Thirteen Hours

It was fucking impossible. There was no way his wife could have found out.

'About what?'

'Everything, Benny. I wondered if we could talk tonight.'

About everything? He couldn't gauge her tone of voice.

'We could. Do you want me to come home?'

'No, I thought we could rather ... go out to eat somewhere.'

Jissis. What did that mean?

'That's fine. Where?'

'I don't know. Canal Walk is sort of halfway. There's a Primi...'

'What time would suit you?'

'Seven?'

'Thanks, Anna, that would be nice.'

'Goodbye, Benny.' Just like that, as though he had said the wrong thing.

He sat with the phone in his hand. Behind him a motorist hooted. He realised he should move forward. He released the clutch and closed the gap ahead of him. About everything, Benny. What did that mean? Why not at their house? Maybe she felt like going out. Like a kind of date. But when he said: 'That would be nice,' she said goodbye as if she was angry with him.

Could she know about last night? What if she had been there, at his flat, at his door. She would have seen nothing, but she would have been able to hear - Bella who had made such soft, contented noises at one stage. God, he had liked that then, but if Anna had heard...

But she had never been to his flat. Why would she have come last night? To talk? Not entirely impossible. And she might have heard something and waited and seen Bella leave, and...

But if she had, would she want to go out to eat with him?

No. Maybe.

If she knew ... He was fucked. He knew that now. But she couldn't know.

Chapter 6

Brownlow Street was a surprise to Griessel because Tamboerskloof was supposed to be a rich neighbourhood. But here the old Victorian houses covered the whole spectrum from recently restored to badly dilapidated. Some were semi-detached, others crouched on the slopes as free-standing colossi. Number forty- seven was large and impressive, with two storeys, verandas and balconies with curlicued ironwork railings, cream walls, and windows with green wooden shutters. It had been restored some time in the past ten years, but now it was in need of more attention.

There was no garage. Griessel parked in the street behind a black Mercedes SLK 200 convertible, two police vehicles and a white Nissan with the SAPS emblem on the door and Social Services under it in black type. Forensics' minibus was parked across the road. Thick and Thin. They must have come direct from Long Street.

A uniformed policeman stopped him at the big wooden front door. He showed his identification. 'You will have to go around the back, Inspector; the sitting room is a crime scene,' he said. Griessel nodded in satisfaction.

'I think they are still in the kitchen, sir. You can go right here and then around the house.'

'Thank you.'

He walked around. There was not much garden between the wall and the house. The trees and shrubs were old, large and somewhat overgrown. Behind the house there was a view of Lion's Head. Another policeman was on duty at the back door. He took his SAPS ID out of his wallet again and showed it to the Constable.

'The Inspector is expecting you.'

'Thank you,' he said, and went in through a laundry room and opened the inner door. Dekker sat at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in his hands and a pen and notebook in front of him. He was totally focused on the coloured woman opposite him. She wore a pink and white domestic uniform and held a handkerchief in her hands, her eyes red from crying. She was plump, her age difficult to judge.

'Fransman ...' said Griessel.

Dekker looked up irritably. 'Benny.' As an afterthought, he said: 'Come in.' He was a tall, athletic, coloured man, broad-shouldered and strong, with a face from a cigarette advert, handsome in a rugged way.

Griessel went up to the table and shook Dekker's hand.

'This is Mrs Sylvia Buys. She's the domestic worker here.'

'Good morning,' said Sylvia Buys solemnly.

'Morning, Mrs Buys.'

Dekker pushed his mug of coffee away as if to distance himself from it, and pulled his notebook closer with a hint of reluctance. 'Mrs Buys arrived at work ...' he consulted the notebook,'... at six forty-five and tidied up and made coffee in the kitchen before moving to inspect the living area at... seven o'clock ...'

'Damage assessment,' said Sylvia Buys spitefully. 'That woman can make a mess.'

'...where she discovered the deceased, Mr Adam Barnard, and the suspect, Mrs Sandra Barnard ...'

'She's really Alexandra .. .'With distaste.

Dekker made a note and said: 'Mrs Alexandra Barnard. Mrs Buys found them in the library on the first floor. At seven o'clock. The firearm was on the carpet next to Mrs Barnard ...'

'Not to mention the booze. She's an alky, drinking like a fish every night and Mr Adam ...' Sylvia lifted the handkerchief, and dab-dabbed at her nose. Her voice grew thinner, shriller.

'Was she under the influence last night?' Griessel asked.

'She's as drunk as a lord every night. I went home at half past four and she was well on her way - by that time of the afternoon she's talking to herself already.'

'Mrs Buys says when she left the house yesterday the suspect was alone. She does not know what time the deceased came home.'

'He was a good man. Always a kind word. I don't understand it. Why did she shoot him? What for? He did her no wrong, he took all of her milly, all her drinking, he just took it, every night he would put her in bed and what did she go and shoot him for?' She wept, shaking her head.

'Sister, you're traumatised. We'll get you some counselling.'

'I don't want counselling,' sobbed Sylvia Buys. 'Where will I get another job at my age?'

'It's not as simple as that,' said Dekker as he climbed the yellowwood stairs to the library. 'You'll see.'

Griessel could sense the tension in the man. He knew his colleagues called Dekker 'Fronsman' behind his back, a reference to his frowning lack of humour and consuming ambition. He had heard the stories, because in the corridors of the Provincial Task Force, they liked to gossip about up-and-coming stars. Dekker was the son of a French rugby player. His mother, a coloured woman from the poverty of Atlantis township, was young and buxom in the Seventies when she worked as a cleaner at the Koeberg nuclear power station. Apparently the rugby player was older, long past his glory days, by then a liaison officer for the French consortium that built and maintained Koeberg. There had been just one encounter and shortly afterwards the rugby player returned to France, without knowing of his offspring. Dekker's mother could not remember his name, so she simply christened her son Fransman, the Afrikaans for Frenchman.

How much of this was true, Griessel could not say. But the child had apparently inherited his father's Gallic nose, build and straight black hair - now trimmed in a brush cut - and his mother's coffee-coloured complexion.

I le followed Dekker into the library. Thick and Thin were at work in the room. They looked up as the detectives entered. 'We can't go on meeting like this, Benny, people will talk,' said Jimmy.

An old joke, but Benny grinned, then looked at the victim lying on the left side of the room. Black trousers, white shirt with no tie, one shoe missing, and two gunshot wounds to the chest. Adam Barnard had been tall and strong. His black hair was cut in a Seventies style, over the ears and collar, with elegant grey wings at the temples. In death his eyes were open, making him seem mildly surprised.

Dekker folded his arms expectantly. Thick and Thin stood watching him.