The Alex King Series by A BATEMAN (free ebook reader for ipad TXT) 📕

There were all manner of stores and shops. Some were serving soup and coffee and many people were wandering around dipping great chunks of bread into cups, taking their breakfast on the go. She had never seen people eating bread and soup for breakfast, and hoped breakfast at the hotel would be more acceptable.

There were many dogs, all ribs and teeth, rooting around in piles of rubbish that had spilled out of over-full bins or ripped sacks. Everyone eyed her curiously as she jogged past in her colourful tight-fitting active wear, her glossy blonde ponytail swaying from side to side. She knew she had strayed from the tourist area, but she was making good pace and on track to make the marina in another ten-minutes of so.

Ahead of her, three large men fanned out in front of her. They wore tattered T-shirts and faded and ripped jeans. One wore a pair of scuffed trainers, the other two went barefoot. She glanced across the road. There was a parked van with the sliding panel door open. The driver got out, looked at the men, then nodded.

She knew she was in trouble. She could take any one of these men on their own, but not in a group. She glanced behind her, noticed a white saloon car driving behind. For a moment, she thought of her fiancé Alex. What would he do? He would have been carrying a knife for sure, would probably have used it by now. She cursed herself for being taken in by the magnificent hotels, the mariner. She should never have run so far, taken the city on face value. She’d been a dumb tourist. She wished she had used the hotel’s gym instead.

“Miss Darby!” the man called from behind. He had stopped the car, it’s engine still running. He rested a large black semi-automatic handgun on the roof of the car, casually and unassuming, but the dangerous end was aiming at the man in the middle of the three. “What a coincidence,” he said. “I was early for our meeting and thought I’d take in the sights as well.” He looked at the three men, who were all frozen on the spot. “You fellas got someplace else to be?”

They hesitated, seemed to catch the man’s drift in unison and scattered in all directions. The man with the van was already driving away, the door still open.

The man with the gun smiled at Caroline. He was tall and bronzed, his hair was fair, and he wore an open shirt which was not quite Hawaiian in design, but was in the same postcode. He looked like he should have been advertising Old Spice in the seventies. “I’m Peter Kruger, State Security Agency,” he said as he holstered the pistol in a cross-draw holster under his shirt.

Caroline stepped off the pavement. “Well, I’m glad you just happened by,” she said, then smiled. “I don’t think you did, but I’m certainly glad you came along.”

“Cape Town is a beautiful place, but like all towns, it has its bad places,” he said, his accent was thick with tones of Afrikaans and a guttural drawl.

“Well, I’ll make sure I don’t go to those places again,” she replied casually. In truth she was relived, felt a release of adrenalin from the close call. It didn’t bare thinking what the men had wanted to do with her.

“Oh, believe me, this is a good area still, compared to most,” Kruger said seriously. “But you would certainly have seen a worse place with those guys.”

“What do you think they wanted?”

“Here, get in,” Kruger stepped around the bonnet and opened the passenger door. He waited until they were both inside before continuing, “They would have gangbanged you for sure,” he said. “Gang rape. A pretty white woman like you, well… Let’s just say, they would have called all their friends, made a little money for the day.”

She was visibly shocked. “That happens a lot?”

“More than it should, I guess.”

“Well, it shouldn’t happen at all.”

“I mean, yeah. It happens. They take a woman back to the townships, some are worse places than others. There was a young, white South African girl found out near Khayelitsha last month. She’d been raped so many times, well… Anyway, she was eventually strangled, and her body dumped outside the township. The police tried their best, but the investigation is going nowhere. Too many blacks living outside the system.”

Caroline wasn’t comfortable with the way Kruger spoke, the way he seemed to rest the emphasis on blacks, but she had been forewarned that Cape Town wasn’t London. Culturally, and politically it was worlds apart. Apartheid was over, many of the jobs had gone to black people, but there were still white people with twenty-year-old views living and working in the system. Many of them were disgruntled at the change in tide.

“Where are we going?” Caroline asked. “I need to take a shower and change before we visit the prison,” she said. She could see the Victoria and Alfred Hotel in the distance, but the road was winding around to the left.

Kruger pulled the car into the side of the road and a tanned man with a long ponytail opened the rear door and slid in, he wrapped his hand around Caroline, let the tip of the knife rest under her chin. She froze, pressed her head back into the headrest to avoid the glistening blade.

“Should have let those caffer gangbangers take you back there,” Kruger said. “But they might not have finished the job, eh ‘bro?”

“Fucking right,” the man with the knife said, then added, “No body, no pay, eh?”

“What are you doing?” Caroline gasped.

“Thought we made that clear?”

“Is this about Vigus Badenhorst?”

“Who?” Kruger glanced at his accomplice in the mirror. “You know that name, Vince?”

“No, ‘bro.”

“Never