Thirteen Hours

where the trouble had started. No. It had begun with Lize Beekman, but like Anna would believe that?

Jissis.

Benny Griessel brushed his teeth hurriedly and urgently. Then he jumped under the shower and opened the taps on full, so he could wash all the accusing scents from his body.

It wasn't a bergie. Griessel's heart skipped a beat as he climbed over the spiked railings of the church wall and saw the girl lying there. The running shoes, khaki shorts, orange camisole and the shape of her arms and legs told him she was young. She reminded him of his daughter.

He walked down the narrow tarmac path, past tall palms and pine trees and a yellow notice board: STRICTLY AUTHORISED. CARS ONLY. AT OWNER'S OWN RISK, to the spot just left of the pretty grey church where, on the same tar, she lay stretched out.

He looked up at the perfect morning. Bright, with hardly any wind, just a faint breeze bearing fresh sea scents up the mountain. It was not a time to die.

Vusi stood beside her with Thick and Thin from Forensics, a police photographer and three men in SAPS uniform. Behind Griessel's back on the Long Street pavement there were more uniforms, at least four in the white shirts and black epaulettes of the Metro Police, all very self-important. Together with a group of bystanders they leaned their arms on the railings and stared at the motionless figure.

'Morning, Benny,' said Vusi Ndabeni in his quiet manner. He was of the same average height as Griessel, but seemed smaller. Lean and neat, the seams of his trousers sharply pressed, snow- white shirt with tie, shoes shined. His peppercorn hair was cut short and shaved in sharp angles, goatee impeccably clipped. He wore surgical rubber gloves. Griessel had been introduced to him for the first time last Thursday, along with the other five detectives he had been asked to 'mentor' throughout the coming year. That was the word that John Africa, Regional Commissioner: Detective Services and Criminal Intelligence, had used. But when Griessel was alone in Africa's office it was 'We're in the shit, Benny. We fucked up the Van der Vyver case, and now the brass say it's because we've just been having too much of a good time in the Cape and it's time to pull finger, but what can I do? I'm losing my best people and the new ones are clueless, totally green. Benny, can I count on you?'

An hour later he was in the Commissioner's large conference room, along with six of the best 'new' people looking singularly unimpressed, all seated in a row on grey government-issue chairs. This time John Africa toned down his message: 'Benny will be your mentor. He's been on the Force for twenty-five years; he was part of the old Murder and Robbery when most of you were still in primary school. What he's forgotten, you still have to learn. But understand this: he's not here to do your work for you. He's your advisor, your sounding board. And your mentor. According to the dictionary that is,' the Commissioner glanced at his notes,'... a wise and trusted counsellor or teacher. That's why I transferred him to the Provincial Task Force. Because Benny is wise and you can trust him, because I trust him. Too much knowledge is being lost, there are too many new people and we don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. Learn from him. You have been hand picked - not many will get this opportunity.' Griessel watched their faces. Four lean black men, one fat black woman, and one broad- shouldered coloured detective, all in their early thirties. There was not much ungrudging gratitude, with the exception of Vusumuzi ('but everyone calls me Vusi') Ndabeni. The coloured detective, Fransman Dekker, was openly antagonistic. But Griessel was already accustomed to the undercurrents in the new SAPS. He stood beside John Africa and told himself he ought to be grateful he still had a job after the dissolution of the Serious and Violent Crimes Unit. Grateful that he and his former commanding officer, Mat Joubert, hadn't been posted to a station like most of their colleagues. The new structures that were not new, it was like it was thirty years back, detectives at stations, because that was the way it was now done overseas, and the SAPS must copy them. At least he still had work and Joubert had put him up for promotion. If his luck held, if they could look past his history of drinking, and affirmative action and all the politics and shit, he would hear today whether he had made Captain.

Captain Benny Griessel. It sounded right to him. He needed the raise too.

Badly.

'Morning, Vusi,' he said.

'Hey, Benny,' Jimmy, the tall, skinny white coat from Forensics, greeted him. 'I hear they call you 'The Oracle' now.'

'Like that aunty in Lord of the Rings,' said Arnold, the short, fat one. Collectively they were known in Cape police circles as Thick and Thin, usually in the tired crack 'Forensics will stand by you through Thick and Thin.'

' The Matrix, you ape,' said Jimmy.

'Whatever,' said Arnold.

'Morning,' said Griessel. He turned to the uniforms under the tree and took a deep breath, ready to tell them, 'This is a crime scene, get your butts to the other side of the wall,' and then he remembered that this was Vusi's case, he should shut up and mentor. He gave the uniforms a dirty look, with zero effect, and hunkered down to look at the body.

The girl lay on her belly with her head turned away from the , street. Her blonde hair was very short. Across her back were two short horizontal cuts, matching left and right on her shoulder blades. But these were not the cause of death. That was the huge gash across her throat, deep enough to expose the oesophagus. Her face, chest and shoulders lay in the wide pool of blood. The smell of death was already there, as bitter as copper.

'Jissis,' said Griessel, all his fear and revulsion welling up in him and he had to breathe, slow and easy, as Doc Barkhuizen had taught him. He had to distance himself, he must not internalise this.

He shut his eyes for a second. Then he looked up at the trees. He was searching for objectivity, but this was a dreadful way to die. And his mind wanted to spool through the event as it had happened, the knife flashing and slicing, sliding deep through her tissues.

He got up quickly, pretending to look around. Thick and Thin were bickering over something, as usual. He tried to listen.

Lord, she looked so young. Eighteen, nineteen?

What kind of madness did it take to cut the throat of a child like this? What kind of perversion?

He forced the images out of his mind, thought of the facts, the implications. She was white. That spelled trouble. That meant media attention and the whole cycle of crime-getting-out-of- control criticism starting all over again. It meant huge pressure and long hours, too many people with a finger in the pie and everyone trying to cover their ass and he didn't have the heart for all that any more.

'Trouble,' he said quietly to Vusi.

'I know.'

'It would be better if the uniforms stayed behind the wall.'

Ndabeni nodded and went over to the uniformed policemen. He asked them to go out another way, around the back of the church. They were reluctant, wanting to be part of the action. But they went.

Vusi came to stand beside him, notebook and pen in hand. 'All the gates are locked. There's a gate for cars over there near the church office, and the main gate in front of the building here. She must have jumped over the railings - it's the only way in here.' Vusi spoke too fast. He pointed at a coloured man standing on the pavement on the other side of the wall. 'That ou there ... James Dylan Fredericks, he found her. He's the day manager of Kauai Health Foods in Kloof Street. He says he comes in on the Golden Arrow bus from Mitchell's Plain and then he walks from the terminal. He went past here and something caught his eye. So he climbed over the wall, but when he saw the blood he went back and phoned the Caledon Square station because that's the number he has on speed dial for the shop.'

Griessel nodded. He suspected Ndabeni was nervous about his presence, as though he were here to evaluate the black man. He would have to put that right.

'I'm going to tell Fredericks he can go, we know where to find him.'

'That's fine, Vusi. You don't have to ... I appreciate you giving me the details, but I don't want you to . .. you know ...'

Ndabeni touched Griessel's arm as though to reassure him. 'It's OK, Benny. I want to learn ...'

Vusi was silent for a while. Then he added: 'I don't want to blow this, Benny. I was in Khayelitsha for four years and I don't want to go back. But this is my first... white,' he said that carefully as if it might be a racist statement. 'This is another world ...'

'It is.' Griessel was no good at this sort of thing, never knowing what the proper, politically correct words