Like Clockwork

9

The sliding doors were open: the dawn was surprisingly forgiving, despite the unsettled waves. Clare sat on the sofa, the sweat from her run already drying. She forgot her coffee as she watched the sun rise, the colours reflecting on the expanse of white flooring. The door to her bedroom was open, the room empty except for the bed and an exquisite view of the Atlantic and a wall covered with her books. These provided the only colour in Clare’s sanctuary. The mountains, tinged pink by the sun, were an army frozen in its march up the bleak West Coast. She longed for that endless coast road snaking along the base of the mountains that led to the stone house whose low white buildings were screened by dusty eucalyptus trees. It was invisible from the road, secret. There Constance’s voice still echoed happily with hers around that distant, long-abandoned farmhouse of their childhood.

Clare stood up, shaking memories from her as she stretched her stiffening muscles. She walked to the phone and, cradling the receiver in her hand, thumbed in the number without needing to think of the sequence. Three… four… five rings.

It was her defence against the work she did… seven… eight… rings. A ninth ring… Panic rose in Clare, as it always did if someone was not where they ought to be.

‘Hello… Shit! The phone. Hello? Hello?’ Her beloved sister, at forty, still unable to answer a phone without dropping it.

‘Julie! I’m still here. It’s me. Clare…’ Her panic dispelled.

‘Darling! How are you? Where have you been? Weren’t you going to call me?’ Julie had adopted their mother’s way of speaking when they had still been very young children – an effusive torrent that swept along anyone in earshot. ‘It’s a bit mad here. But come for supper. Tonight, or maybe the weekend would be better. I’ve missed you. So have the girls.’

The thought of her nieces, both so alive, so protected, comforted Clare. ‘Thanks, Julie. I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Shall I bring something?’ But Clare was talking to a dead receiver. Julie had turned her attention to Beatrice’s breakfast and Imogen’s frantic hunt for her homework and her hockey stick. Clare put the phone down, soothed by the domesticity of Julie’s life.

She made fresh coffee and took it to her desk. The autopsy report and the interview transcripts were there. Riedwaan had faxed the ballistic reports. She fished them out of the tray and read them, letting her mind sift through the information.

There was one body. So far. Clare was convinced that there would be others. Or that there had been others that had not been picked up. She took the picture of Charnay out again and laid it in front of her. There were no injuries to suggest that she had been knocked out and then abducted. Charnay had gone willingly with her killer, so he must be personable. Charming too, to have access to a girl as beautiful as Charnay Swanepoel. It would have been later, when it was too late, that his abhorrence of women, of girls, emerged.

The phone rang. Riedwaan’s name came up on the caller ID. She picked it up. ‘Hi.’

‘How are you doing?’ he asked.

‘I’m going to see the mother later today.’

‘Good. And our man? What are we looking for?’

‘You know it’s impossible with one victim to have anything more than a feeling. Nothing, I suppose, from the records?’

‘No. No murders. I did have a call from a friend in Jo’burg. They have an unsolved sexual assault there from about six months ago. The girl looked similar to this one: dark hair, about sixteen. Same sort of weird bondage, but on both hands. And a blindfold, she claimed, so she could give no description.’

‘Any DNA?’

‘There was some. Blood and semen. But different blood groups, so maybe there were two of them. The girl survived but she had been severely assaulted. He’s sending the report down.’

‘You don’t know where she was before the assault?’

‘I do,’ said Riedwaan, shuffling through his notes. ‘She was at the Da Vinci Hotel.’ Clare had stayed there once. It was a replica of a Florentine villa in the heart of the sprawling chaos of Africa’s wealthiest and most violent city.

‘The friend who was meeting her was late and the victim had left by the time she arrived. It was busy – a Friday night – and no one saw her leave.’

‘Our girl disappeared on a Friday too. From the Waterfront,’ mused Clare.

‘Toxicology reports show traces of cocaine in the girl’s bloodstream. And Rohypnol.’

‘Can we interview her?’ asked Clare.

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Riedwaan. ‘She’s dead.’

‘Dead? How?’ asked Clare.

‘Suicide, apparently. Two months after the rape. Her family didn’t accept the verdict, but there was no evidence that indicated murder.’

Clare closed her eyes.

‘There is one other thing, Clare. The victim was convinced that her attacker filmed part of the assault. She said she heard the whirr of a camera.’

‘Lots of home movies these days. The woman I interviewed who was trafficked, she also told me that she had been filmed.’

‘We’re going to stumble across a little nest of home-made porn,’ said Riedwaan.

‘It’s probably all over the Net,’ said Clare.

‘You want to meet me for a drink later?’ asked Rediwaan.

‘Not tonight,’ Clare answered. ‘I’ve had quite a week.’

‘Friday, then?’

‘I’m going to my sister for dinner tomorrow night,’ said Clare. ‘Why don’t you come?’ Silence stretched between them.

‘I don’t think family is quite the thing for me, do you?’ said Riedwaan.

‘Maybe not,’ said Clare. She was ashamed at how relieved she was that he’d refused. ‘I’ll email you the profile as soon as I’ve got something more coherent.’ Clare cut the connection, wishing immediately that she had agreed to meet him that evening. She picked up her pen and started making careful notes, regret dissipating as she worked. She would be visiting the dead girl’s home the next day.