by Deon Meyer
‘Sorry about this, Tommy,’ Griessel said as he walked in.
‘It’s nothing, Captain. I expected you guys to take over the case long ago.’
The entrance foyer was new and shiny. A man and a woman in security uniforms sat behind a desk. Nxesi pointed at the TV camera behind them, on the wall. ‘The CCTV and the card system in the lifts should have been operational by the end of December, but at the end of January they were still finishing up. On January eighteenth there was no security except these people at reception. Trouble is, at the time, an intruder could have entered via the parking garage.’
He showed his SAPS identification card to the female guard, spoke to her in Xhosa. She made them sign a book first, a precaution Griessel never could fathom, since you could write absolutely anything there.
Then she led them to the lift. ‘Nowadays you have to push a card in if you want to go up.’ Nxesi pointed to a slot just above the button panel of the lift. ‘Then you press the right floor. If you press a number that is not programmed on your card, it won’t work. Coming down, it works automatically.’
‘But on January eighteenth it wasn’t working?’
‘No. Two days after the murder, then it was working.’ He shook his head.
The security guard made a noise of protest. Nxesi adjusted his glasses. ‘They’re touchy about the murder, because half the flats are still for sale.’
At the door, while he unlocked, Nxesi said, ‘Everything is just as it was, because the case is still open. But the lawyers have started to nag the SC, they want us to clean up, so they can wind up the estate. The parents inherit everything. They live in Jeffreys Bay. Retired.’
He pushed the door open, waited for Griessel to go ahead.
Griessel confirmed that there was a peephole in the front door, and a security chain and bolt, undamaged. Then he stopped, he wanted to get a feel for the room first.
It was smaller than the impression created by the photographs, but still spacious and attractive and modern. The morning light shining through the large windows made it look cheerful, and the view south included a part of Signal Hill. To his left was the single pillar, the kitchen behind it. He heard the quiet murmur of the fridge, an expensive double-door. The couch and chairs stood between the pillar and the windows, in the centre of the room. The painting hung on the wall to his right, above the stereo. The artwork looked more interesting than it did in the photographs. At the window stood the white telescope on a tripod.
He looked around, saw Nxesi watching him intently. ‘Can I see the key, Tommy?’
The Xhosa detective held it out to him. ‘This one is for the front door.’ He showed the silver Yale key. ‘This one is for her car, the other is for those cupboards up there.’ The bunch was attached to a little metal ring.
‘Were there any spare keys?’
‘Just for the cupboards, and her car. She kept them in the drawer beside her bed.’
‘In her office?’
Nxesi shook his head.
‘And security? Do they have a key?’
‘Hayi. Only the caretaker has a master key, but he doesn’t have a lift card. Security has to bring him, but only if the owner has given permission.’
‘Her car?’
‘It’s still here, down in the parking garage. Mini Cooper S Convertible. Forensics have been through it. Nothing.’
‘Thanks.’ Griessel handed the keys back.
He looked at the blood.
On the shiny, grey marble tiles, three paces from the entrance, was the first fan of fine brown dried blood spray, circled in black by Forensics. About a metre further on was the wide, hardened pool where she had lain.
Griessel reversed, as far as the threshold, took two steps forward, another shuffle. The murderer would have stood here. The mortal wound was inflicted right here. She had staggered backwards, probably from the violence of it. Then collapsed.
Griessel bent down, examined the first, delicate spatters. They had been perfectly preserved, no footprints, no smearing.
He walked past the pillar, to the kitchen. The sink was empty. The worktop was clean, just as it was in the photos.
‘Tommy, was there nothing in the sink?’
Nxesi came and stood with him. ‘Nothing. She ate at work. Ordered a Thai take-away, around about six-forty in the evening. The delivery service left it at reception at Silberstein House at five past seven. Then they phoned her and she went to collect it. The boxes were in her trash. That’s why the pathologist was so certain about the time of death. He says that last meal had barely left the stomach, there was very little in the small intestine. If she ate just before seven, then the time of death was very close to ten o’clock.’
‘You’re a good detective, Tommy,’ Griessel said pensively.
‘I try …’
‘When I … They did it to me too, Tommy. Gave my case to someone else. I know how it feels.’
‘Captain, it’s OK.’ He fiddled with his glasses again.
‘It’s easier when you can read the whole case file first. All the footwork is done already.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s just catch the one who did this.’
Griessel noted Nxesi’s earnest expression. ‘Thanks, Tommy.’ He pointed at the top floor. ‘There was a wine glass, beside her computer. But no bottle …’
Nxesi opened a door of the free-standing kitchen counter, and pointed. ‘The wine was here, Forensics took the bottle. Red wine, opened, the bottle was about half full.’
Sloet must have poured the wine, put the bottle away. ‘She was tidy.’
‘You should see the cupboards. It’s like a shop.’
‘Where is the drawer with the knives?’
Nxesi showed him a set of drawers. ‘The cutlery is on top, the utensils in the third one,’ he said.
Griessel pulled open the top drawer. Silver cutlery, forks, knives, spoons, teaspoons. Nothing that could remotely match the measurements of the murder weapon.
‘There are three kitchen knives in the other one,’ Nxesi said. ‘But nothing that comes close.’
Benny opened the third drawer. It wasn’t very full. A couple of serving and salad spoons, a modest collection of cooking utensils. And three knives with black handles, different sizes, the longest was a butcher’s knife, but the dimensions were still too modest to have been the murder weapon.
‘Even if there was a bigger one in that set, it would still be too narrow,’ said Nxesi. ‘I searched the flat, Captain. If she had a dagger or an assegai … No trace. I don’t know …’
Griessel closed the drawer, walked over to the fridge, opened it. There wasn’t much in there. Two containers of expensive flavoured yoghurt, and one of feta cheese. Two kinds of yellow cheese, each sealed in its own plastic cover, a two-litre bottle of orange juice, one third empty. A bottle of white wine, unopened, a container of margarine, a Tupperware tub with what looked like beetroot salad in it.
He opened the freezer compartment. A tub of ice cream, a few bags of frozen vegetables, a single bag of chicken thighs.
He closed the door again.
Upstairs he first looked into the spare bedroom, the one with the sealed cartons. The boxes were neatly stacked on the single bed, in line with the corners. Two rolled-up Persian carpets were pushed up against the empty white bookshelf, so you could walk to the bed easily.
Griessel went over to the bed and inspected the boxes. They were still sealed with the broad sticky tape that removals companies used.
Nxesi followed him as he went out, then down the short passage to the master bedroom. At the end of the passage, just before the bedroom door on the left, was a large window with a view over the city.
The bedroom was big. Built-in cupboards against a long wall. Sloet’s desk opposite, between the two large windows, the cream-coloured curtains closed, just as they were in the photos. Against the door stood the wide, minimalistic double bed, left of that the entrance to the bathroom. On the floor was a big oriental carpet, also cr
eam-coloured, with delicate brown patterning.
‘The light was on,’ Griessel said.
‘It was.’
The desk top was clear now, the computer and files removed. He drew a breath to ask about the laptop, but his cellphone rang. He pulled it out of his shirt pocket. ALEXA, the screen read.
‘Hello.’
‘Benny, I can’t do it.’ There was utter terror in her voice.
He walked out into the passage before asking her, ‘What do you mean?’
‘I can’t do the concert, Benny. I can’t.’
8
‘Alexa, no, don’t worry about it, I’ll soon be …’
‘It’s going to destroy me, Benny.’
He didn’t know what to say to her, suddenly aware of his inability to find the right words, the right approach. ‘It won’t,’ was the best he could do. ‘You are Xandra Barnard.’
‘I am nothing, Benny.’ The tears were close in her voice.
‘I … Alexa, just give me an hour. Have you had any coffee yet?’
‘No,’ she said in a small voice.
‘Go and make yourself some coffee. Eat something. Bath … I’ll come as soon as I can. I’m at work …’
Silence.
‘Alexa …?’
‘I don’t know what to do, Benny.’
‘Will you go and make coffee?’
‘I will.’
‘I promise you I will come as soon as I can.’
‘OK.’
‘I’ll call you back. Will you keep your cellphone with you?’
‘OK.’
‘I’ll soon be there.’
‘I’m sorry, Benny.’
‘There’s no need to be sorry, we’ll talk about it …’ He had to ring off, Nxesi was waiting. ‘Just let me finish up here.’
‘I shouldn’t have bothered you, I’m sorry. Bye, Benny.’ The line went dead.
He stood there and looked out of the window with the city view, but he could see nothing. He would have to wrap this up. There was no alcohol in Alexa’s house, but he would have to stop her before she went to a hotel. That was what she did, because ‘off-licences are such sad places’. He knew all the danger signs, he knew she would go looking for a drink at the Mount Nelson.
And it was all his fault.
Nxesi had the attitude of a man who had heard everything despite doing his best not to, but out of decency didn’t want to show it.
‘Sorry, Tommy …’ was all Griessel said.
The warrant officer made a gesture that dismissed it as nothing.
Griessel stood there, trying to gather his thoughts. There was something important that he wanted to ask.
He remembered: ‘The laptop. Was it on?’
‘No. It was off. But her emails show she was sitting here working. At about half past nine she sent an email to Van Eeden. He’s the … deal maker, the one who put the whole merger together. Official stuff, a sort of progress report.’
‘He is the same one she sent an SMS to about ten to ten?’
Nxesi nodded. ‘He said it was about that email – she let him know she had sent it.’
‘And all the files that were lying here, were they about the transaction?’
‘Ewe. They were.’
‘She sat here working until just before ten.’ The confirmation of the suspicion that he had gained from the photos, and the first inkling that he would find nothing new here.
He went into the bathroom. A shower, the entire width of the rear wall, with a glass panel in front. Where the single male pubic hair had been found. A large, white, modern bath. More grey marble tiles. Brown cabinets, brown towels. A brown cloth laundry basket hanging from a dark wood framework. He lifted the flap. It was empty.
‘Forensics took it away,’ Nxesi said.
‘And found nothing.’
‘Shici.’
They walked back to the bedroom. Griessel halted. ‘Tommy, how do you see this thing? What happened?’
Nxesi adjusted his glasses with a thumb and two fingers. ‘She brought work home, she sat here …’
Griessel’s cellphone rang.
He sighed. ‘Excuse me, Tommy,’ he said, and took it out of his jacket pocket. MBALI.
‘Hello, Mbali.’
‘How are you, Benny?’
‘I’m well, thanks. Welcome back.’
‘Thank you,’ she said without enthusiasm. ‘You know I’m on the shooter team?’
‘They told me last night.’
‘I’m your liaison, Benny. You read the emails?’
‘I did.’
‘I want to know what you think. Could we meet?’
He would have to go to Alexa first, and he still had to finish here. He checked his watch.
Mbali interpreted his hesitation correctly. ‘Any time, Benny, I’m at the scene at the moment, in Claremont.’
‘Can I call you?’
‘Of course, Benny. Bye.’
Nxesi looked at the ground with a grin. ‘Mbali Kaleni?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘I hear things happened. In Holland.’
‘That’s what they say.’
‘Must be dagga. She must have wanted to arrest someone for sitting and smoking dagga in the street.’
‘Could be.’
‘Mbali,’ said Nxesi with a bemused smile.
‘She’s a good detective,’ said Griessel.
Nxesi merely nodded.
‘Tommy, how did this thing happen?’
The sniper sat in the Chana panel van. Beside him on the floor lay an electric lamp with an extension cord that snaked out of the window to a power point on the wall of the dark garage.
On his lap was the rifle. Beside him, on the tool chest, a set of cleaning materials was arranged in the aluminium case – the metal rods, brushes, mops, cloths and oil. He worked slowly and surely, not wanting to touch the telescope. He could not afford to take it back to a shooting range to calibrate it again.
Not any more.
It would be a long shot today. Perhaps the longest of all. That’s why he wanted to get it over and done with.
And it had to happen before midday, before the streets turned into the quiet of a Sunday afternoon.
Today he would take his time. Stay calm. The first shot yesterday had missed because he hadn’t handled the tension well. The ice was broken now. He would shoot better today.
He checked his watch. Twenty minutes, then he would have to leave.
‘At the time, you could get inside this building easily,’ said Warrant Officer Tommy Nxesi. ‘Through the parking garage, up the stairs maybe, or in the lift. So he got in and then he knocked on the door. She had finished working, she might have been downstairs. She looked through the peephole. And she knew him. So she opened up. They talked there. Then they began to argue. He became very angry. He stabbed her. He saw she was dead. Then he left.’
‘Could be.’
‘There is nothing stolen, Captain. There is no motive. Shici. Nothing. No boyfriend, no social life aside from the two female friends, it was all work. They said she was nice. But ambitious, she worked so hard on this deal because she wanted to become a director at Silbersteins. And the promotion was in the pipeline, that’s what Pruis told me. So I think it must have been something else. At first I thought it was drugs. These rich cats, they snort, I thought her dealer had come to make a delivery, and she didn’t have enough cash, maybe she was high too, and he stabbed her. But then he would have stolen something too. And the post mortem showed no drugs. But it’s something like that, Captain. Somebody came about something. Something that her work or friends don’t know about. Something we can’t put our finger on. One of those things that just happen, spur of the moment.’
9
Griessel asked him where he had found the photographs of Sloet, the ones in the white envelope.
Nxesi hesitated a second before walking over to the bedside cupboard, on the right-hand side of the bed. There were two drawers, and a little door under t
hem. He pulled open the second drawer. ‘Come and see,’ he said with barely disguised distaste. Then he stepped back, as though the contents of the drawer were toxic.
Griessel went and looked. On top was the vibrator, long and thick, a macabre, faithful imitation of a penis. And underneath, the box it came in. Big Boy Vibrator, in large letters.
‘There’s her boyfriend,’ said Nxesi. ‘The album is underneath.’
Giessel said nothing, pulled out the photo album and opened it.
In the front was the name of the photographer on a small silver sticker. Anni de Waal. And an address in De Waterkant Village.
More photos of Hanneke Sloet, in the same style as the ones he had seen, in a variety of poses, one A4 print per page. Her cleavage was frequently displayed, but there were no other nude pictures. And eight pages were empty.
‘You only took three photos?’
‘Ewe. Two for the file. And the nude one, because I didn’t want her mother to see it.’ Very earnest.
Griessel tried to push the album back under the vibrator and its packaging. He couldn’t manage it, picked up the box, put the album away. He read on the carton: Big Boy is a hugely satisfying multispeed vibrating realistic veined cock. It’s a superhero love shaft for a meaty satisfaction designed to go deep and totally satisfy you with a greater girth for greater gratification. Real men just can’t measure up to this wild toy. Free Eveready Gold batteries included!
He looked up, saw the warrant officer waiting for his reaction.
‘It’s a strange world, Tommy.’
‘Hayi,’ he said, shaking his head before adjusting his glasses.
At his car Nxesi asked him to sign for receipt of the apartment keys. Once Griessel had done that, he saw the relief, fleeting, as if the warrant officer was shrugging a weight off his shoulders.
Just before he drove away, he asked: ‘Tommy, I know it will sound strange, but during your investigation, was there any mention … anyone who talked about a “communist”?’