relieved that there was no one around to see them.
Whitney stopped just inside the front door, swaying on her feet. Clare took her hand as soon as she had slipped the dead bolt back into place.
‘You need a bed.’ Clare guided Whitney into the spare room and folded back the covers. Whitney sat down gingerly and then collapsed back onto the pillow. Clare covered her, tucking the duvet in against the back of her neck as she had always done for Constance. Whitney closed her eyes. ‘Thanks,’ she whispered as she eventually slipped into sleep.
Clare drew the curtains across the orange morning and stepped out, pulling the door silently closed behind her. She leaned her forehead against the passage wall. It was cool and reassuringly solid. She breathed in deeply, stilling her panic at having another person so close, so dependent. Clare then willed herself away from the wall. She walked to her desk, reached for her Rolodex and found the number for Rape Crisis, then made the necessary arrangements. There were others who were trained to cope with these things. When Whitney woke up, she’d tell her where her mother lived and Clare could take her back home. Perhaps her family would get her to press charges.
Clare switched on her laptop, trying to focus her scattered thoughts on her film. The picture of the web of organised crime, freelancers and corrupt officials that eased the flow of people from one place to another was coming into focus. The pieces of her puzzle were falling into place, but there were several things she needed to know: how local distribution worked and what happened to the money. There were rumours of laundering in the usual places – beauty parlours, restaurants, construction, property – but it was difficult to prove. Clare skimmed through her notes, frustrated at what she was still missing.
First prize would be an interview with Whitney, who could well be the key Clare needed. Whitney’s family might talk, even if she refused.
Clare checked on Whitney at ten. The juice next to her bed had been drunk, but Dr September’s potent sleeping pills had suspended Whitney once again in a dreamless sleep.
Clare went back to her careful mapping of routes and detours on the trafficked women’s journeys to Cape Town. She pulled out a jaunty tourist map of the city, trying to guess Whitney’s route to San Marina Mansions. The name was familiar. Clare reached for the file that held her interviews, excitement mounting. She ran her finger down the index she had started. There it was: San Marina Mansions. The place where Natalie Mwanga had been put to work was in the same building they’d found Whitney – who was clearly from one of the poorer suburbs of Cape Town. Clare reached for her phone. ‘Hi, Marcus,’ she greeted her brother-in-law. ‘You’re not by any chance going to the deeds registry today, are you?’
‘I am. What are you ferreting out now?’
‘Can you check who owns a block in Sea Point? San Marina Mansions. The address is 148 Main Road. Thanks.’ She blew him a kiss over the phone. ‘Bye.’
A tiny click made her turn. Whitney was standing in the doorway.
Clare smiled at her. ‘Do you want something to eat?’ The girl nodded. Clare led her to the kitchen where she toasted white bread, sliced some cheese, and made a mug of sweet tea. Whitney ate, making herself chew then swallow, chew then swallow, determined to stay alive. Clare sat opposite her, hands cradling her own hot mug. Fritz leapt up onto Whitney’s lap, purring. The girl stroked the cat gently, her small hand childlike against the grey fur.
‘Where do you live, Whitney?’ Fritz’s purr stopped. Clare’s voice was loud in the kitchen quiet. ‘I have to take you back. Your mother will be frantic.’ Whitney shifted her eyes over onto Clare’s face, but she was silent. Clare reached for the notepad and pencil next to the phone. ‘Write it down for me.’ Whitney hesitated and then picked up the pen and wrote, pushing the paper back to Clare.
‘Twenty-three Regent Street, Retreat? Shall I take you home?’ Clare asked. Whitney nodded, struggling to swallow the last piece of toast. She got up and fetched her coat, moving carefully. She had the small bag of clothes – torn top, short skirt – in her hand. This she shoved into Clare’s dustbin and headed for the door. She hesitated on the threshold for a few seconds and then stepped outside. Clare followed, locking the house, opening the car. Whitney stared blindly at the traffic as Clare rounded the circle and headed towards the highway that would take them to the urban sprawl that stretched between the slopes of the mountain and False Bay.
Half an hour later Clare turned off, driving into the warren of dilapidated cottages huddled on either side of the streets. Homeward-bound workers and housewives shopping were gradually replaced by knots of young men on the street corners, and the women here were older, scurrying home, hands clamped tight around the fists of small children. Windows were curtained, doors were shut tight – and graffiti proclaimed which gang owned this or that street. Hard, speculating eyes followed Clare’s car as she nosed her way into Regent Street and looked for number twenty-three.
The front door opened as Clare parked, and a woman flew down the path. She grabbed hold of Whitney, pulling her out of the car. The girl eventually relaxed the iron grip she had on her body, melting back into the enveloping flesh of her mother’s arms.
‘My baby,’ she breathed into her daughter’s hair. ‘Come inside.’ She turned her child away from the gathering curiosity in the street. ‘Come inside, please,’ she said to Clare, who followed mother and daughter inside.
The house was immaculate. The woman must have polished and scrubbed her way through the days of her daughter’s disappearance. In the lounge, Clare sat on the covered armchair with its crotcheted cloths.
‘I am Florrie Ruiters.’ She held her hand out to Clare. The woman’s tears pooled, then overflowed. Clare watched as she took her child into the bedroom and covered her, switching on the electric blanket in an effort to warm her shaking body.
‘I’m Dr Clare Hart,’ she introduced herself when the woman returned. ‘I found Whitney last night and took her to the hospital. She refused to stay but it was only today that she told me where she lived. I brought her to you as soon as she told me.’ She did not know what else to say.
‘Thank you for bringing her back.’ Mrs Ruiters twisted her pink housecoat. ‘I thought I would never see her again.’
‘Where did you report her missing?’ Clare asked. She had not seen anything in the papers.
‘My husband looked for her. And her brothers.’ Mrs Ruiters looked at Clare then dropped her eyes, as if in shame. ‘They looked in all the places we usually find the girls when they are finished.’ She set the pills from the hospital out neatly on a small tray on the coffee table. ‘But we could not find her.’
‘And the police?’ persisted Clare.
‘No police, Dr Hart. No police.’ She stopped twisting her dress, her face resolute. ‘We will take care of her.’
‘Who abducted her?’
Mrs Ruiters’s face closed down again. ‘I can’t tell you, Dr Hart. But thank you for bringing Whitney back to me.’ Then she stood up.
Clare took a photograph out of her bag and handed it to Florrie Ruiters. The colour drained from her face. ‘Why are you showing me this?’
‘That is the tattoo that Kelvin Landman marks his girls with. It was on a girl who was murdered,’ Clare explained as the photograph slipped from the woman’s trembling hands. ‘Her body was dumped in Sea Point. Your daughter has the same tattoo now. On her back.’
Mrs Ruiters shook her head, determined. ‘You must go now, Dr Hart. There is nothing I can do. There is nothing that Whitney can do. Her life is not worth it. We don’t know this Kelvin Landman.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. She gripped Clare, her bony fingers hard on Clare’s arm. Her sleeve slipped back, revealing the same distinctive tattoo on the tender skin inside her elbow. Clare traced it with her free hand. Florrie pulled back, as if Clare’s touch had seared her skin.
‘Can you find your way out, Dr Hart?’
‘Take this, please,’ Clare wrote down the number of a rape counsellor. ‘Phone her. It might help you both. My number is there too if you change your mind about the police.’ Clare hesitated. ‘Or if you need anything.’
Mrs Ruiters pushed the scrap of paper into her pocket. She looked up at Clare, her face a faded shadow of her daughter’s beauty, layered with years of hardship and fear.
‘How can talking make her right?’ she spat.
‘It is a miracle she survived,’ said Clare. ‘Maybe it can help her heal.’
‘The body survives.’ Mrs Ruiters picked up the photograph of Charnay’s dead, tattooed body. ‘But the spirit?’
