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coolness by putting his hand through the open window—the air-conditioning in his Mercedes had long since given up the ghost. A collector’s item, just like him—Tracy had said that, and he had taken it as a compliment. He wasn’t thinking about her as he drove, or about the weekend with “Jim.”
    David’s intrusion had left a bitter taste in his mouth. They had hardly spoken for six years, and when they had it had been so unpleasant it would have been better to keep quiet. Brian hoped that things would work out, but David and his mother still bore him a grudge. He had cheated on her—that was true—mostly with black women. Brian was faithful only to his beliefs, but when you came down to it, it was all his fault. Ruby had always been a tragic, deeply wounded fury, and he’d been a complete idiot—it was plain as could be that the woman was a force-ten storm warning. They had met at a Nine Inch Nails concert during a festival in support of the release of Mandela, and the way she had been exploding in the middle of that electronic din should have made him sensitive to the cyclones to come—a girl who bounced up and down to the riffs of Nine Inch Nails was obviously pure dynamite. Brian had fallen in love, an encounter of two parallel lines suddenly converging, a hot beam of love making straight for her crazy eyes.
    In Constantia, Epkeen narrowly missed the colored with the bandaged head zigzagging in the middle of the road, and stopped at the red light. The man, his shirt torn and bloodstained, walked on a little way, then collapsed, and lay there in the sun with his arms out. Other down-and-outs were sleeping it off on the sidewalks, too befuddled with alcohol to hold out their hands to the few passersby.
    Brian turned at the corner of the avenue and took the M3 in the direction of Kirstenbosch.
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    Two police vehicles were blocking access to the Botanical Gardens. Brian saw the forensics van in the parking lot, Neuman’s car parked close to the souvenir shops, and groups of tourists disconcerted by the irritability with which they were being turned away. The clouds were tumbling from the top of the mountain like frightened sheep. Brian showed his badge to the constable manning the barrier, passed under the arch of the big banana tree at the entrance, and, pursued by swarms of insects, followed the birdsong to the main path.
    Kirstenbosch was a living museum, a multicolored tide of plants, trees, and flowers stretching to the foot of the mountain. On the English-style lawn, a pheasant flew off as he passed, making a mocking sound as it did so. Brian reached the acacia grove.
    A little farther on, he saw His Majesty, his tall frame stooped beneath the branches, talking in a low voice with Tembo, the medical examiner. An old black in green overalls was standing behind them, cut in half by the shade and his overlarge cap. One lab team was taking prints from the ground, another had nearly finished taking photographs. Brian nodded to Tembo in his jazzy felt hat—he was just leaving—and the old man in his municipal overalls. Neuman was waiting for him before he himself left.
    â€œYou’re not looking too good,” he said when he saw him.
    â€œIn ten years, my friend, just you wait.”
    At that moment, Brian saw the body in the middle of the flowers, and the front he had been keeping up since the minute he woke up this morning, already somewhat undermined, now crumbled a little more.
    â€œIt was this gentleman who found her this morning,” Neuman said, indicating the gardener.
    The old black said nothing. It was obvious he didn’t want to be there. Brian bent over the irises, taking deep breaths to steady his nerves. The girl was lying on her back, but it was the sight of the head that made him recoil. You couldn’t see her eyes, or her features. She’d been wiped off the map, and her tensed hands, which seemed to be reaching toward an