Thirteen Hours

Griessel nodded. 'Good idea. But you will have to put pressure on the photographer. They're slow ...'

'I will.' Ndabeni bent down to the pathologist. 'Doctor, if you could give me an idea of how long she has been dead ...'

Tiffany October didn't look up. 'It's too soon ...'

Griessel wondered where Prof Phil Pagel, the chief pathologist, was this morning. Pagel would have sat there and given them a calculated guess that would have been within thirty minutes of the actual time of death. He would have dipped a finger in the pool of blood, prodded the corpse here and there, saying it was the small muscles that displayed rigor mortis first, and he thought she had been dead for approximately so many hours, which he would later confirm. But Tiffany October did not have Pagel's experience.

'Give us a guess,' said Griessel.

'Really, I can't.'

She's afraid of getting it wrong, Griessel thought. He moved toward Vusi and spoke softly, close to his ear, so that she would not hear. 'She's been lying there a while, Vusi. The blood is black already.'

'How long?'

'Don't know. Four hours ... maybe more. Five.'

'OK. So we'll have to get moving.'

Griessel nodded. 'Get those photos quickly. And talk to the Metro people, Vusi. They have video cameras monitoring the streets - in Long Street as well. Let's hope the stuff was working last night. The control centre is in Wale Street. There just might be something ...'

'Thanks, Benny.'

She fell asleep, against the wall, behind the shrubbery.

She had wanted to rest for just a moment. She shut her eyes and sank back with her backpack against the wall and her legs stretched out in front of her, trying to escape the exhaustion and the tension for a little while. The events of the night were demons in her mind. To escape that, she had thought about her parents, what time it would be at home, but the calculation of time zones was too much for her. If it had been early morning in Lafayette her father would be sitting with the paper, the Journal & Courier, shaking his head over the comments of Joe Tiller, the Perdue football coach. Her mother would be late, as always, her heels clattering down the stairs, in too much of a hurry, the battered brown leather briefcase over her shoulder, 'I'm late, I'm late, how can I be late again?' and father and daughter would share their ritual smile over the kitchen table. This routine, this haven, the safety of her family home overwhelmed her with terrible longing and she wanted to phone them, right now, hear their voices, tell them how much she loved them. She carried on this imaginary conversation, with her father answering gently and calmly, until sleep crept up and overcame her.

Chapter 3

Dr Tiffany October called them: 'Inspector ...'

'Yes?'

'I could speculate a little ...'

Griessel wondered if she had overheard him talking.

'Anything could help ...'

'I think she died here, at the scene. The blood pattern shows that he cut her throat while she lay here. I think he held her flat on the ground, on her stomach, and then he cut her. There are no splash marks to show that she was standing.'

'Oh ...' He had already worked all that out.

'And these two cuts ...' She pointed at the two cuts on the girl's shoulder blades.

'Yes?'

'It seems as if they were inflicted post mortem.'

He nodded.

'These look like fibres here ...' Dr October used a small pair of tweezers carefully around the wound. 'Synthetic material, a dark colour, totally different from her clothing ...'

Ndabeni looked at the forensic team, now walking bent over along the pathway, heads together, eyes searching, mouths never still. 'Jimmy,' he called, 'here's something for you ...' Then he crouched down with the pathologist.

She said: 'I think he cut something off her back. Something like a backpack, you know, the two shoulder straps ...'

Jimmy knelt beside her. Tiffany October showed him the fibres. 'I'll wait until you've collected them.'

'OK,' said Jimmy. He and his partner took out instruments to collect the fibres. They continued an earlier conversation, as though there had been no interruption: 'I'm telling you it's Amore.'

'It's not Amore, it's Amor,' said fat Arnold and took a thin transparent plastic bag out of his bag. He kept it ready.

'What are you talking about?' asked Vusi.

'Joost's wife.'

'Joost who?'

'Van der Westhuizen.'

'Who's that?'

'The rugby player.'

'He was Springbok captain, Vusi.'

'I'm more of a soccer guy.'

'Anyway, she has this pair of ...' Arnold used his hands to indicate big breasts. Tiffany October looked away, offended. 'I'm just stating a fact,' said Arnold defensively.

Carefully Jimmy pulled the fibres out of the wound with tweezers. 'Her name is Amore,' he said.

'It's Amor, I'm telling you. So this ou climbs on the stage with her and ...'

'What ou? asked Vusi.

'I don't know. Some ou that went to see one of her shows. So he grabs the microphone and says "you've got the best tits in the business", he says to Amor and Joost was the moer in, heavily upset.'

'What was she doing on the stage?' asked Griessel.

'Jeez, Benny, don't you read the You magazine? She's a singer.'

'So Joost grabs him after the show and says, "You can't talk to my wife like that", and the ou says to Joost, "But she has got nice tits" ...' Arnold laughed uproariously.

Jimmy hee-heed along. Tiffany October walked off towards the wall, clearly annoyed.

'What?' said the short one innocently after her. 'It's a true story ...'

'You should say "bosom",' said Jimmy.

'But it's what the ou said.'

'Now why didn't Joost just klap him?' 'That's what I'd like to know. He tackled Jonah Lomu till his teeth rattled ...'

'Jonah who?' asked Vusi.

'Jeez, Vusi, that huge New Zealand winger. Anyway, Joost breaks booms at security gates when he's the hell-in, he's hell on wheels on the rugby field, but he won't smack a guy that talks about his wife's t... uh, bosoms.'

'Let's be reasonable, how is he going to get that past the magistrate? The guy's lawyer just has to whip out a stack of You magazines and say "Your Honour, check this out, in every photo her exhibits are displayed, from Tittendale down to Naval Hill". What can you expect, the guys will talk about your wife's assets like they belong to them.'

'That's true. But I'm telling you, it's Amor.'

'Never.'

'You're thinking of Amore Bekker, the DJ.'

'Nuh-uh. But let me tell you one thing: I wouldn't let my wife walk around like that.'

'Your wife doesn't have the best tits in the business. If you've got it, flaunt it...'

'Are you finished?' asked Benny.

'We have to finish the path and do the wall,' said Jimmy and got to his feet. Vusi called the photographer over. 'How soon can I get my pictures of the face?' The photographer, young, curly-haired, shrugged. 'I'll see what I can do.'

Tell him not a damn, thought Griessel. Vusi just nodded.

'No,' said Griessel. 'We need them before eight. It's not negotiable.'

The photographer walked away to the wall, not bothering to hide his attitude. Griessel looked after him with disgust. 'Thanks, Benny,' said Vusi quietly.

'Don't be too nice, Vusi.'

'I know ...'

After an uncomfortable silence, he asked: 'Benny, what am I missing?'