.

Maybe a little soft, De Villiers thought. He felt like strangling someone. He was sitting outside an office at the Howick Community Police Centre in Moore Street. Emma was being interviewed inside.

Auckland, for all its greatness, has so many places to hide, so many places to run, so many places to melt into the crowd. Where to look for a seven-year-old child? There are too many places, so the police start at home. The parents are the usual suspects.

When Emma came out of the office, her face was red from crying. She sobbed as she sat down next to her husband. De Villiers was called inside immediately.

He felt like strangling someone.

There were two police officers in the room. One sat behind a desk and indicated to De Villiers to take a seat across the desk from her. Mousy, slightly greasy hair. No make-up. No rings. Shirt with tie, not police issue. Detective Inspector Megan McCarten. Unsmiling. She probably doesn't shave her legs, De Villiers thought unkindly. Child Protection Unit.

‘You know why we're here,'
DI
McCarten said.

De Villiers nodded. A police officer may only be questioned by an officer of equal or superior rank.

‘Where were you yesterday afternoon?'
DI
McCarten asked. She picked up her pen and looked up, ready to record the answer. ‘Start from the time you left your office.'

De Villiers looked past
DI
McCarten to the second police officer. Small. Chinese. Manicured fingernails. Hair in a bob. Small earrings. Expensive shoes. Louis Vuitton handbag next to the chair. Probably not a fake, De Villiers thought. White gloves protruding from the handbag. For driving, De Villiers knew. With a matching hat, he expected. The Chinese women of Auckland protect their hands and faces from the sun. They don't care that they might look like chauffeurs when they drive. She caught his eye and nodded.

‘I drove to Beachlands where I kept observation of a suspect. I came home. I went looking for my daughter when she didn't come home. I called the police,' De Villiers said. ‘The rest you probably know.'

‘Not so fast,'
DI
McCarten said. ‘You know we need more detail than that, don't you?'

Prissy bitch, De Villiers thought, but she was right. ‘Ask me what you want to know,' he said. ‘I've never been in this position before.'

‘Let's talk about your investigation,'
DI
McCarten said. ‘Who went with you?'

‘I was alone.'

She raised an eyebrow. De Villiers knew what she was thinking. Any interaction with a suspect should always be performed by investigators in pairs, just as
DI
McCarten and her partner behind her were doing. ‘The golf estate is near my home, and I decided not to waste resources by bringing
DS
Veerasinghe with me,' he said. ‘I was just going to see what the man does and whom he meets.'

‘So there is no one who can verify your whereabouts, is there?'

‘My wife,' De Villiers said.

‘We've already spoken to your partner,'
DI
McCarten said. ‘And she can't account for your whereabouts until much later.'

De Villiers shrugged. ‘Of course. Only from the time I got home. At which time my daughter was still with her teachers. As you must know by now.'

DI
McCarten put her pen down. ‘No, Inspector, we don't know that. As a matter of fact, her teacher can't remember seeing her after 2 p.m. At which time you say you were in Beachlands. With no one to back you up.'

So Zoë might have been taken earlier. The kidnappers might have had a start of two to three hours before he initiated the full-scale search by seven in the evening. Several agencies of the New Zealand government had sprung into action, including the Child, Youth and Family service, and the Advice Desk for Abused Women and Children. Within the police, the Child Protection Unit took over the investigation. De Villiers was immediately a suspect, because when a child disappears – especially a young girl – the father or an uncle is usually responsible. The junior detectives from
CPU
had listened to his story with ill-concealed scepticism and had made him walk and re-walk the route he had taken to fetch Zoë with them. The officers had knocked on doors and had spoken with the homeowners. They'd pointed to De Villiers at the gate. Here and there someone had remembered seeing De Villiers going towards the school and returning alone. ‘He came past twice,' an elderly man had said. ‘Twice in each direction.' The search had proceeded to the school, but eventually the detectives had taken De Villiers back to his house.