Blood Rose

twelve

It took Clare three cups of coffee to get going the following morning. Tamar arrived early to take her to the school. The streets were still empty, and wide – wide enough for an ox-wagon to turn. A hundred years ago, they would have been the only form of transport into the waterless interior. The dusty streets would have been the only way inland for the ingredients of civilisation – tea, coffee, sugar, alcohol, and later guns – and the route out for colonial spoils – copper, uranium, gold and diamonds. The only reason anyone would live here, Clare thought, is to take a cut of whatever passes through.

It was five past seven when Tamar stopped before the school’s locked gate. The caretaker eyed them warily, but waved when he recognised Tamar.

‘Herman Shipanga,’ Tamar said to Clare. ‘He found the body.’

‘When will the school re-open?’ Clare asked.

‘Maybe Thursday; otherwise next week. The headmaster Erasmus took it badly. I was surprised. He was such a tough guy when he was in the army.’

‘South African?’

‘Ja, he took Namibian citizenship and stayed on after they pulled out in ’94.’

‘Did many people do that?’

‘A few. Some said they loved this place. For others it was a good way of avoiding Bishop Tutu and his Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Us up north of the Orange River, we decided to just brush our little atrocities under the carpet.’

Tamar parked beneath a wind-ravaged palm tree. ‘Come this way. A path runs behind the school. This is how the boy got in.’

‘You think he was alive then?’

‘No, sorry. I’m sure not,’ said Tamar. ‘I meant the body, which Helena Kotze will confirm during the autopsy later.’

Clare picked her way down the path. It was strewn with chip packets and empty bottles. In places, used condoms had been snagged by the barbed-wire fences.

‘Prostitutes bring their clients here?’ she asked.

‘They do, but we don’t do anything unless there’s a complaint,’ said Tamar. ‘I’ve checked with the regulars. Nobody saw anything.’

‘You think that’s the truth?’

‘That I can’t say.’ Tamar stopped when the playground came into sight.

The houses had their backs to the alley. In the yards, dogs barked, chained to wires staked into the ground. Damp clothes hung on sagging lines. In the yard opposite the flapping strip of crime-scene tape, a faded-looking woman hung up her last item of washing and hitched the empty basket to her hip. A pudgy toddler tried to push his scooter through the sand.

‘Hello,’ greeted Clare, stopping at the fence.

‘What you want?’ The woman’s tone was belligerent.

‘These dogs always bark like this?’ Clare asked.

‘Only for strangers.’ The woman fished out a cigarette from her pocket.

‘Did you hear anything on Sunday night, Monday morning very early?’

‘She asked me already.’ The woman jerked her cigarette towards Tamar. ‘I was watching TV.’ She blew a smoke ring. ‘Then I was asleep.’

‘It’s important, anything unusual,’ said Clare. ‘A boy was murdered.’

‘Ja, the third one. You tell the police to do their job, so that our kids are safe instead of bothering innocent people.’ With that, the woman turned and went indoors, yelling at her child to follow her.

‘Who uses this alley?’ Clare asked Tamar.

‘People taking a short cut to the school,’ answered Tamar. ‘The rag-and-bone men used to come through here with their donkey carts.’

‘Not any more?’

‘Not as much,’ said Tamar. ‘Most of the recycling is done at the municipal site. The Topnaar carts were banned from coming into town. Hygiene reasons apparently, according to our CEO of cleansing. But they still come from time to time.’

‘My friend Goagab?’ asked Clare.

‘The very one.’

The playground stood at the top of a gentle incline. A new wooden fence sequestered the youngest children’s area. It had been decorated with a garish mural, the laughing Disney characters mocking in the childless silence.

‘That’s the swing?’ Clare pointed to the last tyre hanging from the yellow frame.

Tamar nodded. ‘And this is the gap in the fence where he got in.’

They walked together through the desolate playground. The bright-yellow paint had flaked off the links of the chain from which the seat was suspended. Clare sat down on the inverted tyre. The smell of the rubber, the metal sharp against the back of her legs, tipped her down a tunnel of memory again. It took her breath away, the immediacy of it. Herself a solemn six-year-old, swinging in the hot school playground, bare legs pushing time behind her, brown arms bending into the future. Willing herself older so that she could get away. Watched by Constance, her twin, whose face mirrored hers except in what it concealed, watching her, willing her to stay. Constance, a thought fox sniffing out Clare’s most secret desires to be the only one, whole in and of herself.

Clare stopped, aware that Tamar was looking at her. She steadied the swing and hopped off.

‘It’s got the best view,’ said Tamar. ‘That swing.’

‘You tried it?’ asked Clare, looking out at the expanse of sand circled by the dark arm of the Kuiseb River to the south.

‘I wanted to get a sense of him. Of his death. To see if there was anything left of the violence of it.’

‘And was there?’

Tamar blushed and shook her head. ‘There were some indentations in the sand, though,’ she remembered. ‘Like someone had poked it with a thin stick. Maybe a cane.’

Clare nodded and went over to the classroom block. A single window overlooked the playground. She peered into the dim classroom. The rows of miniature red desks and cheery yellow chairs were empty. A pile of marking lay abandoned on the teacher’s desk. The writing on the board caught her eye: Mrs Ruyters, Grade 1, Monday’s date.

‘Ruyters,’ said Clare. ‘That rings a bell.’

‘She’s on your list for interviewing. She was here early, before Herman Shipanga arrived,’ said Tamar, looking at her watch. ‘Shall we get going? I need to get some coffee and pastries on the way. I can’t do pregnancy on an empty stomach. Post-mortems neither.’

The Venus Bakery was bustling with early-morning trade when Tamar pulled up on the opposite side of the road. At the stop street ahead, a familiar figure peered into the windows of cars caught by the traffic light.

‘That’s the boy I met last night,’ said Clare, feeling the bruise on the side of her arm. ‘I’ll need to talk to him again.’

‘Lazarus,’ said Tamar. ‘Lazarus Beukes. He’s sharp. Been living on the streets most of his life. He’ll spin you whatever story he thinks you want to hear.’

‘You wouldn’t believe him?’ asked Clare.

‘Put it this way,’ said Tamar, ‘Lazarus rarely lets the truth interfere with a good story.’

To the left of the bakery entrance, a wiry girl, her hair a wild black halo, chained her bike to a blue column. Lazarus approached her, trying to sell her a tatty-looking newspaper, his bony shoulders sharp against his worn jersey.

‘That’s Mara Thomson. The English volunteer.’ Tamar pointed to the girl as she entered the store.

‘They look so alike,’ said Clare as they crossed the road. ‘Funny to think they grew up six thousand miles apart.’

‘Two rolls with cheese, please,’ Mara was saying when they entered the bakery.

The woman behind the counter pulled two buttered rolls out of a tray, slapped the cheese onto them and wrapped them in plastic. She pushed them across the counter to Mara. ‘You shouldn’t talk to these street boys.’ Disdain curled her thin upper lip. ‘Six Nam dollars.’

‘They’re good kids,’ said Mara, ‘living a bad life.’

‘It’s easy for you foreigners to feel sorry for them, but we have to live with them. Aids orphans are just trouble.’ The woman counted out Mara’s change. ‘Look at that one who got himself killed. And the other two they found in the desert. What do they think that’ll do for our tourism?’

‘I’m sure they’d have avoided being shot,’ Tamar interjected tartly, ‘if they’d known what their murders would do to your business.’

‘Hello, Captain,’ said Mara, her relief at being rescued palpable.

‘Morning, Mara. This is Dr Hart,’ said Tamar. ‘She’s here from Cape Town, working with me.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m glad somebody’s bothered,’ said Mara, shaking Clare’s hand. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘And you,’ said Clare. ‘You knew Kaiser? And the other boys, I understand?’

‘Kaiser plays… played in the soccer team I coach. So did Fritz and Nicanor, on and off,’ said Mara, moving towards the door, out of earshot of the sour-faced shop assistant. ‘Fritz Woestyn’s death, that was part of the odds they play with anyway,’ she went on. ‘There’ve been murders before this. Nicanor Jones’s death made them scared. This last one…’ Mara’s voice trailed off.

‘I’ll need to talk to you,’ said Clare. ‘About the boys.’

‘All right,’ said Mara. ‘I rent a room in that double-storey on the lagoon. George Meyer’s house, if you need to ask for directions.’

‘I’ve seen it,’ said Clare. ‘A little redhead on a bike went in there.’

‘That’s Oscar,’ said Mara. ‘I’ll be back after soccer practice this afternoon.’ She nodded goodbye and walked outside. Clare watched her give a roll to Lazarus.

‘No meat?’ he asked, pulling off the wrapping and dropping it to the floor.

‘How about a thank you?’ said Mara, picking up the discarded wrapping.

‘Thanks,’ he said, throwing the cheese roll into the bin as Mara turned the corner.

‘Her visa’s almost expired.’ Clare had not heard Tamar come outside. ‘She’s got to go home, whether she wants to or not.’

‘And does she?’ asked Clare.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Tamar. ‘She’s fallen for a beautiful young Spaniard called Juan Carlos. I doubt she can think straight at the moment.’