The two-bedroom apartment was part of a new residential development in Woodstock, the oldest suburb of Cape Town. It rented for about nine thousand rand a month, and was within walking distance of the stores, restaurants, and neighborhood market at the Old Biscuit Mill. This area of Cape Town had slipped through the cracks when the apartheid-era Group Areas Act was being implemented, and so was more racially diverse and multicultural than most of the city’s suburbs, although rising prices and gentrification now looked set to achieve what segregationists had failed to do.

A businessman – superficially friendly, but generally reclusive – lived in the apartment. His name was Oscar Frey, and he held a newly acquired South African passport, although those sensitive to accents thought he might have been of Eastern European origin. Frey had been resident in Woodstock for about three months, and operated a consultancy firm offering financial and logistical support and advice to small businesses wishing to expand their access to European markets, although he also claimed some knowledge of Latin America and the Caribbean. His was a one-man operation, working from the Woodstock apartment and a small office on Albert Road, and he was therefore restricted in the number of clients he could accept. Inquiries about engaging his services were often, if not always, met with an apology. He was already stretched to the limit of his resources, he would explain, and would not wish to provide a substandard service.

His client base was entirely Eastern European.

Some were Montenegrin.

Most were Serbian.

The Serbs had insinuated themselves into South African society during the early years of the new century, attracted by the low cost of living, the climate, the endemic corruption, the ease of shielding themselves from the attention of international law enforcement, and the difficulty of extraditing them should they ultimately fall under such scrutiny. Among this influx of Serbian immigrants were assorted war criminals, thieves, drug traffickers, and racketeers. They formed intricate support networks and set about founding legitimate and illegal businesses, including establishing Cape Town as a transit point for cocaine making its way from South America to Europe. Occasionally rivals took to killing one another in Cape Town and Gauteng, but for the most part the Serbians and Montenegrins behaved themselves. It was better for business that way.

Divided loyalties over the death of Nikola Musulin in Belgrade, and the subsequent ascent of Matija Kiš and Simo Stajić, had initially caused problems for the Serbs in South Africa. A couple of drive-by shootings had occurred, with one fatality in Johannesburg, but the country’s importance to the Serbian cocaine trade meant that a truce was quickly brokered. Nobody, least of all the Serbs enjoying a pleasant, profitable life in South Africa, wished to screw up a good thing.