Thirteen Hours

by Deon Meyer

  'Can you spell that for me?'

  Just then the house phone on Anderson's desk began to ring and he said: 'Excuse me for one second,' picked up the receiver and said: 'Bill Anderson.'

  'Daddy,' he heard the voice of his daughter.

  'Rachel! Oh, God, where are you?'

  'I'm with Captain Benny Griessel, Daddy ...' and then her voice broke.

  Griessel sat with his back to the wall, both arms around her. She leaned heavily on him, her head on his shoulder, while she spoke to her father. When she was finished and passed the phone back to him, she looked up at him and said: 'Thank you.'

  He didn't know how to answer her. He heard the sirens approaching, wondering how long it would take the helicopter to get here.

  'Did you find the video?' she asked.

  'What video?'

  'The video of the murder. At Kariba.'

  'No,' he said.

  'That's why they killed Erin.'

  'You don't have to tell me now,' he said.

  'No, I have to.'

  She and Erin had shared a tent the whole tour.

  Erin had adjusted easily to the new time zones, slept well, got up with the sun, stretched pleasurably, yawned and said: 'Another perfect day in Africa.'

  Initially Rachel struggled to fall asleep at night. After the firstweek it improved, but every night, somewhere between one and three, her body clock woke her. Later she would vaguely recall moments of consciousness while she reoriented herself and wondered at this astonishing adventure, this special privilege, of lying listening to the noises of this divine continent. And she would sink away, carefree and light as a feather, into cosy sleep.

  At Lake Kariba the moonlight had taken her by surprise. Some time after two in the early hours, near wakening, she had become aware of the glow and opened her eyes. She thought someone had switched on a floodlight. Then truth dawned - full moon. She was enchanted by its brightness, its immensity, and was ready to drift back to her dreams. In her imagination she saw the moon over Kariba, the beauty of it. She realised she must capture it for her video journal. It could be the opening shot of the DVD she would make at home on Premiere Pro. Or the background of her title- sequence animation in After Effects, if she ever found enough time to unravel the secrets of that software.

  Carefully, so as not to disturb Erin, she crawled out of her sleeping bag, took her Sony video camera and went out into the sultry summer night.

  The camp was quiet. She walked between the tents to the edge of the lake. The view was as she had suspected, another breathtaking African show - the moon a jewel of tarnished silver sliding across the carpet of a billion stars, all duplicated in the mirror of the lake. She switched the camera on, folded out the small LCD screen and chose 'Sunset & Moon' on the panel. But the moon was too high. She could film either the reflection or the real thing, but not both in one frame. She looked around and spotted the rocks on the edge of the lake about a hundred metres away. An acacia tree was growing out of them. It would give her height, a reference point and perspective. From the top of the rocks she tried again. She experimented with the branches of the tree, until she heard the sounds, below, scarcely fifteen metres away.

  She had turned to look. Two figures in the dark. A muffled argument. She sat down slowly, instinctively, and knew it was Jason de Klerk and Steven Chitsinga at one of the trailers.

  She smiled to herself, aimed her camera at them and began to film. Her intention was mischievous. These were the chief teases, the head guides who mocked the European and American tourists about their love of comfort, their bickering, complaining, their inability to deal with Africa. Now she had evidence that they were not perfect either. She smiled, thinking she would reveal it at breakfast. Let them feel embarrassed for once.

  Until Steven pulled open one of the large storage drawers under the trailer and bent to get something. He jerked roughly at it and suddenly the shape of another person stood between them, a smaller figure beside the lankiness of the two guides.

  A man's voice called out one word. Steven grabbed the smaller figure from behind and put a hand over his mouth. Rachel Anderson looked up from the screen now, dumbstruck, she wanted to be certain the camera was not lying. She saw something shiny in Jason's hand, bright and deadly in the moonlight. She saw him drive it into the small figure's chest and how the man slumped in Steven's grip.

  Jason picked up the feet, Steven took the hands and they dragged the figure away into the darkness.

  She sat there a long time. At first she denied it, it could not be real, a dream, a complete fantasy. She turned off the sound of the video and played it back. The image quality was not great, the camera was not renowned for its results in the dark, but there was enough, until the truth struck home: she had witnessed a murder, committed by two people to whom she had entrusted her life.

  The next day passed in a haze. She realised she was traumatised, but didn't know what to do. She withdrew. Again and again Erin asked her: 'What's wrong?' Later: 'Did I do something?' She just said: 'I'm not feeling well.'

  Erin suspected the first symptoms of malaria. She cross- questioned her about symptoms and Rachel answered vaguely and evasively, until her friend gave up. She wanted to report the murder, but to whom? There were so many rumours about the police in Zimbabwe, so many stories of corruption and politics that she hesitated. After a visit to the Victoria Falls, they left the country and passed into Botswana. Then there was no more opportunity. Just the dismay she carried with her and the knowledge that the murder in Zimbabwe by Zimbabweans was not the concern of another country's police. Not on this continent.

  In Cape Town they went with a few others to the Van Hunks nightclub, unaware that Jason would turn up later.

  They had both been drinking, Erin with great fervour. She began to scold Rachel in an escalating flood of complaints - at the table, on the dance floor. At first just with words like razors, later with tears of drunken melancholy. About friendship, trust and betrayal.

  The alcohol had weakened Rachel's resolve. It made her emotional, feel the urge to lighten the burden of her secret and deny the horrible accusations against her. Eventually, with their heads close together at the table, she told Erin everything. Erin calmed down. She said it couldn't be true, it must be a misunderstanding. Not Jason and Steven. Impossible. Rachel said she had watched the video many times over in the early morning hours. There was no mistake.

  Let's ask them, let's clear this thing up. This was the reasoning of a fairly intoxicated, naive arch-optimist who never saw evil in anyone. No, no, no, Rachel had protested, promise me you won't say anything, never, let's go home, my father will know what to do.

  Erin had promised. They danced. Erin went off somewhere, came back to the table. She said Jason and Steven were here, she had asked them about it, they said she was dreaming. Rachel looked up across the sea of faces and found Jason's eyes on her. He had a cell phone to his ear, and an expression of chilling determination. She had grabbed her rucksack and told Erin to come, they had to get out of there, now. Erin had argued, she didn't want to leave, what was Rachel's problem? Rachel had grabbed her arms and said, 'You come with me. Now!'

  They were a few hundred metres from the club down Long Street when Jason and Steven emerged. They looked left and right, saw them and began to run. The other three had joined them from somewhere. Barry, Eben and Bobby.

  She knew they were running for their lives.

  In the Toyota bakkie, Steven Chitsinga and Barry Smith turned out of Scott into Speke Street and saw the police vehicles in front of the African Overland Adventures warehouse, a horde of blue lights flashing and uniforms everywhere.

  Steven said a word in Shona; Barry was silent, braked sharply so that the big off-road tyres squealed. He jerked the gear lever into reverse, released the clutch, depressed the accelerator and shot backwards into something. In the mirror he could just see the roof of the vehicle, only once he turned his head in panic did he realise it was another SAPS patrol vehicle. W
ith an ambulance behind that was blocking most of the road. He ground through the gears and shot forward. If he could go left into Stanley, and then left again in Grant...

  But Stanley was closed, police vans, Opels, blocked the street. Uniforms came running with guns in hand.

  'Fuck,' said Steven beside him.

  Barry said nothing. He stopped the bakkie and lifted his hands slowly off the steering wheel and held them above his head.

  'He's coming with me,' said Rachel Anderson as they carried her to the helicopter on a stretcher. She pointed at Griessel, who walked beside her holding her hand.

  'There's no room,' said the paramedic.

  'Then I'm not going.'

  'Rachel, I'll be there in a few minutes,' Griessel soothed.

  She fought to get off the stretcher. 'I'm not going.'

  'Wait,' said the paramedic, 'he can go with you.' To Griessel he said: 'Where's your car?'

  Benny pointed at the van. 'The keys are still inside.'

  They loaded her into the helicopter, and Griessel shifted in beside her with difficulty. 'Wait a bit,' the paramedic said and ran back into the building. He returned with the toes in a little bag and passed the gruesome cargo to Griessel. 'They can sew them back on,' said the man. 'Maybe ....'

  In the helicopter she tried to talk but the rotors made too much of a racket.

  Once they had landed on the roof of the hospital and when they were ready to wheel her into theatre, the same one where they had operated on Mbali Kaleni and Eben Etlinger, she asked them to wait. She told Griessel there was another thing, last night. After they had cut Erin's throat.

  'We'll talk later,' he pleaded, because he had to get back to Vusi, there was a lot of work to do.

  'No. You have to know. They killed another man.'

  She had seen them cut Erin's throat and she had run blindly in fear and shock back to the street, chose the first possible street away from them. Somewhere not long after that she had seen a building on the left with an entrance through to an inner garden. She wanted to get out of sight. She ran in there.

  A big, middle-aged man in a suit, handsome, was standing at a fishpond and watching two other men walk away. He shouted something angry before they opened a glass door and disappeared inside. On the wall was a logo of a bird, she could remember that.

  'Please, help me,' she said with huge relief, here was help. The big man had looked at her and the anger on his face had quickly changed to concern. 'What's wrong?' he asked.

  'They want to kill me,' she had said and went to stand with him.

  'Who?'

  They heard their running steps and looked at the entrance, where Jason and the others had appeared. Jason had a gun in his hand now.

  'We just want her,' he said to the big man. The man had put his arm protectively around Rachel's shoulders and said: 'Not before we call the police.'

  'She stole from us. We just want our stuff back, we don't want trouble.'

  'Even more reason to call the police,' and he had started to feel in his pocket, probably for his phone.

  Jason pointed the pistol at the man. 'Then I'll have to shoot you.'

  The man took out a cell phone.

  She realised she was not going to be responsible for another death and she started running again. The big man tried to stop them.

  She heard two shots. She looked back. The big man in the black suit fell down.

  Then she was gone, around the corner. In the street a municipal lorry had pulled away, a smelly truck transporting rubbish bags. She jumped up against it, saw them coming. The truck picked up speed so that Jason became smaller and smaller. She thought they had given up when she had nearly a half a kilometre lead on them. But then the traffic lights at the top of the street turned red. She jumped off then.

  'Two men went into the building just before he saw you?' he asked her as they wheeled her into theatre.

  'Yes,' she said.

  Griessel followed. 'What did they look like?'

  'I can remember only one. He was ... eccentric. Very thin, his head was shaven .. . Oh, and he had a silver earring,' and then the doctor told Griessel he would have to leave. 'He was dressed all in black,' she called before the theatre doors closed.

  16:41-17:46

  Chapter 47

  Detective Inspector Vusi Ndabeni finally lost his professional cool in the interrogation room at the Caledon Square police station.

  They deposited Steven Chitsinga in a cell. They asked Mat Joubert to question Jason de Klerk in an available office, as Griessel said he couldn't, because if he did he 'would beat the fucker to death'.

  Vusi took Barry Smith to the official station interview room. Griessel took charge of Bobby Verster in another office. Verster was the last one to come out of Rachel's torture chamber, the one who had left Jeremy Oerson alone with her. They suspected he was the weakest link.

  Joubert got nothing from Jason de Klerk, despite his skill, his intimidating size and the fact that Jason was in agony from his smashed elbow. He ignored every question, just sat and stared at the wall.

  To every question from Vusi, Barry Smith mumbled 'Fuck off.' Vusi felt the unease growing inside him, but he suppressed it and asked the next question.

  'Fuck off.'

  In the other office, Bobby Verster told Griessel he hadn't been on the tour. Last night by chance he had been with Barry and Eben at the Purple Turtle when Jason had phoned. Barry had jumped up and told them to come, and outside they had seen Jason and Steven chasing two girls down Long Street. So they joined in the chase.

  Griessel's body was sore, but he was filled with euphoria from the breakthrough and the relief at finding Rachel. He stood up from his chair and approached the table. He looked at

  Bobby. Bobby looked away. 'Have you heard the one about the little dog?' Griessel asked.

  'What one?'

  With suspicion.

  Benny sat on the table, folded his arms carefully across his chest and said in a mischievous, playful and friendly voice: 'The one about the young dog that heard the big dogs talking about sex and how good it felt to fuck. "What is fucking?" asked the young dog. "It's the best thing ever, let's show you." The dogs ran up the street and found a bitch on heat. The bitch ran away from the pack. They chased her, around and around the block. After the fourth time around the block, the little dog said: "Guys, I'm only fucking one more round and then I'm going home."'

  Bobby Verster didn't laugh.

  'You didn't get tired of all the chasing, Bobby?' Benny Griessel asked.

  Verster said nothing.

  'Not even when they cut an innocent girl's throat?'

  Bobby said he was shocked when Jason did it. He had protested. But Steven Chitsinga told him: 'You're next if you don't shut your mouth and help.' It scared him. But he didn't know what the hell was going on with Jason and them.

  'So were you forced?'

  'Yes.'

  'So actually, you are innocent?'

  'Yes!'

  'Would you make a statement to that effect? Just so we can close your part of the case?' Griessel asked him.

  'I will,' he answered eagerly.

  Benny shifted pen and paper closer. Bobby wrote. 'Sign it,' said Benny. Once Bobby was finished, Griessel read the statement out loud to him. He asked: 'All this is the truth?'

  'It is.'

  'Then you are an accessory to murder. You are going to jail, and you will sit there for a very long time.'

  Bobby Verster's eyes widened. He protested, just as he claimed he had done the previous night. 'But you said I was innocent!'

  'No, I asked you if you were. Come, there's a police van outside that will take you to Pollsmoor.'

  'Pollsmoor?'

  'Just until the bail hearing. In about a week or two. Three.'

  'Wait...'

  Griessel waited.

  Bobby Verster thought for a long time. Then he said: 'You're looking for Blake.'

  'Who is Blake?'

  'Do I still have to go to P
ollsmoor?'

  'Everything is negotiable.'

  'Blake is the owner. Of Overland. We bring the people in for him.'

  'What people?'

  'The blacks.'

  'What blacks?'

  'The blacks they put in the bins under the trailer. From Zimbabwe. But they're not always Zimbabweans.'

  'Illegal immigrants?'

  'Something like that. I don't know. I've only been helping with unloading about a month, but they won't tell me everything yet.'

  'What is Blake's name?'

  'Duncan. But we call him Mr B. He lives here in the city, that's all I know.'

  'Thank you very much.'

  'Do I still have to go to Pollsmoor?'

  'Yip.'

  Fransman Dekker brought another two uniforms along with him to AfriSound. They walked through the pack of journalists in the little garden. He ignored the questions. One of the two Constables guarding the door opened up for them. Dekker said: 'All of you come with me.' They climbed the stairs in step, the detective in front, four uniforms behind him. They walked through the reception area. Dekker smiled at Natasha. He felt self-confident

  for the first time today. Down the passage as far as Mouton's office. He didn't knock, he just walked in.

  The lawyer wasn't there.

  'What now?' Mouton asked.

  'The best thing about my job, the thing I enjoy most of all, is arresting a whitey bastard,' said Dekker.

  Mouton's Adam's apple bobbed wildly up and down, but he couldn't get a word out. Dekker asked two Constables to keep an eye on Mouton and walked out, beckoned the other two uniforms closer and opened Wouter Steenkamp's door. The accountant was seated behind his computer.

  'We know all about last night,' he said. Steenkamp didn't bat an eyelid.

  'He doesn't phone anyone, he doesn't move, he just sits here,' said Dekker to the two uniforms. 'I'll be back soon.'

  Griessel called Vusi and Mat Joubert. He held a quick meeting in the station commander's office. He told them what Bobby Verster had said. Once the detectives had finished discussing it, Vusi went back and told Barry Smith: 'We're bringing in Mr B. We know everything.'