But the image of the recipe blurred and softened and the words she had memorised so faithfully slipped from her mind.
And then, just as she thought they were home, that this savage journey would soon be over, the man directed her to turn right, towards the suburb beyond Randburg, and her nerves started jangling all over again. This route was taking them in the direction of the house where she had been made to drop off the supposedly sleeping woman.
Was she still imprisoned there? If so, what was he planning to do with her now? And what did this mean for Ntombi?
She glanced at the street sign as they turned into the road. ‘Robin Avenue’. Her eyes strained into the darkness searching for a house number.
None to be seen. But it was the third house from the corner. That was easy to remember. The third house on Robin from the corner of Rabie Street. The one with the tall, wood-panelled gate. From his pocket the man produced a remote control and the gate slid smoothly open.
Ntombi braked hard as she saw a shabbily dressed man standing in the road as they turned in, but on closer inspection she realised he was only a pedestrian, politely waiting for them before he continued on his way.
The man pressed the button again and the gate closed behind them.
‘Stay here,’ he said, as if she had a choice, as he opened the passenger door.
Climbing out, he walked purposefully towards the front door before disappearing into the darkened house.
Leaving Ntombi with no means of escape … and no phone.
Scenarios, each more desperate and ludicrous than the last, spun through her head. She could hide in the garden – but she knew he would find her.
She could reverse the car into the gate, try to knock it down – but the gate was tall and solid and the driveway was a steep uphill slope. She knew that was also a battle she would not win.
She could simply close her eyes and let herself rest, after all that had happened. One last, short, blissful sleep before her evil passenger – and her waking nightmare – returned.
Ntombi rested her cheek against the cold glass of the window. Bizarrely, despite the terror of her situation, she was so tired that she knew sleep would come easily. Another moment or two, and she could be dreaming … dreaming of Khumalo her husband, and her little boy whom she knew deep down she would never see again.
The pedestrian!
The thought sliced through her exhaustion like a razor. She sat bolt upright, eyes wide, already fumbling to undo her seatbelt with her tired and shaking hands.
It was her only chance. She had to do it, and do it now. The killer could return any minute. How long had it taken him last time to subdue and drug the woman? She could not remember, but it had not been too long.
Ntombi ran up the steep driveway to the gate and slid her fingers through the wooden panels, peering through the slits to see if she could spot him. She thought she could hear the scrunch of his footsteps. But how to get his attention? She didn’t dare to rattle the gate. That would make too much noise and the man inside would hear. But perhaps she could speak to him …
‘Hello?’ she called softly. ‘Are you there? Hello! I need help.’
Silence.
Ntombi’s hopes crashed. He hadn’t heard her.
But then she realised the silence meant that he had stopped walking. Perhaps he had heard.
‘Please, could you come here quickly?’ she asked again.
Now the footsteps came back in her direction. And then she saw
him. A tall, young man in a worn blue overall, his clothes flecked with cement stains. A construction worker.
‘What is it, sister?’ he asked. He was looking at her in puzzlement, as if wondering what a well-dressed woman driving a luxury car could possibly need from him.
She needed to be fast.
‘Do you have a phone? I desperately need to make a call.’
She saw him hesitate. ‘I have one, but not much airtime.’
‘Please. I will pay you.’ She rummaged in her pocket and came out with a crumpled ten-rand note and a handful of change. ‘It’s not much but it’s all I have. I need to be quick, though. Please help me.’
He pushed the phone through the gap in the gate. She threw the money at him and in her haste the coins fell to the ground and she heard them clicking and jangling into the darkness. The construction worker bent down to hunt for them and Ntombi jabbed at the scratched and softened keyboard of his phone, dialling the number of the only person who could possibly help her, pressing the keys as fast as she could.
Thirty-eight, forty-two …
Please answer, she prayed, waiting for the call to connect and the person at the other end to pick up.
Please answer …
Back home, after a much-needed shower, Jade took her time getting ready for her evening dinner date. Unusually for her, she took extra care with her appearance. She considered the options in her rather limited wardrobe before deciding on one of the few dresses that she owned – a clingy black garment with a scoop neck, lace sleeves, and a lace-trimmed skirt whose hem didn’t quite reach her knees.
After some further thought she added a pair of sheer stockings and chic, black leather ankle-length boots. Around her neck she fastened a string of hematite beads and she clipped a matching bracelet around her left wrist.
She took care with her make-up, too. Black eyeliner, smoky-grey eyeshadow, mascara, a coat of shimmering taupe lip gloss. She so seldom wore make-up that her face felt coated with it, her pores clogged and sealed with the powder and foundation and blusher. Finally, she added a spritz of the Issey Miyake that David had given her two years ago and which was still almost full. Its sweet, floral scent filled the air.
She had no pocket to carry her wallet and phone so she put them into a black velvet clutch.
Glancing at the clock on her kitchen wall, she realised that her preparations had taken longer than she’d expected.
Pulling her cellphone out of her bag again, she dialled Victor Theron’s number.
He answered after eight rings, just as she was beginning to think she would have to leave a message.
‘Victor? I’m on my way now. I’m sorry I’m running a little late. I should be there in twenty minutes.’
His reply sounded strangely subdued, although his voice was tight with tension.
‘That’s OK. That’s fine, Jade. The markets have been up and down like yo-yos all day and I’m still closing out positions in the Dow Jones. If you wanted to make it in half an hour, that would be better.’
‘Would it be more convenient to meet you somewhere?’
‘No, no. Come to the flat. It’ll be … it’ll be great to see you. To be honest, I wasn’t planning on going out.’
‘You weren’t?’ Jade wondered if he could tell that she was smiling.
‘No.’
‘But you’ve asked me for dinner?’
‘Yes.’
‘I never figured you for a cook, Victor.’
‘No. No, you’re right. I’m not much of a cook at all.’
‘So are we ordering in takeaways, then?’ Heels clicking, Jade walked towards the hook on the wall and collected her car keys.
‘No, no. I’ve got some wine here, and plenty of stuff in the fridge. Really good food, I mean. Restaurant-quality dishes. You see, I have a domestic worker who cooks. She’s actually got ambitions to become a top chef.’
Ntombi shoved the phone back at the pedestrian.
‘Take it, quick. Go now. Please, run!’
She sprinted back to the car and collapsed into the seat just as the front door swung open and the dark-suited man reappeared, carrying the same woman as before.
As he settled her into the back seat her body lolled to one side. Roughly, he shoved her into a semblance of an upright position. Then, grasping her shoulder to hold her in place, he pulled at the seatbelt and fastened it tightly around her.
He looked up and saw Ntombi watching and issued the same warning he had done before, his voice icy. ‘Remember, this is our friend. She has had too much to drink and we are taking her home. No other story, if we are stopped.’
‘I understand,’ Ntombi said.
The killer got into the front of the car and settled himself down. Once again, the smell of his unwashed body hit her and she had to struggle not to gag.
It was only after she’d fastened her own seatbelt that he pressed the buzzer to open the gate.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘Where I tell you,’ he responded.
He dialled a number on his phone and in a moment she heard him speaking to her employer.
‘I will have the goods with you in thirty minutes,’ he said. He waited, listened. ‘Yes, cash. Have it ready. No, I won’t need a taxi to the airport. The Gautrain will still be running.’
He pocketed the phone and told Ntombi to turn left.
Left.
Towards Sandton.
It was a ten-minute drive from where she was now to her employer’s garage. Ten minutes. No longer, not at this time of the evening, when rush hour was already over.
But the man sitting beside her had told her employer thirty minutes, and Ntombi knew that there was only one possible reason for this. Only one job he had still left to do, after which a taxi or a train would whisk him away to the airport.
The man had done everything asked of him. Except for one last job.
She felt a terrible coldness fill her. She knew she should attempt to escape. Try to undo her belt, wrench the door open and simply run. But there wouldn’t be enough time. The seatbelt would slow her down and he would grab her and then …
Ntombi didn’t want to think about the screams she’d heard in the Karoo the previous night, piercing the silent, star-filled night sky.
Instead she thought of Khumalo in Umhlanga, being looked after by Portia. She was a responsible woman, and a wealthy one. Ntombi had no doubt that Portia would arrange for Khumalo to be well cared for. Her child, at least, would be all right. More importantly, he was safe for now.
‘Turn left here.’ The man’s voice broke through her reverie and she obeyed automatically, turning off the main road and down a tree-lined side road where she saw notice boards advertising another construction site. This one, though, looked old and abandoned. The boards were faded; their wood splintered, leaning at tired angles on rusted metal poles.
This was the place, then. The end of the road, and in more ways than one.
The bite of the seatbelt, holding her prisoner inside the car.
Portia’s words in her head. The woman’s voice, loud and confident and kind.
‘If you are ever hijacked, my sister, this is what you must do …’
Faintly, in the distance, Ntombi could hear the sound of approaching police sirens. Too late for her, though.
‘Khumalo,’ she said aloud.
The killer’s head whipped round, but she was too quick and too sure. She stamped with all her force on the accelerator and heard the car’s engine scream as its sixteen perfectly tuned cylinders responded with a brutal thrust of power.
The car flew across the road, Ntombi’s hands tight on the wheel, aiming the accelerating vehicle squarely at the centre of the biggest, thickest tree trunk she could see.
She had feared the moment of the crash almost as much as she feared her passenger’s retribution, but for her, neither happened.
There was only her husband, for one blissful moment, his dear, familiar face smiling at her as he held out his hands in welcome.
Exactly thirty minutes after their phone conversation, Jade arrived at Victor Theron’s apartment and rang the bell.
A full minute passed before the door opened.
Unlike herself, Victor hadn’t smartened up. He was wearing an old Pringle sweater and a faded pair of Guess denims. His jaw was unshaven; gaunt and hollow, skull-like, as if a terrible anxiety had devoured the very essence of his being.
He stood in the doorway and looked at Jade as if he wasn’t really seeing her at all. He made no comment on her appearance but simply just stepped aside and said, ‘Come in.’
She entered his showpiece apartment for the second time. It was unchanged. Every piece of furniture immaculate and in place. No cluttered surfaces. It had more in common with a hotel suite than a home.
‘Are you finished with the markets for today?’ she asked. The words fell heavily into the awkward silence.
‘Yes. Yes, I think so. Positions are closed out and everything.’ Jade noticed the electronic trading gadget he’d paid so much attention to in the past was lying, face down, as if forgotten, on the couch. Instead, Theron’s hand strayed continually to the cellphone on his belt and he kept frowning down at it as if willing it to ring.
‘Did you trade successfully?’
‘No, not really. Not today.’
‘I’m sorry, Victor,’ she said.
‘That’s
OK
.’
For a moment the tension in his face softened and he squeezed her shoulder. A rough caress. She could feel the wiry strength in his hands.
‘Shall we go onto the balcony?’ he asked. ‘We could have a glass of Champagne out there. There’s a great view. Sandton is quite a spectacle at night.’
Jade walked ahead of him across the carpeted lounge and up to the glass sliding doors. She stood aside to allow Victor to open them and then he stood aside to let her go out first.
Jade stepped carefully off the carpet and onto the tiled floor. The balcony was small, enclosed by a simple waist-high metal rail with Perspex panelling below. Out of the artificially warm cocoon of the apartment, the air was bitingly cold. She shivered.
The lights of Sandton were spread out below her in a shimmering blanket. Victor was right. The view was spectacular. Stepping closer to the rail, Jade looked down, all the way down the dizzying sixteen-floor drop to the sidewalk below and the nearby road, where distant headlights wormed their way along.
‘Are you cold?’
‘A little.’
Behind her she felt Theron’s hands close around her shoulders and move down over her arms. His skin was surprisingly warm. Heat radiated from him and she could feel the tension in his grasp.
‘Do you really have the guts to do this, Victor?’ she asked him, and felt the breath huff out of him as if she’d elbowed him in the solar plexus. His fingers tightened around her biceps, their wiry grip making her think of an eagle’s talons.