He would go and talk to the maid, Sylvia Buys. He had her address in his notebook. Athlone somewhere. He checked his watch. Nearly twenty past four. To Athlone in this traffic. Maybe she was still in the house in Tamboerskloof.

Willie Mouton? He recalled the chaos this morning in the street, the militant Mouton, the black knight, shaven-headed earring- wearer on his fucking phone. To his lawyer. Mouton, who was desperate for him to arrest Josh and Melinda.

The lift doors slid open. People were waiting to come in. He walked out slowly, thoughtfully. He stopped in the entrance hall.

The lawyer who had been with him all day, the spectre of a man, so grave. Mouton and Groenewald here, with Alexa. 'What can you remember?' Why?

Was the drunk woman lying?

Adam phoned me last night, some time after nine, to tell me about Ivan Nell's stories. His cell phone rang. He saw it was Griessel, who believed she was innocent.

'Benny?'

'Fransman, are you still at AfriSound?'

'No, I'm at City Park.'

'Where?'

'At the hospital. In the city.'

'No, I mean where in the hospital?'

'At the entrance. Why?'

'Stay there, I'll be with you in a minute. You're not going to believe this.'

Chapter 46

With the crooked pliers of the Leatherman that had saved his life, Benny Griessel cut Rachel Anderson's hands free. Then he went and fetched four sleeping bags, asked Vusi to call for backup and medical support, spread two sleeping bags on the floor for her to lie on and covered her shivering body with the other two.

'Don't leave me,' she said.

'I won't,' but he heard Oerson groan and went to find the Metro officer's pistol before sitting down with her, taking out his cell phone and calling John Afrika.

'Benny, where the fuck are you? I've been phoning ...'

'Commissioner, we got Rachel Anderson. I'm sitting with her now. We're in Observatory, but I just want to ask one thing: send us the chopper, she needs medical assistance, she's not bad, but I'm definitely not taking her to Groote Schuur. ‘There was a heartbeat of silence before Afrika said: 'Hallelujah! The chopper is on its way, just give me the address.'

'I'm sorry, Mr Burton, but I just don't believe you,' said Bill Anderson over his cell phone. 'There's a warning right here on the US consulate's website, stating that fourteen Americans have been robbed at gunpoint after landing at the OR Tambo International Airport in the past twelve months. I've just read that a South African government Minister has said police must kill criminal bastards, and not worry about regulations. I mean, it's the Wild West out there. Here's another one: "More police were killed in the years since the end of Apartheid than in the previous period in that country's history."

‘“Armed robberies at people's homes have increased by thirty per cent." And you are telling me we won't need protection?'

'It sounds worse than it is, I can assure you,' the American Consul reassured him.

'Mr Burton, we are flying out this afternoon. All I want you to do is to recommend someone to protect us.'

Dan Burton's sigh was audible. 'Well, we usually recommend Body Armour, a personal security company. You can call a Ms Jeanette Louw ...'

'Can you spell that for me?'

Just then the house phone on Anderson's desk began to ring and he said: 'Excuse me for one second,' picked up the receiver and said: 'Bill Anderson.'

'Daddy,' he heard the voice of his daughter.

'Rachel! Oh, God, where are you?'

'I'm with Captain Benny Griessel, Daddy ...' and then her voice broke.

Griessel sat with his back to the wall, both arms around her. She leaned heavily on him, her head on his shoulder, while she spoke to her father. When she was finished and passed the phone back to him, she looked up at him and said: 'Thank you.'

He didn't know how to answer her. He heard the sirens approaching, wondering how long it would take the helicopter to get here.

'Did you find the video?' she asked.

'What video?'

'The video of the murder. At Kariba.'

'No,' he said.

'That's why they killed Erin.'

'You don't have to tell me now,' he said.

'No, I have to.'

She and Erin had shared a tent the whole tour.

Erin had adjusted easily to the new time zones, slept well, got up with the sun, stretched pleasurably, yawned and said: 'Another perfect day in Africa.'

Initially Rachel struggled to fall asleep at night. After the first week it improved, but every night, somewhere between one and three, her body clock woke her. Later she would vaguely recall moments of consciousness while she reoriented herself and wondered at this astonishing adventure, this special privilege, of lying listening to the noises of this divine continent. And she would sink away, carefree and light as a feather, into cosy sleep.

At Lake Kariba the moonlight had taken her by surprise. Some time after two in the early hours, near wakening, she had become aware of the glow and opened her eyes. She thought someone had switched on a floodlight. Then truth dawned - full moon. She was enchanted by its brightness, its immensity, and was ready to drift back to her dreams. In her imagination she saw the moon over Kariba, the beauty of it. She realised she must capture it for her video journal. It could be the opening shot of the DVD she would make at home on Premiere Pro. Or the background of her title- sequence animation in After Effects, if she ever found enough time to unravel the secrets of that software.

Carefully, so as not to disturb Erin, she crawled out of her sleeping bag, took her Sony video camera and went out into the sultry summer night.

The camp was quiet. She walked between the tents to the edge of the lake. The view was as she had suspected, another breathtaking African show - the moon a jewel of tarnished silver sliding across the carpet of a billion stars, all duplicated in the mirror of the lake. She switched the camera on, folded out the small LCD screen and chose 'Sunset & Moon' on the panel. But the moon was too high. She could film either the reflection or the real thing, but not both in one frame. She looked around and spotted the rocks on the edge of the lake about a hundred metres away. An acacia tree was growing out of them. It would give her height, a reference point and perspective. From the top of the rocks she tried again. She experimented with the branches of the tree, until she heard the sounds, below, scarcely fifteen metres away.

She had turned to look. Two figures in the dark. A muffled argument. She sat down slowly, instinctively, and knew it was Jason de Klerk and Steven Chitsinga at one of the trailers.

She smiled to herself, aimed her camera at them and began to film. Her intention was mischievous. These were the chief teases, the head guides who mocked the European and American tourists about their love of comfort, their bickering, complaining, their inability to deal with Africa. Now she had evidence that they were not perfect either. She smiled, thinking she would reveal it at breakfast. Let them feel embarrassed for once.

Until Steven pulled open one of the large storage drawers under the trailer and bent to get something. He jerked roughly at it and suddenly the shape of another person stood between them, a smaller figure beside the lankiness of the two guides.

A man's voice called out one word. Steven grabbed the smaller figure from behind and put a hand over his mouth. Rachel Anderson looked up from the screen now, dumbstruck, she wanted to be certain the camera was not lying. She saw something shiny in Jason's hand, bright and deadly in the moonlight. She saw him drive it into the small figure's chest and how the man slumped in Steven's grip.