Blood Rose

twenty-four

Riedwaan Faizal replaced the receiver, the click loud in the silence. He opened a window, letting in a rush of cool Cape Town air. He had meant to tell Clare. He had practised it in his car that morning: ‘Their trip was cancelled. The trip was cancelled.’

‘Their trip was cancelled.’ He said it aloud again. Nonchalant. That was the trick, or, ‘Shazia and Yasmin, they had to cancel, so…’

So what? Even he could see where that line of defence would go.

‘I’m not coming,’ his wife had said when she’d called the night before at home, when he was already two whiskies down. ‘I want a divorce. You want a divorce. I can’t afford to come back now, so I’ve changed the tickets. Yasmin will come to see you at the end of the year. If you can organise some leave. Oh, and I should tell you I’ve met someone.’ Shazia had paused then, and in that suspended transatlantic moment, the memory of her pliancy, her eagerness as a young bride, was so immediate, he smelled for a moment the subtle, cinnamon scent of her skin.

‘I’m getting married again,’ she had told him.

‘I’m pleased for you,’ Riedwaan had said through gritted teeth, and she’d cut the conversation.

Riedwaan had tried to phone Clare after he got Shazia’s call. It would have been easier if she had picked up then. It would have come out just as it was, unfiltered. But she hadn’t, he thought, as he watched Superintendent Phiri park. The man reversed back and forth until his double cab was so precisely aligned that you could work out a geometry theorem with it. As his boss stepped over the scattered debris and disappeared around the building, Riedwaan’s thoughts drifted back to his wife. His soon-to-be officially ex-wife. Some primitive part of his brain wanted to find the man who was sleeping with Shazia and brain him, even as he had felt the relief that came with resolution flood through him.

He poured himself a cup of coffee, his third, and put his hand into his pocket, looking for his cigarettes. His hand closed around the fax Yasmin had sent him: Sorry Daddy, from my tears because we not comming to see u yet. Maybe in December. For my birthday. The smudges of ink from her tears had been circled.

Riedwaan lit a cigarette and pressed his hands to his eyes, recalling the horror of his daughter’s kidnapping. It was Yasmin’s abduction that had brought him to Clare. She had profiled the men who had snatched his daughter and together they had found her.

He and Clare. They made a good team. Professionally.

‘Why the long face?’ Rita Mkhize sauntered in, saving Riedwaan from his tangled thoughts.

‘Woman trouble.’

‘No such thing,’ said Rita. ‘Man trouble, yes. Woman trouble, no.’

‘Oh, really,’ said Riedwaan. ‘Then explain to me why Clare’s not speaking to me.’

‘Apart from the minor detail that you forgot to tell her that your wife was coming to stay?’

‘She’s cancelled her trip.’

‘So she cancels and you phone Clare to say that all the problems are solved because Shazia’s staying in Canada?’

‘Well…’ Riedwaan scrabbled about for a better light to cast himself in. There wasn’t one. ‘If you put it that way.’

‘And Clare’s still furious?’

‘Yes.’

‘You can’t think why?’

‘Because I didn’t tell her,’ he ventured.

‘Oh my God.’ Rita slapped her palm to her forehead. ‘A doctorate in the female psyche coming your way.’

‘So what do you suggest I do?’

‘Grovel,’ said Rita. ‘That’s always a good start. If you let me watch I’ll put in a good word for you.’

‘I know I’m not the brightest, but Clare clams up. She’s like an oyster. Bang! You get near her and she closes up on you.’

‘Well,’ said Rita. ‘Hang around. A piece of dirt like you, maybe she opens up again. My advice is to slip right in. With any luck she’ll turn you into a pearl.’

‘Why do women always side with each other?’ asked Riedwaan. ‘What did you come in here for anyway? Just to give me a hard time?’

‘Phiri’s looking for you. He asked me to tell you to join him for coffee.’

‘That’s all I need, his poison,’ Riedwaan muttered as he walked down the passage.

‘There you are, Faizal,’ said Phiri as Riedwaan entered his office. ‘There’s an envelope for you on the table.’

Riedwaan opened it and flicked through the contents. Phiri was a stickler for paperwork and he had a reputation for turning it to his advantage. The file was full of the countless forms an officer needed before he could move. He checked: every single requisite signature was in place.

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘You’re going next week?’ Phiri straightened things on his desk.

‘Sunday.’

‘Close the door, Faizal.’

Riedwaan did so, praying that there would be no coffee.

‘I signed that lot off yesterday.’ Phiri pointed to the file. ‘And it’s been logged by Miss La Grange.’

‘I’m surprised that Susannah processed me so fast.’

Susannah la Grange was Phiri’s gimlet-eyed secretary. She shared Phiri’s fanatical devotion to order; she was also devoted to the man himself. She was Riedwaan’s nemesis, returning his sloppy leave forms and expense accounting with metronymic regularity.

‘Your paperwork shows no sign of improvement, Faizal.’ Phiri looked him in the eye for the first time. ‘But I asked Miss La Grange to expedite it, not something I intend to make a habit.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Riedwaan said again, wondering where this was headed.

‘I had a call this morning,’ said Phiri, ‘asking me to let things… drift for a while.’

‘You mean someone asked you to kill the investigation?’ Riedwaan did not like the idea of Clare so far from home with her back-up pulled away from her. ‘Why?’

‘I’d be hard-pressed to say it was as definite as that. Perhaps drift was not quite the right word.’

‘Who called and what did they want?’

‘It was… indirect.’ Phiri steepled his fingers in his ecclesiastical manner. ‘A whisper in a diplomatic ear over cocktails, a private call to me.’

‘Clare is up there, already working on it.’

‘Faizal, Faizal. I know she is. Relax and stop thinking about hitting me. It’s not God’s answer to everything.’

Riedwaan uncurled his fists and put his hands behind his back. He tried the deep breathing that the last cop shrink had taught him. It worked. He stopped wanting to punch Phiri and tried listening to him instead. ‘What was the concern?’ he asked.

‘My little bird told me that it’d be better if the Namibian police handled this on their own.’

‘A serial killer?’ Riedwaan laughed. ‘Apart from Captain Damases, most of Nampol wouldn’t know one if he came at them with a meat cleaver.’

‘Faizal, that’s most uncomradely. That’s not what we need right now.’

‘What does Captain Damases say?’

‘I spoke to her this morning. She told me things were progressing as well as could be expected for such a complex case.’

‘So who’s complaining?’

‘Hard to say. It’s all been unofficial, circuitous,’ said Phiri. ‘There seems to be some military interest in the case.’

‘Military?’ said Riedwaan, surprised.

‘Rooibank, where one of the bodies was found, is on the border of an old military site that has a sensitive land claim on it. Some desert nomads, I understand. The Namibians are concerned that all this attention will stir up dormant issues like what happened in Botswana with the San.’

‘This sounds ridiculous,’ said Riedwaan. ‘Have you told Clare?’

‘It’s not ridiculous, Faizal. It’s politics. But so far, I’ve told no one.’ Phiri controlled his irritation but with visible effort. ‘When are you going up?’

‘Clare’s coming to Cape Town this weekend with the physical evidence. I was thinking of leaving on Sunday and going up by bike.’

‘Good. Better than flying, under the circumstances.’ Phiri walked to the door, but he did not open it. ‘You might want to keep out of the station for the next couple of days. Not that you’d break the record for regular attendance, Faizal.’

‘Why might I want to do that, sir?’ Riedwaan asked with exaggerated politeness.

‘If you’re not here, Faizal, I can’t cancel your trip.’ Phiri’s eyes gave nothing away. ‘If it comes to that, of course.’

‘Clare?’ Riedwaan started, not sure how to articulate the unease he was feeling.

‘She’ll be fine. She knows how to look after herself, I’m sure,’ said Phiri.

Riedwaan stopped at the door. ‘This military angle… What is it? Something new?’

‘No, no,’ said Phiri. ‘It’s just that this is a volatile region, awash with new money and old grudges.’