Thirteen Hours (12 page)

'And you and the two girls were together?'

'No, sir, I met them in Nairobi. They're from Indiana; I'm
from Phoenix, Arizona.'

'But you were with the girls last night?' Vusi asked.

'A whole bunch of us went to the club.'

'How many?'

'I don't... Maybe ten, I'm not sure.'

'But the two girls were part of the group?'

'Yes, sir.'

'What' happened at the club?'

'We had a good time. You know ...' Sands took off his glasses
again, and rubbed a hand over his eyes '... we had a few drinks, we danced a
little ...' He replaced his glasses.

The gesture made Griessel suspicious.

'At what time did you leave?' Vusi asked.

'I... I was a little tired. I came back at about eleven.'

'And the girls?'

'I don't know, sir.'

'They were still at the club when you left?'

'Yes, sir.'

'So, the last time you saw Miss Russel alive was at the
club.' Sands's face twisted. He just nodded, as though not trusting his voice.

'And they were drinking and dancing?'

'Yes, sir.'

'They were still with the group?'

'Yes.'

'Could you give us the names of the people they were with?'

'I guess ... Jason was there. And Steven, Sven, Kathy ...'

'Do you know their surnames?' Vusi pulled his notebook
closer.

'Not all of them. It's Jason Dicklurk, and Steven
Cheatsinger...' 'Could you spell that for us?'

'Well Jason, you know. J.A.S.O.N. And ... I'm not sure about
spelling his surname ... Can I...'

'Is it Steven with a P.H. Or a V?' Vusi's pen hovered over
his notes.

'I don't know.'

'Steven's surname?'

'Wait ... Is it OK if I get the list? All the names are
there, the guides and everybody.'

'Please do.'

Sands stood up and walked towards the door. He stopped. 'I
have pics. Of Rachel and Erin.'

'Photographs?'

'Yes.'

'Could you get them?'

'They're on my camera, but I can show you ...'

'That would be good.'

Ollie Sands walked out through the door.

'If we can get a photo of the missing girl...' said Vusi.

'He's hiding something,' said Griessel. 'Something to do with
last night.'

'Do you think so, Benny?'

'Just now, when he took off his glasses ... he started
lying.'

'He was crying before you came. Maybe it was ...'

'He's hiding something, Vusi. People who wear specs ... they
have a way ... There is ...' Griessel hesitated. He had learned with Dekker to
put his mentoring boots down carefully. 'Vusi, you learn things over the years,
with interrogation ...'

'You know I want to learn, Benny.'

Griessel got up. 'Come and sit here, Vusi. The person you are
interviewing must always have his back to the door.' He shifted the chairs
around and sat on one. Vusi sat down next to him. 'You'll notice if they have
something to hide ... Let's say he was sitting here, at an angle, then he'd
have his legs pointing towards the door. Then the signs won't be so obvious.
But with the door behind him, he feels trapped. The signs become clearer, he
will sweat, keep pulling at his collar, a leg or foot will jump, he will put a
hand over his eyes or, if he wears glasses, he will take them off. This one did
that when he started talking about coming back early last night.'

Ndabeni had hung on every word. 'Thanks, Benny. I'll ask him
about that.'

'Is he the only one here, from the group?' 'Yes. Some of them
flew home last night. The rest are somewhere else, a wine tour. Or up the
mountain.'

'And this one was here?'

'He was still in bed.'

'Now why would that be?'

'Good question.'

'Do you know how to watch his eyes, Vusi?'

The black detective shook his head.

'First you must get him to write something down, so you know
whether he is left- or right-handed. Then you look for eye movement when he
answers ...'

Griessel's cell phone rang and he saw the name on the screen.
AFRIKA.
'It's the Commissioner,' he said
before answering. Vusi raised his eyebrows.

He took the call, 'Griessel.'

'Benny, what the hell is going on?' the District
Commissioner: Detective Services and Criminal Intelligence asked, so loudly
that even Vusi could hear it.

'Sir?'

'Some lawyer is phoning me, Groenewoud or Groenewald or something,
lecturing me like a missionary saying you all made a big cock-up with Adrian
Barnard's wife ...'

'Adam Bar—'

'I don't give a damn,' said John Afrika. 'Now the woman has
committed suicide because you intimidated her and she has nothing to do with
the whole bloody thing ...'

A hand clenched his heart. 'She's dead?'

'No, she's not bloody dead, but you are there to mentor,
Benny, that's why I brought you in. Just imagine what the press are going to
make of this, I hear Barnard is a bloody celebrity ...'

'Sir, nobody—'

'Meet me at the hospital, you and Fransman Dekker. He can't
curb his bloody ambition and if I try to cover for him they say it's because
he's a fucking
hotnot
just like me, and I
only look after my own people, where the fuck are you, anyway?'

'With Vusi, Commissioner. The church murder ...'

'And now I hear that's an American tourist,
jissis,
Benny, only on a Tuesday. At the hospital,
I'll meet you there, five minutes.' The line went dead. Benny considered the
fact that he had given Alexa Barnard the alcohol and that the Commissioner had
not said which hospital and then Oliver 'Ollie' Sands walked in with the
camera, crying as he stared at the screen on the back. He held it up so that
the detectives could see. As Benny Griessel looked he felt that ghostly hand
squeeze his heart, that familiar oppression. Rachel Anderson and Erin Russel
stood laughing, lovely and carefree, with Kilimanjaro in the background. Young
and effervescent, just like his daughter Carla, part of the Great Adventure.

Rachel Anderson lay on her belly behind the heap of pine logs
in the cool of the garage and tried to control her breathing.

She thought they must have seen her, because she heard
footsteps and voices approaching.

'... more people,' said one of them.

'Maybe. But if the Big Guy comes through, we'll have more
than enough.'

She knew their voices.

They stopped right in front of the garage.

'I just hope to God she's still out there.'

'Fucking mountain. It's huge. But if she moves, Barry will
spot her. And our cops will have the streets covered, we'll get the bitch. I'm
telling you, sooner or later we'll get her and this whole fuck-up will go
away.'

She lay listening to the voices and footsteps that faded away
uphill.
And our cops will have the streets covered.
These were the words that echoed in her mind, that killed the last vestige of
hope.

Benny Griessel said in Afrikaans: 'He will talk, Vusi. Just
give him a fright. Tell him you'll lock him up. Take him down to the cells,
even. I have to go.'

'OK, Benny.' So Griessel left and, outside, on the way to his
car, he phoned Dekker.

'Is she still alive, Fransman?'

'Yes, she's alive. Tinkie was with her all the time, but she
fucked off into the bathroom and locked the door and cut her wrists with a
broken gin bottle ...'

The one he had poured her drinks from? How did she get it
into the bathroom?

'Is she going to make it?'

'I think so. We were quick. She lost a lot of blood, but she
should be all right.'

'Where are you?'

'City Park. Did the Commissioner call you?'

'He's the
moer in.'

'Benny, it's nobody's fault. It's that fucking Mouton who
made a huge scene. When he saw the blood, he just lost it...'

'We can handle it, Fransman. I'll be there now.' He climbed
into his car and wondered if he had missed something in his conversation with
Alexa Barnard. Had there been a sign?

Inspector Vusi Ndabeni said: 'I'm your friend. You can tell
me anything,' and he saw Oliver Sands reach for his glasses and take them off.

'I know.' Sands began cleaning the glasses on his T-shirt,
now with his back to the door.

'So what really happened last night?' Vusi watched for the
signs Benny had talked about.

'I told you,' the voice was too controlled.

Vusi allowed the silence to stretch out. He stared unblinking
at Sands, but the eyes evaded him. He waited until Sands put the glasses back
on, then he leaned forward. 'I don't think you've told me everything.'

'I did, honest to God.' Again the hands went to the glasses
and adjusted them. Benny had told him to give Sands a fright. He didn't know if
he could be convincing. He took a set of handcuffs out of his jacket pocket and
put them on the table.

'Police cells are not nice places.'

Sands stared at the handcuffs. 'Please,' he said.

'I want to help you.' 'You can't.'

'Why?'

'Jeez ...'

'Mr Sands, please stand up and put your hands behind your
back.'

'Oh, God,' said Oliver Sands and stood up slowly. 'Are you
going to talk to me?'

Sands looked at Vusi and his whole body shivered once and he
slowly sat down again.

'Yes.'

Griessel drove down Loop Street towards the harbour. He
should have taken Bree Street as there was heavy traffic, slow vehicles, and
pedestrians just wandering across the road, all the local chancers. And the Gauteng
tourists. They were unmistakable. This was the second wave: the first were the
December school holiday brigade, smug motherfuckers who thought they were God's
gift to Cape Town. They were usually families with moody, cell-phone-obsessed
teenagers, Moms fiercely shopping, Dads unfamiliar with the streets, getting in
everyone's way. The second wave would arrive in January, the arrogant fat cats
who had stayed behind to make their Christmas killing in Sandton and then come
here for their annual spending frenzy.

He saw small groups of foreign tourists, Europeans, so
painfully law-abiding, only crossing the road at the traffic lights, noses
stuck in guidebooks, wanting to photograph everything. He stopped with the
lights showing red as far ahead as he could see. Why couldn't the fucking Metro
Police get off their backsides and synchronise them?

That reminded him he ought to call the Field Marshal. Oerson.
Perhaps they had found something. No, better to remind Vusi. This was Vusi's
case. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, realised it was
the rhythm of '
Soetwater
'
and could no longer ignore his conscience. Alexa
Barnard. He should have seen it coming.

She had told him she had a suicide fantasy. 'I wanted Adam to
come home at half past six and climb the stairs and find me dead. Then he would
kneel down beside me and say, "You're the only one I ever loved." But
being dead, of course, I would never see Adam plead with me; those dreams could
never be reconciled.'

He shook his head. How the hell could he have missed that?
That's what happened when you got up too early, an hour earlier than usual. He
still wasn't quite with it today. And he had given her alcohol as well. Benny
the great mentor who 'had forgotten more than others had to learn.'

He sought some excuse in the way she had said it, the story
she went on to tell. It had distracted him, created a false impression of a
woman who was somehow still under control. She had manipulated him. When he
whispered '
Soetwater
', and she held her glass
out for more, a fee for her story.

He had fixated on her thirst; that was the real problem. He
had poured her two tots and she had pushed the hair back from her face and
said, 'I was such a terribly insecure little thing.' And then her history had
led his thoughts away from suicide; it had fascinated him. He had heard only
her words, the heavy irony, the self-mockery, as though the story was some kind
of parody, as if it didn't really belong to her.

She was an only child. Her father worked for a bank and her
mother was a housewife. Every four or five years the family relocated as her
father was transferred or promoted - Parys, Potchefstoom, Port Elizabeth, and
eventually Bellville, which had finally broken the P-sequence. She left
half-formed friendships behind with every move, had to start over as an
outsider at every school, knowing that it would only be temporary. More and
more she began to live in her own world, mostly behind the closed door of her
bedroom. She kept a painfully personal diary, she read and fantasised - and in
her final years at high school she dreamed of becoming a singer, of packed
halls and standing ovations, of magazine covers and intimate sundowners with
other celebrities, and being courted by princes.