'You're a fucking traffic cop.'

He ignored the remark. 'Where is she?'

'Mr B wants to know: can you get to the luggage?'

Oerson walked deeper into the warehouse and looked about. Behind a pile of tents sat another one, sulky, with blood on his upper lip. 'Not now,' he said. 'So what happened to him? Did she get rough?'

'I didn't mean now, Jerry,' said Jason irritably. 'But you can get it, right?'

'Don't worry, as long as they don't know what they're looking for, we're fine. They'll take it to an evidence room, and then it's easy.'

'How easy?'

'I'll grease a few palms, and get some dumb fuck to go in and take it. Little video tape, slip it in your pocket, easy-peasy. Tomorrow, next week, this will be old news, girl's gone, pressure's off. Relax. Where is she?'

'You're absolutely sure?'

'Of course I'm fucking sure. For a thousand bucks they'll be standing in line to do it.'

'OK,' said Jason and took out his cell phone.

'She's alive, isn't she?' Oerson asked. 'Because you guys owe me a favour.'

When the Roodebloem turn-off flashed past, Griessel realised he should have taken it. He cut through to the Eastern Boulevard and the same route as Vusi, but it was too fucking late. The only alternative was Liesbeeck Park, then down Station Road, but it was going to take a minute or two, three, longer.

The van's wheels squealed around the last turn before De Waal joined Hospital corner. Traffic was dense, there was no time to think. What was Jeremy Oerson's connection with the whole affair? He nearly drove into a pharmacy delivery motorcycle and had to swerve out in front of another car. Horns blared, couldn't the idiots hear the siren? Then he was around the bend on the N2 Settlers road and swung over into the left-hand lane. They gave way now and he stomped on the accelerator. Jeremy Oerson? Metro? African Adventures?

What the fuck?

He entered the Liesbeeck off-ramp too fast, the turn much sharper than he remembered, and the red traffic light was totally unexpected. Cars were crossing the road in front of him. Too late to brake. The van began to skid, he was going to hit someone. Then he was through between two cars, wrenching the wheel to get it under control, accelerated again. Out the other side.

He only turned off the siren when he turned onto Lower Main.

Benny was taking too long.

Vusi's car was parked halfway between Scott and Stanley on the pavement. He had his service pistol on his lap, ready cocked. He could see the warehouse through the windscreen - a long building, brick walls, galvanised zinc roof. Large white-painted sliding doors behind four trucks and four trailers, each bearing the legend African Overland Adventures. Big vehicles, the seating deck high with luggage space below. She was in there. Where was Benny? Perhaps he should go inside. But how many were there? Oerson and the person Oerson had spoken to over the phone. How many more?

He sat there, breathing fast, his heart thumping in his chest.

He pulled the car keys out of the ignition, got out, walked around, opened the boot and looked up. They wouldn't be able to see him. There were no windows on this side anyway. He put his pistol down in the boot, took off his jacket and picked up the Kevlar bulletproof vest. He put it on and picked up his pistol. He checked his watch. 15:22. Late.

He would have to do something.

He came to a decision; the girl's life was the main priority. He pulled back the pistol's slide and gently closed the boot.

He was going in.

Then he heard the squeal of rubber on tar behind him and looked back. A SAPS patrol van came around the corner, drove straight towards him and stopped in a cloud of dust on the pavement. A figure jumped out with unkempt hair and gun in his hand.

Benny Griessel had arrived.

'Hey!' said Jeremy Oerson, but she didn't look up. She just lay slumped against the pole, stark naked, he could see everything, the tits, the bush between her legs, the bleeding right foot and three toes lying in the dust like fat insect grubs.

He stood with his feet planted wide in black boots, the pistol in both hands aimed at her head.

'Get her to look at me,' he said to one of them.

'Just fucking get it over with.'

'No. I want to see her face. Hey, Yankee, look at me.'

Slowly she lifted her head. Hair hung over her forehead in strings. He saw the eye swollen shut, black and purple, dried blood on her temple. 'You guys really fucked her up,' he said.

Her head was raised, but the eyes were still somewhere else.

'Do it, Jerry.'

'Look at me,' he said to her, saw the eyes rise to meet his. He pressed the safety off with his thumb.

Chapter 44

'Take the back, Vusi, there must be a door. I'll give you time,' said Griessel as he ran. He saw the black detective swerve off towards the corner of the building.

He reached the big white sliding door and pressed his back against the wall, service pistol in both hands in front of him. His breath was racing. He had to get it under control, he counted, thousand-and-one, thousand-and-two, thousand-and-three, wanting to give Vusi twenty seconds. He prayed. Dear Father, let her be alive.

Thousand-and-seven. When had he prayed last? When Carla was in mortal danger, his prayer had only been partially answered. He would take that, anything, just so that he could please phone Bill Anderson and say: 'She's alive.' Thousand-and-twelve. He heard a shot, jumped, grabbed the door with his left hand, dragged it open, ducked and ran in. He saw a young man, tall and lean, directly in front of him with a silencer aimed at his heart. He knew in that instant that it was all over, his own pistol was degrees too far to the right.

The shot cracked and blew Benny Griessel off his feet. His back slammed into the door and pain exploded in his chest. He was fleetingly aware of the strangeness, of feeling first the bullet and then hearing the shot. He fell to the ground.

That unease he had had all day, that expectation of evil, here it was.

Oerson waited for her eyes. He wanted his to be the last face she would see. He wanted to know what mortal fear looked like, he wanted to see the light of life fade out of her. But above all he wanted to know how it felt, the power, they said the power was indescribable. He had wondered for so long what it felt like to take a life.

She looked into his eyes. He saw no fear. He wondered if they had drugged her. She looked absent.

Then he heard the shot. He looked around, at the door.

Another shot.

'Shit,' he said.

Vusi sprinted around the first corner, along the short side of the warehouse, then the next corner. High windows, two metres off the ground. A single steel door with a big padlock on it. Locked. He did not hesitate. He steadied against the wall, aimed and shot the padlock, one shot. The nine-mm projectile blew it to bits. He tugged the door open. It was gloomy inside, a smallish room, a kitchen, with dirty glasses and coffee mugs in the sink and another closed door.

He heard a shot, not loud, a small calibre, perhaps. Benny! He ran to the inner door and opened it. It was a large open space, equipment in piles. A beam of light shone from the front through the big sliding door. Someone was lying there dead still. Oh God, it was Benny. Movement, a young white man to the left of Vusi, a long weapon in his hand. 'Don't move!' No good, the young man swung around. Vusi fired. The man fell in slow motion. Vusi had never shot anyone before, uSimakade, what was this city doing to him? A bullet smacked into the wall beside Vusi. It came from the right. He dived behind drums and rolled to the right, stood up, pulled the trigger, once, twice, three times. The man staggered and fell on a stack of plastic cans. He had had no choice - it was survival. He had killed a man, he realised. He stood up slowly, eyes on the still figure, watching the blood run out of the body and over the white plastic of the cans in long trails. Life blood.