The
strongman followed a rat run through the back lanes of the harbour. Emmanuel
trailed behind in the shadows. This lead was too good to ignore. The Indian
curved into a blunt lane and disappeared behind a shoulder-high wooden gate. A
solitary streetlamp shone a pool of light onto the uneven ground.
Emmanuel
took up post outside the gate and waited. The night was heavy with the
industrial scent of spilled fuel and engine oil blowing in from the harbour.
'You
got it? Let me see.' A woman's voice, sharp enough to shred paper, drifted over
the fence. A match struck against the side of a box.
'I
want more,' the woman demanded. 'A big chunk more or I'll tell the police you
and your
charm
friends was the ones who cut the boy. You hear?'
Giriraj
growled. Emmanuel rested a hand against the gate, ready to push into the black
nook if the trouble escalated.
'Don't
growl at me,
charra.'
Emmanuel
held back. The rough voice grated against his eardrums. He'd heard it before;
it belonged to the prostitute in the purple dress who'd talked to the senior
detective at the crime scene. The one who didn't do it with
charras.
There
was the sound of a hard, open-handed slap.
'You
like a Doberman my pa used to have,' the woman said. 'It was an ugly thing.
Everyone was scared of him except me. He used to lick my hands and face. That's
what you are,
charra.
A puppy dog.'
The
mix of contempt and excitement in the prostitute's voice told Emmanuel exactly
how the altercation would end.
'How
dare you . . .' The female voice pitched higher, the breath now small, hard
gasps. 'You should have your hands cut off for even touching
me ...'
Where
was there for a European street crawler to go in her fantasy? If she lay down
with a white man she was a whore. The law put a premium on her skin. In
Giriraj's dark hands she was a precious white object defiled; a luminous pearl
cast before swine.
The
groans got louder and Emmanuel walked away. His heart thundered and his breath
burned in his chest. Eight months had passed with nothing but the memory of
smooth brown limbs wrapped around his body and his name whispered in the night.
Davida.
Her touch was grafted to his skin in equal parts pleasure and fear. The shy
brown mouse with eyes the colour of rain clouds. Last he'd seen of her she was
flying across the veldt in a white nightdress; running to find shelter from
evil men. Was she building a new life for herself in some distant corner of
South Africa, safe from the violence of her past? Some nights, in the stilled
hush of the darkness, he dared to imagine her in the doorway of a
stone-and-thatch house, looking up at distant hills, thinking of him.
On
the count of twenty Emmanuel headed back. Some of the heat had dissipated,
enough so he could walk straight. He arrived back at the gate for the finale.
'Good
boy . . .' The woman was either giving a stellar performance or was actually
having an orgasm. Emmanuel guessed the latter. The sound of their breathing
died down and he could hear the rustle of clothes being rearranged.
'You
come next week with more.' The prostitute was all business now that her buttons
had been pushed. 'Double. Or I'll go to the police, you hear?'
Emmanuel
stood back and waited. The woman was the first to emerge, now dressed in a red
satin dress with red pumps and holding a large red handbag. She caught sight of
Emmanuel and made a dash for the main street. Her cork-wedged pumps attached to
her feet by thin 'vamp' straps were not designed for running. He caught her
easily and swung her around.
False
eyelashes the size of Japanese fans fluttered in her powdered face. 'He pulled
me in. The
charm
grabbed me and dragged me behind the gate.'
'What's
in the bag?' Emmanuel asked.
'What?'
'I'd
like to see what's in your bag.'
She-clutched
the handles. 'That
charra
raped me. Call the police.'
Giriraj
stepped out into the alley. If the Indian ran, Emmanuel knew he'd catch him.
Keeping him down was going to be the problem. He waited for the bald man to
make a move. Giriraj stood like an impala caught in the headlights.
'Arrest
him. He took advantage of me.'
Emmanuel
said, 'Open the bag.'
The
prostitute flipped the giant gold clip. Emmanuel moved his hand along the
bottom and felt the usual female beauty tools - a disc of rouge, a brush, a
lipstick tube - and then a doughy lump. He extracted a round shape held in a
small muslin cloth.
'What's
this?'
'Don't
know. The
charra
must have slipped it into my bag.'
'Open
it.'
She
shrugged a shoulder before she unfolded the cloth and let the edges drop. A
dark matchbox-sized lump lay in the centre of the white material. Hashish.
He
looked to the woman for an explanation.
'It's
chocolate,' she said.
'Really?'
'
Ja
.'
'Eat
it.'
'No.'
The woman shook her head. 'I got a delicate stomach. That much chocolate will
make me sick.'
'I
bet it will,' said Emmanuel. 'You get all your chocolate from this man?'
She
fiddled with the gold clasp of the handbag, trying to take a stand against
revealing more damaging information. Emmanuel waited in silence.
'Used
to get it from another
charra
but now I got an arrangement
with that one over there.'
'What
kind of arrangement?'
'I
don't let him have more than fifteen minutes.' She tossed her hair back, full
of righteous indignation. She was a whore but a whore with standards.
'Did
you get some from him last night?'
'
Ja
.'
'You
paid for it?'
'I
told you. We have an arrangement.'
'Ahh
. . .' Emmanuel understood.
He
motioned Giriraj over and got him to stand next to the streetwalker. The Indian
man's head was bowed, like a recalcitrant child. Emmanuel tapped him on the
shoulder and forced him to make eye contact.
'Does
Parthiv know you're stealing from him?'
He
shook his head.
'Where
were you when Parthiv and Amal went to find a woman? You weren't by the car.'
Giriraj
pointed to the prostitute.
'The
two Indian men you told the detective about,' Emmanuel said to the woman. 'When
did they speak to you?'
'Don't
know. I don't wear a watch. Too risky.'
'Did
you talk to them before or after you got your delivery?'
'A
bit before. This one came with the stuff right after I sent them packing.'
In
just under half an hour Giriraj had managed to steal a chunk of hash, service a
prostitute and initiate a kidnapping. Impressive work.
'The
boy found in the alley,' Emmanuel said to Giriraj. 'Did you see him alive?'
The
Indian shook his head again.
'I
seen him,' the woman said. 'He was coming from the Night Owl.'
'Where's
the Night Owl?'
False
eyelashes fluttered downward and threw shadows over rouged cheeks. She pursed
her lips. 'What have you got to exchange?'
'Freedom,'
said Emmanuel. 'That's the opposite of jail where prostitutes with hashish end
up.'
She
took a breath. 'It's two blocks back on Camperdown Street. Open late even when
it's supposed to be shut. The boy had a brown paper bag and a bottle. I seen
him walk by fast.'
'Alone?'
'Couple
of minutes later a white man in a black suit also came by fast.'
'Following
Jolly?'
'They
was going in the same direction.'
'You
tell the police this?'
She
fiddled with the neckline of her satin dress and rearranged the folds. Her
long fingernails had flakes of old fire-engine red varnish. 'No. The more I
tell them, the more they want to know and I've got troubles of my own.'
'That
was the last time you saw Jolly?'
'I
had to meet a Norwegian whaler, Sven or Lars, can't remember which.' She rubbed
her skinny arms. 'I worked the dock till morning. He was lying there all the
time and I didn't know.'
'Tell
me about the man that followed Jolly,' Emmanuel said when the prostitute had
recovered from the spectre of a dead boy just a few yards from her nightly
beat.
'I
told you. White man in a black suit.'
'Tall
or short? Skinny or fat?'
'Skinny
and light on his feet. Quick like.'
'Same
height as me?'
She
squinted. 'Little smaller maybe. Can't really say.'
That
would make the suspect just under six feet. Slightly above average height but
not enough to stand out in a crowd.
'Anything
else?'
She
shook her head, her attention on the slide. Emmanuel suspected she dreaded the
men who 'just wanted to talk'. They took up more time than a shuffle and a
grunt between boxcars. Still, the odd pairing of night-time creatures transcended
the ordinary. That a hashish-hungry prostitute and an Indian strongman had
found each other was a thing to marvel at, especially in the National Party's
colour-coded South Africa.
'You
can go.' Emmanuel waved the woman away, but stopped Giriraj when he tried to
make a break for the street. 'If Parthiv finds out you're stealing from him,'
he said, 'his mother will kill you.'
Giriraj
shuffled a foot in the dirt, impatient for the awkward moment to end. Emmanuel
motioned the muscle man forward and examined the fresh scratches on his neck.
They were identical to the ones he'd seen on his arm last night. Now he knew
who had made them.
The
proprietor of the Night Owl was a big-bellied man with shortened forearms and a
dark beard streaked with grey. His place was two rungs down from a cafe and a
half step up from a missionary soup kitchen. A string of naked bulbs lit the
chipboard tables and chairs scattered under the awning in front of the
business. Two tired Greek flags curled at either side of a browning pot plant
placed on the middle table.
The
big man took the orders and worked the grill; his dwarf-like forearms strained
to reach the onions and fried eggs on the back hotplate. The name 'Nestor' was
embroidered onto the pocket of his sweat-stained shirt. A small sign, hastily painted
in jungle green and nailed under the orders window, read 'Whites Only'.
'That's
for the sailors,' Nestor explained gruffly. 'Otherwise they get into trouble
and then we get into trouble.'
Emmanuel
pressed straight in. 'The kid Jolly Marks, did he get his food from here last
night?'
Nestor
weighed up Emmanuel with a look. Decided he was a policeman or near enough to
one to be given a quick exit.
'Ask
around the back. In the non-white section. That's where we take his orders.' He
slid rubbery eggs into a puddle of grease.
Emmanuel
went to the back and found a rough square of cracked cement that faced onto a
small orders window. No awning, no tables or chairs. A single bulb dangled from
a frayed wire suspended across the cement pad. Two black men in overalls sat on
upturned fruit crates and played checkers on a hand-drawn piece of cardboard.
Durban was a visibly English town and few natives were granted employment
passes to live within the urban area.
'Number
twenty-seven,' the short-order cook called out. 'Bunny chow 'n' chips.
Coca-Cola.'
A
crinkly-headed youth in repatched pants and a loose brown shirt picked up the
meal and leaned against the wall to eat. Emmanuel approached the orders hatch.
The man behind the window had features borrowed from every nationality to have
dropped anchor in the Natal Bay: Asian eyes flecked green and brown, soft Zulu
lips, a long thin nose dusted with freckles and woolly brown hair. Mixed race,
no doubt about it.
'
Ja
?'
The narrow eyes were hard.
'Jolly
Marks get his orders from here last night?' Emmanuel said.
'Who
you? A policeman?'
'No.
Just curious.'
'Well,
you and your curiosity can fuck off.'
The
short-order cook called out two
boerewors
rolls with onion and tomato
sauce. Emmanuel pressed Jolly's notebook against the glass.
'Recognise
this?'
'Nope.'
'Take
a good look,' Emmanuel said. 'It belonged to Jolly Marks. He was here last
night. What time?'
'I
told you,' the man said. 'I've never seen that book before.'
He
was defiant. Even with a detective's ID slammed against the window, Emmanuel
knew the man would not talk. Silence was the only weapon he had against
authority.
Emmanuel
returned to the front of the Night Owl intent on questioning Nestor about the
time of Jolly's last order. A police car was parked at the kerb, engine idling
while the uniforms ate sausage and onion rolls. Maybe another time. He peeled
to the left and bumped into a wiry man setting up a wooden crate on the
sidewalk. A stack of religious tracts illustrated with a lurid drawing of a
scantily dressed woman engulfed in towers of flame fluttered to the pavement.
'Do
I know you, brother?' the evangelist from the dock asked. 'Have we met before
on the Lord's highway?'
'Don't
think so,' Emmanuel said and kept moving. The roll of car wheels sounded. He
glanced over his shoulder to confirm what he already knew. The patrol car was
driving towards him. A flashlight aimed out of the passenger window sprayed
bright light into doorways and down side streets.
The
entrance to the Harpoon Bar, a watering hole for dockworkers and merchant
seamen, was right on the corner. Emmanuel fought the urge to sprint for the
doorway. Jolly's notebook was still in his pocket. He'd have a hard time
explaining that to the police.
The
bar entrance was just a few feet away. The front fender of the police car drew
almost level with him now. Emmanuel dropped slowly to his knee and retied his
shoelace. The beam of the torch moved across the pavement and flickered into a
doorway two yards ahead. The patrol car was on a door-to-door street search for
something or someone.
Emmanuel
heard the accelerator push the cruiser further down the street and away into
the night. Relief sucked the moisture from his mouth. He needed a drink. Maybe
three or four.
The
dim interior of the Harpoon Bar reeked of smoke and beer. Three dark-skinned
merchant seamen murmured to each other at a corner table. The Separate
Amenities Act, which designated places like this into either European or
non-European facilities, was being ignored. Some places were beyond classification.
Emmanuel
sat down at the bar and his heart rate slowed. A spotlight search twice in one
night meant the uniforms were on the lookout for someone in particular. He
wouldn't want to be an Indian man out in this part of town tonight.
The
younger of the barmaids approached and leaned an elbow on the counter. She was
dark-haired with pale skin and dark almond-shaped eyes. A scooped neckline
revealed the top swell of her breasts. Emmanuel remembered her from the last
time he had been to the Harpoon with another shipbreaker, an ex-corporal of the
3 Commando Brigade.
'Thirsty?'
she said.
Emmanuel
cleared his throat. 'Double whisky, thanks.'
He
slid a pound note onto the wooden surface. The scene with Giriraj and the
prostitute had him stirred up. The scare with the police cruiser had set the
adrenaline pumping and his body was awake. Memories of Davida's mouth on his
had reignited a desire to touch and to feel, to lose himself in the tangle of a
lover. A tumbler of whisky appeared close to his hand.
'Anything
else?'
He
risked an upward glance and a moment of eye contact sent a jolt to every nerve
ending. Heat burned his neck. With a penny from every man who wanted her, she
could own the bar and a big slice of the waterfront.
'I'm
fine.' He heard the lie in his voice and thought she did too.
'If
you say so.'
Two
slack-jawed sailors seated at the bar watched her collect used glasses and
stack them onto a tray. The men looked as if they'd turned up at the dock to
find their ship headed out to sea without them.
Emmanuel
noticed a black and white photograph of a whaler nailed to the wall above a row
of gin bottles. It was a long way yet before he turned into a bar-side pervert.
But the languid movements of the barmaid's body and the dark fall of her hair
were hard to ignore.
He
swallowed his drink. Whisky flooded through his arms and legs as if through the
branches in the tree of life, and his mind focused. The decision to follow
leads in Jolly's murder was foolish, and this attempt to recreate his past life
was more than that: it was dangerous. Walking near the crime scene with Jolly's
notebook in his pocket was bloody-minded stupidity and an invitation to dance
the hangman's jig.
The
words 'please help' were not a personal plea from the dead boy. He had to let
the kid go.
'Major,'
said the barmaid.
Emmanuel
sat up at the use of his old army title and recognised his mistake instantly
The major was a silver- haired man with broken blood vessels in his cheeks. It
was a classic drinker's face with every bottle accounted for.
'The
usual,' the major said.
The
dark-haired barmaid flashed a look at Emmanuel and caught his eye. Electric
currents sent his heart into near-arrest. He checked the level of alcohol in
the tumbler. Half full. The eye contact held a moment too long was not a
fantasy.
He
finished the whisky in one hit and considered the alternative. A beautiful
woman, the centre of every man's attention, had expressed an unspoken desire
for physical connection.
'More?'
'Same
again.' Emmanuel said. Another hit and he would go back to the single cot with
its neat hospital corners and folded-down blanket. The bed of a soldier or a
priest.
The
full whisky tumbler slid back into view.
'On
the house,' the pretty barmaid said and moved down the counter, filling a line
of shot glasses along the way.
'What's
the occasion?' Emmanuel asked the older barmaid, who wore cat's-eye glasses
and a sour expression. She was pushing fifty and it appeared that every one of
those years had been hard fought and hard won.
'It's
Lana's last night. She's moving up. Got a job at a posh ladies' boutique on
West Street working as a house model.' The barmaid's smile was nasty. 'Let's
hope they don't give her the combination to the safe.'
She
moved away, and left Emmanuel to tussle with the enigmatic comment. Stealing
was a common criminal activity and if he had to pick the dark-haired barmaid's
area of operation, he'd pick fraud. A smile opened a lot of doors and even more
wallets. Not that the older woman's word was a solid foundation on which to base
anything. She'd made no effort to hide her malice.
Emmanuel
drained his whisky and pushed back the barstool. Lana collected the empty
tumbler.
'Do
you have a car?' she said.
'Yes.'
'I
need a lift. Can you take me?'
She'd
never been turned down, Emmanuel imagined. Never had a man say no. Who was he
to change the course of history?
'My
car's around the corner,' he said.