9
EMMANUEL EASED THE Packard into the space next to the Security Branch Chevrolet at 6:55 the next morning. The police station appeared small and abandoned in the morning light. Piet wound his car window down and leaned out.
“Change of plan, Cooper. Follow us.” He gave the command and Dickie flicked the engine on. “We’ll make a stop at the black location first, then go to Pretorius’s hut.”
“Whatever you say, Lieutenant.”
Dickie and Piet swung a right at the Standard Hotel and headed west on the main road. Emmanuel turned in behind them and pressed the accelerator.
He couldn’t get a handle on why the Security Branch was heading to a black settlement outside a small country town. Not a single clue led in that direction.
They peeled off onto a pitted dirt road and minutes later entered the black location, a haphazard planting of cinder-block houses and mud huts on a dusty span surrounded by veldt. Children in Sunday clothes played hopscotch in front of a dilapidated church with a rusted tin roof.
The Chevrolet pulled to a stop near the children and Piet waved a boy over. It was Butana, the little witness from the crime scene.
“Shabalala”—Piet raised his voice to a near shout so the kaffir boy understood—“go get Constable Shabalala. Understand?”
“Yes, baas.” Butana raised the volume of his voice so the Dutchman understood, then slipped off his too big shoes and took off down the dirt road that bisected the location. The other children followed behind, happy for an excuse to put some distance between themselves and the white men in the big black automobiles.
Emmanuel got out of the Packard and scoped the scene. It was a clear spring day. Fallow cornfields ran from the edge of a grassed area to a stream swollen with night rain. Beyond that, a lush carpet of new grass and wildflowers spread out beneath a blue sky and a roll of white clouds.
Breathtaking, Emmanuel thought. But you can’t eat scenery.
He turned his attention to the irregular grid of dwellings. They were ramshackle constructions put together with whatever was at hand. A corrugated iron roof patched with flour sacks to keep out the rain. A fifty-five-gallon drum rolled into a doorway to keep out the draft. It was spring, but the memory of a hard winter lingered over the native houses.
The young and fit could move to E’goli, the City of Gold, Johannesburg, where even a black man had the chance to become rich. Or they could stay in the location with their families and remain poor. Most chose the city.
The church door opened and a wizened pastor with watery eyes peered out. Emmanuel lifted his hat in greeting and received a wary nod in return. From down the dirt lane came the sound of children’s voices.
Constable Shabalala hurried toward the cars, followed by a long train of children. The black policeman was in his Sunday clothes: a graying white shirt, black trousers, and a corduroy jacket with leather patches at the elbows. The bottom seam of his trousers had been let out to their full length, one inch too short to cover his socks and boots. Perhaps the captain’s hand-me-downs.
He approached the Security Branch car with his hat in his hand. He knew that Afrikaners and most whites set great store by a show of respect. Piet pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket.
“N’kosi Duma,” Piet said. “Where is he?”
Shabalala spread his palms out in an apologetic gesture. “That man, he is not here. He is at the native reserve. He will be home maybe tomorrow.”
“Christ above.” Piet lit a cigarette and blew smoke into the clean spring air. “How far is it, this reserve?”
“Before baas King’s farm. One hour and a half on my bicycle.”
Piet had a quick discussion with Dickie, who was hunkered down behind the wheel.
“Get in,” Piet told Shabalala. “We’ll go and get him.”
Emmanuel made his way over, determined to wedge himself into the situation somehow. He felt the beat of his heart. Piet knew whom to ask for. How the hell did they know a man named N’kosi Duma lived on a location outside of Jacob’s Rest?
“Constable Shabalala can ride with me,” Emmanuel said. “I’ve got enough fuel.”
“He’s with us,” Piet said coolly. “Your job is to show us the hut.”
“The reserve is between here and the hut.” Emmanuel knew he was pushing his luck but kept going. “Should we call in there first?”
“The hut,” Piet said.
“It’s a hunting camp,” Dickie said after they’d examined the captain’s clean little space. “Only an English detective from the city would think it was anything else.”
“A waste of time, just like I thought,” Piet muttered. “Let’s move on.”
Emmanuel didn’t show them the hidden safe.
They ducked out through the hole in the tall stick fence and rejoined Shabalala, who waited patiently between the cars. Piet motioned Dickie into the black Chevrolet and turned to Emmanuel.
“You will go back to town,” Piet said with a glimmer of pleasure in his pebble eyes. “The Peeping Tom story is your area of investigation. Remember?”
“It’s Sunday. I don’t think there’s much chance to make inroads there.”
“You’re a religious man, aren’t you? Here’s your chance to get to the church service in time. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Amen,” Emmanuel said, and approached Shabalala, who’d stepped back to allow the Dutchmen some room. The Peeping Tom story was all he had to keep him in Jacob’s Rest and close to the main game. He had to follow that trail and do it with a smile.
“The coloured church,” he said to Shabalala. “Where is it?”
“You must go past the old Jew’s store. The ma’coloutini church is at the end of that road.”
“Let’s roll.” It was Dickie, chomping at the bit like a racing hippo out for the derby day sweepstakes.
Shabalala hesitated. “You will be at the station this afternoon, Detective Sergeant.”
It was a request, not a question.
“I’ll be there,” Emmanuel said, and Dickie gunned the engine. The chassis on the Security Branch Chevrolet dipped a half foot closer to the ground when Shabalala got into the car. There was enough collective muscle in the vehicle to pound a steel girder into shape.
Piet leaned his head out the window. “Go first,” he instructed. “We’ll follow you out.”
Emmanuel did as he was told. The Security Branch needed to see him run off with his tail between his legs. It gave them pleasure. It wasn’t hard to hand them what they wanted. He got in the Packard and drove back to town.
Emmanuel made a sweep of the police files and hit the letter Z with nothing. No files under P for pervert, or Peeping Tom. No files at all for any of the women in the old Jew’s shop or for Zweigman himself. There was no written evidence the molestation case ever existed.
He pulled out files at random. Cow theft. A stabbing. Damage to property. The usual small town complaints. He searched for Donny Rooke and found him—charged with the manufacture and importation of banned items. The photos of the girls were signed into evidence, but not the camera.
Was it possible the coloured women’s complaints weren’t taken seriously enough to write up? Or had the files been lifted? Donny Rooke’s stolen camera proved the captain wasn’t above confiscating evidence when it suited him.
The Security Branch and the National Party machine wanted a respected white policeman struck down in the line of duty. They didn’t want complications to that story. Under the new race laws, everything was black or white. Gray had ceased to exist.
Physical intimidation, theft and the possible importation of pornographic items—Captain Pretorius may have appeared to be a straightforward Afrikaner, but something more complicated lurked beneath the surface.
The small stone church overflowed with worshippers. Families, starched and pinned in their Sunday best, spilled out onto the front stairs that led to the open wooden doors. The captain’s premature death was good for business.
An organ wheezed “Closer My God to Thee,” and the coloured families stood to sing the final hymn. Twin girls in matching polka-dot dresses broke free of their plump mother’s embrace and ran into the churchyard. They threw themselves down beside a flower bed and peered into the foliage where Harry, the old soldier, was curled around the stem of a daisy bush, fast asleep.
Emmanuel leaned against the wall between the church and the street and watched the Sunday service let out.
Every color from fresh milk to burnt sugar was on show. There was enough direct evidence in the churchyard to refute the idea that blood mixing was unnatural. Plenty of people managed to do it just fine.
A clutch of wide-hipped matrons in flowered dresses and Sunday hats brought pots of food to a table set up in the shade of a large gum tree. Men in dark suits and polished shoes milled around waiting for the signal to pounce on the food.
At the bottom of the stairs Tiny and Theo kept company with two respectable coloured women. Emmanuel needed someone to get him into the community and introduce him around. A white man hanging off the edge of a mixed-race gathering had an unsavory feel. He also had to show the Security Branch something to convince them he was hard at work on the pervert lead now that the station files had yielded nothing.
“Tiny.” He put his hand out in greeting, aware of the murmur of the congregation around them.
“Detective.” The coloured man was all scrubbed up. Any trace of last night’s debauchery had disappeared. “This is a surprise. What can I do for you?”
The liquor merchant was ill at ease, his handshake a quick brush of the fingers. The crowd thinned as people moved back to assess the situation.
“Sorry to disturb you on a Sunday, Tiny. I need to reinterview all the women who filed complaints about the Peeping Tom.” He took off his hat in a friendly gesture. “I was hoping you could give me a hand.”
“Um…” Tiny hesitated. It didn’t seem right, talking about a degenerate on a potluck Sunday when all the good families were gathered around.
“I won’t talk to them now,” Emmanuel reassured him. “I need a list of names, that’s all.”
“Well…”
“There were four of them.” The tight-girdled woman next to Tiny spoke up. She was fair skinned, with two blobs of rouge painted high on her cheekbones. “Tottie and Davida, who work for the old Jew. Della, the pastor’s daughter, and Mary, Anton’s little sister.”
“Detective, this here is my wife, Bettina.” Tiny fell into line. “And this here is my daughter, Vera.”
While Tiny and Theo were up late with the whores, the women in the family stayed safe at home working the hot comb. Both mother and daughter were starched and neat with hair that hung in a lifeless curtain to the shoulder. Burn marks, now a faint red, marked the skin along their hairlines—battle scars earned in the war against the kink.
“Are all the women still in town?” Emmanuel asked.
“Tottie is there by the steps…”
Honeypot Tottie was surrounded by a swarm of suitors. She wore a tailored green and white dress with a neckline cut just low enough to produce un-Christian thoughts. The girl was ice cream on a hot day.
“Della is there next to her father.” Tiny’s daughter, Vera, pointed to a long, skinny girl with breasts a giant would have trouble getting his hand around. The pastor’s daughter was plain in the face but all souped up under the hood.
“Davida lives with Granny Mariah, but she’s with her mother at Mr. King’s lodge today and Mary is over there, helping serve the food.” Mrs. Hanson indicated a pixie-sized teenager working the tight space between two hefty matrons. Mary was halfway across the bridge between childhood and adulthood.
The women were different from each other, and distinct from the crowd in their own ways. There was Tottie, the all-round beauty and bringer of wet dreams; Della, the generously endowed pastor’s daughter; and Mary, the pocket-sized woman-child. That left Davida, whose only distinction, as far as Emmanuel could tell, was the fact that she didn’t stand out in any way. You had to get close to her to see anything of interest.
Now that he had the women’s names, it was time to chase up the garage fire story. Anton the mechanic was absent from the gathering.
“Anton not a churchgoer?” Emmanuel said.
“We’re all churchgoers, Detective,” Tiny’s wife said primly. “This is a righteous town, not like Durban and Jo’burg.”
The round-heeled women from the liquor store were missing in action.
“Drinking, dagga smoking, loose women, and loose morals.” He looked at Theo meaningfully for a moment. “I’m glad Jacob’s Rest doesn’t have that kind of thing, Mrs. Hanson.”
“You want to see Anton, Detective?” Theo asked, anxious for the conversation to move on. “He’s in the church. Come, I’ll show you.”
“Thanks for your help.” Emmanuel tipped his hat to the straitlaced pair and followed Theo through the crowd and into the church. Anton was inside, stacking hymnbooks. The stained-glass windows cast a jigsaw of colors onto the stone floor.
The mechanic looked up.
“Got you working Sundays, Detective?”
“Every day until the case is closed.”
“How’s it going?”
“Slowly,” Emmanuel said, then waited while Theo left the church. “I need information about the captain and his family.”
Anton emptied the last pew of books. “Can’t say I can help. The Dutchmen keep to themselves, the black men keep to themselves, and we do too.”
“What about the fire? How did you and the captain arrange compensation?”
There was a pause as the lanky coloured man placed the pile of books next to the pulpit. “How’d you know about that?” he asked.
“I’ve got big ears,” Emmanuel said. “Tell me about the fire.”
Anton shook his head. “I don’t want to get the Pretorius boys off side. Without the captain to control them, anything could happen.”
“Does King know about the fire?”
“He’s one of my investors,” Anton said. “He knows everything.”
“Good. If I have to, I’ll tell the Pretorius boys that King let the story out. King is too big for them to mess with, isn’t he?”
“He is,” the mechanic agreed, then got a cloth from a cupboard and began wiping down the wooden lectern with a vigorous hand. He worked for a minute in silence. Emmanuel let him get to the story in his own time.
“I used to work at the Pretorius garage,” Anton said. “Five years. Not bad work, but Erich is a hothead, always on about something or other. One day, Dlamini, a native who owns three buses, got me to do some work out at the black location and it got me thinking maybe I could go it alone, you know?”
Emmanuel nodded. He could see where the story was headed.
“I talked to a few people. King, the old Jew and Granny Mariah put up the seed money and I was on my way. Things went good for a while. The Pretorius garage kept the white trade and the holidaymakers moving through town.” Anton worked the dust rag over the wooden pews. “I kept the black and coloured trade. It was a fair split, seeing the Dutchmen own most of the cars.”
“What happened?”
“King’s nephew was visiting and his roadster needed new spark plugs. He brought the car in to me and that started it off.”
“A red sports car with white leather interior?” Emmanuel asked.
“The very one,” Anton replied. “Well, you can imagine the fuss in a town this size. An actual Jaguar XK120. White, black, coloured, they all piled into my shop for a look. I was excited myself. A car like that doesn’t come around every day.”
“You forgot,” Emmanuel said.
“That’s right.” The coloured mechanic managed a smile. “I forgot it was a white man’s car and off limits. Didn’t think about it until the old Jew came pounding on my door that night.”
“How does he fit in?”
“He saw the whole thing,” Anton said. “He saw Erich pour the petrol, light the match and walk away. It was Zweigman who went to the police station the next morning to file a witness statement. Wouldn’t be talked out of it by anyone, not even his wife.”
For someone trying to hide out in a small town, Zweigman managed to attract a lot of attention.
“Did you try to talk him out of filing the statement?”
“I was scared my house would be firebombed next,” the mechanic said. “I wanted King to handle it.”
“Did he?”
“He didn’t have to. Captain Pretorius himself came to see me in the morning and told me Erich would pay for the rebuilding of the garage and for the replacement of my lost stock.”
“In exchange for what? Getting Zweigman to withdraw his statement?”
The mechanic flushed. “It’s not possible to live here and be on the wrong side of the Pretorius boys, Detective. I asked the old Jew to withdraw the statement like the captain asked. He wasn’t happy, but he did it.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Four months.”
“Did Erich pay you the whole amount in cash?” Where would anyone, with the exception of King, get that kind of money?
“Half up front, the rest due next week.”
“How much?” Emmanuel asked.
“One hundred and fifty pounds still owing.” Anton balled the cleaning rag and threw it into the corner with a hard click of his tongue. “Not that I’ll see a penny of it now the captain has passed. There’s no papers, no nothing, to prove Erich owes me a thing.”
“No criminal record to connect him with the fire and no more debt,” Emmanuel said. Hotheaded Erich was now a person of interest to the investigation. “How did Erich feel about paying the money?”
“He was furious.” Anton sat down in a cleaned pew. “Marcus, the old mechanic who works at the garage, said the captain and Erich had a real head-to-head about it. Erich thought his pa was siding with the natives instead of supporting the family.”
That piece of information didn’t surprise Emmanuel. The Pretorius brothers were princes of Jacob’s Rest, who took their father’s protection for granted. It must have stunned Erich to find he’d overstepped the line from privileged Afrikaner to criminal.
“Why do you think the captain made Erich pay?”
“The old Jew,” Anton said. “He was one hundred percent certain he saw Erich start the fire and he was ready to swear to it in a law court. Said he’d even swear on the New Testament Bible. It took me an hour of begging to make him go to the police station and withdraw the statement.”
The captain was levelheaded enough to see that paying the money was the best option. It wouldn’t do for Frikkie van Brandenburg’s grandson to be held in a place of confinement with the detritus of European civilization. Even though it was likely that a handpicked jury of whites would decide in favor of Erich, the purebred Afrikaner, over a Jew. Captain Pretorius, it seems, was an expert at keeping things off the record and out of public view.
“The next payment is due?” Emmanuel asked.
“This Tuesday.”
“You going to ask for it?”
Anton got to his feet. “You believe a coloured man can walk into a Dutchman’s place and demand his money? You really believe that, Detective?”
Emmanuel looked at the floor, embarrassed by the raw emotion in Anton’s voice. The mechanic didn’t have a hope of getting the money unless a white man, one more powerful than Erich Pretorius, made the approach. Both he and Anton knew the simple truth.
The church door opened a fraction and Mary the woman-child peeked in.
“Anton?” Her lips clamped shut and she stood like a gazelle caught in a hunter’s spotlight.
“What is it?” Anton asked.
“Granny Mariah’s curry…” she said, then withdrew her head and disappeared from sight.
Anton forced a smile. “That’s my sister Mary. I think she wanted to say Granny Mariah’s curry is going fast. It’s a popular dish at potluck Sunday.”
“She was one of the victims in the molestation case?”
“Ja.” The mechanic rubbed a finger along the edge of a pew. “That’s why she’s like you see her now. Frightened of men she don’t know.”
“Who interviewed her?”
“Lieutenant Uys, then Captain Pretorius.” Emmanuel stepped into the aisle and moved toward the front door.
“Was Mary interviewed at the police station or at home?” he asked.
“Both.” Anton followed behind. “Why? Is the case being looked into again?”
“I’m looking into it,” he said.
“Good.” This time the mechanic’s smile was real. “It never sat right with us that nothing came of the complaints.”
“Something about the case doesn’t sit right with me, either,” Emmanuel said, thinking of the absent police files and Paul Pretorius’s dismissive attitude toward the idea that any member of his chosen race would cross the color line in search of thrills.
Anton pushed the door open and allowed Emmanuel to exit first. Outside, the potluck lunch was in full swing. The smell of mealie bread and curry flavored the air. Most of the families sat on the grass with plates of food spread out in front of them or stood in the skirt of shade cast by the gum trees. The matrons had begun to serve themselves from the depleted bowls on the long table.
“Think there’s any of Granny Mariah’s curry left?” Emmanuel asked. The look of powerlessness on Anton’s face when he talked about the money was still with him.
“Hope so.” Anton waved a hand toward the serving table. “Would you like a plate of food, Detective? You don’t have to. I’m sure the Dutch church has its own potluck, it’s just…I thought maybe…”
“I’ll take a plate,” Emmanuel said. Lunch with Hansie and the Pretorius brothers would be as much fun as the time the field medic dug a bullet out of his shoulder with a penknife. Besides, the Security Branch’s insistence that he follow up the molestation case meant he’d be spending a lot of time going in and out of coloured homes. This was a good chance for them to see him and get used to his presence.
The crowd stilled while Anton and Emmanuel approached the food table. A mother smacked her daughter on the hand to stop her talking, and the congregation kept a wary eye on his progress.
Emmanuel kept his posture relaxed. A white detective from the city was never going to be the most popular person at a nonwhite potluck Sunday lunch. Anton handed him an enamel plate edged in blue. Emmanuel walked along the table and, army mess style, received heaped spoonfuls of potato salad, roast chicken, lentils and spinach from the matrons, all of whom kept their attention on the serving plate.
The last of the matrons looked directly at him. He nodded a greeting at the woman, whose light green eyes shone like beacons in her dark face. Her wavy gray hair, pulled back into an untidy bun, was untouched by the hot comb.
“You investigating one of our people for the captain’s murder, Detective?” There was nothing in the matron’s manner to indicate any deference to the fact that she was a coloured woman talking to a white man in authority. The churchyard went quiet.
Emmanuel kept eye contact and smiled. “I’m here for some of Granny Mariah’s curry,” he said. “Any left?”
“Hmm…” She reached under the serving table and produced a silver pot. “Lucky for you we saved some for Anton.”
The formidable old lady split the curry between the two plates, and the crowd started talking again.
“Thanks,” Emmanuel said, and turned to face the picnicking congregation.
“Best we eat over there,” Anton said, and they made their way to a red gate and set their plates on a stone wall. They were as far away from the congregation as they could get without actually leaving the churchyard.
Emmanuel pointed to the dark-skinned matron who was busy tidying the serving table. “Who’s the woman with the cat’s eyes?”
“Granny Mariah.” Anton laughed. “You almost got her to smile with that curry comment. That would have been one for the books.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well…” The coloured man heaped his fork with yellow rice. “Granny doesn’t have much time for men. Doesn’t matter what color. We all a bunch of fools so far as she’s concerned.”
“I got that feeling,” Emmanuel said, and dug into the food. They ate in silence until the plates were half empty.
Anton wiped his mouth. “You want to know what’s really going on, Granny Mariah’s the one to talk to. She knows everything. That’s another reason men hold their tongues around her.”
Emmanuel recalled Tiny and Theo’s late-night antics. “Does she have anything on you?” he asked.
“Just the usual stuff.” The gold filling in Anton’s front tooth flashed bright when he smiled. “Nothing that would shock an ex-soldier or a detective investigating a murder.”
“I don’t know,” Emmanuel said. “What passes for the usual stuff in Jacob’s Rest?”
“I’m not about to confess my sins to the police. No offense, Detective Sergeant.”
“That’s wise,” Emmanuel said. Harry, the World War I veteran, crawled out from under the daisy bush and grabbed at the plate of food set out for him. He shoveled handfuls of rice into his mouth, barely chewing the food.
“Harry eats every two or three days,” Anton said. “He won’t touch anything in between. Nobody knows why.”
He’s in the trenches, Emmanuel thought, starving until the next ration trickles down from the supply line. Harry’s body was back in South Africa, but a part of his mind was still knee-deep in European mud. Emmanuel knew that feeling.
“Anyone here work at the post office?” he asked Anton as Harry cleaned the plate in four quick licks.
“Miss Byrd.” The mechanic indicated the church steps. “She’s the one in the hat.”
Several women on the stairs wore hats, but Emmanuel spotted Miss Byrd easily. The hat Anton referred to was designed to draw all eyes to its glorious layers of purple felt and puffed feathers. Miss Byrd’s Sunday crown transformed her from a sparrow into a strutting peacock.
“What does she do at the post office?”
“Sorts the mail,” Anton said. “She also serves behind the nonwhites counter now the whites have their own separate window.”
Emmanuel finished his lunch and wiped his mouth and hands clean with his handkerchief. Miss Byrd was perfect for what he needed.
“I’d like an introduction,” he said to Anton.
The town was deep in a Sunday-afternoon slump. All the shops were closed, the streets empty of human traffic. A stray dog limped across Piet Retief Street and onto a kaffir path running beside Pretorius Farm Supply. Emmanuel’s footsteps were loud on the pavement. He peered into Kloppers shoe store. Hard-wearing farmer’s boots and snub-nosed school shoes clustered around a pair of red stilettos with diamantés glued to the heel. The strappy red shoes sat at the center of the display like a glowing heart. The order for the red shoes must have been made while fantasy images of dancing and champagne blocked out the dusty reality of life in Jacob’s Rest.
The Security Branch Chevrolet was parked in front of the police station with its doors locked and windows rolled up. A sharp-faced man with clipped sideburns sat on the stoep and stared across the empty main street. His tie was loosened, his shirtsleeves rolled up past the elbow to reveal pink strips of sunburned flesh. Lieutenant Uys was back in town after his holiday in Mozambique.
“Lieutenant Uys?” Emmanuel held his hand out. “Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper, Marshal Square CID.”
“Lieutenant Sarel Uys.” The lieutenant got to his feet for the formal introductions and Emmanuel felt the brief crush of sinewy fingers around his hand. Sarel Uys barely scraped the minimum height required to join the force, which explained the “show of force” handshake.
“You’ve heard?” Emmanuel asked.
“About a half hour ago.” The lieutenant slumped back down in his chair. “Your friends broke the news.”
Emmanuel ignored the reference to the Security Branch. Deep furrows of discontent ran from the corner of Sarel’s mouth to his jawline.
“Did you know the captain well, Lieutenant?” he asked.
Sarel grunted. “The only one who knew the captain was that native.”
“Constable Shabalala?”
“That’s him.” Sarel looked like he’d sucked a crateful of lemons for breakfast. “He and the captain were tight.”
Sandwiched between the giant forms of Captain Pretorius and Constable Shabalala, the wiry little lieutenant was number three at the Jacob’s Rest police station. It seemed that fact cut deeper than the captain’s murder.
“Have you been stationed here long?” Emmanuel continued with the informal fact gathering.
“Two years. I was at Scarborough before.”
“That’s quite a change,” Emmanuel said. Scarborough was a prime post. Policemen fought hard to get into the wealthy white enclave and then, if they were smart enough, they made some influential friends to ensure they only left Scarborough to retire someplace sunny. A transfer to Jacob’s Rest smelled of involuntary exile. He’d get someone at district headquarters to dig up the dirt on Lieutenant Uys’s transfer to the cattle yard.
“That’s why I spend my holidays in Mozambique or Durban,” he said. “I prefer the ocean to the countryside.” Sarel Uys smiled and showed a row of teeth the size of dried baby corn kernels. Everything about the man was small and hard.
“Most people in town go to Mozambique a couple of times a year, don’t they?”
“Everyone but the natives,” Sarel said. “They don’t like the water.”
The blacks’ dislike of water was a tired belief that ceased to apply the moment whites needed their clothes washed or their gardens watered.
“Did Captain Pretorius go often?” Emmanuel asked.
“A couple of times a year.”
“With the family or by himself?”
The lieutenant was suddenly curious. “You think maybe someone from over there did it?”
“Maybe. Do you know if Captain Pretorius ever went to LM for business?”
“Ask the native,” the lieutenant threw back. “He’ll tell you if he has a mind to.”
“You’ve been here two years,” Emmanuel continued. It was getting harder to maintain a friendly tone with this man. “Surely you got to know Captain Pretorius a little?”
“This murder is typical of the captain.” Sarel shook his head in disbelief. “I tell you, it’s typical of the way he treated me.”
Emmanuel had trouble following the logic. “How so?”
“He got himself killed while I was away on holiday so I didn’t get to find the body or call in the detectives. My one chance to get back to Scarborough and he makes sure I’m not here to take it.”
“Captain Pretorius didn’t plan on getting murdered,” Emmanuel said.
“He knew everything that went on in this town. He must have known he was in danger. I could have helped him if he’d just told me what was going on.” The lieutenant’s slender fingers rubbed a bald spot into the material of his trousers.
Perhaps Sarel Uys needed a permanent holiday from the force instead of six days in Mozambique.
“He never asked for my help.” Uys stared across the quiet street. “I could have been his right-hand man if he’d given me the chance.”
The bitter tone had changed to longing. Uys had never left the playground or outgrown the desire to be close to the most popular and athletic student. The captain had denied him the small pleasure of living in his reflected glory.
“I’ve heard you helped the captain with a lot of cases. You both worked the molester case, didn’t you?”
“Oh, that.” The little man was dismissive. “Catching a man who interferes with coloured women doesn’t get you noticed with the higher-ups, believe me.”
Emmanuel leaned a shoulder against the wall and thought of Tiny and Theo out on the veldt with a loaded gun and itchy fingers. They’d taken the law into their own hands because the law didn’t give a damn what happened to their women.
“Captain Pretorius didn’t care about promotion,” Sarel went on. “He was happy here with ‘his people,’ as he called them. He didn’t have any plans to move up. Not like me.”
Emmanuel doubted Lieutenant Uys was moving anywhere but sideways and eventually out of the force. He’d end his days warming a bar stool and complaining about his missed chances.
“Did the investigation run for a long time?” Emmanuel asked.
“Maybe two months or so. There were times I couldn’t get through a week without hearing some coloured woman complaining about being followed or being touched up.”
Emmanuel thought of Mary, the woman-child, darting away from the church door like a startled springbok. Who had put the fear of men into her? The Peeping Tom or Lieutenant Uys?
“You filed all the interviews?”
“In one big fat folder. Under U for unsolved,” Sarel said with satisfaction.
The file wasn’t under U or any other letter. The files were no longer “absent,” they’d been taken. Sarel had no idea the file was missing, but even if he’d noticed, he’d have let it ride: there was no glory in hunting up a file concerning a nonwhite problem. The new laws were set to make old attitudes worse. Nonwhite cases were already at the bottom of the pile. That’s why the Security Branch was so pleased to off-load the molester case onto him. Only grunt cops with too much time and too few brains dirtied their hands exclusively with nonwhite cases.
Emmanuel pushed himself from the wall. Why would someone take the files unless there was something in them worth hiding?
He left Uys to his bitter musings. The filing cabinet needed to be searched again and then he’d move on to Constable Shabalala and see what shards of information he could extract from the black man.
Emmanuel entered the front office. A dog-eared paper folder lay on Hansie’s desk. The folder was dark blue and not like any of those in the police station’s filing cabinet. It was not like anything he’d seen at Marshal CID, either. A pale yellow snakelike S was hand-drawn on the front—a Security Branch file. Emmanuel checked the front door and the side door leading to the cells. He couldn’t lock either without drawing attention to himself, so he moved quickly.
He unbuttoned the fastener: inside the folder was a stack of mimeographed papers stamped along the top with the bright red warning “Highly Confidential.” The word “Communist” was repeated on every page above lists of names neatly drawn into two columns underneath.
A pamphlet with the optimistic title “A New Dawn for South Africa” was clipped to the front of a hazy black-and-white graduation photo. The face of a young black man wearing thick-rimmed glasses was circled in red. At the bottom of the photo was the school’s name, “Fort Bennington College.”
Emmanuel knew the school by reputation. It was an Anglican mission school famous for turning out the black academic elite. The first black lawyer to open his own law firm, the first black doctor to run an all-black practice, the first black dentist had all come out of the school. Fort Bennington College educated blacks to rule the country, not just carry a bucket for the white man. Afrikaners and conservative Englishmen hated the place with a passion.
A cough from the direction of the cells forced Emmanuel to close the file and rebutton the fastener. The folder was proof that Piet and Dickie were the attack dogs of a powerful political force with vast intelligence-gathering capabilities. His hands shook as he repositioned the blue folder and moved to the filing cabinet, where he checked under the letter U and found nothing.
The door to the cells opened. It was Piet with his shirtsleeves rolled up and a cigarette hanging from the side of his puffy lips. The Security Branch officer undid the fastener on the blue folder and slid a piece of paper into the middle.
“Have fun at the coloured church?” Piet asked, and took a deep draw on his cigarette.
“Not much,” Emmanuel said.
“Shame.” Piet grinned. “Van Niekerk won’t like to hear his number one boy has come home empty-handed.”
Piet blew a series of smoke rings into the air and Emmanuel’s heartbeat spiked. The Security Branch had found something. N’kosi Duma had given them something good. Piet could hardly contain his glee.
“Is Constable Shabalala around?” Emmanuel asked. There was nothing to gain from going up against the Security Branch in a cocksure mood. He had to sidestep them and find out as much as he could from other sources.
“Out the back,” Piet said. “You can come through, but be quick about it.”
Emmanuel walked through to the police station yard and saw Dickie standing by an open cell door. A gaunt black man, whom he assumed was Duma, cowered against the hard metal bars.
“Don’t worry…” Dickie spoke to the terrified miner in a grotesque parody of motherly concern. “I’m sure your comrades will understand why you did it.”
“Dickie.” Piet encouraged his partner to move his tank-sized body farther into the cell. The black man flinched and held his arms over his head in a protective gesture. Dark bruises marked Duma’s skinny arms and a low animal whimper came from deep in the terrified man’s throat. The Security Branch always got what they wanted: one way or another.
“Keep moving,” Piet ordered. “Your business is outside.”
Two steaming cups of tea rested on the small table by the back door. Emmanuel exited and found Shabalala seated by the edge of a small fire that burned in the outdoor hearth. Piet slammed the back door shut.
“Detective Sergeant.” Shabalala stood up to greet him.
Emmanuel shook the black man’s hand and they sat down.
“What happened in there?” he asked in Zulu.
“I have been outside,” Shabalala answered.
“What do you think happened?” Emmanuel pushed a little harder. Unlike Sarel Uys and Hansie Hepple, the black policeman showed a real aptitude for the finer details of police work. Constable Shabalala needed to know that nothing he said could be used against him by the Security Branch later.
The black policeman checked the back door to make sure it was still shut. “The two men, they want to know if Duma has seen a piece of paper with”—he paused to retrieve the unfamiliar word—“Communist writing on it when he worked in the mines.”
“Did they get an answer from him?”
“Those two did not get an answer from Duma,” Shabalala said with a trace of contempt. “It was the shambok that got the answer.”
Emmanuel took a breath and looked deep into the fire. The liberal use of the rawhide whip, the shambok, readily explained the bruises on the miner’s arms. Hard questioning was one of the things that made the Security Branch “special.”
“What did Duma say?”
“I did not hear,” Shabalala said. “I could not listen anymore.”
This time Emmanuel didn’t push. The sound of a man being broken during interrogation was enough to turn the strongest stomach. Shabalala had walked away and Emmanuel couldn’t blame him.
“Did they find out anything about the captain’s murder?”
“No,” Shabalala said. “They wanted only to know about the writing.”
If a link, however tenuous, was proved between a Communist and the murder of an Afrikaner police captain, Piet and Dickie were set for a smooth ride to Pretoria and a personal meeting with the prime minister of the Union. After the ministerial handshake they’d get fast-tracked promotions and an even bigger shambok to wield.
It seemed the Security Branch was in the middle of an investigation that somehow tied in with Captain Pretorius’s murder. Piet Lapping was no fool. He was in Jacob’s Rest because something in his confidential folder drew him to the town with the promise of netting a genuine Communist revolutionary.
“Are all the police files for this station kept inside?” Emmanuel steered away from the dark swamp of torture and political conspiracy that Piet and Dickie waded through for a living. The Security Branch could continue chasing Communist agitators. He’d play his hunch that the murder was tied to one of the many secrets Captain Pretorius kept.
“Sometimes,” Shabalala said, “Captain took the files home to read. He did this many times.”
“He had an office at home?” Emmanuel asked. Why hadn’t he thought of that when he was at the house?
“No office,” the black constable said. “But there is a room in the house where Captain Pretorius spent much time.”
“How would a person get into such a room?” Emmanuel wondered aloud.
“A person must first ask the missus. If she says yes, then he can go into the room and see things for himself.”
“If the missus says no?”
The black man hesitated, then said very clearly, “The man must tell me and I will get the key to the room from the old one who works there at the house. She will open this room for the person.”
Emmanuel let his breath out slowly.
“I will ask the missus,” he said, and left it there.
They sat side by side and watched the flames without speaking. The bond, still fragile, held firm. The Security Branch had a file crammed with enemies of the state but he had the inside track on the captain’s shadow life.
The back door opened and Piet stepped out into the backyard with his cup of tea. His pebble eyes had an unnatural sheen to them, as if he’d swallowed a witch’s brew and found that what killed other men made him strong.
“We’re through.” Piet spoke directly to Shabalala. “You can take him back to the location but make sure he doesn’t go anywhere until our investigation has finished. Understand?”
“Yes, Lieutenant.” Shabalala moved quickly toward the back door. When he drew level with Piet, the Security Branch agent put his hand out and patted his arm.
“Good tea,” he said with a grin. “Your mother trained you well, hey.”
“Dankie,” Shabalala replied in Afrikaans, then stepped into the station without looking at him.
Emmanuel marveled at Piet’s ability to mix an afternoon of torture with harmless banter. It didn’t matter that Shabalala and Duma knew each other and might even be related. When pockmarked Piet looked at Constable Samuel Shabalala, he didn’t see an individual; he saw a black face ready to do his bidding without question.
The Security Branch lieutenant sipped his tea and took in the dusty yard with a sigh.
“I like the country,” he announced. “It’s peaceful.”
“You thinking of moving out here?” Emmanuel said, and made for the back door. He didn’t have the stomach to listen to Piet waxing lyrical about the beauty of the land.
“Not yet.” Piet wasn’t letting anything penetrate his bucolic reverie. “When all the bad guys are behind bars and South Africa is safe, I’ll move to a small farm with a view of the mountains.”
“Home sweet home.” Emmanuel pulled the back door open and walked into the police station. Captain Pretorius had lived the dream. He was a powerful white man on a small farm with a view of the mountains. He’d ended up with a bullet to the head.
“Woza. Get up, Duma, and I will take you home.” It was Shabalala trying to coax the traumatized black man out of the cell. The injured miner was still pressed up against the bars with his arms over his head.
Shabalala put both his hands out like a parent encouraging a toddler to walk for the first time.
“Woza,” Shabalala repeated quietly. “Come. I will take you to your mother.”
Duma struggled to his feet and steadied himself against the bars of the cell, then limped painfully toward the door. The miner’s left leg was half an inch shorter than the right and twisted at an odd angle. Even before the Security Branch abuse, Duma must have been a pitiful sight.
Emmanuel felt a flash of heat across his chest. Not the familiar surge of adrenaline that accompanied a break in the case but a white-hot bolt of rage. The captain was shot by an able-bodied man with keen eyesight, a steady hand, and two feet planted firmly on the ground. Duma didn’t come close to presenting a match with the killer.
Shabalala held the crippled miner’s hand and led him out of the cell toward the back door. The front door and the front offices were for whites only. Emmanuel’s rage turned to discomfort as he stepped back to allow the black men passage. Shabalala and his charge would spend the next hour dragging themselves across the veldt until they reached the location five miles north of town.
“Stay by the front door to the hospital,” Emmanuel said quickly before sanity returned and he changed his mind. “I will come and pick you up.”
“We will be there,” Shabalala said.
Emmanuel walked through the front office and out onto the veranda, where Dickie and Sarel were watching a line of three cars driving down the main street. The sour-faced lieutenant looked like a ventriloquist’s dummy next to his hefty companion.
“Weekenders coming back into SA from Mozambique.” Sarel Uys indicated the country-style traffic jam. “They’ll make a dash for home before the sun sets.”
Dickie drank his tea with noisy enjoyment. Like pockmarked Piet, he had the look of a man with the wind at his back and the road rising up to meet him. What had Duma said? The Security Branch had released him, so they weren’t looking to hang the captain’s murder on him. What, then? He could try to find out, but Duma wasn’t in a fit state to talk to anyone. The connection between a Communist plot and Captain Pretorius’s murder remained a mystery for the moment.
“Any luck with the pervert?” Dickie called out with great cheer.
“Not yet,” Emmanuel said, and turned in the direction of The Protea Guesthouse, where the Packard sedan was parked. Justice be damned. He’d find the killer first, not to serve justice, but to see the look on Dickie’s face when he shoved the result down his throat.
Duma was slumped in the backseat of the Packard with his eyes rolled back in his head. A low whimpering was the only sound he made. Emmanuel pulled the car to a stop in front of the church and glanced at Shabalala, who was nursing the half-crazed man.
“How was he before this afternoon?” he asked Shabalala.
The black constable shrugged. “Since the rock crushed his leg, he has been bad. Now he is worse.”
A group of older black women approached the car. They were cautious and fearful in their movement, not knowing what to expect once the car doors opened. The women stopped short when Shabalala got out and approached them. There was the quiet murmur of Zulu before a pencil-thin woman in a yellow dress gave a shout and ran for the Packard. Emmanuel stilled as the woman hauled the miner into a sitting position in the backseat and wailed out loud. The sound was an ocean of sorrows.
Shabalala pulled the woman away and lifted Duma from the car. The women followed the black policeman who carried the cripple down the narrow dirt road toward home.
The skinny woman’s cries carried back to him and Emmanuel switched on the engine to drown out the sound. Five years of soldiering and four years picking over the remains of the dead and still the sound of a woman’s grief made his heart ache.