As the two bankers left his office his personal assistant, Stella, came in. ‘There are two people to see you,’ she said. ‘Police. They say they are from Norfolk CID.’ Stella was generally discreet, but it was clear that these visitors had aroused her interest. Her eyebrows were raised in a silent demand for information.
Benton wasn’t going to tell her anything. ‘Norfolk, you say? Where are they?’
‘Downstairs in the lobby. They arrived fifteen minutes ago. I said you were in a meeting. They said they would wait.’
Benton knitted his brows. ‘Give me ten minutes and then send them up.’
‘All right,’ said Stella as she headed for his door. Then she paused. ‘Oh, yes, and there was a call from a Mr Moolman.’
‘Moolman?’ Benton said. ‘Do I know him? I’m sure I’ve heard the name before.’
‘He had a South African accent. Strong, very strong. He said he was calling to say how sorry he was to hear about Todd van Zyl’s accident. He said you needn’t call him back and he didn’t leave a number.’ She stared at her boss. ‘Benton? Are you all right? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’ Her boss didn’t answer, but stared at her with a mixture of shock and fear. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll, um, I’ll tell the police to wait a few more minutes.’ She left the room as quickly as she could, shutting the door behind her.
Two miles east of the City, on the executive floor of the Herald’s building at Madeira Quay, Edwin was listening to a grey-haired, hyperactive journalist called Jeff Hull. Jeff was a South African, a former employee of the Cape Daily Mail, who had recognized early on that it made sense to make friends with the boss’s son. Their relationship had been cemented during the takeover of the Herald, when Jeff had discovered some fascinating information about the Herald’s proprietor Lord Scotton and a visit he had made to a public lavatory in Piccadilly, that had persuaded Scotton to sell out to Zyl News rather than Evelyn Gill. Jeff had left Cape Town for London when Edwin took over the management of the Herald. Jeff thought of himself as a hard-nosed investigative journalist; some of his colleagues, and indeed his editor, saw him more as a ruthless muckraker. But whatever his editor’s opinion of him, he was untouchable. And he did have the ability to come up with sensational stories on a regular basis, some of which the Herald deemed fit to print.
‘That was quick,’ Edwin said. ‘What have you got?’
Jeff handed over a single sheet of paper. He bit his thumbnail as Edwin read it. ‘Do you really think this will do the job?’ Edwin asked doubtfully.
‘You bet,’ Jeff answered.
‘Let me get this straight. The superintendent’s brother was arrested for downloading child pornography from the internet, but no charges were ever brought?’
‘That’s right,’Jeff was grinning as he gnawed at his thumb.
‘Was the superintendent downloading porn?’
‘No.’
‘Do we even know the last time the superintendent saw his brother?’
‘No.’
‘So?’
‘So we have a headline with the words “policeman” and “paedophile” in it. That will go down nicely with the readers, and with the Norfolk Constabulary. There will be questions about whether the superintendent leaned on someone to have his brother’s charges dropped.’
‘Can we prove that he did that?’
Jeff grinned. ‘Can he prove that he didn’t? And if he did, why did he? Is he a member of the paedophile ring himself? He worked on the vice squad in the Met twenty years ago, I can go digging there. Plus I’ve got a mate that’s on the paedophile register. I’ll get him to apply for every temporary job in Norfolk that’s involved with children. Someone will give him a job. Then all hell will break loose. Plus, and this is the really important point,’ Jeff leaned forward, grinning, ‘our superintendent friend will know we’re digging. And if he’s got something to hide, and let’s face it, everyone has, he’ll want us to stop.’
‘I was hoping for something a bit more substantial than this.’
‘Believe me, there’s nothing the cops of today are more afraid of than a paedophile scandal. I’ll call him tonight. I’ll ask him to confirm that he is aware that his brother was arrested for downloading kiddie porn, and I’ll ask him a couple of innocuous questions about his time on the vice squad. And we just leave it at that. No need to be specific, no need to push it, no need even to print anything. Just so he knows who he’s dealing with. All he has to do is go a little softly, right?’
‘Right.’ Edwin thought a moment. There was a lot in what Jeff was saying. A veiled threat was probably more effective than out-and-out blackmail anyway. ‘OK, do it.’
12
July 28, 1988
Poor Doris! She got a phone call this afternoon. For her to have a phone call at the house, I knew it must be something pretty serious. I overheard her talking in Xhosa on the phone, then she screamed, a heart-rending wail. It was an awful sound, especially from Doris who is always so cheerful. She wouldn’t stop. I tried to comfort her but she wanted to finish the phone call. Then she just let the receiver drop and sobbed.
It was Thando. He was killed with three other boys by some unknown thugs last night. Some white men broke into their shack and shot them. Thando lives in a township outside Port Elizabeth; I think he works in one of the car factories there. He’s only seventeen. He’s Doris’s only son, only child. Finneas came in from the garden. He and I did what we could to comfort Doris but she was inconsolable, and why not? I would be if it were Todd.
Doris doesn’t know any of the details. Her son will be branded a criminal, of course. But I know him welclass="underline" as Doris says, “He was a good boy.”
I told Finneas to take the Renault and drive Doris to P. E. tonight.
July 30
What a day! I went to the funeral. I thought, why not? Doris and I have been together for eighteen years, since just before Thando was born, and I’m damned if I won’t be allowed to support her just because of my color or her color. Zan offered to come with me, but with Doris away I said I’d prefer to have her stay at home with Caroline. I got the first flight of the morning to Port Elizabeth and took a taxi. The funeral was held in a soccer stadium in a township on the outskirts of Uitenhage, an auto-manufacturing town a few miles from P. E. itself. A cordon of police surrounded the township: young men in camouflage uniforms brandishing guns, some of them perched on “Hippos,” the nickname for those creepy armored cars they use.
I had to talk my way through the cordon; they didn’t seem to understand that a white woman, and an American at that, could be a friend of one of the victims. I pleaded, and in the end a sergeant gave in with a shrug that suggested that if I was that crazy I deserved what was coming to me.
Passing through that cordon was like passing into another country, a country run by blacks for blacks. A marshal directed me to where I should sit in the sports stadium. There must have been 40,000 people there. The whole place was a riot of warmth and color and passion. I’ve never experienced an atmosphere like it. There were banners everywhere in the bright colors of the trade unions, the black and yellow of the UDF, and the black, green and gold of the ANC. I even glimpsed, briefly, the red flag and hammer and sickle of the Communist Party. The speakers sat on a raised platform, beside which were rows of seats for relatives. I could make out the plump figure of Doris, but there was no way she could see me. My idea of joining her to express my sympathy was clearly unrealistic.