Let the Dead Lie (22 page)

Are you going to
sit there stroking your gun all night, Cooper, or are you going to go and tell
the major that Flowers was a dead end? Maybe he has afresh lead for you to
chase up or maybe he can extend the deadline,
the sergeant major said.
You've got fuck all to lose. Joe's in Central. Brother Jonah
is AWOL. Exodus has fucked off to Port Elizabeth and the Russian is lights out.
As for the pregnant woman . . . well, take it from me, even if she could speak
English, you do not want to disturb her sleep if you want children of your own
down the track. Now get in there and ask for help
.

'Don't
breathe a word while I'm in there,' Emmanuel said and slid out of the Buick. He
locked the car door and tucked the Walther into the waistband of his trousers.
Being comfortably crazy was a fact he'd rather keep to himself.

Fine,
the sergeant major said.
I'll keep a lid on it but I'm not going to wait for
permission to save your arse when the time comes. I'm a soldier not a bloody
nursemaid. Have we got a deal
?

'Yes.
We have.'

Emmanuel
took the veranda steps two at a time and pressed hard on the bell. A velvet Nat
King Cole recording crooned into the night. Imagining van Niekerk sucking on a
pipe while enjoying a mellow tune lifted Emmanuel's mood. The door opened and
Lana Rose peered out through a curtain of cigarette smoke.

'Oh,
it's you,' she said.

'I've
come to see the major.' It was a shock to see her half dressed in van Niekerk's
house after dark.

'The
major's at a coronation party in Durban North. A proper coronation party with
roast beef and trifle with claret for dessert.
Larnies
only. No house models or ex-barmaids allowed.'

'Larnies'
was South Africa's unique name
for swells, the quality, the upper crust, the cream that rose to the top
through good blood and money. Sugar barons, factory owners, judges and doctors
with a handful of London-based actors begged away from the Bulawayo theatre
season in Rhodesia to add dash to the mix.

'The
major runs with that crowd?' Emmanuel was surprised. Few Afrikaners made it
into the
larnie
bracket in Durban, the English epicentre of South Africa.

'In
five years the major will run that crowd,' Lana said. 'Him and that toffee-nosed
fiancée of his.'

That
was quick work. In less than six months the major had a fiancée, an on-the-side
girlfriend and a clutch of policemen under his influence. Van Niekerk had a
plan. He always did.

Lana
drew deep on her cigarette and leaned forwards, a movement that caused her to
sway unsteadily. 'You've got a cut on your cheek.'

'Rough
night,' Emmanuel said. 'I'll come back tomorrow.'

'Don't
be stupid. There's ice in the cooler and the major will be home soon.'

Emmanuel
hesitated but Lana was already heading for the lounge room. She wore black
satin-heeled shoes and the hem of her white silk dressing-gown swished against
her bare legs. He closed the front door. Until Nicolai was rested and well
enough to talk there was nowhere else to go.

'I'll
put ice in a serviette. Or I can try and find some ...' Lana searched for the
right word . . iodine. That's it. Iodine.'

'Ice
will do.' Emmanuel entered a large room with two leather couches and a hostess
trolley laden with bottles of liquor. A full ashtray and a scatter of imported
women's magazines covered a low coffee table. Gilt-framed landscapes of the
Cape vineyards adorned the walls. Lana tipped a handful of ice into a cotton
serviette.

'Sit,'
she said.

'I'll
be fine.' Emmanuel took the ice pack and pressed it to the imprint of
Fletcher's fist. Getting comfortable with Lana Rose on van Niekerk's couch
seemed dangerous.

Lana
poured whisky into a tumbler. 'Are you in trouble, Emmanuel?'

'A
little.'

Lana
offered him the glass and he drained half of it. It was going to be a long
night and, he feared, an unrewarding one.

'What
else can you expect when you're one of Major van Niekerk's boys?' Lana said.
'Trouble comes with the job.'

'I'm
not one of van Niekerk's boys.' He was an ex-soldier and an ex-detective sergeant
who'd fought through France and brought murderers to justice. Being called a
boy stung more than the cut cheek.

'Of
course you're not.' Lana ground her cigarette out in the ashtray and sank onto
the couch opposite. 'And I'm not his girl.'

This
exquisite room was only a few miles from her flat in Umbilo but separated from
it by an ocean of money If Lana won a string of trifectas at the July handicap
then she might end up in a house like this. In reality, she had bet herself on
the major and won a temporary seat in the winner's circle.

'Okay,'
Emmanuel said. 'I'm van Niekerk's boy and you're his girl.'

'And
that is why we are both here, waiting for him.'

An
awkward silence stretched out. The sound of a distant rocket, part of the
coronation celebration, echoed across the harbour. Doing nothing while the
clock ticked down to arrest and imprisonment on three murder counts was
unacceptable. Emmanuel leaned towards Lana who was massaging a thumb into the
arch of her right foot. The satin shoes were for show not for comfort.

'Are
you from Durban?' he asked.

'I
was born in Umbilo. The furthest I've been is Pietermaritzburg.' There was
regret and impatience with the smallness of her world.

'Do
you know anyone who can read Russian script? I need a Russian sentence
translated.'

'Are
you teasing me, Emmanuel?'

'Teasing
you about what?'

Lana's
eyes were almost black in the lamplight. 'Do you know what it's like having a
German mother and a Russian father in Durban? The last outpost of the British
Empire? Do you know what it's like to be different here?'

'Yeah,'
Emmanuel said. 'I know what that's like.'

Twelve
years of running on the streets of Sophiatown and mixing with the blacks,
coloureds and Indians; a 'white
kajfir'
in the eyes of other whites.
Four years at an Afrikaner boarding school pretending to be one of God's chosen
had done nothing to obliterate the memory of feeling like an outcast.

Lana
tilted her head and peered at him, searching his face for proof that he
understood. Difference in South Africa meant exclusion. Difference meant that a
sense of belonging was always just out of reach. He looked back at her with the
eyes of another outsider.

Lana
lit a fresh cigarette from a pack that claimed to be the number one choice of
doctors and nurses and took a long draw.

'I
speak Russian,' she said. 'Just enough to get me out of trouble with drunken
sailors and con men claiming to be the last surviving Romanov.'

'Can
you read the script?'

'A
word or two.'

So
the icon image in the medicine cabinet wasn't just for decoration. Lana was
part Russian. Emmanuel pulled the Walther from the back of his waistband. The
safety was on. He kept the gun in his hand but turned it so the text was
visible. Lana raised an eyebrow in response.

'You
need a gun translated?'

'Yes.'

Lana
reached for the Walther and Emmanuel held it back. The combination of too much
whisky, too many cigarettes and the major's engagement to a toffee-nosed
larnie
made Lana unpredictable.

'The
safety is on,' she said. 'And the major will be back once he's tried to get
into his fiancée’s panties and failed. Again.'

Emmanuel
handed over the gun. The personal information about the major's virginal fiancée
he could have done without. Imagining van Niekerk fumbling with buttons and
groping for a breast made him human, almost vulnerable, and Emmanuel knew that
was a lie.

'Sit
down and relax. Finish your drink.' Lana threw herself back onto the couch and
the silk gown parted to reveal the smooth line of a calf and the curve of a
knee. She examined the engraving on the Walther's nickel plate with a frown.

Emmanuel
sat on the opposite couch and downed the rest of his drink, eyes to the floor.
Skin, silk and the dark cascade of hair over an exposed shoulder were all now
out of bounds.

'Well?'
he said.

'One
of the words is "people" but the rest is too complicated for me to
translate,' she confessed. 'I do know it's a presentation weapon. A gift. Who
does it belong to - someone important?'

'Not
sure.' Nicolai Petrov was a sick old man with a heavily pregnant wife and two
forged American passports. If he had been a hero of the Soviet Union it wasn't
helping him find safety in South Africa. 'What do you know about presentation
firearms?'

'My
father collected guns. Mausers, Colts, Brownings and two Nagants engraved with
the Russian imperial eagle given to him by Csar Nicholas himself. For
meritorious service. That was the story after one bottle of vodka. After two
bottles, the Nagant came with a country estate, a
dacha
and
a lake. All lost in the revolution, of course.' Lana ran a fingertip over the
engraved text. 'The owner is Russian?'

'Yes.
That I do know.'

'And
you have his Walther.'

'He
gave it to me.'

'A
straight blowback-operated semi-automatic with double action, walnut grip and a
chrome finish engraved with a personal message. This gun is for keeps.'

Jesus wept!
Where does a woman learn such filthy talk
? the sergeant major whispered.
You could build a skyscraper around the steel beam that's
shot up under my kilt
.

Emmanuel
brushed his hand over his face to dislodge the brusque Scottish voice. 'Okay,'
he said. 'I took the Walther from him.'

'And
he took it from a German.' She pointed to a detail on the metal barrel. 'Look.'

Emmanuel
got up and reluctantly approached Lana. The words 'close enough to taste'
sprang to mind when he sat down next to her on the couch. Cigarettes, whisky,
expensive perfume and cordite: the thrilling scent of a bad girl who knew her
firearms.

'A
German imperial eagle.' Lana pointed to the chequered walnut grip. 'That's
where the Walther stamp would normally be.'

The
thing about war was that guns changed hands on a regular basis, both
voluntarily and involuntarily. They were another spoil traded and smuggled and
propped up in display cabinets during peacetime, like postcards from the
violent frontier.

'An
officer's firearm,' Emmanuel said. 'Taken from a high-ranking German and given
to a Russian after the war.'

'But?'

'The
man who owns it doesn't strike me as army, navy or air force. And his wife is
not military barracks material either.'

'Ask
them,' Lana said.

'They're
out of action for a few hours.'

'Tumble
their drawers and cupboards and see what you find. People leave all sorts of
things lying around in plain view.'

That
was just the kind of illegal, no-holds-barred approach the Scottish sergeant
major advocated.

'No
drawers or cupboards to check. But there is one thing. An old suitcase.'
Natalya had risked her life to retrieve the leather bag from the house on the
Bluff.

'Let's
check it,' Lana said. 'Maybe there's something in it that I can make sense of.'

'No.'
Emmanuel stood up quickly. 'That's not a good idea.'

'Why?'

'The
major.'

'He's
in Durban North sucking gin and tonics.'

'You
were expecting him.'

Lana
got to her feet and tucked the Walther into the pocket of her silk
dressing-gown. 'Let him man his own pump for one night. It will do him good.'

The
manning of the major's pump is a thing for the two of you to sort out. In
private and without my help, Emmanuel thought. He motioned for the Walther PPK.
'Domestic arrangements aren't my strong point so I'll be on my way.'

'You
asked for help, Emmanuel,' Lana said and headed for the door. 'Have another
drink. I'll be out in five minutes.'

'I
have eighteen hours to solve a triple murder,' Emmanuel said. 'Don't drag me
into a personal situation with the major. Things are already too complicated.'

'Eighteen
hours.' Lana considered him for a moment. 'In that case, I'll be out in two
minutes.'

He
stepped towards her. This insanity was going to stop now. 'This isn't a game.
Three people are dead. Find another way to punish van Niekerk for being engaged
to a
larnie,
one
that doesn't involve getting in harm's way.'