Читать книгу Endgame - Wilna Adriaanse - Страница 14

It was getting dark when Ellie stopped at Melissa’s home. She’d been hesitant about going there but after being with Clive and Albert, she longed to see a familiar face. Someone who knew her better than she knew herself.

A friendship of twenty years meant that there were no secrets between them. They often teased each other that they couldn’t afford to fight. Each knew too much about the other. Melissa’s being a psychologist was sometimes an advantage, and sometimes exactly the opposite. There had been times Ellie had wished she could hide things from her. So far she’d never had any success.

Melissa opened the door, took a step back and frowned. “I’ve already donated all our old clothes to the welfare and there’s no more bread.”

“I could take a child instead.”

“I may be able to help with that. But only if you take two.” Melissa unlocked the security gate, held out her arms and hugged Ellie. “I don’t know why I’m being so nice. I’m pissed off with you. Where the hell have you been? I haven’t heard from you in ages.”

“You worry too much. I’m like a cockroach. When everybody’s gone, I’ll still be around.”

Melissa looked at the motorbike at the kerb. “I’d rather not ask.”

They went into the house. Screams sounded from somewhere inside.

“It’s Daddy’s turn to give them their bath. By this time both he and the bathroom are drenched, but it gives me a chance to enjoy a glass of wine in peace.” She picked up the bottle from the kitchen counter, took out another glass and filled it. “Let’s go to the lounge. It’s the last place they’ll look for me.”

When they were seated opposite each other, Melissa raised her glass. “I don’t know what we’re drinking to, but cheers.”

“How are you?”

Melissa gave a dismissive wave. “Life in suburbia. Tell me what you’re doing here. Are you back?”

“I had some business in the city, and no, I’m not back yet.”

“What kind of business? Did you see your mom? I saw her with Janus the other day and she told me they’re getting married.”

“So she tells me. This coming Saturday, mind you. She doesn’t see any reason to wait.”

“And you’re okay with it?”

“No. On the other hand, she must do as she pleases. I can’t face another battle. She seems happy. They’re going to buy a caravan. I don’t know what else they’re planning. As long as I don’t have to go camping with them. Or stay over.”

Melissa laughed. “You can have matching tracksuits made and wear them on your camping trips.”

“You’ve definitely had too much wine.”

“What’s going on with the minister?”

“I think it’s time to let him know I may not be the kind of woman he’s looking for. Then again, I can’t help wondering … what are the odds a man like that will ever come my way again? Especially one who’s brave enough to take me on.”

“You can’t get married just because he’s a good man. You have to feel something for him.”

“I think I could feel something for him.”

“That’s not how it works, and you should know it.”

“Mel, have you ever considered that all this love-and-emotion stuff may be bullshit? Look at the divorce statistics. Isn’t it time for a different model?”

“Marrying someone you don’t feel anything for?”

“But whom you respect.”

Melissa shook her head. “Sweetie, maybe you’ve been getting too much sun. No, while it’s great to respect your partner, there’s got to be something more.”

“I think you’re mistaken, but we can continue this conversation another day.”

“You and Albert?”

“I saw him this afternoon. Albert is still Albert. Unlikely to change. Part of me will always care for him, but maybe it’s more the way a mother cares for a problem child. I don’t know. Relationships aren’t my forte. You could probably write a dissertation about the choices I’ve made, which is why I’m wondering whether I’ve always had the wrong end of the stick.”

“I blame those bloody fairy tales. I’m never going to read Mia stories with handsome princes in them. I’m not going to raise another woman who spends her entire life searching for Prince Charming.”

“The poor child. I’d like to know how you’re going to manage that. Sometimes I think we’re genetically programmed.”

“Mel?” Antonie’s voice interrupted their conversation.

Melissa rolled her eyes. “I think his greatest fear is that I’ll run away and leave him with the kids and the house and the dog and the gardener and the maid and his mother. In the lounge!” she called.

Antonie came in. “What are you doing here?” He stopped when he saw Ellie. “Ellie, my goodness. I didn’t know you were here.” He came over and kissed her.

The two toddlers followed hard on his heels. They took one look at Ellie and clambered onto her lap. “Ellie bring me present?” three-year-old Mia wanted to know, while her little brother eagerly held out his hand.

“As you can see, they’re being raised for the streets. Antonie, talk to your children. My gosh, you’d think they don’t know how to behave.”

“It’s not nice to beg, you two.”

Ellie got up and took two packets of sweets from her backpack. “Ask Mommy if you may have some.”

“We’ve already had supper,” the little boy said.

“Take your sweets and go watch some TV,” Melissa said.

“Coming from the psychologist who teaches other parents not to use the TV as a babysitter,” Antonie remarked drily.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures. And please phone Mr Delivery. I haven’t made supper.”

“I can smell that.”

Ellie got up, laughing. “Your wife is going to cook you a wonderful meal. I must go.”

“How are you?”

“In one piece.”

“You look good.”

Through the years Ellie had always felt sorry for Antonie. Though he certainly wasn’t to blame that his best friend broke off his engagement to her all those years ago, he still couldn’t look Ellie in the eye. Perhaps the two of them should open a bottle of wine one day and clear the air. She liked Antonie and thought Melissa couldn’t have found a better husband. And she definitely didn’t hold him responsible for the fact that his friend had got cold feet.

“You can’t go now. Join us for supper,” Melissa protested.

“I must get home. It’s been a long day. I’ll call you, come over for a weekend.”

Ellie said goodbye to Antonie and hugged Melissa. “Take care of your husband. He’s a Prince Charming.”

Melissa kissed her cheek. “Look after yourself and come back soon. I miss you. And switch your phone on more often.”

When Ellie turned into the street, she looked back at Antonie and Melissa in the doorway. The picture of Antonie with his arm around his wife hit a tender spot under Ellie’s ribs. She had never told Melissa that she prayed fervently their marriage would last. She needed an example. Her friend’s normality anchored her when the world threatened to spin out of control.

Nick washed his plate and cutlery. On his way home he had remembered to buy coffee and milk and had added a few ready meals to his shopping basket. The picture on the packaging had looked enticing, but he couldn’t really remember what the food had tasted like. There was too much on his mind. And tonight there was one thought in particular that he couldn’t shake.

He took out his phone and sent Clive Barnard a message.

Do you have McKenna’s number? The one I have seems out of commission.

It took a while for Clive to reply. No. Why are you looking for her?

I want to ask her something she might remember from her time with the Allegrettis.

Sorry. Can’t help you.

Nick was in bed when he remembered something. He switched on the bedside lamp and picked up his phone. He googled medical practitioners in Cape Town’s northern suburbs. After a search of the pages that came up, he found what he presumed was the right one.

It was one of the senseless things he had done after inspecting Ellie McKenna’s home. He had found out the identity of the girl in several of the photos in the house. Melissa Calitz. He had just remembered. His source had told him that she was married to a doctor and lived in Tygerberg Hills or Welgemoed.

He saved the surgery’s number on his phone. He’d call in the morning.

He phoned the hospital, but Patrice’s condition was unchanged. He closed his eyes and let the events of the weekend run through his mind like a movie. When nothing new came up, he went further back. He tried to think of conversations he might have had with Allegretti in the past week or two, conversations whose context he might understand only now. But nothing came to mind.

It was the turtle doves, Ellie realised when she was properly awake and could make out the sounds. A shiver ran down her spine. The clock at her bedside said three. Her Irish grandma had always talked of the witching hour – when witches and spirits were at their busiest.

Night-time belongs to owls, not doves. Could a cat be bothering them? A snake?

It went quiet. No more night-time sounds – not even from the house. It was a silent old house, this house on the hill. Sometimes, just after sunset, there was a creak or two, almost like a sigh. She liked the place. After five months they understood each other’s fads and fancies and had settled into peaceful coexistence. She felt safe. The thick old walls were strong, the roof didn’t leak. As the sun moved northwards into autumn, the windows seemed to widen. Let in more of the sun’s rays.

There had been no owls tonight, she realised. She liked the owls. She had been glad to discover the family in the outbuilding behind the house. She wanted to believe the story that owls carried messages from the other side, so she listened for them every night. Sometimes she stood on the porch to watch them hunt. Unlike other birds, they flew almost noiselessly. She had read up about them and learnt that their feathers broke the air turbulence into smaller currents, muting the sound. Soft velvety down stifled the sound even more. Silent hunters of the night, shy observers of the day.

The turtle doves fluttered a moment longer. A few cooed before the silence descended once more. Instinctively her hand searched under the pillow until she touched the cold steel.

Every morning, when the sun threw a streak across the wooden floor, she promised herself it had been the last time. Once or twice she had even managed to get into bed and close her eyes, but at some point she’d always get up again to take her revolver out of the safe and put it under her pillow. Even then, sleep didn’t always come.

She got up. In the kitchen she switched the kettle on, then went back to her room to put on warm socks and pull a sweater over her head. The room she had furnished as a study was on the other side of the house. The desk lamp flickered a few times when she switched it on. Piles of paper lay on the desktop. Some in files, but mostly loose pages, heaped together. She could find her way through the paperwork with her eyes closed.

She heard the kettle switch itself off and got up to make tea. With the mug in her hand, she sat down at the desk, gazing at the large sheets of paper fixed to the wall. There were names, references, arrows, question marks. She often came to sit here at night. Sometimes she reread a statement, other times she just sat. She sometimes felt as if the names had been tattooed onto her skin.

She had been gone for a week or two when she discovered that someone at the department had neglected to block her access to the internal networks.

At the end of last year she had been ready to resign. The letter had been written and the paperwork was being processed when the chief asked her to reconsider.

“Take some time off,” Brigadier Andile Zondi advised her. “I can stretch it to six months, if necessary. Sort yourself out, get some fresh air and live a little. Then come back and give me your answer.”

Brigadier Ahmed, her late father’s friend and chief, had agreed when she told him about Zondi’s offer.

“We’ve had this conversation before. You know one shouldn’t make drastic decisions in a situation like this. Clear your head before you decide.”

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried to clear her head. Heaven knows, she had done her best. Sometimes she thought she was succeeding but then – sometimes in the middle of the night – a door seemed to open, and on the other side there were questions, nightmares, reproaches, anger. Like a hall of mirrors at a carnival. Mirrors that twisted the truth, made you see things that didn’t exist and showed you pictures of yourself that you’d rather not see.

She had accepted Zondi’s offer and hoped the bile would settle and somewhere among the mirror images she would recognise the truth.

The day she discovered she still had access to all the department’s files it felt like a sign. She knew what she had to do. Try to solve the most important case of her life. The murder of John McKenna.

She believed the people on the case were trying their best; she also knew that, as time elapsed, the chances of finding the perpetrators diminished. She paged through the files again, randomly picking up a page or two. She had gone through the paperwork a hundred times and still there was no one she could point a finger at. At the time the press had called it a random shooting, implying that the bullets could have hit anyone. Her father had unfortunately been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She didn’t believe it. It was senseless. John McKenna had been too great a man to die a senseless death. There had to be a reason for his death. Coincidence was just not good enough.

She heard the doves again, got up and stood by the window. The yard was silent. The light was on outside and she noticed that the oak tree at the front door was rapidly losing its leaves. More and more leaves lay scattered under the tree every day. From the porch she could smell the damp soil under the leaves. That earthy smell of mulch so specific to autumn.

Yet tonight it wasn’t her father’s death that was keeping her awake. She couldn’t get Clara out of her mind. Clive could say it wasn’t her responsibility all he liked, but it didn’t help. She felt responsible.

She turned back to the names and lines on the papers against the wall. So many possibilities. In the lives of people like Nazeem Williams there were no simple problems or solutions. He was a man with many enemies, just like the rest of them. They lived in a world where loyalty was determined by the size of your wallet.

She took a last sip of tea and went back to bed. The bed was cold and she drew up her knees. Sometimes she missed a warm body beside her. The drawing closer, the hand on your hip, your body in the hollow of another’s. Your breathing finding the rhythm of the other’s. The night wasn’t made for being alone. She preferred not to think about where Clara could be tonight. She had learnt that death was sometimes the merciful option, but the thought that Clara might be dead made her feel sick. Life owed her more time.