7 Days Read Free Page B

corridors of the DPCI – the Hawks – building. He was amazed at the effect that the Steyn affair, which Manie had referred to a few minutes ago, had had on the SAPS this past year.
    Estelle Steyn, a newly qualified young chef, had been strangled eighteen months ago in her Pinelands town house – with a piece of material, probably a tie. No signs of breaking and entering, theft or sexual assault – it must have been someone whom she knew and trusted. Like her tie-wearing fiancé, the sombre, emotionless KPMG consultant with cold eyes and a key to her door. Within seventy-two hours he had been arrested and charged, and the media and fascinated public immediately declared him guilty. Because Estelle Steyn was a joyous, lively bundle of sunny energy, a brilliant cook with a bright future according to her colleagues. Alongside her blonde, smiling beauty on the front pages of the papers, her fiancé’s photo looked brooding and forbidding, the taciturn stare turned away from the camera. Like a man burdened by his misdeeds.
    Then came the court case.
    Like a pack of wild dogs, the defence ripped apart the carcass of poor crime-scene management, the narrow focus of the investigation, and the creative assumptions of the forensic testimony.
    After seven months of sensation, the fiancé walked away a free man.
    The media scolded and squawked, the public were shocked and dumbstruck. Months later best-selling books by criminologists and forensics experts analysed and criticised every SAPS misstep. In parliament, time and again the opposition used the whole as a stick with which to beat the government – the damage and scandal would not go away.
    The career of the investigating officer, Fanie Fick, was over. He was tucked away in the Information Management Centre (IMC) of the Hawks now, retrained and redeployed as a computer analyst, but everyone knew he would not be promoted again. Behind his back they talked about ‘Fanie Fucked’, the guy who relieved his pain after hours every day at the Drunken Duck in Stikland.
    That was why the Sloet file that Griessel carried to his office was so painfully detailed and ‘by the book’. The police service’s wounds were still raw, their honour deeply dented, the fear of another detective scapegoat, of more punishment and criticism from top management, the press and Joe Public, loomed large.
    That was why General John Afrika had sat in on the meeting at the DPCI tonight, and why he had asked for a specific investigator.
    Fear. The Hawks did not usually accept orders or input from a provincial head of investigations. They were too protective of their independence, of their own structures.
    Fear, he thought, was also the reason they were allowing the gunman to blackmail them. In the old days the SAPS would not have bowed to threats from a sharpshooter.
    Griessel sighed, unlocked his office door. It was a recipe for trouble.
    Life was never simple.
    He arranged the files on his desk, first opening the slim one that John Afrika had given him. He began to read the emails in chronological order, initially struggling to focus, too many things had happened too fast tonight.
    [email protected]
    Sent: Monday 24 January. 23.53
    To: [email protected]
    Re: Hanneke Sloet
    You know very well who murdered Hanneke Sloet. Arrest the communist, or I will hand everything to the press.
    The second one was much longer:
    [email protected]
    Sent: Monday 31 January. 23.13
    To: [email protected]
    Re: Hanneke Sloet, you’re all going to hell!!!
    You are ungodly and sinners (1 Timothy 1:9, Proverbs 17:23).
    The truth will come out about the communist and about the money he is paying you. You are all equally corrupt. Your time is running out.
    1 Timothy 1:9-10: Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers,