Free The Serpentine Road by Paul Mendelson

with interest. She had those artists tied to her for as long as she wanted.’
    ‘You have had dealings with her before?’
    ‘I had my opinion of her.’
    ‘You didn’t like her?’
    ‘Not very much, no.’
    De Vries gets up, glances at Don.
    Don February gets out of his chair and squats down next to her.
    ‘Can I ask you? Miss Holt: had she visited you here?’
    Brenda Botes leans away from him, squeezes the word from her lips.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘She was a member of your group?’
    ‘She would not abide by the wishes of the majority.’
    Don nods. He squats lower, so that she is looking down at him, even from her sitting position.
    ‘But she joined you? Why did she come?’
    Brenda Botes drops her head.
    ‘I cannot tell you that.’
    ‘But, Miss Holt is dead. Was she a victim?’
    ‘She said she could not trust men, that they exploited her. But, when we got to know her, the group agreed: she was no victim.’
    ‘Why did you think that?’
    ‘She did what she wanted.’
    ‘And you do not?’
    ‘Do not? Can not. This is the fate of many women.’
    ‘So she left?’
    She folds her arms.
    ‘She was asked to leave.’
    ‘Was there bad feeling between her and your group?’
    ‘She had promised money for the group. She withdrew it. Taryn Holt was never really part of our group; she was only interested in herself.’
    Don nods at her, smiles, turns to De Vries, whose gaze seems out of focus.
    ‘Then,’ he says quietly, ‘we will leave you.’
    ‘How,’ De Vries says as he opens the car door, ‘did you know that Taryn Holt had been part of that set-up?’
    They both get in.
    ‘I did not know, but Miss Botes referred to her as Taryn. It was familiar in a way that she was not otherwise.’
    ‘Very good.’
    ‘You think that they could pose a threat? That group?’
    ‘No. I think it is a few women who are afraid and they come together to hold each other’s hands.’
    De Vries nods, pulls out from the parking space, smirking.
    ‘Even so, it seems you wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of the group?’
    Don smiles.
    ‘No, sir.’
    De Vries drives up Vineyard Street, which climbs the mountain close to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. It is 4.30 p.m., and he steers between the steady trickle of descending domestic workers: broad-hipped black housemaids in bright colours, leaning back to balance on the gradient; skinny coloured handymen in tight scruffy suits smoking roll-ups; and blue-boilersuited garden workers, encrusted with lawn clippings. All retrace this morning’s climb, descend to the short stretch of Rhodes Drive, trudge up the main freeway towards the university and wait in a lay-by for a taxi-van to take them home to their township of Langa or Khayelitsha or Mfuleni.
    He changes down a gear to take the sharp left turn and makes the vertiginous climb onto Vineyard Heights, locking eyes with a haughty ginger cat, which freezes with its paw raised to its mouth on the bonnet of a parked car, freewheels down to the end of the cul-de-sac, parks by the plain white wall of John Marantz’s house.
    John Marantz and he have been friends for almost ten years. Marantz worked for the British government until someone kidnapped his wife and daughter. He has never seen them since. De Vries and Marantz have drunk together, seeking salvation in oblivion. De Vries came to this house to avoid his own – his driven, demanding wife and ambitious daughters; now he is here because he is alone.
    He pats Marantz’s Irish terrier, Flynn, and hears his quadraphonic footsteps behind him as the lithe dog overtakes them both on the inside down the long staircase.
    ‘What,’ De Vries says at the bottom landing, ‘do you know about Holt Industries?’
    John Marantz gestures into his kitchen, to a perfectly straight line of six bottled beers on the marble counter.
    ‘Nothing until I read Taryn Holt had been killed. You got that case?’
    ‘ Ja .’
    Marantz smiles to himself.
    ‘You get where the action is, don’t