?What client?? But he couldn?t carry off the lie and his eyes turned crafty. He is a child, she thought, and it frightened her.
?Just a client. Fifty-three years old.?
?Why do you think Carlos beat him??
?Not you. But maybe the bodyguards??
?Did he buy drugs??
?No.?
?They only beat up people who do not pay for drugs, hokay??
?Okay.? She knew what she wanted to know. But it helped not at all.
21.
Griessel and Cliffy sat in the fish restaurant a hundred meters beyond the entrance to Woolworths, each with a small earphone. They heard Andre Marais saying, ?Testing, testing? for the umpteenth time, but this time with a tinny voice in the background calling, ?Next customer, please.?
Cliffy Mketsu nodded, as he did every time. It irritated Griessel immensely. Marais couldn?t fucking see them nod, she was in the food section of Woolworths and they were here. She was only wearing a microphone, not earphones. One-way communication only, but Cliffy had to nod.
At a table opposite, a man and a woman were drinking red wine. The woman was middle-aged, but pretty, like Farrah Fawcett, with big, round, golden earrings and lots of rings on her fingers. The man looked young enough to be her son, but took her hand every now and again. They bothered Griessel. Because they were drinking wine. Because he could taste the dark flavor in his mouth. Because they were rich. Because they were together. Because they could drink and be together and what of him? He could sit here with Nodding Cliffy Mketsu, clever Cliffy, busy with his Masters in Police Science, a good policeman, but confused, hopelessly absent-minded, as if his head was in his books all the time.
Would he and Anna ever be able to sit and enjoy themselves like that? Sit holding hands and sipping wine and gazing into each other?s eyes? How did people do that? How do you regain the romance after twenty years of married life? Actually, it was fucking irrelevant, because he would never be able to sip wine again. Not if you were an alcoholic. You couldn?t drink a thing. Nothing. Not a fucking drop. Couldn?t even smell the red wine.
He had told Doc Barkhuizen he was going to get drunk, but the Doc had said: ?Phone your wife and children and tell them,? because he knew Griessel could not do that. He wanted to smash his cell phone on the bloody pavement, he wanted to break something but he just screamed, he didn?t know what, not words. When he turned around, Cliffy and Andre Marais were sitting rigidly in the car pretending nothing had happened.
?Vaughn, are you receiving properly?? Cliffy asked the other team over the microphone. They were looking at Woolworths clothes on the second floor, the one above the food department.
?Ten-four, good buddy,? said Inspector Vaughn Cupido, as if it were a game. He and Jamie Keyter were the back-up team. Not
as the locals would say it, he called himself
Nowadays everyone had foreign names. What was wrong with good, basic Afrikaner names? The men weren?t Griessel?s first choice either, as Cupido was careless and Keyter was a braggart, recently transferred from Table View Station after he had made the newspapers with one of those stories where facts do not necessarily interfere with sensation. ?Detective breaks car-theft syndicate single-handed.? With his bulging Virgin Active biceps and the kind of face to make schoolgirls swoon, he was one of the few white additions to the Serious and Violent Crimes Unit. This was the team that had to protect Andre Marais and catch a fucking serial killer: an alcoholic, a braggart and a sloppy one.
There was another matter on his mind; two, three things that came suddenly together: were the older woman and the young man opposite married? To each other? What if Anna had a young man who held her hand on Friday nights? He couldn?t believe that she no longer wanted it, of that he was convinced. You didn?t just switch off her sort of warmth like a stove plate just because her husband was a fucking alky. She met men at work?what would she do if there was a young man who was interested and sober? She was still attractive, despite the crow?s feet at the corners of her eyes?due to her husband?s drinking habit. There was nothing wrong with her body. He knew what men were like; he knew they would try. How long would she keep saying ?no?? How long?
He took out his cell phone, needing to know where she was on a Friday night. He rang, holding the phone to the ear without the earphone.
It rang.
He looked across at Farrah Fawcett and her toy boy.
They were gazing into each other?s eyes with desire. He swore they were just plain horny.
?I thi . . . it?s tha . . . t,? said Andre Marais in the earphone.
?What?? said Griessel, looking at Cliffy, who merely shrugged and tapped his radio receiver with the tip of his index finger.
?Hello,? said his son.
?Hello, Fritz.?
?Hi, Dad.? There was no joy in his son?s voice.
?How are you??
But he couldn?t hear the answer as the earphone buzzed in his ear and he only caught a fraction of what Sergeant Andre Marais was saying: ?. . . can?t afford . . .?
?What are you doing, Fritz??
?Nothing. It?s just Carla and me.? His son sounded depressed, and there was a dull tone to his voice.
?How?s your reception, Vaughn?? Cupido asked. ?Her mike isn?t good.?
