Free Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer Page B

envy; there are people who
haven't spoken to each other for years, new enmities ... the list is endless.
Our Adam was in the thick of things. Would it be enough to inspire murder? As
Fransman correctly pointed out, in this country, anything is possible.'
    Jimmy and Arnold from Forensics came through the door. 'Oh,
there's Prof, morning, Prof,' said Arnold, the fat one.
    'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are here. Morning, gentlemen.'
    'Prof, can we ask you something?'
    'Of course.'
    'Prof, the thing is ...' said Arnold.
    'Women ...' said Jimmy.
    'Why are their breasts so big, Prof?'
    'I mean, look at the animals ...'
    'Much smaller, Prof...'
    'Jissis ,' said Fransman Dekker.
    'I say it's revolution,' said Arnold.
    'Evolution, you ape,' said Jimmy.
    'Whatever,' said Arnold.
    Pagel looked at them with the goodwill of a patient parent.
'Interesting question, colleagues. But we will have to continue this
conversation elsewhere. Come and see me in Salt River.'
    'We're not mortuary kind of guys, Prof...'
    Dekker's cell phone rang. He checked the screen. 'It's
Cloete,' he said.
    'And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,' said Pagel on the
way to the door, because Cloete was the SAPS media liaison officer. 'Goodbye,
colleagues.'
    They said goodbye and listened to Fransman Dekker give Cloete
the relevant infamous details.
    Griessel shook his head. Something big was brewing. Just a
look outside would tell you that. His own phone rang. He answered: 'Griessel.'
    'Benny,' said Vusi Ndabeni, 'I think you should come.'

Chapter 9
     
    Rachel Anderson crept down the gully. It deepened as
she progressed, the sides steep, rough, impassable. They hemmed her in, but
offered shelter enough for her to stand. They would have difficulty seeing her.
The slope became steeper, the terrain more rugged. It was just after eight, and
hot. She clambered down rocks clutching the roots of trees, her throat parched,
her knees threatening to give in. She had to find water, she had to get
something to eat, she had to keep moving.
    Then she saw the path leading up to the right, and steps
carved out of the rock and earth. She stared. She had no idea what awaited her
up there.
     
    Alexa Barnard watched them carry her husband's body past the
door and her face twisted with emotion.
    Tinkie Kellerman got up and came across to sit on the couch
beside her. She put a soft hand on her arm. Alexa felt an overwhelming urge to
be held by this slender policewoman. But she just sat there, moving her arms to
grip her own shoulders in a desperate self-embrace. She hung her head and
watched the tears drip onto the white material of her dressing-gown sleeve,
disappearing as if they had never existed.
     
    Rachel Anderson climbed to just short of the top and peered
over the edge of the gully with a thudding heart. Only the mountain. And
silence. Another step up and, suddenly realising they could see her from
behind, she turned in fright, but there was no one. The last two steps, she was
careful. To her left were the roofs of houses, the highest row on the mountain.
Ahead was a path running along the back of the houses, with trees offering
shade and cover. To the right was the steep slope of the mountain, then the
mountain itself.
    She looked back once, then stepped hastily onto the path,
head down.
     
    Griessel drove back to Long Street in much lighter traffic. Vusi
had said he should come to the Cat & Moose.
    'What's going on?' he had asked.
    'I'll tell you when you get here.' He had the tone of someone
speaking in the presence of others.
    But Griessel wasn't thinking about that. He sat in his police
car and thought of Alexa Barnard. About her voice and her story, about the
beauty hidden beneath twenty years of alcohol abuse. He mused on how the mind
brought up the memory of the younger, lovelier image and projected it onto the
fabric of her current face so that the two were seen together - the past and
the present, so far removed and so inseparable. He thought of the intensity
with