Random Violence Read Online Free Page A

of heavy trucks on the highway, travelling through the night. Closer to home, she heard dogs barking. Why were they barking in the small hours of the morning?
    She unlocked her bedroom door and walked towards the kitchen, the cold tiles stinging her bare feet.
    The security light outside the kitchen window cast dark shadows onto the floor. Jade padded over to the window and looked out. She could see the gleam of the metal body of a car. It was parked on the road outside her house, headlights off. Somebody was watching her.
    She tensed, and dropped down to her knees. If she could see the vehicle outside, could the driver see her?
    While she was crouching on the floor, she heard the scrunch of wheels. The car was moving off. Straightening up, she saw it pull away, the shadows patterning its side.
    She took a deep, shuddering breath. It could have been opportunistic criminals checking out a newly arrived resi-dent. She didn’t think so, though, but she didn’t know why.
    Jade turned on all the lights and checked the cottage thor-oughly. The front door was secure. The alarm was armed. The battery box that fed the electric fence was beeping quietly, its green light flashing.
    She got back into bed and lay there listening until the traffic noises grew louder and the birds began to sing and the sky turned from black to gray.

    Annette Botha had died almost immediately after the first bullet hit her. According to the coroner’s report, her chest had been penetrated by one of the two .45 caliber bullets that hit her. It had burst the aorta, causing a massive rupture. The gush of her blood had flooded her heart, stopping it instantly.
    The other shot, to her throat, had torn open her carotid artery. That would have been fatal on its own.
    Jade had set up a temporary office in the kitchen, where she could see the road outside. Even with an oil heater next to the table, the room was freezing. Chilly air seeped through the gaps in the door and window frames, dispersing the heat as soon as it was produced.
    She turned the page and took a sip of coffee. She’d found bread, butter and cheese in the fridge. And two bottles of Tabasco in the cupboard. David’s contribution, she was sure. She was having cheese on toast for breakfast, liberally dotted with Tabasco.
    The two bullets had been fired from an estimated distance of around six meters. So, Annette’s killer knew how to shoot. There were plenty of gun-carrying criminals in South Africa who didn’t. They only used them for show, to scare. To be certain of killing somebody, they’d have to fire from point-blank range. At six meters, in the stress of the moment, some-body unfamiliar with guns would’ve probably missed the target completely. A random hit would have been a lucky shot.
    Annette had clearly been murdered by an experienced shooter. Someone cool and calculating, with a steady hand. Someone who had fired twice, a swift and deadly double-tap, placing the bullets where they would kill. Jade looked up from the file and considered the distance. From six meters, she could have put the bullets side by side in the woman’s head.
    She read in David’s report that Piet Botha had been in Cape Town, where he lived, when the murder took place. On the evening that Annette was shot, he’d been giving an art class to his night students.
    “Still a suspect,” David had written. “Could have organ-ized it. Inherits everything. Won’t assume he’s innocent until cleared beyond doubt.”
    Later on, when Jade phoned Piet she discovered he was in Jo’burg, packing up the house where his ex-wife had died. She got directions from him and said she’d be round in half an hour.
    Paging through the map she’d bought at the airport, she was amazed to see that Jo’burg and Pretoria had practically merged, woven together into a megalopolis by a spidery network of streets, highways, businesses and residential developments.
    Jade remembered her history teacher telling the class that