The Fallen (4 page)

It had caused the wheels to lock and to skid on the sandy soil. Only for a moment and only for a few inches, but when he had heard that noise Robbie’s lips had parted and he had grinned briefly, a shark-like expression that told Jade just how accurately he had sensed her fright.

Her heart had pounded.

She hadn’t seen Robbie for over a year. She’d assumed he had left Jo’burg and started doing business somewhere else.

Occasionally, she had wondered whether he was dead and found herself ashamed to be hoping that this was so.

He was as lean and wiry as she remembered. But his hair was shorter, the peppercorn curls now cropped close to his head. He also had a new scar on the left side of his jaw, slashing its way down towards his throat, the brown skin puckered and ridged.

He held out a hand to stop her, rings flashing gold on his long, bony fingers, even though her car was already at a standstill. And then he strolled over to the driver’s door and rested his elbows on the edge of the window that Jade had just wound down.

‘Babe,’ he said. ‘Good to see you. It’s been a long time.’

She looked into his eyes and saw a new hardness there; a coldness that she didn’t remember from before. Then she glanced down and saw the large SIG Sauer pistol holstered on his hip. She didn’t remember that from before, either.

She took a deep breath. ‘What do you want?’

Robbie smiled again. ‘What makes you think I want anything?’

‘Where’s your car?’

He jerked a thumb in the opposite direction. ‘Parked back that way. Out of sight. You can’t be too careful at night in Jo’burg, you know.’

Jade knew that all right.

‘So, what do you want?’ she asked again, although she already knew the answer, because his arrival at her house in this way and at this time could mean that Robbie wanted only one thing.

His next words confirmed her suspicions.

‘I need your help, babe.’

Jade stared at him somewhat disbelievingly.

‘I can’t help you,’ she said. ‘I don’t do those jobs anymore.’

Robbie’s lips tightened and he leaned towards her. ‘I thought you might say that. That’s why I came here to ask you in person.’

‘The answer’s the same.’

‘Bullshit.’

Jade had a sudden strong feeling he was going to grab her, hurt her, try to use force to make her change her mind. If so, she’d rather be out in the open than trapped inside her car. Outside, there were more options available. She could run. Or she could draw her own gun.

But he didn’t touch her. When she started to open the car door to get out, he just took his elbows off the window frame and moved aside to give her some room.

She stood facing him, her weight poised on the balls of her feet, aware that the night was very quiet. Only the soft hum of
her car’s idling engine and the faraway chirp of a cricket disturbed the silence.

‘I’m not taking no for an answer,’ he said. ‘You owe me a favour. I saved your arse last year. Have you forgotten already?’

‘I haven’t forgotten. I will return the favour. But not now, and not this.’

His face had darkened. ‘You don’t get to pick and choose. That’s not the way it works. Not according to my code of honour.’

Jade bit her lip and refrained from passing comment on the hypocrisy of a code of honour that embraced murder for money.

‘I’m not letting this go,’ Robbie said. ‘I need you, Jade. There’s nobody else I can rely on, a professional, who can do things the way you do them. Slick.’

Jade suddenly felt sick. Robbie’s perception of her was not inaccurate. It was based on experience, on jobs that the two of them had done together. She couldn’t erase the past, or her memory of it. She couldn’t remove her ability to aim a gun at another human being and to hold it there unflinching, without hesitation and without remorse, while she pulled the trigger.

Her mother had killed for money. But Jade wasn’t going to do that. Not ever, and certainly not for Robbie.

‘No,’ she said again.

For just a moment, she saw Robbie’s confident façade dissolve. He stared back at her, and on his face she picked up an expression she had never believed she would see; had never associated with Robbie at all.

Fear.

‘I’m in deep with this one,’ he told her softly. ‘I’m way over my head. I’m asking you a favour, as a friend. It’s … I can only say this job’s too big for me to handle alone. And if I fuck up, I’m history. These people are connected. There’s nowhere in the world it’d be safe to hide.’

Now Jade’s heart threatened to hammer its way straight through her ribcage.

‘Why’d you take it on?’

Robbie shrugged. ‘The cash. This one’s the big one. The one to retire on. Babe, if you help me, we’ll split it. Fifty-fifty. You’ll
be set up for life, I promise you. And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, the people they want taken out are scum. Evil beyond belief. I wouldn’t have said yes to it otherwise. You know me.’

Jade hesitated. Her mind was spinning with possible scenarios.

She could help Robbie with this one last job and become rich. Wealthy enough to retire; to spend her days reading and running, cycling and cooking for herself and David.

Or she could help him with the job and things could go wrong. She could be hunted down by the people who’d put out the contract. She could end up on the
SAPS
Wanted list, with sufficient evidence against her to send her to prison for life.

‘When do you have to do it?’ she found herself asking.

‘I don’t know. They said it might have to happen in a week—there’s a strong possibility of that. Or it could be in another month or two. It all depends, but I don’t know on what.’

She’d given another small, hopeless headshake.

‘I really can’t,’ she had told him. ‘No matter what the situation is, I can’t help you.’

To her surprise, Robbie hadn’t tried to argue with her any further.

‘Later, babe,’ he’d said, and then turned and walked quickly away. Within moments he’d vanished into the darkness.

Getting back in her car, Jade had spun her wheels again as she’d driven hastily through her gateway. Once inside, she had double-locked her security gate and set the alarm.

Early the next day, she’d booked the holiday and invited David along. In a week’s time, when Robbie came calling again, Jade had decided she was going to be somewhere he couldn’t possibly reach her.

Jade arrived at King Shaka International Airport just as David’s flight touched down. She had to wait less than ten minutes before he strode through the arrival gates, carrying an oversized gym bag that presumably held his diving kit. She couldn’t wait to see him wearing it. The tall police superintendent had a good physique, although she had recently observed a couple of love-handles developing above his hips. But in the tight embrace of a scuba suit, she was sure he would be transformed into Jason Statham.

A brown-skinned, half-Indian version of Statham, at least, with pale-blue eyes as cold and clear as ice.

She couldn’t stop a delighted smile from spreading across her face when she saw him. He was here at last. They’d had the occasional weekend away in the past, but this was the first time that they would be on a proper holiday together.

For a couple of months now, things had been better between them. Good, in fact. And then, the day before she left for holiday, Jade had driven past David’s house in the southern Jo’burg suburb of Turffontein, and had seen the sign that had made her heart leap into her mouth.

For Sale.

She’d slammed on brakes so suddenly that her car had slalomed to a standstill. And then she’d backed up and looked again, just to check that what she was seeing was true.

David was selling his house.

Up until a few months ago, David had lived in a rented apartment above a garage next to the cottage where Jade stayed. But when his wife, from whom he was separated, had gone to live in Pretoria with their young son, he had moved back into his Turffontein home.

Jade had left for St Lucia without getting the chance to ask him about the real estate sign. But she hoped that this meant he was going to move closer to her again.

Perhaps she could even suggest to him that he moved in with her. Even if it was a temporary measure. She’d have to free up some cupboard space; find another place to stash the innumerable lacy scatter cushions that she’d packed away soon after taking occupation of the furnished cottage. But it could easily be done. On holiday in a place like this, while they were sharing a bedroom, it seemed like a good opportunity to suggest such a move.

David, however, didn’t return her smile. He nodded when he saw her and hefted his bag onto his shoulder as he walked over to her. She was expecting a kiss. She could already anticipate how his stubble would scrape against her cheek, the softness of his lips on hers. But David didn’t put his bag down. In fact, he barely slowed down when he reached her and, instead of the kiss she was expecting, all she got was an awkward hug.

‘Good flight?’ she asked, hurrying to keep up with him as he strode across the terminal building.

‘Plane was just about empty,’ he said.

He didn’t elaborate further. As they headed towards the airport exit gate, Jade glanced at him again, but he was staring straight ahead, stony-faced.

What on earth was bothering him? Work pressure? He’d said that the shit had hit the fan on one of the cases he was working on, but that was nothing unusual. She sometimes thought that ‘hitting the fan’ basically defined his job description.

With a twinge of guilt, she remembered Robbie’s night-time visit. Had David somehow found out that the gangster had contacted her again? Surely not. In any case, there was nothing she could have done to stop him and she had, after all, said no to his offer.

Jade forced herself to stop being paranoid. Whatever was bothering David, she was sure he would open up about it after a few drinks and a good dinner. Earlier that morning, she’d put a bottle of Villiera Brut Natural sparkling wine in their chalet’s fridge and marinated two large free-range fillet steaks in red wine and rosemary. If that didn’t improve David’s mood, then nothing would.

The journey back to Scuba Sands passed in heavy silence. A full two and a half hours of it. Jade concentrated on her driving and tried to suppress the growing suspicion that David’s mood had something to do with her.

David didn’t comment on the amazing aquamarine-blue of the ocean that had taken Jade’s breath away the first time she’d seen it. He didn’t say anything about the vast tracts of coastal forest that hemmed the white-gold beach, or the sign at the lake that warned people against swimming because of the hundreds of crocodiles that lurked in its innocent-looking waters. He didn’t even comment on the lack of security when they drove through the resort’s wooden gate and headed down the driveway towards the chalets.

Two narrow brick tracks branched off the driveway just before Jade’s chalet, forming a makeshift parking bay under a tall and leafy tree. Reading the brochure on the living room table, Jade had discovered the tree was a hardwood, one of many that flourished in the area and that were more commonly found on the leeward side of the enormous dunes that fringed the coastline.

She stopped the car in the shade and climbed out. ‘We’re in the Huberta room,’ she told him.

He cleared his throat. ‘What’s that?’

Jade hoped the room’s history would cheer him up, or at any rate distract him from whatever was bothering him.

‘When I checked in, Neil—the resort owner—told me that Huberta was a very famous hippo. Probably the most famous hippo in the entire history of South Africa. She lived here, in St Lucia, but one day in 1928 she decided to start roaming for some reason. And she just went. Across rivers, across roads, through
fields … For miles and miles, all the way down the Natal coastline. She wasn’t scared of people, so she munched her way through parks, gardens, farms and even golf courses as she went, followed by larger and larger numbers of interested people who watched her and photographed her, and tossed her fruit and sugarcane.’

‘Hmmph,’ David grunted.

‘The authorities decided to try and capture her for the Johannesburg Zoo, but she evaded pursuit and just kept going, pursued by hordes of journalists and photographers. When she was in a playful mood, she’d chase the photographers up trees. She actually walked right across the verandah during a big function at the Durban Country Club. Then she spent time in one of the Zulus’ sacred pools, which convinced them that she had a connection with King Shaka, and she became a godlike animal in their eyes. And Neil also told me the Xhosa believed that she was the spirit of a great chief who’d returned to seek justice for his people.’

‘Interesting,’ David muttered.

‘Then she was declared royal game and it became illegal to try to catch or hunt her. Three years after she’d started roaming, she eventually reached East London. On her journey, she’d crossed 122 rivers. Isn’t that amazing?’

She glanced sideways at David.

His face had softened slightly, but he said nothing. He just took the last bag of gear out of the car and slammed the boot.

Looking towards the shoreline, she saw that the boat that had taken the group out for the all-day excursion had now returned to shore. Monique du Preez, the other dive instructor, was strolling towards her room with a bag of equipment slung over her shoulder. Her faded denim shorts showed off her deeply tanned legs and her pale-blonde hair shimmered in the sunlight.

Velcro for men. That had been Jade’s first impression of Monique. She was Velcro—the side with the hooks, not the loops. On their first night at Scuba Sands, they’d built a campfire down at the beach. Jade had sat quietly on a rock, sipping her wine and watching Monique chat to the group of people, all the while flirting openly with each of the men in turn.

She had occupied herself pleasantly that evening by guesstimating what Monique’s life expectancy might be, should she try the same trick with David when he arrived?

‘Who are they?’ David asked.

Jade turned her head towards him sharply, but David wasn’t looking in Monique’s direction. He was staring at the couple who were walking up the path behind them and had now caught up. The well-built man with a ponytail and a short, blond beard was digging in his shorts pocket for the key to their chalet. The slim, red-headed woman beside him walked with her head bowed and her back slightly hunched. With her arms crossed over her chest and her large, dark sunglasses, this was clearly a woman trying to hide from the world.