At seven a.m. the kitchenette at the ambulance base was crowded with workers. Red-eyed staff with creased uniforms were having a last shot of caffeine before signing out. Most were sluggish with exhaustion, but Nick spotted a few who were wired with adrenaline, clustered in a group and talking at the top of their voices. He guessed they’d just worked a crime scene.
He jostled his way across to the other side of the room in pursuit of what Laki jokingly referred to as ‘the finest house blend’. It was actually cheap, bitter and chicory-laced, as fine as dust, spooned from a plastic container and served in a polystyrene cup. It always puzzled him that, in a privately owned EMS company where they had state-of-the-art technology and equipment and the newest vehicles, the coffee was so appallingly bad.
It wasn’t the worst he’d ever had. That award went to a hotel in Freetown, Sierra Leone, back in the days when he was an army medic. The start of their mission had been delayed an extra day due to an event of overriding international importance – the Rugby World Cup final at Ellis Park, Johannesburg.
They’d grouped around the small television set in the hotel bar and watched the game. Sat and swigged the unpalatable coffee. Downed crates of beer. He guessed every soldier in the unit had made the same bet – if South Africa beats New Zealand, I’ll get out of this godforsaken country alive.
When the Springboks won, the soldiers in that hot, smoky bar had shouted and cheered and high-fived each other. Smacked their Star Lager bottles together in a toast to victory.
Most of them had come home safe. But not all. In war, it was never all.
‘Coffee, Mr Kenyon?’ One of the dispatch operators greeted him, a curvaceous brunette with short, spiky hair. What was her name? Diane? Davine? Yet again, it eluded him, so he gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze and said, as he always did, ‘Thanks, sweet pea.’
She handed him a steaming cup, smiling in a way that made him think coffee wasn’t the only thing she wanted to offer him.
She was cute. Sexy and fun, no doubt about it, but so young. She looked about eighteen, although he guessed she’d have to be a couple of years older to work in the high-pressure environment of ambulance dispatch. Far too young for him, either way. He was thirty-six. They were generations and worlds apart. A friendly squeeze on the shoulder was as far as he’d allow this relationship to go.
‘How did my callout go?’ she asked him. ‘That one on the highway?’ ‘We took a girl to hospital.’ He took a sip of coffee, grimacing at the rank aroma. ‘She was alive. Bad leg injuries, though. Can’t say if she’ll make it.’ Jon, a red-haired medic, overheard his words and turned away from the chattering group. ‘So you took the passenger in?’ he said. ‘I was called out for the driver.’
‘Dead?’ Nick asked.
The man shook his head.
‘Gone,’ he said. ‘Didn’t find him, didn’t find his body. We searched with the police for more than an hour. It was light when we called it off.’
‘He must be alive, then.’ Nick frowned.
‘You sure the woman wasn’t driving?’ Jon asked.
‘Positive. You sure you looked properly?’
Jon’s confused expression matched his own. ‘Positive. We walked that highway flat. Nobody there.’
Nick shrugged. ‘Stranger things happen, I guess. He’s not the first guy to be thrown clear of a rolling car and survive.’ Although remembering the devastation he’d witnessed, he thought it was unlikely.
‘I picked up a handbag and a wallet that belongs to your passenger. I’ll take it through to Jo’burg Gen tomorrow,’ Jon said, wiping a drop of coffee off his freckled chin.
‘She’s at Sandton Medi-Clinic.’ Nick corrected him.
‘Not for much longer. I spoke to the boys there. She’s got no medical aid. As soon as she’s stable, she’s going to be transferred.’
‘Shame,’ the dispatch operator said, pouring the contents of her half-full cup into the sink. ‘Poor girl.’
Shame was an understatement, Nick thought. Johannesburg General Hospital, where Natasha would go, was overcrowded, understaffed and underfunded, with demoralised nurses, ancient equipment and hygiene standards that veered between inadequate and deadly, depending on who was on duty. He recalled Natasha’s frightened eyes, her crushed and bleeding limbs.
‘Will I be safe?’ she’d asked him. An odd question. The more he thought about it, the more it bothered him. Safe from what?
The dispatch operator saw his expression as she turned to go. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Their ICU department’s fine. But when they move her to a general ward she’ll have to put padlocks on her pyjamas or they’ll be stolen right off her.’ She sashayed away, swinging her hips.
Nick said his goodbyes, retrieved his gun from the locker, and walked downstairs to the parking lot where his silver Jeep waited.
Natasha’s phone was an entry-level Nokia with a cheerful red casing. Cheap and simple. Pretty indestructible, too, he decided, because it didn’t seem any the worse for wear after the accident and the rain.
But the last number dialled wouldn’t connect. It was the right one, he knew that, because it was saved under the name ‘Khani’. He’d tried several times, the first just after she’d been admitted, and after that whenever he’d had a chance. Each time, the call cut off before it rang. He didn’t know what the problem was. He’d tried dialling it on his own phone without success. Perhaps the storm had knocked out the power somewhere; perhaps a cellphone tower had gone down.
He punched the button, wondering what he’d say if it was answered this time. ‘Natasha’s been in an accident and she wants you to go …’
Go to the hospital? Go home? Go to hell? He didn’t know.
But there was no point in wondering. Once again, the phone refused to connect.
A few hours later, it rang. The sound jerked him awake. At eleven a.m. his bedroom was quiet and dark. The unattractive thick, black blinds he’d installed gave the room a deliberate tomb-like effect, but aesthetics were a minor concern when the alternative was trying to get to sleep with the morning light streaming in through the window.
Now the phone’s screen flickered an incandescent blue in the murky room as the Nokia ringtone blared at full volume. The instrument buzzed on his wooden bedside table like a beetle on its back.
Nick grabbed it, squinting at the bright keypad with bleary eyes. He stabbed the answer button and, without thinking, said hello.
Silence. And then, without a word, the caller disconnected.
‘Damn,’ Nick said. He propped himself up with his elbow and began scrolling through the menu, trying to trace the incoming number. Before he found it, the phone rang again.
This time he was better prepared.
‘Natasha’s phone,’ he said.
‘Is she there, please?’ A woman’s voice. Pleasant but worried.
‘She’s in hospital,’ he replied, fumbling for the light switch. ‘She was in an accident last night.’
‘What?’ Her voice thrummed with stress. ‘My God. Is she all right?’
‘She’s in ICU. Serious leg injuries.’
The caller let out a deep, ragged sigh. ‘Oh, no. I can’t believe it. Which hospital?’
‘Jo’burg General.’
A pause. He guessed she was pulling herself together. When she spoke again, she sounded stronger, more coherent, as if she had forced the stress into retreat.
‘Thanks for letting me know. Who am I speaking to?’
‘Nick Kenyon. I’m the paramedic who took her in. And you are?’
‘Rachel Jacobs. I’m a friend of her friend Khani.’
‘Khani?’ Nick sat straighter. ‘That’s great. I’ve been trying to phone him all night. Natasha wanted me to give him a message.’
Another, longer pause.
‘You can’t give Khani a message,’ she said. Her voice broke and she cleared her throat. ‘He’s dead.’