Present Darkness Read online

  “I’m sure,” he lied. Leaving the walled compound brought risks. Fatty Mapela’s mood and the atmosphere of the club were impossible to predict in advance. If “dance” were a euphemism for “brothel” they’d leave—straight after he’d talked to Fatty’s temporary husband about the stolen Mercedes.

  “The police …” Davida leaned across the table and wiped the corner of Rebekah’s mouth with a napkin, stalling her “yes”.

  “Police will be at the dance so the chances of a raid by the immorality squad is close to zero. I’ll take care of any roadblocks between here and there.” Bullshitting the road patrol if they were pulled over meant flipping the ID, dropping Colonel van Niekerk’s name and citing official business. They’d let him pass. The brighter officers might be suspicious, while those operating on a dimmer voltage would try and fail to hide their envy at having a sweet brown girl in their power. They’d let him go, disturbed by their own suspicions and crude fantasies.

  “My mother could take care of Rebekah till we get back.” Davida tentatively stroked their daughter’s head, smoothing the silky strands under her palm. Her mother, Lorraine Ellis, called Lolly by her family, lived in the housekeeper’s cottage built flush against the walls of the big house. This arrangement paid tribute to the notion of racial segregation while allowing ease of movement between the cottage and Elliott King’s bedroom.

  “Are you certain there won’t be any trouble?” Davida said.

  “I’m certain.” A prudent man might calculate the cost of making a mess of this night out but desire outweighed caution. He wanted the chance to take his beautiful girl out dancing like they were an ordinary couple.

  “Detective Cooper. Telephone for you.” Mrs Ellis, Davida’s mother, stood in the doorway to the big house, gazing slightly to the right of the table. She refused eye contact, and had done so from the time he turned up at Zweigman’s medical clinic after finding out that he was a father.

  He arrived after midnight with nothing to offer but a desire for get close to Davida and their baby. Mrs Ellis gave him a cold face while Davida said nothing at all, just opened the door, lit a candle and held it close to the cradle where Rebekah slept. The child took his breath away. He’d done nothing to deserve such a perfect gift. He turned to Davida to say as much. She kissed him and stopped any discussion of the past or the future. He kissed her back, accepting her act of grace.

  “Thanks.” Rebekah kicked her feet in the air while Emmanuel transferred her to Davida’s arms. He drank in the effortless beauty of mother and daughter, their luminescent skin and grey eyes. How long could this impossible situation last …

  “Six-thirty tonight,” he said.

  “All right.” Face buried against the soft of Rebekah’s neck, Davida turned away to hide a blush.

  “You can pick up in the kitchen, Detective.” Mrs Ellis remained polite. “Or in the hallway if you want some privacy.”

  The words had a sting. Emmanuel knew that Mrs Ellis believed her bright and beautiful girl was destined for something greater than a hut, an illegitimate child and a secret life with a white man that would ultimately result in heartbreak. She’d experienced first-hand the bittersweet nature of living a lie and of loving against the rules. It hurt to see her daughter repeating the mistakes she’d made.

  Emmanuel picked up the kitchen phone, which lay on a table with a view through the window to the porch and bright gardens.

  “Cooper,” he said into the speaker. Davida blew bubbles against Rebekah’s cheeks, putting off asking her mother to mind the baby while she went dancing at the illegal club.

  “Are you seeing the Shabalala boy, today?” the lawyer Johan Britz said over the barking of dogs. Besides the bodyguards, he kept two Alsatians in his yard and a mongrel bitch with an evil temper in his house for protection.

  “In about an hour,” Emmanuel said.

  “Try to get the truth out of him, will you? I’ll do my best with what he gave me but it won’t be enough to convince a white jury, not with that girl’s witness statement.”

  “Aaron’s father will be with me. That might help.”

  “Not good enough, my friend. Either the boy provides a solid alibi or Lieutenant Mason will see him swing. There is no in between.”

  The barking continued.

  “Hold on a minute …” Britz muffled the speaker with his hand while he settled the mongrel. “Hush, calm down. There’s nobody here but me, Mouse. Take it easy now …”

  The barking grew louder and Emmanuel’s hand gripped the telephone tight. Britz’s enemies were legion and now the name Walter Mason had been added to the list.

  “Do you still have a guard?” Emmanuel asked.

  “Always,” Britz answered. The rap of knuckles hitting wood cut through the canine yaps. “Someone’s at the door. Keep holding. I’ll just be a tick.”

  “Wait …” Emmanuel spoke into an empty line. The phone set down on the other end, the lawyer no longer listening. Muffled voices, barking and a loud exclamation came through. He waited. The hangover headache throbbed against his skull.

  “Britz …” he spoke loud to compensate for the barking and growls. A door slammed. The barking faded. Mouse, the lawyer’s guard dog was no longer in the room. “Britz pick up. Now.”

  No response.

  “Pick up, Johan or I’m coming over …”

  The receiver crackled and the lawyer said, “Cooper. You still there?”

  “Ja. Who was at the door?”

  Britz’s breath came hard and at short intervals.

  “Oscar my son dropped by. Bloody Mouse …” he said of the mongrel bitch. “She went for him, almost took a chunk of thigh. Something’s got to be done with her. It’s the dog pound or the needle.”

  He’d do neither. Mouse was vicious and utterly devoted: the perfect combination for a man in need of protection.

  “You were saying about Aaron …” Emmanuel relaxed, his fingers uncurling from the telephone’s hard plastic cradle. The fear subsided, but a trace remained like a finger pushed into a wound. Until the connection between Mason and the Brewer case became clear, a part of him would remain alert, waiting for the inevitable attack.

  “Shabalala is bright, he understands the consequences of a guilty plea. Why stick to that bullshit story?” Britz asked.

  “To protect someone other than himself,” Emmanuel said. Outside the window Davida and her mother stood side by side, talking in low voices. Rebekah stretched out and tore at the flowers of a lavender bush. He’d lie for his girls and do more still to protect them from harm. Who held that power over Aaron?

  “Get me a name, Cooper. Get me something,” Britz said and hung up the phone, eager to make peace between Mouse and his son. Emmanuel dropped the receiver onto the cradle. Mrs Ellis leaned close to Davida now, hands spread out in a plea. No doubt asking, “Why take a risk on this policeman?”

  Colour brightened Davida’s cheeks. She nodded and looked away. Her mother stroked her arm, murmured soft words.

  “I reckon you’ve lost your dance partner, soldier.” The Sergeant Major read the body language.

  “Maybe it’s just as well,” Emmanuel replied. Britz was safe and Mason remained ignorant of outside involvement in the Brewer case. Yet a feeling of expectation remained, as it had when the squad cleaned rifles and smoked cigarettes between battles.

  “I hear it too,” the Sergeant Major said. “The silence waiting to break. Mason will come after you, have no doubts. Keep your girls undercover and out of harm’s way, Cooper.”

  Davida held Rebekah on the curve of her hip, rocking side to side; the weight of the child both a comfort and a burden. Mrs Ellis stepped closer, rested her forehead against her daughter’s and laced her fingers through strands of her fine, dark hair. She whispered a word, maybe two, in Davida’s ear then took the child from her. Davida smiled and kissed her mother’s cheek.

  15.

  Emmanuel and Shabalala passed through a grim brick hall reeking of disinfectant and entered a
small, equally grim room with bars on a single window. Aaron sat at a table, dressed in the uniform of the juvenile prisoners: long khaki shorts and a tucked in khaki shirt faded by hundreds of trips through the prison laundry. He stood up when Shabalala entered, head bowed in respect.

  “My father,” he said.

  “Son of my brother,” Shabalala answered in a low, quiet voice. “Sit. Be at ease.”

  They sat on opposite sides of the table, both stiff shouldered and uncomfortable in the wooden chairs. Emmanuel closed the door and remained standing. From outside the window came the regimented stomp of prisoners marching in the yard and forming up in rank and file. A whistle trilled. Aaron glanced across the room and frowned in recognition. He said, “My father has brought a white policeman to listen to our private words. How can I be at ease?”

  “This man is Detective Sergeant Cooper. He is a friend. He is here to help.”

  “A white man and a black man cannot be friends in this country,” Aaron answered with resolve. “It is written in their law books. He is the boss and you are the servant.”

  “My child …” Shock hushed the Zulu detective’s voice. Black men spoke these thoughts in their homes and in quiet groups, but never in front of white people. “I tell you true that this is a different matter.”

  “It can never be different.” Aaron remained expressionless. “Surely you understand, my father.”

  “That may be so but you are still in prison and in need of help,” Shabalala pointed out. Sunshine fell through the high window and cast a brown haze into the room. The light flattened the dimensions of the furniture and people.

  The boy shrugged his broad shoulder. “I told your friend and the other police what I was doing when the principal was beaten. They did not believe me.”

  “The principal is dead,” Shabalala said. “The white people who sit in judgement will show you no mercy. They will send you to the hangman.”

  Aaron breathed in and out like a fish stuck on the beach. The muscles of his throat contracted but no sounds came from his mouth.

  Shabalala leaned forward suddenly, elbows hitting the table with a thud. “Were you with the white man’s daughter?”

  “Cassie?” Aaron paled in response. “My father cannot believe this is true.”

  “You are young. The young make mistakes.”

  “Never with that one,” the Zulu youth said. “She hated us sitting at her parents’ table, using the knives and forks and the toilet. I would not have touched her or her, me.”

  Emmanuel caught the rapid play of emotions working across Aaron’s face. He displayed plenty of anger and frustration, but not a hint of sexual attraction or the agony of lust deferred. Aaron simply disliked Cassie.

  “Tell me where you where, my son. For your sake and for your mother’s.”

  Aaron covered his face with both hands. He kept still and seemed capable of doing little more than drawing in shallow breaths. Cassie had hidden behind her palms and blocked out the world also.

  A thought hit Emmanuel. “Did Cassie wear lipstick to the dinner table on Friday night?”

  Aaron dropped his hands. A moment later he said, “I saw no lipstick on her.”

  “For certain?”

  “The principal and his wife were strict. The daughter wore no make-up. Her mother also had a clean face.”

  “Thanks.” Emmanuel leaned back against the door, returning the room to the Shabalala men. The footprints that led from the kitchen door to the corner where Cassie had crouched with the lipstick smeared across her hand now made sense. She must have been out in the shed on the night of the assault, already in her make-up and yellow nightdress, with the mattress ready on the floor.

  “One name,” Shabalala pressed Aaron. “I do not care if it is a person known to the police or a loose girl in a bad house. There must be one who glimpsed you on the street.”

  “I kept to the shadows,” Aaron said. “No-one saw me.”

  Chair legs screeched against the concrete floor. Shabalala stood abruptly and looked down at the frightened boy; their physical resemblance was so strong it seemed the Zulu detective might be staring back in time at his younger self.

  “I will come again. Maybe then my wife’s child will remember where he was on that night and in whose company. Stay well.” Shabalala turned away from Aaron and said, “We may leave, Sergeant.”

  Emmanuel opened the door, intrigued by the sight of the towering Zulu holding onto his temper by a bare thread. They had to leave immediately, that was clear, or Emmanuel feared the table would be broken to firewood and the window cracked by flying debris.

  “Go well, my father.” Aaron stood in the hazy brown light, the prison khaki hanging loose on his frame. He appeared smaller than when they’d first entered the room. The knowledge of the murder charge had to weigh heavily on him.

  Emmanuel and Shabalala crossed the hall again, the concrete floor hard under the soles of their leather shoes. The smell of disinfectant mixed with the smell of a Sunday lunch of boiled cabbage and stewed meat. Swallows darted back and forth outside the windows. A pair of them came to rest on a mud and grass nest built under the eaves.

  “He throws his life away …” Shabalala’s voice hardened with suppressed anger. “For what? Lizzie and I will see him hang from the end of a rope. Still, he sits and lies.”

  “Aaron is lying for reasons we don’t understand yet; possibly to protect the reputation of a someone else.”

  “The principal’s daughter …”

  “I don’t think so. Your son doesn’t like her much, which could be the reason she named him in her statement to begin with.” The new segregation laws were underpinned by the idea that the tide of physical attraction flowed inexorably from black men towards white women, not the other way around. “She wore lipstick on the night her parents were attacked. I saw it. Now the question is, if Aaron wasn’t in the hut with her, who was? That person might have witnessed something we can use.”

  They left the hall and crossed the dirt yard to the gates. A group of young prisoners marched in rows behind them, their socks stained with dust and their foreheads slick with sweat. A senior boy gave them orders under a flat, grey sky. A white warden, dark-haired and wearing an earnest expression, approached Emmanuel and Shabalala from a demountable building. He must have been watching from a window, waiting for an opportunity to talk.

  “You’ve been to see Shabalala.” A statement addressed to the European male, as custom dictated. “The new boy.”

  “That’s right,” Emmanuel answered. “He signed in yesterday afternoon.”

  “At 3.10 pm; a direct transfer from the Marshall Square police station. I wasn’t here. It’s recorded in the log book.” The warden’s pink face scrunched in a frown. “I wonder if there is something about the boy that we should know about?”

  “Such as?” Emmanuel asked.

  “He came with a white lawyer, which is not common at all.” The warden talked fast and low, the words rear-ending into each other like bumper cars at a fairground. “Most of our boys don’t have representation beyond a welfare worker. That set the alarm bells ringing. Then there’s the number of visitors. I said to myself, ‘Wait a moment. This is highly unusual. What’s going on with this boy? Is there some kind of trouble we should know about?” The warden paused and took a breath. “That’s why I came out of the office; to ask about the unusual circumstances.”

  “Tell me about the visitors,” Emmanuel said.

  “The inmates normally get single visitors or whole family groups coming in together. That’s the usual pattern. Shabalala’s had four visitors in one day, none of them family. You see what I’m saying it’s highly …”

  “Unusual. Yes, I understand. Who exactly visited Shabalala?”

  “Two natives came this morning, first thing, right when the gates opened. Not on foot or in a township taxi, but in a black car. That got my attention, straight off. Then there’s the two of you detectives, just now. That’s four visitors in four ho
urs.”

  “Names and gender of the natives?” Emmanuel cut in before the warden gathered wind for more words. Shabalala stood to the side, absorbing the conversation with a passive expression. Impatience was a luxury afforded exclusively to Europeans.

  “Two men in a black car with a dented fender. They parked at the gate and sat there for ten minutes, waiting for the gates to open for visitors. Both were dressed well. The younger man was a Khumalo from Alexandria township and the older one was a Bakwena from Sophiatown. I asked them what their relationship was to Shabalala and they said they were friends of his father who was in hospital. They went to the main hall and one of our native wardens showed them to the smaller rooms. They stayed about fifteen minutes, I think. Most of our visitors …”

  “First names,” Emmanuel jumped in without waiting for an indrawn breath. The warden could evidently talk under water.

  “I didn’t ask. They signed the visitor book with only their surnames. Should I have double-checked their passbooks, Detective? They weren’t any trouble. And they came in a car, which means they were a better class of native … if you get my drift.”

  “Any physical description you can provide would help our investigation.”

  “All right, let’s think.” Another frown gathered as thoughts struggled to gain a foothold in the warden’s mind. “Brown skin and brown eyes for the younger one, white hair and broad shoulders for the older one. Both neat and polite, like I said before.”

  Emmanuel guessed the vague physical description meant that both men were good natives; hardly worth a second glance from the authorities. A bell clanged in the background, calling the inmates to lunch.

  “I have to go and supervise the native wardens, make sure they’re keeping order during mealtimes,” the white warden said. “Is there something I should know about Shabalala?”

  “His lawyer, Johan Britz, is big trouble,” Emmanuel said. “Keep an eye on Shabalala. Make sure the other inmates steer clear of him or Britz will have you and the other prison guards in court for dereliction of duty should anything happen.”