Authors: Paul Crilley
Which was still too early. The place wasn’t even open yet.
We spent the next hour and a half playing I-spy with the dog. Armitage and I wanted to get some sleep, but every time we tried to quit the game he threatened to stink out the car.
And that was the best part of the day, to be honest. The next ten hours were spent cooped up in a tiny bedroom with the dog and Armitage, each of us wondering who would snap first.
It was Armitage.
The dog was watching some old movie on the TV where women were running around screaming, calling for the big manly men to save them.
The dog grinned at me. ‘Ah, the good old days.’
Armitage whirled around and smacked him on the nose.
The dog couldn’t believe it. He looked at me beseechingly. I shrugged and took a sip of my beer. The dog looked back to Armitage.
‘You . . . you
hit
me!’ he said accusingly. He actually sounded hurt. Not physically, but emotionally.
Armitage said nothing. Just grabbed her mac and left the room.
The dog turned to me. ‘Reckon I’ll stick to being a voice in your head from now on.’
‘Probably better that way, anyway. What if a member of the public hears you?’
‘Fuck ’em. They’ll just think they’ve gone mad.’
‘Either that or they’ll steal you and sell you to the circus.’
So now we’re out in the middle of nowhere, the flat, green landscape stretching away to either side of the endless road. Blue-grey clouds are building up on the horizon, piling up higher and higher into the hazy summer sky. Too far away for us, but someone’s about to get a hell of a storm.
The aircon is on full blast but we have the back windows all the way down. Yeah, so sue me. Global warming is one thing, but travelling anywhere with the dog in an enclosed space is another thing entirely. I think his smell is actually sticking to my penguin suit.
‘So what’s the plan, exactly?’ asks the dog.
‘The plan is I use the invitation to get in, scout around while the bigwigs do their back room deals, and keep an eye open for the head sin-eater. Then I politely ask him what this first sin is, why Lilith is after it, and what it can do.’
And then once that’s done I make the fucker tell me who Cally’s killer is. Because he has to know. If he’s in charge of all the sin-eaters he has to have a list of some kind. A database.
I feel a rush of fear and nervousness at the thought. This is the closest I’ve ever gotten to finding out what really happened that night. Three years of disappointment. Three years of pointless searches and false leads. Thousands of hours of viewed CCTV footage, tens of thousands of rands paid to informers – all for nothing. Nobody knew who had taken the kids. Nobody knew the men at the house. Nobody knew anything.
This time tomorrow, will all that have changed? Will I know the names of the people who killed Cally?
We drive though a tiny village about twenty kilometres from the address. The main attraction here seems to be a rundown liquor store where the locals hang around drinking quart bottles of Black Label and Castle Milk Stout. I could do with a drink myself, but I’m not going in there dressed like this.
We pass through the village, keep going for another ten kays or so. When I’m sure we’re out of sight of any witnesses, I pull over. I pop the trunk and we climb out and head round to the back of the car.
Armitage and I stare into the cramped space.
‘It won’t be for long,’ I point out.
‘You realise I blame you for this,’ she says. ‘All of it.’
‘What the hell did I do? I didn’t take the ramanga case. You did.’
She waves her hand in irritation. ‘You’re my subordinate. It’s always your fault.’
The dog leaps into the boot and sits there, giving us a bright-eyed-bushy-tailed look, tongue hanging out the side of his mouth.
‘If you even
dare
– and I cannot stress this enough –
even
dare
, to generate
any
kind of smell, I will shoot you in the head,’ Armitage says.
The dog stops panting. Closes his mouth and looks at me.
-She serious?-
-Want to risk it?-
Armitage scowls at her surroundings then holds a hand out for me to help her climb in. She lies down, pushing herself as far to one side as she can go.
‘You stay down there,’ she snaps, pointing at the dog.
I close the trunk. Not all the way. Armitage holds it with her hand so she can get out later. I climb back into the front and put on my mask, checking my reflection in the rear-view mirror. It’s good. No one can see who I am. Just another anonymous corrupt minister. One of thousands.
I drive for another few kays, then turn off the main road into a long tree-lined driveway. There’s a warm wind picking up. The sun flashes and darts through the swaying branches, blinding me with late afternoon light. I take a deep, steadying breath. Have to stay calm. Keep in character.
The road leads to a set of huge double gates, ornately carved with tree motifs. Two armed guards stand on the other side, R5 rifles held in the resting position, fingers resting along the trigger guard.
A third guard comes out of the gate house to the right. The gates open and he approaches the car. I don’t say anything to him, just stare straight ahead. (I’m in character here. A South African politician does not deign to acknowledge those lesser than him or herself.) I crack the window just enough to flick the invitation through the gap. The guard checks it, then waves at the armed guards.
They step aside and I drive past, watching the gates close in the rear-view mirror. I’m inside. For better or worse.
I turn my attention to the winding cobbled road unravelling ahead of me. It’s about a kilometre long, flanked by more massive, stately trees.
The driveway eventually loops around a huge, swimming-pool size fountain outside the house. I stop the car, peering up through the windshield and mentally correct myself. That’s not a house. That’s a mansion.
No, it’s an
estate
. It’s five floors high, and it stretches away to either side, square, neat windows frowning down at me as if daring me to step inside.
There are a couple of cars here already, masked figures climbing out to hand over their keys to smartly dressed valets. I squint, but don’t recognize any faces. But I suppose that’s the whole point.
There’s a knock at my window. I start, then see a young dude in a bow tie and white shirt waiting for me. I get out the car and he hands me a valet chit.
‘Thanks.’
He doesn’t answer. His eyes look kind of vacant, as if he’s been watching reality TV for hours on end.
‘Busy night ahead, huh?’
Again, no answer. He climbs into the car and drives off around the rear of the house, leaving me standing next to the fountain all by my lonesome. I walk over to check it out, just to look busy in case anyone’s watching. There’s a statue of the Greek goddess Hebe, bearing her traditional cup for the gods. Water spews out of the cup. I lean over and see the other Greek gods have been inlaid in a mosaic at the bottom of the fountain.
There are more cars coming along the drive. I take a deep breath and turn towards the house, climb the stone stairs to the entrance. The huge door is standing open, a young girl waiting with a tray of champagne. She has the same vacant stare as the valet.
I take a glass, trying to catch her eye, but her gaze slides away like ice over stone. I send out a few subtle strands of shinecraft, immediately picking up on the tendrils that hang over her. She’s been glamoured, her mind locked away for the night. She won’t remember a thing come tomorrow.
I look around, casually sipping my drink. The entrance hall is
huge
, with full-on English-haunted-mansion in decoration choices. Polished wooden floor, oil paintings of knights and oddly dressed men, two staircases that wind up either side of the wall to meet on the second-floor landing, and dark mahogany wall panelling. It feels like I’ve stepped back into Victorian times.
A few guests are milling around chatting. I quickly duck through one of the doors that open off from the foyer in case any of them decides to draw me into conversation.
The door leads into a huge library. Despite the summer heat a fire is roaring in the hearth. There are more guests in here, standing around in small groups exchanging low conversation. They look at me suspiciously as I enter, drawing closer together. I ignore them, pretend to glance at the books on the shelves, then head through a second door on the far side of the room.
I wander through the house for the next hour. Never pausing for too long, constantly moving as the rest of the guests turn up and the house gradually fills with expensive cologne, superiority complexes, and hundreds of different masks: faeries, wolves, dogs, butterflies, snakes, crocodiles. All of them expensively made, and, if I’m not mistaken, covered with real jewels. Diamonds, sapphires, and rubies.
I don’t think Dumelo’s mask has anything of that kind of value, though. Maybe he was entry level. Not as important as he obviously thought he was.
I try to fit in, but it’s hard for me not to run screaming from the house as I hear these people mumbling about their problems.
‘. . . Oh, and they were all out of Beluga Caviar, darling. I couldn’t believe it.’
‘. . . I said to him, I want the A6 tomorrow, delivered to my house with a silver bow on it, or I’ll get Audi to pull your dealership licence.’
‘. . . My boy is very sensitive. I mean, obviously it was the other boy’s fault little Donny threw him out that window. Hmm? No, the school made it all go away. It’s what we pay for.’
‘. . . I said to him, yeah, it’s eight thousand jobs gone, but really, it’s nothing personal. You have to separate the sense of self from business dealings. Hmm? What did he do? He killed himself. Nose dive from the overpass.’
I grit my teeth and drink my champagne.
-Dog? How’s it going?-
-Wonderful. Your boss found me some booze in the kitchens and tossed it out the window. She’s very considerate.
- There’s a pause as the dog thinks about this. -
Actually, now I think about it, I had to dodge pretty quick to avoid the bottle.-
-Where is she now?-
-No idea. She just told me to sit on my arse and drink my booze.-
It’s about eight o clock now, and most of the guests are loudly drunk, trying to outdo each other in their poor-rich-me stories. I’ve been watching these people closely. Obviously some of them know each other, or how else would their big deals get done? In fact, I’ve seen small groups heading into the various rooms, closing the doors behind them while they have their private pow-wows.
But the others . . . those who are
not
supposed to know each other? They
really
seem to
want
to be known. Proclaiming loudly for all to hear what they did last week in their job. Dropping hints about this or that government policy, about who they know, about who was at dinner with them last week. It’s like they all want to rip off their masks and scream out,
Look at me! I’m important!
I’m doing my second circuit of the house when I sense a ripple of movement running through the guests. They whisper to each other excitedly, leaving the rooms and heading towards the front of the house. There’s excitement in the air. A tension that is slowly rising.
I flow with the crowd as it spills into the entrance hall. I’m at the rear of the crowd, a hundred or so guests standing in front of me. I make a half-hearted attempt to get closer to the front, but all that earns me are dirty looks and elbows in the ribs.
‘Can I have your attention, please.’
We look up. Conversation falls away to excited mutterings and hopeful sighs. A tall man wearing a charcoal grey suit is standing on the second-floor balcony directly above the foyer. His face is deeply creased, with eyes so startlingly grey they’re almost white.
‘Good evening to you all. I just want to take this opportunity to welcome you to our little soirée.’
He speaks with what sounds like a Scandinavian accent. He scans the masked faces staring rapturously up at him. ‘Now, I know you’ve all had a very stressful couple of months, if the many emails and letters I’ve received are anything to go by. This is understandable. You are hard workers. The best in your fields. You make the world go round, yes? This is very stressful, I think.’
He leans slightly over the balcony, staring down at us all. ‘That is why I am here. I am your psychiatrist. I am your priest. I am a-hah-hah, Dr Feelgood, yes? You have problems, you come to me. I make them go away. Forever. I take them from you.’ He holds his hands to his chest. ‘I lessen the burden of life. That is my job.’
He smiles. He’s pretty good, I have to admit. I almost believe he cares about us. About me.
‘My friends, tonight is your night, yes? Your night to enjoy yourself. To let loose. To relieve the pent-up frustrations of the past months. To purge your systems and do what comes naturally to us all. Because, let us face it, yes? Society and its laws are not for us. A veneer of lies to help the sheep sleep better at night. You are the one per cent, the ones who know what it means to be human. You are the ones who embrace all sides of your nature. You do not deny who you are. Why should you? Let your true nature rise up, my friends. Enjoy who you are. Embrace the lust.’ He smiles at us all and presses his hands together, almost in prayer. ‘And now? Go to it.
Tak
. Thank you.’