Page 42 of The Scene of the Crime

‘Yes, you will. And would you stop playing with your food and eat it, or should I put it in the food waste bin . . . or would it be the non-recyclable bin?’ he joked.

‘I’ll put you in the bin if you’re not careful,’ she smiled, finally taking a mouthful. As she sucked up the spaghetti, an end flicked against her nose, leaving a red blob of sauce.

David laughed. ‘If I’d done that, you’d have given me a telling-off about my table manners. You have to stop mothering me.’ He wiped it from her nose with his finger and licked it. ‘Good, isn’t it?’

‘Just-a like-a Mama used to make,’ Jessica replied in a bad Italian accent.

* * *

John Wheeler sat in his underpants alone in his flat. He was a big, powerful man, but he winced in pain as he tied the nylon boxing hand wraps around his ribs, then tightened and secured them with the Velcro end. He knew proper bandages or a rib support would be more effective, but for now he’d have to make do with the boxing wraps. He went to the kitchen, got a pair of rubber washing-up gloves and put them on before counting the bundles of cash on the coffee table.

‘Two hundred, two twenty, two forty, two fifty. You’ve hit the fucking jackpot,’ he said. He picked up a handful and, without thinking, threw it in the air – and immediately felt an intense pain in his rib cage. He groaned in agony as he bent forward,clutching his side as the money fell onto the sofa and floor. He suddenly felt nauseous and, from the taste of bile in his mouth, knew that he was going to be sick.

Wheeler slowly and painfully made his way to the bathroom, holding his ribs with one hand and his mouth with the other. He couldn’t kneel in front of the toilet as he knew trying to stand up again would cause him more intense pain, so he put one hand on the wall in front of him, leaned forward and threw up the sandwich and beer he had consumed earlier. Some of the vomit missed the pan and landed on his bare feet and over the floor. He couldn’t bend to clean it up, so just dropped a towel on the floor and used his foot to wipe up the mess. While swilling the sour taste from his mouth with water and then mouthwash, he looked in the bathroom mirror and saw that the bruise on his cheek and left eye had now started to change from bright red to deep blue. He took a couple of painkillers, then returned to the living room, snorted a line of cocaine, leaned back on the sofa and took some slow, deep breaths until the pain subsided.

He looked at the large digital lockbox stolen from the safe. He had tried to crack the number code to look inside, but he hadn’t succeeded. The burner phone he’d been given pinged. He leaned forward slowly, taking deep breaths as he picked it up, having previously ignored all the calls and messages he’d received on WhatsApp throughout the day.

Wheeler sighed. He’d avoided answering or texting a reply as he hadn’t worked out exactly what to say about the situation. He had seen the lunchtime news and was surprised that there had been no mention of a murder in Victoria Park Road. He could only assume that the man he believed to be Johan De Klerk was lying dead on the kitchen floor, and his body hadn’t been discovered, but he knew that at some point it would be, which would cause further complications. Wheeler composed himselfas he carefully picked up the phone and pressed the redial number on WhatsApp. It was quickly answered.

‘Why haven’t you been answering my calls?’

‘Because I’d been up all night. I put the phone on silent while I got some kip,’ Wheeler replied.

‘Everything went as planned then?’ the man asked.

Wheeler sighed. ‘No, it didn’t.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I couldn’t do the job.’

‘You sent me a fucking message saying the job was done!’

‘I was pissed, fell over and hurt my ribs. I had to get a mate to do it.’

‘You got someone else involved? Are you mad?’

‘Don’t worry, he’s trustworthy and didn’t let us down, though there were a couple of problems,’ Wheeler said calmly.

‘Like what?’

‘Someone was in the house!’

‘Jesus Christ, who?’

‘I don’t fucking know, and my mate didn’t bother to introduce himself and ask his name!’

‘De Klerk told me he was going away for the weekend with his wife, so it can’t have been him.’

‘Is he about six feet five, built like a brick shit house, with a tattoo of Rudolph the reindeer on his right arm?’ Wheeler asked sarcastically.

‘It’s a Springbok, but that’s him,’ the man replied, sounding worried.

‘Well, he caught my man in the living room and they had a fight.’

‘What’s your friend’s name?’

Wheeler laughed, but it hurt his chest and made him cough. ‘I’m not giving you his name. All that matters is that he’s done the job, and he’ll keep schtum.’