Thirteen Hours

Chapter 17

On the fourth floor of an unobtrusive building at 24 Alfred Street in Green Point, the shoes of the Provincial Commissioner SAPS: Western Cape clicked rapidly down the long corridor.

He was a Xhosa, short, dressed in full uniform, but without his jacket, the sleeves of his blue shirt rolled up to his elbows. He came to a standstill at the open office door of John Afrika, Regional Commissioner: Detective Services and Criminal Intelligence. Afrika was on the phone, but he heard his boss knock and beckoned him to come in.

'I'll call you back,' he said and put the phone down.

'John, the National Commissioner has just phoned. Do we know about an American girl who died last night?'

'We know,' said John Afrika, resigned. 'I was wondering when the trouble would start.'

The Provincial Commissioner sat down opposite Afrika. 'The girl's friend phoned her father in America half an hour ago and said someone is trying to kill her too.'

'Did she phone from here?'

'From here.'

'Bliksem. Did she say where she was?'

'Apparently not. The father said it sounded as though she had to run away before she had finished talking.'

I'll have to let Benny and Vusi know. And Mbali,' said John Afrika as he picked up his phone.

Galia Federova, manager of Van Hunks, spoke over the phone in Russian and then held it out for Vusi. 'Petr. You can talk with him.'

The detective took the phone. 'Good morning, my name is Vusi. I just want to know if something happened in the club this morning, between two o'clock and two fifteen. Two American girls, and some young men. We have them on video, running up Long Street, and we have people who say they were in the club.'

'There were many people,' said Petr, his accent much lighter than the woman's.

'I know, but did anybody notice anything unusual?'

'What is unusual?'

'An argument. A fight.'

'I don't know. I was in the office.'

'Who would know?'

'The barmen and the waiters.'

'Where do I find them?'

'They are sleeping, I think.'

'I need you to call them, sir. I need all of them to come to the club.'

'That is not possible.'

'Yes, sir, it is possible. This is a murder investigation.'

Petr sighed deeply on the other end to emphasise his annoyance. 'It will take a lot of time.'

'We don't have time, sir. One of the girls is still alive and if we don't find her, she will be dead too.'

Vusi's mobile began to ring.

'One hour,' said Petr.

'Ask them to come to the club,' said Vusi, and passed the receiver back to Federova. He answered his cell phone. 'This is Vusi.'

'She's still alive, Vusi,' said John Afrika. 'She phoned her father in America, half an hour ago. But I can't get hold of Benny.'

Rachel Anderson sprinted down Upper Orange Street. Her eyes searched desperately back and forth for an escape route, but the houses on both sides were impregnable - high walls, electrified fences, security railing and gates. She knew she had no time, they would come back through the shop, she had maybe a hundred- metre start on them. Her father's voice had given her new urgency, a desire to live, to see her parents again. How horribly worried her mother must be now, her dear, scatterbrained mother.

She saw one house just a block from the shop on the corner to the left, a single-storey Victorian dwelling with a low white picket fence and a pretty garden. She knew it was her only chance. She hurdled the hip-height fence but the tip of her shoe hooked and sent her sprawling into the flower bed beyond, her hands trying in vain to break her fall, her belly skidding across the slippery surface, winding her, the damp garden soil leaving a wide muddy stripe on her blue T-shirt.

She scrambled up quickly, meaning to run around the house, across the front to the back, away from the street before they saw her. Over the grass, a paved path, more flower beds in cheerful white, yellow and blue. Her mouth was gaping to get enough air. Past the furthest corner of the house there were bougainvilleas, big and dense, the purple flowers tumbling over an arbour. A hiding place. She hesitated for only an instant to estimate the size of the bushes, not realising they had thorns. She dived inside, to the deepest shadow at the back. The sharp points pierced her, scratched long bloody tracks on her arms and legs. She cried out softly at the pain, and lay gasping on her stomach behind the screen of leaves. 'Please, God,' she murmured and turned her face to the street. She could see nothing, only the thick curtain of green, and the tiny white flowers in each purple cup.

If they hadn't seen her, she was safe. For now. She shifted her hand down her limbs, to try and pull the thorns out.

'Let me go and phone the American Consul,' the Provincial Commissioner said to John Afrika as he rose. 'I'm going to tell him we are doing everything in our power to track her down. John, you must make sure that that is true. Get Benny Griessel to take full control.'

'Right. But the stations are reluctant to allocate people ..

'Leave that to me,' said the Provincial Commissioner. He walked to the door and stopped.

'Isn't Griessel up for promotion?'

'It's been approved; I think he'll be notified today.'

'Tell him. Tell the whole team.'

'Good idea.' Afrika's phone rang. The Provincial Commissioner waited, in the hope that there would be news.

'John Afrika.'

'Commissioner, this is Inspector Mbali Kaleni. I am at Caledon Square, but they say they don't have a place for me.'

'Mbali, I want you to go to the station commander's office, because he is going to get a call right now.'

'Yes, sir,' she said.

'The missing girl ... She's alive. She called home half an hour ago.'

'Where is she?'

'She did not have enough time to say. We need to find her. Quickly.'

'I will find her, Commissioner.' So self-assured. John Afrika put down the phone. 'Caledon Square,' he told the Provincial Commissioner. 'They don't want to cooperate.'

'Wait,' said the little Xhosa in his impeccable uniform. 'Let me call him too.'

'Would you like to tell me what happened yesterday?' Griessel sat down on the other side of the oval table, with his face towards the door. The big man was sitting down now, elbows on the table, one hand nervously touching the drooping blonde moustache. 'It wasn't me.' He didn't look at Griessel. 'Mr Geyser, let's start at the beginning. Apparently there was an incident yesterday ...'

'What would you do if a son of Satan messed with your woman? What would you do?'

'Mr Geyser, how did you find out that Adam Barnard and your wife ...'

'We're all sinners. But he had no remorse. Never. He never stopped. Idols. Mammon. Whoring.' He gave Griessel an ominous look and said: 'He believed in evolution.' 'Mr Geyser ...'

'He's a son of Satan. Today he burns in hell...'

'Mr Geyser, how did you find out?' With infinite patience.

He shrugged as though he needed to steel himself. 'Yesterday when she came home, she didn't look well, so I asked what was wrong ...' He leaned his forehead on his hand and looked down at the table. 'First she said "nothing". But I knew something was ... So I said: "Pokkel, you're not okay, what is it?" Then she sat down and she couldn't look me in the eye. That's when I knew something was very wrong ...' He went quiet, clearly unwilling to relive the events.

'What time was that?'

'Three o'clock, round about.'

'And then?'

'Then I sat next to her and held her hands. And she started crying. Then she said: "Beertjie, let us pray, Beertjie". And she held my hands tight and prayed and she said: "Lord, forgive me because Satan ..."' Geyser opened and closed his fists, his face contorted with feeling.' "... because Satan got into my life today." So I said: "Pokkel, what happened?" But she just kept her eyes shut...' The big man shielded his face with his hands.

'Mr Geyser, I know this is hard.'

Geyser shook his head, still hiding his face. 'My Melinda ...' he said and his voice cracked. 'My Pokkel.'

Griessel waited.

'Then she asked God to forgive her, because she was weak, so I asked her if she had stolen something, but she said, Lord, One John One verse eight, she said it over and over until I said stop, what did she do? Then she opened her eyes and said she had sinned in Adam Barnard's office, because she wasn't as strong as I think, she couldn't stop the devil, and I said what kind of sin, and she said: "of the flesh, Beertjie, the big sin of the flesh ..."' Geyser's voice broke down and he stopped, with both hands over his face.

Benny Griessel sat there suppressing the urge to get up and put his hand on the massive shoulder, to console, to say something. In twenty-five years he had learned to be sceptical, not to believe anything until all the evidence was in. He had learned that when the sword of righteousness hung over your head, you were capable of anything - heart-rending, tearful denial, the pained indignation at being falsely accused, strong protest, deep remorse or pathetic self-pity. People could lie with astonishing skill; sometimes it led to total self-deception, so that they clung with absolute conviction to an imaginary innocence.

So he did nothing. He just waited for Josh Geyser to finish crying.

Galia Federova pressed a switch and neon lights flickered on near the roof of the club, just enough to cloak the large space in twilight.

'You can wait here,' she said to Vusi and pointed at the table and chairs around the dance floor. 'Would you like something to drink?'

'Do you have tea?'

He fancied she smiled before she said: 'I will tell them.' Then she was gone.

He walked between the tables that hadn't yet been set out since the previous night.

He stopped at one, took down the chairs and sat down. He put his notebook, pen and cell phone on the table and looked around in amazement. On the right against the wall was the long bar counter made from rough, thick wooden beams. On the walls were artificial shipwreck ornaments from the era of sailing ships, between modern neon curlicues in piratical designs. On the left, right at the back, was a bank of turntables and electronic equipment, with a dance floor in front. Four dance towers stood metres above the dance floor. High up against the ceiling hung bunches of lasers and spotlights, all dark now. Giant speakers were mounted on every wall.

He tried to imagine how it had been last night. Hundreds of people, loud music, dancing bodies, flickering lights. And now it was quiet, empty and spooky.

He felt uneasy in this place.

In this city too. It was the people, he thought. Khayelitsha had often broken his heart with its pointless murders, the domestic violence, the terrible poverty, the shacks, the daily struggle. But he had been welcome there, the source of law and order, simple people, his people, they respected him, stood by him, supported him.

Ninety per cent of those cases were straightforward. In this city the possibilities were complicated and legion, the agendas inscrutable. It was all antagonism and suspicion. As if he were some intruder.

'No respect,' his mother would say. 'That's the problem with the new world.' His mother carved elephants out of wood in Knysna, sanding and polishing them until they came alive, but she refused to sell them in the roadside stall next to the lagoon, 'Because people don't have respect any more.' To her, the 'new world' was anything across the brown waters of the Fish and Mzimvubu Rivers, but there were no jobs in Gwiligwili, 'at home'. Now she was an exile, cast out on this 'new world'. Even though she only went shopping once a week. The rest of the time she sat in front of the corrugated iron shack in Khayalethu South with her elephants, waiting for her son to phone on the cell phone he had bought for her. Or for Zukisa, to hear how many artworks they had sold to the disrespectful tourists.

Vusi thought of Tiffany October, the slim young pathologist. She had the same soft eyes as his mother, the same gentle voice that seemed to be hiding great wisdom.

He thought of phoning her, but his guts contracted.

Would she go out with a Xhosa?

'Ask her,' Griessel had said. 'It can't do any harm.' He looked for the mortuary number in his notebook.

He phoned. It rang for a long time before the switchboard answered. He took a deep breath to say: 'May I speak to Dr October?' But his courage failed him; the fear that she would say 'no' lurked in the pit of his stomach like a disease. He cancelled the call in panic.

He cursed himself, in angry Xhosa, and immediately phoned Vaughn Cupido, the only member of the SAPS Organised Crime Task Force in Bellville South that he knew. He had to hold for a long time before Cupido answered with his usual, self-assured mantra: 'Talk to me.'

Vusi said hullo and then asked if they knew anything about Gennady Demidov. Cupido whistled through his teeth, as demonstrative as ever. 'Genna. We call him Semi-dof, like in semi-stupid, if you get my drift. Brother, the city belongs to him, pretty much - prostitution, drugs, blackmail, money laundering, cigarettes ...'

'He owns the Van Hunks club ...'

'Ja. And he's got another club, in Bree, the Moscow Redd; he's got a guest house in Oranjezicht that's really just a brothel and the word is that the Cranky Croc in Longmarket is his in all but name.'

'The Cranky Croc?'

'The Internet cafe and bar at Greenmarket Square. Easiest place in Cape Town to buy weed.'

'I have an American tourist, about nineteen, whose throat was cut last night up in Long Street. But earlier they had been in Van Hunks ...'

'It's drugs, Vusi. Sounds to me like a deal that went wrong. They do that, the Russians. Show your network you don't take shit.'

'A deal gone wrong?'

'Semi-dof is an importer, Vusi. The dealers buy from him, a hundred thousand rands' worth at a time.'

'So why don't you arrest him?'

'It's not that easy, brother. He's clever.'

'But the girl only arrived here yesterday, first time in Cape Town. She's no dealer.'

'She must be a mule.'

'A mule?'

'They bring the drugs in. On planes, fishing trawlers, any way they can.'

'Ah,' said Vusi.

'So she probably didn't deliver what she was meant to. Something like that. I can't say what happened, but it's drugs ...'

The station commander of Caledon Square walked down the passage behind Inspector Mbali Kaleni, unable to hide his displeasure.

Ten minutes ago everything had been under control; his efficient police station had been functioning normally and effectively. Then she waddles in, without knocking, orders everyone around, demanding an office that he didn't have, refusing to share with the social worker. Next minute he was being kakked on by the Provincial Commissioner, accusing him of bringing the Service into disrepute. Now he had Social Services sharing his office so that this domineering woman could move in.

They walked into the charge office. She looked like an overstuffed pigeon - short, with a big bulge in front and a big bulge behind in her tight black trouser suit. Large handbag over her shoulder, service pistol in a thick black belt around her hips and her SAPS ID card hanging from a cord around her neck, probably because no one would believe she was a policewoman.

She stopped in the middle of the room, feet planted wide apart, and clapped sharply, twice.

'Listen up, people,' she said loudly. Pee-pol, in her Zulu accent.

Here and there a head turned.

'Silence!' Sharp and loud.

Silence descended, everyone paid attention: complainants, their companions, uniforms.

'Thank you. My name is Inspector Mbali Kaleni. We have a situation and we need to be sharp. There is an American tourist missing in the city, a nineteen-year-old girl, maybe in Camps Bay, maybe Clifton or Bantry Bay. There are people trying to kill her. We must find her. I am in control of the operation. So I want you to get every vehicle out there, and make sure they get the message. They must come and collect a photo of the girl after twelve o'clock. The Provincial Commissioner has personally called your station commander, and he will not tolerate any problems ...'

'Inspector ...' said the Constable who had taken the Carlucci's call.

'I am not finished,' she said.

'I know where she is,' he said, not intimidated, making his commanding officer proud.

'You know?' Kaleni asked, some of the wind taken out of her sails.

'She's not in Camps Bay, she's in Oranjezicht,' he said.

Vusi Ndabeni sat in the twilight of the nightclub and phoned Benny Griessel, but the detective's cell phone was on voice mail.

'Benny, it's Vusi. I think the girls brought drugs in and I think they were supposed to deliver it to Van Hunks. I'm waiting for the barmen and waiter, but I know they're not going to talk. I think we must bring Organised Crime in. Call me, please.'

He looked at his notes again. What else could he do?

The video cameras.

He phoned the Metro Police video control room, and was eventually put through to The Owl.

'I can tell you they came from the lower end of Long Street. The camera on the corner of Longmarket and Long shows the two girls walking past at 01:39. The angle isn't great, but I compared it with the other material. It's the same girls.'

'Walking past?'

'They were walking fast, but definitely not running. But at time code 01:39:42 you can see the men coming past. The angle is a bit better, I can see five of them running in the same direction, north to south.'

'After the girls.'

'That's right. I'm still looking for something before that, but there was a camera out of operation on the other side of Shortmarket. So don't hold your breath.'

'Thanks a lot,' said Vusi.

So, here, two hundred metres from the club, they were still walking, unaware of the men chasing them.

What did it all mean?

He made a note in his book. What else?

He must call Thick and Thin. They must search Rachel Anderson's luggage for any sign of drugs.

He looked for their number on his cell phone, found it, but hesitated. Would it help?

The laboratory was six months behind, understaffed, overworked.

Later. First they must find Rachel Anderson.

Fransman Dekker hesitated in AfriSound's large reception room until the beautiful coloured woman got up and approached him.

'Can I help you?' she asked with the same subdued manner as the black woman on the ground floor, but with more interest.

'Inspector Fransman Dekker.' He held out his hand. 'I am sorry for your loss.'

She lowered her eyes. 'Natasha Abader. Thank you.' Her hand felt small and cool in his.

'I'm looking for Inspector Benny Griessel.'

'He's in the conference room.' Her inspection of his fingers for a ring was smooth and practised. She gave nothing away when she saw the thin gold band, but looked him in the eye.

'There is a journalist downstairs at your front door. Please don't let them come up.'

'I will tell Naomi. Can I offer you some coffee? Tea? Anything.' The last was said with a measured smile, perfect white teeth.

'No, thank you,' he replied and looked away. He didn't want to . start something now. Under no circumstances.