resting on his elbows. The pink streaks under his eyes looked angrier up close. “What are you doing up there?” he asked.
“My job,” she snapped. “But if –”
He shook his head. “Not out there,” he tipped a nod in the general direction of the newsroom. He lifted a solitary index finger, pointed it towards the ceiling and mouthed ‘up’, gaze never wavering from her face.
Vee cursed again under her breath.
After fifteen months, the urge to go crawling back to Urban still niggled her occasionally. Even crappy jobs had perks, and she deeply missed having a real office, with a real desk, a sprawl of polished wood on which to dump assignments and empty mugs to her heart’s content. And her old view, of downtown Cape Town and the ABSA head office building. Chronicle’s newsroom feel had the allure of the old guard; she was spoiled now, over it. The persistent undercurrent of noise … the guy with no sense of personal space, who always talked right in your face after his lunch … the irksome treks to an exit for sunshine and breeze … it couldn’t be borne.
The haven was her godsend. Snooping around the second floor, she’d stumbled on it: a small, dingy room crammed with unused office furniture and discarded odds and ends. A hole in the wall, with power outlets and a working sink. And a view, through a window that actually opened. A bribe to one of the cleaners saw the excess junk shifted and the space made presentable.
“One of the cleaners sold you out,” Nico preened. He took annoying pride in his spy program.
“I need a place to think,” she insisted.
“Use the inside of your skull. At work, unfortunately, one must learn to play with the other children. What kind of self-respecting journalist hates a newsroom?”
“I don’t hate it. There’s just no … elbowroom sometimes. I’m not up there during working hours.” Usually.
“The answer’s no, Johnson. Shut it down.”
“Fine,” she scowled, and waited.
“Oudtshoorn.”
“Hehn?”
“Oudtshoorn. You know where that is?”
Vee flicked through her mental archive. “Mossel Bay?”
“Further. Out in the south-western Cape, Klein Karoo country. The Grotto Lodge is a two-star establishment out there, and they’re gunning for their third this year. They put on their best face when we held the World Cup here last year, and still didn’t get it. They’re not giving up this year, and that means all the stellar reviews they can get.”
He pushed over a thin manila folder, opened to a brightly coloured pamphlet. “Looks nice enough. Apparently it was a hotspot during the soccer, though why anyone would want to be marooned on any stretch of the Garden Route when it was pissing down at kick-off last June is beyond me. Bloody tourists … never give a damn about realities like the weather.” Sighing, he rubbed his eyes hard enough to wrinkle his forehead. “It’s gone up in the revolving door ratings with the number of tourists and ministers’ wives that have been passing through. If they need more positive spin, it can’t hurt. They get publicity, we get advertising.”
She perused the leaflet. Adorning the front was a hulking, rustic building of indeterminate architectural style squatting amongst some dusty boulders. ‘Quaint’ was the first word that leapt off the blurb inside. She closed it. The look she shot him was an admixture of ‘I’m not following you’ and ‘I think I am, but you can’t be serious’.
Van Wyk looked weary. “Look, I’m sure you’re aware of Lynne’s being on maternity leave. Again. She’s all we’ve got on travel and tourism right now. The usual piece on accommodation hotspots can’t marinate till she gets back. It needs wrapping up.”
Wide-eyed, Vee shot, “And who say I know about travel writing? I’hn know nuttin about it o, I beg you. I can’t even whip up a dozen synonyms for ‘picturesque’.”
He almost smiled this time. “It’s a tad more involved than that.”
“And I’hn know jack about what those involvements are.” She opened the folder, didn’t know why she had, and slapped it closed again. “Why can’t somebody from the arts and entertainment page handle it?”
“Because we’re stretched that tight.” He paused. “You’re well aware how it’s been finding capable free hands around here since we had to downsize, here and at Urban. You and Tinker Bell can step up for this.” He coughed. “Sorry, that came out wrong. I’m confident you two can handle this.”
“So …” Vee took an indignant pause. “This you’re volunteering me for. Yet you bar me from the crime desk full-time. When that’s the job I was promised.” She was whining but she couldn’t help it. Khaya Simelane and Andrew Barrow, autocrats of the crime page, had done a stellar job pissing on their tree to keep her out. “Even after all my courses on web media and editing, which I put to good use every day. But no, I still can’t join the online team that’s got only three people on it despite it being more popular than the print. Darren appreciates the extra help, but I can’t even contribute my two cents without issues. Because of Saskia.” Your top spy. Who you’re sleeping with, on top of your liquor problem. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if you got drinking problems because you messin’ round with her. But we only here to explore my shortcomings. She clamped her lips shut with her teeth.
“It’s complicated. Yes, I fully appreciate how empty that sounds. You were candid and emphatic in your interview about not being shunted through departments willy-nilly as you’d been at Urban. For the most part I’ve kept my word, but –”
“I know. It’s an emergency. Isn’t it always.”
Van Wyk replied with a long, granitic stare. She nodded, took the folder and got up.
“Hang on.” He folded his fingers and eyed the ceiling, as if toying with an idea. “I’ve been meaning to, and I guess now’s as good a time as any to ask. Did you take it?”
Vee frowned.
“Year before last, that case … with the hospital … and the crazy family …” He twirled a finger in the air, indicating she jump in to supply the elusive words. “The missing Paulsen girl,” he snapped his fingers finally. “The pay-off. That the mother offered you for your … diligent services. Did you take it?”
“Excuse me?”
“Johnson, come on,” he huffed. “Look, you’ve got something. First of all, you don’t play silly buggers, which,” he clasped his hands in gratitude, “goes a long way to making my life easier. Top reason I can’t stand working with women. Besides the melodrama and all the time off they need to pop munchkins, of which I’m bloody gatvol.” He sat up straighter. “What I’m getting at is, in a hive, you need to know your bees. I need to know my people. Now you know there’ve been whispers. And I know that you know that I’ve heard, and if I’ve heard, then I’ve speculated. I hate speculation. So …” he spread his palms. “You’d hardly be the first or last journalist to take an incentive if they felt it was deserved.”
Stock-still, Vee felt a nimbus of heat pluming between her eyes. “You joking me, right?”
Van Wyk shook his head.
“You
