Like Clockwork (15 page)

‘Where is she?’ asked Clare, reaching for notebook. ‘Can you take me?’

‘No, Madame. I cannot! But you go there, please. Take the other men with you.’ He pushed a scrap of paper towards her. On it was an address she recognised. A block of flats on a notorious stretch of Sea Point’s Main Road. ‘Please, Madame, I cannot tell you more. Can you go there now? Can you fetch the child tonight?’ A car pulled up outside. Clare went to the window to see who it was. She turned round, a question on her lips. But the caravan door was open, and Giscard was gone.

Joe Zulu came in. ‘Who was that guy leaving?’ asked Joe, placing a cup of coffee in front of her. Clare did not answer.
She was punching a number into her cellphone.

Pick up, she willed. He did. ‘Riedwaan, it’s Clare. I have a report of an abduction. Can you come?’ she closed her eyes, willing him to come. Then she thought of him in bed, imagined her hand moving down his hairless, brown chest.

‘Clare.’ His voice was irritated. ‘I asked you: where?’

‘In that block on Main Road. I think that we need to visit tonight.’ Riedwaan’s hesitation was palpable on the other end of the phone. Clare thought she could hear someone else’s voice asking who and what and why so late?

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll pick you and Joe up at the station.’ The phone went dead.

‘What’s happening, Clare?’

‘Riedwaan’s picking us up to investigate an assault. Looks like an abduction. Someone came to report it while you were next door.’

Joe folded his arms. ‘You don’t think it’s a set-up?’ he asked.

‘For what?’ asked Clare. ‘Why would an illegal take the risk of coming to the police station?’

‘Who knows? To cause trouble for someone else. Because he was paid to,’ said Joe. ‘I wonder how he got past the gate security.’

‘Jesus, Joe, you could drive a tank past those guards and they wouldn’t wake up after ten o’clock.’

Clare brought her car round from the parking lot at the back and was waiting for her heater to warm up when Riedwaan arrived. He came over to her window and held out his hand. She handed him the slip of paper with the address scrawled on it.

‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Clare,’ he said. ‘Who gave this to you?’

‘He called himself Giscard. Congolese, I’d say.’

Joe came out of the station. ‘Hey, Riedwaan. Shall we go?’
The two men got into Riedwaan’s car and Clare slipped into their wake. At 12.30 only the most desperate women were displayed along the road in their high heels, skinny thighs blue with cold.

Riedwaan and Joe parked near the block they were headed for and waited for Clare. The three of them then picked their way over the bodies of sleeping street children and made their way to the entrance. A young Somali woman, bright scarf pulled tight around her face, stood aside, eyes glazed with relief when they walked past her.

Riedwaan took the stairs two at a time, with Clare close behind him. Joe, still smoking twenty a day, wheezed after them. On the third floor Riedwaan checked the number that Clare had given him and looked for number four. There was nothing on any of the doors so he counted along. The door he knocked on opened immediately, as if they had been expected. The man who answered was tattooed and wore a tight T-shirt.

‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’ He leered at Clare. ‘Lady?’

‘You going to let us in, Kenny?’ said Riedwaan, matching his bulk against that of the doorman. Kenny moved aside just enough for them to pass through. Clare brushed against his bare arm, and recoiled.

‘We had a report that a child was being held here, Kenny. A very unhappy child. You know that means we can inspect the premises, don’t you, Kenny?’

Kenny looked confused. ‘For sure, man. I know that. But I scheme you’ll find yourself on a wild goose chase.’ Kenny sauntered down the passage, pushing doors open. There were women in all the rooms. ‘My sister,’ said Kenny, ‘so keep your eyes front. And my cousins from Malmesbury.’

‘What about that door?’ asked Riedwaan.

‘It’s empty. Check it out yourself.’

Riedwaan opened it. Kenny was right. Except for a bed,
the room was empty. Kenny went over and closed the window, shutting out the cold wind billowing the tattered curtain.

‘That’s all, folks,’ said Kenny, shepherding Riedwaan and Joe down the passage. ‘You came, you checked it out, there was nothing to see. You did your job. Now fuck off.’

Clare slipped back into the empty room. Her nostrils flared: she could smell the trace of someone who’d recently been there. She pulled back the cheap floral quilt. Beneath it was a naked mattress streaked with drying blood. She put her hand down to feel between the wall and the mattress. Wedged there, was a single earring. She slipped it into her pocket as she stepped over to the window. There was a three-metre drop to the roof below. It was possible someone had made that leap. Someone very desperate. A fragment of cloth caught on the razor wire whipped wildly in the rising wind, alerting Clare to a narrow alley snaking up behind the buildings. About halfway up the hill the filthy passageway led to a flight of steps, but Clare couldn’t make out any movement.

‘Clare,’ called Riedwaan.

She turned away reluctantly and closed the door behind her. Riedwaan propelled her towards the front door. ‘Your little bird has flown and we can’t do anything more without a fucking warrant,’ he whispered. ‘Do you want me to get into more shit with your crusades?’

‘You know as well as I do that there was someone there,’ Clare retorted, furious at the rigmarole of laws and warrants and having to be fair to scum like Kenny. ‘There’s blood all over that mattress.’

‘And there is nothing I can do about that or the so-called cousins from Malmesbury without a search warrant. And there is no way we will get a warrant without your mystery Giscard. Now let’s go, before Kenny decides we are infringing on his undeserved civil rights.’

‘Where has she gone?’ Clare wondered aloud as they went down the stairs.

‘She could be anywhere,’ said Joe. ‘If she is still alive she’ll be terrified beyond speech. She’s not going to come to us.’

Riedwaan slammed the car door in impotent fury.

‘I’m sorry, Riedwaan,’ said Clare.

‘It’s nobody’s fault. Those guys would have cleared things up in seconds after they realised that your friend had taken off. But without him there will be no case. No witness, no warrant, no evidence.’

‘No girl,’ said Clare.

‘That too,’ Riedwaan said. ‘No bloody girl. Not yet. I’m going to put out an alert so that everyone is on the lookout for her. She’ll need help if she’s been with these guys for a while.’

‘I wonder if she looked like the other two,’ said Clare. There was no need to elaborate.

‘She’ll turn up. Alive, I mean,’ said Joe. ‘I don’t think these gangsters killed the other two. They didn’t look like initiation victims to me: there usually isn’t much left of them when we find them. And pimps don’t like destroying their assets. Beatings, yes, torture for fun, but killing a girl usually means things got a little out of hand. Nothing was out of control when Charnay and Amore were murdered.’

‘I hope you’re right, Joe,’ said Riedwaan. He started the car. ‘Are you coming back to the station, Clare?

She looked at her watch. It was past one. ‘No. Not now. It’s so late. I think I’ll just go home.’

‘Okay, see you,’ said Joe.

Riedwaan didn’t try to dissuade her. Clare got into her car, automatically pushing down the central locking. Maybe whoever had been with Riedwaan earlier was waiting for him. Maybe he had just been watching the late-night movie. She watched as the two men drove off.

Clare sat in her car, thinking of that scrap of material whipping back and forth on the razor wire. The girl must have escaped along the passageway and up the hill. Moving away from people, as a wounded animal would. Then Clare’s heart lurched as she saw a hand pressing on the passenger window.

‘Madame, is me, Giscard.’ Clare looked again.

‘You gave me such a fright.’ She rolled down her window. ‘We didn’t find her. I don’t know where she is.’

‘She got away,’ said Giscard, quietly. ‘I saw her.’

‘Where is she?’

‘I come back here after I see you. I watch to see if you come with the police. That is when I see her climb out the window.’

‘Where did she go?’ asked Clare.

‘I followed her but she ran when she saw me.’

‘Yes, but where did she go?’ Clare’s voice was a low, urgent mutter.

‘I followed her to Glengariff Road. There is a building site halfway down. Maybe you look there?’

‘Thank you, Giscard.’ Clare did an abrupt U-turn, driving up steep streets through sleeping mansions snug behind walls and electric fences. Alarm systems winked their red Cyclops eyes as she passed. A security guard shifted in his chair, raising
his arm in a tired salute. She turned left into the late-night emptiness of High Level Road. The houses here were smaller, the security more makeshift. She stopped at the red light on Glengariff Road. The street was shrouded with trees, their branches hanging low over the pavements. The lights changed and Clare turned down the hill. The building site was on the left. Clare parked, feeling inside the cubbyhole for a torch. To her relief, it was there. She got out of her car and picked her way through the debris. The old house was gutted, the ribs of the roof eerie against the sky. Clare checked the exposed basement. It was empty. She was about to return to her car when she noticed the partially covered skip. She picked her way over to it and called softly.

‘Hello? Are you there?’ she called softly. There was silence. Clare shone her torch past broken floorboards and lumps of cement. The beam caught a pair of eyes gleaming in the dark like a terrified cat.

‘I won’t hurt you,’ said Clare. The girl shrank back into the shadows. Clare climbed into the skip and crouched next to the girl.

‘Come with me,’ said Clare. The girl shook her head, but did not resist when Clare put an arm around her and helped her to the car. She collapsed onto the seat, her long hair matted over her shoulders. Clare reached over and buckled her in. The girl winced.

‘I’m taking you to a hospital,’ she told her as she got back into her seat. She spread a coat over her. The girl’s legs were streaked with blood, her left eye swollen shut, her hand a bloodied pulp. And the familiar tattoo on her back.

‘What is your name?’ asked Clare, more to keep the girl conscious than anything else. Her shaking hands were slippery on the wheel.

‘Whitney,’ was the whispered reply.

‘Who did this to you?’

‘Nobody. Nothing happened.’ She scrabbled for the door handle with her good hand; the left one she kept cradled against her bruised body. ‘It was an accident.’

‘I won’t hurt you,’ Clare reassured her. ‘I’m taking you to see a doctor.’ Whitney fell back into her seat.

Clare drove to the emergency entrance of the private City Hospital. She half carried Whitney from the car into the admissions room. Whitney answered none of the questions put to her so Clare gave her own details and signed endless forms before Whitney could be seen by a doctor. Then Whitney was wheeled away, leaving Clare bereft in the chilly room. A night nurse brought her a cup of tea and told her that the doctor would be out soon to tell her about her daughter. Clare did not correct her about the relationship. She sipped the lukewarm tea with gratitude, exhaustion starting to bite.

Clare was almost asleep when the doctor came to find her.

‘We’ve patched her up and sedated her. I’m Erika September.’ She shook Clare’s hand. She seemed too young to be doing this work. ‘She has been very severely assaulted. The extent of her injuries points to a sexual assault perpetrated by several different people. A gang rape. There are signs of healing, though, so my guess is that this took place over a number of days.’ The doctor paused, waiting for Clare to explain. When no explanation was forthcoming she continued. ‘Whitney will need emergency trauma counselling. I have set something up for tomorrow morning. This also needs to be reported to the police.’

‘I’ll leave that to Whitney to decide,’ said Clare. Erika September turned to go back to Whitney. ‘You can see her now,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I hope she presses charges. I see too many like her.’

‘What about anti-HIV treatment?’ asked Clare as she followed the young woman down the dimly lit passage.

‘She has just had the first dose. You’ll need to monitor the treatment carefully. She must come for her follow-up.’ The doctor paused with her hand on the heavy door. She looked directly at Clare. ‘She has been assaulted over an extended period. If it was more than seventy-two hours then the medication won’t work if she is infected.’ She opened the door and stood back, letting Clare into the treatment room. Whitney lay on the high bed, curled into a tight foetal ball under the covers. She had been sponged down and dressed in a white hospital gown.

‘Whitney,’ said Clare, bending close to her. ‘It’s Clare. I brought you here.’ There was no response from the girl. Clare touched her arm but Whitney flinched as if Clare’s cool fingers were a branding iron. Clare did not remove her hand from Whitney’s arm. She felt the flesh recoil instinctively at her touch, and then slowly relax again when no hurt followed.

‘Whitney,’ she whispered into her ear, ‘how do you feel?’ The girl curled up even tighter. ‘Who did this to you?’

‘Nobody.’ Her voice was cracked, broken with her body. ‘It was just an accident. Nobody.’ Clare traced the girl’s delicate shoulder blades under the gown. A yellow ooze had seeped through, staining the starched cotton.

‘What’s this?’ she asked Dr September, who was standing on the other side of the bed.

‘It’s burn ointment.’ Erika September had grown up on a farm. She felt certain that Whitney had been burnt with a branding iron – just as her father had marked each year’s new batch of heifers. ‘There are cigarette burns on her hands and thighs too.’

Clare’s stomach contracted. ‘Whitney,’ she tried once more. ‘Can we call the police in the morning?’ Whitney shook her head. ‘Where is your family? Can I phone your mother?’ Again just a shake of her head.

Dr September took Clare by the arm and moved her towards the door. ‘It won’t work. I see more and more of these “accidents”. She won’t report anything. I am sure she is terrified that whoever did this to her will do it to her mother, her little sister. Or to her all over again. That is what they will have told her.’ Dr September’s voice dropped. ‘We have collected all the samples for analysis. So, if by some miracle she does press charges, we’ll have evidence.’