Blood Rose

forty-six

It was quiet at the rubbish dump. The first flurry of trucks had come and gone and the incinerator was pluming smoke into the sky. The boys who had been so eager to greet Clare the first time she had visited slunk away. She went to the lean-to where Kaiser Apollis and Fritz Woestyn had shared a mattress. The bed was untouched, as was their meagre assortment of garments. One of the braver boys hovered in the doorway, a younger child sheltering behind him.

Clare called him over and showed him Mara’s team photograph. ‘Where is this boy?’ she asked.

The boy’s expression closed down like a mask. ‘Ronaldo’s gone,’ he said, his voice low.

‘Where?’

The boy shrugged. ‘Miss Mara took him.’

‘Mara took him? Where? Where did she take him?’ Clare’s voice wavered.

‘To the desert.’ Emotion flickered in the boy’s eyes, but Clare could not read it. ‘He never came back again.’

‘Okay, where did she take him?’ Clare softened her tone.

‘Ask Mr Meyer,’ the boy said. ‘He knows where they go.’

The younger boy cupped his hands and looked at Clare, eyes wide, pleading. ‘You got some change for bread, madam?’ Clare fished in her bag for money.

George Meyer was alone in his office, his hands folded on the empty desk. His tie, knotted too tight below the Adam’s apple, bulged a fold of skin onto his collar.

‘What do you want this time, Dr Hart?’ he asked when Clare appeared in the doorway.

‘These boys. Four are dead. Now Mara’s missing.’ Clare propped the photograph against his hands. ‘Where is this one?’

Meyer picked up the photograph and looked at the frail boy. The child’s bony ribs tented the skin on his chest. ‘Ronaldo. I haven’t seen him for a while. He was sick.’ He handed the photograph back to Clare.

‘Where will I find him?’ said Clare. ‘If he isn’t dead yet.’ Clare leant close to Meyer. She kept the impatience from her voice.

‘The only place that would take him would be the Sisters of Mercy.’

Clare remembered Lazarus’s fear of the nuns. ‘Where are they, these Sisters of Mercy?’

‘Out in the Kuiseb, past the delta. The road to Rooibank. You’ll see the turn-off there.’

‘A convent?’ asked Clare.

‘It’s a hospice now. The sisters take people who no one else wants.’

‘And it was Mara who took him there?’

‘Yes. Those boys on the dump are like a pack; they look after their own. But this child was the runt of the litter. Mara was attached to him. She has a thing for underdogs. Why do you think she liked Oscar?’ Meyer’s voice snagged in his throat. ‘Or me for that matter?’

Clare turned off the tar road, leaving the row of pylons and phone lines that trudged on to the airport. There was nothing to see but the mesmerising expanse of gravel rolling up to meet the car, then fanning dust behind her. The outcrop of black rock reared above the red sand like the exposed skeleton of some ancient animal. Clare bumped down the track towards it, surprised by the alluring green cleft in the heat-cracked surface. The convent had been built into the cool overhangs and caves that formed the oasis.

Clare parked and walked down the swept path that led into a perfect amphitheatre. A woman came towards her, her welcoming smile a startling splash of white against her dark skin. A loose wimple covered her head, her gnarled feet secured in sturdy sandals. A Sister of Mercy.

‘Welcome.’ The woman took Clare’s hand between her cool palms. ‘Come out of the sun.’ She led Clare to a shaded veranda. ‘Wait here. I’ll fetch the Mother Superior.’

Clare sat on a bench and closed her eyes, the cloistered tranquillity of the oasis working its seductive magic on her.

‘My child.’ A gentle voice broke the spell.

Clare opened her eyes. A tall woman stood before her. Her habit fell from broad shoulders which looked as if they carried the weight of the Lord with ease. The hand she offered Clare was muscular, calloused. Her face had been weathered down to its essence: a beaked nose, arched iron-grey eyebrows, a tapestry of lines and crevices on the tanned skin.

‘I’m Sister Rosa. You’re welcome here.’ Her accented English gave an old-fashioned lilt to her words.

‘Good morning, Sister. I’m Clare Hart.’

‘You have no bags with you. I presume that you want something specific from us?’

‘I wanted to ask you some questions about a child who was brought here,’ Clare explained.

‘Follow me.’ Sister Rosa’s habit swished wide, drawing Clare into its wake. Clare followed her into a cool study. On a low table was a pile of dog-eared pamphlets about prayer and meditation, healing and love, HIV/Aids and dying with dignity.

‘What is it that you are looking for?’ Sister Rosa asked, sitting down.

‘A boy,’ said Clare. ‘I’m hoping he is here with you, alive.’

‘His name?’ asked Sister Rosa.

‘Ronaldo. That’s all I know. He doesn’t seem to have a surname.’

Sister Rosa opened a leather-bound ledger. She flicked through it until she found the page dedicated to him. ‘Here you are.’ She pushed it over to Clare. ‘All I have about him.’

The notes were brief: the boy’s name. His age: barely fourteen. Parents: unknown. Previous address: none. Date of arrival: four weeks earlier, just before Fritz Woestyn was found dead by the pipeline.

‘A young English girl, Mara Thomson, brought him here,’ said Clare.

‘Poor child,’ said Sister Rosa. ‘She lost her heart to this place.’

‘You knew her well?’

Sister Rosa nodded. ‘She came out here a few times.’

‘Four of the boy’s friends are dead. And now Mara has disappeared,’ said Clare.

‘Where is she?’ Sister Rosa’s voice was full of concern.

‘I’m trying to find that out,’ said Clare. ‘When last did you see her?’

‘About a week ago. She came to see this boy you seek.’

‘I’d like to see him. Maybe he can help.’

‘Come this way then,’ said the nun after a moment’s hesitation. ‘He has some lucid moments.’

Clare followed Sister Rosa down a path shaded by tamarisks. At the end of it was a sparse row of old stone-crossed graves. Alongside these was an abundance of new mounds, lozenge-shaped heaps with wooden crosses. The newest graves had posies of veld flowers on them. The rest were bare. Sister Rosa passed the graveyard and walked towards a stone building shaded by vivid green trees.

The interior of the building was dim and cool. An old nun, her face wrinkled as a walnut, rose as they entered. ‘The sick boy?’ Sister Rosa asked the nun. The woman pointed to an open door and they went inside.

‘There he is, your Ronaldo.’

A child, impossibly thin, lay on a narrow bed with a drip attached to his arm. His breathing was laboured; the lips were cracked and dry; his skin was a dull grey. There was a photograph on the bedside table. The same boy propped against plumped pillows, a toothy grin on his gaunt face.

‘Mara took that the last time she was here,’ said Sister Rosa. ‘He was so pleased with it.’ She moistened a cloth under the tap and wiped the boy’s face. Ronaldo’s eyes flickered open, then closed again.

‘Mara knew how ill he is?’ Clare asked.

‘She phoned a couple of days ago and I had to tell her he was much worse,’ said Sister Rosa. ‘It happens like that, with his condition, but she was distraught. Kept on saying it was her fault.’

‘Has Mara brought other boys to you?’

‘No,’ said Sister Rosa. ‘Only him, although she used to raise money for us. Ronaldo played in her soccer team and she said something about him being pushed too hard. It must’ve broken his immune system, because he collapsed after a camping trip that Mara had organised for the team. She brought him here afterwards, asking us to keep quiet. Ronaldo was afraid other people would find out. There’s a terrible stigma about this illness.’

‘What’s killing him?’ asked Clare.

‘Technically, a single-digit CD4 count. He has no immune system and a host of secondary infections. That’s what will stop his heart from beating in the end.’ Sister Rosa stroked the boy’s forehead. ‘But his heart was broken a long time before.’

‘Abuse?’ asked Clare.

‘Abuse, poverty, Aids. It’s not hard for a child to support himself in a place like Walvis Bay, but the way he had to make a living is a death sentence. It was too late for treatment when we got him, so I suppose you could say he came here to die.’ Sister Rosa turned to Clare. ‘What was it that you wanted to ask him?’

‘I wanted to ask him about that camping trip in the desert.’ Clare looked down at the boy, the sheets barely raised over his emaciated body. ‘About where they went and what happened. Seems to me it was the start of something that played out to a very bloody finish.’

‘At least these have healed,’ said Sister Rosa, picking up the child’s right hand and smoothing open the palm.

‘What was there?’

‘Blisters, deep ones. It’s only the scars now. They were infected and then healed so slowly. Poor child, he was in agony.’ She drew Ronaldo’s thin sheet up to his chin and smoothed his pillows.

‘Do you know what they were from?’ asked Clare, her pulse quickening.

‘I asked him; he said it was from the digging they did, but I couldn’t work out where. Somewhere in the desert. Maybe they had casual work on the water pipeline. He had some money when Mara brought him.’ The nun opened the Bible lying next to the boy’s bed. There was forty Namibian dollars in notes tucked into Revelations. Clare thought about Kaiser Apollis and the diary with one hundred dollars in it. She tried to remember the boy’s hands, but all she could picture was the tipless Apollo finger.

‘He was terrified of the desert,’ Sister Rosa continued. ‘It must’ve been torture for him to camp there with Mara. I sat up with him one night. The moon was full, and he couldn’t sleep with the curtains open. He kept saying they would see him.’

‘Who?’

‘Who knows?’ said Sister Rosa. ‘Whoever it is that you see when your temperature hits forty.’

There was no point in asking the boy any questions. Each shallow breath marked a loosening of Ronaldo’s tenuous hold on life. Clare stood up and followed Sister Rosa to the entrance lobby. The old nun they had passed on the way in nodded politely to her.

‘Did anybody come to see the boy apart from Mara?’ Clare asked on impulse.

‘Nobody,’ said Sister Rosa. ‘Except you.’

‘You,’ the old nun interrupted, ‘and one of the missionaries.’

‘Who are they?’ Clare swung around to face the woman.

‘The Christian Ladies’ Mission. A group of worthy wives. Protestants,’ Sister Rosa said with a wry smile. ‘They work with prostitutes. They rarely come out here. I suppose they’ve given up on us Catholics.’

‘When was that, Sister?’ Clare asked the old nun.

‘Three days ago,’ she replied. ‘Just before Ronaldo started slipping away from us.’

‘What was she doing here?’ Sister Rosa asked. ‘Why was I not informed?’

‘I’m sorry, Sister,’ said the older nun. ‘I forgot my sewing in the convent and when I came back the woman was here. The child was very upset, but I got her to leave and he settled down again.’

‘Did you know her?’ Clare asked.

‘She was young. Fair. I don’t know her name. She said she wanted to save him, but I think that even she could see that it was too late.’ The nun hesitated. ‘They can be… agitating, reformed sinners. Zealous.’

‘You’ll find them easily, Dr Hart,’ Sister Rosa said. ‘They have their haven, as they call it, down near the docks.’ The woman’s hand on Clare’s elbow propelled Clare back into the heat.

Clare’s car was a furnace when she got back to it. She opened the window, letting the hot air escape before she got in. The heat swam on the surface of rocks, the road and the car as she drove back to Walvis Bay, mirroring her thoughts. What did Mara know? Why had she hidden the boy Ronaldo out here? And why had she not said anything? Why had Lazarus said nothing? This circuit of questions was interrupted only when Clare found the Christian Ladies’ Mission. It was situated opposite Der Blaue Engel, where the ladies could keep an eye on their husbands while saving the town from moral turpitude. Housed on the ground floor of an ugly facebrick building, the entrance to the Mission was decorated with watercolour landscapes and crocheted doilies, no doubt donated by its members.

The woman who got up to greet Clare was slender, her hair set in even, rigid waves. ‘Dr Hart?’

Clare was getting used to strangers knowing her name. She nodded.

‘How can I help you?’

‘I need to know about one of your members who visited a boy out at the Catholic hospice in the desert.’

‘Why, may I ask, should I give you this information?’ The woman’s mouth was a red-lipsticked slot in her face.

‘I’m working on the investigation into the recent murders of-’

‘The boys?’ the woman interrupted.

‘Them,’ said Clare.

‘Well,’ said the woman, pursing her lips, ‘we’ve tried to reach out to street children before, especially the Aids orphans. But it’s difficult to get children who have strayed from the authority of adults to conform.’

‘Which of your members would’ve visited him there?’ asked Clare.

‘I’ll check in the record book. But I can’t imagine anybody did. When was it?’

Clare gave her the date, and the woman opened the book and paged through to the relevant entry. ‘Nothing then.’ She shook her head. ‘Not to the convent at any rate.’

‘The woman who visited him was blonde apparently. Young,’ Clare said.

The woman frowned. ‘I can’t think of anybody who fits that particular description.’ She pushed the ledger over to Clare. ‘And see for yourself. Nobody went out that day. Everything’s logged, because our volunteers can claim for petrol.’

‘Would one of your members have gone without filling in the forms?’ asked Clare.

The woman drew herself up, offended. ‘All our volunteers are working here towards salvation and rehabilitation. Part of that process means that they must follow procedures in all situations. The leadership, and I include myself in that, are unwavering about such details.’

‘Who could it have been, then?’

‘Dr Hart, I’m a lay preacher, not a detective.’