Let the Dead Lie (25 page)

The
dead weight of Nicolai Petrov's drugged body strained the muscles of Emmanuel's
back. The servant's room was only a few yards ahead but every step was an
effort. Maybe a trail of bombs raining down onto the garden would speed the
process up. He'd never been able to regain the alacrity that he'd found under
enemy fire. He'd never felt the same level of fear either. At least while he
was awake.

Emmanuel
rounded the corner of the
kyaha
and placed Nicolai's body on the
ground. A half moon lit the path. The little red pills the Russian had gulped
in the back seat of the DeSoto weren't just for pain; they must have contained
powerful barbiturates because he was still deeply under. Lana manhandled the suitcase
through the hole in the hedge while a sleepy Natalya crouched in the darkness.

'In.
Fast.' Lana pointed to the tunnel and Natalya crawled through on her hands and
knees, cursing all the way.

'You
next,' Emmanuel said to Lana. If the Security Branch men were on their tail,
then he'd be the first one to face them.

'Hurry,'
she whispered and crawled into the breach and out of sight.

Emmanuel
lifted Nicolai by the shoulders and manoeuvred his bulk to the mouth of the
tunnel. The thick winter coat was ridiculous in the tropics but perfect for
pulling a body across the ground. Branches ripped Vincent Gerard's expensive jacket
and scraped Emmanuel's face and hands. The tunnel was built for one person only
and dragging a near comatose male through it was a tight squeeze.

He
stopped midway to rest his aching shoulders and catch his breath. Car doors
closed on the street. The sound helped him find new strength. Three more tugs
and he and Nicolai emerged among the white orchids. There was no sign of Lana
or Natalya. The pounding of footsteps came from over the fence. A door smashed
open under the force of a boot. Male voices shouted and he heard the men enter
the house.

Emmanuel
lifted Nicolai onto his shoulders and ran for the empty driveway. He stumbled
but regained his balance. The Russian groaned. Emmanuel pushed hard to the
street. Lana and Natalya were still nowhere in sight. Where the hell were they?

He
spun in a circle and saw brick walls, nodding rose heads and Lana at the open
door of a green Plymouth. She'd hotwired a car. The engine idled.

'You
drive,' Lana said and slipped into the passenger side while Emmanuel laid
Nicolai onto the Plymouth's back seat. Natalya rested her husband's head on her
lap and stroked his cheek. The lights of La Mer burned into the inky sky,
Hélène would be face to face with the men now. Major van Niekerk owed her more
than the 'European' race papers after tonight.

Emmanuel
took the wheel and eased the Plymouth onto the road. He gave the engine petrol.
Houses flashed by and the car's waxed hood shone. His heartbeat roared in his
ears. He shifted up to third gear. No roadblock. No sirens. Ten blocks from the
raid now and cruising. The sleeping city hugged the wide harbour below and the
engine of the hotwired car hummed.

'You
really are bad,' Emmanuel said.

'You
wouldn't have me any other way.'

A
dark pleasure glittered in Lana's eyes. Emmanuel wanted to touch her and taste
her and lose himself in her just one more time. Their gazes locked before he
broke away to check the car was still on the tarmac. Natal mahogany trees lined
the island in the middle of the road. Eyes to the front. The cocktail of
excitement and relief was more potent than booze or morphine. Lana made a
sound, low and sweet, in her throat. Reality peeled away and flew to the wind.

Now.
The word flashed like a neon beacon outside a desert oasis.

Now
.

A
few more streets and Emmanuel knew that he would pull over. A park, an unlit
lane, a sleepy cul-de-sac, it didn't matter. Whatever came first.

The
Plymouth bumped over a small branch blown loose from the tree planting on the
island and curses came from the back seat. Emmanuel slowed the car, hands tight
on the wheel. The Russians.

'Fuck,'
he muttered under his breath. The Russians were in the back seat.

'Not
tonight,' Lana said and stared out of the window. A municipal park flashed by,
pocketed with unlit corners and a stand of fever trees that grew thick enough
to get lost in.

Not
tonight. But maybe another one. Although, without danger and the exhilaration
of a lucky escape, their lives played out on opposite sides of a great divide.
The heat between them diminished but a trace remained.

'I'll
get us back to van Niekerk's,' Emmanuel said. The major's house had tall walls,
iron gates and a nightwatchman on guard.

Lana
knotted her fingers together. An ex-barmaid from the moneyless end of Umbilo
who had caught the eye of a clever Dutch major could not afford to throw that
kind of luck away.

Natalya
groaned and sighed in the back seat of the Plymouth, and the sounds mocked Lana
and Emmanuel all the way to van Niekerk's house in the Berea.

Emmanuel
leaned against the arm of the leather sofa, bruised and aching. His back hurt
from carting two barely conscious men across the garden of La Mer and the
retreat of adrenaline from his blood had left a hollow feeling of defeat. He
only had fourteen hours to find out who had killed Jolly Marks, Mrs Patterson
and Mbali.

'Drink?'
Lana stood by the liquor cabinet with two glass tumblers at the ready. The
Russians now occupied the guest bedroom in the northwest corner of van
Niekerk's Victorian spread.

'Double
whisky and soda, please.' Emmanuel eased into the middle seat of the
chesterfield.

Lana
mixed the drink and handed it to him before tipping ice cubes into the second
tumbler and pouring three fingers of scotch. She gulped a mouthful and sank
back into the leather next to him. Ice chimed in their glasses.

'Did
they hurt her, do you think?' Lana said.

'I
hope not.'

'When
men like that get angry,' she said softly, 'they do bad things, especially to
women.'

They
weren't talking about Hélène Gerard any more. Emmanuel put the whisky and soda
down and turned to Lana. Strands of ink-black hair fell against the pale skin
of her cheeks and the ice cubes in her drink rattled against the glass. This
was the post-battle stress. After the exhilaration came the fear and the
reopening of old wounds.

'We
did what we could with the time we had,' Emmanuel said. It wasn't enough, he
knew.

'We
should never have left them. Those men will hurt them.'

'That's
not certain.' He removed the glass from Lana's hand before it cracked under
pressure and placed it on the table next to the untouched whisky and soda. No
amount of alcohol would reverse the harm done to Hélène and Vincent. He cupped
her hands in his; they were icy cold.

The
front door lock opened with a hard click and Lana pulled free and jumped to her
feet. She avoided Emmanuel's gaze and smoothed her hair into place before
moving to the door.

'Kallie,'
she called into the corridor. 'Down here. We have company.'

Emmanuel
retrieved the whisky tumbler from the table. The liquor swirled golden in the
glass but he left it untouched. He needed to keep his mind clear. It was time
to get the truth from the ambitious Dutch major about his release from custody
and about the night raid on La Mer.

He
got up and placed both the half-full tumblers onto the silver trolley before
pushing them out of view. No man, especially van Niekerk, would be pleased to
find his woman enjoying expensive liquor in the company of an employee.

The
major kissed Lana on the cheek and peered into the lounge room. 'Cooper,' he
said.

'Major.'

'You
look like hell.'

Van
Niekerk's lean face was touched with colour after a night-long infusion of rich
food and booze. Or maybe he had finally triumphed over his fiancée’s brassiere.

'Any
news?'

'You
tell me,' Emmanuel said.

'Meaning?'

'Hélène
Gerard's house was raided less than an hour ago. We barely got out before they
kicked the doors in.'

'Did
you get the Russians out?' van Niekerk said.

'How
long have you known about them?' Emmanuel's stomach tightened. He had hoped, in
the deepest part of himself, that the major did not have enough information to
have planned the raid on La Mer.

'Hélène
called me this afternoon. She said you'd brought a Russian couple to the
house.'

Anger
replaced the fear and Emmanuel stepped towards the major. He didn't buy van
Niekerk's apparent ignorance. Someone had given away Chateau La Mer's location
to the man in the black Dodge.

'I
left Hélène tied to a chair, scared for her life. Vincent was stuffed,
bleeding, into the servant's room. You could have warned them about the raid
but you threw them to the wolves.'

'I
had nothing to do with the raid. I'd never put that pressure onto Hélène and
Vincent, not after what they've been through. I was in Durban North all night,
toasting the future Queen.'

'You
were at a toffee coronation party till almost three thirty in the morning?'

'The
party just broke up twenty minutes ago.' Van Niekerk pulled his black tie loose
and dumped it onto the sofa. 'And watch your tone, Cooper.'

'You
didn't have to be there physically to be a part of the raid,' Emmanuel said.
'All you had to do was pick up a phone and call the Security Branch in.'

'I'm
drunk, Cooper.' Van Niekerk rubbed his chin and cheeks. 'But not drunk enough
to call the Security Branch. For anything.'

Van
Niekerk was a one-man republic. Personal power and authority were all that
mattered in his world. Sharing any spoil with the Security Branch was out of the
question, Emmanuel realised.

'Can
you make the major a pot of coffee?' he said to Lana. 'Black with a lot of
sugar, please.'

'Good
idea, very good idea,' van Niekerk said. 'Bring it into my office with a packet
of cigarettes. A couple of pieces of toast, too.'

'Ja,
one minute.' Kitchen girl was on
her list of jobs.

'There's
a phone in the office.' Van Niekerk followed Lana to the door. 'Come with me,
Cooper. I need to make a few calls.'

They
entered the darkened room and lit the lamps. The major fumbled in a back pocket
and retrieved a silver chain with three different-sized keys attached. He tried
to align the key with the lock but scratched a mark into the wood surface of
the desk drawer.

'I'm
stuffed,' he said to Emmanuel and threw the keys across the desk. 'You do it.'

Emmanuel
unlocked the bottom drawer. Four leather-bound books lay inside. It wasn't a
fiction. Some men really did have little black books filled with the secrets of
others. The dock surveillance lists were also there. Dozens of policemen slept
through the night in ignorance while the evidence for their undoing was right
here at van Niekerk's fingertips. Were the sweat-making photographs uncovered
during the Jacob's Rest investigation stashed in one of the other drawers?

'What
do you need?' Emmanuel said.

'All
of it.' Van Niekerk sat behind the desk and unbuttoned his jacket. 'We'll have
to call in a few favours before the night is out.'

Emmanuel
removed the stack of books and placed them on the mahogany desk. His own name
was in one of them, he was sure. Listed in which section - talented failure,
hired hand or replaceable asset?

'Thank
Christ.' Van Niekerk greeted Lana's arrival with enthusiasm. 'Over here,
there's a good girl. I need two cups black and a cigarette before I pick up the
phone.'

Lana
placed the tray on the desk and set out a plate with toast close to the major's
hand. She poured the coffee, added three sugars and stirred before setting the
cup conveniently close to the plate. Next, she put a cigarette to her lips, lit
it, drew on it and then handed it to the major. Emmanuel noted the red smudges
of her lipstick on the filter. She had repainted her mouth. She began to pour a
second cup of coffee.

'Cooper
can take care of himself,' the major said quietly and Lana put the coffee pot
down.

'Can
I do anything else, Kallie?' Her smile was strained.

'Go
to bed and get some rest. You look like you've had a long night, you and
Cooper.'

Even
when drunk, the cunning Dutchman could grab information from the air quicker
than the most experienced detectives.

'Goodnight
then,' Lana said and left the office without glancing in Emmanuel's direction.
Major van Niekerk gulped his black coffee and arranged the books in a neat
line. His fingers stroked the covers.

'What
happened tonight, Cooper?'

'Lana
was at La Mer when the raid happened. She helped get the Russians out.'

'How
did she get from here to there?'

'I
asked her to help translate this.' Emmanuel brought out the Walther PPK and
showed it to van Niekerk. 'There's a Russian inscription engraved along the
side.'

'Beautiful.'
Van Niekerk admired the gun before looking up at Emmanuel. 'How did you know
Lana spoke Russian?'

'I
asked her if she knew anyone who did,' Emmanuel said. 'She volunteered.'

'Just
like that?'

If
snakes smiled, Emmanuel imagined, they'd look just like van Niekerk did now.

'Yeah,
just like that,' he said, then, 'Why did you sign my release papers, Major?'

'I
told you.'

'You
told me a lie. Now tell me the truth.'

'When
did you figure that out?' the major said. Not many people got a step ahead of
him. It made being caught out a rare pleasure.

'The
afternoon you dropped me at La Mer. Your voice was calm but your hands were
sweating. Why did you sign?'

The
major lit a fresh cigarette and said, 'I got a call in the middle of the party
to say you were in police custody and about to be booked on three murder
counts. Would I like to help?'

'How
did this person know we were connected?' He had kept all past history under
wraps, even from Lana Rose.

'A
very, very good question. One that I asked myself immediately. Johannesburg and
Durban are a long way apart. Only someone with access to detective branch
records could have known we had once worked together.'

'You
got me out because you wanted to find out who was digging into your records?'

'It
was more than that, Cooper,' the major said. 'I wanted you set free and I
wanted to know
why
the mystery caller was
intervening. Prior to your arrest did you tell anyone your name and your old
service rank?'

'Never,'
Emmanuel said, then recalled the freight yards. 'No, that's not right. On the
night of Jolly Marks's murder I told two suspects I was Detective Sergeant
Emmanuel Cooper.'

'The
man who called me got your name and service rank from somewhere. Maybe the
information came from the suspects.'

'Unlikely,'
Emmanuel said. 'One of them is a schoolboy and the other is Durban's dumbest
gangster.'

'The
gangster . . . could he be a police informant?'

'I
can't say for sure but it would be a stretch.' Parthiv and Giriraj had
kidnapped him from the yards because they thought he was a detective. Not once
had they used an 'in' with the police to get out of trouble on the night of the
murder.

'Did
you tell anyone else you were a detective sergeant at Marshall Square?' Van
Niekerk hit the question again.

'No,'
Emmanuel said.

'Are
you sure?'

'Yes.
Absolutely. Why?'

'Because
if that's true then your personal information had to be gathered at the scene
of the Marks boy's murder.'

A
shiver prickled across Emmanuel's back at the implication. 'Someone else was
in the yards that night, watching and listening. A policeman?'

'It
was someone who could rush through an information request on you and have it
turned around in a single day. My name would have come up.'

'Do
you have any idea who called you?' Emmanuel asked. During the course of the
investigation he'd met only one person he suspected had access to high-level
information: Afzal Khan.

'A
soutpiel.'
Van Niekerk used the derogatory term 'salt dick', an Englishman who had one
foot in South Africa, the other foot in England and his penis dangling in the
sea. 'The voice belonged to an officious little shit who thought a Dutch
policeman and an ex-detective could be used and then dumped.'

Not
even a close match for Khan.

'Used
to what end?' Emmanuel said. He'd been released to find Jolly Marks's killer.

'We
got the answer to that question tonight, Cooper,' van Niekerk said. 'Jolly
Marks's murder was the sideshow - the hook - locating the Russians was the main
game. You were set free to find them. How did you manage that, by the way?'

'The
notebook,' Emmanuel said and experienced the sharp satisfaction that came from
finding the corner piece to a puzzle. 'The information that led to the Russians
was in the notebook but Jolly ditched it before the killer got to him. I think
the notebook was the reason Jolly was killed.'

The
satisfaction ebbed away and left a feeling of dread in his stomach. That's what
connected the three murders. The notebook.

'Mrs
Patterson and Mbali must have disturbed the killer when he came to the Dover to
find the book.'

Good
god above. If only he'd left the notebook in clear view instead of hiding it in
the flour bin like a paranoid neurotic, two lives might have been saved. That
decision couldn't be reversed. He had to face the dangers of the present situation.

'Now
that I've located Nicolai and Natalya,' Emmanuel said, 'I'm expendable.'