Thirteen Hours (44 page)

He waited.

'I can understand if the press makes this seem like an
environment where nobody cares, Inspector, but that is a false impression.
There are many of us who still have contact with Alexa, who regularly try to
communicate in the hope that she will ... recover. She is a wonderful person.'

'Are you one of them?'

She nodded.

'But I understand you were more than just friends with
Adam Barnard?' It was deliberate.

She looked at him in disappointment. 'I will leave my
lawyer's number with Natasha,' she said and walked slowly, with dignity, to the
door, opened it and closed it quietly behind her.

He sat staring at the closed door, despising himself.
Also knowing that he had no idea what to do next.

The nurse at Casualties told Griessel he would have to
talk to the superintendent and he asked her to phone him. It's not a man, the
nurse bridled, and Griessel said he didn't care what it was, she had better
phone.

She dialled a number, whispered over the phone,
replaced the receiver and said the superintendent was in a meeting. Her
attitude intensified a few degrees.

'Miss, I have a female detective in that operating
theatre with two gunshot wounds and I don't know if she is going to make it. I
have a nineteen-year-old American girl who has been abducted by people who cut
her friend's throat in Long Street this morning. That...' and he had to
suppress the urge to say 'fucker' with huge effort, as he jabbed a thumb over
his shoulder at the operating theatre '... man in there is my only chance to
find her before they kill her. Let me tell you now, if anything happens to her
because you are obstructing the law, you will all sleep in the dirtiest, most
crowded cell I can find in the Peninsula. I hope you understand me very well.'

She swallowed her indignation and picked up the phone
again with wide eyes and redialled the number. 'Julie, I think Dr Marinos
should come to ICU immediately,' she said.

At the gate of the Metropolitan Police vehicle pound
the young traffic officer in a gleaming uniform opened a fat green file, paged
through it fussily, pressed the relevant page flat with his palm and ran his
finger down to an entry on an official form.

'Yes, that particular vehicle was booked out at
precisely twelve thirty-four with me. And here ...' he turned the page, and
rotated the file so that Vusi could read it from the other side of the desk
'... is the release form, stamped and signed.'

'Who signed it?'

The traffic officer turned the file back again and
studied the signature. 'I can't say.'

'Who can tell me?'

'You would have to ask Administration.'

'Where is Administration?'

'There. In the licensing building. But you have to go
upstairs. First floor.'

'Thank you. May I take the form with me?'

The traffic officer shook his head. 'I can't help you
there. The form has to stay here.'

Vusi thought the man was joking. But there was not a
trace of humour. 'Are you serious?'

'This file is my responsibility. Regulations.'

'Mister ...'

'It's Inspector.'

'Inspector, we are working on a case of murder and
abduction, we are running out of time.'

'Administration has a duplicate of the form. Just give
them the case number.'

Vusi wondered why the man had not told him that in the
first place. He took out his notebook, opened it and clicked his pen and said,
'Would you give me the number, please?'

Mat Joubert pulled on rubber gloves, bent at the open
door of Mbali Kaleni's Corsa and picked up the bullet casings in the footwell
and beside the seat. He noted the number in his book. He heard the feet of
Thick and Thin of Forensics shuffle on the tar beside him where they were
circling the other casings with chalk and placing a small plastic triangle with
a number beside every group of casings. They worked in silence.

He stood up, leaned his big torso inside the Corsa,
pressing on the headrest and the steering wheel. Kaleni's big black handbag lay
on the front passenger seat. On top was an A5 notebook, the pages folded back
on the spiral, blood on the top page, fine drops, something written down.

He picked the notebook up carefully, brought it out of
the car and stood upright outside. He took his reading glasses out of his
breast pocket, flicked them open and placed them on the bridge of his nose. He
stared at the three letters written in a shaky hand in capital letters:
JAS.

He called Jimmy, the tall, skinny forensic
technologist. 'I need an evidence bag.'

'I'll bring it, Sup.' Keen. Why did his colleagues
complain about Thick and Thin? They never gave him any trouble.

J AS.
The Afrikaans for 'coat'. Unfathomable.

Jimmy brought him a transparent ZipLoc bag and held it
open. Joubert put the notebook inside so the written letters were visible.
Jimmy zipped it up.

'Thanks, Jimmy.'

'Pleasure, Sup.'

Joubert bent again at the open door and peered under
the seat. There was a pen, but nothing else.

He took out his own pen from his pocket and used it to
scratch the other one closer until he could reach it with his fingers. He held
it so he could see it through his reading glasses. Mont Blanc Starwalker. Cool
Blue. On the navy-blue shaft of the pen were two faint blood prints.

He turned and walked over to Jimmy while thinking
about the pieces of evidence. The blood on the notebook was not necessarily
significant. But the bloody fingerprints on the pen were. Mbali .Kaleni had written
the letters J, A and S after she had been wounded.
JAS?

A perp wearing a coat? Or was it Zulu?

He reached for his phone. He would have to find out.

The superintendent of the City Park Hospital, a
well-groomed woman in her forties, nodded her head just three times while
Griessel was talking. She said: 'Captain, one moment, please,' and walked
quickly through the glass doors with the lettering
Operating Theatre.
Personnel Only.

Benny could not stand still. He walked as far as the
nurses' desk and back to the theatre doors. Let the fucker live, please, just
long enough to get what he needed. He looked at his watch. Nearly twenty-five
to three. Too much time had elapsed since they took her. Too many
possibilities. But they hadn't shot Rachel Anderson, because there was
something they wanted. It was his only chance, his only hope.

At the periphery of his consciousness something
flitted past, ghostly visions, fleeting and intangible, leaving only an
impression - this morning. He stood still and closed his eyes. What was it? His
brain seemed to tell him that, no, the wounded fucker was not his only hope.
There was something else. He must go back to the beginning. This morning, what
had happened? At the churchyard? What were the important things? The rucksack,
cut off Erin Russel...

The superintendent burst through the doors and came
over to Griessel. She began to speak before she reached him. 'Captain, his
carotid artery was cut, relatively high up, I'm afraid, where there is not much
protection. He lost an enormous amount of blood, we had a Code Blue in there,
but they were able to resuscitate him. His condition is critical, they are
still trying to close the wound, under the circumstances a very difficult
procedure, especially since his blood pressure is so low and the bleeding could
not be entirely halted. But I am afraid there is no chance of you talking to
him in the next five or six hours. Even then I doubt whether communication will
be meaningful. His vocal chords have been damaged, apparently - to what extent
they don't yet know.'

He digested the information, frustration forcing a
curse to the surface, but he swallowed it down.

'Doc, his clothes, I want his clothes, anything he had
on him.'

'I'm going to call,' said Bill Anderson decisively. He
got up abruptly from the leather couch and went to the phone on his desk. He
looked at the number he had written down, picked up the receiver and keyed it
in. He stood listening to the initial silence on the line and then the crystal
clear ring on the southernmost tip of another continent.

Griessel's phone rang and he looked at the screen, saw
it was MAT JOUBERT and answered: 'Mat?'

'Benny, I don't know what it means but Mbali Kaleni
wrote the word "jas" in her notebook, and I am reasonably sure it was
after she was shot. There are bloody fingerprints on the pen and blood spatters
on the page. I thought it might be Zulu, but it doesn't seem to be.'

'Jas?' then he heard the soft ring tone of another
incoming call. 'Mat, hold for me.' He saw the long number, the unfamiliar code,
and knew who it would be.

God.

He couldn't talk to them now, he couldn't, what would
he say? What could he say?

Sorry?

They would be terribly worried because he hadn't
phoned. This was their child. They had the right to know.

'Mat, I'll call you back.' He switched calls and said:
'Mr Anderson?'

'Oh, thank god, Captain, we were getting very worried.
Is Rachel OK?' Shit.

'Mr Anderson, Rachel was not at the address she gave
me. We are still trying to track her down, but we are making good progress.'
'She wasn't there? How is that possible?'

'I don't know, sir. I honestly don't know.'

Two young men full of fire and self-confidence walked
into the Cat & Moose Youth Hostel, up to the plump woman at the reception
desk.

'Hi,' said the black one and smiled. 'We've come for
Rachel's stuff.'

'Who?'

'Rachel Anderson, the American girl. You know, the one
who was missing.'

'Are you from the police?'

'No, we're friends.'

'Don't I know you?' asked the generously built girl.

'I don't think so. So where is her luggage?'

'Down there, in their room, with the police. Did they
find her?'

'With the police?' The friendliness wavered.

'Yes, they're guarding it. Guns and everything. You'll
have to talk to them. Did they find the girl?'

They didn't answer her. They looked at each other.
Then they walked out.

'Hey!' the girl shouted, but they didn't even look
back. She came around from behind the desk and ran out through the door onto
the Long Street pavement. She saw them walking fast. They looked back once and
disappeared around the corner.

'I know you,' she said, and hurried off to find the
two men who were guarding the luggage.

He wanted to pull off her running shoes. She pressed her
feet against the cement floor with all her strength, so that he swore, stood
beside her and violently kicked her feet out from under her with his boots.

Her legs shot forward and she fell hard on her bare
bottom. She lunged up, trying to struggle upright and hide her feet under her
again, but one of the others had grabbed her legs and held them in a ferocious
grip.

'Jesus, you're a piece of work,' Jay said to her.

She spat at him, but missed. She tried to jerk her
legs free. It was no use. Jay began to untie her laces and pulled the shoe off
her foot. He wrinkled his nose at the smell.

'Don't you Yankee bitches ever change your socks?'

She spat again, ineffectually. He had the other laces
undone and pulled off the other shoe, threw it aside and pulled off both socks.
'You had better hold one leg,' he said to the third man. 'This is going to
drive her nuts.'

He stretched to reach the pruning shears, a big tool
with green handles. 'OK, one last time: where is the video?'

'Dead and buried,' she said.