Authors: Jassy Mackenzie
“Hi. I called you earlier because—”
David interrupted her. “Open up, Jadey. I’m at your gate. Or rather, I will be in a sec. I’m halfway down your road now.”
“You’ve come back?” Trying to keep the delight out of her voice, Jade retrieved her gate buzzer from the hook on the wall.
“Yup.”
“Why didn’t you hoot like you usually do?”
“Because I’m trying to be more civilised. If that bloody dog’s there, tell it not to bite me, ok?”
“Bonnie is back home where she belongs.” Jade couldn’t suppress a smile as she squinted into the darkening gloom, making sure that there was nobody else waiting outside.
David’s headlights swept towards her as he drove through the gate, dazzling her with their bright beams. He climbed out of the car carrying two brown paper bags, and hurried over to the cottage.
“I brought us supper. Proper food. Curry takeaways from Raj. I got you that fish one you like, extra hot.”
“Thanks.”
A peck on the cheek. She felt the prickle of his stubble.
Jade got David a plate and some cutlery and set a place for him at the kitchen table. She rewrapped the butternut in its tinfoil and put it on the counter to cool. Tomorrow night’s dinner, perhaps.
“I got a phone call from a lady in Richards Bay this afternoon,” David said. “I thought I’d better come and tell you about it.”
Jade turned and stared at him.
“You drove all this way to tell me about a phone call?”
“Yup.” David nodded, keeping his gaze fixed on the takeaway dishes he’d set out in front of him.
Jade was certain he wasn’t telling the whole truth. Most likely he hadn’t wanted to go back to his empty house with a lonely meal for one, to be bolted down in a few bites while leaning over the kitchen sink or slumped on the sofa staring at the television. She knew that was what David did when he was home alone.
“What about the phone call?”
“It was a bit odd.” Now he looked up at her. “The lady who phoned … she’s retired now, but she was a nurse at the hospital where you were born and where your mother died.”
“Oh,” Jade said. She realised she didn’t even know the name of the hospital. No point in asking now.
“She was put through to me after being shunted around practically every department in Jo’burg Central Police Station. By that stage she was rather upset. She’d phoned looking for your father, and she’d just been told that he’d died more than ten years ago.”
Jade poured herself a glass of wine and opened a beer for David. His favourites were Windhoek and Black Label, and even though he’d moved away, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from keeping a six-pack of each in the fridge. She handed a Windhoek to him with an enquiring look.
“Thanks. So anyway, she said that someone was asking about your parents recently. Asking questions about your mother, at the hospital down in Richards Bay. Wanting to know where you were now.”
Jade frowned, feeling a chill in her stomach that she recognised as the beginnings of unease. “Who was asking?”
David shrugged. “I’ve no idea, Jadey. I got the news third-hand, by pure coincidence. From the retired nurse who’d heard it from a matron at the hospital. I’ve no idea who was doing the asking. I thought you might know. Anybody contacted you out of the blue recently?”
“No.”
“Well, keep your eyes and ears open,” David advised.
“I will.” Jade put the wine back in the fridge.
“Oh, and I’ve got a message for you from Moloi,” he added. “He said he’s arrested Pamela. He’s keeping her in the holding cells overnight.”
Jade spun round to face him, her disquiet at his earlier news forgotten. “What? Why the hell is Moloi doing that? And why couldn’t he pick up the phone and tell me himself? He knows I’m guarding her.”
David shrugged. “I saw him in the parking lot as I was leaving. I’m sure he would have phoned you otherwise. Seems Mad Pammie wasn’t too cooperative. In fact, from what I can gather, she threw a hissy fit when Moloi started questioning her. She tried to march out of the interview room and then she started demanding a lawyer. So he locked her up. Said she needed to cool off, and he also said something about her being a suspect now. What’s the story there?”
Jade’s annoyance at Moloi’s behaviour suddenly seemed trivial compared to what she had seen at Pamela’s house earlier. She sat down opposite David and told him exactly what had happened that afternoon.
“Jesus, Jade. Hubby tortured and mistress found dead, and on the premises too? And Pamela had cancelled the security guards? It’s not looking good for her now.”
Jade shook her head. “It isn’t. She also fired her live-in domestic worker, which I’m now thinking was probably for the same reason. And there was no sign of forced entry when I arrived.”
“So you reckon she paid this Naude to do it?”
“It’s looking that way, isn’t it? I mean, she denied knowing him, but he had keys to the house, and he’d left messages on the phone in her study.”
“Then why would he have tried to shoot her the next day?”
Jade shrugged. “Maybe he was panicking. Trying to cover his tracks. Look at this.”
She took her jacket off the back of the chair and showed David the bullet-holes.
“Bloody hell,” he said. He put his beer down on the table and examined the damaged fabric, shaking his head. As Jade had done earlier, he poked at the two neat holes.
“That was a close call, all right.” He looked up at her, but she couldn’t read the expression in his eyes.
“He nearly got lucky, that’s all.” Jade didn’t want to think about the corollary—that she had nearly got unlucky.
She took the jacket to her bedroom and tossed it on the bed. Perhaps she would take it to the dry-cleaners and get the holes repaired. More likely, though, she’d end up throwing it away. It was a cheap garment, and far from new.
When she returned, she saw David had recovered well from the shock of her near miss and was prying the lids off the takeaway containers. She noticed he had got himself chicken korma. An odd choice for meat-loving David, she thought.
He scooped a mountain of rice onto his plate and tipped the contents of his curry container over it.
“If Terence survives, they’ll be able to question him. He must have seen the person who tortured him,” David said.
“I don’t think he’ll make it, David. And even if he does, he has no tongue left, no eyes, and I doubt very much whether he will have any hands, because that wire was so tight that they were black and swollen from the wrists up. So questioning him is going to be a long process.”
“He’d had a coal put right inside his mouth, you say?”
“Right inside.”
“How the hell do you force anybody to open wide for that?”
Jade shook her head. “I don’t know. And I don’t want to think about it.”
She stirred her curry, breathing in the aroma of chilli and coriander. David had generously left her a quarter of a container of rice, and she knew that if she wanted any of it, she’d better get to it fast before he finished his plate and started looking around for more. She felt sick whenever she remembered Terence, and she could easily have gone without eating at all. But David had brought it for her, so she tipped it out and spooned sauce over it.
David was nearly halfway through his overloaded plate, shovelling chicken pieces into his mouth as if attempting to break some kind of speed-eating record.
“Seems like two completely different modus operandi, though,” he said through a large mouthful of food. “The two incidents, I mean.”
“I agree. That’s what’s confusing me. Whoever tortured Terence knew what they were doing. But Pamela’s attempted murder was a different setup. Amateurish. A drive-by shooting like that, in broad daylight, from a motorbike. It was hardly guaranteed to succeed. I mean, if I’d been … ”
Jade put down her cutlery and sipped her wine, trying to cover her confusion. Idiot, she chastised herself. She was about to say— if she’d been going to do a job like that, she would have done it differently.
Not the most intelligent thing to say to David, given their current situation.
Thinking fast, she continued. “If I’d been quicker to grab the wheel, I could have knocked him off his bike. Even if he’d killed Pamela, there was no guarantee he’d have got away without being injured.”
David nodded in agreement. Then he reached across the table and hooked a finger over the top of the rice tub. Tilting it towards him, he seemed surprised to find that it was empty.
“There’s half a container of fish curry left, if you’re still hungry. I can cook you some rice,” Jade said.
David considered her offer. “Thanks, but no thanks. Extra hot is too damn fiery for me. I might be half Indian, but I can’t eat a decent curry without regretting it for the next two days.”
“So perhaps only your top half is Indian.” Jade said, drawing an imaginary line across her own midriff with her hand, surprised to find herself smiling in amusement at the thought. “And the bottom half—”
“Isn’t.” David finished for her, looking slightly embarrassed.
“Well then, all I can offer you is some baked butternut.”
“I’ll pass on that too, thanks.” He clapped a hand over his stomach.
“Middle-age spread’s setting in. Got to start fighting it, Jadey.” He grinned at her and his grey eyes sparkled with mischief. “You run, I diet. Looking at both of us, I’d say your regime is a hundred per cent more successful.”
Taken aback by the unexpected compliment, Jade changed the subject.
“What are you doing after this?”
“After this?” David glanced at his watch and back up at her. His smile disappeared, replaced by a dubious frown. “Er … I’m, er … ”
Too late, Jade realised he’d misinterpreted her question as an invitation. And now he was looking for a polite way to tell her that no, he didn’t want to spend the night.
Before Jade could explain, David spoke, sounding relieved.
“I’ll probably go back to work. I’ve got a stack of info coming through from detectives in London who need our help with a trafficking case.” He pushed his chair back, stacked their empty plates, and carried them over to the sink.
“That’s a shame,” Jade continued. “Because I was going to ask if you wanted to go somewhere with me.”
“What, now?” David spoke over the sound of splashing water.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Heads & Tails.”
“Terence Jordaan’s strip club?” He turned to stare at her, sponge scourer in hand.
“Yes.”
“Why d’you want to go there?”
Jade shrugged. “Curiosity. I’d like to get a feel for the place. To see what’s going on there now, and whether the operation is still as squeaky clean as Captain Thembi said it was.”
David slotted the plates into the drying rack and wiped his hands with the dish towel.
“It’s been a while since that last report of Thembi’s was made,” he said almost to himself. “Might be a good idea to visit the place, since it is on our watch list.”
Jade didn’t reply, just waited for him to make a firm decision.
It didn’t take too long.
“All right, then,” David said, sounding decidedly more cheerful than he had done at the prospect of going back to work. “I’ll come along with you.”
“Give me a minute to dry my hair,” Jade said, aware that it was hanging in damp, unstylish locks around her face.
“I’ll wait in the car.” David strode towards the kitchen door. Preoccupied with his thoughts, he hit his head on the lintel. It made a dull, thudding noise.
“Ouch,” he said. “Shithouse!”
Rubbing his forehead, David walked outside and pulled the door closed behind him.
Eunice Nkosi’s phone rang at half past eight that evening while she was helping her daughter with her maths homework. She picked up the cellphone, saw the number was withheld, and rejected the call. Probably some irritating telesales person on the night shift. And no, she didn’t want to listen to some earnest soul from New Delhi gabbling about the benefits of an accident insurance plan she couldn’t afford.
She turned back to the textbook, squinting down at the geometry figures, battling to assimilate the logic behind the rules so that she could help her child. Those two angles were equal—the curved line across them indicated that. So then, that angle opposite the first one …
The phone started to ring again.
Not a telesales caller, then—they didn’t ring twice. Something urgent, perhaps? A relative, her mother?
Sighing, Eunice answered. “Yes?”
“Eunice Nkosi?”
She frowned. The male voice on the other end was unfamiliar.
“Speaking,” she said, more cautiously now, worried about who the caller might be and aware that the distraction had sent the geometry solution right out of her mind, just as she had been about to grasp it.
“You have disappointed me,” he said.
Eunice realised she was gaping in surprise. Disappointed how? Her first ludicrous thought was that this was something to do with her daughter’s schoolwork.
“How do you mean?”
A chilly laugh. “I think you understand exactly what I mean.”
She didn’t have a clue—but then, suddenly, she did. A dreadful suspicion began to surface in her mind.
“Who are you? How did you get my number?” she stammered.
“Ask your Zimbabwean friend,” he said. “She was very helpful when I asked her for information earlier this evening. In fact, I had difficulty making her stop talking.”
“I … but … ” Eunice suddenly felt deathly cold. There was no way that Lindiwe would have given out Eunice’s cellphone number. Not unless she’d been forced to.
The man continued. “She told me that you could not get my passports today, but I cannot wait. I need you to organise the documents for me first thing tomorrow.”
“But I can’t! That’s what I told Lindiwe this afternoon. Our new department manager—”
“You will find the necessary photographs in an envelope in your post box,” the man continued, as if she hadn’t even spoken.
Her spine contracted. “What do you mean? What post box?” For some reason, the image of her pigeon-hole at work came to her.
Troubled by the tone of her mother’s voice, her daughter looked up at her anxiously.