The Disappeared (21 page)

Jansen
massaged his stiff cock. But then an image of Coetzee broke into his reverie. ‘Fuck.’
Jansen stared for a moment at the screen, deciding whether there was enough
time to masturbate. He decided against it. He sighed deeply looking one last
time at the images on the screen and switched off the TV. He pressed a button
on the DVD player and the disc was ejected. He carefully removed the disc and
placed it into a CD case.

It was the
latest addition to his collection. Copied for him by a colleague in
Johannesburg. Mmm. And what a collection it was. It was his pride and joy. And
his little secret. Well. His and the dozen or so other
connoisseurs
that
frequented the secret chat rooms set up on servers all over the Internet. And
Mxit.
Gardening with Azaleas.
Jansen chuckled to himself.
Gardening
with Azaleas.
Yeah, right. It was his idea. A stroke of genius. Hahaha.
Choose the most boring chat-room name imaginable. Who would ever log onto a
chat group discussing Azaleas? Of course every now and then they
would
actually
get the odd idiot. Some boring arthritic old geezer who would
actually
be into Azaleas.
Can you believe it?
It was not only a deeply satisfying
hobby but also a very profitable one.

Jansen went
into his bedroom, opened the closet and inserted the case into a rack hidden
deep inside behind a row of clothes hanging from coat hangers. He had
everything. From suicides caught on tape. To accident scenes. To autopsies. But
this latest addition was a jewel indeed. You didn’t get one of those every day.
This was only the second rape he had ever managed to lay his hands on. And the
boys were going to love it. R500 a pop. Easily. He was going to coin it on this
one.
Hell yeah.
No doubt about that.

As Jansen
closed the closet door he caught sight of himself in the cracked mirror, stuck
to the inside of the door with double-sided tape. His heart skipped a beat. A
hollow-eyed man with dark rings under his eyes stared back at him. For a split
second, he fell headlong into dark pupils, black as night ... and saw

red light.

Jansen jumped
back. As much as he tried to avoid it, he couldn’t help think about the dark
dream that had pushed the envelope of his sleep. He probed his mind and his
memory, trying to understand why the dream had terrified him so, but saw only

red light.

He shook the
thoughts from his head and looked around the room. There. He grabbed a can of
beer from the bedside drawer and drained it of its stale contents. It was time
to go and rescue the people of Bishop.
Fuckit.
He stood in the bare room
staring into space. He had little taste for the day that lay ahead. Anger and
resentment licked at the corners of his soul.

   He stood
and stared into red empty space. All the time the darkness grew inside him.

Lindiwe and
Minki were walking towards the Bishop Police station. This time their pace was
brisk and nervous. Lindi didn’t know why she was specifically heading back
towards the police station. But right now she could think of no better place to
be. And in any case, Inspector Coetzee made her feel safe ... and calm.

She looked
down at the child who had her hand in a vice-like grip.

They’re all
gone, Lindi.

What was
happening? What was going on? There was no explanation that made sense. What
had happened to everyone? Where was
gogo
?

‘Lindi, will
Constable Coetzee help us?’

Lindiwe smiled
down at Minki. ‘It’s Inspector Coetzee, poppet. And yes, he will. He’s a good
man and he will.’ The two walked on in silence. Their footsteps echoed hollow
thuds.

Lindiwe
thought about Minki’s words.
They’re all gone, Lindi
.

What a strange
thing to say. And what did she mean? The words made a cold chill run down
Lindiwe’s spine. She immediately tried to dismiss them as the confused words of
a traumatised child.
They’re all gone.
It couldn’t possibly be true,
could it?

As they walked
down Main Street towards the police station she thought of the strange boy from
out of town. For the first time Lindi wondered if he had something to do with
the strange occurrences of that morning. But she immediately dismissed the
thought. How could one person be responsible for all this?

And then –  

Lindiwe heard
something that for the first time that morning truly allayed her fears and made
a bright flower of hope blossom in her heart. It was the sound of at least half
a dozen voices. And it was coming from the police station just ahead. The two
girls looked at each other. Lindiwe could see her own relief reflected in the
eyes of her young companion. They both hurried their walking pace. As they
neared the station they saw two people standing in its neat garden. With
thumping exhilaration Lindiwe jogged the last remaining steps to the iron gate
that marked its entrance. Minki in tow. When they reached the gate, Lindiwe
halted suddenly, her excitement temporarily diluted with caution. The two men
standing in the front garden were Mr Jones – a wealthy realtor – and Max Theron
– son of the Bishop Mayor. As expected, the sight of her elicited only the
faintest – and transient – reaction from the two men. As if they were trying to
block out an over-enthusiastic servant who was intruding upon some private
discussion. Despite the cool reception

(
bastards
)

Lindiwe
managed a smile and nodded politely in greeting. Of the two, only Mr Jones bothered
to nod – albeit curtly – in reciprocated politeness. Max Theron completely
ignored her and continued the hushed conversation with Jones.

Peter Gibson
Jones owned a very successful real estate agency and was not only the single
biggest property mogul in the entire district, but was also one of the richest
men in Bishop and the surrounding area. He maintained very close ties with the
Mayor of Bishop and Lindiwe was not surprised to see him with Max – without a
doubt the biggest and most intolerably spoiled brat she had ever met. Arrogant.
Self-inflated. Demeaning. Max Theron made no secret of the manner in which he
viewed Lindiwe. She knew he often referred to her as the ‘alcoholic
ho
from Joburg’. He had graduated at a prestigious Eastern Cape private school but
had since flunked several courses at university. He was now on a ‘sabbatical’,
in Bishop. Mr Jones’s view of her wasn’t much different although he was
infinitely more subtle about it. As Lindiwe walked past the two men, she
noticed that Max Theron was standing with both feet in the neatly arranged flowerbed.
Several Marigolds and Pansies had been crushed by his weight.

Inside the
small reception area of the police station, chaos reigned. About a dozen people
were standing around clamouring loudly. They were talking to each other, over
each other, through each other and some, despite each other. What little
conversation Lindiwe could discern featured words such as
missing
and
disappeared
.
She tried to shield Minki from the nervous chatter but realised her efforts
were ultimately futile.

So, it was
true. Others had disappeared too. Inspector Coetzee was right. Lindiwe felt her
heart sink.
Oh God. What was happening?

Although most
were fully dressed, there were at least a few standing around in bathrobes and
pyjamas. None of the women was wearing make-up. She saw at least one of the men
sporting what had to be his wife’s pink slippers. She recognised all of them. A
few waved at her, greeted her by name or smiled wanly. There was Mr and Mrs
Lovisa, the middle-aged Portuguese couple who owned one of the larger Arts and
Craft stores in Bishop. There was Dora Cooper. A rich spinster who lived with
her sister Marianne in a huge mansion on the banks of the Elandsriver. Their
father had made his money on the Free State goldfields in the thirties and
forties. He had died some twenty years ago and had left his considerable
fortune to his two only daughters. Neither of them ever married – despite a
never-ending stream of suitors. It was whispered – according to the venerable
Miss Lily – that the sisters regularly visited a
Sangoma –
a so-called
witch doctor – who was famous throughout the Free State. It was whispered that
the
Sangoma
would perform séances during which they would summon Frank
Wilbur Cooper from his grave and elicit investment advice. As Lindiwe and Minki
entered, Dora Cooper was busy talking to and consoling Bridgette Le Roux who – Lindiwe
at once realised – was the single biggest source of cacophony in the crowded
room. Big fat tears streaked her cheeks and her face was twisted into a bawling
mask of grief. Bridgette was a divorced mother of twins. The father of her sons
– and her first husband – had been one of Nelson Mandela’s warders at Victor
Verster Prison in the late eighties. He had been a sickly, mousey man and had
apparently suffered much under the acerbic reign of his wife. After his death,
she had entered into a series of failed marriages that never lasted more than
five years. She had recently divorced her fourth husband. A Zimbabwean ex-pat
who had been implicated in an illegal caged-hunting scheme with lions that
involved a Member of the Executive Council from Gauteng. Lindiwe guessed immediately
that Bridgette was here because her twins were missing. She felt immense pity
for the grief-stricken woman. However – much to her relief – Lindiwe also saw
the Mohapis. A well-to-do black couple originally from Lesotho. They were
standing in a corner with worried expression on their faces, talking quietly. Thabo
Mohapi was a software engineer who had made his fortune in the Gauteng tech
boom of the nineties. He had apparently been on the board of directors of a
German software firm. Joyce Mohapi had been a bigwig in the Gauteng Health
Department. After a life of big city stress, two-hour traffic jams and
indiscriminate violent crime, the couple had purchased a beautiful old Edwardian
mansion next to the Coopers and had settled in Bishop. Now Thabo Mohapi worked
from home, often collaborating with Duggan on big projects. Joyce Mohapi waved
fondly at Lindiwe when she spotted her. A feather of a smile on her
tired-looking face. Next to Joyce and Thabo were the Sacks couple – huddled in
a corner, loud and agitated. They were having an animated conversation with a
woman who had her back turned to Lindiwe. Leslie Sacks had been a successful
lawyer in Bloemfontein. He had achieved international fame after defending a
South African Soccer referee in a match-fixing scandal. After selling his firm,
he had been recruited by Obsidian Technologies to serve as part of their legal
team together with Minki’s father. He was the man wearing his wife’s pink
slippers. Lindiwe saw now that the woman they were talking to was Karen
Villiers – the mayor’s personal assistant. She was a small and mousey though
very attractive woman who lived alone in a small cottage behind one of the
Elandsriver properties. She was quiet and demure and sometimes reminded Lindiwe
of an English schoolmistress. She seldom socialised with anyone and Lindiwe
could not remember ever even having a short conversation with her. According to
Miss Lily, she was having an affair with Friedrich Theron, the Bishop Mayor. Near
to them Lindiwe identified Piet Ryneke – manager of the local branch of
Standard Bank. Squat and muscular, Ryneke was a boorish and unpleasant man. He
was recently divorced from his wife of fifteen years. Apparently Mr Ryneke had
the habit of making sexual advances towards their black domestics. After one of
these episodes resulted in a pregnancy, his wife promptly filed for divorce and
went to live with her mother in Thabazimbi. Not before first informing the
entire town of Ryneke’s
love child
, that is. In the months since his
wife’s departure, Ryneke had made various advances on Lindiwe. Crude.
Lascivious. And arrogant. He had made no secret of the things he wanted to do
to her in the backseat of his Hilux Twin Cab. Now, Piet Ryneke looked panicky
and stressed. And alone.

Then – in the
furthest corner, right by the door that led to the private areas of the police
station – was Robert John Visser. (She didn’t know why but everyone in town
always used his full name when talking about him.) Huddled and shoved into a
corner – and apparently oblivious to everyone around him – he had a stricken
and deep-worried look on his bleak face. Lindiwe wasn’t sure but she knew he
was some kind of executive on the board of directors of Obsidian Technologies. She
now realised he was the only person in the crowded foyer that was fully dressed
in suit and tie. His arms were folded in a tight and nervous knot. An expensive
looking briefcase stood next to him. Then there was Stoffel Van Vuuren – the
local handyman and go-to-guy for any little job no one else wanted to do. He
was also a recovering alcoholic, though most of the time he was just an
alcoholic. He stood now with his red face by the counter looking awkward as
hell.

Lindiwe looked
around the chaotic room. In the corner she saw a person that filled her heart
with sudden and happy joy. It was Moira. Her best friend. She was sitting on
the bench next to Katya Vladislavic, quietly consoling her. They were the only
people in the room who were seated. Lindiwe immediately walked towards her good
friend, bouncing and bumping and weaving through the throng created by the
Bishop residents packed into the small room. When she reached the pair seated
on the bench, Katya saw her and greeted her with shock and relief. Moira had
her back to Lindiwe. She turned around and immediately jumped up and grabbed her
in a tearful embrace.

‘Oh my God,
Lindi, I am so glad to see you,’ Moira said through thick tears. ‘Oh my God, oh
my God.’ She pulled herself free and looked at Lindi. ‘You have no idea. I was
so worried.’ Moira then saw Minki down below and the tears and exclamations
started afresh. She bent down and picked up Minki and hugged her passionately
and tearfully. ‘Oh my angel, I am so glad the two of you are okay. Bless the
Lord, oh yes.’ Minki hugged her back fiercely. Like most of Bishop she was very
fond of the luscious and voluptuous redhead who owned the Abbot – the town’s
most popular restaurant. Katya Vladislavic now also stood up and hugged
Lindiwe. The two women cried freely as some of the other residents looked on.
Bridgette Le Roux, seeing the women crying, let loose a long deep wail and was
promptly comforted by Dora Cooper.