The Tailor of the Waterfront – Part 3: The Gala

Claire took the story to her editor. Her editor said it was not enough. They needed the money to move first. They needed proof.

"Then the suits will have to give it to us," Sipho said.

He finished all three suits on Thursday night, alone in the atelier, with the wind howling off the sea. Same fabric. Same colour. Same perfect cut.

But inside the lining of each jacket, in thread almost the same shade as the silk, he stitched a different tiny symbol. On the left cuff of the first, a needle. On the second, a star. On the third, a small bird. Only someone standing very close, someone who knew where to look, would ever see them.

The gala was held in a glass ballroom on the harbour, with the mountain lit up behind it. Five hundred guests. Champagne. Cameras.

Claire was there with a press pass. Sipho was there too, in a gold silk shirt, invited, as tailors sometimes are, to see his work admired.

Daniel gave a beautiful speech. The investors signed on stage to applause. And then, as the music started, three men in identical suits began to move through the crowd in three different directions.

Claire looked at Sipho. He was already watching the cuffs.

The needle went to the bar. The star went to the terrace. And the bird walked quietly toward the service door that led to the quay, where the yacht's engines had just started.

Sipho caught Claire's eye, lifted one finger, and drew a tiny bird in the air.

She was on the phone to the police before the man reached the door.

They stopped him on the quay, with a briefcase, a foreign passport and the access codes to every account the investors had just paid into.

It was Daniel Fourie. In the bird suit.

Claire's story ran on the front page the next morning. The money was frozen before it could leave the country. The other two men, hired actors who had been told it was a "publicity stunt", gave statements to the police.

A month later, Claire came back to the atelier. Mama Thandi was there, sewing at the window, and looked her up and down.

"So you're the journalist," she said.

"So you're the teacher," Claire said, smiling.

Sipho was finishing a jacket. When he looked up and saw her, he took off his gold rings one by one and set them in a dish, which Claire had learned meant he was paying very close attention.

"I came to order something," she said.

"A suit?"

"Something for a dinner," she said. "If the tailor will come."

Mama Thandi laughed and kept sewing.

Sipho took the tape measure from around his neck, very gently, and held it out.

"Then I'll need your measurements," he said. "Fabric doesn't lie."

Behind them, the cloud was rolling off Table Mountain, and the whole harbour was full of light.

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Thank you for reading the Gentle Leads series. More stories are on the way.