7 Days (6 page)

He urinated in the second bathroom, washed his hands and face. Walked back to the room, closed the door, undressed. He set the alarm on his cellphone for seven o’clock and climbed into the bed, his weariness a heavy weight. Long day.

But Griessel’s brain kept working.

There was something about the case that bothered him. Not an obvious flaw, just a vague impression. Of an investigator who had looked in all the right places, asked all the right questions. Thorough, complete, by the book. And nothing more. No flair. No intuition. He knew how investigations worked, you went through your routine, starting with the people closest to the victim, and, if that yielded nothing, you spread your net wider and wider. Until somewhere you came across something that stuck in the back of your mind, a suspicion, a false note, and then you dug there, you focused, you applied pressure. And nine times out of ten you were right.

Instinct.

He hadn’t found that in the Sloet file. The trouble with station detectives was partly the training, the strong emphasis on forensic aids and technology. Intuition didn’t count any more. And the lack of experience, because they were frequently young, often working in unfamiliar surroundings, other cultural and language groups, under a lot of pressure from all sides. They did their best, but …

It wasn’t robbery. The laptop and the cellphone there on the work table … Even if no one could say whether anything was missing from the apartment, theft was most likely not the motive.

And she didn’t die
at
the door. Her body lay nearly four metres inside the apartment, and the blood pattern said she was stabbed at least three metres from the door. From the front. She hadn’t tried to turn around or run away – she had confronted her attacker, but not defended herself. Not fought for her life. From habit Griessel recreated the scene in his mind automatically, somewhat reluctantly. She opens the door. She sees who it is. She retreats …

But she doesn’t defend herself?

The handle of the front door is wiped clean.

Hanneke Sloet was working upstairs in her bedroom. The glass of wine was there, the computer, the files.

It just wouldn’t fit.

And the photographs. Sloet having them taken deliberately in a studio. Seductive. Naked.

Nonetheless she had not been in a serious relationship during the past year. It bothered him,
that
combination.

Maybe she didn’t have time for relationships. In the gym at six in the morning, only home at eight at night. Last year she was still driving in from Stellenbosch, back in the evening.

Maybe. But why the photos then, the effort?

He must remember to ask Tommy Nxesi where they had found the photos. Where had she kept them?

He kept his thoughts deliberately on the case, because he didn’t want to relive his great embarrassment. But somewhere on the edge of sleep he remembered with a degree of satisfaction that someone had mistaken him for Paul Eilers tonight.

So he couldn’t be
that
ugly.

He dreamed of Lize Beekman. They were walking down a busy street and he was endlessly trying to explain why he had said such a ridiculous thing in front of her. But she wasn’t paying attention to him. She
disappeared, melted away in the crowd and people looked at him with great disdain on their faces.

The cellphone’s alarm jerked him awake and he half sat up, not sure where he was.

He saw the file on the dressing table. The events of yesterday slowly penetrated through to him. He rubbed his palms over his face. He got up slowly, dressed and went to the bathroom to empty his bladder and wash his face. Then he took a cautious look in Alexa’s bedroom.

She was still asleep.

He considered his options. He had to go home, shower, shave, brush his teeth and eat breakfast – he hadn’t eaten a thing last night. And then meet Tommy Nxesi at Sloet’s apartment. But he didn’t want just to leave Alexa like this …

He made a decision, carried the files down to his car, found the notebook and pen in the glove compartment. The morning was bright and clear without a breath of wind, the mountain and cliffs glowing. He stood in the street for a moment taking it in, then he jogged back, sat down again at the dressing table in the second bedroom to write her a note.

Alexa

I am really sorry about last night. It was all my fault. Call me when you wake up. I want to talk to you urgently
.

Benny

He tore the page out, tiptoed into her room and put it on the bedside cabinet where she would see it.

The sparkling new five-storey building at 36 on Rose was designed to represent the Bo-Kaap architecture with a modern twist. The lower levels were colourfully painted, just like the little labourers’ houses further down Rose Street.

Nxesi was waiting at the front door. He was the same height as Griessel, but broader, slightly bow-legged. His black-framed glasses and brown tweed jacket gave him a professorial look. His greeting was friendly. ‘I’ve got the keys, but security will have to take us up to the floor.’ He had a township accent. He held the door open for Griessel.

‘Sorry about this, Tommy,’ Griessel said as he walked in.

‘It’s nothing, Captain. I expected you guys to take over the case long ago.’

The entrance foyer was new and shiny. A man and a woman in security uniforms sat behind a desk. Nxesi pointed at the TV camera behind them, on the wall. ‘The CCTV and the card system in the lifts should have been operational by the end of December, but at the end of January they were still finishing up. On January eighteenth there was no security except these people at reception. Trouble is, at the time, an intruder could have entered via the parking garage.’

He showed his SAPS identification card to the female guard, spoke to her in Xhosa. She made them sign a book first, a precaution Griessel never could fathom, since you could write absolutely anything there.

Then she led them to the lift. ‘Nowadays you have to push a card in if you want to go up.’ Nxesi pointed to a slot just above the button panel of the lift. ‘Then you press the right floor. If you press a number that is not programmed on your card, it won’t work. Coming down, it works automatically.’

‘But on January eighteenth it wasn’t working?’

‘No. Two days after the murder, then it was working.’ He shook his head.

The security guard made a noise of protest. Nxesi adjusted his glasses. ‘They’re touchy about the murder, because half the flats are still for sale.’

At the door, while he unlocked, Nxesi said, ‘Everything is just as it was, because the case is still open. But the lawyers have started to nag the SC, they want us to clean up, so they can wind up the estate. The parents inherit everything. They live in Jeffreys Bay. Retired.’

He pushed the door open, waited for Griessel to go ahead.

Griessel confirmed that there was a peephole in the front door, and a security chain and bolt, undamaged. Then he stopped, he wanted to get a feel for the room first.

It was smaller than the impression created by the photographs, but still spacious and attractive and modern. The morning light shining through the large windows made it look cheerful, and the view south included a part of Signal Hill. To his left was the single pillar, the kitchen behind it. He heard the quiet murmur of the fridge, an expensive
double-door. The couch and chairs stood between the pillar and the windows, in the centre of the room. The painting hung on the wall to his right, above the stereo. The artwork looked more interesting than it did in the photographs. At the window stood the white telescope on a tripod.

He looked around, saw Nxesi watching him intently. ‘Can I see the key, Tommy?’

The Xhosa detective held it out to him. ‘This one is for the front door.’ He showed the silver Yale key. ‘This one is for her car, the other is for those cupboards up there.’ The bunch was attached to a little metal ring.

‘Were there any spare keys?’

‘Just for the cupboards, and her car. She kept them in the drawer beside her bed.’

‘In her office?’

Nxesi shook his head.

‘And security? Do they have a key?’

‘Hayi
. Only the caretaker has a master key, but he doesn’t have a lift card. Security has to bring him, but only if the owner has given permission.’

‘Her car?’

‘It’s still here, down in the parking garage. Mini Cooper S Convertible. Forensics have been through it. Nothing.’

‘Thanks.’ Griessel handed the keys back.

He looked at the blood.

On the shiny, grey marble tiles, three paces from the entrance, was the first fan of fine brown dried blood spray, circled in black by Forensics. About a metre further on was the wide, hardened pool where she had lain.

Griessel reversed, as far as the threshold, took two steps forward, another shuffle. The murderer would have stood here. The mortal wound was inflicted right here. She had staggered backwards, probably from the violence of it. Then collapsed.

Griessel bent down, examined the first, delicate spatters. They had been perfectly preserved, no footprints, no smearing.

He walked past the pillar, to the kitchen. The sink was empty. The worktop was clean, just as it was in the photos.

‘Tommy, was there nothing in the sink?’

Nxesi came and stood with him. ‘Nothing. She ate at work. Ordered a Thai take-away, around about six-forty in the evening. The delivery service left it at reception at Silberstein House at five past seven. Then they phoned her and she went to collect it. The boxes were in her trash. That’s why the pathologist was so certain about the time of death. He says that last meal had barely left the stomach, there was very little in the small intestine. If she ate just before seven, then the time of death was very close to ten o’clock.’

‘You’re a good detective, Tommy,’ Griessel said pensively.

‘I try …’

‘When I … They did it to me too, Tommy. Gave my case to someone else. I know how it feels.’

‘Captain, it’s OK.’ He fiddled with his glasses again.

‘It’s easier when you can read the whole case file first. All the footwork is done already.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s just catch the one who did this.’

Griessel noted Nxesi’s earnest expression. ‘Thanks, Tommy.’ He pointed at the top floor. ‘There was a wine glass, beside her computer. But no bottle …’

Nxesi opened a door of the free-standing kitchen counter, and pointed. ‘The wine was here, Forensics took the bottle. Red wine, opened, the bottle was about half full.’

Sloet must have poured the wine, put the bottle away. ‘She was tidy.’

‘You should see the cupboards. It’s like a shop.’

‘Where is the drawer with the knives?’

Nxesi showed him a set of drawers. ‘The cutlery is on top, the utensils in the third one,’ he said.

Griessel pulled open the top drawer. Silver cutlery, forks, knives, spoons, teaspoons. Nothing that could remotely match the measurements of the murder weapon.

‘There are three kitchen knives in the other one,’ Nxesi said. ‘But nothing that comes close.’

Benny opened the third drawer. It wasn’t very full. A couple of serving and salad spoons, a modest collection of cooking utensils. And three knives with black handles, different sizes, the longest was a butcher’s knife, but the dimensions were still too modest to have been the murder weapon.

‘Even if there was a bigger one in that set, it would still be too narrow,’ said Nxesi. ‘I searched the flat, Captain. If she had a dagger or an assegai … No trace. I don’t know …’

Griessel closed the drawer, walked over to the fridge, opened it. There wasn’t much in there. Two containers of expensive flavoured yoghurt, and one of feta cheese. Two kinds of yellow cheese, each sealed in its own plastic cover, a two-litre bottle of orange juice, one third empty. A bottle of white wine, unopened, a container of margarine, a Tupperware tub with what looked like beetroot salad in it.

He opened the freezer compartment. A tub of ice cream, a few bags of frozen vegetables, a single bag of chicken thighs.

He closed the door again.

Upstairs he first looked into the spare bedroom, the one with the sealed cartons. The boxes were neatly stacked on the single bed, in line with the corners. Two rolled-up Persian carpets were pushed up against the empty white bookshelf, so you could walk to the bed easily.

Griessel went over to the bed and inspected the boxes. They were still sealed with the broad sticky tape that removals companies used.

Nxesi followed him as he went out, then down the short passage to the master bedroom. At the end of the passage, just before the bedroom door on the left, was a large window with a view over the city.

The bedroom was big. Built-in cupboards against a long wall. Sloet’s desk opposite, between the two large windows, the cream-coloured curtains closed, just as they were in the photos. Against the door stood the wide, minimalistic double bed, left of that the entrance to the bathroom. On the floor was a big oriental carpet, also cream-coloured, with delicate brown patterning.

‘The light was on,’ Griessel said.

‘It was.’

The desk top was clear now, the computer and files removed. He drew a breath to ask about the laptop, but his cellphone rang. He pulled it out of his shirt pocket. ALEXA, the screen read.

‘Hello.’

‘Benny, I can’t do it.’ There was utter terror in her voice.

He walked out into the passage before asking her, ‘What do you mean?’

‘I can’t do the concert, Benny. I
can’t
.’

‘Alexa, no, don’t worry about it, I’ll soon be …’

‘It’s going to destroy me, Benny.’

He didn’t know what to say to her, suddenly aware of his inability to find the right words, the right approach. ‘It won’t,’ was the best he could do. ‘You are Xandra Barnard.’

‘I am nothing, Benny.’ The tears were close in her voice.

‘I … Alexa, just give me an hour. Have you had any coffee yet?’

‘No,’ she said in a small voice.

‘Go and make yourself some coffee. Eat something. Bath … I’ll come as soon as I can. I’m at work …’