The Chanteuse of Cape Town: A Sol Nemo Mystery

By John Constable

For fans of Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Dashiell Hammett and Robert B Parker.

This gripping tale of intrigue and betrayal takes readers on a breakneck journey as Private Investigator Sol Nemo takes on South Africa’s underworld.

When rich but troubled PI, Sol Nemo, learns of the kidnap of his friend’s wife, he instinctively responds to the call for help. Little does he realise that he is soon to become embroiled in a dangerous web of deceit and betrayal. At a botched exchange, Sol is shot and the kidnappers escape, leading to a dramatic game of cat and mouse in which a world of corruption and casual violence is gradually exposed to the light of day.

This intriguing tale of murder and revenge is set against the backdrop of South Africa’s breathtaking landscapes and the vibrant cities of Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. As the story unfolds, Sol is forced to wrestle with bouts of crippling anxiety, a cast of duplicitous characters, and an uncertain love life, while his mixed race heritage often leaves him straddling two different cultures and finding himself at home in neither.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ink
• Release date: Jan 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781399941846

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Leaving the God’s Time Car Wash, I made the steep descent down Russell Road with the warm waters of the Indian Ocean spread before me. Where the road forked, I took the exit for Summerstrand and drove past the Campanile following a route as soulless as an LA freeway. The traffic though was done with its rush hour frenzy and so I made good progress past the apartment blocks overlooking the waterfront. They had names like Sea Spray and Ocean View, and architecture with not nearly as much creative flair.

I was on my way to a meeting with chartered accountant, Eugene du Toit. He wanted to see me urgently but not at his firm’s plush offices in a converted bungalow off the Cape Road. Rather he requested a tête-à-tête, as he put it, at an apartment he leased close to the Boardwalk.

Yet as I drew near my destination, my cell phone sang out. I fumbled it to an ear and heard a voice tell me the venue for my appointment had been changed because of a re-scheduled meeting in Cape Town. This made no sense as I was no more than ten minutes from Port Elizabeth’s airport. But, like that guy who sang about having no particular place to go, I got directions and pointed the Mustang’s nose northwards.

I drove inland beyond the town of Uitenhage and into farming country where I picked up a dust trail that wound up by a copse of wild fig. From there, a sign marked a track leading to a gate topped with razor wire and cameras. At my approach, the gate opened revealing a corridor with electrified fencing. At its end was another gate and it too slid aside noiselessly.

On the far side was a large house constructed in the Cape Dutch style. The façade was brilliant white, and the windows barred, as was the glass in the heavy front door. I stopped the car in the shade of a carob tree and killed the engine.

In the hot still air, I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing to ease the churning in my stomach and the pounding of my heart. There was no reason for these symptoms. It was simply what my shrink calls anxiety. It was a feeling of insecurity, of being unsafe, and it could be as debilitating as living with one leg.

This time though I wasn’t discomforted for long as a couple of Alsatians provided distraction by hurtling towards the car. Startled, I looked up and saw a tall thin man by the open front door. He was wearing sand-coloured chinos and a light blue shirt, open at the neck. Stirring himself to acknowledge me was evidently too much effort as he did no more than bark an order at the dogs and gaze at me, much as one might view some strange specimen of wildlife that had unexpectedly fetched up on his doorstep. It reminded me of the looks I got when I took up golf. Some of those old Dutchmen thought I should be pulling their golf trolleys, not striding the fairways with them and airing my views about the harsh reality of white monopoly capital.

When the dogs retreated at last, I climbed out of the Mustang and approached. Close to, I lifted my shades and flashed a smile in greeting. In response, the man offered a hand with long bony fingers. ‘Eugene du Toit,’ he said, bloodless lips forming the words with care.

I took his cold claw. ‘Solomon Nemo. But you can call me Sol.’

‘Come with me, Mr. Nemo.’ Abruptly, du Toit turned on his heel, leaving me to shut the door.

I followed the accountant’s spare figure through the house. From the kitchen area, I heard low voices and a radio playing Afrikaans pop; not my bag at all.

We went as far as a huge living room where a collection of mounted heads on one wall looked down upon a collection of stinkwood furniture. I couldn’t decide which garnered the greater dislike.

My host led me through double doors to a stoep which had a view over a well-tended garden. At the boundary, two lines of tall electric fence topped with razor wire ran parallel to each other. This level of security piqued my curiosity.

Du Toit offered me a cane chair at a circular table decorated with a mosaic of blue and white tiles roughened with age and wear. Awaiting use was a silver tray laden with china, an ornate coffee pot, and a jug of iced lemonade and crystal glasses. Nearby were a propped tablet and two smart phones. An open pilot’s case loaded with files stood on an adjacent chair.

‘If you want refreshment, help yourself,’ my host said carelessly as he sat down. At his back was a brick-built braai or BBQ with a stack of wood to one side and a line of empty whisky bottles on a shelf above. I doubted any were other than single malts. ‘I trust you weren’t incommoded by my summons,’ du Toit added.

I was suddenly irritated by his arrogance. ‘I’m trying not to feel pissed if that’s what you mean.’ Abruptly, I settled myself into a chair opposite him. I grabbed the lemonade and poured a glass as my mouth was parched.

Du Toit gazed at me with piercing eyes. He was long in the trunk and so he sat taller than me. ‘What I wish to tell you, Mr. Nemo, surpasses secrecy,’ he began, looking down his thin nose. ‘Nothing I tell you today is to be repeated at any time, anywhere, under any circumstances. Do I make myself clear?’

I would have ventured some wisecrack but didn’t get the chance as one of the phones vibrated. Du Toit started and then picked up. ‘Ja?’ he said.

What followed meant little to me. There was some stuff about commercial mortgages, a lot more on the valuation of goodwill, and a textbook’s length of blah about different debt instruments. In response, du Toit wrote in a leather-bound notebook using a Montblanc fountain pen.

Me, I tuned out.

Sipping my lemonade, I looked beyond the electric fences where rough pasture fell away into a valley. In the distance I discerned the glint of water on a reservoir and a gaggle of farm buildings at one side.

Friend Eugene finished at last and laid the phone and notebook aside. He seemed perplexed by something and his prominent forehead, accentuated by a receding hairline, was furrowed with worry lines. In my experience, this is often the effect money has on people. How much or how little you have isn’t relevant in the worry stakes if you’re built that way.

‘Time’s money,’ I said, trying to be helpful.

That snapped du Toit out of it. ‘We were talking about the need for secrecy,’ he said. ‘I’d started explaining . . .’

I cut in. ‘Message received first time round.’

My host looked at me pointedly. ‘I’m acting for Mr. Franco Zarakolu,’ he said.

It was my turn to be perplexed. ‘You work for Frank?’

‘Work for isn’t the expression I’d use. He’s been a client for about 18 months. We provide accounting and legal services.’

‘Frank had an accountant in Jeffreys for 20 years or more,’ I said. ‘I don’t recall him ever having much use for lawyers.’

If my host was annoyed at my sideswipe, it didn’t show. Instead, he carefully lifted the propped tablet and turned it to face me. ‘Tell me what you see,’ he said.

Fact was I could see less than Jonah inside the whale. The sun was the main culprit, but the screen was also smeared. I turned my chair round and put the tablet onto my lap. I made out a woman holding a newspaper in front of her chest. Closer examination confirmed the paper was Die Burger. Its political affiliations have changed since apartheid, but I seldom read it. ‘What am I looking at?’

‘Don’t you recognize her?’ asked du Toit.

I scrutinized the screen more closely. The picture quality wasn’t great but nevertheless something started to squirm in my gut. ‘Is that Mira?’ I said at last, looking up.

Du Toit nodded. ‘That’s Frank’s wife with today’s edition of the paper.’

A void seemed to open in the pit of my stomach. Whatever my thoughts about Mira, I knew Frank was besotted with her. ‘How long’s this been going on?’ I asked.

‘Six days. I receive an email with that picture every morning. I check each day’s headline changes with Die Burger’s website to verify authenticity.’

‘Proof of life,’ I volunteered. ‘But photos can be doctored. Have you had the images checked?’

‘I’m not a cretin, Mr. Nemo’, said du Toit, reaching for the coffee pot for the first time. ‘Each and every one has been checked. Their authenticity isn’t in question.’

I watched him pour black coffee into a fancy bone china cup with a gold rim and add sugar. I doubted it would sweeten him any.

‘Have you any idea who has her?’

It’s said there’s many a slip between cup and lip. Du Toit slipped for his raised coffee cup never reached his lips. ‘How should I know?’ he said. ‘Really, how would I?’

‘How much do they want?’

‘50 million.’

A year or two before, I’d have reacted differently. Probably whistled out loud, gasped audibly, or dropped my jaw a metre or two. But now? I was the guy who’d blown a couple of million bucks changing cars five times in seven months. From personal experience, I knew you can get complacent about large piles of cash. ‘I don’t think Frank has that sort of money,’ I said.

Du Toit smiled. Actually, it wasn’t a smile but a smirk. ‘That’s for me to know and you to wonder about,’ he said. ‘But I’m sanguine as regards the current position. All the money will be raised within the next few days.’

I absorbed this dumbly until it struck home that the shock of Mira’s kidnap had addled my brain. ‘Where’s Frank?’ I said. ‘Hell, why isn’t he here?’

Then I got another jolt.

‘Frank had a heart attack,’ said du Toit.

‘W-When?’

‘Two days ago. He’s in the ICU at St. George’s.’

‘I-I didn’t know that. I was working a case in Windhoek and got back late.’

Du Toit shrugged his shoulders and consulted his watch.

I waited for him to say something more and, when he didn’t, I asked impatiently, ‘You mind telling me how he is?’

‘I believe he’s comfortable. But Frank’s health isn’t the issue. I have his power of attorney and his instructions are unconditional. He wants Mira back whatever the cost.’

‘Are the police involved?

‘What do you think, Mr. Nemo?’

I’d worked for the SA Police Service for almost seven years until they kicked me out for speaking my mind once too often. The experience had left me with some regrets but more anger. ‘I’ll take that as a no. What’s Frank’s view?’

‘His view isn’t really an issue either. I told Frank if he involved SAPS, I couldn’t act for him. I wouldn’t trust those kaffirs to find my dog in its kennel.’

This sort of bullshit is still heard from certain quarters of the old guard. But these days they don’t parade it. It’s the sort of stuff saved for the country clubs and the hunting expeditions and the house parties.

‘I guess you got me here to do more than shoot the breeze,’ I said. ‘You want to tell me where I fit into all this?’

‘Left to me, you don’t,’ said du Toit flatly. ‘You’re simply a complication I can do without. But Frank wants you at the exchange. He needs you to bring Mira back to him personally. He told me you can handle yourself if there’s trouble.’

I couldn’t recall being described in that way before. True, I was registered with the security industry people covering my investigations work but that didn’t mean much. Thinking about it, I suppose it was about my ability to land a few punches in a fistfight, shoot a variety of guns with a measure of accuracy, and wield a knife without self-harming.

But what he was describing was something else. Kidnappers don’t hail from the ranks of the Salvation Army or get asked to judge fancy dog competitions. With what was at stake here, these mothers were likely to be as amenable as a nest of Cape cobras.

Against that, I couldn’t walk away. There was a debt I owed Frank. The fact it had been outstanding for more years than I liked to acknowledge made my duty all the plainer.

‘How’s the exchange to be made?’ I asked.

‘ETF.’

‘Electronic transfer of funds?’ My surprise was acute. ‘How does that work?’ For the first time, Du Toit looked puzzled, so I spelt it out for him. ‘A funds transfer is done in the blink of an eye. But getting Mira from the place of exchange to a place of safety, for example a police station, takes time. Make a single transfer and she could be snatched back within seconds.’

‘So the payments need to be staged?’

I nodded. ‘You catch on fast. Of course, the details will have to be negotiated and you’ll need my help with that. That means we’ll have to work together. How do you think you’ll cope?’

Du Toit didn’t answer at once because he was distracted by the buzz of an aircraft engine. I followed his gaze and saw a monoplane emerge from the left and pass across my line of sight. There was a flash of sunlight on its wings before it was hidden by a fold in the ground as it descended to the distant valley floor.

‘Be assured I’ll cope fine,’ said du Toit with another of his unattractive smiles. ‘But that’s for later. I must go. The plane’s my ride to Cape Town. The trip should sort out the last of the fund-raise.’ With that, he closed the tablet and transferred it and his notebook to the pilot’s case.

Abruptly, he stood up, pocketed one phone and responded to a call on the other. ‘Yes Karl, I heard it,’ he said. ‘Get the car up here at once and tell the pilot it’s wheels up in ten minutes. I don’t want my time wasted.’

I hadn’t moved so du Toit lowered his eyes to mine. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said.

I got up and he extended his claw again. ‘I’m sure you can find your way back to the front door.’

‘I’ll try and give it my best shot.’

Turning away and walking back through the house, I heard du Toit’s voice call out, ‘He’s on his way through.’

As I approached my car, there was a line of garages I’d not noticed on my arrival. To one side a big man sat in a chair with the Alsatians at his feet. He was wearing a bush hat and a holstered pistol. He looked chilled but his eyes were watchful. As I climbed into the Mustang, he touched a hand lightly to his hat brim and smiled but I don’t believe the gesture was to do with any feeling of fellowship.

CHAPTER TWO

For several days after that, du Toit did the brain work while I got to do the legwork.

We kept in touch during the period, but I can’t say that communication with him fostered rapport. I think du Toit was so used to snapping his fingers and having everyone race to do his bidding that he found teamwork impossible. Me, I never was a team player in the first place and an aversion to authority was second nature.

I put up with it because it fulfilled Frank’s wishes. But I had grave misgivings about shutting the police out and was forthright in telling him so. It wasn’t the first time the subject had been broached when I remarked, a day after he was discharged from hospital, ‘Look Frank, this isn’t the way to do this. SAPS have the experience and expertise to handle the situation. They also have the resources. If they need to, they can deploy the Task Force. I don’t know what . . .’

But Frank’s impatient hand, rising from the blanket covering him, silenced me. He was propped up in bed at home and his strained countenance had little more colour in it than the pillows supporting him. ‘Leave it as it is Sol,’ he said, his voice cracking with emotion. ‘I’m trusting du Toit to handle the financial side and I’m trusting you to safeguard my interests on the ground.’

‘Safeguard your interests! I’m one guy against . . . against I don’t know what.’

‘But you’ve made a plan for the exchange, Sol. And I happen to think it’s pretty good. Also, don’t forget du Toit’s now sold the arrangement to the other side.’

That was where the discussion ended, despite my further entreaties. As Frank and I were like father and son, it wasn’t my place to force my opinions down his throat, particularly as he was ill and vulnerable.

Two days later, I found myself abandoning a rented car at the Walmer Park Shopping Centre. When I got out and closed the door, the cell the kidnappers had given me chirruped. Once again, I listened to a voice, rough as a rock-strewn path. ‘Look for a fat mother in a Toyota bakkie,’ it said. ‘You ride with him. You copy?’

I tried but by then the phone was dead.

The Centre was crowded with morning shoppers. I stood irresolute. Suddenly, a small boy in rompers detached himself from his mother and made a beeline for me. I bent down and caught him before he veered into the path of the circling traffic. Gently, I pushed him back the way he’d come. Looking up from loading shopping into a white Ford Ranger, his mother mouthed a thank you and flashed me a well-flossed smile. I guess it’s one reason they call us the Rainbow Nation. Just one happy, smiling band of brothers and sisters striding out with arms linked towards the mother country’s pot of gold.

‘Nemo?’ called a voice behind my back.

I turned to where a bakkie had pulled up. The car was a Toyota pick-up and had seen better years. I wasn’t sure as regards the driver. He was about 130kg of palpitating flesh, his chin a blur of grey stubble and his forehead beaded with moisture.

‘I’m Nemo,’ I said.

The driver shoved open the passenger door. ‘Get in,’ he ordered. I climbed aboard and closed up. ‘Put the cell in the cubby-hole.’

I did as he asked dumping it among a collection of used score cards, decorated in the red, white, and blue of the Boer Republics.

It was then I became aware of a miasma. It was stale sweat and almost overpowering. But there was an overlay of something else. Brandy fumes. Whether from Klipdrift or Richelieu I couldn’t tell.

‘Mind if I open a window?’ I asked.

As a grunt was the man’s response, I took the initiative and grabbed the winder. It stuck after half a turn. Given the car’s condition, this came as little surprise. The interior looked like it last had some TLC around the time of 9/11.

The Toyota rolled out of Walmer, turned right onto William Moffett, and made for the coast.

‘Aren’t you supposed to ask me, Where to? ’ I ventured sarcastically after a few minutes.

From bloodshot eyes, the driver gave me a look as kindly as a firestorm.

I lapsed into silence. When we reached the ocean, the bakkie headed towards the port at Coega, thought better of it half way along the road to Bluewater Bay, and then raced back to the City. After that, we crisscrossed Port Elizabeth driving in and out of the industrial area and adjacent suburbs. We must have passed the Stadium, built for the World Cup, at least half a dozen times.

‘I reckon we’re not being followed,’ I said at last, by now thoroughly nauseated by the smell in the cabin and the Toyota’s clapped-out suspension.

Another grunt was the rejoinder but, with a glance at his watch, the driver reached a decision. Abruptly, he turned in a street lined with warehouses and put his foot down.

A short time later, we picked up the N2 heading out of the City and drove towards Baywest. After that, we left the highway and took a winding road towards the sea. Where road became rutted track, I spotted a family of baboons grooming each other beneath a coral tree.

At last, we drew to a halt.

‘Bounce,’ said the driver without preamble as he pulled up the handbrake. When I didn’t move, he reached across, making my stomach turn in the process, and flung the passenger door wide. ‘Bounce,’ he repeated furiously jerking a thumb in the direction I was meant to go.

Gasping for air, I got out and almost retched. By then, the bakkie had turned and blasted away in a biting cloud of dust.

I looked at my watch. It was almost noon. I heard a chopper high in the sky and started to walk downhill towards the sea and the rendezvous. Nervous anticipation made me increase my pace.

Next, I broke into a trot and after that began to run. I didn’t know why. There was plenty of time for the exchange. In any event, they’d wait for me. I was the key to unlocking 50 million bucks.

But still I ran, my bright green T shirt, with the black smiley face, stuck fast to my torso. I cursed my long pants put on for reasons of concealment. Frisking, when I transferred to the rental, deprived me of the Tomcat in the ankle holster. But they missed the switchblade taped to my thigh. A nasty weapon for a nasty world but I wasn’t about to turn the other cheek if it came to a fight. That required faith stronger than mine.

The air was still and very hot. My bare arms, the colour of caffe macchiato became slick with sweat. So too was the long black hair at the nape of my neck, now reduced to sodden rat tails. On either side of the track, scrub and thorn bushes pressed in on me.

I covered nearly a half kilometre before scenting the tang of the ocean. Then, rounding a corner, I saw dunes and sprinted for them. As the ground rose, I made a determined effort to power up through the loose sand. By the time I reached the top, my legs were jelly.

Laid out below, I saw the sea pounding the shoreline, the misted air filled with the crashing of the breakers.

I ran across the beach and stopped when one wave, bolder than the rest, covered my shoes. Out to sea, I saw the chopper flying the agreed parallels with the coast. Vainly, I looked round for some sign of life.

But, at the ocean’s edge, the sea mist impairing my vision was suddenly torn apart. It revealed a couple of large SUVs parked shoulder to shoulder some distance off. As I watched, one detached itself and sped towards me over the wet sand. It pulled up too close for comfort. There were two guys aboard wearing reflective shades. Each had a bandanna concealing his face.

The passenger jumped down and removed his sunglasses. He stared at me aggressively. For the first time, I felt fear. Every instinct was telling me to run. His eyes were wild and the handgun in his belt shouted its own warning. Without ceremony, he thrust a satellite phone at me. ‘Make the first call,’ he said.

I confronted him, stone-faced. ‘N-Not until I see Mira.’

‘She’s in the other car.’

I peered in the direction of the second SUV. There were figures in the cab and one of them could have been a woman. ‘Get her to show herself,’ I said.

Impatiently, the kidnapper turned away from me. He raised an arm and circled the air as though throwing a lasso.

The response was immediate. One door of the vehicle opened. A tall man got out and a woman fell after him. She fell because she was handcuffed to his right wrist.

Dishevelled, black hair awry, and sagging with fatigue, either from exhaustion or drugs, I barely recognized Mira.

‘OK motherfucker, make the call.’

I took the phone and punched in du Toit’s number. He picked up immediately. ‘Ja,’ he said with something like excitement in his voice.

I spoke the agreed code words. ‘Case White.’

‘Case White confirmed. Await my status update.’

I waited. The kidnapper in front of me was as hyped as a bush squirrel on speed. The other one stayed in the driver’s seat and vented his stress by blipping the throttle.

‘Status good,’ said du Toit a moment later. ‘I repeat status good.’

I cut the connection. ‘It’s been transferred,’ I said to the kidnapper. ‘You’d best confirm receipt.’

It was a three-stage process. The first payment of 10 million was complete. The second required my walking half the distance between the parked vehicles. Mira would do likewise from her side, so we met together and alone in the middle. After that, I’d phone du Toit again and a further 20 million bucks would vanish into cyberspace. The balancing payment was to be made when the chopper landed on the beach having spotted my T shirt with the smiley face. It would take off with the two of us aboard once the last transaction had been processed.

It was as safe a plan for Mira as I could devise.

It wasn’t perfect, but nothing is.

It wasn’t risk-free, but nothing is.

And because it was neither perfect nor risk-free, it fell apart.

In front of me, the kidnapper convulsed and his white shirt blossomed red. It was like watching a time-elapse film of some grotesque bloom bursting into flower. In an instant the guy staggered towards me. But he didn’t cause the intense pain and burning sensation in my chest. Nor did he cause me to be driven backwards. As I fell, the SUV accelerated the other way. Then I was down, the sun lancing my eyes. Before I blacked out, the last thing to reach my ears was the crash of the breaking waves.

CHAPTER THREE

The angle at impact of a bullet determines its retained energy if it ricochets. At an angle of 10 degrees, it preserves about three-quarters of its power.

The shot fired from the dunes hit the kidnapper and ricocheted into my chest fracturing a rib and puncturing a