by Deon Meyer
'He was a good man. Always a kind word. I don't understand it. Why did she shoot him? What for? He did her no wrong, he took all of her milly, all her drinking, he just took it, every night he would put her in bed and what did she go and shoot him for?' She wept, shaking her head.
'Sister, you're traumatised. We'll get you some counselling.'
'I don't want counselling,' sobbed Sylvia Buys. 'Where will I get another job at my age?'
'It's not as simple as that,' said Dekker as he climbed the yellowwood stairs to the library. 'You'll see.'
Griessel could sense the tension in the man. He knew his colleagues called Dekker 'Fronsman' behind his back, a reference to his frowning lack of humour and consuming ambition. He had heard the stories, because in the corridors of the Provincial Task Force, they liked to gossip about up-and-coming stars. Dekker was the son of a French rugby player. His mother, a coloured woman from the poverty of Atlantis township, was young and buxom in the Seventies when she worked as a cleaner at the Koeberg nuclear power station. Apparently the rugby player was older, long past his glory days, by then a liaison officer for the French consortium that built and maintained Koeberg. There had been just one encounter and shortly afterwards the rugby player returned to France, without knowing of his offspring. Dekker's mother could not remember his name, so she simply christened her son Fransman, the Afrikaans for Frenchman.
How much of this was true, Griessel could not say. But the child had apparently inherited his father's Gallic nose, build and straight black hair - now trimmed in a brush cut - and his mother's coffee-coloured complexion.
I le followed Dekker into the library. Thick and Thin were at work in the room. They looked up as the detectives entered. 'We can't go on meeting like this, Benny, people will talk,' said Jimmy.
An old joke, but Benny grinned, then looked at the victim lying on the left side of the room. Black trousers, white shirt with no tie, one shoe missing, and two gunshot wounds to the chest. Adam Barnard had been tall and strong. His black hair was cut in a Seventies style, over the ears and collar, with elegant grey wings at the temples. In death his eyes were open, making him seem mildly surprised.
Dekker folded his arms expectantly. Thick and Thin stood watching him.
Griessel approached carefully, taking in the book shelves, the Persian carpet, the paintings, the liquor bottle and glass beside the chair on the right side of the room. The firearm was in a transparent plastic evidence bag on the ground, where Forensics had circled it with white chalk. 'She was on this side?' he asked Dekker.
'She was.'
'The Oracle at work,' said Thick.
'Fuck off, Arnold,' said Griessel. 'Had the pistol been fired?'
'Quite recently,' said Arnold.
'But not here.'
'Bingo,' said Arnold.
'I told you he would get it straight away,' said Jimmy.
'Yes,' said Dekker. He sounded disappointed. 'It's an automatic pistol, three rounds are missing from the magazine, but there are no casings here. No blood on the floor, no bullet holes in the walls or book shelves and the shoe is missing. I have gone through the whole house. Jimmy and Co have searched the garden. She didn't klap him here. We have to search the car in the street...'
'Where is she?'
'In the sitting room with Social Services. Tinkie Kellerman.'
'Knock, knock,' said someone from the door. The long-haired photographer.
'Come in,' said Dekker. 'You're late.'
'Because I had to make bloody prints first ...' He spotted Griessel. His manner quickly changed. 'Vusi has his photos, Benny.'
'Thanks.'
'Jimmy, did you test her for GSR?' asked Dekker.
'Not yet. But I did put her hands in paper. She didn't like that.'
'Can you do it now? I can't talk to her with paper bags over her hands.'
'If she touched the pistol she will have GSR. I don't know if you can do anything with that.'
'Let me worry about that, Jimmy.'
'I'm just saying. Gunshot residue isn't what it used to be. The lawyers are getting too clever.' Jimmy took a box out of his case. It was marked 'SEM Examination'. He went to the stairs with both detectives in tow.
'Fransman, you've done a good job,' said Griessel.
'I know,' said Dekker.
The CCTV control room of the Metro Police was an impressive space. It had twenty flickering TV screens, a whole bank of video recorders and a control panel that looked as though it belonged to the space shuttle. Inspector Vusi Ndabeni stood looking at a screen, watching the grainy image of a small figure running under the street lights of Long Street. Nine seconds of material, now in slow motion: seven shadowy people in a desperate race from left to right across the screen. The girl was in front, only recognisable thanks to the dark hump of the rucksack. Here, between Leeuwen and Pepper Street, she was only three steps ahead of the nearest assailant, her arms and legs pumping high in flight. Another five people were sixteen to seventeen metres behind. In the last frame just before she disappeared off the screen, Ndabeni could see her turn her head as if to see how close they were.
'Is that the best you have?'
The operator was white, a little man, owl-like behind big round Harry Potter spectacles. He shrugged.
'Can you enlarge this?'
'Not really,' he answered in a nasal voice. 'I can fiddle with the brightness and contrast a little, but if you zoom in, you just get grain. You can't increase the pixels.'
'Could you try, please?'
The Owl worked the dials in front of him. 'Don't expect miracles.' On the screen the figures ran backwards slowly and froze. The man pecked at a keyboard and tables and histograms appeared over the image.
'Which one do you want to see better?'
'The people chasing her.'
The operator used a mouse to select two of the last five figures. They suddenly filled the screen. He tapped the keyboard again and the image brightened, the shadows lightened. 'All I can try is a high pass sharpen ...' he said. The focus sharpened slightly, but neither of the figures was recognisable.
'You can at least see they are men and that the one in front is black,' said the Owl. Vusi stared at the screen. It wasn't going to help him much.
'You can see they are young men.'
'Can you print this?'
'OK.'
'Are they only on one camera?'
'My shift finishes at eight. I'll have a look if there's something else then. They must have come from Greenmarket or Church Street, but it will take time. There are sixteen cameras in that section. But they don't all work any more.'
'Thanks,' said Vusi Ndabeni. One thing he couldn't understand. If one of the pursuers was only three strides behind her in Pepper Street, why hadn't he caught her before the church? It was five hundred metres away, maybe more. Had he slipped? Fallen? Or deliberately waited for a quieter place.
'One more thing, if you don't mind ...'
'Hey, it's my work.'
'Can you enlarge the two running in front?'
Griessel walked into the sitting room behind Dekker. It was a large room with big couches and chairs and a huge coffee table, tasteful, old and well restored. Small, delicate Tinkie Kellerman of SAPS Social Services sat upright in an easy chair that dwarfed her. She was the one they sent for when the victim or the suspect was a woman, because she had compassion and empathy, but now there was a frown of unease on her face.
'Ma'am, let me take those bags off your hands,' said Jimmy jovially to Alexandra Barnard, a hunched figure in a white dressing gown. She sat on the edge of a large four-seater couch, elbows on her knees, head hung low, and unwashed grey and blonde hair hiding her face. She held out her hands without looking up. Jimmy loosened the brown paper bags.
'I just have to press these discs on your hands. They are sticky, but that's all ...' He broke the seal on the SEM box and took out the round metal discs. Griessel saw Alexandra Barnard's hands trembling, but her face was still hidden behind her l
ong hair.
He and Dekker each picked a chair. Dekker opened his notebook.
Jimmy worked quickly and surely, first the right hand and then the left. 'There you go, thank you, madam.' He gave the detectives a look that said 'Here's an interesting one', and then he packed away his things.
'Mrs Barnard ...' said Dekker.
Tinkie Kellerman shook her head slightly, as if to say the suspect was not communicative. Jimmy walked out rolling his eyes.
'Mrs Barnard,' said Dekker, this time louder and more businesslike.
'I didn't do it,' she said without moving, in a surprisingly deep voice.
'Mrs Barnard, you have the right to legal representation. You have the right to remain silent. But if you choose to answer our questions, anything you say may be used in court.'
'I didn't do it.'
'Do you want to contact your lawyer?'
'No,' and slowly she raised her head and pushed the hair back on either side of her face, revealing bloodshot blue eyes and skin an unhealthy hue. Griessel saw the regular features, hints of former beauty under the tracks of abuse. He knew her, he knew a version of this face, but he couldn't quite place it, not yet. She looked at Dekker, then at Griessel. Her only expression was one of total weariness. She stretched out a hand to a small table beside her and picked up a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She struggled to open the pack and take out a cigarette.
'Mrs Barnard, I am Inspector Fransman Dekker. This is Inspector Benny Griessel. Are you ready to answer some questions?' His voice was louder than necessary, the way you would talk to someone who was a bit deaf.
She nodded slightly, with difficulty, and lit the cigarette. She inhaled the smoke deeply, as if it would give her strength.
'The deceased was your husband, Mr Adam Barnard?'
She nodded.
'What is his full name?'
'Adam Johannes.'
'Age?'
'Fifty-two.'
Dekker wrote. 'And his profession?'
She turned her tired eyes on Dekker. 'AfriSound.'
'Excuse me?'
'AfriSound. It's his.'
'AfriSound?'
'It's a record company.'
'And he owns this record company?'
She nodded.
'Your full name?'
'Alexandra.'
'Age?'
'A hundred and fifty.'
Dekker just looked at her, pen ready.
'Forty-six.'
'Profession?'
She gave an ironic snort and pushed her hair off her face again. Griessel saw confirmation of the maid's statement that she was a drinker - the trembling hands, the eyes, the characteristic colour and weathering of her face. But she reminded him of something else. He knew he had met her somewhere before.
'Excuse me?' said Dekker.
How do I know her, Griessel wondered. Where?
'I don't work.'
'Home-maker,' said Dekker and wrote that down.
She made the same little noise, loaded with meaning.
'Mrs Barnard, can you tell us about last night's events?'
She sank back slowly into her seat, put her elbow on the armrest and leaned her head on her hand. 'No.'
'Excuse me?'
'I don't know how long I can resist the temptation to say "you are excused".'
The muscles in Dekker's jaw worked as though he were grinding his teeth. Alexandra breathed in slowly and deliberately, as if steeling herself for a hard task. 'I am an alcoholic. I drink. From eleven in the morning. By six o'clock usually I am mercifully drunk. From half past eight on I don't remember much.' In that instant, perhaps because the deep, rich voice resonated somewhere in his memory, Benny Griessel remembered who she was. The word sprang to the tip of his tongue, he almost spoke it aloud, but stopped just in time: Soetwater. Sweet water.
She was the singer. Xandra. Lord, how old she looked.
Soetwater. The word activated a picture from memory, a television image of a woman in a tight-fitting black dress, just her and the microphone in the bright spotlight of a smoke-framed stage.
A small glass of sunlight,
A goblet of rain
A small sip of worship,
A mouthful of pain
Drink sweet water.
Mid-Eighties, somewhere around there. Griessel remembered her as she was, the incredibly sensual blonde singer with a voice like Dietrich and enough self-confidence not to take herself too seriously. He had only met her through the television screen and the cover of magazines, in the days before he started drinking. She had four or five hits, he remembered "n Donkiekar net vir twee',
'Tafelbaai se Wye Draii' and the big one, 'Soetwater'. Fuck, she had been this huge star and look at her now.
Benny Griessel felt pity for her, also loss, and empathy.
'So you don't remember what happened last night?'
'Not much.'
'Mrs Barnard,' said Dekker stiffly and formally. 'I get the impression that your husband's death hasn't upset you very much.'
He was mistaken, thought Griessel. He was misreading her; he was too tense, too hasty.
'No, Inspector, I am not in mourning. But if you bring me a gin and dry lemon, I will do my best.'
For an instant, Dekker was uncertain, but then he squared his shoulders and said, 'Can you remember anything about last night?'
'Enough to know it wasn't me.'
'Oh.'
'Come back this afternoon. Three o'clock is a good time. My best time of the day.'
'That is not an option.'
She made a gesture as if to say that was not her problem.
'I will have to test your blood for alcohol.'
'Carry on.'
Dekker stood up. 'I'll just get the technician.'
Griessel followed him. In the sitting room Thick and Thin were busy packing up.
'Can you just take a blood sample before you leave?'
'Sure, chief,' said Jimmy.
'Fransman,' said Griessel, aware that he must tread with care. 'You know I am an alcoholic?'
'Ah,' said Arnold, the fat one, 'detectives bonding. How sweet.'
'Fuck off,' said Griessel.
'I was just about to, anyway,' said Arnold.
'You still have to do the Mercedes in the street,' said Dekker.
'That's next on the list,' and Arnold left the room with his arms full of evidence and apparatus.
'So?' Dekker asked once they were alone.
'I know how she feels, Fransman ...'
'She feels nothing. Her husband is lying there and she feels nothing. She killed him, I'm telling you. The usual story.'
How do you explain to a non-drinker what she was feeling now? Alexandra Barnard's whole being craved alcohol. She was drowning in the terrible flood of that morning; drink was the only lifeline. 'Griessel knew.
'You're a good detective, Fransman. Your crime scene is perfectly managed, you do everything by the book and ten to one you're right. But if you want a confession ... give me a chance. One-to-one isn't so intimidating ...'
Griessel's cell phone rang. He watched Dekker while taking it out. The coloured man didn't look too keen about his suggestion.
'Griessel.'
'Benny, it's Vusi. I'm at the Metro CCTV room. Benny, there are two of them.'
'Two what?'
'Two girls, Benny. I'm standing here, watching five guys chasing two girls up Long Street.'
Chapter 7
'Oh fuck,' said Benny Griessel. 'They're chasing the girls, you say? In Long Street?'
'The time code says it was this morning at a quarter to two. Five men, coming from Wale Street towards the church.'
'That's what, four blocks?'
'Six blocks between Wale and the church. Half a kilometre.'
'Jissis, Vusi, you don't do that to steal a tourist's purse.'
'I know. The other thing is, the footage isn't great, but you can see - the guys chasing them are black and white, Benny.'
'Doesn'
t make sense.' In this country criminals didn't work together across the colour lines.
'I know ... I thought, maybe they are bouncers, maybe the girls made trouble in a club somewhere, but, you know ...'
'Bouncers don't cut the throats of foreign tourists.'
'Not yet,' said Vusi, and Griessel knew what he was alluding to. The clubs and bouncers were a hotbed of organised crime, a powder keg. 'In any case, I've put a bulletin out on the other girl.'
'Good work, Vusi.'
'I don't know if it will help much,' said Ndabeni and ended the call. Griessel saw Dekker waiting impatiently for him.
'Sorry about that, Fransman. It's Vusi's case ...'
'And this is my case.' His body language showed he was ready to argue.
Griessel hadn't expected this aggression, but he knew he was on thin ice. The territorial urges of detectives were strong, and he was just here as mentor.
'You're right,' he said and walked towards the door. 'But it might just help.'
Dekker stayed on the spot, frowning.
Just before Benny left the room he said: 'Wait...'
Griessel stopped.
'OK,' said Dekker finally. 'Talk to her.'
She could no longer hear them. Only the birdsong and cicadas and the hum of the city below. She lay in the cool shade of the rock overhang, but she was sweating as the temperature in the mountain bowl rose rapidly. She knew she could not stand up.
They would stop somewhere and try to spot her.
She considered staying there, all day, until darkness fell and she would .be invisible. She could do it even though she was thirsty, even though she had last eaten the previous evening. If she could rest, if she could sleep a little, she would have new strength tonight with which to seek help.
But they knew she was there, somewhere.
They would fetch the others and they would search for her. They would backtrack on the path and investigate every possibility and if anyone came close enough, they would see her. The hollow wasn't deep enough. She knew most of them, knew their lean bodies, their energy and focus, their skill and self-confidence. She also knew they could not afford to stop looking.
She would have to move.
She looked down the stream, down the narrow stony passage that twisted downhill between fynbos and rocks. She must get down there, crawling carefully so as to make no sound. The mountain was a poor choice, too deserted, too open. She must get down to where there were people; she had to get help. Somewhere someone must be prepared to listen and to help.