Authors: Deon Meyer
Van Eeden came walking back. He carried the laptop carefully. The black modem, with a yellow MTN logo, was protruding from the side.
‘Turn it on,’ said Cupido.
Van Eeden put the laptop down on the coffee table, pressed a button. ‘I didn’t know they had numbers,’ he said.
‘Of course not,’ said Cupido sarcastically.
They waited in uncomfortable silence for the computer to start up.
‘Open the modem application,’ said Cupido.
Van Eeden slid a finger over the mouse panel, and tapped.
‘Now read out that number,’ said Cupido.
Van Eeden got halfway, then he looked up at Griessel. ‘I didn’t realise …’
‘Read the full number, please.’
The man read.
‘You will agree that it is the same number as the one that we read out to you.’
‘Yes. But I really didn’t know …’
‘Mr van Eeden, is this your laptop?’ Griessel asked.
‘Yes …’
‘Which only you use?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where was the laptop on the night of the eighteenth of January?’
‘With me.’
‘In Somerset West?’
‘That’s right. My notes for the speech were on it.’
‘And the modem?’ Cupido asked.
‘The modem was there too. I always put it in the case along with the laptop.’
‘So the laptop and the modem and you were in Somerset West?’
‘That’s right.’
‘From what time?’
‘I can’t remember precisely …’
‘More or less?’
‘Well, the dinner was from seven o’clock. I must have been at the hotel from just before seven.’
‘And then?’
‘Then I ate with the congress chairman.’
‘And then?’
‘Then I gave my presentation, nine o’clock. Nine to ten. But there were a lot of questions, I only got away at half past ten.’
‘And the laptop and the modem were with you the whole time?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are absolutely sure of that?’
‘Yes. Absolutely.’
Cupido laughed, a laugh of delight. Hehehehe. ‘Genuine?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Now, that modem, on the same night, all on its own, as if by magic, out of the case, sent forty-seven SMSes to Hanneke Sloet. Between six-twenty-one and nine-nineteen.’
‘How on earth?’
‘Maybe not on earth. Maybe divine intervention.’ Griessel could hear Cupido was firing on all cylinders now. He must have known his colleague would relish interrogating a super-rich white man who was
lying through his teeth. ‘Cause the mystery deepens,’ said Cupido. ‘In the past three months, that innocent little modem sent Hanneke Sloet an average of seventeen text messages a day. And on the night of the murder, lo and behold, they were not only sent, but they all registered on the cellular tower here, near your house. Constantia. How do you explain that?’
Henry van Eeden could not explain it. ‘Someone must have cloned the number or … what do you call it when they take over control?’
‘Hacked it?’ Cupido asked.
‘That’s right. That’s what must have happened.’
‘Wait, let me get this straight: you say you have never in your life sent Sloet an SMS with that SIM card?’ Cupido asked.
‘Captain, that’s quite a broad statement. Miss Sloet and I communicated often, in various ways …’
Now it was Miss Sloet, Griessel noted. When he and Bones were here, van Eeden had talked of Hanneke.
‘So you have SMSed her from your little laptop after all?’ asked Cupido.
‘I may have …’
‘May have. To the tune of seventeen a day. But not that evening?’
‘Definitely not that evening.’
‘Somebody hacked your card?’
‘Yes.’
‘While your laptop was switched off? In its bag? In Somerset West?’
‘That’s right.’
‘This mystery hacker goes to all that trouble, to have an SMS conversation with someone you know personally?’
‘It looks like it.’
‘And she likes it so much that she sends a whole bunch of SMSes back to the hacker?’
‘That I wouldn’t know.’
‘That’s your story, and you’re sticking to it?’ Disbelieving.
‘Captain, you can believe whatever you want.’
Then Annemarie van Eeden came in with a tray. ‘Henry, what’s going on?’ she asked.
‘It’s a misunderstanding,’ her husband said, uncomfortably, rising to take the tray from her.
‘What sort of misunderstanding?’
‘Please, let me sort it out.’
She looked at van Eeden. Griessel saw the expression, fleeting, as though just for a second she saw a future without the peace of mind that this wealth, this massive estate, the beautiful house, afforded. That’s the problem with having money, you never stop worrying about losing it.
Then she brushed her husband’s cheek with her fingertips, a tender touch, full of love. ‘I am sure you will,’ she said, and left the room with her usual grace.
Van Eeden put the tray down on the table. ‘Help yourself,’ he said.
Benny needed it. He poured out all three cups.
Cupido solemnly took out his cellphone, the HTC Desire HD of which he was so proud, and put it down on the table.
‘Do you see this phone?’
Van Eeden didn’t want to answer. ‘Yes …’
‘If it rings, then you’re nailed.’
‘Captain, I have been patient up till now …’
‘And we humble policemen are duly grateful, my lord.’
‘I must object. You are twisting my meaning.’
‘Whatever. It won’t help. You are going to do time. And let me tell you why. If we at the Hawks want access to cellphone call records, then we gotta apply for a section two-oh-five subpoena, in accordance with article two-oh-five of the Criminal Procedure Act. It’s not too hard, the courts say it’s only a relatively mild invasion of privacy. We just have to connect you to the case. Then we can see who you phoned or texted. But to see
what
you texted,
daais ’n ander storie
. Big invasion of privacy. Same article two-oh-five subpoena, but the judge schemes it a bit differently. Now we got to
uithaal en wys
, show that you’re a proper suspect. Got it?’
He got only a vague nod.
‘We didn’t just drive up to your magnificent gates for some social chitchat. We are the Hawks, pappie. We’ve got our ducks in a row.
Captain Benna, wily old veteran that he is, remembered you were scared Hanneke Sloet would steal your job …’
Van Eeden grimaced in protest, but Cupido silenced him with a wave of the hand. ‘Captain Benna also reckons that you’re the kingpin, the main man, the big dog deal maker, the Big Mac of the whole BEE place, you’re the one who stands to score the sweetest if it goes through, but you’re also the biggest loser when it all goes south. If the Russian Mafia involvement and pension fund fraud and all that ugly stuff gets into the media. But the thing I think will make up the judge’s mind, the critical factor, as they say in the classics, is the fact that you purposely, knowingly and wilfully withheld information pertinent to a murder investigation. That’s what’s gonna nail you.’
Van Eeden shook his head, slowly and with righteous indignation.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Cupido, still with obvious delight. ‘You’re thinking, but I deleted all those SMSes. You think, if you take them off your laptop, then they’re gone, baby, gone. Big mistake, pappie. Big mistake. Let me educate you about the cellular industry. They have servers. Every SMS that you send logs on those servers. Time, date, sender, recipient. And the SMS itself. The
content
. The actual text. All sitting there. On that server. For a year, pappie. The
outjies
there by IMC, the Information Management Centre, that’s the Hawks’ genius squad, our
competitive
advantage, that you’ll understand as a businessman,
nè
, those
outjies
they say to me it’s because the SMS takes up so little space on the server, just a few bytes, so they can keep it a long time.
That
you didn’t know, hey?’
Van Eeden was poker-faced, only his pallor betrayed him.
‘Now, if my HTC Desire HD smartphone, running on Google Android two point two Froyo, powered by the cellular giant Vodacom, if this phone rings, it means the judge said, open up those servers. Let the light of truth and justice shine upon the rich man’s messages. Then, pappie, you’re going to need more than divine intervention. Like, maybe, a very good lawyer.’
Van Eeden stared at the phone.
‘Oh, and did I forget to mention, along with the article two-oh-five, we applied for a search warrant too. So things are going to be a little busy around here pretty soon.’
Van Eeden’s gaze flicked from the phone to Griessel.
‘Is there something you want, Mr van Eeden?’ he asked.
Van Eeden bit his lower lip.
Cupido’s phone rang, loud and shrill.
Van Eeden’s whole body shuddered. With a sweeping gesture Cupido picked up the HTC, swiped the screen, held it to his ear. ‘This is your captain speaking,’ he answered.
‘Mr van Eeden,’ Griessel prodded.
The millionaire suddenly leaped to his feet. ‘I had an affair with Hanneke,’ he said.
‘Hold your horses,’ said Cupido over the phone. ‘The rich man’s coming clean.’
He walked as he talked, pacing back and forth across the spacious room. The words came with difficulty, as though he had forgotten where he had hidden them. There were silences, when he looked in the direction where his wife had disappeared from the room.
It began in December 2009, only a week after he and Hanneke Sloet had met for the first time at a work-related meeting. He said it was ‘inevitable’, a ‘whirlwind’, they were ‘soulmates’. And, after a long pause, it was a hugely physical attraction that bowled them both over.
He said after the first time, in the Cape Grace, in a room that he’d booked at the last minute, they met in hotels, in Johannesburg, in Cape Town. A few times in her apartment in Stellenbosch, but it was tense, they were never sure whether her friend, Roch, might turn up. They were careful. Discreet. He often left his cellphone lying around in this house, he was too afraid to use it for SMS communication, sure that he would forget to delete something some time. Hanneke’s phone was often left with her personal assistant when she was in Silberstein meetings. That’s why they had decided on the computer SMSes.
A year ago, in February 2010, she decided to break off her relationship with Roch. Van Eeden was opposed to this, because despite the intensity of the affair he had no long-term plans. But she was honest. She wanted him. She insisted on more time with him, she was unhappy about the fact that they could never be seen in public together, she
upped the pressure on him to get a divorce. He thought he could handle it, that it would burn itself out, would blow over. Until she had her breasts enlarged. All because one afternoon after ‘a session’ he confessed that he liked large breasts. That was when he realised she was more determined than he had thought. And then she gave him the photographs. That she had had taken for him. He didn’t know what to do with them. He locked them in his office safe, and two days after her death he cut them up and burned them. He kept one. Only one. Which they would find in his safe.
And in January she had moved to the city, so that they could see each other more easily and more often. She had a key to her front door made for him. And then she began to pressurise him. They had been together a year already, they were sure they were in love with each other. It was time for him to get a divorce. It was time for them, without shame, to be together for ever.
Then he had to tell her he wasn’t prepared to do that.
On the evening of the eighteenth she informed him by SMS that she was going to see Annemarie, his wife. She was going to tell her everything. If he didn’t have the courage to end his marriage, then she would do it for him.
She left him no choice.
‘What did you use to stab her?’ Griessel asked.
He stood up. ‘Come and see.’ He led them to his study, a magnificent room of bookshelves and glass display cases with true-to-life models of old wooden ships. And a sword, antique and worn, fashioned from dull greyish-brown copper. ‘It’s a Jian,’ he said. ‘Two thousand years old. The Chinese gave it to me. To say thank you.’
‘Why did you use it?’ asked Griessel.
‘It was what I had.’
Griessel asked him to return to the sitting room. He asked him to describe exactly what happened that night in Hanneke Sloet’s apartment.
Van Eeden said he SMSed her to tell her he was on his way. From Somerset West. He went in through the parking garage, so that no one could see he was carrying the sword. He unlocked the door. Hanneke must have heard him, because she was standing there. And then he stabbed her. It was a dreadful moment. But he had to protect his world.
Then he put the sword down and went up to her bedroom, to delete the SMSes on her laptop. And then he wiped the floor and the door and the sink clean with a cloth he found in the kitchen.
On the way home he threw the cloth out of the car window.
‘What time did you arrive at her apartment?’
‘About half past eleven.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Round about then.’
‘You drove through from Somerset West?’
‘Yes.’
‘After you had given a speech to 300 people?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mr van Eeden, that doesn’t make sense. How do you explain the SMSes that were sent from your laptop? From here in Constantia?’
‘You have your confession, Captain. What more do you need?’
‘The problem,’ said Griessel, ‘is that you phoned Hanneke Sloet twice, that evening. At 22.48, a call that registered on the cell tower at Somerset West, and again at 23.01, registered on the Nyanga tower.’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘But she didn’t answer.’
He shrugged. ‘She must have been in the bath.’
‘But why did you phone her? If you were on your way there to murder her? If you wanted to surprise her?’
‘I wanted to make sure she was at home.’
‘You’re lying,’ said Cupido. ‘Because she didn’t answer. So how would you know?’
‘The pathologist’s report says she died closer to ten o’clock,’ said Griessel. ‘And he’s reasonably sure, because we know exactly when she ordered a take-away and ate it that night, we know what she ate, he could track the digestion of the food accurately.’