‘Tell me what she made you do,’ Riedwaan coaxed.
The woman got up and walked away as if she had not heard Riedwaan. She walked into the hut, leaving him alone. Riedwaan moved his body a little higher up the tree. The trunk narrowed a little, a dry cycle must have stunted its growth.
When the woman returned, she was holding a box of menthol cigarettes and a lighter. Riedwaan, though desperate for nicotine, feared what she might do. ‘Can you-?’
‘He was old,’ the woman interrupted. ‘In the army, but he always smelt dirty. He used to come to see her.’
Riedwaan nodded. ‘And he decided he liked the look of you?’
Again, she seemed not to hear him. ‘I choked and he hit me, but she made me finish.’ The memory of it danced like a blue flame as she raised her expressionless eyes to stare at Riedwaan. ‘Once you get used to it,’ she said, ‘it’s such an easy way to pay the rent.’
Riedwaan kept moving his body upwards. He could flex his wrists a little now. ‘How old were you?’ he asked.
The woman picked up a stick and jabbed it into the sand. ‘I was eleven.’
Riedwaan pictured the hand, nails lacquered red, holding the child’s small, round chin to wipe her face clean.
‘Tell me about those boys you shot,’ said Riedwaan.
‘What about them?’ she asked.
‘So close,’ he said. ‘You did it so close. I’m impressed.’
Her eyes glittered. An arc of light again. He had to keep her facing him.
‘Tell me about it, what it felt like.’
She hesitated.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to rush this, do you? When I’m gone, then your fun is over.’ It was true; he could see it in her face. Clare would be impressed with him, he thought. His new conversational ways with women. ‘How did you feel?’ he pressed.
‘How do you think?’
‘Like no one could argue with you. Powerful.’
‘More than that.’ She came closer.
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Tell me where it all began.’
‘I can tell you where it’s going to end.’
‘With me?’
The woman smiled at him and lit a cigarette. ‘Why not? Any requests?’
‘A cigarette,’ he said.
She held the cigarette to his lips.
‘But we aren’t at the ending yet, are we? So why don’t you start with the first one, Fritz Woestyn?’
‘Oh, was that his name?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t do him.’
‘Who killed him, then?’
The woman hesitated. ‘Don’t be clever with me. You think I’d betray him, my guardian angel. I told you, you need one.’
‘Nicanor Jones?’
‘He was sweet,’ said the woman. ‘My dry run.’
‘The others?’
‘Those were all mine. You’ll see later,’ she said. ‘I’ve learnt to be a good shot.’
‘I can’t wait,’ muttered Riedwaan.
The woman stirred the fire with the fence dropper. He didn’t think he could endure another session. ‘Why?’ he asked. It was a weak question, he knew, but he had to do something.
‘Why what?’ the woman shrugged.
‘Why did you do it? Love?’
‘I suppose you could call it that.’ She considered the notion.
‘Who are we waiting for, out here in the middle of nowhere?’ Riedwaan asked.
‘This time’ – she leaned close to him – ‘it’ll be just the two of us. Tete-a-tete.’
‘So why did you do it?’
‘It made me feel. He made me feel, standing close to me. Here.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘Close.’
Riedwaan could feel it with her. The man behind her, close, his hands under her elbows, adjusting them, helping her aim, sliding back the smooth upper arms, under the breasts. Stepping back as she fired to watch the denouement. There didn’t seem any reason why it shouldn’t be pleasurable.
‘Why did the Topnaar move them?’ Riedwaan asked. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, agitated.
‘I don’t know who moved them. Nobody’s business, but ours.’
‘And why didn’t you stop?’
‘We had to finish what we started.’ She looked at him, surprised that this logic had eluded him. ‘That is what he taught me; to finish what you start.’ She stirred the fire, mesmerised by its flames. ‘And I always pay what I owe.’
‘So now you get the clean-up?’
Rage flared in the woman’s eyes. ‘He’s not like that.’
Her phone purred on cue. She fished it out of her jeans and looked at the screen. Riedwaan watched the pulse at the base of her slender throat. He inched his arms up the tree, closer to where it narrowed. Blood oozed where his skin tore on the rough bark.
‘Who?’ he managed to say. ‘Who’s not like that?’
The woman laughed, the sound low, malignant. ‘You think you’re so clever, making me talk to you, distracting me. You think I haven’t seen it before?’ she sneered. ‘You’ll stop being so full of yourself when you meet him. He’ll fix you as soon as he’s finished.’
‘Finished with what?’
‘Your little doctor friend.’
Riedwaan was quiet. The stakes had just notched higher, and the woman knew it.
‘You want to see?’ She held up her cellphone, so Riedwaan could see the screen: Clare, half-turned, startled, in a narrow passageway.
Horror made him lucid. Riedwaan played his last card. ‘You believe he’s coming back for you?’ he asked.
‘He’s coming,’ said the woman, petulantly.
‘He’s finished with you. He didn’t even bother to kill you, did he?’ The air pulsed. The wind was rising again, fast, and visibility was dropping.
For a moment, the ghost of the broken child the woman had been softened the carapace of her adult face. But only for a moment. It was gone when she started to strip. She unbuttoned her shirt. Off it came and her bra, her jeans, the shoes, the watch, even her rings.
Riedwaan watched her, riveted. A quick shower and any traces of his blood on her skin would be gone. This perfect woman, naked except for the wings tattooed on her back and the pistol in her right hand. She flicked off the safety catch. She was so close, he could feel the warmth of her. It chilled him. She touched the gun against his forehead – cold, like a dog’s snout, and stepped back.
Knees soft, elbows locked.
She breathed in slowly.
Then out.
She knew what she was doing.
fifty-four
Visibility was getting worse. Clare could see a few metres ahead. That was it. The wind was a keening banshee. It hurled the sand in stinging waves off the tops of the dune, driving them down like vengeful furies that
