Деон Мейер - Cobra

COBRA

Also by Deon Meyer

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Dead at Daybreak

Heart of the Hunter

Devil’s Peak

Blood Safari

Thirteen Hours

Trackers

Seven Days

DEON

MAYER

COBRA

Translated from Afikaans

by K. L. Seegers

Atlantic Monthly Press

New York

Copyright © 2014 by Deon Meyer

Jacket design by Marc Cohen/MJC Design

Jacket art credits: cobra © Vmaster/ shutterstock.com,

bullet © Al Mueller/ shutterstock.com

Author photograph © NB Publishers

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First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Hodder & Stoughton

An Hachette UK Company

Originally published in Afrikaans in 2013 as Kobra by Human & Rousseau

Published simultaneously in Canad a

Printed in the United States of Americ a

ISBN 978-0-8021-2324-4

eISBN 978-0-8021-9191-5

Atlantic Monthly Press

an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

154 West 14th Street

New York, NY 10011

Distributed by Publishers Group West

www.groveatlantic.com

1

The rain drummed down on the corrugated iron roof. Ten past eight in the morning. Captain Benny Griessel clicked open his homicide briefcase on the wall of the wide, high veranda, removed the shoe protectors first, then the thin, transparent latex gloves. He pulled them on, vaguely aware of respectful eyes on him, the uniforms and two station detectives who sheltered in the open garage beyond the curtain of rain. His anxiety and fatigue faded, his focus was on what awaited him here in this big old house.

The heavy front door stood open. He approached the threshold. The grey morning cast the entry hall into deep dusk, the second victim appeared as a dark, shapeless mass. He stood still for a moment, holding his breath. Considering the advice of Doc Barkhuizen: Don’t internalise. Distance yourself.

What did that mean, now?

He looked for a light switch, found it inside, just beside the door jamb. He clicked it on. High up against the baroque ceiling a chandelier shone white and bright. It did nothing to dispel the chill. The man lay outstretched on the gleaming oak floor, four metres from the door. Black shoes, black trousers, white shirt, light grey tie, top button undone. Arms outstretched, a pistol gripped in the right hand. Mid-thirties. Lean.

Griessel warily stepped closer. He saw the bullet wound in the forehead, diagonally above the left eye. A thin streak of blood, now almost black, ran down to the right. Under the head, which was turned to the left, a puddle, thicker, saucer-sized. Exit wound.

He felt relief at the simplicity of this death, the swiftness of it.

He sighed, long and slow, trying to rid his body of this tension.

It didn’t work.

He surveyed the hallway. On an antique table to the right was a light blue vase filled with a green and white mass of fresh arum lilies. On the opposite side, against the left-hand wall, was a hat stand beside an umbrella rack. Six old-fashioned portraits hung on the wall in heavy oval frames. Dignified men and women stared out of each one.

And at the back, deeper in, a sitting room opened out between the two pillars.

He made his calculations from the position of the body, the probable trajectory of the shot, so he could walk where it would least disturb the invisible blood spray and spatter. He stepped around and crouched down beside the pistol, saw the Glock emblem on the barrel, and after it 17 Gen Austria 9x19.

Griessel sniffed the barrel. It hadn’t been fired. He stood up.

Most likely the shooter had stood in the doorway, the victim more or less in the centre of the hallway. If the murder weapon was a pistol, the casing would have been ejected to the right. He searched for it, didn’t find it. Perhaps he had used a revolver. Perhaps it had bounced off the wall, lay under the victim. Perhaps the shooter had picked it up.

The exit wound meant the bullet would have hit the wall somewhere. He drew an imaginary line that led him to the sitting room.

He trod carefully, making a wide detour around the corpse, past the pillars, where he picked up the faint scent of burnt wood. The hall chandelier illuminated only a small track in the spacious room and it cast a long Griessel shadow, sending him in search of another light switch. He found three in a row, just behind the pillar, pressed them one by one, and turned around. Soft lighting. Thick wooden beams in the ceiling. Shelves against the walls, filled with leather-bound books. A huge Persian carpet, silver and blue, giant sofas and easy chairs arranged in two separate seating areas. Coffee tables, gleaming, golden wood. Too many lamps and vases, combined with the fussy wallpaper, all intended to create an impression of old-world elegance. In the centre, stately and impressive, was the great hearth, the embers cold. And to the right, just visible behind a dark blue chair – the shoes and trouser legs of the third victim. In the background, on the stark white passage wall, he saw a bright fan of blood spray, like a cheerful, surreal artwork.

Griessel noted the similarities, and unease settled on his heart.

The body in the passage had the same military haircut, the same build – broad-shouldered, with a lean fitness – as the one in the hallway. Also the same black shoes, black trousers, and white shirt. Another bloodied Glock beside a ruined hand. Only the tie was missing this time.

Another head wound, between the temple and the right eye. But the first bullet must have hit the hand – two joints of the finger lay rolled against the white-painted skirting board.

And then he spotted the two shells shining dully on the edge of the carpet in the sitting room. The shooter’s, had to be, lying there within ten centimetres of each other. His mind started to play its old tricks; he heard and smelled exactly how it had all happened. The murderer was a shadow slipping through this space, pistol stretched in front of him, he saw the man in the passage, two shots, the hand was a small scarlet explosion. The intense agony, short-lived, before death, no time for fear, just the short silent scream into eternity.

Griessel let out an exclamation, deliberate and loud over the drumming rain, to suppress it all. He hadn’t had enough sleep. The fucking stress of the past weeks. He must pull himself together now.

He walked carefully around the body, crouched down beside the pistol. Exactly the same as the other one. Glock 17 Gen 4 . He sniffed. No smell of cordite.

He stood up, eyes scanning around him, and further down the passage he found the two holes in the right-hand wall.

He had to tread carefully, because the body, the finger, the pistol, and the blood covered the full width of the passage. He hopped from one foot to the other until he was over it. Bent down at the holes. Both bullets were there, buried deep in the plaster. That would help.