Let the Dead Lie Page 9

‘Sit down, Cooper.’ The major held the door open for a second man who entered the room carrying a dented blue toolbox. The newcomer, pale-haired and pale-skinned, mid-thirties, sat in the corner. Emmanuel waited for an introduction. None came. Van Niekerk closed the door. What was the major doing in the interview room with a man who wore a suit and carried a toolbox?

  ‘They’ve got you on three counts, Cooper,’ the major said. ‘There’s enough evidence to make the charges stick. Plus the fact that you were caught, literally, red-handed.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Are you going to answer my questions truthfully?’ The ghostly man in the corner spoke for the first time. Emmanuel glanced at him. He hadn’t moved an inch.

  ‘I’ll answer,’ Emmanuel said.

  ‘You knew Jolly Marks?’

  ‘Not well. He worked the freight yards and the passenger terminal. Ran errands. I knew him by sight.’

  ‘You were at the yards the night before last?’ The pale man’s voice was emotionless and, like his skin, leached of colour.

  ‘I was in the yards.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  Emmanuel hesitated. The major didn’t mean for him to answer that question truthfully, did he? There was nothing illegal about observing corrupt police conducting their business. Hiring an ex-detective to record proof was in another league, however.

  ‘I get bad headaches. I went to the docks to buy hashish. It helps me sleep.’

  A flicker of emotion crossed the major’s face. Relief? Emmanuel couldn’t tell. The man in the corner shifted position but stayed put.

  ‘How did you get Jolly’s notebook?’ the major said.

  ‘From the freight yard.’ Emmanuel kept the Dutta family out of it. Amal especially. The young man’s only sin was having a stupid older brother. ‘It was in the alleyway near the body.’

  The major nodded. ‘Did you kill the boy, Cooper?’

  ‘No. He was dead when I found him.’

  ‘Like the landlady and the maid?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hard to believe.’

  ‘The truth often is.’

  The man in the corner walked towards the table, leaving the toolbox behind, and Emmanuel’s skin tingled with relief. The toolbox shut and out of reach seemed like a good thing. The man’s clean fingernails and unwrinkled black suit confirmed he was not a tradesman in the traditional sense. Emmanuel suspected he knew how to break and fix things: none of them domestic.

  ‘You lied about what you were doing at the docks.’ The accent was South African with an undertone of English public school. A colonial boy sent back to the motherland for an education in bad food and bullying. His eyes were an indeterminate colour, like pieces of quartz lit by an unknown source. ‘Major van Niekerk has already confirmed that you were doing private work for him. Surveillance.’

  Emmanuel shifted under the scrutiny. Why would van Niekerk confirm anything unless he’d been forced to? The thought was disturbing. It was nearly impossible to get the jump on the old fox.

  ‘I’ve worked for the major before,’ Emmanuel said. And, like so many who’d served under van Niekerk, Emmanuel thought him arrogant, even ruthless. But it wasn’t his job to bring the major down. His conscience was already burdened by three murders and the fact that he somehow connected them. Best let van Niekerk go to hell without help. ‘Night before last was private business. The major knew nothing about it.’

  ‘Are you calling the major a liar?’

  ‘No. I’m saying I lied to the major.’

  The tradesman smiled at van Niekerk. ‘He’ll do nicely,’ he said.

  ‘I never doubted it,’ van Niekerk said.

  Van Niekerk and the pale man were visibly relaxed, pleased even. It seemed Emmanuel had passed a test they’d set for him with a mix of lies and discretion.

  ‘Will getting out be a problem?’ the tradesman said.

  ‘It won’t be comfortable.’ Van Niekerk cast a glance at the interview-room door. ‘My men will keep it under control but we have to move quickly.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Emmanuel said.

  ‘Out of the station,’ van Niekerk said. ‘There’s a car waiting for us at the front.’

  ‘I’m free?’

  ‘No.’ The tradesman collected the toolbox and placed it on the table. His alabaster hands rested lightly on the dented surface. ‘You’re being transferred from police custody into my custody.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘The only one who can keep you off death row.’

  ‘Why would you want to do that?’ Emmanuel needed to know the price of his freedom. Walking away from three counts of murder did not come cheap.

  ‘Because you didn’t kill the landlady or the maid, at least not with the knives they have in evidence.’

  ‘And Jolly?’

  ‘Jolly was killed by the same person who killed the two women. You didn’t kill the women, therefore you didn’t kill the boy.’

  The station detectives and the arresting policemen would not agree with the tradesman’s conclusion. They’d be furious when they learned their suspect had been released.

  ‘Exactly what am I going to do once I’m in your custody?’ Emmanuel asked.

  ‘Investigate Jolly Marks’s murder,’ came the tradesman’s deadpan reply.

  ‘And Mrs Patterson and her maid. What about them?’

  ‘Clear Jolly’s murder from the board first,’ the tradesman said. ‘Concentrate your resources on one investigation at a time.’

  ‘I’m the prime suspect in all three murders. How’s that going to work?’

  ‘Your investigation will run parallel with that of the regular force,’ the major explained smoothly. ‘You’ll report direct to me.’

  ‘Or stay here and wait for the fingerprint results on the torch that was found in the alley to come back from Pretoria.’ The tradesman picked up the metal box and moved to the door. ‘They can do that now, you know. Lift prints from objects with a powder. It’s a world first, developed right here in South Africa.’

  The bloodstains on Emmanuel’s fingertips made the whorls and ridges stand out like contours on a map. He’d left clear prints on the torch and on the lip of the landlady’s porcelain sink. The results might take months to come back, but when they did he was going to swing.

  ‘What will it be, Cooper?’ the major said.

  Emmanuel stood up and went to the door. The murders of Jolly Marks and Mbali the maid were identical in style and execution. He wouldn’t find the connection between the two victims from a jail cell.

  ‘We’ll leave those on until we’ve exited the station.’ Van Niekerk indicated the handcuffs. ‘Keep your head down, do not make eye contact and keep walking. I’ll deal with the flak.’

  Olive drab police uniform pants, polished black boots and plain cotton trousers crowded the edges of Emmanuel’s vision. He kept his head down. A low murmur accompanied their speedy exit from the station house.

  ‘Pig… murderer… special favours… bastard… fucking disgrace …’

  A filthy, blood-covered criminal walks to freedom: Emmanuel knew how it looked. Knew how it felt, too, when a guilty party slipped the net and cheated the law. It made good policemen want to do bad things.

  They emerged onto the street. A gob of spit hit the pavement in front of him. Emmanuel looked up. The stuttering constable with the injured nose sneered. Fletcher balled his hands into fists.

  ‘If we meet again,’ the detective constable warned, ‘I’ll make sure it’s your own blood you’re covered in.’

  They kept moving. Emmanuel glanced over his shoulder. Twelve or so policemen now stood on the station steps and watched the killer go. Anger and frustration bound them together. If this special investigation was running parallel with the regular force, as van Niekerk had said, the men on the stairs knew nothing about it.

  ‘Popular move,’ Emmanuel said when they stopped at a gold-leaf Chevrolet Deluxe with its motor chugging.

  ‘You’ll be work
ing alone,’ the major said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The driver of the Chevrolet was a skinny white woman who’d given up being blonde. A trench of dark brown hair ran down the centre of her head like a deserted landing strip. The major unlocked the handcuffs and Emmanuel caught a glimpse of the driver’s green eyes examining him in the rear-view mirror. A freckled hand flicked ash from the end of a cigarette onto the chrome-plated ashtray built into the dash. The woman’s fingernails were chewed down to the quick.

  ‘Drive on, Hélène,’ the major said and the woman eased the car into a steady stream of Fords, Packards and Rovers. Up ahead the traffic robot turned green and she piloted the Chevrolet through the intersection. The police station receded behind them but Emmanuel knew that as far as the Durban police force was concerned, it was open season on his hide.

  ‘Pull over,’ the tradesman instructed after a two-minute ride during which he sat silent and unmoving, like a crow on a gravestone. The Chevrolet slid to a stop in front of a tailor’s shop advertising ‘A Whale of a Sale’. He got out, shut the car door and disappeared into the Saturday market crowd of Indian traders, European shoppers and Zulu rickshaw pullers without a backwards glance. Just a skinny white male of above average height, dressed in a dark suit and moving ‘quick like’.

  ‘Who was that man?’ Emmanuel asked van Niekerk.

  ‘Constable John Smith. Commissioner’s office.’ The major’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘Recent transfer from Cape Town.’

  ‘You don’t believe it,’ Emmanuel said. And neither did he. The tradesman was not a garden-variety police recruit. His quiet intensity suggested he belonged to a group beginning with the letter ‘S’: Security Branch or Special Services.

  ‘I got a call about two hours ago from a brigadier who got a call from a major general,’ van Niekerk said. ‘It must have been just after your arrest. Cooperate: that was the message. It seemed like a good idea. The … uh, albino was waiting at the police station for me. He asked questions; I answered.’

  ‘All this cloak and dagger for a boy with no family connections? Doesn’t make any sense, not even when you include the murders this afternoon.’

  ‘That’s your job, Cooper. To make sense of things.’

  Emmanuel wound the window down to get some air. The pills had stopped the throb against his skull but dulled his thoughts. On the pavement, a double-chinned dame festooned with gaudy seashell necklaces reeled at the sight of him. She clutched her suede handbag with both chubby fists. None of the pretty Durban postcards showed a bloodied man being chauffeured around town in a Chevrolet Deluxe.

  ‘Head back to the house, Hélène,’ the major said to the driver, then made a detailed study of the side panels of a sluggish tram, which advertised ‘J. Gustave Coiffeur Beige’ on West Street.

  Emmanuel closed the car window. His release from custody was wrong on every level. Catching a triple murderer at the scene covered in blood was the equivalent of winning the July handicap horserace at five hundred to one. The police would never walk away from this case. The department’s hand had been forced from somewhere high up.

  ‘Who signed my release forms?’ he said.

  ‘I did.’ Van Niekerk loosened the top three buttons of his uniform jacket and tugged at the starched collar. His lean face was impassive and his hooded eyes were unreadable.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To the victor belong the spoils. If you pull this off, the major general will remember your name and mine. You’ll get your detective’s ID back and I’ll have friends in high places.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘That’s not an option. For either of us. I vouched for you, Cooper. Gave a personal guarantee. If you don’t deliver, they’ll come after you, then they’ll come after me.’

  Emmanuel rubbed the bruised muscles of his neck. It was possible that signing off on the backdated letter of discharge in Jo’burg six months ago had gotten van Niekerk blackbanned from the promotions list. That would explain why he was taking a gamble on the results of a one-man investigation. Maybe he needed friends in high places.

  ‘What now?’ Emmanuel said.

  ‘Investigate the Marks boy’s murder and report to me. That’s the sum of it.’ The major pulled Jolly’s notebook from his jacket pocket and threw it onto Emmanuel’s lap. ‘The victim’s address is pencilled in the back. Some hovel out on the Point.’

  ‘How did you get this?’

  A piece of evidence liberated from the hands of legitimate law enforcement without a fight? That was another action that made no sense.

  ‘I took it,’ the major said, then handed over a mimeographed piece of paper printed with a black and white mug shot of a European male with a Frankenstein head. Dark eyes glared from the police portrait. ‘Until you turned up with bloody hands and a knife in your pocket, this man was the number one suspect. A low-level heavy called Joe Flowers.’

  The escaped prisoner, Joe Wesley Flowers, was proof that the discredited science of phrenology wasn’t completely off the mark. His very large square head, shifty eyes and slack mouth all said criminal. Petty theft, housebreaking and malicious wounding showcased his versatile talents.

  ‘What makes him right for the murders?’ Emmanuel asked.

  ‘He was in for stabbing two men in a bar fight, and he worked as a flenser at the whaling station for a year and a half. He knows knives.’

  A single cut to the throat had killed Jolly and Mbali, the maid. Whoever killed them knew knives, too.

  ‘Was Mrs Patterson killed the same way as the maid?’

  ‘No. The killer made a mess of that one. She was cut across the shoulder, made a run for it and knocked over a table of porcelain figurines. The crash alerted the neighbour who called the police. A single cut across the neck finally killed her.’

  ‘Does Flowers have the legs for this kind of crime?’

  Emmanuel asked. ‘It’s a big jump up from cutting whale carcasses to murdering two children and an old lady.’

  ‘Maybe he’s trying his hand at something new.’ Van Niekerk’s tone was dry. ‘Moving up the criminal ladder.’

  ‘Any leads?’

  ‘Patrol cars haven’t caught sight of him. His mother has vanished as well.’

  ‘No other family?’

  ‘A dirt-farming uncle who lives out past Pietermaritzburg. The police called in yesterday and found nothing.’ The major shrugged. ‘Rootless whites. You know what they’re like, Cooper. No fixed address, no forwarding address and no better than the kaffirs.’

  Yes, he knew all about that life.

  Out the window, red-brick shopfronts and flats gave way to peacock-green lawns and mature shade trees with limbs that overhung the road like the beams of a cathedral. The rest of the country was dressed in brown for winter, but Durban still had orange, purple and sunny bursts of yellow. ‘Leafy’ was one of his ex-wife Angela’s favourite words and also one of her biggest criticisms of South Africa. The country was not ‘leafy’ enough. Not quaint enough. Not English enough. Perhaps if they’d lived in Durban they might still be together. He did not long for the past or for her cool embrace, though. She was one of the unsuccessful ways that he had tried to escape the past.

  ‘Where are we headed?’ he asked.

  ‘Glenwood. You’re staying with some friends of mine.’

  The Chevrolet turned into a driveway set between whitewashed brick columns. A brass plate on the right-hand column read ‘Chateau La Mer’. They stopped in front of a vine-covered trellis flecked with purple blooms. The female driver slipped out from behind the wheel and held van Niekerk’s door open.

  ‘Merci, Hélène,’ the major said, pulling the lines of his uniform jacket straight.

  ‘De rien, Major,’ Hélène replied and kept the door ajar for Emmanuel, like a hotel valet. He crunched onto the gravel drive and checked the neat suburban surroundings. Chateau La Mer was a handsome brick house with leadlight roses decorating the windows and a wide veranda that ran a
long three sides. High on the roof, an iron weathercock swayed east in the breeze, while a white marble statue of a nude woman balanced in the middle of a tinkling fountain set up on the front lawn.

  ‘Cooper.’ The major waved him over. ‘This is Hélène Gerard. You’ll be staying with her for a few days.’

  ‘Very kind.’ Emmanuel substituted a nod for a handshake. His hands still had dried blood on them.

  Hélène’s smile was tight but the skin on her cheeks and neck sagged, as if she’d recently lost a great deal of weight. What kind of a friend agrees to accommodate a man fresh out of police custody?

  ‘Hélène, this is Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper,’ the major said. ‘He scrubs up fine so pay no attention to his appearance.’

  ‘A pleasure to meet you, Detective Cooper.’

  Hélène was grace itself; she might be welcoming a guest to a civic reception and not talking to a dishevelled man with a boot print on his neck. Van Niekerk must have something big on Hélène to get her to take a murder suspect into her home, Emmanuel thought.

  ‘I’ll arrange for a bath and fresh clothes. Please come in when you’re ready.’ Hélène dropped a half curtsy in van Niekerk’s direction then slipped away into the red and green blaze of the garden.

  ‘Well…’ The major checked his watch. ‘I’ll leave you to settle in. Hélène will take good care of you.’

  Does she have a choice, Emmanuel wondered.

  The major frowned, a piece of trivial information popping into his mind. ‘You don’t have a lot of time, Cooper.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘In forty-eight hours members of the Durban police will issue a warrant for your arrest on three counts of murder, one count of assault of a police officer and one count of resisting arrest. Those are the terms of the deal for your release.’

  ‘What can I achieve in that time?’ He was being set up to fail before the investigation had even started.

  ‘You’ve been given a second chance at life, Cooper. Stick to the Marks boy’s murder the way you’ve been told. There’s not enough time to chase three separate inquiries.’ The major extended his hand. ‘Call me with any updates. Or better, call around to my house if it’s after hours.’