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.”
