The Score. HJ Golakai

jumped a metre off her chair and Vee nearly choked on a mouthful of scone. Looming over them wide-eyed, the Indian girl immediately helped herself to a vacant chair and pressed her hand into each of theirs before they had a chance to object. Vee edged her phone to elbow and killed the screen.

      “Aneshree Chowdri,” the girl said slowly, casting a wide net of weighted pause in Vee’s direction. One pregnant pause and several blinks later, she shifted in her seat. “Okay. Anyway … I asked, did they really consider you a murder suspect?”

      Her accent was poshly affected, a nice muddle of ‘larney’ with the Asian lilt peculiar to South Africa, India by way of Durban most likely. The sultry droop of her sooty eyes and curve of jawline Vee found quite becoming, though her tone was sharp to an almost nasal vibration, at jarring odds with her looks. She had the air of one used to getting immediate compliance to a perpetual litany of demands.

      “Um … we happened to be around when the staff members found the body, so the police wanted to question us too,” Chlöe said.

      “Really? And how’d that happen? That you were around?” Aneshree studied them, eyes probing. “You’re journalists, right?”

      Vee opened her mouth, thought better of it and stuffed in the last bite of scone. She got to her feet. “I’m heading out to finish doing the thing. You stay here and …” she eyed Chlöe over Aneshree’s head, “rub shoulders for a while.”

      “But – should I – what if –”

      “Won’t take long.”

      “She really didn’t place me,” Aneshree muttered.

      “Aaagghhhhh …”

      Insides knotting up in distress, Chlöe watched Vee’s retreating back as it hustled into the foyer. What the hell could be in central Oudtshoorn, besides more trouble and drawing unwanted attention to them? What was she supposed to do in the meantime? Call Nico? Try me and dare call Nico, so I can wire your flat butt good, Vee’s voice growled in her mind. Chlöe gulped. Between a tongue-lashing from the top and the mere threat of an ass-whupping from the middle, she made the easiest hard decision she’d made all week and tucked her cell away.

      “Her.” Aneshree flicked her dark head in the foyer’s direction. “She didn’t make me out in the slightest.”

      Chlöe blew a weary breath. “Sorry, was she meant to?”

      “I thought so, but …” Aneshree shrugged and smirked. “Considering she’s the one keeping my brother’s dick in her purse.”

      Chlöe coughed toast into a napkin. “Say what now?”

      Aneshree giggled, preening. “You two seemed pretty close. Or maybe you’re not.”

      “We are.”

      “Then come on. Chowdri. As in …” Aneshree hiked her eyebrows and let them hover. “Joshua Allen Chowdri. His sister.”

      Chlöe gawped. “Huh?” Joshua Allen has another sister? Wait, Joshua’s other surname is Chowdri?! She’d absorbed enough info from Vee to recall a vague mention of a younger Allen sibling, an overprotected model wannabe working in catalogues somewhere in America. This one was neither black, not even partly, nor American. “How are you here? How do you know Vee?” Squinting now, Chlöe leaned closer, teeth bared. “Are you following her?”

      Aneshree broke into raucous laughter. “Geez, calm down. What are you, her pitbull? No-one’s following anyone. I don’t know know her but I know of her; Cape Town’s small enough. Besides,” one shoulder tugged in a semi-guilty, semi-proud way, “I tend to follow my brother’s antics with some interest. Depending on what it is.”

      “So how …” Chlöe threw a quizzical look around the dining room.

      “Oh, how am I part of this motley crew?” Aneshree popped a forkful of orange wedges into her mouth. “Work.”

      “Work as in …”

      “Software developer. Graphics here and there.”

      “Ah, you’re with …” Chlöe took a shovel to the terrain of last night’s memory, already fallow under layers of hangover, little sleep and a healthy dash of morning trauma. The plump, older lady, waterfall hair, what had been her name? “Mishra? Moodley? Moodley, mm-hmm. Thought she was in catering or something like that. Oh I get it, you do their website.”

      “Events management. And no, I don’t work for them. Not all Indians are in business together. She’s my aunty’s friend.”

      “I didn’t mean –”

      “I’m here as an independent observer. Humouring my boss, you could say. So far …” She flip-flopped a hand.

      “Not good, I’m guessing? Like, I don’t know jack about any of this, but this new development hardly bodes well for a smoothly running process.”

      “Well, let’s just say I didn’t expect it to be an easy ride from the beginning and it hasn’t been one. Didn’t expect a dead body served up with breakfast, that’s for sure.”

      “Can say that again.” Chlöe licked her yoghurt spoon absently as she cast her mind to Vee, out there stirring up plumes of drama. She scratched her scalp until she flinched. First things first: get cleaned up. Thoroughly. Then she could think clearly, probably along the lines of an escape route, party of one if it came to that. Vee could chase villains on her ace if that’s what she wanted.

      Aneshree shifted her chair closer. “How long has she been frolicking with my so-called brother? Is she really from Libya? That’s so hectic. What with this Arab Spring going on right now, and all the, like, Arab rage, how crazy is that. She must be worried sick about her family.”

      “Uhhh …”

      “Not that she looks Libyan. Maybe she’s from one of those nomadic sects who look black. Hey, is it true my so-called brother got her knocked up and deserted her, then she had an abortion and a crazy meltdown?”

      “Are you kidding me right now?”