7 Days

by Deon Meyer

  ‘And now you’re threatening me?’

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

  ‘Now listen carefully. I will not be threatened by a mere captain. If you want to make accusations, make them in court, then we will see.’

  ‘I’m going to do more than that. Because this is not a threat. I am going to get a search warrant, and I’m going to get your people to bring every last document about the whole transaction over here, and we are going to go through them piece by piece, until I have evidence that you lied to me. And I am going to tell the press about your lack of cooperation with us in solving the murder of one of your own people. And let me tell you now, if there is the slightest connection between Masondo and Sloet’s death, I am going to arrest you. Goodbye, Mr Pruis …’

  ‘Captain, wait …’

  ‘I’m listening,’ Griessel said.

  ‘You must try to understand …’ The attitude was still there, but somewhat tempered now, a man clinging to his patch of high ground. ‘We … Silbersteins signed a confidentiality agreement. If we violate that … I can’t gossip about the parties involved in the transaction. And Masondo … That was long ago. It’s been dealt with, he’s been moved out. Hanneke had no contact with him. None.’

  ‘Did Hanneke know all about it?’

  ‘We all knew about it. We did the due diligence for SA Merchant Bank, a year ago already. We were satisfied that it posed no risk to our client. I can’t understand how you could believe there’s a connection between that matter and her death.’

  ‘Did she ever talk about him?’

  ‘As a team we talked about him once, early last year. When we weighed up the risk. Since then, never. He is a nonentity in the scheme of things. He draws a salary as director but has no influence. That is why I said nothing to you. Because there is nothing. Absolutely nothing.’

  ‘You’re dead certain that I’m not going to find something tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow that shows that …’

  ‘Captain, let me say now, I would not put my firm and my own professional reputation on the line if I thought there was the slightest possibility. If I thought Masondo were involved, I would go and arrest the bastard right now myself.’

  30

  ‘Benny, are you sure?’ Manie asked.

  ‘I am sure, Brigadier.’

  Griessel could see the relief on his commanding officer’s face, the great weight of a political mess falling away. But then Manie frowned, ‘Then why does the shooter keep going on about the communist?’

  ‘He’s playing us, Brigadier. I think he knows there’s a communist somewhere. He wants us to waste our time. So he can shoot more policemen.’

  ‘You think he was part of the transaction?’

  ‘I think he knew her, Brigadier. And she said something.’

  ‘Or he’s taking a shot in the dark … in a manner of speaking. There are just too many different possibilities, Benny.’ Then, pensively, ‘Why does he want to shoot our people?’

  Griessel shook his head, then said in resignation, ‘I will understand if you want to give the Sloet case to someone else, Brigadier.’

  ‘No, Benny,’ he said decidedly. ‘This is your case. What I will do is show you how the Hawks operate.’

  They gathered in the parade room of the Violent Crimes unit. The room was full, with the entire Information Management team, all the detectives of Violent Crimes, a bunch of CATS, Bones Boshigo of Corporate Crime, the warrant officer of the TOMS group – the Tactical Operational Management Service that did searches – Nyathi, and Manie all sitting in front of him. It took Griessel twenty minutes to sketch the broad outlines of the Sloet case, and the state of the investigation. With the greatest concentration – he did not want to look like a clown in front of all these people. He put all his cards on the table. He said they had nothing, except that the victim knew her attacker somehow or other. That could mean anything, from a worker who carried or fixed something for her, to a friend or colleague. He explained about the missing front door key, the removal company that had helped Sloet with the move, the security personnel of the apartment block, builders and tradesmen, the set-up at Silberstein Lamarque, and the little they knew of her private life.

  Then he said any suggestions would be welcome.

  Musad Manie spoke first. ‘Benny, you’re the JOC leader on this one.’

  ‘Jissie, Brigadier …’ He didn’t know how to manage a joint operational command centre, it was usually the work of a colonel. And there was a lot he still wanted to do himself.

  ‘We’re behind you, Benny. Philip, tell him what you can do.’

  ‘We make connections, Benny,’ said Captain van Wyk of the IMC in his quiet voice. ‘We take all her contacts – phone, Internet, everything, and we start to draw lines. As the information comes in, we can give you a graph of everyone she has been in contact with. And who they are. Criminal records, credit black-listings, traffic fines … Just give us her cellphone and office numbers, her email addresses, her Facebook ID … Oh, and her banking details. We can do a full analysis, look at tendencies and patterns, anything out of the ordinary.’

  ‘We’ll have to get all the names and ID numbers of the law firm people, her friends, the builders, and the removal company,’ said Nyathi. ‘The Violent Crimes group will have to do the legwork. Benny can divide you into groups and allocate responsibilities.’

  ‘As the info comes in, we capture it,’ said van Wyk.

  ‘Benny, would you consider bringing in PCSI? Let them go over the crime scene again?’ asked Nyathi.

  The PCSI were the elite forensic people, the Provincial Crime Scene Investigation unit, who worked almost exclusively for the Hawks. Griessel had never seen them in action, only heard of the advanced technological toys they used.

  ‘There has been contamination, sir …’

  ‘These guys are really good.’

  ‘Can’t do any harm,’ Manie encouraged him.

  ‘Let’s bring them in,’ said Griessel. He tried to think what else was needed. ‘We must look at similar crimes as well,’ he said. ‘The past five years. Murder and assaults on women who live alone, especially where robbery is not the motive. Large stab wounds. We will have to talk to the pathologists, we will have to get bulletins out to the detective branches.’

  ‘Don’t be too specific,’ said Manie. ‘We spread the net wide in the beginning. Pull the parole records too, see if anyone with a similar modus operandi has been released in the past year.’

  ‘There is the possibility that the shooter knew her …’ said Griessel.

  ‘We will connect the databases of the two JOCs,’ said Philip van Wyk. ‘See what jumps out.’

  ‘OK,’ said Nyathi, ‘we’ll manage this thing as it develops. Let’s get cracking.’

  He tried to muster some self-confidence from his earlier sense of satisfaction, but it deserted him when he put on the overall, the wig and the cap and climbed into the Chana.

  Then the tension came, from deep inside him, spreading slowly through him like a fever. He began to perspire, his hands clammy on the steering wheel, with nausea in his guts and his thoughts flitting and leaping from one risk to the other. Doubt. He wasn’t made of the right stuff. They were going to catch him.

  Only sheer willpower stopped him from dropping it all.

  He drove south down Koeberg Road, past the police station in Milnerton. He didn’t look, he knew they would be on their guard, people on the lookout. He was too scared to make a U-turn, and used Mansfield Road and Masson Road to change direction legally, then come back down Koeberg with his van pointing north.

  Milnerton was busy, just before seven. Busier than he had expected. It was vehicle traffic, he consoled himself, people hurrying home, very few pedestrians.

  He parked just beyond Loxton Road, so that he had an unimpeded view of the entrance to the supermarket. He scanned the area first, made very sure that no one was paying him or his panel van any attention. He climbed over the seat, pulled the curtain down
quickly. Sat still for a while. His breathing was rapid. Sweat ran down his cheek – it was the wig, and the closed windows in the Cape summer heat. He wiped his hands on the overall, took the old Nokia out of his pocket. He had memorised the number. He typed it in, and phoned.

  It rang six, seven times. ‘SAPS Milnerton, can I help you?’

  He let his anxiety show. ‘There is a robbery, at the Spar, Milnerton Mall, you have to come quickly!’

  ‘Sir, I need your name and address, please.’

  ‘No, no, they will shoot me, please come quickly, it’s a robbery, four men! The Spar in the Milnerton Mall, Millvale Road!’ Then he cut the call, turning the cellphone off immediately. His hands shook, so that he struggled to open the battery cover. His fingers slipped. He swore softly, and then it came off. He ripped out the battery, shoved it all back in his pocket.

  Then he bent down and opened the toolbox.

  It was the support of his colleagues that caught Griessel offside, that made him gulp back the emotion. He knew it was the fatigue, lack of sleep, the intense day, and the stress of the unexpected new responsibility that dragged him down. He must disguise his gratitude. He gave IMC section A of the case file so they could copy all the information, he divided the detectives into teams and allocated tasks. He noticed their zeal, their focus and willingness. He heard their encouragement (‘We will get him, Benny’) and saw Brigadier Manie sitting off to the side and watching it all with satisfaction.

  Once everyone was busy, he walked over to the commanding officer of the Hawks. ‘Brigadier, there are some of the interviews I want to do myself …’

  ‘Carry on, Benny, JOC leader is a mobile position, we are all only a call away. They must just keep you informed, and you keep me and Zola …’

  Griessel’s cellphone rang. He answered. ‘This is Faber from the PCSI. We are at the apartment, can you come and unlock for us?’

  Before he could reply, he heard Mbali’s voice from the doorway. ‘Brigadier, he’s just shot another one. And this time it’s serious.’

  31

  His mouth gaped in panic, he panted for air. His first instinct was to stamp on the accelerator, to flee, to hide away in the safety of the dark garage, but he had to suppress that desperate wish. He bellowed in frustration and fear. Everything had changed.

  It wasn’t his fault.

  After an eternity, they had come, three patrol vehicles with sirens and lights had raced past, tyres squealing around the corner of Loxton Road. One had screeched to a halt there, the others had raced past, turned up Millvale, right to the front of the supermarket. Less than a hundred metres from him.

  Five uniforms had jumped out, weapons in hand.

  He had the rifle ready, followed the nearest one through the scope. He knew he must wait, the shot was too difficult while they were running.

  Then the policeman stopped, to his surprise and relief, and he hastily positioned the cross hairs on the leg. This was his chance, he squeezed the trigger. At that instant the man crouched down on his haunches, the rifle bucked, and he knew, immediately, he could see through the lens, it was through the belly, a gut shot. A cry erupted from his throat, Christ, and the panic exploded inside him. No time to unscrew the hiking pole, he lost all self-control, throwing the rifle down on the carpet, tearing the screen up, clambering about in feverish haste. The overall hooked on something, he tugged, it ripped, he leaped over into the seat, switched the Chana on and drove, without looking. The shrill blare of a hooter just beside him, his head jerked. ‘Christ,’ aloud this time. A woman in a Toyota, her face twisted with rage, he just looked straight ahead, and drove. He knew he had made a big mistake. Two. Three.

  He had killed a policeman. The Chana had attracted attention. And now the rifle lay in the back, out in the open.

  In the CATS parade room Griessel listened as a visibly upset Mbali, phone to her ear, asked again and again, ‘Is the ambulance there yet?’ Then, on her way to the door, she said to Manie, ‘I’m going, Brig, I have to be there.’

  Detectives on their cellphones asking stations in Bothasig, Table View and Maitland to set up roadblocks, their voices loud and urgent. Someone spoke angrily to Telkom, giving information about the telephone call that Milnerton Station had received. ‘You don’t understand. I can’t wait until tomorrow …’

  He realised he could do something himself. He used the call-back function, got Faber of PCSI Forensics team on the line. ‘You will have to go to Milnerton first. There’s been another officer shot.’

  ‘Solomon?’

  ‘We think so.’

  ‘Do you have an address?’

  He gave it. Faber said they were on their way, and rang off.

  Griessel stood a little longer, looking and listening, with a vague desire to be part of this team right now. The adrenaline of the chase, the terrible urgency, the tangibility of a prey with a name.

  And then the realisation came back, of the increased pressure on his investigation. He was the one who had to get his arse in gear. To stop Solomon from shooting again.

  He only got away at a quarter past ten. When the news came that Constable Errol Matthys had died of his wounds in the Milnerton Medi-Clinic; the internal bleeding and organ damage were just too severe. When they were sure the roadblocks were too late, the shooter had slipped through the net. When there was nothing more for him to do.

  He phoned Alexa while he was driving. She answered herself. She asked, ‘How’s the case going?’ He could hear she was sober, and relief flooded over him.

  ‘Not too well. I’m on my way.’

  ‘I’ll tell Ella she can go to bed then.’

  ‘I’ll be there soon.’

  When he stopped in front of her house twenty minutes later, the veranda light went on, she opened the door and stood waiting for him. ‘You’re tired,’ she said, and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I kept a pizza warm for you. Ella ordered them.’

  He saw the deep lines, her sallow skin tone and the sheen of perspiration on her face. She was having a hard time. Momentarily, he recalled her doppelgänger, the unblemished Annemarie van Eeden, and he felt an immense compassion for Alexa.

  ‘I am very proud of you,’ he said, and closed the door behind him.

  Her shoulders sagged, as if her strength had reached its limit, and she wept. He put his arms around her. She leaned into him.

  For a long time they simply stood like that, until she was calm.

  He kept to his agreement dutifully. In the kitchen, while he ate the pizza and drank a glass of orange juice, he told her about his day.

  She laughed at Griessel’s description of Bones Boshigo and the eccentric Len de Beer, and she shook her head with a little smile over the wealth of Henry van Eeden. When he told her about Egan Roch, she leaned forward with greater concentration and nodded as though it all made sense to her.

  She carried his plate and cutlery to the sink, and sat down again. They lit cigarettes together. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if it will help.’

  ‘Anything will help,’ he said, grateful for her effort.

  ‘Simóne, the singer with the photos … It seems to me there have been more of them in the past few years. Especially in Afrikaans music. It’s an interesting phenomenon. Odd, surely, because I think most of them are women. It’s as if … they are moths, Benny, in the bright light of musical limelight. They’re not attracted because they’re addicted to singing, they’re attracted because they’re drawn to the spotlight. They want to be famous. That’s all.’

  He heard the seriousness, the sincerity, behind her words, and realised she was giving him a gift, a kind of apology. She had clung on to this today, her refuge in the midst of the flood.

  He wanted to touch her.

  ‘I don’t get the feeling that it’s about wealth,’ she said. ‘Men … to them, fame means money. And sex. But to these women it’s just the concept of being known. Of being special. I struggle to understand it. I have wondered whether it’
s something to do with the Afrikaner and where we are now, in this South Africa? Afrikaner men have lost their power, their dramatic image. There’s so much indifference about their lot now, there’s only compassion for the new nation, that greater whole. Is it a woman’s way of restoring some balance? A kind of rebellion, an instinctive way of filling the vacuum? Perhaps it’s a universal phenomenon, too many people, there are no individuals or characters any more, we are all just … conduits.’

  Her eyes came back to him, as though she guessed she was going off on a tangent. ‘I don’t know, Benny, these women, so terribly hungry for fame. They go to endless trouble, singing and elocution lessons, diets … Their parents spend thousands on stylists and photographers and musicians and recording studios. The girls who wait at the doors of the music promoters with a CD in their hands … They market themselves unashamedly. They have no loyalty, they are like butterflies that flit from flower to flower, in search of the strongest nectar to make the dream come true. And they all have the narcissistic streak, envy, jealousy, the big hair, the hours spent in front of the mirror, the promotional photos taken over and over again. There are the tight clothes and the cleavage, everything that screams: “Look at me, look at me, please just notice me.” What I’m trying to say is that Hanneke Sloet might have had the same desire, the same personality. The legal world was her stage, her spotlight. That is where she would have wanted to make her mark.’

  He remembered his conversations today. ‘Sloet told her mother about the big money in BEE deals,’ he told Alexa. ‘She thought about starting up on her own. She told the big brain behind it all that she wanted his job.’

  ‘That terrible hunger,’ she said.

  ‘Nine years ago she had an affair with one of the senior partners. Married man, in his fifties.’