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carefully, because he did not want to open the old wound. So he would ask: “How are things with you, Pakamile?” “Is something worrying you?” or “Are you happy?” And the boy would answer with his natural cheerfulness that things were good, he was so very happy, because he had him, Thobela, and the farm and the cattle and everything. But there was always the suspicion that that was not the whole truth, that the child kept a secret place in his head where he would visit his loss alone.

Eight years, during which a father had abandoned him, and he had lost a caring mother.

Surely that could not be the sum total of a person’s life? Surely that could not be right? There must be a heaven, somewhere . . . He looked up at the blue sky and wondered. Was Miriam there among green rolling hills to welcome Pakamile? Would there be a place for Pakamile to play and friends and love? All races together, a great multitude, all with the same sense of justice? Waters beside which to rest. And God, a mighty black figure, kingly, with a full gray beard and wise eyes, who welcomed everyone to the Great Kraal with an embrace and gentle words, but who looked with great pain over the undulating landscape of green sweet veld at the broken Earth. Who shook his head, because no one did anything about it because they were all blind to His Purpose. He had not made them like that.

Slowly he walked up the slope to the homestead and stood again to look.

His land, as far as he could see.

He realized that he no longer wanted it. The farm had become useless to him. He had bought it for Miriam and Pakamile. It had been a symbol then, a dream and a new life—and now it was nothing but a millstone, a reminder of all the potential that no longer existed. What use was it to own ground, but have nothing?
    6.

    F rom the second-story flat in Mouille Point you could see the sea if you got the angle from the window right. The woman lay in the bedroom and Detective Inspector Benny Griessel stood in the living room looking at the photos on the piano when the man from Forensics and the scene photographer came in.

Forensics said: “Jesus, Benny, you look like shit,” and he answered: “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“What have we got?”

“Woman in her forties. Strangled with the kettle cord. No forced entry.”

“That sounds familiar.”

Griessel nodded. “Same MO.”

“The third one.”

“The third one,” Griessel confirmed.

“Fuck.” Because that meant there would be no fingerprints. The place would be wiped clean.

“But this one is not ripe yet,” said the photographer.

“That’s because her char comes in on Saturdays. We only found the others on Monday.”

“So he’s a Friday-night boy.”

“Looks like it.”

As they squeezed past him to the bedroom, Forensics sniffed theatrically and said, “But something smells bad.” Then he said in a lower voice, familiarly, “You ought to take a shower, Benny.”

“Do your fucking job.”

“I’m just saying,” he said, and went into the bedroom. Griessel heard the clips of their cases open and Forensics say to the photographer: “These are the only girls I see naked nowadays. Corpses.”

“At least they don’t talk back,” came the response.

A shower was not what Griessel needed. He needed a drink. Where could he go? Where would he sleep tonight? Where could he stash his bottle? When would he see his children again? How could he concentrate on this thing? There was a bottle store in Sea Point that opened in an hour.

Six months to choose between us and the booze.

How did she think he would manage it? By throwing him out? By putting yet more pressure on him? By rejecting him?

If you can stay dry you can come back, but this is your last chance.

He couldn’t lose them, but he couldn’t stay dry. He was fucked, totally fucked. Because if he didn’t have them, he wouldn’t be able to stop drinking—couldn’t she understand that?

His cell phone rang.

“Griessel.”

“Another one, Benny?” Senior