by T. M. Clark
CHAPTER
4
Reyansh Prabhu smoothed his beard and checked that his shirt was tucked in before he took a deep breath and knocked twice on the door of his sister’s office. He wiped his palms on his suit pants. Despite the temperature controls within the Ayurprabhu Pharmaceuticals building being just twenty-two degrees Celsius, the sweat continued to bead on his lip.
He cursed for trying yet again to wean himself cold turkey off the drugs. He should have known this wouldn’t be the week he could stay away from them.
‘Come in,’ Mishti barked.
He turned the handle and walked in.
Mishti Prabhu sat behind a huge, lavishly ornate, antique hard-wood desk that was complete with ivory-and-gold leaf inlays. She pushed her chair and it rolled easily on its castors and stood up on heels that defied logic, making her five-foot-seven frame appear like it was six feet tall as she walked towards him.
‘Brother, how nice. What a surprise. You should have told me you were dropping in.’
‘And have your secretary tell me you weren’t here again? No, I need to speak with you urgently in the office, not have you drop by my house talking shop again.’
‘Come on, we both know that wife I chose for you is a perfect homemaker. Your house is always neat, tidy and I can’t fault her on her management skills as she tells the ever-changing employees what to do. Your staff have excellent cleaning skills, and your wife needs credit for that, even though she gave you those three brats, ruined her figure and continues to milk your bank accounts dry. You really should ask her what she spends the money on. It’s clearly not on keeping herself looking nice and trim for her husband.’
He hated that Mishti somehow was aware of the state of everything that went on in his house. He was sure she even knew when he and his wife, Anaya, had last had sex. Somehow, she sniffed out everything.
‘It’s not Anaya’s housekeeping that’s under scrutiny though, is it?’ he asked.
He saw Mishti frown and knew to get what he had to say over quickly before she started throwing things at him again. ‘There has been a development in the lab,’ he said in a rush. ‘Some of our meningitis fungi died. We’ve lost the rest of the culture that we were using to put into the new batch of Protease Inhibitors. However, the cultures of the urinary tract infection are doing well, so I can substitute those within twenty-four hours.’
Mishti nodded. She strode to her chair and sat down again, her hands on her desk building pyramids with each finger until she tapped the two pinkies together.
‘It’s really no one’s fault that those cultures died,’ he added.
‘It sometimes happens with live cultures and fungus, but it is annoying that it happened at this facility. That strain of meningitis has served us well.’
‘I still have the source culture, but it will take time to regrow to the amount that we require, that’s all,’ he assured her.
She nodded again. ‘And the urinary tract? Do we have the treatment medication in the same container?’
Reyansh nodded. ‘I re-checked that manifest before I came to you. The shipment is on Friday. The pills will be ready on Thursday night.’
She stretched her legs out in front of her and leaned back in the chair. ‘There better be no disruption in the supply, Reyansh. It’s important that there are no hiccups to the Cape Town shipment. Our shareholders are expecting us to make a profit. We promised them a quality product made with cost efficiency.’
Reyansh sneered. ‘You say that every quarter now.’
‘I mean it.’
‘No, you don’t. Why not just say it up front? You want your profit-share cut. It’s always been about the money for you.’
‘You’re wrong. It’s about so much more than that. It’s about control. Control of our industry, the family name being the biggest and the most profitable pharmaceutical company in South Africa. About proving to our father that he made the right choice in making me CEO.’
‘And you claim credit as if it was all you.’
‘The generic cheap drugs were originally your idea, and it was a good one, but now it’s about so much more. It’s grown, and you need to evolve your ideas along with it.’
‘I hate this. You’re hurting people and not only those who are already HIV infected. Children, too.’
‘Get over it. You have to. For you, it’s now a double-edged sword. It’s not just about your access to your drug of choice to soothe you, keep you company through the day and long nights. It’s about the money, too, isn’t it? That lovely wife of yours who likes to spend every penny you earn.’
‘I know that.’
‘Just imagine how different your life would’ve been had you not been caught out addicted to our product in the first place and you hadn’t had to tell me what you were doing.’
He shook his head. His twin didn’t know him. She had never made an effort to understand him since they were in nursery school together. These days were no better; his sister had become the queen of simply taking things from him. Like his best friend, whom she had married and now controlled.
And she’d taken his dreams from underneath him.
She would never acknowledge in public that the manufacturing of cost-effective generic drugs, which had become their bread and butter, had been his idea. His final attempt to prove to their father that he deserved to be given control of the family business. That he could take the company, and make a profit, no matter what. He, the male heir, who would ensure that the family name lived on, and that the company thrived, even in the ever-changing South African environment.
Mishti had stolen his idea and perverted it. Distorted his cheap drugs and tainted them. She had proved to their father that by diversifying the idea across different medications, and changing it slightly, they would then cater to the millions of people who were already relying on HIV antiretroviral drugs daily, creating a new market that was just waiting to be tapped into.
An instant market.
Their father had given control of Ayurprabhu Pharmaceuticals to Mishti because of that.
Being the CEO of the family business had been his dream since he could walk, since he used to sit with his father and make pills in their first small laboratory. He learned from a young age how to be the chemist, not Mishti. He was the one who could make the drugs, not his sister with her finance degree. But his father had once again looked right past him, and his achievements. Always showing the masses the appropriate affection for his son, but never following through when it counted. He had given his company to his daughter.
‘Just imagine if Father knew his precious son was nothing more than a junkie, and his wife a gold-digger who was spending money as if it was water. Poor, poor Reyansh, always the victim. The man who still yearns to be the apple of Father’s eye.’
‘Why do you taunt me? You got control of the company. I used to idolise you growing up. It was never my fault that I was the male heir.’
‘Whatever. I’m not in the mood for a gender-equality argument with you. Just do your job. And do it well so that we don’t get caught.’
He shrugged. ‘I know my place: I create a market in Africa for African drugs. Our esteemed vice-president of research and your friend Mr Elijah Mbaya’s job is to find us new patents that we can make money from, and your part in the big puzzle is to oversee the operations and skim off the profits while keeping the shareholders happy. I know my place, sister-dearest.’
‘Then go do it, because if we don’t, we can’t compete in this industry.’
‘I know that, I wasn’t born yesterday,’ Reyansh said.
‘This conversation is over. Get back to work.’
Reyansh bit his lip. He wanted to walk right up to her chair and strike the smug smile off her face. She liked nothing better than to rub in the fact that their father had signed the company to her and left him as just the head chemist. She relished the fact that she had the power over him. Her younger brother. One day he would say things to her—like it was her
fault that he was addicted in the first place.
Her fault.
Not his. Hers!
She was the one who had given him the pills when they were still in school, got him hooked early, and now kept him by the short-and-curlies because if anyone else ever found out that Ayurprabhu’s head chemist was addicted to his own drugs, he would be ruined. Anaya would have an excuse to leave him, and the shame he would feel would be devastating. His father, the founding member of Ayurprabhu Pharmaceuticals, would turn away from his weak son.
Reyansh wouldn’t survive it.
After all, it had been his father who had insisted that he learn to fight when he was younger. Made sure that if he was ever in a scrap, he would come out the victor. But physical violence was not what was needed in this circumstance. If he did stand up to Mishti in a more forceful way, she would be ruthless. She had proved that she could be, even to those she claimed to love. She had kept her family surname and refused to change to her husband’s, even threatening to call off her wedding at one point when it looked like she wouldn’t get her own way. And now she had the power to cut off the money that his wife was so good at spending even as it hit their account each month.
Mishti controlled him.
She knew it.
And he knew better than to argue with his older sister, even if it was only by five minutes. She might have the same level of education that he did, but somehow she was just smarter.
So far, she’d always won.
CHAPTER
5
Ulwazi sat on the friendship bench, as she’d done every Tuesday, weekend and public holiday that the centre was open for the past year since the project was implemented. She smiled when she thought of how clever she was that she’d manipulated a situation which was supposed to help people into benefitting herself and her family.
Her little mischief of mice—her igundane.
It had taken time to unite the igundane who spied for her and reported what was happening throughout the whole of Sandton, and she had people sitting on benches in other areas, too, listening to what the women had to say, reporting it all back to her. From Fourways, through Sunninghill, Bryanston and even as far out as Van Riebeeck Park.
She was the intelligence hub. They scampered in and told her the gossip that she needed to know and she never had to pay for it, just give them a favour in return. A job for the daughter in the network. A good word in the boss’s ear for a raise by the right person. She traded that information.
Nobody knew better than she did what was happening right under their noses. To any observer, they were just two people sitting on a pretty blue friendship bench. It was the perfect place to collect all the news that she needed from the households in Sandton.
Her office.
For instance, she knew that the madam at number 84 Hunting-don Road was going on an overseas holiday and that she had a big flat-screen TV recently delivered to her house, but she was good to her maid and had also given her a new one when she’d upgraded, and she paid the maid’s TV licence. So that information would never be traded. That house, for now, was safe.
The man who lived in number 156 Daisy Street had a big built-in gun safe, and he owned a business licence with a ‘dedicated status’. This meant that he could license an unlimited number of firearms and ammunition. He often took a few of these weapons home, especially the semi and automatic rifles, before he went out in his bakkie for his job the next day. He never took his key with him, and she knew where it was hidden.
The igundane reported that he treated his wife badly. He hit her and locked his children in their rooms as punishment, and the wife was happy to tell Ulwazi exactly where the key was concealed and that it changed places each day of the week. She knew all the hiding places. That house’s information had been traded, and some of those weapons were now in Edenvale, safe in her warehouse and waiting for delivery to their new owners.
She had made sure that the wife and children were not there when the attack happened. After all, that wife had sat on this very bench and spilled out her sorrow to Ulwazi. She couldn’t hurt the woman, but that good-for-nothing husband, he hadn’t died. No, instead of a nice insurance payout for his widow, he was going to recover, and Ulwazi would get to trade information when the time was right again, and make more money from him.
The wife, she could continue to bleat like a sacrificial lamb that she was a victim, but it was her choice to stay there with him. She could always leave if she really wanted to.
The family who owned the townhouse in Ashley Avenue, in Bryanston, was still having staff problems. The Indian madam there changed maids like one would change underwear. Ulwazi knew that mostly the father was just the pay package, but sometimes he liked to take pills. All sorts of different pills. The family were obviously very wealthy, but the igundane said that this family itself didn’t live like a family awash with money at all.
They had a good security system, but no dog. She would find out what was happening in that house. There had to be something that she could steal or make money out of in some other way. She just needed to get a reliable igundane into the house.
CHAPTER
6
‘Lily, don’t move. There’s a miniature tiger on the bed between us. Please tell me that’s Ian’s cat.’
At the sound of Quintin’s voice, the cat began kneading the duvet cover and purring so loudly it was as if there was a small engine in the room. It stood and walked up the bed towards Quintin.
‘It didn’t eat us while we slept, so it must be friendly,’ Quintin said.
Lily moved slightly under the covers and laughed.
The cat stopped, as if realising there were two people in the bed, but when Lily put her hand out, he ran to her and headbutted it. Then he yowled.
Lily laughed more.
He meowed and threw his whole weight against her side as he rubbed from her hip to her shoulder. Turning his bulk over, he showed a striped yellow belly before putting his head under her chin. And then meowed again.
‘You are talkative, Stripe,’ Lily said as the cat stood and walked over to Quintin, and onto his chest.
‘Tiger, she called him Tiger, not Stripe,’ Quintin said, frowning.
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Hey, Tiger, aren’t you a beauty,’ she said.
He half closed his eyes and kneaded Quintin on the chest, purring loudly.
‘I guess this means we pass muster with the cat,’ Lily said.
‘I’m not sure this huge thing is a cat. Look at it, they definitely make them big in Africa,’ Quintin said.
Lily looked at the cat that was pinning her husband to the bed. While he did have black-and-orange stripes, he also had a silver streak to his fur. His head was large with tall ears, and they had tufts at the end, almost like a lynx. His white whiskers were long and thick, sticking out from his expressive face. As she looked at his feet, she could see hair tufting up between the toes. While his coat was shaggy, he was soft to touch, and as she ran her hand over his body, his purrs increased in volume.
‘He’s beautiful. Just like you. You gained a friend there. I think he must be part–Maine Coon and part-African wild cat. I wonder if Beatrice knows where Ian got him from—he’s the biggest domestic cat I’ve ever seen.’
‘Her name is Bessie, believe me, Lily. Thank heavens it’s not Beatrice—I would have cracked up laughing every time I said her name. We had a Beatrice at school who was the class clown.’
Lily frowned. ‘Okay, Bessie. I’ll remember that. Bessie. And her husband?’
‘Lincoln. You and names—I swear, you get worse as we grow older. God only knows what you’ll be like when we’re in our eighties. I’ll be introducing myself to you every day.’
‘Ha-ha, that’s not so far away anymore. It’s probably time we stopped joking about that, we’re getting older now.’
‘We’re not ancient, yet. Besides, I sleep with a younger woman, which keeps me from showing my age.’<
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‘Is that so? If that’s the case, then I sleep with an old man.’
Quintin reached for her hair, and smoothing it said, ‘You’re as lovely as ever, and you seriously don’t look like you’re in your golden years. You don’t look a day over fifty-three. Besides, there are still many years for you to catch me up.’
‘You’re an idiot, but I love you anyway,’ she said, smiling as she put her hand over his.
Quintin laughed.
Tiger meowed and moved back to Lily. Then he walked over their joined hands and headbutted her ear and began grooming her hair.
‘Yuck,’ Lily said, sitting up. ‘I think we need to put a stop to that one right away.’
‘Awww, honey, he’s just cleaning one of his pride,’ Quintin joked, but at the same time, he pulled himself up in the bed and lifted the massive cat away from Lily.
‘Since when did you become such a cat fan?’
‘This beast is more than just a cat!’
As if knowing that his cuddle time was over, Tiger walked to the bottom of the bed, jumped off with a loud thud, and went to the bedroom door, where he sat down and wailed.
‘It’s open, you stupid thing, that’s how you got in here in the first place,’ Quintin said.
But the cat just narrowed its eyes and looked at him again, meowing loudly.
‘It wants you to go feed it,’ Lily said.
‘Why me?’
‘Because you’re the one who gets up at all hours of the night and will probably have it with you all day while you compose your next album. Look at it. Clearly, it’s used to a male feeding it.’
‘That’s some serious woman logic,’ he said, getting out of bed. The cat swished around the side of the door and disappeared, knowing it had got its way.
‘Oh, honey, as much as I love the sight of all that maleness, you probably want to put on some clothes. Remember the house came with a maid. Not sure of her reaction being confronted with all that at six-thirty in the morning!’