Let the Dead Lie (31 page)

'I
can't think with that light in my eyes. Can't see a thing, brother. Dip that
from my face and we can talk.'

The
beam of the flash angled downwards and Emmanuel squashed within the edges of
the mirror. A shuffle of feet was followed by a grunt of recognition from the
preacher.

'Oh,'
Brother Jonah said, 'it's you. That's perfect timing. We need to talk about the
Ivans.'

'Did
Cooper mention them?'

'Yeah
. . . and a lot more.' Brother Jonah's voice hardened. 'Seems you lied to me,
brother. You said no blood. You broke that promise.'

Steel
smacked flesh and the preacher's body crashed into the mirror. The glass
shattered and the back of the mirror hit Emmanuel's face hard. Hot clusters of
pain exploded along the ridge of his nose. He pressed his mouth shut to hold in
a gasp. Brother Jonah's slack arm dropped into view at the side of the mirror.

Do not break
cover,
the Scottish
sergeant major whispered.
It's the
tradesman. He's the one who's been following you for the last couple of days .
. . He's after the Russians. He fucked up twice already, once at the house on
the Bluff and then at Hélène's. If he finds you now, he and his friend will
make you piss blood till you tell them where the Ivans are
.

'Back
to the side entrance,' the tradesman said. 'We'll work our way towards this end
of the building and check every crack and shelf on the way. We'll flush him
out.'

'And
this one?' the second man said.

'Leave
Brother Jonah. He'll be right in a little while. The boss will give me no end
of uphill if I kill him. He's still annoyed about the others.'

The
others. Emmanuel pressed his body flat to the wall. Jolly Marks, Mrs Patterson
and her maid were collateral damage. They were not human beings to the
tradesman but impediments to the success of the mission. The tradesman's
certainty that the same man had killed all three victims came from the fact
that he had killed them himself. The mission to capture the Russians was a fox
hunt
and
Emmanuel
was the hound, released from police custody by the tradesman to run the prey to
ground. The deal struck in the interrogation room, to find Jolly's killer or
face the gallows, was a fantasy. The tradesman would kill him as soon as he had
the Russians. Like the three murder victims, he was expendable. Even during
war, the concept of collateral damage and 'acceptable losses' was obscene. He
clenched his hands into fists and anger pulsed through him.

Cool down,
laddie,
the sergeant
major said.
Use your head. It's dark out
there. They have torches and guns. Get out and get away. Fuck them up later.
It's called a tactical retreat
.

Footsteps
receded across the concrete towards the side entrance. The flashlights dimmed
and left behind a molasses-coloured void.

Now,
the sergeant major breathed.
Edge out and head for the back door quick smart
.

Emmanuel
pushed the mirror forwards and a broken shard fell from the its cracked
surface. Another piece shattered into a dozen refracting needles and a torch
beam searched the perimeter of the floor.

'The
mirror is falling to pieces,' the tradesman said. 'Move out.'

Emmanuel
eased sideways, careful to avoid the glass scattered across the floor. Images
of Brother Jonah crumpled on the ground were captured and distorted multiple
times, as if in a circus fun house. He made for the wall and traced his
fingertips along the wooden slats. Beams of white swept right to left in a
block pattern, searching the shadows. Emmanuel moved faster and found the raised
metal handle of a deadbolt.

He
sucked in a breath and his lungs cooled. The sequence of events was simple.
Open the bolt, open the door and run. Three quick steps. The torch beams swept
closer. Emmanuel twisted the deadlock. There was a hard click similar to the
hammer of a gun hitting the chamber. He pushed at the door and winter sunshine
flooded into the storehouse.

'There!'

Emmanuel
sprinted into the weeds and scrambled to the abandoned wood stove. He prayed
Zweigman and Shabalala were late. Two civilians against two armed men was no
contest.

He
approached the rusted metal stove at a run, found a foothold on the front
burner and hoisted his weight onto the top. The legs of the ancient cooker gave
way with a metal sigh and the top listed like a ship plunging to the lower
depths. Outstretched arms couldn't prevent him from falling forwards into a bed
of
kaffirweed.

He
lifted his head and saw a narrow space behind the outhouse and a mound of red
bricks tipped against the back fence. He crawled towards the narrow passage and
edged into it with an inch to spare at either side. Amid the bruised greenery
and the building debris he crouched in the classic soldier's pose: waiting on
the cusp of danger.

'Where
the fuck is he?' the tradesman said. A flash of translucent white skin and the
sleeve of a midnight blue suit jacket sped across the narrow space behind the
outhouse.

'Next
yard?' the other voice said.

'Could
be. Check over the top. I'll comb this area. He's here somewhere.'

Emmanuel
crouched lower. The tight hiding space was a perfect short-term solution.
Long-term, it was the equivalent of being a tin duck in a shooting gallery.
Five minutes into a grid search and they would find him. He held his breath,
listened and heard nothing. He waited.

The
throaty chug of an engine and the crunch of wheels on the side drive broke the
tense silence in the untidy yard. A long blast of a horn was followed by the
slam of a door.

'Hello,
is anyone home?' Zweigman's voice called out. 'Is this the Empire storehouse? I
have a pick-up.'

'Shit.'
The tradesman's voice was hard. 'We have to move out. Circle back in five.'

'One
look at this gun and he'll clear off quick smart,' the tradesman's partner
said.

Zweigman
had survived the war, but not in uniform. He was a healer not a fighter.

'Keep
it holstered,' the tradesman said. The collapsed stove groaned under a new
weight. 'No more civilian casualties. We'll double back later and take this
place apart.'

The
second man grunted and the adjoining fence creaked. Heavy feet thumped to the
ground from a height. The search team had gone into the adjoining yard.

Go, go,
the sergeant major ordered.
I'll fall back now that reinforcements have arrived
.

Emmanuel
scrambled towards the mouth of the narrow passage and looked out: sky, weeds
and rusted metal but no men in suits. The tradesman and his sidekick were in
the next yard behind the fence.

'Hello?'
Zweigman's voice came closer. 'Hello. I have a pick-up.'

Emmanuel
cleared the corner of the outhouse and cut across the choked ground. Zweigman
saw him coming. Emmanuel signalled for quiet and the doctor withdrew to the
passenger side of the Bedford, pulled open the door and slid into the front.
Shabalala was behind the wheel. Emmanuel jumped through the door Zweigman had
left open and the Bedford rolled down the drive.

Shabalala
took a left onto Signal Road. An Indian vegetable seller with two baskets
suspended from a bamboo pole balanced across her ropey shoulders laboured along
the sidewalk.
'Brinjal.
Potato. Onion.' Her plaintive call filled the air. 'Fresh
brinjal.'
The storehouse faded to a smudge of mud brown behind them, indistinguishable
from the other industrial buildings that fronted the road.

'Your
nose is bleeding.' Zweigman pulled a cloth handkerchief from his pocket and
gave it to Emmanuel. 'It's clean.'

'Thanks.'

'You
found Brother Jonah?'

'Yeah,
but two other men found me before I had a chance to finish questioning him.'

'The
man who gave you the address, this Mr Khan,' Shabalala said. 'He is the one who
sent them.'

'Has
to have been.' Emmanuel glanced out of the window.

'I
was in the storehouse long enough to figure out that Brother Jonah isn't the
killer.'

'Bad
news,' Shabalala said. 'You are still up to your neck in cowshit, Detective
Sergeant.'

'Just
to my armpits,' Emmanuel said. 'I know who killed those people; I just don't
know his name. Or where to find him.'

'This
is progress?' Zweigman said with a laugh.

Emmanuel
took out the book Lana had liberated for him and held it up. 'Khan has the name
of the man I'm looking for. The number is probably in this phone book.'

'But
how will you know which name is the correct one?'

'I
won't. Khan is going to tell me.'

A whistle blew a
long, sharp note and Shabalala eased the truck to a stop in front of a row of
two-storey terraces with deep verandas overlooking tended squares of green
garden. A black man watering a fruiting cumquat tree immediately turned, went
back into the house and closed the door.

Shouts and the
pounding of running feet came from the pavement. Emmanuel peered at the side
mirror. Three black men in hard-worn clothes most likely picked at random from
a mission charity basket flew across the street and disappeared into an
alleyway. Another shrill whistle cut the air. Emmanuel scrambled out of the truck.
He didn't want the others caught in a net intended for him. Zweigman and
Shabalala joined him on the pavement.

A lanky black
man in gumboots and blue overalls ran by, wild-eyed and sweating. The snarl of
police dogs followed him.

'Black Maria,'
Shabalala said and pointed to the street corner. A caged police van, painted
grey and not black as the name suggested, lumbered into view. Native men
and women of all shapes and
sizes scattered before it, like marbles spilling from a schoolboy's pocket.

'A
passbook raid,' Shabalala said without emotion. This was the job of the police.
To round up all the natives without the proper passes and ship them back to the
native locations. A black man without proper permission to be in the city was
naked in the wind; a thing to be swept up and thrown out into the countryside.

'Hell
of a raid.' Emmanuel pointed to four policemen with Alsatian dogs straining
against leather leashes. A squad of foot policemen blotted out the wall of the
building behind them in a solid box of olive drab uniforms.

'What
is happening?' Zweigman pressed back against the truck, pale and trembling.
'Where are the police taking these people?'

Emmanuel
sensed the depths of the doctor's fear and explained what was happening.

'I
have heard but never seen.' Zweigman rubbed his forehead while he recovered
from the old fear that had so clearly overtaken him.

A
police whistle blew a piercing note. The uniforms broke rank and ran like a
khaki tide into the main streets and the alleyways. The non-whites who did not
run stayed still. The dog squad moved towards the Bedford and the Alsatians
raked the sidewalk with their wet snouts, their mouths open, their canine teeth
visible. An item of white cotton clothing hung from the pocket of the lead
handler's trousers.

'You
should get into the truck, Detective,' Zweigman said. 'It is better not to be
seen.'

'I'll
be fine,' Emmanuel said and turned to Shabalala. 'You stick close.'

'Yebo.'
The native constable understood
that out of uniform and without official police papers he was just another
black man forced to account for himself in a white world.

A
scrawny Indian man crouched in a doorway like a praying mantis. Even though
Indians and mixed-race people didn't need passes to be in urban areas, the
labourer kept his head bowed and his hands held up in a gesture of supplication.
An Alsatian wheeled in the direction of the figure in the doorway and the
handler loosened the lead. The dog leapt forward and snuffled at the Indian's
clothes and hair, eager to establish a trace scent.

'Got
something, boy?' The dog squad policeman urged his canine partner on. 'Got
something?'

The
Alsatian fell back, disappointed. The labourer remained glued in place.

'Go
into the truck, Sergeant,' Shabalala said. 'I will be fine here with the doctor.'

'Not
until I figure out what's going on.' This action was more than a raid to net
illegal black workers.

Emmanuel
pulled his van Niekerk-issued detective branch ID from his pocket and moved
towards the line of police dogs. He zeroed in on a red-faced boy who was
struggling to keep his dog under control. The fresh recruits responded better
to rank and title. Cynicism was still a few years off.