Like Clockwork

33

The scrappy stretch of beach was full of lights and people. A small crowd had gathered to watch from the other side of the police tape. The police photographer was busy. Clare looked up at the darkened restaurant where people had been chatting and eating and drinking just an hour before. Riedwaan came up to her, his eyes dark with anger.

‘Come and look, Clare,’ he said. He took her arm and walked her over, holding the tape up so that she could easily step under it.

‘Due west,’ said Clare, moving around the body. She had seen a photo of India while she was alive. In it, she was laughing, animated, her hands and hair a blur of enthusiasm. But this was a broken doll. The arrangement of the body was the same – the bound hand, the tarty clothes. Clare made herself look at the girl, keeping revulsion at bay, trying to pinpoint what was eluding her.

‘It’s the fury,’ said Riedwaan. ‘He slashed her throat to the bone. Either the fantasy is not working out right. Or something else rattled him. Or she fought too hard.’

‘He needs co-operation. Or some semblance of participation,’ said Clare. ‘He believes, I would imagine, that these girls want to be part of his game.’

‘Look here,’ said Riedwaan. Clare knelt beside him. The grass on the slope below the girl’s body gleamed in the moonlight. Clare put out her finger. Touched it. It was sticky with blood. India King’s throat gaped like a sacrificial lamb’s where it had been cut in full view of the road, of the restaurant, of the block of flats over the road.

Clare turned away and was unexpectedly and violently sick. Riedwaan stood by, knowing her well enough to let her purge herself and regain control.

‘I can’t believe that nobody in the restaurant saw anything,’ said Clare.

‘Let’s go and check what you can see from up there,’ said Riedwaan.

They crossed the road and made their way to the entrance. The restaurant was closed but Riedwaan’s badge convinced the security guard let them in. It was very quiet, with just a murmur of voices in the kitchen. Riedwaan went in search of the owner. Clare walked over to a table by the sliding doors and looked out. She could not see anything other than a snarl of black rocks, the ocean and the island in the distance. She moved to another table. The same view. The balcony blocked the view of the road. The grassy slope and the beach were invisible, something you would know only if you had been inside the restaurant. Clare slid open the glass doors. It was very cold on the balcony. It had been so all evening, and the tables there had not been laid. Now they were chained together in a corner.

She looked down again. Even from here, it would have been difficult to see anything happening on the beach below. She looked up at the apartment block. Nefertiti Heights was new and unoccupied. There was nobody there either to have witnessed anything. Clare looked back down at the beach. India’s face had at last been covered and her body strapped to a gurney. The paramedics, barely older than India had been, were carrying her corpse to the waiting ambulance. Clare’s eyes filled with tears. The beach was empty, except for one wakeful gull circling overhead. She watched it trace a silver arc against the night sky, white feathers glinting in the moonlight. The bird landed in front of a huge storm-water drain, a dark maw leading under the road into the belly of the city. The ambulance flashed its light and pulled away, heading for the morgue. There would be no peace for India yet, thought Clare grimly. Dr Mouton would spend hours tomorrow carefully puzzling over how she had died and when.

Riedwaan came up to her. ‘Just that little patch is hidden from view.’

‘I can’t help thinking that he must have known that. Can we borrow their booking list?’

‘I’ve already asked the owner for it. We’ll get it as we go out.’ He turned to leave. Clare stayed him with a touch to his arm, but she felt the heat of him through his jacket, and pulled her hand away.

‘The display of the bodies is contradictory,’ said Clare. ‘Very public, but no witnesses.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, the first one you would have expected to show up on the CCTV, but that camera was false. Could have been a fluke, but I don’t think so,’ said Clare. She paced up and down the balcony, speaking more to herself than to Riedwaan. ‘The second girl was dumped at Graaff’s Pool. There are no cameras there, although there are a few on the pathway that leads down to the beach. But the killer could have used the old tunnel under Beach Road.’

‘There is no physical evidence to support that,’ said Riedwaan.

‘No,’ said Clare. ‘But I’m sure that’s what he did. A boat would have been impossible to land that night and the cameras would have picked him up going there.’

‘Here he knew exactly the spot where the body wouldn’t be seen. Even though when she was found, it appeared so shockingly public.’

Clare stopped and looked thoughtfully across at the busy police scene. ‘He’s playing with us. But I don’t think he wants to be caught. At first I thought he was asking to be caught, to be stopped. That’s not unusual, a killer wanting to be stopped, convinced that he’s killing because the police aren’t doing their job. But I don’t think that is the case with this one. I think he knows exactly what he’s doing, that he feels justified in doing it and that he wants to continue.’

‘He wouldn’t have been seen if he’d parked there and then dumped her. Watch this.’ A police car appeared where Riedwaan was pointing below – just a moment before, the car had been completely obscured by a clump of bushes beyond the bus shelter. Riedwaan lit another cigarette. ‘If he’d parked there, no one would have seen him. I’ll get Rita to check it out.’ He called her and they watched Rita and Joe move behind the bushes to check for evidence.

They made their way downstairs. Riedwaan had the booking list under his arm. ‘What did the chef say about Xavier?’ asked Clare.

‘Nothing much. He started here five months ago. He’s from the DRC, claimed to have cooked for Laurent Kabila while he was still alive. Did his work well, was good at it, always alone, always on time. No girlfriends. No drugs. No trouble. Especially good with knives, excellent at carving vegetable sculptures. Had papers, but they never looked too deeply into any of them. Said goodbye as usual and left just before twelve.’

‘When will you talk to him?’ asked Clare.

‘I’m going to talk to your friend Giscard now,’ said Riedwaan. ‘I hope I can persuade him to tell me where to find Xavier. I had an SMS from Rita to say that they couldn’t find him. I’d be very interested in having a little chat with him about what he’s been doing since he got here.’

‘I’ll be surprised if it’s him. How is an illegal chef who shares a flat with five other illegal immigrants going to find somewhere to keep a girl captive? Also, the restaurant was very busy. How was he going to move her body while carving roses out of carrots for ten sushi platters an hour?

‘Those are questions I look forward to asking,’ said Riedwaan. ‘If Giscard’s dates are correct, these killings started just after Xavier arrived in Cape Town.’

Riedwaan walked Clare to her car. ‘I’ll bring you the preliminary autopsy report as soon as I have it.’

‘No chance of me coming to the autopsy?’

‘You know Piet and his rules,’ said Riedwaan. ‘He’s not going to make an exception.’

‘Okay. Call me the minute you get it?’ asked Clare. ‘I get the feeling that this killer is either overconfident or unravelling. That means that the killings will accelerate. It also means that he will make a mistake. That’s when we catch him.’

‘I will,’ said Riedwaan emphatically. He tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘Goodnight, Clare.’ Then he walked back towards the taped area.

She started the car and indicated to do the U-turn that would take her home again. ‘Hey!’ It was the police photographer. ‘Don’t you want these, gorgeous?’ He was holding a bunch of irises in his hands.

Clare wound down her window. ‘Where did you find those?’ she asked.

‘Lying there.’ He pointed towards the lighthouse. ‘I went up there to have a smoke and there they were, lying on one of the benches. It seemed like such a waste. And then I saw you looking fab as always. And Riedwaan not paying you the attention he should. I thought maybe I could get a look in.’

‘Fuck off, Riaan,’ she said. ‘Don’t you ever give up? Bag them and give them to Rita.’ The irises were tied with the same twist of gold ribbon as the flowers found near Amore Hendricks’s body at Graaff’s Pool.

Clare closed her window and drove home. She fell into bed and immediately fell asleep. When she woke up, her skin filmed with the icy sweat of a nightmare, she went through to the kitchen and put on the kettle for tea. It would soon be dawn so there was no point in trying to go to sleep again. There was not much she could do until she had the pathologist’s report. Clare knew that Mouton and Riedwaan would be busy there now. She paced for a while and then picked up her phone. Two rings and it was answered.

‘Mouton here.’ His voice was muffled as if he was holding the phone between his shoulder and his ear. Clare did not like to imagine what he was doing with his hands.

‘Dr Mouton, this is Clare Hart.’

‘Ja, Doc?’ He would be looking at Riedwaan, eyebrows raised, Clare suspected.

‘The autopsy, what’s it telling you?’

‘We’ll be busy for a while still. But it’s safe to say the pattern is the same. We have some body fluid samples, so we can see if it’s a copycat killing or not.’

‘What’s different?’ asked Clare.

‘This girl’s eyes were also cut. But this time I’d say it was after death. There’s almost no bleeding.’

‘Odd,’ said Clare. ‘Maybe he was disturbed.’

‘India King put up one hell of a fight,’ said Dr Mouton. ‘I think we’ll be able to get the knife identified. The way she’s been cut, has to be someone who knows about knives.’

‘A chef?’ asked Clare.

‘Maybe,’ said Mouton. ‘Or someone medical.’

‘A doctor?’

‘Not necessarily, but someone who knows a bit about anatomy.’

‘You sure it’s the same weapon each time?’ asked Clare.

‘I’m sure. I can’t prove it, but I think that this time he was rattled – cut too deep, so there’s a good blade mark on the vertebra. That’ll make those ballistics okes very happy. Go get some more sleep in the meantime. Riedwaan’s not going to be up for much today – or tonight, for that matter.’

‘Thanks for that, Piet. We’ll speak later.’ Clare didn’t go back to bed. She watched the sun rise slowly over the mountains. The light did not bring her any clarity, but a visit or two later on to some of the more upmarket florists would do the trick. She emailed Rita, asking her to get onto it as soon as she got into the office.