He sat staring at the closed door, despising himself. Also knowing that he had no idea what to do next.

The nurse at Casualties told Griessel he would have to talk to the superintendent and he asked her to phone him. It's not a man, the nurse bridled, and Griessel said he didn't care what it was, she had better phone.

She dialled a number, whispered over the phone, replaced the receiver and said the superintendent was in a meeting. Her attitude intensified a few degrees.

'Miss, I have a female detective in that operating theatre with two gunshot wounds and I don't know if she is going to make it. I have a nineteen-year-old American girl who has been abducted by people who cut her friend's throat in Long Street this morning. That...' and he had to suppress the urge to say 'fucker' with huge effort, as he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the operating theatre '... man in there is my only chance to find her before they kill her. Let me tell you now, if anything happens to her because you are obstructing the law, you will all sleep in the dirtiest, most crowded cell I can find in the Peninsula. I hope you understand me very well.'

She swallowed her indignation and picked up the phone again with wide eyes and redialled the number. 'Julie, I think Dr Marinos should come to ICU immediately,' she said.

At the gate of the Metropolitan Police vehicle pound the young traffic officer in a gleaming uniform opened a fat green file, paged through it fussily, pressed the relevant page flat with his palm and ran his finger down to an entry on an official form.

'Yes, that particular vehicle was booked out at precisely twelve thirty-four with me. And here ...' he turned the page, and rotated the file so that Vusi could read it from the other side of the desk '... is the release form, stamped and signed.'

'Who signed it?'

The traffic officer turned the file back again and studied the signature. 'I can't say.'

'Who can tell me?'

'You would have to ask Administration.'

'Where is Administration?'

'There. In the licensing building. But you have to go upstairs. First floor.'

'Thank you. May I take the form with me?'

The traffic officer shook his head. 'I can't help you there. The form has to stay here.'

Vusi thought the man was joking. But there was not a trace of humour. 'Are you serious?'

'This file is my responsibility. Regulations.'

'Mister ...'

'It's Inspector.'

'Inspector, we are working on a case of murder and abduction, we are running out of time.'

'Administration has a duplicate of the form. Just give them the case number.'

Vusi wondered why the man had not told him that in the first place. He took out his notebook, opened it and clicked his pen and said, 'Would you give me the number, please?'

Mat Joubert pulled on rubber gloves, bent at the open door of Mbali Kaleni's Corsa and picked up the bullet casings in the footwell and beside the seat. He noted the number in his book. He heard the feet of Thick and Thin of Forensics shuffle on the tar beside him where they were circling the other casings with chalk and placing a small plastic triangle with a number beside every group of casings. They worked in silence.

He stood up, leaned his big torso inside the Corsa, pressing on the headrest and the steering wheel. Kaleni's big black handbag lay on the front passenger seat. On top was an A5 notebook, the pages folded back on the spiral, blood on the top page, fine drops, something written down.

He picked the notebook up carefully, brought it out of the car and stood upright outside. He took his reading glasses out of his breast pocket, flicked them open and placed them on the bridge of his nose. He stared at the three letters written in a shaky hand in capital letters: JAS.

He called Jimmy, the tall, skinny forensic technologist. 'I need an evidence bag.'

'I'll bring it, Sup.' Keen. Why did his colleagues complain about Thick and Thin? They never gave him any trouble.

J AS. The Afrikaans for 'coat'. Unfathomable.

Jimmy brought him a transparent ZipLoc bag and held it open. Joubert put the notebook inside so the written letters were visible. Jimmy zipped it up.

'Thanks, Jimmy.'

'Pleasure, Sup.'

Joubert bent again at the open door and peered under the seat. There was a pen, but nothing else.

He took out his own pen from his pocket and used it to scratch the other one closer until he could reach it with his fingers. He held it so he could see it through his reading glasses. Mont Blanc Starwalker. Cool Blue. On the navy-blue shaft of the pen were two faint blood prints.

He turned and walked over to Jimmy while thinking about the pieces of evidence. The blood on the notebook was not necessarily significant. But the bloody fingerprints on the pen were. Mbali .Kaleni had written the letters J, A and S after she had been wounded. JAS?

A perp wearing a coat? Or was it Zulu?

He reached for his phone. He would have to find out.

Chapter 39

The superintendent of the City Park Hospital, a well-groomed woman in her forties, nodded her head just three times while Griessel was talking. She said: 'Captain, one moment, please,' and walked quickly through the glass doors with the lettering Operating Theatre. Personnel Only.

Benny could not stand still. He walked as far as the nurses' desk and back to the theatre doors. Let the fucker live, please, just long enough to get what he needed. He looked at his watch. Nearly twenty-five to three. Too much time had elapsed since they took her. Too many possibilities. But they hadn't shot Rachel Anderson, because there was something they wanted. It was his only chance, his only hope.

At the periphery of his consciousness something flitted past, ghostly visions, fleeting and intangible, leaving only an impression - this morning. He stood still and closed his eyes. What was it? His brain seemed to tell him that, no, the wounded fucker was not his only hope. There was something else. He must go back to the beginning. This morning, what had happened? At the churchyard? What were the important things? The rucksack, cut off Erin Russel...

The superintendent burst through the doors and came over to Griessel. She began to speak before she reached him. 'Captain, his carotid artery was cut, relatively high up, I'm afraid, where there is not much protection. He lost an enormous amount of blood, we had a Code Blue in there, but they were able to resuscitate him. His condition is critical, they are still trying to close the wound, under the circumstances a very difficult procedure, especially since his blood pressure is so low and the bleeding could not be entirely halted. But I am afraid there is no chance of you talking to him in the next five or six hours. Even then I doubt whether communication will be meaningful. His vocal chords have been damaged, apparently - to what extent they don't yet know.'

He digested the information, frustration forcing a curse to the surface, but he swallowed it down.

'Doc, his clothes, I want his clothes, anything he had on him.'

'I'm going to call,' said Bill Anderson decisively. He got up abruptly from the leather couch and went to the phone on his desk. He looked at the number he had written down, picked up the receiver and keyed it in. He stood listening to the initial silence on the line and then the crystal clear ring on the southernmost tip of another continent.

Griessel's phone rang and he looked at the screen, saw it was MAT JOUBERT and answered: 'Mat?'

'Benny, I don't know what it means but Mbali Kaleni wrote the word "jas" in her notebook, and I am reasonably sure it was after she was shot. There are bloody fingerprints on the pen and blood spatters on the page. I thought it might be Zulu, but it doesn't seem to be.'