Blood at Bay

By Sue Rabie

David Roth walks in on a gruesome accident at the Umvoti sugar mill. Then an auditor who insists that he has evidence of foul play at the mill ends up dead. Soon after, David is attacked on the yacht that he is fixing up for his uncle in Durban harbour and he becomes involved in a struggle to expose the truth without becoming the latest in a series of “accidents”. Somehow it is all linked to the deaths of several mill workers and their family members some months ago. Evidence and witnesses seems to have a way of disappearing at the Umvoti mill. And then there are the mill workers, who will lose their livelihood if the mill had to close down.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Human & Rousseau
• Release date: Apr 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9780798153775

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Dreams can’t kill you, or hurt you, or make you bleed; yet he woke up gasping for air with the taste of blood in his mouth.

Darkness. Huge and blue. He was drowning, the ocean rushing into his mouth, claws reaching for him from below. And someone, something was pulling him deeper.

He opened his mouth to yell, only to have saltwater rush down his throat.

When David Roth awoke fully, he was choking. He struggled to catch his breath as the burn of the ocean in his lungs slowly faded.

A dream. It was just a dream. He tried to remember what it had been about, to hold on to the vestiges of the nightmare. But it was just like the last time, the memory and images already gone. All that was left was a faint wisp of terror. Someone drowning him? Something pulling him under?

No. There had been no real claws; there wasn’t really something coming for him.

Damn, he cursed. His voice came out as a croak and he had to clear his throat. Get a grip. His lip smarted and he pressed his tongue to where he had bitten it. The dreams had woken him several times in the last month, and he had been tormented, not by them, but rather by his waking from them, by his unsettled surfacing from an unknown fear.

They’re just dreams, he tried telling himself as he scrabbled in the bedside drawer for the pills. The doctor had prescribed Donormyl for insomnia – one before bed – and Seredyn for anxiety – take one as needed. Right, he mused. Big help they had been.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t want to go back to sleep, to have another nightmare. He got up, glancing around his bedroom as if the ocean might surge in again, as if the thing reaching for him were still there. Darkness and deep shadows, but other than that the flat was quiet. David eased his breath out. He was disappointed with himself, annoyed at his irrational terror.

He wandered into the lounge. The sofa hid nothing behind it; the shelves and wall units were bare, except for books and photo frames. The dining-room table in the smaller section of the L-shaped room was its usual heaped mess of receipt books and boxes of invoices. The computer in the corner resolved itself into a stand and not the hideous thing his imagination had envisioned in the darkness.

Beyond the sliding doors and the balcony, Durban glimmered in the bay. The humid air was slightly salty on his tongue as it wafted through the window. Above the tallest buildings the night sky was an orange haze, the thin clouds reflecting the city lights below.

He turned back to the lounge. The digital clock glowed four minutes past two. He had gone to sleep at ten o’clock, but it seemed only a moment ago that he had closed his eyes. He felt worse than before he had taken the sleeping pills. His mouth was dry, and there was a sharp taste on his tongue. It was the residue of the tablets, the chemicals lurking in his system. He looked at the pills still in his palm. They weren’t helping him; they were making things worse. He went back to the bedroom and threw them away in the en suite bathroom’s bin.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His face was drawn and pale and his normally clear blue eyes were red from lack of sleep. His straight brown hair was slick with sweat and wisps stuck to his forehead. Shave, he told himself as he stepped into the shower, you’ll feel better. He took his own advice.

He didn’t sleep after that, not even after he had washed the tang of the pills out of his system and his anxiety levels had subsided to a semblance of normality. He hadn’t eaten anything since lunchtime the previous day – another reason why he hadn’t slept well. He went through to the kitchen after his shower, feeling for the light switch before entering the room. Pathetic, he told himself, thinking monsters were prowling in the shadows.

There wasn’t much in the fridge. The leftover pizza was soggy, the salad was limp and the garlic bread he had left unsealed was as hard as rock. A half-bottle of Coke promised vague relief. He took it and went to the cupboard for a glass. Empty. The sink was full of dirty glasses, mugs and plates from a busy week. He drank from the container instead. The Coke was flat, but he didn’t mind. Anything was better than the taste of medicine in his system. He finished it and tossed the plastic bottle into the bin. He would have to take out the rubbish soon, he noted, and clean the fridge too. Well, he told himself, you might as well do it now. You’re not going to get back to sleep tonight.

By half past five he had cleaned the kitchen, gone through the fridge and washed the dishes. He made himself toast and a cup of coffee and sat down in front of the TV. It didn’t hold his gaze for long and by the end of the third epic stretch of advertisements his attention had shifted to the state of the rest of his flat. His new company’s books were piled on the dining-room table, jackets lying over sofas, old magazines on chairs.

The coffee boost caught him and the tidy-up session lasted until half past six. He was actually relieved when the phone call came at seven o’clock, because there was nothing left to do to keep his mind off the nightmares.

It was Julian Harper, his uncle from Johannesburg, married to David’s late mother’s sister. Apart from a brother who farmed in the Cape, he was David’s closest relative. He was also one of the few family members who still spoke to David. Julian had been David’s lawyer when his daughter Janey had died. He had represented David at the trial and had also assisted him with his parole. David greeted him warmly and asked after him.

Good, Julian Harper told him. Leading a life of sloth and luxury.

David didn’t believe it. Julian wasn’t just a lawyer; he was a businessman. A shrewd one at that. He was in the courts less often than he was off on some mystery holiday. In fact, David had often wondered whether Julian practised law for justice or to use it for his own means, to get around the red tape.

Someone told me you were down in Durban now, running a transport company? Julian asked.

I’ve only just started the business, David told him. I got another client yesterday.

Great, Julian encouraged. Who?

It’s a small job. A delivery of machine parts to a sugarcane mill out at Dalton.

Never heard of the place.

Neither had David until a Ms Prinsloo had phoned, asking for his rates. She had accepted his prices and faxed him an order number and an invoice of the items he was to pick up from a machinist somewhere in the industrial district south of Durban. There were two separate consignments, she had instructed, and he would be able to deliver them on consecutive days. Good, David had thought at the time. The way his nights were going he didn’t think he could stay awake behind the wheel for two trips on the same day.

And you can’t hire a driver? Julian asked.

David wished he could. They’re too expensive at the moment, he told his uncle. I’m doing my own driving until I can afford to expand.

I hope you’re not overdoing it, Julian commented. You sound tired.

Just not sleeping well, that’s all.

Well then, that makes it easier to ask you this favour.

What favour?

I’ve bought a yacht.

David raised an eyebrow. Congratulations, he said politely.

It’s not a new yacht, Julian went on without changing his tone. In fact, she’s quite old and needs a lot of work before we can sail in her.

We? David echoed.

Your aunt and I, Julian clarified. We’re going to sail around the world.

David stifled a disbelieving grunt. His aunt, Ann Harper, was not a yachtie. She was a Joburg socialite, accustomed to her fully serviced designer home, her hairstylists, nailstylists and personal trainer. That should be exciting, he said carefully, wondering if Julian knew what he was letting himself in for.

Hmm, Julian grunted. It will be, once she’s been refitted.

The boat?

Yes. She’s a fifty-five-foot Mikado schooner. She’s seaworthy and she’s got her certificates and papers that prove it, but the previous owners were, well, somewhat neglectful.

Oh? David asked.

I’ve hired contractors in Durban to refit the cabins and saloon so your aunt will be more comfortable, but I need someone down there to oversee it all. Someone who can take care of things and make sure the contractors aren’t slacking off.

I see, David replied, shutting his eyes as he tried to come up with an excuse as to why he couldn’t help.

This would be good for you, Julian told him. You’ll sleep better after you’ve had some fresh sea air and sunshine.

Yes? David replied with a trace of irony, thinking that was just what he needed, but not while he ran after carpenters and upholsterers and painters on his uncle’s new yacht.

Good, then, I’ll have the boat’s papers couriered down to you.

Hold on— David started saying.

And the spare keys to the cabins and engine, Julian went on. I’ve also taken the liberty of getting you membership at the Royal Natal Yacht Club so you can use their facilities.

David suppressed the sudden urge to put down the phone. I didn’t mean—

The contractors start on Tuesday. I’m faxing you the list of things that need doing.

David turned in disbelief as his fax machine burped to life. How had Julian known the number?

Thank you, David. I really mean it. With you there looking after things I know the work will get done.

David sighed. So that’s why Julian Harper was so successful. He knew exactly which strings to pull. I’ll try, he said with weary resignation. But I’m not guaranteeing anything.

I won’t hold any setback against you, and, don’t worry, I’ll make it worth your while.

I don’t need payment— David said, frowning as he was drowned out again.

I’ll get in touch with you soon, Julian said, ending the call before David could say anything more.

CHAPTER TWO

The sound of the morning traffic was distant, the air in the apartment stagnant. David put on the radio and waited for the weather report. He listened vacantly as scattered showers were predicted around Pietermaritzburg. Then he wandered into the kitchen to make another cup of coffee. He stood on his balcony, drinking it as he stared out over the cityscape. The view of the harbour was obscured by a haze of early-morning mist that promised a warm spring day. He thought about the yacht Julian Harper wanted him to babysit and then remembered the nightmares of drowning that had plagued him. Coincidence? He hoped so.

He went back inside, washed the cup and went to get dressed. He still felt tired and wasn’t looking forward to the trip to Dalton, but at least work would take his mind off the dreams. He grabbed a jacket just in case it did start showering and then went downstairs to the garages where he kept his second-hand Land Rover and the new Mercedes Sprinter delivery van.

His flat was on the second floor of a duplex apartment block that had been built in the sixties. The brown brick building was a little worn around the edges, but the low rates and location suited him. One of the reasons he had bought it was for the double garage assigned to each apartment. The Mercedes van just fitted, although technically he wasn’t allowed to keep a work vehicle there. But, so far, his neighbour hadn’t objected.

By the time David had picked up the parts waiting at the specialist machinist in the city and driven out to the Umvoti Mill he was feeling decidedly better. The trip hadn’t been a long one, only an hour and a half from Durban, and the traffic had been obliging. He had driven through Pietermaritzburg to New Hanover, then past the turn-off to Schroeders and Ravensworth and on to Dalton. The rolling emerald green of the sugarcane fields contrasted with the brilliant royal-blue sky above, but the tranquil country portrait was slightly marred by the muddy town.

Dalton’s main road was a dead end: a row of old buildings that had seen better days opposite a web of railway lines that ran through the town. There was a bank, a butchery, a grocery store, a general dealer and the obligatory post office. A modern bridge linked the main road to the rest of the town where a cash-and-carry and the one and only hotel-cum-bar waited wearily for Friday-afternoon paydays.

David turned back from the main road and found the Fawnleas, Seven Oaks turn-off. This road led him past the farmers’ hall and rugby club and through the main residential area of town. There were houses on either side – some municipal and clearly built in the fifties, and others larger, more recently built, but still a little grubby. It was no wonder. Huge cane trucks with their double-cargo trailers barrelled down the road, shedding mud and cane sticks. They made for the Dalton Union Co-Op Mill, the huge edifice dominating the town limits as it spewed smoke and soot into the air.

David started comparing Dalton to Boston, where he had lived before. This town was bigger, with more people, but it was also caught up in that small-town mentality, where most folk knew what their neighbours were up to. He thought of May, the woman who had saved him from himself, of how they had parted. He wondered if she ever regretted her decision to move back to Joburg, if she ever regretted leaving him. Then he stopped himself. He didn’t want to think about May.

He carried on through Dalton and on to the Umvoti Mill situated a further twenty kilometres up the road. It was a relatively new structure, the mill only five years old but just as big and busy as the Dalton Union Co-Op.

As David stepped down from the Mercedes’s air-conditioned cab he discovered how much cooler it was away from the coast. He slipped his jacket on and made his way to the long, low administration block. It was the only entrance to the mill; the property itself was surrounded by a tall wire-mesh fence. The administration block stood not only as a barrier in front of a square and somewhat dusty parking lot, but also as a weighbridge and security boom for the cane trucks that drove through.

David pushed open the swing door and stepped into the room.

Can I help you? The woman at the reception desk smiled at him as he closed the door. The name on her desk identified her as Mrs Freese.

He introduced himself. I have a delivery for you, he told her. Machine parts from Durban. He handed over the invoice and delivery details.

Thank you, the receptionist said. We weren’t expecting you so soon.

David smiled obligingly.

I’ll get someone to offload for you, she told him.

David waited while she phoned through to dispatch. No one answered. She glanced up, a worried expression on her face. She seemed the worrying sort – a plump, floral-frocked woman who was probably a local farmer’s wife making extra cash answering the telephone.

That’s strange; they’re not there.

Not a problem, David said. I’ll wait. The next consignment’s only due tomorrow.

Oh? she frowned. I haven’t been told anything about that.

A Ms Prinsloo arranged it, he explained.

Mrs Freese looked confused. Well, then, I think you’d better speak to her. If she arranged it, she can deal with it. She’s down the passage with the auditors from Durban. They’re through the third door on the right.

David thanked her and made his way out of the room. The passage was a long, cabinet-cluttered hallway of offices and filing rooms, all nondescript and made more so by an additional layer of unavoidable soot from endless cane fires burning nearby. The walls were institutional beige and the floor was brown linoleum.

The first door on his left led to an office labelled Managing Director. The second door announced this was where his or her assistant worked. The desk was as neat as a pin with in trays and out trays uniformly stacked. Opposite was an office labelled Financial Manager. The third office on the right was a cross between a filing room and a storeroom. Cabinets and cupboards had been left half open, as if someone had only moments before been searching for something, and the table that had been set up for the audit was covered with half-processed papers.

But no one was there. Laptops lay open and waiting and files of documents and paper-clipped collections of invoices lay in piles on the large flat surface. Coffee mugs dotted the table, still filled with hot coffee. Strange, David thought, something must have disturbed whoever had been working here.

He went to the door of the office again and started down the passage. The hallway was quiet, the offices empty. Where was everybody?

He stopped as he heard a howling noise in the distance. At first he thought it was the mill’s shift-change siren, but the noise increased in volume until he was sure it was just outside the building. An ambulance? The police?

He made his way through the offices to the back doors. The exit opened out into a large space which formed the centre of the mill complex. It was here that all the lumbering sugarcane trucks arrived with their cargo and where the offloading of equipment took place. It was unusually busy. Workers ran from the adjacent cafeteria to the mill itself, while drivers hurried from the huge cane trucks that had been parked haphazardly in the lot.

He caught sight of an ambulance as it arrived, its flashing red lights indicating its urgency as it wound through the parked trucks and running men. He followed at a slower pace, avoiding a cane truck that had just come to a standstill in front of him. He headed towards the largest building making up the square. It was the main extracting hall, the five-storey building which housed the vast labyrinth of machinery used to make sugar.

It was dark inside the mill, the outside light contrasting sharply with the shadows. He blinked to accustom his eyesight to the interior. Behind him he heard the door of a cane truck slam shut. Someone came up behind him, brushing past as he stopped. It was the driver of the cane truck.

Hey, David called after him. What’s going on?

The man slowed fractionally. Ingozi, he called over his shoulder. Accident, David understood. There was a look on the driver’s face, something in his voice. Dread.

David frowned, but followed the man further into the cavernous hall of the main floor. What looked like huge shredders were directly ahead of him, raised up on massive struts, and it was here, in the centre of the mill, among the leaking cooling pipes and humming motors and vibrating walkways that tragedy had struck.

A large crowd had gathered in front of an empty space normally cordoned off for the hoist, an open-platform lift in which workers and machinery were raised up or down from the top storey. A group of men – foremen or managers, David presumed – was ordering the crowd back.

David peered past them. The thick chain used to operate the hoist was coiled like a lazy snake on the concrete floor, liquid pooling around it, probably from leaking piping or the condensed steam of the plant. But when he took a closer look at the pool of liquid, he noted that there was a thickness to it that did not seem like water. A strange colour that had a deep ruby red to it. Blood.

He looked up. He could see the lift halted halfway up in the vast space between the sugar crystallisers and dewatering mills. The blood seemed to be coming from the shredders.

And then he realised. Someone had fallen from the hoist … into a shredder.

CHAPTER THREE

David stood and stared along with the rest of the crowd as paramedics pushed their way through the gathering to the managers at the front.

Ngeke bamenza lutho, the driver of the cane truck whispered. Usefile. David’s Zulu was rusty, but he could have sworn the man said they can’t do anything for him, that he was dead.

A white woman was standing in front of the driver, and as he spoke she turned. She was dressed in a short grey skirt, her long legs fitting neatly into court shoes that were a touch too high to be sensible. Were it not for the expression on her face she would have been pretty, attractive even, but now her eyes were wide with shock, her mouth open as she tried to gasp for breath. She was deathly pale, her face slack. David realised she was about to faint. He stepped forward just in time to catch her beneath her shoulders.

Hey, he said, struggling to hold her up. Lady?

She was still on her feet, her knees weak but supporting her. She clutched his arm. Oh God, I’m going to be sick …

Hold on, he told her. Take it easy.

He held her steady, looking around for a dark corner or somewhere private he could take her. There was only a stack of large forty-four-gallon drums standing beside the broad hangar door of the mill, and he supported her into the relative shelter of the drums, away from the staring faces. Just in time. The woman lurched forward in his arms and vomited weakly onto the floor. All over his shoes.

He held her as she heaved and coughed. She tried to apologise between each gasping breath.

It’s all right, he told her, one hand around her waist and the other holding back her long hair for her. He had done this countless times for his daughter when she had been ill and on numerous occasions for his other patients. In the past. It seemed natural to help her, the instinctive tendency to assist someone in need overriding the warning in his head that told him he shouldn’t, that he was getting involved, that he wasn’t allowed.

What are you doing? came a voice from behind him.

David looked over his shoulder to find a blond, bearded man in a white shirt and tie staring at him in confusion.

Kathy? the man began, then realised the woman was being sick. Oh, he said, grimacing. She had stopped vomiting and was now spitting, trying to rid her mouth of saliva.

The blond man came closer, skirting any splashes of vomit that the woman had made. They say he fell, he said in a conspiratorial tone, now watching the scene at the shredders over his shoulder and not even aware that David was struggling to hold up the woman. He slipped in the hoist and the door wasn’t fastened properly. They say it was an accident, he whispered as he turned to David. But I don’t bloody see how that’s possible.

The man looked at the woman in David’s arms again. Kathy? he asked. Are you okay?

Kathy didn’t answer. The man glared at David. What’s wrong with her?

David stared at him in disbelief. This man and the woman called Kathy must work for the auditors Mrs Freese had mentioned, but although the man saw that his colleague was in distress, he didn’t seem particularly concerned or protective. In fact, David didn’t think that the man even realised Kathy was probably in shock.

He noticed that the truck driver and a few of the mill workers were looking at the man with curious expressions as they listened to his objections about the accident. The atmosphere was tense, the crowd silent and watchful around them.

She nearly fainted, David told the blond auditor. We need to get her back inside and sitting down. Preferably with her head between her knees. And preferably with fewer people around.

Are you sure you know what you’re doing? the man asked.

David glanced beyond him, to the paramedics who were staring at the shredder, probably trying to figure out how to retrieve the body. He nearly said I used to be a doctor, but that would only lead to questions he’d rather not answer. He didn’t want anyone to know about his past or who he really was.

Look, he told the man. I’d prefer not to stand here and chat. Let’s just get Kathy back to the office. I can take better care of her there. Okay?

The auditor agreed reluctantly. But there’s something weird going on here, he muttered as he helped David half carry, half walk the still weak Kathy out of the mill building. Something bloody strange.

He was staring over his shoulder at the hoist, at the blood still pooling on the cold concrete floor. David didn’t like the looks on some of the faces watching them as they left, nor did he particularly want to stay and see what the paramedics pulled out of the crush.

He led Kathy and the auditor across the yard and back to the office, the woman’s increasing weight on his arm adding to his haste to get her to a chair. They pushed through the door into the warmer building, David leading Kathy up the passage and back into their office where the bearded blond auditor went straight to the trestle table and began rummaging through papers. David frowned at him, slightly irritated by his callous attitude.

Kathy didn’t seem to notice, the horror of the event still haunting her.

My God, she said in a shocked voice as David sat her on a chair. How could that happen?

David told her to bend forward and to put her head between her knees. She was shivering and hugging herself, so he took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. Behind him, the blond auditor continued to scratch through the papers.

David waited beside the woman until her colour started to come back. When he was confident she wouldn’t faint and fall off the chair, he took a chance and went across to a water cooler in the corner to fetch a paper cup of water.

That poor man, she said as David placed the cup in her hand. What are they going to tell his family?

David didn’t even know if he had a family.

Take a sip, he told her instead.

Kathy stared at the cup in her hand as if surprised to find it there. She looked up at him.

Believe me, he said, you’ll feel better once you’ve had some water.

She slowly took a sip. The blond auditor peered up from his papers, stopping his rummaging for a moment to stare at David and Kathy with a frown. Then he went back to his papers.

Thanks, came the hesitant gratitude from Kathy. Are you a paramedic or something?

David smiled slightly. Used to be, he said as she took another sip. Something like that.

She looked at him, a curious expression on her face. Well, you’re right, she said after she had finished the water. I do feel better.

She was about to say something more when the other auditor barked out an exclamation: I knew I’d seen it somewhere! He had a piece of paper in his hand and brandished it at them as he came over. This is what he was telling me about, but I didn’t believe him!

Peter, Kathy asked warily, what are you talking about?

That guy, Peter hissed at her, "that guy that died. He told me