The slap chips on the plastic plate did a waltz under the aimless manoeuvring of Marieke Venter’s fork. Across the table, Vee joyfully fed her face with a mutton bunny chow. She adored street food – the cultural nuances, the brazen messiness and flirtation with questionable hygiene, how you needed to tuck into it with both hands. Best dining experience ever. After years of boarding-school slop and refugee rations, nothing beat the sidewalk for grab and go’s.
Gravy dribbled down her wrist and she licked at it joyfully.
‘It’s good, right?’ Marieke preened. The food kiosk was her special place, one of a few close to the garage at which she could get great food. It was packed, but Marieke had said a few words to management and got a table outside under the striped awning. ‘People say this lady makes the best curries and fish and chips in Cape Town. I’m always here on my break.’
Vee took a swallow of beer and managed a ladylike burp. ‘They sure ain’t lyin’.’ Lunch out of the office was a welcome change.
She wiped her mouth on a napkin and waited for Marieke to work around to the conversation she was itching to have. Twenty minutes into lunch and the voice recorder had gathered nothing but small talk. But Marieke had called, so the ball was in her court. Vee was on a streak today, what with all the verbal diarrhoea and people calling her up to act as the commode.
‘You’re not what I expected.’ Pale eyes gave Vee a once-over and skittered away. Marieke mashed a chip with her fork and ate it. ‘How come your name’s Johnson?’
‘It’s a long story.’ Vee stretched and fumbled under the table, trying to undo the button of her jeans undercover. She was definitely getting a takeaway, mutton curry with rice this time. ‘In a nutshell, I’m related to the president of my country. We’re descended from a royal tribe, so we automatically get to rule.’
Marieke’s eyebrows reached for her hairline. ‘Tjo, really! So how come you’re living here instead of rolling in it at home?’
Bless. Here was an unspoilt soul. Marieke looked about Chlöe’s age, but aside from the perkiness they couldn’t have been more different. Vee grinned and did a comical shrug.
The joke finally sank in and Marieke burst out laughing. ‘Oi, you’re messing with me! Of course you’re not related to a president.’ She stirred the mess on her plate. ‘That’s what I mean by you’re not what I expected. Especially since you called so many times. I thought you’d be one of those reporter types, following us home with cameras and harassing us by the door. Or like cops do, grab you off the streets and beat you up till you talk.’
‘I’m not allowed to kick ass any more. My boss made me go for sensitivity training.’
Marieke gasped. ‘Oh my word, you mean you actually used to –’ She caught on quickly this time. She giggled and wagged a finger at Vee. ‘You do that a lot.’
Marieke relaxed. Vee soaked in the hum of the restaurant, letting ambient conversation and the beat of Afro-pop music from the speakers envelop their table.
Marieke cleared her throat. ‘I need you to understand my brother. To really get him, so you get where he’s coming from in all this. Ashwin’s a good guy. He’s had his moments over the years, but he’s always been there for us.’
Ashwin was the eldest of three, Marieke explained, and she was in the middle. From problems in school to minor run-ins with the cops, he’d made a name for himself as the black sheep of the family. Carousing with a bad lot had blossomed into gang-level exploits. Their father had battled for years with diabetes until he’d lost. Shunted into man-sized shoes, Ashwin had taken over the garage. Vee read between the lines easily enough: putting bread on the household table was more Marieke’s responsibility than her brother’s.
‘Is it true that he’s got two children with former girlfriends?’
Marieke nodded a curly head. ‘He pays full maintenance. I see to it.’ She rushed on, ‘Not that he wouldn’t if I didn’t; of course he would. He loves his boys. I’m not even sure if they’re both his. One of the mothers is such a bloody gold-digger, but he does the right thing.’
‘Which gang did he run with back in the day?’
‘It wasn’t even a real gang. They broke off from this other group of losers and started calling themselves The Lynxes. Then they weren’t sure if ‘lynxes’ was the right word so they cut it down to just Lynx … They had these horrible tattoos that looked like a dodgy ostrich. Shem man, no wonder nobody took them seriously.’
Riled up now, Marieke dished the dirt on Ashwin’s tempestuous relationship with Jacqui, none of which was news. Vee waited her out. This one was a distance runner; she liked to warm up to the meaty stuff.
‘After Jacqui went missing, everyone assumed Ashwin was behind it. The way they were always fighting, making up and breaking up … I couldn’t blame them. But I know him. He’s done some stupid things, but he’s not that stupid to commit murder because he got dumped.’
‘But imagine how bad it looked to the police. He had a record, and he was jealous and hot-tempered. Jacqui ended the relationship, and people knew he’d hit her before–’
‘She asked for it,’ Marieke said.
‘The cops basically had to hold him for questioning. As far as they knew, he was the last one to have seen her alive.’
‘What they did was illegal! They dragged him in three times! They let him rot in a holding cell for an entire weekend. Do you know what happens in holding cells in this country?’
She gripped the edge of the picnic table and stuck her chin out over the table. ‘No one asks questions in a holding cell. They don’t care what you’re in for. They did things to him that no one would wish on their worst enemy, that no man would ever talk about even with a gun to his head. Ashwin screamed and called for help …’
She swallowed hard and looked away. ‘If he wasn’t fucked up enough before Jacqui, he definitely was after that.’
Vee tried with great difficulty to phrase her question with delicacy. ‘Are you saying–’
‘Yes!’ Marieke’s hand shot out as if to cover Vee’s mouth. She caught herself and dropped her arm. The agony in her eyes and mottling of her cheeks made it clear she had no intention of entertaining a conversation about her brother’s ordeal. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’