police officers of the gentler sort, smaller and thinner, with caring hands folded sympathetically on their laps. Social Services. The members of the Force who appear on the scene when all the shit is already cleared away. A man and a woman.
?Not yet,? he said.
She stood in the middle of the room and uttered a sound. He could see her face was swollen and there was a cut that someone had treated. Her eyes were red with weeping. She balled her fists and her shoulders drooped. The colored woman from SS got up and came over to her and said: ?Come and sit down, it?s better if you sit.?
?My name is Benny Griessel,? he said and held out his hand.
She shook it and said, ?Christine van Rooyen.? He thought that she didn?t look like your usual whore. But then he smelt her, a mixture of perfume and sweat; they all smelt like that, it didn?t wash out.
But she looked different from the ones he knew. He searched for the reason. She was tall, as tall as he was. Not scrawny, strongly built. Her skin was smooth. But that wasn?t it.
He said he worked with Ngubane and he knew it was a difficult time for her. But perhaps there was something she knew that could help. She said he must come through and she went over to a sliding door and pushed it wider. It led onto a balcony and she sat on one of the white plastic chairs. He got the idea that she wanted to get away from the SS people and that said something. He joined her on another of the chairs and asked her how well she knew Sangrenegra.
?He was my client.? He noticed the unusual shape of her eyes. They reminded him of almonds.
?A regular client??
In the light from the sitting room he could only see her right hand. It was on the arm of the chair, finger folded into the palm, the nails pressing into the flesh.
?At first he was like the rest,? she said. ?Nothing funny. Then he told me about the drugs. And when he found out I had a child . . .?
?Do you know what we found at his house??
She nodded. ?The black man phoned.?
?Did Carlos ever take you to other places? Other houses??
?No.?
?Have you any idea where he would have taken . . . er . . . your daughter??
?Sonia,? she said. ?My daughter?s name is Sonia.?
The fingers moved in her palm, the nails dug deeper. He wanted to reach out to her. ?Where would he have taken Sonia??
She shook her head back and forth. She did not know. Then she said: ?I won?t see her again.? With the calm that only absolute despair can bring.
In the early hours it was only five minutes? drive from Belle Ombre to his flat. The first thing he saw when he switched on the light was the brandy bottle. It stood on the breakfast counter like a sentry watching over the room.
He locked the door behind him and picked up the bottle and turned it in his hands. He examined the clock on the label and the golden brown liquid within. He imagined the effect of the alcohol in his fibers, light-headedness, and effervescence just under his skull.
He put down the bottle as if it were sacred.
He should open the bottle and pour the brandy down the sink.
But then he would smell it and he wouldn?t be able to resist it.
Get control first. He rested his palms on the counter and took deep breaths.
Lord, it had been close, earlier that evening.
Only his hunger had stopped him getting drunk.
He took another deep breath.
Fritz was going to phone him to find out if he had listened to the CD and he would have been drunk and his son would have known. That would have been bad. He considered his son?s voice. It wasn?t so much the boy?s interest in his opinion about the music. Something else. A craving. A longing. A desire to make contact with his father. To have a bond with him.
His son wanted a father now. So badly. He had been so close to fucking it up. So close.
He drew another deep breath and opened a kitchen cupboard. It was empty inside. He quickly picked up the bottle and put it inside and shut the door. He went upstairs. He didn?t feel so tired anymore. Second wind, when your brain gets so busy you just keep on going, when your thoughts jump from one thing to another.
He showered and got into bed and shut his eyes. He could see the prostitute and he felt a physical reaction, tumescence and he thought, hello, hello, hello? He felt guilty, as she had just lost her child and this was his reaction. But it was odd because whores had never done it for him. He knew enough of them. They were in a profession that was a magnet for trouble; they worked in a world that was just one small step away from serious crime. And they were all more or less the same?regardless of the fee they charged.
There was something about Christine van Rooyen that set her apart from the others he knew. But what? Then when he lined her up against the rest he identified it. Prostitutes, from the Sea Point streetwalkers to the few who serviced the tourists for big money in the Radisson, had two things in common. That distinctive bittersweet smell. And the damage. They had an atmosphere of depression. Like a house, a neglected house, where someone still lives, but you can see from the decay that they don?t really care anymore.
This one was not like that. Or less so. There was a light still burning.
