Gallows Hill (36 page)

He felt for a pulse. Erratic, faint, just there.

His pulled out his phone and called for an ambulance. He covered her up again. Dialled Shorty de Lange.

‘Get me some back-up,’ said Riedwaan.

‘Fok it, man. Where are you this time?’

‘A house in Signal Hill,’ said Riedwaan.
‘Next to the bush. Girl here sliced up like a halaal lamb.’

‘And Clare?’

‘Nowhere,’ said Riedwaan. ‘Yet.’

‘That’s good,’ said De Lange. ‘Basson?’

‘Not here either,’ said Riedwaan.

‘That’s bad.’

‘Get here fast,’ said Riedwaan. ‘Get a description of Basson out. Now. If that fucker’s alive, I want him.’

Riedwaan switched on the light.

A flash of peacock blue.

He picked up the scarf and held it to his face. A trace of Clare’s scent.

Flames flared above Signal Hill. The fire was moving closer to the tree line, cordoning off the mountainside. An eerie glow illuminated the gate listing on its hinges at the end of the derelict garden, and the path between the trees that led to the quarry.

Tucked against the mountain, the quarry entrance was narrow,
garlanded with razor wire and blocked by a brick wall.

Riedwaan kicked aside the No Entry sign.

The cliffs gleamed, the water black beneath them. All entombed in silence.

He made his way along the overgrown path, and once at the top, the cliff plunged below him. Riedwaan ducked under the wire fence, his injured shoulder complaining, and went closer to the edge. He had a bird’s-eye
view of the quarry, the tall ghost gums reflected in its black square of water.

A movement caught his eye, on the other side of the quarry. Riedwaan waited, watching the scrub. A porcupine trotted past, nose down, quills swishing behind it, like a plump woman in a stiff tulle skirt. The animal rooted at the base of a tree and then disappeared into the darkness.

Riedwaan scanned the slope,
holding onto a branch to steady himself. Another slender track. And far below, a clump of reeds beside the black water.

If Clare wasn’t here, where the fuck was she?

‘Now, my dear, I take it that you’ve decided to be a good girl?’

Osman tightened the chain around Clare’s neck. Then he smiled.

‘If you keep still, you will be able to keep breathing. If you fight, you will die. If you die, then Lilith dies. Isn’t that how it works? As long as you’re alive she has a chance. And as long as I’m alive she has a chance, no?’

Clare nodded.

‘Docile, yes. I like this so much more. And now, Dr Hart, you’re going to get up and you’re going to come with me. And you’re going to buy little Lilith another hour of life. And with it, an hour for yourself too.’

He pulled and she followed him, along the overgrown path. The branches, dry and hard from the long rainless summer, tore at Clare’s face. She put up her hands to protect herself.
Osman pulled her harder, moving fast. Familiar with the terrain, he moved purposefully. They emerged at the edge of the tree line, the city stretching away from them. The lights along Nelson Mandela Boulevard far away, and Somerset Road below, glowed orange and white. She walked fast, keeping pace with Osman.

They were moving between the trees now, the sigh of the grass against Clare’s legs
triggering a memory of the sounds in Lilith’s gallery installation.

Osman stopped. Alert.

To her left, in the periphery of her vision, Clare sensed a movement. She kept still, looked without turning her head.

The city lay in an uneasy sleep as the fire raged. With the wind at her back, Clare could smell it. Flames swept down the stiff mane of pine trees towards Signal Hill. It would
bring firemen, police, people. Please. A child’s prayer to a god she knew was not there. Please let the fire come. Let it save me.

Clare glanced to her left, sensing a movement.

A shadow seemed to break ranks with the scrub below the trees, moving towards them. Hope flared. Died back. A porcupine fleeing the flames. Tears pricked at the back of Clare’s eyes.

Osman was scanning the
hillside below them, the steep descent to the quarry.

‘This way,’ he said. His voice a reminder that she was still alive, and that as long as she was alive, so was Lilith. Brave little girl who had followed her mother along this same path. Her mother and this man. Clare’s mind shifted gear, turned the terror back, down, where it lurked below her conscious mind.

She followed him like a
dog. The fire, fanned by the wind, was heading towards them. Osman seemed oblivious.

She was alive. And she knew this man. She knew him far better than he thought she did. She had a chance.

He jerked the chain, but she caught it in time to stop it tightening around her throat. Not quickly enough to slip it over her head, though. A sob escaped her as she followed him out onto the moonlit
slope, slipping a little where water had seeped onto the rocks.

Osman stopped at the damp rock and looked down. Below, the quarry lay dark and threatening; the wind harried the surface of the stagnant water.

‘So, Dr Hart. You’re an expert,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to tell me what it is that women fear most.’

‘That a man will kill her,’ said Clare

‘You know your stuff,’
he said.

‘Mr Osman, what is it that a man fears most?’

‘As I said, you’re the expert. You tell me.’

‘That a woman will laugh at him.’ Buying precious seconds. ‘That’s what she did to you, Osman, didn’t she? She saw you for what you were, a humourless man who sold out to anybody, anything, to scum like Basson.’

‘You know, I didn’t think I’d get away with it.’ His grin was sly, shy.
‘But I did. For 23 years.’

Clare moved her head. No answering tug on the leash; Osman was looking down at the quarry, transfixed. He bent down and picked up a rock, black and smooth, with a jagged tip. A stone-age weapon. It was a perfect fit in his manicured hand.

‘I hadn’t planned to kill her. But I was glad I did. Relieved, really.’He prodded Clare with a finger, and she walked down
ahead of him along the lip of the cliff, her back to him.

He held the leash tight in one hand, the rock in the other.

Clare eased her right hand up towards her neck. If she could slip a finger under the chain, ease the link pressing her oesophagus, she might survive. Osman brought her up short, in the lee of the cliffs.

‘I was surprised how easy it was,’ he said, relaxing the leash
a little. ‘How pleasurable, too. How good I was at it. With Lilith, it was the same. Funny how, after all these years of wanting to die, it seemed that in the final moment she’d found something to live for.’

Osman had his eyes on her, but his gaze was turned inwards, seeing the power again, hard and bright and beautiful as a diamond.

‘Suzanne’s work made you some money, still does, but
it was her death that saved you. Because she’d uncovered your profitable little scheme with Basson. She realised, like I did when I saw that photograph of the two of you in the army, that you two went way back. When you killed her, you ensured that you wouldn’t be exposed. A human sacrifice,’ Clare blurted, despite herself.

‘Muti,’ he laughed. He didn’t need to look at Clare; she was as good
as dead. ‘That’s what she was. A muti murder that made my business successful beyond my wildest dreams and plans.’

His hands had relaxed around the leash. She inhaled. A free breath

‘Stolen status, stolen prestige. A fraud. No wonder she laughed at you.’

He heard it ringing in his ears again – the taunts of twenty years ago. Osman swiped at Clare with the stone, but she stayed on her
feet.

‘It was Suzanne’s laugh that Lilith remembered, the thread that kept her memory of what you’d done to her mother. Her mother’s mocking laughter.’

Osman stared at Clare. This woman was uncowed. Suzanne le Roux’s laughter, her threats to expose him, were caught in the echo chamber of the quarry.

The stone was warm in his palm, its point sharp against his thigh.

He hit her again
and she stumbled. The third time, Clare fell. She scrambled away from him.

The laughter in his ears stopped, and with that he let out a groan of pain and rage, a repulsive, animal sound.

He stood over her. He raised the stone again.

Silence.

He kicked her in the stomach.

She was still.

This was better, but it was not what he’d planned. He’d wanted to go down the tunnel
again and take her back to Gallows Hill, where she’d started all this.

‘Cunt.’ He looked at the blood on his black leather shoes.

With Suzanne, he had caught her by her long trailing scarf, pulling her up short, the silk tight around her throat. With this one, he pulled the leash.

With Suzanne, he had brought the rock down again. Twice into the back of her head. She had shuddered and
lain still, her body humped over her broken arm.

He had pushed her over with his foot, her torn dress exposing her chest, the trapped breath shuddering.

And then, at last, she had been still.

Osman scanned the quarry. Nothing there, apart from somesmoke, and the stars wheeling over the black water. But he neededto check first. Make sure he wasn’t seen. That much, he had learnt. He
went back along the path, retracing his steps. Eyes on the cliffs. The wind tugging at the tinder-dry foliage. His mind was racing, playing catch with his heart. He breathed deeply. That was the key. To be calm. To think. To act rationally. Osman surveyed the amphitheatre of rock, segment by segment – a skill he’d picked up in the army. Surveillance. Patience. See what is there – not what you want
to see.

All was quiet.

Nothing.

A dog loping away from the Signal Hill flames.

In minutes, the fire would erase all evidence of anyone’s presence here.

His salvation.

He turned to complete his work. He smiled at the thought: Gilles Osman, crime artist. The medium he had perfected. Such a pity it was work he could never show.

He looked down, picked up the leash that
lay curled on the ground.

It dangled from his hand.

Clare was gone.

She crouched behind an outcrop of rock. The city was shawled in smoke, its concrete body hidden. The lights of the ships sheltering in Table Bay gleamed intermittently. The air was heavy with soot, the smell of burning grass, terror. But the wind had turned. A gum tree flared briefly into flame, and the fire turned
in on itself.

Through the blur, Clare focused on Osman, the outline of his shoulders looming against the sky. She ran her hand along the rock in front of her – she had almost slipped on its surface as she’d crawled away.

She estimated the space between herself and the edge of the cliff. He would come this way. He would follow her trail.

Her knees were bent as she braced herself against
the rock.

He was coming towards her, faster. Clare counted, waited, and kicked as he lunged for her. He lost his balance and slid backwards on the slimy rock. He grabbed at a tussock of grass and Clare stamped on his fingers.

Gilles Osman went over the edge of the cliff, his arms windmilling against the sky.

Clare crawled to the edge.

She waited until Osman’s white face rose to
the surface of the water.

She dropped her face into her hands.

‘Clare.’ Gentle hands on her shoulders.

‘Riedwaan.’ Clare raised her head. ‘You’re here.’

He helped her up.

‘Lilith?’ she asked.

‘An ambulance is on its way,’ he said. ‘She’ll be okay.’

‘Basson got away,’ said Clare. ‘I let him.’

‘Not this time, not for long,’ he said.

Down on High Level Road, an
arc of headlights formed as the vehicles pulled up. An ambulance, cop cars, Shorty de Lange’s ballistics bakkie, crime-scene photographers, the press.

‘Osman didn’t get far,’ said Clare, looking down into the quarrybelow.

Two men were gaffing his body out of the water. Rolling it onto the bank.

It was over.

Riedwaan put his arms around Clare, drawing her back from the edge.

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A terrified, frozen child is found close to death on an icy Cape Town mountainside. But no-one reported her missing. Where does she come from? Who does she belong to? Profiler Dr Clare Hart is baffled but when a young woman disappears, Clare sees a frightening pattern beginning to emerge.

Rosa is a gifted but troubled young cellist, and her grandfather is at his wits end. Why did she
walk out of her music school that day? Where has she gone now?

As winter tightens its grip, Clare must find Rosa and unravel her secrets… all the while carrying a secret of her own.