'I'm in the kitchen.' The man's voice directly ahead was soothing, but she felt frightened anyway.
Books. So like her parents' house. She must be safe with a book person.
She walked in the direction of the voice. One of the rucksack's straps dragged whispering across the wooden floor.
Through a white-painted door frame was the kitchen. He stood with his back to her. White shirt, brown trousers, white sports shoes; he looked like an aged monk with his thinning grey hair around the bald spot that shone in the fluorescent light. He turned slowly from his work at the table, wooden spoon in hand.
'I'm making an omelette. Would you like some?'
He was older than she had thought at first, with a slight stoop, a kind face between deep wrinkles, loose skin above the red cravat around his neck, liver spots on his head and hands. His eyes were watery, faded blue, mischievous behind the over-large gold- rimmed spectacles. He put the spoon down beside a mixing bowl, wiped his hands on a white dishcloth and held one out towards her. 'My name is Piet van der Lingen,' he said, his smile revealing white false teeth.
'Pleased to meet you,' she said automatically, a reflex, and shook his hand.
'Omelette? Perhaps some toast?' He picked up the spoon again.
'That would be wonderful.'
'You are most welcome to hang the rucksack on the pegs at the door,' and he pointed with the spoon to the hall. Then he turned back to his mixing bowl.
She stood there, unwilling to accept the relief, the anticlimax, the relaxation.
'And the bathroom is down the passage, second door on the left.'
'I saw her,' said Barry over the phone, sounding more certain than he felt.
'Where?'
'She went into a house just a block from the restaurant.'
'Jesus. When?'
'A few minutes ago.'
'You saw her?'
'I was lucky, I just caught a glimpse, but it was her. No doubt.'
'A glimpse? What the fuck does that mean?'
They sat in the recording studio. Fransman Dekker wanted to tell her about the Barnard case. Inspector Mbali Kaleni said: 'Just a minute,' and shut her eyes. She wanted the American girl's case out of her thoughts; she had been so sure she would track her down. Now she cleared her head and opened her eyes. 'Go ahead,' she said. Dekker talked, gave her the details in a businesslike way, cursorily, the scowling execution of forced labour.
Mbali was not surprised by his attitude.
She knew her male colleagues did not like her. The one who liked her least of all was Fransman Dekker. But that didn't disturb her because she knew why. Generally the men felt threatened by her talent and they were intimidated by her ethics and her integrity. She didn't drink, smoke, or curse. She didn't hold her tongue either. The SAPS was not a place for sweet talking; the task was too big and the circumstances too difficult for that. She said what she thought. About their egos, too often the axis around which everything turned. About their incessant sexism and racism. About their lack of focus. Too much 'Let's throw a chop on the grill', or 'Let's get a quick beer', like boys that hadn't yet grown up. Too much talk in the office about sport, politics and sex. She told them straight out it was inappropriate. They hated her for that. But Dekker had an extra reason to hate her. She'd caught him out a few weeks ago. He was in the corridor where he thought nobody could hear him. Cell phone to his ear, whispering words of lust to a Tamaryn, when his wife's name was Crystal. When he slunk back into the office she had gone and stood at his desk and said: 'A man should be faithful to his wife.' He just stared at her. So she said: 'Fraud comes in many different guises,' and left. Since then she had seen the hatred in his eyes. Because she knew, and despised him for it.
But there was work to be done here. So she listened attentively. She answered him only in English, although he spoke Afrikaans. Because she knew he hated that too.
Rachel Anderson closed the bathroom door behind her, feeling an urgent need to pee. She unzipped her denim shorts, pulled the garments down to her knees and sat down. The relief was so great and the sound so loud that she wondered if he could hear her from the kitchen. Rachel looked around the bathroom. The walls were a light pastel blue, the porcelain fittings snow white. The old restored claw-foot bath was suddenly tempting, hot foamy water to draw out the dreadful fatigue and dull aching of her body. But she suppressed the thought, a surrender she wasn't yet ready for. And the old man was cooking in the kitchen.
When she was finished she bent over the basin, opened the taps, picked up the soap and washed the dried blood and mud off her hands, all the dirt from touching rocks and plants, walls and earth. She watched it rinse away. She mixed hot and cold water in cupped hands and splashed her face. Then she took the cake of soap, lathered it over her cheeks and forehead, mouth and chin, and rinsed again.
The dark-blue towel was fresh and rough. She rubbed it slowly over her face and hung it up neatly again. Only then did she look in the mirror. In a habitual motion her hands reached for her hair and brushed it back from her face.
She looked haggard. Dreadful. Her hair was a mess, strands had escaped from the plait and framed her face, her eyes were bloodshot and there were lines of fatigue around her mouth. There was a cut on her chin, surrounded by a light purple bruise and another small graze across her forehead; she didn't know where she had got that. Her neck was grimy, like her powder-blue Tshirt.
But you are alive.
She was filled with enormous gratitude. Then came the guilt, because Erin was dead, dear Erin. The emotion washed over her like a tidal wave, sudden and overwhelming, the awful shame that she could be glad at being alive while Erin was dead. It broke down her defences and let her relive it fully for the first time: the two of them fleeing in terror, Erin putting a hand on the church wall and jumping over the sharp cast-iron railings. A fatal error.
'No!' she had screamed, yet followed blindly, jumping over so effortlessly. Erin had stopped on a narrow path in the churchyard, in the deep, dark shadows between huge trees. Rachel realised they were trapped; she had run on desperately looking for a way out. She intended to take the lead, show the way around the church and thought Erin was following. She was already behind the building, out of sight and away from the streetlights, when she realised she couldn't hear Erin's footsteps. She turned around, feeling deadly fear like a weight she was dragging along with her. Where was Erin? Reluctant and afraid, she had run back to the corner of the church building.
Erin was on the ground and all five were around her, bending over, kneeling, yowling like animals. The knife had flashed. Erin's desperate scream, abruptly cut off. Black blood in the dark.
That moment was petrified in the synapses of her brain, surreal, overwhelming. As heavy as lead.
She had run for her life. Around the back of the church. Over the fence again. She had a bigger lead this time.
Relief. Gratitude. She was alive.
In front of the bathroom mirror it was all too much for her. She could not look at herself. She let her head hang in shame, grasping the sides of the basin in despair. The emotion was physical, a nausea rising from her stomach that made her guts spasm and made her want to vomit, a wave of dry retching. She bellowed once, and shuddered. Then she began to cry.
Vusi Ndabeni sat in the front seat of one of the patrol vehicles between a Constable and an Inspector, both in uniform. Behind them on the West Coast Road was another police van.