Clinton Ramsamy awoke to the insistent beeping of the alarm. It was pitch dark, an hour earlier than he usually rose. But then, today was a special day. The start of an important week.
He felt a thrill of nervous excitement. These days, as a stable, forty-eight-year-old businessman, the emotion was somewhat unfamiliar to him. He remembered feeling something similar many years ago, when he’d arrived at school to scan the notice board for his Matric results – he’d scored five distinctions, making him the second-highest achiever in his year. He’d felt it when he had asked his wife Shireen to marry him. Then she had been Miss Naidoo, young, slim and beautiful. She wasn’t as young now or as slim after twenty years of marriage and three children, but to him she was even more beautiful.
And he’d felt the same emotion when he and his business partner Patrick Monyane had made the decision to buy the assets-in-transit company that the two men had later renamed Stronghold. It had been a risky decision, the biggest gamble of his life. The takeover had been more of a resurrection than a buy-out, because the company was so run down. The previous owner was in prison, most of the staff had left, almost all the clients were scattered elsewhere. But he and Monyane had seen its potential and had faith in their vision. They’d clawed their way up the learning curve, worked endless hours, nurturing the business as if it were a sickly child.
Their efforts had paid off. They had recently expanded, and moved the headquarters to a brand new building in Sandton, an architect-designed monstrosity of marble and chrome. And they’d become the first fully BEE-compliant company in their sector. Business was rolling in.
Today, they were going to face their biggest challenge yet.
His wife murmured something unintelligible and rolled over, pulling most of the covers with her and leaving his left leg exposed to the cool morning air. After a moment of pondering he interpreted her words as being ‘Good luck’.
‘Thank you, my love.’ He patted her duvet-enshrouded backside and climbed out of bed.
The night before, he’d arranged a white shirt, his favourite charcoal suit and a blue and green Stronghold Security tie on a coat hanger hanging from the wardrobe door. His underwear and socks were on the ottoman at the foot of the bed. He dressed quietly, considerate of his sleeping wife. A conservative ensemble, apart from the socks. These were black, embroidered with bright pink hearts of varying sizes. His daughter had given them to him for his birthday last year. They were his lucky socks, she’d said, to be worn only on special occasions. And he had to admit that, since then, they hadn’t let him down. Even if he did get the occasional odd look during business meetings and presentations if his trouser legs rode up.
He closed the bedroom door gently behind him. The thick beige carpet cushioned his footfalls, allowing him to proceed noiselessly past his children’s rooms. Not that stealth was an issue. Teenagers now, all three would have required something akin to a rocket explosion to rouse them before dawn.
He went down the stairs and, as quietly as he could, unlocked the metal security gate at the bottom. It was unlikely that anyone could penetrate his home’s outer defences, but, as Ramsamy knew well, nothing was impossible. So, he and his family slept behind reinforced burglar bars, with this security gate providing an extra barrier to ensure his peace of mind.
Unlocking the door that led to the garage, he slid into his car’s leather seat. The garage door hummed upwards, and he reversed out, gravel scrunching gently under the wide tyres.
Headlights on, he set off for the airport, where their international guests’ flight was due to land in half an hour.
Morning rush-hour traffic was at its peak as Nick returned to base at the end of his night shift. He took the back routes, marginally less clogged than the highways where traffic crawled sluggishly along, impeded by bumper bashings and broken-down trucks. The city’s roads grew more congested every year, like the ever-narrowing arteries of an overweight couch potato with a junk food addiction. Perhaps one day soon, Johannesburg would suffer a massive heart attack, quiver once, and stop moving forever.
‘How was your night, my friend?’ Laki waved from the opposite side of the staff kitchenette, then walked over and greeted him with the African-style handshake that required three shifting grips. His friend’s hand felt dry and hard and familiar against his own.
‘Busy.’
‘Mine too. Look at the time. Eight-thirty already. We should have been out of here an hour ago.’
While he made a cup of the foul coffee, Laki regaled two of the call-centre staff with an account of his previous weekend’s travels. He’d taken time off to attend his brother’s wedding in a remote part of the Eastern Cape. Nick had already heard the story, but he listened to it again, noticing that it had become even more exaggerated the second time around.
‘Eish.’ Laki shook his head. ‘The ceremony was wonderful. But I took extra care while I was there. I said no to the sorghum beer and the whisky, the mampoer and even to the sparkling wine. I drove back to my hotel at a speed of forty kilometres an hour, because I was so afraid of being in a crash.’
‘Why?’ one of the call-centre ladies asked.
‘The provincial ambulance service in that area, it has problems. It is, what you might say, “severely ill”.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’ asked the other.
‘They have few vehicles. And those they do have, well, I passed one standing by the side of the road, with the driver bent over the open bonnet, so I stopped to see if I could help. I could not fix the engine, it was beyond my powers. But I noticed that all he had in the back of the van was a stretcher. No other equipment. No plasma, no IVs, no dressings, no oxygen. Although when I spoke to him a little longer, I discovered none of this mattered, since he himself had no paramedic’s qualifications. Not even basic ambulance assistant training.’ Laki grinned. ‘So I took care, while I was there.’
The entrance door swung open and the curvaceous dispatch operator, whose name Nick still couldn’t remember, glanced into the kitchenette as she passed, saw him, and sashayed over to say hello.
‘Hi, Nick,’ she said. ‘Hi, Laki.’
‘Howzit, Donelle.’ Laki beamed at her.
Nick echoed his greeting. Donelle, he thought. How the hell was he going to remember that? He knew that by the next time he saw her, her name would again be gone from his mind and he’d be back to calling her ‘sweet pea’.
‘One of the secretaries from upstairs just gave me a message for you,’ she said to him.
‘What is it?’
‘Someone phoned the admin office looking for you. Here’s their number.’ Donelle slid two fingers into the breast pocket of her shirt and drew out a folded pink Post-It.
‘Thanks.’ He unpeeled the sticky square and gazed at the name blankly. Mrs Jacobs. Who was she? He didn’t have a clue. He shoved the paper into his wallet and trudged down the stairs, forgetting to say goodbye. Whoever she was, he’d call her after he’d had some shut-eye.
Nick was halfway home when he realised who Mrs Jacobs was. He swerved to the side of the road, hit the brakes and tugged his phone out of his pocket. He made the call right there, parked on the verge, cars whizzing past him and the morning sun blazing through the windscreen.
Rachel answered on the second ring.
‘I’m glad you got my message,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know how else to contact you, so I phoned your work. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘I don’t.’ He realised he was smiling.
‘I wanted to thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For being there yesterday. For coming with me to see Natasha. You went out of your way to help me, and I really appreciate it. And – after what happened – I’m glad you were around.’
‘No problem at all. I’m glad, too.’
‘Good.’ She paused.
Nick took a deep breath. ‘Do you want to …’
‘Can I ask you …’
His words collided with hers. A brief silence ensued.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You were saying?’
‘I want to ask you a favour.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘I thought … perhaps tonight or tomorrow night, if you’re not busy, would you like to come with me somewhere?’
‘Sure. Where?’
‘I want to go to Newtown, to visit the place where Khani used to work. As a way of saying goodbye to him.’
Nick knew Newtown well. Tacked onto the west side of Johannesburg city, the suburb had been little better than a ghetto ten years ago. Shells of buildings long since abandoned by the original owners lined its roads, their windows shattered and walls stained with soot from rogue fires. Hawkers stood on the littered pavements, displaying their soiled goods and rotting produce to the few pedestrians who had the money to buy them.
Attendance at the Market Theatre, once frequented by aficionados from all over Jo’burg, had dropped to a handful of people brave or foolish enough to risk nighttime Newtown’s dark and dangerous streets.
Then, at the very moment of its natural death, the suburb was given a reprieve. The new government poured millions of rands into its revival, with the aim of transforming it into a cultural and entertainment centre where locals and tourists could visit in safety.
Before Newtown’s revival, ambulance callouts in that area were overwhelmingly triggered by assaults, stabbings or shootings. But, as newly erected theatres, art galleries, nightclubs and restaurants slowly transformed the suburb’s skyline, these crime-related incidents dwindled and construction accidents became the norm.
The only two recent incidents he could recall were a teenager suffering from alcohol poisoning at a nightclub and a woman injured in a vehicle collision near the Nelson Mandela bridge.
Newtown was now a relatively peaceful place. Which was why Khani’s murder made him even more uneasy.
Rachel misinterpreted his silence.
‘If it’s inconvenient, please don’t feel obliged,’ she said, sounding apologetic. ‘We don’t have to go. It was just an idea.’
‘It’s not inconvenient,’ he said. ‘But I was wondering whether it would be safe.’
‘Me too. That’s why I don’t want to go on my own.’
Nick hadn’t heard about any arrests being made after the shooting. He was sure the robbers had faded back into the maze of the streets they had come from. Perhaps the only way the police would track them down would be if an informer approached them, or they arrested another criminal willing to do a deal. But for now, they were still at large.
‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.