'All her fucking hits were German pop, who do you think is going to get them for her now? Anyway, we sit with the whole caboodle, we have to administer it all. That money has to go to Germany, the songwriter and the publisher have to get their cut. But here comes this independent and he gets someone to do a cover of Adam's translation of this German song . . . you get it?'

'I think so,' said Dekker, engrossed.

'... and now Adam must be paid, the German and his publisher must be paid, but the independent says, no, we only made five thousand, but he's lying, because there's no control over distribution, the independents do their own now and nobody keeps track.'

'That's why the cheques are so big.'

'Then the bastard comes along and says we are bloody cheating him.'

'Let him make his own CDs and we'll see. Let him pay two hundred thousand for a studio out of his own pocket, let him cough up his own four hundred thousand for a TV campaign.'

'Amen,' said Groenewald. 'Tell him about the passwords and the PDFs.'

'Yes,' said Mouton. 'Ask Sakkie Nell if the independent sends him a password-protected PDF.'

Steenkamp drew another star. PDF. 'There are only three or four big CD distributors in South Africa. These are the guys who load up the CDs and distribute them to the music shops around the country, Musica and Look and Listen, Checkers and your Pick 'n Pay Hypermarkets. Adam started a distribution arm, but it's an independent company now, AMD, African Music Distribution, we own forty per cent. What they do is, like all the big players, they keep sales records of every CD and every three months they send a password-protected PDF file of every artist's sales to me. We transfer the money to the artist...'

'Before we get the money from the distributors,' said Mouton.

'That's right. We pay it out of our own pockets. The risk is ours. I email him the same PDF statement, just as I received it from the distributor, complete, so he can see everything. Nobody can fiddle with the statement because we don't have the password.'

'So tell me how can we rip them off?' said Mouton.

'Impossible,' said Groenewald.

'Because we're too fucking honest, that's the problem.'

'But let him make his own CDs. Let him feel the overheads. Then we'll talk again.'

'Amen,' his lawyer confirmed.

Chapter 35

John Afrika had ranted and raved over the telephone: 'You phone the father in America, Benny, you phone him, fuck knows I can't do it, how the hell, I'm on my way, jissis, Benny, how the fuck did it happen?' He slammed the phone down and Griessel was left standing with his cell phone in his hand, wondering whether Jack Fischer and Associates had a job for an alcoholic who was stuffing up two cases in a single day. He felt like smashing his phone against the wall. But he had just hung his head and stared at the floor, thinking what was the use of being sober, he might as well get drunk. Then Vusi ran in, breathless, and said, 'Benny, it was the delivery van that nearly hit us - we have an eyewitness.'

So now they were on the pavement with a woman, dark glasses, early thirties, a little pale and shy. At first glance she was quite ordinary, unimpressive, until she began to talk in a soft, melodious voice that seemed to come from the depths of her heart. She said her name was Evelyn Marais and she had seen everything.

She had come out of Carlucci's on the way to her car across the street. She pointed to a red Toyota Tazz, about ten years old. She had heard shots and had stopped in the middle of the street. She spoke calmly and clearly, without haste, but she was obviously not entirely comfortable with all the attention. 'The first shots didn't even sound like gunshots, more like firecrackers; only later did I realise what they were. Then I looked. There were four of them carrying a girl out of there,' she pointed an unvarnished nail at the corner of Belmont. 'They—'

'The girl, how were they carrying her?'

'Two had her by the shoulders, two carried her legs here behind the knee.'

'Could you tell if she was resisting?'

'No, it looked like she was ... I think there was blood on her hands, I thought maybe she was hurt and they were helping her to the van, an ambulance ...'

'Was it an ambulance?'

'No. I just assumed. For a moment. Logical, in a way, before the other shots went off. They were much louder. But I couldn't see who was shooting, they were in front of the van. I only saw them when they came running around it. One man, the driver, had a pistol with a silencer in his hand.' This was the moment that Griessel began to suspect she was not just your average eyewitness.

'A pistol with a silencer?'

'Yes.'

'Ma'am, what work do you do?'

'I'm a researcher. For a film company. And it's Miss, actually.'

'Can you describe the men?'

'They were young, in their twenties, I'd say. Handsome boys. That's why I assumed at first that they were helping her. Three were white, one was black. I didn't notice their hair colour, sorry ... But they ... three of them were in jeans and Tshirts, no, one was wearing a golf shirt, light green, almost lemon, it looked quite good with the jeans. Oh, and the other one was in brown chinos and a white shirt and collar with some writing over the pocket. It was too far to see ...' Griessel and Ndabeni looked at her in amazement.

'What?' she said uncomfortably, shifting her dark glasses up onto the top of her head and looking back at Griessel. He saw brilliant blue eyes, the shade of a tropical sea. The sight of them changed her whole face from pale to lovely, from ordinary to extraordinary.

'You are most observant, Miss.'

She shrugged shyly. 'It's just what I saw.'

'The girl, Miss, it's very important, you said she had blood on her hands?'

'Yes, her hand, wait a bit, her right hand and her arm up to here,' she indicated her elbow.

'Nowhere else?'

'No.' 'But she wasn't struggling?'

'No.'

'Did it look as though she was ... unconscious?'

'I ... perhaps. No. I don't know. But she wasn't struggling.'

'And the panel van?' Vusi asked. 'You don't know what make it was?'

'A Peugeot. But I must admit, I didn't know that. Only when it drove off did I see the logo. The one with the little lion, you know, rearing up ...'

Griessel just nodded. Fuck it, he wouldn't have made the lion and the Peugeot connection. He looked at her eyes and thought, this woman is a genius.

'A silver Peugeot, but quite dirty,' she said. 'I will have to check what model it was ...' Before Griessel could say that wasn't necessary, she added: 'And the registration number if you want it, of course.'

'You got the registration number?' Griessel was astonished.

'CA four-oh-nine, then a little hyphen,' and she drew a line horizontally in the air with her finger, 'and then three-four-one.'

The detectives plucked out their cell phones simultaneously. 'Miss,' said Benny Griessel, 'would you like to come and work for us?'

'In any case,' Willie Mouton said, standing up and starting to wheel his chair back towards the door on its silent wheels. 'Adam phoned me last night, some time after nine, to tell me about Ivan Nell's stories.'

'And?' Fransman Dekker asked.

'We laughed about it. Adam said, let him bring his auditor, let him run up some overheads himself.'

'That's it?'

'Adam said he was going home, because Alexandra wasn't well, he was worried about her. And that's where Josh Geyser was waiting for him. I don't care what he's telling you. I'm not a detective or anything, but you can see in that man's eyes he is capable of anything.'

'Vusi, we're working against the clock now,' Benny Griessel told him at the garden gate. 'I've sent for Mat Joubert . ..' He noticed Ndabeni's expression. 'I know, but fuck the Commissioner, we have to get the girl. I want you to follow up on the Peugeot. It might be a false number plate, but let's try. I don't care what you have to do, there can't be hundreds of them in Cape Town. Forget about the scene, forget everything, the panel van is your baby.'