A Beautiful Place to Die (11 page)

He crouched low in the doorway. The room stared back at him with its scrubbed and innocent face. He’d missed something. But what? Everything had been checked, except the ceiling and the floor.

How many bizarre hiding places had the platoon come across during their sweep of villages in France and Germany? Cupboards with fake backs. Trapdoors cut into ceilings. Even a hollow staircase designed to hold a whole family. The captain, with his fondness for facades, would have the good stuff hidden.

Emmanuel grabbed the edge of the cowhide and pulled it toward him.

The opening, a small square with a wooden top, was craftily hidden. A woven loop of rope, finger-sized, was the only indication that the surface of the compacted earth floor had been violated. Emmanuel shuffled forward on his knees and tugged at the rope. The trapdoor swung open easily, its hinges oiled in anticipation of frequent use. He reached in, expecting the usual bundle of frayed pornographic magazines. The National Party crackdown on immoral publications had slowed the trade but not stopped it. His hand touched on soft leather, a strap of some sort. He pulled it up toward him and felt the weight at its end.

“My God…”

It was Donny Rooke’s camera, with his name proudly stamped into the hard leather casing in gold letters: he’d even included the
J,
his middle initial. Emmanuel flicked up the clips and examined the beautiful instrument. What had Donny said? The camera was expensive and the captain had stolen it from him—and the pictures of the du Toit girls with it.

“Even a broken clock is right twice a day,” Emmanuel muttered, and shut the case. He reached into the hole and fished out a thick brown paper envelope. If Donny’s story held, the “art” pictures of his wives would be inside. Did the captain have a taste for underage flesh? He flipped the envelope over and something cast a shadow from the doorway.

Emmanuel turned in time to see the hard line of a knobkierie moving toward him. The Zulu club generated its own breeze as it arched downward and made contact with the side of his head.

Whack.

The sound exploded in his eardrums like a mortar round. He fell forward and tasted dirt and blood in his mouth. There was a bright fizz of sheer white pain behind his eyelids and the club fell a second time. He heard his own labored breath and smelled ammonia. A blue shadow flickered and then the distant sound of a mechanical rattle.

7

Y
ou lazy bastard. How long are you going to lie there, humping the floor?”
It was the sergeant major from basic training, his voice thick with the coal and filth of the Edinburgh slum he’d crawled out of. Emmanuel felt the sergeant major’s breath on his neck.

“Call yourself a soldier? All you’re fit for is fucking German whores. Is that why you joined up? You hopeless piece of African shit. Get up now or I’ll shoot you myself. Get to your feet or get the fuck out of my army.”

“Detective?”

Emmanuel shook his head. The dark blue shadow hung over him.

“You going to let that Kraut piss all over you? What did I teach you? If you have to go, take one out with you.”

“You okay?”

Emmanuel pushed himself off the ground, wheeled full circle, and jumped on the source of the voice. He felt neck muscles tense under his fingers, heard the slam of the body as it hit the ground; then he was straddling the flailing mass, gaining supremacy. There was the quiet hiss of air leaving lungs.

“De-tec-tive…” The sound drained away to nothing.

Emmanuel shook his head. Detective. He’d heard that title recently. The memory of a police ID card fought its way past the hot shower of pain snaking down from his scalp to his jaw. He eased his grip and felt the body beneath him, small and surrendering: a boy soldier called to defend the fatherland against hopeless odds.

“Go home,” Emmanuel said, and released his grip. His hands were stiffened into the shape of animal talons. “Ghet du zuruck nach ihre mutter. Go home to your mother.”

A relentless
boom, boom, boom
pounded the side of his skull with grim military precision. Piss and blood, the classic smell of the battleground, clouded the air.

“Detective. Please.”

He focused beyond his hands and recognized Davida, the shy brown mouse, lying under him, a red mark slashed across her throat.

“You can speak,” he said.

“Yes.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Where do you think we are?” She lay still, afraid of startling him.

Emmanuel glanced around. Through the haze, shapes began to appear. A table, a chair, a bed stripped of its linen. The
boom, boom, boom
continued loud as a kettledrum. It was impossible to think.

“Where is that smell coming from?” he demanded. “The room is so clean.”

“The smell’s from you, Detective.” There was a slight tremor in her voice, which was barely accented, as if she’d learned English from someone who demanded correct pronunciation and usage. “It’s on your clothes.”

The jacket and shirt, crisp and clean a few hours ago, were crusted in dried blood and urine. Emmanuel jumped up, hands feeling frantically at the crotch of his pants. The material was crumpled but dry.

“It’s mainly here.” She rose unsteadily to her feet. “Where my head was.”

They looked at the dark pool, still damp and reeking. Emmanuel felt for his crotch again. Dry. He pulled off his jacket and sniffed at the material like a dog. Urinal odors rose up in an ammonia cloud. Someone—some fucking inbred country Dutchman—took a piss on him.

“Goddamn it.” He threw the jacket from him in disgust. “What is it about this place? A man can’t wear a suit two days in a row.”

The jacket landed at the edge of the captain’s homebuilt safe, and slithered inside. Images, each crisper than the last, flashed through his head until they made a seamless run of film. The camera, the envelope, the blue shadow, then the club crashing down against his skull.

Emmanuel dropped to his knees and scrambled toward the hiding place. The dirt floor threw up puffs of dust and sand as he frantically searched for Donny Rooke’s camera and the brown paper envelope.

“Fuck.” He widened his radius, hoping something had been knocked under the chair or the bed when he fell forward. His hands patted the surface like a drunk in a minefield and came back with nothing but the dirt under his fingernails.

“Gone.” He slammed the wooden lid shut and the hinges buckled.

“What’s gone?” It was Davida, so quiet he’d forgotten she was there.

“Evidence,” he said. “Someone took the camera and the photos.”

Adrenaline stiffened the muscles of his neck, got his heart rate up to machine-gun speed. Who knew he was here besides King? One of those sanctimonious farmers with a Bible under his armpit? Or was it the Security Branch guard dogs?

His fist swung down hard onto the wooden lid. Never keep your back to the door: it was the most basic rule of self-defense. Even Hansie would know that. Blood leaked from the slit on his knuckles. The
boom, boom, boom
continued with the intensity of artillery fire in his head and the world tilted to one side.

“Sit down.” Hands pulled him up and a chair was pushed in behind him. “I’m going to find something for you. Sit. Don’t move.”

He heard the clang and scrape of drawers and cupboards being searched, then she was by the chair again.

“Open your mouth.”

He did as he was told and a fine powder coated his tongue with the taste of bitter lemon mixed with salt.

“Now swallow this.” There was the smell of whiskey, then the hot taste of it filled his mouth and washed the powder down a fire trail to his stomach.

“Stay here, Detective. I’ll come right back.”

“Wait.” He grabbed her wrist harder than he intended and felt her delicate bones under his fingers.

“You’re shaking,” he said.

“I…I’m…”

“What?”

“…not used to being touched…” She looked out toward the open door. “…by one of your kind.”

“‘My kind’?” He repeated the words in a slightly comical tone. What did she mean?

She lifted her captured hand and held it at eye level. His fingers were white as pear flesh against the dark skin of her wrist. He let her go. The National Party and its Boer supporters weren’t the only ones who believed SA was divided into different “kinds,” each separate and unchangeable.

“Where are you going?” Emmanuel flexed his hand. Touching her was a mistake. Everything he did from now on was a potential source of ammunition for the Security Branch. Physical contact across the color line was a no go.

“To get some water from the river.”

Emmanuel watched her stop and pick up a bucket from near the doorway. She was still shaking. The bucket did a jiggling dance against her leg as she moved fast toward the breach in the fence.

She’s scared of me, he thought. Scared of the crazy white man who tackled her to the ground, then almost snapped her wrist without once saying sorry. He closed his eyes and ignored the tightness gathering in his chest. He’d been beaten unconscious and what did he have to show for it? No suspects, no real leads, the evidence gone before he had a chance to examine it. The Security Branch would have a field day if they found out about the stolen evidence. It was all the excuse they needed to kick him off the investigation completely.

The slosh of water lapping over the bucket rim told him that she was back. He opened his eyes and took a good look at her.

“No wonder I thought you were a boy,” he said once the bucket was placed in front of him. She was dressed in loose-fitting men’s clothes, a faded blue shirt and a pair of wide-legged pants that hid the natural outline of her body. Black hair, cut close to the scalp, glistened with moisture from a quick wash in the river.

She touched her wet curls. “I like it this way.”

“Then why do you keep it covered?” The plain cotton scarf she normally wore lay on the dirt floor where it had fallen during their struggle.

“It makes people stare.”

“Like I’m doing?” Emmanuel asked. Her eyes were the most unusual shade of gray. Davida had her mother’s mouth, full and soft.

“You should wash your face, Detective,” she said, and moved behind the chair and out of his view. Some questions had no correct answer, especially when white people asked them.

Emmanuel wiped the grime and blood from his skin and heard her shallow breath, amplified in the stillness of the hut.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “Is that what you’re afraid of?”

She studied the tips of her battered leather boots. “No. Mr. King will be angry when he finds out I’ve been in here.”

“Why?”

“This is the captain’s place. Nobody’s allowed but the captain.”

“Why did you come?” She must have seen the sedan and known that one of his “kind” was inside. He could see her quickening pulse under the smooth brown skin at the base of her throat.

“You left Mr. King’s house a long time ago. I was riding by and I thought maybe your car was broken.”

Emmanuel leaned forward and splashed his face and neck with the cool river water. Something didn’t feel right. Natives and coloureds shied away from white people’s business, especially when the law was involved. Yet she was here in the hut with her shaking hands and uneven breath.

“You ever been inside before?”

“No.” The word was sharp. “What would I be doing in Captain Pretorius’s private place?”

“I don’t know,” Emmanuel answered drily. “Cleaning?” The neatness of the hut was another thing that didn’t sit right. “Your mother ever tidy up for the captain?”

Her hands were behind her now, held out of sight. “I told you. Only Captain Pretorius was allowed.”

“Who knows about this place?”

“Those at Bayete Lodge. Mr. King said not to tell people in town. He made everyone promise. The hut was going to be a surprise for the captain’s sons at Christmas.”

“You ever tell anyone about it?” Emmanuel studied his bruised knuckles, now eerily like the dead captain’s.

“Never.” The word was emphatic.

“How many people work at Bayete Lodge?” Clarity and focus, both bruised by the wooden club’s bloody kiss, were slowly making a comeback. The first thing to do was narrow the field, concentrate on those who knew about the hut.

“About twenty,” Davida said. “Most of them are back at the location for the weekend. Mr. King gave them two days off because of the funeral.”

That narrowed the field of suspects for the attack down to a small footprint. “Who’s at the lodge now?”

“My mother, Matthew the driver, Mr. King, Winston King, and Jabulani, the night watchman.”

“Six, including you,” Emmanuel said. The field narrowed to the head of a pin: large enough for angels to dance on but not thieves or murder suspects. “Any of those people leave the house?”

“Only me.”

“You sure?”

Her gaze flickered up. “Everyone was there when I left.”

He considered her for a moment, then turned toward the open door. The shy brown mouse was barely able to hold her own head up, let alone swing a club with enough force to knock out a grown man. Still, there was something about her being in the hut that niggled him. He moved on.

“You hear or see anything when you came near the hut?”

“Well…” she said. “There was something…”

“What?”

“A sound. It was a machine.”

“A mechanical rattle like an engine.” The memory, still hazy and clouded, pressed forward into the light. He’d heard the sound just before passing out. “I remember now.”

The pin-sized field of suspects collapsed into a black hole. His assailant had come to the hut with his own transport, a wooden club, and a full bladder. None of the workers at the lodge was likely to own anything more mechanical than a bicycle. That left the Dutchmen who’d ridden into town on tractors, motorbikes, cars, and pickup trucks. Did one of them slip away and follow him to the hut? There was no way to know.

Emmanuel crossed to the safe and pulled open the buckled lid. He’d report to Lieutenant Piet Lapping and tell him the truth: that he had nothing to show from the visit to King’s farm. He put his hand into the safe to retrieve his filthy jacket. His fingers touched on the crumpled material and something else.

“Jesus…”

“What is it?”

He threw his jacket to one side and studied the square piece of cardboard—a wall calendar with the months stapled to the front in easy pull-off sections. Red ink circled the dates August 14 to 18; 18 was heavily ringed.

“Two days before he was murdered,” Emmanuel said, and quickly flicked through the remaining months. It was the same on every page. Five to seven days marked in red ink, the last day marked out as special. He looked over the dates again. The pattern was clear, but the heavily circled day could mean anything.

“‘Carlos Fernandez Photography Studio, Lorenzo Marques,’” Emmanuel read aloud from the calendar. The name was printed below a photograph of happy natives selling trinkets to whites on the beach. There was no street name or address: a low-profile business. Donny Rooke had been caught smuggling pornography across the border from Mozambique. Did the captain take over Donny’s flesh and photo trade?

“Captain Pretorius go to LM a lot?” he asked.

“Everyone does,” she answered. “Even my people.”

“How far is it?”

“Less than three hours by car.”

The circled days could be pickup or delivery dates for some other form of contraband. Being a policeman meant easy passage across the border. Wading across a river was for criminals and natives. A high-ranking officer could smuggle goods in comfort.

“How often did the captain visit? Once a month or so?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “What the Dutchmen do is their business. You must ask Mrs. Pretorius or her sons.”

Emmanuel rubbed his bruised knuckles. The red-marked days glowed with hypnotic brightness. Was he willing to hand over this vital information to Lieutenant Piet Lapping, who had made it clear that the “personal angle” was not something he was interested in? The calendar might just end up at the bottom of a drawer because it didn’t fit the political angle the Security Branch was working.

“Can you keep a secret, Davida?”

“Uhh…” Her voice quivered with fearful anticipation. The skin of her throat and face flushed and made her dark skin glow. Passing for white was never going to be an option for the shy brown mouse.

“Not that kind of secret,” he said. “You mustn’t tell anyone about today. Not about me, the hiding place, or the calendar. Understand?”