Blood Rose

by Margie Orford

  Clare took it and turned it over. There was an inscription on the back. From Mara, it said. For my boys. Remember to always believe.

  ‘When was that?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Lazarus shifted from one foot to the other. ‘I suppose about four weeks ago. We went away for a weekend and she took it then. It was when she got us our new uniforms. Look, it says “The Desert Rats”.’ He pointed to the photograph.

  It must have been cold when it was taken, because the boys were huddled together. They all wore the same shirt that Kaiser Apollis had been wearing when he was killed.

  ‘Cool shirts,’ said Clare.

  ‘Pesca-Marina Fishing sponsored them. Look, it says so here on the back.’ He whipped up his sweatshirt and turned around to show Clare the logo, pleased to have a witness to the small joys of his life.

  ‘Can I keep this?’ Clare asked.

  ‘Keep Kaiser’s picture,’ said Lazarus, handing it to her. ‘He won’t need it. Maybe in Cape Town you can get us some more sponsorship, find us a new coach.’

  ‘What about Mara?’ asked Clare, slipping the picture into her pocket.

  ‘She’s going back to England.’

  ‘When?’ asked Clare.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Lazarus. ‘But they all do. What’s there to stay here for?’

  There was no answer to that. ‘Is she still coaching you?’

  ‘Ja, we have a practice later. But it’s not the same any more.’

  ‘The boys who were killed, you knew them all,’ said Clare.

  ‘None of us live long, Miss. They went quick. You try going like him.’ Lazarus pointed to the darkest corner of the makeshift tent. There was a small mound of blankets. ‘He’s afraid to go to the nuns. If the sisters come for you, then you know you’re over and out.’ Lazarus gave a bleak laugh. ‘It’s not much of a team any more. Three dead.’

  ‘Who do you think did it?’ Clare asked.

  ‘Someone they went with, that’s what everyone’s saying,’ said Lazarus, watching the other boys kicking a makeshift soccer ball on the level patch of gravel that was their pitch.

  ‘You got any names?’ asked Clare. ‘Anyone in particular?’

  Lazarus looked at her briefly, but the focus of his attention had shifted. ‘A sailor? Maybe one of the old men who live alone here in town. A lawyer from Windhoek? It happens like that to us boys.’

  ‘Is there anyone …’ – but Lazarus was gone, dribbling the ball expertly towards the goal posts – ‘regular?’ Clare finished the question.

  ‘Too much glue,’ said Karamata, watching Lazarus score.

  ‘Or too afraid,’ said Clare as Lazarus careened across the field, arms extended in the universal language of football victory. ‘I want to ask him some more questions.’

  ‘Another time,’ said Karamata, checking his watch. ‘We’ve got to get going now, if you want to get to the next crime scene before dark.’

  Clare followed him reluctantly back to the car. She waved at Lazarus. He lifted one hand in salute, watching them drive away.

  Karamata drove towards the Kuiseb River, a sinuous line of green that parted the vast ocean of the Namib. A group of oryx made their way in single file, their measured pace only emphasising the stillness. The road they took snaked through stands of dusty tamarisks. Their branches whipped against the windscreen as Karamata picked up speed.

  ‘Topnaars,’ he said, pointing at the donkey cart rattling home, feathering golden dust into the sunset. Clare could hear the crack of a whip above trotting hooves, the shouts of the driver urging his tired animals home.

  ‘You know this place well,’ she observed.

  ‘Like the back of my hand,’ said Karamata. ‘I grew up around here.’

  Old flood-marks had scoured a wall out of the sand. Debris from upriver was stranded high above the dry bed. The road petered out into a sandy track, pocked and scarred with the previous year’s rains. The mud had dried and cracked as it had retreated from the relentless sun.

  Karamata cut the engine. ‘Fritz Woestyn. This is where he was found.’ He pointed towards a bleak stretch of sand. The ridge of an old railway was visible in places where the water had churned and frothed in the riverbed, desperate to reach the sea.

  ‘Who found him?’

  ‘Pipeline maintenance. There was a leak and they came out to check. They found Fritz staring up at the sky with a hole in his head. Van Wyk was on duty. He came out.’

  ‘Saturday’s Child. Where exactly?’

  ‘Under that big tree.’ Karamata pointed to a spreading acacia.

  ‘Tied up?’

  ‘Curled up in a piece of cloth. His hands had been tied, but the rope had been cut through, like with Kaiser.’ Clare knelt down in front of the tree, photograph in hand. She traced the area where his head had lolled sideward. The bark was rough, pitted with age and heat.

  ‘You got the autopsy photographs there?’ she asked.

  Karamata handed her the gory close-ups. Bare feet, calloused hands. She flicked through until she came to the close-ups of the bullet wounds. The bloom on his forehead was clear, the petals of crusted blood and bone delicate around the dark centre. The back of the child’s head was intact.

  ‘No exit wound?’ asked Clare. ‘So the bullet was still in the brain. I haven’t seen anything for ballistics. The autopsy?’ Clare knew what the answer would be; Helena Kotze had said that it had been cursory. So cursory that a bullet in the brain went undetected.

  ‘Not detailed,’ said Karamata. ‘Just enough to give a cause of death. Gunshot wound, easy. He was buried three days after he was found.’

  ‘Why?’ Clare tried to hide her frustration.

  ‘The head of cleansing ordered that the city pay for all the paupers’ funerals.’

  ‘Calvin Goagab?’

  ‘That’s him,’ said Karamata.

  ‘Generous.’

  ‘The state morgue is always full these days. Families can’t afford to bury their loved ones, and then the cooling systems broke down. The mayor is a practical man, so he went along with Goagab’s request to clear the backlog and get everyone buried. It had been ordered before the murder. Fritz Woestyn just happened to benefit from it.’

  ‘Captain Damases went along with it?’ asked Clare.

  ‘She was on sick leave,’ said Karamata. ‘Complications with her pregnancy. The case was with Van Wyk.’

  ‘Burying murder victims,’ said Clare, standing up. ‘It’s a novel way of getting rid of a caseload.’

  ‘I don’t know if this stuff seems worthwhile to him,’ said Karamata, opening a packet of biltong.

  ‘Murder?’

  ‘Street children. There are so many now. He says it’s just Aids orphans; that they’re going to die anyway. A lot of people think like that.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I’m a policeman,’ said Karamata. ‘I don’t think about it. I do my job. To me a life is a life. I was like those boys once. Just a piece of rubbish.’ His eyes were so dark it was impossible to read any expression in them. ‘And now look.’

  seventeen

  The sun, all day a hot, unseeing eye behind the fog, was sinking towards the sea when Tamar Damases switched off her computer and stood up, arching her back. She couldn’t find any pattern in the dates on which the ships had docked in Walvis Bay Harbour and when her three boys – how she was starting to think of them, her three dead boys – disappeared.

  Her own baby kicked, one tiny protesting foot bulging the tight drum of her belly. She put her hand there, feeling the foetus glide away from her touch, safe in its dark, secret world. From the parking lot outside came snatches of shouted conversations, arrangements to have a beer, talk about a soccer practice, the night shift arriving. It was time for Tamar to steel herself for her own long night-shift.

  She straightened her desk and rinsed the teacups, ready for tomorrow. She had never liked the thought of the night peering in at the windows, so she closed the curtains. She picked up her
handbag and the groceries she had bought at lunch time. The hard-earned package from the chemist was tucked deep in her jacket pocket. It cost her a substantial chunk of her salary. She felt for it again, like an anxious passenger checking their passport, their ticket, just to make sure.

  Tamar locked her office door behind her. Karamata was out in the Namib with Clare. There was no sign of Van Wyk. She went through to the special ops room where a light was burning. There was a scarlet pashmina tossed over the back of Clare’s chair. Tamar picked it up and folded it before sitting down.

  She considered the boys from Clare’s perspective: Monday’s Child. Wednesday’s Child. And Saturday’s. Three ephemeral children who had slipped into the river of life with barely a splash. Who would have sunk without a trace if Tamar had not reached out for their spectral hands. She held out her own hands now, in front of the desk lamp. They cast a startling silhouette across the display. Tamar read Clare’s notes. First about place, of the crime scenes virtually devoid of physical evidence. They would be; the bodies had been moved and deliberately displayed.

  She thought of the bodies, of the boys they had been, wondering about this killer who managed to pick up his victims without witness, without leaving a ripple of anxiety. In such a small town, why did no one notice someone away for hours and days on end? Unless it was someone who was working shifts. Someone who could be all over the place, no questions asked. On the ships, in the factories, in the bars, a truck driver passing back and forth, ferrying goods. The silhouette of a killer, just the shadow of a man on a blank wall. Malevolent, shifting, shape-shifting, like a Javanese shadow-puppet theatre. Tamar thought of this figure moving unseen through the fog and she shivered. Who? Why? And where? The questions beat an urgent rhythm.

  A siren wailed, insistent as a hungry baby. It was time to get on to her next shift.

  Tamar found her niece leaning against the wall outside her day-care centre.

  ‘What are you doing out here, Angela?’ she asked.

  ‘The other children …’ The little girl’s eyes glittered with tears.

  Tamar put the sobbing child into the back seat of her car and strapped her in, feeling once again for the package of ARVs in her pocket. Her talisman. She drove home fast, relief flooding her when she realised that Tupac, her nephew, only eleven, had already cooked the macaroni.

  She held Angela in her arms and coaxed five, then six, then seven, slow, painful spoons of buttered pasta into the child’s mouth. The boy hovered on the kitchen steps, staring into the darkness. When Tamar thought it was enough, she took her precious package from her pocket and counted out the pills into a Mickey Mouse saucer which Tupac had put out.

  Angela pressed her lips together and closed her eyes, but the tears seeped out anyway. They made her feel so sick, the pills. Tupac knelt down beside her, his thin brown hands cupping her face.

  ‘Please, Angela,’ he said. ‘You’re a dancer. You can do anything.’

  Nothing.

  ‘Take them for me.’ Desperation edged his voice. ‘I’ll tell you a story later.’

  Angela opened her eyes. ‘About Mommy?’

  Tupac was quick. He popped a tablet in and held her mouth closed. ‘About her and the day you had your first dance class,’ said Tupac.

  Angela swallowed. Tamar breathed.

  ‘Here. Just three more.’

  ‘Tell me about what she said about me.’

  Tupac popped the pills into her mouth, like coins into a slot machine. Tamar was not religious, but she was praying that the expensive drugs would repel the virus that had prowled Angela’s blood since her birth, the virus that had wrested the life from her plump, laughing, fecund sister five years ago.

  She put the little girl to bed and helped her arrange her princess puppet. The child had given her a doek, so that the shadow looked like her mother leaning over the bed, always just about to kiss her.

  Tupac lay down next to his sister.

  ‘They wouldn’t play with me today,’ Angela told him. ‘The other children, they say I’m dirty and that I’ll make them sick. Will you get them?’

  ‘I’ll get them.’ Tupac had defended his baby sister since their mother had died the previous year. ‘But first let me tell you a story.’

  Tamar closed the door on his once-upon-a-time. It was always the same story: a little girl and a mother who didn’t really die, who just went away somewhere for a while, who was coming back.

  She went to lie on her bed, too tired to eat or change. It was quiet on the edge of the desert when the children stopped murmuring. From far away came the cry of a jackal; further away the answering call of its mate. Tamar folded her fingers over her belly.

  Her child might be fatherless, but it was safe.

  eighteen

  Ragnar Johansson was hesitating between two blue shirts. Clare Hart, she made him worry which near-identical shade would be best. He chose the darker of the two, walked over to his apartment window and did up the buttons, looking out at the emptied street. The night had settled in, but he could still make out the cranes offloading the trawlers that had berthed that afternoon. The girls would be busy already. It was eight-thirty and cold out, but Ragnar Johansson decided to walk. He liked the fog. It blocked out the flat desert lines of Walvis Bay, let him pretend that he was somewhere else, not immured here at the arse end of the world, no better off than when he arrived. The security gate rattled shut behind him as he strode towards the lagoon.

  Clare was easy to find in the deserted holiday complex. Hers was the only cottage spilling light onto the worn grass, as she had not closed her curtains. Ragnar stopped beyond the pool of light to watch her through the open window. She had her back to him and he could see the curve of her waist, the slim hips in faded jeans. She slipped her hands under her hair and twisted her hair up, exposing the nape of her neck. She pinned up the thick coil, then turned and looked out into the blackness. Wary as a gazelle. Ragnar lit a cigarette, ignoring a tug of desire. When he had finished smoking, he went across the dark garden and knocked. She opened the door, standing aside so that he could enter.

  ‘Hello, Clare.’

  ‘How are you?’ She closed the door behind him.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ said Ragnar.

  ‘You were watching me.’

  ‘How did you guess?’ Ragnar kissed her cheek. ‘Same perfume.’

  ‘No. 19.’ Clare picked up her jacket and they walked along the water’s edge, immediately falling into step. They had been easy together, physically. She let him take her arm, glad to put the day behind her.

  ‘What happened to your boat?’ she asked.

  ‘Money’s tight. Had to sell it.’ Ragnar could taste the bitterness of failure on his tongue.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ said Clare, walking up the steps to the Raft.

  The restaurant was built on stilts against which the lagoon’s dark water lapped. It was usually frequented by tourists or locals celebrating rare special occasions. Tonight, the candlelit tables were mostly empty.

  ‘You didn’t stay in touch, did you?’ said Ragnar.

  ‘I never said I would.’

  A waitress showed them to a window table, the lights rippling on the lagoon beneath them. The lighthouse at Pelican Point pulsed on the horizon.

  ‘What are you doing now?’ Clare asked. ‘I can’t imagine you without your boat.’

  ‘Lots of kite-boarding, a little consulting for the mayor and his team. I just got a new ship to skipper, the Alhantra,’ said Ragnar. ‘And a licence for orange roughy. Very popular in the US and in Spain. Expensive, so worth fishing. Tonight can be a celebration, if you like. That and seeing you again.’

  The waitress brought the wine and bread. Ragnar poured.

  ‘It didn’t take you long to track me down,’ said Clare.

  ‘A single woman under two hundred and fifty pounds is always news in Walvis Bay.’

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Who told you? I can’t believe that your nearly running me over was
a coincidence.’

  ‘Actually, that was,’ said Ragnar. ‘But Calvin Goagab had told me you were here. I saw him yesterday afternoon. After you’d been there. There’s official concern about this incident, about what it’ll do to tourism here.’

  ‘What about official concern about finding who hung a child’s body in a playground?’ Clare bristled.

  ‘Oh, there is, but this is a port.’ Ragnar leant towards her. ‘Goagab’s saying that what they found in that playground was just a quick midnight transaction gone wrong. Whoever did it was back on board ship before the body was discovered.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Unrelated probably,’ said Ragnar. ‘Captain Damases is inclined to jump to conclusions.’

  The waitress arrived with their food, before Clare could respond.

  ‘You did well with that documentary.’ Ragnar noted the flare of anger in her eyes and changed the direction of the conversation.

  ‘It worked,’ said Clare.

  ‘You made some people uncomfortable.’

  ‘Good,’ said Clare. ‘I meant to.’

  ‘Some quite influential people, Clare. People lost money. A lot of money. Goagab was one of them.’

  ‘You too?’ asked Clare.

  ‘That’s not what I lost when you left.’ He took her hand, turning it over and running his thumb over the vein pulsing in her wrist.

  ‘Let’s not go there, Ragnar,’ said Clare, withdrawing her hand to pick up her wine glass. The nights they had spent alone together up the Skeleton Coast … she would had to have been an ice queen to resist him.

  Ragnar let it go, and they ate their meals without further conflict. They talked of people Clare had met on her last visit: who’d made money; who hadn’t. The bill arrived and Clare reached for her purse.

  ‘Let me get this.’ Ragnar put his hand over hers. ‘If you owe me I’ll be sure of having dinner with you again.’

  ‘I’m finessed then,’ Clare smiled.

  ‘Shall we get a brandy?’ asked Ragnar as they stepped outside into the cold wind.