THE FIRST THING I DID the next morning was to try and locate Nathan. The mobile number he gave me long ago had a hollow unattended ring to it. I’d contacted him soon after the jogging attack incident, just in case he was my mysterious rescuer, following me like the old days, but he hadn’t responded to my urgent messages and numerous SMSs.
Pebasco had got to me. She knew I was Daniel’s wife. And she wanted me to know that she was seeing Daniel in Montreal, I was sure of it. Eventually I called the roving office number and Miss Bollywood told me Nathan said to tell me he was in Antarctica and couldn’t be reached. In the background a strangely melodic bell-jangling bustling city could be heard.
‘That’s a new one, Pudmilla,’ I said. ‘Where are you today?’
‘Bangkok,’ she replied obligingly. ‘I’m doing a delivery.’
‘Nathan can’t avoid me forever. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?’
She was silent for a while, and I imagined her painting her toenails pomegranate red on a window seat, but I was probably being unfair.
‘Nathan is in a very bad mood,’ she said at last. ‘I’m not supposed to tell you, but maybe he’ll talk to you. He’s not talking to anybody else.’
‘Are you saying he’s here, in town?’
‘Could be,’ she replied, ‘but I never told you anything.’
‘Right. I’ll remember that. Is he still at the same apartment?’
‘He says only his friends know where he lives so I suppose it’s okay to say yes.’
‘Has something happened?’
‘Yoshi died three weeks ago. She was run over.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ And I was.
Yoshi was the tiny white fluff ball whose leash I held the day Nathan fixed my tyre, when I didn’t yet know who the big man was or that he was following me. Yoshi moped when her master was away. Yoshi’s heart belonged to Nathan.
‘I wanted to help him make the funeral arrangements, but he did it himself.’
‘Funeral arrangements? For Yoshi?’
‘Yes, for Yoshi. It was all very respectful,’ Pudmilla said. ‘Yoshi was like family to Nathan.’
‘What about Heidi?’
‘Who’s Heidi?’ she asked, and I could practically hear her elongated lashes fluttering.
‘Fine, Heidi doesn’t exist. Thank you, Pudmilla, you’ve been very helpful.’
The engaging Pudmilla had been keeping Nathan’s secrets for a while. I’d never met Nathan’s PA in person but I suspected she was part of an extensive network of Muslim family loyalty. The devoutly Muslim Khan family had adopted the refugee boy, who’d moved from the park across the road to a bed in their home.
After work I headed for Nathan’s apartment in Green Point. At first no one came to the door but I didn’t give up and eventually an unshaven, barefooted Nathan Khan flung open the door.
‘It’s you,’ he said. ‘The prodigal wife.’ He ran a hand over his unshaven chin and eyed me belligerently. He had the bleary sleep-deprived look of a man who was making do with cat naps on the couch.
‘Hello Nathan, good to see you too. What’s with the hobo look?’
‘The forthright Ms Dante … What is it you want from me this time?’
Empty booze bottles were lined up soldiers in front of a firing squad on the lounge table. It looked like he’d been cocktailing his own green mambas. The lounge had been rearranged. The television set was tethered to an extra-long cable that snaked across the floor and almost tripped me up.
‘I’m sorry about Yoshi. She was pretty smart. For a dog.’
‘Death happens.’ His hands were jammed deep in the pockets of tracksuit pants that were hanging off his hips. Most days Nathan was a Nike man who took pride in his appearance. Today there were fatty stains on the light grey fabric, and his white T-shirt looked as if he’d slept in it for the last week. I’d seen him like this once before, the ultra-smooth uptown dresser I knew alternating with a half-derailed twin persona, another Nathan.
‘Can we talk on the balcony?’
‘What?’ He stared at me as if I was the one who was mad with grief.
I resorted to sign language, pointing to my mouth and my ears, and smiling inanely to disarm him, but it didn’t have the desired effect.
‘You think I’m bugged? You are the cheekiest white woman I ever met. I’m a surveillance expert, who’s going to bug my flat?’
‘Oh please. That’s certainly blown it. Since when did you start with all that white woman crap? I’m cheeky? Hell, Nathan, have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?’ I dropped my voice to a loud whisper. ‘When was the last time you checked your own flat?’ My eyes met his baleful bloodshot glare. ‘You can’t say, can you? Shall we …?’
He led the way, kicking takeaway food containers with bits of food still in them and magazines and newspapers out of the way as he went, relishing my distaste at the mess. When we stepped onto the balcony, the white light reflecting off the sea’s surface had the force of a great fist shoving at us.
‘What do you want?’ he asked, looking down at his feet to avoid the glare. I groped around in my handbag and put my sunglasses on.
‘Fine. Let’s stick to business. I want to track Nancy Pebasco’s movements. If she goes anywhere near Canada I want to know. Can you do it?’
He shrugged. ‘Is that it? Usual terms. Payment on presentation. Any issues with that?’
I glared at him. ‘No.’ Nathan was a businessman. There’d never been favours between us, but I’d once been late with a payment and he didn’t let me forget it.
‘In that case, no problemo,’ he said. ‘Consider it done.’
It was a long shot. My husband could be anywhere in the world, but he wasn’t safe anywhere in the world. Daniel was many things but he wasn’t suicidal. Canada was the safest place for him right now.
Nathan went back inside and when he reappeared he’d brought a jug of water with some cut slices of lemon, and he’d located some fancy shades that made him look like a bodyguard to a Hollywood star.
‘Are you doing anything on the 25th next month?’ he asked as he poured water into a glass.
I considered Nathan’s velvet-casual voice. He must have been looking at a calendar inside.
‘Why?’
‘Heidi’s out of town. Or maybe she’s not talking to me, I forget. I need a partner for a black tie event.’
‘Where’s out of town?’ Something didn’t feel right.
‘Fuck Heidi. Fuck you. I wouldn’t want to upset your appointment schedule.’ His voice was belligerent again, and his tense body was raring for a fight. I remembered how Elijah called him Nathan the Bear. Today he was an irascible black bear.
‘You know I don’t do dates, Nathan.’ I said this primly, as if I was a spinster schoolteacher. ‘I just can’t,’ I said more softly. ‘I don’t know how to party any more.’
‘You mean it’s not because you’re worried people might think we’re doing an ebony and ivory act?’
I couldn’t believe it. Why didn’t he just stick to business?
‘Oh come on, Nathan. What’s that got to do with it? You’re the best male friend I have, after Elijah … I don’t want things to get complicated. To be frank, I haven’t had sex with a man in a very long time, maybe you think I have, but I haven’t, and I don’t want to get into any kind of a relationship right now that I can’t handle.’
Too much information. Shit.
‘You’re reading too much into it, Paola,’ he said eventually, his voice kinder. ‘You’re still wearing your wedding ring. That’s enough for me. You ask me favours all the time. Now I’m asking you. You’re smart and good-looking. You’ll fit in with the businesswoman I’m doing business with − it’s a family concern looking to put a surveillance system into their chain of diamond shops. I get to wear my new bespoke suit and you get to eat at a fancy restaurant with a maître d’ and crystal chandeliers, then I take you home, and that is it. I swear this to you solemnly on my grandmother’s grave. She was the last person in my family to have a decent burial, so you can be sure it’s a good oath.’
There was a glint of laughter in his eyes as he said this, but sorrow too.
‘What am I going to do while you talk business all night?’ I countered.
‘She’s a Hong Kong businesswoman doing a Botswana safari trip with her husband. I said I’d take them to a seafood restaurant that served West Coast rock lobster and South African bubbly when they’re in Cape Town. It’s social.’
‘Don’t they eat a lot of seafood in Hong Kong?’
‘Sweet Jesus, how must I know? Probably. They want to taste South African crayfish, that’s all I know.’
‘Where Heidi’s gone?’ I asked, to buy time.
‘She’s gone back to our country,’ he said flatly, finally sitting down next to me, legs sprawled, one big bare foot up against the railing.
‘Again?’
‘She said she’d only go for two months, to train a people’s commando, and she’d call me every week. It’s over two weeks and she hasn’t called.’ He sat slumped forward, rubbing his temples.
‘That sister of yours has more guts than brains. What are you going to do?’
‘Nothing yet. There’s a shortage of phones where she’s gone.’ He said this with a terrible irony. ‘Heidi has more luck than most people. In our village they used to say she sang to the fish, that she was an enchantress, because she always caught fish in her pan even though the river was dying. When I left, my mother made me promise to send for my sister and to find her a good husband. Instead she’s back in Liberia fighting for the rebels,’ he said wryly, standing up and stretching. ‘Are you hungry?’
I knew the story: little more than a child when the machete-wielding militia destroyed her village, she’d survived the dangerous overland journey from Liberia to Cape Town and tracked him down.
The state Nathan was in made more sense to me now.
‘I’ll have something if you’re making,’ I said.
‘Wait here. It won’t take long.’
He slid the curtains shut behind me but left the sliding doors open. I could hear him moving around the apartment, methodically checking tables and lamps and lights.
‘Let’s go make something to eat,’ he said when he eventually reappeared on the balcony. I noticed he’d changed into clean tracksuit pants and white T-shirt and combed his hair. His feet had also been washed but they were still bare. He’d also done a quick clean-up of the lounge, which was now free of the detritus and debris of loss.
Nathan found some eggs and potatoes and defrosted some bacon in the microwave, and as he padded barefoot about his tiny modern kitchen, and frothed and whipped and beat his ingredients, he talked about his village, how it was close to a river and how when he’d finished his chores he’d go and sit under the trees next to the river to daydream about one day becoming a policeman like his uncle, who had left the village when he was a young man.
When we’d finished eating Nathan wheeled the television round until it faced the entrance hall, almost blocking it, and winked. Then he asked if I’d care to watch a classic cowboy movie?
The oddest things come to mind when one is asked an unexpected question.
‘Have you got The Good, The Bad and The Ugly? We used to watch it as kids with my father.’
‘Woman, that movie is one of my prized possessions. It has the best soundtrack known to humanity,’ Nathan grinned.
The device of having the television facing away from us into the entrance hall area was effective; the sounds of the spaghetti western and its distinctive theme music were muted, but anybody trying to listen in would soon have audio overload.
‘There’s a bug in the entrance hall, and one on the phone that I left there to keep them happy,’ he said.
I knew the logic. ‘That way they don’t keep bugging you.’
‘Exactly. Anyway, the only conversations I had were with Yoshi.’
More relaxed now, Nathan lay back on the big couch, his bare feet up on the armrest, while I sat in an armchair with my feet up on the seat and my chin on my knees. What Daniel used to call my thinking position.
‘Daniel’s in Canada,’ I said. ‘I’m sure of it. Nancy Pebasco is the only lead we’ve got. She could lead us straight to him, Nathan. I should have thought of it before.’
‘Slow down. Why Canada? Just to be next door to Pebasco? Doesn’t make sense − her husband’s a bigwig politician and she’s high up in a listed corporation. She won’t be wanting any trouble from her toy boy.’
He watched me closely while I tried to explain without giving away my secrets.
‘I don’t know, they speak French there. And it’s a big country where it’s easy to get lost. It’s just a hunch.’
‘Your Daniel’s not the type to head for the rural backwaters, is he?’ Nathan sneered. ‘No rich dames there … Why not Timbuktu or France? They speak French there too.’
I stared at my toes. I hadn’t thought this through. Now I would have to tell him. I measured the damage against the gain, and made the necessary call.
‘Can we stop calling him “your Daniel”? “Your husband” or “Mr de Luc” will do just fine. There’s a book he sent me …’
‘Ah, a book,’ Nathan said sanguinely, interlacing his fingers on his chest. ‘And how does this get us to Canada?’
I looked up from my toes and across the lounge at him.
‘It’s his book − I mean he wrote it − and it was posted in Canada.’
‘What kind of a book are we talking about?’
‘A crime thriller. It’s called Lady Limbo, and I think it’s based on real stuff from his life, like his relationship with Jasmine, and other women … how it was working for RMI.’
‘You think? I’m guessing the police know nothing about it?’ When I remained silent, he sighed. ‘Where exactly is this book at this time, Paola? And how the hell could you read it anyway? Isn’t it in French?’
‘Why do you have to know?’
‘You and I made an agreement. Perhaps you remember my terms? No bullshit. The first time I get bullshit from you, I walk. That’s the day me and you, we’re over.’ It was his turn to do sign language. He jabbed his finger in my general direction and at his own chest, and then went back to rubbing his temples.
‘Do you have a headache? Maybe you should take something.’
‘No I don’t have a headache. I have a neck ache, and it started just as you walked in.’
I smiled weakly at the joke. ‘It’s under the floorboards in the cupboard in the study. I can read it because the publishers − Canadian publishers − published an English version as well.’ It was as if I could suddenly breathe again. I popped an ice cube into my mouth and waited.
Nathan shook his powerful head in that emphatic way that really reminded one of a bear. ‘I don’t understand you, Paola. What kind of a husband sends his wife his own book about getting laid − did I say laid? I meant paid − like some stud horse high on steroids by crazy rich women who shouldn’t be having kids they don’t have time for?’
Nancy Pebasco flashed before my eyes; tucking a strand of hair away behind her ear like a schoolgirl as she contemplated motherhood.
‘Nathan, you think I haven’t asked myself those questions? I haven’t worked through this myself. Maybe I never will. Maybe him sending me that book made me beyond sad. Maybe I was just glad he was alive. That’s how I’ve been living the last couple of years – sometimes I’m on the inside looking out, sometimes I’m on the outside looking in. I don’t know myself at this stage. These days I tell myself I feel nothing about him but I don’t know if I’m lying to myself or not.’
Nathan eyed me from across the room.
‘Is that right? That’s the first honest thing I’ve heard you say in a while. Anything else you want to tell me while you’re in this mood?’
Nancy Pebasco is going to have my husband’s child. This thought appeared with the smooth necessity of an egg but Nathan was a good man who thought I should move on.
‘If it helps, this time it’s not just about me. If you find him I want to meet him somewhere neutral. There are legal matters we have to discuss. And Simone needs to know he’s alive.’
Nathan had been here before. ‘Mr de Luc has a sixth sense about anybody following him. We’ll need the best, a pro outfit that can put different surveillants out on the street.’ It still rankled that Daniel had eluded him.
‘So you think I’m right! She’ll lead us to him.’
‘Follow the woman, find the man. It works in the Bond movies, maybe it will work for us,’ Nathan said laconically. ‘That kind of operation costs.’
‘Very funny. Just do whatever you have to Nathan. You’ll get your money.’
‘Last time you took a while,’ he said, cracking his knuckles.
‘The money from my father’s trust fund was tied up in investments. I was trying not to use it. At least … Oh, it doesn’t matter. It’s sorted out, that’s all you need to know. I can pay you an advance.’
He nodded and changed the subject. ‘I hear you’ve been antagonising some French visitors and that you experienced the 5-star accommodation of a Camps Bay police cell.’
‘Who’ve you been talking to …?’ I thought for a moment. ‘It has to be Merensky. He’s supposed to be my lawyer, he’s not supposed to pass on confidential information. Don’t you dare follow me again like you did before, Nathan, you know I hate that. I swear to God I’ll blow your cover, and I don’t care if I get stalked and killed!’
‘I have my sources,’ Nathan said. ‘Just so you know, I refused a request to keep an eye on you. The last time I did that I ended up being interrogated by Interpol.’
‘The only thing Merensky should be worrying about is keeping Nada Sarrazin in jail for as long as possible,’ I muttered.
The truth was I owed the bear big time.
‘You’re not giving yourself enough credit,’ I told Nathan. ‘If it wasn’t for you, they wouldn’t have stopped the SUV and rescued Simone, and Klaus wouldn’t have got a search warrant. You brought down the Sarrazin crime syndicate and the porn empire that went with it. Esmeralda says the two underage girls they managed to identify in the videos are doing well. One of them is back with her family and going to school, and the other one’s got a chance at a new life with a foster family. It’s something. Much more than anyone else did.’
Nathan glanced over at me. ‘I barely avoided having my photograph splashed across every major news channel. Do you know what that would have done? Someone in my line of work stays under the radar.’
I knew he wasn’t just talking about the surveillance work that was his bread and butter; by helping me, he’d put his secret mission of chasing child molesters on the Internet at risk.
‘Well at least I know you weren’t my mystery rescuer. I thought maybe you were.’
‘My source mentioned that. He thought you’d been traumatised by the attack and that’s why you went for the church people on the corner. I told him you’ve always been hyper suspicious.’
‘You can call me hyper suspicious, but I know I’m right – there’s something deeply wrong about that bunch of fanatics on the corner.’
Nathan wiggled his large bare toes and fingered his stubble.
‘What have you got against them?’
‘They’re in my neighbourhood and they dress funny and Simone has nightmares about them. They’re just scavengers that feed off weakness and confusion. Is that enough for you? And I no longer believe in coincidences. Daniel was right, there are no coincidences.’
‘Fair enough. Your Daniel was a smart man.’
‘Is, Nathan. My husband is a smart man, and he is out there somewhere.’ It’s there in the waves and the wind, I want to say to him, my husband’s voice, I hear it every day. Hearing it made me blurt out what I had to say. ‘And about the 25th I don’t think I can do it … I just remembered our New York conference is in that week. I’ll check my diary to see if I’ll be back in time, but I doubt it. In the meanwhile, could you concentrate on finding the best surveillance crowd you can in Montreal? I want to know what Pebasco has for breakfast every day, and where she slept the night before, and with who−’
‘Yes, ma’am, you’re the client,’ said businesslike Nathan, cutting me off, letting me hear the undercurrent. ‘Wait,’ he said abruptly as I started to collect my jacket and handbag. ‘I have something for you.’
He padded off into a room off the corridor and came back with a small box that he opened.
‘This is a stun gun,’ Nathan said, holding up something resembling a durable salmon-pink flashlight.
‘It looks like Barbie’s torch,’ I said doubtfully.
‘This little beauty packs enough high-voltage electricity to stop a man dead in his tracks. If it’s done right, you’ll have 30 minutes to get away.’ He pressed the trigger and the gadget spat an electrical arc. I jumped back. ‘Now you … Off, Safety, On.’ I flipped the switch as instructed.
Then he told me to put the safety switch on and made me apply it to his body. ‘I’m your attacker,’ he said. ‘Feel your weapon in your hands. Here, pretend it’s your attacker’s neck, go for the underarm, the torso’s an easy target, and don’t forget the upper hip, here just below the rib cage, and for a big strong man you go for the groin. You need at least three to five seconds, sometimes longer.’ He gripped my hand and forced the stun gun hard against his groin area. ‘These areas are nerve centres,’ Nathan said calmly, ‘they make the best target areas. It’s illegal, so don’t flash it around, and don’t tell anyone where you got it.’
I stared at the prettily coloured torch in my hands, which was actually a compact weapon that would stop a grown man. If I used it right. The plaque on the casing read ‘Li’l Guy’.
‘It’s weird, I never used to do anything illegal. Now that word crops up often.’
Nathan shrugged. ‘It’s all a balance, individual needs versus societal order. Carry it in your handbag or on you when you’re on the road. Keep going … This cushion is your attacker.’
When he was finally satisfied that I was not going to stun myself instead of an assailant, he walked me to the lift and stood there waiting, his hands deep in the pockets of his tracksuit pants.
‘It’s bullshit about you being at a conference the week of the 25th. I’m just asking you to consider it seriously, Paola. Can you do that?’
‘Okay, I’ll consider it seriously,’ I said. ‘Nathan?’
‘Yeh?’
‘Thank you for the stun gun, it’s the most thoughtful gift anyone’s given me in a very long while.’ And I kissed him on the cheek.
He grinned, touching his cheek as he looked at me. ‘I didn’t have any black pearls handy. I think you’d look nice in black pearls.’
Black pearls? On the way home, I remembered how when Elijah was still around and Nathan thought my attention was somewhere else, I could feel him watching me, sizing up what to do about me. It made me nervous.
I wondered idly what he’d be like as a lover. Considerate. Over-considerate? I stopped myself right there. He’s your friend, Paola.
The next morning I went running. The compact stun gun in its nylon holster against my side was oddly energising. I felt safer than I’d felt in a long time. My feet were pounding away by themselves when an idea hit me with the force of a wing strike from the heavens.
Nathan and I could help each other after all.
This time he picked up.
‘I’ve considered it seriously. I’ll rearrange my schedule and go with you on the 25th if you get me a gun and teach me how to shoot.’ This was what life did to you.
‘Oh no, you’re not getting a gun from me, Ms Dante.’
‘In just twelve hours I’m not Paola any more? Why not? I need a proper firearm, Nathan,’ I wheedled. ‘I live in a tough neighbourhood now. Joggers get raped all the time.’
‘That’s why I gave you the Li’l Guy.’
‘It’s nice, Nathan, really. I’m grateful but I need more.’
‘Who’re you planning to shoot, Paola? The next policeman who rings your doorbell?’
‘Your source again? Qamarana’s a traffic officer – I just wish somebody would remind him. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that he owns a fancy BMW?’
‘Are you finished?’
‘No! Okay, fine. I’ll settle for lessons at a gun range. And when you think I’m ready to get a licensed gun, we’ll re-evaluate. Have we got a deal?’
‘I have a feeling I’m going to regret this,’ Nathan sighed, ‘but I’ll do it. I’ll organise a time slot at the shooting range. And forget the licensed gun part. And don’t phone again in the daytime. I’m on night shift so I need my sleep.’