Thirteen Hours

Bobby Verster's eyes widened. He protested, just as he claimed he had done the previous night. 'But you said I was innocent!'

'No, I asked you if you were. Come, there's a police van outside that will take you to Pollsmoor.'

'Pollsmoor?'

'Just until the bail hearing. In about a week or two. Three.'

'Wait...'

Griessel waited.

Bobby Verster thought for a long time. Then he said: 'You're looking for Blake.'

'Who is Blake?'

'Do I still have to go to Pollsmoor?'

'Everything is negotiable.'

'Blake is the owner. Of Overland. We bring the people in for him.'

'What people?'

'The blacks.'

'What blacks?'

'The blacks they put in the bins under the trailer. From Zimbabwe. But they're not always Zimbabweans.'

'Illegal immigrants?'

'Something like that. I don't know. I've only been helping with unloading about a month, but they won't tell me everything yet.'

'What is Blake's name?'

'Duncan. But we call him Mr B. He lives here in the city, that's all I know.'

'Thank you very much.'

'Do I still have to go to Pollsmoor?'

'Yip.'

Fransman Dekker brought another two uniforms along with him to AfriSound. They walked through the pack of journalists in the little garden. He ignored the questions. One of the two Constables guarding the door opened up for them. Dekker said: 'All of you come with me.' They climbed the stairs in step, the detective in front, four uniforms behind him. They walked through the reception area. Dekker smiled at Natasha. He felt self-confident

for the first time today. Down the passage as far as Mouton's office. He didn't knock, he just walked in.

The lawyer wasn't there.

'What now?' Mouton asked.

'The best thing about my job, the thing I enjoy most of all, is arresting a whitey bastard,' said Dekker.

Mouton's Adam's apple bobbed wildly up and down, but he couldn't get a word out. Dekker asked two Constables to keep an eye on Mouton and walked out, beckoned the other two uniforms closer and opened Wouter Steenkamp's door. The accountant was seated behind his computer.

'We know all about last night,' he said. Steenkamp didn't bat an eyelid.

'He doesn't phone anyone, he doesn't move, he just sits here,' said Dekker to the two uniforms. 'I'll be back soon.'

Griessel called Vusi and Mat Joubert. He held a quick meeting in the station commander's office. He told them what Bobby Verster had said. Once the detectives had finished discussing it, Vusi went back and told Barry Smith: 'We're bringing in Mr B. We know everything.'

Barry Smith turned white. 'Fuck off,' he said, with more venom.

'Murder,' said Vusi to him. 'Life sentence.'

'Fuck off, you black bastard.'

The injustices of the day bore down incredibly heavily on Vusumuzi Ndabeni, but he shook them off one last time. Then Barry Smith said: 'Fucking motherfucker,' and Vusi's temper exploded over him like the mighty breakers on the Wild Coast. In one lightning move he reached the young white man, and his fist struck his temple with all the power in the lean, neat body behind it.

Barry's head jerked back and he toppled backwards, chair and all. His head hit the floor with a dull thud. Vusi was there, on him, jerking him up by the collar, shoving his face into Barry's and said: 'My mother is a decent woman, do you hear?'

Then he let go of him and stood back, breathing heavily. Vusi adjusted his jacket, realised his knuckles hurt and saw that Barry's eyes had trouble focusing. Barry got unsteadily to his feet, looked back, slowly picked up the chair, set it right and sat down. He put his hands on the table in slow motion and dropped his head onto them, his palms obscuring his face.

It was quite a while before Vusi realised that the young man was crying. He pulled out a chair and sat down. He said nothing, not trusting his voice: his rage had not subsided, the guilt was just a small dark spot in his belly.

They sat like that for over a minute.

'My mother is going to kill me,' said Barry through his hands.

'I can help you,' said Vusi.

Barry sobbed, making his whole body shake. Then he began to talk.

Dekker sat opposite Mouton. He said: 'I know you didn't shoot Adam Barnard. I know about the girl and the four guys chasing her.'

'Five,' said Mouton, and then looked as if he could bite off his tongue.

'Five,' said Dekker in satisfaction.

'I want to phone my lawyer,' said Mouton.

'Later. Let me tell you what happened. Barnard phoned you, last night, just after nine. You knew we would find a record of the call, that's why you volunteered it so easily ...'

Mouton's Adam's apple moved, he wanted to say something, but Dekker silenced him with a hand. 'Adam didn't phone you to tell you how silly Ivan Nell's accusations were. He was worried. Nell told me Barnard was disturbed. He wasn't himself. He had a suspicion. He had a feeling, he knew someone was fucking with the money. I don't know why yet, but I will find out. In any case, Adam said he wanted to see you. Did he tell you to come to the office, you and Wouter? Or was it your suggestion - keep trouble away from home? So you came in here, probably very worried, because you are guilty. What time was that, Willie? Did he tell you to come at eleven so he could look at the figures first?

I know he worked on his computer last night. He was so upset by what he saw that he never turned his laptop off. It was still on this morning. Maybe he loaded all the records on a CD so that you couldn't go and fiddle with them. You sat here, or maybe in his office, and he confronted you. Did you deny everything, Willie? How am I doing so far? Never mind, let me finish. You argued and fought from eleven o'clock to half past one in the night. Barnard must have said something like; 'Leave it, we'll talk more tomorrow.' He must have been tired. Thinking of his drunken wife at home. And you and Steenkamp followed him out into the garden. Argued some more. You went in just when the girl arrived. You got lucky, in more than one way. Because if you had been standing there, you might also have been shot. But then they shot Adam. Problem number one solved. There you two were, looking out the window at the body, and you thought: what now? Your big problem was Ivan Nell. Because, whatever you did, if Ivan came and told us there was a snake in the grass, you were in trouble.

'So you wondered how you could make it look different, as though you had never been here. Give someone else the blame. Then you remembered about Josh and the Big Sin. And Alexa and the pistol. Fucking brilliant, Willie, I have to tell you. So you carried Barnard to the car. If he was in your or Wouter's car there will be blood and hair and fibres and DNA, and we'll find it.

'Now, I must say, I couldn't figure out the shoe and the cell phone. Until about half an hour ago, when I put the whole story together. The shoe came off when you picked up Adam to carry him to the car. You must have picked him up by the feet. And the cell phone was in his hand when he was shot. So you picked up the phone and you remembered that he had phoned you. So you deleted his call history. And you put the cell phone in the shoe and the shoe in your pocket, or on top of Barnard, we will probably never know. And then when you reached the car and opened the boot, you put the shoe on the roof of the car. Just for the mean time. And then in your hurry you forgot about the shoe. You drove off, Wouter in front with Adam's car and you following.

Something like that. And up there on the corner, as you turned, the shoe falls off and you don't even know it. How am I doing, Willie? I'm telling you, I had a really hard time figuring out that shoe, until I went up there to the corner again. It came to me in a flash. Fucking brilliant, let me tell you.'

Mouton just stared at Dekker.

'You and Wouter carried him up the stairs and you put him down there with Alexa. And you went and got the pistol out of the safe that you installed in the house. Somewhere you fired off three shots. I'm guessing you couldn't do it in the house. Even if you used a pillow or something to reduce the noise, you were too scared of waking Alexa, drunk or not. You must have driven somewhere, Willie. Up the mountain? Somewhere that it wouldn't matter. Then you went back and put the pistol down there. Clever. But not clever enough.'