Jonathan Whitfield waited almost six hours before messaging Rendani.
Ndivhuwo noticed. She always noticed.
Sibusiso had been different. Within minutes of matching, he had started a conversation about when he could see her. Jonathan seemed more careful. They matched on Thursday evening and then he disappeared.
By breakfast the next morning, there was still nothing from him.
Ndivhuwo had a presentation at nine, another meeting before lunch and a client who had changed their mind about something they approved two days ago. Her days belonged to deadlines, decks and people who marked everything urgent; her evenings belonged to names, photographs and money sent to a second phone.
Jonathan Whitfield was worth R220,000, but for now, he would have to wait until after work.
His message finally arrived at 15:47.
Have we met before?
Ndivhuwo read it while sitting in a boardroom full of people discussing quarterly budgets. She smiled, locked her phone and returned her attention to the presentation.
Jonathan could wait.
Previously in Never Stay for Dessert: Episode One: His New Girl
Rendani
Rendani had taken less than an hour to create. She was thirty-two, worked in marketing and had recently moved back to Johannesburg after spending two years in Cape Town. She liked cycling, red wine and slow Sundays. Her profile had five photographs. Nothing too polished, nothing that made her look like she was trying too hard.
The best lies, Ndivhuwo had learnt, were built around things that were true. Rendani worked in marketing because Ndivhuwo did. She cycled because Ndivhuwo did. She knew Cape Town well enough to talk about it without being caught. Even the wine was real.
Only the woman wasn't.
Ndivhuwo waited until after five before replying to Jonathan. By the time she arrived home, they had exchanged enough messages for her to understand that he wasn't going to be as easy as Sibusiso.
Jonathan didn't reveal much. He told her he worked in property but didn't mention the company. He spoke about cycling, travelling and restaurants he liked, but there was very little about his personal life.
Ndivhuwo already knew he was forty-seven, lived in Bryanston and owned a successful property development business. She knew he cycled most Saturday mornings and spent December in Plettenberg Bay. She knew where he had gone to university and which golf club he belonged to.
Then she found Michelle.
Nineteen years of marriage. Three children. A house in Hyde Park and enough smiling family photographs to make Jonathan's dating profile suddenly much more interesting.
Ndivhuwo closed Instagram.
What she didn't know was why someone wanted him dead.
The Woman in Red
Across Johannesburg, Detective Mulalo Mbedzi was still trying to find the woman Sibusiso Mthembu had called his new girl.
The restaurant had given him hours of CCTV footage, but most of it told him what he already knew. She had arrived with Sibusiso, spent the evening at his table and left alone shortly after nine. She hadn't hidden her face from the cameras or rushed towards the exit. She had even stopped to thank the hostess before leaving.
Nothing about her looked suspicious.
That was what bothered him.
Eleven people had spent an evening with her and nobody really knew who she was. One remembered her name as Nandi. Another thought Sibusiso had called her Ndi. She worked in advertising according to one person and banking according to another.
Mulalo had a woman everybody remembered and nobody knew.
Then the restaurant manager called.
They had found another camera facing the street.
Start from the beginning: The prologue: Never Stay for Dessert
Jonathan
By Sunday, Jonathan had started sending Rendani good morning messages. By Monday, he was telling her things that hadn't appeared on his dating profile.
The marriage came first.
It was complicated, apparently. They had grown apart. They were living separate lives under the same roof. Michelle was a good woman, he explained, but the marriage had been over for a long time.
Michelle's Instagram suggested otherwise.
That weekend she had posted a photograph of Jonathan standing beside a braai with their son. The caption was simple.
My favourite people.
Jonathan had liked it.
A few hours later, he had sent Rendani a goodnight message.
Ndivhuwo didn't judge him. Judgement complicated work and she hadn't been paid to decide whether Jonathan Whitfield was a good husband, a bad husband or anything in between.
Somebody wanted him dead. Her job was simply to get close enough.
By Tuesday evening, she was.Jonathan asked her to dinner.
The Man Across the Street
The new CCTV footage gave Mulalo eleven seconds.
The woman in the red dress appeared outside the restaurant, looked at her phone and walked towards the corner. A car passed in front of the camera and a few seconds later she disappeared from view.
Mulalo watched it again.
On the third replay, he noticed someone else.
A man stood across the road wearing a dark jacket and cap. There was nothing memorable about him. He looked like anybody waiting for an Uber, a friend or someone finishing a phone call.
But when the woman moved, he moved. When she stopped, he stopped. When she disappeared from view, he followed.
Mulalo replayed the footage once more.
Maybe Sibusiso's new girl wasn't the only person he needed to find.
What if somebody had been watching her too?
Wednesday
Jonathan chose Marble.
He suggested seven thirty and told Rendani the reservation would be under another name. He didn't explain why. Ndivhuwo didn't ask.
She spent Wednesday exactly as she spent most Wednesdays. There were meetings, emails, late feedback and lunch eaten at her desk while working on a presentation.
At five, she disappeared into the office bathroom with a small bag.
Thembi saw her when she came out.
The emerald green dress was impossible to ignore.
Ndivhuwo admitted she had a date, which immediately opened the door to questions she had no intention of answering. She gave Thembi just enough information to satisfy her. His name was Jon. They had met online. It was their first date.
She promised to tell her everything the next morning. Another believable lie.
At 19:32, Jonathan was already sitting at the table when she arrived.
He looked better than his photographs, which didn't happen often. He stood when he saw her and smiled with the confidence of a man who believed he had spent the last week getting closer to a woman he liked.
Ndivhuwo smiled back.
For the next hour, Jonathan talked and she listened. Property came first, then travel, cycling and eventually his family. He spoke about Michelle as though their marriage was something that had happened to him rather than something he was still part of.
Ndivhuwo let him talk.
People always became more interesting when they thought nobody was judging them.
Find the Woman
Mulalo was still at his desk when another piece of information arrived.
The dating profile belonging to the woman Sibusiso had been seeing no longer existed. That alone meant nothing. People deleted dating profiles every day. The timing did. The account had disappeared less than twelve hours after Sibusiso was killed.
Mulalo looked at the blurry photograph pinned above his desk. Until then, he had thought of the woman in red as Sibusiso's girlfriend.
He stopped doing that.
Girlfriends had names, friends and lives that existed before the men they were dating. This woman seemed to have appeared three weeks before Sibusiso died and disappeared the morning after.
…
At Marble, the waiter approached Jonathan and Ndivhuwo's table carrying two dessert menus. Ndivhuwo noticed them immediately.
Jonathan didn't.
He was still talking when she quietly looked at her watch.
It was almost time to go.
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