Like Clockwork

49

Clare was out of her car before the security guard had even stood up from the chair in his warm booth. ‘I’m meeting Mr Tohar.’ She thrust a card into the perplexed guard’s hand. Looking past him into the garage, she noticed that Tohar’s car was gone. ‘It doesn’t matter if he’s out. I’ll see Tatiana.’

He called upstairs and then nodded to Clare, ‘She’s there.’ The guard keyed in the code and the lift delivered Clare to Tohar’s flat. Clare stepped onto the plush carpet. The place was silent, apart from a faint sound down the passage.

The door was open just a crack, but Clare could see a woman moving rapidly from the cupboard to the bed and back again. She packed with the efficiency of someone used to moving out quickly and carrying their life away with them in one bag.

Clare knocked. The woman dropped a pile of shirts, her face white.

‘Tatiana?’ said Clare. She picked up a fine silk scarf and ran it between her fingers. ‘Are you going somewhere?’

‘No,’ she whispered.

Clare touched the beautiful face, its contours blurred, swollen. ‘What happened to you?’ she asked.

‘Nothing. It is nothing. I must finish my packing.’

‘Maybe I can help you.’ Clare wrote down a phone number and an address. ‘I have the feeling there are not many places where you feel safe,’ she said, handing Tatiana the piece of paper. ‘Go to Shazneem. She’ll help you without any questions.’

Tatiana turned, closed her suitcase. ‘What are you looking for?’ she asked Clare, slipping the address into her pocket.

‘Your husband,’ Clare ventured. ‘What is your cellphone number? I might need to contact you.’

‘I don’t know where he is. I am sorry. I have to go.’ Tatiana wrote the number down. She picked up the suitcase and walked towards the lift door. She pressed the button to summon it, her hand shaking. She turned to Clare. ‘I know why you want to see him.’ Clare put her foot between the lift doors, preventing them from closing. ‘You think he make those girls disappear, no?’ asked Tatiana.

‘What do you think?’ asked Clare.

‘It does not matter what I think,’ said Tatiana. ‘I don’t have papers here so I have nothing to say.’

‘Who are you afraid of?’ asked Clare. ‘Your husband?’

‘He is not my husband.’

‘Why are you here, then?’

‘I am here because I was sent here. Mr Landman send me as a present to Mr Tohar.’

‘Did you want to come here?’

Tatiana laughed. ‘What could I say? Mr Landman bring me to this country, I must do what he say. I owe him lot of money for my ticket so I must work where he tells me.’ She pressed the button for the basement. Clare stepped into the lift.

‘And now?’ asked Clare. ‘Where are you going? Back to Landman?’

‘No. I cannot,’ said Tatiana. ‘Better I die than go back.’

‘Let’s find you a taxi to take you to the shelter. Shazneem will take you in. I’ll call her.’

Clare took Tatiana’s arm and walked her briskly past the suspicious guard. He was on the phone as soon as they got into Clare’s car. She drove to the taxi rank and negotiated a price with a driver. Tatiana got into the back seat and clutched her bag against her slim body. She put her hand into her coat pocket and handed Clare a small bottle. It rattled as Clare took it. Pills. Clare opened the cap and shook a couple onto her hand.

‘What are they?’ asked Clare. There was a small R in the middle of each tablet.

‘Rohypnol,’ said Tatiana.

‘The rape drug,’ said Clare. ‘Who is it for?’

Tatiana looked down at her long painted nails. ‘Mr Landman used them for the young girls.’ Her voice was very quiet. ‘It makes it easier when they first start.’

‘Young girls where?’ asked Clare. She tried to keep the revulsion out of her voice.

Tatiana lifted her head. ‘At the Isis Club. Where I work before I come here.’ She looked away, was quiet. Then she added, so softly that Clare almost didn’t hear her, ‘Also when they make the movies.’

‘Where did you find them?’ asked Clare.

‘I find them in Mr Tohar’s coat. He come home very late. I do not see him. I just hear him. But I got up early. I find his coat lying in the sitting room. So I pick it up because he hates a mess. And those fell out.’

‘When was that?’ asked Clare.

‘Two nights ago.’ She leaned forward and tapped the driver’s shoulder. ‘We go now?’

Clare stepped back onto the pavement. Two nights ago Theresa Angelo had disappeared.

Six in the morning. Charnay Swanepoel on the promenade had been first.

Six in the evening. The time they had found Amore’s body at Graaff’s Pool.

Midnight had produced India King.

Like clockwork, one after the other. Clare immediately dialled Tatiana’s number, watching as she lifted the phone to her ear. The taxi was only a hundred metres down the road.

‘What kind of coat does Tohar wear?’ she asked.

‘A black one,’ said Tatiana. ‘Is cashmere. Very expensive from Italy.’

‘Thank you.’ Clare watched the taxi disappear behind a bus. Theresa Angelo’s broken body would turn up when the sun reached its zenith tomorrow – unless Clare got to her before anything terrible happened.