Authors: Deon Meyer
‘You haven’t even drunk your coffee yet.’
Alexa was sitting reading the newspaper. Griessel went up to her table and said, ‘We must go.’
She tapped a finger on the newspaper and looked up at him. ‘Is it this Sloet case you’re investigating?’
‘It is.’
‘And you also have to try and keep an alky singer sober …’
‘It’s the least I can do after Saturday night …’
‘Benny!’ she said loudly, so that a couple of coffee shop clients turned their heads. She lowered her voice. ‘It is
not
your fault …’
‘I’m late,’ he said.
She gave him a penetrating look with bloodshot eyes. Then she took money from her purse, put it in the saucer with the bill, folded up the newspaper and stood. ‘In any case, when I read the article … I can’t do that to you. I organised a sitter …’
‘A sitter?’ he asked as they walked to the door, his head still full of complicated BEE transactions.
‘Ella. From the promoters.’
‘The promoters?’
‘Benny, you’re repeating everything I say. The concert promoters. Ella is my temporary assistant. She … You can drop me off at Grand West. She’ll look after me.’
He stopped outside on the pavement. ‘What did you tell her?’
‘That I’m not allowed to drink.’
He began to walk to the car again, unlocked the door for her, got in the other side. Switched on the ignition. Switched it off again. He turned to her. ‘Does she know you are an alcoholic?’
‘No,’ she said, and looked out of the window.
‘Does she know how an alcoholic’s mind works?’
‘No.’
‘You’ll have to tell her.’ Alexa just sat there.
‘I can only drop you off there,’ Griessel said, ‘if she knows everything.’
Now she turned on him, angry. ‘Who do you think you are?’
‘I am nothing,’ he said quietly. ‘But you are not. You are Xandra Barnard.’
‘Is it necessary for all the world to know, Benny? Is that what you want? Why don’t you just have it printed on the bottom of the posters.
Xandra Barnard, alcoholic, is back. And drunk again
. Is that what you want?’
He stared at her, searching for some other way to handle this, but he could think of nothing, his brain was fuzzy.
Abruptly she jerked open her handbag, pulled out her cellphone. She tapped a number crossly while glaring at him aggressively. She pressed another key on the phone, so that it rang and Ella’s voice was audible over the tiny speaker.
‘This is Ella,’ the woman answered.
‘Ella, it’s Alexa. Do you have a moment?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sitting down?’
‘Yes?’
‘Listen carefully. There are a few things you must know. Number one: I am an alcoholic. Number two: I was sober for one hundred and
fifteen days, but on Saturday I started drinking again. Last night as well. Number three: If you don’t watch me very carefully, I am going to drink again today. Number four: Alcoholics lie and cheat. Don’t believe anything I say. You mustn’t let me out of your sight. Especially late afternoon and evening. Do you understand?’ Her eyes were on Griessel with an expression that said: Are you satisfied now?
Ella sounded shocked. ‘I think so.’
‘And you must know, if you tell anyone about this conversation, anyone under the sun, I will … destroy you. Do you understand?’
‘I understand …’ the reply came back hesitantly.
‘Ella,’ said Griessel quickly, ‘can you hear me?’
‘Yes?’
‘My name is Benny Griessel. I’m going to give you my number now. If you feel you can’t cope with Alexa, phone me. At any time.’
‘OK.’ But he could hear she was intimidated.
‘I will come and relieve you tonight. You have to know, Alexa will try to manipulate you. She is going to be angry, she will cry, she will ask nicely, she will use all her charm. She is going to have withdrawal symptoms this afternoon, she will shout at you, she will try to blackmail you emotionally.’ He saw Alexa’s eyes flashing. ‘That is not Alexa, that is the booze. You must understand that. If you can’t deal with it, say so now.’
‘I … I’ll try.’ The fear coming through.
‘Call me. Any time. Here is my number.’
Her arms were firmly crossed and she stared out of the window.
‘I’ll be grateful if you would come with me to the photographer first,’ he said. ‘The one who took the photos of her.’
She just stared fixedly outside. He could see Alexa’s mouth was drawn. He knew how her mind was working right now. The denial, the I-can-stop-drinking-if-I-want-to argument, the memory of how sly drink made you. And she would have the thirst now, after two nights of drunkenness, the fever would be in her blood. But he also knew that it helped, exposure, the recognition of the first of the Twelve Steps: We
are powerless against drink, our lives have become uncontrollable. And Step Five: To confess our sins to ourselves and other people.
She did not reply, so he started the car and drove away. She would have to give him directions if she wanted him to drop her off at the promoters, in the meantime he was going to the photographer.
In Somerset Street his phone rang. MBALI, the screen read.
He answered.
‘He’s a part-time shooter, Benny,’ said Mbali with a degree of excitement. ‘He’s a working man, a weekend warrior.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I looked at the time stamp on the emails. On weekdays, he sends them late at night. Always on a Monday. On weekends, it’s early morning on a Saturday, and middle of the day on Sundays. The fact is, all his emails were sent on those three days. Saturday, Sunday, Monday. And the first two shootings were on the weekend. That can’t be a coincidence. So I’m thinking he must be busy in the week. He is employed, and he probably works with other people, he has to wait for the evenings or the weekends to write the emails.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that sounds right.’
‘And you know what that means, Benny? If he is going to shoot someone today, it won’t be until after hours. So we have to make sure the stations are alert. I’m going to be very unpopular … And I might be wrong.’
He knew what she meant. The day shift at the stations would have to work a few hours longer. ‘Talk to Colonel du Preez. Because if you’re right …’
‘Then we might just catch him. I’m on my way to the armoury. I’ll talk to Nyathi when I get back. Good luck, Benny.’
In Loader Street, high up the flank of Signal Hill, he parked in front of the small restored house. The hanging sign, in slim, elegant lettering, said
Anni de Waal. Photographer
. With three half-moon brush strokes representing a camera lens.
He turned off the engine. Before he got out, Alexa broke the silence. ‘Simóne. Do you remember Simóne, the singer?’ she whispered.
‘No,’ he said apologetically.
‘Long red hair, big white smile?’
He shook his head.
‘Well endowed, always a bit of a low neckline, in the mid nineties she sang a lot of commercial pop? One or two hits, then she sort of disappeared?’
‘No.’ There had been so many of them who had come and gone.
‘One night, back then, before a concert, she showed me her photos. They were almost like Hanneke Sloet’s, the same soft lighting. Flattering angles. Not as naked as these photos, but specially taken. For herself. Simóne was a real little diva, very narcissistic. Very aware of her appearance, always near a mirror. And concerned about her status, because she wanted recognition so badly. Appreciation. Ambitious, she never stopped talking about what she wanted to achieve. If she considered you her inferior, she would ignore you. Envious, if you were more successful than she was. And she was manipulative. Like an alcoholic …’ Alexa smiled at him, small and hurt and forgiving.
He touched her arm gently.
‘I think … That night I thought she had the photos taken … because that was how she wanted to see herself. As desirable and smouldering … and mysterious. It was … I don’t know if I will express it correctly … As though the stage personality, the public image, wasn’t quite sexy enough. If you sing for Afrikaners, you can’t be too sexy. And those photos were to set that right for
her
, they had to serve as the truth. A monument? Or … No, let me stick with that.’
He looked at her, saw the ravages of drink, now somewhat camouflaged, and thought of the demons that were consuming her. But behind everything was this glittering intelligence that he had discovered little by little in the past months. Sometimes it filled him with despair – what would she see in him – and sometimes with total admiration. Like now.
Why would someone like that drink?
‘Thank you,’ said Griessel.
Anni de Waal and an assistant were in the studio busy setting up lighting. She looked up and a curious frown changed into a beaming smile.
‘Alexa!’ she said, and approached them with wide welcoming arms.
De Waal was middle-aged, with intense eyes behind small round
glasses. Her long grey hair was gathered up in two ponytails. A light blue scarf was knotted around her neck above the collar of the white T-shirt. For a woman of her age, thought Griessel, her bottom looked surprisingly good in the faded denim.
He stood and watched the women greet, a ritual that he had only recently learned, at Alexa’s side: lower bodies far apart, a light hug, and the air kisses, one beside each cheek. The manner of the rich and famous. Usually it secretly annoyed him; what was wrong with the old way? A kiss on the mouth if you wanted to kiss, shake hands if you didn’t. And he could never remember which cheek the air kisses began, left or right. But this morning he didn’t have enough energy for irritation.
He stood and waited until the ‘Phenomenal surprise!’ and ‘You look so
good
!’ and ‘I hear you’re back!’ and
‘So
fantastic to see you, what is it, seven, eight years?’ were over.
‘Anni did the cover of my second album,’ said Alexa to Griessel. She introduced him: ‘This is my friend, Captain Benny Griessel.’ And added with a touch of drama, ‘Of the Hawks.’
De Waal glanced back at Alexa fleetingly, as though trying to work out the connection. She was quick. ‘Hanneke Sloet,’ she said.
‘That’s right,’ said Griessel.
‘You’d better sit down, my darling.’
They sat around a white painted coffee table in the corner of the studio, on deep blue easy chairs, Anni de Waal consulted her iPad with practised fingers. ‘Saturday fourteenth of August. Last year. She must have booked ahead in June, because my diary stays full.’
‘Did she say why she wanted the photos taken?’
‘Personal use. That’s what I wrote down. I have to ask, because it influences the whole approach.’
‘Is that … what you do?’
De Waal shook her head. The ponytails bobbed. Her hands talked along. ‘I do fashion shoots, mostly for overseas magazines. It’s much more … Let’s just say they pay in Euros. Personal portraits are time consuming, and to be frank, there are always complications. The sort of people who have them done … they are usually not as photogenic as they like to think. So I am expensive. To discourage them.’
‘May I ask
how
expensive?’
‘For you, my darling, a special price,’ she said with a vague flirtation in her voice. ‘Ten thousand. Rand, of course. You have an interesting face. Are you of Slavic origin?’
‘Parow,’ he said.
‘Wonderful,’ said Anni de Waal, and clapped her hands together, laughing.
‘Is that what Hanneke Sloet paid?’
‘I will have to look it up in my books, but it would have been more. Twelve thousand, thereabouts.’ Somewhat defensively she added, ‘It
was
a whole Saturday morning, my darling.’
Jissis
, he thought. But he merely nodded. ‘What can you remember about her?’
‘A lot. She was impressive. Photogenic. Strong woman. Pretty. And because I do so few personal portfolios … Naturally, when I saw her in the papers, in January … then it all comes back to you again.’
‘Tell me, please.’
‘She made the appointment, she arrived here with a small suitcase of clothes, and she knew exactly what she wanted. She articulated her requirements intelligently, which helps a great deal, of course. It was a cold rainy morning, and I had the heaters on, it takes a while, it’s a big room. So we did the outfits first, before the nude studies …’
‘Were there complications with her?’
‘Not really. Before we began shooting … She wanted to know who would see the pictures, how exactly that worked. Then I told her we could do the prints ourselves, it would cost a little more. She was satisfied with that. And the shoot itself … The way I work – the photos go straight to Adobe Lightroom, so the client can assess them immediately. She was easy. We adjusted the exposure slightly, she wanted it to be darker. More mysterious. When we were finished, she chose her prints, the rest I put on a DVD. She collected them a week or so later. It takes time, my darling, I shoot in RAW, my assistant converts them to jpeg for the DVD.’
‘She just said the photos were personal? Nothing more?’
‘Not that I can remember.’
‘Why do you think she wanted the photos?’
‘My darling,’ she said with an expansive gesture. ‘Who knows the
secrets of the human heart? And let me tell you, the human heart is a wonderful, perverse thing. I get people begging me to photograph their dogs. And they are prepared to
pay
. There was a man and woman who wanted me to shoot them in bed. Stark naked. And they were … somewhat weighty. Some do it for fun, others do it for … But that’s not what you want to hear, so let me tell you what I think. This child had a boob job. And I think she had been waiting a long time for it, and was very pleased with it. About how it made her feel and look. She wanted to
show
it. No, she wanted to
see
it. Not in a mirror. Something more tangible. That’s what I think.’
‘It’s a woman thing,’ said Alexa.
‘Precisely,’ said Anni de Waal. ‘With all due respect, my darling, men just don’t understand.’
Mbali was immediately offended by the way the constable sat behind the weathered desk at the SAPS armoury. He was leaning back in the chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his nose buried in the
Soccer-Laduma
.