Daddy's Girl (6 page)

‘Given your own history, the police’s history for family violence, this restraining order—’

‘What I’m telling you is a fact,
Director. Something that your years in the Soviet Union may have taught you to overlook.’

‘Director Ndlovu,’ said Phiri. ‘Captain Faizal’s been working all day. I will deal with this. The explanations are simple, I’m sure.’

‘Shazia Faizal is moving to Canada, she is taking the child with her. The father’s reaction to this has been violent.’ Ndlovu held up an official-looking document.
‘For men with Captain Faizal’s record, there are protocols that must be followed. In the interest of the safety of the child and the mother.’

‘For fuck’s sake.’ Riedwaan snatched the interdict from her. ‘I’m going to look for her.’

‘Your protocols will be followed,’ Phiri said, a restraining hand on Riedwaan’s arm. ‘I will vouch for Captain Faizal.’

‘To the letter. Your unorthodox
approach to discipline has been noted.’

‘You’ve brought this to my attention before,’ said Phiri. ‘But in these matters my loyalty is with my men and with my unit. The Party does not employ me. Nor, I should point out, does it employ you.’

‘It will be your head on a plate if Faizal is out of line.’

‘Moscow was a long time ago, Special Director,’ said Phiri. ‘Is that what you are still
after, Salome?’

‘Don’t make this personal, Phiri. My concern is for the well-being of the child. Yours is too, I trust.’

‘That you can be sure of,’ Phiri replied, but Salome Ndlovu was already halfway down the passage, her entourage at her heels.

‘I’m going to speak to Rita and Van Rensburg to organise a proper search,’ said Riedwaan, his face ashen, ‘to find out what the fuck is happening.’

‘The end of our meeting,’ observed Delport.

‘For now,’ said Phiri. ‘Did you have anything to report?’

‘It can wait,’ said Delport. ‘What happened in Moscow?’

‘Old history,’ said Phiri. ‘Should have been buried years ago.’

‘You trained with Salome?’ asked Delport.

‘We knew each other. We all did back then,’ said Phiri. ‘But on her return from exile she slipped back into what
she knew best. The Soviet Union was home to her. It might be called Russia now, but with so many of the faces the same, solidarity has transformed smoothly into business.’

‘So, what’s with her and Faizal?’ asked Delport.

‘Captain Faizal thinks for himself, acts alone, doesn’t take to authority, doesn’t take to being told what to do by her. A bit like I was,’ said Phiri, gathering up his
papers. ‘We’ll meet tomorrow, Delport, with Van Rensburg. Eight sharp. I must see to this business with Faizal.’

‘Needle in a haystack,’ Delport muttered to Phiri’s secretary as he left, papers under his arm, ‘finding a little girl out there.’

‘What’ve you been doing, Faizal?’ Superintendent Clinton van Rensburg had the broad body of a rugby lock. He’d played for the police team for years, and sat on the bench during a Springbok Test, once. He hadn’t been called to play, but the South Africans had won anyway.

‘Trying to speak to Shazia,’ said Riedwaan. ‘She took one call, said I must bring Yasmin back. Now she won’t take
my calls.’

‘Where have you been this afternoon?’

‘Where do you think I’ve been?’ demanded Riedwaan. ‘I was at the crime scene in Maitland. Two little girls not much bigger than my daughter shot to shit.’

‘Don’t give me shit.’ Van Rensburg stood up. He wasn’t as big since being shot in the spine during a routine drug bust. Two operations later, he was out of his wheelchair – but on
the streets he was no use, except as target practice. ‘Where are you hiding her, Faizal?’

‘I don’t have her.’ Riedwaan leaned on Van Rensburg’s desk, knocking over a framed photograph. ‘You’ve known me for fifteen years. We founded this fucking unit together.’

‘Put your wife out of her misery.’ Van Rensburg may have lost the full use of his legs, but he had not lost his contacts, or his
knowledge of the men he worked with. And the man whose service file he had on his desk, he’d made it his job to know better than most. ‘She’s taking your child to Canada,’ said Van Rensburg. ‘Last time she tried, you did take Yasmin.’

‘I know,’ said Riedwaan. ‘I know. It was a mistake. I was desperate, but I would never harm either of them.’

‘The stress has got to you, Faizal. Look at
you. You’re fucked up. Can’t think. Can’t sleep, can’t eat. Can’t face what happened to your dream,’ said Van Rensburg, righting the portrait of him and his family. It had been taken when they were whole and happy, before he’d had to use a crutch. ‘You tell me where she is. I fetch her. This whole thing goes away, and you get work in private security. No trouble.’

‘You’ve got a daughter…’

‘Listen to your wife, Faizal.’

Clinton van Rensburg pressed play on the digital recorder, filling the room with Shazia’s voice.

‘Yasmin, Yasmin.’

‘Calm down, lady.’ A woman’s bored call-centre voice. ‘What’s your name? What’s the address? What’s happening?’

‘Yasmin Faizal, my daughter,’ Shazia alternating between panic and rage. ‘She’s not here. I’m here to fetch her and she’s
not here. This has happened before! My husband. He was here and now she’s gone…’

‘Who is your husband?’ Alert now. New training. New questions. New interest. The computer had flagged the cellphone number on the screen.

‘Captain Riedwaan Faizal. Gang Unit. He’s taken her again.’

‘Let me process this, madam.’

Van Rensburg switched off the sound.

‘What have you done this time,
Faizal?’

‘This is a mistake.’

‘Here’s the restraining order your wife got against you two months ago, Faizal. Her call automatically activated it,’ said Van Rensburg. ‘You know how it works now: making the law work for women. Damage control, I’d call it.’

‘This is a set-up, Clinton.’ Riedwaan’s hands were shaking as he pulled a cigarette from his pack. ‘That’s what I’m praying for.
Because if it’s not, then the longer we spend with this bullshit the less chance I have of finding her.’

‘Then take me through your movements late this afternoon, Faizal.’

‘The crime scene in Maitland.’

‘And then?’

‘Then I came here to meet with Phiri and Delport.’

‘It took you a while to get here. Where were you?’

‘The mother,’ said Riedwaan. ‘To break the news.’

‘And before?’

‘I went for a drive.’

‘A drive?’ Phiri looked Riedwaan in the eye. ‘A drive to where?’

‘I went past the ballet school.’ Riedwaan took a cigarette from the pack, turned it in his fingers. I was going to see two dead girls. I needed to see her.’

‘And how was she?’

‘She was fine. I spoke to her in the car, then she ran inside to go to her class.’

‘Faizal, the
last time this happened she was found with you.’ Van Rensburg rifled through the file, found the notes the family court magistrate had made, and read them. ‘Yasmin Faizal. Age six. Incarcerated in a fishing shack for two days by her father. Reluctant to hand child over.’ He put the notes aside. ‘I won’t read the rest. You know what happened.’

‘She wasn’t incarcerated.’ Riedwaan paced. ‘Bullshit
American word. She wasn’t even locked in. The southeaster was blowing so we had the door closed.’

‘And you threatened to throw the family court representative into the Atlantic, if I remember.’ He turned the page. ‘The time before that, she was found with you in a shopping mall.’

‘She’s my child. I picked her up from school. We went ice-skating. She loved it.’

‘Not what this affidavit
says.’ Van Rensburg’s voice was quiet, measured. ‘Here it says you went into her classroom and removed her against the express wishes of her teacher. And her headmistress and her mother. That’s abduction, Faizal.’

‘You’ve been to my house? You’ve been to the fishing shack?’ Riedwaan leaned over Van Rensburg. ‘So, where is she then?’

‘That’s what we want to know.’ Van Rensburg did not flinch.

‘I don’t have her,’ said Riedwaan. ‘I’ve been working. Two night shifts and a day – in a row. You’re a detective, Van Rensburg. Look at those two cases. Both times, I was off. I picked up my daughter, my only daughter, so that I could spend time with her. So why’d you pull me down here as if I’m a criminal?’

‘This is why.’ Van Rensburg handed over a document.

‘I’ve never seen this.’
Riedwaan skimmed the document, paling as he did so.

‘Confidential. The Family Unit’s Police Psychological Review,’ said Van Rensburg. ‘All officers have been assessed. You rang every warning bell they have.’

‘Who wrote this nonsense?’

‘The psychometric tests identified insomnia, aggression, hyper-reaction to stress, incapacity for teamwork and compromise, inability or refusal to express
your feelings, and an exaggerated sense of possessiveness about your family.’

‘Tell me one cop working on the Gang Unit who doesn’t have that feeling,’ Riedwaan demanded. ‘Tell me you don’t have it.’

‘Not the point, Faizal.’

‘Tell me you don’t have that feeling about Latisha, about Calvaleen?’

At the mention of his only daughter’s name, the lines around Clinton’s mouth deepened.
His gaze drifted towards the portrait of her on the desk. It had been taken a year earlier. A graceful girl in white, slender arms poised above her head, in the shape of a lily.

‘Don’t go there, Faizal.’

‘I’m sorry, man. Sorry for what happened. To you, to her, to all of us.’ Riedwaan pushed his hands through his hair. ‘But you’re a father. You know. You’d kill for Calvaleen. But you’d
die before you’d hurt her.’

‘Haven’t I?’

‘What happened wasn’t your fault.’ Riedwaan lit a cigarette.

‘No,’ said Van Rensburg. ‘You’re right there. It wasn’t my fault. But look how much use I am to her now, a cripple on crutches who can’t even shoot straight any more.’ He jabbed his finger at the shooting medals and marksman trophies on the wall.

Van Rensburg straightened the perfectly
aligned pages of the report.

‘This report, peer reviewed and approved, states that you are high risk.’

‘High risk what?’ Riedwaan‘s anger shifted from red to white.

‘For assault. For family violence. For spousal abuse.’ Van Rensburg trailed his thick finger down the list. ‘For binge drinking. For suicide. For murder. For family murder and suicide.’

‘You think I’m going to take
my family out?’

‘That’s what Director Ndlovu thinks, and it seems she got the magistrate to agree with her.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Clinton.’

‘She also noted a “dismissive attitude to gender transformation and the new community cooperation policy”. Also mentioned is your attitude towards gender-sensitive policing.’

‘I arrest people,’ said Riedwaan. ‘I’m not some armed fucking social
worker there to offer counselling as well. I put how many gangsters behind bars in the last two years? You did it with me. Explain to me how that is not a good thing for women.’

Riedwaan took a deep breath.

‘What’s being done to find her?’

‘Shazia went to fetch her but she was gone, the ballet school was shut. Early closing because of some charity performance. Security guard says everyone
left. He says Yasmin was waiting. He saw that fucked-up blue Mazda of yours and then he didn’t see her again. He says she must have gone with you.’

‘This is a set-up, Van Rensburg. For what, I don’t know – but it’s not good for finding Yasmin.’

‘There’s a technicality with this arrest warrant, so I suggest you leave now and that you don’t cause any shit about handing in your weapon. Otherwise
you’ll be in the cells until the magistrates get themselves out of bed on Monday. There’s also a warrant—’

‘To search my house and my car. Get that done. She’s not there. Once you prove what I’m telling you, after you’ve wasted that time, maybe we can start looking for her properly,’ said Riedwaan. ‘When did she disappear? An hour ago?’

Van Rensburg looked away.

‘Two?’ asked Riedwaan.
‘That means we’ve got twenty-two hours left to find her alive.’

The mortuary parking lot had emptied, the admin staff long gone. Two orderlies sat outside listening to a soccer game, watching Clare in her car.

The nausea was always worse once she’d left the morgue. She closed her eyes, but that was no good because then she saw the dead girl again. When her phone rang, she grabbed it as if it were a lifeline.

‘Darling.’ Her other life. Giles
Reid again, impatience clipping the producer’s BBC vowels. ‘It’ll be a monumental cock-up if you’re late. Are you dressed? Do you have your face on? The cameras are ready to go. It’s a live feed. There’s no time to be African with.’

‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’ Clare started the car.

Silence at the other end.

‘Okay, five.’

‘I’m waiting with your punctual sister and your nieces
at the bar.’ She could hear Beatrice wheedling for a packet of Whispers, Imogen for a glass of champagne, just this once. Julia saying that every time they went out it was just this once, so no.

‘Clare…’ Giles’s voice gentler. Intimate. ‘I…’

‘I’m on my way.’ Cutting him short.

Clare joined the flow of cars, speeding down the taxi lane towards the city centre, then parking outside the
theatre and slipping in through a side entrance. She stepped into the whirl of people finishing their champagne, moving towards their seats.

Her youngest niece, Beatrice, spotted her first.

‘You look beautiful, Auntie Clare,’ hooking sticky fingers into flame-coloured hair.

‘She can’t help it, darling,’ smiled her mother as she kissed her younger sister.

‘I know,’ said Beatrice.
‘I was just telling her.’

‘Hi Julia, sorry I’m a bit rushed.’

Clare drew the little girl into the circle of her arms.

‘Here’s a flower for you.’ Beatrice handed her an arum lily, its white sheath furled around the deep yellow stamen. ‘I picked it.’

‘Come on, darling, save it for later.’ Giles Reid took charge. ‘You’re on in a few minutes.’

He swept her ahead of him, one hand
in the small of her back, greeting those who mattered and ignoring those who didn’t, until he had her at the stage entrance.