Present Darkness Read online

Be careful. The words reverberated in Emmanuel’s head until he was unsure if the warning was one meant for him or for Lieutenant Walter Mason, telling him and his questions to stay away from this hut and from his girls.

  *

  Sunlight burned through a high window, heating a corner of the bare concrete floor. The girl crawled into the sunspot and lifted her face to the rays. Her skin warmed. The ache in her bones eased. From outside the window came the low hum of cicadas and the lonesome creak of a windmill. The air smelled of dust and of fruit rotting on the ground. She was in the country and far off the tarred main road leading back to Jo’burg. She listened for dogs and heard none. Their absence was strange. Cities had cars and farms had dogs. But the big man was no farmer. No, he was city bred with smooth, uncalloused skin.

  She glanced around, taking in her prison. She had an army cot with a lumpy sisal mattress covered by a scratchy grey blanket and a wooden ablution bucket. A stained and tatty pillow was the one compensation to comfort. This was no room for living, just the opposite. The hairs on her arms prickled at the thought. The long drive from a dirt alleyway in the city to a slab floor in an isolated farmhouse might be the last journey she ever made.

  A guinea fowl’s incessant chirp reached her from the outside. Then, far off in the distance, she heard the throttle of a car engine travelling the rough dirt track to the house. Pain made her memories unreliable. The feel of her fingers gripping the locked door handle to the room came back to her.

  The big man and his friend had a fight. She remembered that even through the pain. After the snap of breaking furniture and a string of dirty words, they’d left the house and slammed the door shut. How long ago had that been? The stars were out and the moonlight fading. She’d tried to get out of the cell before eventually curling onto the mattress: to sleep and to heal and forget. Time blurred. Now the big man was on his way back.

  She stood and stretched for the window. It was too high to reach. Moving quickly, she pushed the cot across the floor to a space directly beneath the window. The mattress was uneven under her bare feet. Another long reach and her fingertips touched curling paint and the edge of a metal shape. The lock. It had to be. She perched on tiptoes, straining to reach the mechanism. Not quite. Another half a foot and she’d get to the lock easily. An extra foot in height and she’d be able to open the window and climb out.

  The engine idled at the gates to the property. Three, four minutes and the nightmare would begin again. She jumped to the concrete floor, dry-mouthed and nimble. Both the cot and mattress had to be back against the wall before the big man returned. The sound of the car grew louder.

  She pushed hard and the metal legs of the cot scraped against the concrete. There’d be marks on the floor; each a tell-tale map of her escape plan. Car tyres crunched over loose stones in the driveway and the engine cut. The girl wedged the cot against the wall, her heartbeat drumming like a tiny fist in her chest.

  “You can’t keep her, for Christ’s sake.” The smaller man’s voice carried into the room, sharp with reproach. “He said to make an end to it. Finished and clear.”

  “I will.” The big man replied and the thud of his footsteps moved to the front of the house. “When I’m ready.”

  “You seriously think he won’t find out that you broke your promise to get rid of her? This is his farm, dumkopf.”

  “He won’t know if you don’t tell him,” came the calm reply. “Make one more phone call and things will be finished and clear for you. Understand?”

  The girl grabbed the pillow and threw it into place on the bed. Her breath caught in her throat at the icy tone in the big man’s voice. He was poison, that one: the snake from the story of Adam and Eve in the bible.

  “Hey, relax. I’m just saying you have to be careful.” The smaller man was cowed. The girl heard the surrender in his voice. He wouldn’t help her if she escaped. One word from the big man and he’d run her down. A door creaked opened and footsteps slapped the wooden stairs.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be finished long before he gets here for the holidays.”

  Hinges creaked and the door to the box room swung inward. The girl threw herself onto the rough mattress and curled into a foetal position. Sweat trickled from her forehead onto the uncovered pillow.

  “Sleep well, sweetheart?” the big man asked.

  “Yes, thank you.” The girl forced a smile. It was important to be grateful and to speak gently. He’d taught her that last night. More lessons would soon follow this morning, each leaving a bruise.

  “Sit up,” he said. She did, careful to keep her chin raised, her back straight and her knees pressed together: last night’s etiquette lesson had taught her the correct posture and acceptable facial expressions. Sunbeams brightened the window glass and the shadow of a tree branch made leaf patterns on the floor.

  The big man clamped his hands onto her thighs and leaned in close. He was better looking in the daylight than in the light from the lantern the night before. Nature had lavished her gifts on him. Slick black hair, fair skin, sharp cheekbones and eyes the colour of the ocean. He’d win a beauty contest between them. The unfairness of it stung but the girl pushed that thought aside.

  A bird sang outside the window, calling her out of her hurting body and into the veldt.

  Soon, she promised herself. You will fly.

  6.

  The Brewers’ house appeared shabbier in the daytime than at night. Tiny black birds nested in the tangle of shrubs in the garden and a rusted post box leaned at an angle. No thieves worth a damn would target this place. The prison sentence for committing three violent assaults was too high a price to pay for a four-door Mercedes Benz, however low the mileage.

  Cassie Brewer stood by the boot of a dirty Land Rover parked in the driveway next door with her white socks scrunched around her ankles and her ponytail askew. She held a cardboard box overflowing with clothing and books.

  She’s still a child, Emmanuel thought. But old enough to have her word hold up in court.

  A freckle-faced woman with a halo of frizzy red hair hurried down the front steps of the Brewers’ house. Dressed in a brown cotton dress, black lace-up shoes with no stockings and no hat, she walked with the urgent stride of a farmer’s wife who’d find her rest when she retired to an early grave. She loaded the cardboard boxes into the Land Rover’s boot. A few neighbours worked their front gardens; some weeding and deadheading roses, others instructing their garden boys to do the same. They, too, watched the home.

  Emmanuel moved quickly to Mrs Lauda’s driveway. Cassie saw him coming and drew in a sharp breath. She rubbed the front of her right shoe against the back of her calf, fighting the urge to run. The red-haired woman gave him a cursory glance and slammed the boot shut, raising dust.

  “Detective Sergeant Cooper. Marshall Square CID.” Emmanuel offered his hand in greeting. “You must be Cassie’s aunt from north of Pretoria.”

  “Delia Singleton from Rust de Winter.” She shook hands quickly and checked the tyres, already focused on the challenge of navigating Johannesburg’s busy main roads and then the lonely dirt trails that would take her home again. “Cassie tells me you got the kaffir boys who made this mess.”

  “With her help we have one of the boys in for questioning,” Emmanuel said. “We’ll need to double-check the details of Cassie’s story before laying charges.”

  “The man who called last night said everything was settled. Cassie’s got the case solved and I should pick her up and keep her for a while.” Delia was brusque. “I’ve got six small ones at home and only half the fruit canning’s done. I can’t stay.”

  “One question for Cassie,” Emmanuel said. “Then I promise you’ll be on your way.”

  “Make it quick, Detective.” Delia crouched by the worn front tyre and touched a patch pressed into the rubber. She ran her fingers back and forth over the surface, making sure the repair remained intact.

  Emmanuel motioned Cassie in the direction of the rear of the Land Rover.
She complied, reluctantly.

  “Did you see Shabalala and Nkhato from where you hid behind the wardrobe or did you hear them?” he asked.

  “I … um, I heard their voices,” Cassie mumbled. A vein on her forehead pulsed blue beneath her freckled skin.

  “And you’re one hundred per cent certain it was those two boys who came into your room and turned it upside down?” Emmanuel asked. Puffy-eyed and with a swollen bottom lip from where she’d bit through the skin yesterday, it was clear the teenager had passed a rough night.

  “Ja. Sure. Completely.” Cassie moved back and pressed her palms to the dusty surface of the Land Rover.

  “Last chance to tell the truth,” he said. The stark terror on the girl’s face as she stood framed in Mrs Lauda’s window had been real. She was lying to protect herself or someone else. “I give you my word that I’ll do everything I can to find out who hurt your parents and why.”

  “I already told you. I said how it happened.”

  “Time to move.” Delia finished the tyre inspection and lifted the driver’s door handle. “Get in, girl. We haven’t got all day.”

  “Where can I reach you if I need to?” Emmanuel asked before the aunt climbed behind the wheel and sped into the hinterlands. He wondered if she’d ever known the pleasure of lying in bed until noon. Probably not.

  “Clearwater Farm,” Delia said and gave instructions of major turn-offs and minor farm roads. “You can dial through to the farm on the party line. Don’t use it unless it’s urgent. Everyone listens in and the whole district knows your problems. I’ve got enough on my plate.”

  “I understand.” Emmanuel wrote down the phone number and instructions. Cassie stood by the Land Rover’s rear bumper with her arms laced around her waist. She looked younger than her years and exhausted. He could understand why Mason and the rest of the Marshall Square detectives wanted swift justice for this fragile white girl.

  “If that’s all you need we’ll make tracks, Detective Cooper.” Delia motioned Cassie into the decrepit vehicle. “No more tears, girl. Crying won’t change anything. The doctors will fix your parents up and you’ll be back to school in no time. Come, let’s go.”

  Cassie scurried into the passenger seat and wiped dusty palms on the front of her skirt. Tears wet her cheeks, despite Delia’s warning against crying.

  “Safe travels,” Emmanuel said when the Land Rover engine coughed to life and Delia mashed the gear stick into first. Between the farm, six children and the fruit canning, Cassie could expect to be fed and watered by her aunt, no more.

  “Say goodbye to the policeman,” Delia instructed. “Without the police, the black boys who put your parents in the hospital would still be walking free.”

  “Goodbye, Detective Cooper.” Cassie cast him a nervous glance and tucked a bright strand of ginger hair behind her ear. The spot where the metallic shine of the lipstick had streaked the back of her hand had been scratched raw.

  The Land Rover drove off with the main witness in the Brewer assault and robbery case huddled in the front seat. Placing a vulnerable teenager into the care of a relative made good sense, but Delia’s comment that the “man who called said Cassie’s got the case solved” struck a nerve. Aaron was going to get pinned for car theft and three counts of serious assault unless he came up with a credible alibi.

  “How’s she holding up?” One of the neighbours, a good-looking man with sandy coloured hair, alligator green eyes and a trimmed moustache, loitered on the pavement. He wore a pressed khaki safari suit that had never been worn outside of an office, much less on a muddy bush track. Emmanuel slotted the man into the “concerned but fascinated with the crime” category of civilians. Most people fell into that group.

  “Cassie is fine,” Emmanuel said. The scratches on the teenager’s skin were self-inflicted, as if she were physically trying to erase a stain from her person. Cassie lived a hundred miles from “fine” but that was confidential information.

  “My wife heard through Mrs Lauda that you got the thieves.” The man waved a brown leather satchel in the direction of house from which a baby wailed. “My wife reckons it’s two of the blacks that the Brewers had over for dinner.”

  “You thought the principal’s native improvement program was a bad idea.”

  “Not just me,” the tanned white man said. “Everyone on the street warned him that bringing natives was dangerous. We asked him to stop. He didn’t listen. And now look what’s come of that experiment.”

  “Did Brewer get into fights over the native visits?” Emmanuel asked. The untidy garden and weed-choked gutters were another clue that the principal and his wife didn’t care much about fitting into the neat streetscape. Still, they must have known that disputes over music played too loud and cars parked too long outside the wrong house could get people killed.

  “Me and Mrs Lauda had words with the principal. Mr Allen from down the road also told Brewer, calm-like, that his three daughters didn’t feel safe with so many strange black boys walking the street. You know what the headmaster told him? To keep his daughters locked in the house where they’d be out of harm’s way.” Colour rose in the man’s face at the remembered conversation. “Brewer got a fist to the chin from Mr Allen for that, but we all agreed that the principal deserved it.”

  “And you are?” Emmanuel asked.

  “Andrew Franklin. Call me Andy.” The man checked his watch, an antique piece with a battered leather strap. An heirloom, Emmanuel guessed, passed down from a distant ancestor with sweat-stained clothing and a rifle slung over the shoulder.

  “I’m late for a meeting.” Franklin smiled an apology. “If you speak to Cassie, tell her that we’re thinking of her. She suffered a lot because of the trouble her parents caused.”

  “I’ll let her know.”

  Andy Franklin walked to a station wagon parked outside a yellow house; a great white hunter dressed for the veldt but off to sell insurance in a sterile cube or maybe accept bank deposit forms. Emmanuel wrote Franklin’s full name in his notebook. If Aaron Shabalala dropped off the suspects list there’d be a number of disgruntled neighbours to interview.

  The sky stretched bright blue over the orderly street. When the police barricades were removed there’d be no reminder of last night’s events; no permanent marker of the blood that had been spilled within. The Brewer family and the black man in the garden, however, would remember that Friday night forever.

  7.

  Emmanuel entered the European detective’s room at 10.30 a.m. with two goals: to fade in and fit in while doing what he could to solve the Shabalala case.

  Negus and two undercover cops Emmanuel knew by sight but not by name smoked cigarettes at the far end of the room. Both were of average height with razor-cut brown hair and pink, fleshy faces: they might have been brothers but for the eagle nose on one and the stuck-out ears on the other.

  “Christ above.” Dryer shuffled in, blue suit wrinkled and tie crooked. He mopped sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. “I need a cup of coffee with four sugars after last night.”

  “You’re early.” Emmanuel shed his jacket and hat.

  Dryer consistently arrived five to ten minutes after the start of the shift and always with an excuse for the delay. “When Lieutenant Mason telephones and says, ‘Be in the squad room at 10.30,’ I make sure I turn up at 10.30.”

  “Wise move.” The telephone number for the house in Houghton was on the temporary transfer sheet Emmanuel had filled out in Durban before moving to Jo’burg. The transfer sheet also listed his address as that of an ex-detective friend who knew to answer any impromptu visits with a simple, “Cooper is out. Drop by again in a couple of hours.” The real phone number and the fake address summed up his split life nicely.

  “Any idea what the guys from undercover are doing here?” Emmanuel asked Dryer. The fleshy-faced twins were not picked at random: they were companions from a life that Mason had formally renounced. The Lieutenant was gathering his boys.

  “
If we’re short-staffed Mason brings in extra men to help,” Dryer said. “It’s normal.”

  “You made the early call, Sergeant Cooper. I’m impressed. I telephoned the number on your contact sheet but the woman who answered said you were gone for the day and she had no idea when you’d be back.”

  Emmanuel turned to face Mason, who stood in the doorway of the squad room with a dead-eyed expression. He wore a freshly pressed black suit and dark blue tie.

  “I never sleep late,” Emmanuel said. He locked away the memory of Davida lazing in bed this morning with Rebekah at her breast. If anyone could see through the skin of a situation to the raw bone of things, it was Walter Mason.

  “Fill the gaps.” The Lieutenant signalled the other detectives closer. “Bad news first: Ian Brewer died of his wounds an hour ago. This is a now a murder investigation. All holiday leave is cancelled immediately. The Police Commissioner called. He wants results and he wants them quickly.”

  Dryer groaned. Negus sucked on a cigarette and blew smoke rings. Emmanuel felt the pit of his stomach drop to his toes. He dreaded giving the news to Shabalala who was even now travelling on the fast mail train from Durban to Jo’burg, having been granted emergency leave by his boss, Colonel van Niekerk.

  “There is good news,” Mason continued. “We’ve received an anonymous tip-off about the red Mercedes stolen from the Brewers’ house last night. In two minutes we move out to search this Sophiatown address.”

  Mason held up a piece of paper with the information written in blue ink. Emmanuel leaned in and read the street name and number: Annet Street backed onto the sewage works, the houses and stores were within walking distance of the front gates of Saint Bart’s school.

  “Cooper, you’re with me in the lead vehicle. You know the township so you’ll navigate. The rest of you, follow close. With the assistance of the Sophiatown police we will spread out and perform a grid search of the area. Remain in pairs at all times. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.” The gathered detectives, including Emmanuel, answered in unison. He mapped the street in his mind, recalling the boundaries of the coloured school and the dense collection of shanties and rickety fruit stands that hawked single mangoes and oranges. A Mercedes Benz in that environment would not last long. If they found a metal carcass, they’d be lucky.