‘It was for tik,’ Chlöe said sagely. ‘The light bulb that street kid took. You hear about these addicts breaking into houses and not stealing anything but bulbs. They smoke tik out of them.’
‘Oh, wow. That’s news to me,’ Vee said, rolling her eyes.
Chlöe pursed her lips.
‘Oh, come off it, Bishop. Every journalist in the Western Cape has covered some story or other on meth and street junkies. Where to get it, how they cut it, how they use it. Hell, for one assignment this lady of publicly traded pleasures …’
‘A what now?’ Chlöe frowned.
‘A public woman. Dammit, Princess Di – a prostitute. She described, graphically, how they insert crystals up the brown corridors of their clients to get them off. Please don’t make me explain–’
‘I get it, I get it, stop,’ Chlöe said quickly. ‘I just thought, erroneously I now see, that you didn’t get why the kid did it. You’ve been staring into space since you told the story. It’s creepy.’
Vee left the window and eased into her swivel chair. The office was shrinking; that was creepy. They’d been going at it since morning and nothing was tying up.
Like where Philemon Mtetwa fitted in, for instance. Vee knew there had to be more going on under the gloss of nouveau riche entrepreneurship, so she took it upon herself to root around in his backyard. Zilch. Nothing germane anyway, though some of it would’ve made riveting headlines elsewhere. Investment-wise, Mtetwa dabbled in shades of grey closer to black, not to mention a few women his wife wouldn’t be overjoyed to learn about. The climb to the top was steep, and victors seldom made it purely on talent, resolve and integrity. Mtetwa was no exception. For their purposes, they had nothing.
One small detail stood out, though. Eight years ago, Mtetwa had undergone a major cardiac operation at the then Claremont Life and Medicare Clinic. During the same period, one Sean Fourie had been at the butt end of the national transplant registry. Strangely enough, his name had shot to the top during the months preceding his death. Philemon Mtetwa had a revamped heart that was clearly thumping fit. Ian Fourie was an excellent cardiologist whose clients included some of the richest men in the country. It was hardly a huge leap.
‘I’m saying it is a leap,’ Chlöe said.
‘It’s too much of a coincidence to be nothing. You’re new at this. Don’t dismiss what’s right under your nose because it looks easy. Oftentimes the thing we think happened, is the thing that happened. This shows that the WI isn’t the only link between these two, and by this afternoon we’ll have proof.’
At that very moment, The Guy was skulking through cyberland, hacking through walls with his prying, nimble phalanges. Getting into the WI’s old patient records would be like picking his teeth. It wouldn’t be long before he emailed scans of Mtetwa’s medical file from 2002, detailing everything from which drug regimen he’d been on to how many times a day he’d squatted over the toilet.
‘I bet you eight years ago Ian was Mtetwa’s doctor, and he probably made the diagnosis that saved his life. Working that kinda magic can buy a lot of gratitude,’ said Vee. She recalled Rosie’s words to the effect that her father only had time to spare on rich, diseased old men. Someone that dedicated was bound to have buddies with clout.
‘How could a man who gets handed a new lease on life stand by and do nothing a year later when he hears your son is terminal and desperately needs a transplant? That he has to wait his turn on some list with a thousand other nobodies? Mtetwa’s got the power to bump a kid to the top of a registry.’
‘Fine, let’s say I buy that.’ Chlöe spread her palms, and Vee noticed they were covered to the wrists in inky scribbles, personal notes she’d been taking all day. Vee warmed with pride. Her protégé was turning into a real newswoman. ‘Let’s say Ian and Mtetwa have more than a business relationship. If he owes Ian a debt of gratitude, then yes, making some calls would be a great way to pay it back. But Sean got a match before his spot on the registry even came into play, so that’s a grand gesture totally wasted. And, more importantly, what does it matter? If these two men were playing ‘scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’, what does it have to do with Jacqui?’
Vee rubbed her temples hard, trying to defy anatomical barriers and massage her overheated brain. ‘All right, I haven’t thought that far yet. But I know whatever the Fouries needed to do to keep their boy alive, they did. And it ties in with Jacqui’s disappearance.’ For heaven’s sake, Carina, the embodiment of feminism and modern education, sacrificed her pride and approached the mistress for help. ‘It all comes back to Sean one way or the other. We just need to find the connection.’
She scrawled on the list on the wall-mounted chalkboard: find the connection. Medical connection number one: find Rachelle Duthie. The nurse’s involvement with Sean’s therapy had been key. She was still practising and living in the city, but they hadn’t fixed a time to speak with her. Vee tossed the stub of blue chalk, noting a few other points were yet to be crossed off. Why the hell couldn’t anyone locate Bronwyn Abrams, for a start?
Chlöe licked melted chocolate off a KitKat wrapper. ‘Why d’you keep pushing the Ian angle? Arrogant, career-advancing jerk he may be, but Jacqui was still his child. Kids drive parents crazy all the time, but you gotta be one hell of a psychopath to actually kill them.’
Vee nodded grudgingly. ‘He knows something, though,’ she muttered. Ian had the most powerful hand, and that spelled motive. The rest were a pack of scrambling jokers in comparison.
‘I’m liking Ashwin for this, big time,’ Chlöe went on. ‘As you said, the most obvious scenario tends to be the truth. He has a violent history and sounds immature. I say Jacqui tried to end it one final time, they had a huge argument and things got out of hand. Accidents like that happen every day.’ She shook her head, eyes adrift. ‘Women are evil, twisted sirens. They love you one minute and then flip their shit, blame you for it and crush you like a cockroach.’
Vee cocked her head.
‘Ahem. Crime of passion is what I’m getting at.’
‘Where did it take place? Yes, the mechanics saw them get into it at the garage on the day she disappeared, but they also saw her leave. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to go ballistic in broad daylight in front of half a dozen witnesses.’
‘He was stupid enough to slap her around in public before, so methinks that makes him contender number one for murder.’ Chlöe puffed her cheeks. ‘Let’s say she left and he followed her. He followed her by car, they made nice, she got in … they fight again, and this time he kills her.’
‘What did he do with the body, Bishop? A human body doesn’t just vanish. The police searched his car and house; they practically went up his butt crack with a microscope.’ Vee flinched. ‘Poor choice of words.’
‘You think?’ Chlöe sniggered. ‘Okay, maybe he didn’t kill her right away. Say he held her captive for a few days, just to scare her. But after the hell he’d been through with the police, and with the whole community ready to torch him with no proof, he started blaming Jacqui for everything and snapped. Or maybe he meant to let her go, but by then it had got so out of control that he had to keep her quiet.’
‘And maybe he smuggled her through the Underground Railroad and set her free in Canada. That’s too many maybes, Chlöe.’ Vee plonked back down and put her feet up on the desk. No matter which way she squirmed, the twinge in her lower back wasn’t letting up. They’d been at it for too long; they needed a recess. ‘Ashwin doesn’t have the smarts to’ve kept a mami peppe like Jacqui hostage for long, especially not with all those eyes on his every move. Somebody would’ve noticed a false move.’
The cobalt blue of Chlöe’s eyes sharpened to azure. She took the chocolate-smeared pacifier out of her mouth. ‘Oooh, what’s a mami peppe? Sounds sexy.’
‘It’s …’ Vee flapped a hand. How would one describe it in the Queen’s language? ‘Like a hot-blooded woman, a feisty geh.’
‘Geh meaning girl?’ Vee nodded. Chlöe murmured the phrase to herself a few times, doing her best to mimic the right accent. ‘I like it,’ she tittered. ‘It does sound hot. Hey, am I a mami peppe?’
‘No,’ Vee snapped. ‘And if you don’t take that goddamn wrapper outta your mouth, I swear to God …’
‘But I’m huuuuungry …’
Like a winged messenger from heaven, a colleague stuck his head in. ‘You guys ordered the pizza? The delivery guy wants to leave it in the foyer. You better get out there before the vultures descend.’
Chlöe smiled coquettishly at Vee, raising and lowering her lashes like a lost puppy. The look wasn’t new. She was broke, too broke to chip in for lunch. Vee sighed and got up. The tin of petty cash in the receptionist’s office had better have enough in it. She damn sure wasn’t paying for a communal meal out of her own pocket. If Portia wanted a stellar output, it was her duty to feed the hungry slaves that made the magic happen.