Capture (14 page)

Then he does that thing she hates: morphs his face into a martyr from a Byzantine painting, pain dripping like stigmata from his eyes.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“Believe me, I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll catch an evening flight back. Be home by nine tomorrow night.”

“Lovely,” she says, turning.

“And I’ll ask Vernon Saul to keep an eye on you.”

“Oh no you fucking won’t!” She spins back to him, spilling her coffee, cursing as it burns her hand. “You’ll keep that degenerate very far away from me,” she says, sucking on her index finger.

“He’s a friend.”

She spits a laugh around the scalded digit. “Friend? He’s a bloody pervert.” Nick’s staring at her. “When he was busy with Sunny, it was almost as if he knew she was dead, but still he didn’t stop doing that thing to her. Like it turned him on.”

“Jesus Christ, Caroline, he tried to save our daughter’s life,” he says, shaking his head. “Why the hell would he pretend?”

“To impress you. And he succeeded.” He’s still shaking his head. “Nicholas, just keep him away from me, okay?”

“Okay. Fine. Have it your way.”

She turns for the stairs, carrying her coffee, shutting him out.

Again.

Chapter 19

Vernon Saul pilots the Civic across Paradise Park, squinting at the early morning sun through his Ray-Bans, already dressed in his rent-a-cop gear even though his shift doesn’t start until midday. As usual the wind gusts between the cramped houses, lifting trash high in the air, plastic bags and paper scraps chasing each other like fighting birds.

Vernon’s got a little R&B going on the sound system, that old Ashford and Simpson thing from way back, “Solid As A Rock.” He’s feeling good—on top of the fucken world, in fact—and he chimes in during the chorus, in a decent tenor, reason he always got chosen for the school choir when he was a kid. He nudges the Civic through the traffic, using his horn against the minibus taxis that clog the streets like arterial fat.

He’s felt on top of his game since his time with Nick Exley the day before. Feels even better after the call he got early this morning—woke him up, but what the hell? Exley phoning him from his car, on the way to the airport, saying he’s flying to Jo’burg for the day and would Vernon keep an eye on his wife? He’s worried about leaving her alone.

Vernon saying, “Hey, no problem, Nick.”

The white guy hesitating, “Listen, Vernon, could I ask you to keep a low profile?”

“Sure, I know your wife don’t like me.”

“Caroline’s just freaked out.”

“Ja, but I can tell she don’t want me around. Relax, buddy, I’ll be discreet.”

Exley getting all kiss-ass, thanking him. Vernon laughing now as he drives, booming out the chorus, arm resting on the open side window.

The traffic slows to a stop on a narrow road, outside two shipping containers squatting side by side on the sand, fronts open to the street: a hair salon and a phone shop.

The hair stylist, an acne-ridden cross-dresser in his forties with a peroxide bob, teases a teenage girl’s hair into a froth. He looks across at Vernon and whistles through his missing front teeth. Passion-gap, they call it here on the Flats.

“Hey, nice voice, handsome!” the drag queen yells.

Another day Vernon would pulp the thing’s head under his boot but he blows a kiss and the queer howls a raucous laugh and tap-dances his wedge heels in delight as Vernon hits the gas and flings the Civic around a taxi.

Life is good.

He’s not even letting the Boogie thing stress him out. He’s put in a few calls to old cop connections and found out that Dino Erasmus is still sniffing around. Vernon knows that Erasmus doesn’t like him. Dino is that most dangerous of things: a dumb, honest cop, with ambitions.

Always trying to get something on Vernon, back when he was on the force. Never smart enough to get it right, Vernon laughing in his dog-kennel face. Ja, if Erasmus can get even he’ll go for it.

But Vernon knows the detective’s caseload won’t allow him to waste much more time on a nothing like Boogie. Only warning flag is when one of the cops tells him Erasmus has been nosing around Dawn.

Now Dawn knows fuck-all about what went down that night, but she’s sharp—could put a few things together. Float an idea Dino Erasmus’s way. But no problem, Vernon has his ways to manage the Dawn situation.

He stops the Civic outside a nasty cluster of dust-brown brick buildings that back up against the railroad line. A library, a clinic for mothers and kids and the offices of the district social workers. Vernon kills the music and closes the car window, levering himself out of the Civic, his bad leg giving him grief.

He presses the button on his keychain and the car chirps as the doors lock and the alarm kicks in. Vernon shakes the blood back into his leg and walks along the pathway toward the social workers. An old guy in the jumpsuit of a city employee prunes a skinny tree, bent out of shape by years of being hammered by the southeaster.

“Morning, my brother,” the man says.

“Morning,” Vernon says, already reaching into his pocket for his Luckies. He offers the pack to the guy, who draws one out, cupping his hand around it as Vernon flicks his lighter. Prison ink spills out of the sleeves of the jumpsuit. The guy was an American, back in the day.

Vernon lights a Lucky for himself, knowing he can’t smoke inside the offices, and he stands with the ex-con for a few minutes, talking rugby and the weather, then he offers the half-smoked cigarette to the old guy, who pinches it dead and stows it behind his ear for later.

“Bless you, my brother.”

“Keep an eye on my car, okay?”

Vernon walks into the dingy little reception room, past the line of miserable-looking creatures that snakes out onto the pathway. He goes to the head of the queue and the receptionist gives him a look.

“I’m here to see Merinda Appolis.”

“You’ll have to wait.” Wagging a painted nail at the line of losers.

“Just tell her Vernon Saul is here.”

The receptionist shrugs and mutters something into the telephone. Looks up at him, “She’ll be out now,” then buries her nose in
You
magazine.

After a minute a door opens and a girl of maybe fourteen emerges with a baby on her hip. Both mother and child are crying, noses gluepots of snot. Merinda Appolis stands in the doorway. “Mr. Saul.”

Vernon steps into the room and she closes the door after him. The office is cramped and cell-like. Barred windows, cement floor, a functional steel desk and two plastic folding chairs. A calendar with a color photo of kittens is the only personal touch.

“Vernon, you’re a stranger,” suddenly all informal now nobody’s listening.

He shrugs and sits. Merinda stands a while giving him the eye, then takes the chair opposite him, allowing him a good look at her legs before she tugs at the hem of her dress. She’s maybe thirty, yellow-brown, just a little chubby, all trace of natural curl blown out of her hair. She smiles at him, lips wet with gloss.

“How are you?”

“Can’t complain, Merinda.” Flashing her his best grin. She’s always had the hots for him, this one. That’s how he got her to recommend that Dawn’s girlie be returned to her.

“That uniform suits you. Kind of macho.”

“Thanks, but I won’t be wearing it much longer.”

“Ja? And why not?”

“They kicking me up to head office, making me a regional supervisor. Reckon they can better use my skills there.” The lies flowing like honey from his tongue.

“Nice, Vernon. Congrats.”

“Thanks.”

“So, what do you want from me this time?”

“Can’t I visit, even?”

“Come on, Vernon, you saw outside. I’m a busy girl.” But she smiles.

“You remember last year, the Dawn Cupido thing?”

Her smile evaporates. “Ja. Of course, yes. I did that against my better judgment, you know?”

“I know. I owe you.”

“You do. Big time. Don’t tell me I made a mistake?”

“No, no. I thought you could just look in on them. Maybe scare her a little.”

“Scare her?”

“Ja, you know?”

“Why, is there a problem?”

“No way. Just to keep her in line, like.”

Merinda Appolis’s eyes—like dark fish swimming in a sea of blue eye make-up—flick over him. “You want to use me again, don’t you, Vernon? I’ll scare her, and you’ll tell her that you handled me. To impress her.”

“Hey, slow down—”

“What? Are you screwing her?” 

All ladylike pretence has gone now. She’s just another little Cape Flats tramp acting all sour and scorned. Vernon feels himself redden, has to keep a lid on his fury, fighting to control himself. He doesn’t screw women. Never had nothing to do with their filth. Glad he is useless down there, since his father did what he did.

“Get a life, Vernon,” she says.

He pulls himself to his feet, his dead leg dragging, and he almost knocks the chair over. “Forget it,” he says. “Just fucken forget it.”

“No, I won’t forget it. I’ll visit them.” She gets a pinched, prissy look on her face and makes a note in the book on the desk. “Purely out of concern for the child. And if I find anything wrong—
anything—
I’m taking that kid away. For keeps. You hear me, Vernon?”

He nods, not trusting his voice, and thuds his way out, shouldering through the straggle of pathetic humanity that waits docile as sheep.

For once he is pleased to feel the wind on him, blowing away her cloying stink.

Chapter 20

Caroline’s short wheelbase Landrover rattles along the serpentine coast road, the mountains rearing skyward to her right, the Atlantic foaming on the rocks far below to her left. A road of such spectacular beauty that it took her breath away the first few times she drove it but, like so many things in this narcissistic little city, it quickly became a major pain in the backside.

The old Land Rover—her Landy, her Caroline of Africa fantasy car—is sluggish and hard to drive, each gearshift taking an effort of will. It has no air conditioning to combat the oppressive midday heat and she finds herself envying the soccer moms whizzing by, blonde and aloof in their climate-controlled SUVs.

Last night she lay awake, fretting, worried that Vlad would stand her up. To add to her discomfort, Nick came to their bed and tried to embrace her and she had to control the impulse to lash out with her foot and catch him in the balls. Instead she kept her back to him, pretending to be asleep, the two of them like continents separated by a sea of sorrow and anger. After Exley left for the airport, around dawn, she fell into a fitful sleep.

Mercifully, Vlad called her just after eight. He sounded hurried and cool but told her to meet him for lunch in the city. This will be the first time they meet in town, perhaps his idea of delicacy: lunch and then a fuck in a hotel room far from the tragedy.

She showered and dressed with more care than she had in days, even found a bottle of scent—amazingly not stale—and dabbed some on her pulses and behind her ears. No make-up. Once, early on, in an effort to please Vlad, she’d arrived for one of their assignations wearing lipstick and hint of blusher. He forced her to wash her face before he fucked her.

Vlad likes her plain. And that is what I am, she tells herself, catching a glimpse of her face in the rear-view mirror, her reflection multiplying as the Land Rover judders along. Plain. She’s given up trying to understand why he is attracted to her.

She met Vlad on the beach, a week after she, Nick and Sunny arrived in Cape Town. Caroline isn’t a beach person but they’d come out of a grim European winter and the sea and the sunshine were difficult to ignore. So, leaving her husband and daughter to prepare breakfast, she wrapped herself in layers of cloth, put on her biggest sunhat and darkest glasses and coated the few bits of exposed skin with SPF sixty before venturing onto the long Llandudno beach.

It was a weekday, so the beach wasn’t full. The inevitable surfers in their wetsuits, hair bleached blond by the sun. A few mothers and kids. And a man walking a wolf. The wolf, white with blue eyes, bounded across to her and Caroline swatted at it with her hat, cursing, telling it to bugger off. She had her period and the wolf shoved its snout into her crotch like some proxy of its master, the ridiculous man who came jogging after it, with his deep tan and his chest fur and his gold neck-chain, dressed in a tiny blue Speedo heavy with cock and balls, long gray hair pushed back from a beaky face.

“Please, I apologize,” he said, hauling the wolf away, dazzling Caroline with the best smile money could buy.

“That bloody thing should be in a zoo, not on the beach.”

“No, no, no, he is quite tame.” Kneeling, embracing the animal, who was still interested in truffling in her twat, calling it what sounded like Sneg, which she later learned was Serbian for snow.

She was to learn a lot more about Vladislav Stankovic. He pursued her. Ambushed her again on the beach. Ran into her in the 7-Eleven and the booze store down in Hout Bay. Then came his masterstroke: he befriended her husband. He contrived to meet Nick and Sunny on the beach one day, Sunny falling immediately for Sneg, and Exley—unaware of Vlad’s motives—invited him back for a drink. He became a regular visitor. Vlad feigned interest in Nick and his work but his attention was always on Caroline.

Despite herself she was amused by his absurd attempts at seduction, so unselfconsciously pre-feminist that they were almost refreshing, and it wasn’t as if her marital bed was all fun and games. Sex with Nick had never been exactly torrid and after Sunny was born it became an afterthought, brief, cursory. Duty more than pleasure.

So one day she let Vlad take her to his house, a laughably ostentatious folly that clung precariously to the slopes of the mountain. He told her that he and his wife (her name was never spoken) had an “arrangement” and lived in separate wings in the sprawling monstrosity. The wife was away, in Switzerland, taking a cure.