7 Days

Praise for
BLOOD SAFARI
A
Globe and Mail
Best Book

Whatever happened, he just didn’t want to make a complete idiot of himself.

Detective Captain Benny Griessel was wearing a new suit of clothes that he could ill afford. There was a bouquet of flowers on the passenger seat, his hands gripping the steering wheel were clammy, and with all his being he yearned for the healing, calming powers of alcohol. Tonight he must just please not make a total idiot of himself. Not in front of Alexa Barnard, not in front of all the stars of the music world, not after all the past week’s planning and preparation.

He’d started on Monday, with a haircut. Tuesday, Mat Joubert’s wife, Margaret, had been his style consultant at Romens in Tyger Valley. ‘It’s smart casual, Benny, just a pair of chinos and a smart shirt,’ she had said patiently in her charming English accent.

‘No, I want a jacket too.’ Griessel had dug in his heels, terrified of being caught between too ‘casual’ and not ‘smart’ enough. There would be some smart people there.

He had wanted a tie as well, but Margaret had put her foot down. ‘Overdressed is worse than underdressed. No tie.’ They had left with khaki chinos, a light blue cotton shirt, black belt, black shoes, a fashionable black jacket, and a credit card bill that made him shudder.

Since Wednesday he had been mentally preparing himself. He knew this thing, this event, had the potential to overwhelm him completely. His greatest fear was that he would swear, because that was what he always did when he got stressed. He would have to guard his tongue, all evening. No police-speak, no crude language, talk nice, stay calm. He had gone through it all in his imagination, visualised it, as Doc Barkhuizen, his sponsor at Alcoholics Anonymous, had prescribed.

To Anton L’Amour he would say: ‘
Kouevuur
is brilliant guitar.’ That’s all, no waxing lyrical and talking shit. To Theuns Jordaan: ‘I like your work a lot.’ That was a good thing to say, full of respect and appreciation, dignified. Lord, and if Schalk Joubert was there, he, Benny Griessel would take a deep breath, shake his hand and just say: ‘Pleased to meet you, it’s a great honour.’ Then he had better walk
away before the flood of words of hero worship, admiration of Joubert’s mastery of bass guitar, spilled over all his careful defences.

Then, his biggest worry: Lize Beekman.

If he could just have one drink before he met her. To keep his nerves from getting out of control. He would have to dry his hand on his new trousers first, he couldn’t greet Lize Beekman with his palm all sweaty. ‘Miss Beekman, it’s an exceptional honour. Your music gives me great pleasure.’ And she would say ‘thank you’, and he would leave it at that and go and find Alexa, because that was the only way he would keep from making a total idiot of himself.

The white Chana panel van stopped under the trees in Second Avenue, between the Livingstone High School and the back yard of the South African Police Service’s Claremont Station.

It was a nondescript vehicle, a 2009 model bearing the marks of hard labour – a dent in the front bumper, scrapes and scratches on the doors at the back. The windows in the middle and rear were blanked out with cheap white paint. The side panels differed slightly in colour from the rest of the vehicle.

Behind the wheel, the sniper turned off the engine, put both hands on his knees and sat, for just a moment, dead still.

He wore a blue labourer’s overall, slightly faded. Long blond hair hung down his back, a brown baseball cap was pulled down low over his eyes.

With deliberate focus he looked out of the passenger window at the deserted school grounds. Then right. He studied the high fence across the street, the double wire gate, and behind it, the SAPS yard, wrapped in the early-evening shadow of Table Mountain. It was quiet and deserted.

He made sure both doors in front were locked, clambered over the seat to the back. The storage space was untidy, boxes and trunks of metal, wood and cardboard. He sat down on a wooden box and loosened the home-made screen of faded yellow material from the carpet-lined roof. It separated him from the driver’s cab, making him invisible to passers-by.

He took off the cap, laid it to one side, aware that he was breathing faster, his hands trembling slightly. He relaxed his shoulders with a forced sigh, bent down, opened a long, battered tool chest, and took
out the removable tray. It was heavy, filled with well-worn tools – hammers, a collection of screwdrivers, cutters and pliers, metal saw blades. He put it gently down beside the chest, on the rubber matting covering the floor of the Chana.

There were two articles in the bottom of the red box – a firearm and a K-Way Kilimanjaro Trekking Pole.

He took out the hiking pole first, and propped it against his shoulder, picked up the rifle, pressed the silencer carefully through the black wrist strap on the end of the stick, so that the telescope of the rifle was not interfered with, and twisted the stick anti-clockwise until the loop was tight.

He pressed his cheek to the rifle butt, tested the height of the supporting hiking pole, and made an adjustment.

He slid the Chana’s right side panel three centimetres to the right with the small handle he had attached. Then the magnetic panel outside, so he could aim the barrel and telescope outwards.

He pressed the rifle butt to his shoulder and looked at the SAPS car park through the scope. He adjusted the focus.

In front of the big Victorian house in Brownlow Street, Griessel picked up the bouquet, got out of the car and walked through the little garden gate to the front door.

Alexa Barnard was in the process of renovating the house. The ugly giant cactus against the front fence had been recently removed, the painters’ scaffolding stood high against the walls.