Thirteen Hours

She stared up Alexandra Avenue. The slope. A very tired girl. This morning early, before six, someone saw her high up on Lion's Head. Just after ten she was down here in Oranjezicht. She had come a long way, but she was on her way down, to the city. So would she get here and choose a street that led away from her destination? It was uphill, steep; it would be hell' on tired legs.

But if you are afraid and your pursuers right behind ...

Deep in thought, Kaleni rested her hand on the white picket fence of the single-storey Victorian house on her left. She looked for the two running uniformed idiots. Yes, there they were, walking back, chatting happily.

A block further on was the Molteno Reservoir. But that was more than forty seconds from Carlucci's, even if Rachel Anderson could run as fast as two fresh, fit constables. No, she had to have turned this corner. Or ...

Kaleni considered the Victorian house, looked at the fence. It was the only house in this part of the street without high walls or fences - the only alternative.

That's when she saw the damage to the flower bed. The ground cover was scraped away in a broad swathe. She took off her dark glasses. The palm prints were there, the footprints beyond, three of them before the edge of the lawn. She judged by sight the distance between the fence and the damage. Could someone climb over here? And land there?

She walked on, looking for the garden gate, and found it. She jogged over to it, an odd, hurried figure with a handbag over her shoulder, pistol on her hip and dark glasses in her hand.

'I'm not white enough for her,' Fransman Dekker said when Griessel concluded his call with Vusi.

'What?' said Griessel, his attention still on the phone. 'Sorry, Fransman, I have four more messages ...' He put it to his ear again. 'Melinda?' he asked.

'I can't talk to a man ...' Dekker said, in falsetto sarcasm.

'I'll be finished soon ...' Griessel listened. 'It's John Afrika ...'

Dekker took two steps down the passage and turned. 'But it's because I'm a hotnot. Fucking hypocritical gospel singers ...' he said and shook his head.

'John Afrika again ...' Griessel shook his head.

'Such a great Christian,' said Dekker.

'I have to phone the Commissioner back,' Griessel said apologetically. 'The girl... She phoned her father. In America .. . Commissioner, it's Benny ...'

Dekker stopped at the studio door, pressed a palm against it, leaned on it and bent his head.

Griessel said 'yes, sir' and 'no, sir' over the phone, until at last: 'I'm on my way, I'll be there now.' He switched off the phone again.

'She won't talk to you because you're coloured?' he asked Dekker.

'That's not what she says, but it's what she means.'

'Fuck that. She can get a lawyer, and she can ask for a woman to be present, those are her choices ...'

'You tell her.'

'That's exactly what I'm going to do,' said Griessel. And then the lights went out.

Chapter 20

Ndabeni was restless. He drank the last of the tea, put the cup on the tray and pushed it away. How long would it be before the people arrived, before Petr had his staff awake and on the go? What was Mbali Kaleni doing with his case up at the restaurant? That was where the action was; there was nothing going on here. Perhaps he would wait another ten minutes. If no one had arrived by then ...

Then the big room went dark, everything eerily quiet, even the air conditioning off. Another power cut. Yesterday it had lasted for three hours.

Pitch black, he could see nothing.

He had to get out. He felt for his cell phone, pressed a key to light up the screen and turned it so the light shone over the table, picked up his notebook and pen and got up. He walked carefully between the tables and chairs, down the passage. A faint yellow band of light shone out of Galina Federova's office. He walked over to it, saw she had lit a candle and was busy pushing another into the neck of an empty beer bottle.

'Hi,' he said.

She jumped, said something that sounded like 'Bogh' and nearly dropped the beer bottle.

'I'm sorry ..

'Eskom,' she shrugged.

'What can you do?' he asked, rhetorically.

She lit the second candle as well, sat down behind her desk and took out a cigarette.

'I can do nothing.' She lit the cigarette from the candle.

Perhaps Russians were not into rhetorical questions. 'I'm sorry, but I will have to go.' 'I can bring you a candle.'

'No. The girl... she was seen.'

'Oh?' The pencil-drawn eyebrows were raised high. He didn't know how to read that. Vusi took a business card out of his pocket and put it down in front of her. 'Please, would you call me when the people from last night arrive?'

Federova picked up the card in her long nails. 'OK.'

'Thank you,' said Vusi. Using his cell phone as a torch, he walked back the way he had come in, through the kitchen, where Ponytail was counting booze bottles by the light coming in from the back door.

'What you do about the power? What the police do?'

He considered explaining carefully to the man that the police had nothing to do with the electricity supply. But he just said: 'We call Eskom.'

Vusi walked out of the back door into the alley, where the sunlight was blinding. He heard Ponytail calclass="underline" 'Funny. I love funny cop,' but he was in a hurry and his car was up in Long Street, more than ten minutes' walk. He wanted to talk to Kaleni at the restaurant, he wanted ... Vusi stopped just where the alley opened into Strand Street. There was something he could do, even if Benny Griessel said he didn't want Organised Crime involved. He chose Vaughn Cupido's number and called him.

'Speak to me,' Cupido answered immediately.

'Do you have photos of Demidov's people?'

Cupido didn't answer.

'Vaughn, are you there?'

'Why do you ask?' suspiciously.

'Do you, Vaughn?'

'I cannot confirm or deny.'

'What does that mean?'

'It means I'm just an Inspector. You will have to ask higher up.'

'Ask who?'

'The Senior Sup.'

'Vaughn, we have a man who saw two of the attackers in Oranjezicht just now. If he can ID Demidov's people ... It could save the girl's life.'

It was quiet again.

'Vaughn?'

'Let me get back to you ...'

Rachel Anderson heard the click-click of a woman's shoes on the garden path just metres away from her, and another sound, the rhythmic whisper of fabric on fabric. The noise stopped abruptly, then she heard a sigh and someone knocking loudly. Rachel kept her breathing shallow; she turned her head slowly so she could see her feet. Was she deep enough into the bushes?

Again someone hammered on the door. 'Hello, anybody home?' in an African accent, a woman, urgent.

What did it mean?

'Hey, guys!' the same voice barked, authoritarian. 'I called you back, but you did not hear.'

A man's voice answered from the street, then the same African woman: 'No, stay on the pavement, this might be a crime scene. Just go and tell them at the restaurant I need Forensics. Shoe imprints, I want them cast and identified.'

There was the sound of a door opening and a man's voice: 'Can I help you?'

'How are you?'

'That is not an appropriate question. Why are you hammering on my door?' The man's voice answered calm, timid.

'Because your doorbell is broken.'

'It's not broken. There is a power failure.'

'What? Again?'

'Yes. Can I help you?'

'I am Inspector Mbali Kaleni of the SAPS. We are looking for a girl who is running away from assailants, and I think she was in your garden. I want to know if you saw her.'

'I didn't see her ...'

'Over there. Can you come and take a look?'