Thirteen Hours (19 page)

An invisible hand wiped the scowl from Geyser's face.
Griessel watched him pale.

Silence dominated the room.

In her seat, Melinda made a little noise, but Griessel kept
his attention on Josh. The big man's shock seemed genuine.

'How?' asked Geyser.

'He was shot yesterday at his house,' said Mouton.

'Oh heavens!' Melinda cried out.

'I would like to talk to you alone, Mr Geyser,' said Griessel
quickly, worried that the impetuous Mouton would say too much.

'Melinda, won't you wait in my office?' asked Mouton.

She didn't move.

'You're making a mistake,' Geyser said to Griessel.

'Would you sit down, please, Mr Geyser?'

'Come, Melinda,' said Mouton.

'I'm staying with Josh.'

'Mrs Geyser, I am afraid that I must speak with him alone.'

'She stays,' said Geyser.

Vusi found the manager in a small, untidy office with files
and sheaves of accounts strewn across the table and shelves. She was typing
figures into a large adding machine, painted nails pecking at the keys with
lightning speed. He knocked on the frame of the open door and asked whether she
was the manager.

'Yes.' She looked up. Forty, maybe, short black hair, strong
features, but hard.

Vusi held out his identification and introduced himself.

'Galina Federova.' She shook Vusi's hand with a self-assured
grip. 'Why are you here?' in the same accented English as Ponytail's.

Vusi gave her a quick outline of the case.

'Please sit down.' Somewhere between an order and an
invitation, the
please
was a short, powerful
pits.
She began to pick up invoices from the
table, looking for something. She found a pack of cigarettes and a lighter,
flipped open the packet's lid and offered it to Vusi.

'No, thanks.'

She took one out for herself, lit it and spoke, the smoke
trickling from her mouth.

'You know how many people last night?'

No, he said, he didn't know.

'Maybe two hundred, maybe more. We are very poplar.'

The mispronunciation distracted him momentarily. 'I
understand that. But something must have happened, Mrs Federova.'

'Call me Galia. It is the Russian way for Galina.'

'Are you the owner?'

'That is Gennady Demidov. I just manage.'

Vusi took his notebook from his inside pocket and scribbled a
note.

'Why you write this down?'

He shrugged. 'Till what time are you open?'

'The door close at twelve on a Monday night.'

'And then everybody leaves?'

'No. Nobody can come in, but those inside, they can stay. We
close the bar when everybody go home.'

'This morning, at two-fifteen, did you still have people?'

'I must ask the night manager. Petr.'

'Can you call him?'

'He sleeps.'

'You will have to wake him up.'

She wasn't keen. She drew on the cigarette and blew the smoke
out through her nose like a bull in a cartoon. Then she began to rifle through
invoices again, searching for the phone. He wondered how on earth untidy people
managed to function.

Benny Griessel walked closer to Josh Geyser. He looked up at
the colossus who was now jutting his jaw out in determination. 'Mr Geyser, let
me explain your choices: we can sit here, just the two of us, and talk quietly
...'

'Regardt and I will be here too, Josh, don't worry ...'
Willie Mouton said behind him.

'No,' said Griessel, taken aback. 'It doesn't work like
that...'

'Of course it does. He has the right...'

Griessel turned around slowly, his patience wearing thin. 'Mr
Mouton, I understand this is a difficult time for everyone. I understand that
the victim was your partner and you want this case solved. But it is
my
job. So would you please leave so I can get on
with it.'

Willie Mouton coloured. The Adam's apple bobbed faster, the
voice rose to the frequency of the meat saw. 'He has the right to a lawyer and
yesterday he was in
my
office. Regardt and I
have to be present. 'The lawyer, Groenewald, came down the passage behind
Mouton, seeming to know he needed to help.

Benny looked for patience and found a fraction. 'Mr Geyser,
this is an interview, not an arrest. Do you want Groenewald to be present?'

Geyser looked to Melinda for help. She shook her head. 'He's
Willie's lawyer ...'

'I am available,' Groenewald said primly.

'I insist on it,' said Mouton. 'Both of us ...'

Benny Griessel knew it was time to tackle Mouton. There was
only one way He walked purposefully up to the shaven-headed man, the official
words ready on his tongue, but the prim lawyer was surprisingly quick.
Groenewald jumped in between the two men.

'Willie, if he locks you up for obstruction, there is nothing
I can do for you.' He took Mouton firmly by the arm. 'Come, let's go and wait
in your office. Josh, you know where to find me.'

Mouton got to his feet; his mouth moved, but no sound came
out. Then he turned away slowly, but his eyes stayed on Griessel, challenging.
Groenewald tugged at him and Mouton walked to the door, where he stopped to
call over his shoulder: 'You have rights, Josh. 'Then they were gone.

Griessel took a deep breath and turned his attention to the
duo. 'Mr Geyser ...'

'We were in church last night,' said Melinda.

He nodded slowly, asked: 'Mr Geyser, do you want legal
representation?'

He looked to his wife. She shook her head slightly. Griessel saw
the dynamic. She was the one with the final say.

'I don't want anybody,' said Josh. 'Let's get this over with.
I know what you think.'

'Ma'am, please, would you wait in Mouton's office?'

'I'll be in the front. In the lounge.' She went over to Josh,
touched his big arm, gave him a weighted look. '
Beertjie
..
.' she said.
My little bear.
Beside
her husband she looked small, but she was taller than Griessel had thought. She
was wearing jeans and a sea-green blouse that echoed the colour of her eyes.
Ten kilograms ago her body must have been sensational.

'It's all right,
Pokkel
,'
said Josh, but there was tension between them, Griessel could sense it.

She looked back once, and closed the door softly behind her.

Griessel took out his cell phone and switched it off. He
looked up at Geyser, who stood beside the oval table with his feet planted wide
apart.

'Mr Geyser, sit, please.' He gestured to one of the chairs
closest to the. door.

Josh didn't move. 'Tell me first: are you a child of God?'

On the fourth floor of an unobtrusive building at 24 Alfred
Street in Green Point, the shoes of the Provincial Commissioner SAPS: Western
Cape clicked rapidly down the long corridor.

He was a Xhosa, short, dressed in full uniform, but without
his jacket, the sleeves of his blue shirt rolled up to his elbows. He came to a
standstill at the open office door of John Afrika, Regional Commissioner:
Detective Services and Criminal Intelligence. Afrika was on the phone, but he
heard his boss knock and beckoned him to come in.

'I'll call you back,' he said and put the phone down.

'John, the National Commissioner has just phoned. Do we know
about an American girl who died last night?'

'We know,' said John Afrika, resigned. 'I was wondering when
the trouble would start.'

The Provincial Commissioner sat down opposite Afrika. 'The
girl's friend phoned her father in America half an hour ago and said someone is
trying to kill her too.'

'Did she phone from here?'

'From here.'

'Bliksem
. Did she say where she was?'

'Apparently not. The father said it sounded as though she had
to run away before she had finished talking.'

I'll have to let Benny and Vusi know. And Mbali,' said John
Afrika as he picked up his phone.

Galia Federova, manager of Van Hunks, spoke over the phone in
Russian and then held it out for Vusi. 'Petr. You can talk with him.'

The detective took the phone. 'Good morning, my name is Vusi.
I just want to know if something happened in the club this morning, between two
o'clock and two fifteen. Two American girls, and some young men. We have them
on video, running up Long Street, and we have people who say they were in the
club.'

'There were many people,' said Petr, his accent much lighter
than the woman's.

'I know, but did anybody notice anything unusual?'

'What is unusual?'

'An argument. A fight.'

'I don't know. I was in the office.'

'Who would know?'

'The barmen and the waiters.'

'Where do I find them?'

'They are sleeping, I think.'

'I need you to call them, sir. I need all of them to come to
the club.'

'That is not possible.'

'Yes, sir, it
is
possible.
This is a murder investigation.'

Petr sighed deeply on the other end to emphasise his
annoyance. 'It will take a lot of time.'

'We don't have time, sir. One of the girls is still alive and
if we don't find her, she will be dead too.'

Vusi's mobile began to ring.

'One hour,' said Petr.

'Ask them to come to the club,' said Vusi, and passed the
receiver back to Federova. He answered his cell phone. 'This is Vusi.'

'She's still alive, Vusi,' said John Afrika. 'She phoned her
father in America, half an hour ago. But I can't get hold of Benny.'

Rachel Anderson sprinted down Upper Orange Street. Her eyes
searched desperately back and forth for an escape route, but the houses on both
sides were impregnable - high walls, electrified fences, security railing and
gates. She knew she had no time, they would come back through the shop, she had
maybe a hundred- metre start on them. Her father's voice had given her new urgency,
a desire to live, to see her parents again. How horribly worried her mother
must be now, her dear, scatterbrained mother.

She saw one house just a block from the shop on the corner to
the left, a single-storey Victorian dwelling with a low white picket fence and
a pretty garden. She knew it was her only chance. She hurdled the hip-height
fence but the tip of her shoe hooked and sent her sprawling into the flower bed
beyond, her hands trying in vain to break her fall, her belly skidding across
the slippery surface, winding her, the damp garden soil leaving a wide muddy
stripe on her blue T-shirt.

She scrambled up quickly, meaning to run around the house,
across the front to the back, away from the street before they saw her. Over
the grass, a paved path, more flower beds in cheerful white, yellow and blue.
Her mouth was gaping to get enough air. Past the furthest corner of the house
there were bougainvilleas, big and dense, the purple flowers tumbling over an
arbour. A hiding place. She hesitated for only an instant to estimate the size
of the bushes, not realising they had thorns. She dived inside, to the deepest
shadow at the back. The sharp points pierced her, scratched long bloody tracks
on her arms and legs. She cried out softly at the pain, and lay gasping on her
stomach behind the screen of leaves. 'Please, God,' she murmured and turned her
face to the street. She could see nothing, only the thick curtain of green, and
the tiny white flowers in each purple cup.

If they hadn't seen her, she was safe. For now. She shifted
her hand down her limbs, to try and pull the thorns out.

'Let me go and phone the American Consul,' the Provincial
Commissioner said to John Afrika as he rose. 'I'm going to tell him we are
doing everything in our power to track her down. John, you must make sure that
that is true. Get Benny Griessel to take full control.'

'Right. But the stations are reluctant to allocate people ..

'Leave that to me,' said the Provincial Commissioner. He
walked to the door and stopped.

'Isn't Griessel up for promotion?'

'It's been approved; I think he'll be notified today.'

'Tell him. Tell the whole team.'

'Good idea.' Afrika's phone rang. The Provincial Commissioner
waited, in the hope that there would be news.

'John Afrika.'

'Commissioner, this is Inspector Mbali Kaleni. I am at
Caledon Square, but they say they don't have a place for me.'