Later she cleaned up the blood spoor. Felt the pain. Refused to think about it. Knew she would do it again.
She didn?t work the next day either. It was the beginning of December, bonanza month. She didn?t want to go on. She wanted the kind of life where she could tell Sonia: ?Granny Martie is coming to visit.? She was weary of lying to the daycare or other mothers at the crcche. She was weary of her clients and their pathetic requests, their neediness. She wanted to say ?yes? the next time a polite, good-looking man came up to her table in McDonald?s and asked if he could buy them ice cream. Just once.
But it was holiday season, big-money month.
She negotiated an agreement with herself. She would work as much as she could in December. So that they could afford to spend January with her mother in Upington. And when they came back she would find other work.
She kept to the deal. Martie van Rooyen absorbed herself in her granddaughter in those two weeks in Upington. She also sensed something about her daughter?s existence. ?You have changed, Christine. You have become hard.?
She lied to her mother about her work, said she did this and that, worked here and there. She cut her other foot in her mother?s bathroom. This time the blood told her she must stop. Stop all of it.
The next day she told her mother she hoped to get a permanent job. And she did.
She was appointed as sales rep for a small company that manufactured medicinal face creams from extract of sea-bamboo. She had to call on chemist shops in the city center and southern suburbs. It lasted two months. The first setback was when she walked into a Link pharmacy in Noordhoek and recognized the pharmacist as one of her former clients. The second was when her new boss put his hand on her leg while they were traveling in his car. The final straw was her pay slip at the end of the month. Gross income: nine thousand and something. Net income: six thousand four hundred rand, sales commission included, after tax and unemployment insurance and who knows what had been subtracted.
She rethought her plans. She was twenty-one years old. As an escort she had earned more than thirty thousand rand a month and she had saved twenty thousand of it. After buying the car and a few other large expenses she still had nearly two hundred thousand in the bank. If she could just work another four years . . . until Sonia went to school. Just four years. Save two, two-fifty a year, perhaps more. Then she could afford a normal job. Just four years.
It nearly worked out. Except one day she answered the phone and Carlos Sangrenegra said: ?Conchita??
19.
He checked out of the Parow hotel. His requirements had changed. He wanted to be more anonymous, have fewer witnesses of his coming and going. He drove into the city center where he could pass the time without attracting attention. From a public phone in the Golden Acre he called the detective in Umtata to ask for news of Khoza and Ramphele.
?I thought you were going to catch them.?
?I?m not getting anywhere.?
?It?s not so easy, hey??
?No, it?s not.?
?Yes,? said the detective, mollified by the capitulation. ?We haven?t really got anything from our side either.?
?Not really??
?Nothing.?
In Adderley Street he bought
and went into the Spur on Strand Street for breakfast. He placed his order and shook the paper open. The main news was the 2010 Soccer World Cup bid. At the bottom of page one was an article headed,
He read that one. A woman had been arrested on suspicion of the murder of her partner?s five-year-old daughter. The child was hit over the head with a billiard cue, apparently in a fit of rage.
His coffee arrived. He tore open a paper tube of sugar, poured it into his cup and stirred.
What was he trying to do?
How would he achieve it? How would he be able to protect the children by his actions? How would people know: you cannot lay a finger on a child. There must be no doubt?the sentence of death had been reinstated.
He tested the temperature of the coffee with a careful sip.
He was in too much of a hurry. It would happen. It would take a little time for the message to get across, but it would happen. He must just not lose focus.
?It?s not going to happen,? said Woolworth?s head of corporate communication, a white woman in her early forties. She sat beside Andre Marais, the female police sergeant, in a meeting room of the chain store head office in Longmarket Street. The contrast between the two women was marked. It?s only money, thought Griessel, and environment. Take this manicured woman in her tight gray suit and leave her at the charge desk in Claremont for three months on a police salary and then let?s take another look.
There were six around the circular table: January, the Waterfront store manager, Kleyn?the communications woman, Marais, Griessel and his shift partner for the month, Inspector Cliffy Mketsu.
?Oh yes it is,? said Griessel derisively enjoying himself. ?Because you won?t like the alternative, Mrs. Kleyn.? He and Mketsu had decided that he would play the bad cop and Cliffy would be the peace-loving, good cop Xhosa detective.
?What alternative?? The woman?s extremely red mouth was small and dissatisfied under the straight nose and over made-up eyes. Before Griessel could reply she added: ?And it?s
