by Deon Meyer
They walked into the charge office. She looked like an overstuffed pigeon - short, with a big bulge in front and a big bulge behind in her tight black trouser suit. Large handbag over her shoulder, service pistol in a thick black belt around her hips and her SAPS ID card hanging from a cord around her neck, probably because no one would believe she was a policewoman.
She stopped in the middle of the room, feet planted wide apart, and clapped sharply, twice.
'Listen up, people,' she said loudly. Pee-pol, in her Zulu accent.
Here and there a head turned.
'Silence!' Sharp and loud.
Silence descended, everyone paid attention: complainants, their companions, uniforms.
'Thank you. My name is Inspector Mbali Kaleni. We have a situation and we need to be sharp. There is an American tourist missing in the city, a nineteen-year-old girl, maybe in Camps Bay, maybe Clifton or Bantry Bay. There are people trying to kill her. We must find her. I am in control of the operation. So I want you to get every vehicle out there, and make sure they get the message. They must come and collect a photo of the girl after twelve o'clock. The Provincial Commissioner has personally called your station commander, and he will not tolerate any problems ...'
'Inspector ...' said the Constable who had taken the Carlucci's call.
'I am not finished,' she said.
'I know where she is,' he said, not intimidated, making his commanding officer proud.
'You know?' Kaleni asked, some of the wind taken out of her sails.
'She's not in Camps Bay, she's in Oranjezicht,' he said.
Vusi Ndabeni sat in the twilight of the nightclub and phoned Benny Griessel, but the detective's cell phone was on voice mail.
'Benny, it's Vusi. I think the girls brought drugs in and I think they were supposed to deliver it to Van Hunks. I'm waiting for the barmen and waiter, but I know they're not going to talk. I think we must bring Organised Crime in. Call me, please.'
He looked at his notes again. What else could he do?
The video cameras.
He phoned the Metro Police video control room, and was eventually put through to The Owl.
'I can tell you they came from the lower end of Long Street. The camera on the corner of Longmarket and Long shows the two girls walking past at 01:39. The angle isn't great, but I compared it with the other material. It's the same girls.'
'Walking past?'
'They were walking fast, but definitely not running. But at time code 01:39:42 you can see the men coming past. The angle is a bit better, I can see five of them running in the same direction, north to south.'
'After the girls.'
'That's right. I'm still looking for something before that, but there was a camera out of operation on the other side of Shortmarket. So don't hold your breath.'
'Thanks a lot,' said Vusi.
So, here, two hundred metres from the club, they were still walking, unaware of the men chasing them.
What did it all mean?
He made a note in his book. What else?
He must call Thick and Thin. They must search Rachel Anderson's luggage for any sign of drugs.
He looked for their number on his cell phone, found it, but hesitated. Would it help?
The laboratory was six months behind, understaffed, overworked.
Later. First they must find Rachel Anderson.
Fransman Dekker hesitated in AfriSound's large reception room until the beautiful coloured woman got up and approached him.
'Can I help you?' she asked with the same subdued manner as the black woman on the ground floor, but with more interest.
'Inspector Fransman Dekker.' He held out his hand. 'I am sorry for your loss.'
She lowered her eyes. 'Natasha Abader. Thank you.' Her hand felt small and cool in his.
'I'm looking for Inspector Benny Griessel.'
'He's in the conference room.' Her inspection of his fingers for a ring was smooth and practised. She gave nothing away when she saw the thin gold band, but looked him in the eye.
'There is a journalist downstairs at your front door. Please don't let them come up.'
'I will tell Naomi. Can I offer you some coffee? Tea? Anything.' The last was said with a measured smile, perfect white teeth.
'No, thank you,' he replied and looked away. He didn't want to . start something now. Under no circumstances.
Chapter 18
'I'm sorry,' said Josh Geyser.
'No need to be sorry.'
'It's just... she's everything to me.'
'I understand,' said Griessel.
'I was finished,' said Geyser. 'I was nothing. Then she took me ...'
Josh Geyser started at the beginning. Griessel let him talk.
Geyser had his feelings under control now, elbows on the table. Staring at the wall behind Griessel. He had been on the wrong road, he said. He had been a Gladiator on TV - women, drink, cocaine and steroids. A celebrity, with big money and fame. Then the SABC cancelled the show. Overnight. Everything changed. Not immediately; there was still appearance money at the Gauteng casinos for a while, still something in the bank. But seven months later he could no longer afford the rent of the double-storey house in Sandton. They evicted him and the Sheriff took his furniture and the bank took back the BMW and his friends weren't his friends any more.
Three months of bewilderment, of sleeping on other people's couches and asking for a few rand from people who were tired of him and his troubles. Then he found Jesus. In the House of Faith, the big charismatic church in Bryanston, Johannesburg, and his whole life changed. Because it was genuine. Everything. The friendships, the love, the compassion, the concern, the forgiveness for what he had been.
Then one day the pastor said they needed baritones for the Praise Singers, the huge church choir. Josh could always sing, since he was a boy. He had the voice, the instinctive feel for harmony, he was born with it, but his life had taken other directions and he had drifted away from that. So he became a Praise Singer - and on the first day he saw Melinda, this pretty woman with the angel face smiling over the heads of the tenors at him.
After practice she came to him and said: 'I know you, you're White Lightning.'
He said not any more, and then her eyes went all soft and said: 'Come ...' and took his hand.
In the church coffee bar they exchanged stories. She was a divorcee from Bloemfontein, a former singer in her ex-husband's band, with a life full of sin. After the divorce she had been rudderless and moved to Johannesburg in the hope of finding work. The House of Faith was her salvation, her lifebuoy in the stormy seas of life. They both knew it straight away that night... But when you've been so down, so destroyed, you are careful, you talk first, long hours in the safety of the church social spot. Night after night. One day, three weeks later, they were there after choir practice when she asked: 'Do you know "Down to the River to Pray", the Negro spiritual?' He said he didn't and she began to sing the simple melody in her lovely voice, until he had it too and began to sing along in harmony. They sang quietly, just the two of them looking into each other's eyes, because they knew these two voices were perfectly matched. 'It was magic,' said Josh, still staring at the wall, 'like a shaft of light from heaven.' They sang louder, still the same song, and the coffee bar went quiet, dead quiet, until they had finished.
'That's where it all began,' he said.
'I see.'
'She's my everything ...'
'Mr Geyser ...'
'Just call me Josh.'
'Josh, I need to know what happened yesterday.'
He looked at Griessel and lifted his hands helplessly. 'It was too much for me.' Griessel just nodded.
'We knew nothing about Adam Barnard. Our first CD came out on the Chorus label. It's a small gospel studio in Centurion.
Adam came to talk to us, said we were too good to be hidden away - we had a wonderful message that the world needed to hear. Ever so holy, called himself a child of God, he just wanted to help ... so we signe
d and came to Cape Town. I only heard about his ways then.'
'What ways?'
'You know ...'
There was a quiet knock on the door. Griessel said 'Come in.'
The door opened. Fransman Dekker put a head inside. 'Benny ...'
Griessel stood up. 'Excuse me just a moment.' He went to the door and pulled it shut behind him.
'Your cell phone is off,' Dekker whispered.
'I know.' He didn't want interruptions like this now.
'I just wanted to tell you I'm here. They're looking for a place where I can talk to her.'
'I'll come when I'm finished.'
Natasha, the beautiful personal assistant, came walking down the passage. 'Fransman ...' she called.
Griessel raised his eyebrows.
'What?' asked Dekker.
'First-name terms already ...' murmured Griessel.
Dekker shrugged 'Story of my life.'
'Fransman, you can sit in the studio,' said Natasha. 'Give us ten minutes.'
Ponytail brought in a tray with a teapot and the necessary tea things. He put it down three tables away from Vusi and walked out again.
Vusi stood up and went over to the tray.
They would all be like this. The Van Hunks employees. Aggressive and unhelpful. He would get nothing out of them, he realised. It was a waste of time, because the theory of drug mules made sense.
He poured tea into a cup, added milk and sugar, then carried the whole tray over to his table.
Oliver Sands had said that Anderson had suddenly changed. He sat down, put the cup aside and paged through his notebook until he found the reference. At Lake Kariba. She had become morose. That must have been when they got the drugs. Or realised they had gone? That might be it.
She and Erin were to bring the drugs like this, because tourists were Africa's new gold, waved easily through the border posts. Maybe they had brought the drugs from America, maybe from Malawi or Zambia. He didn't know how these things worked. It might not be their first time.
And then something happened, or they sold it somewhere else, and then they came and told Demidov here at the club, or Galia Federova or the night manager, Petr. Then they walked back to the Youth Hostel and a minute or two later Demidov sent his thugs to make an example of them, the chase that began somewhere beyond Longmarket Street. They caught Erin up at the church and cut her throat.
'They do that, the Russians. Show their network they don't take shit,' Vaughn Cupido had said.
Was Erin Russel the team leader? Or was Rachel Anderson just lucky to escape?
It was Demidov's people hunting Anderson now. The question was, how did he prove it? How did he stop them?
He reached for the teacup. He must try Griessel again. He picked up his phone and punched in the number. Voice mail again.
Josh Geyser told Griessel he had just let go of Pokkel's hands, right there in the sitting room, because from then on he was like a man possessed. He got into his BMW M3 and drove here from Milnerton Ridge and he could remember nothing of that trip, that's how bad it was. He pulled up halfway onto the pavement because there was never any parking here and he rushed in, ready to break Adam Barnard's neck, he couldn't deny it. If he had found Adam here he would have done something the Lord would have punished him for.
'You admit that you went into Willie Mouton's office and threatened to kill Adam Barnard?'
'I had already told Natasha that out front. I was cursing. I apologised to her, just now. She understands. She knows about the devil.'
'And you went to Mouton?'
'I went into Adam's office first. I thought they were lying to me. But he wasn't there. Then I went to Willie's.'
'And then?'
'I asked him if he knew and he said "no" and then I told him I was going to kill Adam. But Adam wasn't there. What could I do?'
'What did you do?'
'I went looking for him.'
'Where?'
'Cafe Zanne and the Bizerca Bistro.'
'Why there?'
'That's where he hangs out. Lunchtimes.'
'Did you find him?'
'No, thank the Lord.'
'And then?'
'Then the devil left me.'
Griessel raised his brows.
'It was the traffic,' said Josh Geyser. 'When I wanted to go home, I got stuck in the traffic. An hour and a half. That's when the devil left me.' He looked at the wall again and said: 'I sat at the robots in Paardeneiland and cried, because the devil had tested me and I let the Lord down. And Melinda, Melinda ...'
'Josh, did you go straight home?'
Geyser just nodded.
'Do you own a firearm?'
He shook his head. No.
'We will have to search your house, Josh. We have instruments that can tell if there were guns or ammunition, even if they are not there any more.'
'I don't have a gun.'
'Where were you from midnight last night?' 'With Melinda.'
'Where were you?'
'We went to church last night.'
'Which church?'
'The Tabernacle, in Parklands.'
'Until what time?'
'I don't know ... I suppose, half past ten.'
'At church?'
'After the service we went to see the pastor. For counselling.'
'Until half past ten?'
'Thereabouts.'
'And then?'
'Then we went home.' He looked at Griessel and saw it was not enough. He interlaced his thick fingers on the table and stared at them with great concentration. 'It was ... hard. She ... Melinda ... She wanted me to hold her ... I ...' He went quiet again.
'Josh, did you leave the house last night?'
'No.'
'Not at all?'
'I only went out again this morning. When Willie phoned.'
Griessel looked at Geyser intently. He recognised the simplicity of this giant, the childish honesty. He thought of the tears, his absolute brokenness over his wife's unfaithfulness. He didn't know if he could believe him. Then he thought of the damage Adam Barnard had done, to Alexa, to Josh, to how many others. Then he remembered his own infidelity last night and he got up in a hurry and said: 'You will have to wait here, Josh, if you don't mind.'
Fransman Dekker asked Melinda Geyser to sit on one of the chairs at the big sound desk in the recording studio, but when he closed the soundproof door and turned around she was still standing, like someone who had something pressing to say. 'Sit, please,' he said.
'I can't...' Uneasy, tense.
'Ma'am, this will take a while. It's better if you sit.'
'You don't understand ...' 'What don't I understand?' He sat down in an office chair on wheels.
'I ... You must forgive me ... I'm still old fashioned ...' She gestured with her hand to try to explain.
Dekker looked at her in query.
'I don't... I can't talk to you about yesterday ...'
The way she said it made him suspicious.
'To me?' His voice cut like a knife.
She couldn't look at him, confirming his suspicion.
'Is it because I'm coloured?'
'No, no, I can't talk ... to a man.'
Dekker heard the way she said it, like someone who had been caught out. He saw the flicker in her eyes. 'You're lying,' the anger flaring quickly in him, like a switch turned on.
'Please, this is hard enough.'
He rose from the chair, startling her into a backwards step.
'Your kind . ..' he said, losing control for a moment, other words welling up behind the rage, his fists opening and closing, but somehow he found control. He made a noise somewhere between disbelief and disgust.
'Please ...' she said.
He despised her. He walked out of the door, trying to slam it. Outside, Benny Griessel was in the passage with his phone to his ear saying: 'Vusi, I trust the guys from Organised Crime as far as I can throw them.'
Barry sat on the veranda of Carlucci's and listened to the sir
ens approaching through the city below. He saw a young man in an apron who heard them too, and came outside.
The patrol vehicles raced up Upper Orange, blue lights revolving. Four of them stopped in front of the restaurant with a screech of tyres, doors flung open, blue uniforms tumbling out. From one passenger door, a short, fat, black woman got out with a large handbag over her shoulder and a pistol on her hip.
She came quickly across the street, with the horde of blue uniforms following in her wake.
Around him at the other tables, the restaurant clientele watched the procession with astonishment.
The young man in the apron waited for them on the veranda.
'Are you the man who called in about the girl?' Barry heard the black woman ask with authority.
'I am.'
'Then tell me everything.' She heard shuffling behind her and turned around to see the amused grins on the policemen's faces. Their smiles disappeared under her angry glare.
'You can't all stand in here. Go wait outside.'
Chapter 19
At seventeen minutes to four, American Eastern Standard Time - five hours behind Greenwich Mean Time and seven hours behind Cape Town, Bill Anderson sat at the laptop on his desk reading Internet articles about South Africa. His wife, Jess, sat on the leather couch behind him, her legs drawn up and covered with a blanket. She jumped when the phone rang shrilly.
He grabbed it. 'Bill Anderson,' he said, the concern discernible in his voice.
'Mr Anderson, my name is Dan Burton. I am the US Consul General in Cape Town.' The voice rang as clear as crystal despite the great distance. 'I know what a difficult time this must be for you.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'Who is it?' Jess Anderson asked, coming to stand close to her husband. He held a hand over the receiver and whispered: 'The Consul General in Cape Town.' Then he held the phone so she could also hear.
'I can tell you that I've just got off the phone with both the National and Provincial Commissioners of the South African Police Services, and although they have not found Rachel yet...'
Jess Anderson made a small noise and her husband put his arm around her shoulders while they listened.