Smallwater

By Eve Davidson

Love, death, and revenge in the Great Karoo. After the tragic sudden death of her mother, beautiful art student, Crystal Jameson, gets sucked into the twilight world of crime and drugs by Flat Moose, Hillbrow’s ruling drug lord and brothel owner. By a miracle Crystal is saved from certain death and moves to the small Karoo town of Smallwater to restart her life. Meanwhile in Hillbrow, Flat Moose finds 5 million rand missing from his office safe, and is convinced Crystal is involved. He vows to track her down to recover the cash and take his revenge. Then an unforeseen spectacular event occurs in Smallwater that will change everything forever . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eve Davidson
• Release date: Dec 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9780620914796

Eve Davidson

Eve Davidson lives in Cape Town and has been writing since the age of ten.She attended school in Cape Town and then in Harare and Bulawayo when her family moved to Zimbabwe, and took a Fine Art Course at Durban Technical College when thefamily returned to South Africa.Eve’s varied working history includes selling used cars, crafts and patchwork quilts, interior décor, antiques, paintings and African artifacts, the building industry and the restaurant trade and office admin for small businesses.Her very successful South African Sitcom “Streaks” was aired for two seasons on SABC 1 in the late 1990s to excellent audience ratings. She’s written amusing columns for South Africans living abroad in the UK, Europe the USA and the far East and her poetry has been published in Contrast Magazine and in an Anthology of South African Poets.She completed her first dramatic thriller novella, Smallwater, in 2019. Her second and third novellas Foxglove and Thirteen – are soon to be published in ebook format.

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Smallwater - A novella of love, death and revenge set in the Great Karoo by Eve Davidson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owners.

Copyright © 2020 Eve Davidson

First published 2020 on Smashwords

Original Concept and Story: Writers Guild of America West, Reg No. 1558658 - 2 July 2012

ISBN: 978-0-620-91479-6

E-book formatting: Gavin Joachims Publishing (Pty) Ltd.

Cover design: Adam Carnegie

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Only in the vast, empty spaces of the world do we learn who we truly are.

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Table of Contents

Prologue

Part One

Heathrow Airport, England - Winter 2008

The Otter Trail, Tsitsikamma Forest, Garden Route National Park

The Avenues, Houghton Estate, Johannesburg

Hillbrow

Womens’ Residence, Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg

The Jungle Room, Hillbrow

Female Student Residence, Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg

Ponte City, Hillbrow

Administration Offices, Hillbrow Police Station

Caprivi Street, Tembisa

Amadora 24/7 Convenience Superette, Hillbrow

Jameson Property Investments, Sandton City Office Towers, Johannesburg

The Jungle Room Office

Jameson Property Investments

Regal Crescent Luxury Apartments, Sandton

The Maurice Shaffner Clinic

Part Two

The Great Karoo

Smallwater

The Kom In Café kitchen

The Rockery Hotel, Stable Yard

The parking lot, Main Street

The trail on Verloorde Kans

The Jungle Room Office

The Maurice Shaffner Clinic, Switzerland

Dr Werner’s Office

The Jungle Room Bar

The Maurice Shaffner Clinic

The dry riverbed, on the outskirts of Smallwater

The N12 Highway in the Great Karoo

Verloorde Kans

The Kom In Café

Patsy’s Room

The Jungle Room Office

The Kom In Café – the next morning

Verloorde Kans

Meggels’ and Miranda’s hotel suite

Fingers’ Shack

Linga Longa, Houghton Estate, Johannesburg

The Hotel Bar

The top of Verloorde Kans

Meggels’ and Miranda’s suite

The open veld near Smallwater

Orlando East, Soweto

The Smallwater Bottling Plant

The Cottage

The Road into Smallwater

The Cottage

The Road to the Cottage

Part Three

The N12 Highway

The Crash Site

Sarie’s Room at The Kom In Café

Klaas and Nini’s shack

Sarie’s Room

The Dining Room

The Kom In Café

Amsterdam

The Dining Room

Sarie’s Room

8.30pm - La Nova Apartments, Parktown North, Johannesburg

Midnight - Wazi Flats, Hillbrow

The Hotel Bar

The N12 Highway outside Smallwater

Lagos International Airport, Nigeria

The Hotel Bar

The Kom In Café

Epilogue

***

Prologue

The R46 Motorway, Johannesburg

It took only five days for Jozi drivers to pack the new motorway to full capacity. Alert and quick off the mark with a hunger for speed they knew a good thing when they saw it. Slackers didn’t stand a chance. Civil engineers and construction crews of the Gauteng Roads and Transport Department had laboured for three years to bring the project to fruition, and impressive it was. Four wide lanes inbound, four outbound, laid across the Highveld flatlands. Gantries holding massive green road signs suspended overhead, arrows and curves pointing every which way. On and off ramps perfectly kiltered, so smooth that changing down and pedal to the metal felt like a Formula One racetrack - drivers loved it. The traffic moved at just under the speed limit; slow enough to gear down and hit the brakes to avoid collisions, and fast enough to pursue the two great forces of eGoli: pleasure and money.

Today was no different, except for a gathering storm out west. Towering charcoal thunderheads massed, building against a sky the colour of tarnished silver. Vicious lightning forked and snapped, deafening thunderclaps tore the electric air to shreds.

In the third inbound lane Nina Simone’s sultry contralto purr wrapped Sharon Jameson in a warm fuzzy blanket, soothing the ominous approach of the storm. Small and

well-made, Sharon was a fearless driver and at forty-something she had two decades of road skills to call on. Her long honey-coloured pageboy swung against the cashmere coat and snagged in the amber and silver necklace as she whipped her head back and forth, checking for an opening. A bakkie in front weighed down with a load of coffins hastily strapped with rope and frayed stretch ties looked dangerous, a coffin in the middle pile moved slightly. Sharon winced, time to move fast. A sixteen-wheeler removal truck roared past on her right. The bakkie speeded up – a gap opened.

She checked the rear view mirror then nosed the blood red Jag coupe into the left-hand lane and accelerated, causing the slim leather briefcase on the passenger seat to slide towards her. Suddenly a loud bang drowned out Nina, followed by whooshing compressed air. The car slowed and slewed to the right, a fast slapping sound followed by bits of black rubber flying past the driver’s window. Ramming into third, she yanked the wheel to the left and tapped the brake, the car slid onto the gravel shoulder, wheels spinning fast. The briefcase catapulted off the seat and wedged between the pedals. She gasped as a giant elevated road sign loomed through the windscreen.

In a last desperate attempt Sharon yanked the shift into second – the gears grated and jammed. The engine screamed, the Jag skidded on the gravel and hit the sign’s pole with the speed of an express train. It buckled with a giant groan, the board collapsing forward and half a ton of steel and aluminum smashed down on the Jag’s roof. Metal screeched as the driver’s door was torn away. Sharon screamed and ducked, the impact threw her body forwards then back against the seat. A shard from the splintered rear view mirror flew downwards and ripped into her neck. In the west, the heavens opened and curtains of rain swept towards the motorway.

Pandemonium erupted, a traffic jam developed in seconds. Rubberneckers pulled over and rushed towards the spectacular accident. The driver of the coffin bakkie was the first on the scene, bug-eyed with horror. While craning for a better look several onlookers hastily dialled emergency numbers on their cells.

Within minutes, the shrill wah-wah of a siren announced the arrival of a Metro Traffic Police vehicle, it screeched to a halt on the gravel shoulder. The young Zulu traffic officer stared in panic through the windscreen. Fresh out of training college it was his first week on the job. His mind raced as he tried to recall the procedure lectures on first aid and correct protocol. He leapt out and sprinted towards the car, shouting for the onlookers to make way and shouldered through the crowd. His eyes flicked towards a narrow gap under the sign, he caught a glimpse of a bloody limp body. Dropping to his knees he crawled cautiously through the opening, twisting not to snag his jacket which could bring the whole lot crashing down on him.

As he peered into the interior rain swept over the buckled sign and water poured through the broken car roof, washing over a wide bloody arc splashed across the ceiling and upholstery. Faintly he heard Nina crooning for her lost lover. A thick trail of blood oozed down Sharon’s neck, staining her coat and blouse, her face white and still. Gently, with shaking fingers he took her broken wrist in his hand. There was no pulse.

Part One

DESCENT

Heathrow Airport, England, Winter 2008

As Flight SAA 342 roared down the runway and lifted off with the grace of a dancer Flat Moose watched the vast fields of lights of his mother city as they shrank into sparkling pinpricks and swiftly faded as the great plane’s nose plunged into the freezing night. He removed his jacket and laid it on the vacant business class seat next to him, stretched with luxurious satisfaction, and smiled like a Cheshire cat. His plan had unfolded like a rose in full bloom, perfect in every detail.

The rot had set in several months before when Al Costello went under the knife to remove a benign tumour from his ageing brain. The delicate surgery was completed without a hitch and a month later Al was back behind his desk, his head swathed in bandages and by all appearances back to his old self. However, within a week startling and unnerving cracks in Al’s usual ruthless and vicious behaviour began to appear. He snarled and snapped like a bad-tempered bulldog, made irrational decisions and ordered unnecessary hits at random. His crew grew uneasy, and wary of carrying out orders. The mobster who had terrorized the London underworld for over two decades became a bumbling fool who spread chaos like confetti. As head of drug acquisitions Flat Moose was a kingpin in Al’s organised crime operation, and without warning Al began to interfere, pushing and prodding, demanding to be part of Moose’s drug deals. He offended the Korean Gongpo brothers who strode haughtily from an important meeting with eyes glittering, spitting insults all the way down in the lift to their waiting car. Moose’s Golden Triangle Cambodian middleman contact Pak-Loo was reluctant to do further business until the atmosphere of proper respect was restored. A cold fury started to burn in Moose’s gut. The fiasco had to end, and without waiting to see what would happen next, he swung into action and hired a Slavic assassin who went by the name of Rudi the Ace – a highly skilled and experienced killer who guaranteed results. Late one night the brakes failed on Al’s Bentley Continental and hit a flyover bridge pillar at 95 mph. Al was instantly crushed and the only recognizable parts left of the beautiful vehicle were the steering wheel and the rear number plate.

Moose launched into damage control mode: a kilo of powdered Rhino horn and a crate of Irish Moonshine arrived at the home of the Gongpo brothers, together with a personal note from Moose. To Pak-Loo, he sent a finely-crafted knife fashioned from a German WW11 Karabiner 98k bayonet and a year’s supply of saffron and myrrh incense to enhance Pak-Loo’s prayer rituals at the feet of the Golden Buddha in Bangkok. All was forgiven. With two personal bulging bank accounts guarded by the gnomes of Zurich Moose turned his attention to Africa - the dark and fertile continent of opportunity and easy money. He settled on Johannesburg; bustling with big business and a sprawling multi-culture where he could build an empire and be king.

A dazzling smile lit his handsome face as he watched the pert Xhosa Air Hostess approach with the drinks trolley.

‘Good evening sir, would you like a drink?’

‘Well, that’s a good start to me holiday,’ his eyes slid over her body and homed in on her nametag, ‘Zanele is it? Three fingers of your best single malt with ice would do me wicked darling.’

The demure hostess had no idea what he’d meant, but she sensed a dark danger with this one. She dutifully poured a perfect drink, which she presented on a little tray, the ice cubes tinkling.

‘Dinner will be served in thirty minutes sir, welcome to South African Airways,’ she purred. Moose studied her sleek dark legs as she pushed the trolley up the isle. Bit of all right that one. He made a mental note: exotic local girls hungry for prestige and cash.

He toasted the ghost of Al Costello. Yeah, life was looking up.

The Otter Trail, Tsitsikamma Forest, Garden Route National Park

Crystal’s left shoulder had started to ache. She cartwheeled her arm and adjusted the straps of the heavy pack. It was hard-going and the extra jeans and t-shirts had been a bad idea. She ignored the discomfort and gazed around. It’s so amazing here – a real forest. How old are these trees? And that sound, it’s the sea! Must over that ridge. She closed her eyes and inhaled luxuriously; the salty tang and earthy forest smells were to her senses as fine wine to a connoisseur. The green canopy above swayed gently, bird calls echoed through the branches. Pulling her long black ponytail over her shoulder immediately cooled her neck. Behind her Jacqui grunted and stamped her foot.

‘You OK Jacks?’ She called over her shoulder.

‘Ja, not too bad, but I’m tired and my foot’s going to sleep.’

‘And we thought this would be easy. What did you say, falling off a log? Was that a joke or what?’

‘Just look at Gift – he’s not even sweating. He’s actually enjoying himself.’

They stared enviously at the Xhosa student striding energetically along the narrow track in front of them.

Crystal shrugged, ‘He walks all over campus. We just haul books and drive everywhere.’

‘We’re girls Crys, we’re not supposed to do that stuff.’

Jacqui continued grumbling.

‘I’m sick of all this water. My insides are sloshing. I want coffee, with lots of sugar. You got anything to eat?’

Crystal unzipped the moneybag around her waist and scrabbled inside.

‘Three energy bars and your favourite - squashed chocolate.’

‘Gimme, quick!’

Jacqui snatched the chocolate from her best friend’s fingers and stuffed it into her

mouth.

‘Ah, that’s better,’ she mumbled through the sticky mess.

Up front, Damien the trail leader halted and raised his hand.

‘Right everyone, break time. There’s a clearing up front, let’s take a breather.’

Crystal Jameson was just five years old when she discovered the great outdoors. It happened on a picnic. Two nursery school teachers herded the excited class of eighteen into a bus and set off. In the shade overlooking a lake cartons of milk, sandwiches and cup cakes