'Could
one of your clients with unusual tastes be involved?'
Exodus
shook his head. 'I do not touch that kind of business. The backroom fights,
yes. The card games, yes. The man who wishes to lie with a man or a woman of
any colour, this I also do. Blood and children together I do not do.'
Emmanuel
circled back to the first question. 'Did you see Jolly that night?'
'No.'
Exodus answered without hesitation. 'Business, it was slow until this man came
with the piece of paper with the address. I took the money and drove to the
house. No problems.'
'And
after?'
'I
went home to my mother's sister's house in Cato Manor. On Friday morning I
drove three girls to a party at a sugar mill outside Stanger.'
'A
two-day party?' Emmanuel said. This was a chance for Exodus to get the events
of the last few days straight. Only a watertight chronology would satisfy the
detective branch if they tracked down the Flying Dutchman.
'The
men were having a party but the girls, they were working. You understand?'
'Yeah,
I understand.'
This
backed up what Khan had said about Exodus being out of town until Sunday. The
Indian criminal knew what he was talking about. Emmanuel filed the fact away
for future reference.
A
hard metal click came from the rear seat and Emmanuel swivelled around to check
on the Russians. Natalya had opened the lid of the suitcase and removed a hip
flask and a small gold box. She picked four red tablets from the box and fed
them to Nicolai.
'What
are those?' Emmanuel said.
'Pain.'
Nicolai took a gulp from the flask that Natalya pressed to his lips and
swallowed the pills.
Emmanuel
leaned into the passenger compartment, determined to extract some information
from the Russian man before the drugs took effect. 'Who's trying to hurt you,
Nicolai?'
'Many
people.'
'Why?'
'Because
I am Nicolai Andrei Petrov.'
'What
does that mean?'
'I
was not supposed to leave.' The Russian leaned back in the seat and closed his
eyes. 'Now they will find me and make me go back.'
'Who
are
they?'
Emmanuel said but got no response.
Natalya
stroked her husband's wiry beard and laid her head on his shoulder. The couple
rested in the way that soldiers rest after the fight. Emmanuel backed off. Many
nights in the winter fields of Europe he had longed for the comfort of sleep
himself. When they arrived at Chateau La Mer he'd let Nicolai and Natalya have
an hour of dreams. He couldn't afford to give them any more time than that.
'Where
must I go to?' Exodus said.
'Willowvale
Road in Glenwood,' he said.
Hélène
Gerard sat in the shade of the veranda and cradled a full glass of red wine.
She wore a bright orange cocktail dress with a full skirt but no shoes. As the
DeSoto pulled into the drive she stood and approached the stairs, smile at the
ready.
'Detective
Cooper, welcome back.' She waved towards the odd assortment of passengers in
the fancy car. 'I see you've brought some friends with you. Will they be
staying?' The tip of Hélène's nose was red and the skin around her eyes was
puffed and swollen; the result of an afternoon of heavy drinking interspersed
with tears. Her brightly coloured dress and bare feet - resort wear for
carefree days - had not chased the Sunday blues away.
'We'll
be staying for a while,' Emmanuel said and opened the passenger door. He
offered Natalya a hand but she ignored it and struggled out of the DeSoto. She
massaged the small of her back and swore in Russian; a modern-day Eve, cursed
with the nurturing of male seed and the bearing of children.
'This
is Natalya,' Emmanuel said. 'She doesn't speak English but she might like a
meal and a bath.'
'Yes,
of course.' Hélène navigated the stairs from the porch to the drive slowly,
hands gripping the railing for balance. 'I'll make sure she has everything she
needs, Detective Cooper.'
'Thanks.'
Emmanuel
watched the drunken Frenchwoman and the pregnant Russian climb the stairs to La
Mer like invalid companions on an excursion.
Hélène
hesitated at the front door. 'You'll tell the major?' she said.
'Of
course.'
One
day soon, Emmanuel figured, the mystery of the sad French-Mauritian and her
absent husband was going to be solved.
'Thank
you, Detective.' Hélène mimed the actions for washing hair and eating while she
led Natalya into the house.
Emmanuel
leaned into the passenger compartment of the DeSoto and found Nicolai slumped
against the leather. The whites of his eyes showed between half-closed lids and
a faint beat pulsed at the base of his neck.
'Nicolai.'
Emmanuel slid into the car and tapped a bristled cheek. 'Nicolai. Are you
awake?'
'Tired.
I sleep, yes?'
'Not
yet,' Emmanuel said. 'Soon.'
The
big man struggled to sit up but did not have the strength to shift his large
frame off the seat. Blue smudges darkened the skin under his eyes.
'Lie
back,' Emmanuel said and the Russian collapsed into the folds of his winter
coat. The painkillers might have had barbiturates in them. It hardly mattered.
Pills or not, Nicolai was too weak to help the investigation for a few more
hours. The run of bad luck continued.
'Give
me a hand,' Emmanuel said to Exodus. 'We have to get him into bed. I'll take
his shoulders. You take his legs.'
Exodus
left the sanctuary of the DeSoto reluctantly. Mixing in white people's business
was part of the job, but this situation was more complicated than dropping a
man off at a hush-hush multiracial brothel or setting up a private poker game.
Emmanuel
pushed Nicolai across the seat and, together with Exodus, manoeuvred the
Russian up the stairs and into La Mer. The interior of the house was dark and
cool. A kettle whistled in the kitchen. They carted Nicolai to Emmanuel's room
and put him into the provincial-style bed, where his solid body made a trench
in the goose-down quilt.
'I
must go,' Exodus said and backed out of the room quickly. He kept his gaze to
the pine floorboards so that it was clear to Emmanuel and to anyone else that
while he had been in the house he had not seen anything.
'Do
you have any friends or relatives outside of Durban?' Emmanuel asked when the
Basotho man had shuffled out onto the veranda.
'My
father's brother is in Port Elizabeth.'
'Stay
with him for a few days.'
The
police would stop searching for the Flying Dutchman the minute van Niekerk's
forty-eight-hour deal expired.
'I
will go straight away.' Exodus ran down the front stairs and unlocked the
DeSoto's giant boot. He stowed the handsome fedora in a round hatbox and then
pulled out the workman's overalls, which he slipped over his green suit and
buttoned to the throat. The transformation from a worldly black man into a
common servant had the quality of a magic trick. Then he lifted the carpet on
the boot floor and removed a piece of folded paper, an exercise book and a pen.
'What's
that for?' Emmanuel asked.
'A
travel pass and a permission slip from the
baas
to say it is okay to drive his
car to Port Elizabeth.'
'What
baas
?'
'You.'
Exodus brought the pen and the notebook to Emmanuel and handed them over.
Port
Elizabeth was seventy miles down the coast but natives were not free to travel
from one town to another without official consent from the government and their
employer. A black man in a nice car was an invitation to the police to conduct
a stop and search.
'What
must I write?' Emmanuel said.
Exodus
dictated. ' "This boy works for me. He is a good boy and a good driver. He
is going to Port Elizabeth to do work for me. Please let him pass." Sign
your name at the bottom.'
Emmanuel
wrote the note word for word. He felt an embarrassment that had lain almost
dormant since childhood. Nine years old, working part-time at the local
garage, he was given the job of signing the weekend leave slips for the four
Sotho petrol pump attendants: grown men with wives and children and grey hair
sprinkled among the black, allowed to go home on the authority of a white child
still in short pants.
'Much
thanks.' Exodus shoved the note into the work overalls and got into the car. He
started the engine and reversed out of La Mer's driveway, an adult man armed
with written permission to travel over land once owned by his own people.
Emmanuel
was no closer to knowing who had killed Jolly Marks or Mrs Patterson and Mbali
the maid. The list of suspects wasn't even a list, it was just a pair of names:
Joe Flowers and Brother Jonah. Without the help of the detective branch and
the foot police, identifying the driver of the black Dodge would be nearly
impossible.
Emmanuel
stretched the tension out of his neck and stared down at the sparkling white
town below him. The pretty houses and colourful flowerbeds were ordered and
peaceful. He knew from experience that looks were often deceiving.
A
pain that could not be cured by morphine or any other drug pressed against
Emmanuel's skull. The sergeant major's voice would come soon, spitting and
swearing. Expect pain. Accept pain. Peace comes after the fight, not before. He
decided to surrender.
'When
you're ready,' he said, 'I'll listen.'
The
voice remained silent.
A
light shone from the front window of Sister Anne's flat. Her father had been
wheeled in for the night. The plan of attack was simple. He would enter the
bedroom via the back window and catch Anne and Joe by surprise. If the window
was locked he'd kick down the front door and try his luck. Emmanuel threw the
Walther PPK into the Buick's glove box. Introduce a gun and a simple plan split
into a dozen new scenarios that mostly involved blood and a free ride in the
back of a caged police van.
The
wind had picked up and brought with it the smell of diesel and salt. Jolly's
little sister emerged from the building and sat on the top stair with her baby
doll wrapped in a rag quilt. The night settled around her and strands of hair
lifted from her shoulders in the wind. Emmanuel locked the Buick, climbed the
stairs and sat down next to the girl. The aroma of fried onion drifted from the
hallway.
'It's
late,' he said. 'What are you doing out here?'
'Baby
can't sleep. It's too quiet inside and she likes to watch the lighthouse
blinking.'
The
intermittent flash of yellow from the Bluff lighthouse danced across the
harbour but didn't reach the shore.
'Do
you remember who I am?'
'You're
a policeman.' She rocked the baby doll back and forth in the cradle of her
arms.
'That's
right. I talked to you the other day. Do you know the girl Anne who lives above
you?'
'Ja.
Anne has kittens.'
'Have
you seen her tonight?'
'She
took her pa inside. He was coughing.'
'Is
she at home, do you think?'
Susannah
lifted the doll to her shoulder and stroked its spine with a tenderness that
forced Emmanuel to look away. Old memories resurfaced. A fresh grave marked by
a baby's rattle instead of a cross. Women crouched in the rubble with their
children held close even though their own bodies were no protection against
bombs or bullets. He'd seen prams ushered through decimated towns by
hollow-eyed women dressed in tatters. In war, women protected life as though it
were a tiny flame in the wind.
'She's
fixing a stew for Joe,' Susannah said. 'He's got a big head, like Punch and
Judy.'
'Joe?
Are you sure?'
She
reached into the folds of the rag quilt and withdrew a coin. 'Joe gave me a
penny when he came through the backyard. He said I must buy sweets with it.'
'Was
Anne waiting for him?'
'Ja.
She let him into her window and
then she asked my ma for some onions.' Susannah pulled a second coin from the
dirty bundle. 'Anne gave me this one. If any of the police come I must run and
tell her quick.'
'I'm
a policeman. Why didn't you run and tell her?'
'Baby
will wake up if I move. When baby's asleep I'll go tell.'
Running
Joe down would not be easy. He was big and fast and he knew the neighbourhood.
Catching him by surprise was the trick.
A commander uses
the weapons at hand, soldier,
the Scottish sergeant major said.
The girl is old
enough to do the job. Send her into the field
.
Susannah
hummed a lullaby and Emmanuel rubbed the back of his neck where the neat razor
cut of his hair met the skin. He still took orders from a voice in his head
eight years after being demobbed from the army. Tonight, that seemed to make a
kind of sense.
'How
high can you count to, Susannah?'
'One
hundred and forty-three. Jolly taught me.'
That
would give him enough time to make it into the backyard via the gate that led
to the back lane. It might work.
'Will
baby be asleep by the time you count to one hundred and forty-three, do you
think?'
'Maybe,'
Susannah said. 'She has bad dreams that come in through the windows. Maybe
she'll drop off at one hundred and ten. That's her favourite number.'
'When
baby's asleep will you knock on Anne's door and tell her the police are out the
front?'
'Ja.
'
'Good,'
Emmanuel said. 'Remember the police are out the front. Not the back or the
side. At the front.'
That
should push Flowers through the fire-escape window and into the yard. The
yellow door he'd seen from Anne's and her father's bedroom led to a disused
back lane. Joe would likely exit through there.
'Shh
. . .' Susannah whispered. 'Her eyes are closing.'
'Tell
Anne and go back inside,' he said. The port at night was no playground. 'Okay?'
The
girl nodded and Emmanuel sprinted to the corner. He checked over his shoulder.
Susannah was on her feet, gently rocking the sleeping doll in her arms like a
tiny Madonna. Shoulder-wide alleys that ran between the buildings offered the
quickest way to the back. Emmanuel squeezed into the first one and worked
around crumbling drainpipes and piles of rusty cans thrown out from kitchen
windows on the upper floors. He prayed Susannah was slow up the stairs or he
was going to miss Joe Flowers altogether.
The
narrow back lane ran parallel to the road with the rear of the blocks of flats
on either side of it. A yellow square marked the gate that led into the yard of
Jolly Marks's former home. Emmanuel moved in. Footsteps clanged on the fire
escape. He and Joe were going to arrive at the gate at roughly the same time.
Attack is the
best form of defence, soldier,
the sergeant major growled.
Lay him flat
.
The
yellow gate creaked open and Emmanuel crashed into it with his shoulder. The
wood swung inwards and met Joe coming out. The prison escapee fell back,
winded, and
Emmanuel
held him down on the dirty concrete slab under the washing lines. A window
opened and a man in a grubby undershirt leaned out, a hand-rolled cigarette
pinched into the corner of his mouth.
'What
the hell is going on? I'll get the police onto the two of you. Now piss off.'
'I
am the police,' Emmanuel said and the man withdrew and shut the window behind
him. The metal scrape of curtains closing sounded across the yard as the
inhabitants of the slum dwelling shut the trouble out of their lives.
'Got
any weapons on you?' Emmanuel patted Joe down. 'A knife or maybe a gun.'
'Nothing,'
Joe gasped.
Emmanuel
checked his suit pockets and dug out a packet of loose tobacco, rolling papers
and a stub for admission to
A Woman's Face,
an MGM movie on continuous show
at the Oxford Cinema from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. The cinema tearooms were the
perfect hiding place for criminals and recalcitrant schoolboys. And the ticket
included a cup of hot tea and a biscuit at intermission.
'Tell
me about Jolly Marks,' Emmanuel said.
'Don't
know him.'
Emmanuel
knocked Joe's box head against the concrete. It thumped like a watermelon
tumbling off a fruit cart.
'Jolly
was a member of the Zion Church. He lived across the hall from one of your
special sisters. You knew him. Don't lie to me.'
'Oh...
him.'
'Ja.
Him.'
'Haven't
seen him. Honest.'
Emmanuel
thumped Joe's head again. 'When was the last time you saw him?'
'Back
then.' Joe groaned. 'Before I went to Durban Central.'
'You
sure about that?'
'Ja
. Why are you asking me about
that kid? He wasn't right in the head that one. Him and his sister both.'
'Stay
away from his sister.' Emmanuel pressed Joe's muscular body into the concrete
till air wheezed from his lungs. 'Stay away from the girl or I will hunt you
down. Do you understand?'
'Can't
breathe ...' Joe gasped and Emmanuel eased off. With the sergeant major riding
shotgun, inflicting harm would be easy, even enjoyable. That was what he had to
guard against: the deliberate step into darkness.
'You
get off my Joe.' The fire-escape stairs rattled and Anne leaned her bony elbows
onto the railing. 'He came out of Durban Central to take care of his ma. She's
sick.'
'You
don't look like his mother,' Emmanuel said.
'And
you look like you enjoy having Joe under you like that. I knowed you was funny
when I seen that fancy suit.'
'Shut
up and go back inside, Anne.'
'He's
my man,' she said. 'I stay with him.'
Such
bravado in defence of a thieving pimp. The gift of the perfume had done its
job.
'Suit
yourself,' Emmanuel said. 'If you come down here you'll be interfering with
police business and then you and Joe can cosy up in the back of a van - all the
way to the cells.'
Anne
remained silent. For a moment, she was the tough heroine of an imaginary film
but without the benefit of good lighting and make-up.
Emmanuel
returned to Joe. 'Where have you been since leaving Durban Central? Hanging
around the docks at night?'
'No
ways,' Joe said. 'There's police everywhere. I've been with my ma.'
'Don't
forget shopping. That's nice stuff you got for her. A gas stove, sugar, apples.
Where did those things come from?'
'I
found them.'
Bullshit,
the sergeant major spat.
Put the pain on and this fucker will talk. Open him up
.
'You
found them?' Emmanuel worked his knee into the small of Joe's back. 'Tell me
where.'
'Okay.
Okay. I got a friend; he works on the port railway. He got them for me. Off the
back of a freight car.'
'For
free? That's a good friend.'
'I
exchange things.'
'What
things?'
'Things.
Things my friend wants.'
'Like
what?'
Joe
motioned in Anne's direction and Emmanuel decreased the pressure. The bony girl
was too young to understand the difference between being used and being loved.
Maybe her whole life would follow that pattern: poor, underfed and uneducated,
always in search of a man to fill the empty spaces inside her.
The
smell of burnt onions and meat drifted out of an open window.
'You
better take care of that stew,' Emmanuel said. 'Unless you want to burn the
place down.'
Anne
jumped up and climbed back through the window. A woman should stand by her man
but life kept happening.
Dirty
dishes had to be washed, the laundry folded and the cats fed. The window
closed.
Emmanuel
lifted Joe, settled him against the fence and looked into his broad face. 'Was
Jolly Marks part of your exchange scheme?'
'No.
No ways. Never.'
'I
told you not to lie.'
'I
ain't lying. That kid was strange. The whole family is strange. Not my cup of
tea.'
'Where
were you on Thursday night? That was your first night out.'
'With
my ma. I went to see her, first thing.' Joe's throat muscles constricted and a
tear rolled from the corner of his eye. 'The clinic hasn't got medicine and
she's not doing so good
—
'
'Stop,'
Emmanuel said. 'Stop.' There was no space in his head for a sentimental
criminal who exchanged his girlfriend's body for apples and sugar and boxes of
candles. 'It was your first night out,' he said. 'Shut in prison for months.
You expect me to believe that you didn't come straight down to the harbour to
look for some fun?'
'I
would have,' Joe admitted. 'But I didn't have money.'
'You
don't need money. Your sisters earn it for you.'
'Jâ,
but all the good earners are
gone. All that's left is her upstairs and she has to look after her pa most of
the time.'
'Did
you see Jolly Marks that night?'
'Why
do you keep asking me about him?'
'Jolly
Marks was murdered the night you escaped from Durban Central. His body was
dumped in the freight yard. What do you know about that?'
Joe
tried to scramble to the gate but Emmanuel pushed him down. The light leaking
from the windows of the flats was sufficient to illuminate Joe's jug face.
Unadulterated fear and disbelief glittered in his hazel eyes.