He called Mat Joubert's number. He knew it would piss off John Afrika. But in the big picture, that was a minor issue.

'Benny,' Joubert recognised his number.

'Mat, I need you.'

'Then I'll come.'

Wouter Steenkamp, the accountant, laughed, and Willie Mouton, leaning his long skinny body against the wall, gave a snort of derision. The lawyer Groenewald shook his head ruefully, as though now he had heard everything.

'Why is that so funny?' Fransman Dekker asked.

Steenkamp leaned back in his throne behind the PC and steepled his fingers. 'Do you really believe Ivan Nell is the first artist who believes he is being fleeced?'

Dekker shrugged. How would he know?

'It's the same old story,' said Willie Mouton. 'Every time.'

'Every time,' mused Steenkamp, and laced the tips of his fingers together, turned the palms outward and stretched until his knuckles cracked. He laid his head back on the back of the chair. 'As soon as they start making good money.'

'In the beginning, with the first cheque, they come in here and it's "thanks, guys, jislaaik, I've never seen this much money".' Mouton's voice was affected, mimicking Nell. 'Then we're the heroes and they are so pathetically grateful ...'

'But it doesn't last,' said Steenkamp.

'They're not doing it for aaaart any more.'

'Money talks.'

'The more they get, they more they want.'

'It's a flash car and a big house and everything that opens and shuts. Then it's the beach house and the sound equipment bus with a huge photo of you on it and everything has to be bigger and better than Kurt or Dozi or Patricia's. To sustain all that costs a shitload of money.'

Groenewald nodded slowly in agreement. Steenkamp laughed again: 'Two years, pappie, you can set your fucking calendar to it, then they start coming in here saying: "What is that deduction and why is this so little?" and suddenly we've gone from hero to zero, and they have forgotten how poor they were when we signed them.' His hands were on his lap now, his right hand twirling his wedding ring.

'Nell says—' Dekker began.

'Do you know what his name was?' Mouton asked, suddenly pushing himself off the wall and heading for the door. 'Sakkie Nell. Isak, that's where the I in Ivan comes from. And please don't forget the accent on the "a".' Mouton opened the door. 'I'm going to get myself a chair.'

'Ivan Nell says he compared your figures with the amounts he made from compilations with independents.'

This time even the lawyer sang in the choir of indignation. Steenkamp leaned forward, ready to speak, but Mouton said: 'Wait, Wouter, hold onto your point, I don't want to miss the joke,' and he walked out into the passage.

Benny Griessel stood in the hallway, the urgency hot in him. He didn't want to get too involved with this part of the investigation, he had to focus on Rachel and how to get her back.

He pulled on rubber gloves and looked fleetingly at the blood on the pretty blue and silver carpet where the old man had been shot, the shards of stained glass on the floor. He would have to phone her father.

How the hell had they found her? How did they know she was here? She had phoned from this house. My name is Rachel Anderson. My dad said I should call you. She had talked to her father and then with him. How long had it taken him to get here? Ten minutes? Nine, eight? Twelve at the very most. How could they have driven here, shot Mbali and the old man and carried Rachel off in twelve minutes?

How was he going to explain this to Rachel's father? The man who had asked him: Tell me, Captain: Can I trust you?

And he had said: 'Yes, Mr Anderson. You can trust me.'

Then I will do that. I will trust you with my daughter's life.

How had they found her? That was the question, the only one that mattered, because the 'how' would supply the 'who', and the 'who' was what he needed to know.

Now. Had she phoned anyone else? That was the place to start. He would have to find out. He took his cell phone out of his pocket to phone Telkom.

No, phone John Afrika first. Fuck. He knew what the Regional Commissioner: Detective Services and Criminal Intelligence was going to say. He could already hear the voice, the consternation. How, Benny? How?

Griessel sighed, a shallow, hurried breath. That fucking feeling he had had this morning - that there was trouble brewing...

And this day was still far from over.

Mouton pushed his luxury leather desk chair up to Groenewald, sat down and said: 'Let the games begin.'

'Let me explain to you about a compilation first,' said Steenkamp, leaning over the desk, picking up a pencil and twirling it between his fingers. 'Some or other clown decides he wants to make money out of Valentine's Day or Christmas or something. He phones a few people and says: "Have you got a song for me?" There are no studio costs, not a cent, because the recording has already been done. That makes a huge difference, because all he has to do is market the CD a bit, make a few TV ads that he gives to a guy with an Apple and Final Cut to cobble together, so really he's only paying for the airtime and he sticks it in the fifteen-second slots in Seven de Laan for three days and all the old biddies snap it up.'

'He does his accounts on the back of a cigarette box,' said Mouton irritably.

'No overheads. We sit here with an admin department and financial department and marketing and promotions department. We carry forty per cent of a distribution wing, because we are a full-service operation - we stand by the artist for the long term. We build a brand, we don't just flog a few CDs,' said Steenkamp.

'Tell him about RISA and NORM,' said Mouton.

Steenkamp pulled a sheet of A4 paper out of the printer beside him and made a start with the pencil, writing RISA alongside. 'Recording Industry of South Africa.'

'Fucking mafia,' said Mouton.

'At least they present the SAMA Awards,' said Groenewald, and Mouton snorted derisively.

'They take twenty-five cents for every CD we sell, because they ...' he made quotation marks with his fingers,' "protect us from piracy".'

'Ha!' said Mouton.

'Do you think the independent making the compilation is going to keep score? Is he going to pay on every CD? Not likely, because it's work, it's a schlepp, it's expense and it's profit.' Steenkamp scribbled another star, wrote NORM on the paper.

'NORM are the guys who have to see to it that, if I write a song and you do a cover of it, I get paid. Six point seven per cent. But that's the theory. In practice it's only us big players who pay. If you're an independent, you have to put down your NORM money when the CDs are printed. So you print five thousand here and another five thousand there, but you tell NORM you only had five thousand printed, you show them the slips, and you pay only half. NORM is ripped off and the songwriter is ripped off and the independent is laughing all the way to the bank.'

'We have to pay NORM as the sales come in,' said Mouton, 'audited figures, everything above board. But then the artists complain: "Why is my share so small?"' He mimicked Nell's voice again. 'Let me tell you another thing. Half of the hits in this country are German pop songs that have been translated. Or Dutch or Flemish or whatever. What Adam did - and he was brilliant at it - he had guys in Europe and as soon as there was a pop song that stood out they would email it in MP3 format and Adam would sit down with a pen and write Afrikaans lyrics. Forty minutes, that's all it took, and he would phone Nerina Stahl and—'

'That was before she left...'