Could this week even begin to get any weirder? Mel was really freaking out now. It was beginning to look like Avesh had been in deep trouble, and she had been set up to take the fall for it!
On Avesh's email account she had found a few emails that had come in today! They had timetables and numbers. After checking them against a few databases it turned out he had been sent timetables for 30 airplane flights coming into the country, as well as for 15 different container ships coming in from the far east. Some of these incoming freights had already happened over the preceding weeks, some were still due. However what shocked her the most, is when she had run a search on some of these freights, there were more than a few news articles of police busts, cocaine and guns often being found. If she had to hazard a guess, Avesh had been meddling with gang lords in the drug & gun running businesses. But surely not, she kept telling herself, this wasn't Hollywood, it wasn't the movies. This is mellow South Africa, this sort of thing didn't happen here. Or did it?
She was so confused.
Next Mel opened an email from Tuesday night, it was time stamped just an hour after her fight with Avesh. It had a photo attachment, the photos were all of her. One of her talking to Andre at the shop, another of her sitting next to Avesh at Yolo's with the sunset behind them. One she was sure was taken as she had just kneed Avesh in the groin, because it had him doubled over on the pier and her striding away with a face of steel. The last two pictures however were not very recent pictures, one was a picture that must have been taken over a year ago, she was artfully using one of her larger hunting knives to carve a piece of braai meat, she had never seen herself look so vicious and dangerous, it would have been funny under other circumstances. But the final picture made her gasp, it was taken from a fancy dress party some time ago, she knew that, not so sure if others would have known, it was an outfit that included cat burglar clothing, a trick knife with fake blood splatters, and and she had posed for this photo with her most evil and menacing grin. Where had this mystery person come across there photos?
This was fake evidence that seemed so damaging. If the cops were good enough to get this information, she highly doubted they would bother to look further than blaming her.
But why would anyone frame her? What could she do yo prove her innocence?
She decided to quickly look at his bank account, but just before she did her phone buzzed, glancing at it, she saw it was a text from the bank, an incoming transfer! Mel's heart started to race, she had a bad feeling about this! She had just received R100,000! There was no reference number or name.
This was terrible. It looked like someone was paying her for a murder she didn't commit!
She quickly got into Avesh's bank account and saw that the last transaction had been ten minutes after he paid with his card at Yolo's, it was a transaction that took every single cent out of his account. His account was dry!
This whole thing was getting stranger by the second. She opened the incoming transactions and noticed a pattern, glancing back at the flight and ship arrival dates, she saw it clear as day!
For every shippment that had already come in, he had been paid R10,000 6 hours after its scheduled arrival time. Except the shipments that had been intercepted by police, those had been only R1000! He was definitely into something shady.
It was nearing 9pm and her mind was reeling, she had to be up early tomorrow to be tour guide to the Swiss group, but she couldn't very well leave this alone. So she poured herself another cup of coffee, and came back to sit at the desk.
That's when she noticed, there had been a R20,000 deposit come in the day Avesh died, but this time it was not 6 hours after a delivery, she looked again at the delivery schedule for that day, and realized that he must have gotten the delivery while she was at the shop chatting to Andre that night.
Hmm, Andre. The guy she had taught to stand up straight, and then immediately regretted it. Before she taught him to stand up straight, he was a wirey teenager, skinny as a rake and looking a bit like a slaap chip. He was brow beaten by his cute little sister and just too soft and sweet, a bit like a little puppy dog. But then soon after he had graduated high school, she looked at him and decided he needed to man up. That's the kind of woman Mel was, she could see potential in people, but Andre surprised even her. She had been bugging him for the whole summer, it was the last summer the whole gang had spent together, having beach parties and braais almost every day, she had bugged him at every opportunity to stand up straight, be a proud and tall man, telling him that he'll get the girl's attention and look so much better when he would stand tall. Well, more like reminded him, Mel corrected herself. And wow did that work, when Andre started standing up straight, he was at least 6", and there were suddenly a lot of "oohs and ahhs" from random girls they would pass. That was the summer he became a man, he developed muscles, he tanned, and he got tall. It was quite a striking conversion, one that made her want to kiss him, more than a few times. But she never did, he was like a little brother to her. But anyway, she reminded herself, that was shallow to think that way. Getting distracted from the topic at hand was not helping much either.
She rubbed her eyes and realised it was past midnight already. But she had done a lot in that time, she had printed all the schedules and number notations, the photos too, and the news clippings about the freights, pretty much all the information she could find. She had then wiped as much of Avesh's email accounts, and changed the passwords to a few random things. Hopefully that would keep the tech guys at the police station a busy for a while, if they had tech guys, and she thought back to the queue of cops waiting to share the computer. This isn't the movies or america she found she was telling herself for the umpteenth time today. Maybe she was going above and beyond what she needed to do here, but just in case they did get onto it, she would have slowed them down.
That's when Mel remembered she had been doing ALL of Avesh's accounts, not just some but all, that included his cell phone contracts, so she decided to try get into his call records too.
"Bingo" she shouted, and then wondered why she bothered talking aloud when she lived alone, but carried on anyway "Gotcha now suckers." As she printed out his call records from the last week. Thank goodness for itemized billing!
After logging out, and remembering to clear her history, she headed for bed.
But sleep was not easy. She tossed and turned and every time she just begun to fall to sleep, she would have an image of the slain man come into her mind. And who could possibly sleep with that image in their mind? Even though Mel had actually not seen the pictures or the scene, her imagination was quite good at doing its own thing.
Eventually at 6:30 the sunshine forced her tired eyes to open. She rolled out of bed, and put on a pair of dark blue jeans and a black tank top, donning her signature flip -flops, she headed out the door with all her papers from the night before in her messenger bag. She didn't even bother to try tame her long brown curls today, hair was the least of her worries. After stopping for a take-out breakfast, she drove to the beach and parked facing the bright rays of the morning sun over the sea. It was beautiful, it always was, but Mel had never been a morning person, so the sunrises and early mornings were always made that much more beautiful to her because of their rarity. Sitting there eating breakfast, she opened the messenger bag and begun pouring over the information she had collected last night. She figured she might just as well do it, because if she didn't, either the cops were going to be good enough to find her and look no further, or they would just end up leaving the case cold. Neither option sounded good to her, but Mel especially did not like the former, for good reason of course.
Mel arrived at 8 sharp in the lobby of the upmarket Azure Seas hotel, where her Swiss friends were staying. She glanced around and spotted the unmistakeable blond mop of hair belonging to Julian sitting in one of the plush leather couches, along with all his friends there. She strode up to them with a grin on her face, determined to keep the information and the tough night she had just had to herself, and enjoy today.
The hustle and bustle of the street market in the mid morning rush was surprising and yet invigorating. Being asked to take them to the spots the locals enjoyed, not so much the tourist aimed spots, she had chosen a few of her favourite spots. These epitomized her view of this city. The market they were in had the smells of curry powders and incense wafting through the air, the loud shouting and bargaining of shoppers and stall holders, the bright saris that were so common of the vibrant Indian population, the wooden carvings and colourful glass beads that the african nations displayed and sold, not to the tourists that frequented the beach front, but to the locals.
After shopping themselves to capacity, and trying out rotis and bunny chows, the group were introduced to a wonderful piece of the city that even few of the locals and almost no tourists ever went to. A beach that sported octopus and urchins, tiger fish and commorants, even cowrie shells and coral still washed up on this beach. They relished in this wonderful piece of what was still wild Africa. Rounding a corner on the rocks they were walking and climbing over on this wonderfully warm March afternoon, they came across the most magnificent cove the Europeans had ever seen, and one of Mel's favourite spots in the whole province! Like a natural tidal pool this cove had a barrier of rocks on three sides and a lovely sandy beach. With water still and crystal clear the group hurriedly stripped to their bathing costumes and dived in.
That evening, sitting around the braai that Mel's friend Mfundu had set up for them in Umlazi for a Shisa Nyama evening, Mel had almost forgotten about the stress of the past few days. She looked up at the puffy pink and purple clouds showcasing the stunning sunset above her and smiled, thinking 'this really is the life'.
The next morning she awoke, finally well rested. It was Friday morning, she had just been told that Chris was coming to the coast for a week's leave and arranged that for the weekend she'd be going with Andre and Chris to visit Jen. It was going to be awesome having the gang together, well mostly anyway.
And then when she got back into Durban, she'd start looking for a new job. After all, she had to have a job to pay the rent, otherwise it would be moving back in with Mom and Dad.
Her mind had not quite closed down this story about Avesh as yet. She had seen there would be a ship arriving at the harbour at a very normal hour of 1pm, the container that would be unloaded today would be ZN7F58. So what, Mel asked herself, would be the harm in going and snooping around the docks? So after packing her weekend bags, she headed to the docks.
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Author's note
Thank you for taking the time to read this story. I guess maybe by now it is taking some time to get to the action, but I am looking to find a nice balance between action, adventure, a touch or two of romance and intrigue. Those my favourite type of novels to read and I hoped I could find a way to express my own person creativity like that too. If you are enjoying reading this story, or even if you have any suggestions or thoughts on how it might pan out, please do post a comment below. I would really appreciate that.
TBA
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