Thirteen Hours Read Free Page A

back?
    'Hey!'
    She was shocked by the voice, a hammer blow to her chest. She
could not tell if she moved in that second.
    The dark figure moved away, but without
haste.      
    'What do you want?' The voice came from the house, up above.
Someone was talking to the black man.
    'Nothing.'
    'Get the fuck off my property.'
    No answer. He stood still, then moved, slowly, reluctantly,
until his broken shape disappeared through the leaves.
     
    The two detectives searched the church grounds from the
southern side. Vusi began at the front, along the Long Street border with the
spiked baroque railings. Griessel began at the back, along the high brick wall.
He walked slowly, one step at a time, his head down and eyes moving back and
forth. He battled to concentrate, there was a sense of discomfort in him, an
elusive feeling, vague and formless. He had to focus here now, on the bare
ground, the grass tufts around the base of the trees, the stretches of tarred
pathway. He bent every now and then to pick up something and hold it in his
fingers - the top of a beer bottle, two rings from cold drink cans, a rusty
metal washer, an empty white plastic bag.
    He worked his way around behind the church, where the street
noise was suddenly muted. He glanced up at the steeple. There was a cross at
the top. How many times had he driven past and never really looked? The church
building was lovely, an architectural style he could not name. The garden was
well cared for, with big palms, pines and oleanders, planted who knows how many
years ago? He went around behind the small office building, where the sounds of
the street returned. In the northern corner of the grounds he stopped and stood
looking up and down Long Street. This was still the old Cape here, the
buildings semi-Victorian, most only two storeys high, some painted now in bright
colours, probably to appeal to the young. What was this vague unease he felt in
him? It had nothing to do with last night. Nor was it the other issue that he
had been avoiding for two, three weeks - about Anna and moving back in and
whether it would ever work.
    Was it the mentoring? To be at the scene of a murder, able to
look but not touch? He would find it hard, he knew that now.
    Maybe he should just get something to eat.
    He looked south, towards the Orange Street crossing. Just
before seven on a Tuesday morning and the street was busy - cars, buses, taxis,
scooters, pedestrians. The energetic bustle of mid-January, schools reopening,
holidays over, forgotten. On the pavement the murder audience had grown to a
small crowd. Two press photographers had also arrived, camera bags over
shoulders, long lenses held like weapons in front of them. He knew one of them,
a bar-room buddy from his drinking days who had worked for the Cape Times for years and was now chasing sensation
for a tabloid. One night in the Fireman's Arms he had said that if you were to
lock up the press and the police on Robben Island for a week, the liquor
industry in Cape Town would collapse.
    He saw a cyclist weaving skilfully through the traffic on a
racing bike, those incredibly thin wheels, the rider in tight black shorts,
vivid shirt, shoes, crash helmet, the fucker was even wearing gloves. His gaze
followed the cycle to the Orange Street traffic lights, knowing that he never
wanted to look that silly. He felt stupid enough with the piss-pot helmet on
his head. He wouldn't even have worn it if he hadn't got it for free, with the
bicycle.
    Doc Barkhuizen, his sponsor at Alcoholics Anonymous, had
started the whole thing. Frustrated, Griessel had told Doc that the pull of the
bottle was not diminishing. The first three months were long over, the
so-called crisis period, and yet his desire was as great as it was on the first
day. Doc had recited the 'one day at a time' rhyme, but Griessel said he needed
more than that. Doc said 'You need a distraction, what do you do in the
evenings?'
    Evenings? Policemen had no 'evenings'. When he did get