‘Terrifying, more like it. Flag this guy, Jay. It’s important. We can’t let him leave South Africa without talking to him.’
Sannie thanked him for his help and strode into Wessels’s office. The captain, who was also eating a late lunch, at his desk, motioned for her to sit down. She hadn’t told him anything about Daniel Carney or Precious Tambo and her affair with Robert Greeves, so it took a few minutes to explain.
‘It’s the closest thing to a new lead we’ve had in the Greeves case,’ Wessels said when she finished. ‘Get on to it. We need to check hotels and guesthouses, car rental places — the lot. I’m afraid it’s going to be a late finish for you today.’
‘That’s fine. My mom’s with the kids. I’ll call her.’
Sannie went back to her workstation and called home. The phone rang and rang until finally she heard her own voice on the answering machine. ‘Mom? Mom, if you’re there, pick up. Mom?’
There was no answer and the machine timed out. She dialled again and called down the line once more. She wondered if her mother had taken the kids out somewhere. She tried her cell phone but that, too, went through to voicemail. Sannie chewed her lower lip. Her mother had lost two cell phones already, so it wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that she and the kids were out getting ice cream and she’d left her phone in the car.
Sannie busied herself calling the major hotels in Johannesburg, starting with those closest to the airport. After calling six, with no luck, she tried her home and her mother’s phone numbers again. Nothing. She started to worry.
Wessels walked out of his office and stopped by her desk. ‘You look anxious.’
‘I can’t get in touch with my mom or the kids.’
‘Sannie, I’ve just told Erasmus and Ndlovu they’re working late to help track down this Carney fellow. It won’t look good if you clock off now.’
‘I know that,’ she said, more quickly and harshly than she’d intended. ‘But I’m worried about them.’
Wessels sighed. ‘Gee, I’m an old softy. Go, quickly. Make sure you keep calling hotels on your cell phone all the way home and back. I’ll tell the others you’re going to Home Affairs or something.’
‘You’re a star,’ she told him, and he blushed and turned away, heading briskly to the coffee machine.
Sannie was halfway home in her car and talking to the reception at the Holiday Inn, Sandton, when her phone beeped, signalling she’d received a message. When the desk clerk told her there was no Daniel Carney staying at the hotel she ended the call and checked the message. When she played it back there was nothing. Silence, except for the low hum of a car engine. She’d hoped it would be her mother. Perhaps it was, and she had accidentally dialled her number without knowing it. Sannie checked the caller ID, but the number was blocked so it wasn’t her mother.
She drove one-handed, holding the phone in her other hand. It started to vibrate and ring.
‘Van Rensburg,’ she said.
‘Inspector, pull over if you are driving. I wouldn’t want you to have an accident.’
‘Who is this?’ The man’s voice was altered, as though it was coming through an electronic synthesiser. A chill ran down her body.
‘That doesn’t matter for now. What is important, however, is that I have your children.’
29
Tom had tried to call Sannie from the Zambian town of Chipata, but hadn’t been able to get reception for his mobile. In the morning he had crossed the border from Zambia into Malawi, a frustrating process of queuing and to-ing and fro-ing that took the best part of two hours.
It was a relief to be on the last leg towards Lake Malawi, even if it was on the poorest excuse for a road he had come across in his life. To call it surfaced was a gross exaggeration, as there seemed to be more holes than tar, and in some sections a new route had been carved out on either side by drivers taking to the verges.
If Zambia was a poor country, Malawi was destitute, but the people seemed friendly enough. He got smiles and waves from children and polite nods from adults as he bounced and cursed his way towards the lake that took up most of the small country.
He checked his phone regularly, but still had no reception. However, in a few places he noticed roadside phone kiosks. If he couldn’t get a signal at Salima, the next major town, he would use one of them, or look for a hotel on the lake shore from which he could pay to make a call.
As in Zambia and Botswana, Malawi’s roads were lined with signs advertising tombstones, coffins and funeral services. Twice he passed open-top bakkies carrying coffins flanked by mourners in their best shabby clothes. He imagined this was what it must have been like to live through Europe’s Black Plague: the slow but inevitable whittling away of whole households, villages and communities until the survivors dispersed, perhaps taking the sickness further afield. At the border post he’d noticed young girls with braided hair and wearing tight, sequin- covered jeans climbing into the cabs of long-distance lorries which queued while awaiting customs clearance. Africa’s roads had replaced its rivers as ribbons of life — and death.
Salima might have been a pretty town once, but it seemed as chipped and holed and crumbling as its main road. He parked outside a bank and changed some pounds into kwacha, to have cash for his coming nights’ accommodation and food and fuel for the Land Rover. He hoped to be in Malawi no more than a couple of days, but was prepared to stay until he had answers to the questions that drove him onwards.
While the town looked as though it was on the lake shore on his map, the reality was different. The water was a further twenty kilometres, on the shores of Senga Bay. The road now ran atop a raised embankment over flat land that he guessed must flood when the rains came. There was even less room to manoeuvre around potholes now, so he spent much of the drive in second gear, climbing into and out of the eroded basins.
Instead of being greeted by a panorama of the massive inland waterway, he found the beach at Senga Bay guarded by walled villas, guesthouses, and a white concrete hotel, whose gate he drove through. In a yard behind the main building, still with no view of the water, was a small but shady camp ground. There were two other South African-registered vehicles, a jeep and a Land Cruiser, parked under a tree. They had rooftop tents like his and a washing line was strung between the two roof carriers.
Tom went to the hotel’s reception and asked if there was a phone he could use. He checked his watch. Five pm. Sannie might not be home, but Elise and the kids would be. He would try Sannie’s cell and then her home landline.
He signed in and paid for his campsite, and dialled Sannie’s cell phone. It was busy but, unlike his phone, didn’t go through to voicemail when it was engaged. The home phone rang until the answering machine kicked in, and he left a message.
Tom tried Sannie’s mobile again, but it was still busy, so he went in search of the hotel bar. At least he’d been able to leave a message at Sannie’s house, and she’d get it eventually.
Sannie had stopped her car on the side of the highway. Cars whizzed by her.
Ordinarily, stopping was the last thing she would have done — even to talk on her cell phone. To stop or, worse, break down on a main road in Johannesburg was to invite the attention of car-jackers. However, it was impossible to listen to the inhuman, distorted voice on the other end of the phone and concentrate on the road at the same time.
‘I told you, I have no idea where Tom Furey is!’ She knew she should keep her cool and not antagonise the caller, but he had her children. She wanted to scratch his eyeballs out — to kill him.
‘You will soon enough. There’s a message for you on your home answering machine. He is at Salima, on the shore of Lake Malawi. If he gets to Cape Maclear, where he is heading, you will never see your children again.’
‘Are you in my bloody home? I’m going to — ’
‘Shut the fuck up, you stupid bitch. You will never see your children again if Furey does not turn around and return to England via South Africa. Do you understand what I am telling you, Inspector? Your children will not die, not immediately at least, but you will never see them again. The same goes if you tell your police superiors or anyone else what I’ve just said.’
Sannie started to cry, the fat tears rolling down her face. She thought of the paedophile ring that the police had just busted.
