the hunt for Spyt. She reached for the mouse. There were a couple of cases in the documents folder, but when Clare opened them, they were empty. She called up the mail programme minimised on the bar at the bottom of the screen. Viagra spam, a couple of e-mail memos from police headquarters in Windhoek. Routine stuff from Tamar. The sent box was sparse too. Nothing in the delete box either. She checked the file history. Nothing there. Clare sat back in the chair for a second. There was one last thing for her to try. She went to the recent items in the menu. Google. She clicked on the search history. One website only. Van Wyk had spent some time on it.
The site was dark, almost black. Explicit content warnings competed with the pop-ups of beckoning girls inviting viewers to ‘cum see my first time’. So this is what he does in his spare time, Clare thought. Her mouth dry, she clicked on the entrance portal. The names and images of twenty half-naked women appeared. Amateur shots in suburban homes, classrooms, offices. Clare scrolled down the web page. The photos had been posted from all over the world, but they had two things in common: the youthfulness of the girls and the subtle brutality of their submission. In offices, classrooms and toy shops, around family dinner tables and in everyday places, were images of girls doing everyday things. One click transformed the image, and the girl was stripped, splayed and penetrated.
Clare scrolled through the images, but there was nothing to identify the anonymous postings. She was about to log out when the name of a video link caught her eye: Namib Nature Girls. Clare opened the first video. It was grainy, downloaded from a handheld camera, but it made her stomach turn. It was Van Wyk all right. He was standing in his uniform, his cap jaunty, his belt unbuckled, poised behind a naked, spread-eagled body. It was impossible to identify the recipient of Van Wyk’s attentions. Then the film cut to a wide shot.
Clare froze. The ghost-smell of a putrefying cat caught at her throat. The altar, the ring of stones, the amphitheatre, the encircling trees. She looked closer at the body on the altar. It was a girl, her eyes glazed, limbs limp, a blank smile on her face. Her clothes in a pile on the floor. She looked drugged. LaToyah or Minki. The names scrawled on the cave. And Chesney, the other name. It must have been him holding the camera. There were other videos too. She flicked through the site, looking for Mara, but there was no sign of her. There were no boys either. The videos were strictly heterosexual. There were a couple of Angolan girls who Clare had noticed hanging around the entrance of the docks, so young that the breasts had barely budded on their skinny chests. She wondered how much these girls, paying in kind in the revolting little films, paid him in cash as well. Fury surged through her as she e-mailed the link to Tamar and hurried out of the office.
Riedwaan was pacing in front of the cottage when Clare got back. ‘Where were you?’ He flicked his cigarette away and followed her in. ‘What took you so long?’
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Clare asked.
‘Unfamiliar territory.’ Riedwaan’s desire for an argument had ebbed as soon as he had Clare safe in front of him again. ‘It puts me on edge.’
‘I went past the station,’ said Clare, making coffee.
‘So early?’
‘I got a call from Mara Thomson’s mother,’ Clare said. ‘From London. Mara was meant to arrive there yesterday, but she never got off the plane.’ Riedwaan looked blank. ‘Mara volunteered at the school, teaching the homeless kids soccer,’ she explained.
‘So what’s bothering you?’ he asked.
‘She knew those boys better than most people in this town,’ said Clare, the kernel of anxiety unfurling from the pit of her stomach. She pushed the coffee away. The caffeine would only make her feel worse. ‘She looked like them, too.’
‘Did you go past her place?’
‘Yes, and all her stuff’s gone.’
‘Boyfriend?’ Riedwaan knew more about missing girls than he cared to.
‘Yes,’ said Clare. ‘A sailor. Nice looking. I’ve met him.’
‘If she’s young and she has a boyfriend, that can mean two things,’ said Riedwaan. ‘She’s safe and fucking him silly and her mother will be furious. Or she’s dead. Either way, the boyfriend’s your first port of call.’
‘I’m going to see if she missed her flight first,’ said Clare.
‘Fine. I’ll catch you later.’ Riedwaan stopped in the doorway, silhouetted by the sun. ‘Clare,’ he said.
‘What?’ She turned from the sink where she had been rinsing her cup.
‘You’ll call me if you need me?’
‘Of course, I’ll call you.’
Clare locked the door behind Riedwaan, walked to the bathroom and turned on the shower tap. Her wrists hurt. They would look like Darlene’s by tomorrow. It was only when was in the shower, hot water needling down her back, that she realised that she hadn’t told Riedwaan about Van Wyk. She pulled on her clothes, wishing that she had.
forty-three
Riedwaan’s cellphone beeped as he parked his bike outside the police station.
‘Februarie, you cheap bastard.’ Riedwaan could hear maudlin country music playing in the background.
‘You still interested in that murder in McGregor?’ Februarie grunted.
‘You had an outbreak of altruism or what?’ Riedwaan closed the door to the office. Neither Karamata nor Van Wyk was in. Tamar’s door was closed.
‘You wouldn’t know altruism if it gave you a blow job,’ said Februarie.
‘What then?’ said Riedwaan. ‘You think I’m phoning you back because I like the sound of your voice? Just like I came to see you because of your pretty face.’
‘As charming as ever, Faizal. No wonder you’re such a onehit wonder with women.’
‘What have you got?’
‘Some more background on your Major Hofmeyr. Seems he started in Pretoria with some obscure unit doing research. He was from the wrong side of the tracks with no links in the Afrikaner establishment. But he was a bright boy and he did well. Soon he had a beautiful wife from one of the oldest Cape families, nice house, fancy car, and trips overseas. Then he was transferred to another unit and sent to some hellhole in the Kalahari where-’
‘Vastrap,’ Riedwaan interrupted. ‘His wife’s already told us. She was less clear about what he did there.’
‘That’s the odd thing,’ said Februarie. ‘It looks like it was a promotion. More trips overseas. More money. He didn’t do the party circuit like some of the others, but he had what he wanted in terms of research and travel. I can’t find much, but it looks like it was weapons development and testing.’
‘What kind of weapons?’
‘Possibly nuclear. It looks like it was part of Operation Total Onslaught, PW Botha’s baby. Born in 1972, baptised with the Soweto riots in 1976. The best minds; the best facilities; unlimited funding. It makes sense that it would be nuclear.’
‘And then?’
‘He was sent to Namibia in the eighties, where you could do what you liked, pretty much. Play God, and no one would ever know. And if they found out, what would they do about it?’
‘Why was he shunted sideways?’
‘Can’t say if he was really. It was all classified. And shredded in the early nineties before Mandela could say
‘What else have you got?’
‘Well, I had another look at that TRC stuff. Like I said, Hofmeyr’s name came up in a few of the hearings. The usual things: torture, a few extra-judicial killings, assaults. Him and two others, all from the same unit in Namibia, but it didn’t look like he was going to apply for amnesty. And because nobody said anything, it just went away.’ Februarie paused. ‘Never happened for me,’ he added.
‘You fucked up in the wrong direction, Februarie. You went after the guys with money to buy enough politicians to make their own parliament.’
