Blood Rose (12 page)

‘This is Dr Hart,’ said Karamata. ‘Dr Hart and I want to talk to the boys who live on the dump.’

‘Sign in, please.’ Meyer pushed a ledger towards Karamata. ‘New policy since that body was found here. The boys are afraid. This makes them feel safer.’

‘And are they?’ asked Clare.

‘I doubt it,’ said Meyer. ‘Whoever’s killing them wouldn’t start out here on the dump.’

‘Why not?’ asked Clare.

‘Well, everyone here would recognise a stranger, wouldn’t they?’

‘They would,’ said Clare, ‘if it was a stranger.’ She went over to look at what the child was drawing while Karamata took care of the formalities. Oscar had covered the page with drawings. Flowering people, winged trees, dolphins. The eerie whimsy was so at odds with this rough place.

‘Those are beautiful.’ Clare smiled at the boy, but the child
looked down at his freckled hands, twisting them in his lap. ‘What’s your name?’ She bent down beside him.

‘This is Oscar,’ Meyer answered for the child. ‘He’s been mute since his mother died six months ago.’

The pieces clicked into place: Meyer, Virginia Meyer. Clare remembered a book she’d read the last time she was in Walvis Bay. She turned back to the child. ‘Your mother studied the Kuiseb plants, didn’t she? She worked with the desert people, trying to understand how they use them.’

The boy’s eyes lit up, confirming Clare’s question.

‘She was my wife.’ George Meyer looked down as he spoke. ‘Before that, she and Oscar lived in the Kuiseb for many years.’ He held out his hand, and the child sidled over, but Meyer did not draw the child into the shelter of his arms. The two of them stood, side by side, watching Clare and Karamata get back in the vehicle.

‘Unusual colouring Oscar has,’ she said as they drove away.

‘He takes after his mother,’ said Karamata. ‘Virginia was like Moses’s burning bush with all her red hair. And such a white skin, no good for this country.’

‘She wasn’t from here?’

‘She was American. She came here to work at the desert research centre. Then her visa ran out and she found George somewhere and married him. I think for her it was like collecting a rather dull specimen. A husband was something she needed. Oscar is what she wanted. The two of them were always alone out in the Kuiseb, her trying to preserve things, stop any kind of development. That’s where she died, in a car crash.’

‘George Meyer’s not his father?’

‘No. That child has no one now she’s gone. No one came from America to claim him, so he stayed here with the stepfather.’

Karamata stopped the car. The rubbish truck they had seen
from the dune stood empty, everything of value winnowed from the rotting black mass lying around it. The truck driver waved as he headed back to town. A group of boys had left off scavenging and were watching them. The foreman came towards them, caressing his palm with his whip, a flock of ragged children at his heels.

‘You looking for work, Karamata?’ asked the thickset man.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Vermeulen. This is Dr Hart from South Africa. She is working with us on the murder of the boy here, and the one at the school.’

‘
Nee
,
fok
, Karamata. Foreign experts for a couple of dead street kids.’ He glared at Clare, his muscled neck bulging. ‘Don’t you have enough corpses of your own down south?’

‘Nice to meet you, Mr Vermeulen.’ Clare extended her hand; Vermeulen wiped his palms on his overalls and held her fingers for a moment.

‘These poor little fuckers, their mothers throw them away.’ Vermeulen caught the child closest to him, a boy of five or six, by the scruff of the neck.

‘Who’s your mother, hey?’ The boy giggled and Vermeulen tossed him aside. ‘He never even knew. He’s lived on the streets since he was three. When he gets a bit sicker, then maybe those nuns will come and get him. They’ll take him to their place out there.’ He gestured eastwards with an arm as thick as a pole. ‘So what you want here now?’

‘I’m not a social worker,’ said Clare. ‘But I might be able to help find who’s killing these boys.’

‘Ag, you can believe what you want, lady,’ Vermeulen sighed. ‘It’s nice of you to try to help. Not many do.’

‘Where do these boys sleep?’ Clare looked around the site; it was hardly an orphan’s haven.

‘A few go sleep in town,’ said Vermeulen. ‘The rest sleep here at the dump. You want to see?’

‘Sure,’ said Clare.

‘Lazarus!’ he bellowed. A scrawny boy was pushed to the front of the group.

‘We’ve met, I think,’ said Clare. Lazarus gave her a shifty smile.

‘Why weren’t you at school?’ Vermeulen demanded. ‘You know how I had to
gatkruip
that headmaster to get him to take you back?’

‘School’s a waste of time.’ Lazarus was careful to stay out of Vermeulen’s reach.

‘This is our Einstein,’ said Vermeulen. ‘Knows everything, cocky bugger, which is lucky because the school won’t take him back again this time. Take the doctor and show her where you sleep.’

Clare and Karamata followed Lazarus into an enclosure behind the truck. An old tarpaulin served as a roof, and a nest of mattresses was arranged underneath, neat bundles of clothes at the top of each one.

‘That was Fritz Woestyn’s bed,’ said Lazarus. ‘And Kaiser’s.’ Clare looked down at the yellowed sponge mattress. There was a photograph next to the bed.

‘That’s our soccer team.’ Lazarus came and stood next to her. His breath was rank. ‘We were in the newspaper for the Homeless World Cup,’ he said. ‘See, there’s Kaiser and there’s me. There’s Fritz and the other boys. Mara took it. She gave us all a copy. Look, here’s mine.’ He dived onto the last mattress and pulled out an identical shot.

Clare took it and turned it over. There was an inscription on the back.
From Mara
, it said.
For my boys. Remember to always believe.

‘When was that?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Lazarus shifted from one foot to the other. ‘I
suppose about four weeks ago. We went away for a weekend and she took it then. It was when she got us our new uniforms. Look, it says “The Desert Rats”.’ He pointed to the photograph.

It must have been cold when it was taken, because the boys were huddled together. They all wore the same shirt that Kaiser Apollis had been wearing when he was killed.

‘Cool shirts,’ said Clare.

‘Pesca-Marina Fishing sponsored them. Look, it says so here on the back.’ He whipped up his sweatshirt and turned around to show Clare the logo, pleased to have a witness to the small joys of his life.

‘Can I keep this?’ Clare asked.

‘Keep Kaiser’s picture,’ said Lazarus, handing it to her. ‘He won’t need it. Maybe in Cape Town you can get us some more sponsorship, find us a new coach.’

‘What about Mara?’ asked Clare, slipping the picture into her pocket.

‘She’s going back to England.’

‘When?’ asked Clare.

‘I don’t know,’ said Lazarus. ‘But they all do. What’s there to stay here for?’

There was no answer to that. ‘Is she still coaching you?’

‘Ja, we have a practice later. But it’s not the same any more.’

‘The boys who were killed, you knew them all,’ said Clare.

‘None of us live long, Miss. They went quick. You try going like him.’ Lazarus pointed to the darkest corner of the makeshift tent. There was a small mound of blankets. ‘He’s afraid to go to the nuns. If the sisters come for you, then you know you’re over and out.’ Lazarus gave a bleak laugh. ‘It’s not much of a team any more. Three dead.’

‘Who do you think did it?’ Clare asked.

‘Someone they went with, that’s what everyone’s saying,’ said
Lazarus, watching the other boys kicking a makeshift soccer ball on the level patch of gravel that was their pitch.

‘You got any names?’ asked Clare. ‘Anyone in particular?’

Lazarus looked at her briefly, but the focus of his attention had shifted. ‘A sailor? Maybe one of the old men who live alone here in town. A lawyer from Windhoek? It happens like that to us boys.’

‘Is there anyone …’ – but Lazarus was gone, dribbling the ball expertly towards the goal posts – ‘regular?’ Clare finished the question.

‘Too much glue,’ said Karamata, watching Lazarus score.

‘Or too afraid,’ said Clare as Lazarus careened across the field, arms extended in the universal language of football victory. ‘I want to ask him some more questions.’

‘Another time,’ said Karamata, checking his watch. ‘We’ve got to get going now, if you want to get to the next crime scene before dark.’

Clare followed him reluctantly back to the car. She waved at Lazarus. He lifted one hand in salute, watching them drive away.

Karamata drove towards the Kuiseb River, a sinuous line of green that parted the vast ocean of the Namib. A group of oryx made their way in single file, their measured pace only emphasising the stillness. The road they took snaked through stands of dusty tamarisks. Their branches whipped against the windscreen as Karamata picked up speed.

‘Topnaars,’ he said, pointing at the donkey cart rattling home, feathering golden dust into the sunset. Clare could hear the crack of a whip above trotting hooves, the shouts of the driver urging his tired animals home.

‘You know this place well,’ she observed.

‘Like the back of my hand,’ said Karamata. ‘I grew up around here.’

Old flood-marks had scoured a wall out of the sand. Debris from upriver was stranded high above the dry bed. The road petered out into a sandy track, pocked and scarred with the previous year’s rains. The mud had dried and cracked as it had retreated from the relentless sun.

Karamata cut the engine. ‘Fritz Woestyn. This is where he was found.’ He pointed towards a bleak stretch of sand. The ridge of an old railway was visible in places where the water had churned and frothed in the riverbed, desperate to reach the sea.

‘Who found him?’

‘Pipeline maintenance. There was a leak and they came out to check. They found Fritz staring up at the sky with a hole in his head. Van Wyk was on duty. He came out.’

‘Saturday’s Child. Where exactly?’

‘Under that big tree.’ Karamata pointed to a spreading acacia.

‘Tied up?’

‘Curled up in a piece of cloth. His hands had been tied, but the rope had been cut through, like with Kaiser.’ Clare knelt down in front of the tree, photograph in hand. She traced the area where his head had lolled sideward. The bark was rough, pitted with age and heat.

‘You got the autopsy photographs there?’ she asked.

Karamata handed her the gory close-ups. Bare feet, calloused hands. She flicked through until she came to the close-ups of the bullet wounds. The bloom on his forehead was clear, the petals of crusted blood and bone delicate around the dark centre. The back of the child’s head was intact.

‘No exit wound?’ asked Clare. ‘So the bullet was still in the brain. I haven’t seen anything for ballistics. The autopsy?’ Clare knew what the answer would be; Helena Kotze had said that it had been cursory. So cursory that a bullet in the brain went undetected.

‘Not detailed,’ said Karamata. ‘Just enough to give a cause of death. Gunshot wound, easy. He was buried three days after he was found.’

‘Why?’ Clare tried to hide her frustration.

‘The head of cleansing ordered that the city pay for all the paupers’ funerals.’

‘Calvin Goagab?’

‘That’s him,’ said Karamata.

‘Generous.’

‘The state morgue is always full these days. Families can’t afford to bury their loved ones, and then the cooling systems broke down. The mayor is a practical man, so he went along with Goagab’s request to clear the backlog and get everyone buried. It had been ordered before the murder. Fritz Woestyn just happened to benefit from it.’

‘Captain Damases went along with it?’ asked Clare.

‘She was on sick leave,’ said Karamata. ‘Complications with her pregnancy. The case was with Van Wyk.’

‘Burying murder victims,’ said Clare, standing up. ‘It’s a novel way of getting rid of a caseload.’

‘I don’t know if this stuff seems worthwhile to him,’ said Karamata, opening a packet of biltong.

‘Murder?’

‘Street children. There are so many now. He says it’s just Aids orphans; that they’re going to die anyway. A lot of people think like that.’

‘Do you?’

‘I’m a policeman,’ said Karamata. ‘I don’t think about it. I do my job. To me a life is a life. I was like those boys once. Just a piece of rubbish.’ His eyes were so dark it was impossible to read any expression in them. ‘And now look.’

The sun, all day a hot, unseeing eye behind the fog, was sinking towards the sea when Tamar Damases switched off her computer and stood up, arching her back. She couldn’t find any pattern in the dates on which the ships had docked in Walvis Bay Harbour and when her three boys – how she was starting to think of them, her three dead boys – disappeared.

Her own baby kicked, one tiny protesting foot bulging the tight drum of her belly. She put her hand there, feeling the foetus glide away from her touch, safe in its dark, secret world. From the parking lot outside came snatches of shouted conversations, arrangements to have a beer, talk about a soccer practice, the night shift arriving. It was time for Tamar to steel herself for her own long night-shift.

She straightened her desk and rinsed the teacups, ready for tomorrow. She had never liked the thought of the night peering in at the windows, so she closed the curtains. She picked up her handbag and the groceries she had bought at lunch time. The hard-earned package from the chemist was tucked deep in her jacket pocket. It cost her a substantial chunk of her salary. She felt for it again, like an anxious passenger checking their passport, their ticket, just to make sure.

Tamar locked her office door behind her. Karamata was out in the Namib with Clare. There was no sign of Van Wyk. She went through to the special ops room where a light was burning. There was a scarlet pashmina tossed over the back of
Clare’s chair. Tamar picked it up and folded it before sitting down.

She considered the boys from Clare’s perspective: Monday’s Child. Wednesday’s Child. And Saturday’s. Three ephemeral children who had slipped into the river of life with barely a splash. Who would have sunk without a trace if Tamar had not reached out for their spectral hands. She held out her own hands now, in front of the desk lamp. They cast a startling silhouette across the display. Tamar read Clare’s notes. First about place, of the crime scenes virtually devoid of physical evidence. They would be; the bodies had been moved and deliberately displayed.