Like Clockwork

53

Tohar forced himself up from the floor after the little bitch had dared to assault him. She would pay for that – as well as for everything else. He had followed her down the passage, towards the car. He smirked when he realised that she would be trapped in the boathouse. The keys for those locks were snug in his pocket. It might be fun to have a little bit of a game first. The other little tarts had been so tame in the end, acquiescing without any fight. Not as much fun as he had imagined. The Rohypnol had its uses, but it made them all so limp. This one hadn’t had a dose yet, so there must still be quite a bit of fight in her.

The explosion of the first shot knocked Tohar off his feet. The second sent him scuttling back down the tunnel. The girl was not alone. Who had found her? He went into his studio, as he called it, and hid behind the bed of coiled rope. He traced a pattern there that one of his lovely girls had made with the blood that had drip, drip, dripped from her neatly cut throat. So much blood, even after being dead for a full half-hour. He had been surprised at that. And chagrined that it had spoilt the blouse he had specially bought. He had had to change her top. That had been difficult because her head had flopped annoyingly backwards. Her outfit had been spoiled. So he had been pleased when he got the next one. He had enjoyed her. They had been so baffled, the first ones, so uncompre -hending. Had pleaded so nicely. Not like this stupid little bitch, who had just criticised and asked questions. He was doing some poor man a favour by getting rid of her.

The sound at the door made Tohar freeze.

‘Come out,’ somebody called. There seemed to be several people at the door – all looking for him.

Tohar felt his bowels loosen. There was a boat in the room, and he quickly crouched behind it. The rasp of his breath sawed through the damp air. He tried to steady its rhythm, and also the hammer blows of his heart against his ribs. He listened. Nothing but the boom of the surf against the sea wall. The taste of fear was sour in his mouth. Fear and rage had formed into a small hard stone that had lodged behind his breastbone – like a tumour, he thought. A tumour just like the little bitches he had excised so neatly, so skilfully. He was like a surgeon: a better surgeon than his father had ever been.

The sudden thought of his father caused the fear he had contained to surge. His crouching here, the dark, the cold air – all this wiped out the years, and delivered him back into the pitiful boy’s body he had worked so hard to escape. Hiding, waiting for the blows that inevitably came, no matter how well or how long he might hide. Tohar’s father – great doctor that he was – had had the experience, skill and patience needed to lure contagion. For that was what he knew Otis to be. He would wait until hunger or fatigue or a full bladder – any weakness of the body – drove Otis from his hiding place. His father would be there, waiting for him. He would then shake his head resignedly and – his elegant fingers a vice around the boy’s arm – take Otis to his sister’s room. The thought of his sister now unleashed in Tohar a hot flow of rage that drove the ice of fear ahead of it. His pale sister was always seated in the same place, bound to be still for as long as Otis – hungry, exhausted, racked with the pain of not being able to relieve himself – hid away. Placed by their father in the window seat, she waited to witness his entertainment, Otis’s humiliation. There she would sit, forced to watch as their father beat Otis. When he had finished – usually at the point where the boy lost control of his bladder or bowels – their father, the great surgeon, would lift his daughter’s skirt and make a precise incision alongside each of the others that marked the boy’s beatings. Then he would leave the girl, a mute witness now marked by what she had seen, to clean up the room and her brother as best she could.

The footsteps so close to him yanked Otis Tohar back to the present. The feel of the cold metal pressed against the back of his neck was unpleasant. The rough voice in his ear was laced with menace.

‘Stand up, Mr Tohar,’ it said. ‘You are under arrest.’ Tohar rose slowly. His head throbbed where Theresa had hit him. Surely that would count against her when he explained how she had assaulted him.

‘Of course, Officer.’ Tohar turned round to see a man whose face was unshaven, whose eyes were bloodshot, and whose clothes were cheap, ill-fitting. ‘Who might you be?’ he asked with cool politeness.

‘Riedwaan Faizal,’ answered the man. He kept the gun trained on Tohar. He had a pair of handcuffs which, to Tohar’s surprise, he seemed intent on using. Then he turned Tohar around and pulled his arms sharply behind his back, snapping the cuffs around his wrists.

The uniformed policeman with Faizal turned Tohar around again and, to his amazement, spat at him. ‘Kom, vuilgoed,’ he ordered, twisting his arms painfully upwards.

Riedwaan led him away, but as they passed the flickering television, Tohar pulled back. The final scenes of the film were playing out. Tohar tried to get a clearer look at the image of the girl jerking pathetically as he held his powerful hand over her mouth. It was hard to make out who she was, as her face was covered. He thought it might be the previous one. The one before this little cunt, who’d got away. He felt a delicious tightening in the groin as the girl gave a final spasm and then lay still.

Riedwaan Faizal shoved him forward. Tohar felt a blinding flash of pain as Faizal pushed his cuffed arms up even higher.

‘You’ve dislocated my shoulder,’ Tohar gasped indignantly.

‘Oh, shit,’ said Faizal, his voice a malignant hiss in Tohar’s ear. ‘But that’ll be the least of your worries, where you’re going. A handsome fellow like you is going to have lots of fun.’

Tohar stared helplessly, impassively, as the meaning of Faizal’s words sank in.

‘A slow puncture is what you’ll get, I’d imagine,’ said Faizal, his voice so low that only Tohar could hear. ‘That’s something that can be easily arranged.’

Riedwaan Faizal took the film from the camera and put it into his pocket. ‘This will be interesting viewing, I’m sure. As good as a confession.’

‘I have nothing to say without my lawyer,’ said Tohar. ‘And I’m sure he will be most interested in your threats.’

As he led Tohar to the police van, Riedwaan sneered, ‘Okay, but let’s see how you feel in the morning.’ Then he handed him over to the uniformed police. ‘Get Phiri to book him. I’m sure it’ll give him a kick to do the honours.’

Riedwaan turned away, lit a cigarette, and dragged on it as if his life depended on it. He watched Clare talking to Joe Zulu, uncomfortable about breaking into their easy chat. But he forced himself to go over to her.

‘Well done, Clare,’ he said. Riedwaan put his arms around her. She leaned into his embrace.

‘Don’t you need to do all the formalities?’

‘Superintendent Phiri will. He loves things like that. Let him have something to keep himself busy. In any case, there are the tapes, so a confession will hardly be necessary.’ Riedwaan had seen the tapes stacked on the shelf. ‘Each one was padlocked into a heart-shaped box. Wedding videos.’

‘The keys,’ whispered Clare. ‘The flowers.’ She looked over at Tohar. He was arguing with Rita Mhkize about being put in the back of the van. Rita turned to Joe Zulu who had gone over to help. The two of them bundled Tohar in. Rita slammed the doors shut. Clare heard Tohar yelp as the heavy doors hit his legs.

‘So sorry, sir,’ said Rita, dragging the keys across the mesh. She jumped in and started the car.

Clare sat down on the pavement. She wanted to go home, but she was unable to move. She watched Riedwaan filling in forms and talking to Joe Zulu. He had bagged the tapes and handed them to Phiri. Clare hoped that there would be enough other evidence to convict Tohar so that the parents of the murdered girls would never see the records of their daughters’ deaths. Riedwaan patted his pockets. She knew that he was looking for his keys. Clare told herself that it was for the best that he was going home. She would not have to tiptoe around another person’s heart. Life was just easier on your own. She would strip her bed when she got home and sleep in clean sheets.

‘Are you all right?’ Riedwaan helped Clare up onto her feet.

‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Just drained, now that it’s over.’

Riedwaan stroked her cheek, then moved his hand surely down the side of her neck. ‘Shall I take you home now?’ he asked.

Clare was too tired to resist. She nodded and followed him towards her flat, ignoring the whistles from the uniforms. She needed a man’s body in her bed tonight.

Once home, she drifted into sleep, waking very briefly to feel his hands warm on her skin. The fragment of a dream – a car trailing a plume of dust behind it – was already fading. She leaned over to kiss the sleeping man. Riedwaan smiled and pulled her towards him, holding her fast against his chest.