the first time he looked into them. But the lines in the face were a bit deeper and the short-cropped hair had acquired a little gray at the temples.
?Tell me about Carlos Sangrenegra,? said his visitor, taking a swallow of his coffee.
Arendse looked down at the front page of the newspaper before him and then up at the big man. He saw absolute intent. He was on the point of saying something, asking a lot of questions, while the tumblers dropped slowly but surely. He looked down at the newspaper again, back at Tiny and it all became clear. Everything.
?Jesus, Tiny.?
The Xhosa said nothing, just looked back with that eagle?s eye.
?What happened?? asked Arendse.
Thobela looked at him for a long time, then shook his head, left and right, once only.
?I am retired,? said Arendse.
?You know people.?
?It?s all different now, Tiny. It?s not like the old days. They?ve marginalized us colored people. Even in the drug trade.?
No reaction.
?I owe you. That?s true.? Arendse stood and crossed over to the coffee machine. ?Let me just take my wife her coffee or I?ll never hear the end of it. Then I?ll make a few calls.?
Griessel tried to pull his trousers on, but he was in too much of a hurry. He lost his balance while he was standing on one leg. In the fall he knocked his head against the edge of the washbasin with a dull thud. He swore, jumped up and got the trousers on and fastened the clip only and strode out of the bathroom to the couch under which his weapon lay.
As he bent to retrieve the Z88 he felt dizzy. He got a hand on the pistol and went to the door.
?Who?s there?? He pressed down the safety clip of the pistol.
At first he heard nothing and then only the sound of the footsteps of more than one person. Footsteps receding down the passage. He turned the key with his left hand, jerked the door open and swung the barrel of his pistol into the passage. To the right he saw a figure disappearing into the lift. He ran that way. His head was still not clear.
The door to the lift had closed. He hesitated just a fraction then ran for the stairs and down, two steps at a time.
Six bloody stories. With his left hand on the rail, firearm in the right, just his trousers on, down, down. On the third floor his legs couldn?t keep up and he slipped and it was only his hand on the stair rail that prevented a headlong fall. He saw a pair of legs in front of him and looked up. A very fat woman in a bright purple tracksuit stood staring with a mouth like an ?O,? her face glowing with perspiration.
?Excuse me,? he said and dragged himself upright, squeezing past her and taking the next set of stairs.
?You?re bleeding,? he heard the fat woman say. Instinctively he touched a hand to his forehead to check and it came away wet, warm and red. Run. What was he going to do when he reached the bottom if there were more than one? His breath labored, chest burned, legs complained.
Second story, first story, ground.
He went in pistol first, but the entrance hall was empty. He jerked the glass door open and sprinted out into the morning sun just as below at the corner of Belle Ombre and Kloof Nek Road a white Opel turned the corner with screeching tires.
When the call came from Midrand, the detective had to find the file in a forgotten pile against the wall.
Then he began to remember the two who had shot the boy at the garage. And the father who had bought the contents of the file.
He tapped a middle finger on the cover of the file. He wondered if he would still be interested. Whether there might be another opportunity here.
He looked up the father?s details in the documents. He found a number with a Cathcart code. Pulling the phone nearer he keyed them in. It rang for a long time. Eventually he put the phone down.
He would try again later.
She had heard someone trying to open the door, she said as she cleaned the wound on his forehead with a warm, damp facecloth. His nose was full of the smell of Dettol. She stood up against him where he sat on the couch. She was wearing a thin dressing gown. He didn?t want her this close.
At first she hadn?t been certain. She had gone to put the kettle on in the kitchen while he was showering when she heard it. She saw the door latch move. That was when she went to the door and called: ?Is anyone there?? It had been quiet a second and then someone had rattled the door. She had run to him in the bathroom.
?You have a bump and a cut.? She stepped back to view her handiwork.
She was gentler this morning, but he didn?t want to think about it.
?Witness Protection will be here soon,? he said. He had called them before she had started on the cut.
?I?ll get ready.?
?They will take you to a safe house. You must pack clothes.?
He looked up at her face. She was watching him with an unreadable expression. She stretched out a hand to his face, touched her fingertips to his chin. Softly. She stroked up across his cheekbone to the plaster she had put over his wound.
There was a foil-wrapped parcel at his door. He picked it up, unlocked the door and went inside. The room
