The two schoolgirls in front bopped with confidence, while two more flanked at their elbows and one lone girl trailed like a forgotten piece of string. Their black stockings in leather lace-ups made a tiered line as they exited the grounds of Pinelands High, blue blazers flapping as they escaped into a nippy afternoon’s freedom. Vee watched them. She didn’t need to be near enough to hear their animated conversation, since it was bound to run along universal, predictable lines – boys, where to shop, accursed assignments, more on boys, the weekend.
Wind surged past the narrow lane, lifting curlicues of debris and leaf fragments into the air. The girl in the lead tilted her head, a tumble of blonde curls, into the wind, trying to catch a leaf in her mouth. Something went up her nose instead, and even from a distance Vee could tell the sneeze she gave was the cute kind associated with all pretty young things.
This teenager was not the one Vee sought. The formation of girls dissolved as more students hurried past, and then Vee spotted her target. The straggler. Unlike the sneezing Pre-Raphaelite blonde, Rosemary Fourie was far from delicate. Bulky and broad-shouldered for a girl of fifteen, she lumbered, shoulders hunched like she knew she was working with more than the other girls, and not in a good way. Cut off her ponytail and she could have been a pubescent boy with a bright future in rugby. A member of the posse gave her a punch on the shoulder and Rosemary gave a friendly shove back, sending the girl flying into another friend, who caught and steadied her. The group erupted into laughter, a self-conscious Rosemary joining in reluctantly, her arms crossed over her chest. She looked like a baby bear among china dolls.
Vee trailed from a measured distance, keeping Rosemary in her crosshairs as she crossed the sidewalk outside the school and strolled down the road towards the petrol station. Vee kept one eye on Rosemary and the other on general alert. She wasn’t a fan of blindsiding kids, candy from a baby and all that, nor did she want to get stopped for being some kind of pervert. These schools tended to be quite strict about who they allowed around their impressionable students. Or maybe her conscience was growing back.
She’d dawdled outside the gate for what felt like forever, watching child after child either take off for home on foot or get picked up. Much to her relief, no car opened its doors to swallow the solitary teenager and Rosemary’s amble was clearly aimless, not to mention that her size made her easy enough to pick out from among the other schoolkids.
Rosie dropped to one knee, tied her laces, popped to her feet and swung around with a scowl. ‘Are you following me?’ she yelled. A pair of strong, brown eyes set in a square, heavy-boned face bored into Vee’s. Rosemary looked scared, and curious, but she had a pre-adult air of learning to stand up for oneself about her.
Vee shrugged. ‘Uh, yes. Yes, I am. Sorry. Are you Rosemary Fourie?’
Shrug. ‘Yeah. Just Rosie.’ The girl waited.
‘I’m Vee Johnson. I’m a journalist. I’d like to talk with you privately for a minute, if you don’t mind.’
Rosie’s curiosity faded and her fear went up several notches. ‘Ja, okay, so you’re that journalist. So I do mind, ’cause I’m not supposed to talk to you.’
Wonderful. So the family, dysfunctional or not, did actually communicate. Vee expected Rosie’s parents to have told their children that a member of the press was poking around, had called them multiple times for information. She just didn’t think they’d have told them right away, giving her an opening for a clean sabotage. Whatever happened to protecting kids from the truth?
‘Come on, it’ll only take–’
Rosie broke into a lumbering run, her schoolbag bouncing around on her back. She squirmed through the door of a white minibus taxi idling for customers at the roadside. ‘I’m not supposed to talk to you! Stop harassing my family!’ she shouted. The gaatjie slammed the minibus’s door, cutting off the rest of Rosie’s words. Vee couldn’t hear what she said but whatever it was made every head in the taxi turn a look of disgust in her direction. The taxi pulled off Forest Drive.
Suddenly everybody in this goddamn city’s an advocate for children’s rights. Vee started her car, wondering whether she had the speed and crazies to match that of a taxi driver. As far as white taxis went, Main Road supported a string of indistinguishable pearls at all times, more during peak hours, so keeping a tail was a nightmare. She managed to maintain a three-car distance and for one absurd moment considered driving alongside and shouting ‘Her sister was murdered! Ask her about that!’ She tossed that plan immediately, envisioning the driver flicking his crooked cigarette into her car and setting her ablaze in traffic. Rosie was strong and surprisingly fast for her size. If the taxi stopped and she bolted, Vee doubted there’d be enough time to track her down.
She needn’t have worried. Passengers disembarked and boarded along numerous stops but not one was Rosie. Once they hit Claremont, Vee breathed easier. How would any teenager in a halfway decent town want to kill a few hours after school, if not hang out in a mall? Cavendish Square was the best place to get swallowed in when you were fifteen with an allowance to blow.
Vee scrambled for parking down a side street next to Adult World and pressed a clutch of coins into the palm of a parking marshal. She broke into a jog, elbowing through the lunchtime crowd, in time to spot Rosie jumping out of the minivan. Just follow the blue blazer, Vee thought.
It worked until a hive of taxis zoomed into the designated drop in front of Shoprite supermarket, disgorging school blazers in a Picasso of colours, scattering adolescents to the wind like butterflies. Vee swore and craned her neck over the throng of after-school specials.