Present Darkness Read online

  Emmanuel rubbed the back of his neck, easing the tension there. If Lieutenant Mason or the Special Branch offered Bakwena a deal, he’d likely take it. The funeral director didn’t have the strength to pull Aaron from the fire. They had to find another way.

  “The girl.” Zweigman spoke up for the first time. “She is the true weak link. We know that she lied. We have proof. Now we must get her to tell the truth.”

  Mason would, sure as summer rain, present the red Mercedes Benz and Aaron’s school badge into evidence. If Cassie withdrew the statement naming Aaron, the Lieutenant had little more than a “receiving stolen goods” charge. Six months in a juvenile facility was preferable to waiting out a death sentence in the company of hard criminals. Johan Britz could whittle six months down to three if Cassie reneged on her statement.

  “She’s our best chance,” Emmanuel agreed. Especially now that Andrew Franklin had confessed to their relationship.

  “Shit, man.” Fix slid off Bakwena’s desk with a click of his tongue. “You are too soft. You must be tougher than your enemies and more cruel, or you will never win.”

  “Remember that piece of advice when next you meet Lieutenant Mason,” the Sergeant Major said. “The prize for runner-up will be a free trip to the hospital or six feet under.”

  “I’m going to be the last man standing,” Emmanuel responded to the voice in his head. Aaron’s freedom and Davida and Rebekah’s safety depended on it. He gave Bakwena a last fleeting glance on the way to the door. That Shabalala’s son had lied to protect other people, no matter how unworthy they were of the sacrifice, was a small compensation and provided only cold comfort in the circumstances.

  Bakwena slumped in his chair and patted a handkerchief to his sopping brow. He straightened his waistcoat and breathed deeply, slowly rebuilding the façade of a successful businessman with the courage to talk openly against the government and the police.

  “We’re done here,” Emmanuel said and left the office. What they’d do next was none of Bakwena’s business.

  “The daughter will speak?” the Zulu detective said when they’d regrouped on the cracked pavement outside the funeral home.

  “We won’t give her a choice,” Emmanuel said. “Clearwater Farm is three, maybe four hours north of here, depending on how the road is. We’ll leave in an hour. Pack for an overnight stay, just in case.”

  Fix held up pale palms like a man being robbed in daylight. “Me and the bush do not mix. There is too much quiet. A man needs noise to think and make plans. I will not set foot where the corn grows.”

  “Then stay and keep Sophiatown in line while we’re away,” Emmanuel said.

  Fix had once spent five days digging rocks from the fields and subsisting on a diet of thin porridge and a daily piece of bread after being illegally transferred from police custody to a dust bucket farm named Shiloh. It took Britz, the Dutch lawyer, three days to track Fix from the police lock-up to the slave labour farm.

  Britz brought charges. The police officers involved were reprimanded and the farmer given a suspended sentence for “mistreatment”. Fix returned to the township with an abiding hatred for the countryside and a true measure of just how little the law cared for his interests.

  “Go well, my brother.” Fix slapped Emmanuel’s shoulder and gave the traditional farewell. “Enjoy the countryside but remember to take your gun.”

  *

  An ugly yellow sun blazed above the stunted trees and red anthills. Parched land stretched out to the far horizon. The girl huddled in the shade of a boulder and licked her cracked lips. Her leg ached. She’d picked out all the glass she could find in the cut but there might be more buried where she couldn’t see: she imagined tiny shards encrusted with dirt, poisoning her blood.

  No, she shook off the thought. The real problem was water, or rather, the lack of it. After kicking in the window she’d run into the night and kept running. She’d moved through brush and dried grass, spiked thorn bushes and stone outcrops until dawn. The grunts and growls of unseen animals prowling the dark had spurred her across the moonlit veldt.

  She struggled to her feet and searched the surrounding area. She could sleep off the exhaustion of the long night but her dry mouth and raw throat needed water to heal. Three gentle hills broke the flat horizon. The distance to the hills was impossible to gauge but they called to her with the possibility of rock pools to swim in and groves of shade trees to sleep under. She’d be safe from the big man there. A day or two to rest and she’d move on to search for the road that led back to the city.

  22.

  Emmanuel angled the sun visor to block the harsh light that hit the windscreen. Thirsty land, flat and brown, flashed passed the car windows. Spiked thorn trees, gnarled wild pears and yellow grass cried out for a ground-soaking thunderstorm.

  “The rains are late,” Shabalala said of the dusty fields and the gaunt cattle huddling in the grey shade of the Acacia trees. “If they do not come soon there will be hard times.”

  Emmanuel imagined the hard times had already begun for those without a permanent source of water on their property. A dry summer meant a lean and hungry winter.

  “Five more miles to the turn off.” Zweigman checked the odometer and peered through the heatwaves that shimmered on the horizon. The blank sky and harsh terrain were alien to his European eye, yet he found a strange and powerful beauty in the blooming prickly pear trees and the blue, distant hills. One wrong turn, though, and you’d die of dehydration or loneliness.

  “There …” The doctor pointed to a weathered signpost with an arrow that indicated a bumpy dirt road. Three properties shared the sign: “Welkom”, “Lion’s Kill”, and last on the list, “Clearwater Farm”.

  “I hope that name isn’t wishful thinking.” Emmanuel turned onto the rough track. “We have no water on us. Or food.”

  They had stopped to eat at a roadside café with a solitary non-whites table covered in a fine red dust. One mouthful of the “special beef stew” and they’d agreed, the three of them, that eating dirt might be a tastier option. They’d arrive at Delia Singleton’s house thirsty, hungry and with a long list of questions for her niece. The harried farmer’s wife would be well within her rights to turn them off the property before sundown; what were three grown men but just more mouths to feed in what looked like a time of deprivation?

  The road dissected the veldt, brightened at intervals by flashes of green foliage and red aloe flowers. Five miles in from the main turn-off came a faded sign for “Welkom”, the first of the three properties to share the access road. At seventeen miles, another sign, painted in bright red pointed to the second property.

  “Lion’s Kill,” Zweigman mused aloud. “That is a strange name for a farm.”

  “I think it is a hunting reserve,” Shabalala said. “Rich men pay much money to hunt lions and buck.”

  “The returns are better than planting corn, that’s for certain.” Emmanuel shifted to low gear to better navigate the washboard gullies and potholes. The road had not been graded or patched in a long while. A wire fence marked the beginning of a new property boundary line. An elegant wrought-iron sign pointed the way to “Clear Water”. A sprawling white farmhouse appeared two miles off the turn; the high silver roof peaked against the sky. The distance from the homestead, and the scope of the landscape around it, created the impression of a prosperous European estate growing out of the African bush.

  Reality hit at the mouth of the gravel driveway. Tall weeds grew in the dusty garden at the front of the house and strips of rust ate away at the iron roof. Rows of withered corn rustled in a field to the east and the baked lawn spread out like a brown carpet.

  “Whoop … whoop … whoop …” the sound came from a stand of mature mango trees planted on the right side of the drive. Emmanuel checked the branches. Four dirty white children hung from tree limbs and howled as the car drove by. A scraggy, red-haired teenager sat barefoot and shirtless on the front steps and whittled away at the end of a stick
with a penknife. Emmanuel parked the car.

  “Huh …” Shabalala made a sound that encapsulated their joint surprise. This vision of white ruin populated by feral white children was the last thing any of them expected when they’d turned off the tarred road at the signpost to Rust de Winter.

  The boy on the steps stood up with the sharpened stick and the penknife held in opposing hands. He pushed thick-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose and squinted at the multi-coloured passengers in the car through smudged lenses. “Who are you?” he asked in a polished English accent, which sounded odd coming from the mouth of an unwashed urchin.

  “I’m Detective Sergeant Cooper, this is Detective Constable Shabalala and that man is Dr Zweigman.” Emmanuel made the introductions when they’d alighted from the car and stood facing the boy. “You are?”

  “I’m Jason Singleton.” He closed the penknife and slipped it into his pants pocket before offering a handshake to each adult, including Shabalala. “Pleased to meet you.”

  The children in the orchard dropped from the branches like ripe fruit and tumbled onto the driveway. All four youngsters had wild hair and crusted red eyes, which they rubbed with grubby fists.

  “Conjunctivitis,” Zweigman made the diagnosis in a low voice. “Highly contagious but easily treated.”

  Jason Singleton pointed to each child in turn. “The little one is Jodea but we call her Jodie, then there’s the twins, Aries and Hector. The last one is Bramwell. Our other sister, Julie, is out someplace I don’t know.”

  The Singleton clan shared Cassie’s hair colour and freckled skin but their small, tight mouths fit just right into their pinched faces. Jason remained on the bottom step while his younger siblings circled the visitors and examined their clean fingernails, pressed suits and lace-up shoes.

  “You’re from the city,” Jodie, the youngest child said with an equally posh accent. “People from the city are cry-babies like Cassie.”

  “These men are police,” Jason corrected the girl. “They’re like soldiers. They don’t cry. Ever.”

  “Where are Cassie and your mother?” Emmanuel asked. The children were content to mill around, dirty and barefoot and without adult supervision.

  “My mother is baking in the kitchen,” Jason said. “Would you like to speak to her?”

  “If we could.”

  A small hand belonging to either Aries or Hector, Emmanuel couldn’t tell which, reached out to touch the butt of the Webley revolver holstered to his waist. He brushed aside the crusty fingers and took the steps. Jason opened the door to a wide corridor furnished with antique chairs and discarded shoes. A pile of unopened mail covered the surface of a side table with ornately carved legs.

  “Where’s your father?” Emmanuel thought to ask. Delia hadn’t mentioned a husband during her brief rescue trip to Johannesburg and the farm, like the Brewers’ garden, had gone back to its natural state.

  “My father is dead,” Jason said on the way through to the rear of the house. “He passed away during the first term of school.”

  “What happened?” Emmanuel thought about how a man might die out here: some sort of farming accident, probably: crushed by a tractor, kicked in the head by livestock or cut by the blades of a thresher.

  “A hunting accident. He went on a shooting weekend at Lion’s Kill next door and his gun misfired while he was cleaning it. Ma runs the farm now.”

  Or tries to. The dead lawn and emaciated crops suggested that Delia had lost control of Clearwater. Emmanuel knew well the day-to-day demands of tending to the land. He didn’t wish a life of crop failure, flood and drought on anyone who didn’t wish it on himself; or herself as in Delia’s case.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your father,” Emmanuel said and followed Jason into the kitchen at the back of the homestead. Large windows gave uninterrupted views of a shady porch and an in-ground swimming pool filled with green water. Delia and an elderly maid wearing a brown housecoat and a tatty wig punched down mounds of dough at an oak table. Another maid, also in domestic uniform, poured white sugar into a pot of boiling water to make syrup for the jars of pink guavas lined up on the bench top.

  Delia looked up from kneading the pastry. “What is it, boy?”

  “Police,” Jason said. “And a doctor.”

  “Mrs Singleton.” Emmanuel stepped into the room and into Delia’s direct line of sight. She looked as if she had a million things on her mind and the energy to deal with only one of them at a time. Shabalala and Zweigman remained inside the doorway.

  “Oh, it’s you, Detective Cooper,” Delia said and pressed the dough across the floured surface. “The hospital told me that the Police Commissioner wants an autopsy report on Ian and that his body will be ready for pick up in a couple of days. I’m just making sure there’s enough food for when Cassie and I go down to arrange the funeral.”

  “It will take more than a few days for the autopsy report,” Emmanuel said. Add Christmas holidays to the usual list of hold-ups and Ian Brewer’s body might be held over until well into the New Year. “Don’t rush on account of the medical examiner’s office. They’ll give you plenty of notice about when it’s time to collect the body.”

  “Oh.” Delia’s shoulders softened but her hands never ceased working. “Is that what you’ve come for? To tell me about the autopsy?”

  “No, we were hoping to talk to Cassie if she’s around.”

  “Where’s your cousin?” Delia asked Jason.

  The lad shrugged his freckled shoulders and broke off a pinch of dough to eat. “Probably down at the river. That’s where she goes to have a blubber most days.”

  “There’s a running river?” Emmanuel asked. Clearwater Farm actually had clear water and still looked like it was in the middle of a drought.

  “The irrigation pump broke three weeks ago.” Delia tucked a strand of red behind her ear and shaped the dough into small buns. “I’ve been meaning to get it fixed but with the children on school holidays, the trip to Jo’burg and the funeral …”

  The maids tutted and shook their heads at the madam’s endless worries. Bad luck had flown into the farmhouse roof, built a nest and refused to leave.

  “The river is down there.” Jason pointed to a dip in the land visible through the kitchen windows. “I can show you if you like, Detective.”

  “If that’s where you think Cassie might be,” Emmanuel said. He’d spent years soldiering through a myriad of human tragedies and then moving on to the ultimate goal; allied victory. Swooping into Delia Singleton’s clearly unravelling life and then leaving almost immediately brought back uncomfortable memories.

  “Jesus Christ …” the Sergeant Major seethed. “Stop wasting time with feelings, Cooper. Get a fresh statement from Cassie and then get out! You copy?”

  “I do.”

  “I need to give the little ones a bath and then start making the soup,” Delia said. “Find Julie to get her to help you bring up water from the river.”

  Jason took a bucket from the younger maid and said, “Julie’s out bush with her kaffir pals. It will take me the whole afternoon to haul enough water for a bath. The others won’t help. They run off whenever there’s work to be done.”

  “You’re the man of the house now.” Delia opened the oven and peered inside with a distracted air. “The others are still children. You have to lead them. Teach them the right way to do things.”

  Small chance of that, Emmanuel thought. The younger Singleton children were happy hanging from tree branches and playing in the fields. They’d never give up their freedom for farm work. Shabalala stepped closer to the table and caught the older maid’s attention. She narrowed her dark eyes and regarded the tall Zulu and his white companions with suspicion. Shabalala smiled and gestured to the bucket in Jason’s hand, then held up three fingers to make a silent request for three more. To make a verbal request of a white woman’s servant would be inappropriate.

  The maid ducked under the table and produced two more wooden pails with r
ope handles. She handed them to Shabalala with an expression that said, “I’m not impressed with your suit or your white friends but thanks for helping with the water.”

  “Come,” Jason said and skirted the table on the way to the back door. Once outside, they followed a trampled grass path that ran along the edge of the slimy swimming pool. Further along, they passed three elderly black men crouched in the shade of a yellowwood tree. A young woman in traditional dress breastfed an infant a few yards to their right. The small gathering looked to the back door of the farmhouse with stoic expressions.

  “My father used to meet people under this tree to discuss their problems,” Jason said. “People from the farm and the native reserve still come here, even though my mother stays in the house and won’t talk to them. They still wait for her. ”

  The men called out greetings and the young mother dipped her head to acknowledge the passing of three European males and a tall native who must also be shown deference. Emmanuel suspected that the patience shown by the group would be wasted. Delia was barely hanging on. She had no time for them or their complaints.

  They meandered through a cornfield and down to the banks of a clear river embedded with white, marbled boulders. Flowering bulrushes grew thick and wild by the water’s edge. Downstream, a muscular black woman scrubbed laundry on a rock while three naked children splashed in the shallows. No sign of Cassie, though.

  “She’s normally right there.” Jason pointed to a smooth rock ledge jutting out into the water: the perfect spot to dangle your toes in the flow. “That’s her favourite place to sit. She cries a lot.”

  “She has just lost her father. Perhaps she has good reason for tears,” Zweigman said.

  “No, that’s not the reason.” Jason dipped his bucket into the river and filled it to the brim. “She cried from the first day she got here.”

  “Any idea where she could have gone?” Emmanuel asked. Flat country spread out under blue sky. The Singleton farm likely stretched for miles with the horizon shifting ever further away with each step into the inhospitable veldt.