Jimmy and Arnold from Forensics came through the door. 'Oh, there's Prof, morning, Prof,' said Arnold, the fat one.

'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are here. Morning, gentlemen.'

'Prof, can we ask you something?'

'Of course.'

'Prof, the thing is ...' said Arnold.

'Women ...' said Jimmy.

'Why are their breasts so big, Prof?'

'I mean, look at the animals ...'

'Much smaller, Prof...'

'Jissis,' said Fransman Dekker.

'I say it's revolution,' said Arnold.

'Evolution, you ape,' said Jimmy.

'Whatever,' said Arnold.

Pagel looked at them with the goodwill of a patient parent. 'Interesting question, colleagues. But we will have to continue this conversation elsewhere. Come and see me in Salt River.'

'We're not mortuary kind of guys, Prof...'

Dekker's cell phone rang. He checked the screen. 'It's Cloete,' he said.

'And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,' said Pagel on the way to the door, because Cloete was the SAPS media liaison officer. 'Goodbye, colleagues.'

They said goodbye and listened to Fransman Dekker give Cloete the relevant infamous details.

Griessel shook his head. Something big was brewing. Just a look outside would tell you that. His own phone rang. He answered: 'Griessel.'

'Benny,' said Vusi Ndabeni, 'I think you should come.'

Chapter 9

Rachel Anderson crept down the gully. It deepened as she progressed, the sides steep, rough, impassable. They hemmed her in, but offered shelter enough for her to stand. They would have difficulty seeing her. The slope became steeper, the terrain more rugged. It was just after eight, and hot. She clambered down rocks clutching the roots of trees, her throat parched, her knees threatening to give in. She had to find water, she had to get something to eat, she had to keep moving.

Then she saw the path leading up to the right, and steps carved out of the rock and earth. She stared. She had no idea what awaited her up there.

Alexa Barnard watched them carry her husband's body past the door and her face twisted with emotion.

Tinkie Kellerman got up and came across to sit on the couch beside her. She put a soft hand on her arm. Alexa felt an overwhelming urge to be held by this slender policewoman. But she just sat there, moving her arms to grip her own shoulders in a desperate self-embrace. She hung her head and watched the tears drip onto the white material of her dressing-gown sleeve, disappearing as if they had never existed.

Rachel Anderson climbed to just short of the top and peered over the edge of the gully with a thudding heart. Only the mountain. And silence. Another step up and, suddenly realising they could see her from behind, she turned in fright, but there was no one. The last two steps, she was careful. To her left were the roofs of houses, the highest row on the mountain. Ahead was a path running along the back of the houses, with trees offering shade and cover. To the right was the steep slope of the mountain, then the mountain itself.

She looked back once, then stepped hastily onto the path, head down.

Griessel drove back to Long Street in much lighter traffic. Vusi had said he should come to the Cat & Moose.

'What's going on?' he had asked.

'I'll tell you when you get here.' He had the tone of someone speaking in the presence of others.

But Griessel wasn't thinking about that. He sat in his police car and thought of Alexa Barnard. About her voice and her story, about the beauty hidden beneath twenty years of alcohol abuse. He mused on how the mind brought up the memory of the younger, lovelier image and projected it onto the fabric of her current face so that the two were seen together - the past and the present, so far removed and so inseparable. He thought of the intensity with which she had drunk the gin and knew it was a dangerous thing to see, that healing. It had unravelled his own desire, so that it dangled inside him like a thousand loose wires. The voice in his mind was saying there was a bottle store right here in Kloof Street, where all the wires could be reconnected, the current restored. The electricity of life would flow strongly once again.

'God,' said Benny to himself and turned deliberately into Bree Street, away from temptation.

When the tears stopped, Tinkie Kellerman said, 'Come, you'll feel better when you've had a bath.'

Alexa agreed and got up. She was a bit unsteady on her feet, so the policewoman guided her up the stairs, through the library and down the passage to the bedroom door.

'I think you should wait here.'

'I can't,' said Tinkie in a voice full of compassion.

Alexa stood still for a second. Then the meaning penetrated. They were afraid she would do something. To herself. And she knew the possibility was real. But first she must get to the liquor, the four centimetres of gin in the bottle underneath her underwear.

'I won't do anything.'

Tinkie Kellerman just looked at her with big, sympathetic eyes.

Alexa walked into the bedroom. 'Just stay out of the bathroom.'

She would take the bottle out of the cupboard along with her clothes. Her body would screen it.

'Sit there,' she nodded towards the chair in front of the dressing table.

The knocking wasn't going to stop. Fransman Dekker went to open the door. Willie Mouton, the baldheaded, black-clad Zorro, stood on the veranda along with an alter ego - an equally lean man, but with a full head of dark hair, painstakingly combed into a side parting. He had the appearance of an undertaker, complete with long sombre face, all-seeing eyes, charcoal suit and tie. 'My lawyer is here. I'm ready for you now.'

'You're ready for me?' Dekker's temper flared at the way the white man talked down to him but, out there in the street, lenses were trained on them, spectators and the press scrummed against the fence.

'Regardt Groenewald,' the lawyer said apologetically and put out a cautious hand. It was a peace offering, forcing Dekker to change gear.

He shook the slim, uncertain hand. 'Dekker,' he said, and looked the lawyer up and down. He had expected a Doberman, not this basset hound.

'He just means that we are ready to talk,' said Groenewald.

'Where is Alexa?' Mouton asked and looked past Dekker into the house. Groenewald moved his flaccid hand to Mouton's arm, as though to restrain him.

'She is being looked after.'

'By whom?'

'By an officer of Social Services.'

'I want to see her.' A white man's command, but once again the lawyer defused the situation.

'Steady, Willie.'

'That is not an option now,' said Dekker.

Mouton looked reproachfully at his lawyer. 'He can't do that, Regardt.'

Groenewald sighed. 'I'm sure they explained to Alexa what her rights are, Willie.' He spoke apologetically, slowly and deliberately.

'But she's a sick woman.'

'Mrs Barnard chose to talk without a lawyer present.'

'But she's not compis mentos,' said Mouton.

'Compos mentis,' Groenewald corrected him patiently.

'Mrs Barnard is not a suspect in the case at this stage,' said Dekker.

'That's not what Adam's maid said.'

'As far as I know, the domestic worker is not in police service.'

'You see, Regardt. That's what they're like. Smartass. When I've just lost my friend and colleague ...'

'Willie, Mr Dekker, let's all keep calm ...'

'I am calm, Regardt.'

'My client has information connected to the case,' said Groenewald.

'What sort of information?'

'Relevant information. But we can't...'

'Then it is your duty to pass it on to us.'