Blood Rose (16 page)

On a woman who lived alone.

‘It’s so obvious to suspect a sailor,’ said Tamar. She stood at the window, her hands wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee.

Clare had gone back to the station to meet with Tamar and Karamata, who had spent the morning interviewing the captains and crews of ships that had been docked when Kaiser disappeared. Most of the captains had given their crew a few hours off on Friday night, and the men had gone to town in groups. Alibis all around.

The window behind Tamar gave Clare a framed view of the harbour. A skeletal ship, long abandoned, rocked on the breakers. Black cormorants perched along the gunwales, silent as waiting widows.

‘We’ve had enough murders because of drunk, lonely sailors fighting over women,’ Tamar continued, ‘but this case points the other way.’

‘Inland?’ asked Clare.

‘On land at any rate,’ said Karamata. He was pushing his muscular arms into a leather jacket. ‘I’ll catch you later. I’ve got a community policing forum meeting with the Christian Mission ladies.’

‘Good luck,’ said Tamar with feeling.

‘They love me.’ Karamata winked at her. ‘It’s single mothers like you that they pray for.’

Tamar rolled her eyes. ‘Thanks for doing this, Elias.’

Clare poured herself some tea when he was gone. ‘On land,’ she repeated pensively.

‘Whoever is doing this knows this desert, knows how to make things disappear in it,’ said Tamar.

Clare’s phone rang. She looked at the caller identity before answering. The little bubble of delight put a lilt in her voice. ‘Riedwaan.’

‘You picked up.’ He sounded pleased with himself. ‘You’re missing me.’

Bastard, she thought. ‘I’m putting this on loudspeaker,’ she said.

‘Hello, Captain Damases,’ said Riedwaan. ‘Dr Hart, tell me what you’ve got.’ Clare couldn’t decide if hearing his voice, disembodied by the speakerphone, clipped and neutral because of Tamar’s presence, was disconcerting or sexy. She settled for disconcerting and sexy as she winnowed through the interviews, feeding him the scraps of information – evidence seemed too grandiose a word – she had gleaned.

‘You’re not exactly ready to do a line-up, are you?’ Riedwaan said when she was finished.

‘Not yet.’

‘She’s only been here three days,’ said Tamar.

‘I know, I know. I was joking.’ Riedwaan paused. Clare could picture him rubbing his temples, searching for the right words. ‘You’ll look after her, Tamar?’

‘I am.’ Tamar smiled at Clare. ‘But she seems quite capable of doing it herself. I’m going to leave you to finish this, Clare. I’ve got some things to see to. I’ll see you at two? At the Venus.’

Clare nodded and switched the phone off conference as Tamar left.

‘It looks like you’ve got a textbook series,’ said Riedwaan.

‘Looks like it.’

‘You’re not convinced?’

‘Like you say,’ said Clare. ‘A textbook. The problem with textbooks is that the cases are exemplary rather than true.’

‘Well, give me what you do have.’

‘Three victims, same profile,’ said Clare, summarising her notes for Riedwaan. ‘The killer’s used the same method for all of them. Ligatures. Head-shot wound. Missing joint on the ring finger. Two with their chests mutilated. Nicanor Jones as Number 2. Kaiser Apollis, Number 3. Fritz Woestyn, the first one with nothing on his chest, but the rest all the same.’

‘What else links them?’

‘All the boys are small for their age, feminine looking. They were shot at such close range. There’s a kind of intimacy to that, I suppose, a complete absence of empathy and a need for total control. I kept thinking that this killer needs his victims to witness what is being done to them. They have to watch you as you kill them.’

‘The crime scenes?’ asked Riedwaan.

‘Not much. Though it seems whoever did it wanted the bodies to be found.’

‘Any other street kids missing?’

‘None reported, which is hardly surprising. Nobody reported these boys missing,’ said Clare.

‘All homeless?’

‘Most of the time, yes. Apollis stayed with his sister sometimes. The rest of the time, he lived with the others out at the dump. There’s some kind of a shelter there.’

‘Who’s running it?’

‘The guy in charge of waste management,’ said Clare. ‘George Meyer.’

‘Wasn’t he first at the school where Kaiser Apollis was found?’

‘He was. Him and his son.’

‘I’d question his altruism a bit,’ said Riedwaan. ‘How old is the son?’

‘About seven,’ said Clare. ‘Grade 1.’

‘That rules them out as a team, I suppose. Although stranger things have happened.’

‘I talked to the homeless kids while I was out there. The second boy, Nicanor Jones, his body was found there.’

‘Inside the dump?’ asked Riedwaan.

‘Propped up outside.’

‘Have you got a perpetrator profile yet?’

‘The basics,’ said Clare. ‘I’d say the killer must have a vehicle, something that doesn’t stand out too much. He probably lives alone; otherwise his absences would be noticed. But everyone works shifts here, so that isn’t a definite. One thing’s for sure: these bodies are kept inside somewhere for a couple of days and then displayed.’

‘Why inside?’ probed Riedwaan.

‘No predator marks. None of the boys was killed where he was found either. So they’re shot somewhere, then kept, then moved and displayed where they’ll be found.’

‘Homosexual predator?’

‘Hard to say. Could be. Homosexuality is illegal here, so I’d imagine that he’s either deeply closeted or is some kind of mission killer. There’s some evidence that Kaiser Apollis worked as a rent boy. I’d be surprised if the others didn’t.’

‘Sexual assault?’

‘Nothing overt, but whoever he is he’s organised. Arrogant, too, to risk displaying these kids.’

‘Sounds charming,’ said Riedwaan. ‘You’re going to have to bring your stuff down for the forensic tests. It can’t be couriered.’

‘Not before Friday,’ said Clare. ‘I’ll catch an early flight.’

‘I’ll organise things for you, then,’ said Riedwaan. ‘And I’ll pick you up from the airport.’

‘I don’t think that’s the best idea.’ Clare kept her tone businesslike.

‘I wanted to talk to you about what happened before you left, about what I didn’t say.’

‘I got your e-mail,’ said Clare.

Riedwaan must have got up to close his office door; the silence on the phone was absolute. He broke it. ‘Are you not going to talk about us?’

‘It’s a bit late.’

‘Okay, I should’ve told you. I’m sorry I didn’t. How many times must I say this? It’s my family, my daughter. How the fuck must I know how to handle this and them and you?’

‘Just deal with them and leave me out of it,’ Clare said. ‘It’s better that way.’

‘Clare, I have to see you.’ Riedwaan's voice was coaxing, as warm as a touch.

Clare inhaled and closed her eyes. ‘We are going to see each other … professionally.’

‘Fine,’ said Riedwaan. ‘I’ll see you professionally then.’

Riedwaan Faizal replaced the receiver, the click loud in the silence. He opened a window, letting in a rush of cool Cape Town air. He had meant to tell Clare. He had practised it in his car that morning: ‘Their trip was cancelled. The trip was cancelled.’

‘Their trip was cancelled.’ He said it aloud again. Nonchalant. That was the trick, or, ‘Shazia and Yasmin, they had to cancel, so …’

So what? Even he could see where that line of defence would go.

‘I’m not coming,’ his wife had said when she’d called the night before at home, when he was already two whiskies down. ‘I want a divorce. You want a divorce. I can’t afford to come back now, so I’ve changed the tickets. Yasmin will come to see you at the end of the year. If you can organise some leave. Oh, and I should tell you I’ve met someone.’ Shazia had paused then, and in that suspended transatlantic moment, the memory of her pliancy, her eagerness as a young bride, was so immediate, he smelled for a moment the subtle, cinnamon scent of her skin.

‘I’m getting married again,’ she had told him.

‘I’m pleased for you,’ Riedwaan had said through gritted teeth, and she’d cut the conversation.

Riedwaan had tried to phone Clare after he got Shazia’s call. It would have been easier if she had picked up then. It would have come out just as it was, unfiltered. But she hadn’t, he
thought, as he watched Superintendent Phiri park. The man reversed back and forth until his double cab was so precisely aligned that you could work out a geometry theorem with it. As his boss stepped over the scattered debris and disappeared around the building, Riedwaan’s thoughts drifted back to his wife. His soon-to-be officially ex-wife. Some primitive part of his brain wanted to find the man who was sleeping with Shazia and brain him, even as he had felt the relief that came with resolution flood through him.

He poured himself a cup of coffee, his third, and put his hand into his pocket, looking for his cigarettes. His hand closed around the fax Yasmin had sent him:
Sorry Daddy, from my tears because we not comming to see u yet. Maybe in December. For my birthday.
The smudges of ink from her tears had been circled.

Riedwaan lit a cigarette and pressed his hands to his eyes, recalling the horror of his daughter’s kidnapping. It was Yasmin’s abduction that had brought him to Clare. She had profiled the men who had snatched his daughter and together they had found her.

He and Clare. They made a good team. Professionally.

‘Why the long face?’ Rita Mkhize sauntered in, saving Riedwaan from his tangled thoughts.

‘Woman trouble.’

‘No such thing,’ said Rita. ‘Man trouble, yes. Woman trouble, no.’

‘Oh, really,’ said Riedwaan. ‘Then explain to me why Clare’s not speaking to me.’

‘Apart from the minor detail that you forgot to tell her that your wife was coming to stay?’

‘She’s cancelled her trip.’

‘So she cancels and you phone Clare to say that all the problems are solved because Shazia’s staying in Canada?’

‘Well …’ Riedwaan scrabbled about for a better light to cast himself in. There wasn’t one. ‘If you put it that way.’

‘And Clare’s still furious?’

‘Yes.’

‘You can’t think why?’

‘Because I didn’t tell her,’ he ventured.

‘Oh my God.’ Rita slapped her palm to her forehead. ‘A doctorate in the female psyche coming your way.’

‘So what do you suggest I do?’

‘Grovel,’ said Rita. ‘That’s always a good start. If you let me watch I’ll put in a good word for you.’

‘I know I’m not the brightest, but Clare clams up. She’s like an oyster. Bang! You get near her and she closes up on you.’

‘Well,’ said Rita. ‘Hang around. A piece of dirt like you, maybe she opens up again. My advice is to slip right in. With any luck she’ll turn you into a pearl.’

‘Why do women always side with each other?’ asked Riedwaan. ‘What did you come in here for anyway? Just to give me a hard time?’

‘Phiri’s looking for you. He asked me to tell you to join him for coffee.’

‘That’s all I need, his poison,’ Riedwaan muttered as he walked down the passage.

‘There you are, Faizal,’ said Phiri as Riedwaan entered his office. ‘There’s an envelope for you on the table.’

Riedwaan opened it and flicked through the contents. Phiri was a stickler for paperwork and he had a reputation for turning it to his advantage. The file was full of the countless forms an officer needed before he could move. He checked: every single requisite signature was in place.

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘You’re going next week?’ Phiri straightened things on his desk.

‘Sunday.’

‘Close the door, Faizal.’

Riedwaan did so, praying that there would be no coffee.

‘I signed that lot off yesterday.’ Phiri pointed to the file. ‘And it’s been logged by Miss La Grange.’

‘I’m surprised that Susannah processed me so fast.’

Susannah la Grange was Phiri’s gimlet-eyed secretary. She shared Phiri’s fanatical devotion to order; she was also devoted to the man himself. She was Riedwaan’s nemesis, returning his sloppy leave forms and expense accounting with metronymic regularity.

‘Your paperwork shows no sign of improvement, Faizal.’ Phiri looked him in the eye for the first time. ‘But I asked Miss La Grange to expedite it, not something I intend to make a habit.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Riedwaan said again, wondering where this was headed.

‘I had a call this morning,’ said Phiri, ‘asking me to let things … drift for a while.’

‘You mean someone asked you to kill the investigation?’ Riedwaan did not like the idea of Clare so far from home with her back-up pulled away from her. ‘Why?’

‘I’d be hard-pressed to say it was as definite as that. Perhaps drift was not quite the right word.’

‘Who called and what did they want?’

‘It was … indirect.’ Phiri steepled his fingers in his ecclesiastical manner. ‘A whisper in a diplomatic ear over cocktails, a private call to me.’

‘Clare is up there, already working on it.’

‘Faizal, Faizal. I know she is. Relax and stop thinking about hitting me. It’s not God’s answer to everything.’

Riedwaan uncurled his fists and put his hands behind his back. He tried the deep breathing that the last cop shrink had taught him. It worked. He stopped wanting to punch Phiri and tried listening to him instead. ‘What was the concern?’ he asked.

‘My little bird told me that it’d be better if the Namibian police handled this on their own.’

‘A serial killer?’ Riedwaan laughed. ‘Apart from Captain Damases, most of Nampol wouldn’t know one if he came at them with a meat cleaver.’

‘Faizal, that’s most uncomradely. That’s not what we need right now.’

‘What does Captain Damases say?’

‘I spoke to her this morning. She told me things were progressing as well as could be expected for such a complex case.’

‘So who’s complaining?’

‘Hard to say. It’s all been unofficial, circuitous,’ said Phiri. ‘There seems to be some military interest in the case.’

‘Military?’ said Riedwaan, surprised.

‘Rooibank, where one of the bodies was found, is on the border of an old military site that has a sensitive land claim on it. Some desert nomads, I understand. The Namibians are concerned that all this attention will stir up dormant issues like what happened in Botswana with the San.’