Blood Rose

nineteen

Clare woke the next morning, her limbs leaden and her head aching, but she pushed back the covers and pulled on her running clothes. She washed down two aspirin with a glass of water. The wind had come up in the night, and the unfamiliar sounds meant that her sleep had been fitful.

The bracing air and the morning light cleared her mind and she found her stride, running faster until the paved boulevard petered out into sand. There had been a high tide; straggles of seaweed lay across the path. A flock of startled flamingos took off ahead of her. Clare scanned the path to see what had disturbed them. It was Goagab in a black velvet tracksuit, complete with gold chain, approaching her.

‘Dr Hart,’ he called. Clare came to a reluctant halt. ‘You’re up early. I trust Johansson let you get to sleep at a reasonable hour.’

‘He did.’ To her annoyance, Clare found herself blushing at his innuendo.

‘I’ve got a PR nightmare on my hands with this case.’ Goagab turned around and walked alongside her. ‘I trust you’re making progress.’

‘Some,’ said Clare. ‘The groundwork: talking to people who knew Kaiser Apollis and the other two boys. The autopsy’s done, but we’ll need to wait for the forensic reports from Cape Town.’

‘Any suspects yet?’ asked Goagab, stopping beside his silver Mercedes sports car. ‘We need an arrest soon to justify the expense of foreign expertise.’

‘It’s only been a couple of days,’ said Clare. ‘And the first two victims were buried without proper autopsies, on your orders. That makes for sparse evidence.’

‘I understand,’ said Goagab, without missing a beat. ‘But there’s pressure, I’m sure you can see that. I’d appreciate it if you let me know as soon as possible what shape our killer is taking.’ He opened the car door, reached into the cubbyhole and gave her a card. ‘If you need anything, here’s my private number.’

‘What do you imagine I’d need?’ Clare turned the white square over in her hand.

‘It helps to have as many friends as possible in a strange town,’ said Goagab, sliding into his car. He pressed a button, and the window closed. For a second, Clare stared at her own pale reflection, then she slipped the card into her jacket pocket and ran back, but the unexpected meeting had put her off her stride.

By seven-thirty Clare was showered, dressed and breakfasted, her scattered thoughts in order again. She had time to see Mara Thomson before she met Tamar at the police station. She locked up, taking her small bag of rubbish out with her and dropping it into the bin standing in the narrow strip of sand between her cottage and the next one. She froze, ignoring the gulls scrapping over a stolen fish head, riveted by tracks in the sand.

A single set of human footprints stopped at her bedroom window. Clare followed them to the entrance to the service alley, but the night wind had erased any marks except her own. She followed the prints back, stepping carefully so as not to disturb anything. Whoever it had been had stood there for a while. The sand was compressed, as the watcher had scuffed about to keep warm. Or get a better view. She had opened her curtains the night before, hoping that the moon would break through the fog for a while. How long had he stood there?

What had he wanted? She searched through the disturbed dreams she had had the previous night to see if one of them had been triggered by the proximity of a stranger. There were bars on the windows, but her bed was close. He could have put his hand through an opening and held it over her face, feeling her breath soft and trusting with sleep on his skin. Her throat closed at the thought of it.

Clare squatted down next to the footprints. Whoever had stood there had been wearing some kind of trainer, but, even in this sheltered spot, the dawn wind had blown a cover of sand over any detail. Clare could not even tell what size they were. There were a few old cigarette butts lying against the fence, but that would have woken her, surely, if he had smoked. She stood up and looked in at her own window, as a stranger had, at her dishevelled bed, at the book on the bedside table, at yesterday’s lace underwear abandoned on the floor.

Her breath came in a gasp, misting the glass and bringing to life the crude outline of a heart. He had stood here, breathing open-mouthed against the glass, looking in at her as she had slept, tracing with a lingering fingertip. She breathed out again, harder this time, to see if he had finished his drawing. He had. A sailor’s tattoo, it was scored through with a jagged arrow, and blood was pooled below the heart.