“I genuinely don’t know.”
“You were supposed to be looking after her,” Reggie erupted when he overheard Elroy’s words, “but now no one knows anything. You’re a worthless piece of shit.”
Elroy got up and left the room.
Next Ellie spoke to two of Clara’s cousins. They refused to surrender their cellphones, but agreed to show Ellie Clara’s WhatsApp messages from the past week.
This is madness. I’m going crazy. Being kept prisoner.
Shoot tomrow. Going to bed now. Nite nite. Thnks for being there for me.
Why am I being punished for loving a man? Where’s the sin in that?
Plse talk to Uncle. I need 2 see Enzio. Some of my stuff’s still there.
Sorry, love, so absorbed in own stuff. How was the date? Seeing him again?
Fantastic. Hope he makes u happy. Don’t be 2 easy tho. Let him work for what he wants. LOL
Where do they find time to work, Ellie wondered. The stream of information going back and forth every day was astonishing. One of the cousins fetched Clara’s hairbrush.
Ellie was just leaving when Mavis Williams and her sister, Sally Veldman, walked through the door.
Mavis came towards her, her hand outstretched.
“Miss McKenna, so good to see you.”
“I’m very sorry about the circumstances, Mrs Williams.”
Mavis took her sister’s arm. “Have you met my sister?”
Ellie nodded. “We met here a few months ago and we saw each other briefly the other day. I’m glad you’re here. If it’s not a bad time, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“I’m a little tired,” Sally said, averting her eyes.
Mavis Williams put her arm around her sister’s shoulders. “Sally, Miss McKenna is trying to help find Clara. I’ll make some tea. I’m sure she won’t keep you long. And Nazeem can stay with you.”
They sat down.
“When was the last time you saw Clara?”
“I don’t remember exactly. I think about a month ago. She came home for the weekend.”
“Do you still live in Gansbaai?”
“Yes.”
“She once mentioned that she has two brothers. How old are they, and do they live at home?”
“Seventeen and twenty and they live with me. They’re good boys.”
“Do you know when last they spoke to Clara?”
“I don’t know. I’m quite busy myself.”
“Do you have a good relationship with Clara?”
Sally Veldman kept her hands in her lap and looked away. “Clara isn’t always easy to get along with, but she’s my only daughter.” She wiped her cheek with her hand.
“Did she happen to say anything about people following her, or mention being afraid?”
“We don’t speak every day. And I don’t know if she’d tell me that kind of thing.”
Ellie thought she heard a sharp tone in the woman’s voice. There was a noticeable stiffness in her face when she gave Nazeem Williams a sidelong glance.
Mavis entered with a tea tray and her husband got up to take it from her. He held the tray for Ellie. She added milk to her tea and helped herself to a koeksister. Mavis Williams wasn’t just a good cook, she was also a first-class baker.
“Did you tell Miss McKenna Clara has been looking for her?”
Her husband nodded.
“She’s very fond of you. She was quite impossible after you left.”
Ellie didn’t try to explain again.
“Mrs Veldman, can you think of anyone Clara recently fell out with? Anything could help.”
“She’s been independent and stubborn from a young age. Always wanted to sort out her problems on her own. I remember when she was ten, there was a boy at school who teased her every day about her father leaving home. One day she waited for him after school and hit him on the head with her satchel. Gave him a concussion.” She gave a slight smile.
“Does she often come home to visit?”
Again the sidelong glance at Nazeem. “She’s very busy these days.”
Ellie was tempted to smile. She’d heard it so often before. A parent’s instinct to protect her child. She wondered what her mother’s answer would be to questions like these. She took a card from her handbag. “If you think of anything that could help, please phone me.”
Sally took the card, glanced at it and put it on the table beside her.
Ellie turned to Mavis. “The same goes for you, if you remember anything that happened recently that could be linked to this business.”
Mavis promised to think it over and let her know.
Ellie got up when her cup was empty and said goodbye to the two women. Mavis told her there was a packet of koeksisters for her on the dining-room table.
“If I lived in this house, I’d be round as a ball. Thank you very much.”
Williams walked her to the front gate. Ellie decided to risk another question.
“Is there anything Clara’s mother didn’t tell me?”
“They don’t always get along, but I think the rest was more or less the truth.”
“Does Mrs Veldman have a job?”
“She sometimes works for me.”
“And Clara’s brothers?”
“The eldest works for me. The younger one is still at school. He’s a smart boy. We’d like him to finish matric and go on to study. He wants to be a lawyer.”
They said goodbye at the gate.
In the car, she put the plastic bag with Clara’s hairbrush in it in her handbag.
Driving away, she took a few deep breaths and felt her shoulders relax.
She stopped at a traffic light and thought about everything she’d heard. Everyone had his or her own agenda. Everyone was trying to protect something. A relationship, a connection, a business deal. Maybe she was naive to think she could make a difference. Maybe it was a mistake to believe that everyone wanted Clara back as much as she did.
Pedestrians crossed the street in front of her. So many people living on top of each other. No wonder there was so much aggression.
She thought of Clara’s brother, already working for Williams at the age of twenty. She hadn’t asked what he did. Whatever it was, his path was laid out for him and it would probably take a miracle to make him stray from it.
The first time she had met Sally Veldman, the woman had seemed quiet and withdrawn. Almost a little pathetic. She had been surprised today to catch a glimpse of irritation. Like a light switch flicked on and off. Families … Problematic family dynamics were everywhere, crossing all economic and social borders.
The light turned green and she pulled away. It was Friday afternoon and the roads were the usual nightmare, with everyone in a hurry to start the weekend.
Later, when she was asked about it, she wasn’t sure whether she had first seen the movement from the corner of her eye or heard the crash. She became aware of an acute pain in her neck and immediately afterwards she felt, or heard, the airbag inflate against her body. The world turned black, but she soon realised it was because of the airbag. She was conscious. She felt every rotation of the car as it spun out of control. She didn’t pray and she didn’t scream. The only sound came from the radio, playing a number by the Parlotones.
And if the karma patrol take control, I’m gonna be in trouble. And if the moral police asks for receipts, I’m gonna burst their bubble …
The car rocked to a standstill.
I played the devil’s advocate, I played into his hands. I played the fool, I played the fire, I played the victim’s hand …
CHAPTER 17
Ellie remained seated while the airbag slowly deflated. She heard someone tugging at the door on her side and she groped for the catch to unlock it. The seatbelt held her back. When she finally managed to unlock the door, a man and a woman leaned over her.
“Are you okay?”
“Are you hurt? I can’t believe you’re alive. That was a hell of a crash.”
She shoo
k her head. “I’m all right. I just can’t seem to undo my seatbelt.”
The man leaned in and Ellie felt the belt slacken. “Thanks.” She tried to get out of the car.
“I don’t think you should get out. Given the speed at which the other vehicle rammed you, you must be hurt. We’ve already called the police and an ambulance.”
“The other people …”
“The car took off. We couldn’t see how many people were inside, but if they could drive away after a crash like that I don’t suppose they were injured.”
“What kind of car was it?”
The woman looked at the man.
“An oldish Mercedes-Benz,” he answered. “White. Like the ones hijackers use to ram the security companies’ armoured vans.”
“How do you know that?” the woman asked.
“I read the papers.”
Ellie searched for her cellphone. The man found it under her seat. Then she heard the siren of the approaching ambulance and moments later it drew up behind her car. Two paramedics hurried towards her. Before they could reach her, two tow trucks skidded to a halt in front of her, followed by a police car.
The two eyewitnesses were keen to explain what they had seen, but the paramedics bent over her first.
She answered their questions and tried to protest when they said they were taking her to hospital for a proper examination, to be on the safe side. A policeman appeared behind them and the eyewitnesses got their chance to explain how the vehicle had run the red light and crashed into the car ahead of them.
“It was a hell of a crash,” the man repeated.
Ellie listened with half an ear. She wanted to get away as soon as possible. Her head ached and she didn’t feel up to answering a string of questions.
The paramedics carefully reclined her seat to slide a stretcher underneath her, and carried her to the waiting ambulance, where they allowed the policeman to ask a few questions. Ellie produced her identification card and promised to contact the station to answer any further questions.
The tow-truck drivers were anxiously pacing up and down. Both made promises of good service at a reasonable rate and Ellie nodded at the one closest to her. She gave him a card and asked him to let her know where they had taken her car.
Half an hour later she was in a hospital bed at the Cape Town Mediclinic. A young doctor was examining her. In spite of her assurances that she felt fine, he insisted on having X-rays taken of her neck and back, as well as a brain scan – in case there was swelling that a normal examination couldn’t pick up.
Ellie felt like telling him that he’d scratch around there at his own risk.
While she was being pushed to the radiology department on a trolley, a sister asked if they could phone her people.
Her people. An interesting but faceless term. Who, exactly, were her people?
Her first instinct was to say she had no people, but she knew someone would have to come and pick her up. Melissa’s was the first name to come to her, but Melissa would insist on taking her home and making sure she was really unharmed. She had no time to sit around at Melissa’s. She had to get back to Milnerton in the shortest possible time. Her dad had always said a good cop doesn’t believe in coincidence. This afternoon had been a message. Two centimetres to the left or the right and she might not have been here to decipher it, but here she was. Clive would most likely make a fuss. That was why she had to get to the office. She needed Clive to see that there was nothing wrong with her.
“When we’re done, I’ll phone someone to come and fetch me.”
“I don’t think the doctor will discharge you today.”
“Let’s wait and see.” Ellie closed her eyes. Some people were brave when they were surrounded by others. She had learnt early on that she was bravest on her own. With no one nearby to lend a hand.
At the Allegretti home, Nick was pacing the floor. McKenna should have been here by now. He was on the point of dialling her number again when his phone rang and he saw it was her.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Where are you?”
“Still waiting for you at Allegretti’s house,” he said.
“Someone crashed into my car. Can you fetch me?”
“Where are you?”
“The Mediclinic in Gardens. Hof Street. Casualty ward.”
“I’m on my way.”
Hurrying to his bakkie, he was aware that the prickly feeling in his neck was back. This time it moved to the pit of his stomach. As Nols used to say, a shitstorm was brewing.
At the hospital, he parked on a red line, got out, and flashed his police ID at the security guard. He took the stairs two at a time and asked the receptionist for directions to Casualty.
She wasn’t in the waiting room, but the admissions clerk pointed at a door.
Ellie was sitting on an examination bed. A nurse was fitting her with a neck brace.
“She’s a difficult one. If I hadn’t stopped her, she’d have walked out of here by now.”
Ellie smiled stiffly and rolled her eyes. “The doctor said I could go home.”
“Yes, but he also said someone has to stay with you for at least the first twenty-four hours. And you have to wear the neck brace for at least two days – take it off only to shower, and put it straight back on afterwards.”
“I’ll take her home and stay with her,” Nick said.
Ellie was too quick for the nurse, who tried to help her get off the bed. She got up so suddenly that she had to stand still for a moment. Nick realised that she was trying to hide a dizzy spell. She blinked a few times and walked out ahead of him, holding herself very erect.
As Nick was helping her into the bakkie, Ellie thanked him for coming to fetch her.
“What happened?”
“A car ran the red light and drove into me.”
“What happened to the driver?”
“Hit and run.” Ellie tried to keep her voice as even as possible.
“Any eyewitnesses? Did anyone see a registration number?”
“The two people driving behind me gave a statement, but they didn’t see the number. Just said it was an oldish white Mercedes.”
He closed the passenger door, walked around the car and got in behind the wheel.
Ellie stifled a groan as she tried to fasten her seatbelt. The bloody airbag had cracked or at least bruised a few of her ribs. Nick leaned over, pulled the belt across and fastened it.
She waited until they were turning into the street. “I was at Williams’s place. On my way back I noticed the white Mercedes a few cars behind me. It stayed behind me for quite a while but there were always other vehicles between us. I only noticed it because it ran a red light and another driver leaned on his hooter. But then it disappeared and I didn’t give it another thought. The next moment something hit me. I suppose it could be a coincidence that it was also an oldish white Mercedes.”
“Hmm … too many coincidences for my liking.”
She said nothing more.
“Tell me what happened at Williams’s house.”
She told him about the conversations she’d had.
“Does he suspect his own people?”
“I didn’t get a chance to speak to him alone. I think it would be better if we could meet somewhere else. The walls have ears in that house; you never know who’s listening.”
“What happened to that nephew of his who used to hang around the club and was waiting for us with Greyling that night?”
“Reggie’s still there.”
“Don’t trust him.”
“What makes you say that?” she asked.
“I saw him at the club, the night they shot at us. He’s got a thing for Clara, which means he’s never going to think or act rationally where she or Allegretti is concerned. Jealousy is a consuming emotion.”
Ellie looked through the window. A bank of clouds lay to the north. It was going to rain. If she was ever going to tell anyone what had happened that night, now was as
good a time as any but, as always, words failed her.
They stopped at the Milnerton house and Nick helped her out of the bakkie.
Brenda’s eyes narrowed when she saw Ellie.
“Love the necklace.”
“Thanks. It’s the latest craze.”
“They’re waiting for you inside.”
Ellie allowed Nick to lead the way and whispered to Brenda: “See if you can get hold of Happy. I want to talk to him.”
Brenda motioned at Ellie’s neck, her eyes full of questions.
“A guy jumped a red light.”
“I’ll bet it was a taxi.”
“Not this time.”
“It’s so easy to get a licence these days, it doesn’t surprise me. Are you okay?”
“Yes. I saw a very young doctor who didn’t want to take any chances.”
Ellie joined the others around the dining-room table. She had just sat down when Clive came in.
At the sight of the neck brace, he stopped in his tracks. “What the hell happened to you?”
“A guy jumped a red light.”
“Are you okay?”
“Perfect. This is just for show.”
He sat down, but continued to look at her.
Fortunately Nick had begun to speak. Everyone around the table was given a chance to share their latest information. Ellie soon realised there had been no real progress.
“I dropped in on the Forensics and Ballistics guys,” Clive said when his turn came. “Forensics has nothing for us yet but the guys at Ballistics say the casing we found in Allegretti’s home is for a very rare cartridge, normally not used in pistols. Seems we’re looking at a rare firearm.”
“Could they tell you what kind of pistol we’re looking for?” Nick leaned forward in his chair, his elbows on the table.
“No, but one of the guys knows his business. He thinks it may be a Tokarev.” Clive took out his notebook and read: “Tokarev TT-30. Evidently collectors like the older models.”
“We’re looking for a collector in Cape Town,” Nick told the others. “Search the database for collectors registered in Cape Town who own a pistol like that. If Cape Town draws a blank, search nationwide.”
Endgame Page 16