Dead at Daybreak

∨ Dead at Daybreak ∧

61

He stood in front of Kara-An’s desk in the NasPers building with the manuscript in his hands. The view over Table Bay was seductive. She sat there with a small smile, as if she had known that he would come.

“The agreement was that I would write the story of my life,” he said.

“I can’t wait.”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “I never said I would give it to you.”

The smile turned sour. “What do you mean?”

“Think about it,” he said.

He went down in the lift with a bunch of models. They twittered like sparrows and their soft, sweet perfume filled the space like an Eastern offering of incense. He walked out and crossed the Heerengracht to where the truck was parked on Adderley Street.

Against a lamppost he saw a poster for Die Burger.

MERCENARY COMMITS SUICIDE IN CELL

He hesitated briefly at the door of the vehicle, key in one hand, manuscript in the other, and then walked on. Hope Beneke’s office wasn’t far away.

♦

He was making a seafood mixture for the pancakes – prawns and mussels and calamari and garlic, the aroma rising with the steam, The Magic Flute over the loudspeakers, when she opened the door and walked in without knocking. He turned. She was wearing a black skirt, a white blouse, and high-heeled shoes. The outfit of a professional woman. Her legs, in stockings, were gorgeous.

She put the manuscript down on the coffee table.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

“Perhaps you’re right,” she said. “Perhaps there’s some wickedness in each of us that lies dormant until the moment of truth. But in that warehouse you were willing to die to save my life. What does that tell you?”

He stirred the seafood mixture.

“Would you like to eat?” he asked.