Murderous by David Hickson (best ereader for comics .txt) 📕

me closely, “when I was fifteen. My friends say that is why I go for the bullies, and the men who treat me badly.” She laughed again, a peal of bells. “I was attacked and raped.” The smile that her laugh had brought to her lips dissolved away in the tears. “Hendrik looks after me. He gave me this.” She reached a hand down to the inside of her thigh where a thin strap of elasticated lace could be seen. “I don’t sleep with it,” she said, as if I had raised an objection. “I take it off in bed.”

She lifted a slim silver object and turned it about in her fingers like she was about to perform a magical trick. It was the size of a small comb. Melissa shook her hand and there was a metallic sliding sound followed by a light click. A four-inch metal blade protruded from the silver handle.

“Sharp as a razor,” said Melissa. “Hendrik says I should use it on the next man who tries to rape me.” She looked at the blade and gave a sad smile. “Cut his balls off. Or cut his throat.” She pressed on the flat edge of the blade, returned it to the sheath, then tucked the knife into the lace strap. “I am tipsy,” she declared. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.”

“Perhaps because Hendrik has done something to frighten you?” I suggested. Melissa turned to me and her eyes filled up again and spilt more silver tears. “What was that man they accused of doing the church killings shouting about when he tried to set fire to the lodge?”

“Hendrik didn’t do it,” said Melissa. “That man was mad.”

“Do what?”

“Kill his brother.”

“Is that what he was shouting about? His brother?”

“He said Hendrik had shot his brother.”

“And Hendrik denied it?”

“Hendrik did nothing. Roelof handled it. He went out and spoke with the man.”

“And what did Roelof say about it?”

“Nothing. A friend of mine was married that weekend. We were busy with the parties and all the guests. I didn’t see Roelof for days.” Melissa gave a shiver as if she’d just realised she was only wearing a single layer of fabric. “Roelof gives me the creeps,” she said, then laughed again and turned her body to face me. “Roelof thinks that you and your boss are criminals. Even the big black guy. Con men, that’s what he said. He thinks you’re planning some big con on Oom Piet and Hendrik.”

“Is that so?”

“Are you? I don’t mind if you are.”

“I wonder how he figured it out.”

Melissa laughed. “Perhaps that’s why I like you,” she said. “I always go for the rotten ones. And you’re not my type at all. Did I tell you that? There must be something rotten about you.”

“I’m rotten to the core,” I said.

“He thinks your boss was a soldier who went bad. And you too, but he cannot find out anything about you. That’s why he’s suspicious. Are you a soldier? I like soldiers.”

Melissa reached out a long-fingered hand, and walked it like a spider across my chest, and then down over my stomach.

“Come out and play soldier boy.”

“You are going to catch a cold,” I said, lifting the spider away as it clambered over my belt buckle. I returned it to her, but Melissa held onto my hand in retaliation.

“You’re such a boring man,” said Melissa, and she pouted.

“Better to be boring than bruised, that’s what my mother used to say.”

“Your mother didn’t know what she was talking about,” said Melissa, and she brought my captured hand up to her mouth and kissed it. Then she nibbled at a finger, and bit at it gently as if she was finding the right place to bite it off. “I’m the last door at the end of the terrace,” she said. “If you fall off the end, you’ve gone too far.”

She stood up and used my hand to straighten the night gown over all the curvy bits.

“I’ll be waiting for you,” she said. “Hendrik was snoring, so I moved into the other room. I’ve got it all to myself.” She used my hand to check the hem of her nightgown and to confirm that she wasn’t wearing anything beneath it, then turned and floated away down the terrace.

I allowed myself one more cigarette and wondered about the pilgrimage that Q’s brother was on. Or had Hendrik killed him? In which case, what had Roelof done to deal with the situation?

Sixteen

At oh seven hundred hours the next morning, Roelof was wearing a light suit with a freshly pressed shirt and a dark orange tie, which he had tucked into his shirt so it didn’t fall into his cornflakes. I too was sporting a freshly pressed shirt, courtesy of the night staff and Chandler’s foresight, and was dressed in the way Colonel Colchester liked his assistant to present himself to the world: linen suit, middle button fastened, tie with tie-pin, and sparkling Italian brogues. Beside Roelof sat the muscle-bound security man Kenneth, his jacket slung over the back of the chair so that his arms could breathe, the crisp white cotton of a new shirt taking the strain over the biceps. He had a proud Zulu face and kind eyes. I placed my heavy plate of bacon and eggs across from Roelof’s cornflakes, nodded a greeting to Kenneth and told them what a good morning I thought it was. Roelof agreed, but didn’t put much enthusiasm into it. Kenneth didn’t commit either way. Roelof wiped his lips with a napkin as a signal that he considered the foreplay complete.

“Mr Van Rensburg wants us to accompany them on the game drive,” said Roelof. “Apparently you have knowledge of the weapons that are being demonstrated.”

“Of course,” I said and helped myself to a mouthful of egg. I wasn’t sure how Chandler had managed that, but no doubt the idea of Fat-Boy trying to demonstrate the weapons to Piet van Rensburg had kept him awake all night.

“Kenneth