by Deon Meyer
Praise for TRACKERS
#1 International Bestseller
‘This riveting tale has everything from a pair of rhinos to a gang of spies, as well as the oldest type of African adventure tale, the hunt.… You will not stop reading this book from the opening line … to the final word.’
Margaret Cannon, The Globe and Mail
‘Tense action scenes, unrelenting suspense, and a phenomenal cast of characters ranging from farmers and conservationists, to outlaws and intelligence agents, make it abundantly clear why Mr. Meyer has been crowned the “King of South African crime [fiction].” ’
New York Journal of Books
‘Brilliantly written … Deon Meyer has gone out to give his readers far more bang for their reading buck than ever before, and yet by the time you finish the final page you will still crave more.’
The Citizen (South Africa)
Praise for THIRTEEN HOURS
Winner of the Barry Award for Best Thriller
‘Meyer is brilliant at suspense, a skill that is coupled with beguilingly unabashed social commentary.’
The Sunday Times
‘A heart-pumping yarn in an exotic locale.’
Winnipeg Free Press
‘This terrific, action-packed thriller has superbly drawn characters and an enthralling setting. Deon Meyer is one of the best crime writers on the planet.’
Mail on Sunday
Praise for BLOOD SAFARI
A Globe and Mail Best Book
‘A searingly good thriller set amid the horrifying politics and corruption of South Africa.’
Daily Mail
‘Meyer is a serious writer who richly deserves the international reputation he has built. Blood Safari manages to be both an exciting read and an eye-opening portrait of a nation.’
The Washington Post
Also by Deon Meyer
Dead Before Dying
Dead at Daybreak
Heart of the Hunter
Devil’s Peak
Blood Safari
Thirteen Hours
Trackers
PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE CANADA
Copyright © 2012 Deon Meyer
English translation copyright © K. L. Seegers 2012
Originally published in Afrikaans in 2012 as 7 Dae by Human & Rousseau
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2012 by Random House Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, and simultaneously in the United Kingdom by Hodder & Stoughton, a Hachette UK company, London, and in the United States by Atlantic Monthly Press, an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc., New York. Distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited.
www.randomhouse.ca
Random House Canada and colophon are registered trademarks.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Meyer, Deon
Seven days / Deon Meyer ; translated by K. L. Seegers.
Translation of: 7 dae.
eISBN: 978-0-307-36021-2
I. Seegers, K. L. II. Title.
PT6592.23.E94S4913 2012 839.3′636 C2012-902040-0
Cover design by Marc Cohen/MJC Design
Cover artwork: woman © Photononstop/Alamy; landscape © Anita Meyer
v3.1
For Anita
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Day 1: Saturday
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Day 2: Sunday
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Day 3: Monday
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Day 4: Tuesday
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Day 5: Wednesday
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Day 6: Thursday
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Day 7: Friday
Chapter 64
Acknowledgements
Glossary
About the Author
DAY 1
Saturday
1
Whatever happened, he just didn’t want to make a complete idiot of himself.
Detective Captain Benny Griessel was wearing a new suit of clothes that he could ill afford. There was a bouquet of flowers on the passenger seat, his hands gripping the steering wheel were clammy, and with all his being he yearned for the healing, calming powers of alcohol. Tonight he must just please not make a total idiot of himself. Not in front of Alexa Barnard, not in front of all the stars of the music world, not after all the past week’s planning and preparation.
He’d started on Monday, with a haircut. Tuesday, Mat Joubert’s wife, Margaret, had been his style consultant at Romens in Tyger Valley. ‘It’s smart casual, Benny, just a pair of chinos and a smart shirt,’ she had said patiently in her charming English accent.
‘No, I want a jacket too.’ Griessel had dug in his heels, terrified of being caught between too ‘casual’ and not ‘smart’ enough. There would be some smart people there.
He had wanted a tie as well, but Margaret had put her foot down. ‘Overdressed is worse than underdressed. No tie.’ They had left with khaki chinos, a light blue cotton shirt, black belt, black shoes, a fashionable black jacket, and a credit card bill that made him shudder.
Since Wednesday he had been mentally preparing himself. He knew this thing, this event, had the potential to overwhelm him completely. His greatest fear was that he would swear, because that was what he always did when he got stressed. He would have to guard his tongue, all evening. No police-speak, no crude language, talk nice, stay calm. He had gone through it all in his imagination, visualised it, as Doc Barkhuizen, his sponsor at Alcoholics Anonymous, had prescribed.
To Anton L’Amour he would say: ‘Kouevuur is brilliant guitar.’ That’s all, no waxing lyrical an
d talking shit. To Theuns Jordaan: ‘I like your work a lot.’ That was a good thing to say, full of respect and appreciation, dignified. Lord, and if Schalk Joubert was there, he, Benny Griessel would take a deep breath, shake his hand and just say: ‘Pleased to meet you, it’s a great honour.’ Then he had better walk away before the flood of words of hero worship, admiration of Joubert’s mastery of bass guitar, spilled over all his careful defences.
Then, his biggest worry: Lize Beekman.
If he could just have one drink before he met her. To keep his nerves from getting out of control. He would have to dry his hand on his new trousers first, he couldn’t greet Lize Beekman with his palm all sweaty. ‘Miss Beekman, it’s an exceptional honour. Your music gives me great pleasure.’ And she would say ‘thank you’, and he would leave it at that and go and find Alexa, because that was the only way he would keep from making a total idiot of himself.
The white Chana panel van stopped under the trees in Second Avenue, between the Livingstone High School and the back yard of the South African Police Service’s Claremont Station.
It was a nondescript vehicle, a 2009 model bearing the marks of hard labour – a dent in the front bumper, scrapes and scratches on the doors at the back. The windows in the middle and rear were blanked out with cheap white paint. The side panels differed slightly in colour from the rest of the vehicle.
Behind the wheel, the sniper turned off the engine, put both hands on his knees and sat, for just a moment, dead still.
He wore a blue labourer’s overall, slightly faded. Long blond hair hung down his back, a brown baseball cap was pulled down low over his eyes.
With deliberate focus he looked out of the passenger window at the deserted school grounds. Then right. He studied the high fence across the street, the double wire gate, and behind it, the SAPS yard, wrapped in the early-evening shadow of Table Mountain. It was quiet and deserted.
He made sure both doors in front were locked, clambered over the seat to the back. The storage space was untidy, boxes and trunks of metal, wood and cardboard. He sat down on a wooden box and loosened the home-made screen of faded yellow material from the carpet-lined roof. It separated him from the driver’s cab, making him invisible to passers-by.
He took off the cap, laid it to one side, aware that he was breathing faster, his hands trembling slightly. He relaxed his shoulders with a forced sigh, bent down, opened a long, battered tool chest, and took out the removable tray. It was heavy, filled with well-worn tools – hammers, a collection of screwdrivers, cutters and pliers, metal saw blades. He put it gently down beside the chest, on the rubber matting covering the floor of the Chana.
There were two articles in the bottom of the red box – a firearm and a K-Way Kilimanjaro Trekking Pole.
He took out the hiking pole first, and propped it against his shoulder, picked up the rifle, pressed the silencer carefully through the black wrist strap on the end of the stick, so that the telescope of the rifle was not interfered with, and twisted the stick anti-clockwise until the loop was tight.
He pressed his cheek to the rifle butt, tested the height of the supporting hiking pole, and made an adjustment.
He slid the Chana’s right side panel three centimetres to the right with the small handle he had attached. Then the magnetic panel outside, so he could aim the barrel and telescope outwards.
He pressed the rifle butt to his shoulder and looked at the SAPS car park through the scope. He adjusted the focus.
In front of the big Victorian house in Brownlow Street, Griessel picked up the bouquet, got out of the car and walked through the little garden gate to the front door.
Alexa Barnard was in the process of renovating the house. The ugly giant cactus against the front fence had been recently removed, the painters’ scaffolding stood high against the walls.
It was all part of her recovery, he thought. Her new life.
He came to a halt at the front door, looked at his shoes. They gleamed.
He took a deep breath. What if he had misunderstood the whole thing, and it was a black-tie affair tonight, and Alexa opened the door in some exotic evening dress? Or it was totally informal, denims and open-neck shirts? He had never been to a music industry cocktail party before.
He rang the doorbell, heard her coming down the stairs.
The door opened. She stood in front of him.
‘Jissis,’ said Griessel.
Through the peephole the sniper saw the police van drive by close to the Chana. It slowed, ready for the turn in at the wide gate.
He waited for it to reappear in the car park in his field of vision. He kept his cheek pressed to the rifle butt, followed the van through the scope.
Only one occupant, in uniform.
The van drove over the tarred surface to the middle of the open area. It parked behind two other SAPS vehicles where he couldn’t see it.
Between seventy and eighty metres, he guessed.
As he aimed the cross hairs on the front of one of the vehicles, waiting for the policeman to appear, he suddenly became aware of the beating of his heart.
He took a deep breath.
The uniform appeared in the telescope. A constable.
Difficult shot, moving target.
He aimed low, followed the movement, forced himself to stick to his procedure: keep the horizontal axis of the scope level, cross hairs on the target, breathe out, press the trigger gently, keep your eye open.
The rifle kicked softly against his shoulder, the muffled blurt of the shot was louder than he had expected, within the Chana’s enclosed space.
A miss.
‘You look …’ Griessel wanted to say ‘befok’, but he restrained himself, searched desperately for an acceptable word, one that would do her breathtaking appearance justice ‘… fantastic.’ She was standing there in a strapless black dress that draped to her ankles, a wide, tan leather belt just below her generous breasts, light brown platform sandals.
And her face – he had never seen her like this: carefully and skilfully made up, red, full lips, blonde hair cut and coloured, big silver hearts as earrings, her eyes a deep green behind long lashes.
For one fleeting moment he wondered, after everything, whether he would kiss her tonight for the first time.
She laughed and looked at him approvingly. ‘You too, Benny.’ Then, ‘Are the flowers for me?’
‘Oh. Yes …’ He held them out to her awkwardly.
There was a blush on her cheeks, genuine appreciation for him, for this gesture.
‘Thank you very much.’ She stepped forward and kissed Griessel on the cheek.
He knew from experience the shot was barely audible outside, thanks to the silencer and the pieces of carpet glued to the Chana’s interior. His palms perspired against the gun and his heart thumped. He worked the bolt, and the bullet casing sprang out, clinked against one of the toolboxes. He pushed another round into the chamber. He moved the weapon slightly, saw through the scope that the constable was unaware of the failed shot, his head turned away towards the mountain.
He aimed down, found the constable’s legs in the cross hairs.
He led two, three centimetres ahead of moving legs, knee height, the panic blooming from the pit of his stomach, breathe, breathe, exhale slowly … He squeezed the trigger. Saw the constable fall.
Relief. Smell of cordite in his nostrils.
Then, urgency, knowing he must concentrate now, the next sixty seconds were make or break, do everything exactly according to the plan.
Unwind the strap of the support stick. Withdraw the rifle from the loop. Lay the weapon in the toolbox. Put the tray over it. Close the box. The pole can stay there.
Lift up the cloth drape.
The cap. Put on the cap.
He climbed through to the driver’s seat.
Do not look at the target, do not, but the anxiety threatened to overwhelm him, so he quickly turned his head to see. The constable was eighty metres away, lying there. He was looking down, p
robably at his leg.
Look in front of you.
Turn the key, start the Chana, pull away slowly, only ten metres and you will be out of sight, seconds, not enough for the constable to see you, to notice, he will be in shock, confused. Don’t attract attention, do everything calmly, normally.
He put the vehicle in gear. And drove away.
2
At the entrance to the Artscape Chandelier Foyer Griessel stared at the giant poster. In big letters it proclaimed Anton Goosen Birthday Concert, Friday 4 March, Grand Arena, with a photo below of all the stars who would be performing there in a week’s time. Alexa Barnard was the focal point, right in the middle, just below the smaller announcement which used her stage name: Xandra Barnard is back!
And here he was with that legend on the arm of his new jacket. He swallowed hard, and held himself together.
Inside. Lots of people. He quickly surveyed the men, what they were wearing. Relief washed over him, because there were a lot of jackets. He relaxed a little, everything was going to be OK.
Heads turned towards Alexa, people called out her name, and suddenly they were surrounded. Alexa let go of his arm and began greeting people. Griessel stood back. He had suspected this would happen and was happy she was getting this reception. Last week she had been nervous and had told him: ‘I’ve been out of it for so long, Benny. And that whole thing with Adam’s death … I don’t know what to expect.’
Adam had been her husband. Benny had investigated his murder; that was how he had met her.
‘You’re Paul Eilers, the actor,’ someone said right beside him. Then he realised the pretty young woman was talking to him.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m Benny Griessel.’
‘I could have sworn you were Paul Eilers,’ she said, disappointed, and then she was gone.
He recognised some of the music stars. Laurika Rauch folding Alexa’s hands in hers, saying something with great tenderness. Karen Zoid and Gian Groen in conversation. Emo Adams making Sonja Herholdt laugh out loud.
Where was Lize Beekman?
A waiter pushed through the mass of bodies, came past with a tray full of champagne glasses, offered him one. He stared at the golden liquid, the bubbles lazily drifting upwards, and felt the stirring inside, the desire. He came to his senses, shook his head. No, thank you.