Blood Rose

eight

Clare handed over her ticket and passport, submitting to the pat-down when the security machine beeped.

‘Your bra,’ smiled the woman who searched her. ‘The under-wire always sets this thing off. But what can you do? We all need a bit of lift.’

‘Don’t we just,’ said Clare.

The morning mist was still wreathed across the Cape Flats, stranding Table Mountain and the leafy suburbs that clung to its base, but as the plane headed north, trees, fields, roads, towns, then villages, fell away and the land became drier, stripped of any vegetation except the hardiest plants. Clare opened the file that Rita Mkhize had put together. Precise notes in convent-school cursive. A plastic sleeve for expenses and petty-cash slips. A list of contact numbers. Empty file dividers for the postmortem report, forensic analysis, ballistics report, and Clare’s profile. Anticipation tingled up her spine.

Tamar Damases had e-mailed an aerial photograph of Walvis Bay. It showed a marshy river delta south of the port. Extending northwards was a slender sand peninsula that protected the lagoon and the harbour. At the tip of this encircling arm was Pelican Point, around which the calmed Atlantic tides swirled into the bay. The little town squatted behind the harbour. It was a bleak place, pushed closer to oblivion by the collapsing fishing industry. The town had ceased to grow as planned, so the school where the body had been found was right on the edge of the town, a bulwark against the red dunes that marched northwards until the dry Kuiseb River halted them.

A lonely place to live and an even lonelier place to die.

Clare looked at the photographs Tamar had taken of the dead boy. Kaiser Apollis might have been fourteen, but he was so under-nourished that it was hard to view him as anything but the child he had been. The thin arms were clasped around the angled knees, the arms and legs shielding the stilled heart. Slender ankles disappeared into too-large takkies. Even in the grainy low-res prints, Clare could make out Nike’s expensive swoosh. The forehead rested on the knees, and the back of his skull was missing. The autopsy was scheduled for the next day. Then the pathologist’s knife would peel open any secrets hidden in the body of this dead child.

Clare closed the file and rested her forehead against the window as the plane started its descent. To the west, the surf-white beach corralled the red dunes. Beyond it stretched the restless Atlantic. The sun, angled low, revealed the Namib Desert’s wind-sculpted dunes, dotted with tiny impoverished settlements. Every now and then, Clare glimpsed a flash of a corrugated-iron roof or the flurry of a flock of goats browsing on the acacias growing along the subterranean Kuiseb River bank – evidence of sparse human habitation. Walvis Bay, blanketed in fog, was invisible.

Clare let her thoughts drift back to Riedwaan. Her anger had burnt itself out, but it had left cold ash in its wake instead of calm. She missed him with an acuteness that hurt. Who would have thought?

‘Thirty days.’ The bulky customs official dropped Clare’s immigration form into an untidy box at her feet. An unexpected smile dimpled her round cheeks as she handed back the stamped passport. ‘Captain Damases told us to expect you.’

Tamar was waiting at the arrivals terminal when Clare exited. Her heart-shaped face was as beautiful as Clare remembered, but the tiny waist was hidden by a pregnancy that seemed ominously close to term.

Tamar’s green eyes lit up with recognition. ‘Let me help you.’ She reached for Clare’s suitcase.

‘You’re not carrying anything,’ Clare protested. ‘You look as if I should drive you straight to hospital.’

‘It’s just because I’m so short that I look huge,’ laughed Tamar. ‘I’m glad you could come.’

Tamar led Clare to a white Isuzu double cab. An officer was leaning against it, smoking. His black shirt stretched tight across a muscular chest. His hair was cropped close, giving his handsome face a hard look.

‘Sergeant Kevin van Wyk,’ said Tamar, ‘this is Dr Clare Hart.’

‘Welcome.’ The man shook Clare’s hand but made no move to help her load her suitcase.

As they exited the airport, Van Wyk turned the radio up just loud enough to make conversation an effort. Clare took Tamar Damases’s cue and watched the desert slip past in silence, wondering how much had changed since her previous visit.

Two years ago, the factories perched like hungry cormorants around the harbour had gorged on bulging catches. Clare had filmed vessel after vessel offloading their silver harvests. Namibia’s suited elite, circling like sharks, had allocated ever-bigger quotas to themselves, buying farms and BMWs hand over profligate fist, ignoring the scientists and their warnings. Now the fish had all but vanished and an eerie lassitude pervaded the town. The bounty that had followed the retreat of the South African army, itself leaving a gaping hole in the town’s coffers, was gone.

Walvis Bay still wasn’t much to look at. The town huddled around the harbour, ready to suck what it could from passing ships. The Walvis Bay police station faced a black coal-heap that waited to be loaded onto increasingly intermittent trains from the uranium mines deep in the desert. The gaunt cranes were sinister against the leaden sky. A seagull startled when Clare slammed her car door, its cry harsh on the raw air.

‘Not as nice a view as you have in Cape Town, Dr Hart,’ said Van Wyk, his gaze a lazy trawl across her body as she walked ahead of him. The fine hairs on Clare’s neck rose.

The station was a low, featureless building with grenade mesh on all the windows. Someone must have thought that swimming-pool blue would make it more cheerful, but the coal dust had settled on every available surface. Two outlandishly pink pots marked the entrance, but all that flowered in them were cigarette butts. A few lipstick-stained, most not.

A stocky man was putting out a cigarette as they walked up the steps.

‘Sergeant Elias Karamata, this is Dr Hart,’ said Tamar. ‘Elias is also working with us on the case.’

‘Welcome to Namibia, Doctor.’

‘Please call me Clare,’ she said. Karamata looked like a prize-fighter – bull neck, broad shoulders – but his handshake was gentle, his smile warm. ‘It’s good to be back.’

‘You’ve been here before?’ asked Karamata, pleased.

‘A couple of years ago,’ said Clare, filling in a visitor’s form. ‘I made a documentary about the fishing industry.’

‘All that corruption business is cleared up now.’

‘Elias would be better off working for the Walvis Bay Tourism Board,’ Tamar interjected. ‘He spends his spare time trying to persuade me that it’s heaven on earth.’

‘People cry twice in Walvis Bay, Captain,’ said Karamata, shaking his head. ‘Once when they get here, once when they leave. You’ll grow to love it too.’

Clare followed Tamar down the dim passage. Right at the end, a tattered sign saying ‘Sexual Violence & Murder’ was sticky-taped to the door.

‘Welcome to S ’n’ M.’ Tamar gave the door a practised kick and it swung open, revealing a surprisingly spacious office. There were four new desks, each with a plastic-covered computer.

‘This is where Van Wyk and Elias work,’ Tamar said. ‘You can use that computer by the window.’

‘It looks brand new,’ said Clare.

‘It is,’ said Tamar. ‘I got Elias after the marine-poaching unit was closed down, because there’s nothing left to poach. Van Wyk was transferred from the vice squad.’

‘Why was he moved?’

‘Gender-based violence is the government’s flavour of the month, so in theory it was a promotion.’

‘Someone should let him know,’ said Clare.

Tamar led the way to her own office. It was private and painted a sunny yellow. One corner of the room was covered with children’s pictures. There were toys and two red beanbags next to the blue sofa, and a low table was covered with paper and crayons.

‘The kiddies’ safe corner,’ she explained. Her soft mouth hard as she picked up a drawing and handed it to Clare. It was of a child’s idealised house – red door, cat on the window sill, yellow sun smiling in the corner, smoke curling from the chimney. The family stood on green grass. A little girl, her head haloed with ribbons, with panda eyes. A mummy with bruises to match. A suited daddy with bunched fists, his groin scored out with black crayon. Someone had written ‘Joy’ at the bottom of the page.

‘Her name,’ said Tamar. ‘I went to her funeral last week. Her stepfather beat her to death. Said she was cheeky.’

‘How old was she?’ asked Clare.

‘Six.’ Tamar’s voice wavered.

On the wall were framed photographs of a laughing boy of eleven and a dimpled little girl dressed in Barbie pink.

‘She’s pretty,’ said Clare. ‘Your kids?’

‘My sister’s. She passed away, so they live with me now.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Clare.

‘They’re sweet kids.’ Tamar patted her belly. ‘This one’ll be born into an instant family. You’ve got no children?’

‘Not for me,’ said Clare. ‘I’m an aunt though. My older sister has two girls.’

Tamar put on the kettle. ‘Some tea?’

‘Please. Rooibos?’ asked Clare.

‘The only thing for lady detectives,’ Tamar said with a grin, handing her a cup. ‘Here’s a schedule.’ She pulled out a sheet of paper with a list of names and dates. ‘The city manager wants to meet you.’

‘That’s fine,’ said Clare, ‘but why does he want to see me?’

‘You’re a novelty and this murder has been a shock. Usually the only murders we get are the odd prostitute floating in the harbour or a drunken sailor stabbed in a shebeen.’

‘Or little girls like Joy,’ murmured Clare.

‘Or little girls like Joy, yes.’ Tamar’s cup clattered in its saucer. ‘My decision to bring in outside help hasn’t been unanimously welcomed,’ she said. ‘Serial killers don’t quite fit in with Walvis Bay’s new vision of itself as a tourist Mecca.’

‘Is this a bit of a political minefield for you?’

‘That,’ said Tamar,’ is an understatement. Important people have been jumpy since the fishing collapsed. They’ve pinned all their hopes on tourism, and dead boys don’t attract many tourists.’

‘I’m going to need a bit of specialised sightseeing.’ Clare turned her attention back to the schedule.

‘Elias will be taking you tomorrow,’ said Tamar. ‘He was born and bred here, one of the few, so he knows this place like the back of his hand. He even speaks the language the Topnaars speak.’

‘Topnaars?’ Clare frowned. ‘Are they those desert people?’ She vaguely remembered them from her previous stay.

‘That’s right. They live in the Kuiseb River and know the desert really well. You probably saw their huts when you came in to land this morning.’

‘I did,’ said Clare. ‘White goats all over the dunes. Looked like snow for a second.’

‘That’s them,’ said Tamar. She put her teacup aside. ‘I need to eat something before our meeting with the big boys; otherwise I’ll unravel.’