Stolen Lives

by Jassy Mackenzie

  “Are you all right, miss?” Edmonds leaned forward. Now she could see the puffy swelling on the girl’s left cheek, where the dark skin was mottled even darker with bruising. She could also see the massive, crusted scabs on her lips.

  The girl flinched under Edmonds’ concerned gaze.

  The police officer breathed in deeply, suppressing her anger. Who had done this? The owner? A client? That middle-aged bastard who’d tried to wriggle out of the back entrance?

  “Who hurt you?”

  No reply. She whispered something in an almost inaudible voice, but it wasn’t in a language that Edmonds could understand.

  “I don’t know if she speaks any English,” Edmonds said aloud.

  She reached out and gently took the black girl’s hand in her own cold, damp one.

  “Are you all right?” she asked again.

  The girl looked up at Edmonds in silence, her eyes full of tears.

  2

  October 25

  They came for him at night.

  Eleven p.m. on a summer evening and Terence was in bed, propped up on his black continental pillow, fiddling around with something on his laptop. She was watching Idols on the big-screen tv, lying naked on the bedcovers, her hair spread over the pillow, listening to some teenager butchering a Mango Groove song.

  Then, a noise. Loud, hard, frightening, cutting right through the hum of the laptop’s fan and the screech of the South African Idols contestant’s high notes.

  He snapped his laptop shut and sat bolt upright. She raised her head from the pillow and stared at the window, as if she could somehow see all the way through it and down to the dark garden below.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “Don’t know.” He pushed back the covers and climbed out of bed. “Turn the tv down, will you?”

  He pushed back the curtain and peered out of the window. She felt around for the remote, nearly knocking the bedside lamp over. Where on earth was it? She fumbled in the folds of the duvet, checked under the pillow. Her heart was pounding, her hands trembling. What had made that noise? It was impossible that anything could be banging outside like that. But it hadn’t sounded like a banging noise in any case. It had sounded like …

  … like somebody knocking hard on the front door.

  Which was even more impossible, because they were the only people on the property. It was well secured, as all the homes in this wealthy Jo’burg neighbourhood were, surrounded by a high wall and a five-thousand-volt electric fence.

  She glanced across the bed. There it was, of course. On his table. It had gravitated to the man’s side, as remotes invariably do. She stretched across, grabbed it and stabbed the mute button with nail-breaking force.

  The teen’s quavering voice cut off mid-wail.

  “Can’t see a thing,” Terence muttered, turning away from the window.

  Then they heard the noise again. It sounded louder in the silence.

  Bam, bam, bam.

  “Shit,” he said. He hurried to the cupboard, flung it open, rummaged among the clothes.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “How the hell should I know?” He pulled on a black t-shirt and grabbed his jeans. Searching through the cupboard once more, he took out a small silver gun. He did something to it that made a metallic, ratcheting noise.

  She sat up and stared at him, wide-eyed, clutching the duvet and worrying it between her fingers. He turned around and regarded her coldly, as if she were a complete stranger, as if they hadn’t been making love earlier that evening and sharing a jacuzzi an hour ago.

  “Put on some clothes,” he snapped.

  Suddenly her own nakedness wasn’t sexy or appealing. It made her feel vulnerable, afraid.

  She leaned down to retrieve the outfit she’d worn earlier, now discarded on the floor. Short black cocktail dress, lacy panties, gold sandals. Hands shaking, it took her three tries to fasten her push-up bra. By the time she’d got the dress over her head, Terence was on his way downstairs.

  She heard his footsteps on the tiles. Then nothing. She waited, perched on the edge of the bed, straining her ears. Was that the front door opening? She didn’t know. It was too far away for her to be sure.

  She waited for what felt like an eternity, expecting to hear a shout, a gunshot, something.

  She heard only silence and the soft trilling of a cricket outside.

  “Terence, are you ok?” she called.

  More silence.

  “Terence?” She tried again, louder this time.

  She waited a few more fearful, stomach-clenching minutes. What should she do? Eventually she crept down the stairs, slowly, cautiously. Who would be waiting there? She didn’t know. She needed a weapon, but what could she use?

  Stopping at the foot of the staircase, she lifted an ornamental wooden spear from its resting place next to the painted Masai shield on the wall. It wouldn’t be effective against a gun, but at least it was something. Its polished shaft felt comforting in her hand. She held it in front of her and cautiously made her way down the hallway.

  The lounge was quiet. The hall was empty. There was no sign of Terence, no sound of anyone.

  Ahead of her she saw the front door, gaping wide open. Beyond that—she froze, grasping the spear more tightly, feeling her heart hammer a panicked tattoo in her throat—the electric gate stood wide open, too. Wide open to the dark road outside.

  The house was unguarded, vulnerable, its defences breached.

  Terence was gone.

  3

  October 26

  Jade pounded along the path that ran parallel to the main road and then wound its way through a grove of pine trees. Her feet skidded on loose sand, crunched over the dry needles. Shade at last. The air was cooler in the dappled cover of the trees. She slowed to a jog and concentrated on her breathing. Two steps breathing in, two breathing out. In, out, in, out. Her lungs burned. Her legs ached.

  She hated running.

  Every weekend, without fail, her police-commissioner father had got out of bed even earlier than his usual break-of-dawn start. He would pull on his battered running shoes and strap his service pistol around his waist. If Jade was up by that hour, which she occasionally was, he’d greet her with a grim nod. He’d always say the same words to her, in the same resigned tone.

  “Can’t let the bad guys outrun me.”

  Then her father would head out of the house, returning an hour later, redder, sweatier, and with an expression on his face even grimmer than before.

  Jade suspected it was similar to the one she wore now.

  She wore Nike trainers, which thanks to her twice-weekly runs were rapidly becoming as battered as her father’s had been, but she drew the line at carrying a gun. She knew from experience that a loaded weapon might feel light at the start of a run, but it would have grown as heavy as a brick by the end.

  Her father was dead, but his life lessons stuck with Jade.

  Don’t let the bad guys outrun you.

  Jade lifted her gaze from the path in front of her and checked the road ahead. Slowing again, she glanced back. Nobody there.

  The pine grove was behind her now. The path led down an uneven slope, the dry soil fissured and eroded, pale yellow-green weeds clinging to the sides, and then rejoined the sandy road.

  Not far to go till home.

  She increased her speed, forcing her tired legs into a sprint. She ran past the house on the corner, a gunmetal-grey monstrosity that looked like it must surely be owned by a retired naval commander. The outside wall had been painted white, which was an unfortunate choice for a home bordering a dusty dirt road. Jo’burg’s winter had been long and dry, and although it was late October now, and hot, not a drop of rain had fallen. The wall was covered with brownish-yellow stains, just like the teeth of a sixty-a-day smoker.

  Past the next house, an inoffensive bungalow with an electric-wire fence. Inside, a gardener stood aiming a hosepipe at a withered flowerbed. Jade waved. He waved back. The o
wners’ Jack Russell raced up and down the fence line, yapping loudly.

  Almost home. Past the next property. It was easy to run faster here, past the main house and the concrete staircase that led to the tiny flat above the garage. Jade didn’t want to look at it. She didn’t want to see the smart red Mini parked outside the garage. It belonged to the new tenant, a woman who was obviously prepared to pay more for her wheels than for her accommodation.

  David had lived in those upstairs lodgings until a couple of weeks ago.

  Superintendent David Patel, to give him his full title. Superintendent David Patel, who’d recently packed up his modest belongings and moved away. Lock, stock and barrel. His wife had been promoted, he’d told Jade. She had been transferred to the Home Affairs head office in Pretoria, and so he was moving back to his house in Turffontein, where she and their son Kevin had been living.

  Jade had no idea whether that meant David was considering getting back together with Naisha. They were separated, not divorced. Easy to move back in with your married partner. Especially when it seemed her relationship with David was now history.

  When he’d kissed her goodbye—a formal peck on the cheek— she’d looked for a sign of regret in his icy-blue eyes, but seen none.

  His brown-skinned hand had clasped her fair-skinned one for a too-short moment.

  “See you soon, Jadey,” he’d said. Then he’d straightened up to his dizzying six-foot-five inches and sauntered over to his car.

  Jade clenched her hands more tightly. She wouldn’t think of the nights she’d spent with him up in that tiny room. How many nights had it been in all the time they’d spent as neighbours?

  Not enough, Jade thought. Never enough.

  “Get a bicycle.”

  Those had been the last words he’d called out to her as he sped down the road and passed her on the start of a run. He’d leaned out of the window looking amused, his unmarked vehicle so overloaded with clothes, bedding, books and boxes that she’d meanly hoped he would be pulled over by the Metro Police and fined.

  Get a bloody bicycle. What kind of goodbye was that? Damn him.

  She hadn’t spoken to him since then. She had to admit, though, that the advice he’d given her was well worth taking. Riding a bicycle would be a lot more fun than this.

  Jade quickened her pace, elbows pistoning. If she could make it past his house in twenty strides, he’d come back.

  Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. She hurled herself forward, aiming for the boundary line. It was too far off. She wasn’t going to make it.

  Ahead of her, an engine roared.

  Her head snapped up. She slowed her pace, and moved away from the centre of the road, ducking into the shade. She couldn’t run here; the sand was too thick. She dropped back to a walk, propelling herself along on now-wobbly legs.

  A shiny silver sports car fishtailed down the road and skidded to a stop outside her gate, dirt flying. The blare of a horn shattered the stillness of the morning.

  Gasping for breath, Jade pulled her t-shirt away from her body to draw in cool air. Her hair had worked loose from its ponytail and hung around her face in wet rats’ tails. She pushed it back and approached the car cautiously. She wasn’t expecting company. Still less, company driving what she now saw was a new-looking Corvette convertible with a vanity plate that read pj1.

  The single occupant of the car was a blonde woman. Her face was turned away, looking back in the direction she’d come from, where the dust of her hurried approach still floated in the air. Jade could see the outline of her head in the wing mirror. If she checked the mirror, the driver would see Jade.

  But she didn’t. She turned to look straight ahead again, staring directly at Jade’s rented cottage. Then she hooted a second time.

  Jade walked up to the car and rapped on the window.

  When she heard the sound, the woman screamed.

  The sound was high and shrill and penetrated the tinted glass. The woman cringed away from Jade, cowering in her seat, arms flung up in defence.

  Her face was ghostly pale, her features twisted with terror.

  4

  The woman peered through her raised hands at Jade. Looking more closely, she took in her faded baseball cap and sweaty ponytail, her white t-shirt and her old running shorts. Then she lowered her arms. She glanced over her shoulder, reached out an unsteady hand, and buzzed the window down.

  “I’m looking for Jade de Jong,” she said, in a high, tense voice.

  Jade stared at her, surprised. Although this woman obviously knew about her, Jade had no idea who she could be. She’d never seen her, or her car, before. Jade guessed she wasn’t from the area, because people who drove regularly on the rough country roads in her neighbourhood tended to buy big, high-riding suvs or trucks, not low-slung sportscars.

  Sandton, she decided. Everything about this woman screamed Sandton, from her big, gold-framed sunglasses and the silver Patek Philippe watch on her left wrist to the oversized diamond rings that sparkled on her red-manicured fingers. A wealthy woman from Sandton, asking for her.

  “I’m Jade de Jong,” she said.

  The window buzzed down all the way.

  “You’re Jade?” The woman moved her elbow onto the door-frame and regarded her more closely. “I phoned you just now, but you didn’t answer. I need your help urgently. Please.”

  Jade’s legs were starting to stiffen up, and she was conscious of the sweat dripping off her hair and onto the back of her neck. She took the gate buzzer out of her pocket and pressed the button.

  “Shall we talk in the house?” she said.

  The woman clearly thought this was a good idea. The Corvette’s engine roared again and gravel sprayed out from under the tyres as she accelerated through the gate without waiting for Jade. The car skidded to an abrupt stop in the shade of a syringa tree next to Jade’s vehicle, a small entry-level runabout which she’d hired from a company called Rent-a-Runner. Every month Jade took her car back to them and switched it for a different model.

  Right then she was driving a Ford. Or perhaps it was a Mazda.

  At any rate, parked beside Jade’s hired car, the Corvette looked like a crouching silver dragon next to a little white mouse.

  The woman climbed out, slammed the door, and hurried across to the cottage. Her high-heeled sandals were the same colour as her car. With the extra height they gave her, she was slightly taller than Jade.

  Catching her up, Jade unlocked the security gate and the front door, and they walked inside.

  The interior was gloomy after the glare of the morning sun, and the temperature dropped ten degrees instantly. That was thanks to the high, thatched roof. Although it made the place unbearably cold in winter, it kept it pleasantly cool in summer.

  Jade shut the front door behind them and glanced at her cellphone, which she’d left on the kitchen counter. A blue light was flashing, indicating she had missed calls.

  “Take a seat.” She gestured to one of the two sofas in the small living room. Pink floral upholstery, stacked high with a multitude of lacy scatter cushions in varying shades of pastel. When she first moved in, Jade had planned to stash these annoying items somewhere out of sight, but decided against it when she realised that they would take up most of the available storage space.

  For a moment she was slightly embarrassed by the décor. She was tempted to explain to the woman that it wasn’t her choice; that she’d rented it furnished.

  Jade didn’t, though. She just watched while she moved three cushions aside to clear an area large enough to sit in, and then took a seat opposite her, shoving the rest onto the tiled floor and reaching for her notebook on the coffee table.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I haven’t even … I came here in such a hurry, I haven’t told you who I am. My name’s Pamela Jordaan.”

  Pamela spoke with an accent so refined it made Jade wonder whether it was the product of elocution lessons.

  “How did you know where to find me, Pamela?”
/>
  “Oh, I asked Dave. I called him earlier this morning and he gave me your details.”

  “Dave?” Jade frowned, confused.

  “Dave Patel. You know, the police superintendent.”

  Dave?

  “David recommended me?” Saying his name out loud made Jade’s stomach clench uncomfortably. She wondered how on earth this woman knew him, and what their history was. David had never mentioned Pamela to Jade, that was for sure.

  “Yes.”

  “What do you need?”

  Pamela took a deep, shuddery breath. “I need a bodyguard. He said you would be able to help.”

  Jade paused before answering, surprised by Pamela’s request. She’d protected women in the past, a number of them, but she had never once been hired by one directly. The job had always been assigned to her by a wealthy husband or boyfriend who needed close protection for his woman, but didn’t want another man moving in on his territory.

  In every single instance that Jade could remember, women who hired bodyguards for themselves wanted males, not females. Big, strong, muscular men to keep them safe.

  “I can help you,” she said. “Could you give me a few more details, Pamela? Is there a specific reason why you need a guard?”

  “My husband disappeared last night,” Pamela said in a shaky voice.

  “Disappeared? From where?”

  “From our home in Sandown, in Sandton.”

  So her guess had been right, Jade thought.

  Pamela cleared her throat, swallowed, and spoke again, gabbling her words as if she had rehearsed them. “His phone is switched off. I can’t contact him and I have no idea where he is. He was supposed to be at work this morning and he isn’t there. I’ve already reported him missing. I don’t want to start panicking unnecessarily, but until I know where he is and what’s happened to him, I want some added protection for myself and my daughter. Just somebody around to keep us safe.”