Clare slipped around the side of the building. A path led down to the road, the one that Rosa had walked that dark night not too long ago. She looked up at the mountains, gilded by the low solstice sun. Wednesday would be the tipping point, the sun at its lowest point in the sky. In two days time light and warmth would slowly begin to return to the Cape. Right now, though, with Cwele hunting for her, it was not hard to imagine herself in Rosas position.
54
The plane was on the tarmac, the doors still open, flurries of icy air laden with fumes. Riedwaan looked around him. The cabin was filled with cops. You could smell them, Axe deodorant, shaving cream, braais they had had with their families, the sweat that comes with an old plane in a storm at the start of a runway.
The ground crew was scurrying under the fuselage; it was clear that theyd still be sitting for a while.
Clare wasnt calling him back.
He looked out of the window. Storm clouds swirled around Table Mountain and the granite spine that led all the way to Hout Bay and the tip of the peninsula.
He thought about the baby. About the shutdown in Clares heart. He knew the reason: a reluctant twin, shed fought all her life to be separate. For Clare, this would mean the end of that.
Riedwaan closed his eyes. Shut out the hard-eyed, sunburnt men and their familiar complaints, their stories about the old days, a time when the Economic Stability Unit was still called the Riot Squad and the Constitution hadnt fucked up law and order and the cops right to sort shit out. Their silent, gaping audience was a group of raw recruits from the Flats Mandelas Children, the generation born into post-94 democracy.
A Cape Times lay on the floor, the front page aflame with reports of riots, falling share prices. Thats why he was on this fucking plane, sitting between men whose trigger fingers were itchy. His phone flashed. He opened Clares message terse yet tender.
He put the phone back in his pocket, thinking about how to reply when it rang, a muffled buzz against his heart. He answered without checking who was calling.
Faizal, turning away from the man sitting next to him.
Im so sorry, Captain.
It was the sweet-faced hospice nurse. Khadija. That was her name. He could picture the brisk little badge on her left breast. But he knew what was coming; her tone was too gentle.
Its your mother. If you can come now, Captain.
Tell her, said Riedwaan, the burn in his chest making him want to hit someone, tell her Im coming.
He was unbuckling his seat belt, standing up, and grabbing his hold-all.
Sit the fuck down, Faizal, ordered the Economic Stability Units commanding officer; thin, blond, with Klipdrift-bloodshot eyes, he was coming at him down the narrow passage.
This planes taking off, man, he shouted.
Without me, said Riedwaan.
The officer pushed him back towards his seat; Riedwaan dropped his bag but kept his balance. Then he had him by the front of his officers uniform. The engines were revving. The officer saw the look in Riedwaans eye. He hadnt survived this long in the police by fighting for principle. But here was a situation where he could hand his boss a wanted mans head on a platter.
Im not going to stop you. The officer smiled a Judas smile. But you step off this plane, youre disobeying orders, and Im taking that as you handing in your resignation, Faizal.
Take it any way you want. Riedwaan let him go, wiped his hand on his trousers. He shouldered the bag and pushed past the officer. There was a widening gap between the stairs and the plane, but Riedwaan jumped, ran down the steps and crossed the wet tarmac.
The officer stalked back to his seat, saw Riedwaans cellphone flashing on the floor where it had fallen. He stamped on it, crushing the phone underfoot.
55
Rosa. Clare could imagine how she had felt. Money small compensation for the shame. Her skin burning. The loathing, the nausea setting in. Hiding herself in the shadows under the avenue of trees.
The pavement was broad and leafy, the path alongside marked with regular piles of horse dung. Apart from the distant thrum of a lawnmower, all was quiet. This road, Clare knew, meandered up towards Orange Kloof. Further along, there was a short-cut across the Disa River, which led to the music college and Handel House.
At the end of the road was Sylvan Estate and the house where Rosa had made her last phone call. There were few exits along the road skirting the mountain to her left, other than turn-offs to secured estates. The road curved towards the river, and Clare could no longer see the garage where the Pajero had parked. She breathed easier for it.
She kept going, a kilometre or two, imagining Rosa seeking shelter. She arrived at the vanishing point, a steel pole with its facial recognition camera the latest anti-crime deterrent in Hout Bay. Clare looked up at it, imagined its electronic eye scanning her face, transmitting her image to the Mountain Men computers.
Clare called Mandla Njobe again. Youre picking me up on your monitors?
I see you, Doc, he said. Sharp and clear.
And if it was night? asked Clare.
Wed still see you, said Mandla. It wouldnt be as clear, but if she was as close as you are, thered be enough street light for a shot.
So youre saying Rosa didnt make it as far as this?
Thats right, said Mandla.
How far can the cameras eye see? asked Clare.
In the daytime, couple of hundred metres, easy, said Mandla. The one nearer the garage the same. Less at night, though. But Doc
What is it?
You be careful. The mountains not safe that side.
Im walking down a road in broad daylight, Mandla. If theres something there, Ill call you. If theres nothing, Im going home, said Clare. Ill be fine.
Captain Faizal asked me to watch out for you for a while.
Thats sweet of him, said Clare, unable to contain her irritation. But I can look after myself, thank you.
Clare looked back at the way she had walked, the bend in the road that hid the garage from view. If the distance between the surveillance cameras was greater than a kilometre or so, there had to be a blind spot. If Rosa never got this far, where did she go?
Clare turned, walked back slowly, concentrating on places where she may have hidden her unwieldy cello case. A couple of copses of trees, the undergrowth dense. But there was no sign of disturbance. Clare retraced her steps. Further down, a footpath leading towards a house set back in the trees, but it was blocked off by coils of razor wire. A bit further on a disused driveway, the gate and the wall topped with electric fencing.
Again, no sign of disturbance. Certainly no sign of the cello case.
She was another hundred metres down the road when she noticed the sign, partially obscured by a tree. The faded face of the tear-stained bokkie, warning hikers not to start mountain fires. Clare stopped. The sign marked the end of the contour path. A notice pasted onto the sign: Private: No access for horses.
Below it was a new gate, securely padlocked, but there was a narrow pedestrian entrance. Clare looked up the winding path. She opened the map; the path was marked. It led up to the Back Table, a vast swathe of land between Hout Bay and the Table Mountain that tourists knew, with its flat top and expressionless stone face. It was probably not the dark Rosa feared so much as people. Clare imagined the silence of the mountain, broken only by the distant sound of running water, beckoning. If Rosa had taken this route it would explain why she never appeared on the next camera.
Clare walked up the path. It was overgrown, but not unused. It wouldnt be easy to carry a cello case up here, but not impossible. She walked on, looking for a place where Rosa may have stopped, may perhaps have hidden the instrument.
But there was nothing. The path took Clare to the place, skirting Savićs electric fence, where Mandla had found Wewerss nocturnal picnic site. Sylvan Estate was below, and the house where Rosas blood streaked the wall.
Clare tried to call Ina Britz, but all she got was voicemail. She tried Mandla Njobe, but the reception h
ad dropped. She sent a message instead and, after a moments consideration, she sent one to Riedwaan too, saying that she was tracking Rosas last known movements. There would be a bar or two at some point, and she trusted that the messages would be sent.
Clare pushed on along the path. It took her up the steep pitch of the mountain. The path forked above Sylvan Estate.
She checked her map again. The fork was not marked. Had Rosa walked this way, her cello strapped to her back? Tough going a desperate measure, perhaps, on a dark road late at night. Clare looked back. She could see the road to the KwikShop below, glimpsed the black Pajero cruising along the treed avenue. The car stopped, just shy of the spot where she had turned off the road.
Cwele, his window down, hunting.
For her.
Clare wiped her face. She was sweating, despite the chill air.
But she couldnt go back. Not yet. Not with Cwele getting out of his vehicle, walking towards the KwikShop.
Clare looked up the overgrown, unmapped path that led up the mountain. Rosa could as easily have stumbled across Wewers, or someone like him, someone worse. She checked her phone; still no reception. The vast silence of the cloud-wreathed peaks behind her seemed to urge her to turn and walk back, get help. Mandla Njobe, thats who she needed. She considered getting back-up, but another vehicle was pulling in behind the Pajero. Uniformed officers. If she went back now theyd see her, and her chance to retrace Rosas footsteps would be lost.
She pressed on up the mountain.
The trees soon swallowed her. The valley, the estate, the fishing village, the traffic it was all behind her. The fallen needles on the wet earth absorbed the sound of her footsteps. Apart from the drip of water from the trees, there was no sound or movement. Her only sensation was the tang of her own sweat as she licked her lip. She stopped. Above her, Judas Peak and the cold, dark sweep of the pine forests. The roar of the waterfall was audible even here, the water cascading down smooth rocks and whirling white and dangerous downhill to swell the already bursting Disa River.
She looked down. Mist shrouded the trees. Fingers of light touched the old farmhouse at the bottom of the valley. A child following behind a woman bending down to the earth.
Paradys.
The place where Rosa had sought peace, sanctuary.
Clares unease was strengthening, but the boy had stopped to look up at her. His mother followed his gaze. She put her hand over her eyes and looked up at Clare. The child waved at her, his arm jerky. Clare hesitated a moment, then she followed the path down to Paradys.
56
Riedwaan pushed open the dingy doors of the hospice. His mothers room was quiet; the young nurse was at her bedside, the matron too. They both stepped back. Riedwaan walked over to his mothers bedside. His mother looked up at him, unblinking as she had when hed stayed out too long as a boy.
He put his hand over her face and closed her eyes and his mother was gone for ever.
Im so sorry for your loss, Captain Faizal, said the nurse, pulling the clean white sheet up over the body. Riedwaan turned towards a window streaked with rain that seemed to dissolve the modest houses beyond the fence.
Sometimes death is a release. The nurse rested a hand on his arm, a cheap engagement ring on her second finger.
When we went in to give her breakfast she had passed. She looked very peaceful.
All dead people look peaceful, said Riedwaan. Thats the way the dead are.
For the funeral arrangement. She gave him the undertakers card: Muslim Burial Society. Riedwaan turned it over and read the inscription on the back. Every soul will taste Death.
Wanie. His mothers nickname for him echoed through his thoughts. After that, the silence between him and his mother was complete. He leaned his head against the window, grateful for the coolness of the glass.
Riedwaan looked at the jumble of numbers on the undertakers card. Theyd make sense once hed punched them into his phone, which he was reaching for in his breast pocket. Nothing there. Not in his jeans pocket either. Must be thirty thousand feet above sea level, on its way to Johannesburg. Fuck. He hit his forehead against the window frame. Fuck.
He opened the drawer beside his mothers bed. Tissues, a dog-eared photograph of Riedwaans father, old copies of YOU magazine and the Quran. The cellphone he had bought her lay there, tucked under the Arabic verses shed tried so hard to read ever since going on Hajj with his father.
The phone was dead, but he plugged in the charger and the little Nokia flickered to life. Riedwaan wanted Clare to say goodbye to his mother. He wanted her there with him. But she wasnt picking up. Not at work, not at home, not her mobile.
Wanie, boy. Riedwaan took a while to realise that someone was calling him. It was his uncle, older than him by thirty years, but turning to him to make the decisions. The time, the mosque for the funeral prayer, the graveyard.
Wanie, tell us what you want. The family is gathering at your home in preparation for your mothers Janazah.
The funeral rite. The decisions to be made within an hour of the passing, the body to be buried before the end of the day. Riedwaan, the oldest and only son, must see to the arrangements, the comforting, numbing rituals a path trodden by many down the centuries. There was a body to be washed, there were prayers to be said, so that an old woman could be bedded down under the earth before sunset.
Riedwaan dialled the Imams number and the days inevitable events were set in motion.
57
The skies were lowering and it was starting to rain when Clare reached the woman and boy in the vegetable garden. Nancy Stern, watchful, drew the child towards her as Clare approached.
Hello, Im still trying to find Rosa Wagner, said Clare. She was seen at the KwikShop three weeks ago, and I think she may have been headed back here.
Nobody comes this way unless they have a purpose, said Nancy Stern. Youve already asked us, anyway. We havent seen her again.
The boy twisted a little, looked up at Clare. His mother settled a firm hand on his shoulder.
Maybe you saw her, Isaac?
The child glanced from his mother to Clare, shook his head wordlessly.
We already told you all we know, said Nancy Stern. Were quite alone up here, as you can see. And you must know that its not safe to walk alone on this part of the mountain.
I still think she may have tried to come this way, said Clare. She was up at the castle. Something happened to her there, it distressed her terribly.
Milan Savić. There was ice in Nancy Sterns voice. We lived here in peace until he came. He has brought the evil of the world to our valley.
What evil do you mean?
His men walk through our land, said Nancy Stern. We see them going up towards the mountain. Theyre from Hangberg. Tattoos on their bodies, nothing in their eyes, nothing in their souls. We used to have peace here. Till they came, carrying those loads on their backs. Weve seen them.
The drizzle was turning into cold, hard rain.
Lets go inside, Dr Hart. Tell me what you know, and I will try to help you.
She led the way up the steps and opened the kitchen door.
We leave our shoes out here, she said, slipping off her boots and putting them on a shelf on the back stoep. Clare did the same. Her socks were wet, so she took them off too. The flagstones were cold, but the wooden floor of the kitchen was better and the Aga emitted a welcome heat.
There were three plates on the kitchen table, with a half-slice of buttered bread on one, though the house was utterly silent.
Your husbands out?
Youd have seen him if youd driven up. He went down for supplies, said Nancy Stern, busying herself with the kettle. We were running short of a few things, its been hard to get down the road.
She set out a teapot, two pretty floral cups. She put out a mug for the boy. His beanie was pulled low over his ears. He watched as his mother poured tea and handed Clare a cup, accepting his own in silence.
Three weeks ago, Rosa was at the castle. She did a p
erformance
If you can call it that, interjected Nancy.
Any idea what they do up there?
Of course I know, how can I not know? Its an abomination.
Did Rosa tell you?
Nancy shook her head, sipped her tea.
Who, then?
You hear things, you know.
Clare put her cup down.
Rosa was last seen at the KwikShop down the valley, then she walked out into the night and simply vanished, said Clare. I think she might have tried to come here.
Seeking sanctuary, said Nancy Stern.
She never arrived?
A door slammed somewhere inside the house and the little boy jumped.
Its the wind, said his mother, instructing him, go close the windows in your fathers study.
The child slid off his chair and disappeared into the house.
This is not a safe country for girls, Dr Hart, said Nancy. You of all people should know this. There are few places that welcome women with open arms. Just look at that mountain.
The mist was pushing against the window, Judas Peak just visible above.
There are endless places there to lose a girl. Or her body. All those crevasses, the tunnel.
But the tunnel runs the other way, said Clare. From Hells Gate down to Camps Bay. It takes drinking water down from the dams.
Theres an older one too. The Woodhead Tunnel. It was bricked up because it was dry. Dangerous. Nancy Stern pursed her lips. My husband followed those men up there one day. They carry the stuff down into Camps Bay. Drugs, you know. Stuff that delivers people to the devil.
Dealers avoiding roadblocks on routes leading out of Hout Bay. Clares stomach lurched at the thought of Rosa encountering one of them on the mountain.
Nancy Stern threw Clare a quizzical glance. Did you not arrest one of those men?
Excuse me. Can I use your bathroom? asked Clare, the tea rising in the back of her throat.
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