Chapter 10 - The Ridge

I kept my head down as I made the walk of shame past the reception desk and let myself out of the hotel through a side door onto High Street. My face was burning at the memory of the manager who'd greeted Menzi by name as we got into the lift. I could only imagine what he'd thought of me. He had to know what Menzi kept that suite for. I couldn't stand the thought of being the next in a long line of many, and yet that was exactly what I'd been from the moment we walked in.

How hard would it have been to stop at reception and take a room that was ours alone?

I started walking with no direction and no destination in mind. It was dark out now, the city taking on a whole different life and energy from the one it had during the business day. I went out of the precinct and down Melrose Boulevard past a car guard in a hi-vis bib, past a man at the robot with an armful of phone chargers and cable ties, past a woman selling framed prints and beadwork off a blanket, through the smell of vetkoek frying on the corner. The jacarandas had begun to drop and the pavement was purple under the streetlights. I had my head down and no idea where I was, which in this city you don't do.

With every step I took, the adrenaline of my escape burned away. The maliciously gleeful picture of Menzi coming out of the bathroom to find an empty room and a bed strewn with his own paraphernalia ran its course. I began to calm down … and to think seriously about what had just happened.