Thirteen Hours (20 page)

'Mbali, I want you to go to the station commander's office,
because he is going to get a call right now.'

'Yes, sir,' she said.

'The missing girl ... She's alive. She called home half an
hour ago.'

'Where is she?'

'She did not have enough time to say. We need to find her.
Quickly.'

'I will find her, Commissioner.' So self-assured. John Afrika
put down the phone. 'Caledon Square,' he told the Provincial Commissioner.
'They don't want to cooperate.'

'Wait,' said the little Xhosa in his impeccable uniform. 'Let
me call him too.'

'Would you like to tell me what happened yesterday?' Griessel
sat down on the other side of the oval table, with his face towards the door.
The big man was sitting down now, elbows on the table, one hand nervously
touching the drooping blonde moustache. 'It wasn't me.' He didn't look at
Griessel. 'Mr Geyser, let's start at the beginning. Apparently there was an
incident yesterday ...'

'What would you do if a son of Satan messed with your woman?
What would you do?'

'Mr Geyser, how did you find out that Adam Barnard and your
wife ...'

'We're all sinners. But he had no remorse. Never. He never
stopped. Idols. Mammon. Whoring.' He gave Griessel an ominous look and said:
'He believed in evolution.' 'Mr Geyser ...'

'He's a son of Satan. Today he burns in hell...'

'Mr Geyser, how did you find out?' With infinite patience.

He shrugged as though he needed to steel himself. 'Yesterday
when she came home, she didn't look well, so I asked what was wrong ...' He
leaned his forehead on his hand and looked down at the table. 'First she said
"nothing". But I knew something was
...
So I said:
"
Pokkel
,
you're not okay, what is it?" Then she sat down and she couldn't look me
in the eye. That's when I knew something was very wrong ...' He went quiet,
clearly unwilling to relive the events.

'What time was that?'

'Three o'clock, round about.'

'And then?'

'Then I sat next to her and held her hands. And she started
crying. Then she said: "
Beertjie
, let us
pray,
Beertjie
".
 
And she held my hands tight and prayed and she said: "Lord, forgive me
because Satan ..."' Geyser opened and closed his fists, his face contorted
with feeling.' "... because Satan got into my life today." So I said:
"Pokkel
, what happened?" But she
just kept her eyes shut...' The big man shielded his face with his hands.

'Mr Geyser, I know this is hard.'

Geyser shook his head, still hiding his face. 'My Melinda
...' he said and his voice cracked. 'My
Pokkel.'

Griessel waited.

'Then she asked God to forgive her, because she was weak, so
I asked her if she had stolen something, but she said, Lord, One John One verse
eight, she said it over and over until I said stop, what did she do? Then she
opened her eyes and said she had sinned in Adam Barnard's office, because she
wasn't as strong as I think, she couldn't stop the devil, and I said what kind
of sin, and she said: "of the flesh,
Beertjie
,
the big sin of the flesh ..."' Geyser's voice broke down and he stopped,
with both hands over his face.

Benny Griessel sat there suppressing the urge to get up and
put his hand on the massive shoulder, to console, to say something. In
twenty-five years he had learned to be sceptical, not to believe anything until
all the evidence was in. He had learned that when the sword of righteousness
hung over your head, you were capable of anything - heart-rending, tearful
denial, the pained indignation at being falsely accused, strong protest, deep
remorse or pathetic self-pity. People could lie with astonishing skill;
sometimes it led to total self-deception, so that they clung with absolute
conviction to an imaginary innocence.

So he did nothing. He just waited for Josh Geyser to finish
crying.

Galia Federova pressed a switch and neon lights flickered on
near the roof of the club, just enough to cloak the large space in twilight.

'You can wait here,' she said to Vusi and pointed at the
table and chairs around the dance floor. 'Would you like something to drink?'

'Do you have tea?'

He fancied she smiled before she said: 'I will tell them.'
Then she was gone.

He walked between the tables that hadn't yet been set out
since the previous night.

He stopped at one, took down the chairs and sat down. He put
his notebook, pen and cell phone on the table and looked around in amazement.
On the right against the wall was the long bar counter made from rough, thick
wooden beams. On the walls were artificial shipwreck ornaments from the era of
sailing ships, between modern neon curlicues in piratical designs. On the left,
right at the back, was a bank of turntables and electronic equipment, with a
dance floor in front. Four dance towers stood metres above the dance floor.
High up against the ceiling hung bunches of lasers and spotlights, all dark
now. Giant speakers were mounted on every wall.

He tried to imagine how it had been last night. Hundreds of
people, loud music, dancing bodies, flickering lights. And now it was quiet,
empty and spooky.

He felt uneasy in this place.

In this city too. It was the people, he thought. Khayelitsha
had often broken his heart with its pointless murders, the domestic violence,
the terrible poverty, the shacks, the daily struggle. But he had been welcome
there, the source of law and order, simple people, his people, they respected
him, stood by him, supported him.

Ninety per cent of those cases were straightforward. In this
city the possibilities were complicated and legion, the agendas inscrutable. It
was all antagonism and suspicion. As if he were some intruder.

'No respect,' his mother would say. 'That's the problem with
the new world.' His mother carved elephants out of wood in Knysna, sanding and
polishing them until they came alive, but she refused to sell them in the
roadside stall next to the lagoon, 'Because people don't have respect any
more.' To her, the 'new world' was anything across the brown waters of the Fish
and Mzimvubu Rivers, but there were no jobs in Gwiligwili, 'at home'. Now she
was an exile, cast out on this 'new world'. Even though she only went shopping
once a week. The rest of the time she sat in front of the corrugated iron shack
in Khayalethu South with her elephants, waiting for her son to phone on the
cell phone he had bought for her. Or for Zukisa, to hear how many artworks they
had sold to the disrespectful tourists.

Vusi thought of Tiffany October, the slim young pathologist.
She had the same soft eyes as his mother, the same gentle voice that seemed to
be hiding great wisdom.

He thought of phoning her, but his guts contracted.

Would she go out with a Xhosa?

'Ask her,' Griessel had said. 'It can't do any harm.' He
looked for the mortuary number in his notebook.

He phoned. It rang for a long time before the switchboard
answered. He took a deep breath to say: 'May I speak to Dr October?' But his
courage failed him; the fear that she would say 'no' lurked in the pit of his
stomach like a disease. He cancelled the call in panic.

He cursed himself, in angry Xhosa, and immediately phoned
Vaughn Cupido, the only member of the SAPS Organised Crime Task Force in
Bellville South that he knew. He had to hold for a long time before Cupido
answered with his usual, self-assured mantra: 'Talk to me.'

Vusi said hullo and then asked if they knew anything about
Gennady Demidov. Cupido whistled through his teeth, as demonstrative as ever.
'Genna. We call him Semi-dof, like in semi-stupid, if you get my drift.
Brother, the city belongs to him, pretty much - prostitution, drugs, blackmail,
money laundering, cigarettes ...'

'He owns the Van Hunks club ...'

'Ja. And he's got another club, in Bree, the Moscow Redd;
he's got a guest house in Oranjezicht that's really just a brothel and the word
is that the Cranky Croc in Longmarket is his in all but name.'

'The Cranky Croc?'

'The Internet cafe and bar at Greenmarket Square. Easiest
place in Cape Town to buy weed.'

'I have an American tourist, about nineteen, whose throat was
cut last night up in Long Street. But earlier they had been in Van Hunks ...'

'It's drugs, Vusi. Sounds to me like a deal that went wrong.
They do that, the Russians. Show your network you don't take shit.'

'A deal gone wrong?'

'Semi-dof is an importer, Vusi. The dealers buy from him, a
hundred thousand rands' worth at a time.'

'So why don't you arrest him?'

'It's not that easy, brother. He's clever.'

'But the girl only arrived here yesterday, first time in Cape
Town. She's no dealer.'

'She must be a mule.'

'A mule?'

'They bring the drugs in. On planes, fishing trawlers, any
way they can.'

'Ah,' said Vusi.

'So she probably didn't deliver what she was meant to.
Something like that. I can't say what happened, but it's drugs ...'

The station commander of Caledon Square walked down the
passage behind Inspector Mbali Kaleni, unable to hide his displeasure.

Ten minutes ago everything had been under control; his
efficient police station had been functioning normally and effectively. Then
she waddles in, without knocking, orders everyone around, demanding an office
that he didn't have, refusing to share with the social worker. Next minute he
was being
kakked
on by the Provincial
Commissioner, accusing him of bringing the Service into disrepute. Now he had
Social Services sharing his office so that this domineering woman could move
in.

They walked into the charge office. She looked like an
overstuffed pigeon - short, with a big bulge in front and a big bulge behind in
her tight black trouser suit. Large handbag over her shoulder, service pistol
in a thick black belt around her hips and her SAPS ID card hanging from a cord
around her neck, probably because no one would believe she was a policewoman.

She stopped in the middle of the room, feet planted wide
apart, and clapped sharply, twice.

'Listen up, people,' she said loudly.
Pee-pol,
in her Zulu accent.

Here and there a head turned.

'Silence!' Sharp and loud.

Silence descended, everyone paid attention: complainants,
their companions, uniforms.

'Thank you. My name is Inspector Mbali Kaleni. We have a situation
and we need to be sharp. There is an American tourist missing in the city, a
nineteen-year-old girl, maybe in Camps Bay, maybe Clifton or Bantry Bay. There
are people trying to kill her. We must find her. I am in control of the
operation. So I want you to get every vehicle out there, and make sure they get
the message. They must come and collect a photo of the girl after twelve
o'clock. The Provincial Commissioner has personally called your station
commander, and he will not tolerate any problems ...'

'Inspector ...' said the Constable who had taken the
Carlucci's call.

'I am not finished,' she said.

'I know where she is,' he said, not intimidated, making his
commanding officer proud.

'You know?' Kaleni asked, some of the wind taken out of her
sails.

'She's not in Camps Bay, she's in Oranjezicht,' he said.

Vusi Ndabeni sat in the twilight of the nightclub and phoned
Benny Griessel, but the detective's cell phone was on voice mail.

'Benny, it's Vusi. I think the girls brought drugs in and I
think they were supposed to deliver it to Van Hunks. I'm waiting for the barmen
and waiter, but I know they're not going to talk. I think we must bring
Organised Crime in. Call me, please.'

He looked at his notes again. What else could he do?

The video cameras.

He phoned the Metro Police video control room, and was
eventually put through to The Owl.

'I can tell you they came from the lower end of Long Street.
The camera on the corner of Longmarket and Long shows the two girls walking
past at 01:39. The angle isn't great, but I compared it with the other
material. It's the same girls.'

'Walking
past?'

'They were walking fast, but definitely not running. But at
time code 01:39:42 you can see the men coming past. The angle is a bit better,
I can see five of them running in the same direction, north to south.'

'After the girls.'

'That's right. I'm still looking for something before that,
but there was a camera out of operation on the other side of Shortmarket. So
don't hold your breath.'

'Thanks a lot,' said Vusi.

So, here, two hundred metres from the club, they were still
walking, unaware of the men chasing them.