‘Daisy was a real tragedy,’ Dr Mabuse said, wiping his spectacles on his overalls. ‘Silas did not mean to kill her. That is what he told me then, and I believe him even now. He had heard things about her. About how she was very friendly, especially with men who had money in their pockets, and so he decided to have his chance with her. Unfortunately for him, it all went wrong. He had known that Jasper had arranged a rendezvous with Daisy, and so he purposefully sent him to the city to get supplies, and then went to the store in Jasper’s place. She arrived at the store wearing a brand-new dress that Jasper had given her. Instead of Jasper, she found Silas. He made his advances. She rebuffed them. He had not been expecting to be rejected. He was, after all, the owner of the store and the wealthiest man around. Needless to say, he did not take the rejection well, and there was an altercation and a struggle. At some point he pushed her, and she fatally struck her head on the corner of the counter top. He panicked and called me – a friend and a doctor in training. I believe it was only once I suggested we cut her up to dispose of the body that we found uses for her organs. Uses that could fortify his business, and teach me more about anatomy … and so we found uses for her organs. I helped him dispose of the body, and I think that in the process we recognised something in each other. The rest, as they say, is history.’

‘If I had caught you then, you would not have had much of a history,’ the Chief Inspector said, his voice a mixture of pain and regret.

‘How could you have caught us then when you were so set on Jasper? Raftopoulos, the Greek travelling salesman, put the fear of God into us when he kept talking of the two men – one white, the other black – he had driven past on the night in question. We can only thank colonial race relations that not much was made of what Raftopoulos had said. What else could we have been but master and servant? By the time you found out that Jasper had an airtight alibi, Silas had already packed him off to Zambia where he could not put two and two together. We had covered all our tracks, but we never stopped fearing you.’

‘And Sitshengisiwe Dlodlo?’

‘Let’s just say that Silas really wanted to be a Member of Parliament.’

‘Wanted?’

‘Well, now it turns out that he is going to be the new Emil Coetzee.’

‘The new Emil Coetzee?’

‘Yes, The Head of the Organisation of Domestic Affairs.’

Spokes

SPOKES