Thirteen Hours

Chapter 8

Benny Griessel listened to Alexandra Barnard's story.

'Alexa. Nobody calls me Alexandra or Xandra.'

Now, just as he was about to open the front door of Number 47 Brownlow Street to go and find Dekker, he felt a peculiar emotion pressing on his heart, a weightlessness in his head, a sort of separation from reality, as though he stood back a few millimetres from everything, a second or two out of step with the world.

So it took him a while to register that outside was chaos. The street, so peaceful when he arrived, was a mass of journalists and the inquisitive: a flock of photographers, a herd of reporters, a camera team from e.tv and the growing crowd of spectators their presence had attracted. The noise washed over Griessel, loud waves of sound that he could feel in his body, along with the knowledge that he had listened so acutely to Alexa's story that he had been oblivious to all this.

On the veranda a tense Dekker was exchanging fiery words with a bald man, both their voices raised in argument.

'Not before I've seen her,' said the man with a superior attitude and aggressive body language. His head was completely shaven, he was tall and sinewy, with large fleshy ears and one round silver earring. Black shirt, black trousers and the black basketball shoes that teenagers wear, although he seemed to be in his late forties. A middle-aged Zorro. His prominent Adam's apple bobbed up and down in time with his words. Dekker spotted Griessel. 'He insists on seeing her,' said Dekker, still tense. The man ignored Griessel. He snapped open a black leather holder at his belt and brought out a small black cell phone. 'I'm calling my lawyer; this behaviour is totally unacceptable.' He began to press keys on the phone. 'She's not a well woman.'

'He's the partner of the deceased. Willie Mouton,' said Dekker.

'Mr Mouton,' said Griessel reasonably. His voice sounded unfamiliar to his own ear.

'Fuck off,' said Mouton, 'I'm on the phone.' His voice had the penetration and tone of an industrial meat saw.

'Mr Mouton, I won't allow you to talk to a police officer like that,' Dekker said on a rising note. 'And if you wish to make personal calls, you will do it in the street...'

'It's a free country as far as I know.'

'...and not on my crime scene.'

'Your crime scene? Who the fuck do you think you are?' Then, into the phone:

'Sorry. Can I speak to Regardt, please ...?'

Dekker advanced in a threatening way, his temper beginning to get the better of him.

'Regardt, this is Willie, I'm standing on Adam's veranda with the Gestapo ...'

Griessel put a hand on Dekker's arm. 'There are cameras, Fransman.'

'I won't hit him,' said Dekker and jerked Mouton roughly off the veranda and pushed him towards the garden gate. Cameras flashed and clicked.

'They're assaulting me, Regardt,' said Mouton with somewhat less confidence.

'Morning, Nikita,' said Prof Phil Pagel, the state pathologist, from beyond the gate. He was amused.

'Morning, Prof,' said Benny, watching Dekker push Mouton through the gate onto the pavement. He told the uniform: 'Don't let him through here.'

'I'll sue your arse,' said Mouton. 'Regardt, I want you to sue their fucking arses. I want you here with a fucking interdict. Alexa's in there and God knows what these storm troopers are doing with her ...' His voice was deliberately loud enough for Dekker and the media to hear.

Pagel squeezed past Zorro and went up the stairs with his black case in hand. 'What a piece of work is man,' he said.

'Prof?' queried Griessel, and suddenly the sense of disconnectedness was gone; he was back in the present, head clear.

Pagel shook his hand. 'Hamlet. To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Just before he calls man "a quintessence of dust". I was at the show last night. I highly recommend it. Busy morning, Nikita?'

Pagel had been calling him 'Nikita' for the past twelve years. The first time he had met Griessel he had said: 'I am sure that's how the young Khrushchev looked'. Griessel had to think hard who Khrushchev was. Pagel was flamboyantly dressed, as usual - tall, fit and exceptionally handsome for his fifty-something years. There were some who said he looked like the star of one of the television soapies that Griessel had never watched.

'Things are hectic, as usual, Prof.'

'I understand you are mentoring the new generation of law enforcers, Nikita.'

'As you can see, Prof, I'm brilliant at my job,' Griessel grinned. Dekker came back up the veranda steps. 'Have you met Fransman yet?'

'Indeed, I have had the privilege. Inspector Dekker, I admire your forcefulness.'

Dekker had lost none of his tension. 'Morning, Prof.'

'Rumour has it that Adam Barnard is the victim?'

They both nodded, in synch.

'Take arms against a sea of troubles,' said Pagel.

The detectives looked at him without comprehension.

'I am abusing Hamlet to say that this means big trouble, gentlemen.'

'Aah,' said the detectives. They understood.

In the library they stood talking while Pagel knelt beside the body and opened his doctor's bag.

'It wasn't her, Fransman,' said Griessel.

'Are you one hundred per cent certain?'

Griessel shrugged. Nobody could be a hundred per cent certain. 'It's not just what she says, Fransman. It's how it fits in with the scene ...'

'She could have hired someone.'

Griessel had to concede that that argument had merit. Women hiring others to get rid of their husbands was the latest national sport. But he shook his head. 'I doubt it. You don't hire people to make it look like you did it.'

'Anything is possible in this country,' said Dekker.

'Amen,' said Pagel.

'Prof, the "sea of troubles"... Did you know Barnard?' Griessel asked.

'A little, Nikita. Mostly hearsay.'

'What's his story?' asked Dekker.

'Music,' said Pagel. 'And women.'

'That's what his wife says too,' said Griessel.

'As if she hasn't suffered enough,' said Pagel.

'What do you mean, Prof?' Dekker asked.

'You know she was a huge star?'

'No, really?' Stunned.

Pagel didn't look up while he spoke. His hands were deftly handling instruments and the body. 'Barnard "discovered" her, though I have never been very comfortable with that expression. But let me confess my ignorance, gentlemen. As you know, my real love is the classics. I know he was a lawyer who became involved with the pop music industry. Xandra was his first star ...'

'Xandra?'

'That was her stage name,' said Griessel.

'She was a singer?'

'Indeed. A very good one too,' said Pagel.

'How long ago was this, Prof?'

'Fifteen, twenty years?'

'Never heard of her.' Dekker shook his head.

'She disappeared off the scene. Rather suddenly.'

'She caught him with someone else,' said Griessel. 'That's when she started drinking.' 'That was the rumour. Gentlemen, unofficially and unconfirmed: I estimate the time of death at ...' Pagel checked his watch. '... between two and three this morning. As you have surely deduced, the cause of death is two shots by a small-calibre firearm. The position of the wounds and small amount of propellant residue indicates a shooting distance of two to four metres ... and a reasonably good shot: the wounds are less than three centimetres apart.'

'And he wasn't shot here,' said Dekker.

'Indeed.'

'Only two wounds?' asked Griessel.

The pathologist nodded.

'There were three rounds fired by his pistol...'

'Prof,' said Dekker, 'let's say she is an alcoholic. Say she was drunk last night. I had blood drawn, but will it help, eight or ten hours after the fact?'

'Ah, Fransman, nowadays we have ethyl glucuronide. It can track the residue of alcohol levels up to thirty-six hours afterwards. With a urine sample up to five days after intake.'

Dekker nodded, satisfied.

'How so, Prof?'

'Look at him, Fransman. He must be about one point nine metres tall. He's a little overweight; I estimate on the wrong side of a hundred and ten kilograms. You and I would battle to get his body up those stairs - and we are sober.' Pagel began to pack away his apparatus. 'Let's get him

'But I must throw my weight behind Nikita's theory. I don't believe it was her.'

to the mortuary; I can't do much more.'

'Somebody went to a lot of trouble to get him here,' said Dekker.

'And therein lies the rub,' said Pagel.

'Women ...' Dekker speculated.

Pagel stood up. 'Don't write off the Afrikaans music industry as a potential source of conflict, Fransman.'

'Prof?'

'Do you follow the popular press, Fransman?'

Dekker shrugged.

'Ah, the life of the law enforcer - all work and no time to read the Sunday papers. There's money in the Afrikaans music industry, Fransman. Big money. But that's just the ears of the hippo, the tip of the iceberg. The intrigues are legion. Scandals like divorce, sexual harassment, paedophilia ... More long knives and apparent back-stabbing than in Julius Caesar. They fight over everything - back tracks, contracts, artistic credits, royalties, who is permitted to make a musical about which historical personality, who deserves what place in musical history ...'

'But why, Prof?' Griessel asked, deeply disappointed.

'People are people, Nikita. If there is wealth and fame at stake ... It's the usual game: cliques and camps, big egos, artistic temperaments, sensitive feelings, hate, jealousy, envy; there are people who haven't spoken to each other for years, new enmities ... the list is endless. Our Adam was in the thick of things. Would it be enough to inspire murder? As Fransman correctly pointed out, in this country, anything is possible.'

Jimmy and Arnold from Forensics came through the door. 'Oh, there's Prof, morning, Prof,' said Arnold, the fat one.

'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are here. Morning, gentlemen.'

'Prof, can we ask you something?'

'Of course.'

'Prof, the thing is ...' said Arnold.

'Women ...' said Jimmy.

'Why are their breasts so big, Prof?'

'I mean, look at the animals ...'

'Much smaller, Prof...'

'Jissis,' said Fransman Dekker.

'I say it's revolution,' said Arnold.

'Evolution, you ape,' said Jimmy.

'Whatever,' said Arnold.

Pagel looked at them with the goodwill of a patient parent. 'Interesting question, colleagues. But we will have to continue this conversation elsewhere. Come and see me in Salt River.'

'We're not mortuary kind of guys, Prof...'

Dekker's cell phone rang. He checked the screen. 'It's Cloete,' he said.

'And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,' said Pagel on the way to the door, because Cloete was the SAPS media liaison officer. 'Goodbye, colleagues.'

They said goodbye and listened to Fransman Dekker give Cloete the relevant infamous details.

Griessel shook his head. Something big was brewing. Just a look outside would tell you that. His own phone rang. He answered: 'Griessel.'

'Benny,' said Vusi Ndabeni, 'I think you should come.'