by Deon Meyer
Reluctantly she lifted her head from the rucksack, pushed it ahead of her and slid carefully after it. She couldn't drag it; it would be too noisy. She rose to a crouch, swung the rucksack slowly onto her back and clipped the buckles. Then she crawled on hands and knees over the round stones. Slowly, disturbing nothing that would make a sound.
Griessel walked into the sitting room and whispered in Tinkie Kellerman's ear. Alexandra Barnard dragged on another cigarette; her eyes followed Tinkie as she rose and left the room. Griessel closed the door behind her and without speaking went to a large Victorian cupboard with leaded glass doors on top and dark wooden doors below. He opened a top door, took out a glass and a bottle of gin and took it across to the chair closest to Alexandra.
'My name is Benny Griessel and I am an alcoholic. It's been one hundred and fifty-six days since my last drink,' he said and broke the bottle's seal. Her eyes were fixed on the transparent fluid that he carefully poured into the glass, three thick fingers deep. He held it out to her. She took it, her hands shaking badly. She drank, an intense and thirsty gulp and closed her eyes.
Griessel went back to the liquor cabinet and put the bottle away. When he sat down he said, 'I won't be able to let you have more than that.'
She nodded.
He knew how she felt at this precise moment. He knew the alcohol would flow through her body like a gentle, soothing tide, healing the wounds and quietening the voices, leaving behind a smooth, silver beach of peace. He gave her time; it took four gulps, sometimes more; you had to give your body time to let the heavenly warmth through. He realised he was staring intently at the glass at her lips, smelling the alcohol, feeling his own body straining for it. He leaned back in the chair, took a deep breath, looked at the magazines on the coffee table, Visi and House & Garden, two years out of date, but unread and just for show, until she said: 'Thank you,' and he heard the voice had lost its edge.
She put the glass down slowly, the tremor almost gone, and offered him the pack of cigarettes.
'No, thank you,' he said.
'An alcoholic who doesn't smoke?'
'I'm trying to cut down.'
She lit one for herself. The ashtray beside her was full.
'My AA sponsor is a doctor,' he said by way of explanation.
'Get another sponsor,' she said in an attempt at humour, but it didn't work; her mouth pulled in the wrong direction and then Alexandra Barnard began to weep silently, just a painful grimace, tears rolling from her eyes. She put the cigarette down and held the palms of her hands over her face. Griessel reached into his pocket and took out a handkerchief. He held it out but she didn't see it. Her shoulders shook, her head drooped and the long hair fell over her face again like a curtain. Griessel saw it was blonde and silver, a rare combination; most women dyed their hair. He wondered why she no longer cared. She had been a star, a major one. What had dragged her down to this?
He waited until her sobs subsided. 'My sponsor's name is Doctor Barkhuizen. He's seventy years old and he's an alcoholic with long hair in a plait. He said his children asked him why he smoked and he had all sorts of reasons - to help him with stress, because he enjoyed it. . .' He kept his tone of voice easy, he knew the story was unimportant, but that didn't matter, he just wanted to get a dialogue going. 'Then his daughter said in that case he wouldn't mind if she started smoking too. Then he knew he was lying to himself about the cigarettes. He stopped. So he's trying to get me to quit. I'm down to about three or four a day ...'
Eventually she looked up and saw the handkerchief. She took it from him. 'Was it hard?' Her voice was deeper than ever. She wiped her face and blew her nose.
'The drink was. Is. Still. The smoking too.'
'I couldn't.' She crumpled the hanky and picked up the glass again and drank from it. He didn't answer. He had to give her room to talk. He knew she would.
'Your hanky's ...'
'Keep it.'
'I'll have it washed.' She put the glass down. 'It wasn't me.'
Griessel nodded.
'We didn't talk any more,' she said and looked elsewhere in the room.
Griessel sat still.
'He comes home from the office at half past six. Then he comes to the library and stands and looks at me. To see how drunk I am. If I don't say anything then he goes and eats alone in the kitchen or he goes to his study. Or out again. Every night he puts me in bed. Every night. I have wondered, in the afternoon when I can still think, if that is why I drink. So that he would still do that one thing for me. Isn't that tragic? Doesn't it break your heart?' The tears began to fall again. They interfered with the rhythm of her speech, but she kept on. 'Sometimes, when he comes in, I try to provoke him. I was good at it ... Last night I ... I asked him whose turn it was now. You must understand ...We had ... it's a long story ...' and for the first time her sobs were audible, as if the full weight of her history had come to bear on her. Pity welled up in Benny Griessel, because he saw again the ghost of the singer she had once been.
Eventually she stubbed out the cigarette. 'He just said "Fuck you" - that's all he ever said - and he left again. I screamed after him, "Yes, leave me here", I don't think he heard me, I was drunk ...'
She blew her nose into the hanky again. 'That's all. That's all I know. He didn't put me to bed, he left me there and this morning, he was lying there ...' She picked up the glass.
'The last words he said to me. "Fuck you".' More tears.
She drained the last bit of alcohol from the glass and looked at Griessel with intense focus. 'Do you think it could have been me that shot him?'
The plump girl behind the reception desk of the Cat & Moose Youth Hostel and Backpackers Inn looked at the photograph the constable was holding out and asked:
'Why does she look so funny?'
'Because she's dead.'
'Oh, my God.' She put two and two together and asked: 'Was she the one this morning at the church here?'
'Yes. Do you recognise her?'
'Oh, my God, yes. They came in yesterday, two American girls. Wait ...' The plump girl opened the register and ran her finger down the column. 'Here they are, Rachel Anderson and Erin Russel, they are from ...' she bent down to read the small writing of the addresses. 'West Lafayette, Indiana. Oh, my God. Who killed her?'
'We don't know yet. Is this one Anderson?'
'I don't know.'
'And the other one, do you know where she is?'
'No, I work days, I ... Let's see, they are in room sixteen.' She shut the register and went ahead down the passage saying: 'Oh, my God.'
Through careful questioning he got information about the firearm from her. It was her husband's.
Adam Barnard kept it locked up in a safe in the room. He kept the key with him, probably afraid she would do something foolish with it in her drunken state. She said she had no idea how it landed up on the floor beside her. Maybe she did shoot him, she said; she had reason enough, enough anger and self-pity and hate. There were times she had wished him dead, but her true fantasy was to kill herself and then watch him. Watch him coming home at half past six, climbing the stairs and finding her dead. Watch him kneeling beside her body and begging forgiveness, weeping and broken. But, she said with irony, the two parts would never gel. You can't watch anything when you're dead.
Then she just sat there. Eventually he whispered 'Soetwater' but she didn't respond; she hid behind her hair for an eternity until she slowly held out the glass to him and he knew he would have to pour another if he wanted to hear the whole story.
08:13-09:03
Chapter 8
Benny Griessel listened to Alexandra Barnard's story.
'Alexa. Nobody calls me Alexandra or Xandra.'
Now, just as he was about to open the front door of Number 47 Brownlow Street to go and find Dekker, he felt a peculiar emotion pressing on his heart, a weightlessness in his head, a sort of separation from reality, as though he stood back a few millimetres from everything, a second or two out of step with the wor
ld.
So it took him a while to register that outside was chaos. The street, so peaceful when he arrived, was a mass of journalists and the inquisitive: a flock of photographers, a herd of reporters, a camera team from e.tv and the growing crowd of spectators their presence had attracted. The noise washed over Griessel, loud waves of sound that he could feel in his body, along with the knowledge that he had listened so acutely to Alexa's story that he had been oblivious to all this.
On the veranda a tense Dekker was exchanging fiery words with a bald man, both their voices raised in argument.
'Not before I've seen her,' said the man with a superior attitude and aggressive body language. His head was completely shaven, he was tall and sinewy, with large fleshy ears and one round silver earring. Black shirt, black trousers and the black basketball shoes that teenagers wear, although he seemed to be in his late forties. A middle-aged Zorro. His prominent Adam's apple bobbed up and down in time with his words. Dekker spotted Griessel. 'He insists on seeing her,' said Dekker, still tense. The man ignored Griessel. He snapped open a black leather holder at his belt and brought out a small black cell phone. 'I'm calling my lawyer; this behaviour is totally unacceptable.' He began to press keys on the phone. 'She's not a well woman.'
'He's the partner of the deceased. Willie Mouton,' said Dekker.
'Mr Mouton,' said Griessel reasonably. His voice sounded unfamiliar to his own ear.
'Fuck off,' said Mouton, 'I'm on the phone.' His voice had the penetration and tone of an industrial meat saw.
'Mr Mouton, I won't allow you to talk to a police officer like that,' Dekker said on a rising note. 'And if you wish to make personal calls, you will do it in the street...'
'It's a free country as far as I know.'
'...and not on my crime scene.'
'Your crime scene? Who the fuck do you think you are?' Then, into the phone:
'Sorry. Can I speak to Regardt, please ...?'
Dekker advanced in a threatening way, his temper beginning to get the better of him.
'Regardt, this is Willie, I'm standing on Adam's veranda with the Gestapo ...'
Griessel put a hand on Dekker's arm. 'There are cameras, Fransman.'
'I won't hit him,' said Dekker and jerked Mouton roughly off the veranda and pushed him towards the garden gate. Cameras flashed and clicked.
'They're assaulting me, Regardt,' said Mouton with somewhat less confidence.
'Morning, Nikita,' said Prof Phil Pagel, the state pathologist, from beyond the gate. He was amused.
'Morning, Prof,' said Benny, watching Dekker push Mouton through the gate onto the pavement. He told the uniform: 'Don't let him through here.'
'I'll sue your arse,' said Mouton. 'Regardt, I want you to sue their fucking arses. I want you here with a fucking interdict. Alexa's in there and God knows what these storm troopers are doing with her ...' His voice was deliberately loud enough for Dekker and the media to hear.
Pagel squeezed past Zorro and went up the stairs with his black case in hand. 'What a piece of work is man,' he said.
'Prof?' queried Griessel, and suddenly the sense of disconnectedness was gone; he was back in the present, head clear.
Pagel shook his hand. 'Hamlet. To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Just before he calls man "a quintessence of dust". I was at the show last night. I highly recommend it. Busy morning, Nikita?'
Pagel had been calling him 'Nikita' for the past twelve years. The first time he had met Griessel he had said: 'I am sure that's how the young Khrushchev looked'. Griessel had to think hard who Khrushchev was. Pagel was flamboyantly dressed, as usual - tall, fit and exceptionally handsome for his fifty-something years. There were some who said he looked like the star of one of the television soapies that Griessel had never watched.
'Things are hectic, as usual, Prof.'
'I understand you are mentoring the new generation of law enforcers, Nikita.'
'As you can see, Prof, I'm brilliant at my job,' Griessel grinned. Dekker came back up the veranda steps. 'Have you met Fransman yet?'
'Indeed, I have had the privilege. Inspector Dekker, I admire your forcefulness.'
Dekker had lost none of his tension. 'Morning, Prof.'
'Rumour has it that Adam Barnard is the victim?'
They both nodded, in synch.
'Take arms against a sea of troubles,' said Pagel.
The detectives looked at him without comprehension.
'I am abusing Hamlet to say that this means big trouble, gentlemen.'
'Aah,' said the detectives. They understood.
In the library they stood talking while Pagel knelt beside the body and opened his doctor's bag.
'It wasn't her, Fransman,' said Griessel.
'Are you one hundred per cent certain?'
Griessel shrugged. Nobody could be a hundred per cent certain. 'It's not just what she says, Fransman. It's how it fits in with the scene ...'
'She could have hired someone.'
Griessel had to concede that that argument had merit. Women hiring others to get rid of their husbands was the latest national sport. But he shook his head. 'I doubt it. You don't hire people to make it look like you did it.'
'Anything is possible in this country,' said Dekker.
'Amen,' said Pagel.
'Prof, the "sea of troubles"... Did you know Barnard?' Griessel asked.
'A little, Nikita. Mostly hearsay.'
'What's his story?' asked Dekker.
'Music,' said Pagel. 'And women.'
'That's what his wife says too,' said Griessel.
'As if she hasn't suffered enough,' said Pagel.
'What do you mean, Prof?' Dekker asked.
'You know she was a huge star?'
'No, really?' Stunned.
Pagel didn't look up while he spoke. His hands were deftly handling instruments and the body. 'Barnard "discovered" her, though I have never been very comfortable with that expression. But let me confess my ignorance, gentlemen. As you know, my real love is the classics. I know he was a lawyer who became involved with the pop music industry. Xandra was his first star ...'
'Xandra?'
'That was her stage name,' said Griessel.
'She was a singer?'
'Indeed. A very good one too,' said Pagel.
'How long ago was this, Prof?'
'Fifteen, twenty years?'
'Never heard of her.' Dekker shook his head.
'She disappeared off the scene. Rather suddenly.'
'She caught him with someone else,' said Griessel. 'That's when she started drinking.' 'That was the rumour. Gentlemen, unofficially and unconfirmed: I estimate the time of death at ...' Pagel checked his watch. '... between two and three this morning. As you have surely deduced, the cause of death is two shots by a small-calibre firearm. The position of the wounds and small amount of propellant residue indicates a shooting distance of two to four metres ... and a reasonably good shot: the wounds are less than three centimetres apart.'
'And he wasn't shot here,' said Dekker.
'Indeed.'
'Only two wounds?' asked Griessel.
The pathologist nodded.
'There were three rounds fired by his pistol...'
'Prof,' said Dekker, 'let's say she is an alcoholic. Say she was drunk last night. I had blood drawn, but will it help, eight or ten hours after the fact?'
'Ah, Fransman, nowadays we have ethyl glucuronide. It can track the residue of alcohol levels up to thirty-six hours afterwards. With a urine sample up to five days after intake.'
Dekker nodded, satisfied.
'How so, Prof?'
'Look at him, Fransman. He must be about one point nine metres tall. He's a little overweight; I estimate on the wrong side of a hundred and ten kilograms. You and I would battle to get his body up those stairs - and we are sober.' Pagel began to pack away his apparatus. 'Let's get him
'But I must throw my weight behind Nikita's theory. I don't believe it was her.'
to the mortuar
y; I can't do much more.'
'Somebody went to a lot of trouble to get him here,' said Dekker.
'And therein lies the rub,' said Pagel.
'Women ...' Dekker speculated.
Pagel stood up. 'Don't write off the Afrikaans music industry as a potential source of conflict, Fransman.'
'Prof?'
'Do you follow the popular press, Fransman?'
Dekker shrugged.
'Ah, the life of the law enforcer - all work and no time to read the Sunday papers. There's money in the Afrikaans music industry, Fransman. Big money. But that's just the ears of the hippo, the tip of the iceberg. The intrigues are legion. Scandals like divorce, sexual harassment, paedophilia ... More long knives and apparent back-stabbing than in Julius Caesar. They fight over everything - back tracks, contracts, artistic credits, royalties, who is permitted to make a musical about which historical personality, who deserves what place in musical history ...'
'But why, Prof?' Griessel asked, deeply disappointed.
'People are people, Nikita. If there is wealth and fame at stake ... It's the usual game: cliques and camps, big egos, artistic temperaments, sensitive feelings, hate, jealousy, envy; there are people who haven't spoken to each other for years, new enmities ... the list is endless. Our Adam was in the thick of things. Would it be enough to inspire murder? As Fransman correctly pointed out, in this country, anything is possible.'
Jimmy and Arnold from Forensics came through the door. 'Oh, there's Prof, morning, Prof,' said Arnold, the fat one.
'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are here. Morning, gentlemen.'
'Prof, can we ask you something?'
'Of course.'
'Prof, the thing is ...' said Arnold.
'Women ...' said Jimmy.
'Why are their breasts so big, Prof?'
'I mean, look at the animals ...'
'Much smaller, Prof...'
'Jissis,' said Fransman Dekker.