You could never get it back. That was the fuck-up. You could never go back, that life, those people and those circumstances were gone, just as dead as O'Grady, Theal and Vos. You had to start over, but this time without the naivety, innocence and optimism of before, without the haze of being in love. You were different, you were stuck with the way you were now, with all the knowledge and experience and realism and disillusionment.
He didn't know if he could do it. He didn't know if he had the energy - to go back to where every day was judgement day. Eagle- eyed Anna watching him when he came home at night, where had he been? Did he smell of drink? He would come through the door knowing this, and he would try too hard to prove his sobriety, he would play up to her, he would see her anxiety until she was sure he was sober and then she would relax. It all felt too much for him, a burden he wasn't ready to bear.
Then there was the fact that in the past two or three months, he had begun to enjoy his life in the spartan flat, the visits of his children before his daughter went overseas, when Fritz and Carla sat and chatted with him in his sitting room or a restaurant like three adults, three ... friends, not hamstrung by the rules and regulations of the conventional family. He had begun to enjoy the silence of his home when he opened the door, nobody watching and judging him. He could open the fridge and drink directly, long and deeply, out of the two-litre bottle of orange juice. He could lie on the couch with his shoes on and close his eyes and snooze till seven or eight o'clock and then stroll down to the Engen garage on Annandale and buy a Woollies Food sandwich and a small bottle of ginger beer. Or his favourite, a Dagwood burger at Steers, then home to type an email to Carla with two fingers, a bite and a swallow in between. He could play on his bass guitar and dream impossible dreams. Or he could return the dish to seventy-something Charmaine Watson- Smith at Number 106. 'Oh, Benny, you don't have to thank me, you're my charity. My policeman.' Despite her years her eyes were full of life and her food was so delicious, every time.
Charmaine Watson-Smith who had sent Bella around. And he had taken advantage of Bella and, fuck it, he was an adulterer, but it had been incredible, so terribly good. Everything has a price.
Perhaps Anna knew about Bella. Perhaps Anna was going to tell him tonight that he might well be sober, but he was an unfaithful bastard and she didn't want him any more. He wanted Anna to want him. He needed her approval, he needed her love and her embrace and the safe haven of their home. But he didn't know if that was the right thing for him now.
Jissis, why did life have to be so complicated?
He was in Buiten Street and there was no parking and the present, the reality of it all, felt to him as though someone had switched on a powerful light. He blinked his eyes against its brightness.
10:10-11:02
Chapter 15
'No,' said Inspector Mbali Kaleni with absolute finality.
Superintendent Cliffie Mketsu, station commander of Bellville, did not react. He knew he must wait until she had fired her salvo, his outspoken, principle-driven, stubborn female detective.
'What about the other women who have disappeared?' she asked, her round face registering displeasure. 'What about the Somali woman nobody wants to help me with? Why don't we call in the whole Service to work on her case?'
'What Somali woman, Mbali?'
'The one whose body has been lying at Salt River mortuary for the last two weeks, but the pathologists say it's not high priority, it could just be natural causes. Natural causes? Because it was a wound that went septic, because she died in a little shack of cardboard and planks, with nothing? Nobody is prepared to help, not Home Affairs, not Missing Persons, not even the stations, even after I sent them each a photo asking them to put it up on the board. When I get there they all just shrug - they don't even know what happened to the bulletin. But let an American disappear, everyone is suddenly jumping through burning hoops.' She folded her arms across her chest. 'Not me.'
'You're right,' Cliffie Mketsu said patiently. His theory was that Kaleni was her father's child. In a country where most fathers were absent, she had grown up with two strong parents - her mother was a nurse and her learned father was a school headmaster in KwaZulu, a leader in the community, who had equipped his only child carefully and deliberately with her own perspective, with good judgement, and the self-confidence to express it, loud and clear. So he had to give her the opportunity. 'I know.'
'The Commissioner specifically asked for you.'
She gave an angry snort.
'It's in the national interest.'
'National interest?'
'Tourism, Mbali. It's our lifeblood. Foreign exchange. Job opportunities. It's our biggest industry and our greatest leverage for upliftment.'
He knew she was melting; her arms dropped from her chest. 'They need you, Mbali, to take charge of the case.'
'But what about all the other women?'
'It's an imperfect world,' he said gently.
'It doesn't have to be,' she said and stood up.
At ten past three in the morning, Bill Anderson sat on the old two- seater leather couch in his study, his right arm around his sobbing wife and a coffee mug in his left hand. Despite his apparent calm, he could hear his own heart beating in the quiet of North Salisbury Street. His thoughts were sometimes with his daughter - and the parents of her friend, Erin Russel. Who would pass on the dreadful news? Should he call them? Or wait for official confirmation? And what could he do? Because he wanted to, he had to do something to help his daughter, to protect her; but where did he begin, he didn't even know where she was right now.
'They should never have gone,' said his wife. 'How many times did I tell them? Why couldn't they have gone to Europe?'
Anderson had no answer for her. He hugged her tighter.
The phone rang, shrill in the early hours. Anderson spilled some of the coffee from his mug in his haste to get up. He answered.
'Bill, it's Mike. I'm sorry, it took a while to track down the Congressman, he's up in Monticello with his family. I just got off the phone with him, and he's going to get things moving right away. First off, he says his thoughts are with you and your family ...'
'Thanks, Mike, thank him for us.'
'I will. I gave him your number, and he will call us as soon as he's got more information. He's going to call both the US
Ambassador in Pretoria and the Consul General in Cape Town to get confirmation and whatever facts are available. He also knows a staffer with Condi Rice, and he will ask the State Department for all the help they can give. Now, I know you're a Democrat, but the Congressman is a former military man, Bill, he gave up his law practice on three days' notice to serve in the first Gulf War. He gets things done. So don't you worry now, we are going to bring Rachel home.'
'Mike, I don't know how to thank you.'
'You know you don't have to.'
'Erin's parents ...'
'I'm thinking the same things here, but we need it to be official, Bill, before we say anything.'