Roadkill, page 16
Truter nodded vehemently alongside Delport.
“But … But if they’re subsidising the life cover premiums and handing out all those free benefits, what’s in it for them? Sorry, Captain, but I’m not getting it.”
“No worries – this thing also took us time to unpick. Let’s go through it again. On the surface, everything’s hunky-dory. The client signs on the dotted line and is happy as Larry because he’s just scored himself full life cover, with a funeral plan and a bunch of other perks thrown in for nothing. The boytjie is so happy he doesn’t bother with the small print, the part about the insurance company becoming an investment partner. Even if he does read it, ‘investment partner’ sounds quite smart. And anyway, it’s only fair the company gets their share for helping him pay his premiums.” Engelbrecht stopped. “You’re still looking confused, Constable. What about you, Sergeant?”
“Hundreds my side, Captain. All clear as day.”
“Sir, I must be dof, because I still can’t see how it makes financial sense.”
“Okay, let me try explain it another way … Think of it like buying a Nando’s share on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Except here you are buying a share in somebody’s life insurance policy. What’s more, you are not just buying a share in one person’s policy, but in a whole bunch of policies. This company is invested in hundreds, even thousands of insurance policies.”
“But surely that can’t be legal, Captain?”
“Actually, it is. It happens all the time, especially in America.”
“Makes perfect sense to me,” said Truter, looking altogether more relaxed now that the immediate threat of arrest had passed. “All clear your side, Delport?”
“It’s just—”
“In that case, how about we stop interrupting the captain for just one minute and let him finish?”
“I apologise, sir. It’s just—”
“It’s just what?” Truter lifted his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry for this, Captain—”
“It’s just I don’t understand how it can be a good investment for the insurance broking company,” Delport blurted.
“What the hell is there not to understand?” hissed Truter. “One plus two equals three! Don’t you get it?” This was fast approaching insubordination.
Engelbrecht stepped back to the sidelines. A smile had appeared at the corner of his mouth.
“What I mean is, if the investment partner company has to wait for the person to die before getting paid out, won’t that take forever? Sorry, Captain, I must be missing something here?”
“I’ll tell you what you’re missing, Delport. A bag of bladdy marbles, that’s what. I’m telling you, this—”
Engelbrecht lifted his hand to the air, halting Truter mid-flight like a miggie connecting the windscreen of the Joburg-to-Durban Intercity bus. “That’s enough, Sergeant. Your deputy is one inch away from making the critical connection. I want you boys to understand this. Yes, you’re spot on target, Constable. Who is going to wait fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years to get their money back on an investment? Hell, even the South African Post Office pays out quicker than that.”
44
The Honourable Mayor Jakkals Dawid Venter stepped onto the makeshift stage. For the occasion he had chosen a blue Insignia pinstripe suit, a black shirt from Markham’s (open at the collar), and brown Hushpuppies with beige socks. His greying hair was combed back, his moustache trimmed. Coupled with the gold mayoral chain, he exuded certain presidential status – albeit Banana Republic.
Jakkals walked up to the microphone and surveyed the small North West crowd assembling below – comprising the usual sunburnt faces dressed in Agri khaki, and women in those Sunday florals his wife liked to wear, that made them all look old before their time. Across the way, in front of the Bavaria Beer Tent, Freddie and Connie and that chop, Flip Vlok – who still owed him on the Nissan Skyline – were already hitting the Blackies. Not what he meant when he told them to have a good time.
Jakkals gazed up at the sky. Threatening clouds were building in the west. Closer to earth, behind the Insignia polyester, his itch was stirring into life; he still hadn’t got around to buying his Mycota top-up.
He tapped the microphone. “Testing. Testing. Een, twee, drie.”
“Ons kan jou hoor, ou maat!” a voice shouted from the back.
“Dankie, meneer.” Jakkals dug into his jacket pocket and unfolded the A4. What with all the operational crap going down, he’d left his speech to the last minute. Swallowing back a lump of phlegm, he cleared his throat. It was time to get the show on the road.
“Ladies and gentleman. Dames en here. As mayor of Brits, I most heartily welcome you all here today, to this, the fifth North West Southern Districts Agri Festival.” A small cheer floated off the crowd, the bulk of it emanating from the beer tent. “Thank you. Dankie. It’s a very exciting day for our region, which could not happen without the efforts of many hard-working people. You can all give yourselves a slap on the back for achieving what you have achieved.” Jakkals glanced down at his bullet points. “If I just look around me, it’s fantastic to see what can be done when people decide to pull together. Gesaamheid – spelt with a capital G!” He cleared his throat. “With so many brilliant stalls and exciting events happening through the day, I hardly know where to begin.” A kid had started whining to the far left of him – hundred bucks on the table it was Ryan. He pressed on. “For example, how about starting your afternoon at the international food stall? That is one table I will be visiting, because I hear the American waffles are something out of this world. A big thank you to the church committee for making that one possible. Excellent job, ladies.” An appreciative twitter rippled through his audience. He cleared his throat. “Then of course, we all look forward to the main event of the day, the Potjie Play-off. A huge thumbs-up to the guys at Edendal Agri for hosting this year. Where are you? Okay, I see you there at the back. Let’s give the Agri guys a big hand of applause, ladies and gentlemen … From what I hear, the competition is as stiff as a Hilux spring this year.” More laughter – his speech was going down well. “In fact, I can already see the steam rising from our contestants standing at the ready by their fires. So, all I can say is good luck to all of you mense.” Jakkals scanned the A4. Below it, his rash was screaming out for a good and proper scratch. “What makes this year’s play-off even more special is that we are honoured to have Northern Free State champion Nils Botha as one of our judges. Thank you, Nils, for travelling all this way.” He gazed over towards the beer tent. Where the hell had Freddie and them got to? This was no time to get pissed. “On a day like today, ladies and gentlemen, we must stop and reflect on how blessed we are, because we have many things to be thankful for. Just look at what’s going down in America and Europe … ISIS terrorists chopping people’s heads off, the Muslims and Corolla virus invading all over the place, the overpopulation problems, global heating, the Brexit.” Jakkals pointed an accusing finger at the heavens. “The pollution is so bad in Europe, you can’t see the sky any more! My brother-in-law in England tells me people are living on top of one another like rats in tiny cages, mense.” Jakkals was now speaking off-script. “Half the kids have never seen a wild animal. They don’t even know where milk comes from. Kan julle dit glo?” Jakkals waited for the laughter to subside. “So then, kom ons bid and give thanks for what we have … Dankie, Here, thank you, Lord, for blessing the people of South Africa, for sharing with us your wonderful bounties. For the blue sky, for the clean flowing rivers, for the fertile land in which we plant our wheat, for the high mountains, for the animals that roam freely across the plains. Dankie vir alles, liewe Here. Amen!” Jakkals opened his eyes.
People were starting to look at their watches. The whining brat to the left had started up again – it sounded just like Ryan. A solid dose of Ritlon – or whatever they called the stuff – that would sort him out chop-chop. It was time to wrap up. “Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby declare this year’s Agri Festival officially open! Thank you! Dankie! And enjoy yourselves!” And with that, Jakkals Venter stepped off the stage, jammed his hand into his trouser pocket and gave his crotch a desperately overdue claw.
45
“So, what you’re saying, Captain, the life insurance payouts are happening quicker than before?”
“Way quicker, my friend. Based on what we’ve worked out so far, we’re now looking at less than two years from sign up to sign out.”
Delport was spellbound. “Less than two years! And you discovered this from analysing the stats of the big insurance companies?”
“Yebo. Santam, Momentum, and a couple of other big boys. And of course the stats you guys and the other stations have been supplying for the past few months. Which we thank you for, by the way.”
His eyes glowing, Delport turned to his boss. “Didn’t I say there was something going on, Sergeant?”
“Ja, ja, Delport, don’t wet yourself now.”
“I’m just saying, sir—”
“Thank you, Delport, but I think the captain would like to move on. Not so, Captain?”
“No rush. You were about to ask something else, Constable?”
“Yes, sir.” Delport ran a finger down the page of his notebook. “Oh, yes. How many victims are we talking so far?”
“Moerse hard to tell, because most of them would already be dead and buried. Remember, this thing’s been going on for a few years, but the insurance companies only sniffed a rat last year. We can’t exactly start digging up bodies across the country just because someone had a life insurance policy, can we now? And even if we did, we wouldn’t find anything.”
“I understand, sir. So it was only when you started analysing the stats that this company’s figures stuck out from all the rest?”
“Like a sore thumb with an ingrown nail. But we still had to drill in deep to see the pattern.”
“How long is the average insurance payout supposed to be?”
Truter shook his head in amazement. Delport was an embarrassment to the force, butting in with all these ridiculous questions.
“More like twenty or thirty years. What’s fascinating is watching the turnaround from this lot getting shorter all the time.” Engelbrecht shifted his gaze to Truter. “Which means what, Sergeant?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Captain.”
“It means they’re getting greedy, or seriously cocky … Or both.”
“Incredible,” said Truter. At this point, he was looking increasingly like a tourist who had lost his way in a foreign city.
“Something more, Constable?”
“Just going back a step here, sir, what about the death certificates and those reports we’ve been filling in for Pretoria? Wouldn’t the cause of death show that a victim died in suspicious circumstances?”
“If only it was so easy, my friend. But no, with a bag of tricks from their Special Ops days, this lot is super clever; they know how to cover their tracks. Every suspected victim we’ve identified so far has died from so-called ‘natural causes’. We’re also now convinced they have a medical specialist working for them on the inside, rigging the death certificates and other covert shenanigans.”
“Like what natural causes?”
“Asthma attacks, heart and liver failures, pedestrian accidents – plenty of those – boozing it up and drowning in the swimming pool, slipping in the bath, food poisoning, that type of thing. We even have a suspected victim who died from choking on a drive-through KFC chicken bone. But so far not one suicide. Because why?”
“I don’t know, sir”
“Because the big life insurers don’t cover suicide … Something wrong, Sergeant?”
“No, all hundreds.”
“You sure? Maybe it was my mention of Special Ops?”
“Is this who these people are, sir? Special Ops?”
“According to our background checks, ja. Just a sec, Delport … If I’m right, Sergeant, didn’t you serve active duty in 22-Battalion?”
Truter stared up at the ceiling, avoiding the SCU agent’s penetrating gaze. “Ag, maybe years ago.”
“For which you received a Medal of Honour. Am I right?”
“Jeez, Sergeant, I didn’t know that.”
“It’s no big deal, Delport.”
“And if I have my facts straight, you then served two years as a security operative at The Farm. Is that correct?”
“Wow, you didn’t tell me any of this stuff, sir. Was that before you were promoted to Boksburg Dog Unit?”
“Didn’t you hear me, Delport? I said it’s no big deal.”
“Sorry, sir, I’m just interested.”
“Well, go be interested somewhere else.”
Engelbrecht knew he had hit a nerve; he’d been right all along. From what he had worked out from Truter’s case file, the transfer to Dog Unit was the turning point. It didn’t take a State-employed shrink to know damaged goods when it was staring him in the face; any idiot could do that. But the report told only half the story. Severe post-traumatic stress disorder, with resultant paranoid tendencies. The patient has been exposed to multiple events of a violent nature while serving active duty in Angola. Blah, blah. The ‘multiple events of a violent nature’ had bugger-all to do with it – after all, the guy was a natural-born soldier. The real reason for his downwards spiral was good old-fashioned betrayal. Triggered the day his trusted military brothers tossed him to the wolves – first De Klerk’s internal enquirers into the murder and mayhem that went down on The Farm, followed by the pussyfooting TRC. Now that Engelbrecht could see first-hand the knife of Brutus sticking out from Truter’s back, it was clear as day: no chance in hell he had anything to do with this dirty tricks bunch.
“If you don’t mind, Sergeant, I’d like you to help me with a few names here. Maybe you’ve heard of them. Okay with that? … Great stuff. Okay, the first one … Frederick Ferreira?”
Truter nodded blankly. “Served with him.”
“Juan Dippenaar? Otherwise known as Dippies.”
“Same. Served with him.”
“Byl Minnaar?”
“Ja.”
“Rudolph Scheepers? AKA Choppies.”
“Worked sometimes with him at VIP Protection Agency.”
“Conrad Botes? Or shall I say Dr Conrad Botes?”
“22-Battalion medic.”
Engelbrecht gave the knife a final twist. “Jakkals Venter?”
Truter nodded, his face still blank. But Engelbrecht could see what was going down behind the eyes. “He was our commanding officer.”
“22-Battalion?”
“Ja.
“And The Farm?”
“Ja.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. I appreciate it,” said Engelbrecht gently. He shut his notebook. “The list goes on, gentlemen.” The mood in the room had turned sombre. “I suppose you want to know what the connection is, Constable?”
“Only if it’s okay with you.”
“What we have here, gents, is a group of ex-military who’ve made the successful shift into the big bucks of the private death industry. These names, each and every one of them is today a director or employee of Titanium Financial Services.” Engelbrecht allowed a moment, then slapped his notebook on the desk. “You know what, Constable?”
“Yes, sir?”
“I think we can all do with another cup of your lekker coffee. What you say, Sergeant Truter?”
Truter smiled weakly. “That will be good. Three sugars, Delport.”
“No problem.” Delport stood up and quickly gathered the empty mugs. He paused at the door. “I was just wondering, Captain …”
“Wondering what?”
“About the thing you said earlier about there not being enough hard evidence to pin on these guys. Why is that?”
Engelbrecht stared hard at the water stain on the ceiling, not wanting to confront a bitter truth. “Because, Delport, all we’ve got so far is stats, stats, and more bladdy stats. According to the big shot State lawyers we can’t make any arrests, because in their book the evidence is so-called circumstantial. How messed up is that, hey?” Engelbrecht shaped a ring between his thumb and index finger, leaving a tiny gap between the two. “This is how close we are, manne … but still no fokken cigar.”
46
Far bigger than the sum of its parts, the Edendal Potjie Play-off was the backbone of the local cultural calendar. Less one-off event than complex ritual – of unspoken codes of conduct, behind-the-scenes pacts, and jealously guarded recipes – it simmered for months before coming to a fast boil on the day. Few escaped its grip: one was either direct participant or participant by association. There was no middle ground, no fence-sitting.
Tensions were now running high under a blue haze of smoke and burnt boerewors at the far end of the Agricultural Showgrounds. Squeezed between the ablution block and a ginger-haired braai veteran in black rugby shorts and a gut sponsored by Kempton Park Isuzu – Steve and Tarryn Aldridge stood behind their fold-out camping table, anxiously awaiting the judges. The stand was a picture of military precision: the potjie polished to a high gleam, with the contents simmering quietly under the lid; below, a neatly arranged circle of glowing coals; to the side, the tools of their craft hanging on a purpose-built rack alongside. The Jurgens’ tablecloth covered the camping table. Concealed under it, the cooler box.
“Stevie, how about I get you a nice beer to relax?”
“Maybe I should have one. I’m jittery as anything.”
“Don’t be, we’re almost there. Just a few more hours and I promise you, we’re home dry.”
“I don’t know if I can last a few more hours,” croaked Aldridge, looking over towards the ginger-hair gent. “Seriously, I feel like I’m going to have a nervous breakdown. I can’t take the tension any more.”
“I also feel like that, but we’ve just got to bite the bullet and finish what we’ve started. What’s the time now?”
“Just after two-thirty.”
