homework assignments at the beginning of the year with longer and longer gaps between them. One hundred Namibian dollars fell out. Clare put her finger in the place where it had been secreted. August. A month earlier when all three boys were still alive.
‘A lot of money not to spend.’ Clare tucked it back into the book as Tamar turned into the station parking lot.
‘I’m going to take a walk,’ said Clare. ‘I need some fresh air.’
She headed towards the water, the wide sweep of it a relief after the confined space of the mortuary and Sylvia’s cramped house. The sun, gilding the drab buildings along the shore, was as warm as a hand on her skin. She missed having Riedwaan as a sounding board for the ideas whirling in her head. All she had to do was swallow some pride and phone him to discuss the case.
She swallowed and dialled, but his cellphone went straight to voicemail. She called his office. It rang for some time and went through to the switchboard.
‘Special Investigations Unit. Can I help you?’
‘Clare Hart here. Put me through to Captain Faizal.’
‘He’s not in. He took a personal day.’
Clare knew the reservist. She was a bosomy law student with a uniform fetish.
‘A personal day,’ she said. ‘That must be a first in the SAPS. You’ve been reading too many magazines.’
‘Something about his wife and daughter, I’d call it personal.’
That silenced Clare.
‘You want to leave a message, Dr Hart?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll tell him you called then?’
Gabriella. That was her name, Clare remembered.
‘Don’t bother, Gabriella.’
Clare’s stomach growled, reminding her that it had been a long morning and she needed lunch. On her way back to the police station, she stopped at the bakery and ordered rolls and coffee to take away.
‘Twelve-fifty,’ said the cashier, the same thin-lipped woman who had given Mara the third degree the day before. ‘You’re the expert from South Africa.’
‘I’m from Cape Town.’ Clare searched through the unfamiliar notes in her purse.
‘A waste of money. One dies, and they spend how many thousands of our tax money to bring you here.’ A vein pulsed in the woman’s temple. ‘Where are you staying?’
Clare was so taken aback that she answered: ‘On the lagoon.’
‘I knew it. In a town with no money and no work.’
Clare picked up her lunch and went outside, shaken by the woman’s venom. She stepped off the pavement, right in front of a big Ford truck.
The driver slammed on his brakes and she jumped back. Her heart skipped a beat when she recognised him: Ragnar Johansson. She hadn’t calculated on his still being in Walvis Bay.
‘Hey, Clare.’ Ice-blue eyes in a weathered face. Ragnar Johansson put out a vein-roped hand to restrain the Labrador whining next to him. ‘I was wondering if you’d call.’
‘It didn’t take you long to find me.’ Clare pushed her hair out of her eyes, playing for time.
‘Not in a town as small as this,’ said Ragnar.
‘I wasn’t sure if you’d want to.’
‘Well, I found you,’ he smiled. ‘I’ll tell you later if it’s what I wanted.’
‘How’ve you been?’
‘Good.’
‘Iceland?’ she hazarded.
‘Didn’t work out. Cape Town?’
‘It’s been fine.’
‘You alone?’
Clare looked away and nodded.
‘You want a lift?’
‘No, thank you.’
He put out his hand and touched her cheek. ‘It’d be good to catch up.’
‘It would.’ It seemed churlish to step away from his forgotten touch.
‘Dinner?’
‘Okay.’
‘I’ll pick you up at eight-thirty tonight.’
‘I’m staying at the Lagoon-Side Cottages.’
‘I know.’
The light changed and Ragnar drove off. He and his wet dog huddled together on the front seat. Both grinning. Clare’s face felt hot where he had touched it. She rubbed her cheek, then licked her finger. It tasted salty. Like blood.
fifteen
Tamar Damases had arranged a vehicle for Clare’s interview with Shipanga. Clare signed for it, picked up the keys, and within five minutes was guiding the 4x4 along the wide avenue that led to Kuisebmond, the township where the caretaker lived. The quiet streets of the town gave way to a warren of lanes, and she slowed to avoid the darting children and mangy, slinking dogs. The cracked pavements were crowded with stalls selling single cigarettes and plastic bags holding an onion and two potatoes. Women squatted by low fires, tending fragrant vetkoek and frying pig trotters. Men with glazed eyes and the concentrated precision of the permanently drunk watched Clare drive past the dark shebeens, before turning back to the pool tables.
The address Tamar had given Clare didn’t mean much in the thicket of houses. She hazarded a guess and turned down a newly laid road that took her away from the larger houses and into a maze of narrow paths. Tin shacks and tarpaulins had been replaced with brick boxes. Green, red, pink, yellow, brown: brightly coloured, poorly built. The Smartie houses. A flock of chubby-legged urchins ran alongside the car. Clare parked. An entourage of children clustered around their minder, a girl of nine or ten, staring at Clare getting out of the enormous car.
‘Where does Herman Shipanga live?’ Clare asked the girl.
The fat baby on the girl’s hip gave a terrified wail and buried its face into her neck.
‘Come,’ the girl beamed. Clare followed her through backyards where washing snapped and forlorn patches of mielies somehow grew.
‘There.’ The girl pointed at a yellow house. The little boys backed up against her skinny legs. A few plugged their thumbs into their mouths and watched, solemn-eyed, as Clare knocked on the door. She could hear the radio blaring inside. It sounded like a church service, but the language was unfamiliar.
The door cracked open a few inches. A man, wiry and shorter than Clare, looked out from the gloom. His hair was sprinkled with grey; cheekbones high and wide; dark eyes, kind.
‘Herman Shipanga?’
The man nodded, wary. The air that escaped was stale, laden with the smell of too many bodies in too small a place.
Clare held out her temporary police ID. Shipanga opened the door wider and took it. ‘I’m Clare Hart. I’m investigating the death of Kaiser Apollis.’ The man’s eyes flickered with fear, anger, sadness; Clare couldn’t say which. ‘I wanted to ask you about him. About how you found him.’
Shipanga did not respond. Clare repeated the question in Afrikaans. Her train of urchins scuffled closer.
‘One minute.’ Shipanga answered in English. He closed the door, and the radio stopped. Then he opened the door again and set down two Coke crates in front of the house. ‘
Clare obeyed.
