“And then what happened?”
“Then you turned her over and hit her some more.”
Neither of them said anything for a few seconds, then High Voice continued.
“Because she didn’t want to talk.”
Another pause. High Voice again. “I didn’t see the ID after that.”
“So, it’s either still on her body, or it fell out of her pocket.” Deep Voice. “Let’s check her out one more time. I don’t want that thing to get found. Either here in the house or where we’re going to dump her.”
Footsteps. Door slamming. Garage door, too. Thembinkosi opened his door the same moment Nozipho did hers.
49
The white man’s boots could be heard for a few seconds. Moses then crawled slowly around the house. He had briefly considered thanking the nanny. With a wave. A nod. But he didn’t want to put her in any danger. She understood as it was. Behind the house, he crept along another wall whose height decreased in steps down to the hedge. He was peeking through the hedge into the next yard when it occurred to him that he hadn’t had the time to verify that he wasn’t being watched from the house he’d just crawled by.
Moses raised his head and realized this wasn’t enough for him to get a good sightline. He moved back a short way and sat up with his back against the wall. Breathed slower. Deeper. And sensed how tired he actually was. And how hungry. Coffee and bread for breakfast, that was it. And the moving for Prof. Brinsley. And then here.
No idea where he was inside The Pines. The last escape from the referee, the guards, the security vehicle, and the white guy… Shit, he thought. Whoever had been sitting in the security car… That had been an attempt to kill him.
Why?
He needed a few moments to remember. Rape. That word had tumbled out when someone in that vehicle had chatted with the white guy. Was that the same car that had tried to run him down?
And the rape? Someone else had to be on foot in here. They couldn’t mean him.
The movement at the upper edge of his vision was barely noticeable. Moses looked up and met the curious eyes of a little girl. She was three or four years old with blonde braids dangling on each side of her face. In the glow of the sunshine from where she was standing behind the window, she looked like a character in a children’s book. She waved at him. He waved back.
If she caught sight of a black man creeping around her yard, she wasn’t thinking, “Mommy, a black man is crawling around our yard.” But what was she thinking? He had to get out of here. Wherever a small child happened to be, an adult wasn’t far behind. And they would definitely ask, “Why the hell is a black man crawling around our yard?”
If only he could figure out where he was. And where was Sandi?
50
“Are we on the air? Skype is amazing. Hello? Ah… now! All right… I’ll start since I know the two of you. Inspector Pokwana in Beacon Bay and Warren Kramer in… Ah yes, you’re both in Beacon Bay. Neighbors, practically. So Inspector Pokwana is the police contact officer for the Neighborhood Community Watch in Dorchester Heights. Hello…”
“Hello!”
“And Warren is responsible for the security of the gated communities managed by Meyer Investment. Hi, Warren.”
“Stevie, hi.”
“That’s six of them, right, Warren? Gated Communities. Man, it’s warm today…”
“Exactly. Six. Yes, here in the office it’s unbearable.”
“Okay. So we all know what’s happened. A dangerous individual is on the loose in The Pines. A young man. Broke in and stole numerous items of value. Tried to rape a, uh, woman. Hurt one of our colleagues, who’s now on his way to the hospital with bruised balls, as I’ve been told. Dad is on site and has everything under control. But we still don’t have the guy.”
“I’ve sent around the photo taken from the cctv footage. Did you get it?”
“Hm!” Warren.
“Yes.” Pokwana.
“Recognize him?”
“Never seen him,” Pokwana said.
“Me, neither.” Stevie van Lange paused. “We have a ton of people in The Pines, and I think we’ll catch him soon. However, in my opinion… if he puts up a fight, it could get quite dicey. And we don’t know if he’s armed. So we thought—Dad’s idea—that we could maybe temporarily shut down the access roads.”
“Absolutely not,” Pokwana interjected. “The neighborhood’s too large. How would you manage that? Too many people live there.”
“I was thinking we could help each other out. People will soon be coming home from work.”
“We’ll send a third car over. We really can’t swing more than that. And if he really is all that dangerous, then my people will be needed inside the neighborhood, not at the gate. Besides, that’ll be hard enough as it is. We can’t stop people who live half a kilometer away from where we’re searching for the suspect from getting home.”
“Do we know where he is?” van Lange asked.
“Can’t you just suggest it to people?” Kramer.
“Suggest what?” Pokwana.
“That they wait outside until we have him.”
“Uh-huh. We could.” Pokwana. “We could try.”
“So we’ll post a few people at the entrance and… what?” That was van Lange. “It’s best to stay outside, otherwise… I think I’ll just drive over there myself. What time is it? Ten past two. I can get there in fifteen minutes. Warren, what about you?”
“I’ll join you.”
“And you, Inspector Pokwana?”
“Let me first talk to my people. I mean… a single fellow. That can’t be all that hard.”
51
“What did they do to her?” Nozipho shook her head.
“Yeah. And above all, why?”
“They beat and kicked her. Imagine that. And they spit on her, too.”
“Uh-huh. Main thing, they killed her.”
“Pigs.”
“Hmm… We could try to get out of here.”
“But if we open this door and they come back from the garage at that moment, we’re dead.”
“True. We’ll also get beaten and kicked, as well as spat on.”
“What should we do? I still need to pee.”
“I don’t know.”
“We could call for help. Out the window.”
“But the security guys just saw the whites walk into this house. If we call for help, they’ll shoot at us.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Maybe.”
“What a shitty situation.”
“It’s totally a shitty situation.”
The door to the garage opened. Thembinkosi and Nozipho vanished back into the wardrobe.
52
Moses broke through the hedge with his shoulder. His t-shirt ripped down the side as he did that. He crawled on all fours into the shadow of the next house. No time to look around. Another street was located on the other side of the house. They would be patrolling everywhere by now. He couldn’t stay outside much longer. He couldn’t stay anywhere much longer. Around the house. How many houses have I already had to creep around, he wondered.
On his stomach to the next wall. Almost shoulder high. He slowly straightened up to look over it. First forward, then toward the back. Risk assessment. Crown of his head, forehead, eyes. Houses on the other side of the street, as usual. A security car rolled by. Nothing unusual.
Look around. Curtains shut.
An empty house. Presumably. Another security vehicle on the other side of the wall. Or the same one. Yet another Polo. He’d seen Polos—had to be more than one—and the bakkie that had tried to hit him. Another car drove by, then another. Moses scanned for signs of life in the houses across the way. Didn’t see any. The workday hadn’t ended yet. People were still at the office. And nobody was watching him from there.