Murderous David Hickson (best thriller novels of all time TXT) 📖

he only gave a warning shot, but I went out to be sure, and found him lying there in the bush. Hennie had panicked and dragged him off the road.”

“Why did you put him in the freezer?”

“I’d had an idea, you see. A way to show the world the truth, but I needed time. He had to die only after I’d finished in the church so everyone would know it had been him. So I put him in the big freezer at the lodge. That way he didn’t rot away before I was ready. I found his phone on him and sent a message to Nqobeni. They spoke my language, Zulu. I told him not to worry, said ‘I’m going to become a saint’. I made his brother a saint. He should have thanked me.”

“And you killed Q too?”

Roelof gave a small smile.

“Bribed a prison guard. It wasn’t hard. Nobody really cared.”

“You will not get away with this,” I said.

“Now this is the important bit,” said Roelof, ignoring my comment. He pointed at a small box taped to Hendrik’s chest. It looked like the kind of portable battery you could buy in the airport duty free for charging mobile devices. It had two rows of tiny blue LED lights.

“You know what this is, don’t you, Hennie?”

Hendrik stared at the floor. Roelof realised he couldn’t see the box on his chest, so he reached for the suicide vest he had prepared for Fat-Boy. He showed us the same small box attached to it.

“It’s a detonator,” said Roelof. “On a timer.” There was no response from Hendrik, so he explained it to me. “It’s a countdown, see? This row of lights is for hours, and this row is for minutes. One light for five minutes. For the last minute the light flashes slowly. See that one? The last ten seconds the light flashes fast. Look at that one flash. Oh …” He gave a mock gasp of surprise as the light flashed and then faded out. “Look at that. Time is ticking.” He looked up at me and his glasses glinted. His entire face was shiny with sweat. “You see?” he asked.

“See what?”

“Even if something happens to me, when the last light blinks, it is all over. Dead man’s switch or no dead man’s switch, Hennie and the fat guy go bang. Not just them. It’s a capacity crowd today. You know how many that is?”

I shook my head. The hand holding the detonator was shaking, and Roelof noticed this. It bothered him.

“Fifty thousand,” said Roelof. “That’s capacity. And they’ll squeeze in a few extra, because who cares for safety and security?”

Roelof stared at me as if he realised that I was still thinking of ways around his plan.

“I’m the only one,” he said, “who knows the code to disable the timers. So don’t think of doing anything stupid.”

Roelof had not been bluffing about the need for him to stay alive. He turned to Hendrik.

“You’re carrying us all in your heart now, Hennie,” he said.

Hendrik gave no indication of listening to Roelof. Roelof drew a deep breath, then placed his Ruger beneath Hendrik’s chin and used it to lift his face so that he was forced to look into his eyes. “It doesn’t matter where you go, or what you do, Hennie. You die, and everyone around you dies. This stadium is full of people. There is nowhere you can go, so be a good boy and meet your buddies in the bar. Take them to a better place.”

Hendrik claimed to need the toilet. Roelof untied the bounds that held him to the chair so he could stand and told him to urinate in the corner of the room. Roelof’s all-purpose Ruger pointed at him in case he did something foolish. But Hendrik didn’t move. With his hands still tied behind his back, he stood staring at the floor.

“I’m not untying them,” said Roelof, “just piss in your pants Hennie.”

Hendrik didn’t react except to look up at Roelof and stare at him. Roelof beckoned to me and untied my hands.

“Take him to the corner, Mossie, and pull his pants down for him. I don’t want to see his dong. You’re pathetic, Hennie, you know that?”

I walked Hendrik to the corner of the room, unbuckled his jeans, and pulled them down for him. He was wearing boxer underpants. I pulled them down too and looked up as I did so. Hendrik’s eyes fluttered nervously to mine as his underpants came down.

“We will get out of here,” I said, and held his eyes to keep his attention. The lack of sleep, the panic of the night, and the hopelessness of the moment had brought on a dangerous despair.

“You and what army?” he said.

“We don’t need an army. We will get out of here.”

“Come on,” called Roelof, “you got stage fright, Hennie?”

Hendrik looked down and started to urinate.

“You fucked her, didn’t you?” he asked. “My girl. You fucked her that night at the farm.”

“I didn’t. Your girl is yours, Hendrik. All yours.”

Hendrik watched glumly as his urine splashed over our shoes and trousers.

“Pull up my pants,” he said. As I did so, he added, “I don’t believe you. Not a fucking word you say. You’re a low-life. A fucking con man. I believe nothing.”

Fat-Boy had closed his eyes and looked as if he was sleeping in his chair. I helped Hendrik back to his seat, where Roelof tied the knots to keep him there and then tied my hands behind my back again. I sat on the floor, reasoning that Roelof would find that less threatening. It was tempting to use Chandler’s Glock to kill him now. But I could still not see a way of getting us out alive.

“Did I hear you asking Mossie about your little underwear model?” Roelof asked with a sudden spurt of vindictiveness. He gave another sharp yapping laugh. “He didn’t fuck her – I did. You know the things she does to me when she needs a