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Natalie had left fifteen minutes earlier, and he spent that time unproductively. His training was not standing him in good stead. They had trained him to chase after criminals, to build a case against them, put them behind bars and if necessary, shoot them. He had been trained to handle victims and to work a crime scene but what they had failed to teach him was how to take revenge. They had forgotten to train him how to handle it when someone you love is brutally murdered by a madman who wants your attention. They had failed to train him to deal with a woman who was both insane and his only hope.
It took what seemed an eternity before he was able to pull himself together. He stood up, squared his shoulders and set up the tape recorder. He had one more phone call to make. After making his final preparations according to Natalie’s strict instructions, he took a beer from the fridge and waited.
*
ACCORDING TO HER CALCULATIONS, it was almost time for him to arrive. She left her bar stool and lurked in the doorway which was screened off from the road. She poked her head around the corner of one of the mud-coloured screens and waited.
The wind rustled the leaves on the littered pavement, and the TV inside the bar was shouting about the soccer match. The Pirates had scored. She tried to focus on her plan. One of the off-duty cops shouted in frustration at the TV, probably a Sundowns’ fan. Natalie wondered if Janet had screamed. Had she known what was happening? Did Janet think that it was her best friend’s fault that she was dead? She had done this. It was her fault that Janet was dead. It was her fault that all those women had died by his hand. She'd known what he was and hadn't stopped him. She couldn’t blame it all on Louis anymore. The guilt took hold again, and Janet’s lifeless face stared back at her from the abyss. A part of her knew that what she was feeling was survivor’s guilt, but the truth was that she'd been too much of a coward to stop him. And there was that element she wished she could silence: the secret desire of hers that had wanted Janet to be punished for her betrayal.
Her cheeks were wet, and she realised that she’d been crying. Wiping her tears away and hoping that no one had noticed her cry, she struggled with herself and found her resolve to finish what she’d started. She owed Janet and all the other women that much. Her neck was starting to spasm when she saw him drive past. It was time to put an end to it once and for all.
*
HEAVY FOOTSTEPS ECHOED on the hallway tiles outside. Nico gritted his teeth and waited. The knock on the door echoed like a death knell. He took his time getting off the couch, hitting record on the tape recorder and walking across the room to answer it. With each step, his feet felt more like lead than flesh and bone. Then again, being made of lead would make this a lot less painful. Hands shaking, heart thumping, he gripped the doorknob and took a deep breath to steady himself.
The door creaked on un-oiled hinges as he opened it. The door flew open; the doorknob was ripped from his hand. Louis sprang at him with the agility of a cat. A predator going for the kill. Even though he had been expecting this, it still came as a surprise, and he struggled to gain control. The door slammed closed. Nico hoped that Natalie had remembered to take the keys. A fist slammed into his gut. Doubling over he stumbled away from Louis.
“Hello Louis, nice of you to drop by,” he mumbled between gasps for breath.
Louis strode towards him. He tried to straighten up and was rewarded by a hammer-like fist connecting with his jaw.
“Don’t you normally attack drunken old women?” His jaw complained with each word he uttered.
“Shut up.” Louis planted a foot in Nico’s groin.
He laughed through the pain and rolled onto his hands and knees.
“What’s wrong Louis? Can’t you kill your mother again?”
Louis’ foot lashed out and hit him in the gut, sending him into the back of his couch.
“You don’t know a goddamn thing about me. You got suckered by a woman.” He gripped Nico by the collar and dragged him towards the bathroom.
“I’m the one who got suckered? I guess we’ll know who the sucker is at the end of this.”
He got his arm in position and gripped Louis’ ankle. Louis stumbled, letting go of him. Nico scrambled to his feet, ready for Louis. His heart beat a staccato in his ears, and his lungs burned. Louis leapt to his feet faster than Nico had thought possible.
“Just tell me why, Louis?”
“Why what?” He looked surprised that Nico was asking him questions at a time like this. He started towards Nico.
“Why Janet? Why all those women?” He circled away from Louis, behind the couch.
Louis’s laughter was filled with mirth and stopped as suddenly as it had started.
“Because of that Bitch,” he said as he followed Nico around the room.
“Your mother or Natalie?” Nico kept his eye on Louis and tried to remember where everything was, trying not to fall over anything.
“My loving mother: she made me what I am. Natalie’s not a bitch; she just wanted my mother out of our lives for good. Natalie's as much a victim in all of this as I am.”
It was now Nico’s turn to laugh.
“So this is all your mother’s fault? And you’re totally innocent in all of this.”
“Of course it’s her fault. You're lucky you didn't have a mother like mine.”
“What about Janet?”
They kept waltzing around the couch.
“What about her?”
“Was it your mother’s fault that you killed Janet?”
“No, that was your fault. And there was the fact that she was just like them ... I did the world a favour when I killed my fucking mother ... those women were all the same. Drunken whores just like her.”
“Janet wasn’t like that.”
“She was a whore and would have ended up just like them. I did you both a favour by putting her out of her misery before she drank you both down the drain.” His smile was evil. “Did she tell you that she liked me to fuck her up the arse?”
“You lying bastard.” Nico launched himself across the room and tackled Louis. His fist landed against Louis’s hard stomach. Breath escaped from between clenched teeth. Louis was on top. How did that happen? Nico asked himself through the haze that was clouding his mind. One fist after the other connected with his stomach. A fist hit his jaw. He closed his mind to the pain.
His body was being dragged, but he was no longer in control of it. The bathroom tiles felt cool to the touch. So this is it, he thought. They won’t be here in time. Hands gripped his shirt and pulled him to his knees. The bathroom was dark and cold. An icy grip settled on his body. He welcomed the end. Tired and beaten, he knelt on the hard tiled floor and stared at the closed door wondering who would be the one to find him. Louis stood behind him.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” Louis whispered into his ear, as he looped the wire over his head. He felt the wire scratch his skin as it was pulled tighter. “I’m going to take it nice and slow.” Louis’s voice was low and husky with excitement. Hot blood trickled slowly down his throat. Eyes closed, he waited for it to end. He was tired.
Janet beckoned from the abyss.
Loud banging jolted him from the edge. Someone kicked the bathroom door. The wire tightened with each bang. The bathroom grew darker with each trickle of blood that left his body.
“Louis,” Natalie screamed from the other side of the door. “Open this fucking door now.”
The door swung open, splintered at the lock. Pete burst in brandishing his pistol. Natalie stood behind him.
A shot rang out, and the wire loosened. He fell back. The ceiling needed another coat of paint he decided as the lights went out.
*
THE SABC NEWS VAN WAS parked outside the entrance. Natalie recognised Helen immediately. Janet had described her as a barracuda, and it suited her quite well. Pete stood behind Natalie. They were under the yellow awning at the entrance to Nico’s block and watched the paramedics carry Nico out on a stretcher.
“He won’t be able to wear any v-neck shirts anymore,” Pete said, as they slid the stretcher into the ambulance. He sounded drained.
“No, I guess he won’t. I’ll buy him a polo neck for his birthday,” Natalie said, staring at the ambulance. Now that it was over and she had her revenge, she felt empty inside.
“Nico said you had something for me,” Pete said, still staring at the ambulance.
“He did?”
“Ja. When he called me, he said you had a package for me.”
“Oh, ja,” she said and fumbled in her bag and pulled out a plastic sandwich bag with a memory card in it. “This was Louis’s. It's got all the photos of his victims on it, and you’ll find his fingerprints on it as well.” She then handed him Nico's tape recorder. “You'll also be needing this. It's Louis’s confession.”
“Thanks. Well, I guess I’d better go and give Ms Witch Stratford over there her interview before Laurel and Hardy show up and give their version of events. What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to go to the hospital and wait for him to wake up,” she said and walked towards the ambulance. She climbed inside the back with Nico and held his hand.
*
THE LIGHTS WERE BRIGHT and burned his eyes through closed eyelids. His fingers explored the surface he was lying on. It was soft and smooth. He was warm and in agony. Every muscle hurt. One eye opened slowly and painfully. He tried to distinguish different shapes and objects through the haze of little lights flashing in front of him. He blinked. That didn’t work.
“Nurse,” a woman’s voice, which sounded suspiciously like Natalie's, shouted next to him. It reverberated through his head, bouncing against the back of his skull.
“I think he’s waking up.” The woman’s voice was softer this time. He opened his eye again, only to have a bright light shone into it. He closed it quickly, trying to shut out the pain that was shooting through his brain.
A soft hand gripped his hand tightly.
“Hold on. You’re going to be okay. Just hold on.” The woman’s voice was at his ear, whispering softly. He felt soft hair touch his face. The smell of apples drifted gently up his nose. He opened his eye and tried to focus on the woman standing over him. All he could make out was long, dark hair.
He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, knowing that Natalie had kept her side of the deal.
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