Blood Rose by Margie Orford Read Free Book Online

Damases had e-mailed an aerial photograph of Walvis Bay. It showed a marshy river delta south of the port. Extending northwards was a slender sand peninsula that protected the lagoon and the harbour. At the tip of this encircling arm was Pelican Point, around which the calmed Atlantic tides swirled into the bay. The little town squatted behind the harbour. It was a bleak place, pushed closer to oblivion by the collapsing fishing industry. The town had ceased to grow as planned, so the school where the body had been found was right on the edge of thetown, a bulwark against the red dunes that marched northwards until the dry Kuiseb River halted them.
    A lonely place to live and an even lonelier place to die.
    Clare looked at the photographs Tamar had taken of the dead boy. Kaiser Apollis might have been fourteen, but he was so under-nourished that it was hard to view him as anything but the child he had been. The thin arms were clasped around the angled knees, the arms and legs shielding the stilled heart. Slender ankles disappeared into too-large takkies. Even in the grainy low-res prints, Clare could make out Nike’s expensive swoosh. The forehead rested on the knees, and the back of his skull was missing. The autopsy was scheduled for the next day. Then the pathologist’s knife would peel open any secrets hidden in the body of this dead child.
    Clare closed the file and rested her forehead against the window as the plane started its descent. To the west, the surf-white beach corralled the red dunes. Beyond it stretched the restless Atlantic. The sun, angled low, revealed the Namib Desert’s wind-sculpted dunes, dotted with tiny impoverished settlements. Every now and then, Clare glimpsed a flash of a corrugated-iron roof or the flurry of a flock of goats browsing on the acacias growing along the subterranean Kuiseb River bank – evidence of sparse human habitation. Walvis Bay, blanketed in fog, was invisible.
    Clare let her thoughts drift back to Riedwaan. Her anger had burnt itself out, but it had left cold ash in its wake instead of calm. She missed him with an acuteness that hurt. Who would have thought?
    ‘Thirty days.’ The bulky customs official dropped Clare’s immigration form into an untidy box at her feet. An unexpected smile dimpled her round cheeks as she handed back the stamped passport. ‘Captain Damases told us to expect you.’
    Tamar was waiting at the arrivals terminal when Clare exited. Her heart-shaped face was as beautiful as Clare remembered, but the tiny waist was hidden by a pregnancy that seemed ominously close to term.
    Tamar’s green eyes lit up with recognition. ‘Let me help you.’ She reached for Clare’s suitcase.
    ‘You’re not carrying anything,’ Clare protested. ‘You look as if I should drive you straight to hospital.’
    ‘It’s just because I’m so short that I look huge,’ laughed Tamar. ‘I’m glad you could come.’
    Tamar led Clare to a white Isuzu double cab. An officer was leaning against it, smoking. His black shirt stretched tight across a muscular chest. His hair was cropped close, giving his handsome face a hard look.
    ‘Sergeant Kevin van Wyk,’ said Tamar, ‘this is Dr Clare Hart.’
    ‘Welcome.’ The man shook Clare’s hand but made no move to help her load her suitcase.
    As they exited the airport, Van Wyk turned the radio up just loud enough to make conversation an effort. Clare took Tamar Damases’s cue and watched the desert slip past in silence, wondering how much had changed since her previous visit.
    Two years ago, the factories perched like hungry cormorants around the harbour had gorged on bulging catches. Clare had filmed vessel after vessel offloading their silver harvests. Namibia’s suited elite, circling like sharks, had allocated ever-bigger quotas to themselves, buying farms and BMWs hand over profligate fist, ignoring the scientists and their warnings. Now the fish had all but vanished and an eerie lassitude pervaded the town.