7 Days (7 page)

Silence.

‘Alexa …?’

‘I don’t know what to do, Benny.’

‘Will you go and make coffee?’

‘I will.’

‘I promise you I will come as soon as I can.’

‘OK.’

‘I’ll call you back. Will you keep your cellphone with you?’

‘OK.’

‘I’ll soon be there.’

‘I’m sorry, Benny.’

‘There’s no need to be sorry, we’ll talk about it …’ He had to ring off, Nxesi was waiting. ‘Just let me finish up here.’

‘I shouldn’t have bothered you, I’m sorry. Bye, Benny.’ The line went dead.

He stood there and looked out of the window with the city view, but he could see nothing. He would have to wrap this up. There was no alcohol in Alexa’s house, but he would have to stop her before she went to a hotel. That was what she did, because ‘off-licences are such sad places’. He knew all the danger signs, he knew she would go looking for a drink at the Mount Nelson.

And it was all his fault.

Nxesi had the attitude of a man who had heard everything despite doing his best not to, but out of decency didn’t want to show it.

‘Sorry, Tommy …’ was all Griessel said.

The warrant officer made a gesture that dismissed it as nothing.

Griessel stood there, trying to gather his thoughts. There was something important that he wanted to ask.

He remembered: ‘The laptop. Was it on?’

‘No. It was off. But her emails show she was sitting here working. At about half past nine she sent an email to Van Eeden. He’s the … deal maker, the one who put the whole merger together. Official stuff, a sort of progress report.’

‘He is the same one she sent an SMS to about ten to ten?’

Nxesi nodded. ‘He said it was about that email – she let him know she had sent it.’

‘And all the files that were lying here, were they about the transaction?’

‘Ewe
. They were.’

‘She sat here working until just before ten.’ The confirmation of the suspicion that he had gained from the photos, and the first inkling that he would find nothing new here.

He went into the bathroom. A shower, the entire width of the rear wall, with a glass panel in front. Where the single male pubic hair had been found. A large, white, modern bath. More grey marble tiles. Brown cabinets, brown towels. A brown cloth laundry basket hanging from a dark wood framework. He lifted the flap. It was empty.

‘Forensics took it away,’ Nxesi said.

‘And found nothing.’

‘Shici.’

They walked back to the bedroom. Griessel halted. ‘Tommy, how do you see this thing? What happened?’

Nxesi adjusted his glasses with a thumb and two fingers. ‘She brought work home, she sat here …’

Griessel’s cellphone rang.

He sighed. ‘Excuse me, Tommy,’ he said, and took it out of his jacket pocket. MBALI.

‘Hello, Mbali.’

‘How are you, Benny?’

‘I’m well, thanks. Welcome back.’

‘Thank you,’ she said without enthusiasm. ‘You know I’m on the shooter team?’

‘They told me last night.’

‘I’m your liaison, Benny. You read the emails?’

‘I did.’

‘I want to know what you think. Could we meet?’

He would have to go to Alexa first, and he still had to finish here. He checked his watch.

Mbali interpreted his hesitation correctly. ‘Any time, Benny, I’m at the scene at the moment, in Claremont.’

‘Can I call you?’

‘Of course, Benny. Bye.’

Nxesi looked at the ground with a grin. ‘Mbali Kaleni?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I hear things happened. In Holland.’

‘That’s what they say.’

‘Must be
dagga
. She must have wanted to arrest someone for sitting and smoking dagga in the street.’

‘Could be.’

‘Mbali,’ said Nxesi with a bemused smile.

‘She’s a good detective,’ said Griessel.

Nxesi merely nodded.

‘Tommy, how did this thing happen?’

The sniper sat in the Chana panel van. Beside him on the floor lay an electric lamp with an extension cord that snaked out of the window to a power point on the wall of the dark garage.

On his lap was the rifle. Beside him, on the tool chest, a set of cleaning materials was arranged in the aluminium case – the metal rods, brushes, mops, cloths and oil. He worked slowly and surely, not wanting to touch the telescope. He could not afford to take it back to a shooting range to calibrate it again.

Not any more.

It would be a long shot today. Perhaps the longest of all. That’s why he wanted to get it over and done with.

And it had to happen before midday, before the streets turned into the quiet of a Sunday afternoon.

Today he would take his time. Stay calm. The first shot yesterday had missed because he hadn’t handled the tension well. The ice was broken now. He would shoot better today.

He checked his watch. Twenty minutes, then he would have to leave.

‘At the time, you could get inside this building easily,’ said Warrant Officer Tommy Nxesi. ‘Through the parking garage, up the stairs maybe, or in the lift. So he got in and then he knocked on the door. She had finished working, she might have been downstairs. She looked through the peephole. And she knew him. So she opened up. They talked there. Then they began to argue. He became very angry. He stabbed her. He saw she was dead. Then he left.’

‘Could be.’

‘There is nothing stolen, Captain. There is no motive.
Shici
. Nothing. No boyfriend, no social life aside from the two female friends, it was all work. They said she was nice. But ambitious, she worked so hard on this deal because she wanted to become a director at Silbersteins. And the promotion was in the pipeline, that’s what Pruis told me. So I think it must have been something else. At first I thought it was drugs. These rich cats, they snort, I thought her dealer had come to make a delivery, and she didn’t have enough cash, maybe she was high too, and he stabbed her. But then he would have stolen something too. And the post mortem showed no drugs. But it’s something like that, Captain. Somebody came about something. Something that her work or friends don’t know about. Something we can’t put our finger on. One of those things that just happen, spur of the moment.’

Griessel asked him where he had found the photographs of Sloet, the ones in the white envelope.

Nxesi hesitated a second before walking over to the bedside cupboard, on the right-hand side of the bed. There were two drawers, and a little door under them. He pulled open the second drawer.
‘Come and see,’ he said with barely disguised distaste. Then he stepped back, as though the contents of the drawer were toxic.

Griessel went and looked. On top was the vibrator, long and thick, a macabre, faithful imitation of a penis. And underneath, the box it came in.
Big Boy Vibrator
, in large letters.

‘There’s her boyfriend,’ said Nxesi. ‘The album is underneath.’

Giessel said nothing, pulled out the photo album and opened it.

In the front was the name of the photographer on a small silver sticker.
Anni de Waal
. And an address in De Waterkant Village.

More photos of Hanneke Sloet, in the same style as the ones he had seen, in a variety of poses, one A4 print per page. Her cleavage was frequently displayed, but there were no other nude pictures. And eight pages were empty.

‘You only took three photos?’

‘Ewe. Two for the file. And the nude one, because I didn’t want her mother to see it.’ Very earnest.

Griessel tried to push the album back under the vibrator and its packaging. He couldn’t manage it, picked up the box, put the album away. He read on the carton:
Big Boy is a hugely satisfying multispeed vibrating realistic veined cock. It’s a superhero love shaft for a meaty satisfaction designed to go deep and totally satisfy you with a greater girth for greater gratification. Real men just can’t measure up to this wild toy. Free Eveready Gold batteries included!

He looked up, saw the warrant officer waiting for his reaction.

‘It’s a strange world, Tommy.’

‘
Hayi
,’ he said, shaking his head before adjusting his glasses.

At his car Nxesi asked him to sign for receipt of the apartment keys. Once Griessel had done that, he saw the relief, fleeting, as if the warrant officer was shrugging a weight off his shoulders.

Just before he drove away, he asked: ‘Tommy, I know it will sound strange, but during your investigation, was there any mention … anyone who talked about a “communist”?’

‘A communist?’

His astonishment was Griessel’s answer. ‘Forget it, Tommy, just something the colonel said last night.’

Nxesi shook his head. ‘All I found was a bunch of capitalists …’

Benny phoned Alexa while he was driving and told her he was on his way. She sounded absent and far away, as though it didn’t matter, and his heart sank.

The trouble was that he didn’t understand her, though he tried, even if he factored in the damage in her past. That enormous talent.

Three months ago she had come along for the first time and sung with Roes, an amateur rock-and-blues-band. Benny was their bass guitarist. They chose that name, Afrikaans for ‘rust’, because they were four middle-aged, middle-class, suburban men. It had taken them five months to shake off their considerable and collective rust, and slowly build up a repertoire of old classic songs, in the hope of performing at weddings and parties. He had invited her a few times. She turned up out of the blue and on her own at the old community hall in Woodstock where they rehearsed. She had sat and listened with a poker face while they gave of their best, dreadfully conscious of her musical status. And then, after the first set, she asked, ‘Do you know “See See Rider” by Ma Rainey?’ And Vince Fortuin, their lead guitarist with the anchor tattoo on his sinewy shoulder and the little eyes that screwed shut with pleasure when they got going properly, said, ‘That’s a
lekker
one, but maybe a little bit more upbeat than Ma?’ Alexa agreed with a slight smile and a nod. Vince and the drummer, Jaap, with his long grey hair and the cigarette clamped permanently between his lips, began, and Griessel and the heavily moustachioed rhythm guitarist, Jakes Jacobs, listened and joined in, beautifully strong and thumping, and Alexa took the microphone and turned her back to them.

And then she sang.

The thing was, he’d hoped, vaguely, though he should have known better, that she would consider performing with them. Not permanently, but maybe now and then. Special occasions. But that night, when she sang the first stanzas, he knew they were not in her class.

It was the first time in years that she had touched a microphone, but it was all there, immediate and overwhelming: the feeling, the intonation, the understanding of the music, of them, of Vince’s tempo and style. And the rich, full voice, the charisma, the enchantment.

Instantly, she had raised their standard, their sound, their ability, suddenly she made them sound good.

When she finished, they clapped, and she said, ‘No, don’t.’ And then she asked, self-conscious about her barely suppressed hunger: ‘Tampa Red’s “She’s Love Crazy”?’

Vince nodded, impressed and keen, and played.

And Alexa sang.

For nearly an hour, one song after the other. Griessel saw the light in her eyes, and the metamorphosis. The homecoming, and the longing in her for what he guessed must be an audience, or real applause, the kind that thundered like the ocean, because that’s what fed her talent, that was her right in those moments.

The same woman who said to him last night, ‘They saw through me.’

Where was she coming from? Had she no idea how good she was?

How should he handle it, if he couldn’t understand? What should he say to her?

And his other concern: he couldn’t spend all day with her. He would have to call her Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, Mrs Ellis, the school principal. Because he had to get a move on, he had to concentrate, his head should be full of the things he had seen in Sloet’s apartment. He had asked Tommy, down at the cars, just before he signed for the keys, ‘Who did
you
suspect for this?’ And Nxesi said, ‘The caretaker. Faroek Klein. He had opportunity, and a master key. He carries tools, so maybe he had some big sharp thing to stab with in his box. His prints were in the flat. He knew how easy it was to get to her door. She would have opened up for him. He fancies himself as a handsome guy, I thought maybe he tried his luck with the woman with the big …’ Nxesi motioned with his hands, too shy to call the breasts by their name, and quickly added, ‘He has a record, Captain, assault with intent. The victim was a woman. He got a suspended sentence, nine years ago. So I liked him a lot for
this
. But he has an alibi – his new wife and her two teenagers said he was at home the whole evening. And I believe them, they look decent.’

‘No one else?’

‘I looked at the boyfriend for a long time. Roch. But it just wouldn’t fit, he was overseas, in any case. There’s no one, Captain, I looked at everyone. That’s why I say, it’s something that we can’t put our finger on. A chance encounter, a spur of the moment argument.’