Gun Dealing (The Ryder Quartet Book 2) Read Free Page B

Fok , Mavis. When you’re working there at
forensics, and I come to you for advice, you gonna remind me of this day, hey? Yissus . I’m going to ask your scientific
advice next time I’m trying to decide between whisky or gin.’
    ‘That’s
good, Detective Koeks. I can ask you if you want to drink whisky with a ‘y’
only or with the ‘e’ and the ‘y,’ then I can tell you.’
    More
laughter at Koekemoer’s expense as he looked nonplussed and Dippenaar had to
explain to him the difference, with lots of attendant jokes about the trouble
he might land in if he were to walk into a bar in the USA or Canada or Scotland
or Ireland.  
    High
fives all around for Mavis, and eventually the mirth subsided.
    ‘Speaking
of coffee. Where’s Jeremy. Piet? Is he practising his
speech for this afternoon?’
    ‘He’s
only getting here at about 10.00 am, Dipps. He’s following up on last week’s
stuff with that blerrie Thabethe
bastard. He’s seeing van Rensburg in Comms to check on how they’re going with
tracing him through his cell-phone. The Captain, too, is only coming in later.
About 11.30. He has reports to do at IPID about the stuff that happened last
week.’
    ‘And
Sinethemba, Piet? She’s normally here by now.’
    ‘ Ja , you’re right, Navi. I was wondering
where she was. She’s usually first in. Have you heard anything from her,
Mavis?’
    ‘No,
Sergeant Piet. I was talking to her last on Saturday night. She was having a
party yesterday in KwaDukuza with friends. Maybe I should call her?’
    ‘ Ag , no, Mavis, don’t worry. It’s still
quite early. I’m sure she’ll be here any minute now. Maybe she’s been writing
too many essays. Like you, hey, Mavis? I reckon students nowadays work much
harder than when I was a student. You guys have the internet and stuff. I hated
going to the library. I would have worked much harder as a student if I could
have done it at home with the internet and cigarettes and coffee.’
    Further
discussion ensued about student life with some flattering observations about
the impressive young Sinethemba and what a model student constable she was. The
detectives learned that Mavis and she were much closer friends than any of them
had realised .
    Cronje
thought how much better things were now, under Captain Nyawula’s command, with
the unit getting to know one another as friends as well as colleagues.
    ‘OK , lissen , kêrels,’ he said, ‘some of us have to do some real work now so if
you don’t mind can I have my desk?’
    They
all got down, in good humour , to the normal business
of the day.
    09.40.
    Ryder left the SAPS Comms team with
no answers. Technological wizard Van Rensurg had been very helpful but there
was no trace of the cell-phone that Ryder needed to track down the wanted
former cop, guns-and-drugs-dealer and murderer, Skhura Thabethe.
    They had followed the phone that
Thabethe used, Van Rensburg told him. They had hoped to pick up the signal and
track him down. Skhura Thabethe. The unit’s most wanted man on the run.
    But nothing. Van Rensburg’s people
pinged the instrument north of Richards Bay late on Saturday night and had got
excited. Then they got depressed when the signal passed through Mtubatuba on
Sunday morning, and before they could get a vehicle onto it the signal vanished
completely. The really bad news was that it then re-appeared briefly on Sunday
afternoon going into Swaziland on the MR9 from Piet Retief. It was now lost
somewhere in Swaziland.
    Ryder had no way of knowing that his
quarry had slipped the phone onto a pantechnicon heading northward on Saturday
night while he then went eastward. The identified cell-phone was now useless in
the search for Thabethe.
    Ryder headed back to the team.

 
    10.05.
    Cronje, Pillay and Tshabalala were
suffering. There had been yet another power outage. The fans weren’t working.
Jackets had long been discarded. Sleeves were rolled up. Buttons undone. The
few remaining cans of Coca-Cola and Ginger