Thirteen Hours

by Deon Meyer

  The single cab bakkie drove right in front of him, reversing out of a driveway from the left side of the street. Griessel slammed on the brakes and the Opel nose-dived, rubber screeched and smoked, and he skidded until the left wheels struck the kerb. 'Fuck,' he said smelling the burning rubber, jerked the Opel back, just missing the Toyota's front fender. He saw the man behind the wheel's big, wild, shocked eyes. Griessel looked at the Corsa, was the window smashed? He swung across the road and stopped behind the small white car, leapt out and heard the Toyota racing away towards the city. He glanced quickly after it, fucking asshole. He noted the street number on the wooden gate. Number 6. Bullet casing, he smelled cordite. Trouble here, bullet holes in the windscreen and the driver's window and there was someone behind the wheel, fuck, fuck.

  'It's Mbali,' Vusi shouted as he pulled open the other door.

  Griessel saw her head on her chest, blood on the headrest. He pulled open the door. 'Jissis,' Griessel said, trying to feel her neck for a pulse. His fingers slipped in the blood. He saw the wound below her ear, bits of jaw, white chips and a pulsing vein pumping out thick red fluid.

  'Get the ambulance! She's alive!' He shouted louder than he meant to, his heart racing. He gently pulled her by the shoulder, until he had her turned over with her back to him, then he put his hands under her arms and felt more blood lower down. Carefully he pulled her out of the car and laid her on the pavement. Vusi came running around the car with his cell phone in his hand.

  Two wounds, but the one in the side of her head was bleeding the most. He got up quickly and felt for his handkerchief, found it, bent beside Mbali Kaleni and pressed the hanky against the hole. He heard Vusi talking urgently over the phone. He swapped the hand holding the handkerchief and got hold of his phone, hearing a car skid around the corner in Belmont at great speed, he couldn't turn in time, just saw the tail, something. He looked at Kaleni, she wasn't going to make it, the ambulance would take too long.

  'Help me,' he said to Vusi, 'I'm taking her myself.'

  Vusi knelt beside him and said calmly, 'Benny they're on their way.'

  'Jissis, Vusi, are you sure?' as he searched his phone for the Caledon Square number.

  'They know it's a policewoman. They're coming.'

  Griessel pressed the hanky harder. Mbali Kaleni moved, a jerk of the head. 'Mbali,' he said in despair.

  She opened her eyes. Looked far away, then focused on him. 'The ambulance is coming, Mbali,' he wanted to encourage her: 'You're going to make it.'

  She made a noise.

  'Take it easy, take it easy, they'll be here soon.'

  Vusi picked up Mbali's hand. He talked quietly to her in an African language. Griessel noted the small Xhosa man's calmness and thought Vusi might not be hardass, but he was strong.

  Mbali was trying to say something. He felt her jaw moving under his hand, he saw the blood running out of her mouth. 'No, no, don't talk now; the ambulance will be here soon.'

  He looked up at the house. 'Vusi, you will have to see what's going on inside there.' The black detective nodded, jumped up and ran. Griessel looked at Mbali. Her eyes were on him, pleading. He held the hanky tight against her neck, realising he still had his phone in the other hand. He phoned the station. They needed more people. Mbali Kaleni's eyes closed.

  Chapter 34

  At first she was only aware of the noise, voices shouting, the high revving of an engine. Then she felt the pain in her face and she wanted to put a hand over it, but she couldn't. There was the sensation of movement, a loss of balance, a vehicle turning sharply, accelerating.

  Then she remembered everything and she jerked.

  'The bitch is waking up,' one of them said. She tried to open her eyes, she wanted to see, but she could not. One eye was swollen shut, the other would not focus, her vision was blurred. Four people were holding her down. The pressure on her arms and legs was too much, too heavy, too painful.

  'Please,' she said.

  'Fuck you.' The words were spat out with hatred, flecks of saliva spattered her face. A cell phone rang shrilly.

  'It's the Big Guy,' said a voice she knew.

  'Fuck.' Another familiar voice. 'Tell him.' She flicked her eyes across, but could not see them, only the four holding her. They were all looking forward now.

  'Jesus. OK.' Then: 'Mr B, it's Steve. The fucking bitch stabbed Eben ... No, he was with Robert, on the back door ... It's bad, chief ... No, no, he's with Rob in the bakkie, you'll have to call him ... OK. Yes, it's here ... No ... OK, hang on ... The boss wants to know what's in the bag ...'

  The one holding her leg let go. 'Here, take it,' he said and then she kicked him with all her might, struck him somewhere.

  'Fuck!' A heavy blow against her head, her leg clamped fast again, and she screamed, in frustration, pain, fury and fear. She fought wildly, straining her arms and legs to break free, but it was no good.

  Vusi came running, Griessel could hear his hasty steps.

  'Benny, there's an old man inside. He's been shot, but he's alive.'

  'An old man, you say?'

  'Yes, wounded in the chest, through the lung, I think.'

  'Nobody else?'

  'Nobody.'

  'Fuck.'

  Then suddenly and clearly, the wail of an ambulance.

  'You do that again, I'll shoot you in the fucking leg, you hear me?'

  The spit-sprayer's face was right up against hers, grimacing, his voice crazed. She closed her eyes and went limp.

  'It's not in here,' said Steve up front.

  'Jesus,' said Jay.

  'Mr B, it's not in the bag ... Yes, I'm positive.' A long silence, then the sound of the vehicle slowing to a more regular speed, smoother. Then: 'There was no time, and then this fucking fat cop turned up, but Jay shot her, she's a goner ... No, I'm telling you, there was no time ... OK ... OK ...' The sound of a cell phone snapping shut. 'The Big Guy says to take her to the warehouse.'

  Once he had managed to get the last member of the press out of the door and locked it, Fransman Dekker heard a voice behind him: 'Fuck this, you'll have to do something, it can't go on like this.'

  Mouton stood on the stairs, hands on his hips, looking very displeased. 'I'll phone now, our PR people will come and help,' said Dekker.

  'PR?'

  'Public Relations.'

  'But when will you be finished?'

  'When I have asked all my questions,' said Dekker, and climbed the stairs, past Mouton, who turned and followed him.

  'How many questions do you still want to ask? And you're talking to my employees without a lawyer being present. It can't go on like this - who do you want to talk to now?'

  'Steenkamp.'

  'But you talked to him already.'

  They walked through the spacious seating area. Dekker stopped in his tracks and shoved his face close to Mouton's. 'I want to talk to him again, Willie. And I have the right to talk to every fucking member of your staff without your lawyer sitting in. I'm not doing this little two-step with you again.'

  Mouton's skin flooded with crimson from the neck up, his Adam's apple bobbing as though words were dammed up beneath it. 'What did Ivan Nell say to you?'

  Dekker stalked off down the corridor. Mouton followed him again, two steps behind. 'He's not one of our artists any more; he has no say here.' Dekker ignored him, went to Steenkamp's door and opened it without knocking. He wanted to shut it before Mouton came through, but then he saw that fucking legal undertaker sitting across from the accountant.

  'Please, take a seat, Inspector,' Groenewald said in his dispassionate voice.

  The paramedics ran from the front door with the stretcher. Griessel held the garden gate open for them, then jogged after them. 'Will she make it?'

  'Don't know,' said the front one, holding out the bag of plasma to Griessel. 'Hold that while we load, just keep it high.'

  'And the old man?' Griessel took the plastic bag of transparent fluid. Vusi held one ambulance door to prevent the wind blowing it shut.<
br />
  'I think so,' the paramedic said. They lifted the old man up in the stretcher and pushed him in beside Mbali Kaleni, two figures lying still under light-blue blankets. One paramedic ran around to the driver's door, opened it and jumped in. The other one jumped in the back. 'Close the doors,' he said and Griessel and Ndabeni each took a door and slammed. The ambulance sirens began to wail as it pulled away in Upper Orange, made a U-turn and passed them, just as the first of a convoy of patrol vehicles appeared over the hump of the hill.

  'Vusi,' Griessel said, loud enough to be heard over the noise of the sirens, 'get them to seal off the streets and keep everyone away. I don't want to see a uniform closer than the pavement.'

  'OK, Benny.'

  Griessel took out his cell phone. 'We will have to get Forensics as well.' He stood and surveyed the scene - Mbali's car, the strewn bullet casings, the front door open, its glass shattered. The old man had been shot inside there and somewhere they had grabbed Rachel Anderson ... It would take hours to process everything. Hours that he did not have. The hunters have caught their prey. How long would they let her live? Why hadn't they killed her here, like Erin Russel? Why hadn't he and Vusi found her body here? That was the big question.

  One thing he did know, he needed help, he needed to make up time. Between Vusi and himself they didn't have enough manpower.

  He called Mat Joubert's number. He knew it would piss off John Afrika. But in the big picture, that was a minor issue.

  'Benny,' Joubert recognised his number.

  'Mat, I need you.'

  'Then I'll come.'

  Wouter Steenkamp, the accountant, laughed, and Willie Mouton, leaning his long skinny body against the wall, gave a snort of derision. The lawyer Groenewald shook his head ruefully, as though now he had heard everything.

  'Why is that so funny?' Fransman Dekker asked.

  Steenkamp leaned back in his throne behind the PC and steepled his fingers. 'Do you really believe Ivan Nell is the first artist who believes he is being fleeced?'

  Dekker shrugged. How would he know?

  'It's the same old story,' said Willie Mouton. 'Every time.'

  'Every time,' mused Steenkamp, and laced the tips of his fingers together, turned the palms outward and stretched until his knuckles cracked. He laid his head back on the back of the chair. 'As soon as they start making good money.'

  'In the beginning, with the first cheque, they come in here and it's "thanks, guys, jislaaik, I've never seen this much money".' Mouton's voice was affected, mimicking Nell. 'Then we're the heroes and they are so pathetically grateful ...'

  'But it doesn't last,' said Steenkamp.

  'They're not doing it for aaaart any more.'

  'Money talks.'

  'The more they get, they more they want.'

  'It's a flash car and a big house and everything that opens and shuts. Then it's the beach house and the sound equipment bus with a huge photo of you on it and everything has to be biggerand better than Kurt or Dozi or Patricia's. To sustain all that costs a shitload of money.'

  Groenewald nodded slowly in agreement. Steenkamp laughed again: 'Two years, pappie, you can set your fucking calendar to it, then they start coming in here saying: "What is that deduction and why is this so little?" and suddenly we've gone from hero to zero, and they have forgotten how poor they were when we signed them.' His hands were on his lap now, his right hand twirling his wedding ring.

  'Nell says—' Dekker began.

  'Do you know what his name was?' Mouton asked, suddenly pushing himself off the wall and heading for the door. 'Sakkie Nell. Isak, that's where the I in Ivan comes from. And please don't forget the accent on the "a".' Mouton opened the door. 'I'm going to get myself a chair.'

  'Ivan Nell says he compared your figures with the amounts he made from compilations with independents.'

  This time even the lawyer sang in the choir of indignation. Steenkamp leaned forward, ready to speak, but Mouton said: 'Wait, Wouter, hold onto your point, I don't want to miss the joke,' and he walked out into the passage.

  Benny Griessel stood in the hallway, the urgency hot in him. He didn't want to get too involved with this part of the investigation, he had to focus on Rachel and how to get her back.

  He pulled on rubber gloves and looked fleetingly at the blood on the pretty blue and silver carpet where the old man had been shot, the shards of stained glass on the floor. He would have to phone her father.

  How the hell had they found her? How did they know she was here? She had phoned from this house. My name is Rachel Anderson. My dad said I should call you. She had talked to her father and then with him. How long had it taken him to get here? Ten minutes? Nine, eight? Twelve at the very most. How could they have driven here, shot Mbali and the old man and carried Rachel off in twelve minutes?

  How was he going to explain this to Rachel's father? The man who had asked him: Tell me, Captain: Can I trust you?

  And he had said: 'Yes, Mr Anderson. You can trust me.'

  Then I will do that. I will trust you with my daughter's life.

  How had they found her? That was the question, the only one that mattered, because the 'how' would supply the 'who', and the 'who' was what he needed to know.

  Now. Had she phoned anyone else? That was the place to start. He would have to find out. He took his cell phone out of his pocket to phone Telkom.

  No, phone John Afrika first. Fuck. He knew what the Regional Commissioner: Detective Services and Criminal Intelligence was going to say. He could already hear the voice, the consternation. How, Benny? How?

  Griessel sighed, a shallow, hurried breath. That fucking feeling he had had this morning - that there was trouble brewing...

  And this day was still far from over.

  Mouton pushed his luxury leather desk chair up to Groenewald, sat down and said: 'Let the games begin.'

  'Let me explain to you about a compilation first,' said Steenkamp, leaning over the desk, picking up a pencil and twirling it between his fingers. 'Some or other clown decides he wants to make money out of Valentine's Day or Christmas or something. He phones a few people and says: "Have you got a song for me?" There are no studio costs, not a cent, because the recording has already been done. That makes a huge difference, because all he has to do is market the CD a bit, make a few TV ads that he gives to a guy with an Apple and Final Cut to cobble together, so really he's only paying for the airtime and he sticks it in the fifteen-second slots in Seven de Laan for three days and all the old biddies snap it up.'

  'He does his accounts on the back of a cigarette box,' said Mouton irritably.

  'No overheads. We sit here with an admin department and financial department and marketing and promotions department. We carry forty per cent of a distribution wing, because we are a full-service operation - we stand by the artist for the long term. We build a brand, we don't just flog a few CDs,' said Steenkamp.

  'Tell him about RISA and NORM,' said Mouton.

  Steenkamp pulled a sheet of A4 paper out of the printer beside him and made a start with the pencil, writing RISA alongside. 'Recording Industry of South Africa.'

  'Fucking mafia,' said Mouton.

  'At least they present the SAMA Awards,' said Groenewald, and Mouton snorted derisively.

  'They take twenty-five cents for every CD we sell, because they ...' he made quotation marks with his fingers,' "protect us from piracy".'

  'Ha!' said Mouton.

  'Do you think the independent making the compilation is going to keep score? Is he going to pay on every CD? Not likely, because it's work, it's a schlepp, it's expense and it's profit.' Steenkamp scribbled another star, wrote NORM on the paper.

  'NORM are the guys who have to see to it that, if I write a song and you do a cover of it, I get paid. Six point seven per cent. But that's the theory. In practice it's only us big players who pay. If you're an independent, you have to put down your NORM money when the CDs are printed. So you print five thousand here and another five thousand there, but yo
u tell NORM you only had five thousand printed, you show them the slips, and you pay only half. NORM is ripped off and the songwriter is ripped off and the independent is laughing all the way to the bank.'

  'We have to pay NORM as the sales come in,' said Mouton, 'audited figures, everything above board. But then the artists complain: "Why is my share so small?"' He mimicked Nell's voice again. 'Let me tell you another thing. Half of the hits in this country are German pop songs that have been translated. Or Dutch or Flemish or whatever. What Adam did - and he was brilliant at it - he had guys in Europe and as soon as there was a pop song that stood out they would email it in MP3 format and Adam would sit down with a pen and write Afrikaans lyrics. Forty minutes, that's all it took, and he would phone Nerina Stahl and—'

  'That was before she left...'

  'All her fucking hits were German pop, who do you think is going to get them for her now? Anyway, we sit with the whole caboodle, we have to administer it all. That money has to go to Germany, the songwriter and the publisher have to get their cut. But here comes this independent and he gets someone to do a cover of Adam's translation of this German song . . . you get it?'

  'I think so,' said Dekker, engrossed.

  '... and now Adam must be paid, the German and his publisher must be paid, but the independent says, no, we only made five thousand, but he's lying, because there's no control over distribution, the independents do their own now and nobody keeps track.'

  'That's why the cheques are so big.'

  'Then the bastard comes along and says we are bloody cheating him.'

  'Let him make his own CDs and we'll see. Let him pay two hundred thousand for a studio out of his own pocket, let him cough up his own four hundred thousand for a TV campaign.'

  'Amen,' said Groenewald. 'Tell him about the passwords and the PDFs.'

  'Yes,' said Mouton. 'Ask Sakkie Nell if the independent sends him a password-protected PDF.'