Daddy's Girl by Margie Orford Read Free Book Online Page B

daughter…’

    ‘Listen to your wife, Faizal.’
    Clinton van Rensburg pressed play on the digital recorder, filling the room with Shazia’s voice.
    ‘Yasmin, Yasmin.’
    ‘Calm down, lady.’ A woman’s bored call-centre voice. ‘What’s your name? What’s the address? What’s happening?’
    ‘Yasmin Faizal, my daughter,’ Shazia alternating between panic and rage. ‘She’s not here. I’m here to fetch her and she’snot here. This has happened before! My husband. He was here and now she’s gone…’
    ‘Who is your husband?’ Alert now. New training. New questions. New interest. The computer had flagged the cellphone number on the screen.
    ‘Captain Riedwaan Faizal. Gang Unit. He’s taken her again.’
    ‘Let me process this, madam.’
    Van Rensburg switched off the sound.
    ‘What have you done this time,Faizal?’
    ‘This is a mistake.’
    ‘Here’s the restraining order your wife got against you two months ago, Faizal. Her call automatically activated it,’ said Van Rensburg. ‘You know how it works now: making the law work for women. Damage control, I’d call it.’
    ‘This is a set-up, Clinton.’ Riedwaan’s hands were shaking as he pulled a cigarette from his pack. ‘That’s what I’m praying for.Because if it’s not, then the longer we spend with this bullshit the less chance I have of finding her.’
    ‘Then take me through your movements late this afternoon, Faizal.’
    ‘The crime scene in Maitland.’
    ‘And then?’
    ‘Then I came here to meet with Phiri and Delport.’
    ‘It took you a while to get here. Where were you?’
    ‘The mother,’ said Riedwaan. ‘To break the news.’
    ‘And before?’
    ‘I went for a drive.’
    ‘A drive?’ Phiri looked Riedwaan in the eye. ‘A drive to where?’
    ‘I went past the ballet school.’ Riedwaan took a cigarette from the pack, turned it in his fingers. I was going to see two dead girls. I needed to see her.’
    ‘And how was she?’
    ‘She was fine. I spoke to her in the car, then she ran inside to go to her class.’
    ‘Faizal, thelast time this happened she was found with you.’ Van Rensburg rifled through the file, found the notes the family court magistrate had made, and read them. ‘Yasmin Faizal. Age six. Incarcerated in a fishing shack for two days by her father. Reluctant to hand child over.’ He put the notes aside. ‘I won’t read the rest. You know what happened.’
    ‘She wasn’t incarcerated.’ Riedwaan paced. ‘BullshitAmerican word. She wasn’t even locked in. The southeaster was blowing so we had the door closed.’
    ‘And you threatened to throw the family court representative into the Atlantic, if I remember.’ He turned the page. ‘The time before that, she was found with you in a shopping mall.’
    ‘She’s my child. I picked her up from school. We went ice-skating. She loved it.’
    ‘Not what this affidavitsays.’ Van Rensburg’s voice was quiet, measured. ‘Here it says you went into her classroom and removed her against the express wishes of her teacher. And her headmistress and her mother. That’s abduction, Faizal.’
    ‘You’ve been to my house? You’ve been to the fishing shack?’ Riedwaan leaned over Van Rensburg. ‘So, where is she then?’
    ‘That’s what we want to know.’ Van Rensburg did not flinch.

    ‘I don’t have her,’ said Riedwaan. ‘I’ve been working. Two night shifts and a day – in a row. You’re a detective, Van Rensburg. Look at those two cases. Both times, I was off. I picked up my daughter, my only daughter, so that I could spend time with her. So why’d you pull me down here as if I’m a criminal?’
    ‘This is why.’ Van Rensburg handed over a document.
    ‘I’ve never seen this.’Riedwaan skimmed the document, paling as he did so.
    ‘Confidential. The Family Unit’s Police Psychological Review,’ said Van Rensburg. ‘All officers have been assessed. You rang every warning bell they have.’
    ‘Who wrote this