Then Yasmin’s first portrait, both parents leaning over her, their dark heads touching, eyes on the sleeping baby between them. On the swings in the park, feeding the squirrels in the Gardens,
on Riedwaan’s shoulders on the top of Lion’s Head. In a ruffled
Eid
dress at the end of Ramadan. First day in Grade One. And this year, her wild hair plaited, Yasmin as Bo Peep. A graceful child in a tulle skirt, surrounded by blonde sheep. White leotards, black shoes, little black ears pinned onto their buns. A photograph taken at a picnic, before Clinton van Rensburg had needed a crutch.
One of Yasmin holding hands with a girl in lemon tulle and pointe shoes.
‘Calvaleen auditioning for
Persephone
.’ Latisha trailed her fingers over the image. The mother’s angled cheekbones, her closed expression, were echoed in the girl’s face. ‘My daughter.’
‘I’d like to talk to her. See what she can tell me about Yasmin.’
‘It’s been a while since we’ve seen her,’ said Latisha. ‘You
know, she’s always been so kind to little Yasmin – it’s not easy for these girls, having a policeman as a father. And Calvaleen’s not dancing much any more, either.’
‘That’s a pity,’ said Clare, admiring Calvaleen’s graceful limbs in the photo.
‘She’s only seventeen, but she’s been making a living from it with the Russian ballet,’ said Latisha. ‘She was lucky to get into the Winter Palace,
considering.’
‘Considering what?’
‘She’s had a tough time since her father was shot,
mos
,’ Shazia said. Latisha put her hand on Shazia’s arm, and she fell silent again.
After a few moments, Latisha looked up at Clare again. ‘Competition, you know, from overseas, it’s always tough.’
‘Dancing is tough,’ said Clare. ‘She must be in her last year of school if she’s seventeen.’
‘She manages the dancing okay,’ said Latisha, folding her hands in her lap. ‘She’s become – well, independent, in the last few months.’
‘Can I have her number? It wasn’t on the list I got for Rita.’ Notebook out, pen poised as Latisha recited the cellphone number to her.
Clare turned to the next page in the photo album. Nothing. The blank pages waiting for Yasmin’s life to unfold. Silence
in the stuffy room, and outside, the sound of the southeaster moaning around the building. She put the album in her bag.
‘Shazia, can you tell me what happened yesterday, in detail, starting in the morning,’ Clare asked. ‘Everything, doesn’t matter how small. To find Yasmin, we need information.’
‘Okay,’ said Shazia. ‘I’ll try.’
‘Who wakes up first – you or Yasmin?’
‘Me,’ said
Shazia. ‘I wake up and go through to her room.’
‘Then let’s start there.’
Yasmin’s bed was unmade. A discarded pair of
broekies
lay on the floor.
‘We were late,’ said Shazia, walking towards the kitchen. ‘Again. I had coffee; she had breakfast.’ On the counter, an open box of Coco Pops, a plastic bowl and spoon. The fridge was festooned with Yasmin’s drawings.
‘I took her to school
and I kissed her goodbye. I went to work, to the hospital. I was working overtime, so I said I’d pick her up at six. I didn’t know they were finishing early.’ Shazia shook her head. ‘Riedwaan must have known. Must have used it.’
Clare looked through the notices on the fridge, half of them out of date. Homework, ballet schedule, a cake sale at school. Another possibility: a distressed little
girl had forgotten to give the notice to her harried mother, wanting to avoid more conflict, more shouting, trying to solve a problem she had created by falling into the chasm between her parents. Had she hidden? Waited? Told herself her mother would come? That nothing would happen if she kept still as a mouse?
‘So, you went to work,’ said Clare. ‘And then you went to fetch her. When?’
‘Six, maybe just after.’
‘Try and remember exactly.’
‘Director Ndlovu didn’t ask me all these questions,’ said Shazia. ‘Only Riedwaan asks me questions like these.’
‘It’ll help,’ said Clare. ‘Everything you can remember.’
‘Maybe six-thirty.’
‘What did you find?’
‘It was dark; all shut up. She wasn’t there.’ Shazia covered her face with her hands. ‘Mister Henry said he’d
seen Riedwaan’s car. That’s when I called the emergency number Director Ndlovu gave me. I had to. He’s not going to stop me from taking her to Canada.’
‘Did Mister Henry say he’d seen Yasmin?’ asked Clare.
‘How would he?’ asked Shazia. ‘Her head doesn’t show over the back seat.’
‘Let’s bear in mind the possibility that her father did not take Yasmin,’ said Clare. ‘He has asked me to
help find her.’
‘That will just make people think that he doesn’t have her,’ Shazia interrupted.
‘But if he hasn’t got her, ’ said Clare, ‘we need to find her now.’
Shazia’s arms folded around her empty lap.
‘I’ll let you out,’ said Latisha.
Clare took the stairs, expelling the flat’s stale air from her lungs.
‘It’s still Friday night in here, this early on a Saturday morning,’ said Rita Mhize.
She led Clare through the charge office where a bemused reservist was trying to persuade a woman not to strip. ‘D’you always have this effect on the ladies, Brown?’
‘She refuses to be released.’ In the second that the Sergeant’s attention was distracted, the woman had her top off and was bolting
back towards the cells, singing the national anthem.
‘A regular,’ said Rita. ‘She takes her clothes off when she’s arrested and she takes them off again when she’s released. The poor guys never know where to put their hands.’
They turned down a dimly-lit passage, its walls cutting off the hubbub of the charge office.
‘Captain Faizal said you’ve agreed to help him…’
‘Not exactly,’
said Clare. ‘I said I’d look at the CCTV footage.’
‘You’ve been talking to his wife, though.’
‘Hedging my bets,’ said Clare.
‘I haven’t had breakfast yet,’ said Rita, stopping at the vending machine. ‘You want a Coke?’
‘I’d love one.’ Clare rooted in her bag for change.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Rita slotted in a few coins and jabbed a button. Two Cokes plummeted down. ‘This
machine always gives two.’ She handed one to Clare. ‘And can you believe this? A building full of cops, and it’s never been reported.’
‘Shocking.’ Clare cracked open the can.
A door opened, spilling light into the passageway.
‘Morning, ladies.’
‘Superintendent van Rensburg. You gave me a fright. This is Dr Clare Hart,’ said Rita. The man with the crutch nodded towards Clare.
‘My wife says she met you. Latisha. She’s with Shazia,’ said Van Rensburg, stepping aside. ‘This is Delport.’
‘Faizal’s lady friend?’ Delport looked Clare over.
‘News travels fast,’ she observed.
‘Unusual choice for him, you.’ Delport slotted in coins then shook the machine for a Fanta.
‘You here to work?’ asked Rita. ‘Or you just here to clash with the décor?’
‘Things to do,’
said Delport, following Van Rensburg into his immaculate office.
‘Who’re they?’ asked Clare as they went downstairs.
‘Gang Unit. Van Rensburg and Captain Faizal go back a long way,’ said Rita. ‘His mentor once; his buffer when he joined pre-’94. I don’t think it was so easy then. Delport was with narcotics, seconded into the Gang Unit when Van Rensburg was disabled.’
‘You don’t like
him?’
‘I don’t like men who try and grope me while I’m on duty,’ said Rita.
Clare followed her into the cramped room. A single photograph of Yasmin had been stuck to the wall, next to the charts of completed searches.
‘Your show now?’ asked Clare.
‘There’s no way Special Director Ndlovu’s letting this one go. She’s decided that Captain Faizal’s bluffing and that she’s going to
call it.’
‘She’ll sacrifice Yasmin for that?’
‘She’s got some political agenda of her own that she’s following. For herself or for someone high up.’ Rita closed the door. ‘The gravy train’s a struggle. You have to fight to catch it, it’s slippery once you’re on, but if you hang in there, you’re made for life. What’s one little girl in that equation?’
Rita banged open a window, the
air a welcome relief.
‘She adores her father, that little girl,’ said Rita. ‘Things have been tough for Riedwaan and she hasn’t been able to spend time with him.’
‘Troubled kids go missing,’ said Clare. ‘Tell me about her father and mother.’
‘Shazia says Captain Faizal’s a bad husband. Ndlovu agrees.’
‘Is he?’ asked Clare.
‘Wives and cops,’ said Rita. ‘Not a winning combination.
She’s so angry with Riedwaan that she takes it out on Yasmin sometimes.’
‘Poor little thing,’ said Clare.
‘She’s her daddy’s girl. She’s tough like him. Stubborn. Smart, wants to know why all the time. Can see no fault in her father. Drives her mother crazy.’
‘What are his faults?’ asked Clare.
‘Good faults,’ said Rita. ‘Cop faults. It’s the job. Works three weekends out of four
overtime. Follows through on his cases. Earns nothing. Not much he can do about it.’
‘So, what’s the problem?’ asked Clare.
‘Shazia wants the world to be predictable. She picked the wrong man for that.’
Rita had been sifting through witness statements from the shooting of the two girls in Maitland. She moved them out of the way to clear space on her desk.
‘Find anything?’ asked
Clare.
‘Nothing,’ said Rita. ‘Two girls shot in broad daylight, and nobody hears or sees anything. And you?’
Clare handed Rita the list of parents that Madame Merle had given her.
‘The parents who would have been fetching last night. Maybe the might of the law that you have behind you will trigger their memories.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Rita, scanning through the list. ‘What about
the staff?’
‘Madame Merle and the piano player.’ Clare checked her notes. ‘Henry Harries.’
‘Anyone else?’ asked Rita.
‘Check out all the fathers too. You never know, maybe one of them went back to the school.’
‘You have a low opinion of men,’ Rita commented.
‘Hasn’t paid, in my experience, to give them the benefit of the doubt,’ said Clare. ‘Nothing on the dedicated line?’
‘A few of our usual
malletjies
, but otherwise, nothing.’
‘Can you do one more thing for me?’ Clare asked.
‘I’m all yours, for now.’
‘Henry Harries – everyone calls him Mister Henry – plays the piano at the ballet school.’
‘Any particular reason you want me to check him out?’ asked Rita.
‘Proximity. Opportunity. He seemed on edge.’
‘Clare, you could put anyone on edge,’
said Rita.
‘You’ve spoken to her teachers?’ asked Clare. ‘Everyone at the school?’
‘All the numbers I have are in your folder.’ Rita looked away. ‘There’ve been some issues.’
‘You must tell me,’ said Clare.
‘The security says Captain Faizal was there that afternoon. At the ballet school,’ said Rita. ‘Before he came to Maitland, where those girls were shot. He tell you that?’
‘Yes. And Henry Harries told me too. Riedwaan said he just wanted to see her,’ said Clare. ‘That he drove away and left her there.’
‘You believed him?’ Rita searched Clare’s face for the answer she wanted.
‘I didn’t believe or not believe,’ said Clare.
‘You’re working for him, though.’
‘I want to find that little girl,’ said Clare. ‘If he took her, I’ll work it out.’
‘I need
to believe in my team,’ said Rita, shaking her head. ‘I need to know I’ve got back-up.’
‘That’s why you joined the force?’ asked Clare. ‘To have a team?’
‘The long answer or the short answer?’
‘The long answer’s good.’
‘When I was eleven, my father was shot twice in the head for his gardener’s pay packet. A hundred bucks, after the taxi fare from Rondebosch to Crossroads,’ said
Rita. ‘I knew the boys who did it. They were
skollies
who lived at the end of our street. Where we lived, there were no street names, no numbers on the houses. Hard to get the cops to come there for one more body in a ditch by the N2. I went with my mother to confront them, but they just laughed. Later that night, someone wedged our door shut and torched our shack. I was skinny, so I could wriggle
between the corrugated iron wall and the sand floor.’
Rita tossed a piece of paper at the bin, scoring a direct hit.
‘My mother didn’t make it. I stood there, watching my house burn. I didn’t even have a body to bury. Mother, mattress, mielie pap, school books. All turned to ash, all mixed up together. I stood there until this old cop put his hand on my shoulder and asked me if I had somewhere
to go. I said no. I told him we were new from the Eastern Cape. Just me, my mother, my father. Not a proper Xhosa family.’
‘And then? What happened?’ asked Clare.
‘He asked me if I wanted to come home with him, said his wife would give me something to eat, and they’d get me sorted out with social welfare on the Monday.’
‘You went?’ asked Clare.
‘I went. What else was I going to
do? She was kind, his wife. I was there a long time before anyone from welfare came to fill out my forms. Welfare said I’d fallen through the cracks, but the social workers never came back. In the end, they kept me, the old cop in Goodwood and his wife.’
‘You find them yet, those boys?’
‘Many like them,’ said Rita. ‘There’s more people willing to burn a woman in her bed than you think.’
‘Has it helped,’ asked Clare. ‘Being a cop?’
‘You know,’ said Rita, ‘there’s forms and procedures and shit, but sometimes you can help. You don’t think about it, you don’t get permission, you just do it.’
‘Riedwaan does that?’ asked Clare
‘May not always be legal. May not be procedure. But if it’s right, you do it and deal with the consequences later.’
‘D’you know why he became
a cop?’ asked Clare.
‘You’d have to ask him that. He never said.’ Rita’s cellphone rang. ‘Excuse me, Clare. Sir?’
She listened, nodded, said ‘sir’ again.
‘The boss.’ Rita’s eyes were wide. ‘He wants to see you.’