running. Let them catch the real killer before you come back. Then we’ll go in search of masks together, on your way back to Johannesburg. You are going back to Johannesburg, aren’t you, Mr Lotz?”
“My mother is there – I can’t leave her on her own.”
“And the mask of Idia as well.”
“Ah, the queen mother of Africa,” Abel sighed. “It was a wonderful thing you got for me, Jules, that mask of Idia.” He wiped his cheeks, inserting his fingers under the new glasses with the amber lenses.
“Mr Lotz … don’t mention it. I just wondered about the Idia.”
“It’s okay, Jules.” Another soft sigh. “It was a beautiful gift for my mother, so fitting. You should have seen her with that mask on her face, so majestic, so pure. Now I’ll have the opportunity to view Idia’s death masks in the museums of Stuttgart and London, perhaps even the ivory mask in the New York Metropolitan.”
Jules put his cup on the table and pushed back his chair. “Mr Lotz, I –”
“Jules, I have a passage booked on the ferry. Will you take me, if you’re not too busy? Perhaps a taxi … ?”
“I’ll take you, Mr Lotz. There’s no need for a friend to take a taxi to the dock. And the truck?”
“Will you look after it while I’m gone? Drive it, if you wish.”
“I’ll look after it, Mr Lotz. It’s an expensive vehicle – must’ve cost a lot of money.”
When Jules Daagari had left, Abel ordered more coffee.
He was thrilled that only two female victims had been mentioned, not three. He was glad the warrant officer had survived. Detective Ella Neser. The slender one with the short, dark hair and the funky glasses. He would have loved to have harvested her skin as well. In fact, he had almost been finished when he’d been interrupted.
Abel did not think of himself as a killer. He was a cosmic traveller. And the skins were contributions from his donors for the covers of his journals. He already had a peacock, symbol of the constellation Pavo, for the cover of Cosmic Travels, Vol. I, and he had a hare, representing the constellation Lepus, for the cover of Cosmic Travels, Vol. II. If his work had not been so rudely and unexpectedly interrupted, Ella Neser would have donated a shooting star for Cosmic Travels, Vol. III, which would deal with his personal observations of asteroids, comets and meteors.
His plan was to have his own encyclopaedic atlas, in ten bound volumes. And on the cover of each, the tanned, tattooed skin of a young woman, soft like virgin parchment. Each tattoo – and this was a strict requirement – had to have cosmic significance. At present he had only two, but he had no doubt that in the end he would find covers for all ten his journals. There were many donors out there.
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