It was very late by the time I got home, and I was tired, but I struggled to fall asleep. There were toads in my garden, singing like crazy after the rain. And the clicking stream frogs were at it too. Behind my house, towards the mountain, is a small spring and a stream that flows when it rains. But it wasn’t the frogs keeping me awake. It was the things going on in my mind. I could see Lawrence’s body lying there. And Kannemeyer’s cross face. And that beautiful woman walking like a kudu. And Kannemeyer stepping towards her.
I got up and made myself a cup of hot milk with honey and cinnamon and sat at the kitchen table in my nightie. Questions were swimming round my head:
Who is the murderer?
Did the same person kill Martine and Lawrence?
Did Martine drink pomegranate juice with the murderer?
I found a pen and paper and started to write some of my questions down:
Why was the shopping bag not folded?
Where are our shoes?
I also wrote a list of people we should interview. I’d take it to the office in the morning, to discuss with Jess and Hats. Jessie and I had agreed to meet first thing, and Hattie is always at the Gazette on a Saturday morning. It’s when she does the books.
As my thoughts emptied out onto the paper, I could feel the tiredness fill my body. I headed back to bed.
I lay down and listened to the rough mating call of the toads, and the rain that was falling again, dripping through the leaves of the tree outside my window. I breathed in the smell of wet earth and camphor leaves. Hey, I thought, it’s not pomegranate season yet . . .
But as I fell asleep, the last thing I saw in my mind was not a pomegranate but Detective Henk Kannemeyer, in his white shirt with the top buttons open, stepping off the stoep. But in this picture, he wasn’t going towards the woman who was calling the dead man’s name. He was walking towards me.