Thirteen Hours

Chapter 7

'Oh fuck,' said Benny Griessel. 'They're chasing the girls, you say? In Long Street?'

'The time code says it was this morning at a quarter to two. Five men, coming from Wale Street towards the church.'

'That's what, four blocks?'

'Six blocks between Wale and the church. Half a kilometre.'

'Jissis, Vusi, you don't do that to steal a tourist's purse.'

'I know. The other thing is, the footage isn't great, but you can see - the guys chasing them are black and white, Benny.'

'Doesn't make sense.' In this country criminals didn't work together across the colour lines.

'I know ... I thought, maybe they are bouncers, maybe the girls made trouble in a club somewhere, but, you know ...'

'Bouncers don't cut the throats of foreign tourists.'

'Not yet,' said Vusi, and Griessel knew what he was alluding to. The clubs and bouncers were a hotbed of organised crime, a powder keg. 'In any case, I've put a bulletin out on the other girl.'

'Good work, Vusi.'

'I don't know if it will help much,' said Ndabeni and ended the call. Griessel saw Dekker waiting impatiently for him.

'Sorry about that, Fransman. It's Vusi's case ...'

'And this is my case.' His body language showed he was ready to argue.

Griessel hadn't expected this aggression, but he knew he was on thin ice. The territorial urges of detectives were strong, and he was just here as mentor.

'You're right,' he said and walked towards the door. 'But it might just help.'

Dekker stayed on the spot, frowning.

Just before Benny left the room he said: 'Wait...'

Griessel stopped.

'OK,' said Dekker finally. 'Talk to her.'

She could no longer hear them. Only the birdsong and cicadas and the hum of the city below. She lay in the cool shade of the rock overhang, but she was sweating as the temperature in the mountain bowl rose rapidly. She knew she could not stand up.

They would stop somewhere and try to spot her.

She considered staying there, all day, until darkness fell and she would .be invisible. She could do it even though she was thirsty, even though she had last eaten the previous evening. If she could rest, if she could sleep a little, she would have new strength tonight with which to seek help.

But they knew she was there, somewhere.

They would fetch the others and they would search for her. They would backtrack on the path and investigate every possibility and if anyone came close enough, they would see her. The hollow wasn't deep enough. She knew most of them, knew their lean bodies, their energy and focus, their skill and self-confidence. She also knew they could not afford to stop looking.

She would have to move.

She looked down the stream, down the narrow stony passage that twisted downhill between fynbos and rocks. She must get down there, crawling carefully so as to make no sound. The mountain was a poor choice, too deserted, too open. She must get down to where there were people; she had to get help. Somewhere someone must be prepared to listen and to help.

Reluctantly she lifted her head from the rucksack, pushed it ahead of her and slid carefully after it. She couldn't drag it; it would be too noisy. She rose to a crouch, swung the rucksack slowly onto her back and clipped the buckles. Then she crawled on hands and knees over the round stones. Slowly, disturbing nothing that would make a sound.

Griessel walked into the sitting room and whispered in Tinkie Kellerman's ear. Alexandra Barnard dragged on another cigarette; her eyes followed Tinkie as she rose and left the room. Griessel closed the door behind her and without speaking went to a large Victorian cupboard with leaded glass doors on top and dark wooden doors below. He opened a top door, took out a glass and a bottle of gin and took it across to the chair closest to Alexandra.

'My name is Benny Griessel and I am an alcoholic. It's been one hundred and fifty-six days since my last drink,' he said and broke the bottle's seal. Her eyes were fixed on the transparent fluid that he carefully poured into the glass, three thick fingers deep. He held it out to her. She took it, her hands shaking badly. She drank, an intense and thirsty gulp and closed her eyes.

Griessel went back to the liquor cabinet and put the bottle away. When he sat down he said, 'I won't be able to let you have more than that.'

She nodded.

He knew how she felt at this precise moment. He knew the alcohol would flow through her body like a gentle, soothing tide, healing the wounds and quietening the voices, leaving behind a smooth, silver beach of peace. He gave her time; it took four gulps, sometimes more; you had to give your body time to let the heavenly warmth through. He realised he was staring intently at the glass at her lips, smelling the alcohol, feeling his own body straining for it. He leaned back in the chair, took a deep breath, looked at the magazines on the coffee table, Visi and House & Garden, two years out of date, but unread and just for show, until she said: 'Thank you,' and he heard the voice had lost its edge.

She put the glass down slowly, the tremor almost gone, and offered him the pack of cigarettes.

'No, thank you,' he said.

'An alcoholic who doesn't smoke?'

'I'm trying to cut down.'

She lit one for herself. The ashtray beside her was full.

'My AA sponsor is a doctor,' he said by way of explanation.

'Get another sponsor,' she said in an attempt at humour, but it didn't work; her mouth pulled in the wrong direction and then Alexandra Barnard began to weep silently, just a painful grimace, tears rolling from her eyes. She put the cigarette down and held the palms of her hands over her face. Griessel reached into his pocket and took out a handkerchief. He held it out but she didn't see it. Her shoulders shook, her head drooped and the long hair fell over her face again like a curtain. Griessel saw it was blonde and silver, a rare combination; most women dyed their hair. He wondered why she no longer cared. She had been a star, a major one. What had dragged her down to this?

He waited until her sobs subsided. 'My sponsor's name is Doctor Barkhuizen. He's seventy years old and he's an alcoholic with long hair in a plait. He said his children asked him why he smoked and he had all sorts of reasons - to help him with stress, because he enjoyed it. . .' He kept his tone of voice easy, he knew the story was unimportant, but that didn't matter, he just wanted to get a dialogue going. 'Then his daughter said in that case he wouldn't mind if she started smoking too. Then he knew he was lying to himself about the cigarettes. He stopped. So he's trying to get me to quit. I'm down to about three or four a day ...'

Eventually she looked up and saw the handkerchief. She took it from him. 'Was it hard?' Her voice was deeper than ever. She wiped her face and blew her nose.

'The drink was. Is. Still. The smoking too.'

'I couldn't.' She crumpled the hanky and picked up the glass again and drank from it. He didn't answer. He had to give her room to talk. He knew she would.

'Your hanky's ...'

'Keep it.'

'I'll have it washed.' She put the glass down. 'It wasn't me.'

Griessel nodded.

'We didn't talk any more,' she said and looked elsewhere in the room.

Griessel sat still.

'He comes home from the office at half past six. Then he comes to the library and stands and looks at me. To see how drunk I am. If I don't say anything then he goes and eats alone in the kitchen or he goes to his study. Or out again. Every night he puts me in bed. Every night. I have wondered, in the afternoon when I can still think, if that is why I drink. So that he would still do that one thing for me. Isn't that tragic? Doesn't it break your heart?' The tears began to fall again. They interfered with the rhythm of her speech, but she kept on. 'Sometimes, when he comes in, I try to provoke him. I was good at it ... Last night I ... I asked him whose turn it was now. You must understand ...We had ... it's a long story ...' and for the first time her sobs were audible, as if the full weight of her history had come to bear on her. Pity welled up in Benny Griessel, because he saw again the ghost of the singer she had once been.

Eventually she stubbed out the cigarette. 'He just said "Fuck you" - that's all he ever said - and he left again. I screamed after him, "Yes, leave me here", I don't think he heard me, I was drunk ...'

She blew her nose into the hanky again. 'That's all. That's all I know. He didn't put me to bed, he left me there and this morning, he was lying there ...' She picked up the glass.

'The last words he said to me. "Fuck you".' More tears.

She drained the last bit of alcohol from the glass and looked at Griessel with intense focus. 'Do you think it could have been me that shot him?'

The plump girl behind the reception desk of the Cat & Moose Youth Hostel and Backpackers Inn looked at the photograph the constable was holding out and asked:

'Why does she look so funny?'

'Because she's dead.'

'Oh, my God.' She put two and two together and asked: 'Was she the one this morning at the church here?'

'Yes. Do you recognise her?'

'Oh, my God, yes. They came in yesterday, two American girls. Wait ...' The plump girl opened the register and ran her finger down the column. 'Here they are, Rachel Anderson and Erin Russel, they are from ...' she bent down to read the small writing of the addresses. 'West Lafayette, Indiana. Oh, my God. Who killed her?'

'We don't know yet. Is this one Anderson?'

'I don't know.'

'And the other one, do you know where she is?'

'No, I work days, I ... Let's see, they are in room sixteen.' She shut the register and went ahead down the passage saying: 'Oh, my God.'

Through careful questioning he got information about the firearm from her. It was her husband's.

Adam Barnard kept it locked up in a safe in the room. He kept the key with him, probably afraid she would do something foolish with it in her drunken state. She said she had no idea how it landed up on the floor beside her. Maybe she did shoot him, she said; she had reason enough, enough anger and self-pity and hate. There were times she had wished him dead, but her true fantasy was to kill herself and then watch him. Watch him coming home at half past six, climbing the stairs and finding her dead. Watch him kneeling beside her body and begging forgiveness, weeping and broken. But, she said with irony, the two parts would never gel. You can't watch anything when you're dead.

Then she just sat there. Eventually he whispered 'Soetwater' but she didn't respond; she hid behind her hair for an eternity until she slowly held out the glass to him and he knew he would have to pour another if he wanted to hear the whole story.