Thirteen Hours

Chapter 36

Dekker and the young black Metro policeman had to shoulder their way through the journalists at the front door, over the tiny lawn, pass the koi pond, through the access tunnel for the building to Buiten Street. The press kept throwing questions at him like accusations, until they shook off the last vulture on the corner of Bree Street. When would Cloete come and sort out this chaos?

'Up there, around the corner,' the Metro man said and they walked in silence. Dekker realised the southeaster had picked up and the perfect summer day was gone. He looked up at the mountain. The cloud was beginning to form on its tabletop like an omen. By late afternoon the wind would be gale force; but then it was January, there was nothing you could do about that.

The Metro man led him to a corner, they turned left into New Church Street and crossed the road. Six paces further on he stopped and pointed with his baton.

'Right there.'

'The shoe was lying here?'

'Just there,' the man confirmed. 'Almost in the gutter.'

'You're sure of this?'

'This is where I found it.'

'You didn't look inside it?'

'Inside the shoe?' The man screwed up his face in an expression of suspicion, as if he wasn't completely convinced of Dekker's intelligence.

'I wouldn't have either,' said Dekker. 'Thanks a lot.'

'Can I go now?'

'Wait. I just want to know, did they ask you to pick things up?' 'Yes, Senior Inspector Oerson sent us. We had to pick up anything that might have been in a rucksack. Anything. Then I saw the shoe. I picked it up and put it in the plastic bag. I found a hat too, over there on the corner of Watson Street. But that's all. I took it to Abrams, he had the big rubbish bag. I put it in the big rubbish bag. Abrams took the big rubbish bag to Senior Inspector Oerson, because he said he wanted to see everything.' He was thorough and systematic, as though he still harboured doubts about Dekker being the sharpest pencil in the box.

'Thank you. That's all I wanted to know.'

The man nodded, turned around and strolled away, swinging his baton, one hand on his cap to protect it from the wind.

Dekker considered the spot where the shoe had lain. Then the corner of New Church and Buiten. About two to three hundred metres from AfriSound.

What was the significance of that?

He took out his phone. It was time to call Benny Griessel.

The Metro Police licensing department told Vusi the Peugeot Boxer panel van, CA 409-341, belonged to CapSud Trading ...

'Spell that for me, please,' Vusi asked.

'Capital letter C, a-p, capital letter S, u-d ... the contact person is a Mr FrederikWillem de Jager, the address is Unit Twenty-one, Access City, La Belle Street in Stikland.'

'Thank you very much,' said Vusi.

'But there's a tag on it,' the woman said. 'The vehicle is in the pound.'

'Which pound?'

'Our vehicle impound. Just here next to me in Greenpoint.'

'Is it there now?'

'That's what the system says.'

Vusi thought it over. He asked: 'Do you have a phone number for de Jager?'

'Yip.' She gave it to him.

Griessel stood at the big table holding a sheet of paper with two numbers on it. One of them was his cell phone number. The other was a Cape number that he did not recognise. He studied the handwriting, comparing it to the notes in tiny, almost illegible scribbles on the hordes of documents strewn across the table. The numbers were written in larger, rounder and more feminine script.

Rachel Anderson?

He dialled the other Cape number. Three rings and a woman answered with a distinctive accent. 'United States Consul, good afternoon, how may I help you?'

'Oh, sorry, wrong number,' he said and terminated the call.

'Gourmet Foods, good afternoon,' a woman's voice answered.

'Is that not CapSud Trading?'

'This is CapSud, trading as Gourmet Foods.'

'Could I speak to Mr de Jager, please?'

'Who is this speaking?'

'This is Inspector Vusi Ndabeni of the South African Police Service.'

'Mr de Jager is deceased, Inspector.'

'Oh. I'm sorry. When did he pass away?'

'Four months ago.'

'I am calling to enquire about a Peugeot Boxer panel van, registration CA four-oh-nine, three-four-one, that is registered in the name of CapSud Trading.'

'That must be the stolen one.'

'Oh?'

'We bought it early October last year, then we sent it to the sign writers to have our logo applied. It was stolen that very night from the sign writers. And you never caught them.' Accusatory.

'Are you aware that the vehicle was in the Metropolitan Police pound?'

'Yes, they recovered it in Salt River, in a Fire Service parking spot, so they towed it away and impounded it and called us. That was mid-October.'

'Why have you never collected it, ma'am?'

'Because when Frik died everything was frozen. Nobody could draw money or sign a cheque, and the estate will only be wound up in two months' time. This is the New South Africa, you know, you have to wait and see.'

'So, as far as you know, the panel van has been in the pound ever since?'

'Must be, because every week someone phones and says we must come and pay the fine and collect it, and the more I explain about Frik, the less it helps because next week someone else phones.'

'You are Mrs ...?'

'I am Saartjie de Jager. Frik's wife.'

'May I ask how Mr de Jager died, ma'am?'

'Cholesterol. The doctor warned him, I warned him, but Frik wouldn't listen. He was like that all his life. Now I'm the one trying to clear up the mess.'

Everything happened at once. Griessel waited impatiently at the big table for his contact at Telkom to get back to him, John Afrika walked gingerly past the blood in the hallway, looking at it in horror, saying: 'Nee, o, jirre,' Griessel's cell phone began to ring and Vusi came through the front door with an excited 'Benny!'

He thought it was the Telkom man, turned away from his colleagues and answered it. 'Griessel.' Through the window he saw Mat Joubert walking up the garden path.

'Benny, it's Fransman.'

Too much at once. 'Fransman, can I call you back?' Behind him the Commissioner said something reproachfully.

'Benny, just a quick one, how sure are we that Barnard's wife and Josh Geyser are not involved?'

He needed to tell Afrika that he had asked Joubert to come, before there were fireworks. 'Don't know,' he said, his mind not on the conversation.

'So I can question them some more? I'll get Mbali to talk to Alexandra ...'

The female detective's name forced him to focus. 'Don't you know yet?' he asked.

'What are you doing here?' he heard John Afrika say behind him. He turned. Joubert had entered the room. He put his hand over the receiver as Dekker asked, 'Don't I know what yet?'

'Commissioner, I'll explain,' said Griessel and then to Dekker: 'Mbali was shot, Fransman. Here in Upper Orange, the American girl...'

Dekker was dumbfounded.

'She's in hospital,' Griessel said.

'The American girl? What was Mbali doing there?'

'That's what I wanted to ask you.'

'How would I know? I sent her to Jack Fischer.'

'Jack Fischer?' he asked in surprise, and then realised it was the wrong thing to say with both Afrika and Joubert nearby.

'They did some work for AfriSound, but I think it's a dead end. Is Mbali OK?'

'Fransman, we don't know, I'm sorry, I have to run. Talk to Geyser again if you think you should. I'll call you later.' He ended the call and said: 'Commissioner, I asked Mat to come and help.' Afrika's face began to screw up in protest but Griessel didn't give him the chance. 'All due respect, Commissioner,' he began, knowing that what he was about to say was not respectful at all, but he didn't give a damn any more, 'you said there's a manpower problem. Mat is ... underutilised at PT, he's the best detective in the Cape and I have an American girl that I have to find, whatever it takes. You can fire me tomorrow, you can demote me to Inspector or Sergeant if you like, but, fuck knows, there's no time to waste. Vusi is working on the panel van they took Rachel Anderson away in, I am going to find out who the hell knew she was in this house. We don't have time to process the scene and I need someone who knows what he's doing. You said I must phone Rachel's father, and I will do it, but not before I know what is going on. Because he is going to ask me and I want to have answers that will satisfy a girl's father. So, please, let's skip the shit and get the girl.' Then he added a final, hopeful: 'With respect, Commissioner,' and waited for the guillotine to drop.

John Afrika looked at Griessel, at Joubert, at Ndabeni, and back to Griessel again. Conflicting emotions passed like the seasons across his face. He nodded slightly. 'Get her, Benny,' he said, and walked out, careful not to step in the pool of blood.

Griessel's phone rang again, he answered it and the man from Telkom said: 'Benny, between twelve and two there were only two calls made from that number. The first was to West Lafayette in Indiana, that's in America, and the second was to you.'

'Dave, what time was the first one made?'

'Hold on ... thirteen thirty-six. It lasted for two minutes, twenty-two seconds.'

'Thanks, Dave, thanks a lot.' He ended the call and thought. He tried to piece the thing together, the thousands of loose strands in his head.

'Benny ...' Vusi said, but he held up a hand, checked his cell phone screen, looked up the call register for the record of Rachel's call to him. He received it at thirteen forty-one. Then he had run out of Van Hunks and they had raced here. If her attackers had somehow intercepted her first call, they had only had five minutes more. What if they had been in the area somewhere nearby? They must have arrived just after he had finished speaking to Rachel. That was some quick reaction. Too quick ...

A spark lit up in his brain, a flash of insight. 'Vusi, was it here on the corner that she went into the cafe?'

'The deli,' Ndabeni nodded.

'And then she ran down here,' Griessel indicated Upper Orange.

'Mbali found footprints in the garden.'

Griessel scratched his head. 'They were waiting somewhere, Vusi. They must have seen her, but with all the police around ...'

'Benny, the panel van ...'

But Griessel did not hear him. Why hadn't they shot her? Just the old man. They had cut Erin Russel's throat. But they allowed Rachel to live when they could easily have killed her. Here in this house. But they abducted her?

Another revelation.

'The rucksack,' he said. They had cut Erin Russel's rucksack off her shoulders. He bent and looked under the table. 'See if you can find a rucksack.' He walked down the passage. 'Vusi, take the left,

the bathroom, that bedroom, I'll take the right.' He stopped. 'Mat, please, can you look in the kitchen and outside?'

'What does the rucksack look like?'

'I have no idea,' said Griessel. But a thought occurred to him and stopped him in his tracks so that Vusi nearly bumped into him. He began to phone feverishly. As the sergeant in Caledon Square answered, he identified himself and asked if there were still uniforms at the Cat & Moose in Long Street.

'Yes, they are still there.'

'Sarge, tell them to ask where the American girls' luggage is. Erin Russel and Rachel Anderson. They must find it, and guard it with their lives.'

'I'll do that.'

Griessel said to Ndabeni: 'They're looking for something, Vusi, the fuckers are looking for something the girls have. That's why Rachel is still alive.' And he dashed off to the bedrooms to look for the rucksack.