Daddy's Girl (19 page)

She handed it to Clare. Ten young women wearing T-shirts and short skirts. All of them bottle blondes.

‘Maybe this one?’ She pointed to a girl in the corner. It was hard to tell, the picture was small but there was a familiar grace to her limbs.

‘Her name wasn’t Calvaleen?’ asked Clare.

‘She say her name was Marlena,’ shrugged the girl.

‘She’s not dancing any more?’

‘She take too many drugs, give Valentin too much trouble.’

‘What happened?’

‘She owe money. Valentin beat her,’
the girl shrugged. ‘She talk back. Says she don’t need club pimp to beat her, take her money for her. She say she can get beaten for free on the street.’

A bell rang and the two girls in jodhpurs turned towards their mirrors again.

‘You must go now or there is trouble,’ said the other girl, who had changed into a ringmaster’s outfit. She held a rhino-hide whip under one slender arm.

‘You know where she went?’ asked Clare.

‘Home, maybe?’ The girl’s eyes were hooded. ‘Why you asking so many questions?’

‘I need to speak to her,’ said Clare. ‘A little girl she knows is missing. I need her help.’

‘What’s your name.’

‘Clare Hart. Tell her.’

‘If I see her.’

A sharp knock on the door.

‘Quickly,’ she said, opening the back door. ‘You go out the back. We
all get fined if Valentin hears you are in here.’

Clare picked her way past the overflowing dustbins. The parking lot was filling up, and bouncers were opening the doors of the flashier cars. Clare cut across the lot, keeping behind the tree line. Stupid, she knew. But she didn’t have a choice.

She walked faster, stopping once to listen. But the music that seeped out of the club made it
difficult to discern the subtle night sounds around her.

She quickened her pace. After two hundred metres she broke into a run, but it was too late. She came down with the full force of his body weight on her, the sack slipping over her head, the noose tightening around her neck. The hessian made it hard to breathe, hard to hear anything but the drumming of her blood in her ears.

His hand
under her top, clawing her bra out of the way, twisting her breasts. His face inches from hers, invisible on the other side of the hessian. Clare locked her ankles together, keeping her knees tight. He smashed his fist into her pubic bone.

At the sound of a car pulling up, she twisted away from the man and screamed. But he tightened the noose around her neck and punched her again – this time
in the belly. He dragged her further into the trees, bumping her over the rough ground.

Something jagged ripped her skirt and Clare grabbed onto a tree stump, holding on tightly.

‘
Jou fokken tief.
’ Hard words, a silky voice.

He kicked her in the kidneys.

Fire shot through her body, but she ignored the instinct to clutch her back. Still gripping the tree stump with one hand, her
other curled around the hard cylinder in her pocket.

He pulled the noose tighter around her neck.

The rasp of her breath was the only sound she could hear.

Breathe, breathe, she told herself.

The suffocating weight of his body on hers.

Something cold and sharp against her neck.

‘Keep still.’ His hands scuttled over her body, his grip loosening a fraction.

She pressed
the nozzle hard, spraying the pepper directly onto his face, his eyes.

The weight of him off her.

Scrambling to her feet, pulling the sack off her face.

Hearing him behind her as he struggled up.

Running towards the lights penetrating the murky darkness.

Breathing hard. Faster and faster.

Her hands shaking as she reached her car.

Car doors slamming.

‘Dr Hart,’ a
hand on her shoulder. She struck backwards, hard, her elbow connecting with a body. She spun round.

‘Dr Hart.’ The Special Director. Next to her the driver. ‘What happened?’

‘A mistake,’ said Clare, her voice hoarse.

‘I warned you about the company you keep.’ Ndlovu folded her cellphone.

Clare coughed. ‘Do you have some water?’

‘Sorry,’ said Ndlovu. ‘Only this.’ She popped
open a Coke Zero for Clare.

‘You want to call the police?’

‘I thought you were the police.’ Clare tucked in her shirt, her back and breasts sore.

‘For counselling,’ said Ndlvou. ‘You of all people know how necessary it is to debrief after an attack.’

There was no movement in the trees, no sound. Just the growl of the highway a kilometre away.

‘Did you see who it was?’ Clare
was beginning to shake.

‘We saw nobody.’ She turned to the man standing next to her. He shook his head.

‘You should be more careful, Dr Hart, walking alone in terrain like this,’ said Ndlovu. ‘You’ll be fine getting home?’

‘I’m fine.’ Clare steadied her breathing. ‘I’ll be fine. Thank you.’

‘Still no sign of Captain Faizal?’ Ndlovu touched a bruise on Clare’s arm.

‘No.’ Clare
moved her arm away. ‘None.’

‘Have a hot bath,’ said Ndlovu. ‘Stay home.’

Clare got into her car and rested her head on the steering wheel, her heart rate slowing slowly and the smell of the hessian fading as she tried to recall the attack. She cast about for signals she’d missed. She put her hands to her face and breathed in deeply. No trace of the man who’d tried to rape and kill her.
No smell at all. It was as if he didn’t exist.

Opening the cubbyhole, she found two aspirin. Found half a valium, took that too. Brushed off the dirt and wiped her face. There. Fixed. She checked herself in the rear-view mirror. Not that much worse for wear.

The car guard sheltered from the black southeaster in the lee of the empty block of holiday flats. A short-skirted girl, takeaway coffee in hand, hair spruced, lipstick on, joined him. A Pajero slowed down – a single occupant. The girl shoved her coffee into the car guard’s hand and leaned in at the window, her bottom tilted up, breasts on display. Deal done. Down the alley.

The car
guard sipped at the coffee. Three sugars, nice and sweet. She wouldn’t be long, he’d keep half for her.

The flat on Beach Road was in darkness, the doctor not home yet. Jean-Luc watched out for Dr Hart; she had visited Goma, his blood-bathed home in the eastern Congo. She understood why he’d had to come to this freezing peninsula that tried to pass itself off as Africa. And when his shack
was torched by teenaged boys with machetes in their hands and hate in their hearts, she had found him a safe place to stay.

It was only when Clare’s car slowed that he noticed the solitary man leaning into the bus shelter. Motionless. The Congolese refugee had spent enough time watching soldiers in the bush to be able to read the angle of the man’s body. Pain, he guessed.

The guard eased
himself out of his shelter and moved towards Clare.

‘
Bonsoir
, Jean-Luc,’ she said, locking her car, ‘
ça va
?’

‘
Bonsoir, Madame
.’ An eye on the man approaching her. ‘
Bien, merci.
’

‘Clare.’

She turned to the man that Jean-Luc was blocking.

‘Riedwaan.’

‘You know him, Madame?’ asked Jean-Luc.

‘I know him,’ said Clare. ‘Your face, Riedwaan. What happened?’

Riedwaan put
his hand up and touched his cheek.

‘I ran into some people,’ he explained, ‘who decided my face needed rearranging.’

‘Don’t give me stupid answers,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you reply to any of my messages? I’ve looked for you everywhere. I found Director Ndlovu looking for you too, outside your house.’

‘I know.’ Riedwaan coughed, bending forward to ease the pain in his ribs. ‘That’s
why I’m here. Can we go inside?’ he asked when he got his breath back. ‘I need to sit down.’

‘If you can make it up the stairs.’ Clare turned towards Jean-Luc. ‘It’s fine. He’s a policeman.’ The sceptical look on Jean-Luc’s face told her that a cop on his own, covered in blood, in the middle of the night, meant trouble. But just then the driver of one of the cars he’d been watching appeared,
and Jean-Luc went to claim his tip.

Hearing the churn of an expensive engine and the squeal of tyres, Clare and Riedwaan both turned round.

‘You rushed off last night, darling. Bad form.’ Giles Reid, one or two drinks too many, was out of the car and loping towards her, dinner jacket open, hair flopping boyishly in the wind.

‘Have you only just noticed, Giles?’ Clare asked. ‘I did
everything that was required of me; then, as I’d told you, I went home. Alone. I’m presuming you didn’t, if it’s taken you twenty-four hours to notice?’

‘I just thought I’d check on you. And a good thing, too, it seems. Is this man bothering you, darling?’ Giles looked at Riedwaan for the first time.

‘We’re discussing business.’ Clare glared at Giles.

‘This late?’ Giles looked Riedwaan
over, seeing only the biker’s jacket, the faded Levi’s, the chain-store shirt – and the blood on it.

‘Take me upstairs, Clare,’ said Giles, a proprietary hand on her elbow again. ‘I brought some champagne to celebrate your ballet.’

Riedwaan decided that if he’d been Giles, he’d have stepped out of range about now.

‘The work’s done. We’re done, Giles. I’m busy. Goodbye.’

Reid’s
hand clamped onto Clare’s shoulder.

‘That’s not how it works with me, darling.’

She could smell the alcohol on his breath.

‘You feel this in your back?’

Riedwaan Faizal’s left arm was locked around Giles Reid’s neck, his keys bunched in his right hand, hard against the other man’s kidneys.

‘That’s not because I’m pleased to see you, pretty boy that you are. Believe it or not,
but I’m a police captain, and this is my pistol. Next to it is a set of handcuffs. I’m going to give you a simple instruction. Are you concentrating?’

Giles gurgled.

‘You let the lady go now.’

Giles complied.

‘Now I have a question,’ said Riedwaan. ‘Do you want to hear it?’

He tightened his grip and Giles Reid nodded.

‘You would? Okay, it’s a simple question. Requires a
simple answer. Even you could work the answer out fast. Would you like me to arrest you and put you in a crowded cell for the weekend or would you like to fuck off?’

Giles gurgled again, his face purple with rage and lack of oxygen.

‘You’d like to fuck off?’ said Riedwaan. ‘In that case, be my guest.’

Riedwaan released his hold.

‘I’m going to lodge a complaint,’ he spluttered.

‘Complaints Department, Caledon Square,’ said Riedwaan. ‘Ask for Special Director Ndlovu. She doesn’t like me either.’

Giles Reid considered his options and made the obvious decision. He got back in his car, flung the word ‘cunt’ as he closed the door, then revved, turned, and was out of sight.

‘I could have handled that,’ Clare said.

‘I’m sure you could, but I couldn’t.’ Riedwaan
swayed slightly on his feet. ‘I spoke to Rita. She said you had something.’

‘A message on your landline,’ said Clare. ‘From Yasmin.’

Riedwaan smashed his fist into the wall, blood welling on his knuckles as he drew it back again. Clare slipped her body between him and the wall. Catching his fist in both palms, she slowed the punch, and deflected it onto her breastbone. Riedwaan held his
hand against her chest, his blood staining her white shirt. Feeling the rage in him, she pulled him closer until his forehead rested against hers.

He collapsed against her, a hand at the back of her head, holding her face so close to his that she felt his breath.

‘Don’t fight,’ she whispered.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Riedwaan.

‘I’m not,’ said Clare. ‘Not yet.’

He cupped her face in
his hands.

‘But you will be.’

Fritz disappeared into the dark when she saw Riedwaan coming inside.

‘She has a low opinion of men,’ said Clare.

‘An intelligent cat.’ Riedwaan followed Clare into her study.

Clare played Yasmin’s message for him, the child’s anguish unbearable in the stillness of the night. Riedwaan pressed the play button again.

He searched Yasmin’s words for a hidden message, a clue.
Nothing there, besides her terror. In the background, the sounds that Charlie had teased out. Taxis, imams, church bells, dogs, trains, the ocean. The sounds of his city. They had surrounded him his whole life.

Clare printed out the aural map that Charlie Wang had emailed to her. She put that and the sound analysis in front of Riedwaan.

‘These are the places where you’d get these combinations
of sound.’

Riedwaan looked at the swathe of territory.

‘Is this what we have?’ Riedwaan asked. ‘One missed call, a frame of CCTV footage, and this?’

‘And a message from Rita,’ said Clare. ‘Call her to see if she got a trace on the number Yasmin called from.’

He dialled, pulling a pen and a notepad towards him.

Minutes later, Riedwaan turned to Clare. ‘Between the eastern edge
of the City Bowl and Milnerton, Woodstock and Maitland to the south and east.’

‘That’s hundreds of blocks, a jumble of warehouses and industrial buildings, thousands of houses and flats, acres of empty land,’ said Clare.

‘She managed to track it again. It was either in a moving train or a vehicle moving along the N1. Then the signal disappeared.’

‘And the phone number?’

‘From a
SIM card bought on Thursday with R20 worth of airtime, from a stall near Cape Town station. This is the first time it’s been used.’

‘She found a way to use that phone, so there’s no way anyone’s going to use it again,’ said Clare.

‘Did your sound guy say if anyone was with her?’

‘Yes. Because of the breathing. He thought it possible, yes. It’s like a lure,’ said Clare. ‘Leading us
in one direction, but pointing in the other.’

‘What were you doing in my house?’ Riedwaan asked. ‘Looking for Yasmin?’

‘Looking for you,’ said Clare. ‘I didn’t find her, either.’’

‘But you thought you needed to look?’