Daddy's Girl (30 page)

‘Did you give it to her?’

‘Of course I gave it to her.’

‘What trouble is she in?’ asked Clare.

‘Dr Hart, when – if – you are ever a mother, you will know that there are questions that you don’t ask a child. Not even when you are alone in your bed at night, because if you did, you wouldn’t get up
again the next day.’

‘I’m not a mother, so I won’t argue that one,’ Clare conceded. ‘Now would you mind if I took a look inside her room? We might find something there that’ll give an indication of where she’s living.’

‘She took her keys with her the last time she was home,’ said Latisha.

‘Let’s try anyway. Maybe with a tool,’ said Clare, her hand on Latisha’s arm. ‘We need to check
whatever we can. Do something about finding her. What does her father say about all this?’

‘He never says much about anything. And since he was shot, he says nothing at all,’ said Latisha. ‘He works longer and longer hours. He probably thinks that if he gets the gangsters who shot him, he’ll again be the man he once was. He won’t face me. Won’t face his daughter and what she’s become, all
because of him.’ Latisha yanked open a drawer and took out a key. ‘As if it’s impossible to be a husband and a father just because you walk with a stick.’

‘This way,’ she gestured. ‘The tools are in the garage. I don’t go in there much,’ she said. ‘Unless I was bringing Clinton his coffee.’

On the workbench lay an array of tools and some pieces of yellowwood, all covered in a film of dust.

From a nearby shelf, Clare picked up a miniature dresser, complete with hooks for tiny cups.

‘He doesn’t make these any more?’ asked Clare.

‘Not since the shooting incident,’ said Latisha. ‘It used to be his stress release, making this perfect little world. The opposite of the real world, I suppose.’

‘These are so intricate,’ said Clare, fingering the model chairs and tables, the
facades of doll’s houses, windows draped with red and white gingham.

‘This was Calvaleen’s,’ Latisha said, pushing aside a partition. Another garage, a car obscuring the replica of a Cape Dutch farmhouse, complete with gables,
werf
, wagons and dovecote. ‘He made it for her when she was born. She sold this a month ago. Said she was too old for dolls. I bought it back. It would have broken her
father’s heart if he’d known.’

‘Your daughter’s an addict, isn’t she?’ said Clare.

‘I was warned,’ said Latisha, straightening the tarpaulin covering the car, ‘that gangsters target policemen’s children. But it was after Clinton was shot that things fell apart. He came back from hospital – but he’s not the same man. Blaming himself, blaming Captain Faizal.’ She wiped the tears from her
eyes.

‘Why Captain Faizal?’ asked Clare.

‘For saving his life, I suppose,’ said Latisha. ‘I think for Clinton it would have been better to be dead than the cripple he is now.’

‘And your daughter?’ Clare probed.

‘I know nothing about drugs and she doesn’t speak to me, hasn’t since what happened.’ Latisha selected a Phillips screwdriver from her husband’s tools. ‘I just know she’s
my daughter, and I’ll do anything to keep her alive. If you think looking in her room will help, then let’s go and do it.’

Latisha unscrewed the door handle, exposing the lock mechanism. The lock clicked back and the door swung loose from the frame. Clare stepped into Calvaleen’s room. The bed was unmade, the pink duvet and pillow a jumbled heap, tangled up with discarded clothes. She opened
the curtains and the windows, letting in a rush of air with the sunlight.

‘Okay, you look around,’ said Latisha.

Clare opened the drawers in the bedside table. Nothing much, apart from last year’s school diary. Clare flicked through it. A few entries. Homework, maths exercises. Phone numbers at the back.

‘Can I keep this?’ asked Clare.

‘Yes. Should be fine.’

On the notice board
above the empty desk an old ballet programme, ballet notices, a couple of pictures torn from a magazine, the number of a tattoo artist in Long Street, an expired ticket to the Arderne Gardens.

Latisha opened Calvaleen’s cupboards.

A white basket stood below a few garments hanging from a rail.

‘Her old ballet stuff,’ said Latisha. ‘She never throws anything out.’

Clare lifted the
wicker lid. Old leotards and ballet shoes, a tiara, a tangle of pink elastic. All in an untidy heap.

She closed the lid and looked through Calvaleen’s clothes, the pockets, the empty shoe boxes, her panty drawer.

‘Nothing,’ said Clare.

‘What I thought,’ Latisha frowned. ‘Nothing.’

‘She didn’t take much with her, did she?’

‘No,’ said Latisha. ‘She’ll be home soon. I took her
some clean things and I gave her the money.’

‘Where did you meet her?’

‘At the KFC in Maitland. Near where she works. I ordered her an apple slice, but she wouldn’t eat.’ Latisha pressed her hands to her chest. ‘She’s so thin, Dr Hart. So thin.’

Latisha picked up a pair of ballet shoes that had been left under the bed. The long pink ribbons hooked on something, so she shifted the bed
slightly, loosening the ribbons and also dislodging a photograph that had slipped between the bed and the wall. Clare saw it and pulled it out. A copy of a photograph in the hall. Calvaleen dancing, arms raised, slender neck a pale stalk against the dark backdrop, feet extended as she seemed to float across the stage. ‘With love, EH’ pencilled on the back.

‘Who’s EH?’ asked Clare.

‘Stands
for Edmund Harries. He took this picture, and the ones in the hall too. Also the ones you saw at Shazia’s house, of Yasmin.’

‘Does he work from a studio somewhere?’ asked Clare. ‘He seems to have a feel for dance.’

‘It’s actually Mister Henry – that’s what everyone calls him. He plays the piano at the ballet school. You must’ve met him there?’

‘Tall and thin, a funny way of walking?’

‘That’s him. He was a dancer too, in his day. Often played extra for Calvaleen so she could rehearse. Yasmin too. He loves her, called her his
engeltjie
. Made so much time for the little girls.’

Clare propped the photograph on Calvaleen’s desk.

‘He’s been a real friend to my daughter. Mister Henry understood suffering, that’s what Calvaleen told me. It’s probably what Yasmin liked about
him too.’

Clare stepped out of the curtained interior, blinking as Latisha opened the front door for her. Then, as the guard lifted the boom, she turned towards town.

She thought of Mister Henry and his generosity and understanding.

Mister Henry and his extra rehearsals.

Mister Henry in charge ofthe attendance slips, with access to all the girls’ details.

On her way back to the city, Clare called Madame Merle. Yes, she replied curtly, she and Mister Henry had left at about five-thirty. Yes, Henry had been there and locked up. No, she didn’t know what time he’d left. Hadn’t Clare thought to ask him herself? Yes, he had been in and out of therapy. And yes, he was not allowed to be alone with any of the girls. Nothing personal; that was school
policy.

Next call was to Riedwaan, but his phone went to voicemail. So did Rita’s landline and her cell. Clare needed more coffee, and she needed to think. The only place open on Roeland Street was the bookshop. She ordered an Americano and thought about the photograph of an ethereal Calvaleen.

Again, she read through the notes she’d made on Saturday morning, his responses. He had been
edgy. But who wouldn’t be if a child nominally in your care disappeared? She booted up her laptop. Scanned through a list of men that Rita Mkhize had done background checks on. Henry Harries – Mr Henry – was on it. No Edmund Harries. Her slip. That’s why she hadn’t picked it up the first time. Clare’s chest tightened.

She Googled Henry Harries. Nothing, not even on Facebook. She searched her
own databases. Nothing. If he’d ever been convicted under that name, it hadn’t made the press.

Clare tried Riedwaan again.

Rita’s voice.

‘Put Riedwaan on the line,’ Clare said impatiently. ‘Where is he? Why doesn’t he answer his phone?’

‘Special Director Ndlovu’s booking him,’ said Rita. ‘For assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Clare said.
‘They came after him – without a warrant. How in hell did she come up with the assault charge?’

‘Says on the charge sheet here that one of her men dislocated a shoulder.’

‘Probably just fell in the dark,’ Clare said. ‘Nothing to do with Riedwaan.’

‘Salome Ndlovu doesn’t care. Everyone knows Riedwaan talks with his fists sometimes, so she gets him into the cells and it’s her boy’s word
against Riedwaan’s in front of a hung-over Monday morning magistrate.’

‘But it’s obvious. He doesn’t have the child. That voice message should have been enough to prove that to her.’

‘She’s not even going there,’ said Rita. ‘He assaulted an officer.’

‘So Yasmin’s out of the picture now?’

‘She says she has to use what she’s got. She insists that he pre-recorded that message and
sent it to his house,’ Rita explained. ‘She says she’s not buying it, that Captain Faizal can’t prove where he was at the time, so she says it must have been him who sent the message.’

‘Kafkaesque logic.’

‘
Kak
logic
se
moer
,’ said Rita. ‘There’s no fucking logic here at all.’

‘What’s Phiri doing about it?’

‘He’s hauled a police lawyer out of bed. They’ll work something out. Phiri
knows how to make the rules work for him,’ said Rita. ‘What did you want, though? You called me.’

‘Rita, I need you to check something for me,’ Clare said. ‘On your sex offenders database.’

‘There’s fuck-all I can do,’ Rita answered. ‘Salome Ndlovu. Wants my head on a platter too. I’m under investigation for insubordination and about ten other things besides. All words with more than three
syllables – so I never bothered to remember what they meant. Upshot is I’ve got no access to my computer or to my phone.’

‘But I have to get this checked,’ Clare persisted. ‘Who can do it for me?’

‘I’ll give you my office key,’ said Rita. ‘Where are you?’

‘The Book Lounge,’ said Clare. ‘A block up from you.’

‘Sharp. Nobody would guess that a cop could read, so I’ll be right out
of the firing line. Be there in two minutes.’

‘Two minutes,’ said Clare. ‘Outside.’

Rita dashed to the bookshop and gave Clare the key. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘I told them I was going to the bathroom. I’ll be in worse shit if they catch me talking to you. Go to my office. Here’s a pass. It’ll be empty. Log on there. The password’s “weekend special”. Speed search. If anyone catches you, I’m
dead.’

Minutes later, Clare flashed the pass at the desk and walked briskly towards Rita’s office. She typed in the password, and while the computer came lazily to life, she checked the flurry of text messages that had come through on her phone. The overloaded network waking up to a Monday morning
babalaas
. Two messages from Riedwaan, one from Rita, and a message from Pearl that looked as
if she’d pressed ‘send’ before she’d finished typing.

The database gave a little beep when it had loaded. Clare put away her phone and started reading. Names neatly partitioned into convicted sexual offenders and acquittals. Many of them for lack of evidence that forced frustrated judges to acquit a man because a child had stumbled over her words. Or because a lab had lost the physical evidence
so painfully scraped from under nails, or from inside body cavities. Other men that the court was forced to find not guilty on serious offences, but could still compel to seek therapy.

The list in front of her. Those guilty of lesser crimes. Loitering. Littering. Given an option of a non-custodial sentence and compulsory counselling at the New Beginnings Clinic. Their speciality: eating disorders,
drug and alcohol addiction, sex addiction, sexual disorders. Tuesday and Thursday evenings for the men who like children. The Lolita lovers, as they called themselves.

Clare shut down Rita’s computer. She pushed her chair back, remembering the interview she’d filmed at the Clinic some years back for her doctorate. The director’s adamant stance that perpetrators were often broken beings, needing
to be re-wired for empathy, love. She and Clare had not seen eye to eye. Clare doubted that she’d get past the clinic’s iron gates. And even if she did, the strict confidentiality code would prevent her from gaining access to the names of the men who attended the group session. Not even with the list of the voluntary out-patients at New Beginnings.

A flood of noise in the passage.

When
all was clear she slipped out, back into the street.

Clare was on her own. The way she preferred things.

The New Beginnings Clinic was discreetly tucked away on the lower slopes of Lion’s Head. On the lawn outside, a group of blank-eyed teenagers with bongos clutched between their knees sat in a silent circle. After a couple of minutes, a therapist arrived and they beat an obedient rhythm
on their drums.

The building bristled with private cameras. There would be a bank of TV monitors in the bowels of the building somewhere. A brawny, unsmiling man stood outside the gate, arms folded, his bouncer’s eyes fixed on her. A sign above his head: ‘No admission without a prior appointment.’

Clare walked on.

At the corner of the street was another camera. City security. Its black
eye peered down the leafy street where an elderly woman, head down, was dragging a wicker shopping basket. Cameras everywhere, just as Clare had remembered.

She found the number of the Cyclops Centre.

Arno Pretorius answered, no less abrupt on the phone than he was in person.

‘Coordinates?’

She gave him the address and the cross streets, and waited for him to call back.

‘You’re
in luck,’ he said. ‘The German football fans were allocated that area. 2010 cameras everywhere there. Tuesday and Thursdays, you said?’

‘Yes,’ said Clare. ‘Fifteen minutes before six. Then the fifteen minutes after eight.’