“I’ll have one,” said O’Grady, and took a menu. “You can bring me a Diet Coke in the meanwhile. A big one.”
“Is Miller your real name?” Hope asked when the waiter had gone.
“No,” he said.
“Are you Venter? Or Vergottini?”
“I have a wife and children.”
“It says here they have a Mediterranean buffet,” said O’Grady from behind the menu.
“Are you going to publish my photo as well?”
“Not if you cooperate.”
He was visibly relieved. “I’ll tell you all I can, but then you’ll leave me alone?” A begging question, hopeful.
“That depends on your innocence, sir.”
“No one is innocent in this thing.”
“Why don’t you tell us about it?”
He looked at them, looked at the door, across the room, eyes never still. She saw the sweat glistening in the light of the restaurant, small, silver drops on his forehead.
“Hold your horses,” said Nougat O’Grady. “I want to have a look at the buffet before you start spilling the beans.” He hauled himself upright.
The sniper’s bullet that was meant for Miller punched through the window of the restaurant and plowed through the fat policeman’s body between the fourth and fifth ribs, nicked a corner of the right lung, went through the right ventricle of the heart, exited through the breastbone, and buried itself in a wooden beam above the bar in the center of the restaurant. There was no sound of a shot, only the window shattering and O’Grady being thrown across the table by the impact of the bullet, his considerable weight smashing the table under him. He fell to the floor in a welter of broken wood and blood but he was unaware of it all.
Miller was the first to react. He was up and running when the first screams erupted, not toward the front door but in the opposite direction, the kitchen. Hope sat transfixed, paralyzed. The breaking table had injured her knee, and O’Grady had fallen half across her. She looked at the policeman’s face, the staring eyes.
“God,” she said softly, looking confusedly at him, at Miller’s retreating back, at the window, hearing screaming tires outside. She half rose, saw a white panel van driving down Kloof Street, and her legs shook. She reached for her handbag, she had to stop Miller, the restaurant staff were hypnotized, bug-eyed, and Miller had disappeared. She ran after him, shoved her hand into her handbag, looking for the SW99, stumbled, her legs shaking, ran on.
¦
“We want to know who rents 612 Rhodes House,” Van Heerden said to Maria Nzululuwazi of Southern Estate Agents.
“You’re from the police,” she said knowledgeably.
“It’s a murder case,” said Tiny Mpayipheli.
“Hoo,” said Maria, looking Tiny up and down and shuddering. “Wouldn’t mind being chased by you.”
“I can always arrest you.”
“What for?”
“You’re way over the beauty limit.”
“Rhodes House,” said Van Heerden.
“612,” said Tiny.
“A sweet talker,” said Maria, and tapped on the keyboard of her computer. “612 isn’t to let.”
“We want to know who rents it now.”
“It’s not let, it’s owned.”
“Who owns it?”
Typed again, looked at the screen. “Orion Solutions.”
“Do you have an address?”
“I do, I do, I do,” she said, and looked at Tiny.
“Can we get it today?” asked Van Heerden.
“He’s real good with the ladies,” said Tiny.
“I’ve noticed. It’s Solan Street in Gardens. 78 Solan. Do you want the telephone number as well?”
“I do, I do, I do.”
¦
Miller ran down the side street. Hope Beneke saw him through the gusts of rain. “Miller!” she screamed, hysteria in her voice, as he ran on.
“I’m going to publish the picture, Miller.” Despairing, angry, upset, O’Grady’s staring eyes filled her head. She saw Miller halting, looking round, waiting for her. Her hair was soaked, she kept her hand on the weapon in her handbag, and when she reached him she took out the SW99.
“You’re not going anywhere, do you hear me?”
“They’re going to kill us.”
“Who the fuck are they?” she said, distraught.
“Orion,” he said. “Orion Solutions.”
“And who are you?”
“Jamie Vergottini.”
¦
They drove to town, to Gardens, 78 Solan Street, in the Mercedes. Tiny’s cell phone rang. “Mpayipheli,” he answered. “It’s for you” – passing the phone to Van Heerden.
“Hallo.”
“I’ve got Vergottini,” said Hope.
“Where are you?”
“In the rain on Kloof Street, on the corner, at Cafe Paradiso, and I know who’s behind it all.”
“Venter?”
“Orion Solutions.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“We tracked the clues.”
“O’Grady is dead, Van Heerden.”
“Nougat?”
“They shot him. In the restaurant. I – we…it’s a long story.”
“Who shot him?”
“They shot from outside. I didn’t see. Vergottini says the shot was meant for him. O’Grady got up to fetch food…”
“Jesus.”
“What do I do now?”
“Wait for us – we’re on De Waal Drive, we’ll be there in five minutes. Give me the street’s name.”
“O’Grady is dead,” he said to Tiny Mpayipheli when he’d finished talking, the cell phone shaking in his hand.
“The fat policeman?”
“Yes.”
“Now the shit is going to hit the fan.”
“He was a good man.”
Rain on the window, wind blowing from the harbor, the Mercedes swerving as they drove across the spur of the mountain on De Waal Drive.
“A good policeman,” said Van Heerden.
“I saw you in the flat, searching that body,” said Mpayipheli. “Your heart is soft.”
“It’s all getting too much.”
“Why did you become a policeman?”
