The New Girl (Downside) (25 page)

Despite the things she’s heard about the South African Police Service, so far she’s been impressed by how efficiently Martin’s disappearance has been handled. She has no way of
knowing if this is how the SAPS usually reacts to a missing child, or if it’s because Stephen’s pulled all the strings at his disposal. For the last hour, Superintendent Molefi, a
beautiful, apparently unflappable woman with tired eyes and French-manicured nails, has been trying to inject some calm into the atmosphere with practical, solid questions. It’s not working.
Both Olivia and Stephen have responded snappishly, as if they blame the policewoman for Martin’s disappearance.

‘Mrs Marais.’ The policewoman turns her attention to Tara. ‘When you dropped Martin off at school yesterday morning, did you notice anything unusual about his
behaviour?’

‘We went through all this last night!’ Olivia interrupts. ‘How many more times? Martin is a good white boy from a good home, it’s not as if he’s some common street
kid addicted to drugs. Why won’t you people listen? He has
not
run away!’

Superintendent Molefi doesn’t lose her composure at this outburst. ‘We are doing everything we can to find your son, Ms Marais—’

‘It’s
Mrs,
can’t you even get that right?’

‘My apologies. It can be confusing as there are two of you here with the same name.’

Stephen rolls his eyes. ‘No wonder this country is such a fuck-up if you can’t even get that straight.’

Ignoring Stephen’s comment, the policewoman fixes her gaze on Tara again. ‘Mrs Marais?’

Tara clears her throat, glances at Olivia, who’s squinting at her through the smoke wafting out of her mouth. The coffee cup she’s using as an ashtray is brimming with butts –
she’s been chain-smoking ever since she showed up last night and the air is hazy with smoke. ‘Well... he has been acting differently lately. More subdued than usual.’

‘Don’t listen to her,’ Olivia snaps. ‘What does she know?’

‘Have you spoken to that bloody arsehole Duvenhage yet?’ Stephen jumps in. ‘About those bloody meetings?’

‘Martin should never have been there in the first place,’ Olivia says, shooting another hate-filled glare at Tara.

Superintendent Molefi sighs. ‘I assure you, we are doing everything in our power to get to the bottom of this.’

Stephen snorts. ‘What about the other kids? The other kids who were at the meeting. Have you spoken to them?’

‘Yes, Mr Marais. As I said before, they insist that Martin left the meeting when they did.’

‘Well, someone must have seen something. What about the bloody people who were running the group?’

For the first time since she arrived, a flicker of uncertainty dances over the policewoman’s features. ‘We are trying to contact them, sir.’

‘Well, you’re not trying hard enough.’

The policewoman stands up, gathers her belongings together. ‘Thank you for your cooperation.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll be in touch if I need to speak to you again.’

Olivia sighs. ‘Bloody typical,’ she mutters, angrily stubbing out her latest cigarette.

Tara follows the policewoman out of the room. ‘What about that maintenance man? That Ryan guy?’ she asks, keeping her voice low so that Stephen and Olivia won’t overhear.
‘Have you found him?’

Superintendent Molefi sighs. ‘Not as yet, Mrs Marais.’

‘Could he have anything to do with this?’ Although, to be fair, if what Jane told her yesterday afternoon – that he was there at the time, tending the garden – was
correct, Tara can’t see how he would have managed to leave the house in time to abduct Martin. He could hardly have been in two places at once. But it’s not just Martin who’s
concerning her. If the allegations about Ryan are true, then Jane could still be in danger.

‘We are looking into it, Mrs Marais.’

‘And what about that house? Jane’s house. She said Ryan was working there.’

‘We’ve been to the house, Mrs Marais. It’s deserted.’

‘It can’t be! They were there yesterday.’

‘I understand that you are upset, but I assure you, there is no one in that house.’

‘What house?’ Stephen asks from the doorway. ‘And who’s Ryan?’

Shit, Tara thinks. She’ll have no choice but to tell him now. She’s not looking forward to the consequences. Stephen and Olivia will be furious that she didn’t mention this
last night. ‘A guy working at the school. Apparently he has some sort of criminal past.’

‘What kind of criminal past, Tara?’

‘Interfering with children.’

‘
What?
’ Olivia shrieks.

Stephen rounds on Superintendent Molefi. ‘For fuck’s sake. And this pervert was working at my son’s school? What’s
wrong
with you people?’

‘Mr Marais. There is no connection between this man and the disappearance of your son, I assure you.’ Stephen opens his mouth to speak again but she holds up a hand to forestall him.
‘Now, if you want me to continue my investigation, I must leave. Please, contact me immediately if Martin gets in touch with you.’

Stephen grudgingly unlocks the security gate, and Superintendent Molefi heads out into the morning.

‘And you knew about this, Tara?’ This from Olivia. ‘How could you know something like this and only tell us now?’

‘I only found out yesterday.’

Olivia jabs a newly lit cigarette in Tara’s direction. ‘This is all your fault. I told Martin he shouldn’t go back to that group. But you blatantly ignored my
wishes.’

‘Calm down, Olivia,’ Stephen says.

‘Don’t you fucking tell me to calm down.’

‘It’s not Tara’s fault. Although why she didn’t tell us about this—’

‘You see, Stephen? You see what sort of a woman you married? I hope you’re happy now.’

Trying to block out Olivia’s shrill accusations, Tara races up the stairs to her sanctuary, slams the door behind her. She paces around the room, stares up at the Baby Tommy collage above
her desk, feels the tears sliding down her cheeks.

Her phone beeps. She snatches it out of her pocket, praying that it’s Martin, remembering too late that she found his iPhone on the floor of the hall. Surprise, surprise, it’s
another message from Batiss.

‘Fuck you,’ she mutters.

She glances up at the Baby Tommy photo again, slides open Baby Paul’s drawer and takes out Tommy’s little charred head. For some reason, holding it comforts her. She wipes away her
tears, breathes in deeply.

Was that policewoman telling the truth about Jane’s house? How could they have all disappeared so quickly? If anything’s happened to Jane, Tara knows she won’t be able to live
with herself. Bad enough that she destroyed Baby Tommy, that she wasn’t there for Martin when he needed her.

No. She needs to see for herself.

She hurries downstairs. Stephen and Olivia are still screaming at each other in the lounge, and she prays they won’t hear the click of the security gate as she slips out.

She climbs into the Pajero, glad that she parked it in the street in front of their small front garden rather than in the garage. As she executes a swift three-point turn, she sees Stephen
stomping down the driveway towards her, face distorted with fury. She turns up the radio so that she can’t hear whatever it is that he’s yelling at her, accelerates away, forcing him to
jump out of her path. She puts her foot down, scraping the side of her car on the edge of the intercom stand as she shoots into the main road.

The house’s gates are slightly ajar. If she wanted to, she could easily slip inside.

But she doesn’t go in immediately. She spends several minutes sitting outside the house in her car, watching, waiting. She isn’t certain what she’s expecting to see. A couple
of police cars doing surveillance maybe, like in the movies. But there’s no sign of any police presence, and today there doesn’t appear to be anyone on duty in the security booth of the
complex across the road. The lack of sleep is catching up with her. Her eyes feel gritty, her empty stomach churns. She opens her bag, looks down at Baby Tommy’s head. She’s still not
sure why she brought him with her. Some sort of talisman, she supposes. She rubs off some of the soot, again regretting that she’ll never get the chance to see what he’d look like
whole.

Steeling herself, she slings her bag over her shoulder and climbs out of the car. Walks slowly towards the gates and slips between them. She turns to double-check that no one has seen her
trespassing, feels a stab of jealously as a series of luxury cars zip past on the road, their drivers oblivious to how she’s feeling, all of them on course for just another ordinary day.

The house’s facade casts a long shadow across her path, and she shields her eyes and peers up at the cracked statues staring down at her. The grimacing cherubs and other horrors seem to be
laughing at her. Suddenly overcome by the feeling that she’s being watched, she hurries towards the front door, bangs her fist on the wood. ‘Hello?’

She knocks again. Tries the handle. It opens smoothly. She steps into the hallway. It’s gloomy inside, the daylight floating through the front door doing little to banish the shadows. The
sound of the traffic on Excelsior Avenue seems to fade away, as if the place sits in its own vacuum. She stands absolutely still, listens for any sign of life. Nothing. It’s almost
too
quiet. The last thing she feels like doing is heading up the stairs that end in solid blackness. No, she’ll try the kitchen first. Leaving the arched doorway open so that the
hallway’s meagre light leaches through, she fumbles on the wall for the light switch. Unable to find it, she digs out her phone and clicks on the torch app she’s never had reason to use
before.

‘Hello? Jane?’

The first thing she notices as she sweeps the light around the room is that the appliances are all gone; the countertops are clear of clutter. The room smells musty, unused, like a house
that’s been allowed to decay for decades. But how can this be? She saw Jane here only yesterday.

She should leave right now. What if that Ryan guy is still hiding out here, waiting to pounce? It’s a huge property, must be loads of nooks and crannies in which someone could avoid
detection. No one knows she’s here. Anything could happen to her.

Ignoring her instincts, which are begging her to flee back into the sunlight, she finds herself making for the green door at the far end of the kitchen. It opens onto some sort of dusty,
plastered corridor that appears to bend and weave through the house. Using the phone’s glow to light her way, she follows it, stumbling occasionally on the uneven floor. Taking a narrow
stairwell to her left, she walks up numbly, trying in vain to get a handle on the house’s odd layout. It leads to another anonymous corridor, this one lined with cheap plasterboard doors. She
opens them at random: a small tiled area containing nothing but a rusty bed frame; a couple of empty bedrooms; a room stacked with rusty water heaters and a leaking bag of cement. The last door in
the passageway is slightly ajar. She pauses outside it, her hand caught halfway to the jamb, flooded with the overwhelming impression that there’s something behind it, waiting to jump out at
her.

‘Hello?’ she calls, her voice cracking. Hand trembling, she turns the handle, opens the door quickly before she loses her nerve. There’s no furniture in the room – a
dingy, brown-carpeted space – but there’s a row of jars on the shelf below the cardboard-blinded window. She walks forward, stops dead when she realises the jars each contain an insect
of some type. Most appear to be spiders – including the curled corpse of a baboon spider, but there are also a couple of scorpions, several grasshoppers and a hulking Parktown prawn. She
gasps in disgust when she spots a large coffee jar at the far edge of the collection, the headless body of a giant rat squashed into its base.

She holds her breath, listening again for any sign that she’s not alone. Thinks she hears something scrape in the bowels of the house.

She backtracks in panic, her soggy breath loud in her ears. Disorientated, she takes a turning at random. Is this the way she came? She whirls around, starts running, almost tumbles down the
stairs at the end of the corridor. Runs blindly on, ends up face to face with a door. Is it the one that leads to the kitchen? She turns the handle, steps inside the room, blinking as bright light
sears her eyes. What in the hell? The lights glare down at her from the ceiling; while she’s been rambling around the house, someone has been here, turned them on. And that’s not all.
There’s a briefcase on the counter next to the sink. She’s positive it wasn’t here before.

Move!
she screams to herself, lunging towards the arched doorway that leads into the hallway and freedom. She’s only a metre away when it opens. She backs up against the counter
as a man walks through it, pushing an old-fashioned fedora back on his head.

He smiles broadly at her. His features are regular and instantly forgettable. His tweed suit looks too heavy for the weather. ‘Tara Elizabeth Marais? Thrilled to parts to encounter you.
I’ve been out in the wilderness investigating.’

She nods, tries to catch her breath. ‘Who are you?’ She’s relieved it isn’t Ryan, but how could this stranger know her name? ‘You a cop?’ That must be it.

‘Pardon?’

‘A policeman? Are you from the police?’

‘Ah,’ he chuckles. ‘An upside law-enforcer? I am not, but thank you for the tribute.’ He shuffles to the sink and turns on the tap. ‘Hygiene first.’

As he washes his hands, she notices that he’s missing three fingers on his left hand. The remaining digits – his thumb and ring finger – give it the look of a fleshy crab claw.
She tries not to shudder.

‘Then who are you? And how did you know my name?’

‘Excuse me for being discourteous. I am Node Agent Rosen. On option for Varder Batiss.’

‘Varder Batiss?’ Tara whispers.

‘Yes. This is his former node residence.’

‘Varder Batiss lives
here
?’ How can that be? Is the man who commissioned her to make Baby Tommy embroiled somehow with Ryan? Could Batiss be Jane’s father? And it
can’t be a coincidence that Jane and Martin have both disappeared. Tara struggles to piece it together. The only conclusion she can reach is that Ryan, Batiss, and possibly whoever has been
running Encounters are involved in some kind of child abduction racket. Christ...