not that, it’s just—”
Her cellphone began ringing. “Sorry,” she said. “Do you mind if I take this?”
“Not at all,” David said. He turned away, relieved, and began pouring the hot water into the mugs, trying not to listen to her conversation.
“Hello?”
He dug in a drawer for a teaspoon.
“What?”
He gave the first coffee a stir and then started on the second.
“No!”
He turned, sensing something was out of place.
“That can’t be!” Kathy said.
David put the teaspoon down. Kathy had gone pale, and for a moment he thought she was going to faint again. But she held on to the phone, nodding now, as if taking instructions from someone on the other side.
“All right,” she whispered. “I will. I’ll be there now.”
He watched her as she disconnected, her hand dropping heavily to her side, the phone still in her grip.
“Is everything all right?” he asked her carefully.
Kathy just stared at him.
“Kathy?” he prompted.
“It’s Peter,” she eventually told him. “He’s dead.”
CHAPTER SIX
David didn’t feel right letting Kathy drive to Peter Calder’s house in the state she was in, so he took her in his Land Rover. Kathy directed him in monosyllables above the noisy engine and the creaking chassis. They had to slow as they approached the house, to avoid the police cars, fire trucks, an ambulance and a throng of people milling in the road.
David found a place to park, helped Kathy out of the car and then walked her towards Peter’s house. It stood in a quiet lane at the top of Ridge Road. The garden had been a mass of indigenous palms and ferns and the lawn was once smooth and smartly tended until the large fire engine had parked on it and sunk its wheels deep into the grass.
David could smell the fire or rather what was left of it. Peter’s house had literally been burnt to the ground. David had managed to get that much from Kathy as he drove, but he was unprepared for the destruction as they approached the police tape that cordoned off the front yard.
Lights had been erected around the property in the early-evening darkness, but they could still see the wisps of smoke and dust that hung lazily over the skeleton of the house. Firemen and police moved slowly among the ruins, and the sharp smell of scorched wreckage worsened as they approached.
They ducked under the police tape, Kathy looking for someone as they made their way across the soggy lawn.
“Kathy?” An elderly man standing with a pair of plain-clothes policemen had called out to her. The shorter of the two policemen, an older Indian man, gently held the man back as he tried to leave and come over. The policemen conferred briefly and then the taller officer, a man of about thirty-five in a dark-grey suit and black tie, walked towards them.
“Ms Barnett?”
Kathy took a breath and nodded. The policeman beckoned politely for her to advance. David started forward with her, only to be stopped.
“We’re together,” Kathy told the policeman.
“Really?” the officer said, lifting an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Kathy said, taking David’s elbow as a support. They walked ahead of the policeman to where the other officer waited with the older man. Kathy let go of David’s arm and wrapped her arms around the older man, crying into his shoulder. The police let her be, watching awkwardly.
David assumed the man was Peter Calder’s father. They looked similar; the man’s thin hair was still tinged with blond and he had a grey moustache that echoed Peter’s beard. He was shaking, his hands trembling as he held Kathy. From shock, David suspected. Or something else.
“Andrew,” Kathy whispered as she got herself under control. “I’m so sorry.”
Andrew Calder nodded, his chin quivering as he tried to manage his emotions. “They want me to identify the body,” he told her, a haunted look in his eyes. “I don’t think I can.”
It was something else, David realised; it was dread. He knew what the man was going through. On top of the anguish he must be feeling at the loss of a son, he now had to face the horror of how he had died, the knowledge that he would have to live with the image of his son’s final suffering. David had felt it all with his own daughter.
He felt sorry for the old man and glanced away to avoid his inconsolable expression. He found the shorter police officer watching him. The man held out his hand. “I’m Inspector Govender; this is my partner, Sergeant van Heerden.”
“David Roth,” came David’s automatic reply as he shook Govender’s hand.
Inspector Govender was wearing a light-brown suit and blue tie and was close to retirement age, his eyes old and weary from seeing it all. David was instantly cautious of him, of the man’s inner stillness that warned of a quick intelligence. Van Heerden, the younger officer, reminded David of a hungry guard dog whose bone had just been stolen. There was a restless energy there, an impatient desire to find the truth, no matter what.
“I understand you drove Ms Barnett here?” Inspector Govender broke in. “Thank you.”
David nodded.
“I’m glad you’ve come as well,” the inspector said. “We were hoping to talk to as many colleagues of Peter Calder’s as we could.”
“I wasn’t a colleague of Peter’s,” David told them carefully. “I only met him yesterday.”
The inspector watched him with unreadable eyes. “Really?” he said, then looked at Andrew Calder, who was now holding on to Kathy as if to steady himself.
“Yes,” David replied, “at the Umvoti Sugar Mill. He and Ms Barnett were auditing the mill’s books. I was delivering a load of machine parts.”
“So you’d recognise Peter Calder if you saw him?”
David tilted his head in question. “Yes.” He nodded. “I’d recognise him.”
Inspector Govender turned to his partner, a silent question behind his tired eyes. David saw the look and didn’t like where it was going, but he also knew he couldn’t let Andrew Calder identify his son’s body. It wouldn’t be right.
“You need the relative’s consent,” he told the policeman with a lowered voice. Inspector Govender’s eyebrows went up. He was surprised either because David had understood the relevance of his question so soon or because David knew they had to get permission from the next of kin. He knew Andrew Calder might not stand up to the grisly sight of his son’s body.
Govender turned to Andrew Calder. “Mr Calder?” he started
