Daddy's Girl (37 page)

‘What’s behind all this, Van Rensburg? Where did it all start?’

‘With Calvaleen.’ Van Rensburg swallowed. ‘With my daughter. That’s where you started it when you shot that
moffie
Voëltjie Ahrends loved so much, the little fuck who crippled me.’

‘Have you lost
your mind?’ Riedwaan reached for Van Rensburg. ‘I’ll kill you if you’ve done anything to put Yasmin in danger.’

Van Rensburg stepped back, adept on his crutch, and raised the gun level with Riedwaan’s chest.

‘You’re not in a position to threaten me, Faizal.’

Riedwaan raised his hands. ‘Where is she?’

‘She’s alive. A little bit hungry, a little bit cold, but she’s tough like her
father. You do what I say, and you’ll have her in five minutes. If you don’t…’ He smiled at Riedwaan, the gun steady in his hands.

‘Give her to me, you mad fucker,’ said Riedwaan.

‘Tell me, what’s five more minutes among friends?’

‘You call this a friend?’ Riedwaan pointed to the body slumped on the table. ‘And the others who stole a little girl and kept her in a filthy place?’

‘I paid them to take her,’ he explained. ‘They owed Voëltjie Ahrend money. I told them I’d return the heroin they’d lost in a couple of raids. Then they’d be out of trouble. Voëltjie’s coming to collect now.’

‘Listen, Voëltjie Ahrend didn’t get this far by walking into police traps,’ said Riedwaan. ‘So you’d better think fucking fast if you want to get out of this alive.’

‘That’s not the
point, Faizal. Me being alive. The point is him being dead,’ Van Rensburg said. ‘Anyway, he’ll come on his own. He’ll come to collect his money. Without it, he loses face. And if he loses face then his whole deal goes down.’

‘I saved your life, Van Rensburg.’ Riedwaan closed his eyes, the chaos of the present eclipsed by that bloody Sunday. ‘I gave you a lifetime to spend with your daughter.’

‘Bullshit,’ snarled Van Rensburg. ‘Bullshit. You brought me out of there a cripple. You brought those animals down on my daughter.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Watch this, Faizal. Watch this, and know what you did.’

He pulled out his phone and opened a video clip. Calvaleen, Clinton van Rensburg’s beautiful daughter. A girl off-screen, telling her she shouldn’t just give it away.
To make them pay. Calvaleen saying she would, she would later. Laughing, totally out of it.

The lens zoomed in on one of the men, a hard-faced, handsome man standing a little way back. ‘He targeted her on Voëltjie Ahrend’s orders, wooed her, wined her, dined her. Gave her heroin, seduced her into it.’

The camera jumped to a close-up of a flame stuttering under a piece of foil. A syringe
drawing up the brown fluid. The tender skin on the inside of Calvaleen’s elbow, the spike finding the vein, the liquid swirl as the plunger eased the heroin into her body. Calvaleen’s face again, a look of ecstasy suffusing it as she was circled by five men, each with a 27 tattooed on the back of his neck. Bellies bared as they readied themselves for her, one after the other.

‘Gangster’s seconds.’
Van Rensburg’s voice was flat. ‘He filmed it. Sent it to anyone who asked for a download. Did it to her, over and over again. Did it to me.’

‘So you’re using Yasmin to get back at them?’

‘I’ve kept an eye on her, made sure she was safe. I had to, to get you and Voëltjie Ahrend together.’

‘Why didn’t you just shoot him yourself?’ asked Riedwaan.

‘There’s a small detail you forget,’
said Van Rensburg. ‘Thanks to you, I’m off active service. Thanks to this,’ jerking his head at his crutch. ‘I shoot him, it’s murder. I go to jail, and my wife and daughter lose the medical aid and my pension. And Calvaleen is going to need a medical aid for the rest of her life. Those bastards gave her more than an addiction to heroin.’

‘But—’.

‘You shoot him, Captain Faizal, and you’re
a hero. Just a small enquiry, then a medal. No one will ever know.’

‘You’re so fucking crazy, Van Rensburg, you can’t see what you’re doing. How do you think your sick daughter is going to feel, knowing that the little girl she loves like a sister had to go through all this because her father flipped out?’

‘If you do this right,’ said Van Rensburg, ‘no one will ever know. And Yasmin’s
young, she’s a little girl. She’ll soon forget that she spent three days at the bottom of an empty swimming pool.’

But Riedwaan had stopped listening. His attention was fixed on the open door.

Voëltjie Ahrend in the doorway, smiling. He held his Glock upside down, like a gangster in a B-grade movie.

‘Where’s my daughter?’ Riedwaan lunged at him. ‘Yasmin. Where the fuck is she?’

Ahrend lifted the pistol chest-high.

‘I had nothing to do with your daughter, Faizal,’ he said. ‘My boys beat it into your head and still you don’t get it?’

Ahrend stepped closer to Riedwaan.

‘You’re too stupid to take my offers: new car, a house, private school for your kid.’

‘You’re saying Van Rensburg did?’

‘It was a gamble, because I knew about your Operation Hope, your plans for me. But luckily for Voëltjie, whatever sick uncle led her up the mountain and stuffed her body under a rock when he’d finished his business with her, bought me my time. Lucky for Voëltjie, but
then Voëltjie’s
mos
always lucky.’

He laughed.

‘Riedwaan Faizal was never so lucky. You had a father, but look what happened to him. You had a family, and now look. You had a career, but looks like you’re also finished with that, now.’

He waved his gun, smiling. ‘This is a sweet deal then, Van Rensburg. Voëltjie’s investment back, and as a bonus Voëltjie gets Captain Faizal.’

Voëltjie faced Faizal again. ‘And where’s your doctor friend? She looks like she could fight. Voëltjie could have some fun with her too – if Voëltjie did seconds.’

‘I came alone,’ said Riedwaan.

‘Really?’ Voëltjie Ahrend picked up the flicker in Riedwaan’s eye, following its direction. ‘Voëltjie will find her later. I’m sure she’ll wait for me.’

He walked around them to look at the
boy.

‘
Sies.
So much blood is not for Voëltjie.’ His hand sliding under the back of his jacket. ‘Who is this?’

‘A new boy.’ Riedwaan busking, his brain waking up. ‘From Malmesbury or Atlantis, didn’t you say, Van Rensburg? A friend of yours?’

‘Ex-friend,’ said Voëltjie, losing interest in the corpse. ‘You, Captain Faizal, have given me a headache this weekend. I had a lot of business
that you messed with by not looking after your little girl properly.’ His face in Riedwaan’s face, his gun shoved into his belly. ‘I had you down as a good father. Shows you how wrong a man can be,
nê
?’

Riedwaan had one chance. He jerked his knee up, cracking his forehead into Ahrend’s skull.

Voëltjie doubled over, pulling the trigger as his gun arced out of his hand, the bullet ricocheting
off the rafters. Riedwaan grabbed him, but Voëltjie slipped out of his jacket and took off into the darkness.

Van Rensburg fell to the floor, blood spurting from his neck.

‘You’re going to die.’ Riedwaan knelt beside him. ‘But Calvaleen’s still alive. What do you want me to tell her? That her father was a hero who helped save a little girl? Or a killer, the same as those gangsters who
fucked with her?’

Van Rensburg’s breath rattled in his throat.

‘You decide,’ said Riedwaan, leaning close to Van Rensburg. ‘But I know your daughter. And if Calvaleen finds out that this whole fuck-up is all because of her, she’ll never recover.’

A transparent pink bubble ballooned between Van Rensburg’s lips. Then it popped, like a kid’s chewing gum.

Clare eased herself out of her hiding place. She backed away down the passage, checking the call she had missed. ‘Number withheld’ showed on her screen. She dialled for the message, but the reception dipped and she couldn’t hear it. She hoped it was Phiri, that he’d been able to make sense of her text message. But hope, she realised, didn’t find little girls.

She pictured the layout
of the building, trying to work out where the swimming pool was. The change-rooms – one for men, one for women. The narrow passageways leading to the pool. She hurried back to the passage on the far side. She ran down it, her footsteps loud in the dark. Her breath ragged, even louder.

She stood still, getting her breathing under control.

She had two, at the most three, minutes.

She
didn’t bother trying to unlock the door. One bullet in the lock and it flew open, the bullet ripping through the rafters, raining twigs and glass. The empty swimming pool in the centre of the huge space was a dark pit.

Clare pushed the door closed behind her.

At the deep end, dirty rainwater glistened below a hole in the roof.

Clare’s throat tightened. Yasmin had to be here. She worked
her way around the edge of the Olympic-sized pool, past the two diving boards, towards the steps. They were nothing more than rusted stumps. Clare dropped into the shallow end of the pool, where the faint outline of a mosaic dolphin was just visible on the floor. She sensed a slight movement in the far corner of the large rectangular space. The tiny shape looked like a curled-up animal. She approached
slowly, quietly, and a moment later, Clare was pressing Riedwaan’s child against her shoulder.

‘Yasmin, Yasmin. My name is Yasmin.’

‘I know, Yasmin,’ Clare whispered. ‘Your daddy’s on his way to you. We must keep still.’

A second or two, and the child relaxed against the softness of a woman’s body. Seeming to force herself to trust, and be still.

‘He always finds me,’ she Yasmin.
‘When we play hide and seek. Sometimes it takes him a long time.’

‘Yes. He’s on his way,’ said Clare.

Outside, cars. Footsteps. Then silence.

‘But now, you must put this on,’ helping her with the Kevlar. And we must both be as quiet as mice.’

The door caught on something as it opened.

The silhouette in the doorway was not the man she’d been expecting.

He moved towards the
pool.

Clare put her hand over Yasmin’s mouth, pulling her head down. The child’s heart hammered against her ribs, her teeth sharp against Clare’s palm.

Clare slid back the safety catch on her pistol.

Steps hurrying down the passageway, towards them. Closer, closer. A figure in white, climbing past the door that had been shot off its hinges. Standing there. Staring at the empty pool.
Above, two diving boards, skeletal structures above the dark pit below.

‘Voëltjie.’

The voice came out of the dark. Silky.

‘My Voëltjie, I’ve been waiting for you.’

Clare put a hand to her throat. That voice. The voice of the man who’d thrown the sack over her head and kicked her.

Clare held the child closer, her finger to her lips.

‘We have business to discuss, Voëltjie.’

Voëltjie Ahrend turned his head, trying to locate the sound.

‘You and the 27s, you’re using them just for yourself.’

‘Times change.’

‘We did the
kring-sit
, you and me, Voëltjie,’ said the voice.

‘Okay. You taught me all about the Number, so why don’t we just talk business. Things are going big.’ Voëltjie couldn’t see him. It was like talking to a ghost. He edged his way towards
the diving board. A vantage point would be useful.

‘If I’d been interested in business, I’d be selling flowers.’

The arms, like steel cables, were around Voëltjie Ahrend’s neck.

‘Now you use the Number, say you’re a general. You, who have no claim to it.’

‘Is mos ’ie so nie.
’

Ahrend wet himself.

‘
Sies, jou vark
.’ Graveyard de Wet’s arms clamped tighter, cutting off the
air supply. ‘You can offer what you want. But this sentence was passed a long time ago after your fancy lawyer got you out. You knew that would happen. You thought if you bought a white suit, if you drove a big car, if you got bodyguards just like your politician friends, that you’d be able to hide from Graveyard de Wet.’

His breath was on Voëltjie’s neck, caressing the blade that nicked his
Adam’s apple.

‘Now you’ll die in the old way. No last meal. No last wishes. A dog’s death.’

Graveyard de Wet jerked Voëltjie’s head back, a knee in the sobbing man’s back. He raised his right arm, a vengeful Abraham above his corrupted Isaac, illuminated by a sudden beam of light.

The shudder of a helicopter above the building.

His arm came down, the knotted muscles tightening
as he sliced through the man’s throat, severing his plea for mercy.

The little girl pressed her face into Clare’s shoulder, muting her sobs.

De Wet held Voëltjie away from him, watching the blood pump until it was just a trickle.

‘
Stille water, diepe grond, onder draai die duiwel rond.
’ He smiled as he stared down into the darkness of the pit. ‘Now for the
lekker
part.’

Clare shifted
her weight a fraction, easing the gun in front of the child’s body. She had two bullets left. She’d have to wait until he came closer.

Graveyard de Wet kept still, his patience infinite.

Above them a bird flapped in its nest, raining a shower of twigs.

A church bell marked the passing of the hour.

Two o’clock.

The child motionless in her arms, weak with terror.

It came
in the end. No movement. No sound. Just a thickening of the darkness above her.

Clare fired before she could think.

Crippled by the bullet in his kneecap, Graveyard de Wet fell onto the concrete below.

He made no sound.

Clare was on her feet.

‘Stay with me, Yasmin,’ she shouted.

De Wet stumbled towards her, a dull glint at his side.

Clare took aim.

A second shot
exploded out of the darkness.

A fraction of a second later, a third shot.

The man in the corner did not move again.

She dropped her gun.

Yasmin’s limbs were limp when Clare gathered her up into her arms. Her long black hair hung in wet tails around her face.