Thirteen Hours

Chapter 45

Just after four, the nurse came out of the hospital room and said to Fransman Dekker: 'Fifteen minutes.' She held the door open so he could enter.

Alexa Barnard was sitting up against the cushions. He saw the bandage on her forearm, then the look of dawning disappointment.

'I was expecting the other detective,' she said slowly, words not well formed. The medication had not wholly worn off.

'Afternoon, ma'am,' he said neutrally, because he could use her drowsiness; he must avoid conflict and win her trust. He dragged a blue chair closer, nearly right up to the bed. He sat down with his elbows on the thin white bedspread. She stared at him with vague interest. She looked better than she had this morning - her hair was brushed and tied back in the nape of her neck, so that her unobscured face appeared stronger, the faded beauty like a fossil in a weathered rock bank.

'Captain Griessel is not on the case any more,' he said.

She nodded slowly.

'I understand better now,' he said quietly and sympathetically.

She lifted an eyebrow.

'He was ... not an easy man.'

She searched his face until she was convinced of his sincerity. Then she looked past him. He saw the moisture collect gradually in her eyes, her lower lip's involuntary tremble. With her healthy right arm she wiped the back of her hand over her cheek in slow motion.

Better than he'd hoped. 'You loved him very much.'

She looked somewhere beyond Dekker, nodded slightly, and wiped her cheek again.

'He hurt you so much. All those years. He kept on hurting you over and over.'

'Yes.' Barely a whisper. He wanted her to talk. He waited. She said nothing. The sound of a helicopter came through the closed curtains in front of the window, the wap-wap increasingly loud. He waited till it subsided.

'You blamed yourself. You thought it was your fault.'

Her gaze shifted to him. Still silent.

'But it wasn't. There are men like that,' he said. 'It's a disease. An addiction.' She nodded, agreeing, as though she wanted to hear more.

'It's a drug for the soul. I think they have an emptiness inside here, a hole that is never filled, it might help for a little while, then in a day or two it starts all over again. I think there's a reason, I think they don't like themselves, it's a way of...' His command of formal language left him stranded.

'Gaining acceptance,' she said. He waited, gave her time. But she gazed steadily at him, expectantly, pleading almost.

'Yes. Acceptance. Maybe more than that. There's something broken in here, they want to make it whole. A hurt that has come a long way, that never completely goes away, it just comes back every time, worse, but the medicine helps less and less, it's a ...' His wave of the hand sought a word, deliberately now.

'A vicious circle.'

'Yes ...'

She would not fill the silence that he had created. At first he wavered, then he said: 'He loved you, in his way, I think he loved you a lot, I think the problem was that he didn't want to do it, but every time he did he thought less of himself, because he knew he was hurting you, he knew he was doing damage. Then that became the reason he did it again, like an animal gnawing at itself. That can't stop. If a woman showed she wanted him, it meant he wasn't so bad, then he didn't think any more, he just felt, it was like a fever coming over him, you can't stop it. You want to, but you can't, however much you love your wife ...' He stopped suddenly, aware of the fundamental shift, and sat back slowly in his chair.

He watched her, wondering if she had caught on. He saw that she was somewhere else. Heard her say: 'I asked him to get help.'

He hoped. She looked at the little table beside her bed. Above the drawer was a slit where a tissue dangled. She pulled it out, wiped her eyes one by one and crumpled the paper in her right hand. 'I think there was a time when I tried to understand, when I thought I could see a little boy in him, a rejected, lonely boy. I don't know, he would never talk about it, I could never work out where it came from. But where does anything come from? Where does my alcoholism come from? My fear, my insecurity. My inferiority? I have looked for it in my childhood, that's the easy way out. Your father and mother's fault. They made mistakes, they weren't perfect, but that's not enough ... excuse. The problem is, it comes from inside me. It's part of my atoms, the way they vibrate, their frequency, their pitch, the key they sing in ...'

He had an idea where she was headed.

'Nobody can help ...' he encouraged her.

'Just yourself.'

'He couldn't change.'

She shook her head. No, Adam Barnard couldn't change. He wanted to prompt her: 'So you did something about it,' but he gave her the chance to say it herself.

She slowly sank back against the cushion, as though she were very tired.

'I don't know ...' A deep sigh.

'What?' he asked, a whispered invitation.

'Do we have the right? To change people? So that they suit us? So that they can protect us from ourselves? Aren't we shifting the responsibility? My weakness against his. If I were stronger ... Or he was. Our tragedy lay in the combination, each was the other's catalyst. We were ... an unfortunate chemical reaction ...'

His fifteen minutes expired. 'And something had to give,' he said. 'Someone had to do something.'

'No. It was too late to do anything. Our habits with each other were too set, the patterns had become part of us, we couldn't live any other way any more. Past a certain point there is nothing you can do.'

'Nothing?'

She shook her head again.

'There is always something you can do.'

'Such as what?'

'If the pain is bad enough, and the humiliation.' He needed more than this. He took a chance, gave her something to work with: 'When he starts cursing and threatening you. When he assaults you ...'

She turned her head slowly towards him. At first expressionless, so that he couldn't tell if it was going to work or not. Then the frown began, initially as though she was puzzled, but with increasing comprehension and a certain restrained regret. Eventually she looked .down at the tissue in her hand. 'I don't blame you.'

'What do you mean?' but he knew he had failed.

'You're just doing your job.'

He leaned forward, desperate, trying another tack. 'We know enough, Mrs Barnard,' he said still with empathy. 'It was someone with inside knowledge. Someone who knew where he kept his pistol. Someone who knew about your ... condition. Someone with enough motive. You qualify. You know that.'

She nodded thoughtfully.

'Who helped you?'

'It was Willie Mouton.'

'Willie Mouton?' He couldn't keep the astonishment out of his voice, not sure what she meant, though a light seemed to have gone on for her.

'That's why I asked the other detective ... Griessel to come.'

'Oh?'

'I must have been thinking like you. About the pistol. Only four of us knew where it was, and only Adam had the key.'

'What key?'

'To the gun safe in the top of his wardrobe. But Willie installed that. Four, five years ago. He's good at that sort of thing, he was always practical. In the old days he did stage work for the bands. Adam couldn't do anything with his hands, but he didn't want to bring outside people in, he didn't want anyone to know about the gun, he was afraid it would be stolen.

This morning . . . Willie was here, he and the lawyer, it was a strange conversation, I only realised once they left ...' She stopped suddenly, having second thoughts, the hand with the tissue halfway between bed and face.

When she stopped he couldn't stand the suspense. 'What did you realise?'

'Willie always wanted more. A bigger share, more money. Even though Adam was very good to him.'

'Ma'am, what are you trying to tell me?'

'Willie came and stood here at my bed. All he wanted to know was what I could remember. I last saw Willie more than a year ago. And then here he was this morning, as though he actually cared. He made all the right noises, he wanted to know how I was, he said he was so sorry about Adam, but then he wanted to know if I remembered anything. When I said I didn't know, I was confused, I couldn't understand ... he asked again: "Can you remember anything - anything?" Only when they left a while later ... I lay here, the medication . . . but I heard his words again. Why was he so keen to know? And why was his lawyer here? That's what I wanted to tell Griessel, that . . . it was strange.'

'Ma'am, you said he helped you.'

She looked at him in surprise. 'No, I never said that.'

'I asked you who helped you. And you said Willie Mouton.'

The door behind Dekker opened.

'No, no,' said Alexandra Barnard, totally confused, and Dekker wondered what was in the pills she had taken.

'Inspector,' said the nurse.

'Another five minutes,' he said.

'I'm sorry, that's not possible.'

'You misunderstood me,' said Alexa Barnard.

'Please,' said Dekker to the nurse.

'Inspector, if the doctor says fifteen minutes, that is all I can give you.'

'Fuck the doctor,' he said involuntarily.

'Out! Or I'll call security.'

He considered his options, knew he was so close, she was confused, he wouldn't get another chance, but the nurse was a witness to this statement.

He stood up. 'We'll talk again,' he said and walked out, down the passage to the lift. He pressed the button, angry, pressed it again and again. So close.

The door whispered open, the big lift was empty. He went in and saw the G-light on, folded his arms. Now she wanted to point at Willie Mouton. He wasn't going to fall for that.

The lift began to descend.

He would go and talk to the maid, Sylvia Buys. He had her address in his notebook. Athlone somewhere. He checked his watch. Nearly twenty past four. To Athlone in this traffic. Maybe she was still in the house in Tamboerskloof.

Willie Mouton? He recalled the chaos this morning in the street, the militant Mouton, the black knight, shaven-headed earring- wearer on his fucking phone. To his lawyer. Mouton, who was desperate for him to arrest Josh and Melinda.

The lift doors slid open. People were waiting to come in. He walked out slowly, thoughtfully. He stopped in the entrance hall.

The lawyer who had been with him all day, the spectre of a man, so grave. Mouton and Groenewald here, with Alexa. 'What can you remember?' Why?

Was the drunk woman lying?

Adam phoned me last night, some time after nine, to tell me about Ivan Nell's stories. His cell phone rang. He saw it was Griessel, who believed she was innocent.

'Benny?'

'Fransman, are you still at AfriSound?'

'No, I'm at City Park.'

'Where?'

'At the hospital. In the city.'

'No, I mean where in the hospital?'

'At the entrance. Why?'

'Stay there, I'll be with you in a minute. You're not going to believe this.'