Dekker didn't look at him. Griessel walked away down the passage.
'Benny,' said Dekker when he was almost in the reception area. Griessel turned.
'Thank you,' with reluctant frankness.
Griessel gestured with his hand and left.
One of the men in the lounge got up from an ostrich leather couch and tried to intercept him. Benny tried to avoid eye contact, but the man was too quick for him. 'Are you from the police?' He was tall, just over thirty, with a face that seemed very familiar to Griessel.
In a hurry and bothered, he said: 'Yes, but I can't talk to you now.' He would have liked to add 'because they are fucking me around', but he didn't. 'My colleague is still inside. Talk to him when he comes out,' and he jogged down the stairs, across the grass to where his car was parked.
There was a parking ticket stuck to the windscreen, right in the middle of the driver's window.
'Fuck,' he said, frustration surging over his dam wall of self- control. More paperwork that he didn't need. Metro Police had time to write fucking parking tickets, but don't ask them to help with anything else. He left the ticket right where it was, climbed in, started the engine and reversed out, grinding the gears as he drove away. He was going to ask the Commissioner for a clear job description.
Benny Griessel, Great Mentor, just didn't work for him. He had asked John Afrika last Thursday exactly what this job entailed. The answer: 'Benny, you're my safety net, my supervisor. Just keep an eye, check the crime scene management, don't let them miss suspects. Bliksem, Benny, we train them until it's coming out of everybody's ears, but the minute they stand on the scene, either it's stage fright or just plain sloppiness, I don't know. Maybe we're pushing them too fast, but I have to meet my targets, what else can I do? Look at the bliksemse Van der Vyver case; he's suing the Minister for millions; we just can't let that happen. Look over shoulders, Benny, give a gentle nudge where necessary.'
A fucking gentle nudge?
He had to brake suddenly for the traffic jam up ahead, two rows of cars, ten deep. The power cut meant all the traffic lights were down. Chaos.
'Jissis,' he said aloud. At least Eskom was one state institution that was worse than the SAPS.
He leaned back against the seat. It wouldn't help to get angry.
But, fuck it, what were you supposed to do?
From one case to the next. First here, then there. That was a recipe for a disaster.
If Josh Geyser wasn't the one who shot Barnard ...
That guy inside, he remembered now who he was. Ivan Nell, the star, he'd heard all his stuff on RSG; good, modulated rock, although he was stingy with the bass. He was sorry he hadn't talked to him quickly, he could have written to Carla about it tonight, but that's how it went, time for fuck all except sitting in the traffic, cursing.
He was hungry too. Only coffee since last night, he would have to do something about his blood sugar and suddenly he had a desire to smoke. He opened the cubbyhole, scratched around and found a half-pack of Chesterfield and a box of Lion matches. He lit one, wound the window down and felt the heat rising up from the street surface and flowing into the window.
He drew on the cigarette, slowly blowing out the smoke. It dammed up against the windscreen, then wafted out the window.
This morning Alexa Barnard had offered him a cigarette and he had said no thank you. 'An alcoholic that doesn't smoke?' she had asked. He had said he was trying to cut down because his AA sponsor was a doctor.
Then she said get another sponsor.
He liked her.
He should never have given her the alcohol.
And then he remembered that he wanted to atone for his mistake. He felt in his pocket while moving one car-length forward, found the phone and pressed the keys with his thumb.
It rang for a long time, as usual.
'Benny!' said Doc Barkhuizen, always bloody upbeat. 'Are you persevering?'
'Doc, you ever heard of the famous singer, Xandra Barnard?'
'They're taking a lot of interest in a house here,' said Barry over the cell phone. He drove slowly down Upper Orange in his beat- up red Toyota single-cab.
'What sort of interest?'
'There's a thousand uniformed Constables on the pavement, and this fat woman detective standing in the garden with a geriatric guy.'
'So find out what it's about.'
Barry looked at the houses in the street. On the right, a hundred metres down and opposite the Victorian house was a possibility. A long tar driveway to a single garage. 'Yeah...' He saw the uniforms watching him. 'Maybe. But not right now, there are too many eyes. Let me give it ten minutes or so ...'
11:03-12:00
Chapter 21
The hissing gas lamp that stood on the mixer bench threw an absurd shadow of Melinda Geyser onto the opposite wall. She stood with her face only centimetres from the glass, the recording booths behind her shaded in gloom. Dekker leaned forward in a leather chair on wheels, his elbows on his knees, because the leather back creaked loudly when he leaned back. He was perspiring. Without air conditioning it was getting hotter.
'Sorry about the misunderstanding,' she said, folding her arms under her breasts. Her figure was not without its attractions - the green blouse, jeans with white leather belt and big silver buckle, white pumps with wedge cork heels. But it bothered him, it wasn't what he expected from a gospel artist, the clothes were just that little bit too tight. They made him think of the kind of women who were most blatantly interested in him - late thirties, early forties, looks just starting to fade, and wanting to make the most of the last years of their sensual prime.
Maybe that was just how musicians were. 'Maybe I overreacted,' he said, and the sincerity in his voice was a surprise to him.
'Do you know what the difference is between life and making a CD?' she asked. She kept staring at the glass. He wondered if she was watching her own reflection.
'No,' said Dekker.
'The difference is that in life there is only one take.'
Was she about to lecture him?
'Adam had never asked me to come on my own before .Yesterday morning he phoned to say he had to see me. Those were his words, as though he had no choice. As though I was in trouble. "I have to see you. Just you." Like a headmaster sending for a naughty child.'
Then she moved, unfolding her arms, and turning to face Dekker. She took two steps and sat down on a two-seater leather couch opposite him, with her right arm on the armrest and the left on the cushions. She looked him in the eye and said: 'If you have done things in your life that might catch up with you, then you don't argue. You lie to your beloved husband, Mr Dekker, and you go to Adam Barnard's office and ask him what is going on.'
Mister. Now I'm a Mister.
The usually jovial Adam Barnard was serious, she said. Melinda sat dead still while she talked, not moving her hands or body, as if she was on thin ice, over deep waters. There was a determination in her voice.
Barnard had pushed a slim DVD case across his desk to her, the rewritable kind with the manufacturer's logo visible through the transparent plastic. She had looked at him, questioning. He had said nothing. She'd opened it. Inside someone had written on the white surface of the DVD in permanent ink, Melinda 1987. She had known right away what it was.
She took a deep breath, looked to the right at the glass, as if to see herself one last time.
'You need to know about my background, Mr Dekker. We live in a strange world, in a society that has to label things to accommodate them.' Her use of language surprised him, more sophisticated than he had expected.