Читать книгу The Score - HJ Golakai - Страница 16

“I can’t believe this,” Lovett said.

“You can’t believe this?!” Vee exclaimed.

Her phone vibrated: another missed call from Nico. Five in total. She should’ve held off on letting Chlöe call him. She typed a quick text along the lines of getting back to him as soon as she had a free second and slipped it in her back pocket. ‘Silent mode’ could take the flack when he lost it.

She peeped across the room at Chlöe, tucked away in a corner seat next to Lovett’s hyper-blonde, Slavic-cheekboned companion. Chlöe’s eyes kept zipping round, a new emotion swiping another off her face every few seconds; worry in Vee’s direction, rabid puzzlement and hope in Lovett’s, barely veiled amazement at the blonde’s impeccable attire at just gone seven in the morning, distaste every time she scratched her scalp and terror every time her phone beeped. Vee turned back to Lovett, who kept releasing a relay of soft sighs as he ever so calmly paced the wood-panelled floor of the small dining room, stirring a warm draft of toothpaste and men’s cologne every time he strode past.

“It’s ridiculous. They’re holding you on a very flimsy premise. They know that, hence the time-wasting while they get their act together.”

“Lovett.” Vee stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Lovett ooo. You boy, dis not play-play. A man is dead. Strangled with a piece of my property. They saw the marks round his neck where I choked him.” She drew in a long, shaky breath to steady her voice. “Now, I don’t know if you trying to approach this as a lawyer or as a fr–” She stopped, bemused by the audacity of what she’d been about to say. Were they actually friends? Did Lovett even do friendship? She had no clue.

Lovett returned what approximated an amused smile and patted her hand. “Look, all I mean is it’s taking longer than it needs to. The police haven’t laid charges because they don’t have evidence enough to charge you with. Besides the damn scarf, which is circumstantial. They’ve questioned you for an hour this morning, and you cooperated and stuck to your story. Because it’s true. Nothing … untoward transpired between y’all?”

“Ehn? Like I’hn got better things to do than screw Papa Smurf?”

He cocked his head sternly; she sighed and shook her head. “So then. They just have to find this concierge fellow and everything will be settled.”

He strolled back to the sliding doors, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply as the morning sun struck his face. Vee noticed that his shirt had not a single wrinkle in sight. She edged away from the aura of suave, pressing her armpits to her sides to conceal half-dried circles of sweat on yesterday’s rumpled T-shirt.

“But what if they don’t find him? What if this killer got to him too last night? Two people dead already.”

“What? Two people? Which two people now?” He pivoted from the view to drill her with a highly concerned look, the kind given to addled unfortunates just before padded cells and calming drugs came into play. “There’s one dead body, Voinjama.” He held up a single finger. “One victim. Just relax. And shush.”

Chlöe watched Vee slump into a chair. Lovett, sensitive to her turmoil, sighed into the seat next to her. Arms wrapped tight around her middle, Vee kept shaking her head and nervously jiggling the toes of her sneakers against the floor.

Lovett shook his head. “Finegeh, jes relax. Stop worryin’ like dis.”

Chlöe smiled. Leaning sideways, she intimated: “This ‘finegeh’, or ‘finegirl’ if you pronounce it properly, it’s such a major part of this slang of theirs. I guess it’s like ‘meisie’ in Afrikaans. Only they say it a lot more often, right?”

“I guess so.” The blonde carried on texting for another second before looking up. “You can really understand that stuff they’re saying?”

“I’ve gotten a pretty good hang of it,” Chlöe preened. “The accent and the speed’s the hard part. But you catch on. It’s like pretending half your brain is dead and the other half is completely drunk.”

The blonde fired an ‘as if I give a shit’ look and went back to texting on her iPhone. Alarmed, Chlöe saw she was tweeting. Nico’s fuming on the phone earlier that morning had included his outrage that they and their incident were blowing up locally on Twitter, and he’d had to hear about it from an office underling. Chlöe looked back at Vee, who looked like she was trying to devour her bottom lip.

“Aay, my pipo,” Vee clapped her hands despondently. “Wha’ kanna troubo I nah put mysef in again ooo?”

Chlöe closed her eyes, which, somehow and mysteriously, did wonders in unjabbering the jibber. You mean what kind of trouble has found you once again, my dear friend, she thought, equally dejected. And it’s bad if she thinks it’s bad.

“Aay, you geh man,” Lovett replied impatiently. “I’hn like de way you ackin’ so. Ehn I nah tell you, de pipo dem ee’hn got nuttin to charge you wit.” Come now, girl. I’m not at all impressed with your current behaviour. As I’ve told you, these people haven’t got a shred of evidence against you.

“Dah lie o! Dey got dah scarf, dah sumtin. And even sef, who say dey can’t jes hitch it behind me jes because dey’hn got nobody else who lookin’ guilty?” Behold, a falsehood! That scarf is a lot of something. Besides that, who says they can’t just pin it on me just because they need a fall guy?

“Move from heah, man. You nah nobody in dis town heah, so nobody want hitch nuttin’ on you. Da’hn anythin’ hard to sort dis out. So don’t come chakla the situation wit dah yor mouf.” Get outta here. You’re nobody around these parts, so no-one will be looking to gratuitously pin any crimes on you. So don’t mess this up by losing your cool.

Vee chuckled. “Well, ay betta be true you talkin’, ’cause I nah ready to go to no jail.” You better be right, because I won’t fare well behind bars.

At the welcome sound of Vee’s laughter, Chlöe blinked her eyes open. Behind her lids, they’d started to water. Her throat felt dry; she was actually getting a headache. Let’s never go to West Africa, she advised herself bitterly. The patois could short-circuit the human brain. She wearily tuned back in when Lovett took off again.

“You know you comin’ pay plenty for my services ehn? All dis one heah wi’ be on my bill,” he joked. Money, Chlöe sighed. Lawyers were all the same.

“I beg you yaah. You fini zwapping enuff of my money and you’hn give me no news yet.” She’s broke. Chlöe knew that. But news about what?

“I say, I nah fix de full report for you. I jes didn’t want talk about it heah.” Lovett shifted uncomfortably in his chair, turning away from Vee slightly. “We found him. But you won’t like it o …”

Chlöe’s ears perked to the ceiling. There was a full report of some kind. That Lovett didn’t want to discuss. Which meant it was private, and Vee definitely wouldn’t want her knowing about it. And there was another ‘him’? Didn’t she have enough problems with phalluses to juggle?

“Wheh he was at? How he doin’? Lovett looka me and tell me how my broduh –”

Brother. Quentin. Vee’s mysterious elder sibling. Chlöe exhaled shakily.

Lovett planted a quick squeeze on Vee’s knee and her eyes flitted around until they slammed into Chlöe’s. Their gazes locked for the longest time until they both looked away.

“Finally, they’re back,” Lovett interrupted, rising to his feet.

The four threaded from the foyer into the dining room, led by the pinch-faced general manager. Clad in a cream blouse with a pussy-bow neckline and a snug black skirt, Samantha Motaung hardly looked like someone who’d been spearheading damage control since daybreak. Taking in the GM’s neat cornrows snaking to curly tips over one shoulder, Vee felt another self-conscious pang as she passed a hand over her own scruffy hair. Motaung did a stellar job of masking her emotions, but her anxiety and shock at the morning’s turn of events bled through. Above all, she looked damn well put out that they’d transpired on her turf.

“Well.” Motaung looked around at Sgt Ncubane, Zintle and the concierge before nailing Vee with a frown. Vee held her eyes until at last she broke, only to turn and find Ncubane drilling her with a scowl of his own. Now that she had a name and rank, and he’d finally succumbed and removed his ridiculous trench coat, the lead officer had lost his looming intensity.

“I’ve located Trevor Davids as you requested,” Motaung darted looks between Vee and Ncubane, “and he’s happy to assist in any way. I’d love to have this cleared up as soon as possible.”

That’s his name … Trevor, Vee exhaled as she regarded the concierge. Sans the dark-blue blazer of his uniform he looked different, unkempt almost, and his curly dark-brown hair had not the neatness of the previous day. They’d likely rushed him away from his morning routine. His vibe came off different too, without the suspicious squint or a cigarette in his mouth. Right now, Vee couldn’t tell if the lilt of his lips was a smile or a smirk. Let’s play nice now, Trevor, she thought with a touch of desperation. No need to turn our small fuss into a big palaver.

“Can you tell us …” Ms Motaung prompted, hands palms-up to indicate the floor was open.

Trevor launched into it, hesitant at first. He gave a vividly accurate description of Gavin Berman approaching Vee as she crossed the lawn at around twenty to one a.m. The group expelled a collective gasp as he gave extra colour to what he termed ‘a somewhat embarrassing altercation’ between the two guests. Vee chewed her lip as Trevor’s fingers stiffened into a vice, depicting the stranglehold she’d put on Berman. Motaung gaped; Ncubane clenched his jaw; Lovett threw her an indecipherable look lightly mixed with admiration; Zintle put a hand over her mouth.

“Did you actually see her off the grounds?” Ncubane pressed.

There was a beat before Trevor replied: “Yes I did. I escorted her to the main gate myself. Sipho, one of the lodge’s night guards, took her from there back to the boot camp where one of the other security guards saw her to her chalet from there. He made very sure no-one left that chalet all night. All of us at Grotto know it’s highly frowned upon for boot campers to fraternise with lodge residents, and we wanted to prevent any more incidents of such. And yes,” he pressed on when Ncubane opened his mouth, “I did see Mr Berman alive when I returned. He was still outside.”

“He was alive?”

“Yes. Definitely.”

“Are you sure?”

Trevor blinked. “I’m confident I can recognise a living person when I see one, Sergeant.” Motaung cleared her throat and clipped her eyes at him in reproach. “He was still lingering on the lawn where this lady herself had been sitting before he cornered her. I left him there and went back to the front desk.”

“And what was he doing there?”

“I can’t say exactly.” Frowning, Trevor shrugged. “Like, he was just standing there. Like he was looking at something in the distance.”

Ncubane sighed. “At what exactly?”

Under the razor eye of his boss, Trevor did his best to bite back a retort. “I really couldn’t say. It was late and very dark; he was by the trees near the boys’ quarters. It could’ve been anything. Maybe he was simply getting some fresh air and calming down after being …” he glanced at Vee with the tiniest of smiles, “woman-handled.”

“Did you see this purple scarf she claims she left behind? On the lawn?”

Trevor thought for a moment before shaking his head. “No, I didn’t see a scarf anywhere nearby. But she didn’t have it with her when she left. I didn’t notice anything like that on her when she left the gate.”

As Motaung shared a quiet word with Trevor before dismissing him, Ncubane turned to Zintle. “Sisi, now I’m going to ask you some questions neh, and I want you to tell me the truth. Don’t try to be clever and just change things nje and think I won’t notice.” Zintle kept her eyes on the ground. Tiny bumps prickled up on the skin of her arms and collarbone. “Do you hear what I’m saying?” Ncubane barked, making Zintle jump. “Don’t bullshit me, my girl, or there’ll be serious consequences. You understand me?”

Lovett, silent and observant with nothing save his usual slight frown, exhaled loudly. Vee narrowed her eyes and put a hand on the maid’s arm. Why did black people in authority still feel the need to treat each other like this, belittling each other publicly to flaunt how inflated their chests were? Trevor the Snide had breezed through his interview burn-free, but clearly he wasn’t black enough to incite such nonsense. Even Motaung grimaced, pivoting on her heels to shoot Ncubane a frosty glare.

“Let’s watch our tone, shall we, Sergeant,” she intoned. “My staff have been very cooperative so far, and we’d like to keep the atmosphere as pleasant as we all can manage during this unfortunate event.”

“Hhmph,” came the policeman’s reply. “Do you know this woman?” He jabbed a finger at Vee so violently she took a step back.

Zintle looked confused. “Yes.” She nodded furiously. “Yes.”

“Eh-hehh. How do you know her?”

Zintle’s confusion doubled. “From the hotel. I met her here. I told you.”

“Nxc! Just answer me what I’m asking. Tell me again what happened this morning.”

Zintle cleared her throat. “I came in for my shift this morning at five o’clock. After I changed into my clean uniform, I dumped the dirty one into the laundry trolley and pushed it outside for the guys who load the laundry truck to find it. While I was outside, I saw Lwazi and Thomas talking between themselves like something was wrong.”

“Those are the two groundsmen?”

Zintle nodded. “They said they found a dead body, a white guy, who was hanging by their quarters. We went to look.” She swallowed hard at the memory. “I didn’t want to but we did. None of us recognised him, but we can’t know all the guests. We started discussing what to do. I told them to go call the police and I would find someone who could help. So then I went across and called this lady, Ms Johnson, and she came with her friend. They waited with me until you guys came.”

“Oh-ho-o-o. So you don’t know this lady from anywhere? Yet of all the people at this hotel, you went all the way across the fence to fetch her? Before you even told your manager?”

For a moment as Zintle hauled in a gigantic lungful of air, lips blowfish-puckered, she resembled a desperate molecule, sucking in every drop of ambient energy to boost her own force field. Eyes closed, she said in one rushed breath: “I met her outside last night when the guests were arriving for the party. I was admiring her dress and she was nice, she told me where she bought it. We talked a bit.”

“Oh? And did she also tell you she and her colleague were gate-crashing a private event?”

Zintle barely paused. “I work here, I don’t question the guests. What I remembered is she mentioned they were investigators. At first I thought she meant they came to check the hotel, like an audit, but she said they look into crimes. I thought she meant like private investigators or with the police somehow, that they would know what to do if there was a murder. That’s why I went to her.”

Good girl, Vee exhaled along with her. Well done.

Ncubane snorted and flailed an arm. “Hhayi mhani! They are investigative journalists! Those ones who look into stories and then write it for the newspaper. They are not private and for sure they don’t work for us. They don’t open or close police investigations. Now our case will be spread all over the papers! You –” His face was a thundercloud; he looked on the brink of spewing something akin to ‘bloody stupid cow’. Ms Motaung raised her eyebrows again and he spluttered to a halt.

“She said investigation.” Zintle pulled a sullen face, crossing her arms tightly. “All I heard was she could do investigations. So I called her.”

Lovett broke in with a low chuckle. “I beg your pardon Sergeant, but this sounds like a misunderstanding overblown. If we could just take this somewhere private and wrap it up …”

“My office,” Motaung crisped, striding toward the door.

Chlöe cooled her heels for another twenty minutes before they emerged. Lovett’s features remained inscrutable, but Voinjama’s gushed pure relief. Chlöe let herself breathe. Before they reached earshot, Lovett stalled Vee with a hand on her shoulder and a quick mutter. They both looked in Chlöe’s direction before descending into discourse so rapid and guttural that she could barely pick up any English in the mix. Chlöe sighed. They’d gone raw; she was out of the loop. Something was definitely up, but she’d have to follow that bunny down the rabbit-hole to Vee’s wonderland of secrets another time. They had bigger fish to fry.

“What’re we telling Nico?”

“Nothing but good news.” Vee’s tiredness cleared off with a smile. “Thank the good Lord for Trevor, and now another security guard on patrol after I left the grounds saw Berman too. My scarf may’ve gotten me into hot water, but that’s not enough to charge me with murder.”

“That and your ability to go from zero to Hulk in twenty seconds. I know you flip out when strange arseholes feel you up because …”

Vee’s face immediately folded into a snarl.

“… of the thing of which we never speak, that happened in the not-war that we never mention. Whatever, I get it, but you have to work on that. Seriously, choking the guy?”

Vee’s smile returned, sheepish. “I know. Sorry.” She fished her cellphone from her back pocket and eyed it a long time before slipping it back. “It can wait a minute. Food. There’s a demon hollerin’ in my stomach. Then,” she stuck her nose down the front of her T-shirt and grimaced at her own smell, “showers. You need to wash that hair. And change that T-shirt, it’s holier than Jesus.”

“Then we can go home.” Chlöe frowned. Instead of an answering cheer Vee’s eyes took on a faraway look, gazing in the distance as she chewed the inside of her cheek. “We can go home, right? We’re cleared to leave any time?”

“Hhmmm …”

“What’s ‘hhmmm’? Why the ‘hhmmm’ing all of a sudden?” Chlöe scurried to keep up. “Don’t start. I hate that look.”

“Which look?”

“That one! The one where shit’s brewing between your ears and you’re not telling me shit!”