The Alex King Series, A BATEMAN [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

said if I ever refused their advances, they would gauge out my eyes and castrate me. They own me.” He continued to sob, and Caroline dabbed his cheeks again.

“I will speak to the governor,” she said.

“He knows it goes on,” the prisoner said bitterly. “While it does, the convicts are kept busy. My only chance is to give you the information you need in return for being moved. Or have my sentence cut, which gets me into a lower category. No gang members are in the lower categories. For heaven’s sake!” he snapped, anger flashing in his eyes. “I’m only in here because my brother fudged the taxes!”

“It was more than that,” Kruger interjected. “You got off lightly. The illegal trade in ivory, weapons, tax evasion, come on! You were lucky to get two years. Had your brother been alive to have his say, you’d be in here for at least ten years, maybe more!”

Badenhorst looked at him. “Do you know how they do it? How they rape a man? No? Well let me enlighten you.” He was clearly fighting back tears. He dabbed at his eyes with the end of his stump, then said, “They put you on your back and two men hold your legs in the air. Like the missionary position. Another man holds some glass or a shank against your eyeball while the man…” he hesitated. “While the man fucks you. You break eye contact and they take out one of your eyes. It’s all about looking the man in his eyes, so you know who is the boss. Who owns you. I see that bastard in my dreams!”

Caroline looked at Kruger, then back at Vigus Badenhorst. “If I can swing something, you’ll talk?”

“To my last breath,” Badenhorst said desperately. He looked at her, then at Kruger. “I see the other bastard too. The one who did this to me. The bastard who killed my brother. I see him in my dreams, my nightmares. I see his face, hear his voice. So, get busy on your phone, before I start to forget.”

27

 

“So, what are you looking for?” Amanda asked. “I mean, there has to be something in particular.”

King checked his phone. There was a message from Simon Mereweather. His contact from MI6 had informed him that their asset was safe and well and had been dropped at The Victoria and Alfred Hotel in Cape Town. He relaxed a little, sighed at the thought, but knew Caroline would have contacted the South Africa Secret Service to liaise with an agent for her trip to Pollsmoor Prison. He knew she would be on tight time constraints, and hoped that was the reason she had not called or sent a text message. He knew what it was to be in the field, but he also knew she had taken exception to hearing Amanda’s voice in the background, and the coincidence in staying at the same hotel. He just hoped she had taken it for what it was and moved on.

King put his iPhone back into his pocket and looked at the hospital as Amanda drove away from the main thoroughfare and around the rear of the main building. “You tell me,” he said quietly, somewhat thoughtfully.

She shrugged, didn’t bother reiterating. “Do you think there is more to the Helena Snell and Viktor Bukov thing?”

“He’s banging her. Her husband’s only just cold. What more do you want?”

“No, I mean, are they suspects?”

“Everyone’s a suspect,” he said.

She waited as she opened her window and spoke into the speaker at the barrier, announcing her name and credentials. There was a camera lens at the top of the speaker and she was told to hold up her ID. She did so, and the barrier rose slowly. “I’m not a suspect,” she said.

“Maybe you are,” he said.

“What?”

“Where were you yesterday?”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Of course,” said King impassively. He saw the sign for the Pathology Unit, unclipped his seatbelt as she swung the car complacently into a free space. “But I have more than a few doubts about those two,” he added.

“Then why not question them further?”

King had called DCI Trevarth and had him escort the couple off the premises. They had been instructed to wait for permission to return, as the house on the Roseland was still a crime scene. Helena Snell had protested vehemently, but after a short while, she had relented. King could see she was pragmatic. There was no sense in fighting a losing battle. Viktor Bukov, by contrast simply did what Helena Snell told him. They had reverted to speaking Russian, unaware that King was conversational in the language, if not fluent.

And that was when he decided they did not need further questioning.

“It would have been a waste of time. They didn’t kill Snell.” King opened his door and Amanda followed.

“You don’t think so?”

“No.”

“So, what are we looking for here?”

“Toxicology.”

“For a fatal shooting?” Amanda asked incredulously. “Seems like a waste of time and resources to me.”

“We’ll see.”

28

 

Pollsmoor Prison

Tokia

South Africa

 

After the noise and sensory overload of the prison walk, the silence of the governor’s office came as a welcome relief. Governor Preet Boesak seemed to have changed his attitude towards Caroline, but it had been short-lived. Her request to move Prisoner Vigus Badenhorst to a lower category wing, pending authorisation from the South African government, had sent the man over the edge and he had shouted the odds, to which Caroline had acted bored, almost indifferent to the man and started to make the first of many phone calls on her mobile phone.

Kruger had escorted Boesak outside to cool down, and must have spoken to somebody for a coffee, because Caroline had been brought a cup on a tray with cream and biscuits. She was