policeman’s uniform but wasn’t fit to direct traffic. A PR man whose tongue had grown permanently attached to the asses of his masters.
After the confrontation with Zondi, Barnard had gone straight to Peterson’s office. Barnard knew that his commanding officer was terrified of him. Barnard was a law unto himself, who kept his badge through cunning and manipulation. Those who could be bribed he bribed. Those who refused his bribes he intimidated. Over the years Barnard had built up a massive database of information about his fellow cops and his superiors. He knew who was crooked; he knew who had falsified arrests; he knew who was never booked for driving drunk; he knew who took favors from hookers; he knew who screwed brother officers’ wives.
As Barnard sat facing Peterson in the superintendent’s office at Bellwood South HQ, he was aware of the half-breed’s fear. The man had splashed himself with tons of aftershave, but he stank. Barnard, unaware or uncaring when it came to his own stench, was acutely attuned to others’.
Peterson, a happily married, churchgoing paragon of New South African virtue, had become involved with a much younger woman a few years back. Her husband was a scrap merchant who dabbled in stolen cars. Barnard knew for a fact that Peterson had planted stolen parts at the scrap yard and had used his influence to make sure that the man was sent away for a couple of years. The unfortunate bastard had died in prison, the victim of gang discipline.
Peterson knew that Barnard knew. Simple as that.
So Barnard wrote his own ticket, seldom bothering to come into headquarters. But today he was here for a purpose. He leaned in close to Peterson.
“I want this darky off my back.”
Peterson shook his head. “I have no jurisdiction here, Inspector.”
“You’re not hearing me, Peterson. Make the fucker go away.”
Peterson fidgeted with an expensive pen on his desk. “You have to believe that all of us are being kept out of this loop. It is being run by the ministry directly.”
“So, you’re saying it’s okay if he hangs me by my balls?”
Peterson shrugged. “I’m sorry. My hands are tied.”
Barnard nodded. He even tried a smile, which was terrifying to behold. “How’s your girlfriend?”
The smell of fear washed across the desk. “Rudi, please. I’ve put all that behind me. I am not your enemy in this, please understand. There is nothing I can do to change the situation with this man from Jo’burg. I’m powerless.”
Barnard had stood and loomed over Peterson like a wall of stinking fat. “Just remember. I go down, I take people with me.”
Sitting in his car, Barnard lit another smoke, eyes fixed on the American’s house. Lights were on in the gathering gloom.
Barnard needed to throw money at this Zondi thing. A lot of it. And if he couldn’t buy his wayem' wide situation, he’d have to do what he did best. Zondi wasn’t some crack whore on the Flats; he was a darky with a fancy badge, but that didn’t make him bulletproof.
He would die like all the others.
Barnard found himself smiling at the thought. His smile evaporated when he became aware of headlights in his rearview mirror. A car was creeping down the road toward him. An armed response vehicle.
Barnard loathed rent-a-cops, who fed off the paranoia of the wealthy. They looked down on the real cops, smug as they cruised around these privileged areas. Normally, he would have relished a face-to-face with the cowboy driving the car, just for the pleasure of it, knowing his badge always trumped a rent-a-cop’s ID.
But not tonight.
He didn’t want to be placed near this house. Barnard started his car and drove away before the rent-a-cop could reach him.
Burn went into the house and saw that Susan lay on the sofa, asleep or pretending to be. Matt was in front of the TV. Usually, Burn would get the boy away from the screen, fighting the kid’s desire to lose himself in the numbing banality of the tube.
But right now it was almost a relief to see Matt occupied, distracted from the rupture in his parents’ relationship.
Burn had come home and found Susan reading a fashion magazine, sitting with her feet in the plunge pool, taking the edge off the heat. Matt was splashing in the pool, wearing flippers. Mrs. Dollie was inside, wielding the vacuum cleaner like a weapon, the high-pitched whine making her deaf to anything Burn was saying.
Burn told Susan he had found an apartment. It was right on the ocean, overlooking Clifton Beach, and, most important, it was unoccupied. The agents asked him for a day to send a crew in to clean it, and then his family could move in.
Susan had stared at him, shrugged, and went back to her magazine.
The chopper clattered overhead once again, and Susan opened her eyes to find him staring down at her. She closed her eyes.
“Susan?” He had to pitch his voice above the noise of the helicopter.
“Yes?” Her eyes stayed closed. A cartoon man was squashed flat by a rock, and Matt laughed.
“I’m going out.”
Her eyes flicked open. “Sure.”
“Come if you want. I just need to get out of here for a while.”
She shook her head. “No. We’ll stay.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“We’ll be fine, Jack.” She wasn’t even trying to mask her irritation.
“If you want me to stay, I will.”
“No. Go. It’s better if you do.” She closed her eyes again, dismissing him.
“Keep the doors locked. Okay?” ght='0em'›ht='0em' width='1em'›She didn’t reply.
He grabbed the car keys and headed for the garage.
As he reversed the Jeep out, he saw the blaze was leaping lower on the mountain. Now two choppers were fighting it.
Disaster Zondi sat in a coffee shop on the ocean, not far from the Waterfront, drinking a poor excuse for a cappuccino. Too much foam, not enough kick.
He spooned some excess foam into his saucer, but when he lifted the cup to his lips some of the froth came dangerously close to dripping onto his silk shirt. He replaced the cup in its saucer and pushed it away.
It was dark now, and he was the only customer left in the coffee shop. The staff were circling like vultures, eager to get rid of him.
After the interview with Barnard, Zondi had suppressed the urge to rush back to his hotel and take a shower. The man’s stink had nearly taken his breath away. No mere body odor, it was something far more toxic, fetid. Sulfurous. From nowhere a memory came to him, from his Anglican mission school upbringing, that the Devil had a foul stench, like sulfur. Of course Zondi no longer believed in the Devil. Or God.
But still.
He hadn’t expected to be as disturbed by the encounter as he was. He had kept it deliberately short, just fired a shot across the fat man’s bows. Let him know that Zondi was on to him. The proximity to Barnard had come close to thawing Zondi’s cool, the layer of permafrost he kept between himself and the world. He told himself he was letting this get personal. He needed to slow down. Detach himself. Keep his focus.
He had escaped Bellwood South HQ and driven his rental BMW back toward the city as the sun set over the ocean, the last rays painting Table Mountain gold. Cape Town putting on its show. Even the pall of smoke from the blaze on Lion’s Head couldn’t mute the splendor.
Cape Town offended Zondi. Its languid slowness and devotion to sun worship, wine tasting, and the deification of its natural beauty struck him as decadent and fatuous. Like a woman obsessed with nothing but her appearance. This place didn’t even look like Africa. It was like a bit of Europe transplanted onto a mountainous peninsula that stuck out toward the South Pole like it was giving it the finger. Even the climate was Mediterranean.
And it was the only sub-Saharan city where a black man was in the minority.
Zondi had no wish to go to his hotel, so on impulse he had stopped for the coffee. The undrinkable
