Daddy's Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

She’s one of yours.’
    Clare opened the folder. ‘Noor Khan. No address.’

    ‘Her mother lives in that squatter camp in the Maitland Cemetery. Tik addict, according to the cops. They’re trying to sober her up now.’
    ‘Where was she found?’
    ‘Kids found her in a field, that empty land between the docks and Cape Town station. The cops said they were playing. I would’ve said scavenging.’
    ‘When did she go missing?’ asked Clare.
    ‘She didn’t, not according toanybody who should’ve noticed.’
    ‘No one reported it?’
    ‘The cops who brought her here spoke to the mother. She said she hadn’t seen the child since yesterday. Maybe the day before. Said she didn’t think about it because she often ran away.’
    ‘How’d they identify her?’ asked Clare.
    ‘One of the boys knew her. Her cousin, I think. The mother came here. Confirmed it. Looked tearful forthe tabloids that some enterprising uncle had thought to call.’
    ‘It says here that someone’s been arrested,’ said Clare.
    ‘A man who lived nearby,’ Ruth explained. ‘He had blood on his clothes and the mother owed him money. A bit of DNA will tie up that loose end.’
    Clare put her mask on, tying it tightly in place. It wouldn’t help with the smell, but it was a barrier of sorts. She followedthe pathologist into the section of the mortuary where no living members of the public were admitted.
    ‘No investigating officer?’ asked Clare.
    ‘She couldn’t be here now. She’ll come by later, if she can,’ answered Dr Lyndall. ‘Friday night rush. Two girls dead in Maitland.’
    ‘When did they go missing?’
    ‘They didn’t,’ said Ruth. ‘Shot on their way home from school. Gang crossfire,if you’re feeling charitable. An execution so that someone could move up the ranks of the 27s, if you’re not. Makes no difference to them now.’
    ‘Were you at the scene?’
    ‘Piet Mouton went,’ said the pathologist, unlocking her office. ‘But they’re coming here, so I said I’d see to them. I just have to get something to eat first.’
    Dr Lyndall greeted the two orderlies smoking outside. ‘ Sal julle die kind inbring ?’ Discussing that night’s soccer match, the orderlies sauntered off to fetch the child’s body.
    Clare waited in the draughty passage. To the left of the room facing her, the day’s carnage had been cleared away. Twelve clean metal trays were lined up, six on either side of the room: ready for the first batch who weren’t going to make it through the weekend. To the right,hidden from her view, were the fridges. The orderlies returned, deftly manoeuvring the trolley, and parked it in an empty space in the cutting room.
    ‘You ready, Clare?’
    ‘I’m ready.’
    She wasn’t. The gurney was too big. And the body on the steel tray too small, as the pathologist pulled back the sheet. The child’s bloodless lips curved in a parody of the grin slashed into the slendercolumn of her neck. Clare squeezed the palms of her hands together, the pain of the ring biting into her fingers a distraction.
    ‘You’re pale, Clare.’
    ‘I’m fine.’ Clare swallowed. ‘You carry on.’
    Dr Lyndall eased the child out of her clothes: pink pants with yellow daisies stitched on the knees, and a shirt, with its bib of dried blood. PEP Stores panties, one red thread unravellingfrom the thigh, the static lifting it against the pathologist’s sleeve as she set to work.
    Dark lashes fanned out against the child’s cheeks. Ruth Lyndall smoothed the dark curls, the instinctive gesture of a mother. She worked carefully over the body, photographing, cataloguing the pattern of injuries, old and new. A yellowing bruise on the back – last week’s. A ridging in the left clavicle.An old break. There was a healed tear in the thin skin folded between her legs. Ambiguous. Abrasions on the knees and palms. Ambiguous. The injuries of childhood play, perhaps. Swings, slides, seesaws. Not necessarily a little girl running hell