Woestyn. They threw them into a grave to save themselves any trouble. There are so many orphans now that in their hearts people are glad when they’re eliminated. They just hope it’s the one who might’ve smashed their car window.’
‘You care.’ Clare’s voice was gentle.
‘That’s why they came to me, those boys. I didn’t judge them, or want anything from them. They were like my children. They wanted me when they needed something.’
‘What did Kaiser need?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Darlene. ‘I just don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe he just wanted some company. Maybe he wanted to tell me something but he was too shy. I don’t know.’
‘You said you were shocked to find him, but not surprised.’ Clare’s voice rose, questioning.
Darlene shrugged. ‘There was something about him when I saw him last. Like he had crossed some line. His sister tried to look after him when their mother died. How does that work, a child-headed household? Bullshit. There is no household. Those kids just sit there, waiting to be picked off.’ She took a deep, angry drag of her filterless cigarette. It made her cough. ‘Sorry,’ she said, waving the smoke away with her hand.
‘After it happened,’ Darlene continued. ‘When I found him, it seemed as if he’d come to say goodbye. As if he knew what was going to happen. He looked so at peace, even with the wound.’
‘That’s because he’d been dead a while,’ said Clare. ‘All the muscles relax. That irons the expression from the face. Hence the peaceful look.’
Darlene recoiled and Clare regretted being so blunt. She stood up. ‘You’ve been helpful.’
Darlene opened the front door and stepped onto the stoep. Clare was glad to escape the dank house. The fog had thinned, revealing the soft-swelling dunes.
‘It’s so beautiful, the desert,’ said Clare, captivated.
Darlene’s laugh was bitter. ‘A jumble of women’s tits. That’s how my husband described it. He said it turned him on, the way it just lay there, waiting to be taken.’
Darlene’s hands shook as she put another cigarette between her lips. The sleeve of her cardigan fell back. There was a bracelet of bruises around her wrist. Clare put out her hand and circled Darlene’s thin arm.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘I’m just clumsy.’ Darlene snatched her hand back and pulled down her sleeve. She went back inside, closing the door behind her.
Clare expelled the stale, bitter air she had breathed in the house. She walked back, thinking about Darlene Ruyters and ignoring the cascade of twitching curtains that followed her progress. The learned cowering of a woman once battered runs deep and cold, habituating her to secrecy. It lasts long after bones knit and bruises fade. Those bruises, fingered around a resisting wrist, were fresh, a few days old.
On a woman who lived alone.
twenty-three
‘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.’
