7 Days (12 page)
Authors: Deon Meyer
‘It’s a mess,’ said Nyathi.
Manie shoved the email towards Griessel. ‘How are you getting on, Benny?’
‘Badly, Brigadier,’ he answered, because he had learned to stick to the truth. It didn’t help to say what your boss wanted to hear.
Manie’s granite face revealed nothing. He merely nodded, as if it was what he had expected.
Griessel read.
Sent: Sunday 27 February. 16.07
Re: Why haven’t SAPS told the media about wounded policemen? Yesterday at 18.45 I shot a policeman yetserday at Claremont police station. This morning at 11.50 I shot a policeman at Green Point police station. Why haven’t the SASP told the media about that? Becuase they are hiding something. They know who the murderers of Hanneke Sloet are. Why has no one been arrested yet? I will keep on shooting policemen in the leg until they charge the murderers of Hanneke Sloet.
‘He doesn’t say anything about a communist,’ Griessel said.
‘Thank God,’ said Manie.
‘He was in a hurry. Or he’s feeling the pressure.’
‘How do you mean?’ Mbali asked.
‘The spelling. He made a lot of mistakes this time,’ said Griessel. The brigadier’s phone rang on his desk. ‘The pressure,’ said Manie, ‘is on us. That is the general. Calling from Pretoria.’
From where he sat, Griessel could hear the lieutenant general from Pretoria’s agitation, his shrill, angry tone, tinny, like an enraged electronic insect.
He listened to Brigadier Manie’s stoic ‘Yes, General,’ and ‘No, General, we will formulate and release a statement, General.’ He looked at Nyathi, sitting with his chin in his hands, deeply worried, and Colonel Werner du Preez of CATS, twirling his cigarette lighter around and around in his fingers. At Cloete, always so astonishingly patient, but the nicotine stains on his fingers and dark rings under his eyes testified that it came at a price. He was the one between the devil of the media and the deep blue sea of the SAPS. And Mbali Kaleni, with her scowl and body language, which said she had no time for this tripe, they had work to do. He felt anger stirring inside. Why were the press and the top management always at it? Why the extra pressure, as if this job wasn’t hard enough already.
Griessel’s phone rang loudly in the room, which had been quiet for a second. He quickly rejected the call, turned it off.
When Manie eventually returned to the table, and he and Cloete and Nyathi planned the press release word for word, Griessel thought it was a good thing he had drunk away his career prospects. He wouldn’t want to be a boss, he couldn’t play this game. He would tell the press, you sit and wait like vultures for us to mess up, so you can make a hysterical fuss about it. But where are you when we do something right? When a murderer or a robber or a rapist is found guilty, where’s the piece about ‘thanks to the good work of the SAPS’? Why do you think the jails are full? Because the bastards turn themselves in? So fuck you all, write what you want.
It took half an hour to finish the release:
A decision to transfer the Sloet case to the Hawks for further investigation was already taken at high level two weeks ago, and was subject to standard evaluation and transfer procedures. On Saturday 26 February it was placed on a fast track, due to a possible link between the case and sniper attacks on members of the SAPS
.
Any allegations that the guilty parties are already known to investigating officers is devoid of any truth. DPCI task teams to investigate the Hanneke Sloet murder and the sniper case have recently been set up, and the SAPS will spare no effort to bring the guilty parties to justice
.
The possible link between email threats that have been sent to the SAPS and a sniper, were only finally confirmed on Sunday 27 February. That, together with considerations about the safety of the public, and priorities in the investigation of the sniper, prevented the SAPS from issuing a statement earlier
.
In the course of high profile criminal investigations, the SAPS receives many telephonic, postal and email messages. While some useful information from responsible members of the public is often acquired this way, unfortunately there are also many communications that are of no value. Due to the incoherent, seemingly religious extremist, homophobic (Mbali’s word contribution) and racist nature of the sniper’s earlier correspondence about the Sloet investigation, the SAPS view its credibility as suspect
.
When they at last began to discuss the case, Mbali said firmly and confidently, ‘He is shooting from a car.’
She could see the men were sceptical. ‘There is no other explanation. At Green Point the only secluded vantage point is from the Civic Centre across the road, where everything is locked. I went back to Claremont to look at the scene again, and it is the only thing that makes sense. That parking area, it faces a quiet little street.’
‘A car is very visible,’ said Colonel Nyathi, still not convinced.
‘I know. But do you remember the Beltway Sniper in America, in 2002? Two men who shot people from a car?’
Those were Griessel’s drunken years, he didn’t remember that.
‘Yes,’ said Manie, with growing understanding. ‘In Washington DC. Didn’t they take out the back seat so they could lie flat? Made a hole in the boot …?’
‘Exactly.’
‘A mobile crime scene,’ said Werner du Preez. ‘You take all the evidence with you.’
‘Yes. That’s how they shot thirteen people before they were caught. I Googled the case just now. One of the big problems for law enforcement was that nobody notices a car. There are so many of them, all the time. And they thought it was a van, they ended up looking at the wrong sort of car.’
‘You think our shooter isn’t working alone?’ asked Nyathi.
‘It is a possibility. One to watch the road, while the other one does the shooting.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Griessel, and pointed at the email. ‘This fellow … All his letters, it’s just, “I, I, I”.’
‘You know how the Yanks caught the buggers, in the end?’ Manie asked, gloomily, and then answered his own question, ‘By accident.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Mbali, ‘and there are a lot of similarities. The Beltway Sniper was a religious nut, he sent letters to the police and the media. But it’s how my case is different that is important. The Beltway Sniper shot members of the public at random, no real motive, despite the theories. His letters were weird, really crazy. Our guy specifically shoots policemen at police stations. It narrows things down in a geographical sense. His letters are much more specific and coherent. And he’s got a thing about the Sloet murder. There must be motive in there somewhere.’
‘Why has he dropped the issue about the communists?’ asked Griessel. ‘In the emails to the papers?’
Everyone looked at him.
‘Brigadier, this man is not a moron. He must have known the media would be interested in communists. But he said nothing.’
‘Why do you think?’ Mbali asked Griessel.
‘Because the “communists” are a crock of … rubbish. Like Nxesi says, in Sloet’s world there are only capitalists. I think it’s a smokescreen. I just don’t know why.’
‘The big question is, did he know Sloet?’ said Nyathi.
Nobody wanted to venture an answer. With fanatics you never knew.
‘We’ll keep our options open,’ said du Preez.
‘I think we have to deploy people around police stations,’ said Mbali. ‘They must start looking for a car.’
Griessel listened to his cellphone messages in his office. The first one was from Hannes Pruis, the director of Silberstein Lamarque. ‘Captain, I only received your message now. Can we talk tomorrow? I will be at the office from seven.’
The second was from Alexa. Just a tentative, ‘Hello,’ a short moment of silence, and then the click of a call cut short.
Griessel felt unease stirring. He called her number. It rang for a long time. She didn’t answer.
Bad sign.
‘I won’t drink again today,’ she had said when he had left, in the late morning.
Maybe she was in the shower or something.
He should have phoned this afternoon.
He had better go and check.
Hastily he looked up Cupido’s number and called, because Brigadier Manie had said to him emphatically, ‘Benny, people are queueing up to help. Use them.’
‘Thought you would never call,’ Cupido answered with barely concealed reproach, like a sulky teenager. Which reminded Griessel of Fritz’s tattooing plans.
‘Vaughn, I’ve just come out of a meeting with Manie.’
‘I’m just saying, partner.’
‘I’ll leave the files on your desk. See if you can spot anything. Tomorrow at ten we are talking to her former boyfriend, Roch. I’ll come by around half past nine tomorrow, if you want to come along.’
‘Cool.’
He said goodbye and rang off, then took out the white envelope with the risqué photographs. Tomorrow morning he wanted to talk to Anni de Waal, the photographer in De Waterkant Village, before they drove to Stellenbosch. He knew Cupido would have something clever to say about the photos, and he wasn’t in the mood for that at all.
It was nearly half past nine when he drove back to the city. First he prepared for his conversation with Fritz, making sure not to step into traps like, ‘Where are you?’ or, ‘What are you doing?’, because what came next would be, ‘Don’t you trust me, Pa?’
His relationship with Fritz had become complicated since the divorce. In contrast to the motherly, forgiving Carla, his son blamed him for everything. He had cautiously pointed out to Fritz that, in accordance with Anna’s ultimatum at that time, he had not drunk for one hundred and fifty-seven days. And
then
she told him, ‘There is someone else.’ The little lawyer with the BMW and the shiny suits and his fringe combed oh-so neatly. And Fritz had said, ‘But, Pa, you were drunk for thirteen years.’
It was the truth.
He phoned.
‘OK, so Carla told you,’ were Fritz’s opening words. ‘Told me what?’
‘About the tatt,
jissis
, she is such a sneak.’
‘How are you, Fritz?’
‘Pa, I’m eighteen, I can get a tatt if I want to. It’s a free country.’
‘How was your weekend?’
‘That’s not what you want to talk about. You never phone on a Sunday night at this time.’
Griessel gave up. ‘What does your mother say about the tatt?’
‘Carla hasn’t told Ma about it yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Supposed to be a varsity student, but she’s still so childish.’
‘It’s a big step, Fritz. To get a tattoo.’
‘Pa, it’s a small tattoo on my arm. My shoulder.’
‘Carla says you want to tattoo your whole arm.’
‘She’s talking shit, Pa, she exaggerates so much …’
‘Fritz, you can’t talk to me like that.’
‘I learned it from you, Pa.’
Touché. ‘What kind of tattoo do you want?’
‘What does it matter, Pa?’
‘I’m just curious.’
‘Pa, you won’t like it anyway.’
‘So you might as well tell me.’
A long pause. ‘Parow Arrow.’
‘Parow Arrow?’
‘With an arrow through it.’ Very defensive.
‘Because you play in Jack Parow’s band.’
‘No, Pa. Parow is in my roots.’
‘You were born in Panorama Medi-Clinic and you grew up in Brackenfell.’
‘Parow is where you grew up, Pa. It’s part of my working-class heritage.’
Griessel sighed. He suspected ‘Brackenfell Brak’ was a tad too long for a skinny teenage shoulder, which was why Fritz was suddenly taking his ‘heritage’ from his father’s origins – and the contrived name of Jack Parow. And the ‘working class’ was pure hip hop. ‘Just do me one favour,’ he said.
‘What, Pa?’
‘Just wait a week.’
‘So Pa can tell Ma.’
‘I won’t say a word.’ He and Anna couldn’t talk about anything without arguing anyway. She would blame him for this too.
‘You swear, Pa?’
‘I swear.’
Long silence. ‘OK.’
When he turned the handle of Alexa’s front door and found it unlocked, he knew.
He found her in the sitting room. She was slumped in the big easy
chair, snoring softly. An empty glass lay on the carpet, a bottle of gin stood on the table, three-quarters empty. The ashtray was overflowing.
‘Fuck,’ he said quietly. He couldn’t help it.
He picked up the bottle first and emptied it down the kitchen sink. That smell in his nostrils … Gin had never been his poison, but the desire for what it could do moved like a paralysing wave through him, so that he just stood there. His brain said, Fetch a glass, just pour a little one.
He shook himself.
Jissis
. He threw the bottle in the rubbish. Where had she got it?
He went up to her room. The bed was unmade. He pulled the sheets straight, readied it for her. Went back down to the sitting room. Woke her up, with a great deal of difficulty. She was very drunk, mumbling incoherent words, her body as limp as a rag doll when he tried to get her to stand. She smelled of drink, sweat and cigarettes. They struggled up the stairs for the second night in a row. At last he laid her on the bed.
‘Where were …?’ she said, forming the words with effort, her eyes already closed.
He sat down beside her.
‘… were you?’
‘At work,’ he said quietly.
Her eyes slowly opened. ‘You … stay … please,’ she said, still struggling with the ‘s’ sounds.
‘I’ll stay,’ he said.
Her eyes closed again, followed by a lazy nod.
Monday
At a quarter to six in the morning he put the coffee cup on her bedside table, sat down next to her and said her name, over and over, louder and louder, until she began to stir, and eventually opened her eyes.
She looked terrible, her skin pale and sallow, with red blotches, eyes bloodshot. There was a white trail of dried saliva down her chin. She was disorientated at first, said, ‘What?’ and struggled to sit up.
‘I brought you some coffee.’
She shifted upright against the pillows, as the present slowly penetrated.
‘You can’t see me like this,’ she said, and covered her face with her hands.