By late afternoon, Jade had the information she needed. Her back was sore and she was stiff from hours of driving through traffic-clogged roads. Her head hurt where she had hit it on the roof of the car. But these were minor worries.
Robbie was a more major worry. She’d called him while she was stuck in a queue of traffic and demanded her gun back. He told her he couldn’t return it just yet.
“I’m very busy, babe. I’m catching up with the creep who sold us out. I’ll keep you posted, OK?”
“Robbie, I need it now. For God’s sake, it’s my weapon. I paid you for it. Use one of your own guns.”
“I can’t. They’re all out with my staff at the moment.”
Jade would have laughed if she hadn’t been so angry.
“Have you found out who quashed the Hirsch case yet?” she asked him. “Who the corrupt cop is?”
“Well…” Robbie drawled. “It’s not as easy as it sounds. There’s different levels of corruption, you know. I’ve got contacts in the police service who pass information to me. In theory, they’re corrupt. But they don’t know who quashed that case. I’m asking around, babe. I’m asking. Don’t panic, be cool.”
Back at Annette’s place, she
concealed her car behind the house and hurried inside. She pulled
her cell phone out, and started dialing the first of the numbers
before the door had closed.
Her first conversation was with the previous owner of what, today, was Sun Valley Estate. Set in a gorgeous part of Jo’burg, it overlooked a wooded hill whose trees had not yet suc-cumbed to the developers’ chainsaws. The homes inside had looked spacious and elegant. Enough room to swing a large cat. Perhaps even a leopard.
The woman who spoke to her informed her in brisk tones that her husband had been shot and killed outside the prop-erty shortly before she made the decision to sell. Jade detected a hint of a British accent in her voice. Probably, the woman was concealing her heartbreak behind a businesslike manner, as the British seemed to like to do.
“He was parked at the gate,” she told Jade. “He was waiting for it to open. I always told him he should never park in the driveway. He should wait parallel to the road, so that he could pull off if anyone came along.”
“And he didn’t do that?”
“The car was facing the gate when they found him. His window was down. He must have opened it. Stupid, stupid.” She sighed. “Perhaps they pointed a gun at him and said they’d shoot him through the glass. I don’t know what happened.”
“Did they take anything?”
“Cell phone and wallet. The police thought he must have threatened or insulted them. Perhaps he refused to get out of the car. But that wasn’t like George. He always said he would cooperate with hijackers, if it ever happened to him.”
“I’m sorry,” Jade said.
“They told me criminals are getting bolder nowadays. They’ll shoot to kill, so that there are no witnesses. He said I was lucky they didn’t come down the driveway and attack me. It’s a frightening thought. I was in the house. The gate was open. The doors were unlocked. They could have walked straight in from the road.”
“You sold soon afterwards?” Jade asked.
“I always wanted to sell. I felt the house was too big for us. And security wasn’t good. I live in a flat now, in Cape Town. I feel much safer.” She laughed, a short, sorrowful laugh. “Our land was a prime spot, apparently. It’s sad to think that if George had sold when the developers approached him, this might never have happened.”
“Just to get the situation clear,” Jade continued. “You were approached by a number of buyers, but you didn’t sell. Then after this happened, you sold up immediately.”
“Yes. It was my husband who wanted to hang onto the house. Not me.”
Who would have known that, Jade wondered. She looked at the sheet of paper. There wasn’t much space left on it.
The woman continued. “We had offers regularly. Agents on our doorstep all the time.”
“Anyone in particular?”
She laughed, a brittle sound. “Everyone in particular.”
“Who did you sell through in the end?”
“The developers handled the sale directly. White &Company. Their agent was excellent. Mark, his name was. Very charming. And persistent. He was helpful after it all happened. Kind. Supportive. I was falling apart at the seams, of course. So he handled everything. He wanted to get me out of the house and put the sale through as soon as pos-sible. I remember he told me that when the house had been knocked down and they’d built over it, the bad memories would fade. I think, somehow, he was right.”
“May I ask you what they paid you for the land?”
She sounded vague. “A reasonable amount, I suppose. He said the shooting had affected property prices in the area, which was unfortunate for me. There had been a few other crimes there recently. Another good reason why I wanted to get out as soon as possible.”
“You didn’t consider negotiating with another buyer for a better price?”
The woman’s voice sharpened. “No, dear. My husband had just died. I had more important things on my mind.”
Touché, thought Jade.
“My apologies,” she said. “I understand.”