Capture (26 page)

Exley makes it back to the beach, the legs of his jeans sodden, his bare feet cut by barnacles sharp as razors, and he leaves a trail of sand and a little blood as he heads for the liquor cabinet to refuel. The level of the gin bottle tells a story. He has been steadily anesthetizing himself since Vernon and Dawn left.

Vernon Saul and his threats destroyed the illusion of normality that spending the day with Dawn—chilling, even flirting in his clumsy way—had brought, sending him right back into a piece of absurdist theater, the hulking, gammy-legged thug a creature straight out of Beckett, Exley terrified by the light of self-belief that animated the maniac’s dead eyes as he laid out his plan. A plan so crazy that all Exley can do is use alcohol to purge it from his mind.

On the ice run into the kitchen he stops at the little silver cremation urn standing on the counter, seeing his distorted reflection in the polished surface, ashamed of the man he has become.

Exley sets down the glass of booze and places the fingertips of his right hand against the cool metal of the urn.

‘God, my baby, I miss you,’ he says, closing his eyes, convinced for a crazy instant that when he opens them he’ll see his daughter.

But, of course, the kitchen is empty, the white tiles bouncing cold light back up at him. He stands staring into the funhouse mirror of the urn, listening to the fluorescents buzz and the clock tick and the refrigerator whisper until the rasp of the gate buzzer startles him.

Crossing to the intercom, Exley is sure he’ll hear the adenoidal tones of Dino Erasmus, but instead it’s Shane Porter requesting permission to come aboard. The Australian strolls in holding a bottle of tequila by the neck, brandishing a fistful of fastidiously rolled blunts, like silkworms jutting between his fingers.

“X-man,” he says, embracing Exley. “I just heard about Caroline. Jesus.”

Port smells of booze, reefer and an aftershave that could clear backed-up plumbing. When the Australian relaxes his embrace Exley staggers, the alcohol taking him out at the knees.

Porter laughs. “You’re totally shitfaced, aren’t you, mate? Well, who the fuck can blame you?”

He heads out onto the deck and sets the tequila bottle down beside the remains of the pizza lunch. Fishing out a lighter he applies the flame to one of the joints, talking in strangled tones as he sucks in the smoke.

“Here, Ex, catch up on this. Durban Poison.”

Exley has a hit, and feels it immediately, this mildly hallucinogenic weed harvested in the faraway Zululand hills. The effect is not unpleasant but he has to sit down. Port joins him, and they bounce the reefer, soft grunts and the smacking of lips the only conversation until the joint is a stub of ash that the Aussie flicks out into the night, the men watching it weave and die like a firefly.

“Ex, I’m out of here tomorrow. Probably for keeps,” Porter says, firing up another doob.

“Yeah? Where’re you going?” Exley’s voice sounds as if it’s coming from deep inside a barrel.

“Sharjah, up in the land of the camel shaggers. They’ve got a pretty serious cricket stadium up there and they’re hosting a tournament next week. Good news is, I’ve landed a commentary gig. My stint in purgatory is over, old son.”

“Congratulations, Port.” Exley finds the joint in his hand and takes a lung-scalding hit.

“This tournament is small but it’s a way back in. And there I was thinking you only found happy endings in massage parlors, mate.” The Aussie laughs, then he gets serious, leans in close. “Now, Ex, I just had a visit from a fucking nightmare of a copper. Looks like this.” Port jams two fingers in his nostrils and pulls them up toward his eyes in a decent impersonation of the snout-faced cop.

“Dino Erasmus,” Exley says, coughing fumes.

“Yeah, Jesus. That’s how I found out what happened to Caroline. Anyway, this cop was asking all sorts of nasty questions about you. Insinuating things about your wife and Vlad Stankovic. I played dumb, of course.”

Exley battles to keep up. “You knew about them?”

“Mate, the whole of bloody Llandudno knew.”

“I didn’t.”

“Yeah, well, you’re the husband. Now listen, Ex, I know you didn’t kill your missus, you’re not that kind of bloke. And to be absolutely honest, I don’t care if you did. Sorry to speak ill of the dead but she seemed like a gold-plated cunt to me.” He takes the joint from Exley and vacuums it up before tossing it. “But this fucking copper is bad news, he’s a walking hard-on and he’s got you in his sights. Only bloody thing that’ll stop that bastard is a silver bullet. You be careful, mate.”

“I will, Port. Thanks.”

“Sorry,” Porter says, delicately picking a shred of weed from his tongue. “I shouldn’t have said that about Caroline. In poor taste.”

“No, you’re right about her,” Exley says, feeling a stoner’s urge to spill the truth. To unload on Port, tell him how he killed Caroline and about the nightmare Vernon Saul’s trapped him in. But he stays silent.

“Well, look on the bright side, you’re a free man,” Porter says. “And my advice is, don’t be in a hurry to change that. A wiser bloke than me once said that when a man gets to a certain age there are two things he’s better off renting by the hour: boats and women.”

Laughing, Port dips a hand into his jeans pocket and holds up a tiny glass vial. A single blue-white capsule, like a chip of ice, lies at the bottom of the container.

“Medication time!” He shakes the vial and the pill makes a sound like a rattlesnake as it clatters against the glass. “My farewell gift to you, mate.”

“What is it?”

“I’m no bloody chemist but I reckon there’s some Bromo-DragonFLY to bliss you out, a hint of PCPr to keep you chilled and just a twist of 4-FMC to keep you perky.” He places the container before Exley. “What I do know is this little beauty will put you on speaking terms with the big guy in the sky.”

Exley stares at the pill and nods. The weed has softened the edges of his vision, the flame of Port’s lighter multiplying as he brings it to yet another joint.

As the Australian blows out a pungent stream, his fleshy face shining with sweat in the yellow light from the living room, he says, “Drop that little baby when things get too freaky, mate, and when you reach nirvana send your Uncle Shane a postcard.”

If there’s more conversation, Exley doesn’t remember it. There’s a jump cut and Port’s gone and Exley knows he’ll never see him again.

He wanders into the house and finds he has the empty bottle of tequila in his hand.

Exley approaches the urn again, the air around it boiling and blurring from the booze and the weed. He tucks all that remains of his daughter under his arm and shambles into the studio, slumping into his seat at the workstation.

He sets the urn beside the monitor and gropes for the mouse, the slick plastic skidding away from his fingers like a greased pig. At last Exley corrals it, and sets to work, the shiny urn alive with the reflections of his dancing daughter.

Chapter 40

Dawn just loves the Waterfront. To her it’s everything that is magical about Cape Town: a giant shopping mall built around the harbor, with sun-drenched Table Mountain as a backdrop. The place is full of rich white people with tans and foreign accents. All the designer stores are here—from Jimmy C to Louis V—and she feels connected to a big, wide, glamorous world just walking past the brightly lit window displays, holding Brittany’s hand.

She bought Britt a cone and the kid is skipping along, a smear of ice cream on her nose. Dawn stops and crouches, wiping her child’s face with a tissue.

“Come, get done with that thing now. I wanna take you shopping.”

The cone disappears, Brittany cramming it into her mouth—little pig—and Dawn neatens her up a bit and they walk into Egg, the kid’s store where Nick Exley’s dead daughter got her clothes.

Young as she is, Brittany knows this place is something special. Britt looks cute, sure, in her outsized T-shirt and Chinese blue jeans, but Egg is designer wear for the under-tens.

“Mommy gonna buy me one like so?” Brittany asks, feeling up an outfit on a kid-sized dummy like she’s a fashion buyer.

“Ja. It’s your lucky day, girlfriend.”

They find the rails for four-year-olds and Brittany’s hands are everywhere, grabbing and tugging, and some snotty brown sales bitch comes over and gives them a frosty smile.

“May I help?” she asks in an accent she stole from the TV.

“Nah, we okay. I need you I call you,” Dawn says.

A hefty blonde woman with two fat kids comes in and the shop girl is across to them, all smiles. Dawn has a tug of war with Britt, until they agree on some outfits to try on, then Brittany drags her toward the changing cubicles. Dawn’s got Nick’s two grand in her pocket, but the prices of these clothes are sick. Fucked if she’s going to blow her cash on this stuff.

When she gets Brittany into the curtained cubicle, she strips her down to her panties, and they quickly select an outfit they both like. It’s so adorable Dawn could just pee herself. A loose, sleeveless top with flowers and butterflies embroidered on it over tight little pink hipsters in something soft and floppy. Perfect.

The pants and top are security tagged with plastic sensors the size of brooches that’ll get the alarm at the doorway screaming if she tries to smuggle the clothes out. Not a problem. Dawn digs a pair of nail scissors from her bag and she cuts into the fabric around the tags, removing them. She pulls at a few loose threads. Can’t hardly see no damage.

Dawn dresses her daughter, covering the Egg clothes with Brittany’s cheap and nasties. Nobody would know. She hides the tags under the shelf in the changing cubicle, grabs the armful of rejected clothes, and takes Brittany’s hand.

She dumps the clothes on the sales assistant saying, “I think maybe your clothes are better for fat-assed kids.”

Marches Brittany out past the heavy whities and speed-walks her through the mall to the road, where the taxis gather like roaches, ready to take the workers back to the Flats. They squeeze in among aunties in cashier outfits and shop girls painted to the nines, lost in a world of mindless chick-talk all the way to Voortrekker.

Back home Dawn makes them toasted cheese, then she washes Brittany’s hair and blow-dries it, smoothing out her blonde curls, taking peeks at the stolen picture of Nick’s kid, making sure Britt’s laser eyes don’t catch her in the mirror. When she dresses her daughter in the new outfit—doing a little rehearsal for tomorrow—she’s astonished at what she sees.

“Well, Britt, what you think?”

Brittany, pirouetting in front of the mirror, in love with her reflection, says, “Now I really look like a white kid, hey, Mommy?”

Oh you do, my baby, you do. And not just any white kid.

Exley has lost all sense of time in the eternal twilight of his studio.

Terrified of coming down, he carries on drinking and takes steady hits on the joints Shane Porter left behind. When monitor blindness and carpel tunnel finally drive him from the room, the seagulls bicker against a hot orange sky.

His cell phone, lying on the sofa, rings and blinks. He picks it up as the ringing ends and sees that he has fifteen missed calls. He doesn’t check his voicemail, knows they’ll all be from Vernon Saul. Hounding him. Demanding to know if Exley has been down to Hout Bay to buy an anonymous pay-as-you-go SIM card for his cell phone. If he’s used it to call Dino Erasmus. If he is executing The Plan.

The phone vibrates in his hand, blaring out its ring tone, and he almost drops it in fright. Unknown Caller comes up on the display but he knows who it is. Takes the call, wanting to stop all this.

“Yes,” he says, his voice a parched whisper.

But it is not Vernon Saul. It’s the snout-nosed cop. “Mr. Exley?”

“Yes.”

“Detective Erasmus here.”

“Yes,” Exley says again. Perhaps his vocabulary is limited to this single word? But when the cop asks if he can come around to the house to ask him a few more questions, Exley discovers that his range extends to “no”. Not wanting this ugly man with his denuding eyes anywhere near the house.

“Why not?” Erasmus asks, pissed off.

“My wife’s parents are here from England,” Exley says, “for the funeral, and they’re traumatized enough.” Realizes immediately how dumb this lie is.

“Not my problem. I need to see you.”

“Okay, but not here,” and just like that Exley borrows a line from The Plan: “Do you know the old Scout Hall in Llandudno?”

“Ja. I know it.”

“Meet me there.”

“I’m in my car, coming up from Hout Bay. See you in ten minutes.”

Exley is committed now and he has to haul ass. He finds his Havaianas out on deck and takes off across the beach, clambering over the hump-backed rocks—just like Vernon showed him—so he can avoid the eyes of the surveillance cameras positioned around the house.

Suddenly he realizes that it doesn’t matter if he’s seen. He’s had enough. It’s over. He’s going to meet Erasmus to tell him everything.

End this thing.

The setting sun throws a gaudy light on the narrow footpath that carves its way through the dense green bush, up the steep slope toward the Scout Hall. To Exley’s monitor-fried eyes the overheated landscape is a swirl of acid colors, throbbing and shifting as he forces his starved and exhausted body up the path.

There’s no one about. All the walkers are down on the beach with their dogs, enjoying sundowners. Exley comes across the old bench, right where Vernon said it would be. Just a rusted metal skeleton, the wooden slats rotted through and split, lying like matchwood beside the path.

Exley tells himself that there will be nothing under the pile of wood. But there it is: a bile-green plastic bag, the top tied in a knot. Exley opens it, revealing an automatic pistol and a pair of surgical gloves.

Vernon demonstrated on his own pistol the day before, showing Exley how to cock the gun and fire it. Telling him to get in close before he pulls the trigger. Telling him to wear the gloves, so if forensics test his hands they will find no trace of gunshot residue.