He took out his own pen from his pocket and used it to scratch the other one closer until he could reach it with his fingers. He held it so he could see it through his reading glasses. Mont Blanc Starwalker. Cool Blue. On the navy-blue shaft of the pen were two faint blood prints.
He turned and walked over to Jimmy while thinking about the pieces of evidence. The blood on the notebook was not necessarily significant. But the bloody fingerprints on the pen were. Mbali .Kaleni had written the letters J, A and S after she had been wounded.
A perp wearing a coat? Or was it Zulu?
He reached for his phone. He would have to find out.
Chapter 39
The superintendent of the City Park Hospital, a well-groomed woman in her forties, nodded her head just three times while Griessel was talking. She said: 'Captain, one moment, please,' and walked quickly through the glass doors with the lettering
Benny could not stand still. He walked as far as the nurses' desk and back to the theatre doors. Let the fucker live, please, just long enough to get what he needed. He looked at his watch. Nearly twenty-five to three. Too much time had elapsed since they took her. Too many possibilities. But they hadn't shot Rachel Anderson, because there was something they wanted. It was his only chance, his only hope.
At the periphery of his consciousness something flitted past, ghostly visions, fleeting and intangible, leaving only an impression - this morning. He stood still and closed his eyes. What was it? His brain seemed to tell him that, no, the wounded fucker was not his only hope. There was something else. He must go back to the beginning. This morning, what had happened? At the churchyard? What were the important things? The rucksack, cut off Erin Russel...
The superintendent burst through the doors and came over to Griessel. She began to speak before she reached him. 'Captain, his carotid artery was cut, relatively high up, I'm afraid, where there is not much protection. He lost an enormous amount of blood, we had a Code Blue in there, but they were able to resuscitate him. His condition is critical, they are still trying to close the wound, under the circumstances a very difficult procedure, especially since his blood pressure is so low and the bleeding could not be entirely halted. But I am afraid there is no chance of you talking to him in the next five or six hours. Even then I doubt whether communication will be meaningful. His vocal chords have been damaged, apparently - to what extent they don't yet know.'
He digested the information, frustration forcing a curse to the surface, but he swallowed it down.
'Doc, his clothes, I want his clothes, anything he had on him.'
'I'm going to call,' said Bill Anderson decisively. He got up abruptly from the leather couch and went to the phone on his desk. He looked at the number he had written down, picked up the receiver and keyed it in. He stood listening to the initial silence on the line and then the crystal clear ring on the southernmost tip of another continent.
Griessel's phone rang and he looked at the screen, saw it was MAT JOUBERT and answered: 'Mat?'
'Benny, I don't know what it means but Mbali Kaleni wrote the word 'jas' in her notebook, and I am reasonably sure it was after she was shot. There are bloody fingerprints on the pen and blood spatters on the page. I thought it might be Zulu, but it doesn't seem to be.'
'Jas?' then he heard the soft ring tone of another incoming call. 'Mat, hold for me.' He saw the long number, the unfamiliar code, and knew who it would be.
God.
He couldn't talk to them now, he couldn't, what would he say? What could he say?
Sorry?
They would be terribly worried because he hadn't phoned. This was their child. They had the right to know.
'Mat, I'll call you back.' He switched calls and said: 'Mr Anderson?'
'Oh, thank god, Captain, we were getting very worried. Is Rachel OK?' Shit.
'Mr Anderson, Rachel was not at the address she gave me. We are still trying to track her down, but we are making good progress.' 'She wasn't there? How is that possible?'
'I don't know, sir. I honestly don't know.'
Two young men full of fire and self-confidence walked into the Cat & Moose Youth Hostel, up to the plump woman at the reception desk.
'Hi,' said the black one and smiled. 'We've come for Rachel's stuff.'
'Who?'
'Rachel Anderson, the American girl. You know, the one who was missing.'
'Are you from the police?'
'No, we're friends.'
'Don't I know you?' asked the generously built girl.
'I don't think so. So where is her luggage?'
'Down there, in their room, with the police. Did they find her?'
'With the police?' The friendliness wavered.
'Yes, they're guarding it. Guns and everything. You'll have to talk to them. Did they find the girl?'
They didn't answer her. They looked at each other. Then they walked out.
'Hey!' the girl shouted, but they didn't even look back. She came around from behind the desk and ran out through the door onto the Long Street pavement. She saw them walking fast. They looked back once and disappeared around the corner.
'I know you,' she said, and hurried off to find the two men who were guarding the luggage.
He wanted to pull off her running shoes. She pressed her feet against the cement floor with all her strength, so that he swore, stood beside her and violently kicked her feet out from under her with his boots.
Her legs shot forward and she fell hard on her bare bottom. She lunged up, trying to struggle upright and hide her feet under her again, but one of the others had grabbed her legs and held them in a ferocious grip.
'Jesus, you're a piece of work,' Jay said to her.
She spat at him, but missed. She tried to jerk her legs free. It was no use. Jay began to untie her laces and pulled the shoe off her foot. He wrinkled his nose at the smell.
'Don't you Yankee bitches ever change your socks?'
She spat again, ineffectually. He had the other laces undone and pulled off the other shoe, threw it aside and pulled off both socks. 'You had better hold one leg,' he said to the third man. 'This is going to drive her nuts.'
He stretched to reach the pruning shears, a big tool with green handles. 'OK, one last time: where is the video?'
'Dead and buried,' she said.
Now there were two of them holding her legs, pressing down with their full weight so that her heels pressed painfully against the concrete floor.
'No,' Jay said to one of them. 'I want her to see what I'm doing. Move a little.'
He grabbed her right foot, his hand around the cushion and the big toe. He brought the shears closer, looked at her, put the blades around her little toe. She jerked with all her might. They were too strong for her. He closed the handles. The pain was immediate and immense. She screamed against her will, a sound she did not know she could make.
The blood made the toe stick to the silver blades. Jay shook them and the bit of flesh and nail fell in the dust.
'This little piggy ...' said the one who was holding her right leg, and giggled nervously.
She cried hysterically.
'Where's the video?' Jay asked and gripped her foot again.
'Fuck you,' she screamed.
He grinned, held the foot tightly, hooked the blades around the second toe and snipped it off.
