Blood Rose
Authors: Margie Orford
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Thrillers
BLOOD
ROSE
Crime novelist, award-winning journalist, film director and author, Margie Orford was born in London, and grew up in Namibia and South Africa. She lives in Cape Town.
Blood Rose
is the second in her series of novels featuring Dr Clare Hart.
Also by Margie Orford
Like Clockwork
ROSE
Margie Orford
Originally published in South Africa in 2007 by Oshun Books.
This edition first published in South Africa in 2009 by Jonathan Ball Publishers (PTY) Ltd.
First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd.
Copyright © Margie Orford, 2007
The moral right of Margie Orford to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.
The extract on p. vii is taken from ‘Burnt Norton’,
Four Quartets
, 2001 © The Estate of T. S. Eliot and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
978 1 84354 944 4
eBook ISBN:978 0 85789 428 1
Printed in Great Britain
Atlantic Books
An imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd
Ormond House
26–27 Boswell Street
London WC1N 3JZ
For my parents Jock and Rosie
Walvis Bay
22.95°S, 14.50°E
Here is a place of disaffection
T. S. Eliot, ‘Burnt Norton’
BLOOD
ROSE
No moon. The desert wind knifes down the gully, rattling the dry grass. Stars hang heavy above the dunes. To the east, the sky is clear. In the west, the retreating fog hovers over the sea. The vehicle crests the dune, its lights malignant twin moons. Car doors open, spilling a peal of laughter, music, the tang of tobacco.
Later, the heft of a pistol in your hand. Perfect. Circled forefinger and thumb slide down to trace the blind eye. A fingertip dipped inside the barrel fans desire, warms your cold body. Pace back one step, two. He watches, the target. Hands bound. Breath held. Eyes riveted. Filled with the hope that you mean something else. Not this. Not you.
Your finger curled round the trigger anticipates the weight needed to fire. Uncurls, extends the ecstasy. Your eyes on the metal marker, an erect nipple on the barrel. Breathe out. Your breath mists the desert air. Breathe in. Breathe out as you beckon. Release. The force of it explodes through your arm, chest, head, groin and erases everything.
Turn and reach for a cigarette. The match flares into the night, filling again with calls and stars. The cigarette glows; the nicotine stills the choppy sea that is your blood. You yearn for what is coming.
Oh. His final breath tongues up your back. You turn to look. Wonder lingers in the unblinking eyes, almonds above the high cheekbones. The crumpled whorl of the ear is innocent of the blood marking the forehead. The open eyes glaze. You go home to sleep, tail lights red in the dark.
Scorpio’s tail is poised over the numinous star at its base. Winking in the centre of the constellation, the star-eye mocks the dead face. The blood soaking into the sand summons the first wave of tiny scavengers. Insects, flies, bacteria marshal themselves for the onslaught.
The sound sliced open Clare Hart’s Monday morning, dragging her out of a catacomb of sleep. She sat up, heart pounding, and pushed a tousle of hair from her face. It was her cellphone writhing on the bedside table. She reached for it, knocking over a glass of water. She shook the droplets off the phone and onto the sleeping cat. Fritz hissed and dug her claws into her mistress’s bare thigh. Clare caught the tiny bead of blood on her nail before it trickled onto the sheet.
‘Witch!’ she hissed. The cat strutted out of the room, flicking her tail in regal affront.
‘Dr Hart?’ the phone crackled.
Clare pulled the duvet around her naked body. ‘Who is this?’ The reception was always bad in her bedroom.
‘Captain Riedwaan Faizal. South African Police Service.’
Clare sat up, zero-to-panic alert. ‘Where are you?’ The other side of her bed was empty.
‘I’m downstairs. Buzz me in.’
‘You bastard!’ Clare could not hide the relief in her tone.
‘Tell that to my mother.’
‘Where’s my tea?’
‘Come on, Clare. It’s freezing out here and the security guard is getting suspicious.’
‘You know the deal, Riedwaan. You get sex and a bed for the night; I get tea as I wake up.’
‘I’m trying to break your habit. I’ve got you a cappuccino and hot croissant instead.’
Clare wrapped her gown around her body. ‘Fair enough. Hang on.’ She pushed the red button on the intercom, listening for the thud of Riedwaan’s shoulder against the glass door. He came upstairs, bringing with him a blast of cold dawn air and two steaming coffees.
‘Giovanni’s. My favourite.’ Clare took the coffees from him and led the way to the kitchen.
Riedwaan followed her down the passage. ‘Maybe you should give me some keys. I could have brought you this in bed.’ He tipped the croissants onto a plate and opened the microwave.
Clare opened the plastic coffee lid. ‘Maybe.’
She snatched the
Cape Times
he had clamped under his arm and went back to bed. Clare had allowed her defences to be breached once, long ago. The consequences had been devastating. It would take more than breakfast in bed for her to lower her defences a second time.
But Riedwaan pinged the microwave optimistically a second time and put his coffee and the croissants onto a tray.
In the bedroom, Clare had propped herself up against the pillows. The soft fabric of her wrap fell open as she leaned over to get a croissant.
‘I love this about you.’
‘What?’ asked Clare, her mouth full.
‘That you wake up ravenous.’ Riedwaan reached forward, cupping her breast on an upturned hand. The air seemed thin, as if there was only just enough oxygen, which he would have to use judiciously. He moved his hand down her body, onto her hip. Clare put her cup on the table and slid down the bed. She pulled him towards her, practised hands undoing buttons, seeking the satin warmth of the skin on his belly, his back.
‘I’m glad you came back,’ she whispered.
Riedwaan smiled down at her. ‘I’ll be back any time for a welcome like this.’
When he reached for his coffee again, it was cold …
‘It’s time to get up,’ said Clare.
‘Stay a bit.’ Riedwaan tightened his arms around her. ‘You’re going away.’
‘I’ve got things to do.’ Clare slipped from his grasp and went to the adjoining bathroom.
Riedwaan listened to her hum as she splashed and opened and closed cupboards. ‘Do you hum when I’m not here?’ he asked.
The humming stopped. ‘None of your business.’
He rolled over and looked out at the grey sea heaving itself against the rocks. He had meant to tell Clare last night about his wife’s decision to return to South Africa.
When she came out of the bathroom, she was wearing a tracksuit. ‘You coming?’ She bent down to put on her running shoes.
‘You must be joking.’
Clare reached under the duvet, her hands cold on Riedwaan’s chest. ‘I’m not. You need to do more exercise than occasionally getting it off with me.’ She turned towards him at the door, sunlight catching her face and the trace of a smile.
‘Clare, I wanted to—’
‘What?’ She raised an eyebrow.
But Riedwaan could not spoil the happiness he had coaxed from her. ‘Your eggs, fried or scrambled?’
‘Hardboiled would be apt, don’t you think?’ Then she was off, two steps at a time.
‘Feed Fritz,’ she yelled up the stairs. ‘Then she won’t attack you.’ The door slammed and she was gone.
One thousand six hundred kilometres north, as the crow flies, Herman Shipanga lay waiting, the cold biting through his thin mattress. The houses hunkered together for protection from the wind that moaned across the exposed dunes of the Namib Desert, only breaking into its hyena-laugh when it slunk between the houses. The wind probed cracks in the bricks, places where doors and windows had shrunk from their frames; it sought out and found tender limbs uncovered in sleep.
At last it came: the siren’s wail, tearing through Walvis Bay. Shipanga threw back the covers, his damaged hip protesting. He stepped over the huddle of children asleep on the floor, filled a bowl with water and went outside to wash. As he threw out the icy water, the siren wailed again. The fishmeal factory looming over the pinioned houses belched yellow smoke. Shipanga gagged at the stench.
His wife was up, stirring porridge on the two-plate. ‘You should be used to it by now. The smell of money,’ she said by way of a greeting as she handed him a bowl. He shovelled down the porridge without appetite.
He pulled his jacket on over his blue overalls. The children stirred, puppies burrowing back into the warmth of each other’s bodies. He bent down to stroke the smooth forehead of his youngest before leaving.
Outside, he broke into a steady trot, footsteps echoing down the empty streets. The viscous fog parted for him. A dustbin, a
chained bike, a woman walking her dog materialised just in time for him to avoid colliding with them. He took a short cut through the alley running between the sandy yards. It spewed him out at the back of the school. Walvis Bay Combined School was perched on the edge of the town. Here, the shifting red sand shored against the perimeter fence as if looking for a way in. Shipanga slipped through a gap in the fence and fetched a rake from his caretaker’s shed.
He made his way to the youngest children’s playground and closed the tall wooden gate behind him. The jungle gym reared up in the mist. The swings hung mute beneath their frames. Vacant, except for the last one.