Blood Rose

the razor wire. There. Newly budded breasts. The girl held his eye, deliberately hooked a nipple on a barb. One crimson bead of blood spread across her tight white shirt.

‘Delivery complete?’

Renko turned towards the soft voice.

‘Of course.’ He took the case the man had placed at his feet and opened it. The diamonds, nestled on green velvet, winked at him, complicit, true.

‘You want to look below?’ Renko asked, putting his eyepiece away.

The man shrugged, his expression hidden behind his dark glasses. ‘It’s there. We checked.’

Renko handed over the ship’s papers. The keys. Docking papers. Orange roughy, such a delicacy. Especially the way this lot was going to be prepared. Renko disembarked, avoiding the filth on the wharf. The girl peeled away from the others. She fell into step beside Renko once he was clear of the docks.

‘You lonely?’

Renko checked his watch. He had a couple of hours.

‘A little,’ he smiled.

When his plane flew low over the Luanda Hilton, the sun was dropping westward, the roofs of the town shining in its light. In the east, darkness.

Hours later, the stars hung low. On the horizon, Scorpio setting as the plane touched down. Janus Renko’s shirt was white against the smooth, dark skin of his neck, despite the long flight to Johannesburg. He was tired. It took a second before he noticed the man in the black suit peel away from the shelter of the wall.

That fraction of time was all Phiri needed. The Browning was hard in Renko’s kidneys; his arms high up his back, the sharp intake of breath indicating just how far.

‘Funny,’ said Phiri, his mouth close to the man’s ear. ‘A perfect fit.’

Renko knew better than to fight. ‘Goagab?’ he asked.

‘Singing like a bird,’ said Phiri.

In the time it had taken Renko to get to Johannesburg, Goagab’s fear of prison had him confessing to every crime he’d ever even considered committing. The Alhantra, he told Karamata, had been ferrying six cakes of uranium 235. The highly enriched uranium had been siphoned off from Vastrap and buried in the Namib by Hofmeyr and Malan when they were in charge of destroying the nuclear programme in 1990. The cakes had been buried there for over ten years, waiting for Janus Renko to broker a deal with some Pakistani businessmen. When he did, Goagab had signed off the safe passage to Spain for a cut.

‘One city, one cake,’ Phiri said. ‘Enough highly enriched uranium to make dirty bombs for six European cities. Which were they? Paris? Berlin? Antwerp?’

‘You’ll be sorry for this,’ said Renko calmly, ‘when my lawyer gets hold of you.’

‘I hear the Americans are clearing a cell for you in Guantanamo,’ Phiri continued, unperturbed. ‘But I think that might have to wait a bit. That little mermaid you pulled out of the water in Walvis Bay, the one you got to shoot those boys who did your dirty work, she’s decided that her debt to you was cashed up when you left without her.’

‘A whore,’ said Renko. ‘Any lawyer would shred her in court.’

‘Hell hath no fury…’ Phiri let the phrase linger. ‘After Clare Hart put a bullet through her shoulder, and then kept her alive long enough to get her to ICU, it seems she switched allegiance,’ he went on. ‘Never underestimate a woman scorned. Dr Hart got the lot. You. Gretchen. The boys. Johansson, who incidentally looks like he’ll be testifying, too. Malan.’

‘Malan.’ The name erupted from Renko. ‘Too fucking lazy to do his own labour.’

‘We found him,’ said Phiri. ‘Not a pleasant sight. What did you use? A filleting knife?’

Renko was silent again, contained fury vibrating through his body.

‘Now, if you’ll excuse me…’ Phiri pulled out his cellphone and dialled the number. ‘Faizal,’ he said when Riedwaan picked up. ‘Tell Dr Hart we’ve got her man.’

Riedwaan put his finger on Clare’s lips, stopping her question. She waited impatiently, recognising Phiri’s voice on the other end of the line but unable to make out what he was saying amidst the noise of the restaurant.

‘They got him,’ Riedwaan said, snapping his phone shut. ‘And his cargo.’

‘I’ve had enough to eat,’ said Clare, relief washing over her. ‘Shall we go?’

Riedwaan signalled for the bill. He winced. The skin on his chest was healing and his shoulder had been expertly bandaged by Helena Kotze, but even after three days in hospital, movement was not easy.

Outside the restaurant, it was clear, the sky heavy with stars. A curlew on the lagoon called, the sound piercing the cold night. Riedwaan put his arm around Clare’s waist.

‘Sexy dress this. I was wondering who you were going to wear it for.’

Clare unlocked her cottage door. Somehow, they had walked past Burning Shore Lodge.

‘You want some coffee?’ she asked, running a tentative finger down his neck.

‘Maybe a whisky.’

Clare poured two and took them through to the sitting room. ‘You didn’t miss these?’ Riedwaan put his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a scrap of silk.

‘Whose are those?’ Clare grabbed the black knickers.

‘Yours, I hope,’ he laughed. ‘I took them before you left Cape Town. A memento.’

Clare reached under her skirt and pulled off the pair she was wearing. ‘You want me to check?’

‘Not really.’ He caught both her hands in one of his. The other one he slid up her bare thigh. ‘I’d just have to take them off again.’

‘True,’ said Clare, pulling him with her onto the couch. ‘And that would be a waste of time.’

scorpio setting…

Oscar.

You hear it, your name formed as a series of soft clicks in the back of a throat. A drop, then two, of water on your lips, your eyelids. You open your eyes. The familiar weathered face: Spyt.

You try to say his name. Nothing comes but a croak. The man sweeps the flies sipping from your forehead, split by a rock. He disentangles you from the dead woman, Mara, lifting you into his arms, cradling you against his chest. He carries you to the cool shelter of his cave, out of the wind. The silence in the wake of the storm is overwhelming. Spyt lays you down, gentling his donkeys, restless at the intrusion, before he sets to work on you…

Three days later, the moon is full, obliterating all but the brightest stars. Spyt puts out a hand for you. Together you listen, ears catching the distant purr of an engine, which is nothing but a texture in the silence. You retreat deeper into the shadows when the lights break over the dune, sweeping across the moonlit sand. When the engine cuts, the restored silence is deafening.

Their voices are low murmurs as the couple unpacks, lights a fire. The pungent smoke purls into the sky. It is getting colder. The man twists the long rope of the woman’s hair in his hands. She sinks into him. The soft undulation of their bodies mimics the desert, radiating away from them. When they subside into sleep, the old man walks with you down to the dying fire. In sleep, the woman has turned her back on the man, but his hand rests on her hip. She is familiar, this woman, the woman who reads your mind. It is Clare. You have watched her sleep before, standing by her window, tracing a heart in the mist your breath made.

Spyt crouches, holding your hand close to her mouth. Her breath is warm on your palm.

When the moon arcs up and over, sinking into the ocean to the west, the cold desert wind knifes down the gully, rattling dry grasses. She turns towards the sleeping man; you imagine her breasts soft on his chest. Spyt takes your hand, and the two of you leave. The man and woman will head south to Cape Town, and you, here, will melt into the sheltering desert.

A jackal cries, unfurling the rosy dawn. Scorpio defers to the new light and sinks below the horizon.