Thirteen Hours (21 page)

What did it all mean?

He made a note in his book. What else?

He must call Thick and Thin. They must search Rachel
Anderson's luggage for any sign of drugs.

He looked for their number on his cell phone, found it, but
hesitated. Would it help?

The laboratory was six months behind, understaffed,
overworked.

Later. First they must find Rachel Anderson.

Fransman Dekker hesitated in AfriSound's large reception room
until the beautiful coloured woman got up and approached him.

'Can I help you?' she asked with the same subdued manner as
the black woman on the ground floor, but with more interest.

'Inspector Fransman Dekker.' He held out his hand. 'I am
sorry for your loss.'

She lowered her eyes. 'Natasha Abader. Thank you.' Her hand
felt small and cool in his.

'I'm looking for Inspector Benny Griessel.'

'He's in the conference room.' Her inspection of his fingers
for a ring was smooth and practised. She gave nothing away when she saw the
thin gold band, but looked him in the eye.

'There is a journalist downstairs at your front door. Please
don't let them come up.'

'I will tell Naomi. Can I offer you some coffee? Tea?
Anything.' The last was said with a measured smile, perfect white teeth.

'No, thank you,' he replied and looked away. He didn't want
to . start something now. Under no circumstances.

'I'm sorry,' said Josh Geyser.

'No need to be sorry.'

'It's just... she's everything to me.'

'I understand,' said Griessel.

'I was finished,' said Geyser. 'I was nothing. Then she took
me ...'

Josh Geyser started at the beginning. Griessel let him talk.

Geyser had his feelings under control now, elbows on the
table. Staring at the wall behind Griessel. He had been on the wrong road, he
said. He had been a Gladiator on TV - women, drink, cocaine and steroids. A
celebrity, with big money and fame. Then the SABC cancelled the show.
Overnight. Everything changed. Not immediately; there was still appearance
money at the Gauteng casinos for a while, still something in the bank. But
seven months later he could no longer afford the rent of the double-storey
house in Sandton. They evicted him and the Sheriff took his furniture and the
bank took back the BMW and his friends weren't his friends any more.

Three months of bewilderment, of sleeping on other people's
couches and asking for a few rand from people who were tired of him and his
troubles. Then he found Jesus. In the House of Faith, the big charismatic church
in Bryanston, Johannesburg, and his whole life changed. Because it was genuine.
Everything. The friendships, the love, the compassion, the concern, the
forgiveness for what he had been.

Then one day the pastor said they needed baritones for the
Praise Singers, the huge church choir. Josh could always sing, since he was a
boy. He had the voice, the instinctive feel for harmony, he was born with it,
but his life had taken other directions and he had drifted away from that. So
he became a Praise Singer - and on the first day he saw Melinda, this pretty
woman with the angel face smiling over the heads of the tenors at him.

After practice she came to him and said: 'I know you, you're
White Lightning.'

He said not any more, and then her eyes went all soft and
said: 'Come ...' and took his hand.

In the church coffee bar they exchanged stories. She was a
divorcee from Bloemfontein, a former singer in her ex-husband's band, with a
life full of sin. After the divorce she had been rudderless and moved to
Johannesburg in the hope of finding work. The House of Faith was her salvation,
her lifebuoy in the stormy seas of life. They both knew it straight away that
night... But when you've been so down, so destroyed, you are careful, you talk
first, long hours in the safety of the church social spot. Night after night.
One day, three weeks later, they were there after choir practice when she
asked: 'Do you know "Down to the River to Pray", the Negro
spiritual?' He said he didn't and she began to sing the simple melody in her
lovely voice, until he had it too and began to sing along in harmony. They sang
quietly, just the two of them looking into each other's eyes, because they knew
these two voices were perfectly matched. 'It was magic,' said Josh, still
staring at the wall, 'like a shaft of light from heaven.' They sang louder,
still the same song, and the coffee bar went quiet, dead quiet, until they had
finished.

'That's where it all began,' he said.

'I see.'

'She's my everything ...'

'Mr Geyser ...'

'Just call me Josh.'

'Josh, I need to know what happened yesterday.'

He looked at Griessel and lifted his hands helplessly. 'It
was too much for me.' Griessel just nodded.

'We knew nothing about Adam Barnard. Our first CD came out on
the Chorus label. It's a small gospel studio in Centurion.

Adam came to talk to us, said we were too good to be hidden
away - we had a wonderful message that the world needed to hear. Ever so holy,
called himself a child of God, he just wanted to help
...
so we signed and came to Cape Town. I only heard about his ways then.'

'What ways?'

'You know ...'

There was a quiet knock on the door. Griessel said 'Come in.'

The door opened. Fransman Dekker put a head inside. 'Benny
...'

Griessel stood up. 'Excuse me just a moment.' He went to the
door and pulled it shut behind him.

'Your cell phone is off,' Dekker whispered.

'I know.' He didn't want interruptions like this now.

'I just wanted to tell you I'm here. They're looking for a
place where I can talk to her.'

'I'll come when I'm finished.'

Natasha, the beautiful personal assistant, came walking down
the passage. 'Fransman ...' she called.

Griessel raised his eyebrows.

'What?' asked Dekker.

'First-name terms already ...' murmured Griessel.

Dekker shrugged 'Story of my life.'

'Fransman, you can sit in the studio,' said Natasha. 'Give us
ten minutes.'

Ponytail brought in a tray with a teapot and the necessary
tea things. He put it down three tables away from Vusi and walked out again.

Vusi stood up and went over to the tray.

They would all be like this. The Van Hunks employees.
Aggressive and unhelpful. He would get nothing out of them, he realised. It was
a waste of time, because the theory of drug mules made sense.

He poured tea into a cup, added milk and sugar, then carried
the whole tray over to his table.

Oliver Sands had said that Anderson had suddenly changed. He
sat down, put the cup aside and paged through his notebook until he found the
reference. At Lake Kariba. She had become morose. That must have been when they
got the drugs. Or realised they had gone? That might be it.

She and Erin were to bring the drugs like this, because
tourists were Africa's new gold, waved easily through the border posts. Maybe
they had brought the drugs from America, maybe from Malawi or Zambia. He didn't
know how these things worked. It might not be their first time.

And then something happened, or they sold it somewhere else,
and then they came and told Demidov here at the club, or Galia Federova or the
night manager, Petr. Then they walked back to the Youth Hostel and a minute or
two later Demidov sent his thugs to make an example of them, the chase that
began somewhere beyond Longmarket Street. They caught Erin up at the church and
cut her throat.

'They do that, the Russians. Show their network they don't take
shit,' Vaughn Cupido had said.

Was Erin Russel the team leader? Or was Rachel Anderson just
lucky to escape?

It was Demidov's people hunting Anderson now. The question
was, how did he prove it? How did he stop them?

He reached for the teacup. He must try Griessel again. He
picked up his phone and punched in the number. Voice mail again.

Josh Geyser told Griessel he had just let go of Pokkel's
hands, right there in the sitting room, because from then on he was like a man
possessed. He got into his BMW M3 and drove here from Milnerton Ridge and he
could remember nothing of that trip, that's how bad it was. He pulled up
halfway onto the pavement because there was never any parking here and he
rushed in, ready to break Adam Barnard's neck, he couldn't deny it. If he had
found Adam here he would have done something the Lord would have punished him
for.

'You admit that you went into Willie Mouton's office and
threatened to kill Adam Barnard?'

'I had already told Natasha that out front. I was cursing. I
apologised to her, just now. She understands. She knows about the devil.'

'And you went to Mouton?'

'I went into Adam's office first. I thought they were lying
to me. But he wasn't there. Then I went to Willie's.'

'And then?'

'I asked him if he knew and he said "no" and then I
told him I was going to kill Adam. But Adam wasn't there. What could I do?'

'What
did
you do?'

'I went looking for him.'

'Where?'

'Cafe Zanne and the Bizerca Bistro.'

'Why there?'

'That's where he hangs out. Lunchtimes.'

'Did you find him?'

'No, thank the Lord.'

'And then?'

'Then the devil left me.'

Griessel raised his brows.

'It was the traffic,' said Josh Geyser. 'When I wanted to go
home, I got stuck in the traffic. An hour and a half. That's when the devil
left me.' He looked at the wall again and said: 'I sat at the robots in
Paardeneiland and cried, because the devil had tested me and I let the Lord
down. And Melinda, Melinda ...'

'Josh, did you go straight home?'

Geyser just nodded.

'Do you own a firearm?'

He shook his head. No.

'We will have to search your house, Josh. We have instruments
that can tell if there were guns or ammunition, even if they are not there any
more.'

'I don't have a gun.'

'Where were you from midnight last night?' 'With Melinda.'

'Where were you?'

'We went to church last night.'

'Which church?'

'The Tabernacle, in Parklands.'

'Until what time?'

'I don't know ... I suppose, half past ten.'

'At church?'

'After the service we went to see the pastor. For counselling.'

'Until half past ten?'

'Thereabouts.'

'And then?'

'Then we went home.' He looked at Griessel and saw it was not
enough. He interlaced his thick fingers on the table and stared at them with
great concentration. 'It was ... hard. She ... Melinda
...
She wanted me to hold her ... I ...' He went quiet again.

'Josh, did you leave the house last night?'

'No.'

'Not at all?'

'I only went out again this morning. When Willie phoned.'

Griessel looked at Geyser intently. He recognised the simplicity
of this giant, the childish honesty. He thought of the tears, his absolute
brokenness over his wife's unfaithfulness. He didn't know if he could believe
him. Then he thought of the damage Adam Barnard had done, to Alexa, to Josh, to
how many others. Then he remembered his own infidelity last night and he got up
in a hurry and said: 'You will have to wait here, Josh, if you don't mind.'

Fransman Dekker asked Melinda Geyser to sit on one of the
chairs at the big sound desk in the recording studio, but when he closed the
soundproof door and turned around she was still standing, like someone who had
something pressing to say. 'Sit, please,' he said.

'I can't...' Uneasy, tense.

'Ma'am, this will take a while. It's better if you sit.'

'You don't understand ...' 'What don't I understand?' He sat
down in an office chair on wheels.

'I ... You must forgive me ... I'm still old fashioned ...'
She gestured with her hand to try to explain.

Dekker looked at her in query.

'I don't... I can't talk to you about yesterday ...'

The way she said it made him suspicious.

'To me?' His voice cut like a knife.

She couldn't look at him, confirming his suspicion.

'Is it because I'm coloured?'

'No, no, I can't talk ... to a man.'

Dekker heard the way she said it, like someone who had been
caught out. He saw the flicker in her eyes. 'You're lying,' the anger flaring
quickly in him, like a switch turned on.