The Serpentine Road Read Online Free PDF

her head slowly.
    ‘You know the procedure. If you want to lobby General Thulani, that is not my concern, but try if you like. Tell him that you want your white victim moved ahead of the four black boys I have here . . .’
    De Vries feels the blood pump in his cheeks, attempts to suppress it.
    ‘This unit was set up to deal with priority crimes . . .’
    ‘. . . And, because you are a small unit and your victims are relatively few,’ Jafari says, without looking up from her reports, ‘we also process certain additional victims in the Central area.’
    De Vries sighs, knows that the men she will examine will be victims of drug crime, of gang wars; that what killed them will probably never be discovered, their killers never bought to justice. He takes a deep breath.
    ‘I would appreciate your attention as soon as you possibly can, Doctor. Perhaps you will call my office when you begin?’
    Jafari stands up. She is very small.
    ‘I will do that.’
    They stand facing one another for a moment. De Vries is the first to turn away.
    De Vries wishes he had driven. Don February drives fast and well but, like so many Capetonians, changes lanes constantly. He gains no advantage, but the sour coffee in De Vries’s belly slops from side to side. He knows this is not good when he can actually hear it.
    ‘It’s bad news we have Jafari.’
    Don says: ‘Why, sir?’
    ‘She won’t do us any favours and, more importantly, if we need her in court, she doesn’t stand up well . . .’ He chuckles. ‘. . . Literally – and as an expert witness. She volunteers doubt all the time. She’s a defence attorney’s wet dream.’
    ‘She has done well though,’ Don says. ‘A Cape Coloured woman to become a pathologist. That is an achievement.’
    De Vries sighs.
    ‘And a Muslim.’
    ‘That’s the problem, isn’t it, in the new South Africa? She may have done well for someone from her background but she’s still not as good as her white counterparts. So, what do we do? Patronize her that she’s done okay, or judge her as we would anyone else?’
    ‘Doctor Jafari has passed the exams. She has qualified?’
    ‘The exams, yes. The new exams. Listen, Don, her achievement may be commendable but if she’s useless to us, none of that really means anything. The system deteriorates, and it keeps deteriorating.’
    Don glances at him.
    ‘You think I’m politically incorrect? You should know: the colour of a man’s skin means nothing to me, only how he does his job.’
    ‘. . . Or her job?’
    De Vries closes his eyes.
    The room is white; sun coruscates through tall windows, bleaching thick white stripes, diamonds of shadow within them cast from the frames of smaller panes of glass. The woman is sitting up in bed, staring out of the window, her left eye bloodshot. She is naked, her nightdress torn to reveal her breasts and vagina. Her stomach is bruised; a scar runs down her thigh. Her expression is blank, mind seemingly empty, the look in her eyes hopeless. De Vries balks.
    ‘Who the fuck would buy this?’
    Don February shakes his head slowly, avoiding looking back at the canvas, and steps back from the gallery window.
    ‘Something happened here.’ De Vries gestures down the length of the shop-front. The final floor-to-ceiling window is missing and the space is boarded with plywood. In front of it, there are half a dozen refuse sacks; beyond them, broken glass across the pavement and in the gutter. He turns back to Don. ‘Ring again.’
    Don February presses the bell push once more. They hear nothing from within the darkened gallery.
    De Vries looks across Bree Street. This top end of town is in the process of being gentrified: houses and flats are being developed, warehouses converted to offices; design shops and trendy bars form little courtyards. He turns back, cups his hands either side of his eye sockets and pushes his face against the window. Inside, the space is huge. He can just make out the subjects of the big canvases: