Thirteen Hours

'What cafe?'

'The Long Street Cafe.'

'Does he work there?'

'No, he was, like, a customer ...' Deeply thoughtful, eyes squinting, the picture of concentration.

Griessel tried another tack. 'OK, can you describe him?'

'He's black. Tall. Handsome guy, you know, twenty-something ...' Then her face brightened. 'He's, like, skinny, you know, thatlook ... like all the guides, that's most likely where I saw him, in the cafe with the others ...'

But Benny Griessel wasn't listening to her because the elusive, slippery thing in his mind was rushing at him, he had to shut her up, he said: 'Wait, wait...'

'What?' she said, but he didn't hear her, his hand combed through his hair, and lingered on his neck. He scratched behind his ear, head bent, thoughts jumbled, he must get them in order. This morning ... Griessel looked to the right where they had talked to Oliver Sands this morning, that's what his head had been trying to tell him all fucking afternoon, it was that conversation. He tried to recall it, groping in the dark. Ollie had talked about the club, the girls in the club ...

No. Nothing. Wrong track.

He watched the girl behind the reception desk, looking disgruntled after being silenced. She'd said he's, like, skinny, you know, that look... like all the guides, that was the trigger. The guides. What had Sands said about that? Vusi had asked the questions this morning. He'd wanted to know who was with Sands and the girls at the club. Sands said a whole bunch. A group. And somewhere along the way he had said the guides were there too.

He whispered to himself. 'Jissis.' Because the thing was almost within his grasp, if he could only see it. He was unaware that he made a gesture of frustration, he was unaware of the two uniforms and the girl staring at him and looking vaguely concerned.

Griessel's phone began to ring. He ignored it. Not now. He tried to dredge up the words of that morning's conversation from his memory. He stood at the desk, put his palms flat on it and dipped his head. The girl stepped back half a pace.

Vusi Ndabeni, cell phone to his ear, listened to Griessel's number ringing while he watched Jeremy Oerson hurry out of the Metro building and go to his car.

'Answer me, Benny,' lie said and started to walk quickly towards his own car. Oerson climbed into a Nissan Sentra with the city police badge on the door.

The phone continued to ring.

'Please, Benny,' but the call diverted to Griessel's voice mail just as Vusi got his car unlocked and jumped in.

'Are you all right?' the Cat & Moose girl asked Griessel.

One of the uniforms realised what was going on and hushed her with a finger to his lips.

Benny stood still. He, Vusi and Oliver Sands. At the table. Sands telling them they came on the tour through Africa. They talked about last night. The club. The girls. The drink. Who was with them, Vusi had asked. A whole bunch. Do you know the names? Vusi had his notebook ready and Sands said ...

The answer came like a hammer blow. It made Griessel's body shudder. 'Fuck,' he said in triumph, loudly, startling the others. Oliver Sands had given them the names, the funny names, the funny pronunciation, that was the spectre that had been running through his head the whole goddamn afternoon, one name, he heard it now in Ollie's voice: Jason Dicklurk. Dicklurk. This morning Griessel had thought to himself, what a fucking funny name. Dick Lurk. But the redhead's pronunciation, that had been the problem. Jissis, he should have made the connection. Rachel's father calling him Ghree- zil, only the Afrikaners could say their own names. And one Zulu. Mbali Kaleni. She had phoned him while he was sitting in that office with the Commissioner. This is Inspector Mbali Kaleni of the South African Police Service, Benny. Zulu accent, but her pronunciation was flawless. We traced a Land Rover Defender that fits the number. It belongs to a man in Parklands, a Mr J. M. de Klerk.

Dicklurk was de Klerk. J. M. de Klerk. Jason de Klerk. One of the guides.

'The tour company,' he said to the girl. 'Which tour company were the girls with?'

'Tour company?' she asked, intimidated by Griessel's fervour.

'You know, the people who took them through Africa.'

'Oh.' For a second there was a frown, then her face brightened: 'African Overland Adventures. That's where he works, the

black guy, that's where I've seen him, they do all their Cape accommodation bookings with us, I sometimes go to see their—' 'Where are they?'

'Just one block down. My God, that's where—' 'Show me,' said Griessel and ran to the door. She came after him, stopped on the pavement, pointed to the right, across the street. 'On the corner.'

'Come, kerels,' said Benny Griessel to the uniforms as another insight lit up his head. A.O.A. African Overland Adventures. On the spur of the moment he kissed the plump girl on the cheek before he ran off.

She watched him speechlessly.

Chapter 42

Fransman Dekker took a bite of the toasted chicken mayonnaise sandwich in his left hand while he scribbled in his notebook with his right.

Alexa Barnard. That attitude this morning.

Inside knowledge.

A woman hiding in her house all day long. Alone. Lonely. Drinking. Lots of time to think about her husband, her life, her lot. A husband who was chronically unfaithful, a man who couldn't keep his hands off anything in a skirt. A man making big bucks while his wife rotted away at home.

Don't expect me to believe that she had never wondered what life would be like without the bastard, Fransman thought. Consider the national sport: hire a coloured to do your shooting. Or the stabbing. Three or four cases in the past year alone. It was a disease, a fucking epidemic.

Come on, Sylvia, come and have a chat with the madam, tell me where I can find someone to knock the master off.

Or: Sylvia, I see you're carrying off the silverware. So before I call the police, let's have a little talk.

Or: the master has a fat life insurance policy, my dear. What sort of share are we looking at if you find us a gunman?

Inside knowledge. Two women with all the inside knowledge in the world.

Only one little problem with that. You don't hire people to make it look as though you did it, in the exalted words of Captain Benny Griessel. But, oh Captain, my Captain, what if she read the papers and saw what mistakes those other girls made. And she thought: I won't fall into the same traps, I'm too clever, I'm a former pop star,

I'm not thick. I'll make it look like a frame-up, Captain. Suspicion one step removed. The music business is a war zone, they'll look at them before they look at me. And when they do look at me, hey, I'm an alky, how could I drag this man's big body up the stairs? What do you say to that, Captain?

In his dash to African Overland Adventures, weaving through pedestrians on the pavement, Griessel thought that was what Mbali Kaleni must have been trying to write. Jason.

How had she known? What made her go back to Upper Orange Street? What did she see that everyone else missed?

Just before he burst through the doors, his phone started ringing again. He wasn't going to answer it. He was going to get Jason de Klerk and then find Rachel Anderson. She had to live.