She lit the second candle as well, sat down behind her desk and took out a cigarette.
'I can do nothing.' She lit the cigarette from the candle.
Perhaps Russians were not into rhetorical questions. 'I'm sorry, but I will have to go.' 'I can bring you a candle.'
'No. The girl... she was seen.'
'Oh?' The pencil-drawn eyebrows were raised high. He didn't know how to read that. Vusi took a business card out of his pocket and put it down in front of her. 'Please, would you call me when the people from last night arrive?'
Federova picked up the card in her long nails. 'OK.'
'Thank you,' said Vusi. Using his cell phone as a torch, he walked back the way he had come in, through the kitchen, where Ponytail was counting booze bottles by the light coming in from the back door.
'What you do about the power? What the police do?'
He considered explaining carefully to the man that the police had nothing to do with the electricity supply. But he just said: 'We call Eskom.'
Vusi walked out of the back door into the alley, where the sunlight was blinding. He heard Ponytail call: 'Funny. I love funny cop,' but he was in a hurry and his car was up in Long Street, more than ten minutes' walk. He wanted to talk to Kaleni at the restaurant, he wanted ... Vusi stopped just where the alley opened into Strand Street. There was something he could do, even if Benny Griessel said he didn't want Organised Crime involved. He chose Vaughn Cupido's number and called him.
'Speak to me,' Cupido answered immediately.
'Do you have photos of Demidov's people?'
Cupido didn't answer.
'Vaughn, are you there?'
'Why do you ask?' suspiciously.
'Do you, Vaughn?'
'I cannot confirm or deny.'
'What does that mean?'
'It means I'm just an Inspector. You will have to ask higher up.'
'Ask who?'
'The Senior Sup.'
'Vaughn, we have a man who saw two of the attackers in Oranjezicht just now. If he can ID Demidov's people ... It could save the girl's life.'
It was quiet again.
'Vaughn?'
'Let me get back to you ...'
Rachel Anderson heard the click-click of a woman's shoes on the garden path just metres away from her, and another sound, the rhythmic whisper of fabric on fabric. The noise stopped abruptly, then she heard a sigh and someone knocking loudly. Rachel kept her breathing shallow; she turned her head slowly so she could see her feet. Was she deep enough into the bushes?
Again someone hammered on the door. 'Hello, anybody home?' in an African accent, a woman, urgent.
What did it mean?
'Hey, guys!' the same voice barked, authoritarian. 'I called you back, but you did not hear.'
A man's voice answered from the street, then the same African woman: 'No, stay on the pavement, this might be a crime scene. Just go and tell them at the restaurant I need Forensics. Shoe imprints, I want them cast and identified.'
There was the sound of a door opening and a man's voice: 'Can I help you?'
'How are you?'
'That is not an appropriate question. Why are you hammering on my door?' The man's voice answered calm, timid.
'Because your doorbell is broken.'
'It's not broken. There is a power failure.'
'What? Again?'
'Yes. Can I help you?'
'I am Inspector Mbali Kaleni of the SAPS. We are looking for a girl who is running away from assailants, and I think she was in your garden. I want to know if you saw her.'
'I didn't see her ...'
'Over there. Can you come and take a look?'
'Is that your police ID?'
'Yes.'
'When did this happen?'
'About forty minutes ago. Can you please come and look at your garden? You did not see her?'
'No. But I heard her ..
Rachel Anderson's heart went cold.
'You did?'
'Yes,' said the man. 'I heard footsteps, around the corner of the house ...'
'Here?'
'Yes, just here. But I heard her run to the wall there, I think she jumped over, to the next house. By the time I looked through the window, she was gone.'
'Take a look at the tracks,' said the policewoman.
There was a moment of relief as the voices faded, but her pulse accelerated again because she didn't know where her tracks led. Then she remembered falling in the flower bed when she jumped over the wall. Was that all? Did the tracks lead here? She had stepped in damp ground; mud might have stuck to the grass or the slate of the path.
She heard the woman's footsteps on the path again. She kept dead still and closed her eyes.
Benny Griessel opened the big door of the AfriSound recording studio angrily. John Afrika had told him to hurry; they were waiting for him. The room was pitch dark, as it had no windows. The shaft of light from the open door illuminated Melinda; she stood with big, frightened eyes, hands folded across her breast, Bambi In Danger. He said, 'The power is off,' and she dropped her hands. Had she thought the darkened room was a police ploy?
He went up to her and said with all the patience he could muster: 'Madam, you will have to talk to Inspector Dekker. With or without your lawyer. That is your choice. You can request that a female officer be present, but you are not a victim; it's his discretion.'
'A female officer?' she was confused.
'A female member of the police.'
She thought for a moment. Then she said: 'He misunderstood me.'
'Oh?'
'After yesterday's events, I only meant it would be easier to talk to a woman about it.'
A meek little lamb without guile.
'So what do you want to do?'
'I just want to be sure it's confidential.'
He explained to her that if she or Josh were charged, nothing could be confidential.
'But we didn't do anything.'
'Then it will all be confidential.' So she agreed and he had to ask bloody Mouton where Fransman could question Melinda, because the studio was too dark. Natasha brought in a gas lamp and put it near Melinda in the recording studio.
Griessel and Dekker watched Natasha walk away. When she disappeared around the corner, Benny pulled his colleague by the arm as far as Adam Barnard's empty office. He had received a message from the Commissioner that he needed to pass on to Dekker. He knew what his reaction would be. There was only one way to do it: 'John Afrika says I must bring Mbali Kaleni in to help you.'
Fransman Dekker exploded. Not straight away, as if the implications mounted up in him first. Then he stood
