by Deon Meyer
'This is CapSud, trading as Gourmet Foods.'
'Could I speak to Mr de Jager, please?'
'Who is this speaking?'
'This is Inspector Vusi Ndabeni of the South African Police Service.'
'Mr de Jager is deceased, Inspector.'
'Oh. I'm sorry. When did he pass away?'
'Four months ago.'
'I am calling to enquire about a Peugeot Boxer panel van, registration CA four-oh-nine, three-four-one, that is registered in the name of CapSud Trading.'
'That must be the stolen one.'
'Oh?'
'We bought it early October last year, then we sent it to the sign writers to have our logo applied. It was stolen that very night from the sign writers. And you never caught them.' Accusatory.
'Are you aware that the vehicle was in the Metropolitan Police pound?'
'Yes, they recovered it in Salt River, in a Fire Service parking spot, so they towed it away and impounded it and called us. That was mid-October.'
'Why have you never collected it, ma'am?'
'Because when Frik died everything was frozen. Nobody could draw money or sign a cheque, and the estate will only be wound up in two months' time. This is the New South Africa, you know, you have to wait and see.'
'So, as far as you know, the panel van has been in the pound ever since?'
'Must be, because every week someone phones and says we must come and pay the fine and collect it, and the more I explain about Frik, the less it helps because next week someone else phones.'
'You are Mrs ...?'
'I am Saartjie de Jager. Frik's wife.'
'May I ask how Mr de Jager died, ma'am?'
'Cholesterol. The doctor warned him, I warned him, but Frik wouldn't listen. He was like that all his life. Now I'm the one trying to clear up the mess.'
Everything happened at once. Griessel waited impatiently at the big table for his contact at Telkom to get back to him, John Afrika walked gingerly past the blood in the hallway, looking at it in horror, saying: 'Nee, o, jirre,' Griessel's cell phone began to ring and Vusi came through the front door with an excited 'Benny!'
He thought it was the Telkom man, turned away from his colleagues and answered it. 'Griessel.' Through the window he saw Mat Joubert walking up the garden path.
'Benny, it's Fransman.'
Too much at once. 'Fransman, can I call you back?' Behind him the Commissioner said something reproachfully.
'Benny, just a quick one, how sure are we that Barnard's wife and Josh Geyser are not involved?'
He needed to tell Afrika that he had asked Joubert to come, before there were fireworks. 'Don't know,' he said, his mind not on the conversation.
'So I can question them some more? I'll get Mbali to talk to Alexandra ...'
The female detective's name forced him to focus. 'Don't you know yet?' he asked.
'What are you doing here?' he heard John Afrika say behind him. He turned. Joubert had entered the room. He put his hand over the receiver as Dekker asked, 'Don't I know what yet?'
'Commissioner, I'll explain,' said Griessel and then to Dekker: 'Mbali was shot, Fransman. Here in Upper Orange, the American girl...'
Dekker was dumbfounded.
'She's in hospital,' Griessel said.
'The American girl? What was Mbali doing there?'
'That's what I wanted to ask you.'
'How would I know? I sent her to Jack Fischer.'
'Jack Fischer?' he asked in surprise, and then realised it was the wrong thing to say with both Afrika and Joubert nearby.
'They did some work for AfriSound, but I think it's a dead end. Is Mbali OK?'
'Fransman, we don't know, I'm sorry, I have to run. Talk to Geyser again if you think you should. I'll call you later.' He ended the call and said: 'Commissioner, I asked Mat to come and help.' Afrika's face began to screw up in protest but Griessel didn't give him the chance. 'All due respect, Commissioner,' he began, knowing that what he was about to say was not respectful at all, but he didn't give a damn any more, 'you said there's a manpower problem. Mat is ... underutilised at PT, he's the best detective in the Cape and I have an American girl that I have to find, whatever it takes. You can fire me tomorrow, you can demote me to Inspector or Sergeant if you like, but, fuck knows, there's no time to waste. Vusi is working on the panel van they took Rachel Anderson away in, I am going to find out who the hell knew she was in this house. We don't have time to process the scene and I need someone who knows what he's doing. You said I must phone Rachel's father, and I will do it, but not before I know what is going on. Because he is going to ask me and I want to have answers that will satisfy a girl's father. So, please, let's skip the shit and get the girl.' Then he added a final, hopeful: 'With respect, Commissioner,' and waited for the guillotine to drop.
John Afrika looked at Griessel, at Joubert, at Ndabeni, and back to Griessel again. Conflicting emotions passed like the seasons across his face. He nodded slightly. 'Get her, Benny,' he said, and walked out, careful not to step in the pool of blood.
Griessel's phone rang again, he answered it and the man from Telkom said: 'Benny, between twelve and two there were only two calls made from that number. The first was to West Lafayette in Indiana, that's in America, and the second was to you.'
'Dave, what time was the first one made?'
'Hold on ... thirteen thirty-six. It lasted for two minutes, twenty-two seconds.'
'Thanks, Dave, thanks a lot.' He ended the call and thought. He tried to piece the thing together, the thousands of loose strands in his head.
'Benny ...' Vusi said, but he held up a hand, checked his cell phone screen, looked up the call register for the record of Rachel's call to him. He received it at thirteen forty-one. Then he had run out of Van Hunks and they had raced here. If her attackers had somehow intercepted her first call, they had only had five minutes more. What if they had been in the area somewhere nearby? They must have arrived just after he had finished speaking to Rachel. That was some quick reaction. Too quick ...
A spark lit up in his brain, a flash of insight. 'Vusi, was it here on the corner that she went into the cafe?'
'The deli,' Ndabeni nodded.
'And then she ran down here,' Griessel indicated Upper Orange.
'Mbali found footprints in the garden.'
Griessel scratched his head. 'They were waiting somewhere, Vusi. They must have seen her, but with all the police around ...'
'Benny, the panel van ...'
But Griessel did not hear him. Why hadn't they shot her? Just the old man. They had cut Erin Russel's throat. But they allowed Rachel to live when they could easily have killed her. Here in this house. But they abducted her?
Another revelation.
'The rucksack,' he said. They had cut Erin Russel's rucksack off her shoulders. He bent and looked under the table. 'See if you can find a rucksack.' He walked down the passage. 'Vusi, take the left,
the bathroom, that bedroom, I'll take the right.' He stopped. 'Mat, please, can you look in the kitchen and outside?'
'What does the rucksack look like?'
'I have no idea,' said Griessel. But a thought occurred to him and stopped him in his tracks so that Vusi nearly bumped into him. He began to phone feverishly. As the sergeant in Caledon Square answered, he identified himself and asked if there were still uniforms at the Cat & Moose in Long Street.
'Yes, they are still there.'
'Sarge, tell them to ask where the American girls' luggage is. Erin Russel and Rachel Anderson. They must find it, and guard it with their lives.'
'I'll do that.'
Griessel said to Ndabeni: 'They're looking for something, Vusi, the fuckers are looking for something the girls have. That's why Rachel is still alive.' And he dashed off to the bedrooms to look for the rucksack.
Chapter 37
'What now?' Natasha Abader asked as he closed the late Adam Barnard's door behind her.
'Sit down, please,' said Dekker, leaning against the des
k, intimidating her with his proximity.
She didn't like that, her beautiful eyes showed it, but she sat.
'Can I trust you, sister?'
'I told you, I'm not your sister.'
'Why not, sister? Are you too la-di-da working here with the whiteys and I'm just a common hotnot from Atlantis? You're chlora, finish en klaar.'
'Do you think that's what it's about?' Her eyes flashed. 'You can't stand it that I slept with a white man, can you? No, it's no use shaking your head, I saw how you changed, just like that, when I said he did it here with me too. Let me tell you, he wasn't the first white man and he won't be the last. But I don't discriminate, I sleep with whoever I want, because it's the New South Africa, but you don't want to know about that. You want to "brother" and "sister" us all. You want us to be a separate tribe, us coloureds; you're the kind who goes around complaining how hard it is to be a coloured. Wake up, Inspector, it's useless. If you don't integrate, you won't. That's the trouble with this country, everyone wants to complain, nobody wants to do anything, nobody wants to forget the past. And, just for the record, how many white women have you slept with?'
He looked away, towards the window.
'I thought so,' she said.
'What makes you think I have?'
'What woman can look at you and not think of sex?' she said.
Now he looked her in the eyes, and she looked back, challenging, angry.
'I'll take that as a compliment.' Knowing he had lost the battle, he tried to consolidate his position.
'Why am I here?'
Now he felt uncomfortable to be so close. He stood up and walked around the desk.
'Because I trust you.'
She shook her head, long hair cascading.
'I am going to tell you things you can't repeat,' he said.
She just looked at him.
'The people who shot Adam Barnard knew him very well. They know his wife passes out every night. They know where he keeps his pistol. You are the only one I can trust. Tell me who knows him that well.'
'How can you say that? He was shot in his house ...'
'No, he was shot somewhere else. Maybe not far from here, in the street. We found his shoe. And his cell phone.' He saw that surprised her and it gave him satisfaction.
'Then they took him to his house and carried him up the stairs and put him down there ... Who knows about his wife, Natasha? Who knows about the pistol? The Geysers?'
She adjusted her skirt and brushed her hair back over her shoulder before answering. 'No. I don't think so. I don't think they have ever been to his house. Adam was ... ashamed of Alexa. A few times she'd ...'
'What?'
'Made a scene when he took people to his house. He lived here. From morning to night. He would go home about seven o'clock, but he would come back, often. Eight o'clock, nine o'clock, then he would work till twelve ...'
'So who would have known that?'
She considered before she answered. 'I really can't say.'
'Please. Take a guess.'
'A guess?'
'Speculate.' 'I knew about his wife ...'
'Who else?'
'Willie and Wouter and Michele ...'
'Who's Michele?'
'She's been sitting in there all morning. She does the PR.'
'I thought Willie Mouton did production and promotion?'
'Yes, but she does the PR. Promotion is when we pay for something. PR is when the papers write about stuff, or someone is on TV or radio and you don't pay for it.'
'Which one is Michele?'
'She's the oldish woman who was sitting with Spider and Ivan ...'
He had a vague recollection of an older woman between the younger men. 'And she knows Adam well?'
'They've worked together for years. From the beginning. She went freelance about seven years ago but she still does our PR on contract.'
'She went freelance?'
'You know, she set up her own agency. For artists who don't have a label, or for minor labels.'
'Did she and Adam get on well?'
'They were like brother and sister .. .'There was a hint that this wasn't the whole story.
'What does that mean?'
'They say Adam and Michele were lovers. Years ago.'
'How many years ago?'
'It's just rumours.'
He gave her a look that said, 'Drop the shit.'
'From when Alexa began drinking, apparently. He went and cried on Michele's shoulder. She was married herself then ...'
'Fuck,' said Dekker.
She looked at him with disapproval.
'Damnit, sister,' he said indignantly. 'My list keeps getting longer.'
Mat Joubert walked back through the kitchen to the hall where Griessel and Vusi were watching him expectantly. He shook hishead. No rucksack. He watched Benny process the information silently. Joubert waited patiently until he knew he could speak.
'You know about the blood out there?' he asked Griessel, watching him while he said 'yes'. Benny was standing still, head tilted sideways, right hand reaching unconsciously for his head and the fingers scratching in the thick, unruly hair just behind his ear.
A feeling of compassion swept over Joubert for this colleague, this friend, this man he had known for a lifetime. Griessel's frame had always been too small for all his energy, so that sometimes it seemed to vibrate, shock waves of passion pulsing through it like a tsunami. That face - twenty years ago it had an elfish quality, the mischievous cheek of the court jester, with an infectious laugh and a preposterous witticism perpetually crouched behind those bright Slavic eyes and wide mouth, ready to take off in full, unstoppable flight. You could barely see it now - life had eroded it away in a network of tiny furrows. But Joubert knew that in that brain the synapses were firing now. Griessel, sent from pillar to post all morning, was trying to get his head around the puzzle. When he succeeded the sparks would fly. Benny had the brain of a detective, always faster and more creative than his. Joubert had always been slow, methodical and systematic, but Griessel had instinct, natural flair, the sparkling fly half to Joubert's plodding front ranker.
'It might be drugs,' said Griessel, but to himself. 'I think the ... the rucksack ...'
'Benny, the panel van was in the Metro pound,' said Vusi.
Griessel stared into nowhere:'... the girls ... no, I don't know. Maybe they stole the drugs. Or took them but didn't pay ...'
Joubert waited quietly, till he saw Benny focus on him and Vusi. Then he asked: 'Is it the girl's blood?'
'No.' Then Benny focused sharply on Joubert, with sudden insight, and he said: 'It's someone else's blood, not Rachel's, it's the blood of one of those fuckers.' He grabbed his phone.
Joubert said, 'Benny, let me phone the hospitals.'
'No, Mat, let Caledon Square do it,' and he called their number and gave the order to the radio room Sergeant: 'Any young man between the age of, say, eighteen and thirty-five, any colour, any race, any language, Sarge, every young fucker with blood on him, I want to know about.' Then Griessel looked at Vusi and said: 'Metro's pound?'
'That's right. The same Peugeot, same registration. It was stolen, and Metro recovered it in Salt River. It has been parked in the pound since October, because the owner died of a heart attack and the estate is frozen. I'm going, Benny. I'm going to find out what's going on there. How did they get it out of the pound?'
Joubert saw a flicker in Griessel's eyes, a momentary realisation. 'What?' He knew the value of Benny's intuition.
Griessel shook his head. 'Don't know. Something. Jissis, I have to sit and think, but there's no time. Vusi, excellent work, go and find out, let's get the van, because that's about all we have ...' A sudden intake of breath. 'Wait,' he called Ndabeni back. 'Vusi, I want to make absolutely sure, the man from the deli, did he look at the pictures of Demidov's people?'
'He did.'
'Nothing?'
'Nothing.'
'OK. Thanks.'
Vusi jogged away and
Griessel hung his head while Mat patiently stood and watched him. For a long time. In silence, so that the tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the study could be heard. The two of them were the dinosaurs of the SAPS, he thought, an endangered, dying breed. Political global warming and racial climate change should have taken their toll long ago, but here they were still, two old carnivores in the jungle, limbs stiff, teeth blunt, but still not completely ineffective.
Griessel scratched audibly at the bushy hair behind his ear. He grunted: 'Hu ...' turned and went outside. Joubert followed tranquilly across the little doormat and the veranda, past the bougainvilleas and down the slate pathway. Griessel opened the garden gate and went and stood in the street. He turned to face Lion's Head. Joubert stood behind him, looking, seeing the rocky dome rising above the city, feeling the wind, watching how it ruffled Benny's hair even more. This day that had dawned in such perfection, was being overtaken by the southeaster. Tonight it would howl like a demon around the side of Table Mountain.
'Before six this morning, up there,' said Griessel, pointing at Lion's Head, 'she told a woman to call the police. Those young men had been chasing her since two in the morning. At eleven at the deli there, she told her father over the tickey-box that she couldn't talk to the police ...'
Tickey-box, thought Joubert. A prehistoric word.
Griessel dipped his head again. Then he looked up at Table Mountain. His eyes measured the distance to Lion's Head. He looked at Joubert. 'Five hours after she was on Lion's Head she arrives at the cafe. And the fucker parks in the street and comes in after her. How did they know, Mat? Where was she in between, why couldn't they find her? Why did she change her mind about the police?' He lifted his hand to his hair again. 'What do you do? A girl, a foreigner, you are desperate to find her, she could be anywhere. How do you watch the whole city?'
They stared at the mountain. As always, Griessel's ability to put himself in someone else's shoes, either victim or the perpetrator, charmed Joubert.
Then he realised what Griessel obviously already had. They had been sitting on the mountain and watching the whole city. 'Could be,' he said.
'Fokkol use to us now,' said Griessel, still one step ahead. 'They've got her.'