He dropped his head. His shoulders shook. 'I heard him,' said Jess Anderson. 'He will find her. I could hear that in his voice.'

Captain Benny Griessel sat with his elbows on the director's desk and his chin in his hand.

He shouldn't have said it. He didn't want to make promises. He should have stuck to: 'I will do everything I possibly can.' Or he should have said: 'In the circumstances I don't want to make predictions.' But Rachel Anderson's father had pleaded with him.

'Will you, Captain?'

And he had said he would not rest until he found her.

Where the fuck did he begin?

He dropped his arms and tried to concentrate. There were too many things happening at once.

The helicopter and patrols were not going to find her. She was hiding, afraid of the police. And he didn't know why.

The solution was to find out who was hunting her. Vusi's plan looked better and better. He must check on their progress.

Griessel stood up and reached for his cell phone. But then it rang loudly in the silent office, startling him.

'Griessel.'

'This is Inspector Mbali Kaleni of the South African Police Service, Benny.' Her Zulu accent was strong, but every Afrikaans word was enunciated with care. 'We traced a Land Rover Defender that fits the number. It belongs to a man in Parklands, a Mr J. M. de Klerk. I am on my way.'

'Very good work, but the Commissioner asked if you would help with another case. Fransman Dekker's investigation ...'

'Fransman Dekker?'

Griessel ignored the disdain in her voice. 'Can I give you his number? He's in the city ...'

'I have his number.'

'Call him, please.'

'I don't like it,' said The Flower, 'but I will call him.'

'On the eleventh of January we electronically transferred an amount of fifty thousand rand into an ABSA account, on Adam's instructions,' said the accountant of AfriSound, Wouter Steenkamp, with modulated precision.

He was comfortably ensconced behind a large fiat-screen computer monitor, elbows on the desk and fingers steepled in front of his chest. He was a short man in his early thirties with an angular face and heavy eyebrows. He clearly took trouble with his appearance - the thick-rimmed glasses and short hair were equally fashionable, there was a careful, deliberate two-day growth of black stubble on his chin, and dark chest hair was just visible at the open collar of his light-blue sports shirt with narrow white stripes. Chunky sports watch, tanned arms. No lack of self- confidence.

'Who was it paid to?' Dekker asked from his chair opposite.

Steenkamp consulted his screen without untwining his fingers. 'According to Adam's note the account holder was "Bluegrass". The bank branch code was an ABSA branch in the Bloemfontein city centre. The transaction was successful.'

'Did Mr Barnard say what the payment was for?'

'In his email he asked me to put it under "sundry expenses".'

'That's all?'

'That's all.'

'Was there also a payment of ten thousand?'

'Exactly?' Steenkamp's eyes scanned the spreadsheet on his screen.

'I believe so.'

'In the past week?'

'Yes.'

'Not on my records.'

Dekker leaned forward. 'Mr Steenkamp ...'

'Wouter, please.'

'According to my information, Adam Barnard used an agency to determine who was behind the Bluegrass account. At a fee of ten thousand rand.'

'Aah ...' said Steenkamp, sitting up straight and reaching for his neat in-tray. He lifted documents and pulled one out. 'Ten thousand exactly,' he said and offered it to Dekker. 'Jack Fischer and Associates.'

Dekker knew the company - former senior white police officers who had taken fat retirement packages five or six years ago and set up their own private investigation business. He took the document and examined it. It was an invoice. Client:AfriSound. Client contact person: Mr A. Barnard.

Under Item and Cost was printed: Administrative enquiries, R4, 500. Personal interview, R5,500.

'Personal interview?' he read aloud.

Steenkamp just shrugged.

'Is this Adam Barnard's signature here?'

'It is. I only pay if either he or Willie has signed it.'

'So you don't know what the account was for?'

'No. Adam didn't discuss it with me. He put it in his out-tray and Natasha put it in here. If it was signed by him—'

'Do you often use Jack Fischer?'

'Now and then.'

'You know they are private investigators?'

'Inspector, the music industry is not all moonlight and roses ... But Adam usually handled that sort of case.'

'Would Willie Mouton know?'

'You will have to ask him.'

'I will have to keep this account.'

'May I make a copy first?'

'Please.'

Inspector Vusi Ndabeni had never flown in a helicopter before.

The pilot passed a headset to him over his shoulder, someone closed the door, the engine made a mighty roar, the rotors turned and they lifted off. His stomach churned. He put on the earphones with trembling hands and watched De Waal Drive shrink below him.

Sometimes these machines dropped out of the sky, he thought. One shouldn't look down, someone once told him, but the city was below them now, Parliament, the Castle, the railway tracks leading to the station in tidy ranks; the harbour, sea, blinding as the sun reflected off it. Vusi took his dark glasses from his jacket pocket and put them on: 'Does Table View know we're on our way?' he said, looking down at Robben Island in wonder.

'Turn the microphone - it's too far from your mouth,' said the co-pilot and demonstrated what he should do.

Vusi bent the microphone around to the front of his mouth. 'Do Table View know we're coming?'

'Do you want to talk to them?' asked the pilot.

'Yes, please. We're going to need patrol vehicles.' 'Let me get them for you.'

With glittering Table Bay to the left and the industries of Paarden Island stretching away to his right, Inspector Vusumuzi Ndabeni spoke to the SC of Table View over a helicopter radio. When he had finished, he wondered what his mother would say if she could see him now.

Chapter 25

Benny Griessel jogged down Buitengracht again. The traffic jam had cleared as though it had never existed. His mind was on the fugitive Rachel Anderson. Where was she heading? The only possibility was the Cat & Moose Youth Hostel; that was where her luggage was, and her friend Oliver Sands. Where else could she go?

He phoned Caledon Square and asked the radio operator to send a unit to Long Street. 'But they must not park in front of the Cat & Moose. Tell them to wait inside. If she does come, she mustn't see them.'

That was all he could do. According to Vusi, the eyewitness at Carlucci's had looked at the covert photos of Demidov's troops, shaken his head and said no, it was none of them.

That really meant fuck all, because Organised Crime might not have sent all the pictures. Or the pictures could be out of date. Or they didn't have photos of all of Demidov's people.

Either he or Vusi would have to go back to Van Hunks again. But first he would see what the house in Table View produced. He had to give the whole search some direction. He would use Caledon Square as the base; it was central, that was where the radio connection with the patrol cars was.

He ran the last two hundred metres to his car, aware of the heat now smothering the city like a blanket.

'I don't know what it was for,' said Willie Mouton, and passed the Jack Fischer invoice back across the desk to Dekker. 'I don't think they will tell you.'

'Oh?' 'It's sensitive. Client privilege.'