A Beautiful Place to Die Read online

  “Gone.” He slammed the wooden lid shut and the hinges buckled.

  “What’s gone?” It was Davida, so quiet he’d forgotten she was there.

  “Evidence,” he said. “Someone took the camera and the photos.”

  Adrenaline stiffened the muscles of his neck, got his heart rate up to machine-gun speed. Who knew he was here besides King? One of those sanctimonious farmers with a Bible under his armpit? Or was it the Security Branch guard dogs?

  His fist swung down hard onto the wooden lid. Never keep your back to the door: it was the most basic rule of self-defense. Even Hansie would know that. Blood leaked from the slit on his knuckles. The boom, boom, boom continued with the intensity of artillery fire in his head and the world tilted to one side.

  “Sit down.” Hands pulled him up and a chair was pushed in behind him. “I’m going to find something for you. Sit. Don’t move.”

  He heard the clang and scrape of drawers and cupboards being searched, then she was by the chair again.

  “Open your mouth.”

  He did as he was told and a fine powder coated his tongue with the taste of bitter lemon mixed with salt.

  “Now swallow this.” There was the smell of whiskey, then the hot taste of it filled his mouth and washed the powder down a fire trail to his stomach.

  “Stay here, Detective. I’ll come right back.”

  “Wait.” He grabbed her wrist harder than he intended and felt her delicate bones under his fingers.

  “You’re shaking,” he said.

  “I…I’m…”

  “What?”

  “…not used to being touched…” She looked out toward the open door. “…by one of your kind.”

  “‘My kind’?” He repeated the words in a slightly comical tone. What did she mean?

  She lifted her captured hand and held it at eye level. His fingers were white as pear flesh against the dark skin of her wrist. He let her go. The National Party and its Boer supporters weren’t the only ones who believed SA was divided into different “kinds,” each separate and unchangeable.

  “Where are you going?” Emmanuel flexed his hand. Touching her was a mistake. Everything he did from now on was a potential source of ammunition for the Security Branch. Physical contact across the color line was a no go.

  “To get some water from the river.”

  Emmanuel watched her stop and pick up a bucket from near the doorway. She was still shaking. The bucket did a jiggling dance against her leg as she moved fast toward the breach in the fence.

  She’s scared of me, he thought. Scared of the crazy white man who tackled her to the ground, then almost snapped her wrist without once saying sorry. He closed his eyes and ignored the tightness gathering in his chest. He’d been beaten unconscious and what did he have to show for it? No suspects, no real leads, the evidence gone before he had a chance to examine it. The Security Branch would have a field day if they found out about the stolen evidence. It was all the excuse they needed to kick him off the investigation completely.

  The slosh of water lapping over the bucket rim told him that she was back. He opened his eyes and took a good look at her.

  “No wonder I thought you were a boy,” he said once the bucket was placed in front of him. She was dressed in loose-fitting men’s clothes, a faded blue shirt and a pair of wide-legged pants that hid the natural outline of her body. Black hair, cut close to the scalp, glistened with moisture from a quick wash in the river.

  She touched her wet curls. “I like it this way.”

  “Then why do you keep it covered?” The plain cotton scarf she normally wore lay on the dirt floor where it had fallen during their struggle.

  “It makes people stare.”

  “Like I’m doing?” Emmanuel asked. Her eyes were the most unusual shade of gray. Davida had her mother’s mouth, full and soft.

  “You should wash your face, Detective,” she said, and moved behind the chair and out of his view. Some questions had no correct answer, especially when white people asked them.

  Emmanuel wiped the grime and blood from his skin and heard her shallow breath, amplified in the stillness of the hut.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “Is that what you’re afraid of?”

  She studied the tips of her battered leather boots. “No. Mr. King will be angry when he finds out I’ve been in here.”

  “Why?”

  “This is the captain’s place. Nobody’s allowed but the captain.”

  “Why did you come?” She must have seen the sedan and known that one of his “kind” was inside. He could see her quickening pulse under the smooth brown skin at the base of her throat.

  “You left Mr. King’s house a long time ago. I was riding by and I thought maybe your car was broken.”

  Emmanuel leaned forward and splashed his face and neck with the cool river water. Something didn’t feel right. Natives and coloureds shied away from white people’s business, especially when the law was involved. Yet she was here in the hut with her shaking hands and uneven breath.

  “You ever been inside before?”

  “No.” The word was sharp. “What would I be doing in Captain Pretorius’s private place?”

  “I don’t know,” Emmanuel answered drily. “Cleaning?” The neatness of the hut was another thing that didn’t sit right. “Your mother ever tidy up for the captain?”

  Her hands were behind her now, held out of sight. “I told you. Only Captain Pretorius was allowed.”

  “Who knows about this place?”

  “Those at Bayete Lodge. Mr. King said not to tell people in town. He made everyone promise. The hut was going to be a surprise for the captain’s sons at Christmas.”

  “You ever tell anyone about it?” Emmanuel studied his bruised knuckles, now eerily like the dead captain’s.

  “Never.” The word was emphatic.

  “How many people work at Bayete Lodge?” Clarity and focus, both bruised by the wooden club’s bloody kiss, were slowly making a comeback. The first thing to do was narrow the field, concentrate on those who knew about the hut.

  “About twenty,” Davida said. “Most of them are back at the location for the weekend. Mr. King gave them two days off because of the funeral.”

  That narrowed the field of suspects for the attack down to a small footprint. “Who’s at the lodge now?”

  “My mother, Matthew the driver, Mr. King, Winston King, and Jabulani, the night watchman.”

  “Six, including you,” Emmanuel said. The field narrowed to the head of a pin: large enough for angels to dance on but not thieves or murder suspects. “Any of those people leave the house?”

  “Only me.”

  “You sure?”

  Her gaze flickered up. “Everyone was there when I left.”

  He considered her for a moment, then turned toward the open door. The shy brown mouse was barely able to hold her own head up, let alone swing a club with enough force to knock out a grown man. Still, there was something about her being in the hut that niggled him. He moved on.

  “You hear or see anything when you came near the hut?”

  “Well…” she said. “There was something…”

  “What?”

  “A sound. It was a machine.”

  “A mechanical rattle like an engine.” The memory, still hazy and clouded, pressed forward into the light. He’d heard the sound just before passing out. “I remember now.”

  The pin-sized field of suspects collapsed into a black hole. His assailant had come to the hut with his own transport, a wooden club, and a full bladder. None of the workers at the lodge was likely to own anything more mechanical than a bicycle. That left the Dutchmen who’d ridden into town on tractors, motorbikes, cars, and pickup trucks. Did one of them slip away and follow him to the hut? There was no way to know.

  Emmanuel crossed to the safe and pulled open the buckled lid. He’d report to Lieutenant Piet Lapping and tell him the truth: that he had nothing to show from the visit to
King’s farm. He put his hand into the safe to retrieve his filthy jacket. His fingers touched on the crumpled material and something else.

  “Jesus…”

  “What is it?”

  He threw his jacket to one side and studied the square piece of cardboard—a wall calendar with the months stapled to the front in easy pull-off sections. Red ink circled the dates August 14 to 18; 18 was heavily ringed.

  “Two days before he was murdered,” Emmanuel said, and quickly flicked through the remaining months. It was the same on every page. Five to seven days marked in red ink, the last day marked out as special. He looked over the dates again. The pattern was clear, but the heavily circled day could mean anything.

  “‘Carlos Fernandez Photography Studio, Lorenzo Marques,’” Emmanuel read aloud from the calendar. The name was printed below a photograph of happy natives selling trinkets to whites on the beach. There was no street name or address: a low-profile business. Donny Rooke had been caught smuggling pornography across the border from Mozambique. Did the captain take over Donny’s flesh and photo trade?

  “Captain Pretorius go to LM a lot?” he asked.

  “Everyone does,” she answered. “Even my people.”

  “How far is it?”

  “Less than three hours by car.”

  The circled days could be pickup or delivery dates for some other form of contraband. Being a policeman meant easy passage across the border. Wading across a river was for criminals and natives. A high-ranking officer could smuggle goods in comfort.

  “How often did the captain visit? Once a month or so?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “What the Dutchmen do is their business. You must ask Mrs. Pretorius or her sons.”

  Emmanuel rubbed his bruised knuckles. The red-marked days glowed with hypnotic brightness. Was he willing to hand over this vital information to Lieutenant Piet Lapping, who had made it clear that the “personal angle” was not something he was interested in? The calendar might just end up at the bottom of a drawer because it didn’t fit the political angle the Security Branch was working.

  “Can you keep a secret, Davida?”

  “Uhh…” Her voice quivered with fearful anticipation. The skin of her throat and face flushed and made her dark skin glow. Passing for white was never going to be an option for the shy brown mouse.

  “Not that kind of secret,” he said. “You mustn’t tell anyone about today. Not about me, the hiding place, or the calendar. Understand?”

  She nodded.

  “You have to look at me and promise not to tell anyone.”

  She lifted her head. “I promise.”

  “Not even your mother, hey, Davida?”

  “Not even my mother.” She repeated the phrase like a dutiful child instructed in the dark secrets of the house.

  “Good,” he said, and wondered how many white men had exacted the same promise once the sweat was dry and the shadow of the police loomed overhead. Even the use of her name, Davida, made him feel he’d crossed a line.

  Emmanuel closed the safe and returned the cowhide rug to its original position before remaking the bed. He wondered about the sheets again. He folded the calendar and put it in the pocket of his jacket. Davida was the perfect accomplice. If he decided to keep the calendar to himself, the Security Branch would never approach her as a person of interest. He ducked through the low opening and followed Davida out of the compound.

  A black horse with Thoroughbred leanings was tethered to the fence next to his Packard sedan. The stallion, all rippling muscle and glossy coat, was not destined for the glue factory anytime soon.

  “Yours?” Emmanuel asked.

  “No.” She blushed. “I ride him for Mr. King.”

  “Ahh.” That explained the unlikely teaming. In King’s world the tedious upkeep of animals and property was a job for the servants. The habits of rich men duplicated themselves the world over.

  Emmanuel pulled the car keys out of his jacket pocket. “You’ll remember what we talked about?”

  “Yes, of course.” She made direct eye contact, let him feel the power he had over her. “I won’t tell anyone, Detective Sergeant. I promise.”

  The urge to stroke her damp hair and say “good girl” was so strong he turned and rushed to the car without another word. If he wasn’t careful he’d turn into a grown version of Constable Hansie Hepple: a puffed-up bully drunk on the extraordinary power handed to white policemen by the National Party.

  Emmanuel sat back and closed his eyes. He needed a moment to get things clear in his head before driving back to Jacob’s Rest and reporting in to the lieutenant.

  “It felt good, didn’t it?” It was the sergeant major again. Out of nowhere. “A man could get used to it. Learn to love it, even.”

  Emmanuel opened his eyes. Through the mud-flecked windscreen the dirt road unfurled in a soft red ribbon toward the horizon. Dark clouds gathered overhead, poised to feed the rivers and wildflowers with spring rain. He concentrated on the landscape, felt the dip and curve of it inside him.

  “It won’t work, boyo. Nobody ignores me, you know that.”

  “Go away,” Emmanuel said, and switched on the engine to drown the voice out. He drove to the dirt road cutting across King’s farm and swung left toward the tarred road. God knows what was in the powder he’d swallowed back in the hut.

  “I don’t need a pissy medicine to get to you, soldier. You’ll have to cut off your head to get rid of me, because that’s where I live. Up in there.”

  “What do you want?” He couldn’t believe he’d answered. The sergeant major, all six feet two of him, was probably trussed up in a dingy Scottish retirement home for ex-military tyrants.

  “To talk,” the sergeant major said. “You know what I like about being out here? The open space. Enough space for a man to find out who he really is. You know what I’m saying, don’t you?”

  He didn’t answer. The army psych test passed him clean. “Healed and ready to return to active duty,” that’s what the hospital discharge papers said.

  “Her trembling brown hands. The feeling in your chest, tight and burning.”

  Emmanuel slowed the car, afraid of crashing.

  “You know what that was, don’t you, Emmanuel, perfect soldier, natural-born leader, clever little detective?” The sergeant major continued his assault. “You want to think it was shame, but we know the truth, you and I.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “It’s been so long since you felt anything.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do,” the sergeant major said. “It gave you pleasure to hurt her and not say sorry. Felt good, didn’t it, soldier boy?”

  Emmanuel stopped the car and took deep, even breaths. It was daylight, hours yet before the war veteran’s disease crept up on him in the form of sweaty nightmares.

  He tore at the buttons of his shirt and threw it onto the backseat with the jacket. The smell of the clothes had dragged buried memories to the surface. That’s all it was. There was no truth in the sergeant major’s bizarre accusations.

  If the Security Branch caught even a whiff of the daylight hallucinations, he’d be off the case and in a sanatorium by week’s end. Van Niekerk couldn’t help him. He’d be suspended pending psychiatric evaluation and there was every chance he’d fail the test.

  “You finished?” Emmanuel asked.

  “Don’t worry,” the sergeant major purred. “I won’t make a habit of visiting you. If there’s something important to say, I’ll drop by and let you know. It’s my job to keep you alive, remember?”

  8

  LIEUTENANT PIET LAPPING and Dickie Steyns huddled over a decade’s worth of files. A row of empty beer bottles sat on top of the filing cabinet. After an afternoon of steady drinking and mind-numbing file checking, the Security Branch boys would be in a foul mood, ready to jump on anything new. Emmanuel pushed the door open and stepped into the room.

  “Where the fuck have you
been?” Lapping snapped, and lit a cigarette.

  “Taking a bath,” Emmanuel said. “You were right. Being a field detective is dirty work.”

  “I thought I smelled lavender,” Dickie said.

  Piet ignored his partner. “How did your visit with King go? Find out anything you’d like to share with us, Cooper?”

  Emmanuel felt a kick of fear in the pit of his stomach. Did he really have the steel to withhold evidence from the Security Branch? If they found out, they’d make him pay in blood.

  “I did a search of Captain Pretorius’s hut,” he said, “but didn’t find anything. It was clean, like someone had tidied the place up.”

  “Hut?” Dickie’s brain was just firing up. “What hut?”

  “The captain built one on King’s farm. He used it for R&R.” Emmanuel spoke directly to Dickie. “That’s rest and recreation, for those of you who don’t speak army bachelor talk.”

  Dickie stubbed his cigarette out with a grinding action that made the ashtray creak. “One day you going to get that clever head of yours kicked in, my vriend. You wait and see.”

  Emmanuel smiled. “Headkicker is one up from shitkicker, isn’t it? Your ma must be proud.”

  The veins on Dickie’s neck swelled and he stepped forward. He clenched his fists.

  “Sit down, Dickie,” pockmarked Piet ordered calmly. “Cooper here is just playing with you. Aren’t you, Cooper?”

  Emmanuel shrugged.

  “About the hut…” Piet continued where Dickie had lost the thread. “You’ll take us there tomorrow morning and show us everything of importance.”

  “That’s not possible,” Emmanuel said. “It’s Sunday. I’ll be in church for the morning service.”

  “You religious?” Piet asked with a trace of disbelief. There was no mention of it in the thin intelligence file.

  “Aren’t you?” Emmanuel asked.

  The lieutenant took a long drag of his cigarette. “That’s twice you’ve turned the questioning around onto us, Cooper. Once with Dickie and now with me. Must be force of habit, hey?”