Like Clockwork

she had up on the poster boards she had bought. Charnay had disappeared from the Waterfront, Amore from Canal Walk, India from Long Street. All on busy weekend nights. Piet Mouton had worked out how they were killed. She knew where they had been found. There was the similarity in age, hair colour – but, other than that, the only link between the girls was their killer.

Why were they killed? Clare went to make herself another nauseating cup of instant coffee, thinking of the key each girl had clutched in her bound hand. Cheap keys, untraceable, bought in any supermarket. She sipped, looking out onto the dirty strip of sand behind the caravan.

‘What are you thinking, Clare?’ She had not heard Riedwaan return.

‘What happened with Da Cunha?’ she asked.

‘He’s away. Whole family went to a wedding in Portugal last week.’ That’s him out of the picture.’ He lit a cigarette.

‘Give me a drag,’ said Clare. The nicotine rush was wonderful. ‘I’m missing something. He takes them to a place close by. A place that people probably pass every day. There’s no link between these girls. Charnay did freelance sex work, but I think that was coincidental. He doesn’t fit the profile of a mission killer – out to purge prostitutes. Those girls were out alone. But the last two, we presume, were trying to get home. Charnay – that we don’t know – but she was pretty enough and young enough to be selective. I guess she would have gone willingly with a customer, particularly if it wasn’t someone who had used her before.’

Riedwaan came and stood behind her. ‘We’ve checked everything in her diary,’ said Riedwaan. ‘It shows when she worked, but not who her clients were.’

‘Do you think we should pull that nasty little brother of hers in?’ asked Clare.

‘Rita and Joe have already interviewed him again. Here.’ Riedwaan fetched the notes from his desk. ‘His alibi is watertight. You’ll be interested that there are two assault charges against him.’

‘From the rugby match?’

‘One, yes. The other charge is recent. A girl in his class laid a sexual assault charge against him.’

‘A violent assault?’

‘No,’ said Riedwaan. ‘He’s accused of putting a webcam in the girls’ change room. And posting it on the web.’

‘Charming,’ said Clare.

Rita walked in the door, and Riedwaan asked, ‘You checked on the Isis website for her picture?’

‘I did. No sign of her there. Charnay must have chickened out in the end.’

‘Her friend Cornelle is hostessing there,’ Clare observed.

‘Yes, I spoke to her,’ said Rita. ‘But it’s nothing more than that. She’s not doing movies.’

‘What about Amore Hendricks? She left her friends after the movie ended at nine forty-five. She was meant to meet her uncle at ten-thirty at the taxi rank,’ Clare asked.

‘We don’t even know for sure that she was abducted from Canal Walk. She could have gone anywhere,’ said Rita.

‘She must have met someone en route. It had to be someone she knew,’ Clare persisted.

‘Okay. Then what about the phone call? The one her uncle made at ten forty-five?’

‘He didn’t actually speak to her, remember. My guess is that she stopped somewhere, probably in an outside area.’ Clare checked in her notes. ‘Look here. It was pretty busy that evening. She would have been very easy to get into a car if someone had spiked her drink.’

Riedwaan picked up India’s autopsy report. The smell of the laboratory still clung to it. ‘This poor girl got one moer of a klap on the head. Piet Mouton is pretty certain it was with an iron bar.’

‘I’m surprised he didn’t kill her,’ said Clare.

‘Look here.’ Riedwaan held out two photographs. ‘Piet thinks that she sensed him, saw him maybe, and that she ducked. ‘Look at the bruises here on her arm. He would have caught her there and then hit her as she tried to get away.’

‘What are all these microfibre reports from the wound?’

‘He must have held her to him and then picked her up or put her into a car. Piet thinks that the fibres are from an overcoat, black cashmere most probably.’

‘An expensive dresser,’ said Clare. ‘That would put our little chef out of the picture.’

Riedwaan turned the page. ‘Read this: bits of acrylic carpet. Most likely from the boot of a car.’

‘You can’t tell the make?’

‘They’re working on it but I don’t think so. There will be blood traces on that carpet if they find the car.’

‘That’s all you’ve got?’

‘That’s it. Apart from a cellphone call that India made at nine-thirty. She called her friend Gemma after the rehearsal to say she’d left her scarf in her bag and that she’d come round and get it the next day.’

‘She didn’t say how she was getting home, did she?’ asked Clare.

‘She didn’t, but Gemma had the impression that she was walking while she was talking to her.’

‘And that was on Long Street?’

‘That’s what the cellphone records say. There was also a free concert at the Pool Bar. Gemma thought she might have been going there. The DJ was at school with them.’

‘Did you speak to him?’

‘Her, actually. Yes, we did. India had said that she would pop in, but the DJ never saw her. Nor did the doorman,’ said Riedwaan.

‘Any other sightings of her?’

‘The only person who says he saw her is the security guard at the 7-Eleven. He saw her walk past the Long Street Baths.’

‘No one else?’

‘Nobody. She seems to have vanished. The easiest place, I suppose, would be Keerom Street. That takes you back to Wale Street and there’s no one to see you there.’

‘No vagrants saw her?

‘Nothing. We’ve checked with the regulars. Not a word until her mother called me after…’ he stopped.

‘I couldn’t let Constance down,’ Clare muttered at him.

‘You won’t let her go,’ he replied in a low voice. ‘You’re afraid to let her go,’ Riedwaan’s anger flared for just a moment. ‘Ag, I’m sorry too. I was looking forward to spoiling you a bit.’ He touched her hand and she curled her fingers around his. Then he exposed the nape of Clare’s neck and kissed it. Rita coughed as she bent over the desk and straightened the paperwork.

Shivering at the sudden pleasure that rippled across her skin, Clare pulled her shoulders back hard and asked, ‘Shall I go and see the family again?’

‘Ja, check it out. Talk to her mother and find out what Brian King was doing while he was not at the restaurant,’ Riedwaan suggested. ‘I’m going to check out valet services. See if anyone has brought in a car with a dirty carpet recently.’

‘Okay.’

Riedwaan went out, closing the door behind him. Clare pressed her hands to her temples to stop the drumbeat of why, why, why.

‘Go home,’ said Rita. ‘It’s not easy.’

‘The case or the man?’ asked Clare.

‘Both, sisi. Both.’

35

It was drizzling when Clare got home. She made a sandwich, fetched her duvet, and settled in to watch an old black and white movie. Its gentle tedium lulled Clare to sleep within an hour. The telephone’s insistent ringing roused her, but when she picked up the phone there was only silence.

‘Who is this?’