Thirteen Hours

Chapter 9

Rachel Anderson crept down the gully. It deepened as she progressed, the sides steep, rough, impassable. They hemmed her in, but offered shelter enough for her to stand. They would have difficulty seeing her. The slope became steeper, the terrain more rugged. It was just after eight, and hot. She clambered down rocks clutching the roots of trees, her throat parched, her knees threatening to give in. She had to find water, she had to get something to eat, she had to keep moving.

Then she saw the path leading up to the right, and steps carved out of the rock and earth. She stared. She had no idea what awaited her up there.

Alexa Barnard watched them carry her husband's body past the door and her face twisted with emotion.

Tinkie Kellerman got up and came across to sit on the couch beside her. She put a soft hand on her arm. Alexa felt an overwhelming urge to be held by this slender policewoman. But she just sat there, moving her arms to grip her own shoulders in a desperate self-embrace. She hung her head and watched the tears drip onto the white material of her dressing-gown sleeve, disappearing as if they had never existed.

Rachel Anderson climbed to just short of the top and peered over the edge of the gully with a thudding heart. Only the mountain. And silence. Another step up and, suddenly realising they could see her from behind, she turned in fright, but there was no one. The last two steps, she was careful. To her left were the roofs of houses, the highest row on the mountain. Ahead was a path running along the back of the houses, with trees offering shade and cover. To the right was the steep slope of the mountain, then the mountain itself.

She looked back once, then stepped hastily onto the path, head down.

Griessel drove back to Long Street in much lighter traffic. Vusi had said he should come to the Cat & Moose.

'What's going on?' he had asked.

'I'll tell you when you get here.' He had the tone of someone speaking in the presence of others.

But Griessel wasn't thinking about that. He sat in his police car and thought of Alexa Barnard. About her voice and her story, about the beauty hidden beneath twenty years of alcohol abuse. He mused on how the mind brought up the memory of the younger, lovelier image and projected it onto the fabric of her current face so that the two were seen together - the past and the present, so far removed and so inseparable. He thought of the intensity with which she had drunk the gin and knew it was a dangerous thing to see, that healing. It had unravelled his own desire, so that it dangled inside him like a thousand loose wires. The voice in his mind was saying there was a bottle store right here in Kloof Street, where all the wires could be reconnected, the current restored. The electricity of life would flow strongly once again.

'God,' said Benny to himself and turned deliberately into Bree Street, away from temptation.

When the tears stopped, Tinkie Kellerman said, 'Come, you'll feel better when you've had a bath.'

Alexa agreed and got up. She was a bit unsteady on her feet, so the policewoman guided her up the stairs, through the library and down the passage to the bedroom door.

'I think you should wait here.'

'I can't,' said Tinkie in a voice full of compassion.

Alexa stood still for a second. Then the meaning penetrated. They were afraid she would do something. To herself. And she knew the possibility was real. But first she must get to the liquor, the four centimetres of gin in the bottle underneath her underwear.

'I won't do anything.'

Tinkie Kellerman just looked at her with big, sympathetic eyes.

Alexa walked into the bedroom. 'Just stay out of the bathroom.'

She would take the bottle out of the cupboard along with her clothes. Her body would screen it.

'Sit there,' she nodded towards the chair in front of the dressing table.

The knocking wasn't going to stop. Fransman Dekker went to open the door. Willie Mouton, the baldheaded, black-clad Zorro, stood on the veranda along with an alter ego - an equally lean man, but with a full head of dark hair, painstakingly combed into a side parting. He had the appearance of an undertaker, complete with long sombre face, all-seeing eyes, charcoal suit and tie. 'My lawyer is here. I'm ready for you now.'

'You're ready for me?' Dekker's temper flared at the way the white man talked down to him but, out there in the street, lenses were trained on them, spectators and the press scrummed against the fence.

'Regardt Groenewald,' the lawyer said apologetically and put out a cautious hand. It was a peace offering, forcing Dekker to change gear.

He shook the slim, uncertain hand. 'Dekker,' he said, and looked the lawyer up and down. He had expected a Doberman, not this basset hound.

'He just means that we are ready to talk,' said Groenewald.

'Where is Alexa?' Mouton asked and looked past Dekker into the house. Groenewald moved his flaccid hand to Mouton's arm, as though to restrain him.

'She is being looked after.'

'By whom?'

'By an officer of Social Services.'

'I want to see her.' A white man's command, but once again the lawyer defused the situation.

'Steady, Willie.'

'That is not an option now,' said Dekker.

Mouton looked reproachfully at his lawyer. 'He can't do that, Regardt.'

Groenewald sighed. 'I'm sure they explained to Alexa what her rights are, Willie.' He spoke apologetically, slowly and deliberately.

'But she's a sick woman.'

'Mrs Barnard chose to talk without a lawyer present.'

'But she's not compis mentos,' said Mouton.

'Compos mentis,' Groenewald corrected him patiently.

'Mrs Barnard is not a suspect in the case at this stage,' said Dekker.

'That's not what Adam's maid said.'

'As far as I know, the domestic worker is not in police service.'

'You see, Regardt. That's what they're like. Smartass. When I've just lost my friend and colleague ...'

'Willie, Mr Dekker, let's all keep calm ...'

'I am calm, Regardt.'

'My client has information connected to the case,' said Groenewald.

'What sort of information?'

'Relevant information. But we can't...'

'Then it is your duty to pass it on to us.'

'Not if you get smartass with me.'

'Mr Mouton, you have no choice. Withholding evidence ...'

'Please, gentlemen ...' Groenewald begged. Then very cautiously: 'Perhaps we could talk inside?'

Dekker hesitated.

'My client has a strong suspicion of who murdered Adam Barnard.'

'But I don't want to slander,' said Mouton.

'Willie, under the circumstances, slander doesn't enter into it.'

'You know who shot Adam Barnard?'

'My client has no proof, but feels it is his civil duty to share the available information with the law.'

Fransman Dekker looked at the crowd, then at Groenewald and Mouton. 'I think you should come in.'

Rachel Anderson walked along the footpath on the contour of the mountain, hurrying more now as it was level ground and she had left the shelter of the pine trees behind. There were only the houses below, large properties with swimming pools, densely grown gardens and high walls. Beyond them lay the city and the long sweep of Table Bay, a postcard of bright blue sea and a cluster of high-rise buildings squatting together, as if seeking solidarity from their closeness.

It was a lie, all this beauty, she thought. A false front. She and Erin had allowed themselves to be misled by it.

Ahead the path curved to the right, skirting a reservoir. The high earthen bank would conceal her for a few hundred metres.

Behind the bathroom door Alexa Barnard took off her dressing gown and night clothes and then she reached for the bottle she had hidden under her clean clothing. She unscrewed the cap with a trembling hand. There wasn't much in the bottle. She brought it to her lips and drank. The movement was echoed in the tall mirror and she watched it involuntarily. The naked body, its femininity so wasted, her long greasy hair in strings around her face, underarm stubble, mouth open, bottle lifted high in a desperate attempt to catch the last drops. She was startled by this demon, the way the mirror image focused so completely on the bottle.

Who was this person standing there?

She turned away, having drained the bottle, but found no relief. She placed it on the floor and leaned against the wall with an outstretched arm.

Was it really her standing there?

'Soetwater,' the sympathetic detective with the unusual features and unruly hair had said. 'How did you come to this?' was what he meant. She had told him, but now, in front of this sudden reflection, the explanation was insufficient.

She turned back and looked at the reflected woman again. The tall body looked so defenceless. Legs, hips, belly with a small bulge, the firm breasts, long nipples, the skin of the neck no longer smoothly taut. A face, worn, used, drunk up.

It was her. Her body, her face.

God.

'How did you come to this?' There was genuine curiosity in her own question. She spun away and stepped into the shower. This far, but she would go no further. She could not.

Mechanically she opened the taps.

Adam was dead. What was she going to do? Tonight? Tomorrow?

The fear that welled up inside her was huge, so that she had to press her palms against the tiles to remain standing. She stood like that a while, the water scalding her, but she did not feel it. The pills, that's what she must get, the sleeping pills, so she could drift away, away from that woman in the mirror, away from the destructive process, the thirst, and the darkness ahead.

The pills were in the room with Tinkie Kellerman.

She would have to do it with something else. Here, in the bathroom. She stepped out of the shower with urgency, pulled open the bathroom cabinet with shaking hands. Too hasty, she knocked bottles over, nothing of use. She picked up her razor, looked at its uselessness, threw it away against the door, scratched around in the cabinet. There was nothing, nothing ...

'Mrs Barnard?' called the voice from the other side of the door.

Alexa turned and locked the door. 'Leave me alone.' It wasn't even her voice.

'Ma'am, please ...'

She spotted the gin bottle. She grabbed the neck and struck it against the wall. A shard of glass hit her on the forehead. She examined the sharp glass blade that remained in her hand. She lifted her left arm and sliced violently, deep and desperately, from the palm to the elbow. The blood was a fountain. She sliced again.

In the sitting room Mouton and Groenewald sat side by side on the couch. Dekker was opposite them.

'I don't have proof,' said Mouton.

'Just tell him what happened, Willie.'

They were like those two guys in the old black-and-white films, thought Dekker.

What were their names?

'This guy burst into my office and said he was going to kill Adam ...'

'And who is this guy?'

Mouton referred to his lawyer. 'Are you sure it's not slander, Regardt?'

'I'm sure.'

'But what if I have to give evidence?'

'Willie, slander will not be an issue.'

'It can ruin their career, Regardt. I mean, what if it isn't him?'

'Willie, you have no choice.'

Laurel and Hardy, Dekker recalled. Two white comedians. 'Mr Mouton, who was it?' he asked.

He drew a deep breath, Adam's apple bobbing like a cock's. 'It was Josh Geyser,' he said, and sat back as though he had unleashed the whirlwind.

'Who?'

'The gospel singer,' said Mouton impatiently. 'Josh and Melinda.'

'Never heard of them.'

'Josh and Melinda? Everyone knows them. Sixty thousand of the new CD, four thousand in one day alone, when they were on the featured music stars on radio RSG. They're big.'

'And why would Josh Geyser want to kill Adam Barnard?'

Mouton leaned forward conspiratorially and suddenly he was speaking very quietly:

'Because Adam nailed Melinda in his office.'

'Nailed?'

'You know ... He had sex with her.'

'In Barnard's office?'

'That's right.'

'And Geyser caught them?'

'No. Melinda confessed.'

'To Josh?'

'No. Higher up. But Josh was with her when she prayed.'

Fransman Dekker snorted between laughter and disbelief. 'Mr Mouton, you can't be serious.'

'I am!' Indignant. 'Do you think I would make jokes at a time like this?'

Dekker shook his head.

'Yesterday afternoon Josh Geyser came rushing in at a hell of a speed past Natasha and just about broke my office door down. He said he was looking for Adam and I said what for and he said he was going to kill him, because he raped Melinda. So I said, "How can you say a thing like that, Josh?" and he said Melinda said so. So I said, "What did she say?", and he said she'd prayed and confessed to the Big Sin in Adam's office, on the desk, she said it was the devil, but he, Josh, knew about Adam's ways. And he was going to beat him to death. He was crazy, he nearly grabbed hold of me, when I said it didn't sound like rape. He's a huge ou, he was a Gladiator before he was saved ...' Mouton dropped his voice again: 'The story is, he can't .. . you know ... get it up, because of the steroids.'

'That's not relevant, Willie,' said Groenewald.

'It gives him motive,' said Mouton.

'No, no ...' said the lawyer.

'Beat him to death, you say?' asked Dekker. 'That's what he said?'

'He also said he was going to kill him ... no, he was going to fucking kill him, he was going to cut off his balls and hang them over the platinum CD in his sitting room.'

'Adam's ways. What "ways" was Geyser referring to?'

'Adam is ...' Mouton hesitated. 'I can't believe Adam is dead.' He sat back and rubbed his shaven head. 'He was my friend. My partner. We've come a long way together ... I told him one day someone would ...'

Silence descended. Mouton wiped the back of his hand over his eyes. 'Sorry,' he said. 'This is hard for me ...'

The lawyer reached out a long, thin hand to his client. 'That's understandable, Willie ...' 'He was this great presence ...'

Dekker heard the high and urgent voice of Tinkie Kellerman calling: 'Fransman!'

He stood up quickly and strode towards the door.

'Fransman!'

'I'm here,' he called. He saw Kellerman at the top of the stairs.

'Come and help,' she said. 'Hurry.'

A hundred metres beyond the reservoir the path turned left, down the mountain, towards the city, in a wide and shallow ravine. Rachel Anderson walked through pine trees, following the path around huge boulders. She saw a stone wall ahead with a gap in the middle and beyond it to the right an almost completed house behind an enormous oak tree. A cool, deep pool of shade, a place of rest, but her first thought was for a tap to quench her raging thirst.

She went past the garage, eyes searching, towards the street. A sawn-up pine tree filled the doorway of the double garage, stacked in tidy piles. She spotted the tap beside the back door of the house, prayed it was connected, walked faster, stooped and turned it. The silvery water gushed out, hot for a few seconds, then suddenly cool. She dropped down on one knee, turned back the tap a bit, and drank, directly from the spout.

Fransman Dekker had forced enough doors to know you don't use your shoulder. He took a step back and kicked. The door splintered, but stayed shut. He kicked again, and again before it broke, swinging open only about forty centimetres. It was enough to see the blood.

'Oh, dear heaven,' said Tinkie Kellerman behind him.

'What?' said Willie Mouton, trying to get past her.

'Sir, you can't...'

Dekker was already in the bathroom. He saw Alexa Barnard lying on the floor. He stepped in the blood and turned her naked body over. Her eyes were open, but unfocused.

'Ambulance,' he ordered Tinkie. 'Now.'

He bent to examine the damage. Her left wrist was deeply cut, at least three times.

The blood still flowed from it. He grabbed a garment off the floor and began to bind it around the wounds, as tightly as he could.

Alexa spoke, the words barely audible.

'Ma'am?' he said.

'The other arm,' she whispered.

'I'm sorry?'

'Cut the other arm, please,' and with a weary hand she held out the broken bottle to him.

She quenched her thirst and washed the blood from her hands, arms and face. Then she stood up, closed the tap and took a deep breath. The city was just below her ... She walked around the corner of the house, less anxious now, fear mellowed by the drink of water.

Then she saw them, only twenty paces away down the street. She froze, breath caught in her throat. They were standing with their backs to her, side by side. She knew them. She was turned to stone. Her heart beat thunderously in her ears.

They were looking down the sloping street.

The garage. The logs. She had to get in there. It was five paces behind her. She was too terrified to take her eyes off them. She shuffled backwards, afraid she would step on something. They must not look around. She reached the wall of the garage. One more step. Then one of them began to turn. The one who had started it all. The one who had bent over Erin with the knife.