She rose from her chair and leaned over the desk. When she stood like that, slightly bent over, arms stretched out to the cardboard carton, her breasts were prominent. She was aware of it, but also that it didn?t matter anymore. She pulled the box to her side of the desk and folded the flaps open.
?I have to explain this now,? she said and reached into the carton. She took out two newspaper clippings. She unfolded one. She glanced briefly at the photograph and article on it, specifically at the young girl emerging from a helicopter with a man. She put the clipping down on the desk and smoothed it with her hand.
?This is my fault,? she said, and rotated the article so that the minister could see better. She tapped a fingertip on the photo. ?Her name is Carla Griessel,? said Christine.
While the minister looked she reached for the second clipping.
He came out of Sangrenegra?s front door and in the corner of his eye he spotted a movement. Opposite, in the big house, behind a window. The discomfort of Carlos?s reaction, the Colombian?s choice of words and the overwhelming feeling of being watched unfolded in his belly.
Something wasn?t right.
Five objects lay on the desk in an uneven row. The two newspaper clippings were on the far right. Then the brown and white dog, a stuffed toy with big, soft eyes and a little red tongue hanging out of the smiling mouth. Next the small white plastic container with medicinal contents. And last on the left, a large syringe.
Christine shifted the box to the left again. It was not yet empty.
?The next morning, after Carlos had seen Sonia for the first time, I phoned Vanessa.?
He braked with screeching tires next to his pickup, grabbed the white pipe holding his assegai and leapt out.
Slowly, his head told him. Slowly. Do the right thing.
He unlocked his pickup, tilted the backrest forward and put the pipe behind it. He unzipped his sports bag, looking for an item of clothing. He took out a blue and white T-shirt. He had bought it at the motorbike training center at Amersfoort. One each for himself and Pakamile. He walked back to the swimming-pool van.
A siren approached, he wasn?t sure from which side, not sure how close. Adrenaline made his heart jump.
Slowly. He wiped the panel van?s steering wheel with the T-shirt. The gear lever.
The siren was closer.
The inside door handle. The window winder.
What else?
Another siren, from somewhere in the city.
What else had he touched? Rear-view mirror? He wiped but he was in a hurry, didn?t do it properly.
Slowly. He wiped it again, back and front of the mirror.
His eye caught the speck of the helicopter in the blue sky where it came around Devil?s Peak.
They were after him.
When he raced away from Sangrenegra?s house, just before he turned the corner at the bottom of the street, he had seen something in the rear-view mirror. Or had he?
They were onto him.
He cursed in Xhosa, a single syllable. A walker came around the bend, down the slope from the Signal Hill side.
He took four long strides to get to his pickup.
?I didn?t know how the whole thing would end,? she said to the minister, to try and justify what she was yet to tell him. She listened to the lack of intonation in her voice. She was aware of her fatigue, as if she didn?t have the strength for the final straight. It was because she had gone through it so many times in her head, she told herself.
The first time she had seen the clipping, the eyes of Carla Griessel and the terrible knowledge that it was all her fault and also the relief that she still had the ability to feel guilt and remorse. After everything. After all the lies. After all the deception. All the years. She could still feel someone else?s pain. Still feel compassion. Still feel pity for someone besides herself. And the guilt that she felt that relief.
She took a deep breath to gather her strength, because this explanation was the one that mattered.
?I was afraid,? she said. ?You have to understand that. I was terrified. The way Carlos looked at Sonia . . . I thought I knew him. That was one of the problems. I know men. I
to know them. And Carlos was the naughty child. Sort of harmless. He was nagging and possessive and jealous, but he wanted so much to please. He had my clients beaten up, but he never did the hitting himself. Up to that moment I still thought I could control him. That?s the main thing. With all the men. To be in control without them knowing it. But then I saw his face. And I knew, everything I had thought was wrong. I didn?t know him. I had no control over him. And I panicked. Totally.
?I . . . It wasn?t like I worked out a plan or anything. There was just all this stuff in my head. The Artemis guy and the stuff in Carlos?s house, the drugs and all, and the panic over the way he looked at Sonia. I think if a person is really scared, like terrified, then a part of your brain starts working that you don?t know about, it takes over. I don?t know if you understand that, because you have to
there.
?I phoned Carlos and said I wanted to talk to him.?
He drove with the radio on. He deliberately chose alternate routes and drove instinctively east, towards
