passage, near the fire escape? Could he have been the one who spray-painted the camera? What luggage did he have, do you remember?”
“Two bags, one in each hand, when I showed him the room and how everything works. One looked like a violin case, I remember I asked if he was a musician. No, he said it was just an old violin case he’d found somewhere – he was still looking for a buyer. Hardly a scratch on it, could fetch a good price.”
“He’s injured after colliding with a train, but his violin case doesn’t have a scratch on it?”
Rabie rubbed the back of his neck. “Strange, now you put it like that.”
“I’m hungry. Come, Constable, Rabie has offered us a meal on the house.”
Drawing the beer behind the bar counter, Rabie looked at the two law enforcement officers at their table. Especially the big one, Sgt. Mfundisi, inspecting the contents of the burger roll, pouring tomato sauce and mustard onto the slap chips, stuffing four large ones into his mouth.
In the background he could hear Evangeline’s vacuum cleaner. Rabie looked at the stage with the two poles and the DJ equipment, the Roto-Sphere against the ceiling that bathed the exotic dancers’ bodies in rainbow colours. The bar was dark now, and the only other people besides the cops were two decrepit old bar flies in the corner who’d been manning their post since opening time, brandy and Coke in hand.
Rabie took the beer glasses to the table, getting no thanks when he put them down.
Sgt. Mfundisi looked up, tomato sauce on his lips and chin, cheeks bulging. “Where’re your guests?”
“Asleep.”
“Night shift, hey?” Sgt. Mfundisi took another bite of his burger, used his fingers to work the fried onions in at the corner of his mouth.
“What the Sergeant means is we’ll have to speak to them,” said the constable, “about the missing guest in room 110. About his movements, seeing that we have nothing on CCTV.”
“I told you: no one ever ever saw him. He didn’t mix.”
“Never made small talk?” asked the sergeant. “Just wrote his name in your register and spray-painted the camera lens? What about asking for his address and phone number, as the law requires of a law-abiding citizen like yourself?”
“Yes, I have that: his address in Cape Town.”
“When Forensics have finished, if they suspect foul play, we’ll need that. And we’ll interview your permanent guests and look at your CCTV footage. Perhaps there’s something from earlier, before the lens was sprayed. Then we’ll –”
Rabie turned, following Sgt. Mfundisi’s gaze to the doorway, where a young woman had appeared. It was Jewel. Leggings like a second skin, loose T-shirt, no bra. She looked as if she’d just woken up and pulled her fingers through her hair.
“Rabie, Mitzi’s still missing,” she whined. “I’m going crazy. Where can she be? She wouldn’t just run away. Something must have happened.”
“Maybe she couldn’t stand your whining – have you considered that, hey? I would have hit the road long ago.”
Her boobs bounced as she turned to him, offended. “You’re not very nice to me, Rabie. What have I done to you? I’m just worried about Mitzi, that’s all.” She glanced inquisitively at the two munching cops.
“Jewel is an exotic dancer,” Rabie explained. “She also eats fire.”
Const. Xala, he noticed, didn’t raise his eyes any higher than Jewel’s bosom. Sgt. Mfundisi looked her in the eye.
“Fire, hey? And who’s the missing Mitzi?” the sergeant asked.
Jewel stuck out a hip and fluttered her long lashes, still caked with the previous night’s mascara. “Mitzi’s been missing a week.”
Jesus, Rabie thought, drama queen. He took her by the elbow and steered her away. “Mitzi is her cat,” he said over his shoulder.
“Black?” asked Sgt. Mfundisi.
Rabie turned. It took a moment for it to sink in. “God, Sergeant, is that what he did? Killed Mitzi in his bath?”
2.
Jake was watching the news on TV, his supper on his lap. Spaghetti bolognese with meatballs from Checkers, still in the polystyrene container, only the plastic cover removed.
The news was depressing: earthquakes, floods, an asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier shaving past the earth, missing it by just two hundred thousand kilometres. Images of emaciated women and children covered in dust, having travelled on foot for hundreds of kilometres to a miserable North African refugee camp; skeletal people, hunched, pecking like vultures among rubbish for anything edible; black flies in the eyes, noses and mouths of mute children, skin and bone, pot-bellied.
Jake wiped the sauce dribbling down his chin, switched to another news channel, watched an insert from the BBC’s correspondent in Islamabad. Got up to fetch another beer.
“Pakistani soldiers fighting the Taliban in South Waziristan have surrounded a key stronghold of Uzbek fighters in the town of Kanigoram,” the correspondent was saying. “Up to a thousand Uzbek insurgents are thought to be hiding in a maze of tunnels in the mountains surrounding the civilian population. According to a spokesman for the Pakistani security forces, there is heavy fighting in Kanigoram and a large number of casualties are expected, especially among civilians caught in the crossfire. In the past the town gave shelter to supporters of Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani Taliban, before his death in a CIA drone strike . . .”
Jake’s cellphone rang. He put down his fork, turned down the volume and said: “Diamond.”
“Jake Diamond?”
“That’s right.”
“The journalist?”
“Who’s this?”
“Listen, Jake. I have a story for you, if you’re interested.”
“I’m interested. It’s my job. Who are you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” said the male voice. “You wrote a story – that’s where I saw your name. About those five officials arrested for corruption.”
Jake switched on the digital recorder attached to his phone. “It was a SAPA report from Durban,” he said. “I just added some local opinion.”
The man read a paragraph from the report: “During a police raid on a regional office of the Department of Home Affairs in Umgeni, KwaZulu-Natal, five officials were arrested on suspicion of corruption after allegedly issuing marriage certificates for so-called marriages of convenience between South African citizens and foreigners. These marriages enable foreigners to obtain South African citizenship, identity documents and passports. A spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs
