Blood Rose

forty-two

Clare cut back alongside the rubbish-snagged razor wire that sequestered the harbour from the town. She called Tamar, but her phone went straight to voicemail, so she left a message with the news about Mara. She turned in at the police station. At seven in the morning, the parking lot was empty except for Van Wyk’s white 4x4.

She pushed open the office door, her running shoe protesting against the linoleum floor. Van Wyk was engrossed in whatever was on his computer screen, his hand on the mouse. One click and the image shut down. So did his expression.

‘I’m surprised to see you here, Dr Hart.’ The hurried crackle told Clare that he had hit sleep mode. ‘After yesterday. But if you’re looking for Captain Damases, you’re a bit early.’

‘I’m always early,’ said Clare, wondering what had piqued Van Wyk’s interest in office work. ‘But this morning I also had a call. So I thought I’d come and see you about it.’

‘The media?’ Van Wyk said ‘For another interview with our… expert from South Africa? I’d say your case is dead in the water. It’s just a matter of time before we find that old desert beggar.’ He leant back in his chair, arms behind his head, legs splayed, the denim tight across his thighs. The door clicked shut behind Clare, making her jump.

‘It was Mara’s mother,’ she said. ‘Mrs Thomson.’

A pause, a heartbeat long. ‘What must I say to the mother? That her daughter got an itch for a sailor?’

‘Has it crossed your mind that something might have happened to her?’ said Clare.

Van Wyk spread out his hands and examined his fingernails. ‘If she’s dead, her body’ll pitch up sometime, and we’ll send her home in a box. If she’s alive, she’ll run out of money and go home anyway. All the same in the end.’

‘To you maybe. Not to the desperate woman I had on the phone.’

Van Wyk uncoiled himself from his chair, his pupils pin-pricks. ‘Mara was nothing but trouble. She lodged a complaint against me after we picked up one of those street kids of hers stealing in the harbour. She got me shunted into this pointless fucking unit. And now it’s my job to look after a stupid little foreign slut who can’t keep her knees together?’

‘She’s missing, Sergeant,’ said Clare.

Van Wyk was close to her now. Clare kept her eyes on his.

‘You don’t belong here, Dr Hart.’ His fingers closed around her wrists. The bones shifted when he twisted. ‘Just like Mara didn’t, so you stay away from things that don’t belong to you.’

‘Don’t you ever threaten me,’ said Clare, bringing her right knee up, fast and accurate.

Van Wyk let her go, his eyes glazing with pain as the office door flung open.

‘Morning, Clare.’ It was Karamata, cheerful and crisply dressed for the new day. ‘Morning, Van Wyk. You’re here-’ He looked from Clare to Van Wyk. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Everything’s fine,’ Van Wyk managed to say. ‘I was working most of the night. Dr Hart and I were just talking about solving cases, weren’t we?’ He didn’t give Clare a chance to reply and walked down the passage, his tall, thin body cutting through a sudden flood of early-morning arrivals.

Clare flexed her wrists. She made herself breathe deeply, slowing her heart rate and ordering her jumbled thoughts. ‘He’s like a hand grenade without a pin,’ she said.

‘Oh, you mustn’t worry about him too much,’ said Karamata. ‘He’s always touchy first thing in the morning.’

‘I won’t,’ said Clare, with feeling. ‘I was worrying about Mara Thomson. Her mother called to say she never arrived home.’

Karamata stirred sugar into his tea and shook his head. ‘If we followed up every report like this, we’d never do anything else. She’ll call her mother when her money runs out.’ His cellphone rang. He nodded at Clare and went into the corridor, firing a rapid volley of Herero into the receiver.

Clare sat down at Van Wyk’s desk to get Mara’s number from the case dockets on the shared server. She found it quickly and dialled. Mara wasn’t answering. Unease, long since upgraded to anxiety, turned into fear.

Clare massaged her wrists, working out what to do, watching the screensaver on Van Wyk’s computer. Her curiosity was piqued at his unprecedented diligence. She didn’t imagine he’d been working on an expense report on the hunt for Spyt. She reached for the mouse. There were a couple of cases in the documents folder, but when Clare opened them, they were empty. She called up the mail programme minimised on the bar at the bottom of the screen. Viagra spam, a couple of e-mail memos from police headquarters in Windhoek. Routine stuff from Tamar. The sent box was sparse too. Nothing in the delete box either. She checked the file history. Nothing there. Clare sat back in the chair for a second. There was one last thing for her to try. She went to the recent items in the menu. Google. She clicked on the search history. One website only. Van Wyk had spent some time on it.

The site was dark, almost black. Explicit content warnings competed with the pop-ups of beckoning girls inviting viewers to ‘cum see my first time’. So this is what he does in his spare time, Clare thought. Her mouth dry, she clicked on the entrance portal. The names and images of twenty half-naked women appeared. Amateur shots in suburban homes, classrooms, offices. Clare scrolled down the web page. The photos had been posted from all over the world, but they had two things in common: the youthfulness of the girls and the subtle brutality of their submission. In offices, classrooms and toy shops, around family dinner tables and in everyday places, were images of girls doing everyday things. One click transformed the image, and the girl was stripped, splayed and penetrated.

Clare scrolled through the images, but there was nothing to identify the anonymous postings. She was about to log out when the name of a video link caught her eye: Namib Nature Girls. Clare opened the first video. It was grainy, downloaded from a handheld camera, but it made her stomach turn. It was Van Wyk all right. He was standing in his uniform, his cap jaunty, his belt unbuckled, poised behind a naked, spread-eagled body. It was impossible to identify the recipient of Van Wyk’s attentions. Then the film cut to a wide shot.

Clare froze. The ghost-smell of a putrefying cat caught at her throat. The altar, the ring of stones, the amphitheatre, the encircling trees. She looked closer at the body on the altar. It was a girl, her eyes glazed, limbs limp, a blank smile on her face. Her clothes in a pile on the floor. She looked drugged. LaToyah or Minki. The names scrawled on the cave. And Chesney, the other name. It must have been him holding the camera. There were other videos too. She flicked through the site, looking for Mara, but there was no sign of her. There were no boys either. The videos were strictly heterosexual. There were a couple of Angolan girls who Clare had noticed hanging around the entrance of the docks, so young that the breasts had barely budded on their skinny chests. She wondered how much these girls, paying in kind in the revolting little films, paid him in cash as well. Fury surged through her as she e-mailed the link to Tamar and hurried out of the office.

Riedwaan was pacing in front of the cottage when Clare got back. ‘Where were you?’ He flicked his cigarette away and followed her in. ‘What took you so long?’

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Clare asked.

‘Unfamiliar territory.’ Riedwaan’s desire for an argument had ebbed as soon as he had Clare safe in front of him again. ‘It puts me on edge.’

‘I went past the station,’ said Clare, making coffee.

‘So early?’

‘I got a call from Mara Thomson’s mother,’ Clare said. ‘From London. Mara was meant to arrive there yesterday, but she never got off the plane.’ Riedwaan looked blank. ‘Mara volunteered at the school, teaching the homeless kids soccer,’ she explained.

‘So what’s bothering you?’ he asked.

‘She knew those boys better than most people in this town,’ said Clare, the kernel of anxiety unfurling from the pit of her stomach. She pushed the coffee away. The caffeine would only make her feel worse. ‘She looked like them, too.’

‘Did you go past her place?’

‘Yes, and all her stuff’s gone.’

‘Boyfriend?’ Riedwaan knew more about missing girls than he cared to.

‘Yes,’ said Clare. ‘A sailor. Nice looking. I’ve met him.’

‘If she’s young and she has a boyfriend, that can mean two things,’ said Riedwaan. ‘She’s safe and fucking him silly and her mother will be furious. Or she’s dead. Either way, the boyfriend’s your first port of call.’

‘I’m going to see if she missed her flight first,’ said Clare.

‘Fine. I’ll catch you later.’ Riedwaan stopped in the doorway, silhouetted by the sun. ‘Clare,’ he said.

‘What?’ She turned from the sink where she had been rinsing her cup.

‘You’ll call me if you need me?’

‘Of course, I’ll call you.’

Clare locked the door behind Riedwaan, walked to the bathroom and turned on the shower tap. Her wrists hurt. They would look like Darlene’s by tomorrow. It was only when was in the shower, hot water needling down her back, that she realised that she hadn’t told Riedwaan about Van Wyk. She pulled on her clothes, wishing that she had.