Killer Country E-Book

Mike Nicol

• Herausgeber: Old Street Publishing
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Mike Nicol is one of the brightest thriller writing talents to have emerged in the last decade, and the Mace and Pylon novels are as good as any being written in the field today. This is not just superb genre writing: it is superb writing, period, and proves that the thriller, at its best, can both entertain and provoke, while tackling serious issues with the lightest of touches. Read Mike Nicol now, before everyone else starts telling you how wonderful he is' JOHN CONNOLLY 'If you have to spend a weekend with only one book for company, take Killer Country' Sunday Independent 'Shady characters, twists, turns, murder, mayhem, humour, wonderful dialogue, white-knuckle pace -- everything I love about crime fiction in just the right amount' Deon Meyer 'A magnificent thriller. Nicol strips his prose of ornamentation and achieves an extraordinary emotional energy out of his characters and their ordeals. This is language with muscle.' Rapport 'World class . . . pace, wonderful characters and brilliant dialogue' Elle 'Mike Nicol is a talent deserving wide international recognition' The Weekender 'Watch out Elmore Leonard, here comes Mike Nicol' Southern Mail 'A heady mix, and Nicol stirs it with vigour, inventiveness and wit . . . The laconic, street-smart style is so convincingly laid-back that it may blind readers to the artistry of the writing, which is taut and economical Independent 'In the top rung . . . Nicol's clipped dialogue and sparse, high-impact prose recalls that of revered American recluse Cormac McCarthy' The Citizen Mace Bishop and Pylon Buso run a security agency, protecting wealthy tourists from the violence on Cape Town's streets -- all the while hoping their own shady pasts won't catch up with them. But when they try to invest some dirty money in a lucrative property deal, they clash with a new and dangerous set of enemies: Obed Chocho, corrupt politician par excellence, and Spitz, a ruthless hitman who kills with mechanical efficiency. And somewhere behind it all is an old adversary, Sheemina February, looking to settle a score from the bad old days . . .

Leseprobe

PRAISE FOR MIKE NICOL

‘Mike Nicol is the rapidly rising star of South African crime fiction. His novels have everything I love about the genre in just the right amount: shady characters, twists, turns, murder, mayhem, humour, wonderful dialogue, white-knuckle pace and lots of authentic Cape Town colour.’

DEON MEYER

‘Watch out Elmore Leonard, here comes Mike Nicol’

SOUTHERN MAIL

‘A heady mix, and Nicol stirs it with vigour, inventiveness wit … The laconic, street-smart style is so convincingly laid-back that it may blind readers to the artistry of the writing, which is taut and economical’

INDEPENDENT

‘In the top rung … Nicol’s clipped dialogue and sparse, high-impact prose recalls that of revered American recluse Cormac McCarthy’

THE CITIZEN

killer country

mike nicol

CONTENTS

Title Page

Part One: The Hits

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2

3

4

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6

7

8

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10

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Part Two: The Issues

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Playlist

Copyright

THE HITS

Friday

1

Pollsmoor Prison, 6 a.m. The chief warder frowned. No birdsong. No cacophony. There was kak in the land. You didn’t need to be a bloody prophet to know this. The hell of it was he’d just eaten a decent breakfast – thick bacon slices, two eggs, fried tomato, fried banana, toast fried in the grease. The one advantage of the first shift, a breakfast like that. If the old cookie was on duty. The old cookie a lifer with one eye who escaped being dangled over the long drop when hanging was scrapped. All because of the new constitution. The old cookie who should’ve been dropped for all the grief he’d caused. Other hand, the old cookie did a helluva breakfast.

‘You hear that?’ the chief warder said to the rookie with him. A young guy, six months out of training. ‘There’s been shit.’

The young warder looked at him, not even a light in his pupils. Dead brown eyes. Didn’t seem to know what he was talking about.

‘You feel it?’

The young warder shook his head.

Before he opened the solid metal door with the peep hatch the chief warder knew there was major trouble ahead. He took a look into the corridor. Empty as it should be. The old cookie must’ve known. Bastard wouldn’t say a bloody thing, even though he knew. Wouldn’t warn you.

He unlocked the door, let the young warder pull it open. In front of them two grilles, the corridor beyond.

‘You hear that?’

‘No.’

‘The silence. When you hear nothing then there’s kak.’

Trouble was in which cell. Five cells on this corridor, could be any one of them. Or all five. Only way was to check first through the peep holes. Still gave him the sweats, these sort of situations. Could be they were planning a mass breakout, come screaming at them waving knives, guns, screwdrivers. No matter what you did the hardware got in. Two weeks back this nine mil with a full load in the cartridge pitched up. Deep in the prison in maximum. How’d it get there? Bloody magic.

‘Lock the grilles,’ he told the young warder.

What he should do was get backup. But bugger that, have the youngster reckon he was chicken-shit scared? No ways. He heard the locks bang home. Drew his revolver. These savages came at him he’d take down five of them first.

‘What’re you going to do?’ said the youngster.

He glanced at the boy. How old was he, eighteen, nineteen? From some village most likely. Not a township special, this one. Too polite. Welcome to the pisshole, my china. He watched the youngster fumbling to unholster his weapon. ‘Stay behind me, okay. If I shoot, you shoot.’

‘Why they so quiet?’

‘That’s what we gotta find out.’

The chief warder went up to the spy hole on the first door, lifted the flap to check the glass wasn’t smashed. Last thing you wanted was to put your eye to the hole, some bokdrol sheep turd rams a spoke through your eye. It’d happened one time, they nailed the warder’s brain as well. Poor bastard. He was singing with the heavenlies before he hit the floor.

The chief warder peered in at the first cell, the men not even standing up, lying on their beds like it was summer holidays. He banged his gun butt on the metal door. Yelled in Afrikaans, ‘Stand up. Stand up.’ Watched them get to their feet, twenty-eight of them in a pot meant for ten. Ugly, tattooed, scrawny gangbangers. Could slide a nail between your ribs while they asked you for a smoke.

The peephole fisheyed the room. Far as he could tell from the heaps of bedrolls on the floor no one was baiting him, wanting to lure him in so they could stick twenty-eight bits of sharpened metal into his skin.

‘Stay like that,’ he shouted, moved on to the next door. Went through the same procedure with the peephole: thirty arseholes in this one, grinning at him. ‘Want to check them out?’ He moved aside for the young warder. ‘Take a long look. You check anything funny, tell me.’

‘Like what?’

‘You see it, you’ll know it.’

His armpits were damp. The taste of bacon at the back of his mouth. Dry. Harsh. This sort of situation brought Cookie’s breakfast back very quickly.

The young warder said, ‘I don’t see anything.’

‘Good then,’ he said. ‘Number three.’ He rapped his gun on the metal door. ‘Yous just stay like that, hear me?’

Not a response out of them. Everyone shut-up, waiting.

The chief warder scoped cell three, then the remaining two. In them the men all standing up, facing the door. Some bored, some smirking, some giving him the snake-tongue when they saw his eye darken the hole. He walked slowly back to cell three, wondering how to handle this. Call backup? Or go in there?

‘What’s it?’ said the young warder.

‘Check it out,’ he said. Pointed at the peephole. ‘Go on, man, look for yourself.’

The young warder did. Stood back, gabbling in his own language. Grey as ash.

The chief warder gripped the youngster’s shoulder. ‘Been a rough night in there, hey.’ He put his eye to the hole. The convicts standing in two lines. Thirteen one side, twelve the other. On the floor between them a blanket. Under the blanket a body. A dark stain on the blanket at chest level.

He said to the young warder, ‘I’m going to unlock the door, okay? I’m going to go in there, okay? You stay here at the door. You watch them. They do anything funny, any one of them, you shoot, okay?’

The young warder nodded.

‘Say yes.’

The young warder swallowed. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Okay, boykie. Here we go.’

The chief warder unlocked the door, pulled it open. The convicts leered at him. He told them to turn around, face the wall, stand with their hands above their heads. They obeyed. Taking their time, waggling their arses, giving him lots of attitude, but they obeyed. Like he reckoned they would. This wasn’t about a breakout. This was about a job. Or gang initiation.

He sucked up some saliva to cover the bacon dryness in his mouth. ‘Any one of yous move, you’re dead, okay?’

He walked to the blanket covering the body. Lifted a corner. For a moment couldn’t work out what he was staring at. Then he got it. The bloody stump of the neck. The chest opened like a box, the heart ripped out. He wondered if the guy had still been alive at that point. Wondered how many of them had eaten it. The head he found in the toilet bowl. Carefully placed in there so the face gazed up at him, blue eyes wide open.

2

Sheemina February tapped a highlighter on the statements scored with yellow. Bank statements spread across her dining-room table. Looked up at the horizon: nothing out there to break the line of sea meets sky. A blue emptiness. She smiled. Caught the reflection of her smile in the window. Kept it muted. Thinking, well, well, well. Here were possibilities.

What made her smile, what she liked about Obed Chocho’s bank statements were the large deposits. Multiples of a hundred thousand at a time. Random entries. Mostly electronic. Two cash amounts which spoke of an inside man. Knowing Obed Chocho he’d have an inside man. Or woman. Probably woman. Women were his style.

No doubt though, Obed Chocho was a very rich man. Spent it too. Lived large. But then she knew that. Just had to look at the cars, the bling on the lovely Lindiwe Chocho to know this.

Only obstruction to Obed Chocho’s current lifestyle was prison. The reason he’d hired her. ‘I hear you’re a hotshot lawyer,’ he’d said. ‘Mighty fine. Show me. Look after my interests.’ Why she’d made herself available. Why she’d got an inside man at the bank – men were her style – to get her Obed Chocho’s bank statements. Only way to know what she was dealing with. To the cent.

Sheemina February was dealing with the sort of money that pleased her. More especially she was dealing with the sort of deals that pleased her.

She picked up her cellphone went onto the balcony to make some calls. The balcony in shadow, cool. In March the sun halfway through the morning before it reached the front of the apartments. She ran a hand lightly over the dampness on the chrome railing, something soothing about the moisture on her skin. Her left, scarred and tortured. Stared at the mutilation of her fingers, the discolouration, the glisten of water in the palm of her hand. Her rigid hand. No matter how much she willed her fingers they would never close. Nor straighten. Twitch slightly. But not close. They remained claw-like.

She brought up a number on the phone screen. Keyed dial. Listened to the ringing. Before her the quiet back of the ocean was spotted with white gulls. Earlier she’d watched their feeding frenzy on a shoal of small fish. A madness of killing. Nothing to tell of that now from this placid scene.

‘Spitz,’ she said when her call was answered. ‘Are you available?’

‘Who is this talking,’ came the reply in a weird German accent. Made Sheemina February smile. She looked down at the rocks: low tide, kelp and debris drying on the mussel beds. All very serene.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘What’s in it is your usual fee plus a percentage. At the request of a man called Obed Chocho. Ring any bells?’

Spitz said yes.

‘Good. He has heard about you. He knows your work, that’s why the percentage.’

‘How many contracts will there be?’

‘Two.’

He came back with, ‘That is in order.’

Brought the amused smile to her lips again. ‘So you’re available.’

Instead of yes he said, ‘Ja, ja.’

‘Do you want the details?’

‘It is better not at this time.’

‘We’d prefer that too,’ she said.

Sheemina February told Spitz to be outside the Meadowlands police station at four o’clock. ‘You’re in Johannesburg aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Melrose Arch, if my information is correct? You’ll have to take a taxi to Soweto. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.’

‘That is alright,’ he said.

‘Pack an overnight bag. You’ll be meeting a man called Manga. Black like you. He’ll arrange the transport and the gun.’

‘It must be the right calibre.’

‘I know about that,’ she said.

Next she phoned Manga and set it up with him. Said, ‘No funny stuff, okay, Manga. Just get him to Colesberg, to the farm. Let him do the job. Stay out of the way.’

‘What d’you think I am?’ Manga said. ‘I can do this job. I’ve done that. You don’t need to get him.’

‘Of course,’ said Sheemina February, not suppressing her laughter.

Manga said, ‘Don’t laugh at me.’

‘You’re a funny man,’ said Sheemina February. Paused. ‘Alright, there’s a thing you can do for me, Manga. While you’re in Colesberg.’ She told him what it was, gave him an address. ‘You interested?’

‘No problem,’ said Manga.

She disconnected, slipped the phone into the pocket of her kimono, gave no further thought to what she had arranged. After all it was her client’s brief. She turned to face into the apartment, caught her reflection in the glass. There were models that would’ve killed for her looks, her figure. She smiled. Gazed through herself at her lair. Her white lair. White couches, white flokatis, white walls. She leant against the balcony’s railing to admire the room’s pristine comfort. Here she was alone. Here no one else had ever been. Here she laid her plans.

She needed to shower, dress, pack a bag. Tonight she would give up the quiet of her lair for her town house. Replace the sea with the rawness of the city: the sirens, the harbour lights, the dark looming mountain, its arms around the scurrying streets as if one day it would crush the human insects nestled there. Tomorrow she would breakfast with the lovely Lindiwe Chocho, get some idea of the lady’s sleeping patterns. Now it was started it could not be stopped. Only thing, one other piece had to be pulled into the unravelling: a man called Mace Bishop. The man who’d smashed her hand. Who’d sent her to the punishment camps of Angola. Who’d consigned her to the rapists. The man she sent rosebuds to. The man whose photograph she kept in a plastic sleeve in her handbag.

Mace Bishop in a black Speedo, standing on the edge of a swimming pool about to plunge in. A photograph she’d taken from the other end of the pool. In the days after he’d killed the man she’d hired to kill him. Mace Bishop. She got the photograph. Slipped it from the sleeve, rubbed her rigid fingers over the surface, leaving a smear on the gloss.

Imagined shaving him. With a cutthroat razor from her collection. The collection displayed on the wall. Blades that had shaved famous men. Blades she’d paid a fortune for. Imagined Mace lying back in a Badedas bath. Coming to him, kneeling to lather his face, working the gel into a foam, spreading the foam across his bristles, under his chin, across his upper lip. Her latte hand against his white skin. Stropping the razor, bone-handled, Sheffield steel. Angling the blade down the left cheek along the jaw to the chin. Flicking off the foam. Doing the same with the right side of his face. No rasp, no hair pull, a clean shave. Carefully shaving off the moustache stubble. Then gently tilt back his head, work from the Adam’s apple into the soft crop of the underjaw. Mace Bishop lying there with his eyes closed, soft featured. Reaching a hand up to fondle her breasts.

The surprise on his face when she slit his throat.

With the hem of her kimono, Sheemina February cleaned the surface of the photograph. Returned it to its plastic sleeve. Put that into her handbag. There would be time for such fantasies.

An hour later she left the apartment – an elegant woman wearing a grey linen suit, sunglasses stuck in her hair, holding a briefcase in her right hand, her left hand sheathed in a black leather glove.

3

Spitz, outside the Meadowlands police station, put down his holdall and lit a cigarette. Stared at a police van, the cops dragging three bloodied men from the back cage. The men too drunk and messed up to complain. Some at the nearby taxi rank mocked the cops but the taunts went unheeded.

Spitz blew smoke from the corner of his mouth, tipped off the small head of ash. He glanced about for somewhere out of the sun. The pavement was barren, a wide sweep cleared round the police station. No vegetation beyond weeds threaded into the security fence at his back. Sweat started in his armpits. Little chance there would be a thunderstorm to cool down the afternoon.

He could do with a long Stella. Preferably at JB’s, Melrose Arch. Some Kal Cahoone sweetly in his ears. A waitress moving about the tables, reassuring her customers that the world was a good place.

Spitz looked at his watch. The man was five minutes late. What he didn’t like was people who weren’t punctual.

His experience, you weren’t punctual it meant you were caught, being tortured, about to be dead. He ground the cigarette butt into the dirt. Also, a man wasn’t punctual it meant no attention to detail. This sort of operation, attention to detail was important.

Spitz knew the man he waited for had been on the highway heist. A heist that people talked about. Even given it a name: the Atholl Off-Ramp Heist. That show’d needed attention to detail. Five cars, twenty men. And two more cars to block the highway, split-second timing. Open the cash van, grab the boxes, ten of them, two per car. Nine million in total. Also, the body count impressed Spitz. Three dead guards, one dead comrade. Though he’d heard two coms weren’t going to be operative again. Ever.

Which was one of the reasons he hadn’t gone into cash heists: the stats were against you. More money, maybe, but you got killed or shot up or arrested.

Spitz didn’t know any rich cash-in-transit heisters. Not soldiers. Knew of plenty of big players pulling cashflow from bank heists and carjackings and round-sourcing government contracts and crony deals and land development scams. They got richer and richer diversifying assets. One or two almost richer in twelve years than the Oppenheimers in a century.

Spitz fired up another cigarette, took a pull. Most of them bastards. Bastards like Obed Chocho. Except the deal with Chocho had this percentage. This was a new arrangement. An incentive. One that appealed to Spitz. ‘He has heard about you,’ the woman had said. ‘He knows your work, that’s why the percentage.’ He checked his watch. The man was ten minutes late.

A voice behind him said in English, ‘Yo, captain, am I waiting for you?’

Spitz turned, not liking being surprised, saw this Zulu boy grinning at him.

Manga marked Spitz right off, standing there outside the police station in his pressed chinos and brogues. Neat, dapper. New bag beside him. Saw Spitz look at the passengers getting out of the taxi, check his watch, grind out the cigarette. Not even noticing him. Manga dressed in floppy township. No difference between him and any cousin. Spitz not giving him a second glance. The great Spitz-the-Trigger.

What Manga had wanted to know at the outset was why Spitz? When he got the call from the woman and was told the job and was told Spitz would be his partner he’d protested. ‘No, uh uh. Who needs that man, Spitz?’

‘You do,’ he was told. Because this was not some bang-bang arrangement where he could put the AK on auto and spray a clip far and wide. This was precision work. In out, one shot per.

‘I can do that,’ said Manga. ‘I’ve done that.’

The woman on the line had laughed at him.

Once, he’d done it. Once only. An assassination that’d taken three hits of brown sugar and not a little brandy in advance. Eight bullets in the execution. The place looked more like a massacre site than a hit, more blood on the walls and ceiling than a slaughter house. Splatter marks in the bedroom, down the passage way, in the lounge and in the kitchen. Only because it was open plan, Manga tried to explain. No, he’d been told, because you messed up in the bedroom. The man’s lying in bed with his wife, you’re standing over them and it still takes five bullets for the man alone. Three for the woman. And the woman ends up dead outside. That’s why you need Spitz. Spitz uses only one bullet per head. No shit on the walls. No smashed furniture, no broken vases. Nobody even attempting to escape. Better to stick to transit heists, she’d told Manga.

Manga reckoned that too. Do the job, get the money, have a blast in some shebeen. Until the deal on this job was laid out: the fee plus a percentage. For being the driver. That’s all. Get him there, get the job done. We trust you Manga.

Meaning, Manga believed, they didn’t trust Spitz. Hadn’t contracted with Spitz before. Knew the reputation, but weren’t sure about the man. At the end of it maybe Mr Spitz wasn’t going to be on the payroll. Such were Manga’s personal conclusions according to gut feel and a working knowledge of Obed Chocho people.

Personally, he had no social problem with Spitz-the-Trigger. Personally he could hang with anybody, no big deal. Shoot a few beers, tell a few war stories and they were brothers. Personally, though, he’d rather have done the job with someone he knew. Personally Spitz-the-Trigger wasn’t high up the list of people he wanted to know.

A man with a shoe fetish! Hey, wena, what’s to talk about with a shoe man?

Manga looked down at his Adidas trainers. Stood in the police yard behind the security fence right behind Spitz, Spitz standing there in his polished brown brogues, their shine dulled with red dust. Sharp shoes. But what’d he want to wear smart shoes for in Soweto. They get scuffed in a taxi, ruined on the streets. Okay for a Sandton shopping mall but where they were going brogues weren’t the shoe. Where they were going the shoe was light and tight, urban-style.

Manga noted the broad shoulders, the shirt creased in the small of the back from sitting in a taxi. The neat short dreads hairstyle. The way Spitz held himself he might break if he moved. This was the man they said had done some of the hits for high-up people. Manga rolled his tongue round his teeth. He latched the fingers of his left hand into the fence, said, ‘Yo, captain, am I waiting for you?’

Spitz turned. He wasn’t grinning like Manga. He held up his arm and tapped his watch. ‘I am waiting for you. Ten minutes.’

‘I’ve been here,’ said Manga. He let go of the fence, jerked his thumb at the door of the police station. ‘The man we’ve gotta see’s inside.’

The sergeant they had to see took them to a compound at the back of the police station. About fifty cars in it, a few of them totalled. To the side two rows of good models, mostly new G-string Beemers, some Audis, Subarus, a few sporty Golfs, the sort of cars with fast nought to one hundred specs. Could have been on the forecourt of any northern suburbs dealership.

‘I saved you time,’ said the sergeant. ‘I picked out a car already.’ He pointed to a navy BM at the back of the row nearest the compound gate. Three series, the latest model. ‘That one. It’s fast, it’s clean. I drove it. You want to drive it? Fifty-five on the clock. Full service record.’

‘Any blood in it?’ Spitz put down his holdall, took a packet of menthols from his top pocket.

‘Valeted,’ said the sergeant, not looking at Spitz. ‘Anyhow, a no-shit hijack. No blood in it ever. Guaranteed.’

‘Number plates are the original?’ said Manga.

Spitz lit a cigarette without offering the pack.

‘Sure.’ The sergeant grinned, exposing a missing molar, top right. ‘With the paperwork backlog it is a week before the car is in our system. Your holiday is a week, né? Until then the car is not missing. Never came in here. But in a week the car is hot stuff.’

Spitz exhaled, the smoke hanging dense in the air before them.

Manga said, ‘Let me listen to it.’

‘The key is inside.’ The sergeant opened the door for Manga to slide in. Said to Spitz, ‘This one is okay for you?’

Spitz shrugged. ‘I am going for the ride.’

Whatever the sergeant replied, he couldn’t hear beneath the whine and roar of the BM. When Manga dropped the engine to idle the sergeant said, ‘This car is perfect.’ He slapped the roof with his palm. ‘Sharp, sharp guaranteed.’

Manga switched off the ignition and eased his legs out. ‘How about that Subaru, captain? BM or a Subaru I would choose a Subaru.’

‘No problem,’ said the sergeant. ‘In these two rows whatever you want it is yours. Your friend doesn’t want one with the blood, I can show you those. For you to pick. These are good cars. Every one. If you want my choice you take this BMW.’ He slapped the roof again. ‘That is my job. Find a good car I am told. I find it. Also, this’s a car for us. Two gents in it, that’s not unusual. In a Subaru, that’s strange. You get whites and coloureds drive a Subaru.’

‘Subarus are better,’ said Manga. He selected a model two cars down.

‘That one had much blood,’ said the sergeant.

Manga scanned the interior. ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

‘You cannot see it now. I’m telling you. In the passenger seat that hole, that hole is a bullet hole. Forty-five millimetre, hollow-point. I do not have to say any more.’

‘This one,’ said Spitz, kicking lightly at the back wheel of the Beemer. He picked up his bag. ‘Can you open the boot?’

The sergeant scooted round the car, grinning. ‘I have a present in there for you.’

Manga, at the Subaru, started to say something, then stopped. Don’t argue, they’d told him. Stick with him. Do what he says. He slammed shut the car door. Spitz glanced up but the sergeant was too busy marvelling at the contents of the boot to pay Manga’s attitude any note.

Laid out on a towel was a Ruger small calibre pistol with a silencer. Shiny, like new. A box of .22 Long Rifle cartridges beside it.

‘That is what you wanted?’

Spitz nodded.

‘I oiled it.’

Spitz nodded again.

Manga came up. ‘Captain. Captain, that’s a toy.’

‘It’s a very light gun,’ said the sergeant.

‘Sure,’ said Spitz. ‘This is what I use.’ He reached in and wrapped the gun in the towel, put the box of bullets into his bag. ‘No record on it?’

‘Stolen,’ said the sergeant. ‘Never reported. Not registered either. What’re we going to do with it? One day put it in the smelter that will make the gun-free people happier. We got stock piles waiting for that day. One, nobody’s gonna miss.’

Spitz placed his holdall in the boot and rummaged in it for an iPod wired to headphones. ‘Do you have a bag?’ he said to Manga.

‘We can get it on the way.’ Manga gestured at the gate. ‘Meadowlands. Just down the road.’

Spitz slammed the lid shut. ‘You have been helpful,’ he said to the sergeant.

The sergeant grinned, revealing the gap in his teeth. ‘Sharp, sharp. You have a week. Drive safe.’

4

Tami came in with two beers, said, ‘I’m reception, né, not a waitress’ – plonked the bottles down on the coffee table in Pylon’s office right beside where Mace’s feet rested. Mace sprawled in an armchair, Pylon perched in the window looking down on Dunkley Square. The cafés filling with Friday drinkers.

‘Time you gave up smoking?’ said Pylon.

Tami going, ‘Like what? Like how’s it a problem?’

‘Your clothes,’ said Pylon. ‘The smoke’s in your clothes.’

Mace grinned. ‘He’s kidding, Tami. Working your case.’

‘Like I need it.’ To Pylon she said, ‘Your wife phoned. Wants you to call her back.’

Pylon groaned. ‘Talk about working my case’ – taking up his cellphone

Mace said, ‘Go home, Tami. Get out of here’ – watching her head for the stairs with a waggle of fingers goodbye. Had a good arse on her that hadn’t started spreading yet.

Mace reached for a beer and took a pull. Pylon at the window gazing up Table Mountain saying, ‘Yes, Treasure. I’ll pick her up. In half an hour. Relax.’

When he’d disconnected turning to Mace: ‘You’d think she’d understand we run a business. That I’m not a chauffeur.’

‘Mostly we’re chauffeurs,’ said Mace, ‘when you think about it.’

Pylon said, ‘What?’ Lifted his bottle of beer from the coffee table. Said, ‘Pumla can wait another half an hour. She’s at your place anyhow. With Christa. Oumou watching over both of them. But, no, Treasure’s steaming.’ He drank a short swallow. ‘What d’you mean chauffeurs, anyhow.’

‘Seems to me,’ said Mace, ‘that’s what security’s come down to. Driving scared people around.’

Pylon laughed. ‘Good money though.’

‘Time we got out.’

‘You serious?’

‘Reckon.’ Mace swallowed a mouthful of beer. And another before he put the bottle back on the coaster, matching the wet ring to the bottom of the bottle. ‘Guarding’s for kids. Macho types getting kicks out of belting up a nine mil when they dress.’

‘I’ve not heard this version before.’

‘Doesn’t mean it hasn’t been on my mind.’ Mace met his eyes. ‘Look at what’s happening. What we’re doing? All our lives we’ve been trading, getting shot at, shooting back. The war stops. Whatta we do? Search out a gap where we can get shot at again. Doesn’t make sense.’

‘It did. Make sense.’

‘Not any more. Also I’ve got this court case on my head.’

‘I thought Captain Gonz had sorted it, quashed it.’

Mace shook his head. ‘Adjournments. Technical postponements. He tells me no more adjournments’re possible. Pressure from the US consul looking after their murdering citizens. Try them, sentence them, get it over with.’ Mace took a pull at his beer. ‘The consul telling the prosecutors to stop dragging it out.’

Pylon watched people on the square, people hugging each other, relaxing at the end of the week. ‘You should’ve shot them.’

‘Paulo and Vittoria?’

‘Them, yeah. Saved all this bother. You went soft.’

‘Maybe.’ Mace fidgeted with a lose thread on the couch arm. ‘I thought … I don’t know what I thought. I thought after the killing spree they’d been on, the case would be quick sticks done and dusted.’ He pulled out the thread, snapped it. ‘Two good scores for Captain Gonsalves notched to his service record. Paulo and Vittoria lost in the prison system. Instead they want to tell the world I tortured them.’ He wound the thread round his finger.

‘Which you did.’

‘To get a confession. How they murdered the Italian homos, Isabella and her sidekick.’

Pylon frowned. ‘She was a problem. Isabella was bad news, we should of stayed away from her.’

‘She got us the diamonds, remember.’

‘She nearly got us killed. All because she lead you by the cock.’

‘I fancied her once.’ Mace pulled at the thread till his finger hurt.

‘Once was once. Your problem you don’t let things go.’ Pylon shook his head. ‘So what’s the captain say?’

‘He’s stuffed too. Colluding. Withholding evidence. Gonz’s an unhappy man. Hearing’s still set down for a month’s time. Any day they could subpoena me.’

‘But they haven’t yet?’

‘No.’

Mace tightened the thread, grimaced.

Pylon said, ‘You’ll pop your finger, you carry on doing that.’

They drank in silence. Voices from the square drifting up. Pylon broke the quiet. ‘So this’s why you want to cash in, sell the business? You want to do a runner before the hearing?’

Mace glanced at him, squinted to see his expression against the light. ‘You see another option? I’m facing jail time at the end of this. What happens to Oumou and Christa then?’

‘The way I see it we’ve been through this three times already with adjournments. Every time the wheels of justice fall off. Trust to the captain, the man’s got a lot to lose.’

‘It’s not your skin,’ said Mace.

‘All I’m saying,’ – Pylon slid off the window sill, stretched his back – ‘is we got to keep the options open, choose the moment to sell out. Now’s not it. Know what I mean. You can’t put your life on hold because of this court case. Maybe it doesn’t get to court. Then what?’

Mace raised his eyebrows, the yeah, yeah in his expression.

‘No, hang on. I mean it.’ Pylon moved from the window, sat on the couch opposite Mace. ‘Listen,’ – leaning forward to get Mace’s attention – ‘there’s a way out, in the long term. Come in on the west coast scheme. Golf estates make big bucks.’ The west coast scheme one of Pylon’s capitalist ventures, something Mace wanted in on anyhow.

‘How?’ Mace took another swallow. ‘With what? Where’re Oumou and I going to get spare cash?’

‘From me.’ Pylon giving him the full eyeball. ‘This’s our out, my brother. You want it that badly, grab the lifeline. This comes off we can start thinking of selling up. Get out. No more crap and cranola. Liquidate the Cayman account. Live properly. We do it carefully Revenue’ll not suspect a thing.’

‘And the court case?’

‘Forget the court case. Plan positive.’

Mace glancing off out the window at the mountain. The last of the sun against the cliffs, catching the buttresses, the red in the sandstone. ‘We sit here, all that money in Cayman, we can’t touch it. Our bucks. Hard earned moola.’

‘We get the golf estate we can launder it. Some of it. Whatever we want. No problem.’

‘It eats me,’ said Mace.

Pylon sat back. ‘It’s a way to sort things out.’

‘If I go to jail.’

‘I didn’t say that. I said forget the court case. We face it if and when.’

Mace looked at his partner. Unwavering conviction in Pylon’s eyes.

‘Believe me,’ said Pylon. ‘Mightn’t happen. So’ – he came forward again – ‘let’s put that aside, clarify this other matter, about cashing up. I’ve heard this before from you, this closing down number. Maybe two, three times.’

‘Sure.’ Mace nodded. ‘After Christa got shot. After that bastard pulled that kidnap stunt. After Isabella got killed. I know, I said enough each time. But really, hey, how could we do it really? I needed the bucks. Need them still. Without the money we’re in the dwang, Oumou and me.’ Mace reached for his beer. ‘What I’m saying is, with the court case, I’m stuffed. My family’s stuffed.’

They drank in silence. Mace thinking, he did a runner where in the world would they live? Malitia? Go back to Oumou’s desert village where they’d met. Medieval Tuaregs and goats. Nothing but Sahara sand, hazed distant mountains. He’d go mad. Nothing to do. No one to talk to. No water, nowhere to swim. And Christa was a city girl. No ways she’d cope. The trouble was Pylon was right. Pylon wasn’t going anywhere. This was his life. He had to keep the business until something happened he could wash in the offshore funds. Bit by bit so that no one noticed.

Mace said, ‘What about Obed Chocho? He’s going to snatch the west coast from you?’

‘Major crap,’ said Pylon. ‘A headache like you can’t believe. I have to admit even from prison the man pulls a network. The man who could stuff this up for us. Snatch this deal out of our hands.’ Mace’s cellphone rang and he dug it from his pants pocket, connected.

A voice said in his ear, ‘Is that Mr Mace Bishop?’

Mace getting that heavy sensation in his chest. The reason he knew he wanted out. He said, ‘Who’s this?’ – watching Pylon launch off the couch, Pylon mouthing at him, ‘We’ll talk tomorrow.’

Mace held up a hand, wait. Pylon shook his head, drew a finger across his throat. Said, ‘Treasure.’

Mace waved him off, smiling, heard the voice say, ‘My name is Telman Visser, Mr Bishop. Judge Telman Visser.’

Didn’t mean zilch from zucchini to Mace. No Afrikaans in the accent. Cape Town private school tones, quiet, firm. Visser with the ‘r’ sounded not the usual heavy ‘a’, Vissa. Mace pictured Bishop’s Court: long ranch-style house, tall hedges around it, the judge standing on his lawn gazing up at the mountain. Bird-twitter in the background. The judge not wanting to be overheard by anyone. Man of about any age between late forties and sixties, he reckoned, going by the voice.

Mace said, ‘That so.’ Waited.

Until the judge on the other end said, ‘Mr Bishop are you there?’

‘I am,’ said Mace. And waited. Mace shrugged. Hearing hadedas squawking loudly, flying right over the judge’s head probably.

The judge saying, ‘Mr Bishop could we meet? Perhaps at the Michael Stevenson Art Gallery. You know it? In Green Point.’

Mace said, ‘There’s not many people have this number.’

‘Ah.’ The hadedas distant, the judge’s voice taking on a chuckle. ‘Of course. My apologies. A New York colleague referred me to you. Gave me your cellular number. He and his wife were out here for a “surgical safari”, I believe he termed it. Last November. Judge and Mrs Steinhauer. He was most impressed with your security service. Also someone locally who preferred to remain anonymous.’

‘Intriguing,’ said Mace. ‘I remember Judge Steinhauer’ – picturing the silver-haired judge, a Johnny Cash fan plugged into an iPod for most part of any day. His wife over for a face-liftand a boob job. Not that she needed either at forty-five – ten, fifteen years younger than the judge.

‘I have a problem, Mr Bishop. For this I need security. Reliable security.’

‘That’s what we do,’ said Mace, wishing he didn’t have to say it. Standing, moving to the window. The sun gone from the face of Table Mountain, the shadow giving it a looming presence.

‘Not on the phone, if you don’t mind. I prefer dealing with people face to face,’ The judge saying. ‘Tomorrow morning, perhaps. About ten-thirty, eleven?’ A tone of voice that wasn’t used to accommodating others.

Mace thinking, Shit. So much for a session at the Point swimming pool. He lost any more training time he wasn’t going to keep up with Christa. Have his daughter leave him behind on the Robben Island swim? He wouldn’t live it down. Pylon wouldn’t let him.

‘Perhaps we could do this Tuesday, I’ll be back in town then.’

‘I need to expedite an arrangement urgently, Mr Bishop. Tomorrow latest. Do you understand?’

Mace thought, had to be a judge would use a word like expedite. Decided, hear the guy out. Could be good business.

‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Ten thirty. Where again?’

The judge repeated the address.

‘An art gallery?’

‘There’s something I want to show you. To make my point.’ The judge rang off.

5

They’d been on the road for two hours. Got through the mine dumps and the industrial belt and into farmlands, the road opening up, quieter, the sun sliding off the western rim hot and red right where they were heading. Cast an orange light over the maize fields. Manga driving, clicked on the headlights. He needed a burger and chips, tomato sauce, a beer to wash it down.

Spitz in the passenger seat listened to his iPod, eyes focused on the landscape. Every forty-five minutes he smoked a menthol. Manga noticed that. Forty-five minutes exactly, Spitz would light up. Like there was an alarm went off only he heard. After the cigarette he took a mouthful of sparkling mineral water. Replaced the bottle in a holder over an aircon vent on the dashboard. Not a word exchanged in two hours.

Manga thought, captain, you’re not making me laugh. He reached for the can of Coke in the holder next to Spitz’s water. Drained it. Dropped the can over his shoulder. Wasn’t for his cellphone, he’d have had no one to talk to. Worse, he’d brought no sounds himself. Bloody going anywhere without Zola was a mistake. And this cousin wasn’t going to share his tunes. Weird shit that it was by the vague sound leaking out. Not rap. Not R&B. Not kwaito. Some sort of pop shit.

He leaned across, touched Spitz on the arm. Spitz turned his head, eyes drowsy, hooded.

‘Something to eat, captain? Burger and chips? Five kays there’s a One Stop coming up.’

Spitz pulled off his headphones. ‘Say it again?’

‘A One Stop.’

‘A One Stop?’

Manga laughed. ‘Not Spur or Steers? Not even McDonalds. The One Stop.’

Spitz shook his head. ‘What is this?’

‘Hey, captain.’ Manga glanced at him amused. ‘You don’t know about One Stops?’

‘No.’

‘You don’t drive? Like this, long distance?’

‘I fly. When I work in another city, I fly to it.’

Manga thumped the steering wheel. ‘No shit. Not once, in all your life, you’ve driven across this country? Not even before?’

‘No. What for?’

‘What for? Captain, hey, captain. To see the place. You know, see where the ancestors hung out. On the grass plains. In the desert. Up in the mountains. The sort of country they knew. The sort of stuff that happens between the cities.’

Spitz shook out a menthol, pressed in the car lighter. ‘It does not bother me.’

‘Hey?’ Manga rolled his tongue round his teeth, considering a sudden realisation. ‘You don’t know where we’re going or what’s the job?’

‘That is your problem.’ Spitz lit his cigarette, blew out a short puff. ‘The way I operate is you have to get me to the place, and you tell me what is the target. I do it. Then you take me back home.’

‘Guess what, captain?’

Spitz didn’t respond.

‘Come’n guess what?’

‘I cannot see your mind.’

‘I don’t know bugger all. What I know is we’re booked in a motel another four hours drive away. That means midnight. Tomorrow they’re gonna phone us there. Give me directions.’

‘That is okay.’

‘Maybe for you captain. But me, I like a bit more information.’

Spitz pulled on the menthol. Some way down the road was a blaze of light in the dusk. Had to be Manga’s One Stop.

Manga saying, ‘This’s not my sort of work. I don’t chauffeur. I’m doing this as a personal favour to the people who hired us.’

‘And for the money.’

‘Come again.’

‘You are doing it for the money.’

Manga laughed. ‘Sure, captain, for the bucks.’

After the One Stop they drove for hours into the night, the burger heavy in Spitz’s stomach, a burnt taste in his mouth whenever he belched. He regretted it, should have had the pasta salad. And beer not wine. The wine had gone to acid. He stared into the dark, a darkness so intense he had no shape or size to the landscape they passed through. Occasionally on the curves, the headlights swept the verge revealing rocks and hard scrub and the gleam of litter. Sometimes the red of a creature’s eyes. On the horizon lightning danced. Spitz leaned forward to see the stars through the windscreen. The movement made him burp a taste of charcoal; the stars told him nothing.

‘This’s desert,’ said Manga. ‘You wanna see the stars?’

Spitz shook his head. ‘No. I can see them.’

Manga held a four-battery Maglite in his hand, from time to time playing the beam over the scrub to their right. He had the window down and the air was cool, but Spitz had no complaints. Nor to the smell it brought in, a pungent sharpness of vegetation as fresh as cat piss.

Eyes blazed in Manga’s torchlight and were gone.

‘Hey, wena, there we go, captain. Yes, yes.’ Manga gave a long piercing whistle as he braked and spun the car into a u-turn, brought it to a stop facing the way they’d come.

Spitz braced against the dashboard, said, ‘What are you doing?’The words quiet, almost a whisper.

Manga ignored him. Thrust the Maglite into his hands. ‘Shine it there. Up ahead. Get the eyes.’ Slowly they drove along the gravel edge until the eyes shone up in the beam.

‘Yo,’ said Manga, pulling the car into the rough, stopping. ‘Donkeys, captain. What d’you say? Something to notch up.’ Before Spitz could reply, Manga was out rummaging in the boot. Spitz joined him, still carrying the Maglite, shone it on the CZs Manga held in either hand.

‘What I say, captain, is you never know. Two is better than one.’ He held a gun at Spitz. ‘Take it. Come’n. Come’n.’

Spitz did, the weight unfamiliar but easy in his hand.

‘Not a shitty .22. Some firepower captain. Nine mil parabellum. That’s what we want.’ He slammed shut the boot, wrenched the torch from Spitz’s grip.

Manga led through the scrub towards the donkeys, flicking the light about, picking up three of them grazing. The animals not moving off as the men approached. He gave the torch back to Spitz.

‘Shine it on the head. Behind the eye.’

Spitz held the torch beam on the head of the donkey nearest them. The animal shifted off and in that instant Manga fired, the donkey going down, its body trembling with after-nerves.

Spitz felt the percussion of the shot, the loudness swallowed quickly by the vast darkness. The other donkeys brayed, crashing off, their hooves clinking against the shale.

Manga swore. Shouting first in Zulu then English, ‘Follow them. Get them in the light.’ And when Spitz didn’t, grabbing the Maglite, sweeping the bush to catch an animal’s rump disappearing into a gully.

Manga raced after it, stumbling and cursing, scrambling down the erosion. Spitz stood. Heard birds explode from the scrub and beat away. Heard two shots, close together. Waited. Watched the light returning, Manga out of breath.

‘I hit it somewhere. One of them.’ He shone the light on the dead donkey, a small hole behind the eye, the eye open, glistening. ‘Bastards, hey, not so easy to kill.’ He raised the light to Spitz’s face. ‘You didn’t fire.’

Spitz held up his hand to block the light. Said, ‘I do not shoot animals.’

An hour after they’d checked into the motel, Manga drove out alone, took the bypass round the town and came back down the main street. What occurred to him was the place was a heist job waiting to happen. You could drive a truck smack into one of the banks and no one would know till morning. You could load it and be away before the cops woke up.

He drove slowly, looking for the offices of Jan Niemand, Prokureur/Attorney. Passed another lawyer’s office wondering why there was enough work for two legals in a town this size before he found what he wanted. Small building with a gable, fronting on the pavement, middle of the block. Closed shutters at the windows. The lawyer’s name neatly scrolled above the door.

Middle of the block didn’t appeal to Manga. But he knew a town like this had to have a service lane behind the offices. Which was where he parked outside a gate that had Jan Niemand’s signage painted on it. Dogs barked but no lights came on.

He took a can of petrol from the boot and a screwdriver from the toolkit. The Maglite stuck in his belt with a nine mil.

The gate was unlocked. Manga entered a yard. Two garden chairs at a table, a sun umbrella stuck through a hole in the middle. Lawn underfoot. Flower beds down the sides. Someone cared to keep the garden pretty.

Four paces to the back door. He used the screwdriver on the lock: standard single cylinder was like having no lock at all. Inside smelt of drain cleaner. Tea cups on dish cloth, a fridge, a microwave, a toaster. Floorboards creaked at his movement. He paused, listening.

Went through the kitchen into a passage, two rooms on the right, two rooms on the left. Checked each, shining the Maglite round the rooms: reception up front, opposite that an office, behind those back rooms for the paper work: metal filing cabinets against the walls. Manga started right: opened drawers, doused the contents with petrol. Same with the cabinets in the other room. Wooden ceiling, wooden floors under threadbare carpets. The place would blaze. He tossed matches left and right and backed away.

Coming out of the office was an old man in a dressing gown, a hunting rifle gripped in his hands.

Manga shone the light on him. Said, ‘Ah, shit man, captain, what’re you doing here? Don’t you have a home somewhere?’

The man pointed the rifle at him, said something in Afrikaans Manga didn’t understand.

Manga said, ‘What?’ – feeling the heat of the fire, the flames catching at the carpet.

The man said in English, ‘Put up your hands.’

‘What?’ Manga laughed. ‘You joking?’

‘Put up your hands.’ The old man gestured with his rifle. ‘I will shoot.’

‘Shit, captain.’ Before he could shoot, Manga whipped him with the Maglite, the old man collapsing in a whisper. Not only wearing a dressing gown, also had on slippers Manga saw. ‘Shit, captain,’ Manga said again, backing out quickly, taking the rifle, closing the kitchen door. Weren’t even dogs barking. The little town quiet as the desert around it.

Saturday

6

Mace popped a piece of croissant into his mouth, cracked open the newspaper to the story on page three: another four tourists robbed by the mountain mugger. All those rangers running around the mountain, they couldn’t catch this prick doing over the tourists. Unbelievable. Waves a knife at some Germans then disappears like he’s a spectre. Mace shook his head. One mugger getting away with it again and again. The sort of incompetence encouraged vigilantism. Wasn’t too far out of Mace’s mind to go up there, sort it out.

‘Papa,’ Christa said, ‘I’m trying to tell you something.’

Mace put the paper down on the breakfast table. ‘I’m listening.’

‘You’re not,’ said Christa. ‘Come on, Papa.’

‘I am,’ said Mace, wiped crumbs from his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I heard you the first time. I think I know this person, came to your school. Tell me again.’

Oumou, wearing a blue kikoi, came out of the house with coffee to where they sat eating breakfast beside the pool. Below them the city, Saturday quiet; up on the mountain early tourists rode the cable car to the top pointing at the sights: the harbour, the Waterfront, Robben Island, the curve of the bay along the West Coast.

Oumou said, ‘That is a bad story, Christa.’ But she smiled as she said it.

‘You didn’t laugh?’ said Mace.

‘She did,’ said Christa.

‘Oui,’ said Oumou. ‘I have to say so.’

‘There you go,’ said Mace. ‘So let’s hear it again.’ Cat2 stirred on his lap and he rubbed at the scar-tissue where as a kitten she’d been nailed to a wall. The cat arched against his massage.

‘Okay,’ said Christa. ‘This woman came to tell us about drugs. How she used to shoot up stuff, inject it into her leg so many times that they had to cut it off. Her leg.’ She giggled.

‘Heavy,’ said Mace, leaving the cat and stretching for an almond croissant.

‘She’s got this cool chrome pole screwed into her knee with a Nike on it, matching the one on her real foot.’

Mace smiled. ‘Yellow trainers.’

‘How’d you know?’

‘I just do.’

Christa glanced at him suspiciously. ‘Like how?’

‘If it’s the same person, that’s what she wears. Get on with the story.’

‘Okay. So she’s telling us about spiking between her toes. She’s got this syringe filled with blood and stuff, that’s gross and she’s showing us.’

Oumou poured coffee from the Bialetti. Smacked at Mace’s hand running up her thigh under the kikoi.

‘Maman! Papa!’ said Christa. Mace winked at his wife, caught Christa watching them. ‘Tell it, C.’

‘You’re not listening.’

‘I am.’ Mace squeezed Oumou’s knee, returned his hands to breakfast. Smeared honey on the croissant, broke off a piece. He masticated, swilled it down with a mouthful of coffee.

‘So she unscrews it. Not unscrews. You know sort of pushes a button behind her knee, that pops off the pole.’

‘Prosthesis.’

‘That word,’ said Christa. ‘Pro-thesis.’

‘Pros,’ said Mace, feeding croissant to Cat2. ‘Prosthesis.’

‘Anyway,’ said Christa, ‘like she’s standing there on one foot, with her pros… whatever in her hand. Waving it like a wand. And we’re going, ah yuk, and she shouts “catch, hey”. Throwing her artificial leg down to us. For real. Right at us. Near to me. Everybody’s pushing not to touch it.’

‘What’s she doing?’ said Mace. ‘The woman on her one leg?’

‘I told you,’ said Christa. ‘She’s laughing. It’s, like, a big joke.’

Mace helped himself to more coffee and topped Oumou’s cup. ‘And then Pumla grabbed hold of it?’

‘Her and some others,’ said Christa.

‘But not you?’

‘I touched it.’ Christa grimaced. ‘It was all warm at the knee part.’

‘So who took off the trainer?’

‘Pummie.’ Christa glanced at her father.

Mace grinned, Pylon would like that one: his step-daughter getting in on the act. ‘And?’

‘The wooden foot had green toenails. That’s so gross.’

‘It’s supposed to be.’

‘Mace!’ Oumou laughed. ‘You are being unkind. This woman is brave to talk about it.’

‘Of course,’ said Mace. ‘I agree she’s brave. It’s what she does, how she earns a living, being a motivational speaker. It’s what people do. You rob banks, you do your time, afterwards people pay big money to hear you speak. Or you get raped, your throat’s cut, you’re left for dead, you’ve got a new career.’

‘Mace.’ Oumou frowned at him.

‘What?’

‘That is not nice.’

‘That’s what happens. This chick was a druggie. She gets over it, she gets a new life. Goes to show how people move on. Turn stuff around.’ He pointed at Christa. ‘We got one right here. A couple of years ago she was paralysed for life.’ Mace flashing on the gunshot. Hearing Christa cry out. Seeing her collapse. The blood stain darkening at her stomach. He looked at his daughter looking back at him across the table: her Zen face, her Buddha smile. Mace thought, this is why I’ve got to get out. Washed down the wish with coffee.

Heard Christa saying, ‘Papa! Papa, listen.’

Mace smiling at her.

‘Pummie wanted to know why she painted the toenails.’

‘What’d she say?’

‘She said to remind her of her foot. That she once had a real one.’

‘That is sad,’ said Oumou.

‘She’s tough,’ said Mace. ‘If it’s the woman I’m thinking of. Lives with an investigator, ex-cop, we used him once to track down stolen stuff. Chews a lot of mints. Nice guy. Him and his one-legged doll.

Mace’s cellphone rang. He reached for it lying on the table next to the basket of croissants and rolls. The screen displayed ‘Pylon’. He thumbed him on. Watched Christa push back her chair and stand. Beautiful, the black costume against her honey skin. The child’s body morphing into a young woman. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this: her childhood ending.

Said, ‘You’re interrupting my breakfast.’

Heard Oumou say to Christa, poised on the edge of the swimming pool, ‘I must buy clay, cherie: you will come with me?’ Saw Christa nod and flash a smile before she plunged into the water. Slipping in like a dolphin, hardly a splash.

Oumou turned from watching Christa gliding through the water, raised her eyebrows at him: who’re you talking to?

Mace said, ‘Pylon.’

Pylon said, ‘I’m driving now, passing Century City. Great view of the mountain opening up. I can tell you I’ve been sitting for four hours.’

‘Some particular reason you’re out there instead of at home?’

Mace walked to where he could see the city clearly through a break in the trees. The cascade of the garden suburb down the bowl of the mountain into the concrete centre. The buildings clustered tall and white there, the sea a flat blue beyond.

‘Driving behind this brand new black Yengeni. Nice car the ML 350’

‘You’re thinking of one?’

Pylon not into buying cars at all, happy to use the office Merc.

‘Too arriviste.’

Mace smiled, turning from the view to his house: the house Oumou’d wanted of concrete and glass and chrome. Something as far removed from the mud towns of her desert life as she could get.

‘I work with clay, Mace,’ she’d said. ‘In my pottery are my memories. We must live in something modern. Where no one has lived before.’

Once the house was built Mace couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. He glanced above the roof at Devil’s Peak, deep shadow still in the kloof.

‘So where’ve you been?’ Mace waved at Christa to keep swimming. To Pylon said, ‘Help me out, I’m pulling teeth here.’

Pylon laughed. ‘Outside Mr Chocho‘s.’

‘Doing what?’

‘A stakeout.’

‘We’ve registered as investigators? I didn’t notice.’

‘This’s private and confidential,’ said Pylon. ‘Got nothing to do with us, Complete Security. Got to do with us the property investors.’

‘The west coast thing?’

‘Precisely.’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Mace. ‘Maybe you lend me something against the Cayman account. An IOU.’

‘We can talk about it,’ said Pylon. ‘Another time. You have to listen to this first.’

‘Perhaps turn the music down,’ said Mace. The driving sound of the Cowboy Junkies in the background.

‘So what do I see?’

‘I couldn’t guess. Tell me.’ Mace watched Oumou clearing the table, Cat2 pawing at her for titbits.

‘I see my comrade and consortium partner Popo Dlamini coming out of Mr Chocho’s house.’

‘And this is interesting?’

‘At six in the morning. Very interesting. What I wonder is, does Obed Chocho know? What I also wonder is, how would that brother feel about this brother looking after his wife while he’s doing prison?’

‘It’s nine o’clock,’ said Mace. ‘Why’re you only on the highway now?’

‘I told you,’ said Pylon. ‘Staking out. Had to be sure Mrs Chocho’d been playing hostess. She’s driving the Merc I’m following. Must have a date in the city.’

Mace dipped his toe in the water; Pylon’s machinations on the empowerment deal were labyrinthine in their complexity. Thorough though.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘after you’re finished playing Easy Rawlins, I’m meeting a prospective client. You got time to be in on that? A judge. Name of Telman Visser.’ He heard a blare of hooters and Pylon swear. ‘We could talk afterwards.’