Stolen Lives (6 page)

Drug trafficking and arms dealing were the two biggest money-spinners for organised crime syndicates, but David had been surprised to learn that trafficking in people was the third most lucrative criminal activity in the world.

While countries like Britain and the usa were destinations for trafficked women, and countries like Mexico and Bulgaria the sources, South Africa was both. In addition, it was a transit country for trafficked workers being transported into or out of the African continent. Corrupt immigration officials and the country’s large and porous borders made trafficking a depressingly easy crime to get away with.

All this meant—in theory—that the government had a growing responsibility to fight this exploitation of human life with all its available resources.

In practice, South Africa’s existing laws were hopelessly inadequate when it came to this particular offence. Although the South African Constitution expressly forbade slavery, there were no stand-alone laws that directly opposed all forms of human trafficking. Instead, three different acts were used to prosecute offenders, which meant that putting together a case against traffickers was a haphazard, piecemeal affair. “A right bloody pain in the arse,” was how Captain Thembi had succinctly described the process.

The Immigration Act in particular was a stumbling block for police officers, because its focus was primarily on arresting and repatriating illegal foreign residents. Inevitably, the main targets of this act ended up being the trafficked victims themselves.

Because of this, it had not surprised David to learn that South Africa had remained on the Tier 2 watch list in the United States for four consecutive years due to what their Department of State had described as “an inability to exhibit efforts to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking”.

David had told himself he would give himself a year in the department, and then request a transfer to a Jo’burg precinct. That was his dream. To run his own show; to be the commander of his own little ship. To stamp out inefficiency and corruption in his unit, and fight the crime that took place on his turf. To have responsibility for just one area—he didn’t mind which one—and show that a determined station commander could make a real difference to the crime rate in his neighbourhood.

Finally, the computer screen finished refreshing.

David leaned forward, surprised by what he saw.

The Organised Crime Division had, in fact, opened a human trafficking case against Terence Jordaan a few years ago.

Reading through the details, David discovered that Jordaan had been arrested after a routine check-up on the Midrand premises of Heads & Tails. There, police had discovered four exotic dancers from the Slovak Republic working without visas, the thirty-day visitors’ permits in their passports long since expired.

According to the dancers, they had been lured to South Africa by the promise of a five-year work permit and a high-paying job, neither of which had materialised.

Jordaan had managed to wriggle out of a jail sentence, and the four Slovakian women had been swiftly deported. David could find nothing in the report that stated what the dancers’ living conditions had been, or whether they had been forced into prostitution.

A more recent series of updates by Captain Thembi stated that Jordaan appeared to have been running a clean operation since then. The investigation team had discovered no further irregularities during subsequent checkups.

Even so, his history meant that Terence Jordaan was still a “person of interest” for the division.

When David attempted to exit the most recent report update, the computer hung again, forcing him to restart it for the third time that day. He didn’t go back into the records. He’d seen enough, and the four case files he’d taken from the filing cabinet that morning were all awaiting his urgent attention. Two were drug-smuggling cases, one was the investigation into the Sandton brothel that was currently under way, and the final file was an investigation into a brothel in Bez Valley that was also suspected of employing trafficked workers, code name “Project Priscilla”.

Tomorrow night, he and his team would be conducting a raid on that establishment, and in the meantime David had a mountain of work to get through.

He would call Jade later. Perhaps he could just send her an email. That way, he would be able to avoid speaking to her altogether, avoid that heady mix of guilt and desire that caused his stomach to churn whenever he heard her voice.

As he opened the Project Priscilla file, David frowned and shook his head. Not because of the contents of the cardboard folder, but because of the irony of his situation.

When he’d recommended Jade to his old acquaintance Pamela, he’d never dreamed that the wealthy woman’s missing husband would have a criminal record for human trafficking.

Despite all his efforts to move on, it seemed that Jade was back in his life once again.

Pamela had now been gone so long that Jade started to wonder if she was all right. Perhaps she’d passed out, or collapsed in a delayed reaction to the stress of the shooting or the bang on her head.

That thought got Jade on her feet and halfway across the café, but she stopped in her tracks as the door to the toilets swung open and Pamela emerged.

Her colour was better. She’d tidied her hair and washed her arm. The only evidence of the bloodstain was a damp patch on her blouse. She limped back to the table, shunting her broken sandal across the floor, and sat down.

Considering what she had just been through, she was looking remarkably calm. Jade wished Pamela had been able to control her fear as effectively when she’d been behind the wheel of her car.

She poured the blonde woman a glass of water from the bottle she’d ordered after speaking to David. When Pamela stretched across the table to take the glass, Jade noticed she had sustained another injury; a livid, blue-black bruise on the bicep of her right arm.

Had her arm caught the edge of the steering wheel during the crash? Jade was about to ask when she realised that this bruise, with its deep purple centre and yellowed edges, was already a few days old.

Pamela put the water down on the table and tugged her sleeve hurriedly over the bruise again. Something about the way she did it made Jade decide to keep quiet about what she had seen, although she couldn’t help remembering the comment David had made just a few minutes ago about rich bastards who smacked their wives around.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Pamela said. She raised the glass to her lips—freshly lipsticked, Jade noticed. She didn’t sound scared now. If anything, she sounded slightly annoyed. “I cannot believe that somebody has just tried to kill me.”

“Do you have any idea who that biker might have been?” Jade asked.

“Not a clue.” She picked up her bag and drew out the nail file, inspected her broken nail, and started to smooth its edge with quick, brisk strokes.

“Are you or your husband involved in any court cases? Any business dealings that might have a bearing on this? Any problems with employees?”

Pamela turned her attention to her other hand. “No court cases. I don’t work, and I fired our maid last week. Terence’s business does have its problems from time to time; it’s the nature of the industry.” Pamela looked up from her mini-manicure. “He did mention he’d be heading out of town in the next day or so. And I know in the past he has gone away when he’s in trouble. Gone underground. When there’s something he’s trying to avoid. Or someone.” She shrugged, managing to make the gesture look elegant, and turned her attention back to her nails.

“He couldn’t have decided to leave early?” Jade asked.

“No, dear. Our plane is still in its hangar at Lanseria Airport, and all the cars are at home,” Pamela said, somewhat testily. Then, “He goes … usually, anyway, to a private country residence we own in Dullstroom. It’s state-of-the-art. He had it specially designed, you know, and the levels of security there are unsurpassed.”

“So did Terence really disappear from your home, then?”

Pamela frowned. “What?”

“If all your cars are where they should be?”

The only sound in the sudden silence was the heartfelt tones of the tenor singing in the background. Jade noticed Pamela was now sitting very still.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said finally.

“If I’m going to be able to do my job properly, I need to know.”

Pamela shook her head. Jade detected a stubborn set to her jaw.

The big steel espresso machine on the bar counter made a loud grinding noise, followed by a steamy hiss, and the smell of fresh coffee wafted across the restaurant towards them.

Jade sighed inwardly. This was getting more complicated by the minute. Was Pamela trying to protect her husband? Or did she know more about his disappearance than she was prepared to let on?

Jade had no idea.

“I need you to turn your phone off,” she said.

Now Pamela glanced up in surprise. “My phone? Why?”

“That man on the motorbike knew where you were. Maybe he just got lucky because he was in the area looking out for you, but it’s also possible he was tracking you via your phone. So, until we’ve ruled out cellphone tracing, I don’t want you to turn it on again.”

“But I need to call my daughter to tell her we’ll be late. She’ll be worrying by now.”

Jade nodded. “Tamsin’s our first priority. Call her on my phone and tell her we’re on our way.”

Pamela took the phone. “I’ll text her, then, if it’s all right with you. Tammy won’t answer a call if it’s from a number she doesn’t recognise.”

While Pamela was keying in the message, Jade walked across to the counter, where the waitress was busy making the second of two large, frothy cappuccinos. She paid for their water and used the restaurant’s phone to call a taxi. Then she borrowed a silver paper clip from the receptionist and used it to do a temporary repair job on Pamela’s sandal. Bodyguarding 101: Ways to keep your client mobile.

The taxi was one of the Gauteng yellow cabs, bright and shiny, with an interior that smelled new, but not in the same moneyed way that Pamela’s Corvette had.

After a short drive, they pulled up outside Tamsin’s housing complex in Illovo. Pamela had called it a flat, but looking at the spacious buildings that she saw through the bars of the gate, Jade guessed that an upmarket, self-contained, high-security, threebedroomed palace with a private garden and a koi pond was probably a more appropriate description.

There were only five numbers listed on the intercom. Pamela told the cab driver to press the button for number three.

The bell made a muffled trilling sound. Pamela buzzed the back window down, leaned out and listened for a response.

Silence.

“Ring again,” Pamela ordered the driver.

He rang the bell again, and they sat and listened to more silence. It was uncomfortably warm in the car, and the light breeze that wafted in through the open windows wasn’t helping in the least. All it was doing was forcing more hot air inside.

“I’m worried,” Pamela said in a small, quiet voice. “She didn’t respond to my text message either, and I specifically asked her to.”

“Do you have a gate buzzer for her house?”

Pamela shook her head.

Jade climbed out of the cab and walked round to the intercom. She pressed all five buttons in quick succession and was rewarded with a little orchestra of trills.

A minute later, a man answered. A light-sounding voice, rushed and breathy.

“Hello?”

“Hi. I’m looking for Tamsin Jordaan,” Jade said.

“Sweetie, she lives in number three. You pressed the wrong bell.”

Then he hung up on her. Jade heard a clunk that sounded like an intercom receiver being placed back on its rest.

The glare from the bright white wall in front of her was blinding. When she blinked, she saw the white-painted bars of the gate had seared themselves onto her retinas, forming floating black ghosts that drifted across her vision.

She had no idea which number the man lived in, so she pressed each button again.

He responded, this time sounding irritated.

“Number three, I told you.”

“Wait.” Jade said rapidly, before he could disconnect again.

A pause. Then, “What do you want?”

“I need to come in. Tamsin’s mother is here to collect her, and she’s missing. She’s not answering her phone. Her mother’s worried something is wrong.”

“Pamela’s here?” The man sounded surprised.

“Waiting outside.”

Jade heard the sound of the intercom clattering down again, and a moment later, the gate rolled smoothly open.

She told the driver to park on a strip of grass in the shade of a nearby tree. Ahead of her, she saw five double garage doors arranged in a horseshoe shape.

“Which is Tamsin’s house?” she asked Pamela.

“That one there. Shall I come with you?” Pamela pointed at the middle set of doors. Jade heard a tremble in her voice, a sign of the same fear that she’d noticed when the blonde woman had arrived at her house earlier that day.

“Better not,” Jade said. She didn’t want to elaborate any further on the reasons why, but looking at Pamela’s face, she saw she didn’t have to.