“I’m telling you, I didn’t do it!” I say.
Detective Inspector Dube looks at me like he doesn’t believe a word. Like he is going to keep me stuck here in this room until I confess.
He says, “You were the only other person there at the Dance Studio that night. You’re the janitor, right?”
Janitor! More like I’m a slave! I polish those wooden floors day and night so the young girls can prance around in their leotards. Exposing their flesh like street women! It’s a disgrace!
Those girls admire their half-naked bodies in the wall-to-wall mirror as they dance. I have to polish that frikkin thing too.
And still Madame Jamot is not satisfied!
“Kabo, look, you have left smears on the glass! Do it again!”
I say, “The entrance wasn’t locked, Detective Inspector. Anyone could come in. What about Jessica’s boyfriend? He always comes to fetch her in his fancy four-by-four. In his designer jeans.”
“The boyfriend seems to have an alibi, Kabo.”
“Well, then, it must have been someone else who stabbed her, Detective Inspector. Because I’m telling you: it wasn’t me!”
He leans over the table. I shift back in my chair. I don’t like him getting so close to me.
“Kabo, give it up. We have a video,” he says.
A video? It can’t be. The security camera was broken.
“A video, yes. Miss Matome was filming herself while she danced. We have it in black and white, not in colour sadly.”
Detective Inspector Dube switches on the TV monitor. And yes, there is Jessica prancing around in her skin-tight leotard, like she has no shame. A bright red leotard, except it is grey on the screen. The tape is blurred, but you can see enough. A man appears on the screen.
“There! Admit it Kabo, that’s you.”
How can he tell it is me? You can’t see the man’s face; he has his back to the camera. All you can see is the back of his T-shirt, and jeans that could very well be designer jeans. The picture is too blurred to tell. You can see the knife of course, long and sharp. Next thing, Jessica falls to the floor. Grey blood seeps across the wood, wood that I spent hours and hours polishing.
“How can you say that is me? It could be any guy. You can’t even see what colour T-shirt he’s wearing.”
Then I realise something else! Something that will get this Detective Inspector off my back.
“Hah!” I say loudly. “Hah. This is proof. For sure it can’t be me! Look! The guy is left-handed. The knife is in his left hand! And let me tell you, I am right-handed. Ask my teachers at school. Ask my mother. See? Not guilty!”
Angrily, DI Dube switches off the TV and storms out of the room. I sit there alone, smiling. I pick up my glass of water. With my right hand, of course. Hah!
***
Tell us what you think: Is Kabo guilty or not?