Like Clockwork

50

Clare called Riedwaan on her way home, willing him to answer. She needed him for back-up. She snapped her phone shut, killing his voice asking her to please leave a message. There was a bad taste in her mouth, and her body ached with tension that she decided to walk off on the promenade. Heavy fog had rolled in from the south-west, and the Green Point foghorn blared anxiously at passing ships. Skeletal fingers of mist were swirling off the sea, making it difficult to see more than a few metres ahead. ‘Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?’ was the percussion of Clare’s stride. She stopped to call Riedwaan again. Then cursed his voicemail and walked on along the promenade, all the way to Clifton and back again.

It was almost dark as she heard the raised voices cut through the evening silence. The fog was disorientating, but the argument sounded as if it was coming from Three Anchor Bay, where the elephant seal, exhausted by his thousand-mile swim, had heaved himself up to rest. Clare walked towards the glow of a fire that the animal’s guard had made to keep himself warm. She could see the outline of a man, beside himself with agitation. He lunged at the guard, grabbing him by the front of his jacket and pulling him off his feet.

‘Hey!’ shouted Clare, running towards them. She went up to the guard, who had fallen back against the railing.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked him, helping him back on his feet. His attacker was swallowed by the dense fog.

‘I’m okay. I’m okay. What is his problem?’ The guard was enraged. ‘He wants to go now to the boathouse. But nobody can sail out in that swell.’

‘Who is he?’ asked Clare.

‘I don’t know. He’s a crazy man. He came earlier and he wanted to go to the boathouse. The other people who have boats also wanted to go. So I explained to them that no one can go while the elephant seal is there. Nobody. They don’t mind at all. They are happy. Except him. He says he must go. It is his right. I say rubbish. That big seal came thousands of miles to visit here. He can have some peace now until he goes back home.’ The guard poured himself some tea from his flask, added four soothing spoons of sugar and drank it down. ‘That man tells me he will phone the mayor. I point to the sign and I tell him that the mayor ordered that we close the beach for the seal. Hah!’ the guard spat, still furious.

‘When was that?’ asked Clare.

‘That was this afternoon. Then he came back now. First he tried to give me money. I said no. He asked me if I wanted more money. I said no again. I tell him he must go away. That is when he started shouting at me, saying I must let him in. He grabbed me here,’ he said, pointing to the front of his jacket.

Clare went to the railing and looked down. There were three boathouses below, the doors bolted against the weather. In the gloom on the other side of the beach was a slipway that dipped under the promenade and came out at the high-water mark on the beach. Here, there was another bolted door in the granite sea wall that curved around to the lighthouse about three hundred metres away. The great animal lay inert on the beach, its large eyes blinking whenever the lights of a car disturbed it. The slipway had been blocked off since the arrival of the seal

She turned to the guard. ‘Do you have binoculars?’ she asked, her heart beating faster.

He ducked into his booth and handed her his glasses. Clare looked down at the seal. She could make out the bristles around his stubby nose. She lifted the glasses up to the door. It was tightly locked, but there were tracks on the sand. Slowly, she swung the glasses around the sea wall. The granite was pitted and scarred by the sea. There was a glimmer of light about fifty metres away where the sea wall dipped into the next inlet. She focused carefully. It seemed to emanate from the stone itself, then vanished. She handed the glasses back to the guard.

‘Thank you,’ she said, light-headed with hope. She snapped open her phone. Two rings, and he answered.

‘Riedwaan,’ she whispered. ‘Where are you?’

‘I’m in Bellville. With Dr. Death.’

‘Riedwaan, I think I’ve found her. How soon can you get here?’

‘Give me half an hour. I’ll be with you. Where are you?’

‘I’m above the Three Anchor Bay boathouses. She’s here, I’m sure of it.’

‘How can you be so sure?’ he asked.

‘I went to see Otis Tohar.’

‘Tohar?’ asked Riedwaan. ‘How is he connected?’

‘I’m not sure, Riedwaan. But I’m going to find out.’

‘What are you going to do now?’

‘I’m going after her, Riedwaan.’

‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll get Joe and Rita to organise back-up for you.’

‘Be quick.’

‘Don’t ever tell Phiri that we had this conversation. He’ll have my balls for breakfast.’

‘What good would that do me?’

Clare closed her phone and went back to her flat for a torch. She could not wait for Riedwaan, there was no time. She unlocked the drawer beside her bed. The cold stillness of the gun was comforting. She picked it up, checked it was loaded and slipped it into the inside pocket of her trousers. It was like holding an old lover, the familiar shape snug against her thigh.

She looked through the untidy heap of paper on her desk. The map was not there. It wasn’t in the kitchen either. Clare looked next to her bed. Nothing. She was sure she had kept the map of the underground tunnels. She looked next to her bed again. It had slipped behind the headboard. She coaxed it out, trying not to tear the thin paper.

Clare spread the map of the old drainage system in front of her. On it, she marked the places where the bodies had been found. It was the one near Sushi-Zen that interested her most. The storm-water drain opened right onto the patch of lawn where Xavier had found India’s body.

She traced the route of the tunnel. It ran under the lighthouse and then snaked back towards the promenade wall. Here it branched, and a second, narrower, tunnel seemed to lead to the slipway at Three Anchor Bay. There must surely be an entrance nearby, leading to the boathouse. If these girls had been held there, then that would be the way in. Or, for the killer, a way of getting them out. There was plenty of space to hide someone there and, with a genuine boathouse in front, to deflect suspicion.

Clare sprinted to the storm-water drain near Sushi-Zen. The entrance stank of human excrement. She held her breath and stepped over the filth. The darkness closed in on her. She switched on her torch. A rat, its eyes gleaming red, scuttled past her. She forced herself to keep going, bearing right all the while, towards the boathouses. And praying her instinct was right.