by Deon Meyer
Her revulsion for him was greater than her fear of death. This knowledge came in a rush; it liberated her and brought with it the impulse to do something, to kick, to spit, and she began to collect saliva in her mouth. For everything he had done, everything, she wanted to cast scorn and hatred on him, but she reconsidered. She was not powerless. They could not kill her. Not now. Not yet. She could buy time. She was not alone. I'm on my way, don't open the door for anybody, I will call when I get there, please, Miss Anderson, the policeman's voice, the caring, the will to make her safe, to rescue her. He was somewhere now, looking for her, he would find her; somehow or other he would find out who was hunting her. It was so obvious, he would find out, he would find her.
She answered the man by shaking her head slowly from side to side.
He took her hair in an iron grip. 'I'm going to hurt you,' he said. In his practical way.
'Go ahead.' She tried to keep her voice as even as his.
He laughed, right in her face. 'You have no idea ...'
It didn't matter, she thought. Let him laugh.
He let her hair go suddenly and stood up. 'Their luggage is still at the Cat & Moose ...'
'We should have taken that long ago.'
'We didn't know, Steve. You know what she said in the club ... Where the fuck is Barry? Call him, go get their stuff.'
'They're not going to just give it to us, Jay.'
She lifted her head and saw them looking at each other. There was tension between them.
Steve, the black guy, eventually nodded, turned and left. Jay spoke to another one, one she didn't know: 'There's a hardware shop one block up, right-hand corner ...'
She saw his hand dip into his pocket, take out a few notes and hand them over.
'I want pruning shears. We'll cut off her toes. Then her fingers. Then her nipples. Pity though. Great tits.'
It took a while before Fransman Dekker asked Michele Malherbe if she and Adam had slept together. Her dignity overwhelmed him when she came through the office door, so it was only later that he realised she was smaller than he thought. Her hair was blonde, cut short and her face attractive. Her age hard to pin down until he looked at her hands later and realised she must be in her late fifties or early sixties. She introduced herself, listened attentively to his rank and name and sat down in one of the guest chairs with an aura of controlled loss. Dekker could not sit at Barnard's desk, it felt wrong at that moment. He took the other guest chair.
'It's a great loss, Inspector,' she said with her elbows on the arms of the chair and her hands held together in her lap. He could see she had been crying. He wondered, immediately, how a woman like her could fall for Adam Barnard.
'It is,' he said. 'You knew him well?'
'Nearly twenty-five years.'
'Ah ... uh ... madam, I understand you know the industry very well, the circumstances ...'
She nodded, her face serious and focused.
'Why would someone want to ...' He searched for a euphemism. '.. . do away with him?'
'I don't think Adam's death has anything to do with the industry, Inspector.'
'Oh?'
She lifted her right hand in a small gesture. There was a single, elegant ring on her middle finger. 'We may be an emotional lot, by definition. Music is emotion, after all, is it not? But in essence there is no great difference between the music industry and any other. We fight, we argue, we compete with each other, we say and do things that were better not said or done, but it's like that everywhere. The only big difference is that the media ... tends to wash our dirty laundry in public.'
'I'm not sure I understand.'
'I'm trying to say that I can't think of a single reason why anyone in Adam's world would want to murder him. I can't think of anyone who would be capable of that.' He drew in a breath to respond, but she made the same gesture and said: 'I'm not naive. I have learned that our nature allows for anything. But after a quarter-century working with people, you see all sides, and you pick up a fair amount of wisdom along the way from which you can draw in circumstances like this.'
'Madam, the way this happened ... points to someone who had information about Adam's domestic situation.'
She didn't look away. Her eyes were light brown. Her sensuality was subtle, he thought, maybe in the blend of what he knew about her and her refinement. 'I'm not sure I know what you are referring to.'
'They knew about his wife, for example ...'
Her smile was sympathetic. 'Inspector, unfortunately dear Alexandra's situation is general knowledge. Especially in the industry.'
'Did Barnard talk about it?'
Muted indignation. 'Adam would never dream of doing that.'
He waited.
'I can understand if the press makes this seem like an environment where nobody cares, Inspector, but that is a false impression. There are many of us who still have contact with Alexa, who regularly try to communicate in the hope that she will ... recover. She is a wonderful person.'
'Are you one of them?'
She nodded.
'But I understand you were more than just friends with Adam Barnard?' It was deliberate.
She looked at him in disappointment. 'I will leave my lawyer's number with Natasha,' she said and walked slowly, with dignity, to the door, opened it and closed it quietly behind her.
He sat staring at the closed door, despising himself. Also knowing that he had no idea what to do next.
The nurse at Casualties told Griessel he would have to talk to the superintendent and he asked her to phone him. It's not a man, the nurse bridled, and Griessel said he didn't care what it was, she had better phone.
She dialled a number, whispered over the phone, replaced the receiver and said the superintendent was in a meeting. Her attitude intensified a few degrees.
'Miss, I have a female detective in that operating theatre with two gunshot wounds and I don't know if she is going to make it. I have a nineteen-year-old American girl who has been abducted by people who cut her friend's throat in Long Street this morning. That...' and he had to suppress the urge to say 'fucker' with huge effort, as he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the operating theatre '... man in there is my only chance to find her before they kill her. Let me tell you now, if anything happens to her because you are obstructing the law, you will all sleep in the dirtiest, most crowded cell I can find in the Peninsula. I hope you understand me very well.'
She swallowed her indignation and picked up the phone again with wide eyes and redialled the number. 'Julie, I think Dr Marinos should come to ICU immediately,' she said.
At the gate of the Metropolitan Police vehicle pound the young traffic officer in a gleaming uniform opened a fat green file, paged through it fussily, pressed the relevant page flat with his palm and ran his finger down to an entry on an official form.
'Yes, that particular vehicle was booked out at precisely twelve thirty-four with me. And here ...' he turned the page, and rotated the file so that Vusi could read it from the other side of the desk '... is the release form, stamped and signed.'
'Who signed it?'
The traffic officer turned the file back again and studied the signature. 'I can't say.'
'Who can tell me?'
'You would have to ask Administration.'
'Where is Administration?'
'There. In the licensing building. But you have to go upstairs. First floor.'
'Thank you. May I take the form with me?'
The traffic officer shook his head. 'I can't help you there. The form has to stay here.'
Vusi thought the man was joking. But there was not a trace of humour. 'Are you serious?'
'This file is my responsibility. Regulations.'
'Mister ...'
'It's Inspector.'
'Inspector, we are working on a case of murder and abduction, we are running out of time.'
'Administration has a duplicate of the form. Just give them the case number.'
Vusi wondered why the man had not
told him that in the first place. He took out his notebook, opened it and clicked his pen and said, 'Would you give me the number, please?'
Mat Joubert pulled on rubber gloves, bent at the open door of Mbali Kaleni's Corsa and picked up the bullet casings in the footwell and beside the seat. He noted the number in his book. He heard the feet of Thick and Thin of Forensics shuffle on the tar beside him where they were circling the other casings with chalk and placing a small plastic triangle with a number beside every group of casings. They worked in silence.
He stood up, leaned his big torso inside the Corsa, pressing on the headrest and the steering wheel. Kaleni's big black handbag lay on the front passenger seat. On top was an A5 notebook, the pages folded back on the spiral, blood on the top page, fine drops, something written down.
He picked the notebook up carefully, brought it out of the car and stood upright outside. He took his reading glasses out of his breast pocket, flicked them open and placed them on the bridge of his nose. He stared at the three letters written in a shaky hand in capital letters: JAS.
He called Jimmy, the tall, skinny forensic technologist. 'I need an evidence bag.'
'I'll bring it, Sup.' Keen. Why did his colleagues complain about Thick and Thin? They never gave him any trouble.
J AS. The Afrikaans for 'coat'. Unfathomable.
Jimmy brought him a transparent ZipLoc bag and held it open. Joubert put the notebook inside so the written letters were visible. Jimmy zipped it up.
'Thanks, Jimmy.'
'Pleasure, Sup.'
Joubert bent again at the open door and peered under the seat. There was a pen, but nothing else.
He took out his own pen from his pocket and used it to scratch the other one closer until he could reach it with his fingers. He held it so he could see it through his reading glasses. Mont Blanc Starwalker. Cool Blue. On the navy-blue shaft of the pen were two faint blood prints.
He turned and walked over to Jimmy while thinking about the pieces of evidence. The blood on the notebook was not necessarily significant. But the bloody fingerprints on the pen were. Mbali .Kaleni had written the letters J, A and S after she had been wounded. JAS?
A perp wearing a coat? Or was it Zulu?
He reached for his phone. He would have to find out.
Chapter 39
The superintendent of the City Park Hospital, a well-groomed woman in her forties, nodded her head just three times while Griessel was talking. She said: 'Captain, one moment, please,' and walked quickly through the glass doors with the lettering Operating Theatre. Personnel Only.
Benny could not stand still. He walked as far as the nurses' desk and back to the theatre doors. Let the fucker live, please, just long enough to get what he needed. He looked at his watch. Nearly twenty-five to three. Too much time had elapsed since they took her. Too many possibilities. But they hadn't shot Rachel Anderson, because there was something they wanted. It was his only chance, his only hope.
At the periphery of his consciousness something flitted past, ghostly visions, fleeting and intangible, leaving only an impression - this morning. He stood still and closed his eyes. What was it? His brain seemed to tell him that, no, the wounded fucker was not his only hope. There was something else. He must go back to the beginning. This morning, what had happened? At the churchyard? What were the important things? The rucksack, cut off Erin Russel...
The superintendent burst through the doors and came over to Griessel. She began to speak before she reached him. 'Captain, his carotid artery was cut, relatively high up, I'm afraid, where there is not much protection. He lost an enormous amount of blood, we had a Code Blue in there, but they were able to resuscitate him. His condition is critical, they are still trying to close the wound, under the circumstances a very difficult procedure, especially since his blood pressure is so low and the bleeding could not be entirely halted. But I am afraid there is no chance of you talking to him in the next five or six hours. Even then I doubt whether communication will be meaningful. His vocal chords have been damaged, apparently - to what extent they don't yet know.'
He digested the information, frustration forcing a curse to the surface, but he swallowed it down.
'Doc, his clothes, I want his clothes, anything he had on him.'
'I'm going to call,' said Bill Anderson decisively. He got up abruptly from the leather couch and went to the phone on his desk. He looked at the number he had written down, picked up the receiver and keyed it in. He stood listening to the initial silence on the line and then the crystal clear ring on the southernmost tip of another continent.
Griessel's phone rang and he looked at the screen, saw it was MAT JOUBERT and answered: 'Mat?'
'Benny, I don't know what it means but Mbali Kaleni wrote the word "jas" in her notebook, and I am reasonably sure it was after she was shot. There are bloody fingerprints on the pen and blood spatters on the page. I thought it might be Zulu, but it doesn't seem to be.'
'Jas?' then he heard the soft ring tone of another incoming call. 'Mat, hold for me.' He saw the long number, the unfamiliar code, and knew who it would be.
God.
He couldn't talk to them now, he couldn't, what would he say? What could he say?
Sorry?
They would be terribly worried because he hadn't phoned. This was their child. They had the right to know.
'Mat, I'll call you back.' He switched calls and said: 'Mr Anderson?'
'Oh, thank god, Captain, we were getting very worried. Is Rachel OK?' Shit.
'Mr Anderson, Rachel was not at the address she gave me. We are still trying to track her down, but we are making good progress.' 'She wasn't there? How is that possible?'
'I don't know, sir. I honestly don't know.'
Two young men full of fire and self-confidence walked into the Cat & Moose Youth Hostel, up to the plump woman at the reception desk.
'Hi,' said the black one and smiled. 'We've come for Rachel's stuff.'
'Who?'
'Rachel Anderson, the American girl. You know, the one who was missing.'
'Are you from the police?'
'No, we're friends.'
'Don't I know you?' asked the generously built girl.
'I don't think so. So where is her luggage?'
'Down there, in their room, with the police. Did they find her?'
'With the police?' The friendliness wavered.
'Yes, they're guarding it. Guns and everything. You'll have to talk to them. Did they find the girl?'
They didn't answer her. They looked at each other. Then they walked out.
'Hey!' the girl shouted, but they didn't even look back. She came around from behind the desk and ran out through the door onto the Long Street pavement. She saw them walking fast. They looked back once and disappeared around the corner.
'I know you,' she said, and hurried off to find the two men who were guarding the luggage.
He wanted to pull off her running shoes. She pressed her feet against the cement floor with all her strength, so that he swore, stood beside her and violently kicked her feet out from under her with his boots.
Her legs shot forward and she fell hard on her bare bottom. She lunged up, trying to struggle upright and hide her feet under her again, but one of the others had grabbed her legs and held them in a ferocious grip.
'Jesus, you're a piece of work,' Jay said to her.
She spat at him, but missed. She tried to jerk her legs free. It was no use. Jay began to untie her laces and pulled the shoe off her foot. He wrinkled his nose at the smell.
'Don't you Yankee bitches ever change your socks?'
She spat again, ineffectually. He had the other laces undone and pulled off the other shoe, threw it aside and pulled off both socks. 'You had better hold one leg,' he said to the third man. 'This is going to drive her nuts.'
He stretched to reach the pruning shears, a big tool with green handles. 'OK, one last time: where is the video?'
'Dead and buried,' she said.
&nb
sp; Now there were two of them holding her legs, pressing down with their full weight so that her heels pressed painfully against the concrete floor.
'No,' Jay said to one of them. 'I want her to see what I'm doing. Move a little.'
He grabbed her right foot, his hand around the cushion and the big toe. He brought the shears closer, looked at her, put the blades around her little toe. She jerked with all her might. They were too strong for her. He closed the handles. The pain was immediate and immense. She screamed against her will, a sound she did not know she could make.
The blood made the toe stick to the silver blades. Jay shook them and the bit of flesh and nail fell in the dust.
'This little piggy ...' said the one who was holding her right leg, and giggled nervously.
She cried hysterically.
'Where's the video?' Jay asked and gripped her foot again.
'Fuck you,' she screamed.
He grinned, held the foot tightly, hooked the blades around the second toe and snipped it off.
'In my big bag,' she shrieked, because the pain, the brutality and the humiliation was too much.
'Good. Where is the bag?'
'At the youth hostel.'
Then Jay's cell phone rang and they all jumped in fright.
The superintendent came back through the glass doors with bloodied clothing in a large transparent plastic bag. Griessel told Bill Anderson: 'I am really sorry, but I have to go. If there is any news, I will call you, I promise.'
Silence over the line. 'I don't think your promises mean all that much,' and then the audible click as the American put down the phone. Griessel stood frozen to the spot, torn between the injustice and the knowledge that, as a father, he would have felt the same.
The superintendent held out the bag to him. 'Captain, this is everything, I don't know whether it will help you.'
He came back to the present, replaced his phone in his pocket and took the plastic bag. 'Have you got a pair of rubber gloves around here?'
'Miss, get the captain a pair of surgical gloves,' the doctor ordered. The nurse trotted off down the corridor. 'Will that be all, Captain?'