Present Darkness Page 27

  “You know their names?” Emmanuel asked.

  Lieutenant Mason moved into the kitchen and stood at the edge of the pine table. He watched Emmanuel’s ministrations with snake eyes. If I remember right, you’re good with women. Emmanuel had been meticulous with his lies these last five weeks, especially around Mason. Talking about his personal life would send him to jail for three to six years for “immoral activity”. The beauty of Davida Ellis’s honey brown skin against white cotton sheets and the sky grey of his daughter’s eyes would remain his secret.

  “It was boys from Saint Bartholomew’s College,” Cassie said. “Two of them.”

  “Look at me, Cassie.” Emmanuel waited till she did. He had to be sure there’d been no mistake. “You’re talking about Saint Bartholomew’s College in Sophiatown?”

  She broke off eye contact and licked her dry lips. “Yes.”

  The Anglican school and its well-known red-brick chapel were in Emmanuel’s old neighbourhood. The school was an oasis in the tough streets of Sophiatown for black boys who wanted to become teachers and lawyers instead of gangsters. His good friend Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala’s son attended the prestigious institution.

  “How did you come to meet students from a native school?” Sophiatown was less than thirty miles from the neat grid of suburban streets where Cassie lived but it might as well be on another planet.

  “My father,” Cassie said. “He runs an extra-curricular program for natives. He takes them to the theatre and also to concerts. Once a term they come to the house for dinner.”

  “To this house?”

  “Ja. He thought it would be good for them to see how Europeans lived.”

  Dryer snorted from the doorway. Emmanuel stepped away from Cassie’s burrowed face and squatted by her chair. She chewed her bottom lip.

  “Tell me their names,” Emmanuel said.

  ‘I … I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

  “We’re just going to talk to them and clear things up. That’s all.” Emmanuel was surprised at having to coax the names of the culprits from Cassie. Christ almighty. What did she care if two black boys from the townships got into trouble for beating her parents and wrecking her home?

  Cassie pressed the handkerchief to her face. “Kibelo Nkhato,” she said. “I think that was his surname. And Aaron Shabalala.”

  Emmanuel slipped back into his body, heart thumping, and panic taking hold like a virus. Shabalala was a common Zulu name. Throw a net out of a bus in Sophiatown and you’d land a dozen. But two boys named Aaron Shabalala attending the same Anglican-run boarding school was unlikely.

  “You’re sure about those names?” Emmanuel leaned in closer to establish eye contact with Cassie. The odds against there being a personal connection between him and this crime scene were astronomical.

  “Yes, of course. They were here tonight for the end of term dinner.” The handkerchief muffled the sharp edge of her voice. “It was Aaron and Kibelo. Those two boys. I’m not making it up.”

  “Okay.”

  Her gaze flickered away to the window for a second time. With any other witness the broken eye contact would point to a lie or an evasion. Emmanuel wasn’t sure the same rules applied here. Cassie was a plain girl who, he suspected, sat in the corner at school functions with an empty dance card on her lap and a carnation wilting behind her ear. He might have overplayed the eye contact and pushed her back into her shell.

  “Aaron Shabalala and Kibelo Nkhato.” Emmanuel sat back down and flipped open his notebook. He proceeded as usual. Until he knew for certain that this Aaron was his friend’s son there was nothing else to do. “Describe the boys to me.”

  “Kibelo is skinny and light-skinned. He wears glasses and he likes to talk. Shabalala is not like that.” Hot colour stung Cassie’s cheeks. “He’s tall with wide shoulders and brown eyes. He doesn’t speak so much and sometimes his face is like a mask so you can’t tell what he’s thinking.”

  Emmanuel had never met any of Shabalala’s sons in person, but a tall Zulu with wide shoulders and the ability to keep his thoughts to himself: that might well be a description of Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala of the Native Branch.

  “Did your father keep money in the house?” Emmanuel’s voice remained flat and cool despite his thudding heart.

  “No,” Cassie said. “He liked to tell the boys that the bank was the only place to keep money. You earned interest on the deposit and the money was insured if there was ever a robbery.”

  Solid advice, which Cassie repeated with a glazed look. Emmanuel imagined the end of term dinners were probably torture for the principal’s daughter, having to sit politely at the table surrounded by native boys while her father divulged the cultural secrets of the white race. The neighbours wouldn’t be pleased with the idea of black boys eating off china plates in the house next door, either.

  “Why do you think they did it?” Emmanuel asked.

  “Who?”

  “The boys. If Nkhato and Shabalala knew there was no money in the house why do you think they did all this?” He motioned to the wreckage.

  “Oh …” Cassie gaze flickered across the debris and her shoulders curled in. She thought a moment then said, “They took the car. That must be what they wanted.”

  “What car?” Mason’s voice was a bucket of ice water thrown onto a fire. Cassie jumped at the sound of it.

  “Tell me about the car.” Emmanuel spoke over the low noise of Mason’s grinding teeth.

  “It’s a Mercedes Benz Cabriolet,” Cassie said. “Red with black leather seats.”

  “Nice …” Dryer gave a soft whistle and nodded approval. A flick from Mason’s index finger sent him scuttling back into the corridor.

  “Go check the garage, Cooper.” Mason jerked a thumb to the back door. “See if the car’s gone.”

  “The boys broke in, found the keys and then stole the Mercedes,” Cassie said. “I heard the engine.”

  “Make if fast, Sergeant.” Cassie’s certainty seemed to agitate Mason more than the assault on her parents. His jaw worked on an invisible piece of gristle between his teeth. “You’d have to be an idiot to take a car like that and expect to blend in.”

  Emmanuel got up, switched off the kettle and walked to the back door. Mason was right. Two black boys in a red, luxury car. The idea was ridiculous. They wouldn’t get past the first roadblock.

  A china fragment crunched under his shoes and he looked down. The imprint of a bare foot pressed into the floured tiles. Not a single print, but a line of them moving from the back door to the corner of the kitchen where the police had found Cassie hiding.

  Emmanuel checked the door handle. The lock buckled inward but the square of glass inset into the wood was intact. This was the point of entry. A simple break and enter that started with the snap of this handle and ended in mayhem. Were the car keys that hard to find?

  “Quickly, Cooper. We need to get to the school and interview those boys. That’s if they’re still in town.”

  He gave the kitchen one last glance. Cassie hunched in the chair and chewed her fingernails. The trail of footsteps snaked around broken glass and skipped over shards of porcelain. Despite being in fear for her life, Cassie had carefully picked her way across the room to a safe corner. She glanced up and met Emmanuel’s eyes. His look said, You’re lying, girl. And I know it.

  She covered her face with her hands.

  2.

  “Car’s gone, Lieutenant.”

  The ghost of a grease spot on the concrete floor was the only evidence that a vehicle had once been parked in the Brewers’ garage. Emmanuel crossed to the rear of the garage and stepped into the moonlight. The backyard was overgrown with fruit trees and climbing vines. Stands of wild fig and straggly banana plants made Emmanuel feel as if he were back in a country town, like Jacob’s Rest, where he’d first met Davida. An unseen animal, of a sufficient size to make a distinctive dragging sound, seemed to be moving through the leaf litter.

&nbs
p; “Something’s back here,” he said loud enough for Dryer and Mason to hear. “Something big. I’ll take a look.”

  “Go with Cooper, Dryer, and see what it is,” Mason said, but Emmanuel was already searching the moonlit garden. He found a narrow path behind a clothesline and followed it. Gnarled branches and knots of unpruned roses pressed in from either side and slowed his progress. The dragging sound grew louder.

  “Police.” Emmanuel spoke loud and clear. “Step out where I can see you.”

  No answer. He moved deeper into the garden, keeping to the thin dirt path. A noise came from a mass of plants up ahead.

  “Police,” Emmanuel said again, peering into the tangled branches. Darkness peered back. Leather gun holster unclipped, he ducked and shuffled into the underbrush, navigating like a blind man, using an outstretched hand to feel his way. A sharp snap came from his right. He jerked back and pressed a hand to the ground for balance. Wet leaves stuck to his palm and the familiar smell of blood rose from the soil.

  Emmanuel wiped off the leaf litter and moved on as he had done during the war when every forward step might have been his last. The dragging sound came from directly in front on him now. He reached out and touched the crook of an elbow and then a bony shoulder blade. A body shuddered and collapsed under the weight of his fingers.

  “Dryer!” Emmanuel shouted. “Bring a light. Now.”

  “Where are you, Cooper? I can’t see you.”

  “Take the path behind the clothesline into the garden. I’m to the right of the path. Move it.” Every skin surface he touched came back wet and slick. “Get a light in here.”

  A flashlight beam flicked between the tree branches. Emmanuel’s eyes adjusted to the dimness. A slender black man lay on his side in the leaf litter. He bled from the head and seemed to have some smaller wounds in his back. His fingernails were caked with dirt. He must have crawled across the ground one handful at a time, looking for safety or a quiet place to die.

  “Call for a native ambulance,” Emmanuel told Dryer. “And get the foot police down here with lights and a blanket. Quick smart.”

  The police from the porch descended on the garden, their voices high-pitched with excitement. They were young, thrilled to be part of the unfolding drama. The black man now lay motionless on the ground, his breathing a low rasp in his throat. Emmanuel rested on his haunches and listened to the air moving in and out of the man’s lungs.

  “In here,” he said when the foot police drew near. Three flashlight beams converged on the secondary crime scene. The first policeman through the foliage made a sound of distress and stopped short. He clutched a blanket to his chest.

  “Stay where you are,” Emmanuel said. “The rest of you keep back and form a circle.”

  They followed the instructions, each shuffling self-consciously into place with their flashlights held high.

  “Do you think it’s the gardener?” one of the foot police whispered.

  “Maybe,” another replied. “Why else would a kaffir be in a white man’s backyard after sundown?”

  Emmanuel was uncertain. The black man curled in the leaves wore a long-sleeved shirt and dark cotton trousers. His bare feet and hands were dirty but lacked the roughness made by manual labour. And the garden grew wild. If he were a gardener, he was terrible at his job. Emmanuel crouched low and searched the man’s pockets for identification.

  “What have you got there?” Mason pushed through the tree branches and made a space between two of the foot police.

  “An unidentified male.” Emmanuel felt around for the passbook that black men were required to carry at all times. A pass contained the bearer’s name, place of origin, a black and white photograph, copies of their work details and a record of previous encounters with the police; their life story in bullet points.

  “No money or ID in his trouser pockets.” Emmanuel lifted a blood-stained paper from the man’s shirt pocket and squinted at the pencilled text. “The Brewers’ address.”

  “What the hell is an unregistered black doing in a Parkview garden?” Mason asked. “Even if he had a passbook he should have caught the last bus to kaffir town hours ago.”

  “Same goes for Shabalala and Nkhato. Doubling-back from Sophiatown to Parkview on public transport can’t have been simple.”

  “They managed it somehow; maybe with the help of accomplices. You heard the girl. Those boys were in that house. She named them.”

  Yes, she had. And a traumatised white girl’s testimony was hard to attack in court with a sympathetic European jury seated in the box.

  “Any word on the native ambulance?” Emmanuel rubbed his palms together, flaking off dried blood.

  “It will be a while.” Mason turned to leave. “The nearest native hospital is Baragwanath and they’ve only got a handful of vans. Dryer might know. Assuming he asked the hospital for an estimate.”

  “Give me the blanket, Constable,” Emmanuel said to one of the policemen: a bright-haired teenager with a face as plain as a glass of milk.

  “But … sir …” the Constable stammered. “I got this blanket from inside the house. It’s wool. From the girl’s bedroom.”

  “And?”

  “It’s not meant for one of them. His blood will get all over it.”

  Emmanuel stood up and ripped the blanket from the boy’s grasp. “If the Brewers survive the night they can burn the blanket and bury the ashes. Blood is blood. It stains the same no matter who’s doing the bleeding.”

  “Yes, sir.” The Constable shuffled back a step, embarrassed at offending the Detective Sergeant.

  “Stand guard till the ambulance gets here. Make sure nothing is disturbed,” Emmanuel told the foot police and spread the blanket over the unidentified stranger. It angered him to think that Davida and Rebekah might be denied comfort in a similar situation because they had brown skin instead of white.

  He turned and walked away. Lieutenant Mason followed him onto the moonlit path with an enigmatic expression on his face. Emmanuel remained quiet. One word would betray his building fury and then Mason would know beyond a doubt that his reaction to the constable’s attitude was personal.

  “You speak kaffir,” Mason said when they reached the house.

  “Some,” Emmanuel replied. He did not advertise the fact he spoke fluent Zulu and Afrikaans and a now a smattering of Shangaan, thanks to spending time with Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala.

  “Stay here with the foot police and the injured native,” Mason said. “If he comes around, make a note of anything he says that might explain how two schoolboys made this mess. The Police Commissioner’s going to need proof to back up the Brewer girl’s statement. Negus and I will bring the boys in for questioning.”

  “I’ll stop by the station afterwards,” Emmanuel said. Keeping track of the evidence against Aaron and Nkhato was paramount. What he’d do with the information once he had it, he did not know.

  “Paid overtime hasn’t been approved on this case yet, so if it’s a few extra pounds you’re angling for then go home and get a good night’s sleep.”

  “I work till the work is done,” Emmanuel said. Mason operated undercover for months at a stretch, living and breathing the job twenty-four hours a day. In Mason’s world, real policemen worked for love of the job.

  Dryer stepped out of the back door and jerked a thumb in the direction of the kitchen. “Police secretary is here, Lieutenant.”

  “Cooper’s already got what we need. Let the secretary hold the girl’s hand for a while and then send her home to Benoni. The next-door neighbour Mrs Lauda has agreed to take Cassie in till her aunt gets here tomorrow from north of Pretoria. Cooper, you’ll walk her over when the time comes.”

  “Of course.” There were good reasons for leaving him in charge of the primary crime scene and of Cassie, the star witness; the foremost being Dryer’s idiocy. The less obvious reason was that Mason did not trust him.

  The Lieutenant disappeared inside the house.

  “Typical, hey?
” Dryer spoke once the back door had closed. “Mason and Negus get the good jobs while we take care of a beaten up kaffir and a girl.”

  “Any word on the native ambulance?” Emmanuel asked.

  “The switchboard logged the call but it’ll be a while. The hospital vans are attending a bus crash out near Tembisa.”

  “It could be dawn before they get here.” A bus accident took priority over a single black man bleeding out in a white suburb miles from the hospital.

  “How bad is the kaffir?” Dryer asked.

  “Bad,” Emmanuel said.

  “Shit luck for him.” The Afrikaner detective yawned and looked up at the full moon. An injured native counted for little. Cassie Brewer’s witness statement meant his holiday plans were all but assured—the perpetrators were practically in custody already. In a week’s time he’d be floating in the Indian Ocean and drinking a cold beer while fish nibbled at his toes.

  If Aaron Shabalala had instead been just some random black boy accused of robbery and assault, Emmanuel acknowledged that he might feel the same sense of relief at the easy “case closed”.

  “I’ll check in with the police secretary.” He took the stairs and opened the kitchen door. A path had been swept through the debris and the rice and flour had been wiped from the tabletop. An older white woman with a helmet of blue-rinsed hair and a pursed mouth painted a violent shade of fuchsia combed a brush through Cassie’s frizzy hair. Dressed in a grey wool twinset with a matching skirt and a single strand of pearls at her neck, the police secretary personified the government template of a European woman.

  Cassie gave Emmanuel a quick glance and turned her face away.

  “Shh … it’s okay,” the police secretary soothed. “I’ll take care of you, my darling. Don’t fret.”

  Cassie eased into the woman’s arms. She shut her eyes and shut Emmanuel out. The police secretary held Cassie close and whispered to Emmanuel, “Let it rest, Detective. The poor thing has suffered enough tonight.”

  Emmanuel retreated. He’d made Cassie wary with that earlier look. If he got within a foot of her without tears spilling it would be a miracle. The girl enjoyed being the hurt one.