Chapter 25: Who's on the Payroll?

…continued from 3 June 2026...

Johan looked at her as she brought in the coffee and she felt his stare. Involuntarily she smiled, knowing that he was once again enjoying the sight of her. How he never got tired of seeing her was beyond her. She felt the familiar tightening of her stomach, the butterflies, just like the first time he looked at her when he was a brashy little upstart so many years ago.

She put down the tray in front of him, and prepared for what was coming next.

He did it every morning. She would not volunteer it, instead she waited for him to ask. It was their little morning routine because Johan would often be up and out of bed long before she rose.

“Where’s my kiss,” he said smiling. “She turned her face to him, took his face in her hands and gently kissed his lips, breathing in his clean scent while tasting the sweetness of the cigar on his tongue.

“That’s better,” he smiled even broader, “now my day can begin,”

She giggled as she turned to walk out of his study, saying over her shoulder, “the newspaper is under the tray my love.”

“Thank you, my love,” he said in reply.

And there it was. The plan was in play. The front page of the Cape Herald had a huge photo of Stanley raging behind bars. The article went into great detail about the cause of the fight and the circumstances around the event itself. The article was unashamedly skewed in Stanley’s favour. And despite the journalist not even speaking to Stanley, the article carried a quote by him where he called for “political change in Cape Town, so that this kind of thing never happens again.”

Stanley was calm enough while being banged up in the local police station’s jail cells, but he was beside himself with worry for Aletta’s safety.

The police officer who voluntarily brought him a McDonald’s coffee the next morning was a young kid with an intelligent face. There were a few other inmates sharing the cell with Stanley, nobody dangerous per se, just the result of random arrests the cops made the previous night, a few drunk drivers, a domestic dispute that got out of hand, some homeless people sleeping in front of the wrong doors, nothing too serious.

The young cop said loudly, “who paid for the coffee”?, while looking directly at Stanley. Stanley clicked and walked towards the steel bars of his holding cell. The cop leaned in and whispered: “Don’t worry about your lady sir, she was taken care of and is safely at home.

You’ll be out of here in an hour or so.”

Before Stanley could say anything, the cop was gone. Now he was really confused. “What the hell is going on,” he thought. His body ached all over from the beating he took last night.

Johan smiled as he read through the article. Shawn had the young cop on his payroll, as well as the journalist and the arresting officers. Actually, they were on Johan’s payroll but Shawn did the paying and they were none the wiser.

Continued tomorrow 5 June 2026, before 12pm